at certain persons therein named,
who had "notoriously joyned in the said rebellion and _invasion_," or
been slain in rebellion, should be attainted of high treason, and
suffer its penalties, _unless before the 10th of August following_
(_i.e._, at least seven weeks from the passing of the act) they came
and stood their trial for treason, according to law, when, if otherwise
acquitted, the Act should not harm them. The number of persons in this
clause vary in the different lists from 1,270 to 1,296.

It cannot be questioned that the persons here _conditionally_ attainted
were in arms to dethrone the hereditary sovereign, supported, as he
was, by a regularly elected parliament, by a large army, by foreign
alliances, and by the good-will of five-sixths of the people of
Ireland. King he was _de jure_ and _de facto_, and they sought to
dethrone him, and to put a foreign prince on the throne. If ever there
were rebels, they were.

As to their creed, there is no allusion to it. Roman Catholic and
Protestant persons occur through the lists with common penalties
denounced against both; but neither creed is named in it.

We do not say whether those attainted were right or wrong in their
rebellion: but the certainty that they were rebels according to the
law, constitution, and custom of this and most other nations, justified
the Irish parliament in treating them as such; and should make all who
sympathise with _these_ rebels pause ere they condemn every other party
on whom law or defeat have fixed that name. Yet even this attaint is
but _conditional_; the parties had over seven weeks to surrender and
take their trial, and the king could, at any time, for over four months
after, grant them a pardon both as to persons and property--a pardon
which, whether we consider his necessities and policy, his habitual
leniency, or the repeated attempts to win back his rebellious subjects
by the offer of free pardon, we believe he would have refused to few.
This, too, is certain, that it _has never been even alleged that one
single person suffered death under this much talked of Act_. Of the
constitutional character of the Act, more presently.

The second article attaints persons who had absented themselves "since
or shortly before" the 5th November, 1688, unless they return before
the 1st of September, that is, in about ten weeks. Staying in England
certainly looked like adhesion to the invader, yet the mere difficulty
of coming over duri