the project of expelling the English, and asserting the
independency of his native country.[*]

* Nalson, vol. iii. p. 543.

He secretly went from chieftain to chieftain, and roused up every latent
principle of discontent. He maintained a close correspondence with Lord
Maguire and Sir Phelim O'Neale, the most powerful of the old Irish.
By conversation, by letters, by his emissaries, he represented to his
countrymen the motives of a revolt. He observed to them, that, by
the rebellion of the Scots, and factions of the English, the king's
authority in Britain was reduced to so low a condition, that he never
could exert himself with any vigor in maintaining the English dominion
over Ireland: that the Catholics in the Irish house of commons, assisted
by the Protestants, had so diminished the royal prerogative and the
power of the lieutenant, as would much facilitate the conducting to its
desired effect any conspiracy or combination which could be formed: that
the Scots, having so successfully thrown off dependence on the crown
of England, and assumed the government into their own hands, had set an
example to the Irish, who had so much greater oppressions to complain
of: that the English planters, who had expelled them their possessions,
suppressed their religion, and bereaved them of their liberties were
but a handful in comparison of the natives: that they lived in the most
supine security, interspersed with their numerous enemies, trusting
to the protection of a small army, which was itself scattered in
inconsiderable divisions through out the whole kingdom: that a great
body of men, disciplined by the government, were now thrown loose,
and were ready for any daring or desperate enterprise: that though the
Catholics had hitherto enjoyed, in some tolerable measure, the exercise
of their religion, from the moderation of their indulgent prince, they
must henceforth expect that the government will be conducted by other
maxims and other principles: that the Puritanical parliament, having
at length subdued their sovereign, would no doubt, as soon as they had
consolidated their authority, extend their ambitious enterprises to
Ireland, and make the Catholics in that kingdom feel the same furious
persecution, to which their brethren in England were at present exposed:
and that a revolt in the Irish, tending only to vindicate their native
liberty against the violence of foreign invaders, could never at any
time be deemed rebe