CHAP. motives of superstition, were believed to be intended XXIX. tition. 1671. for distinction on the day of massacre between the victims and the favoured party. Catholic pe- Aspiring to the total abolition of the acts of settlement and explanation, but affecting in their first proceedings moderate views, the catholics commis-> sioned Talbot to present a petition to the king and council, in which they represented, that they had been dispossessed of their lands on account of their loyalty, by the usurpers; and prayed that some impartial persons should be appointed to hear and report their grievances, and that, in the interim, the king would suspend his grants of any lands of which no disposal had been yet made. Ormond, a member of a committee appointed to consider this petition, alarmed at the danger of a general confusion, earnestly pleaded against the admission of the petitioners to a hearing. When this was refused, he answered their allegations so fully, that the attorney general, Sir Hereage Finch, to whom all the papers were referred, made a report highly unfavourable to the claims of the petition. The cabal persevered; and another committee, from which Ormond was industriously excluded, was empowered to revise“ all papers and orders for the settlement of Ireland, to report what alterations had been made of matters once settled, and to represent the defects of papers or warrants for justifying any clauses contrary to the king's declaration, the first ground of settlement." The report of this committee was erroneous; and, when a third commission was issued, many XXIX. many months were spent in search of materials to CHA P. form another. In the mean time from Ireland, which was in a state of general alarm, petitions were transmitted from the soldiers and adventurers, the forty-nine officers, and the Connaught purchasers, all agreeing in the same point, the maintenance of the present settlement. ministra Though the members of the cabal were indiffer-Essex's adent to the clamours of the protestants of Ireland, tion. they were terrified by the alarm thence conveyed to the people of England; and, finding that they had made too early a discovery of their designs, they affected to blame the conduct of Berkley, who was in consequence recalled, and the earl of Essex was sent in his place. Far from satisfied with this, the English parliament petitioned his Majesty, among other requests, that he would recall his commission of inquiry with respect to Irish lands; that he would command that no papists should be admitted into any offices of magistracy; that all licences to papists to dwell within corporations should be recalled; and that the chief governors of Ireland should receive such directions as might tend to encourage the English planters and protestant interest, and suppress the disorders of the Irish papists. Some condescension was necessary to so powerful an interference; and the countenance, prematurely shewn to the Romish interest, was for a time withdrawn. The commission of inquiry was superseded; the king's resolution to maintain the acts of settlement declared; the obnoxious proceedings in the corporation of Dublin reversed; CHAP. reversed; and the ejected protestants restored to XXIX. their places. On the temporary removal of this grand cause of disquietude, the administration of Essex was employed in business of no great importance. Empowered by the act of explanation, he prescribed new rules to regulate corporations, which being calculated to encrease the influence of the monarch and to admit strangers and aliens on easy terms to the freedom of the towns, were very displeasing to the inferior orders of citizens. When the proceedings relative to the protestant and Romish aldermen in Dublin were ordered to be erased from the books of the corporation, the commons refused obedience, and even questioned the authority of the lord lieutenant and council; nor were his attempts to suppress their turbulence commonly regarded as sufficiently spirited for the dignity of his office. He was so embarrassed by difficulties in the execution of the acts of settlement; by deficiencies in the discharge of the Irish establishment caused by private grants in letters of the king; and by mismanagement of the revenue; that he solicited, and with difficulty obtained licence, in the year 1675, to wait on the king with a statement of Irish affairs. Although he was allowed to return to his government, the king was not pleased with a servant whose integrity rendered him unfit for clandestine measures, so much pursued by this monarch. The lieutenancy of Ireland is said to have been on this occasion offered for sale to any nobleman who would stipulate to pay privately an annual XXIX. annual sum to the king; but after some time a dif. CHAP. ferent plan was judged expedient, and a chief governor appointed who had been least expected. Ormond. By the influence of the cabal, the Duke of Or-Conduct of mond had not only been long in disgrace with the king, but even an atrocious attempt had been made in London on his life, by a desperate villain named Blood, who had formerly been engaged in the conspiracy for seizing the castle of Dublin. Blood and his accomplices, who dragged the duke from his coach in the night, might have easily performed the assassination, if they had not, in a refinement of cruelty, resolved to carry him to Tyburn, to hang him as a criminal, which gave time to his domestics to fly to his rescue. When afterwards this desperado was taken in an attempt to rob the tower of the royal crown and regalia, he freely acknowledged his attack on the duke, received a full pardon from the caprice or timidity of the monarch, with an estate of five hundred pounds a year, and became a kind of favourite at court. Ossory suspecting the design against his father's life to have originated from the instigation of Buckingham, told that duke in the king's presence, that if his father should fall by assassination, he would consider him as the assassin, and would pistol him though he should be standing behind his Majesty. Charges against Ormond of misconduct in his government proved false and frivolous on solemn examinations before the privy council. Neither humbled nor provoked by the coldness of his sovereign, he XXIX. CHAP. he attended the court, and took his place in the council, as if he were still in favour, neither concealing his opinions on public affairs, nor betraying any resentment. Such dignified behaviour provoked Buckingham to say to the king, "Sir, I wish to know whether it be the duke of Ormond that is out of favour with your Majesty, or your Majesty with the duke of Ormond; for, of the two, you seem most out of countenance." Yet Ormond was so sensible of his want of interest, that when colonel Cary Dillon solicited his interference, declaring that he had no friends but God and his grace, he replied, Alas, poor Cary, thou couldest not have named two friends of less interest, or less respected at court." At length in April 1677 the king resolved to re-admit him into administrations. On seeing the duke advancing to pay his usual attendance, he said to the persons near him, "Yonder comes Ormond; I have done all in my power to disoblige him, and to make him as discontented as others; but he will be loyal in spite of me. I must even employ him again, and he is the fittest person to govern Ireland." The most probable mode of accounting for this alteration is, that Charles had been solicited to appoint his natural son, the duke of Monmouth, lord lieutenant; and that the duke of York, the legal heir of the crown, dreading the advancement of of this rival, had laboured to restore Ormond to the royal favour, as the only competitor fit in this case to Le opposed to Monmouth. When |