so many documents as it is absolutely necessary to consult, in order to form more than a superficial opinion on almost any point of such a "vexata 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 industrious as it has been determined to misrepresent an obnoxious religion and injured nation in almost every particular, 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 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 this 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 researchexclusive 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 Proclamations of King James and his government in this country-the 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 enquiry 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 in 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. To 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' memorable struggle of "the truest, the last of the brave," for their persecuted country and religion, into at least something like the honorable 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 criticizing 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 be