The green book, or, Gleanings from the writing-desk of a literary agitator

Front matter

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Contents

PAGE

I saw thee, Time's rude hand had dimmed 35

The defeat of Sisera ^^

Chapter II

Inquiry, as regards the idea of maintaining a Union by force, into the number of Irish who died in the British army and navy during the last half century, and likewise into the comparative military quaUties of the British and Irish people 144

Chapter III

Statement (in reference to the same idea of a Union) of the comparative size, in geographical square miles, of Ireland, and the principal states of Europe, with a view of her great natural capabilities for being a maritime power, and the peculiar military strength of her territory, as combined with the large amount of her population, and illustrated by a plan of defensive operations, based on Napoleon principles 156

Chapter IV

Examination of the assertion of Voltaire and others, that the Irish " have always fought badly at home," and confutation of that assertion, by an account of what men, and how much domestic • dissension and money enabled England to terminate the Elizabethian and Cromwellian wars 175

10 CONTENTS.

Chapter V. Page

Extension of the same inquiry, in greater detail, to the Jacobite and Williamite war, containing a true, in opposition to the false, or British and Anglo-Irish statements, respecting the comparative amount of the Irish and English numbers, artillery, &c., at the Boyne ; and also a passing review and comments on the events of that campaign, including William's repulse at Limerick, Marlborough's capture of Cork and Kinsale, the subsequent defeat of Ginckle's attempted winter operations against Kerry and Connaught, and the great annoyance given to the invaders by the Irish guerillas, or Rapparees 183

Chapter VI

Great preparations of the English for the next campaign, or that of 1691, and strictures on the equally base and impolitic conduct of the French, who, by any thing like proper succours, would have enabled the Irish, at the very least, to maintain James on the throne of Ireland, as is shown by the events of the war in Ulster, previous to Kirk's and Schomberg's landing — or, in other words, by the complete defeats of the Orange insurgents by the Irish army, with very inferior numbers, at Dromore-Iveagh, the passes of the Ban, and at Clady-ford before Derry, and even by a fair view of the shamelessly-overrated Williamite defence of that place 214

Chapter VII. *

Privations endured by the Irish army previous to the arrival of St. Ruth ; great diminution of the national force through the treachery of O'Donnell and other causes ; and a detailed account of the campaign down to, and inclusive of, the battle of Aughrim, by way of showing what sort of " had fighting" the Irish displayed " at home." 240

Chapter VIII

Complete confutation of the notion of the Irish having " fought badly at home," by a full expose of what an immense sum it took to put them down. Capabilities of Ireland for national or self-legislative independence, as contrasted with the native strength of Greece in the time of Philip and Alexander, Spain

CONTENTS. 11

PAGE

under Philip II., Holland from the time it threw off the Spanish yoke to the French Revolution, Portugal before and after it cast off the same yoke, and Prussia down to the French Revolution. Concluding induction from the whole of the preceding facts, that Ireland is entitled to, would be able to attain, and can only expect justice from, a Repeal of the Union 361

Appendix

From Taifs Magazine, illustrating, from Scotch testimony, the fallacy of asserting that a Union with England, which was so good for Scotland, must also be good for Ireland 373

PEEEACE.

The following pages contain a few selections in verse and prose, the compilation of which was first suggested by the casual perusal, during a winter's residence in the country, of an allusion, in the Quarterly Review,^ to two political and literary Societies, with which the author of this volume connected himself, at a period of life, when those who have not been under the necessity of adopting a regular profession or business devote their time to dissipation or intellectual amusement. Of this latter mode of spending some hours that might have been worse employed, the verses in the work are specimens. A desire of correcting the errors in the Quarterly respecting the political objects of the Societies alluded to, and the admission by such an eminent literary as well as politically-hostile periodical, that each of those Societies " exhibited public proofs that its labours were not frivolous or unproductive," suggested the idea, that a miscellaneous volume, like the present, might be of some use, from the light it would throw upon one of the most important portions of the agitation of the last few years ; even independent of any additional service that such a publication might be made capable of rendering to the cause of voluntaryism in religion, and self-legislation in politics, without which there can neither be true Christianity nor real liberty in any country. Till each religion is left to support itself, and each nation is left to make laws for itself, there can be no such thing as justice ; and there should be no such thing as tranquillity. The law, indeed, should not be violated ; but it should meet with no more than * gee p. Ill, note 3. 2 a mere physical or prudential obedience — while the mind, or great primary moving power of the sect or the country subjected to such a twofold system of spiritual and temporal oppression as that of being taxed for another religion or legislated for by another nation, should be in a constant state of moral insurrection, which, as sure as the soul is superior to the body, and justice preferable to injustice, must, if only persevered in, be ultimately successful.

In the postscript to the lines, entitled " Epistle of Dr. Southey, Poet Laureate and Author of the Book of the Church, to the Editor of the Parson's Horn-Book," an endeavour has been made to demonstrate the moral indefensibility of all such institutions as state, or forcibly-maintained Churches, by a combination of more clear and at the same time comprehensive reasons, than have, perhaps, been yet presented in so concise a shape. These reasons have been prefixed to the account of the Comet Club, as constituting the principles on which that body, in the Horn- Book and Cornet^ diffused, in 1831, that general spirit of active or really working hostility to the Irish Church and tithe-system, which was so long and so formidably successful ; and which, though recently reduced to a sort of calm, by a parliamentary arrangement disapproved of by the writer of these pages, will, he hopes, never be suffered to expire by the friends of Irish liberty, and the admirers of the ecclesiastical system of primitive Christianity, till the complete legal extinction, or application to generally-useful purposes, of that impost of blood-stained decimation, so long extorted, in the insulted name of religion, by the minority from the majority, and by the rich from the poor, upon no authority more sacred than that of the statute-book, and by no means more suitable to the doctrine of " peace on earth" than horse, foot, and artillery. In speaking thus, however, the author neither is, nor has ever been, actuated by any feelings of low and illiberal, or mere sectarian prejudice against the Church of England, for which, next to his own, or the

Catholic Church, he has the greatest respect. Regardmg religion as a matter of authority and feeling far more than of mere reason, or, more properly speaking, than of that which the mass of wrangling dabblers in theology think to be reason ; hating polemics, morally, as being more destructive to the main test of Christianity, or the general exercise of kindness towards one another, than beneficial to any particular sect ; detesting spiritual squabbles and the mania of proselytism, politically, as being the cause of that disgraceful discord amongst Irishmen, which has led to the provincial debasement and consequent misery of their common country; and, in fine, having the same aversion to wound the mind of another by an attack on his religious belief, as to inflict pain on his body by a blow ; the author has endeavoured to state his views on the subject of voluntaryism, in a manner which he hopes will prove him to have been mare qualified for handling such a topic — or treating it according to the arguments suitable to persons of every religious belief, since all must be afi*ected by the existence of such institutions as state-churches — than if he were capable of assailing the existing Establishment for the mere object of putting another Church into its place. As a layman, contented with his own creed, and willing to leave others contented with theirs, he cannot accuse himself of having been influenced, in any thing he has written, by the slightest feeling of bigotry against the Irish established clergy, for whom, — drawing a due distinction between the men and the system, — he always advocated the payment of a life-provision, equal to the value of the ecclesiastical income proposed to be taken from them.

He is opposed to the Establishment solely on moral and political grounds — the moraU involving the principle of justice in general, as springing from a belief that no one should be forced, either in this, or in any other country, to pay for a religion from whose doctrines he dissents — the political, including the principle of justice in particular, with regard to his own country, as originating in a conviction, that the existence of the present, or of any state-connected Church, but especially the existence of the present, must be the greatest obstacle to the national regeneration of Ireland. Were the people of this country not disorganized by sectarian feuds, they would be strong enough to effect that regeneration. But the State-Church, or politico-religious garrison planted by England amongst us, to gain a part of the inhabitants to support her unjust ascendency by enabling them to plunder and oppress the rest, and to divide all in the name of religion, must first be rooted out — for then, and not till then, can all sects be perfectly equalized — as such, united among themselves — and, as united among themselves, able to regain that national independence which England, through their domestic discord alone, either 2vas able to deprive them of, or is able to withhold from them. Till the two cats in the fable disagreed about the cheese, the monkey was not able to come in and reconcile their differences by taking it all to himself. And, if Catholics and Protestants were as united in 1800 as in 1782, — which, but for the causes of division, springing from the existence of an Established Church, they must have been, — we well know what little chance there would have been, of the monkey transfer of our domestic legislature to the other side of the Channel.

With respect to the verses at the commencement of the volume, the author ventures to hope, that the very small proportion which they bear to the rest of the book, and the fact of their having been copied, in several instances, by others, from the sources through which they originally appeared in print, may be deemed at least some excuse for their being thought worthy of collection in the present shape. Even, on such trifles, various opinions will of course be formed, though none, he trusts, except as to the writer's political principles, from any thing that may appear in those few passing effusions, — originating, like all productions of the kind, from mere impressions and circumstances of the moment, as different at different times as the dates of the respective pieces. Thus, it will be seen, as well from the date of November, 1836, to the song on the Temperance Society, as from the various allusions which it contains, that it could not have been the author's design to ridicule that great moral reformation produced in the national habits by the invaluable exertions of the Rev. Mr. Matthew, whose success, in such a noble cause, may be regarded by Irishmen as the strongest test, as the surest precursor, that still "greater things shall they do." The song in question was written at a time when the Temperance Societies were looked upon by the author as being very little, if any thing better, than insidious confederacies of saintly humbug, veiling some plans for tampering with the religious belief of the people, under a mere outward profession of aiming to ameliorate their condition by the destruction of intemperance ; a notion, the more natural on the part of the author, from the class of persons to whom any participation in those societies was then chiefly, if not totally, confined. The revolution which has since taken place, and has converted what the writer regarded as a mere inroad of the restless spirit of biblical proselytism into a grand Irish moral movement, was not foreseen by him at the time the verses alluded to were written, nor even when they were printed; but, being printed, they had to be left where they stood. This, it is hoped, will be a sufficient apology for the appearance of those lines. Indeed, of teetotalism, amongst those who find by experience that they know not w^here to stop, it can hardly be requisite for the author to express Ids humble approbation. The system is no other than that so long acted upon by Doctor Johnson ; a man, whose intellectual and moral eminence would do honour to any country and religion. Finding, as we are told, that '* he could practise abstinence, but not temperance," he became a water-drinker; abstaining, for several

2* i8 PREFACE.

years, from the use of any intoxicating liquor. And the resolution which he found necessary, others, similarly affected, may well consider themselves bound to observe.^

The critical and historical remarks in the paper on the comparative merits of '' David's Lament for Saul and Jonathan," and Wolfe's ''Lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore," may possess some attraction for those who prefer literary to political disquisitions.

In the postscript to the verses, headed " Nabis and the Union," some curious, though hitherto unobserved analogies between the results of the spirit of Anti-Unionism in this country and in Scotland are pointed out, and commented upon. A remarkable official testimony is given as to the predominance of Anti-Unionism in Ireland over every other political feeling. An inquiry, as regards the Tory or Chartist idea of maintaining a Union by " physical force," is made with respect to the proportion of soldiers and sailors contributed by Ireland to the English army and navy since the period of the American war. An outline is then drawn of her various capabilities for national or self-legislative independence, illustrated by a comparison of her superior size, in geographical square miles, to that of the greater number of the existing states of Europe. A brief survey is next taken of the peculiar military strength and defensibility of the country against any thing in the shape of a hostile invasion. A review follows, of the causes through which the various alleged conquests of this country were effected, and the price which they cost — this review being more full in reference to the great struggle of the Revolution from 1688 to 1691, so grossly misrepresented to the world, as an instance of the Irish having "fought badly at home," by those Williamite libellers, who have hitherto been almost exclusively cited and believed as authorities on the subject. A still further proof is presented of the folly or cowardice that would assign this island no higher rank than that of a * Boswell's Life, p. 275, 367, 452, &c. Jones's edit.

province, by a contrast of her superior resources for political greatness, compared with several of the most eminent states in ancient and modern history. A demonstration is made of the monstrous pecuniary drain imposed upon Ireland by England, against the terms, as well as through the medium, of the so-called Act of Union ; and the essay concludes with a glance at what the author considers must be the finally separate destiny of the two islands, unless the unjust, ruinous, and intolerable usurpation by England of the national rights of Ireland, through the nefarious job of a bribed, anti-national legislature, shall be surrendered, — if not from motives of political honesty or common justice, yet from the prudential considerations involved with the fact, of two-thirds of the English military force being natives of the same insular territory of 32,201 square miles, which presents a recruiting population of 2,000,000 more at home, — at once becoming more numerous, and, from the present system of the connexion between their country with England, more discontented, every day.

The observations on our military History — made for the purpose of testing, in the most conclusive way, the truth of the assertion as to our having " always fought badly at home," by examining how much time and money our principal wars with England cost, even disunited as we were, — have been included in this volume by the advice of a literary friend, who was of opinion, that the number o{ facts, and reasonings, founded on facts contained in those remarks — mere mems. loosely thrown together as they are, — more fully refute the above-mentioned discreditable notion, and place many circumstances of the great war of the Revolution between King James and the Prince of Orange in a more honourable light for the country than has yet been done by any Irish writer. That some of those mems. on the subject of that war, though intended to correct the faults of other writers, might be considerably improved, is freely admitted.^ For, amidst the great difficulty of gaining an admittance to so many documents as it is absolutely necessary to consult, in order to form more than a superficial opinion on almost any point of such a " vexato questio^^ as our modern story, in which the unscrupulous malignity of a hostile sect and country has been almost the exclusive source of any intelligence as to details, and has been as industrious as it has been determined to misrepresent an obnoxious religion and injured nation in almost every particular, who could see his way to more than a portion of truth at a time ? This remark is more particularly applicable to some of those observations in reference to King James, that have been made under the influence of the ideas generally entertained of him, through the accounts of his enemies ; ideas, from which nothing but a long, laborious, and difficult acquaintance with the scattered and scarce records, to which access must be obtained in order to form a true conception of his conduct, and a full exposition of the varied, curious

* Thus, in page 225-6, for " the loss of the besieged/' at Derry, "behig, according to Walker, about 3,200 men," should be substituted " the loss of the regimented garrison — the whole of those who perished DURING the Irish blockade, or without including any who died from its effects AFTER the place was relieved, being estimated, on Williamite authority, at no less than 10,000 !" Again, the full complement of fighting men in the town, which the Duke of Berwick merely speaks of as "above 10,000," is made 2,000 more, or 12,000 in all, by a contemporary Protestant authority. The calculation, too, at p. 285-9, from a passage in Story, of Ginckle's battering train before Athlone, at but 29 cannon and 6 mortars, is to be corrected by the testimony of one of his own officers, (whose word could not be consulted when the above calculation was made,) into " 50 battering cannon and 8 mortars ; so that the Dutch general, with his 12 field-pieces, had 70 guns there — a statement by which the " 47 guns and mortars," (inclusive of field-pieces) at p. 274, may likewise be altered. The Dutch list, also, of William's foot regiments in Ireland, in 1691, makes them, with the exception of the Danes, 780, instead of 705 men each ; which would add considerably to the amount of Ginckle's army at Aughrim. Such particulars, however, only serve to show, that, unlike the Williamite defamers of Ireland, (who, by the way, are as remarkable for virulent and unscrupulous misrepresentation as any Jacobite or Irish accounts we have are for an adherence to truth,) the author has kept considerably within, rather than gone beyond, what facts would justify, in his criticisms on those libellers.

Preface

and interesting information thus acquired, in the shape of a complete Irish history of the Revolution of 1688-91, can be sufficient to disabuse the public mind. To that rare, and highly interesting knowledge as regards Ireland, and indeed England too, as connected with Ireland, the observations under consideration have been the means of leading their author, and of thus far more than compensating lihn for any defects which they contain. In proof of this, he adduces the narrative he has given of the battle of Aughrim, which, though by no means containing all he could cite on the subject— for why should he enable others to trace out and trade upon that for which he alone has laboured ? — will, he thinks, prove him to be acquainted with a much greater number of printed, manuscript, and traditional authorities respecting that important event, and the remarkable period with which it is connected, than can be obtained from any of the wretched productions called Irish histories, that have purported to give an account of those times. His peculiar sources of research — exclusive of a familiar acquaintance with all the common writers on the subject — consist of several large volumes of the MS. of King William's Secretary, and similar folios of the War correspondence between General Ginckle, his Officers, the Castle, and Whitehall ; of a still more valuable collection of the original proclamations of King James and his government in this country — the more curious, from the great care that was taken to secrete or destroy every document of his administration, and then to assail him, and the Irish clergy and people as his supporters, with the most disgusting misrepresentations ; of an acquaintance -with nearly all the Continental writers who have touched upon the wars of this country at the Revolution ; of a perusal of, and extracts from, the greater portion of the numerous pamphlets and other periodicals of the time that were printed in English, — including some very interesting tracts in favour of King James, and the Duke of Tyrconnell, not even alluded to by those who have hitherto written histories of the Revolution.

In addition to this extensive and authentic mass of documents on the subject, he can obtain access to several hundred letters of King James's Secretary, from which sufficient extracts can soon be made, and with these, and an inspection of some valuable documents in Paris, which can also be quickly read through, and extracted from, as what they are, and where they are to be found, are known, the writer, if encouraged, would undertake a History of the Revolution and war in Ireland from 1688 to 1691-- followed by an account of the Irish in all the foreign services, from the termination of O'Neill's war with Elizabeth, when our countrymen first entered these services in considerable numbers, down to the present times ; and the whole concluding with an inquiry into what portion the Irish have formed of that army and navy, which Tory swaggering would threaten this country with, under the usurped name of" the British heart and the British arm." A work of this kind would, it is scarcely necessary to say, be one of the highest interest and utility — fortified, as it would be, (according to the plan proposed and roughly exemplified in this volume,) with copious notes, containing minute comparisons of, and references to, authorities, corroborative extracts from scarce or MS. documents, arithmetical analyses and tables of the numbers of the Irish and English forces in every important action, and accounts of old families, both Irish and English, that took a part in the Revolution of this country — and written, as the work would be, not from the evidences of one side, or rather from a mere portion of those evidences, as all our superficial compilations on the subject at present are, but, as far as possible, from all the documents known to exist, as well on the side of William, as of his unfortunate father-in-law.

To see whether his countrymen would wish to encourage an undertaking, that would be the means of vindicating the calumniated military character of their ancestors in the great contest adverted to, and of raising that three years' memorable struggle of *' the truest, the last of the brave," for their persecuted country and religion, into at least something like the honourable position which such bravery and fidelity as theirs ought to occupy on the page of history, has been the cause that this volume has been allowed to expand so much beyond what was the original intention of the author. For his own part, whatever may be the reception of those miscellaneous sheets, and of the proposal which they contain, their compilation, in the present shape, will always be to him a source of the highest gratification, as having been the means of leading him into a mass of knowledge on the subject in question, so far beyond what he had any idea of when he first thought of criticising the usual Williamite accounts of that war, that, between what he has made out and transcribed, and what he knows where to get, he may confidently affirm that he has the materials for giving a far better account than has yet appeared of the events of that memorable era in our modern annals, and of the achievements of the Irish in the services of the great powers of the Continent, which he would combine with its history. To him, as one of the race, both in blood and feeling, to which eight-tenths of the men belonged, who "filled the ranks and fed the cannon" in the cause of their country, religion, and legitimate Sovereign, and whose gallantry procured that celebrated treaty, the nefarious violation of which has been perpetuated to, and is a primary cause of, the agitation of the present times, a minute research into the details of such a contest did not appear a matter of indifference, and was not felt to be a source of weariness, notwithstanding" the great labour of transcription, as well as of study attendant upon such an inquiry. And though he may be taxed with too much enthusiasm on the subject, — for of merely interested motives he can scarcely be accused, as he does not live by writing, — he thinks, that the execution of such a work as has been proposed ought to be looked upon in much the same light by his countrymen as by himself.

Should this be their as well as his opinion, the portraits of Eichard Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnell, and Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, will indeed be evidences of the spirit in which the work shall be written. But, to guard, as much as possible, against the influence of prejudice, and the charge of partiality, comparisons of the difl'erent accounts of every important transaction, by both domestic and foreign writers, shall be given in notes, minutely specifying every authority, and stating, when any work is rare, in what library, and where in that library, it can be procured. The notes in this volume, — modified, of course, to suit the calmer tone of a regular history, — will convey a general idea of that portion of the writer's plan ; his object being, by such notes, and appendices, to make the work contain every thing worth knowing on the subject. Except where it may be necessary to pronounce his own opinion on any point, his narrative shall receive no colouring, unless what can be justified either by the testimony of ofiicial and contemporary, or of such statements as may appear to have been derived from official and contemporary sources of information. Appropriate and decisive quotations, similar to those in the sketch of the siege of Athlone and battle of Aughrim, — given in this volume as rough specimens of the proposed narrative, — shall be introduced, as often as possible, into the text ; the author having the greatest contempt for that impertinent obtrusion of dogmatizing vanity, called the '* philosophy of history," or for any mode of writing history, but one based upon an honest, industrious search for, and a patient weaving together of, the best original testimonies on the subject; whose very words, as superior to any others in point of credit, and as generally the most picturesque, — from the greater liveliness with which we will speak of what we have seen, than of what we have heard, — should constantly, but especially in the account of any important matter, be laid before a reader.

From a book so written, on the only war deserving the appellation of national that can be said to have taken place between this country and England,* and one not of so remote a date as to be uninteresting now, since there are several persons in existence that might have conversed with those who actually lived at the time,t and the present

• By this is meant, the only war in which Ireland had any thing like a resident Sovereign, with a national government, and a united population, in contending against England — which, as contrasted with her other struggles, she had, or, allowing for the defection of Ulster, was nearest having, in James's time. The Irish, indeed, knew this well, and showed that they knew it ; if it were only by the spirit-stirring inscription, in large letters, on the great standard, which was kept flying at the top of the Castle, where the King was —