ral in the south of
England; and he ordered a guard to attend them.[*]

But while the king was employed in pacifying the commotions in Scotland,
and was preparing to return to England, in order to apply himself to
the same salutary work in that kingdom, he received intelligence of a
dangerous rebellion broken but in Ireland, with circumstances of
the utmost horror, bloodshed, and devastation. On every side this
unfortunate prince was pursued with murmurs, discontent, faction, and
civil wars, and the fire from all quarters, even by the most independent
accidents, at once blazed up about him.

The great plan of James in the administration of Ireland, continued by
Charles, was, by justice and peace to reconcile that turbulent people to
the authority of laws; and, introducing art and industry among them,
to cure them of that sloth and barbarism to which they had ever been
subject. In order to serve both these purposes, and at the same time
secure the dominion of Ireland to the English crown, great colonies of
British had been carried over, and, being intermixed with the Irish, had
every where introduced a new face of things into that country. During a
peace of near forty years, the inveterate quarrels between the nations
seemed, in a great measure, to be obliterated; and though much of the
landed property forfeited by rebellion had been conferred on the new
planters, a more than equal return had been made, by their instructing
the natives in tillage, building, manufactures, and all the civilized
arts of life.[**] This had been the course of things during the
successive administrations of Chichester, Grandison, Falkland, and,
above all, of Strafford. Under the government of this latter nobleman,
the pacific plans, now come to great maturity, and forwarded by his
vigor and industry, seemed to have operated with full success, and to
have bestowed at last on that savage country the face of a European
settlement.

* Whitlocke, p. 40. Dugdale, p. 72. Burnet's Memoirs of the
House of Hamilton, p. 184, 185. Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 299.

** Sir John Temple's Irish Rebellion, p. 12.

After Strafford fell a victim to popular rage, the humors excited
in Ireland by that great event could not suddenly be composed, but
continued to produce the greatest innovations in the government.

The British Protestants transplanted into Ireland, having every moment
before their eyes all the horrors of Popery, had naturally been ca