Soon after this insurrection was quelled, Sir Richard, who had remained firm to his principles and his duty, speedily distinguished his loyalty by a work expressly written on this subject.

So eager was the public to gratify its curiosity on this occasion, that the whole quarto edition, consisting of 1250 copies, was sold within the space of two months; another soon followed, and was exhausted, so that a third became necessary. To adopt the author's own words, "some obloquy and abuse have been levelled against this work," but these were attributed, in his "Justification," to "the malice of the Jacobins of England and Ireland." The "Papists" too, were not forgotten; and so very hostile to this sect was he, on this occasion, that he professes it to be his decided opinion, that two religions cannot exist at the same time in his native island, as in Germany. In respect to the latter country, he observes, "They are all originally of the same stock or lineage, and the religious liberty of each is guaranteed by the treaty of Munster; so that the intolerant or ambitious designs of either against the other, is completely repressed; but in Ireland, the hope of recovering the forfeited estates, and of separating her from England, constantly fomented by bigotry, keeps alive their hereditary hatred to the latter, and of course to the members of the established church from their noted loyalty, and attachment to the sister kingdom, and gives full play to the deleterious doctrines of popery, which the Irish priests never cease to foment. In short," adds he, "for these reasons, no parallel can be drawn between the popery of Ireland, and that of any other country in Europe."

Sir Richard, doubtless, gave great offence, both in England and Ireland, by his "Observations on Whipping and Free Quarters," in which he was supposed, not only to apologise for, but even to justify the application of torture by way of obtaining evidence. In short, his conduct on this particular occasion, was far from proving conciliatory, and accordingly he neither satisfied his friends nor his enemies. Indeed, the Irish Government, at length, deemed it necessary to disavow

all connection with the author; and publicly disclaimed the idea of affording him either patronage or protection in future.

As the former work, to which we again recur, is not only con nected with the history of his native country, but constitutes a leading feature in the biography of our author, an analysis may not, perhaps, be here improperly annexed.

"Memoirs of the different rebellions in Ireland, from the arrival of the English: also a particular detail of that which broke out the 23d of May, 1798; with the history of the conspiracy that preceded it, and the characters of the principal actors in it. To this edition is added a concise history of the Reformation in Ireland; and considerations on the means of extending its advantages therein. Second Edition, Dublin, 1801. pp. 636. with Appendixes.'

We are told in a prefatory discourse, that instead of the Christian religion being introduced into Ireland by Roman missionaries in the beginning of the fifth century, it was established there by certain disciples of the Greek church. The Irish clergy, indeed, had no connection with, and did not submit to the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff until the year 1152, when Pope Eugenius sent, by Cardinal Paparon, four palls to the archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam: when the Romish ritual was substituted in the place of the Greek, which had been previously used in the Irish church; an undoubted proof that it was independent of the Pope until that memorable epoch.

"Our excellent primate Usher," adds he, "proves this in a most unquestionable manner, in a learned treatise on the religion of the ancient Irish, well worth the perusal of the natives of Ireland. As to celibacy, we know from Ware, that the four archbishops of Armagh, who preceded Celsus, and Celsus himself, who died 1129, were married; and not until popery was established at Cashel in 1172, was marriage interdicted.

"In the end of the twelfth, and the beginning of the thirteenth century, a season of midnight ignorance in Europe, the

Roman pontiff, who was regarded with superstitious reverence, claimed, and gradually acquired, a superiority, not only of spiritual, but of temporal power, over all the potentates of Europe, who considered his sanction as necessary to expiate the guilt of any crime, how heinous soever, or to promote the success of any adventure. For this reason, Henry II. solicited Pope Adrian for a bull to give him the investiture of Ireland, and in consideration of it, agreed to grant him a tax of one penny on each house in it, called Peter Pence. Adrian, in his bull, empowered Henry II. "to propagate in Ireland the righteous plantation of faith, and the branch most acceptable to God;" which meant no more, than that he should subject this kingdom to the dominion of the Pope, which, it is remarkable, was the last country in Europe that submitted to the ambitious and rapacious designs of his Holiness.

"At this day, the Roman Catholics deprecate the grant of Ireland to a foreign, and not a native prince. M'Geoghegan, although a Roman Catholic, in his history exclaims against the transaction as a violation of the rights of nations, and the most sacred laws, under the specious pretexts of religion and the reformation of manners; and he boldly adds, "could one suspect the Vicar of Christ of such gross injustice? Could one believe him capable of issuing a bull, by which an entire nation was overturned?"

On this occasion, Sir Richard Musgrave observes, "if the aboriginal Irish lament the settlement of the English in Ireland, all its loyal inhabitants have to deplore that they introduced popery into it, as it has been a constant source of disaffection, and has produced insuperable calamities in it. It is not the object nor the wish of the writer of the following pages," adds he, "to disparage Ireland, or its inhabitants, the former in point of soil and climate, the latter, in their intellectual and corporeal powers, being deservedly esteemed among the finest works of the creation; but to evince the truth of that maxim, that an imperium in imperio, or two separate sovereign powers, civil and ecclesiastical, cannot coexist in the same state without perpetual collision, producing discord and rebellion; and that

the only remedy for the calamities attendant on such a state is either the extinction of one power, or the milder procedure of incorporating with the other. The latter mode has been adopted in Ireland: abstract reason must approve, and experience will demonstrate the measure to be founded in the truest wisdom."

Sir Richard describes the people of Ireland as in a most deplorable state on the arrival of the English. Their numbers, indeed, according to Sir William Petty, did not exceed. 300,000 souls, dispersed over more than twelve millions of acres. The country was overrun with forests, or infested with bogs; while in all the arts of civilised life, the natives were but little superior to the Indians of North America. Their Brehon laws were calculated to make them savage, and to keep them so, as they rendered the enjoyment of life and property insecure. Their kings, or princes, too, did not succeed each other by hereditary descent, or any fixed principles, but by force of arms.

Our Irish baronet, from these considerations, seems to think that "it was a peculiar favour from Heaven to send a civilised people among them, nor did the wiser part," adds he, "seem insensible to it; for Matth. Paris tells us that, at a council at Lismore, they gratefully received the laws of England, and swore to obey them, which included their allegiance to the Crown of England." But he himself is obliged to add, that "as soon as Henry II. returned, they rejected the laws, violated their allegiance, and ran into rebellion: which excluded them from the benefit of them."

By way of impressing a horror of the Church of Rome on his countrymen, the author now enters into an historical detail of its abuses. As the popes found themselves unable to maintain their immense power, great wealth, and extensive territories; the moment that reason had reassumed her empire they resolved, we are told, to erect a system of terror in the bosom of every state, by a device, the ingenuity of which could be equalled by nothing but its monstrous iniquity. Accordingly, Pope Innocent III., in 1215, procured certain ordi

nances, to be agreed to by the fourth council of Lateran, purporting:

1. That heretics of every kind, against the true orthodox faith shall be condemned, and on not proving their innocence, shall be excommunicated, and their effects confiscated.

2. All secular powers shall be compelled by ecclesiastical censures, to take an oath to extirpate, within their respective territories, such of their subjects as shall be condemned as heretics by the Church; but if any prince shall refuse, let him be excommunicated, and on omitting to make satisfaction in one year, let it be notified to the sovereign pontiff, that he may absolve his subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and transfer his territories to any other catholic prince.

3. All catholics, who shall take up arms for the purpose of extirpating such heretics, shall enjoy the same indulgence, and the like holy privileges, with those who visited the Holy Land.

After a suitable comment on other doctrines, Sir Richard proceeds to exhibit the origin of the papal usurpation. For a long time, the "Bishops of Rome," continued to be elected by the people and the clergy; and when so chosen, were consecrated by some other prelates, but not until they had first obtained the express confirmation of the Emperor. But at length, on the extinction of the race of Charlemagne, Adrian III. made a decree, declaring this to be unnecessary. In the fifth century, equal honours were decreed to the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople. The seat of the Western empire having been transferred to Ravenna about the year 390, this capital disputed the primacy of Italy, with Rome.

At length, that arrogant pontiff Gregory VII., raised to the popedom in the year 1073, not only claimed, but exercised the right of excommunicating and deposing sovereigns, by invoking their subjects to take arms against them. His ambitious efforts occasioned the factions of the Guelphs and Gibbelines, in Germany and Italy, which produced numberless assassinations, tumults, and convulsions, and no less than sixty pitched battles in the reign of Henry IV., and eighteen