These people, in
defiance of the law, persisted in meeting to worship God after their own
fashion. The Indulgence they regarded, not as a partial reparation of
the wrongs inflicted by the State on the Church, but as a new wrong, the
more odious because it was disguised under the appearance of a benefit.
Persecution, they said, could only kill the body; but the black
Indulgence was deadly to the soul. Driven from the towns, they assembled
on heaths and mountains. Attacked by the civil power, they without
scruple repelled force by force. At every conventicle they mustered in
arms. They repeatedly broke out into open rebellion. They were easily
defeated, and mercilessly punished: but neither defeat nor punishment
could subdue their spirit. Hunted down like wild beasts, tortured till
their bones were beaten flat, imprisoned by hundreds, hanged by scores,
exposed at one time to the license of soldiers from England, abandoned
at another time to the mercy of troops of marauders from the Highlands,
they still stood at bay in a mood so savage that the boldest and
mightiest oppressor could not but dread the audacity of their despair.

Such was, during the reign of Charles the Second, the state of Scotland.
Ireland was not less distracted. In that island existed feuds, compared
with which the hottest animosities of English politicians were lukewarm.
The enmity between the Irish Cavaliers and the Irish Roundheads was
almost forgotten in the fiercer enmity which raged between the English
and the Celtic races. The interval between the Episcopalian and the
Presbyterian seemed to vanish, when compared with the interval which
separated both from the Papist. During the late civil troubles the
greater part of the Irish soil had been transferred from the vanquished
nation to the victors. To the favour of the Crown few either of the
old or of the new occupants had any pretensions. The despoilers and the
despoiled had, for the most part, been rebels alike. The government
was soon perplexed and wearied by the conflicting claims and mutual
accusations of the two incensed factions. Those colonists among
whom Cromwell had portioned out the conquered territory, and whose
descendants are still called Cromwellians, asserted that the aboriginal
inhabitants were deadly enemies of the English nation under every
dynasty, and of the Protestant religion in every form. They described
and exaggerated the atrocities which had disgraced the insurrection of
U