Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry | Page 5

their recruiting, arming, and training of troops. They were no timorous pedants, who shook and made homilies when sabres flashed and cannon roared. Our greatest soldiers, M'Carthy and Tyrconnell, and, indeed, most of the Colonels of the Irish regiments, sat in Lords or Commons;--not that the Crown brought in stipendiary soldiers, but that the Senate were fearless patriots, who were ready to fight as well as to plan for Ireland. Theirs was no qualified preference for freedom if it were lightly won--they did not prefer 'Bondage with ease to strenuous liberty.'
Let us then add 1689 to our memory; and when a Pantheon or Valhalla is piled up to commemorate the names and guard the effigies of the great and good, the bright and burning genius, the haughty and faithful hearts, and the victorious hands of Ireland, let not the men of that time--that time of glory and misfortune--that time of which Limerick's two sieges typify the clear and dark sides--defiance and defeat of the Saxon in one, trust in the Saxon and ruin on the other--let not the legislators or soldiers of that great epoch be forgotten.
Thomas Davis.?July, 1843.
CHAPTER I.
A RETROSPECT.
How far the Parliament which sat in Dublin in 1689 was right or wrong has been much disputed. As the history of it becomes more accurately and generally known, the grounds of this dispute will be cleared.
Nor is it of trifling interest to determine whether a Parliament, which not only exercised great influence at the time, but furnished the enactors of the Penal Laws with excuses, and the achievers of the Revolution of 1782 with principles and a precedent, was the good or evil thing it has been called.
The writers commonly quoted against it are, Archbishop King, Harris, Leland; those in its favour, Leslie, Curry, Plowden, and Jones.[5] Of all these writers, King and Lesley are alone original authorities. Harris copies King, and Leland copies Harris, and Plowden, Curry, and Jones rely chiefly on Lesley. Neither Harris, Leland, nor Curry adds anything to our knowledge of the time. King (notwithstanding, as we shall show hereafter, his disregard of truth) is valuable as a contemporary of high rank; Lesley, also a contemporary, and of unblemished character, is still more valuable. Plowden is a fair and sagacious commentator; Jones, a subtle and suggestive critic on those times.
If, in addition, the reader will consult such authorities as the Letters of Lord Lieutenant Tyrconnell;[6] the Memoirs[7] of James the Second by himself; _Histoire de la R��volution par Mazure_;[8] and the pamphlets 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