Events, however, were transpiring that rendered the tenure of the Scot in Ireland insecure and unpleasant. Great changes were taking place in England. A wonderful religious revival was in progress in which the Catholic, Anglican, Puritan and Presbyterian Covenanters all took part, each striving "tooth and toe nail" to root out the heresies of the other. Old King "James the Fool" had gone to his long home (1625) and was succeeded by Charles I., who lost his head in the mixup. Then came eleven years of the Commonwealth in which Oliver Cromwell proved himself the greatest man of the age; but at his death the Puritan, notwithstanding his vantage ground, was found incapable and retired from the contest. Then came "Charley from over the water," Charles II., who signalized his restoration by restoring the established church, expelling from their pulpits two thousand clergymen for non-conformity. It was here where the Church of England had her innings in the religious fervor of the times.

Parliament considered James' desertion an abdication and declared the throne vacant. William, Prince of Orange, had married Mary, the daughter of James, and, being thus in the line of promotion and both radically Protestant, they were invited jointly to occupy the vacant throne.

William was a good-natured, decent sort of Dutchman, and, being of course imbued with the germanic instinct for taking things, especially when they came easy, accepted, and the thing was done ; and they were proclaimed "William and Mary, King and Queen of England."

These changes and transformations somewhat allayed the fears of our friends in Ulster, and there was not so much brine in their penitential tears as when they were bending to the yoke of James with forebodings of cruel extinction. Their own offense of being particeps criminis in the spoliation of the Irish diminished in magnitude as the chances for reprisals declined, and they wept not so long or so loud, but their day of retribution was yet to come, not by the hand of their wretched brother Celts, by whose misfortunes they had profited, but from their abiding hereditary enemy, the English Teuton, to whom they had basely cringed for gain and became partakers in wrong.

James II. had ignobly fled without striking a blow for his cause, relying on his patron, Louis XIV, of France, to regain his crown. Louis was a powerful monarch, but his combinations had excited the jealousy of the European powers, Catholic as well as Protestant, and he had troubles of his own to look after, while the well known rashness and treachery of James did not commend him to the Catholic powers as a suitable champion of their cause. He had, however, one source of strength-one favorable point from which to operate-and that was Ireland. He had made himself strong with the Irish, who outside of Ulster were mostly Catholics. The Protestants had been disarmed and rooted out of every position of authority, even in Ulster, just as the Catholics had been under Protestant rule, and they, the Irish, now rallied to the support of James.

To a disinterested observer it is difficult to see what else they could do. It is true that James was not of their blood, and their confidence in him was not as great as it would have been in a native Prince, aiming at Irish nationality, but loyalty to Church and State stimulated them to hoist his standard and prepare for the struggle that must ensue.

James' program was to land in Ireland with a force furnished by the French King, and there unite with the Irish army that had been assembled by the Lord Deputy, cross from the North of Ireland into Scotland, and there effect a junction with the Jacobin Highlanders under Dundee, and from thence make a descent into England, regain the crown, destroy the Protestants and have a good time generally.

The plan was well laid-looked feasible-and under the leadership of such men as Grant, Sherman or Sheridan would have succeeded. But there was one obstacle in the way and that was Ulster. Badly armed and equipped, Ulster, unprotected by British force, unprovided in every way, unused to the arts of war did not seem a formidable obstacle, but it proved otherwise.

But, as the Irish had limited confidence in James, so, the wiser heads among the Scots did not altogether trust in the integrity of the German Prince; and coming events proved that their distrust was well founded. Pending the arrival of James in Dublin, the Lord Deputy used all the arts of diplomacy to induce the me Ulster to surrender their arms and submit, promising every immunity that could be asked; but the men of Ulster, knowing the treacherous nature of Tyrconnel, would not give up their only means of defense, and with this refusal war was inevitable.

The negotiations on the part of our people were mostly conducted by the preachers, who held meetings in every country town and passed resolutions, while active preparations for their subjugation were being vigorously pushed in Dublin. The preachers were yet in session and had taken no practical measures for defense, when Lieut. Gen. Hamilton, a Catholic nobleman, at the head of a considerable force, arrived in Ulster. Taken by surprise many of the inhabitants surrendered their arms and took the oath of allegiance to James and consented to being plundered and robbed on promise that their lives should be spared. But a great majority of the people fled to the fortified towns, destroying such property as they could not carry away. The Scotch Irish character that had been in course of development for a hundred years, began here to assert itself in deeds of heroism that challenged the admiration of mankind.

Our friends had no time to concentrate, and the small garrison towns fell into the hands of the enemy. They were pursued through Down and Antrim to Colerains, where they made a stand and repulsed Hamilton, who fell back for reinforcements.

James had now arrived in Dublin with his French contingent. His road to England lay through Ulster, and the passage must be forced, and with this end in view he set his combined army in motion at once for the doomed province.

At the River Bann, between Antrim and Derry, the Jacobins encountered the first organized line of the Ulstermen's defense. It was not a strong position; it was too long and too thin. Numerous fords extending over thirty miles were guarded by small detachments beyond supporting distance of each other, and no adequate reserves in sight. An ordinary American general would have gobbled up these courageous battalions as easily as an old woman can pick up chips, but fortunately neither side had a monopoly of dense military stupidity and no great catastrophe ensued. To Sir John McGill was assigned the defense at Kilrea, but the line was forced and a crossing effected by the enemy at Port Glenone, where Capt. James McGill, a gallant young officer, was slain.

The line of defense along the River Bann being broken, the Ulster forces retired to the walled city of Londonderry and prepared to withstand a siege.

The details of the world-renowned siege of Londonderry do not require reproduction here further than to say that every county in Ulster was represented among the defenders and not a British soldier appeared to swell the ranks of the men who had placed themselves as a living barrier between William of Orange and his enemies. This sore neglect and inefficiency of support did not improve the mistrust of the Ulstermen in William and Mary, and went far to justify those of the Protestant faith who preferred casting their lot with their kinsmen the Irish to trusting to their hereditary foe the German Prince. There were such Ulstermen, and they were not far from being right, and among them were men bearing our own name.

Capt. Hugh MacGill was prominent in the city counsels and military defense of Londonderry, and no doubt there were others, perhaps many, but we have notice that there were Protestant McGills who would not support the Dutchman and who were enrolled in the ranks of the Irish army. Col. Carmack O'Neill, commanding a regiment in the Irish army, was a Protestant, and in his line were two officers supposed to be of the same faith, Lieut. Carmac McGill and Ensign Neill McGill. Colonel O'Neill is prominent in history-was highly connected with the Irish nobility of the time, and it would seem from the names that very friendly relations existed between the O'Neills and the McGills. Now we see in these people ranged on the side of the Irish, men who put not their trust in Dutch Princes-who contemned not the blood of their race and were willing for the time being to submerge religion under righteousness and stand by their brother Celts, let the issue be what it may; and though they went down in defeat we must not question their motives or detract from their immortal honor.

The victory at Londonderry belonged to the Ulstermen ; there were no others there to share in the laurels, and it was an achievement of momentous importance to Europe and to the whole civilized world; for it signalized the supremacy of the Protestant faith in every English-speaking nation on the face of the earth.

The overthrow of James at the Boyne the following year was a natural sequence to the heroic defense at Londonderry, and left William and Mary free to root out the Scotch Irish from Ulster. Through their thrift they had accumulated sufficient wealth to make it an object to despoil them and the Dutch instincts led out strongly in that direction. No sooner were the Irish subdued than the Established Church assumed high prerogatives and all fellowship with the Presbyterians was at an end.

They were all right while they were killing off the Irish-they fraternized and worshipped in the same Cathedral in Derry-but now, relieved from fear of the shillalah, the High Church regarded the Presbyterians as undesirable citizens and acted accordingly. The men who saved Derry were left amid the wreck of their fortunes without recognition or reward by the Crown, and all the oppressions that had been inflicted upon the Irish Catholics, with the approval of the Scot, were now turned full tide upon the Scotch Irish Presbyterians of Ulster.

They were in a pretty fix. They had justly earned the bitter hatred of their racial brethren -the Irish. They had voluntarily expatriated themselves when they removed beyond the jurisdiction of Scotland, and now the paw of the British Lion was upon them with merciless tread, and they were prostrate and bleeding in the land they had reclaimed and beautified.

In one hundred years the Scotch Presbyterians had founded a race-the Scotch-Irish race-conceived in sin-nurtured and matured in fratricidal blood-and now they were reaping their reward in bitter humiliation and distress. All the good they had done for England in the subjugation of the Irish went for naught and the day of retribution was at hand. The old Scot should have known better than to trust to perfidious Albion. The experience of ages told him better, but he was crafty, cunning, covetous and sly, and would venture very the margin of hell for two-pence, but now in the day of his maturity he became wise and fled to America.

The immigration to our shores from 1700 to 1775 was very great and mostly of the right kind. The Puritans had set up their Ebinezer at Plymouth Rock, and were calling for their liberty-loving friends across the sea to come hither. The Scotch and Irish poured into Philadelphia and Baltimore at the rate of twelve thousand per annum, and pushed West and South and fortified in their log cabins against Indian depredation and British aggression. Blood stained from St. Bartholomew came the Huguenot and entered by more Southern ports.