Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/133

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Notes

neither printed nor published, they were circulated among some of the leading statesmen of the day. But Petty himself seems to have felt that his proposals were too bold to be openly avowed. The suggestions in his published works are much less startling.

81 Carte, II., 340, et alibi,

81 Ibid., II., 234.

83 I say advisedly "revision," not "repeal." To the latter measure, Talbot seems to have been consistently opposed (Lesley's Answer to King, and Macariæ Excidium). The petition presented by him in 1670 suggests only a pecuniary compensation to gentlemen who had had no opportunity of establishing their innocence before the Court of Claims (King, Appendix).

The English view of Tyrconell's character is almost wholly derived from the brilliant, but, in my judgment, essentially misleading portrait of Macaulay. This portrait is mainly based on the letters of Clarendon, who regarded the influence of Tyrconnell with a not unnatural jealousy, and on King's State of the Protestants, and other equally one-sided and untrustworthy narratives. A more candid and temperate estimate may be found in the excellent article contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography by Mr. Bagwell. Among contemporary writers, the author of A Light to the Blind, who belonged, like Tyrconnell himself, to the party of the Pale, is exceedingly, perhaps excessively, eulogistic; while Colonel O'Kelly (Macariæ Excidium), representing the views of the old Irish party, accuses Tyrconnell of partiality to England and hostility to the native Irish. This accusation will surprise and amuse those who have formed their estimate of the Irish leader from English sources. Avaux

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