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nto a correspondence with Phelim O'Neill, between whom and the rebel parliament at Kilkenny and the royal authorities at Dublin a peace was agreed upon. How long so bloodthirsty a person as O'Neill would have remained peaceable, it is difficult to guess. But the pope looked longingly upon the Peter-pence and the absolute authority of the green isle; and the instant he heard O'Neill had agreed to give the torn land and suffering people rest, he sent a confidential priest named Rinuccini as his nuncio. Whatever else the court of Rome understood, it was ignorant of political economy. For while that grasping power was ready to brave all laws and feelings in its ardour for conquering countries, it was to the full as anxious to impoverish as to conquer them; and while desirous of tribute, was bent upon multiplying those non-producing communities which could neither pay themselves nor exist but by diminishing that which but for them might have been wrung from the laity; and the monks, whether Jesuits or Franciscans, Carmelites or Dominicans, who were placed in the principal abbeys and monasteries that were restored, had it in charge from this zealous Jesuit, that they should be instant in season and out of season in exhorting the laity to aid in restoring and beautifying all the monasteries throughout the island; of which it is clear that Rome felt confident of obtaining the complete dominion. The assistance which the rebels received enabled them to recommence and continue the civil war with advantage over the royal force, for the king was now in the power of the puritans; and much as those bigots hated the papists of Ireland, they loved their own aggrandizement still more; and while they obtained large sums from the gulled people of England, under the pretence of putting down the Irish rebels, they coolly applied those sums to the support of their own treasonable schemes, and left the luckless authorities at Dublin wholly unaided. Rinuccini, though his ostensible mission was only of a spiritual character, had more ample secret powers and instructions. At all events, he by no means confined himself to matters spiritual, but interfered with so much insolence in civil affairs, and showed so evident an intent to usurp all authority, that even the Irish rebels became disgusted, and he was at length driven out of the country.

After the murder of Charles I., that event added to the previously existing topics of strife in Ireland. The "king's party" included not a few of those who had rebelled against the authority of Charles I., and was from a variety of causes, so strong, that the marquis of Ormond, then at Paris with the queen and Charles II., complied with the invitation that was sent him to go over and take the chief command, in hope that his experience and popularity, being himself an Irishman, would make him so efficient a rallying point for the royalists, that Ireland might enable the young king at some future day to reconquer England. For a time, in truth, it seemed as if this really would be the case. Notwithstanding the cause of hate and strife which divided the Irish people into royalists and parliamentarians, Ormond was cordially received among them, and speedily found himself at the head of an army of nearly twenty thousand men. Colonel Jones, who was a creature of the parliament, and to whom Ormond had delivered the chief command in Ireland when he himself hastened to aid the unfortunate Charles I. in England, was compelled to bestow all his care upon, Dublin, where the parliament left him unaided. Ormond therefore found but little difficulty in the earlier part of his attempt to reduce Ireland to subjection to Charles II. At Dundalk, Ormond no sooner summoned the place, than the garrison mutinied against their governor, Monk and compelled him to surrender without firing a shot. Tredah and severa other places were taken with comparatively small trouble and loss; and Ormond now proposed, after giving his troops necessary repose, to advance to the siege of Dublin. Could he have succeeded in that important point, it is very probable that Ireland would have wholly been lost to the parlia

ment; for, considering the enthusiastic nature of the Irish people, it is highly probable the appearance of the young king in Dublin, whither he would have proceeded immediately on the success of Ormond, would have united the whole Irish people in defence of their king against the pu ritans, and their country against usurpers. But a change had come over the state of things. Cromwell was now more potent in England than the parliament whose tool he had seemed to be; and though England presented abundant labour and no little danger, Cromwell grudged Waller and Lambert the glory, which both aspired to, of conquering Ireland, in the character of its lord-lieutenant. With his usual art, he procured his own nomination; and, with his usual promptitude and energy, he no sooner received his appointment than he prepared to fulfil his task. He immediately sent over a strong reinforcement of both horse and foot Colonel Jones, in Dublin. Never was reinforcement sent at a more critical moment. Ormond, and Inchiquin, who had joined him, had proceeded to repair a fort close to Dublin, and had carried forward their work very considerably towards completion. Colonel Jones, who was an energetic officer, had no sooner received this reinforcement than he sallied out suddenly upon the royalists, and put them completely to the rout. One thousand of them were killed; and twice that number, with all the ammunition and munitions of the royal army, graced the triumphal return of the colonel to Dublin. In the midst of the joy and exultation of the garrison and people of Dublin at this success, Cromwell himself, accompanied by Ireton, arrived upon the scene. Tredah, or Drogheda, a strong and well fortified town near Dublin, was garrisoned for the king by three thousand men, principally English, under the command of Sir Arthur Aston, an able and experienced officer. Thither Cromwell hastened, battered a breach in the wall, and led the way in person to an assault. Though the parliamentary soldiery of England, with Cromwell, and scarcely less terrible Ireton at their head, sword in hand, were not the men to be easily repelled, the garrison of Tredah showed that they were "English too;" for the assailants were twice beaten back with great carnage. A third assault was more successful, and partly in implacable rage at having been even temporarily held in check, and partly as the surest way to deter other places from venturing to resist his formidable power, Cromwell, to his disgrace, gave the fatal word "No quarters ;" and so determined was he in this barbarous resolution, that even a wretched handful of men who escaped the carnage, were, on the fact becoming known to Cromwell, immediately put to the sword. The excuse that Cromwell made for this barbarity, so thoroughly disgraceful to the soldierly character, was his desire to avenge the shocking cruelties of the massacre. Professing so much religious feeling, even that motive would scarcely have palliated his cruelty; but the excuse was as ill-founded as the measure was ruffianly, for the garrison were not Irishmen, stained with the horrible guilt of the ever-execrable massacre, but, as Cromwell well knew, Englishmen, true alike to their monarch, their faith, and their country. Having thus barbarously destroyed the entire garrison of Tredah, with the exception of one solitary soldier, whose life was merely spared that he might carry through the country the tale of the prowess of the English general, Cromwell advanced upon Wexford Here he had the same success, and showed the same murderous severity as at Tredah; and in less than a year from his landing in Ireland he was in possession of all its chief towns and fortresses, and had driven both English royalists and Irish rebels to such straits, that no fewer than forty thousand withdrew from the island altogether.

But Scotland now attracted the ambition of Cromwell; and having looked well to the garrisoning of the principal towns, and sent a vast number of the inhabitants, and especially young people, of both sexes, to the West Indies, as slaves, he left the goverment of Ireland to Ireton, upon

cess.

whom also devolved the finishing the subjection of the country. Ireton, who was a stout soldier, followed the parting instructions of Cromwell to the letter. With a well-supplied army of thirty thousand men, he ruled the country with an iron and unfaltering hand. Wherever the rebels appeared, there he was sure to meet them; and wherever he met, there he also defeated them. The faithless and black-hearted Phelim O'Neill, the author of the worst atrocities of the rebellion, was at length taken prisoner; and if ever the gibbet was rightfully employed in taking away human life, it was certainly so on this occasion. As far as his means permitted him, this man had rivalled Nero and all the worst miscreants of antiquity; Ireland, that unhappy country, was at least fortunate in being reconquered by even a Cromwell, instead of falling under the dictatorship of an O'Neill The only place of any importance that had now not yielded to the English, was Limerick. Against this town Ireton led his men with his usual sucA fierce resistance was made, and when he at length took it by assault, he took a no less fierce revenge. But here it was ordained that both his success and cruelty should terminate. The crowded state of the place and the scarcity of provisions had generated one of those fevers so common in Ireland, which are as infectious as the plague of the East, and nearly as fatal. Ireton had scarcely stilled the tumult and excitement inseparable from the taking of a besieged town, when he was attacked by this fever; and as he was already much weakened by fatigues and exposure, it speedily proved fatal. After what we have said of his inflexible severity to his Irish prisoners, it may seem paradoxical to affirm that his death was a calamity to Ireland. And yet as such we really view it; he was led to his inflexibility by a horror of the cruelty of the rebels, and a belief that it was his duty to God and man to avenge it. But in his civil administration he was a just and calm governor; and as the country became orderly and obedient, so would he, we feel sure, have relaxed from his sternness and become the best resident ruler that Ireland ever possessed. Ireton was succeeded in the lieutenancy by Ludlow. He drove the native Irish, almost without exception, into Connaught; and so completely was the Irish cause a lost one, that Clanricarde, who had succeeded O'Neill as its chief hope and champion, lost all heart and confidence, made peace with parliament, and was allowed to find a shelter in England, where he resided until his death. Under Ludlow and Henry Cromwell, Ireland gradually improved. On the restoration of Charles II., the duke of Ormond, who was condemned to death at the same time as O'Neill, but spared and allowed to retire to France, returned to Ireland as lord-lieu tenant. Ormond, unlike soldiers in general, set a due value upon the peaceable arts, and he wisely considered that the best way to ensure peace and the obedience of a people, is to encourage commerce and manufac tures among them. Accordingly, he exerted himself to promote the im. migration of English and foreign artizans, and established linen and woolen factories in Clonmel, Carrick, and other towns. The duke continued to be lord-lieutenant of Ireland during the whole reign of Charles II.; and the improvement of the country was proportionate to his well-directed efforts to that end. On the accession of James II., that monarch, who was extremely anxious to fill all the offices of that country with catholics, as though he foresaw it would one day be the last spot upon which he could, with even a chance of success, attempt to defend his crown, removed the duke; but Ireland still continued to imp ove in wealth, morals, and comfort, until the abdication of James once more involved that ill-fated country in warfare. Aided by Louis XIV., James led a strong force to Ireland, where he landed at Kinsale, on the 17th of March, 1689. The earl of Tyrconnel, whom he had himself made lord-lieutenant, escorted him to Dublin, where he was received with every demonstration of loyalty and respect by the catholic clergy and people, the former meeting him a

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