Excerpt from Reports From Commissioners, Inspectors, and Others, 1902, Vol. 43 of 45: Historical Manuscripts (Royal Commission)

It is, however, with the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and the appearance of the first Duke, then the twelfth Earl of Ormond, as a man of action and afi'airs that the interest of these letters as a contribution to the materials for history really begins. During the government of the Lords Justices Parsons and Borlase, Ormond was in command of the army in Ireland, and a large section of the correspondence relates to the military operations of the time and more particularly to the condition of the Royal forces. Some of the documents, for example Sir Philip Percival's Propositions for provisioning the army (p. 47) and the Statement of the grievances of the garrison at Naas (p. 59) plainly indicate both the undisciplined state of the army and the inadequacy of the provision made by the Government for supplying its needs. But neither for this period nor for the years that follow, during which Ormond was himself Viceroy, is the collection rich in manuscripts which can be said to illuminate the politics of the time. The miserable state to which the country and capital was reduced by the ten years' incessant warfare, consequent on the civil dissensions of the time, is, how ever, apparent in almost every letter. The exhausted condition of the public exchequer is plainly exhibited in the Motives and Propositions concerning the Farming of the Excise on Ale and Beer (p. While the impoverished state of Ormond's private purse is amusingly illustrated in the plaintive appeals of one Perkins, a tailor, for the payment of his bills for clothes supplied to Ormond and his sons (pp. 52, 99, 112, 115, 116.

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