The History of England from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 3, Thomas Babington Macaulay [best novels to read for students TXT] 📗

Account of the Transactions of the late King James in Ireland, 1690; King, iii. 13.; Memoirs of Ireland, 1716.

FN 234 Avaux July 27/Aug 6. 1689.

FN 235 King's State of the Protestants in Ireland, iii. 19.

FN 236 Ibid. iii. 15.

FN 237 Leslie's Answer to King.

FN 238 "En comparazion de lo que se hace in Irlanda con los Protestantes, es nada." April 29/May 6 1689; "Para que vea Su Santitad que aqui estan los Catolicos mas benignamente tratados que los Protestantes in Irlanda." June 19/29

FN 239 Commons' Journals, June 15. 1689.

FN 240 Stat. 1 W.&M. sess. 1. c. 29.

FN 241 Grey's Debates, June 19. 1689.

FN 242 Ibid. June 22. 1689.

FN 243 Hamilton's True Relation; Mac Cormick's Further Account. Of the island generally, Avaux says, "On n'attend rien de cette recolte cy, les paysans ayant presque tous pris les armes.-Letters to Louvois, March 19/29 1689.

FN 244 Hamilton's True Relation.

FN 245 Walker.

FN 246 Walker; Mackenzie.

FN 247 Avaux, June 16/26 1689.

FN 248 Walker; Mackenzie; Light to the Blind; King, iii. 13; Leslie's Answer to King; Life of James, ii, 364. I ought to say that on this occasion King is unjust to James.

FN 249 Leslie's Answer to King; Avaux, July 5/15. 1689. "Je trouvay l'expression bien forte: mais je ne voulois rien repondre, car le Roy s'estoit, desja fort emporte."

FN 250 Mackenzie.

FN 251 Walker's Account. "The fat man in Londonderry" became a proverbial expression for a person whose prosperity excited the envy and cupidity of his less fortunate neighbours.

FN 252 This, according to Narcissus Luttrell was the report made by Captain Withers, afterwards a highly distinguished officer, on whom Pope wrote an epitaph.

FN 253 The despatch which positively commanded Kirke to attack the boom, was signed by Schomberg, who had already been appointed commander in chief of all the English forces in Ireland. A copy of it is among the Nairne MSS. in the Bodleian Library. Wodrow, on no better authority than the gossip of a country parish in Dumbartonshire, attributes the relief of Londonderry to the exhortations of a heroic Scotch preacher named Gordon. I am inclined to think that Kirke was more likely to be influenced by a peremptory order from Schomberg, than by the united eloquence of a whole synod of presbyterian divines.

FN 254 Walker; Mackenzie; Histoire de la Revolution d'Irlande, Amsterdarn, 1691; London Gazette, Aug. 5/15; 1689; Letter of Buchan among the Nairne MSS.; Life of Sir John Leake; The Londeriad; Observations on Mr. Walker's Account of the Siege of Londonderry, licensed Oct, 4. 1689.

FN 255 Avaux to Seignelay, July 18/28 to Lewis, Aug. 9/19

FN 256 "You will see here, as you have all along, that the tradesmen of Londonderry had more skill in their defence than the great officers of the Irish army in their attacks." Light to the Blind. The author of this work is furious against the Irish gunners. The boom he thinks, would never have been broken if they had done their duty. Were they drunk? Were they traitors? He does not determine the point. "Lord," he exclaims, "who seest the hearts of people, we leave the judgment of this affair to thy mercy. In the interim those gunners lost Ireland."

FN 257 In a collection entitled "Derriana," which was published more than sixty years ago, is a curious letter on this subject.

FN 258 Bernardi's Life of Himself, 1737.

FN 259 Hamilton's True Relation; Mac Cormick's Further Account; London Gazette, Aug. 22. 1689; Life of James, ii. 368, 369.; Avaux to Lewis, Aug. 30., and to Louvois of the same date. Story mentions a report that the panic among the Irish was caused by the mistake of an officer who called out "Right about face" instead of "Right face." Neither Avaux nor James had heard any thing about this mistake. Indeed the dragoons who set the example of flight were not in the habit of waiting for orders to turn their backs on an enemy. They had run away once before on that very day. Avaux gives a very simple account of the defeat: "Ces mesmes dragons qui avoient fuy le matin lascherent le pied avec tout le reste de la cavalerie, sans tirer un coup de pistolet; et ils s'enfuidrent tous avec une telle epouvante qu'ils jetterent mousquetons, pistolets, et espees; et la plupart d'eux, ayant creve leurs chevaux, se deshabillerent pour aller plus viste a pied."

FN 260 Hamilton's True Relation.

FN 261 Act. Parl. Scot., Aug. 31. 1681.

FN 262 Balcarras's Memoirs; Short History of the Revolution in Scotland in a letter from a Scotch gentleman in Amsterdam to his friend in London, 1712.

FN 263 Balcarras's Memoirs; Life of James ii. 341.

FN 264 A Memorial for His Highness the Prince of Orange in relation to the Affairs of Scotland, by two Persons of Quality, 1689.

FN 265 See Calvin's letter to Haller, iv. Non. Jan. 155I: "Priusquam urbem unquam ingrederer, nullae prorsus erant feriae praeter diem Dominicum. Ex quo sum revocatus hoc temperamentum quaesivi, ut Christi natalis celebraretur."

FN 266 In the Act Declaration, and Testimony of the Seceders, dated in December, 1736 it is said that "countenance is given by authority of Parliament to the observation of holidays in Scotland, by the vacation of our most considerable Courts of justice in the latter end of December." This is declared to be a national sin, and a ground of the Lord's indignation. In March 1758, the Associate Synod addressed a Solemn Warning to the Nation, in which the same complaint was repeated. A poor crazy creature, whose nonsense has been thought worthy of being reprinted even in our own time, says: "I leave my testimony against the abominable Act of the pretended Queen Anne and her pretended British, really Brutish Parliament, for enacting the observance of that which is called the Yule Vacancy."-The Dying Testimony of William Wilson sometime Schoolmaster in Park, in the Parish of Douglas, aged 68, who died in 1757.

FN 267 An Account of the Present Persecution of the Church in Scotland, in several Letters, 1690; The Case of the afflicted Clergy in Scotland truly represented, 1690; Faithful Contendings Displayed; Burnet, i. 805

FN 268 The form of notice will be found in the book entitled Faithful Contendings Displayed.

FN 269 Account of the Present Persecution, 1690; Case of the afflicted Clergy, 1690; A true Account of that Interruption that was made of the Service of God on Sunday last, being the 17th of February, 1689, signed by James Gibson, acting for the Lord Provost of Glasgow.

FN 270 Balcarras's Memoirs; Mackay's Memoirs.

FN 271 Burnet, ii. 21.

FN 272 Scobell, 1654, cap. 9., and Oliver's Ordinance in Council of the 12th of April in the same year.

FN 273 Burnet and Fletcher of Saltoun mention the prosperity of Scotland under the Protector, but ascribe it to a cause quite inadequate to the production of such an effect. "There was," says Burnet, "a considerable force of about seven or eight thousand men kept in Scotland. The pay of the army brought so much money into the kingdom that it continued all that while in a very flourishing state . . . . . . We always reckon those eight years of usurpation a time of great peace and prosperity." "During the time of the usurper Cromwell," says Fletcher, "we imagined ourselves to be in a tolerable condition with respect to the last particular (trade and money) by reason of that expense which was made in the realm by those forces that kept us in subjection." The true explanation of the phenomenon about which Burnet and Fletcher blundered so grossly will be found in a pamphlet entitled "Some seasonable and modest Thoughts partly occasioned by and partly concerning the Scotch East India Company, Edinburgh, 1696. See the Proceedings of the Wednesday Club in Friday Street, upon the subject of an Union with Scotland, December 1705. See also the Seventh Chapter of Mr. Burton's valuable History of Scotland.

FN 274 See the paper in which the demands of the Scotch Commissioners are set forth. It will be found in the Appendix to De Foe's History of the Union, No. 13.

FN 275 Act. Parl. Scot., July 30. 1670.

FN 276 Burnet, ii. 23.

FN 277 See, for example, a pamphlet entitled "Some questions resolved concerning episcopal and presbyterian government in Scotland, 1690." One of the questions is, whether Scottish presbytery be agreeable to the general inclinations of that people. The author answers the question in the negative, on the ground that the upper and middle classes had generally conformed to the episcopal Church before the Revolution.

FN 278 The instructions are in the Leven and Melville Papers. They bear date March 7, 1688/9. On the first occasion on which I quote this most valuable collection, I cannot refrain from acknowledging the obligations under which I, and all who take an interest in the history of our island, lie to the gentleman who has performed so well the duty of an editor.

FN 279 As to the Dalrymples; see the Lord President's own writings, and among them his Vindication of the Divine Perfections; Wodrow's Analecta; Douglas's Peerage; Lockhart's Memoirs; the Satyre on the Familie of Stairs; the Satyric Lines upon the long wished for and timely Death of the Right Honourable Lady Stairs; Law's Memorials; and the Hyndford Papers, written in 1704/5 and printed with the Letters of Carstairs. Lockhart, though a mortal enemy of John Dalrymple, says, "There was none in the parliament capable to take up the cudgels with him."

FN 280 As to Melville, see the Leven and Melville Papers, passim, and the preface; the Act. Parl. Scot. June 16. 1685; and the Appendix, June 13.; Burnet, ii. 24; and the Burnet MS. Had. 6584.

FN 281 Creichton's Memoirs.

FN 282 Mackay's Memoirs.

FN 283 Memoirs of the Lindsays.

FN 284 About the early relation between William and Dundee, some Jacobite, many years after they were both dead, invented a story which by successive embellishments was at last improved into a romance which it seems strange that even a child should believe to be true. The last edition runs thus. William's horse was killed under him at Seneff, and his life was in imminent danger. Dundee, then Captain Graham, mounted His Highness again. William promised to reward this service with promotion but broke his word and gave to another the commission which Graham had been led to expect. The injured hero went to Loo. There he met his successful competitor, and gave him a box on the ear. The punishment for striking in the palace was the loss of the offending right hand; but this punishment the Prince of Orange ungraciously remitted. "You," he said, "saved my life; I spare your right hand: and now we are quits."

Those who down to our own time, have repeated this nonsense seem to have thought, first, that the Act of Henry the Eighth "for punishment of murder and malicious bloodshed within the King's Court" (Stat 33 Hen. VIII. c. 2.) was law in Guelders; and, secondly, that, in 1674, William was a King, and his house a King's Court. They were also not aware that he did not purchase Loo till long after Dundee had left the Netherlands. See Harris's Description of Loo, 1699.

This legend, of which I have not been able to discover the slightest trace in the voluminous Jacobite literature of William's reign, seems to have originated about a quarter of a century after Dundee's death, and to have attained its full absurdity in another quarter of a century.