[Footnote 1: See Desiderata Cur. Hib. ii. 511; Carte, ii. 20, 31-36; Belling, in his MS. History of the late War in Ireland, part iv. 1-40. He has inserted most of the papers which passed between the parties in this work. See also Philopater Irenaeus, i. 60, 86; ii. 90, 94; Walsh, History and Vindication, App. 33-40; Ponce, 90.] [Footnote 2: The charge may be seen in Philopater Iren. i. 150-160; Clarendon, viii. 68. Oxford, 1726. It is evident that the conduct of Rinuccini in breaking the first peace was not only reprehensible in itself, but productive of the most calamitous consequences both to the cause of royalty and the civil and religious interests of the Irish Catholics. The following is the ground on which he attempts to justify himself. Laying it down as an undeniable truth that the Irish people had as good a right to the establishment of their religion in their native country, as the Covenanters in Scotland, or the Presbyterians in England, he maintains that it was his duty to make this the great object of his proceedings. When the peace was concluded, Charles was a prisoner in the hands of the Scots, who had solemnly sworn to abolish the Catholic religion; and the English royalists had been subdued by the parliament, which by repeated votes and declarations had bound itself to extirpate the Irish race, and parcel out the island among foreign adventurers. Now there was no human probability that Charles would ever be restored to his throne, but on such conditions as the parliament and the Scots should prescribe; and that, on their demand, he would, after some struggle, sacrifice the Irish Catholics, was plain from what had passed in his different negotiations with the parliament, from his disavowal of Glamorgan's commission, and from the obstinacy with which his lieutenant, Ormond, had opposed the claims of the confederates. Hence he inferred that a peace, which left the establishment of religion to the subsequent determination of the king, afforded no security, but, on the contrary, was an abandonment of the cause for which the Catholics had associated; and that it therefore became him, holding the situation which he did, to oppose it by every means in his power.--MS. narrative of Rinuccini's proceedings, written to be delivered to the pope; and Ponce, 271.] [Sidenote a: A.D. 1648. Sept. 3.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1648. Oct. 19.] But he continued to issue his mandates in defiance of their orders and threats; nor was it till after the new pacification between Charles and the confederates had been published, and the execution of the king had fixed the public opinion on the pernicious result of his counsels,[a] that shame and apprehension drove him from Ireland to France,[b] whence, after a few months, he was recalled to Rome.