about six weeks confined almost wholly to the province of Ulster.

L. That the original views of the insurgents did not comprehend a general massacre, or even single murders, we have further testimony, clear and decisive, derived from Temple, Warner, and Leland, which, independent of all other proof, would be sufficient to settle this question for ever, and utterly overwhelm O'Conally's perjured legend.*

LI. Moreover, if there had been a plot for a general insurrection, and such a massacre

gentlemen of the county of Louth, who submitted to them before, being unable to defend themselves or to make resistance, they had not yet appeared in action. The rebellion till then had been carried on by the mere Irish, and CONFINED TO ULSTER, to some few counties in Leinster, and that of Leitrim, in Connaught.'

19372

*" Their first intention went no farther than to strip the English and the Protestants of their power and possessions; and, unless forced to it by opposition, not to shed any blood."373

"It was resolved" by the insurgents "not to kill any, but where of necessity they should be forced thereunto by opposition."374

"Resistance produced some bloodshed: and, in some instances, private revenge, religious hatred, and the suspicion of some valuable concealment, enraged the triumphant rebels to insolence, cruelty, and murder. So far, however, was the ORIGINAL SCHEME of the conspiracy" [mark well these words : -the original scheme of the conspiracy] “ at first pursued, that few fell by the sword, except in open war and assault."375

372 Carte, I. 243. 374 Temple, 65.

373 Warner,

47.

375 Leland, III. 137.

as O'Conally swore to, there would have been some evidence produced from some of the conspirators: but notwithstanding the lords justices had recourse to the execrable aid of the rack, and put Mac-Mahon and others to the torture,* there is not, in the examinations of the former, a single word to corroborate the cut-throat part of O'Conally's deposition. The examinations of the rest were never published.

LII. There is not to be found in Temple, nor Borlase, nor Carte, nor Warner, nor Leland, nor Clarendon, nor, as far as we have seen, in Rushworth, the examination of a single person engaged in a conspiracy which was said to extend throughout the whole kingdom, except those of Mac-Mahon and lord Macguire! That of the latter was not taken till March, 1642.

* "The first person PUT TO THE RACK, was Mac-Mahon; whom the reader must remember to have been taken on O'Conally's information, when the conspiracy was discovered. I copied his examination from the bishop of Clogher's MSS. in the College Library: and on that examination, he had nothing but hearsay evidence to give; which amounts only to his having been told that lord Macguire, Sir P. O'Neil, and Philip O'Reilly, were the chief conspirators; that all the chief Papists in Parliament last summer, knew and approved of the rebellion; that the committee then employed in England would procure an order from the king to proceed in their rebellious courses; that he was told, last October, that the king had given a commision to seize all the garrisons and strong holds; but he doth not say, he ever saw such a commission."376

376 Warner, 176.

Perhaps the preceding analysis of this miserable legend might supersede the necessity of adding any thing further on the subject. But its great importance, and the deep solicitude we feel to dispel the thick mists with which prejudice and fraud have overspread it, induce us to place it in a new form, and bring it more home to the mind of the reader. The reasons for adopting this measure will probably so far satisfy the reader, as to preclude the necessity of an apology.

QUERIES.

Is there a man in the world who can seriously believe :

I. That a Catholic COLONEL, engaged in a plot to murder the Protestants, would send fifty miles for a Protestant, SERVANT to a Protestant gentleman, an inveterate enemy to the Roman Catholics, as an accomplice ?

II. That a journey of a hundred and ten or a hundred and twenty miles could be performed in three days and a half, the sun rising at seven, and setting at five, at a season of the year when the rains, then usually prevalent, must have rendered the roads almost impassable; and by a man who knew nothing of the business which led to the summons he had received, and who, of course, had no temptation to make any extraordinary exertion?

III. That a stranger, arriving in the suburbs of a city an hour after sun-set, and fatigued with a long journey, should, without any aid from the moon, immediately find out the lodgings of another stranger, who had arrived the same afternoon?

IV. That Sir William Parsons, who had, at nine in the evening, received intelligence of a plot, to explode at ten the next morning, and the names of some of the principal conspirators, should be so misguided, as to send back the drunken informer, "to get out of Mac-Mahon as much certainty of the plot as he could," instead of immediately apprehending the conspirators?

V. That when the informer returned to the lords justices, he would be allowed to go to bed, before taking his examination?

VI. That when he had slept himself sober, and made circumstantial deposition of such alarming particulars, the privy council would have been such idiots as to take no other precaution than merely "to have a watch set privately upon the lodgings of Mac-Mahon, and also upon lord Macguire," as if they had been plotting to rob orchards or hen-roosts, to bar out a school-master, break lamps in a midnight frolic, or attack the watchmen, instead of plotting to seize the castle, subvert the government, and cut the throats of one or two hundred thousand people?

VII. That a privy or even a common council of the wise men of Gotham would not, under such

circumstances, have instantly apprehended the conspirators, instead of "sitting all night in council," upon one of the simplest points ever discussed, and which could have been decided in five minutes, as well as in five hours, five weeks, or five years; on which the most prompt and decisive measures were imperiously necessary; and at a moment when, if there were any truth in the statement of O'Conally, the salvation or destruction of the state might depend on a single hour?

VIII. That having taken the precaution, on Friday night, of "setting a watch privately upon the lodgings of lord Macguire," thereby establishing their belief that he was an accomplice in the plot, they would not have arrested him at the same time they arrested Mac-Mahon, but waited till conference with the latter, and others, and calling to mind Sir William Cole's letter, which led them to "gather that the lord Macguire was to be an actor in surprizing the castle of Dublin?"

IX. That a conspiracy, which was to explode throughout the whole kingdom on the 23d of October, should be arrested in Leinster, Connaught, and Munster, by the detection of it, in Dublin, a few hours before the appointed time?

X. That if it had been intended to murder all the Protestants throughout the kingdom, who would not join the conspirators, there would have been no intelligence of a single murder on the 25th, or that, on the 29th, the lords justices