as low
as thirteen; twenty-three, viz.--Tuam, Kildare, Cavan, Galway, Callan,
Newborough, Carlingford, Gowran, Carysfort, Boyle, Roscommon, Athy,
Strabane, Middletown, Newry, Philipstown, Banagher, Castlebar, Fethard,
Blessington, Charleville, Thomastown, and Baltimore, varied from
fourteen to twenty-four; most of the rest varied from thirty to forty.
Dublin had seventy-three; Cork, sixty-one; Clonmel, forty-six; Cashel,
forty-two; Drogheda, fifty-seven; Kilkenny, sixty-one; Limerick,
sixty-five; Waterford, forty-nine; Youghal, forty-six; Wexford,
fifty-three, and Derry, sixty-four. This is a striking proof of the
little reliance to be placed on King's positive statements.

Harris, a hostile authority, gives the names and generally the
additions of the members of each corporation, and the majority are
merchants, respectable traders, engineers, or gentlemen. Moreover, in
such towns as our local knowledge extends to, the names are those of
the best families, not being zealous Williamites. As to the counties,
King relies upon a pamphlet published in London in 1689, setting out
great grievances in the title page, and disproving them in the body of
the tract.

If many Protestant freeholders had fled to England, who was to
blame?--Most assuredly, my Lord Mount Alexander and the rest of the
right noble and honourable suborners, devisers, and propagators of
forged letters and infamous reports, whereby they frightened the
Protestants, in order to take advantage of their terror for their own
selfish ends. The exposure of these devices by the publication of
"Speke's Memoirs," by the confessed forgery of the Dromore letter,
etc., have thrown the chief blame of the Protestant desertion off the
shoulders of those Protestants, off the shoulders, too, of the Irish
government, and have brought it crushingly upon the aristocratic cabal,
who alone profited by the revolution, as they alone caused it.

In the absence of other testimony, we must take, with similar allowances,
the story of Tyrconnell "_commonly_" sending an unconstitutional letter
to influence the election. But how very good these Jacobite sheriffs
and mayors were to let King into the secret, in 1691, when their
destiny was uncertain! That such gossip was current is likely, but for
a historian to assert on such authority is scandalous.

King asserts that the unrepresented boroughs were "_about twenty-nine_."
Now, there were but _eighteen_ boroughs unrestored; but King hel