Protestants resolved to the utmost of their power to
support and defend the rightful Sovereign, the Protestant religion,
the laws of the country, the Legislative Union, and the succession to
the Throne being Protestant, and united further for the defence of
their own persons and properties and the maintenance of the public
peace. It is exclusively an association of those who are attached to
the religion of the Reformation, and _will not admit into the
brotherhood persons whom an intolerant spirit leads to persecute,
injure, or upbraid any man on account of his religious opinions_. They
associate also in honour of King William the Third, Prince of Orange,
whose name they bear, as supporters of his glorious memory." I have
italicised a few words which clear the association from the charge of
organised intolerance, which is made alike by English and Irish Home
Rulers. The Portadown folks are especially well-versed in the history
of the movement, and in the perils which impelled their forefathers to
band themselves together. According to Froude, it was on the 18th
September, 1795, that a peace was formally signed at Portadown between
the Peep-o'-Day Boys and the Defenders, and the hatchet was apparently
buried. But the incongruous elements were drawn together only for a
more violent recoil. The very same day Mr. Atkinson, a Protestant, one
of the Defender subscribers, was shot at. The following day a party of
Protestants were waylaid and beaten. On the 21st both parties
collected in force, and at a village in Tyrone, from which the event
took the name by which it is known, was fought the battle of the
Diamond. The Protestants won the day, though outnumbered. Eight and
forty Defenders were left dead on the field, and the same evening was
established the first lodge of an institution which was to gather into
it all that was best and noblest in Ireland. The name of Orangemen had
long existed. It had been used by loyal Protestants to designate those
of themselves who adhered most faithfully to the principles of 1688.
Threatened now with a general Roman Catholic insurrection, with the
Executive authority powerless, and determined at all events not to
offer the throats of themselves and their families to the Roman
Catholic knife, they organised themselves into a volunteer police to
prevent murder, and to awe into submission the roving bands of
assassins who were scaring sleep from the bedside of every Protestant
household. They b