admitted. For, amidst the great difficulty of gaining ar admittance to so many documents as it is absolutely neces sary to consult, in order to form more than a superficial opinion on almost any point of such a "vexato questio” as our modern story, in which the unscrupulous malignity of a hostile sect and country has been almost the exclusive source of any intelligence as to details, and has been as in dustrious as it has been determined to misrepresent an obnoxious religion and injured nation in almost every parti cular, who could see his way to more than a portion of truth at a time? This remark is more particularly applicable to some of those observations in reference to King James, that have been made under the influence of the ideas generally entertained of him, through the accounts of his enemies; ideas, from which nothing but a long, laborious, and difficult acquaintance with the scattered and scarce records, to which access must be obtained in order to form a true conception of his conduct, and a full exposition of the varied, curious

*Thus, in page 225-6, for "the loss of the besieged," at Derry "being, according to Walker, about 3,200 men," should be substituted "the loss of the regimented garrison-the whole of those who perished DURING the Irish blockade, or without including any who died from its effects AFTER the place was relieved, being estimated, on Williamite authority, at no less than 10,000!" Again, the full complement of fighting men in the town, which the Duke of Berwick merely speaks of as "above 10,000," is made 2,000 more, or 12,000 in all, by a contemporary Protestant authority. The calculation, too, at p. 285-9, from a passage in Story, of Ginckle's battering train before Athlone, at but 29 cannon and 6 mortars, is to be corrected by the testimony of one of his own officers, (whose word could not be consulted when the above calculation was made,) into "50 battering cannon and 8 mortars; so that the Dutch general, with his 12 field-pieces, had 70 guns there-a statement by which the "47 guns and mortars," (inclusive of field-pieces) at p. 274, may likewise be altered. The Dutch list, also, of William's foot regiments in Ireland, in 1691, makes them, with the exception of the Danes, 780, instead of 705 men each; which would add considerably to the amount of Ginckle's army at Aughrim. Such particulars, however, only serve to show, that, unlike the Williamite defamers of Ireland, (who, by the way, are as remarkable for virulent and unscrupulous misrepresentation as any Jacobite or Irish accounts we have are for an adherence to truth,) the author has kept considerably within, rather than gone beyond, what facts would justify, in his criticisms on those li bellers.

and interesting information thus acquired, in the shape of a complete Irish history of the Revolution of 1688-91, can be sufficient to disabuse the public mind. To that rare, and highly interesting knowledge as regards Ireland, and indeed England too, as connected with Ireland, the observations under consideration have been the means of leading their author, and of thus far more than compensating him for any defects which they contain. In proof of this, he adduces the narrative he has given of the battle of Aughrim, which, though by no means containing all he could cite on the subject for why should he enable others to trace out and trade upon that for which he alone has laboured?-will, he thinks, prove him to be acquainted with a much greater number of printed, manuscript, and traditional authorities respecting that important event, and the remarkable period with which it is connected, than can be obtained from any of the wretched productions called Irish histories, that have purported to give an account of those times. His peculiar sources of research-exclusive of a familiar acquaintance with all the common writers on the subject-consist of several large volumes of the MS. of King William's Secretary, and similar folios of the War correspondence between General Ginckle, his Officers, the Castle, and Whitehall; of a still more valuable collection of the original proclama tions of King James and his government in this countrythe more curious, from the great care that was taken to secrete or destroy every document of his administration, and then to assail him, and the Irish clergy and people as his supporters, with the most disgusting misrepresentations; of an acquaintance with nearly all the Continental writers who have touched upon the wars of this country at the Revolution; of a perusal of, and extracts from, the greater portion of the numerous pamphlets and other periodicals of the time that were printed in English,--including some very interesting tracts in favour of King James, and the Duke of Tyrconnell, not even alluded to by those who have hitherto

written histories of the Revolution. In addition to this extensive and authentic mass of documents on the subject, he can obtain access to several hundred letters of King James's Secretary, from which sufficient extracts can soon be made, and with these, and an inspection of some valuable documents in Paris, which can also be quickly read through, and extracted from, as what they are, and where they are to be found, are known, the writer, if encouraged, would undertake a History of the Revolution and war in Ireland from 1688 to 1691--followed by an account of the Irish in all the foreign services, from the termination of O'Neill's war with Elizabeth, when our countrymen first entered these services in considerable numbers, down to the present times; and the whole concluding with an inquiry into what portion the Irish have formed of that army and navy, which Tory swaggering would threaten this country with, under the usurped name of " the British heart and the British arm.”

A work of this kind would, it is scarcely necessary to say, be one of the highest interest and utility-fortified, as it would be, (according to the plan proposed and roughly exemplified in this volume,) with copious notes, containing minute comparisons of, and references to, authorities, corroborative extracts from scarce or MS. documents, arithmetical analyses and tables of the numbers of the Irish and English forces in every important action, and accounts of old families, both Irish and English, that took a part in the Revolution of this country and written, as the work would be, not from the evidences of one side, or rather from a mere portion of those evidences, as all our superficial compilations on the subject at present are, but, as far as possible, from all the documents known to exist, as well on the side of William, as of his unfortunate father-in-law. see whether his countrymen would wish to encourage an undertaking, that would be the means of vindicating the calumniated military character of their ancestors in the great contest adverted to, and of raising that three years' me

To

morable struggle of "the truest, the last of the brave," for their persecuted country and religion, into at least something like the honourable position which such bravery and fidelity as theirs ought to occupy on the page of history, has been the cause that this volume has been allowed to expand so much beyond what was the original intention of the author. For his own part, whatever may be the reception of those miscellaneous sheets, and of the proposal which they contain, their compilation, in the present shape, will always be to him a source of the highest gratification, as having been the means of leading him into a mass of knowledge on the subject in question, so far beyond what he had any idea of when he first thought of criticising the usual Williamite accounts of that war, that, between what he has made out and transcribed, and what he knows where to get, he may confidently affirm that he has the materials for giving a far better account than has yet appeared of the events of that memorable era in our modern annals, and of the achievements of the Irish in the services of the great powers of the Continent, which he would combine with its history. To him, as one of the race, both in blood and feeling, to which eight-tenths of the men belonged, who "filled the ranks and fed the cannon" in the cause of their country, religion, and legitimate Sovereign, and whose gallantry procured that celebrated treaty, the nefarious violation of which has been perpetuated to, and is a primary cause of, the agitation of the present times, a minute research into the details of such a contest did not appear a matter of indifference, and was not felt to be a source of weariness, notwithstanding the great labour of transcription, as well as of study attendant upon such an inquiry. And though he may be taxed with too much enthusiasm on the subject,-for of merely interested motives he can scarcely be accused, as he does not live by writing, he thinks, that the execution of such a work as has been proposed ought to be looked upon in much the same light by his countrymen as by himself.

Should this be their as well as his opinion, the portraits of Richard Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnell, and Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, will indeed be evidences of the spirit in which the work shall be written. But, to, guard, as much as possible, against the influence of prejudice, and the charge of partiality, comparisons of the different accounts of every important transaction, by both domestic and foreign writers, shall be given in notes, minutely specifying every authority, and stating, when any work is rare, in what library, and where in that library, it can be procured. The notes in this volume,-modified, of course, to suit the calmer tone of a regular history,-will convey a general idea of that portion of the writer's plan; his object being, by such notes, and appendices, to make the work contain every thing worth knowing on the subject. Except where it may be necessary to pronounce his own opinion on any point, his narrative shall receive no colouring, unless what can be justified either by the testimony of official and contemporary, or of such statements as may appear to have been derived from official and contemporary sources of information. Appropriate and decisive quotations, similar to those in the sketch of the siege of Athlone and battle of Aughrim,-given in this volume as rough specimens of the proposed narrative,-shall be introduced, as often as possible, into the text; the author having the greatest contempt for that impertinent obtrusion of dogmatizing vanity, called the "philosophy of history," or for any mode of writing history, but one based upon an honest, industrious search for, and a patient weaving together of, the best original testimonies on the subject; whose very words, as superior to any others in point of credit, and as generally the most picturesque, from the greater liveliness with which we will speak of what we have seen, than of what we have heard, should constantly, but especially in the account of any important matter, be laid before a reader.

From a book so written, on the only war deserving the