Irish confederates. At this very time, Charles himself was engaged with the parliament in the treaty of Newport, by which he agreed that an act should pass, rescinding all cessations and treaties with the Irish, and investing the houses with a full power of prosecuting the war in Ireland. Yet, he writes to Ormond directing him to take no notice of these public commands of his, but only to obey the queen and his own private instructions. "Be not startled," said he, "at my great concessions concerning Ireland, for they will come to nothing." Charles, false and treacherous to the last, only a few days after he had communicated these pressing instructions to Ormond, declared to the parliamentary commissioners, who remonstrated against Ormond's renewed treaty with the Irish," Since the first votes passed for the treaty, (between the king and parliament,) in August, I have not transacted any affairs concerning Ireland, but with you, the commissioners, in relation to the treaty itself!" But the period of this monarch's falsehoods and prevarications was now fast drawing to a close. Before Ormond's treaty with the confederates could be finally concluded, Charles had been tried by his parliament, and executed on the scaffold.

And thus perished a king whose entire reign was one long crime against the liberties of the people. He began his sway in Ireland, as in England, by a system of public plunder and extortion. Under the name of "The Graces" he sold justice to the Irish Catholics, pocketed the money, and then meanly cheated the buyers out of their purchase. Like his father, James, he confiscated Irish lands by wholesale, without the shadow of a pretence. But, as he found his dangers in England to increase, he ceased his open plunder in Ireland, and betook himself to secret fraud. He now looked to the Irish Catholics as a means of trampling down his English subjects, but still he refused them justice. He openly denounced the Irish as "rebels," demanded to be led against them with an army, and yet secretly plotted with them for aid. He made promises only to break them. He offered terms only to gain time. He became generally distrusted, as it was found that he was alike ready to destroy the most devoted of his friends, aud the bitterest of his foes. He sacrificed Strafford, whose life had been spent in his service; he sacrificed the bishops, who had stood by him in all his troubles; and he sacrificed the Earl of Glamorgan, his own messenger to Ireland, commissioned under his own hand, and abandoned him to his fate. The public professions made by Charles during his life, consti

"ORMONDE-I hope before this, mine, of the tenth of this month, will have come to your hands. I sent it by the way of France. This is not only to confirm the contents of that, but also to approve of certain commands to you; likewise, to command you to prosecute certain instructions, until I shall, under my own hand, give you other commands. And though you will hear that this treaty is near, or at least most likely to be concluded, yet believe it not, but pursue the way that you are in with all possible vigour. Deliver also that my command to all your friends, but not in a public way; because, otherwise, it may be inconvenient to me and particularly to Inchiquin. So being confident of your punctual observance of these my directions, I rest Your most real, faithful, constant friend, "Newport, Saturday, 28th Oct., 1648."

CHARLES R.

tute a body of evidence of the most damning character. They prove him to have been a dissembler, a hypocrite, and a betrayer. Though canonized by our established church, yet the events of his reign prove that he just knew enough of religion to be a bigot, and of state craft to be a despot. He was faithless towards his friends, and deceitful towards his enemies,-obstinate yet fickle; proud yet mean; frank and conciliating in manners, yet false, hollow, and deceitful. His entire reign was a plot against the public liberties; and he ended by gradually sinking into the pit which he had dug for others. Charles played a desperate game, and he lost it; and the result now stands written in characters of blood on the page of history, a wholesome lesson to tyrants for all time to come.

It is not a little remarkable, that the people of Ireland, who had been so repeatedly cheated, plundered, and insulted, by Charles and his agents, in the course of his reign, should have stood by him and fought for him to the last. The Irish catholics were found ready to sacrifice themselves for him, who would never do any thing for them, save to fleece them. What their recompense was, will be found from succeeding chapters.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Commonwealth-Their measures for Ireland-Oliver Cromwell appointed Lord Lieutenant-The Levellers-Cromwell sets out from London-Position of affairs in Ireland-Ormond's position and difficulties-Defeat of Rathmines-Cromwell reaches Dublin-The siege and massacre of Drogheda-Cromwell's accountReligion and war-Cromwell's excuse for his cruelty-His triumphal march through the country to Wexford-Ross taken-Gallant defence of DuncannonCromwell crosses the Barrow-Position of Owen Roe O'Neill-Ormond negociates with him-A treaty formed-Reinforces Ormond's army-Death of O'Neill-His character-Ormond prepares to attack Cromwell-Raises the siege of Waterford -Situation of Cromwell's army-Defection of Lord Broghill-Revolt of the southern towns to the Parliament-Cromwell goes into winter quarters.

THE Commonwealth had scarcely been established, and the affairs of England reduced to something like order, when the Council of State directed its attention to the distressed and distracted state of Ireland, with the view of again reducing it under subjection to the English Parliament. The Irish armies now held possession of nearly the entire country, and overran it to the very gates of Dublin. Charles II. had been proclaimed by Ormond, and it was said that that prince himself was immediately about to start from Paris for Dublin, to take the command of the Irish forces. The Parliament now resolved on the reduction of Ireland, and motions were made in the house for a powerful army to be sent into the country, for the chastisement of the "Popish rebels," and the relief of the Protestant party.

The first practical step which the council adopted was to confer

the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland upon Oliver Cromwell. This ironnerved man had already eminently distinguished himself in the course of the civil war, on the side of the Parliamentarians; and it was to his activity, courage, and energy, that the disastrous overthrow of the royalists at Marston Moor and Naseby was chiefly to be attributed. Such was the miserable state of affairs in Ireland, that the Council had no hopes of retrieving them, save by the aid of their victorious general. Cromwell himself seems already to have begun to entertain those ambitious views which ended in his assumption of the supreme power; and he undertook the management of the Irish war, believing it might add to his future power and consequence. It is not improbable, also, that the Parliament wished to get rid of the more violent and ungovernable part of the army, known by the name of the "agitators" and "levellers"-men whose principles and opinions were supposed to correspond to these opprobrious designations. The Levellers imagined themselves to be delegated by God himself to purge the land from its manifold iniquities, and to establish "the dominion of the Lord and his saints upon the earth." They were for the most part gloomy enthusiasts and bigotted fanatics, puffed up with spiritual pride, and holding in supreme contempt the men and the ways of "the world."

It would be a gross mistake, however, to suppose that the Puritans of the Commonwealth were nothing more than this. "The men who roused the people to resistance," says an eloquent writer*" who directed their measures through a long series of eventful years, who formed, out of the most unpromising materials, the finest army that Europe had ever seen-who trampled down king, church, and aristocracy-who, in the short intervals of domestic sedition and rebellion, made the name of England terrible to every nation on the face of the earth-were no vulgar fanatics." With all their whining and groaning, their uncouth names and visages, their close-cropped hair and unshapely garments, these men brought to civil and military affairs a cool judgment, a resolute purpose, and a terrible and destructive bravery.

Many of the more hot-headed and fanatical of the men intended for the subjugation of Ireland, when they had assembled at Bristol and discerned the object for which they were to be sent out of England, began to murmur bitterly, and at last unanimously refused to embark. Their preachers, however, went among them, and so worked upon their spiritual pride, by pointing out to them the great mission which they had to accomplish " for the Lord," in the overthrow and extirpation of the Irish Papists, whom they were to deal with, as the Canaanites were dealt with by the children of Israel-that what they had formerly regarded with extreme reluctance and even absolute aversion, they now embraced with the most ardent zeal and enthusiasm.

MACAULAY, in the Edinburgh Review: Art, Milton.

Cromwell himself, according to the fashion of the times, did not enter upon his new service, until he had made a great show of religious deliberation. When the appointment was offered him, he hesitated, and then requested that two officers from each corps might meet him at Whitehall, and "seek the Lord in prayer." He only condescended to assume the office of lord-lieutenant, when he had learned it was the will of heaven that he should do so!*. Before he set out also, there was a large assembly of his friends at Whitehall, when three ministers invoked a blessing on his banners, as going forth to fight the battle of the Lord against the Papists of Ireland. After they had finished, three officers, Goff, Harrison, and Cromwell himself, proceeded to expound the scriptures, which they did, it is said, "excellently well, and pertinently to the occasion." When this ceremony had been concluded, the lord lieutenant set out on his journey. "He went forth," says a writer of the day, "in that state and equipage as the like hath hardly been seen, himself in a coach with six gallant Flanders mares of whitish grey, divers coaches accompanying him, and very many great officers of the army; his life-guard consisting of eighty gallant men, the meanest whereof a commander or esquire in stately habit, with trumpets sounding almost to the shaking of Charing Cross, had it been now standing; of his life-guard many are colonels; and, believe it, it's such a guard as is hardly to be paralleled in the world."

The army, at the head of which Cromwell set out virtually to reconquer Ireland, consisted of 8,000 foot and 4,000 horse, chiefly consisting of the veterans whom he had himself taught to conquer every enemy. He was also provided with a plentiful supply of provisions and ammunition, and a military chest containing £100,000 in money. Cromwell was himself allowed £3,000 in the name of outfit; £10 a-day as general while he remained in England, and £2,000 per quarter, besides his pay in his new office. Ireton accompanied him as second in command.

We now return to the position of affairs in Ireland, where Ormond had hitherto been pursuing a successful career. More than threefourths of the island now acknowledged his sway; and during the past year he had succeeded in reducing Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry, Carlingford, and Trim. Only Dublin, the capital, and Derry in the north, now held out against him; and towards the former city he now resolved to lead the combined forces of the Catholics and Royalists, hoping to wipe out the disgrace he had incurred through his former surrender of it, by reducing it once more under the king's sway, Yet the position of Ormond, though he had been thus far successful, was not without great difficulties. He had to reconcile parties and factions who for eight years had been waging bitter and exterminating war against each other. And

Forster's Life of Cromwell. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, vol. i. P. 204.

besides this, he had to inspire with confidence in himself, men whom he had by turns cajoled, betrayed, and abandoned.

Ormond, conscious of the inherent weakness of his army from the dissensions which prevailed among his generals, and aware of the great military talents as well as the popularity of Owen O'Neill, endeavoured to treat with this leader and attach him to the royal cause. But the implacable hatred which the Anglo-Irish Catholics bore to this gallant chief, blasted all hopes of a common union against the parliamentary forces. Ormond was now strong only inasmuch as all other parties were weak. Jones, the English general, was pent up in Dublin, and in risk of being famished by a blockade. In this state of affairs, Ormond felt the necessity of making a vigorous effort for the royal cause, and resolved accordingly on striking at the capital, Dublin. After gaining some decided successes over the Parliamentary troops, he resolved on encompassing Dublin on all sides; and with this view he crossed the Liffey with his army, and encamped at Rathmines, proposing to extend his works to the east, so as to command the mouth of the river.

Here the negligence and incapacity of Ormond exposed the confederates to a decisive and irreparable defeat. It was first resolved to secure and fortify the village of Baggatrath, which commands a meadow close to the town, from which the garrison procured forage for their horses. Owing either to gross neglect on the part of the officer to whom this duty was appointed, or, what is equally probable, to treachery, the important position remained unoccupied for some time; and the works were scarcely begun, when the garrison, aware of the importance of the place, resolved to make a vigorous assault upon it. Ormond, however, like a careless general, instead of guarding himself against surprise, or bringing up his army to cover his works, went to sleep! He was awakened by the noise of his own troops driven into his lines; they had been beaten out of Baggatrath by the garrison forces. By the time he had got on horseback, and gone a hundred yards, he found the horse flying in all directions, and the right wing completely broken. He hurried to the left, and there, too, the panic had reached: the troops were flying in disorder, without so much as discharging their pieces on the enemy. Thus Jones, to his own great surprise, instead of a mere successful sally, found himself the gainer of a complete victory. About six hundred were slain; fifteen hundred privates, and three hundred officers, were made prisoners, many of whom were cruelly butchered, even after they had accepted quarter and laid down their The artillery, baggage, tents, and military chest, fell into the hands of the victors. Cromwell was informed of this victory of Rathmines, when on board the John, in the port of Bristol, about to set sail for Dublin; and he speaks of it, in a letter to Mr. Major, as "an astonishinge mercie so great and seasonable, as indeed we are like to them that dreamed."

arms.