to plant the greater part of the six escheated Counties with strangers, to deprive the great Irish Chiefs of their hereditary power over their Clans, to establish the dependency of all freehold property on the Crown alone, and to root out of the North of Ireland, the most powerful factions, which had kept Ulster in a state of war and anarchy, throughout a period of 600

years.

If he had persecuted the Religion of the people with blood-hounds, and intolerable fines, and digging the bodies of Catholics from their graves, and driving stakes through those bodies as marks of ignominy, he could never, never have effected all this.

91. The truth is, that James was the first of the English Kings, who could pretend in any degree, to the title of Legislator of Ireland.-I do not admire his character; his pedantry was odious; his embassy to the Synod of Dort, and his foolish controversy with Grotius and Arminius, about predestination, was unworthy of a great Monarch; but with regard to Ireland, if he had not committed the faults indicated in

Columbanus, No. II, and yielded in some instances, to the clamours of bigotry, he would undoubtedly have been, what Hume styles him, the first Legislator of Ireland; Sir J. Davis's character of him, however exaggerated, might then have been permitted, on the whole, to pass for historical truth; and Ireland would have escaped the calamities which have overwhelmed her ever since.*

But his enormous error consisted in emancipating the middle Irish from their Chiefs, and leaving the lowest orders in a worse condition than he found them! The former were made freeholders; the latter became impatient under a system which compelled them to labour for subsistence, and rendered them dependent in many respects, on the middle free

*I do not think it can be proved that Protestant England has at any time been so unjust to Ireland, as Catholic England has been. The conduct of the foreign-influenced faction, caused the enactment of a horrible Code of Penal Laws, after the revolution. But the confiscations of Irish property, before the Irish took any oath of allegiance, during the reigns of the Catholic Kings of England, have been enormous; and the Statutes of Kilkenny, of Henry VI, and of Edw. IV, are pretty specimens of Catholic English legislation!

holders, from whom they could not expect as much lenity as from their ancient Chiefs; from Clans and followers, they became nests of thieves, and knots of conspirators; and they eagerly looked out for any Religious pretext, any opportunity of restoring the ancient system, which enabled them to live, by rapine and pasturage, on the fat of the land.

The foreign-influenced intriguers availed themselves of this oversight, inculcating the doctrine of blind submission to Episcopal Censures, and recurring to Spiritual means, by which Sir Phelim O'Nial's army increased, in one fortnight, to 30,000 men !-The turbulent spirit of the rabble was occasionally fed from abroad, with the hope of an invasion; and when Father Mac Crodden, declared in his Sermon at the Glinn, in Maguire's Country, May 1613, that O'Nial was coming with an army of 18000 men, they kissed his garments, and made a collection for him of 2000 cows!*

* In consequence of his practices, Alexander Mac Donnald, Brian Cross O'Nial, &c. conspired against the State, and being detected, taken, and tried at the Assizes of Derry, were

92. There were at this time in Ireland, a great number of young, idle, active fellows, and second sons of the Ulster and Connacht Chieftains, who were unprovided with any livelihood, eager for confusion, and capable of any enterprise the most rash and daring, whenever an opportunity should occur. James knew this well; but instead of employing them, by a wise policy, in the cultivation and service of their Country, instead of directing their energies to objects of commerce, and national improvement, he allowed Spain to sweep them away by whole regiments, when he was in treaty for his son's match with the Infanta; and though Ebher Mac Mahon confessed to Sir G. Radcliff, in 1634, that he had been for several years concerting measures with foreign Courts for a rebellion in Ireland, yet rather than encourage Irish industry, by laws

hanged in 1616. Desid. Cur. Hib. t. 1, p. 395. Carte's Orm. v. 1, p. 21. Ryves's Regimen, p. 54.-O'Sullivan styles this a sham plot. But compare the Hibernica, part 1, p. 131-133, with Mr. Trumball's Letter from Brussels, ib. p. 133, and Sterne's Coeval MS. fol. No, 4, p. 612,

which might have rendered Ireland rich and powerful, he and his successor permitted O'Nial's Officers to reside and to recruit in Ireland, for Spain, down to the very day of the rebellion in 1641 !*

Those Catholic Members of the Irish Parliament, who well knew the difference between their Religion and foreign intrigue, complained bitterly of these proceedings. They saw the danger that was likely to ensue from

O'Nial, O'Donnel, Maguire, and their followers had splendid allowances from the Courts of Rome and Madrid"per singulos menses quingentis nummis aureis." See O'Sullivan, fol. 209.—Old O'Nial died at Rome, July 20, 1616, ib. fol. 266; O'Donnel also at Rome 1617; Maguier at Genoa, on his way from Rome to Madrid, ib. 209.-O'Nial's only son Hu: died without issue, in 1641, whilst he was preparing to invade Ireland. The command of the expedition then devolved upon Owen Roe.

I have seen original Letters from the young Earls, dated Brussels, March 19, 1627, to Urban VIII, which are preserved in the Passionei collection, at the Vallicellian Library, Rome. In these they entreat that none but an Ulsterman be appointed to the Primacy of Ireland, on the death of Hu: Cavellus, and they present to that See the Rev. Bonadventure Maguire, who was O'Nial's first Cousin by the Mother.-Hu: O'Nial's sepulchral inscription at Rome, refers his death to Sept. 21, 1641. Compare Carve, ann. 1641.