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VINDICIÆ HIBERNICE.

CHAPTER I.

"Uncertain, mistaken, false, and contradictory accounts have been given of the Irish Rebellion, by writers influenced by selfish views and party animosities."1

"Their enemies and competitors were indefatigable in endeavouring to load their whole party with the guilt of new conspiracies; (A) and even (B) manifest forgeries were received as solid proofs.”2

Historical writing. Its difficulties extreme. Discrepancies and falsehoods. Irish history more difficult, and more replete with fraud, than any other. President and Little Belt.

Of all the modes of employing the intellectual powers of man for the benefit of the great family to which he belongs, there is probably none superior, in its beneficial tendency, to history, properly executed. When thus executed, and judiciously studied, it is fraught with advantages of the most signal kind. Its operation in the moral, bears a strong analogy to that of the sun in the natural world. It sheds beneficent rays of light around, and dispels those mists of darkness which

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1 Carte, III. Preface.

2 Leland, IV. 131.

bewilder the traveller, and obscure his path. It unerringly points out, to governments and people, the career of rectitude and of safety. The wisdom and folly of our ancestors, placed before our eyes, admonish us the course we ought to pursue, the conduct we ought to shun; and the most characteristic difference between a sound and a pettifogging statesman, is, that the warning voice of history has its due share of influence over the former, while it sounds in vain in the ears of the latter.

But when this species of writing is made subservient to the sinister purposes of a party or faction-when servile fear induces a writer to calculate his work to palliate their enormities, or to perpetuate their power-when wicked and profligate men, who ought to be held up to the execration of mankind, are pourtrayed as objects of esteem and veneration-when actions worthy of gibbets and guillotines, are blazoned forth as proofs of patriotism and public spirit-when fraud and falsehood guide the pen-or indolence bars the entrance into those stores, whence alone the truth can be derived, then the valuable purposes of history are perverted-the fountains of correct information corrupted and poisonedan undue bias is given to the public mind, as well as to that of individuals-other pernicious consequences are produced-and the guilty authors have a fair and indisputable claim to the most unqualified censure.

Under this censure fall the major part of those who have written on the affairs of Ireland, whether in the imposing form of histories, or political pamphlets, and anniversary sermons. The leading object with most of them has been to fan and foster the most illiberal and unfounded prejudices,―to support and justify the oppression of a lordly aristocracy, who, for a century and a half, have, with the most unfeeling tyranny, rode rough-shod over the great mass of the nation,"— and to hold up that mass as objects of abhorrence. There are exceptions: a few writers have dared to utter bold truths, however unpalatable to this aristocracy. But it is a melancholy fact, that so inveterate has Prejudice been on these topics, and so difficult to shake off her iron yoke, that some of the best-intentioned writers on Irish affairs have fallen into many of the most egregious errors of their predecessors.

I shall give one instance, though rather out of place here. The fairest and most upright English historian of the calamitous period of the civil war of 1641, is the Rev. Ferdinando Warner. He has, however, fallen into very great errors. In the account, for instance, which he gives of the massacre (as it is termed) of 1641, he colours as highly, and uses almost as extravagant terms, as those who asserted that there were one hundred and fifty-four thousand murdered in three months; or as others, who carried the number to three hundred thousand; or as Milton, who extends it

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to above six hundred thousand! And yet, wonderful to tell, when, towards the close of his work,, he goes into the examination of the evidence, he finds it so ridiculous and inadmissible, that he rejects by far the greater part of it, and reduces the whole number murdered to about four thousand. Thus, his facts not only do not warrant his inferences, but absolutely destroy them; for it is perfectly obvious, that if there were but four thousand murdered, the numberless cruelties he so elaborately portrays could not possibly have taken place.

"There is no credit to be given to any thing that was said by these people; which had not others' evidence to confirm it: and the reason why so many idle silly tales were registered, of what this body heard another body say, as to swell the collection to two-and-thirty thick volumes, in folio, closely written, it is easier to conjecture, than it is to commend."3

"Setting aside all opinions and calculations in this affair, which, besides their uncertainty, are without any precision as to the space of time in which the murders were committed, the evidence, from the depositions in the manuscript above mentioned, stands thus :-The number of people killed, upon positive evidence, collected in two years after the insurrection broke out, adding them all together, amounts only to two thousand one hundred and nine; on the reports of other Protestants, one thousand six hundred and nineteen more; and on the report of some of the rebels themselves, a further number of three hundred; the whole making four thousand and twentyeight. Besides these murders, there is, in the same collection, evidence, on the report of others, of eight thousand killed by bad usage and if we should allow that the cruelties of the

3 Warner, 146.

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