religion. Every prospect of successful resistance was gone; the
Shannon, their present protection from the foe, would become fordable
in the spring; and then the last asylum of Irish independence must be
overrun.[1] Under such discouraging circumstances it required all the
authority of Ormond and Castlehaven to induce him to accept an office which
opened no prospect of emolument or glory, but promised a plentiful harvest
of contradiction, hardship, and danger.

In the assembly which was held[a] at Loughrea, the majority of the members
disapproved of the conduct of the synod, but sought rather to heal by
conciliation than to perpetuate dissension. Ormond, having written[b] a
vindication of his conduct, and received[c] an answer consoling, if not
perfectly satisfactory to his feelings, sailed from Galway; but Clanricard
obstinately refused to enter on the exercise of his office, till reparation
had been made to the royal authority for the insult offered to it by the
James-town declaration. He required an acknowledgment, that it was not in
the power of any body of men to discharge the people from their obedience
to the lord deputy, as long as the royal authority was vested in him;
and at length obtained[d] a declaration to that effect, but with a
protestation, that by it "the confederates did not waive their right to the
faithful observance of the articles of pacification, nor bind themselves to
obey every chief governor who might be unduly nominated by the king, during
his unfree condition among the Scots."[2]

Aware of the benefit which the royalists in Scotland

[Footnote 1: See Clanricard's State of the Nation, in his Memoirs, part ii.
p. 24.]

[Footnote 2: Carte, ii. 137-140. Walsh, App. 75-137. Belling in Poncium,
26.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Nov. 25.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Dec. 2.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. Dec. 7.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. Dec. 24.]

derived from the duration of hostilities in Ireland, the parliamentary
leaders sought to put an end to the protracted and sanguinary struggle.
Scarcely had Clanricard assumed[a] the government, when Grace and Bryan,
two Catholic officers, presented themselves to the assembly with a message
from Axtel, the governor of Kilkenny, the bearers of a proposal for a
treaty of submission. By many the overture was hailed with transport. They
maintained that nothing but a general negotiation could put an end to those
private treaties which daily thinned their numbers, and