those terrible emergencies where passions of the most violent and painful nature are evolved, and where in war among brethren success is little less painful than defeat.
Nothing within the range of public duty can so much try the capacity of rulers as the judicious suppression of domestic rebellion. Foreign enemies may be met, foiled, and disposed of. But with our countrymen, our townsmen, even our acquaintance, in arms against authority, we scarcely know how to deal. Our wisdom and humanity are equally at stake; our decision, judgment, discretion, put upon the stretch to draw the line between what is just and what is vindictive, between mercy and resentment; to subdue, but not wholly destroy; to punish the leader rather than the follower; to save the loyal from the traitor, property from the plunderer, life from the murderer, age and infancy from the ruffian—all these, exercised with the forbearance of a good man, yet the firmness of a wise one, form one of the severest tests of human capacity. And who is he who may pass through such an ordeal, and wholly escape censure? Who, if he errs a little on one side or on the other, is not entitled to be considerately judged?
One of the Irish rulers devoted to obloquy on this occasion, and a youthful friend of Malone, was John Fitzgibbon, Earl of Clare. Chetwood, we have seen, alludes to him as conspicuous for dress; and I find one of his letters to Malone written early in life. Descended from a Romanist family which had conformed to Protestantism, and bred to the law, he early entered Parliament as the main stepping-stone
