had sworn allegiance to King James, summoned by him to defend his person, crown, and country from the invasion of the Prince of Orange, and a foreign army under Marshal Schomberg, willing, like the majority of his countrymen, that the crown of Ireland should be worn by its hereditary monarch, should, in obeying his natural sovereign, become guilty of rebellion and treason, whilst that natural sovereign continued to wear his hereditary crown within his own kingdom. Such historically is the case of the Irish, who were legislatively declared rebels and punished as traitors for obeying their sovereign, whilst he continued the functions of the executive within the realm of Ireland.

Steadily as the Irish adhered to their sovereign, to whom they owed natural allegiance, which most of them had confirmed upon oath, yet it would be doing them injustice not to allow them the merit of the most depurated loyalty in their attachment to King James. Although he were their natural hereditary monarch, and professed the same religion as the majority of the Irish nation, yet was he far from being in personal favour with them. The conduct of the Stuarts to the Irish had already weaned them from all personal affection for that family:

* As the parliaments both of England and Ireland have declared the acts of the Irish parliament that sat under James, to be acts of rebellion and treason, we can make no other than an historical use of them. 7 Wm. III c. iii. An Act declaring all Attainders and all other Acts made in the late pretended parliament to be void. Forasmuch as since the happy accession of his Majesty King William, and the late Queen Mary of blessed memory, to the imperial crown of England, whereunto this kingdom of Ireland is inseparably annexed, united, and belonging, no parliament could or ought to be holden within this kingdom, unless by their majesties authority; yet, nevertheless, divers persons, during the late war and rebellion in this kingdom, did, on or about the seventh day of May, one thousand six hundred and eighty-nine, assemble themselves at or near the city of Dublin, without authority derived from their majesties, and in opposition thereto; and being so assembled, did pretend to be, and did call themselves by the name of a parliament, and acting in concurrence with the late King James, did make and pass several pretended acts or statutes, and did cause the same to be placed and recorded amongst the records and proceedings of parliaments; all which pretended acts were formed and designed in manifest opposition to the sovereignty of the crown of England, and for the utter destruction of the Protestants and the whole Protestant interest in this kingdom, and are and were null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever: and whereas their said majesties, out of their pious and princely care of, and for their dutiful and loyal Protestant subjects of this kingdom, and for their better security and relief, by an act of their parliament of England, made at Westminister in the first year of their said majesties reign, were graciously pleased to enact and declare, "That the said pretended parliament, so as aforesaid assembled at Dublin, was not a parliament, but an unlawful and "rebellious assembly; and that all acts and proceedings whatsoever, had, made, "done, or passed, or to be had, made, done, or passed in the said pretended "parliament, should be taken, deemed, adjudged, and declared to be null and "void to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever." For which the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, do return our most hearty and unfeigned thanks to his most sacred majesty.

the dastardly flight of James from England, without even attempting a stand against his rival, filled with contempt and indignation a people of quick sympathy and natural bravery. James's natural character was reserved and austere, and when he was in Ireland it was rendered morose and petulant from misfortunes; qualities ill-calculated to gain the warm and grateful hearts of a people supereminently sensible to favour or gratification. This unfortunate monarch had, moreover, imbibed an unaccountable dislike to the Irish; and dislikes are generally reciprocal. As little also were the principles, judgment, and feelings of Tyrconnel in unison with those of his sovereign. The Irish, however, never swerving from their allegiance, naturally availed themselves of the personal presence of their sovereign, to attain the objects of their wishes in a constitutional manner; and in these they rather insisted upon, than requested the concurrence of their sovereign.*

It behoves the historian to represent to his reader the bulk of the Irish nation, which consisted of Roman Catholics, at this time acting under the full conviction, that their loyalty could only be shewn in their obedience to their natural sovereign King James. They could not be bounden to this allegiance, whilst any other part of the nation owed allegiance to another sovereign: it was therefore consistent with their principle, that all who foreswore their allegiance to King James should be treated as rebels and traitors. The Irish Catholics, like all other human beings, must be ever considered to be actuated by the common feelings of social nature. They were sensible of the ascendency which circumstances had given them over their sovereign, and were naturally encouraged to

A singular illustration of this observation is to be found in I.esley, p. 104. "It is a melancholy story (if true) which Sir Theobald Butter, solicitor gene"ral to King James in Ireland, tells of the Duke of Tyrconnell's sending him "to King James with a letter about passing some lands for the said duke; he employing Sir Theobald in his business, gave him the letter open to read, "which Sir Theobald says he found worded in terms so insolent and imposing, "as would be unbecoming for one gentleman to offer to another. Sir Theobald "says he could not but represent to the duke the strange surprise he was in, "at his treating the king at such a rate, and desired to be excused from be"ing the messenger to give such a letter into the king's hands. The duke "smiled upon him, and told him he knew how to deal with the king at that "time, that he must have his business done and for Theobald's scruple, he "sealed the letter, and told him, now the king cannot suppose you know the "contents, only carry it to him as from me. Sir Theobald did so, and says "he observed the king narrowly as he read it, and that his majesty did shew great commotion, that he changed colours, and sighed often, yet ordered "Tyrconnell's request, or demand rather, to be granted. Thus says Sir Theo"bald. Many particulars of the like insolence of these Irish to King James might be shewn, but I would not detain the reader; what I have said is "abundantly sufficient to shew how far it was from his own inclinations, either "to suffer or do such things as were thus violently put upon him by the Irish "in his extremity."

make his compliance and assent subservient to their wishes, for what they considered conducive to the interest and welfare of themselves and country. The several acts therefore of this parliament are to be considered rather as the acts of the Irish nation, than the wishes of James; and they are here noticed, to trace the prospects of national happiness and prosperity, in which the Catholics at that time placed their hopes.

The chief of these acts were the Act of Attainder, and the Act for repeal of the Acts of Settlement.* The first of these acts, which is usually spoken of by modern historians as the act for attainting Irish Protestants, bespeaks in its title the whole purport and tendency of the act: For Attainder of divers Rebels, and for preserving the Interest of loyal Subjects. It contains not one word that relates even remotely to any religious distinction and the preamble of the act refers wholly to those rebellious and traitorous subjects, who had invited and assisted the Prince of Orange, the king's unnatural enemy, to invade that kingdom. At that time it was not a conflict between Protestants and Catholics, nor between Whigs and Tories, nor yet between an English and an Irish party: it was a broad open contest between Jacobites and Guillamites; the former headed by the natural hereditary monarch, who had not resigned or

These acts are given in the Appendix, No. XLVI. and No. XLVII. as historical documents; to neither of which it appears King James was himself disposed he could not however, particularly as he was then circumstanced, withstand the general wish of his Irish people. Leslie thus speaks of James's conduct in Ireland: (p. 99) "And even as to his carriage in Ireland, I have "heard not a few of the Protestants, confess, that they owed their preserva"tion and safety, next under God, chiefly to the clemency of King James, "who restrained, all he could, the insolence and outrage of their enemies, of "which I can give you some remarkable instances, and good vouchers, I ap"peal to the Earl of Granard, whether Duke Powis did not give him thanks "from King James, for the opposition he made in the House of Lords to the "passing the Act of Attainder, and the Act for Repeal of the Acts of Settle"ment; and desired that he and the other Protestant Lords should use their "endeavours to obstruct them. To which the Lord Granard answered, that "they were too few to effect that; but if the king would not have them pass, "his way was to engage some of the Roman Catholic lords to stop them. To "which the duke replied with an oath, that the king durst not let them know "that he had a mind to have them stopt. I farther appeal to that noble lord "the Earl of Granard, whether the same day that the news of the driving the "Protestants before the walls of Derry come to Dublin, as his lordship was "going to the Parliament House, he did not meet King James, who asked him "where he was going? His lordship answered, to enter his protestation against "the repeal of the Acts of Settlement: upon which King James told him "that he was fallen into the hands of a people who rammed that and many "other things down his throat. His lordship took that occasion to tell his majesty of the driving before Derry: the king told him that he was grieved "for it; that he had sent immediate orders to discharge it; and that none "but a barbarous Moscovite (for so he styled General Rosen who commanded "that driving, who thereby it seems was bred or born in Moscovy) could have "thought of so cruel a contrivance."

abdicated but was defending the crown of Ireland against a foreign invader; the latter headed by a foreign prince, who, against the will of the majority of the nation, was working his way to the throne of Ireland by the sword, after having been seated upon that of England by the invitation of the people of England, who by James's abdication had found themselves without a supreme executive magistrate. In England the change of government in 1688 was a revolution of principle rather than of violence in Ireland it was a hard fought conquest. This may be properly termed the first real conquest of Ireland by the sword: the unsuccessful became the rebel by the fortune of the day.

Although James were averse from passing the acts I have already mentioned, it is probable that he strongly encouraged another act which passed, *for the advance and improvement of trade and for encouragement and increase of shipping and navigation, which would have operated greatly to the welfare and prosperity of Ireland; inasmuch as it purported to throw open to Ireland a free and immediate trade with all our plantations and colonies; to promote ship building, by remitting to the owners of Irish built vessels, large proportions of the duties of custom and excise; encourage seamen by exempting them for ten years from taxes, and allowing them the freedom of any city or sea port they should chuse to reside in, and improve the Irish navy by establishing free schools for teaching and instructing the mathematics and the art of navigation, in Dublin, Belfast, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, and Galway. If James looked up to any probability of maintaining his ground in Ireland, he must have been sensible of the necessity of an Irish navy : no man was better qualified to judge of the utility of such institutions than this prince. He was an able seaman, fond of his profession; and to his industry and talent does the British navy owe many of its best signals, regulations and orders. His firmness, resolution, and enterprise, which had distinguished him, whilst Duke of York, as a sea officer, abandoned him when king, both in the cabinet and the field.

The battle of the Boyne, which was fought on the 1st of July, 1690, turned the scale of the kingdom: there William, although he commanded a considerable superiority of forces, attended to the duties of a vigilant, steady, and intrepid general; he shared the danger of his army, encouraging it by his presence, voice, and example, even after he had been wounded, and pres sed by his officers to retire from the action and be more cautious of his person whilst James stood at a secure distance a quiet spectator of the contest for his crown: so fearful of his enemy,

• Which see in the Appendix, No. XLVIII.

or diffident of himself or his troops, that his chief concern and preparation before the battle were to secure his personal retreat.* He fled with precipitancy to Dublin, and from thence to Waterford, where a frigate was ready to convey him back to France. Thus did he leave the worsted relics of his army to make the best stand against the enemy, and procure from him the best terms their personal bravery would entitle them to. The Irish army under Tyrconnel and Sarsfield made a very vigorous resistance against a superior well-disciplined army, acting under the first general of Europe, until they surrendered the town of Limerick, which was their last hold, on the 3d of October, 1691, upon articles† which sufficiently prove in what estimation for valour and steadiness King William held them, even after the many advantages he had gained over them. Thus was Ireland formally and finally reduced by force of arms to the revolutionary government of King William.

The following compendious sketch of this reign, by the late Earl of Clare, shall close this Chapter. "After the expulsion "of James from the throne of England, the old inhabitants "made a final effort for the recovery of their ancient power, in "which they were once more defeated by an English army; "and the slender relics of Irish possession became the subject "of fresh confiscation, From the report made by the commis

:

* When James, after his flight, arrived in Dublin, he had the ungracious imprudence to reflect upon the cowardice of the Irish. According to a printed account, in the nature of a bulletin, circulated through London at the time of these transactions in Ireland: "At five this morning, being Wednesday, "the 2d of July, King James having sent for the Irish lord mayor and some "principal persons to the castle, told them, that he found all things against "him; that in England he had an army which would have fought, but they I proved false and deserted him; that here he had an army which was loyal "enough, but would not stand by him he was now necessitated to provide for "his safety, and that they should make the best terms for themselves that they "could. He told his menial servants, that he would have no further occasion "to keep such a court as he had done, and that therefore they were at liberty "to dispose of themselves. He desired them all to be kind to the Protestants, "and not injure them or their city; for though he quitted it, he did not quit "his interest in it: and so with two or three in company he went to Bray, and along by the sea to Waterford; having appointed his carriages to meet him "another way. We hear he did not sleep till he got on ship-board; and hav"ing been once driven in again, is since clear gone off." It is also reported, that when James arrived late at night at the castle, the Lady (then styled Dutchess) Tyrconnel received him with the most sympathizing respect and condolence, when the king sarcastically complimented her upon the alertness of her runaway countrymen; to which with becoming spirit, she replied, that his majesty had at least the advantage of any them. There is no question, but that the Irish would have stood by James to the last, had he not so shamefully fled. Although his army retreated in good order, so as to command the admiration of the enemy, yet, indignant at the dastardly conduct of their commander, they cried out generally to the enemy, as they retreated, "exchange kings and we will fight the battle over again."

For which see Appendix, No. XLIX.