ets quoted in this publication, and the notes to it, he will
be in a fair way towards mastering this difficult question.

After all, that Parliament must be judged by its own conduct. If its
acts were unjust, bigoted, and rash, no excuse can save it from
condemnation. If, on the other hand, it acted with firmness and loyalty
towards its king--if it did much to secure the rights, the prosperity,
and the honour of the nation--if, in a country where property had been
turned upside down a few years before, it strove to do justice to the
many, with the least possible injury to the few--if, in a country torn
with religious quarrels, it endeavoured to secure liberty of conscience
without alienating the ultra zealous--and, finally, if in a country in
imminent danger from a powerful invader and numerous traitors, it was
more intent on raising resources and checking treason than would become
a parliament sitting in peace and safety, let us, while confessing its
fallibility, attend to its difficulties, and do honour to its vigour
and intelligence.

Before we mention the composition of the Parliament, it will be right
to run over some of the chief dates and facts which brought about the
state of things that led to its being summoned. Most Irishmen
(ourselves among the number) are only beginners at Irish history, and
cannot too often repeat the elements: still the beginning has been
made. It is no pedantry which leads one to the English invasion for the
tap-root of the transactions of the seventeenth century.

Four hundred years of rapacious war and wild resistance had made each
believe all things ill of the other; and when England changed her creed
in the sixteenth century it became certain that Ireland would adhere to
hers at all risks. Accordingly, the reigns of the latter, and
especially of the last of the Tudors, witnessed unceasing war, in which
an appetite for conquest was inflamed by bigotry on the English side,
while the native, who had been left unaided to defend his home, was now
stimulated by foreign counsels, as well as by his own feelings, to
guard his altar and his conscience too.

James the First found Ireland half conquered by the sword; he completed
the work by treachery, and the fee of five-sixths of Ulster rewarded
the "energy" of the British. The proceedings of Strafford added large
districts in the other provinces to the English possessions. Still, in
all these cases, as in the Munster settlement under Eliza