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cent spectacle than the calm, firm, united resolution with which Ireland stood in defense of her religion, and gave up all things rather than sacrifice what she conceived to be the cause of truth? Mr. Froude does not believe that it was the cause of truth. I do not blame him. Every man has a right to his religious opinions. But Ireland believed it was the cause of truth, and Ireland stood for it like one man.

I speak of all these things only historically. I do not believe in animosity. I am not a believer in bad blood. I do not believe with Mr. Froude that the question of Ireland's difficulties must ever remain without a solution. I do not give it up in despair; but this I do say, that he has no right—nor has any other man-to come before an audience of America― OF AMERICA! that has never persecuted in the cause of religion; of America, that respects the rights even of the meanest subject upon her imperial soil-and to ask the American people to sanction by their verdict the robbery and the persecution of which England was guilty.

THIRD LECTURE.

IRELAND UNDER CROMWELL.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN-I now approach, in answer

ing Mr. Froude, some of the most awful periods of our history, and I confess that I approach this terrible ground with hesitancy, and with an extreme regret that Mr. Froude should have opened up questions which oblige an Irishman to undergo the pain of heart and anguish of spirit which a revision of those periods of our history must occasion. The learned gentleman began his third lecture by reminding his audience that he had closed bis second lecture with a referenee to the rise, progress, and collapse of a great rebellion which took which took place in Ireland in 1641-that is to say, somewhat more than two hundred years ago. He made but a passing allusion to that great event in our history, and in that allusion -if he has been reported correctly-he said simply that the Irish rebelled in 1641; that was his first statement that it was a rebellion; secondly, that this rebellion

BEGAN IN MASSACRE AND ENDED IN RUIN.

Thirdly, that for nine years the Irish leaders had the destinies of their country in their hands; and, fourthly, that those nine years were years of anarchy and mutual slaughter. Nothing, therefore, can be imagined more melancholy than the picture drawn by this learned gentleman of those nine sad years, but

yet I will venture to say, and hope to be able to prove, that each of these four statements is without historical foundation. My first position is, that the movement of 1641 was not a rebellion; my second is, that it did not begin with massacre, although it ended in ruin; my third, that the Irish leaders had not the destinies of their country in their hands during those nine years; and my fourth, that whether they had or not, those years were not a period of anarchy and mutual slaughter. They were but the opening to a far more terrific period.

We must discuss these questions, my friends, calmly and historically. We must look at them like antiquarians prying into the past, rather than with the living, warm feelings of men whose blood boils at the remembrance of so much injustice and oppression. In order to understand these questions fully and fairly, it is necessary to go back to the historical events of the time. We find, then, that James the First had planted Ulster, which means that he had confiscated utterly and entirely six of the fairest counties in Ireland, an entire province, driving out its Catholic inhabitants to a man, and giving the whole country to Scotch and English settlers of the Protestant religion, and the condition was added that the new settlers should not have

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employed in their fields. This man James died in 1625, and was succeeded by his son, the unfortunate Charles I. England had been rendered almost an absolute monarchy by Henry VIII, as we know. His absolute power was still continued under the tyrannical Elizabeth, and by Charles' own father, James I. Charles came to the throne with the most exaggerated ideas of royal privilege and royal supremacy. During the days of his father a new spirit had grown up in Scotland and England. The form that Protestantism took in Scotland was the uncompromising and, I may say, cruel form of Calvinism in its most repellant aspect. The men who rose in Scotland in defense of their Presbyterian religion, rose not against Catholics, but against the Episcopalian Protestants of England. They defended what they called the Ark of the Covenant. They fought bravely, I acknowledge, for it, and they ended in es

tablishing it as the religion of Scotland. Now Charles I was an Episcopalian Protestant of the most sincere and devoted kind. The Parliament of England, in the very first years of Charles, admitted numbers, who were

STRONGLY TINGED WITH SCOTCH CALVINISM,

and they at once showed a refractory spirit toward their King. He demanded certain subsidies and they refused him. He asserted certain sovereign rights, and they denied them. While this was going on in England, from 1630 to 1641, what was the condition of affairs in Ireland? One fertile province of the land had been confiscated by James I. Charles I was in need

of money for his own purposes, and his Parliament refused to grant any, and the poor, oppressed and down-trodden Catholics of Ireland imagined, naturally enough, that the King, being in difficulties, would turn to them, and extend a little countenance and favor, if they proclaimed their loyalty and stood by hin. Accordingly, the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Falkland, desiring ncerely to aid his royal master, hinted to the Catholics, who 1 ad been enduring the most terrible penal laws, from the day of Elizabeth and James the First, that perhaps, if they should now petition the King, certain graces or concessions might be granted them. These concessions simply involved permission of riding over English land, and to worship God, according to the dictates of their own conciences. They sought for nothing more, and nothing more was promised them. When their pe. tition was laid before the King, his royal Majesty issued a proclamation, in which he declared that it was his intention, and that he had plighted his word, to grant to the Catholics and the people of Ireland certain concessions and indulgencies, which he named as graces. No sooner did his Majesty's intention become known in England

THAN THE PURITAN ELEMENT

in the English Parliament, fighting rebelliously against the King, instantly rose and protested that there should be no relaxation of the penal laws against the Catholics of Ireland. And, Charles, to his eternal disgrace, broke his word to the

Irish Catholics, after they had sent £120,000 in acknowledgement of his promised concessions. More than this. It was suspected that Lord Falkland was too just a man to be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and after a short lapse of time Lord Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was sent to Ireland, as Lord Lieutenant. On arrival, Wentworth summoned a Parlia ment, and they met in the year 1684. He told them that the King was in difficulties, how the Parliament in England had rebelled against him, and how he looked to the Irish Catholics as loyal. Perhaps he told them that, among Catholics, loyalty is not a mere sentiment, but an unshaken principle, resting on conscience and religion. And then he assured them that Charles, the King of England, still intended to keep his word, and to grant them their concessions. Next came the usual demand, money, and the Irish Parliament granted six subsidies of £50,000 each. Strafford wrote to the King, congratulating his Majesty that he had got so much money out of the Irish, for he said: "You and I remember that your Majesty expected only £30,000, and they have granted £50,000." More than this, the Irish Parliament voted the King 8,000 infantry and 1,000 horse to fight his rebellious Scottish subjects and enemies. The Parliament met the following year, in 1634, and what do you think of King Charles' fulfillment of his royal

PROMISES TO THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND?

After Strafford got the money, there was not a word about the promises of his master the King. He took upon himself, and fixed on his memory, the indelible shame and disgrace of breaking the word he had plighted, and disappointing the Catholics of Ireland. In 1635, the real character of this man came out, and what was the measure of his treachery? He instituted a commission for the express purpose of confiscating. in addition to Ulster, the whole province of Connaught, so as not to leave an Irishman or a Catholic one square inch of ground in that whole land. He called it a Commission of Defective Titles. The members of the commission were to inquire into the title of property, and to find a flaw in it, if they could, in order that the land might be confiscated to the crown of En

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