popish multitude, and who had heard of more,— who believed they were influenced by all the senseless dogmas of the church of Rome, that they were ever ready to destroy heretics, to overturn the established government, to place on its ruins the throne of despotism, was induced, from personal hatred, from a regard to the permanent security of his own possessions, all of which perhaps had been newly acquired, and from a solicitude for the welfare of the state, anxiously to devise every possible scheme for their oppression. It was while such views and feelings divided the population of Ireland, that the weak and deceitful James the Second appeared in that country, and commenced that civil war, which to Britain confirmed its liberties, but which to Ireland occasioned political and religious bondage.

Those who flocked to the standard and followed the fortunes of this infatuated prince, were influenced by various motives. We may easily believe that though they were ignorant for the greater part, of every religion, they were now, by the harsh and cruel measures of their enemies, fully confirmed in an inveterate attachment to the church of Rome. The king to whom they had sworn allegiance, who professed himself of the catholic faith, and the friend and protector of all its adherents, had appeared in distress among them, addressed himself to

their patriotic, their religious, and generous feelings, awakened by his calamities, the best and warmest sympathies of their nature, and found no difficulty in alluring an affectionate people to espouse the cause of a prince who was suffering, as they deemed, in the cause of truth and righteousness. But there was another motive besides religion, which had the chief influence with the greater part of his army. They expected that the act of settlement would be reversed: that by the success of James they would be put in possession of their paternal inheritance, and that their chiefs, who had been in poverty and exile, would be restored to the honours of their family, and the enjoyment of their property. As for the priests, who had the majority of the people under their controul, and who conceived that their predecessors had been most unjustly ejected from their livings, they looked for nothing less than the total overthrow of the protestant church. They had suffered much themselves in adhering to their religion, and many of them were now ready to instigate the multitude to the commission of the most atrocious cruelties. Unfortunately that prince in whose cause they had embarked, and under whose auspices they anticipated deliverance and victory, cruel and vindictive himself, had little inclination to re

* Sir William Petty's Political Anatomy of Ireland, p. 313.

press the impetuous fury, the unbridled licentiousness of his followers.

Their adversaries, on the other hand, were animated by the enthusiasm and desperate courage of men struggling for political existence. They expected no indulgence from those to whom they themselves had shewn so little. Besides, by the forfeitures of the act of settlement, under Charles the Second, they were in possession of some millions of acres, all of which were taken from the Irish natives.* This property could only be retained by the suppression of these natives and the total defeat of their present leader: so that James in fighting for his crown in Ireland, had not only to contend with men who were inveterate in their hatred to popery, and, therefore, desperate in their resolution, but with many whose powers of resistance were increased, from the consideration of their engaging in defence of the lands recently acquired. Never was there a conflict carried on with more determined hostility, with feelings of more implacable revenge, or with a more fearful apprehension as to the final result: and the language in which a Roman poet eloquently describes the destructive effects of that civil war-"quæ

* Plowden's Hist. of Ireland.—The forfeitures after the battle of the Boyne amounted to 1,060,792 Irish, or ,1718,307 English acres.

divina et humana cuncta permiscuit, eòque vecordiæ processit, uti studiis civilibus bellum atque vastitas Italiæ finem faceret," is applicable with equal force to this.*

A race renown'd

Turn'd on themselves with their own hostile swords,
Of blood by friends, by kindred, parents, spilt,

One common horror and promiscuous guilt.
But, see! her hands on her own vitals seize,
And no destruction but her own can please.
Behold her fields unknowing of the plough!
Behold her palaces and towers laid low !

See where o'erthrown the massy column lies,
While weeds obscene above the cornice rise.
Here gaping wide, half-ruin'd walls remain,
There mouldering pillars nodding roots sustain.
The landscape once in various beauty spread,
With yellow harvests and the flowery mead,
Displays a wild uncultivated face,

Which bushy brakes and brambles vile disgrace.
No human footstep prints th' untrodden green,
No cheerful maid nor villager is seen.

--Nor Pyrrhus' sword, nor Cannæ's fatal field,
Such universal desolation yield. †

With the battle of the Boyne ended the hopes of James, and those of his party, with the treaty of Limerick. That treaty was in all respects most honourable to those by whom it was framed; by the first article the rights and privileges of the whole catholic body of Ireland were maintained"; "they shall enjoy

* Lucan, L. i.

+ Rowe's Translation.

such privileges in the exercise of their religion as are consistent with the laws of Ireland; or as they did enjoy in the reign of king Charles the Second; and their majesties, as soon as their affairs will permit them to summon a parliament in this kingdom, will endeavour to procure the said Roman Catholics such further security in that particular, as may preserve them from any disturbance upon the account of their said religion." It was scarcely to be expected that an agreement so reasonable in itself, and so advantageous to the catholics, should long be observed by the party in power, whose abhorrence to them was violent and indiscriminate," and which transported them to that very cruelty which had provoked this abhorrence."* Whilst they forgot or overlooked the grievous afflictions which they and their fathers occasioned the unfortunate native Irish to suffer, every circumstance united to impress their minds with the recollection of those real persecutions and exaggerated calamities which the protestants had been doomed to endure this recollection, strengthened as it was by the most lasting of all associations, constantly excited feelings not the best in human nature, and ultimately suppressed those more generous emotions which, even towards an enemy, might, in happier circumstances, have prevailed.

* Leland, v. iii. p. 128.