Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/377

 THE WILSONS OF KEENE.

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��THE WILSONS OF KEENE.

��BY REV. J.

During the reign of James the First, of England, his Irish subjects rebel- led in the north of Ireland, Upon the suppression of this rebellion, about two million acres of land, including the whole of the six northern coun- ties, fell to the king. Upon these newly acquired territories large num- bers of the Scotch an.l English sub- jects of the crown were soon after permitted to settle. The new colo- nists were principally Scotch Presby- terians ; and it was expected they would serve, in some measure, as a check to the rebellious Irish. The new settlers were denominated Scotch- Irish, but there was never a drop of Irish blood in their veins. The Irish disliked them from the first, not oniy as dwellers upon the land which had been taken from them, but as being Protestants while they were Catholics. The great Irish rebellion in the reign of Charles the First was due to the animosity of the Irish against these Scotch Protestants, during which bloody rebellion, according to some historians, not less than 150,000 per- sons perished.

The Scotch had begun to settle in the north of Ireland as early as 161 2, but in the latter part of the century they went over to that island in great numbers, to es- cape the cruel persecutions of the big- oted Catholic king, James the Second. Being a most fanatical Catholic, his hatred was especially directed against the Scotch Presbvterians, because, perhaps, they were the most oucspok-

��L. SEWARD.

en and bold of all the dissenters. The chief instrument of James in carrying on this nefarious work was one James Graham, of Claverhouse, who, says Macauley, was a " soldier of distin- guished courage and i)rofessional skill, but rapacious and profane, of violent temper, and of obdurate heart, who has left a name which, wherever the Scot- tish race is settled on the face of the globe, is mentioned with a peculiar energy of hatred. To recapitulate all the crimes by which this man, and men like him, goaded the peasantry of the Western Lowlands into mad- ness, would be an endless task." This brutal persecution drove the Scots into Ireland.

Dissenters of other religious denomi- nations and from other parts of the Brit- ish realm found their way thither. In the midst of these persecutions, Wil- liam, the Prince of Orange, appears on the scene. He had married Mary, the daughter of King James, and was en- couraged to ascend the throne by the exasperated subjects of their Catholic majesty. Finding no sympathy in England, James went over to Ireland, whose subjects had not voted for Wil- liam, and was determined tu make a stand in that island. His great de- sire was to reduce the Protestants in the north of Ireland. Their great stronghold was the ancient city of Derry, which had been called Lon- donderry since its colonization by Protestants, many of whom were from London. James especially desired to conquer this city. He had sub-

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