to have been no preconcerted system or preparation for 1641. a rising on the part of the Irish, as at their first rising they had no other weapons than staves, scythes, and pitchforks. Parsons and Borlase, favouring the Puritan party, not only declined all offer of the Catholics of the Pale to put down the northern insurrection, but exerted too successfully their ingenuity to drive the were killed, hanged, and burnt, 6062. In justice, however, to Lord Clarendon, it must be mentioned, that he admits one fact that contradicts most of our authors, and is contrary to the generally received notion, that this rebellion first broke out by a general massacre of all the Protestants that could be found, in cold blood." About the beginning of November (says he), 1641, the English and Scotch forces in Carrickfergus, murthered, in one night, all the inhabitants of the island Gee (commonly called Mac Gee), to the number of above 3000 men, women, and children, all innocent persons, in a time when none of the Catholics of that country were in arms or rebellion. Note, that this was the first massacre committed in Ireland, of either side." Clar. Hist. Rev. of the Affairs of Ireland, p. 329. The canting lamentation of the affrighted cavalier is thus wholly falsified by the historian. For how could 40,000 or 50,000 Protestants have been massacred within the two or three first days of the rebellion, which began on the 23d of October, when he tells us, that the 3000 Irish Papists massacred by the Protestants in the ensuing month of November, was the first massacre on either side. His lordship also gives this testimony of the Irish suffering without retaliation in Munster: "In Decy's county, the neighbouring English garrisons of the county of Cork, after burning and pillaging all that county, murthered above 300 persons, men, women and children, before any rebellion began in Munster, and led 100 labourers prisoners to Caperquine, where being tried, by couples were cast into the river, and made sport to see them drowned. Observe, that this county is not charged with any murthers to be committed on Protestants." lid. p. 369. 1641. rest of the kingdom into a similar one, for the profligate purpose of profiting of the forfeitures of those who should give into it. They forced people to the rack to draw confessions from them; they sent out parties from Dublin and other garrisons, who killed and destroyed the natives, without sparing women or children, Martial law was executed with uncontroled severity by Sir Charles Coote, and the Pale was burned for seventeen miles in length, and twenty-five in breadth, by the Earl of Ormond. These measures necessarily exasperated the Irish to retaliation, and left them no hope, but in the sword. Both the Irish government and English parliament were bent upon the utter extermination of all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland. Their estates were already marked out and allotted to the conquerors +. Thus was the nation compelled to arm in self-defence: and in resisting this parliamentary oppression they acted as royalists ‡. * "Whatever (says Leland) were the professions of the chief governors, the only danger they really apprehended, was that of a too speedy suppression of the rebellion. Extensive forfeitures was their favorite object, and that of their friends." 3 Leland, p. 160. They with some of their partizans in the council, says Carte (1 vol. p. 194), "privately wrote to the Earl of Leicester, then lord lieutenant, desiring his secrecy, for they could not speak openly at the council board, that he would not accept of any overtures for checking the Northern rebellion, because the charge of supplies from England would be abundantly compensated out of the estates of the actors in the rebellion." + History of Rebellion, p, 183; and 3 Leland, p. 166. Carte admits, that at this time," the parliament's pamphlets were received as oracles, its commands obeyed as laws, and extir pation preached for Gospel." commission to O'Neale. A commission under the great seal to Phelim 1642. O'Nial to rise in arms against the usurped armed Forged force of the Protestants in Ireland, was publickly shewn by that chieftain. The King's enemies affected to believe it a true commission; their aim being to implicate his Majesty, by considering it an open declaration of war by Charles and his Irish Catholic subjects against his parliament and Protestant subjects. But the forgery of it by O'Nial (as he confessed it at the place of his execution) speaks highly in favor of the loyalty even of his own Catholic adherents, whom this powerful leader could not induce to take up arms, Sir William St. Leger, the president of Munster, committed the most unprovoked murders and barbarities throughout that province; and upon their remonstrating, he tauntingly insulted them all " as rebels, would not trust one of them, and thought it most prudent to hang the best of them." The particular views for goading this province into rebellion, are fully laid open in Lord Cork's letter to the speaker of the House of Commons in England, which he sent, together with 1100 indictments, against persons of property in that province, to have them settled by crown lawyers, and returned to him: and so, says he, if the house please to direct to have them all proceeded against to outlawry, whereby his Majesty may be entitled to their lands and possessions, which I dare boldly affirm, was, at the beginning of this insurrection, not of so little yearly value as 200,000l." This Earl of Cork was notorious, during the two preceding reigns, for his rapacity; but this last effort he called the work of works. In Dublin, many were put to the rack, in order to extort confessions: and in the short space of two days, upwards of 4000 indictments were found against landholders, and other men of property, in Leinster. Numerous are the letters of Lord Clanricarde to Ormond, and others, complaining of similar attempts to raise Connaught into rebellion, even by Or mond's own troops. The Catholics confe oath. but under the authority of the King. On the other hand their loyalty forbad obedience to the usurped jurisdiction of the English parliament to command the lords justices, in which no assent, or even derivative idea from the King's authority, is referred to*. The lords and gentlemen of the Pale, whose houses had been burned, whose lands had been destroyed, whose te. nants had been murdered by the Earl of Ormond, un. der these parliamentary justices, without crime, provocation, or resistance, renewed their application to government to accept of their best endeavours to put a stop to the growing insurrection. Their overtures were indignantly rejected. The Earl of Castlehaven was imprisoned; and Sir John Read put on the rack, for officious interference t. At last the whole body of the Irish Catholics was derate upon compelled, for self-preservation, to unite in a regular system of defence. They bound themselves to each other by an oath, expressive of unqualified allegiance to the King, and an undertaking with life, power, and estate, to support and defend the royal person, honors, estates, dignities, and prerogatives, against all impugners thereof,. &c. t Commis sion to Or The King, considering the circumstances of this mond and general confederacy of the Catholics of Ireland, signed a commission, directed to the Marquis of Ormond, others to meet the confederatcs. In the Appendix, No. XXV. to my Hist. Rev. this order of the English parliament to the lords justices is to be seen. + Lord Castlehaven escaped out of prison, or probably would have undergone the same fate as Sir John Read. + Vide the form of oath, Appendix, No. XXVI. That the confederates were convinced that they were acting loyally, appears from the Earls of Clanricarde and Roscommon, Viscount 1642. Moore, Sir Thomas Lucas, Sir Maurice Eustace, and Thomas Bourke, Esq. to meet the principal confederates (who had petitioned his Majesty to listen to their grievances) to receive, in writing, what they had to say or propound. Ormond in lieu of complying with the pacific orders of this commission, preferred the orders of a committee from the English parlia Clanricarde's letter to the King, in which he vouches for the loyal disposition of his countrymen. That letter is very illustrative of the spirit and circumstances of those times, and is given in the App. to my Host. Rev. No XXVII. Lord Castle haven also, amongst other reasons for joining the confederates, alleged the following. "I began to consider the condition of the kingdom, as that the state did chiefly consist of men of mean birth and quality, that most of them steered by the influence and power of those who were in arms against the King, that they had by cruel massacreing, hanging, and torturing, been the slaughter of thousands of innocent men, women, and children, better subjects than themselves; that they by all their actions shewed, that they looked at nothing but the extirpation of the nation, the destruction of monarchy, and, by the utter suppression of the ancient catholic religion, to settle and establish Puritanism. To these I could be no traytor." Des. Cur. H. 2. vol. p. 132. It was well known to Ormond, that this committee, which consisted of Reynolds and Goodwyn, was sent from the English parliament against the King's express commands. On his way, Ormond took the castle of Timolin, which, after an obstinate resistance, surrendered; and although he had promised quarter to the garrison for their gallant defence, yet he suffered them all to a man to be butchered in cold blood, after they had surrendered their arms. And on the very day on which the other commissioners received the remonstrance from the catholics at Trim (viz. the 17th of March, 1642), he attacked and routed the forces of general Preston, and killed 500 of them. Blood aud devastation marked his progress to and from Ross, |