further proof of the magnitude of the errors that have prevailed on the subject of the universality of the insurrection. This proof rests on authority which the enemies of Ireland will not dare dispute. Sir William Petty states, that before the insurrection there were 3,000 estated Roman Catholics in Ireland; and that, by judicial investigations in the court of claims, held in 1663, it appeared that there were not more than 400 of them* engaged in the glorious but unfortunate struggle for Irish liberty, which, even by the friends and partisans of the English revolution in 1688, the American in 1776, and the French in 1789, is so very erroneously and inconsistently styled a rebellion.† And let it be observed, that, notwithstanding the very small proportion of the estated Catholics who were implicated in the insurrection, we have established the fact, that every effort had been used by the lords justices to goad the whole nation into resistance, for the purpose of confiscating the ten millions of acres of the soil, which they and their friends in England had already devoured in imagination. *"The number of landed Papists, or freeholders, before the wars, was about 3,000, whereof, as appears by 800 judgments of the court of claims, which sat anno 1663, upon the innocence and effects of the Irish, there were not above one-seventh part, or 400, guilty of the rebellion." See the reflections on this topic, supra, page 92, 491 Petty, 23. We shall now dismiss Temple, with a few concluding remarks. We have asserted that he was a cheat and an impostor. We proceed to the proof. I. He who swears positively to that for which he has not the evidence of his senses; in other words, to what he has on the information of others; or to things contrary to the known laws of nature; is, in the most unqualified sense, an abandoned perjurer. II. An historian who rests his narrative on manifest perjuries, is a cheat and an impostor, unworthy of credit. III. The mass of the depositions on which Temple relies to support his history, are mere hearsay, and many of them contrary to the known and immutable laws of nature; and, consequently, the witnesses were a host of absolute perjurers. IV. Therefore Temple was a cheat and an impostor. Q. E. D. CHAPTER XX. Barbarous system of warfare pursued by the Irish government. Indiscriminate murder and massacre of the Irish, men, women, and children. St. Leger, Monroe, Coote, Hamilton, Grenville, Ireton, and Cromwell, bathed in blood. Five days' butchery in Drogheda. Detestable hypocrisy of Cromwell. A medal and gold chain awarded to a noyadist. Extermination of man and beast, for twenty-eight miles!!! "Thou hypocrite! Cast out first the beam that is in thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye."492 We have now thoroughly exposed the abominable legends, respecting the pretended Irish massacre, that have so long passed current with the world. They owe their origin to one of the most despicable of the scribblers who have surreptiously gained a rank among the honourable class of historians; but have been since unworthily bolstered up by names of the highest celebrity. We trust we have succeeded in demonstrating that the terrific story rests wholly 492 Luke vi. 42. on falsehood and perjury of the very grossest kind. We proceed to examine the system of warfare pursued by the Irish government; and to ascertain with what propriety or justice it could complain of murder and massacre, had the insurgents been really guilty of the crimes alleged against them. We pledge ourselves to prove, that a more murderous system of warfare never prevailed, in any age or any country; that many of their commanders were as merciless and as bloodthirsty as Attila or Genghis Khan; and that some of the scenes of slaughter were so horrible, particularly, as will appear in the sequel, at Cashel, Drogheda, and Wexford, that they never were and never could be exceeded, and have been 'rarely equalled. In the long catalogue of human follies, there is none more unaccountable, more ludicrous, or more universal, than that of censuring in others those vices and crimes to which we are ourselves most prone. Who has not heard elaborate declamations against intemperance, from drunkards; against lust, from debauchees; against meanness and avarice, from misers? There is not a nation in the world, that has not a variety of terse passages on this extraordinary propensity. "Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes? Clodius accuset mæchos, Catilina Cethegum; In tabulam Syllæ si dicant discipuli tres ?"*493 The era embraced in our discussions affords a most striking illustration of this view of human nature. While the "Starry welkin has rung" with the hoarse din of horrible massacres said to have been perpetrated by the Irish, it will appear, as clear as the noon-day sun, that the Irish rulers, in giving these statements, were drawing their own picture; and that the poet's "Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur," was never more appropriate than to those rulers and their agents. The leading features of the warfare carried on by the forces of the Irish government, were, I. The Irish, unarmed and wholly defenceless, were frequently massacred and drowned, without mercy. From this fate, neither priests, women, nor children, were exempted; *"All must hear, the while, The Gracchi rail at faction, with a smile. Clodius pursue adulterers to the bar, Or Sylla's pupils, aping ev'ry deed, Against his tables of proscription plead."494 "Change but the name, of thee the tale is told."495 493 Juvenal, II. 25. 494 Gifford, 41. 495 Francis. |