Montgomery manuscripts

Preface. vii
Holywood ; William Pinkerton, esq., F.S.A., Hounslow, London ; M. J. Barrington Ward, esq.,
Magdalen Hall, Oxford ; the Rev. Dr. Killen, Belfast ; R. S. Nicholson, esq., Ballow, county of
Down; the Rev. Classon Porter, Lame; Charles Scott, esq., Grovefield, Belfast; John P. Pren-
dergast, esq., Dublin; sir J. Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms ; James M'Knight, esq., LL.D.,
Londonderry; the Rev. J. A. Chancellor, Belfast; the right honourable the earl of Enniskillen ;
John Temple Reilly, esq., Dublin ; Richard Cunningham, esq., Castle Cooley, County Donegal ;
Maurice Lenihan, esq., Limerick; brigadier-general George Montgomery of the Bombay Army;
James Paterson, esq., Edinburgh ; and the Rev. Dr. Rogers of Greenwich.
Belfast, January, 1869.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
CONSIDERABLE portion of the Montgomery Manuscripts was printed in the Belfast
News-Letter, so early as 1785 and 1786,* when their publication was suspended in con-
sequence of their extent, which in some degree unfitted them for the columns of a news-
paper. Besides, it was suggested that their intrinsic interest and importance to a large proportion
of the Nobility and Gentry of the Counties of Down and Antrim, required their publication in a
permanent and portable form, and hence the origin of the present undertaking. The influential
part which the family of Montgomery acted in the affairs of Ulster after its colonization by the
Scots, is matter of historic record, and will be found minutely detailed in the subsequent pages ;
while, in consequence of the matrimonial and other alliances, that were gradually formed between
the several branches of that distinguished family and other families of rank at the time, there are
not a few gentlemen in the counties referred to, who will naturally feel an interest in recurring to
these simple, but authentic memoirs of their ancestorial dignity. The gratification which the re-
corded fame of ancestry may fairly minister to the ambition of posterity, is not, however, the only
advantage derivable from the publication of these Memoirs. Their importance as historical docu-
ments will be readily recognised by those who have studied the transactions of the agitated period
to which they refer, while, as illustrative of manners and customs and habits of thought, that are
now comparatively antiquated, their value cannot fail to be estimated even by those who have no
hereditary interest in their details. In this view, it is hoped, that though the locality of the scenes
that are described, and the individuality of the personages who are chiefly engaged in them, may limit
to a portion of the community, the specific interest of the volume; yet it will possess independent
merit sufficient to engage the attention of the majority.
In the early parts of the volume, references have been made to an Appendix, which has not
been printed, and the omission of which requires explanation. The reasons of its omission were
* They were again re-printed in part in the News-Ltttcr in 1822.