of February, 1641:-"It is resolved, that it is fit that his lordship do endeavour with his majesty's said forces to wound, kill and destroy, by all the ways and means he may, all the said rebels, (meaning the CATHOLICS) and their adherents and relievers, and burn, spoil, waste, consume, destroy and demolish, all the places towns, and houses, where the said rebels are, or have been relieved and harboured, and all the corne and hay there, and KILL and DESTROY ALL THE MEN there inhabiting, ABLE TO BEAR arms."

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On the 3d of March following, as we find from the same Collection, the said lords-justices issued further orders to the earl of Ormonde, directing him to march with 3000 foot and 500 horse" to such places | between the Boyne and the sea as his lordship should think fit; and burn and destroy the rebels of the pale, WITHOUT EXCEPTION OF ANY. That those, who should offer to come in, should in no other manner be taken in than as PRISONERS taken by the power and strength of his majesty's army. That, if any of them came to the army, it should be the SOLDIERS that seized on them, before they had access to his lordship; and that they should be denied access to his person. That no difference should be made between the noblemen that were rebels and other rebels."-How these orders were executed may be gathered from Dr. Nalson, a Protestant divine, who, in his Historical Collection, assures us, that "the severities of the provost-marshals, and the barbarism of the SOLDIERS to the Irish, were such, that he heard a relation of his own, who was a captain in that service, relate that no manner of compassion or discrimination was shewed either to age or sex, but that the little children were promiscuously suf-ferers with the guilty; and that, if any, who had some grains of compassion, reprehended the soldiers for this unchristian inhumanity, they would scornfully reply, 'Why nits will be lice!' and so would dispatch them."

Goaded by these and numberless other acts of perfidiousness and barbarity, can any one think it surprising that some of the Irish people were in the end roused to commit reprisals on their inhuman persecutors? Is it not rather a matter of surprise that they bore the nefarious practices of their despotic rulers with such patience and forbearance ? Would Protestants have been so quiet under Catholic governors? Did the German Lutherans, or the French Calvinists, display such patient suffering under Charles V. and the Bourbons, as the Irish Catholics under Puritan intolerance? Have we not seen the Protestants repeatedly in arms against Mary, and every artifice used to stir up sedition, while she was sedulously devising, and earnestly desirous that all her subjects should be governed by law and justice, and secured in their property and comforts? Had, in fact, the Puritans in Scotland and England a twentieth part of the grievances to complain of against Charles and his ministers, which the Irish Catholics had against them? See what Dr. Warner, who was by no means desirous of favouring the Irish, says of the rebellion:- "The arbitrary power exercised by these lords-justices; their illegal exertion of it by bringing people to the rack to draw confessions from them; their sending out so many parties from Dublin and the other garrisons to destroy the rebels, in which expeditions care was seldom taken to discriminate, and men, women, and children, were promiscuously slain; but, above all, the martial-law,

́executed by sir Charles Coote, and the burning of the pale for seventeen miles in length, and twenty-five in breadth, by the earl of Ormonde. These measures not only exasperated the rebels, and induced them to commit the like or greater cruelties, but they terrified the nobility and gentry out of all thoughts of submission, and convinced them that there was no room to hope for pardon; nor no means of safety left them but in the sword." Thus the Irish people found themselves compelled to arm; and yet this rising is called by the modern editors and English histo rians an unnatural and odious insurrection, while the rebellion of the English and Scotch covenanters, fomented by imaginary discontent and religious delusion, is still looked upon as a meritorious struggle for civil and religious freedom! ! !

We have thus established, on the clearest evidence, the fact, that this Irish massacre, as it is called, was originated by Protestants, whose eruelties and extortions urged the Catholics to deeds of retaliation. It is now time to return to the modern editors. They proceed in a strain of unblushing impudence, and a total disregard of truth, to detail a variety of instances of imputed murders and acts of barbarity, through which it is impossible to follow them, as they take care to suppress both dates and authorities to prevent us from probing their veracity. It is true, they occasionally give the name of a place to throw dust in the eyes of their readers. We will here give the following for examples :"At the town of Lissenskeath they hanged above 100 Scottish Protestants, shewing them no more mercy than they did the English...

"Upwards of 1000 men, women, and children, were driven, in different companies, to Portendown bridge, which was broken in the middle, and there compelled to throw themselves into the water; and such as attempted to reach the shore were knocked on the head.

"In the same part of the country, at least 4000 persons were drowned in different places. The inhuman Papists, after first stripping them, drove them like beasts to the spot fixed for their destruction; and if any, through fatigue, or natural infirmities, were slack in their pace, they pricked them with their swords and pikes; and to strike a farther terror on the multitude, they murdered some by the way. Many of these poor creatures, when thrown into the water, endeavoured to save themselves by swimming to the shore; but their merciless persecutors prevented their endeavours taking effect, by shooting them in the water.

"In one place 140 English, after being driven for many miles stark naked, and in the most severe weather, were all murdered on the same spot, some being hanged, others burnt, some shot, and many of them buried alive; and so cruel were their tormentors, that they would not suffer them to pray before they robbed them of their miserable existence.....

"In Kilkenny all the Protestants, without exception, were put to 'death; and some of them in so cruel a manner, as, perhaps, was never before thought of. They beat an Englishwoman with such savage barbarity, that she had scarce a whole bone left; after which they threw her into a ditch; but not satisfied with this, they took her child, a girl about six years of age, and after ripping up its belly, threw it to its mother, there to languish till it perished. They forced one to go to mass, after which they ripped open his body, and in that manner left him. They sawed another asunder, cut the throat of his wife, and after having dashed out the brains of their child, an infant, threw it to the swine, who greedily devoured it.

"After committing these and many other horrid cruelties, they took the heads of seven Protestants, and among them that of a pious minister, all which they fixed at the market cross. They put a gag into the minister's mouth, then slit his cheeks to his ears, and laying a leaf of a Bible before it, bid him preach, for his mouth was wide enough. They did several other things by way of derision, and expressed the greatest satisfaction at having thus murdered and exposed the unhappy Protestants. It is impossible to conceive the pleasure these monsters took

in exercising their cruelty; and to increase the misery of those who fell into their hands, while they were butchering them, they would cry, "Your soul to the devil!"..

"In Munster they put to death several ministers in the most shocking manner. One, in particular, they stripped stark naked, and driving him before them, pricked him with swords and pikes till he fell down, and expired.”....

These examples we think sufficient to shew the want of truth in the relations of these modern pretenders to the "knowledge of the genume principles of Christianity," which abhor lying as an emanation from the evil spirit; but to put the question beyond dispute, we shall cite authorities that will clearly prove the accounts to be totally void of foundation. Were credit to be given to the wholesale massacres of the modern editors, we must believe that the Catholics were the minority of the population, instead of being the vast majority of it. We admit the tales are well detailed to excite the prejudices of the ignorant, but the time is nearly gone by, when such unsubstantiated stories could obtain credence, and by giving a few unimpeachable facts of an opposite tendency we hope to accelerate the dispersion of those clouds of falsehood which have too long shaded the page of English history. It has been sensibly observed, by a very acute writer, that there have been no bounds to the exaggerations of our historians as to the number of Protestants said to have been massacred by the Irish in this rebellion. Sir John Temple says, that 150,000 Protestants were massacred in cold blood in the first two months of it. Sir William Petty coolly calculates 30,000 British killed, out of war, in the first year. Lord Clarendon faments, that in the first two or three days of it, 40, or 50,000 of them were destroyed. Rapin and Echard both concur in stating the number of Protestants actually murdered at 45 or 50,000, and the Continuator of Baker's Chronicle reckons them at 200,000. The discrepancy of this testimony is sufficient to shake its credit; for is it to be supposed that men possess→ ing a sincere regard for truth could differ so widely on so important an event? However, we shall proceed with our evidence, and then leave the reader to decide upon the respective merits due to both. The insurrection and massacre is stated to have taken place on the 23rd of October, 1641; now lord Clarendon says, in his History of the Affairs of Ireland, p. 329," About the beginning of November, 1641, the English and Scotch forces in Carrickfergus, murthered, in one night, ALL the inhabitants of the island Gee (commonly called Mac Gee), to the number of above 3,000 men, women, and children, ALL INNOCENT PERSONS, in a time when none of the Catholics of that country were in arms or rebellion: Note, that this was the FIRST massacre committed in Ireland of either side." The same historian records his testimony of the Irish suffering without retaliation in Munster." In Decy's county, the neighbouring English garrisons of the county of Cork, after burning and pillaging all that county, murthered above 300 persons, men, women, and children, before any rebellion began in Munster, and led 100 labourers prisoners to Caperquine, where being tried, by couples were cast into the river and made sport to see them drowned. Observe, that this county is not charged with any murthers to be committed on Protestants." (Ibid. p. 369.)

To this testimony we shall add the following extract from Carte's Life of the Duke of Ormond.:- "Sir W. Petty computes the British (includ

ing therein both English and Scotch) to be, before the rebellion, in proportion to the Irish (in Ireland) as two to eleven; at which rate, there were about two hundred and twenty thousand in the whole kingdom. Now it is certain that the great body of the English was settled in Munster and Leinster, where very few murders were committed; and that in Ulster, which was the dismal scene of the massacre, there were above one hundred thousand Scots, who, before the general plantation of it, had settled in great numbers in the county of Down and Antrim, and new shoals of them had come over upon the plantation of six escheated counties, and they were so very powerful therein, that the Irish, either out of fear of their numbers, or from some other political reason, spared those of that nation (making proclamation, on pain of death, that no Scotchman should be molested in body, goods, or lands, &c.) It cannot, therefore be presumed, that there were, at most, above twentythousand English souls of all ages and sexes in Ulster at this time; and of these, as appears by the lords-justices' letter, March 4th, 1641-2, there were several thousands got safe to Dublin, &c. besides six thousand women and children, whom captain Mervyn saved in Fermanagh; and others that got safe to Derry, Colerain, Carrickfergus, &c."

This latter evidence is directly at variance with the statements of the modern editors, and by far more entitled to credit. The accounts then of the hanging of 100 Scottish Protestants at Lissenskeath, the drowning of 1000 of both sexes and all ages at Portendown, the destruction of 4000 in different nameless places, the putting all the Protestants to death, without exception, at Kilkenny, and the murder of several ministers in Munster, must now be given to the winds, since sir W. Petty states that but few, very few murders were committed in the two provinces of Munster and Leinsfer, and the Scotch were exempted from death by proclamation!!! Oh! Truth! how are thy beauties disfigured, thy divine attributes abused! Instead of a general massacre of all the Protestants, not one hundredth part of the number stated to have been slain in cold-blood met with an untimely fate, and those who did suffer must lay their deaths at the door of Protestast persecutors, who, by their merciless and unhuman conduct towards the unhappy natives of the country, drove them to a state of madness and desperation, after having borne the persecutions of these monsters in cruelty with unexampled forbearance and patience.

So far from the Irish Catholics conspiring the destruction of the Protestants, the plan was laid by the latter to exterminate all the Catholics of that unhappy country. This statement may appear incredible; it is nevertheless as true as it is horrible. Clarendon, Carte, Warner, Leland, and a host of other writers, concur in proving that the predominant Protestant party in England and Ireland meditated, for a long time, the execrable and diabolical project of an utter destruction of the Catholics and colonising the country with Protestant settlers. The following testimony, will shew the infernal spirit which actuated the Protestant party in those days.

Leland writes, "The favourite object of the Irish governors, and the English parliament, was the utter EXTERMINATION of all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland! Their estates were already marked out

and allotted to their conquerors; so that they and their posterity were consigned to inevitable ruin." (iii. 192.)

Warner says, "It is evident from their (the lords justices) last letter to the lieutenant, that they hoped for an EXTIRPATION not of the mere Irish only, but of all the English families that were Roman Catholics.(176.) "Clarendon states, "The parliament party, who had heaped so many reproaches and calumnies upon the king, for his clemency to the Irish, who had grounded their own authority and strength upon such foundations as were inconsistent with any toleration of the Roman Catholic religion, and even with any humanity to the Irish nation, and more espe cially to those of the old native extraction, the whole race whereof they had upon the matter sworn to EXTIRPATE, &c. &c."—(i. 115.)

Carte says," If it be more needful to dispose of places out of hand, and that it may stand with his majesty's pleasure to fill some of them with Irish that are Protestants, and that have not been for the EXTIR PATION of the Papist natives, it will much satisfy both, and cannot justly be excepted against."—(iii. 226.).

"Mr. Brent landed lately here, and hath brought with him such letters as have somewhat changed the face of this government from what it› was, when the parliament pamphlets were received as oracles, their commands obeyed as laws, and EXTIRPATION preached for Gospel." (Idem. 170)

Though extirpation both of nation and religion be not named, yet I conceive it is contrived almost in every proposition and the consideration thereof confirms me in a full belief of the malicious practices of the Cootes and Ormsbyes, in the county of Roscommon."÷(Idem. 811) ar "The term of EXTIRPATION is worn out here, and the intention not acknowledged to me by the prime authors therein, with whom I have been plain after my blunt way." (Idem. 155.) O

“The reason of their (the justices) advice is founded upon their dar hing scheme of an EXTIRPATION of the old English propoietors, and á general plantation of the whole kingdom with a new colony; for this is the meaning of what they allege, to shew it to be unsafe for his majesty, and destructive to the kingdom, to grant the petitioners' request; as being altogether inconsistent with the means of raising a considerable res venue for his crown, of settling religion and civility in the kingdom; and of establishing a firm and lasting peace, to the honour of his majesty, the safety of his royal posterity, and the comfort of all his faithful subject." (Idem. i. 391.).

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"These difficulties and considerations were of little weight with the lords justices, who, having got a thin house of commons to their mind, of persons devoted to their interests and measures, resolved to improve the opportunity offered, and to get such acts passed, as might distress: the king, exasperate the bulk of the nation, spread the rebellion, and so promote their darling scheme of EXTINGUISHING the old proprietors and making a new plantation of the kingdom."(Idem. 330.)

"Such considerations as these were not agreeable to the views of the lords-justices, who had set their hearts on the EXTIRPATION, not only of the mere Irish, but likewise of all the old English families that were Roman Catholics, and the making of a new plantation all over the