lster: they urged the King to follow up with resolution the policy of
the Protector; and they were not ashamed to hint that there would never
be peace in Ireland till the old Irish race should be extirpated.
The Roman Catholics extenuated their offense as they best might, and
expatiated in piteous language on the severity of their punishment,
which, in truth, had not been lenient. They implored Charles not to
confound the innocent with the guilty, and reminded him that many of the
guilty had atoned for their fault by returning to their allegiance, and
by defending his rights against the murderers of his father. The court,
sick of the importunities of two parties, neither of which it had any
reason to love, at length relieved itself from trouble by dictating
a compromise. That system, cruel, but most complete and energetic, by
which Oliver had proposed to make the island thoroughly English, was
abandoned. The Cromwellians were induced to relinquish a third part of
their acquisitions. The land thus surrendered was capriciously divided
among claimants whom the government chose to favour. But great numbers
who protested that they were innocent of all disloyalty, and some
persons who boasted that their loyalty had been signally displayed,
obtained neither restitution nor compensation, and filled France and
Spain with outcries against the injustice and ingratitude of the House
of Stuart.

Meantime the government had, even in England, ceased to be popular. The
Royalists had begun to quarrel with the court and with each other; and
the party which had been vanquished, trampled down, and, as it seemed,
annihilated, but which had still retained a strong principle of life,
again raised its head, and renewed the interminable war.

Had the administration been faultless, the enthusiasm with which the
return of the King and the termination of the military tyranny had been
hailed could not have been permanent. For it is the law of our nature
that such fits of excitement shall always be followed by remissions. The
manner in which the court abused its victory made the remission speedy
and complete. Every moderate man was shocked by the insolence, cruelty,
and perfidy with which the Nonconformists were treated. The penal laws
had effectually purged the oppressed party of those insincere members
whose vices had disgraced it, and had made it again an honest and
pious body of men. The Puritan, a conqueror, a ruler, a persecutor,
a sequestrat