poffeffion, hoftilities were frequent. But amongst themselves neither the English families, nor the Irish fepts lived in amity; this wretched state of manners was not peculiar to Ireland. Scotland had her wars of the High and Low-landers. We commemorate ftill the martial encounters of the Scotch and English chivalry in the bordering We find no caufe for eternal antipathy in the conflicts of the ancient Marchers with the Welch. We glow without refentment at the vigo rous refiftance of Glendower. If our Defmond and our O'Neile, in the pride of noble birth and ample poffeffions, prefumed to arrogate royal honors; England had her Neville, and the claffic turbulence of gallant Hotspur; of him whose honour wars. Struck upon him as the Sun, In the grey vault of Heaven: and by his light To do brave acts. But the chiefs of Ireland fell, and with them fell the language, which ought to have preserved the achievements, that palliated their indiferetion; and with them fell the pride of origin, which would point with admiration to the deeds, that new relations, manners and principles of order, inftruct us not to imitate. A fingle bard (Carolan) has furvived the wreck of ancient genius. A few airs atteft the character of the people who took delight in them; vigorous and bold, but foftening, when the occafion calls, to tender and generous fenfibility. Had more ample memorials remained, our Chevy-chace might have rehearsed the valour of a Giraldine, or an O'Neil; our Owen of Carron have reproached the "crimfon" banners, and curfed the "ruthlefs" victories of Cromwell. I cannot abandon lightly thefe rough, rug-headed Kerns." But fuch thoughts are treafon against the irritability of " H modern modern Ireland. There are men who if the beautiful effufions of Gray's mufe were applied to this country, would confign them to a public profecution. But I return to my pofition. The eccentric temper and loofe allegiance of thefe ages account, without any additional circumftance, for the violence to which they were prone. They are not to be judged by our notions of re gular and fettled government. It would have indeed been fomewhat fanguine to expect, that Ireland, eminently feeble and diftracted, fhould be exempt from the calamities, which the impotence of authority produced in other countries. What was the ftate of France, of Scotland, of England herself, from the time of Henry II. to Elizabeth, the first period of our hiftory? Cotemporary with the infurrection of Defmond and Tyrone, which ended in the extermination of these noble houfes, were the war of the league in France, the religious wars of Germany, the revolt of Scotland against the unfortunate Mary, and of Flanders against King Philip. Then to what does Dr. Duigenan's firft pofition amount ?-Truly to this, that, as a penalty for having been disturbed, when all other nations were equally fo, we fhould be condemned for ever to the miferies infeperable from a ftate, in which the government and the people are at variance. In the name of God, why fhould not the South of Trent make laws againft the North, and both legiflate by the fame rule against Wales and Scotland? "From fuch confederacy," fays Doctor Duigenan, "cemented by bigotry and inflamed by religious fury against their fellow-fubjects, "fprang Defmond's and Tyrone's rebellions in "the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the horrible "rebellion and maffacre in that of Charles ift, " and the obftinate and deftructive rebellion in "the "the reign of William and Mary."-Reprefentation, page 53. Now Sir John Davies exprefsly ftates, that the rebellion of the Earl of Defmond, originated in a claim, fet up by that family, and difputed by the government, of exemption from attendance on parliament; but that the immediate cause of the rifing was, an attempt by that Earl to levy certain Irish duties in the county of Waterford, contrary to ftatute of Kilkenny, in which attempt he was fuccefsfully oppofed by the Earl of Ormonde. I fhould have little difficulty in convincing any man, who will take the trouble to read Lec's Memorial to Queen Elizabeth, that religion had no influence in Tyrone's rebellion. Indeed that officer ftates, that he was more docile to the reformation than most other nobles, even of English birth in Ireland. "True," fays my author," "he is affected to popery, but less than "fome of the greateft in the English pale: for "when he is with the ftate, he will accompany "the Lord Deputy to the church, and will stay, " and hear fervice and return," We can collect from the statement of that officer, which amounts. in fact to articles of impeachment against the Hastings of those days, the Lord Deputy Fitzwilliams, that the ftate of Ireland in his time, refembled what India was before the modern corrections in its administration. Adventurers equipped themselves, as for a defperate enterprize, to feek fortune in Ireland. In the profecution of their purpose it will readily be believed, that rapacity and violence were not unfrequent. The public faith was shamefully difregarded. Men of peaceble and inoffenfive life, were imprifoned without caufe, and executed without the pretence or the form of juftice. He adverts to particular inftan ces, ces, which when he prepared his Memorial, müft have been familiar, of perfons put to deach by the connivance of the government, whofe only crime was the wealth, which their enemies divided. Lee offers to fubftantiate his charge by evidence, and ftakes his life and credit on the event. Of Tyrone he fpeaks as an oppreffed and injured man, haraffed by unmerited fufpicion. He names him with the kindness of a friend, but in fuch manner as to prove, that in his breaft the duty of public fervice prevailed above private fentiments. Lee's detail of facts explains and strengthens the opinions of Davies; fee A "brief declaration of the government of Ireland, opening many corruptions in the fame, difcovering the difcontents of the Irishry, &c. "addreffed to the Queen's most excellent Majefty, by Captain Thomas Lee, 1594." Capt. Lee, I anfwer for it, was a Burkift. Our annals retain no panegyric of a routed caufe and fallen greatnefs; but it is cafy to collect, that the Irish chief of whom we treat, was no ordinary perfon. O'Neil, for in the pride of fuperior ftation, he fpurned the ftile of Earl, inherited from an illuftrious line the command of one of the braveft, the most numerous, and the most powerful fepts among the ancient Irish. His jurifdiction was abfolute, over a wide extent of territory and a numerous hoft of martial followers. Supreme within his own limits, he acknowledged in the British Sovereign an external fuperior, to whom he owed, as a vaffal to his paramount, homage, reverence, and tribute. From this condition the afcent is eafy, a fingle ftep, to actual independence; and when the provocations received by himself, and by his race, impelled O'Neil to fly to arms, I fhould have been much furprized, if he had not endeavoured to affociate the public fervice with his immediate and and natural ambition. He afpired to what he confidered the deliverance of his country from a foreign yoke. For, altho' it is vain and prepofterous in the prefent ftate of mixed races, to treat any portion of our Empire, as foreign to its fellow.fubjects of another diftrict, yet the difference of all thofe things, that difcriminate race from race, and nation from nation, laws, manners, cuftoms, blood and language, was, at the period we review, both prevalent and obvious. Wallace, two centuries before, had atchieved the like enterprize on a contigious theatre with glory, but not with ultimate advantage to his country. The triumph of Wallace postponed the Union of the British crowns, as it affuredly retarded the perfection of civil arts, and the cultivation of the entire island. O'Neil, when his difcontents were at the height, found 2 ready co-operation in a great proportion of the Irish chiefs, eftranged, like him from the English crown, by the impolitic fyftem of government, and the profligate feverity of particular governors. I do not find that he derived from the religious opinions of the people any eminent affiftance. The pale, which as Lee teftifies, was more Catholic than himself, never afforded any countenance to his enterprize. In fact the fubjects of this land, had not as yet experienced any inconvenience on this account; for altho' the ftate adopted for its own ufe, the practice of the reformed religion, the second of Elizabeth, the great grievance of the next age, had not as yet been put in execution. This war of O'Neil was the laft and * On the contrary, the army which Lord Mountjoy led against O'Neil, and which compelled his fubmiffion, was almost totally compofed of Catholics |
