Search -
An historical and critical review of the civil wars in Ireland
An historical and critical review of the civil wars in Ireland Author:John Curry Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: and judicious historian. This strength the earl of Clarendon and other great men (proteitants and papists) wanted, and still want. As painters of former times, t... more »hey may give a good likeness: as contemporaries they are intolerable; of all men the most likely to be deceived, and the most laborious to deceive. The mischief they circulate is in proportion to their abilities, and that rank in life, which renders those abilities conspicuous. It is, indeed, to be lamented, that Mr. Hume, one of the ablest writers of the present age, should as an historian suffer himself to be so far led astray by such contemporaries as we have hinted at, as to transfer all or most of the mischiefs of the year 164-1 in Ireland, from the original authors, to the unfortunate Irish alone. Parties less aggrieved in Scotland were up ' before them, and drew the sword not only with impunity but -with advantage. The Irish in Ulster who wanted to regain the lands they lost, followed the example. We do not justify the act in either kingdom. We only advance in alleviation of the Irish crime, that the majority of the nation have, in the two reigns of James and Charles, suffered a cruel bondage of thirty eight years %vith little intermission, and had now the most alarming prospect of extirpation before them. They did not mi-.iu to withdraw their allegiance from the king ; even the weak leaders' of the Northern rabble had no such intention. The latter began, and acted singly; most of the innocent protestants in the neighbouring districts had time to escape into places of security, before many murders were committed. The papists- in the other provinces had no share in their guilt ; they Fmrriediately published their detestation of it. In general, they were steady to their duty as Christians, and to their loyalty as s...« less