fomething to you of the quitrents: the receiver general puts into his certificate of the state of the cash, what he has received of those rents fince the preceding certificate; but the commiffioners do not mention thofe rents in the abftracts they make up quarterly; neither do they take any notice in thofe quarterly abftracts of the hearth-money; but I fay, I will enlarge more upon this ere long. I only mention it now, that you may fee we have difcourfed of every branch of the revenue at the first meeting. Though the revenue be in management, yet the commiffioners farm out the hearth-money all the kingdom over, except only the city of Dublin, which they have put into collection thefe laft fix months. They fay, that revenue would not come to fo much by collection, as by farm, which feems very ftrange; for certainly the farmers and fubfarmers would not lofe by their bargains, as they must do, if they did not receive more than will pay their rent; but with this particular I will likewife in a very little time entertain you more largely. I fend you here enclosed a copy of what I have written to my lord Sunderland, and I do beg you to concern yourself, that the commiffion for the vacant company may be fent to me, which the king was pleafed to declare fhould be the rule; and if it be kept at first, men will not be fo eager to run into England for preferment, but will expect with patience the king's pleafure from his chief governor, which will certainly be as much for his majefty's fervice. My lord Granard, with whom I have had as much difcourfe already as the time will permit, tel's me the foldiers cannot bear the deduction of

2d. per diem for their cloathing; that by means of other deductions to the hofpital, &c. the poor foldiers will not have above 2 d. a day to live on: and that a penny a day will cloath them twice in three years; which he thinks will be fufficient. He has defired me to hear him, and fome other of the officers upon this point; which I have promised him to do to-mor row; and do refolve to allot one day in a week certain for the affairs of the army: I only tell you this now, that you may take notice of it or not as you think fit: by the next probably I may have fomething ready to lay before the king, if the officers think fit; for it fhall be theirs.'

To the Lord Treasurer.

Dublin Caftle, Dec. 21. 1686.

Though I have not at prefent much to fay to you, yet I think you will not be difpleafed, when I repeat to you what I writ in mine of the 16th, that I fhall, at the fame time I fend you a state of this year's accompt, (which fhall be at the beginning of February) let you fee likewife, that the army is completely paid to the laft day of this month: which will be with the money of this year: and, if the doing that, and, which is more, the paying eighteen months pay to the army in the compass of twelve, will not be attributed to my pains and diligence. I muft for ever give over the hopes of having my industry approved: and I will fay no more of this matter, but that the army was never in fo good condition, let who will have the credit of it. If I fhall be thought too vain, I will venture to fay, I do now begin to under

ftand

ftand the revenue here; and, of all the branches of it, I am the leaft fatisfied with the method I find the hearth-money in. The commiffioners have hitherto farmed the feveral counties from year to year: a man, or two perhaps in partnership take a county for a certain fum of money; for the paying of which they give as good fecurity as they can. Thefe original farmers prefently let out this county to any other people, who will give them any advantage; and thefe fub-farmers do again divide the county, and let the feveral baronies or parishes to fix, eight, or more perfons, who will give them any gain. Thus two or Three fets of men mult gain by this bargain, and the poor people are miferably harraffed; which takes up above half the business at the quarter feffions. The commiffioners of the revenue are as much troubled at this as I am, but know not well, what remedy to offer: they tell me, it has been tried to put this revenue into the collection of the theriffs of every county, but it came to nothing; that is, that whole branch did not yield above 15,000l. a year: that the conftables have been tried, but then it came to lefs; they would always fo much favour their neigh bours, that they made very fhort returns. I, who am no friend to farming any part of the revenue of the crown, would fain have this branch put into collection, as well as the others; and I was fo earneft in it, upon my firft coming over, that I ordered it to be collected in this city, and at Drogheda; and it has been very fuccefsful, to a confiderable improvement. The commiffioners agree with me in it, that it would advance the revenue

confiderably; but they think i neceffary, that firft a furvey fhould be taken, there being no perfect account of the hearths in the kingdom as yet; and they apprehend, the taking fuch a furvey would coft near 3000 1. Now I propofe a way to do it, which fhall be of very little charge, if any; and which, I think, will be as exact as can be and that is, if I write to the feveral bifhops to lend me an account (without giving the reafon, why) of every tenement in their feveral diocefes, they will imme diately fend to their clergy, to do it in their feveral parifbes, and to tranfmit the fame to them: this, I conceive, will be a means of having it very exactly done; and, if there fhould be any error, it may eafily be corrected. I will fet about this as foon as you please; but I would be glad of your opinion in it, and that the king may know of it, before I go about it; left, it being a new thing to make fuch a ftrič enquiry after all the tenements in the kingdom, it fhould be mifre prefented to him. I do verily be lieve, if this branch were in collection, it would advance, the revenue at least 7,000 I. a year, befides the charge of collecting. And I am fure, the fubject would pay more chearfully and willingly, when they faw all they did pay came into the king's purfe. Thus I have fcribbled more than I intended upon this fubject; and the fum of all is to defire, that you will only tell me, that the king will not be difpleafed that I take fuch a furvey as I have here mentioned, which will coft very inconfiderably; and I dare undertake, his majefty will quickly reap the advantage of it. God keep you and yours, "ri-bab

Lord

Lord Clarendon's retreat from his popifh fovereign to the prince of Orange, whom he regarded as the bulwark of the protestant re-, figion, bears, when we confider how ftrongly this nobleman was actuated by the principle of paffive, obedience, fufficient teftimony of the fincerity and the zeal of his attachment to the proteftant caufe, Thathe loft his government however for being too good a proteftant,is,we think, what has been rather afferted than proved. We find him, indeed, alarmed for himself from the wild orders he receives; but we find him always profeffing the most implicit obedience. Thus, in a letter even of confidence to his brother, his care is not how to defeat or elude, or delay; his only attention is, that he may not himself, at all events, fuffer for his obedience, Thus, in his letter to the lord treasurer, of the 24th of April, 1686.

exactly according to the form. You will pleafe to take that notice, you think fit, hereof. This is the frit time the oath of fupremacy has ever been difpenfed with in a judicial place; and it is in breach of a law which I may fay to you, though to nobody elfe, at this time, as the world now goes. God keep you and all yours."

وو

He advifes, indeed, the filling up of church preferments with pro teftants, but never diffuades the provifion propofed to be made for the popish clergy out of the revenues appropriated by law to the fupport of the established church. When or, dered to new model the army, to fill the corporations with papists, to put them into the commiffion of the peace, to make them sheriffs, judges, privy counfellers in all thefe cafes, the only difference between the most bigotted advisers of James and his proteftant governor is, the former drove with that fury which naturally led to the defeat of their own purpofe, while the fubmiffive proteftant governor, with more fenfe, becaufe with lefs paffion, would have proceeded with an artful moderation, and poffibly with a fatal effect. He did not lofe his government for bearing a bold tefimony of his religion, for complaining to the court that their meafures were violent, oppreffive, and unconftitutional; had he done fo, it might have been faid, truly, that he loft his government for being too good a proteftant; but his complaints to the court were not that fuch refolutions were taken, but that he was not always fo immediately made the inftrument of carrying thefe refolutions into execution. Thus he addreffes himfelf to the queen:

"I beg leave, madam, to affure you, that there is not one command I have received from the king, which I have not obeyed with all poffible expedition and zeal; and, as there is nothing which the king would have done here, but may be compaffed with great cafe, if thofe, who are to do it, have a mind to it; fo I hope, your majesty will pardon me, if I prefume to fay, that, if the king had fo thought fit, I could have done what his majefty has now directed, even the fame things, to much greater fatisfaction than has happened." V. i. p. 362.

1.

Clarendon, then, did not owe his recall to his being a steady and bold afferter of the proteftant caufe. It was occafioned only by the blind bigotry of Tyrconnel, who could not endure, that any other than himself should have the glory of a work, he foolishly thought fo eafy.

The appendix contains much curious matter; a more circumftantial account of the conduct of the bishops of that time; Maffey's difpenfation and pardon, on being appointed dean of Chrift church college in Oxford, &c. Likewife a curious letter in Italian, from one father Con, a jefuit, to the provincial of his order at Rome; and as this letter draws the best picture imaginable of K. James's conduct, we present the reader with the tranflation of it.

London, Dec. 10, 1688. "Honoured father William, There is now an endofall the plea fing hopes of feeing our holy religion make a progrefs in this country. The king and the queen are fled,

their adherents are left to them. felves, and a new prince with a foreign army has got poffefion without the least refiftance. It is a thing unfeen, unheard of, and unrecorded in history, that a king in peaceful poffeffion of his realm with an army of thirty thoufand fighting men, and forty fhips of war, fhould quit his kingdom without firing a piftol. The foreigners themselves who have got poffeffion are astonished at their own fuccefs, and laugh at the Eng lifh for their cowardice, and dif loyalty to their prince. It looks as if heaven and earth had con fpired againft us. But this is not all; the great evil comes from ourfelves: our own imprudence, avarice, and ambition, have brought all this upon us. The good king has made ufe of fools, knaves, and blockheads; and the great minifter that you fent hither has contributed alfo his fhare. Inftead of a moderate, difcreet, and fagacious minifter, you fent a mere boy, a fine fhewy fop, to make love to the ladies.

High praises, mighty trophies you

have won.

But enough on this head, my dear friend; the whole affair is over. I am only forry that I made one among fo many madmen, who were incapable either of directing, or governing. I now return, as I can, with the little family to a land of Chriftians: this unhappy voyage colts me dear; but there is no help for it, The profpect was fair, if the bufinefs had been in the hands of men of fenfe; but, to our difgrace, the helm was held by rogues. I have already paid the compliments of the new year to our patrons; and I now do the

fame

or even to undied cloth, and half manufactured, which shall receive their full perfection only in England-who have no taxes on their milk and potatoes, who live cheaper than any other manufacturers in Europe, and who can confequently underfell all the world. This will effectually prevent their running the wool to France or Holland, whofe manufactures therefore muft in a great measure fall; and it will as effectually reftore it to the English. Even the profits made by the Irish would eventually center here. But we feem ignorant of this in England; and this ignorance occafions the capital error of our conduct towards this people. It is fit therefore that it fhould be explained.

linen and tallow, which we export from them into foreign countries and our plantations to great advantage. It appears alfo from the eftimates of the tunnage of fhipping employed yearly in the trade of Ireland, that the British tunnage is more than two thirds of the whole, from which there arifes a profit to us of above threefcore thousand pounds a year in this article of freight only in the Irish trade: and as their exportations as well as their freight are principally carried on by English merchants, it may reasonably be computed that a profit of eighty thousand pounds a year arifes to England from their exports confidered in this light. Add to all these advantages, the greatest perhaps of all, that which arifes from the nobility and people of estate and employment who spend their incomes in England. And then it will evidently appear, that if England does not gain by Ireland alone, half as much yearly as it does by all the world befide, as many people fuppofe, yet there is no country in Europe that brings fo much profit to another, as Ireland docs to England. Before the Irish papifts were thoroughly reduced by Cromwell, that kingdom was only a dead weight upon England : it had little or no trade, few or no manufactures, and a very small vent for English confumable commodities. Poverty and the effects of war fupplied the place of luxury; and the Irish gentlemen were not rich enough to be abfentees. It was then that maxim was received into the English politics,

It appears by the custom-house books that the imports of Ireland from Great Britain alone; amount to near five parts in eight of their whole importation, and which confift chiefly of commodities worked up to the height; and it will be found perhaps on examination, that they take off a much greater quantity of the feveral manufactures of England, except our woollen, than any other country in Europe. On the other hand, the woollen yarn and worsted which we receive from them; fo far from being a lofs to the nation as most importations are, when fully manufactured by us in England, will fell for two hundred thoufand pounds a year more than the prime coft, in foreign markets. In the fame manner their linen yarn, which we work up into tickens, tapes, girths, and other manufactures, yield an annual profit of an hundred thousand pounds; to fay nothing of the raw hides,

that keeping Ireland poor was of great advantage to England;' and therefore it was neceffary to

Sz

cramp