bill, give the Irish view of the war. These
documents deny that the bulk of the Irish were engaged in the
conspiracy of 1641; and the denial is true, although it is also true
that more than a "few indigent persons" engaged in it, as is plain from
Lord Maguire's narrative; and although it might have more become this
Irish parliament to proclaim the absolute justice of the rising of
1641, on account of the sufferings of all ranks of Irish, in property
and in political and religious rights; while they might have lamented
that English atrocities had led to a cruel retaliation, though one
infinitely less than it has been represented. However, the parliament,
probably from delicacy to the king, based the rights of the Irish upon
the peace of 1684, and the Restoration as restoring them to their
loyalty, and to the properties possessed in 1641.

Most fair inquirers will allow the justice of this restoration of the
Irish; but will lament that the act before us contains no provision for
the families of those adventurers, who, however guilty when they came
into the country, had been in it for from thirty to forty years, and
had time and some citizenship in their favour. There had been sound
policy in that too, but it was not done; and though the open hostility
of most of those adventurers to the government--though the wants and
urgency of the old proprietors, added to a lively recollection of the
horrors which thronged about their advent, may be urged in favour of
leaving them to work out their own livelihood by hard industry, or to
return to England, we cannot be quite reconciled to the wisdom of the
course. Yet, let any one who finds himself eager to condemn the Irish
Parliament on this account read over the facts that led to it, namely:
the conquest of Leinster before the Reformation; the settlements of
Munster and Ulster, under Elizabeth and James; the governments of
Strafford, and Parsons, and Borlace; Cromwell's and Ireton's conquest;
the effects of the acts of settlement, and the false-plot reign of
Charles II.; let them, we say, read these, and be at least moderate in
censuring the Parliament of 1689.

_The Preamble to the Act of Repeal of the Acts of Settlement and
Explanation, etc., as it passed the House of Commons._[27]

Whereas the Ambition and Avarice of the Lords Justices ruling over this
your Kingdom, in 1641, did engage them to gather a malignant Party and
Cabal of the then Privy Council contrary to their swo