*

vious warning, at the feet of a young girl. Barbarity seldom accomplishes its object. It is easy to see, on the one hand, how inadequate such means must have been to effect the extirpation of the robbers; and how convenient an excuse was thus afforded, on the other, for the indulgence of secret grudge, or selfish cupidity. A Rapparee's head was worth money; but whether the thing delivered belonged to the body of an outlaw was not likely to be nicely inquired into: it was a human head and as such was paid for.

It is but justice to add, that after the termination of hostilities, a reasonable time was granted to these marauders to come in, surrender their arms, and take the oath of allegiance. As many as did so obtained protection, and were permitted to return unmolested to their homes. And the sight is said to have been a strange one, the multitudes of this wild militia traversing the provinces, and driving before them their flocks, which were numerous,while, in strong contrast to the desolation of the country they passed through, their own persons exhibited all the external marks of comfort, being well fed, and substantially clad.† It is one of the miseries, indeed, which we do not hear of at this period, and which, at a later one, has so much aggravated all other ills-that of pover ty. During the whole of the war plenty laughed from the fields, and luxuries hung almost within reach of the middle classes.

For some time longer, however, numerous detached gangs of Rapparees continued to infest the provinces ; and to disperse these, or bring them to justice, was the first thing to be thought of. A military force, it was plain, was not likely to relieve the country of the nuisance. Nor were the roystering troops of William's generals exactly the friends which the

* O'Driscol's "History of Ireland," vol. ii. † O'Driscol, ubi sup.

peaceable inhabitants were inclined to summon to their aid in such an emergency. Although at this period it was too much the custom for a Lord Lieutenant or a Lord Deputy to hold the nominal helm of Government, while he bestowed just enough of his time and attention upon the country to relieve him from the charge of being altogether an absen. tee, and perhaps, in some cases, to enable him to effect certain arrange ments on his own account; still this seeming neglect was not always to be laid to the Viceroy's own charge. In William's reign especially, the local interests of large sections of his newlyacquired dominions were too heedlessly compromised to the unques tionably great object that monarch kept in view-the support of an armed confederacy against the overweening power of France. And though we find Lord Sydney, who had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland so far back as March, 1691, still absent from his post in August, 1692,§ yet we may readily imagine that at this stormy period the King had enough for that favourite minister to do nearer himself, and was content to allow the Chancellor Porter and Coningshy, the two officers originally associated with the Lieutenant in a commission as Lords Justices, and to whom he had already entrusted the framing of the civil articles of Limerick, to carry forward the government of the kingdom, now that the duty involved what (in his estimation) was the minor responsibility of its internal management.

To their credit we may safely place the regulation of the various departments of the civil establishment, which had become so mischievously disordered during the war. The superior courts were furnished with competent judges; the counties most amenable to civil control were placed in charge of

§ See "Lodge's Patentee Officers."

Lords Lieutenant, assisted by Deputies; the prudent step was taken of placing in the custody of officers of militia such arms as might reasonably be required to enable them to defend their lives and properties from parties of depredators; and the ranks of the Privy Council were filled with men of influence and respectability, whose principles of loyalty to the House of Orange were publicly known. Seventeen justices were appointed to hold assizes in the several counties within which the law could be safely admitted; thus, in the words of the historian, "to give the people a taste of the sweets of peace." In addition to which, the Commissioners of Forfeitures, who had notoriously abused their trust, were superseded; and some proclamations, tending to allay the present discontent on these and other grounds, were issued.* Salutary regulations, which, had they been acted upon in firmness, and followed up by further measures conceived in the same spirit, might have availed by degrees to have humanised the victor, and reconciled the vanquished in some measure to the inevitable hardships of his lot. As it is, no man of common sense and common humanity, however convinced he may be of the political and social tendencies of the Church of Rome, and of the blessings arising to human society from the Reformed religion, can look with any other feeling than that of indignant regret upon that system of coercion which gradually grew out of all this, and was so sternly and steadily put in force against the now conquered mass of the Roman Catholic population of the country.

The effect of the wise measures above enumerated was encouragingly visible on the cessation of the war. An immediate calm ensued. The laws were respected, outrages ceased; and what was fabled of the days of " Brian the brave," might, with little exaggeration, be related as fact of the times of which we treat, that the most defenceless wayfarer might traverse the land from north to south, and from east to west, without finding himself once beyond the pale of protection and safety.

Meanwhile, after a lapse of twenty

* "Harris's William III.," p. 293.

seven years, Chichester House once more saw a Parliament legitimately assembled within its walls. For its meeting there were various pressing occasions, whereof the principal was the necessity of obtaining a supply of money to meet the large undischarged obligations of the Irish Government for arrears of pay to civil and military officers. It was hoped that everything would have gone on quietly: but at the very outset, when the Commons came to consider two money bills, which had been certified from the Privy Council in England, in conformity with Poynings' law, a violent opposition was raised, on the ground of an alleged right of the Irish House of Commons, similar to that enjoyed by the English, to originate all bills involving supplies of money. In spite of the efforts of the Government, the House rejected one of the bills; and the favourite of William, whose great aim it was to strengthen the royal authority in Ireland, and render that country in all its departments dependent on England, was so incensed at what he designated as an act of arrogance and presumption, that he caused a protest against the vote in question to be entered on the journals of the House of Commons, and prorogued Parliament at once, though but four bills had been passed. He had hoped, it has been thought, to have thus gained time for the administration of the usual Government persuasives; but if he had, he was disappointed; and he was forced, after two adjournments, to a dissolution, which accordingly took place on the 5th of September, 1693.‡

The Commons indeed had not shown themselves by any means inclined to submit tamely to the imputations of the Viceroy. Ever since the first opposition of the Parliament of the Pale to the encroachments of the prerogative in 1576, when the Lord Deputy of the day assumed the power of levying assessments by royal authority, without reference to the will or sanction of Parliament,§ the Irish Commons had taken every opportunity of asserting the right of independent legislation, and looked with constantly increasing jea

lousy upon the interference of the English Parliament in Irish affairs. It is well known how boldly their rights were afterwards advocated by one of their own body, at this time a member of the House of Commons.

Meanwhile they had requested permission to send Commissioners to England, in order to lay before their Majesties, William and Mary, their reasons for rejecting the bills. To this request the Lord-Lieutenant did not even condescend to return a courteous answer. "They are at liberty," he scornfully replied, "to beg their Majesties' pardon for their seditious and riotous assemblies." To this unmeasured language he did not trust himself, nevertheless, until after he had obtained the opinion of the judges upon the right claimed by the Commons. This was, as might be expected, favourable to the Crown. As long as the judicial function was terminable at the King's pleasure, the law was naturally obsequious in proportion to the dependence of those who expounded it. There was no difficulty in obtaining a required opinion from men who might be removed by the same I will that had elevated them. But Parliament was more unfettered, and therefore less manageable. It had persisted in its opposition to what it pronounced an unconstitutional stretch of prerogative, and actually passed a vote hostile to the Viceroy; while, at the same time, complaints were exhibited against him in England by Sir Francis Brewster, Sir William Gore, Sir John Macgill, Lieutenant Stafford, Mr. Stone, and Mr. Kerne. These gentlemen were examined at the bar of the English House, which listened eagerly to the inquiry, as tending still further to damage a party that had recently rendered itself peculiarly unpopular, on account of a harsh and illegal system of army impressment it was charged with encouraging. Both houses presented an address to the King. The Lords pointed to the abuses in the disposal of the forfeited estates; to the lavish grant of protections to the Irish, working to the prejudice of the Protestant interest; to remissness in certain payments under the authority of parliament; to a violation of the ancient privileges and charter of

the city of Dublin; to illegal executions, and equally unwarrantable reprieves. The Commons complained more openly of the discouragement given in a variety of ways to Protestants, and contrasted the favour shown to Papists, especially in the dangerous form of recruiting the army with them. They aimed still more directly at the Lord-Lieutenant, in charging the Irish Government with selling the forfeited estates at undervalue; with embezzling both the stores left in the towns and garrisons by the late King James, and the moveables found upon the forfeited estates; and they crowned their attack by the grave charge of additions having been made to the Articles of Limerick, after the capitulation was signed, and the place surrendered.

This storm of accusation against Sydney was received with formal condescension by his Majesty, who promised, in kingly phrase, to attend to all remonstrances that should come from his faithful Lords or Commons; at the same time it may justly be laid to his credit, that he was able to discriminate between the ostensible and the real object of the attack upon Sydney, and did not visit upon his lieutenant those acts of his, calculated by their general tendency to carry out fully and honour. ably the Articles of Limerick, to which his own kingly word was pledged. It was not until the next reign that the Court entered with genuine earnestness upon the system of trampling out, by means of Protestant ascendancy, the last remains of the Romish party in Ireland.

But although articles of impeachment against the Lords Justices, Coningsby and Porter, had failed in the Irish House of Commons, still William could not altogether blind him. to the effect of remonstrances of this nature. His government was sensibly weakened in that country, so much so that he felt himself at last obliged to remove Sydney from his post. Accordingly, on the 3rd of July, 1693, that nobleman embarked for England, with the intention of not again returning to Ireland. Previous to this, Henry, Baron Capel, had been associated in a commission with Sir Cyril Wyche and William Duncombe, as Lord Justice; and these functionaries were

sworn into office within a month after Lord Sydney's departure.* As a testimonial of personal regard, the King created Sydney, the next year, Earl of Romney; and thenceforward-though he appears to have held the office of Lord-Lieutenant some time longer-he is dissociated from any active interference in Irish affairs. It is clear, on a review of his character and career, that he was unsuited for the delicate task he had undertaken the settlement of Ireland. He was a courtier and a man of pleasure, full of that specious tact which renders a man influential within the circle of those that have access to him, without the genius to spread that influence over the area of his command. By the most accomplished of historians he is considered as having wanted capacity;† and Swift speaks of him in his old age as frivolous and illiterate. Be this as it may, indolent and luxurious, he presented in manner and disposition, as well as in his history, a marked contrast to his more celebrated brother, Algernon; while he escaped, it must be admitted -unless we believe the unsubstantiated insinuations of his enemies-that deeper disgrace which it has been reserved for modern times to fasten upon the memory of the long-renowned martyr of republicanism.

We have seen that before Sydney's removal Lord Capel had been appointed of the number of the Lords Justices. He was younger brother of Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1692, author of the published letters which bear his name, and whose unmanageable probity was so distasteful to Charles and his brother James. It was not from any strong family likeness in this respect, as far as we can see, that he was chosen at this juncture by the English Government. It was by no means unusual to initiate a minister for the Government of Ireland by a preliminary probation in the capacity of Lord Justice. Whether it was originally designed that Capel should pass through this intermediate grade on his way to the higher dignity, does not appear; but his qualifications for office in the eyes of the English Ministry, might be summed up in this one that he was ready to waive

all inconvenient scruples, in order to form, concentrate, and control a party strong enough to command a majority in the Council and in the Houses of Parliament, devoted to what was called the English interest in Ireland-that is, the principle of extreme encouragement of the Protestants by legislative and all other means, and of equally emphatic discouragement of the Romish religion, interest, and population, throughout the kingdom. In justice to the King it ought to be added, that neither in the withdrawal of the one functionary, nor in the appointment of the other, did he follow his own unbiassed inclination. But, usually at a distance from the seat of Government, his object, as Burnet remarks,‡ too palpably was, so to balance factions as to neutralise any opposition powerful enough to embarrass his foreign policy.

Capel had no difficulty in finding a party as unscrupulous as himself. His game was theirs. He played for power, they for lands and houses. The great point with the latter was to strain and, if necessary, to distort the Articles of Limerick, so as to throw as much property as possible into the hands of the Crown by confiscation, for the purpose of being made the subject of fresh grants, in which they hoped to share. With the former, the paramount object was a replenishment of the exhausted Treasury. But both saw the necessity of standing together, and of opposing a united front to the party of Sydney on the one hand, and of parliamentary independence on the other.

The Articles of Limerick, as we have seen, formed a fruitful subject of contention. From the first, they were the favourite battle-ground; and this contest of conventional right survived for years the strife of hostile armies. Strange to say, the first encounter had taken place within the walls of a church. On the very next Sunday after the Lords Justices, Coningsby and Porter, had returned from De Ginckle's camp, Dopping, Bishop of Meath, hurried into the pulpit in the Cathedral of Christ's Church, eager to prove in their presence that peace ought not to be preserved with a people so utterly