Note 544 — Chapter XVIII · ON THE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND

The fullest writer on the Irish rebellion is Carte, in his Life of Ormond, who had the use of a vast collection of documents belonging to that noble family; a selection from which forms this third volume. But he is extremely partial against all who leaned to the parliamentary or puritan side, and especially the lords justices, Parsons and Borlase; which renders him, to say the least, a very favourable witness for the catholics. Leland, with much candour towards the latter, but a good deal of the same prejudice against the presbyterians, is little more than the echo of Carte. A more vigorous, though less elegant historian, is Warner, whose impartiality is at least equal to Leland's, and who may perhaps, upon the whole, be reckoned the best modern authority. Sir John Temple's History of Irish Rebellion, and Lord Clanricarde's Letters, with a few more of less importance, are valuable contemporary testimonies.

The catholics themselves might better leave their cause to Carte and Leland than excite prejudices instead of allaying them by such a tissue of misrepresentation and disingenuousness as Curry's Historical Account of the Civil Wars in Ireland.