hat kingdom had,
during the six months which followed the surrender of Limerick, been
in an unsettled state. It was not till the Irish troops who adhered to
Sarsfield had sailed for France, and till the Irish troops who had made
their election to remain at home had been disbanded, that William at
length put forth a proclamation solemnly announcing the termination
of the civil war. From the hostility of the aboriginal inhabitants,
destitute as they now were of chiefs, of arms and of organization,
nothing was to be apprehended beyond occasional robberies and murders.
But the war cry of the Irishry had scarcely died away when the first
faint murmurs of the Englishry began to be heard. Coningsby was during
some months at the head of the administration. He soon made himself in
the highest degree odious to the dominant caste. He was an unprincipled
man; he was insatiable of riches; and he was in a situation in which
riches were easily to be obtained by an unprincipled man. Immense sums
of money, immense quantities of military stores had been sent over
from England. Immense confiscations were taking place in Ireland. The
rapacious governor had daily opportunities of embezzling and extorting;
and of those opportunities he availed himself without scruple or shame.
This however was not, in the estimation of the colonists, his greatest
offence. They might have pardoned his covetousness; but they could not
pardon the clemency which he showed to their vanquished and enslaved
enemies. His clemency indeed amounted merely to this, that he loved
money more than he hated Papists, and that he was not unwilling to sell
for a high price a scanty measure of justice to some of the oppressed
class. Unhappily, to the ruling minority, sore from recent conflict and
drunk with recent victory, the subjugated majority was as a drove of
cattle, or rather as a pack of wolves. Man acknowledges in the inferior
animals no rights inconsistent with his own convenience; and as man
deals with the inferior animals the Cromwellian thought himself at
liberty to deal with the Roman Catholic. Coningsby therefore drew on
himself a greater storm of obloquy by his few good acts than by his many
bad acts. The clamour against him was so violent that he was removed;
and Sidney went over, with the full power and dignity of Lord
Lieutenant, to hold a Parliament at Dublin. [401]

But the easy temper and graceful manners of Sidney failed to produce a
conciliatory effect. H