XXIII. of Sir William Parfons, representing his merits in CHAP. expending fums of money, for procuring witneffes on these indictments." the coun 1643. Emboldened by the adherence of most of the State of army to his cause, the king, to smooth the way to a try. pacification, ventured to remove Parfons from the office of lord juftice, and to nominate Sir Henry Tichburne in his place. The state of the kingdom. feemed imperiously to demand an accommodation with the infurgents. The foldiers were unpaid, and unable any longer to procure fubfiftence in their feveral quarters from the miferably exhausted inhabitants. Preffed on one fide by the practices of parliamentarian officers, on the other by the virulence of the Romish clergy, who denounced the feverest cenfures of the church on all who fhould refuse the oath of affociation, lord Clanricard faw the impor- · tant post of Galway in the hands of the infurgents, and a high probability of the few remaining fortreffes in Connaught yielding to their efforts. In Munster, when lord Inchiquin, to fave them from famine, withdrew the feveral garrifons, and fent them to range the country for provifions, one of his parties commanded by Sir Charles Vavafor, fuffered, in a defeat by lords Mufkerry and Caftlehaven, the lofs of fix hundred men flain on the field of battle, seven hundred muskets, and all the cannon and baggage. In Ulfter, where the British force was great- . eft, Monroe, who had been obliged to roufe his troops from inaction to procure fubfiftence, was repulfed with lofs by Owen O'Neal; and, though the latter was afterwards difcomfited by the English troops CHAP. troops under Sir Robert Stewart, yet this Irish XXIII. leader, well fupplied by the fupreme council, acted with fuperiority, unmolested by his unfupplied adverfaries. Failing in their moft earnest entreaties to the English parliament for relief, the lords juf tices, as a last violent expedient in the then miferable state of the kingdom, established by their own authority an excife; but though the tax amounted to half the value of the goods, no affiftance of any moment was thereby obtained, CHAP. CHAP. XXIV. Negociation with the infurgents--Troops fent to
WHEN the royal commiffion had been iffued for Negoci ation. treating with the Irish infurgents, thefe had acquired 1643. pride from fuccefs. The fupreme council haughtily refented the term rebellion inferted in the commiffion, and infifted that no fuch expreffion fhould be used in future in any inftrument addreffed to them; nor without the exertions of lord Caftlehaven and other moderate perfons could the bufinefs be fo far managed, that a time and place of conference could be fixed. On the feventeenth of March, four commiffioners of the king met fix agents of the fupreme council, at the town of Trim, where the former received from the latter the remonftrance of their grievances, and petition for redrefs. Among the many grievances enumerated in this remonftrance, in which they made a folemn proteftation of their loyalty, were the acts of the English parliament in favour of adventurers, tending to defpoil the Irish of. CHAP. of their lands, without diftinction, or poffibility of XXIV. relief, and fubverfive of the fundamental conftitu tion of Ireland, whose inhabitants could in right be bound only by acts of an Irish parliament. They propofed that a parliament fhould be convened in fuch a place and manner as to deliberate without control, from which on no account fhould catholics be excluded. A legislative A legiflative affembly, the majority of whose members would be elected by the infurgents, was regarded as inadmiffible by Ormond, and he contrived to evade the demand, when, after the removal of Parsons from the government, he treated with the general convention about a ceffation of arms, preparative to a lafting pacification. To fcreen himself from the odium which this armiftice must excite among the puritans, he propofed to the governors and privy council, that they fhould fuggeft fome other mode for the prefervation of the kingdom; and afterwards propofed that they should furnish him with ten thousand pounds, one half in money, the other in victuals, for his profecution of the war. Having received their declarations of inability in both cafes, he proceeded to meet the agents of the Irish convention at Caftlemartyn in the county of Kildare. Diffatisfied with the terms propofed by these agents, Ormond fufpended the negociation, to try whether he could lower their tone by military operations; but was unable to force Preston to a battle, and the affairs of the loyalifts continued to decline. Violent oppofition was made to an accommodation in the affembly at Kilkenny, particularly by Peter Scarampi, Scarampi, a father of the congregation of the oratory, who, as minifter of the pope, had brought fupplies of money and ammunition, and, among other papers, a bull, by which was granted a general jubilee, and plenary abfolution to those who had taken arms for the catholic religion. But the wiser catholics, particularly lord Caftiehaven, laboured for pacific measures, fenfible that the puritanic party in England, if it fhould obtain the fovereign power by humbling the king, would fhew them no mercy, but even aim at their extermination. A refolution at length paffed, after much altercation and delay, that the agents of the confederacy should meet the marquis of Ormond at Sigginftown near Naas. This nobleman had received a new commiffion under the great feal, empowering him to treat for an armiftice for one year, on fuch terms as he fhould judge neceffary; and the king, to prevent oppofition to this defign, had ordered the chief partizans of the English parliament in Dublin, Parsons, Loftus, Temple, and Meredyth, to be committed to prifon on a charge of high crimes and mifdemeanours. Α treaty of ceffation, at length finally adjufted, and declared neceffary for his Majesty's honour and service under, the fignatures of feveral nobles and principal officers, was figned on the fifteenth of September by the marquis and the Irish commiffioners, by which the Irish confederates ftipulated for the payment of thirty thousand pounds to the king, one half in money at feveral payments, and the other half in cattle. This XXIV. |