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fathoming the whole of his party's intentions, than to his prudence in thus avowing them, fo early, to a man of fome weight, and of very different fentiments; and that too, while the issue of that great undertaking was yet doubtful: We fee the cautious Dutchman, who was at leaft as deep in the prince ofOrange's fecrets, acted quite differently, and Clarendon was accordingly reconciled to the party.

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"I vifited monfieur Bentinck; who had received the news of the death of his lady yesterday by the Dutch ambaffador. He made me many compliments upon my fon's fo early going in to the prince; of which, he faid, the prince was very fenfible. He then fell to fpeak of the occafion of the prince's expedition, and faid, his highnefs, had given a fincere account of it in his declaration; and that he had proceeded in pursuance thereof ever. fince his landing. Though, faid he, there are not ill men wanting, who give it out, that the prince afpires at the crown; which is the moft wicked infinuation that could be invented; that though three kingdoms would be a great temptation to other men, yet it would appear, that the prince preferred his word before all other things in the world, and would purfue his declaration in endeavouring to fettle all matters here upon a true foundation. I told him, if the prince purfues this refolution, every thing will be very eafy; and the commiffioners will find no difficulty in their bufinefs. He faid,

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he wished the commiffioners were come, that no time might be loft. I confefs, this difcourfe gave me great fatisfaction." V. ii. p. too. of Diary."

*

The latter part of the Diary will naturally raife fome fentiments of pity for a nobleman, who, having rifqued his all to preferve the religion, and the liberty of his coun try, found his own confcience embarraffed under that very government which he had been happily inftrumental in founding; allowing a fort of inconfiftency in his conduct, one muft remember, that in troubled times fome inconfiftencies are naturally to be expected, even in wife and good men. Thefe papers will, perhaps, furnish many inftances; but the laft extract we make, fhall be a very extraordinary one of a prelate, who oppofed king James, took the oaths to king William and queen Mary, but made a point of confcience at be ing abfent from their coronation.

"Mar. 11. Monday. In the afternoon the bishop of St. Alaph was with me. He fpake to me again about the oaths: which he had taken this day was a fennight. I told him, I had very well confidered the matter, and I could not take them; and therefore defired him not to trouble himself any more about it. I then asked him, whether he would not attend at the coronation: to which he said, by no means; for that, by the grace of God, he would have no hand in making kings and queens: at which I could not but laugh."

The

a fpace of about four hundred years, from the earliest accounts of time, to the coming in of the Milefians from Spain; through the feveral colonies of Parthalanians, Nemedians, Belgians, and Danonians. The fecond period, which may be called the Obfcure, begins with the Spanish invafion, and extends through a courfe of thirteen hundre years, to the arrival of St. Patrick who converted the ifland. The third or middle age, which may be called the Enlightened, begins with the planting of the gofpel by that miffionary, and extends to the conqueft by the English; which contains a fpace of feven hundred and forty years. The latter age, which may be called the Hiftorical, may be computed from the reign of Henry the fecond, 'till its final fettlement at the revolution by king William.'p. 119.

conftitution, which the doctor compares to our parliament, to which however it does not seem to bear any other refemblance than as being a national affembly; but whatever it was it died with him, tho' it left claims to be afterwards afferted by the people. Cormac, a prince who began his reign A.D.254 was a man of prodigious parts and a bilities; he had loft an eye in battle, and being obliged to retire from government, in deference to the ideas of the time, which permitted none to reign who had a perfonal blemifh, he discovered to the world the errors of the Druid worship, and, as our author thinks, paved the way to Christianity.

His first book, which comprehends the first period, is wifely made very fhort. The fecond period, which he tiles theObfcure, takes up the four next books; we here find a more regular force than was known in other countries for many ages after; at this period we find Pentarchy formed, deftroyed, and re-eftablished; but there feems always to fubfift one monarch, to which, till just before the arrival of English monarchs, the reft were fubordinate; the then monarch, fometimes through weakness, fometimes through inattention, does not affert his fuperiority. Through a mift of barbarifm and confufion, there is a glimmering of anintended order and government, and there are not wanting very great Ollam Fodla feems to have had great ideas, he lived about A. M. 3236 he formed a fort of

men.

In his fixth book opens what he calls the Enlightened age, but proves a very heavy road for the hiftorian. We find the gospel had been before preached there, but it was not till A. D. 432 that Palladius was fent from Rome; nor was it till fome years after that, by the preaching and exemplary life and wife conduct of St. Patrick, that Chriftianity gained much ground. This and the feventh book taking up the fpace of about 370 years, contains little elfe than the fucceffion and genealogies of the kings and faints, and confequently cannot be interefting: till the year of our lord 797, the Irish hiftory is little elfe than a continued fcene of domeftic ftrife. The mifery of the country about that time was increafed by continualinvafions from the Danes, who fettled themfelves in most of the fea ports, and were often poffeffed of the empire of the whole ifland; it was not till after long fufferings that the Irish thought of equipping a fleet, and in the very firit ufe of it gave a fa

fily have gained credit with impartial people." Introduction, p. 53. This introduction is a curious and very learned treatife on the natural history and antiquities of Ireland; we could with, indeed, the doctor had been a little fuller in his account of Taniftry and the Brehon law; we are however made amends by a difputation of more confequence to us certainly, as it tends to teach us (for the mutual advantage of both countries) to lay afide our prejudices againft, and jealoufies of Ireland; and gives as the following fine leffon in politics, that fair and equal dealing to all the parts of an empire, is the true intereft of the whole.

"On the one hand, the people of Ireland, looking upon themfelves as free-born fubjects, their kingdom as diftinct and independent, and as never having been conquered, revolt against the prohibition of their woollen commerce by the English parliament; and as tho' no other com. merce could employ them, and wealth was to be derived to them from no other-perhaps because it is prohibited-they ran their wool to the enenries of England; and by that means have enabled them to underfell us, and to take the market for the woollen trade in a great measure out of our hands. Tho' we have given great encouragement to the linen manufacture, which fhould be confidered as the ftaple trade of the nation, and tho' if all their fheep-walks were to be converted into tillage for hemp and flax, and all the labouring hands of the island were to be employed in that manufacture, they would always find a market for it, and their mother country would

be greatly benefited by it; yet this does not content them.

On the other hand, the people of England, confidering the inhabitants of that ifland as a colony fent from hence to poffefs a country that we had conquered, and that it has coft us an immenfe sum of money and a deluge of blood to re-establish them in their poffef fions, claim an abfolute fovereignty over them, and to limit and direct their commerce as we please: and as the woollen is the staple manufacture of England, we prohibit their exportation, to every other part of the world, of any wool wrought or unwrought, and to England every thing of that kind but wool and yarn. Thus, as tho' the world was not wide enough for us and them, and as tho we thought that every fhilling got by the Irish was defrauding us of it because we affert that we have a right to limit and direct their trade, fo in order to exercise that right their woollen branch was quite extinguished. Had it been limited indeed to cloths of a particular breadth and fineness, to fuch alone

our rivals underfell us in, there might have been fome good policy in this restraint: and if we ever mean to recover it out of the hands of the French and Dutch, it must be by acting contrary to the way in which we loft it. We loft it by driving the Irish to a better market for their wool than England, with too rigid an exertion of our authority over them, and by the high taxes and high living of our people; and it is only to be recovered by admitting the Irish to share with us in the profits-which may be confined to ratteens, draps, kerfies,

or

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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.

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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 thoufand 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 eftate 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 luxu ry; 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 thousand pounds a year more than the prime cost, 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,

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

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cramp

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cramp her trade and discourage her manufactures. Nor was this opinion ill founded at the time it was formed. Experience had too fully fhewn our ancestors, that as long as the Popish or Irifh intereft was fuperior, the more powerful the natives were, and the greater difturbances were created to England; they either ftruggled to throw off the English government, or elfe to establish the popish reli. gion. But though that kingdom ftill bears the name of Ireland, and the proteftant inhabitants are called Irish, with old ideas annexed to thofe names of oppofition to the English intereft, and though thefe ideas are fo ftrongly affociated, 'like ghosts and darkness, that most of our countrymen find it difficult to feparate them, yet the fcene is quite changed from what it was when fuch a disadvantageous way of thinking about Ireland took rife. Almost all the lands of Ireland are in poffeffion of the defcendants of English proteftants, linked in the ftrongest manner, as well by civil and religious intereft, as by inclinations, to the fortunes of Great Britain.

A computation was made about thirty years ago, that the profit arifing to us from all our plantations and islands in America, never exceeded feventeen hundred thousand pounds a year: and at the fame time it was thought, at the loweft calculation, that we gained from Ireland alone fourteen hundred thousand. From hence it will follow, that the improvements made in Ireland have had the fame effect on England, by employing her poor, bringing wealth into the nation, and increafing the number of fhipping, as if the

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fame improvements had been made in Yorkshire or any county in England and therefore though their people were more fully employed than they are, though their exports were enlarged, and their gain from other nations by a greater liberty of trade were much more confiderable than it is, yet very little of this wealth would ftay with them, but it would as naturally flow to England as the river does to the ocean. It is therefore our intereft to give the people of Ireland full employment, to encou rage their induftry in every branch of trade, and not to ftop any inlet through which their treasure may come in, fince every acquifition or profit they can make will at laft center amongst us. It is their intereft not to extend their commerce to fuch manufacturés or commodities, as will prejudice their mother country which protects and defends them in the enjoyment of their property, but to cultivate the manufactures which lie open to them; and which at the fame that it would give full employment to all their people, and be a fource of wealth and comfort, would be a real advantage to their friends in England. The importance of the fubject to both nations must be the apology for this long digreffion : and to thofe who read it with the fame intention with which all hiftory fhould be read, the apology will be fufficient." Introduction p. 32.

He divides the whole intended work into four periods, this volume contains the three first.

"The inhabitants of this country, fhould be confidered in their hiftory under four different ages.

The first age, which may be called the Fabulous, comprehends a space

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