loyalty to the sovereign on the English throne, and feel that he was neither a stranger nor a subjugator?

It was indeed a great opportunity, apparently-the first that had ever offered-for uniting the three kingdoms under one crown, without enforcing between any of them the humiliating relations of conqueror and conquered. There can be no doubt whatever, that, had James and his government appreciated the peculiar opportunity, and availed of it in a humane, wise, and generous spirit,

-an end was made, and nobly,

Of the old centennial fued."

The Irish nation, there is every ground for concluding, would cheerfully and happily have come in to the arrangement; and the simplest measure of justice from the government, a reasonable consideration for the national feelings, rights, and interests, might have realized that dream of a union between the kingdoms, which the compulsion of conquest could never-can never-accomplish. But that accurst greed of plunder-that unholy passion for Irish spoil-which from the first characterized the English adventurers in Ireland and which, unhappily, ever proved potential to mar any comparatively humane designs of the king, whenever, if ever, such designs were entertained, was now at hand to demand that Ireland should be given up to "settlers," by fair means or by foul, as a stranded ship might be abandoned to wreckers, or as a captured town might be given up to sack and pillage by the assaulting soldiery. There is, however, slight reason, if any, for thinking that the most unworthy and unnatural son of Mary Queen of Scots-the pedantic and pompous James-entertained any statesmanlike generosity or justice of design in reference to Ireland. The Irish expectations about him were doomed to be wofully disappointed. He became the mere creature of English policy; and the Anglo-Irish adventurers and "settlers," yelling for plunder, were able to force that policy in their own direction. They grumbled outright at the favorable terms of Mountjoy's treaty with O'Neill. It yielded not one acre of plunder; whereas, the teeth of thousands of those worthies had

been set on edge by the anticipation of the ricn spoils of the "confiscated" north, which they made sure would follow upon O'Neill's subjection. "It now seemed as if the entire object of that tremendous war had been, on the part of England, to force a coronet upon the unwilling brows of an Irish chieftain, and oblige him in his own despite to accept letters patent' and broad lands in fee.' Surely, if this were to be the 'conquest of Ulster,' if the rich valleys of the north, with all their woods and waters, mills and fishings, were to be given up to these O'Neills and O'Donnells, on whose heads a price had so lately been set for traitors; if, worse than all, their very religion was to be tolerated, and Ulster, with its verdant abbeylands, and livings, and termon-lands, were still to set Reformation' at defiance; surely, in this case, the crowd of esurient undertakers, lay and clerical, had ground of complaint. It was not for this they left their homes, and felled forests, and camped on the mountains, and plucked down the Red Hand from many a castle wall. Not for this they 'preached before the state in Christ Church,' and censured the backsliding of the times, and pointed out the mortal sin of a compromise with Jezabel!"

Notwithstanding that for a year or two subsequent to James's accession, the terms of the treaty of Mellifont were in most part observed by the government, O'Neill noted well the gathering storm of discontent, to which he saw but too clearly the government would succumb at an early opportunity. By degrees the skies began to lour, and unerring indications foretold that a pretext was being sought for his immolation.

LII." THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS." HOW THE PRINCES OF IRELAND WENT INTO EXILE, MENACED BY DESTRUCTION AT HOME.

T was not long wanting. An anonymous letter was found, or was pretended to have been found, at the door of the council chamber in Dublin Castle, purporting to disclose with great circumstantiality a conspiracy, of which O'Neill

was the head, to seize the Castle, to murder the Lord Deputy and raise a general revolt.* The most artful means were re

* There seems to have been a plot of some kind; but it was one got up by the secretary of state, Cecil himself; Lord Howth, his agent in this shocking business, inveigling O'Neill and O'Donnell into attendance at some of the meetings. "Artful Cecil," says Rev. Dr. Anderson, a Protestant divine, in his Royal Genealogies, a work printed in London in 1736, "employed one St. Lawrence to entrap the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel!, the Lord of Delvin, and other Irish chiefs, into a sham plot which had no evidence but his. But these chiefs being informed that witnesses were to be heard against them, foolishly fled from Dublin; and so taking their guilt upon them, they were declared rebels, and six entire counties in Ulster were at once forfeited to the crown, which was what their enemies wanted."

sorted to by all whose interest it was to procure the ruin of the northern chiefs, to get up a wild panic of real or effected terror on this most opportune discovery! O'Neill well knew the nature of the transaction, and the design behind it. The vultures must have prey-his ruin had become a state-necessity. In the month of May, he and the other northern chiefs were cited to answer the capital charge thus preferred against them. This they were ready to do; but the government plotters were not just yet ready to carry out their own schemes, so the investigation was on some slight pretext postponed, and O'Neill and O'Donnell were ordered to appear in London on their defence at Michaelmas. There is little doubt that hereupon, or about this time, O'Neill formed and communicated to his northern kinsmen and fellow-victims, the resolution of going into exile, and seeking on some friendly shore that safety which it was plain he could hope for in Ireland no longer. They at once determined to share his fortunes, and to take with them into exile their wives, children, relatives and household attendants; in fine, to bid an eternal farewell to the “fair hills of holy Ireland." The sad sequel forms the subject of that remarkable work—“ The Flight of the Earls ; or the Fate and Fortunes of Tyrone and Tyrconnell," by the Rev. C. P. Meehan, of Dublin; a work full of deep and sorrowful interest to every student of Irish history. I can but briefly summarize here, as closely as possible, from various authorities, that mournful chapter in our national annals. "In the beginning of September, 1607, nearly four months after the pretended discovery of St. Lawrence's plot, O'Neil was at Slane with the Lord Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester; and they conferred relative to a journey, which the former was to make to London before Michaelmas, in compliance with a summons from the king. While here a letter was delivered to O'Neill from one John Bath, informing him that Maguire had arrived in a French ship in Lough Swilly." Sir John Davis, the attorney-general of that day, says: "He, O'Neill, pok leave of the lord deputy, in a more sad and passionate manner than was usual with him. From thence he went to Mellifont, and Sir Garrett Moore's house, where he wept

abundantly when he took his leave, giving a solemn farewell to every child and every servant in the house, which made them all marvel, because in general it was not his manner to use such compliments." On his way northwards, we are told, he remained two days at his own residence in Dungannon--it was hard to quit the old rooftree for ever! Thence he proceeded hastily (travelling all night) to Rathmullen, on the shore of Lough Swilly, where he found O'Donnell and several of his friends waiting, and laying up stores in the French ship. Amidst a scene of bitter anguish the illustrious party soon embarked; numbering fifty persons in all, including attendants and domestics. With O'Neill, in that sorrowful company, we are told, went-his last countess, Catherina, daughter of Maginnis; his three sons, Hugh, Baron of Dungannon, John, and Brian; Art Oge, the son of his brother Cormac, and others of his relatives; Ruari, or Roderic O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell; Caffa or Cathbar, his brother, and his sister Nuala, who was married to Niall Garve O'Donnell, but who abandoned her husband when he became a traitor to his country; Hugh O'Donnell, the Earl's son, and other members of his family; Cuconnaught Maguire, and Owen Roe Mac Ward, chief bard of Tyrconnell." "It is certain," say the Four Masters, "that the sea has not borne, and the wind has not wafted in modern times, a number of persons in one ship, more eminent, illustrious, or noble in point of genealogy, heroic deeds, valor, feats of arms, and brave achievements, than they. Would that God had but permitted them," continue the old annalists, "to remain in their patrimonial inheritances until the children should arrive at the age of manhood. Woe to the heart that meditated-woe to the mind that conceived-woe to the council that recommended the project of this expedition, without knowing whether they should to the end of their lives be able to return to their ancient principalities and patrimonies." "With gloomy looks and sad forebodings, the clansmen of Tyrconnell gazed upon that fated ship, ' built in th' eclipse and rigged with curses dark,' as she dropped down Lough Swilly, and was hidden behind the cliffs of Fanad land. They never saw their chieftains more.” *

Mitchel.