De Rosen" had however, before his master's (the king's) orders could reach him, assembled above four thousand men, women and children, which he caused to be driven to the walls; but so little effect had this proceeding towards persuading the town to surrender, that they fired upon them from the walls ("happily none were killed"), which Monsieur De Rosen perceiving, drew them off, and sent them to their homes again."* expedient above-mentioned.”—Macphers. Hist. Gr. Brit. vol. i. f. 566, and Orig. Pap. passim. "It appears from another letter of the same date (camp before Londonderry, 5th July, 1689) that he (De Rosen) had by that time received from the king an answer to his letter of June 30th, and his majesty's order, forbidding him to put his project in execution. He presumes to blame James for his clemency, and attempts to justify his own conduct. "SIRE, "I have received the letter which your majesty did me the honor to write to me the 3d instant, by which I see that your majesty is always full of benevolence towards the rebels of this kingdom: their own conviction of this encourages them in insolence, to which they are carried every day, and in the hopes that your majesty will have compassion upon them in the distresses to which they may be reduced; yet the troops are ruined, and the rebels will receive relief, which will oblige your majesty to abandon every thing. I imagined that I might have induced them to surrender, by threatening them as I have done, but that has produced no effect. It is true, I have not put my project in execution, and that per haps is the reason why we are not yet further advanced; for I have presented before their gates but a small number of their accomplices, to try if that would make any impressions on them; but they had the cruelty to fire upon them, and to refuse them every kind of assistance, for which reason I sent them back to their habitations, after having made them comprehend the difference between your majesty's clemency and the cruel treatment of their own party. "You see, Sire, the condition your troops are in. I leave your majesty to judge, if an honest man, who has a high sense of honor, can continue to command them without great anxiety, when your enemies are particularly attentive to furnish your rebellious subjects with excellent arms. I doubt not but we shall see them march against us soon, with protections in their pockets, and arms in their hands, which happened frequently already, and happens every day.” DE ROSEN. "The marshal De Rosen appears to have been a diligent and active officer: but those who served under him were unacquainted with dis cipline, and either James himself was inattentive to the service, or his After all, the garrison of Londonderry was, it seems, resolved not to be behind-hand in cruelty with De Rosen himself. For they erected gibbets, and had determined to hang some Irish gentlemen, who were prisoners in the town,* had not De Rosen's order been so soon countermanded. And some add, that they even threatened to eat them after they were hanged;" which, from the extreme want of food, which they then labored under, seems not to be very im probable, CHAP. XIII. The protestants of Ireland were not deprived of their churches by king James, as Dr. King sets forth. KING James, when in Ireland, was not actuated by that intemperatet zeal for the re-establishment of the catholic religion, which he had before, on some occasions discovered in England; probably because he had experienced the unhappy $ -Har. King William, f. 105. Note. orders were never properly executed."-Macpherson's Orig. Pap. vol. i, p. 210. Among these were "lord viscount Netterville, sir Garret Aylmer, major Rowcommen, and a great many others of lesser note, taken at the first engagement; and in the last, captain Butler, son to the lord Mountgarret, one of the great M'Donalds, a captain, and captain M'Donogh, and many others too long to name."-Walker's Lett. Macphers. vol. iii, p. 202. Note. The true cause and motive of king James's endeavors to re-establish the Roman catholic religion in England, seems not so much to have any bigotted attachment to that religion (as is commonly thought) as,“ his sufficiently knowing, that he could never be in entire safety, till the catholic religion was established in England, in such a manner as not to be ruined or destroyed." These were his own words in a private conference with Barillon, the French ambassador. And whoever considers his recent and alarming remembrance of his father's murder, and of his brother's incessant troubles during his whole reign, which were both caused principally by those very men who were the greatest enemies of that religion, and who imprudently called themselves the only true protestants; will abate somewhat of their wonder at these his endeavors to give some establishment to his Roman catholic subjects.—See Sir John Dalrymp. Mem. p.iii. p. 37, effects of it in the latter kingdom. Even when he sent the earl of Clarendon lord lieutenaat of Ireland, one of his instructions to him was, " to consult the archbishop of Canter. bury in all the religious affairs of that kingdom." And Dr. King confesses, "that when he was there in person, he turned out the popish mayor of Wexford, for not restoring a church of which the protestants of that city had been dispossessed; and that he expressed himself with more passion on that oc. casion than was usual to him." This was a fact so notoriously true, that the Doctor was ashamed to deny or conceal it; but he was not ashamed to affirm and publish what was as notoriously untrue, viz.3" that in the diocese of Dublin alone, twenty-six churches and chapels were by him taken from the protestants; and that his majesty could not, or rather would not, prevent the demolishing, defacing, or seizing of nine churches out of ten." King James had published a proclamation, December 13th, 1689, against meddling with any of the protestant churches in Ireland, as a violation of the act of liberty of conscience.* But "his promises to protect the protestants of that kingdom," says Dr. King, were mere pretences; the popish priests having taken possession of most of the churches there, by his private permission."+ Mr. Lesley treats this whole accusation, as a notorious un 1 Clarend. State Lett. vol. i. p. 50. 3 State of the Protest. &c. p. 177. 2 Ubi supra. 4 Ib. p. 174. * That king James entertained no malicious designs against protestants, merely as such, appears from the following passage. "About the year 1687, the French protestants came in great numbers into England, to shelter themselves from the persecution that raged in their own country. They were received with great tenderness by the people, and with great kindness by the king, who granted them briefs for their relief, and gave them considerable sums out of his privy purse, which was looked upon as an artifice by some, but highly commended by more impartial persons."Continuation of Baker's Chron. f. 741. † King James was hardly ever noted for duplicity of conduct; this cannot be said of his competitor for the crown. The prince of Orange in a letter to the emperor, acquainting him with his intended expedition into England, says, " I assure your imperial majesty, by this letter, that whatever reports may have been spread, and notwithstanding those which may be spread for the future, I have not the least intention to do any burt to his Britannic majesty, or to those who have a right to pretend to the suc truth and calumny; he calls upon Dr. King to shew even one protestant church in Ireland, that was taken away, either by king James's order or connivance. He affirms that his majesty was so very careful of the protestants, in that point, that even at Dublin, where he kept his court, neither the cathedral, nor any parish church in the whole city was taken from the protestants; he owns that he took Christ Church for his own use, because it was always reputed the king's chapel. But Dr. King himself," adds he, " and others then preached passive obedience in their own pulpits in Dublin; and that to such a degree, as to give offence to some of their protestant hearers, who thought they stretched even to flattery."† These positive assertions, publicly and grievously impeaching Dr. King's veracity, having never since been contradicted, or even questioned by him or his friends, afford the strongest presumption, that they were, at that time, generally known and acknowledged to be undeniably true. 5 Answer to King. cession of his kingdoms, and still less to make an attempt upon the crown." And a little after; "I ought to intreat your imperial majesty to be assured, that, I will employ all my credit to provide, that the Roman catholics of that country may enjoy liberty of conscience, and be put out of fear of being persecuted on account of their religion." Sir John Dalrymp, Mem. vol. iii. p. 170. See Append.-Not only the emperor, but the pope himself, was cajoled by these deceitful assurances. And yet Dr. King, at the same time, confesses, "that the protestants, in their application to government for the recovery of some churches, had the luck to gain several of the popish nobility to favor their suits.”— Ubi supra, p. 176. King James, says Macpherson, was peculiarly unfortunate; he was charged by the protestants of violence in favor of the papists; he was accused by the papists of too much lenity to the protestants."-Hist. of Gr Brit. vol. i. p. 564. * Yet some adverse writers have taken the liberty to charge K. James with violating his coronation oath. Was it for protecting the protestants, or allowing the catholics the free exercise of their religion, they forged this calumny? For king James's Coronation Out, see the Appendix, ad finem. "Dr. King then used to say, that persecution never hurted religion, but that rebellion destroyed it; and that it would be a glorious sight to see a cartful of clergymen going to the stake for asserting the principles of religion, with regard to passive obedience."—Lesley, Ausw. Pref. CHAP. XIV. King William's treatment of the episcopal clergy in Scotland, compared with king James's behavior towards the protestant clergy in Ireland. MR. LESLEY has drawn a parallel between king William's behavior to the episcopal clergy of Scotland, and king James's to those of the established church of Ireland, at the same time, viz. in the year 1689; by which it appears, that the former did actually effect in Scotland, what the latter was only suspected to have designed in Ireland, "When," says he, "the states of Scotland were convened by king William's circular letter of March 1689, the oaths requir ed by the law to be taken by all members of parliament, or any judicature, before they can sit and vote there, being laid aside, the antimonarchical and fanatical party were admitted into the house; and thereby, becoming the greater number (when the major part of Scotland, and much the greater part of the nobility and gentry, were episcopal) did afterwards frame an act of grace, pardoning and acquitting all those that had been concerned in the open and public rebellions of Pentland-hills and Bothwell-bridge; and thus these furies incarnate, the assassinates of the lord archbishop of St. Andrew's,* as many of them Preface to his answer to King. "On the 3d of May, 1670, Dr. Sharp, archbishop of St. Andrew's, on his way to that city, was attacked by a party of these furious zealots, The most of his servants were absent; his daughter only accompanied him in his coach. Having fired on him in vain with their carbines, they dis patched him with their swords. His murder was accompanied with circumstances of the utmost barbarity: when he stretched forth his hand for mercy to one of the assassins whom he seemed to know, the inhuman villain almost cut it off with a stroke of his sword. His daughter was wounded in several places, endeavoring to cover her aged father from the murderers; they even mangled the dead body; they at length lett the torn carcase with every mar. of indignity on the high way. Men were shocked at an enthusiasm that gave the name of a religious action to the worst of crimes. Au universal joy followed the murder of Sharp among the adherents of the covenant, the pulpits thundered forth the applause of the assassins, and even some, who approved not of the manner of the deed, expressed their gladness at the removal of the arch-energy of their forms.' Macpherson's Hist. of Gt. Erit, vol. i. p. 272. |