of a republican usurper, after a dreadful conflict of eleven years, was to collect all the native Irish who had survived the general desolation and remained in the country, and transplant them into the province of Connaught, which had been depopulated and laid waste in the progress of the rebellion. They were ordered to retire thither by a certain day, and forbidden to repass the Shannon on pain of death; and this sentence of deportation was rigidly enforced until the restoration. Their ancient possessions were seized and given up to the conquerors, as were the possessions of every man who had taken a part in what was termed the rebellion, or had followed the fortune of the king after the death of Charles I. This whole fund was distributed among the officers and soldiers of Cromwell's army, in satisfaction of the arrears of their pay, and amongst the adventurers who had advanced money to defray the expences of the war. And thus a new colony of settlers, composed of all the sects which then infested England, independents, socinians, anabaptists, seceders, brownists, millenarians, and dissenters of every description, many of them filled with the spirit of democracy, poured into Ireland, and were put in possession of the ancient inheritance of its inhabitants. Such were the blessings of republican government dealt out by Oliver Cromwell-a form of government which, when not suffered to corrupt itself by the possession of too great military power, as in the instance now before us, is unquestionably the most pure and perfect to which any people labouring under one that is tyrannical or oppressive can commit the management of its affairs, and for the acquirement of which no privations they may endure, no struggle they may sustain, will be found too high a price.

Cromwell, soon after he was proclaimed protector, sent his son Henry into Ireland to sound the disposition of the army, to reconcile the minds of the people to the usurpation, and, by cultivating the friendship of those who possessed great influ ence, to prepare the way for the future peaceable administration of this kingdom.

Speech of the earl of Clare on the sixteenth of February, eighteen hundred.

This period of the history of Ireland is peculiarly barren of incident. On the death of Oliver, Richard Cromwell confirmed his brother Henry in the government of Ireland.

Richard summoned the members chosen for Ireland to the English parliament: the republicans opposed the admission of thirty of them who were known to be advocates for the crown; but the court, though with difficulty, at length prevailed that they should sit and vote. The news of the dissolution of this parliament, and the intrigues of the royal party, was first brought to Ireland by sir Charles Coote. The lord lieutenant with vigour exerted himself to support the tottering authority of his brother. On the restoration of the rump parliament he laboured to prevent the disorders which might arise from this sudden revolution. He issued a proclamation to preserve the peace; and, on consulting with his officers, sent agents to the council of state with proposals relative to the civil and military government of Ireland. They were referred to the parliament, as it was called, who made some ordinances for the benefit of the adventurers and soldiers; and at the same time resolved that the government of Ireland should be again administered by commissioners, that Henry Cromwell should be recalled, and Ludlow appointed to command the forces of the commonwealth in that kingdom. The sentiments of Henry Cromwell were those of passive obedience to the parliament; but the new commissioners, doubting his sincerity, expected opposition on his part, and prepared measures accordingly. They however were received without any obstacle into the castle, while Henry retired to a house in the Phenix Park, having administered the government with such disregard to his private interests, that he could not immediately command so much money as would defray the expence of a voyage to England.

From the moment of the abdication of Richard Cromwell, the royalists of Ireland conceived the most sanguine hope of the king's speedy restoration. This happy event soon followed.. Charles was informed of the favourable appearances which were manifested, and but for the great expectation which at that time was cherished of the success of Monk in England, would certainly have repaired to Ireland, whither he was earnestly invited by lord Broghill, sir Charles Coote, and others, who now

espoused the cause of loyalty, and waited with impatience for the declaration of Breda. This was readily accepted; and king Charles II, was proclaimed with every manifestation of joy in all the great towns of Ireland.

The situation of Ireland at the restoration [1660] is more easily described than credited. A people who had continued in arms staunch to the royal cause nearly three years longer than any other part of the British empire, reduced to two thirds of their population by their contests with the regicides, by massacres, famine, and pestilence, stripped of any armed force for defence or attack, expatriated at home, and divested of the remnants of their ancient inheritances. Thus were these unfortunate wrecks of the native Irish, the devoted victims to their loyalty, penned up like hunted beasts in the devastated wilds of Connaught, hardly existing in the gregarian and promiscuous possession and cultivation of the soil, without the means of acquiring live or dead stock, and wanting even the necessary utensils of husbandry. Surely, if ever Ireland had a call of gratitude on the crown of England, it was at the restoration of Charles II.; yet the first legislators after the restoration was established, confirmed the rebellious regicides in the wages of their sanguinary rebellion. Broghill, who was created earl of Orrery, and sir Charles Coote, created earl of Montrath, were nominated lords justices of Ireland; and sir Maurice Eustace, an old and particular friend of Ormond, appointed lord high chancellor. By the advice and management of these persons with Ormond was the whole settlement of the kingdom conducted. These persons were all known and determined enemies to the Irish catholics, and their measures were such as might from that circumstance naturally be expected. They contrived to call a new parliament, in which it was enacted no member should be qualified to sit in the house of commons but such as had taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; while the speaker of the house of lords (the archbishop of Armagh) proposed that all the members thereof should receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper from his grace's own hands. With the like view of preventing the Irish catholics from sending over agents to England to counteract the state commissioners who were soliciting the English parliament to except the Irish

catholics out of the act of oblivion and general pardon, the convention at Dublin put in execution all the severe laws and ordinances made by the usurpers, by which the catholics were prevented from going from one province to another to transact their business, such as had the more considerable estates were imprisoned, and all their letters to and from the capital were intercepted: the gentry were forbidden to meet, and were thereby deprived of the means of agreeing upon agents to take care of their interests, and of an opportunity to represent their grievances at the foot of the throne. The reports of popish plots and conspiracies were resorted to for the purpose of alarming the English parliament into the measure of excluding the Irish catholics from the general pardon, and quieting possessions in Ireland. Charles published a proclamation for apprehending and prosecuting all Irish rebels (a term then used as synonymous with Irish catholics,) and commanding that adventurers, soldiers, and others, who were possessed of any lands, should not be disturbed in their possessions until legally evicted, or his majesty by advice of parliament should take further order therein.

All historians agree, that the most extravagant, and unfounded reports against the Irish were brought to England, and there received with avidity, and circulated with every accumulation of inventive malice by incredible numbers of projectors, suitors, sufferers, claimants, solicitors, pretenders, and petitioners, who thronged the court, and looked to the Irish forfeitures as the sure fund for realising their various speculations. Such, however, was the effect of these manœuvres and other means, that when the state commissioners from Ireland petitioned the parliament of England to exclude the Irish catholics from the general indemnity, the duke of Ormond opposed it, alleging

that his majesty reserved the cognizance of that matter to "himself;" though it was notorious that the king had some days before in his speech informed the parliament, that he expected in relation to the Irish, that they would have a care of his honour, and of the promise he had made them. This promise, received from Breda through the marquis of Ormond, stated explicitly, that he would perform all grants and concessions, which he had either made them or promised them by

that peace; and which, as he had new instances of their loyalty and affection to him, he should study rather to enlarge than diminish or infringe in the least degree. Nevertheless the Irish catholics were excluded from the general indemnity, to their ruin, the exultation and triumph of their enemies, and the astonishment of all impartial men.

Ormond was now reinstated in the government of Ireland, and by him were framed and settled the king's declaration, the acts ef settlement and explanation: by him were made out the lists of persons excepted by name, amounting to about five hundred, after the ruinous effects of the act of settlement. By him was recommended the court of claims, and under his influence were appointed the first members of it, whose interested partiality and corruption became too rank even for their patron to countenance. He then substituted men of real respectability to fill their places, but so stinted them in their time for investigating the claims of the dispossessed proprietors, that they were compelled to apply for further time to go through several thousand unheard claims, which Ormond opposed, and rejected a clause in the bill for the relief of these unheard claimants.

When the sympathy and justice of his royal master balanced between the claims of the English protestants and the Irish catholics, Ormond's efforts to bias the king in favour of the former could not fail to be successful. Conscious as he was of that monarch's disposition and secret wishes to favour the catholics, he did all he could to raise divisions amongst them, by dividing the clergy upon a punctilious form of oath, by which it was then in contemplation to allow the catholics to express their allegiance to their sovereign. Not contented with the indignant rejection of the clergy's remonstrances, he ordered them to disperse, and soon after banished them out of the nation and so rigorously was this effected, that when Ormond quitted the government there were only three catholic bishops remaining in the kingdom: two of them were bed ridden, and the third kept himself in concealment.

So far was Ormond from having suffered by these rebellious. insurrections or civil wars in Ireland, that we learn from a letter written by his intimate and particular friend, the earl of Anglesey, and published during the life of the duke," that his