The assembly had just been dismissed[c] when this envoy arrived.  By the people, the clergy, and the nobility, he was received as an angel sent from heaven.  The supply of arms and ammunition which he brought, joined to his promise of more efficient succour in a short time, roused them from their despondency, and encouraged them to indulge the hope of making a stand against the pressure of the enemy.  Clanricard, left without instructions, knew not how to act.  He dared not refuse the aid so highly prized by the

[Footnote 1:  Clanricard, 4, 5, 17, 27.  Ormond was also of the same opinion.  He writes to Taafe that “nothing was done that were to be wished ‘undone’”; that the supreme council were the best judges of their own condition; that they had received permission from the king, for their own preservation, “even to receive conditions from the enemy, which must be much more contrary to his interests, than to receive helps from any other to resist them, almost upon any terms.”—­Clanric. 33, 34.  There is in the collection of letters by Carte, one from Ormond to Clanricard written after the battle of Worcester, in which that nobleman says that it will be without scruple his advice, that “fitting ministers be sent to the pope, and apt inducements proposed to him for his interposition, not only with all princes and states”.  The rest of the letter is lost, or Carte did not choose to publish it; but it is plain from the first part that he thought the only chance for the restoration of the royal authority was in the aid to be obtained from the pope and the Catholic powers.—­Carte’s Letters, i. 461.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1650.  November.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1650.  Dec. 31.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1651.  Feb. 25.]

people; he dared not accede to demands so prejudicial to the king’s authority.  But if the title of protector royal sounded ungratefully in his ears, it was heard with very different feelings by the confederates, who had reason to conclude that, if the contest between Cromwell and the Scots should terminate in favour of the latter, the Irish Catholics would still have need of a protector to preserve their religion from the exterminating fanaticism of the kirk.  Clanricard, was, however, inexorable, and his resolution finally triumphed over the eagerness of his countrymen and the obstinacy of the envoy.  From the latter he obtained[a] an additional sum of fifteen thousand pounds, on the easy condition of naming agents to conduct the negotiation at Brussels, according to such instructions as they should receive from the queen dowager, the duke of York, and the duke of Ormond.  The lord deputy rejoiced that he had shifted the burthen from his shoulders.  De Henin was satisfied, because he knew the secret sentiments of those to whose judgment the point in question had been referred.[1]

Taafe, having received his instructions in Paris (but verbal, not written instructions, as Clanricard had required), joined[b] his colleagues, Sir Nicholas Plunket, and Geoffrey Brown, in Brussels, and, after a long but ineffectual struggle, subscribed to the demands of the duke of Lorrain.[2] That prince, by the treaty, engaged[c] to furnish for the protection of Ireland, all such supplies of arms, money, ammunition, shipping, and provisions, as the necessity of the case might require; and in return the agents, in the name of the