the Saxon principalities into a kingdom, and the idea of a single sovereign and central power had taken a firm hold on the English mind. But nothing like this had happened in Ireland, where a crowd of chiefs exercised perpetual wars against one another. The tribal or clannish spirit, which is wholly antagonistic to the conception of a State or to union under a strong central authority, survived in the Irish Celt. It was this spirit which disabled him in the past from raising himself to the idea of a united nation: it is the same spirit which at the present time disqualifies him from conceiving that of an Empire. So deeply is this notion of a limited separate interest apart from the general interests of the common weal, engrained in the Irish mind, that it has been introduced into our parliamentary system by the representatives of Celtic Ireland. These representatives, unable to grasp the conception of serving for the whole realm, have cast aside the sacred duty of voting freely and independently according to their conscience. They have bound themselves by a covenant to sit, act, and vote, not as the interests of the Empire demand, but according as a majority of themselves shall dictate.2

The failure of Great Britain to conciliate the Irish Celt is

but a temporary one. For it is not for want of the incorporating genius that she has not succeeded in this case. The British race has proved, and is daily proving, its capacity for absorbing and assimilating alien and foreign nationalities. The Scotch, Welsh, and Cornish Celts are hardly distinguish

1 A keen observer remarked the disintegrating effects of the tribal system in Gaul. In Gallia, says Cæsar, non solum in omnibus pagis partibusque, sed pene etiam in singulis domibus factiones sunt.

2 This covenant runs as follows: "I pledge myself that in the event of my election to Parliament I will sit, act, and vote with the Irish parliamentary party; and if at a meeting of the party, convened upon due notice specially to consider the question, it be determined by a resolution supported by a majority of the entire parliamentary party, that I have not fulfilled the above pledge, I hereby undertake forthwith to resign my seat."

able from the rest of our nation. Danes and Normans have for centuries sunk into the general body of the people. The French Huguenots and the Flemish artisans have long forgotten the land and the tongue of their fathers. The Hindoo, the Mussulman, the Sikh, and the Buddhist are pressing eagerly into the family of the imperial mother. Of the three hundred millions of British subjects, more than a third of the human race, three and a half millions only-Irish Celtsstand apart sullen and discontented. The Irish branch of the great Celtic family alone remains unreconciled. It is the only one among the Celtic communities which has given up its own tongue and adopted that of the invader, together with his manners, customs, arts, and literature, and has at the same time refused to consider itself a child of the same household with the stranger. Yet there is nothing in the Celtic nature which presents a perennial bar to complete incorporation. Not to speak of the cases of Scotland, of Wales, and of Cornwall, the Celts of Gaul borrowed the language and civilisation of Rome, and became in time as Roman as the Romans themselves.

The rebellion of 1641 lasted more than eleven years, for it was not until the 27th of September 1653 that the Parliament was enabled to declare it at an end. It would be impossible within a limited space to give even a sketch of the boundless confusion and universal misery of these disastrous years. Europe has never witnessed, even in the Thirty Years' war, such a scene of discord and anarchy as prevailed in this small island during this period. It is wearisome to read, it would be useless, if possible, to relate the innumerable complications, transformations, entrances and exits, which took place.1 There were always five parties in the field, sometimes

1 Thus Owen Roe O'Neill was (1) opposed to Munro and the Ormondists; (2) to the Confederates, while he supported the Nuncio and the papal party; (3) he joined the parliamentary party and relieved Londonderry, which Coote held for that party; Owen receiving £2000 in money, some ammunition, and 2000 cows; (4) he

six,-the Northern Irish, the Royalists under Ormond, the Confederates of Kilkenny, the parliamentary party, the Nuncio's party, and Munro's Presbyterians. Though we can but glance at the actors and events of the rebellion, we are only too well acquainted with its fatal results. The historian1 informs us that "the desolation of the island was complete. One third of the people had perished or been driven into exile. Famine and plague had finished the work of the sword. The fields lay uncultivated; and the miserable remnants of the flying population were driven to live on carrion and human corpses. The wolves so increased in numbers, even around the city of Dublin itself, that the counties were taxed for their extermination, and rewards were paid of five pounds for the head of a full-grown wolf, and two pounds for that of a cub."2

When the English Government at the close of the rebellion had obtained possession of the country, and subdued the factions which had so long preyed on the vitals of Ireland, the parliamentary scheme for the settlement of Ireland was carried into effect. The plan had been drawn up in August 1652, before the complete pacification of the country, and is to be found among the Acts of that year. This plan

3

finally agreed to unite with Ormond, and was on his march to join him when he died at Cloughouter, 6th November 1649. The career of Ebher MacMahon, Bishop of Clogher, was as variable as that of Owen O'Neill. 1 Walpole.

2 Ludlow says that at the end of the war a proclamation was published forbidding the killing of lambs and calves for the year next ensuing, that the country might recover a stock again, which had been so exhausted by the wars that many of the natives who had committed all manner of waste upon the possessions of the English were driven to such extremities that they starved with hunger; and I have been informed by persons deserving credit that the same calamity fell upon them even in the first year of the rebellion through the depredations of the Irish; and that they roasted men and eat them to supply their necessities.”—Memoirs, i. 338.

3 "Settling of Ireland,” c. 13, 1652. Scobell's Acts and Ordinances, p. 197.

will ever be regarded with different eyes by two classes of readers. One class, fixing its attention on the sufferings of individuals and the vicissitudes of families, will deplore the misfortunes of ancient and respectable houses, and exclaim against the scheme and its projectors. The other class will merge their compassion for individuals in their indignation at the misery of the great body of the people brought to destruction by the sins and wickedness of their natural leaders. The general scope of the settlement was to punish the Irish aristocracy and gentry who had misgoverned their country, arrested the growing prosperity of Ireland, and plunged the land into a scene of bloodshed and anarchy compared with which the French Revolution was a peaceful reform. The object of the settlement was to bring home and limit the punishment to the castle and mansion, while it held out security and protection to the cottage and the hovel. The settlement has been misrepresented, but it remains in black and white, and ought to be examined and consulted by all who wish to have clear and distinct ideas respecting it. The first thing which strikes a reader of it is its leniency.1 It was not a plan for the transplantation of a whole community, but for the removal of the leaders of that community, who had neglected the laws upon which societies are based,

1 Here are all the provisions of the Settlement with the exception of two, which relate to estates tail and individuals under articles of surrender ::

"1. All husbandmen, ploughmen, labourers, artificers and others of the inferior sort' are received into protection. They and all persons 'having no real estate nor personal estate to the value of ten pounds' [a sum equivalent to £50 now] are pardoned for any act or thing done during the rebellion.

"2. All who before the 10th of November 1642 contrived or promoted the rebellion, murders, and massacres, excepted from pardon.

"3. Jesuits and priests who had contrived or promoted the rebellion, or any of the murders and massacres, excepted.

4. A hundred and six Anglo-Irish and Irish persons excepted by

who had turned their country into a hell upon earth for twelve long years, and who had caused the death of more than half a million of their fellow citizens. The follies and crimes of the Irish aristocracy and gentry were infinitely greater than those which the French aristocracy and gentry expiated a hundred and fifty years later by a universal confiscation and their own decimation. The Irish had established a government in opposition to that of England; they had convened a general assembly of their nation regularly formed into Lords and Commons; raised armies and appointed generals; erected courts of justice; drawn up a new oath of allegiance; despatched envoys to invite foreign powers, the Pope, Emperor, and King of France, to lend their assistance; and finally they had hawked the crown of Ireland about Europe, and offered it to any Catholic prince who would take it under his protection. Yet the punishment which overtook the Irish aristocracy was infinitely less severe than that which befell the nobility and gentry of France.

“5. Principals and accessories to the murder of private persons, not officers either in the English or Irish armies, excepted.

"6. Twenty-eight days, after publication of a future notice, allowed to persons in arms to submit, otherwise excepted.

"7. Persons who had borne high commands, as generals, colonels, governors of forts, marshals of provinces, etc., to be banished during pleasure of Parliament and to forfeit two-thirds of their estates; lands to the value of the remaining third to be assigned to their wives and children in such parts of Ireland as the Parliament should determine.

"8. Power to parliamentary commissioners or commander-in-chief to declare pardon for their lives to all other persons who had been in arms; such persons, however, to forfeit two-thirds of their estates, lands to the value of the remaining third to be assigned them in such parts of Ireland as the Parliament should determine.

"9. All Roman Catholic proprietors who had resided in Ireland from the commencement of the rebellion to the 1st of March 1650, and had not manifested their constant good affection to the Commonwealth, to forfeit one-third of their lands; lands to the value of the other two-thirds to be assigned them in such places as the Parliament should think fit. All others who had not manifested their good affection' to forfeit one-fifth."