[544] The fullest writer on the Irish rebellion is Carte, in his Life of Ormond, who had the use of a vast collection of documents belonging to that noble family; a selection from which forms this third volume. But he is extremely partial against all who leaned to the parliamentary or puritan side, and especially the lords justices, Parsons and Borlase; which renders him, to say the least, a very favourable witness for the catholics. Leland, with much candour towards the latter, but a good deal of the same prejudice against the presbyterians, is little more than the echo of Carte. A more vigorous, though less elegant historian, is Warner, whose impartiality is at least equal to Leland's, and who may perhaps, upon the whole, be reckoned the best modern authority. Sir John Temple's History of Irish Rebellion, and Lord Clanricarde's Letters, with a few more of less importance, are valuable contemporary testimonies.
The catholics themselves might better leave their cause to Carte and Leland than excite prejudices instead of allaying them by such a tissue of misrepresentation and disingenuousness as Curry's Historical Account of the Civil Wars in Ireland.
[545] Sir John Temple reckons the number of protestants murdered, or destroyed in some manner, from the breaking out of the rebellion in October 1641, to the cessation in September 1643, at three hundred thousand, an evident and enormous exaggeration; so that the first edition being incorrectly printed, and with numerals, we might almost suspect a cipher to have been added by mistake (p. 15, edit. Maseres). Clarendon says forty or fifty thousand were murdered in the first insurrection. Sir William Petty, in his Political Anatomy of Ireland, from calculations too vague to deserve confidence, puts the number massacred at thirty-seven thousand. Warner has scrutinised the examinations of witnesses, taken before a commission appointed in 1643, and now deposited in the library of Trinity College, Dublin; and, finding many of the depositions unsworn, and others founded on hearsay, has thrown more doubt than any earlier writer on the extent of the massacre. Upon the whole, he thinks twelve thousand lives of protestants the utmost that can be allowed for the direct or indirect effects of the rebellion, during the two first years, except losses in war (History of Irish Rebellion, p. 397), and of these only one-third by murder. It is to be remarked, however, that no distinct accounts could be preserved in formal depositions of so promiscuous a slaughter, and that the very exaggerations show its tremendous nature. The Ulster colony, a numerous and brave people, were evidently unable to make head for a considerable time against the rebels; which could hardly have been, if they had only lost a few thousands. It is idle to throw an air of ridicule (as is sometimes attempted) on the depositions, because they are mingled with some fabulous circumstances, such as the appearance of the ghosts of the murdered on the bridge at Cavan; which by the way, is only told, in the depositions subjoined to Temple, as the report of the place, and was no cold-blooded fabrication, but the work of a fancy bewildered by real horrors.
Carte, who dwells at length on every circumstance unfavourable to the opposite party, despatches the Ulster massacre in a single short paragraph, and coolly remarks, that there were not many murders, "considering the nature of such an affair," in the first week of the insurrection. Life of Ormond, i. 175-177. This is hardly reconcilable to fair dealing. Curry endeavours to discredit even Warner's very moderate estimate; and affects to call him in one place (p. 184) "a writer highly prejudiced against the insurgents," which is grossly false. He praises Carte and Nalson, the only protestants he does praise, and bestows on the latter the name of impartial. I wonder he does not say that no one protestant was murdered. Dr. Lingard has lately given a short account of the Ulster rebellion (Hist. of England, x. 154), omitting all mention of the massacre, and endeavouring in a note at the end of the volume, to disprove, by mere scraps of quotation, an event of such notoriety, that we must abandon all faith in public fame if it were really unfounded.
[546] Carte, i. 253, 266; iii. 51; Leland, 154. Sir Charles Coote and Sir William St. Leger are charged with great cruelties in Munster. The catholic confederates spoke with abhorrence of the Ulster massacre. Leland, 161; Warner, 203. They behaved, in many parts, with humanity; nor indeed do we find frequent instances of violence, except in those counties where the proprietors had been dispossessed.
[547] Carte and Leland endeavour to show that the Irish of the pale were driven into rebellion by the distrust of the lords justices, who refused to furnish them with arms, after the revolt in Ulster, and permitted the parliament to sit for one day only, in order to publish a declaration against the rebels. But the prejudice of these writers is very glaring. The insurrection broke out in Ulster, October 23, 1641; and in the beginning of December the lords of the pale were in arms. Surely this affords some presumptions that Warner has reason to think them privy to the rebellion, or, at least, not very averse to it. P. 146. And, with the suspicion that might naturally attach to all Irish catholics, could Borlase and Parsons be censurable for declining to intrust them with arms, or rather for doing so with some caution? Temple, 56. If they had acted otherwise, we should certainly have heard of their incredible imprudence. Again, the catholic party, in the House of Commons, were so cold in their loyalty, to say the least, that they objected to giving any appellation to the rebels worse than that of discontented gentlemen. Leland, 140. See too Clanricarde's Letters, p. 33, etc. In fact, several counties of Leinster and Connaught were in arms before the pale.
It has been thought by some that the lords justices had time enough to have quelled the rebellion in Ulster before it spread farther. Warner, 130. Of this, as I conceive, we should not pretend to judge confidently. Certain it is that the whole army in Ireland was very small, consisting of only nine hundred and forty-three horse, and two thousand two hundred and ninety-seven foot. Temple, 32; Carte, 194. I think Sir John Temple has been unjustly depreciated; he was master of the rolls in Ireland at the time, and a member of the council—no bad witness for what passed in Dublin; and he makes out a complete justification, as far as appears, for the conduct of the lords justices and council towards the lords of the pale and the catholic gentry. Nobody alleges that Parsons and Borlase were men of as much energy as Lord Strafford; but those who sit down in their closets, like Leland and Warner, more than a century afterwards, to lavish the most indignant contempt on their memory, should have reflected a little on the circumstances.
[548] "I perceived (says Preston, general of the Irish, writing to Lord Clanricarde) that the catholic religion, the rights and prerogatives of his majesty, my dread sovereign, the liberties of my country, and whether there should be an Irishman or no, were the prizes at stake." Carte iii. 120. Clanricarde himself expresses to the king, and to his brother, Lord Essex, in January 1642, his apprehension that the English parliament meant to make it a religious war. Clanricarde's Letters, 61 et post. The letters of this great man, perhaps the most unsullied character in the annals of Ireland, and certainly more so than even his illustrious contemporary, the Duke of Ormond, exhibit the struggles of a noble mind between love of his country and his religion on the one hand, loyalty and honour on the other. At a later period of that unhappy war, he thought himself able to conciliate both principles.
[549] Carte, ii. 221; Leland, 420.
[550] Carte, ii. 216; Leland, 414.