men into Ireland; and in order to engage that
nation in this undertaking, besides giving a promise of pay, they agreed
to put Caricfergus into their hands, and to invest their general with an
authority quite independent of the English government. These troops, so
long as they were allowed to remain, were useful, by diverting the force
of the Irish rebels, and protecting in the north the small remnants of
the British planters. But except this contract with the Scottish nation,
all the other measures of the parliament either were hitherto absolutely
insignificant, or tended rather to the prejudice of the Protestant cause
in Ireland. By continuing their violent persecution, and still more
violent menaces against priests and Papists, they confirmed the Irish
Catholics in their rebellion, and cut off all hopes of indulgence and
toleration. By disposing beforehand of all the Irish forfeitures to
subscribers or adventurers, they rendered all men of property desperate,
and seemed to threaten a total extirpation of the natives.[*] And while
they thus infused zeal and animosity into the enemy, no measure was
pursued which could tend to support or encourage the Protestants, now
reduced to the last extremities.

So great is the ascendant which, from a long course of successes, the
English has acquired over the Irish nation, that though the latter, when
they receive military discipline among foreigners, are not surpassed by
any troops, they have never, in their own country, been able to make any
vigorous effort for the defence or recovery of their liberties. In many
rencounters, the English, under Lord More, Sir William St. Leger, Sir
Frederic Hamilton, and others, had, though under great disadvantages of
situation and numbers, put the Irish to rout, and returned in triumph
to Dublin. The rebels raised the siege of Tredah, after an obstinate
defence made by the garrison.[**] Ormond had obtained two complete
victories at Kilrush and Ross; and had brought relief to all the forts
which were besieged or blockaded in different parts of the kingdom.[***]

* A thousand acres in Ulster were given to every one that
subscribed two hundred pounds, in Connaught to the
subscribers of three hundred and fifty, in Munster for four
hundred and fifty, in Leinster for six hundred.

* Rush vol. vi. p. 506.

** Rush. vol. vi. p. 512.

But notwithstanding these successes, even the most common necessaries
of life were wa