The design of Sir Phelim O’Neill, and the other leaders of this insurrection, was simply political. They conceived the time a good and opportune one for striking a blow against the government as the Scots had successfully done; and their conduct was in the outset characterized by lenity. But they could not allay the hatred with which the Catholics looked upon their adversaries; and a spirit of revenge broke out among their followers, which was aggravated to cruel outrage, when they heard that the conspiracy was discovered in Dublin. The spirit of retaliation was let loose, and political wrongs, unfeelingly inflicted, were, as is often the case, ferociously avenged. The massacre of an immense number of Protestants held forth an awful lesson of the effects which oppressive laws produce on the human passions. The government rather aggravated than alleviated the evil, by offering the estates of all in rebellion to those who should aid in reducing them to obedience. This drove the insurgents to desperation, postponed the complete extinction of the war for several years. It is to be remarked, that though the Irish were struggling for both national and religious freedom, they gained no sympathy from the patriots of Britain, who, on the contrary, urged the king to suppress the rebellion, being afraid that a religious toleration in Ireland would be inconsistent with the same privilege in their own country. The Scottish Covenanters, themselves so recently emancipated from a restraint upon their consciences, contributed ten thousand troops to assist in restoring a similar restraint upon the Irish. THE CIVIL WAR. It was generally allowed by moderate people, that in the autumn of 1641, at which time the labors of the Parliament had continued one year, the king had granted redress of all the abuses for which the earlier part of his reign, and the British constitution in general, were blameable. If he could have given a guarantee that he never would seek to restore any of these abuses, or attempt to revenge himself upon the men who had been chiefly concerned in causing him to give up, there would have been no further contention. Unfortunately, the character of the king for fidelity to his engagements was not sufficiently high to induce the leaders of the House of Commons to depend upon him: they feared that if they once permitted him to resume his authority there would be no longer any safety for them; and they deemed it necessary that things should be prevented from falling into their usual current. They therefore prepared a paper called _The Remonstrance_, containing an elaborate view of all the grievances that had ever existed, or could now be supposed to exist; and this they not only presented to the king but disseminated widely among the people, with whom it served to increase the prevailing disaffection.