and the old petty Tyrants that claimed not only a Right to all his Tenant's Substance but likewise a power over his life 3. But many of the old Landlords lost their Estates by Outlawries and Attainders for their Rebellion in the year 1641 and for their murthering the Protestants at that time Many of them had sold their Estates and some had mortgaged them for more than their value two or three times to several persons a Practice very common in Ireland but it is observable that it is the humor of these People to count an Estate their own still tho they have sold it on the most valuable Considerations or have been turned out of it by the most regular Proceedings of Justice so that they reckon every Estate theirs that either they or their Ancestors had at any time in their possession no matter how many years ago And by their pretended Title and Gentility they have such an influence on the poor Tenants of their own Nation and Religion who live on those Lands that these Tenants look on them still tho out of possession of their Estates as a kind of Landlords maintain them after a fashion in Idleness and entertain them in their Coshering Manner These Vagabonds reckoned themselves great Gentlemen and that it would be a great Disparagement to them to betake themselves to any Calling Trade or Way of Industry and therefore either supported themselves by stealing and torying or oppressing the poor Farmers and exacting some kind of Maintenance either from their Clans and Septs or from those that lived on the Estates to which they pretended And these pretended Gentlemen together with the numerous Coshering Popish Clergy that lived much after the same manner were the two greatest Grievances of the Kingdom and more especially hindered its Settlement and Happiness The Laws of England were intolerable to them both nor could they subsist under them 4. As to the Popish Landlords who yet retained their Estates it put them out of all patience to find that the Bodough their Tenant so as they call the meaner sort of People should have equal Justice against them as well as against his Fellow Churl that a Landlord should be called to an account for killing or robbing his Tenant or ravishing his Daughter seemed to them an unreasonable Hardship It was insufferable to Men that had been used to no Law but their own Will to be levelled with the meanest in the Administration of Justice and every time they were crossed by a Tenant that would not patiently bear their Impositions they cursed in their Hearts the Laws of England and called to mind the glorious Days of their Ancestors who with a Word of their Mouths could hang or ruin which of their Dependents they pleased and had in themselves the power of Peace and War 5. This Humor in the Gentry of Ireland has from time to time been their Ruin and engaged them in frequent Rebellions being impatient of the Restraint the Laws of England put on their Power tho they enjoyed their Estates and they still watched an opportunity to restore themselves to their petty Tyrannies and were ready to buy the Reftitution of them at any rate The other sort of Gentlemen I mentioned as they called themselves who were outed of their Estates as well as of their Power by the same Laws hated them yet worse and their Clergy pushed them on with all the Arguments that ignorant Zeal or Interest could suggest insomuch that all sober Men as well as Protestants reckoned these the sworn Enemies of the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and were assured that they would stick at no conditions to destroy them their Interest Inclination and Principles all concurring to engage them to do it 6. Now these very Men were the Officers and Instruments King James employed and trusted above all others He espoused their Interest from the time that he had thoughts of the Crown they were his Favourites and Confidents and to provide for them he turned his English and Protestant Subjects first out of the Army then out of their Civil Trusts and Employments and lastly out of their Fortunes and Estates He knew very well that the Tempers and Genius of those Men were at enmity to the Laws and fitted for that Constitution of Slavery under which he designed to bring the Kingdoms He found that none were more fawning to their Superiors than they nor did any flatter with more Meanness and Servility and according to the nature of such People none are more insolent and tyrannous to their Inferiors And this was the reason that they were so dear to King James and that he preferred and trusted them rather than his Protestant and English Subjects The Bargain between him and them was plainly this restore us to our former Power Estates and Religion and we will serve you as you please in your own way An Expression that King James and all his Creatures often used and were very fond of 7. These People found that the King 's Legal Power could never restore them to the condition at which they aimed that the Power and Station they desired was absolutely contrary to the Laws in being and that no Legal Parliament would ever alter the Laws and Constitution of the Kingdom to gratifie them No wonder therefore if they espoused and promoted an absolute and despotick Power in the King and if he and they concurred so heartily to introduce it To do them Justice they made no Secret of it but professed it publickly and on all occasions and accordingly practised it in their several Stations They reckoned and called every one a Whig and Rebel that talked of any other Law than the King's Pleasure They were liberal of their Curses and Imprecations on all occasions but they exceeded and became outrageous against any one that durst alledge that their Proceedings were against Law Damn your Laws was frequently their word it is the Kings pleasure it should be so we know no reason why our King should not be as absolute as the King of France and we will make him so before we have done Nay so extravagant were many of them that they would swear with repeated Or ths that all Protestants were Rebels because they would not be of the King's Religion An Expression I suppose they learned from the French Dragoons 8. Some would undertake to argue the Case with such as seemed more moderate amongst them and put them in mind of the possibility of the Change of the Government and that then the Argument would be good against themselves but they had not patience to hear any such thing mentioned And they generally swore with the most bloody Oaths and bitter Imprecations that they would never subject themselves to any King that was not of their own Religion and that they would lose the last drop of their Blood rather than part with the Sword and Power put into their Hands on any consideration whatsoever These were not the Discourses of one or
seized on most of the Churches in the Kingdom 4. The manner of their doing it was thus The Mayor or Governour in the Towns with the Priests went to the Churches sent for the Keys to the Sextons and if they were found forced them from them if not they broke open the Doors pull'd up the Seats and Reading Desk and having said Mass in them lookt upon them as their own and said the King himself had then nothing to do with them being consecrated places and to alienate them or give them back to Hereticks was Sacriledge In the Country the Militia Captains or Officers of the Army that chanced to be quartered in the several places performed the same part that the Mayors or Governors did in Corporations thus Christ's Church in Dublin was seized by Luttrel the Governour and about Twenty six Churches and Chappels in the Diocess of Dublin 5. Of this Protestants complained to King James as a great violation of his own Act for Liberty of Conscience in which it is expresly provided that they should have Liberty to meet in such Churches Chappels and other places as they shall have for that purpose they further represented to him That all the Churches of Ireland were in a manner ruined in the late War in 1641. That it was with great difficulty and cost that the Protestants had new built or repaired them That many were built by private Persons on their own Costs and that the Roman Catholicks had no Pretence or Title to them but his Majesty answered That they were seiz'd in his absence at the Camp without his knowledge or consent That nevertheless he was so much obliged to his Roman Catholick Clergy that he must not dispossess them that they alledged a Title to the Churches that they had seiz'd and if the Protestants thought their Title was better they must bring their Action and endeavour to recover their Possessions by Law 6. This Answer was what the Attorney General had suggested to him and the Reader will perceive that the whole was a piece of deceit that the pretence of the Churches being seiz'd whilst his Majesty was absent was a meer Collusion and that there could not be a more false Suggestion than that the Papists had any Right to the Churches or a more unjust thing than to put the Protestants on recovering a Possession by a Suit at Law which was gotten from them by so open violence but this was the Justice we lookt for and constantly met with from him and therefore there being no Remedy to be expected we were forced to acquiesce 7. Only to colour the matter a little and lest this should make too great a noise in England and Scotland where King James at this time had very encouraging hopes he issued out a Proclamation December 13. 1689. in which he acknowledges that the seizing of Churches was a violation of the Act for Liberty of Conscience yet doth not order any restitution only forbids them to seize any more They had in many places notice of this Proclamation before it came out and therefore were more diligent to get into the remaining Churches for they look't on the Proclamation as a confirmation of their Possessions which they had before the publishing of it and in some places the Popish Officers kept it from being published till they had done their Work the Protestants not being allowed to go out of their Parishes could not come by it till it pleas'd their Popish Neighbours to produce it and so it prov'd like other Proclamations of his Majesty in favour of his Protestant Subjects it was not published till the inconveniency it pretended to prevent was brought upon them and the mischief actually executed and it made their Enemies more hasty and diligent to do it than otherwise they would have been lest they should slip the time and lose the opportunity 8. But after all some were too late and the Protestants got sight of the Proclamation before their Churches were seiz'd but here the Priests put off their Vizors and acted bare-faced they told the People the King had nothing to do with them or their Churches that they were immediately under the Pope and that they would neither regard him nor his Proclamations or Laws made to the damage of Holy Church 9. The Protestants had a mind to make an Experiment how far this would go and whether the Priests or King would get the better in order therefore to make the Tryal they chose out some Instances in which the violence and injustice of turning them out of their Churches were most undenyable and laid their Case before His Majesty and his Council by their Petitions and that the Petitions might not be laid aside or lost as was the common Custom to deal with Petitions and Affidavits to which they were ashamed to return a flat denial they engaged some of the Privy Council to espouse their Cause and had the luck to gain several of the Popish Nobility to favour their Suits especially of such as had Estates in England and knew King James's true Interest and their own 10. The Petitions of Waterford and Wexford were the most favourably received and in spite of all the opposition that the Attorny General Nagle or the Sollicitor General one Butler who concern'd himself with singular impudence against the Petitions could make they obtained an Order for restitution of these two Churches the Wexford Petition sets forth the Loyalty of the Minister the peaceableness of the People their having contributed to the building of several Popish Chappels within and without the Walls of that Town and that the Roman Catholiks had no occasion for the Church the reasonableness of this Petition was so manifest that King James and his Council made an Order for the restitution of the Church but he now found how precariously he reign'd in Ireland notwithstanding their mighty professions of Loyalty and absolute Subjection upon all occasions and more particularly in their Act of Recognition for the Mayors and Officers refused to obey his Order 11. Upon which he was importuned by the Protestants with new Complaints but being ashamed to own his want of power to make good his former Order he referr'd the Waterford Petition to the then Governour of that place the Earl of Tyrone who reported that the Church of Waterford was a Place of strength and consequently not fit to be trusted into the Hands of Protestants and so all they obtain'd by their Petition Attendance and Charges was to have their Church turn'd into a Garrison instead of a Mass-house this pretence could not be made for the Church of Wexford it having no appearance of strength and therefore the Order for restoring it was renewed and the disobedient Mayor sent for and turn'd out for which the Popish Clergy made him ample satisfaction but notwithstanding that King James appear'd most zealous to have the Church restored and express'd himself with more passion than was usual that he would be obeyed and
Legislative Power should be made use of to void this Mans Estate who perhaps was never in this Kingdom until after these Acts were Enacted and became Laws it will be the like Case with all Persons who upon the Marriage of their Children and considerable Marriage Portions paid and receiv'd have procured Settlements for Jointured Portions and Remainders for their Children and Grand Children And all these are to be laid aside without any Consideration of Law or Equity in the Case of the Purchasers or any misdemeanor or offence committed by them Whereby vast Numbers of your Majesties dutiful Subjects the present Proprietors and their Lessees and in very many Cases Widows Orphans Merchants and Traders will be at one stroke outed and removed from the possessions of their Lands and Improvements which in many places are more in value than the Township whereon they are made This with submission without some fraud decelt or default of the Purchaser never was and it is hoped never will be done by a People or Nation professing Christianity Nor is it for the Honour Welfare or Advantage of the King or Kingdom to have it so done What will strangers and our fellow-subjects of England and Scotland say We sold our Estates in England transported us and our Families into Ireland to purchase improve and plant there We acquired Lands under as secure Titles as Acts of Parliament the greatest known Security could make them Our Conveyances both by Deeds and matters of Record are allowed good firm and unquestionable by any Law in force at the time of the Purchase We have had the possession 10 12 or 15 years and are grown old upon them We have clearly drawn our Effects from England and settled here not doubting but our Posterity may be so likewise We have purchased Annuities and Rent Charges out of Lands under the same Securities And now the Old Proprietors though many of them had Satisfaction in Connaught would fain have a new Law to dispossess us of our Estates and Improvements made as aforesaid It will not be believed that the chief of those who drew on this Design should in Parliament and elsewhere which ought to consist of the gravest wisest and wealthiest Free-holders of the Kingdom for such the Law presumes them make a noise with that good and wholsome advice Caveat emptor in this Case or can think that Caveat is proper here The Purchaser ought to be wary of any Flaw in the Title at the time of the Purchase made and purchases at his peril if any such there be But who is that Purchaser that must beware of a Law to be made 20 30 or 40 years after his Purchase or to destroy his Security for Money lent or Settlement upon Marriage this is not a desect in the Title but under favour is a President which no humane foresight can prevent and if once introduced no Purchaser could ever be safe the worst of Lotteries affording a securer way of dealing than Ireland would Can it be your Majesties Honour or Advantage to have thousands of Families ruined by such a Proceeding as this is What will become of our Credit and consequently of our Trade abroad Where will be the Reputation and publick Faith and Security of the Kingdom when Foreign Merchants shall know from their Correspondents here that they cannot comply with their Engagements to them their Estates Houses and Improvements both in Countrey and City which they had acquired for great and valuable Consideration and within the Securities of the Laws are taken from them by a Law made yesterday in case this Bill should pass So that in Effect we are not only contriving to break and ruine our own Trades and Merchants at home but even those in Foreign parts which will infallibly destroy your Majesties Revenue and sink that of every Subject Surely these Particulars and the Consequences of them are worth more then two or three days consideration which is as much as this Bill could have since the Parliament was not open'd till the 7th of this Month The very Report of what is designed by this Bill hath already from the most improved and improving Spot of Earth in Europe From stately Herds and Flocks From plenty of Money at 7 or 8 per Cent. whereby Trade and Industry were encouraged and all upon the Security of those Acts of Parliament From great and convenient Buildings newly erected in Cities and other Corporations to that degree that even the City of Dublin is ruined The passing of these Acts and the securities and quiet promised from them inlarged double what it was That the Shipping in divers Ports were 5 or 6 times more than ever was known before to the vast increase of your Majesties Revenue reduced to the saddest and most disconsolate condition of any Kingdom or Countrey in Europe Infinite numbers of the Inhabitants having transported themselves and Families with what remained unfixed in Purchases and Improvements and was portable of their Estates into other Kingdoms that very many of the Buildings both new and old in this City and in the very Heart and Trading Part of it are uninhabited and waste It is grievous to see as you pass through the City the Houses and Shops shut up The Herds and Flocks in the Countrey are utterly destroyed So that of necessity the Tenant must break throw up his Lease leave the Key under the Door and the Lands become waste and from hence will necessarily follow that the Farm-houses and Improvements must go to decay and Beef Tallow Hides Wooll and Butter from whence arise the Wealth of the Countrey will fail us What is become of the frequent Declarations made by the Earl of Clarendon and the Earl now Duke of Tyrconnel of your Majesties fix'd Resolutions never to lay aside the Acts of Settlement and Explanation Why did the Judges in their several Circuits declare in all places where they sate unto the Countries there assembled that your Majesty was resolved to preserve the Acts of Settlement and Explanation and that they were appointed by the then Chief Governour here to declare the same unto them from whence they took confidence to proceed in their Purchases and Improvements and with submission be it spoken if this Bill pass are deluded Shall Patents on the Commission of Grace signify nothing The Great Seal of England tells them they may proceed upon the publick Faith and here again they become Purchasers paying considerable Fines to the King to whom Rents were reserved where none were due before and many places the Rent increased as in case of Fairs and Markets granted together with the Lands on them Patents of Liberties of Free Warren and to enclose and empale for Park surely some consideration ought to be had of those whose money was paid on this account It would be farther considered That your Majesty before your access to the Crown had passed several Lands and Tenements in this Kingdom in Certificate and Patent pursuant to these Acts of
p. 118 119 3. Protestants impoverished by vexatious Law Suits p. 119 4. By Delays and the Treachery of Popish Council p. 120 5. By defending their Charters and being forced to take out new ones ibid. 6. By free Quarters Inkeepers and Houskeepers ruined p. 121 7. By the burden of Priests and Fryars p. 122 Sect. 10. Thirdly King James's own Attempts on the same p. 123 1. Quartering on private Houses contrary to the Articles to Lord Mountjoy Most Soldiers had many Quarters Mischievous in their Quarters Instance in Brown who robbed his Landlord and swore Treason against him p. 123 124 2. Plundering and killing the Protestants Stock Vast numbers destroyed and stolen p. 125 3. Irish encouraged to do so no Redress upon Complaints p 126 4. Nugent avowed it Rapparees Necessary Evils Stop put to this Trade when they began to rob one another p. 127 Sect. 11. Fourthly King James's further Methods to compleat the ruin of the Protestants Personal Fortunes p. 128 1. Taking away Absentees Goods Bill for it in Parliament ibid. Methods to drain those that staid of their ready Mony p. 129 1. By Licences for Ships to go for England ibid. 2. By pretended Liberty of Transporting Goods p. 130 3. Licences for Persons to go for England ibid. 4. By Protections granted and voided ibid. 5. By seizing Mony and Plate upon Informations ibid. 6. Boiselot's Dragooning of Cork ibid. 7. Act for the Subsidy at 20000 l. per Month on Lands ibid. 2. Second Subsidy of 20000 l. per Month on Personal Estates ibid. Debates in Council about this and Manner of ordering it ibid. 3. Tax for the Militia p. 132 4. Tax for fortifying the Avenues of Dublin ibid. 5. Tax for quartering Soldiers call'd Bed-Mony p. 133 6. Brass Mony Illegal Void the necessity of Parliaments ibid. Of what Metal and how much coined viz. 965375 l. in one year p. 134 Forced to be taken in all Payments ibid. Fitton forced it on Trustees for Orphans p. 135 7. Lutterell forced it on pain of Death by the Provost-Martial ibid. On Smith Leeson Bennet Widow Chapman her barbarous usage ibid. Papists not forced to receive it from Protestants p 136 8. Seizing of Protestants Wooll Hides Tallow p. 137 Peircy to have bin hanged for saying he was not willing to part with them p. 138 Protestants not permitted to Export them Their Imports seized ibid. 9. Seizing of Corn and Mault The Treason of having Bisket Giles Meigh p. 139 Difficult for Protestants to get Corn or Bread this before Harvest would have forced out all their Silver ibid. 10. Seizing Wool as soon as shorn p. 140 Searching Houses for Copper and Brass for the Mint and taking private Accompts of what else the Protestants had in in their Houses ibid. 11. Lord Mayors rating of Merchant Goods Forced on the Protestants but disregarded by the Papists instance in the very Lord Mayor himself ibid. 12. Proclamation to Rate Silver and Gold in Exchange for Brass on pain of death p. 141 13. Inference from the whole ibid. Sect. 12. Fifthly King James's destruction of the Protestants Real Estates p. 142 1. Explication of old and new Interest and account of the Acts of Settlement and of the Tenure by which the Protestants held their Estates ibid. The Papists outed of their Estates by the late Rebellion still kept up a claim to them and made Jointures and Settlements of them which were confirmed in King James's Parliament p. 143 2. King James at his first coming to the Crown gave out he would preserve the Acts of Settlement Lord Clarendon Lord Chancellor Porter and the Judges in Circuit directed to declare it ibid. The Papists knew it was only colour p. 144 Nagle's Coventry Letter first openly broke the matter October 26. 1686. ibid. Tirconnell at his coming Governour leaves it out of the Proclamation ibid. Nugent and Rice sent to England to concert the methods of Repealing it but concealed for the present their success p. 145 At their return prepared for a Parliament ibid. For which Matters had been fitted by the Quo Warranto's and reversal of Outlawries against the Irish Peers ibid. 3. Papists had not patience to wait for their Estates till a Parliament but went to work by counterfeit Deeds and by old Injunctions of the Court of Claims p. 146 4. Matters ripe for a Parliament but put off till the Parliament which was to sit in England November 1688. should take off the Penal Laws c. p. 147 5. at King James's arrival in Ireland it was against his Interest to call a Parliament First because of loss of time the Kingdom not reduced ibid. 6. Secondly which was King James's Allegation for not calling one in England this reflected on his sincerity p. 148 7. Thirdly It was the way to disoblige all that were inclined to him in England and Scotland ibid. 8. Fourthly It disobliged a great many of the Irish themselves ibid. 9. Fifthly It rendered all not under his power desperate p. 149 10. Against all Reason and Interest he called one being resolved to Dye a Martyr or Establish Popery ibid. 11. This Parliament fitted for our ruin both in respect of the King and of both Houses ibid. 13. Method of filling the House of Lords with Popish Peers Only four or five Protestant Temporal and four Spiritual Lords ibid. Several Acts past not by consent of these last though it be pretended in their Preambles p. 150 14. House of Commons how filled Manner of Electing Members Only two Protestants that could be called such in it p. 151 15. The whole House a slave to the Kings Will. No Protestations allowed p. 153 16. How much Reason we as well as England had to dread Papists in a Parliament p. 154 17. First Account of the Act of Repeal ibid. Secondly Of the Act of Attainder p. 155 Thirdly Clause in it of holding Correspondence since Aug. 1. 1688. ibid. Fourthly Clause of cutting off Remainders p. 156 Fifthly No Protestant might hope to be reprized by the Act of Repeal ibid. Sixthly Clause in the Act of Attainder against the Kings Pardoning which was the Reason this Act was kept so secret Copy procured by Mr. Coghlan Upon account of Sir Thomas Southwell's Pardon Sollicited by Lord Seaforth King James in a Passion with Sir Richard Nagle for betraying his Prerogative by this Clause against Pardoning p. 157 158 159 18. Observations First King James could not dispense when the Irish pleased ibid. Secondly Near three thousand Protestants condemned for not coming in by a day and yet the Act never published but kept secret ibid. Thirdly Folly of attainted Persons to think of ever being Pardoned if King James be restored since it is not in his power p. 160 Fourthly Papists got into their Estates before the time set in the Act of Repeal ibid. 19. Means how the Papists got Possessions p. 161 First Popish Tenants attorn'd to their old Popish Landlords ibid. Secondly Advantages taken of Clauses in the Act of Repeal ibid.
Thirdly From Orders about Garrisoning Mansion-Houses Sending the Protestant Owners to the Goal who must never have expected either their Houses or Lives if King James had prevailed ibid. Estates of Absentees disposed of and promised to Papists p. 162 20. Objection That King James did not know the Consequence of Repealing the Acts of Settlement ibid. Answer First King James understood them better than any and held ten thousand pounds a year by them when Duke of York ibid. Secondly King James would not hear the Protestants plead at the Bar against the Repeal p. 163 Thirdly Bishop of Meath in a Speech in the House set forth the ill Consequences at large ibid. Fourthly The Protestants opposed it from Point to Point ibid. Fifthly Protestants were resolved to use their utmost that the ill intents of their Adversaries might appear the more p. 164 Sixthly Lord chief Justice Keating's Paper given to King James in behalf of Purchasers rejected ibid. 21. Protestants lost more in Ireland than all that favour King James's Cause in England are worth p. 165 Sect. 13. Eighthly The danger into which King James brought the lives of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland ibid. 1. At King James's Coming no General Pardon though it had been his Interest in respect of England ibid. 2. Is not chargeable with particular Murders further than by arming such Men as would be guilty of them p. 166 3. The Governments Design upon our Lives ibid. First by feigned Plots and Protecting the Perjured Witnesses Instance in Spikes Case The Dumb Friar p. 167 Secondly By wresting Facts to Treason Nugent declar'd Protestants having Arms to be so p. 168 Thirdly By violating Articles Mr. Brown of Cork Town of Bandon Earl of Inchiquin Captain Boyle Sir Thomas Southwell and his Party Lord Mountjoy's Soldiers Fort of Culmore King James's approach to Derry Captain Dixy Kenaght Castle p. 169 170 Fourthly By violating Protections p. 171 Protestants of Down p. 171 Protestants brought before Derry by General Rosen Bishop of Meath applyed to King James about it King James excused Rosen p. 173 174 Captain Barton of Carrick Mac Cross p. 175 Fifthly By private Orders and Proclamations with the penalty of Death Several Instances p. 178 Sixthly By the Act of Attainder Abstract of it Archbishops 2 Duke 1 Temporal Lords 63 Ladies 22 Bishops 7 Knights 85 Clergymen 83 Esquires and Gentlemen 2182 2445 p. 179 180 Not equalled by the Proscription at Rome Great part Attainted on Common Fame p. 182 Observations on the Act ibid. 1. Leaves no room for the King to Pardon ibid. 2. The Act concealed Out of the Power of an English Parliament to Repeal it by the Act for cutting off Ireland from England p. 183 3. The hast in drawing it up ibid. 4. Many left out particularly the Collegians and how ibid. 5. Applications in behalf of Protestants made their Case worse p. 184 6. Allowing of time to prove Innocency a meer Collusion ibid. 1. None knew what time was given ibid. 2. None knew what they would call Innocency Instance Desmineer and Ginnery ibid. 3. The Embargo on this side would not let them know on the other side 4. The Embargo on the other side would not let them come hither 5. To have come would have been an unwise Venture p. 177 4. Objection That few Protestants lost their Lives p. 178 Answer 1. When it is known how many have perished they will not appear few ibid. 2. The Irish Papists would not venture at much Murthering till they were past an after Reckoning they feared such Cruelty would be revenged on Roman Catholicks in England ibid. 3. Protestants were cautious not to provoke them and were true to one another p. 179 4. We dont know what would have been done with Attainted Persons ibid. 5. Protestants if Obnoxious absconded or escaped ibid. 6. The Support of King James's Army depended on the Protestants p. 179 Scotch Officers that came here wondered to find how Protestants were used having heard so much the contrary at home p. 180 The same given out in England Pity but those who believed and forwarded it had been sent hither ibid. The Irish doing what they did in their Circumstances what would they have done if left to their swing ibid. Sect. 14. Ninthly The method King James took to destroy our Religion p. 181 1. The Attempts against our Lives and Fortunes no sudden thing but the result of a long Design for which Tirconnel had 20000 l. per annum ibid. 2. King James pretended Liberty of Conscience but not to be expected from a Roman Catholick ibid. 3. The Laws and Coronation Oath secured our Religion The Clergy had merited from King James by opposing the Exclusion and disobliged their People p. 182 4. At his coming to the Crown the Roman Catholicks declared that his Promises to the Church were not intended for Ireland p. 183 Sect. 15. First By taking away our Schools and Universities p. 184 1. Lord Tirconnell put the Schools contrary to Law into the hands of Papists ibid. 2. And would have put in Popish Fellows into the College ibid. 3. Stopt the College Pension of 388 l. per annum from Easter 1688. turned out the Fellows and Students seized on the Library and Furniture p 193 4. Forbid three of them on pain of Death not to meet together p. 194 5. King James did not fill up vacant Bishopricks and Livings in his Gift ibid. 6. And allowed nothing for supplying the Cures p. 195 7. All the Bishops and Livings in the Kingdom would soon have come into the Kings hands p. 196 8. This not the effect of our Constitution the same in Popish Countries Thirty five Bishopricks void in France in 1688. King James's Ungratefulness to the Protestant Clergy ibid. Sect. 16. Secondly By taking away the Maintenance of the Clergy p. 197 1. Book-Mony denyed by the Papists from King James's coming to the Crown ibid. 2. Priests put in for Tythes Hardly recovered by Protestants p. 198 3. An Act of their Parliament applied Papists Tythes to the Priests ibid. 4. And Protestants Tythes too when the Priests had the Benefices ibid. 5. The Priests forc'd into Possession of Glebes where there were any p. 199 6. Protestant Clergy little better for the Tythes left to them Protestants had little Tythings left Priests by Dragoons seized what there was never wanted Pretences ibid. 7. House-Mony in Corporations taken away by their Parliament Pleaded against before the House of Lords but in vain p. 200 8. The same took away Ulster Table of Tythes p. 201 9. Duties payable to the King out of Livings were exacted wholly from the Protestant Incumbents though they had nothing left to them of their Livings their Persons seized and sent to Goal ibid. Collonel Moore Clerk of the First Fruits imprisoned because he would not be severe against them p. 202 Sect. 17. Thirdly By taking away the Jurisdiction of the Protestant Church ibid. 1. The Churches Right by Prescription to Jurisdiction ibid. 2. Act
imposed on but contributed nothing to relieve us as we found to our Costs and the Protestant Judges and Burgesses finding that they were made Cyphers and Properties of themselves declined at last to Act in their Stations 5. Next to Chancery is the Kings Bench where Subjects are tryed for their Lives and Fortunes upon this was set Mr. Thomas Nugent made afterwards Baron of Riverstown the Son of one who had been Earl of Westmeath but had lost his Honor and Estate for being an Actor in the late Rebellion begun in 1641. This Mr. Nugent who had never been taken notice of at the Bar but for a more than ordinary Brogue on his Tongue as they call it and ignorance in the Law was pitched on by King James to judg whether the Outlawries against his Father and his fellow Rebels should be reversed and whether the Settlement of Ireland founded on those Outlawries should stand good It was a Demonstration to us what the King intended when he assigned us such a Chief Justice and indeed the Gentleman did not fail to answer the expectation conceived of him He reversed the Outlawries as fast as they came before him notwithstanding a Statute made in point against it and in all the Causes that ever came before him wherein the Plaintiffs and Defendants were Papist and Protestant I could not learn from the most diligent Observer that ever he gave Sentence for the latter Nay it is Shrewdly suspected that he went sharer in some considerable Causes and not only appeared for them on the Bench but also secretly incouraged and fomented them Before him a Deed should be judged Forged or not Forged according as it served a Popish Interest And a Protestant needed no more to gain a Cause against another Protestant than to turn Papist which manifestly appear'd in Sir Gregory Birns Case who merely by turning Papist as is noted before in the midst of his Suit against Captain Robert Fitz Gerald got a Deed condemned of Forgery and recovered five or six hundred pounds per annum notwithstanding Mr. Daniel Birn his Father some years before for pretending it was Forged had been Sued in an Action of the Case and forced to pay two hundred pound damages and though there appeared in Court a Bond under Birns Hand obliging him to pay two hundred pound to the Witnesses in case they should prove Captain Fitz Geralds Deed to be Forged yet the proof was accepted But these were common things in this Court and the mischief had been much greater had not a Writ of Error lyen from his Court to the Kings Bench in England In one thing more he signalized himself it was by committing and prosecuting people for feigned Offences and Treasons and by countenancing and encouraging and after discovery protecting false Witnesses against Protestants Many were brought in danger of their Lives by his contrivances and when the accused were acquitted on Tryal by a palpable Demonstration that the Witnesses were Perjured he declared that they neither could nor should be Prosecuted for they only sware for the King and he believed the accused persons guilty though it could not be proved In short he shewed all the venom and rigour against them he could he was set up to destroy them and he went as far in it as his power could reach his weakness not his inclination hindred him from carrying it farther It is not imaginable by any that have not seen and heard him how furiously and partially he was bent against Protestants it may be guessed how he stood inclined to them by the great Hand he had in promoting the Bill of Attainder and the Bill to vest all Absentees Goods in the King whereby much the greater part of the Protestants of Ireland lost all their Estates Personal and Real of which we shall speak more hereafter He was assisted on the Bench by Sir Bryan ô Neal as puny Judg a weak Man that had nothing to recommend him but Venom and Zeal being otherwise disabled both in his Reason and Body Only he had the faculty to do what he was bid especially when it suited with his own inveteracy against Englishmen and Protestants This Character may seem rigid but as many as knew him will not think it exceeds 6. The next Court for business though not for Precedence is the Exchequer in which all Actions wherein the Kings Revenue or any other Mans Estate is concerned may be tryed From this Court no Writ of Error lies in England so they were free here from that Check which was so troublesom to them in other Courts Upon this consideration it was that the whole business of the Kingdom so far as it concerned them was brought into this Court though not so proper for it Here were brought all Actions of Trespasses and Ejectments concerning Estates all Quo Warranto's against Corporations and Scire Facias's about Offices and they thought themselves concerned to have an able Man and one throughly Cordial to their Interest for the Chief Judg in it for if he had wanted Sense or Law though willing as they found by Experience in some of the other Courts he might have been unable to serve them in all Cases They therefore fixed on Mr. Stephen Rice afterward Sir Stephen who had formerly been noted for a Rook and Gamester at the Inns of Court He was to give him his due a Man of the best Sense amongst them well enough versed in the Law but most signal for his inveteracy against the Protestant Interest and Settlement of Ireland having been often heard to say before he was a Judg that he would drive a Coach and Six Horses through the Act of Settlement upon which both depended And before that Act was Repealed in their pretended Parliament he declared on the Bench that it was against Natural Equity and could not oblige This Man did King James choose for Chief Baron and for the final determination of all the Suits that lay between Protestants and Papists either in Common-Law or Equity And it is no hard matter to conjecture what success the Protestants met with in their Suits before a Judg that declared as he did that they should have no favour but Summum jus that is the utmost rigour of the Law Immediately his Court was filled with Popish Plaintiffs every one that had a forged Deed or a false Witness met with Favour and Countenance from him and he knowing that they could not bring his Sentences into England to be re-examined there acted as a Man that feared no after Account or Reckoning It was some considerable time before he would allow a Writ of Error into the Exchequer Chamber though that was in effect to themselves and when it was allowed it was to little purpose before such Judges It was before him all the Charters of the Kingdom were damned and that in a Term or two in such a manner that proved him a Man of Dispatch though not of Justice If he had been left alone it was
did worse that is betrayed it by their Compliance whilst yet they profest it Many who would not be guilty of such servility were turned out even from the mean Employments of a High or Petty Constable of a Goalour or Turn-Key of all which it were easie to give Examples but the thing being Universal makes that unnecessary Even these mean Employments were now counted too good for Protestants and all this contrary to the express Letter of the Law which admitted none but such as would take the Oath of Supremacy to any Office but they took a peculiar Pleasure to act in contempt and despite of the Laws and it seemed to them a kind of Conquest to turn a Man out of his Employment Office or Freehold contrary to Law In the mean time it was a melancholy thing for Protestants to live under such illegal Officers and have their Lives Estates and Liberties at the mercy of Sheriffs Justices and Juries some of whose Fathers or nearest Relations they had either hanged for Thieving Robbery and Murthering or killed in the very Act of Torying 5. I reckon as a fourth sort of Officers in the Kingdom such as were of the Privy-Council which in Ireland is a great part of the Constitution and has considerable Privileges and Power annexed to it Regularly no Act of Parliament can pass in Ireland till the chief Governor and Privy-Council do first certifie the Causes and Reasons of it It was therefore no less than necessary that King James should model this to his mind and he quickly ordered it so that the Papists made the majority in it and whereas before it was a Refuge and Sanctuary to the oppressed it now became a most effectual Instrument to strengthen the Popish Interest and give Reputation to their Proceedings We may guess what kind of Government King James designed when he was attended with such a Council and yet it is certain even some of these who were Protestants would have been turned out if they had not absented themselves and declined appearing at the Board but whether they appeared or no was of no consideration since it is plain they could do Protestants little service SECT V. Fourthly King James's ordering Corporations was an effectual means to destroy his Protestant Subjects and to alter the very Nature of the Government 1. WOever knows the Constitution of England and Ireland must observe that the Subjects have no other security for their Liberties Properties and Lives except the Interest they have of choosing their own Representatives in Parliament This is the only Barrier they have against the Encroachments of their Governor Take it away and they are as absolute Slaves to the Kings Will and as miserable as the Peasants in France Whoever therefore goes about to deprive them of this Right utterly destroys the very Constitution and Foundation of the Government Now the Protestants of Ireland finding the necessity of securing this right in their own Hands to preserve the Kingdom in Prosperity and Peace had procured many Corporations to be Founded and built many considerable Corporate Towns at their own Cost and Charges They thought it reasonable to keep these in their own Hands as being the Foundation of the Legislative power and therefore secluded Papists as Enemies to the English Interest in Ireland from Freedom and Votes in them by the very Foundation and Rules of planting them This Caution they extended by a Law to all other Corporations in the Kingdom excluding Papists likewise from them which they justly did if we remember that these Papists had forfeited their Right in them by their Rebellion in 1641 and by their having turned those Towns where they had Interest into Nests of Traitors against the King and into places of Refuge for the Murtherers of the English insomuch that it cost England some Millions to reduce them again into Obedience witness Killkenny Waterford Galway Lymerick and every other place where they had power to do it Add to this that generally the trading industrious Men of the Kingdom were Protestants who had built most of the Corporate Towns above thirty at once in King James the First 's time and a great part of the Freeholds of the Kingdom did also belong to Men of the same Religion insomuch that if a fair Election had been allowed in probability no Papist could have carryed it in any one County of Ireland All which considered it was but reasonable that the Protestants that had by so much Blood and Treasure brought the Kingdom into subjection to the Laws of England and planted it in such a manner as to render it worth the Governing by the King should be secured of their Representatives in Parliament especially when out of their great Loyalty and Confidence in the Kings kind intention to them they by some new Rules had condescended that none should Officiate as Majors Portrieves Magistrates or Sheriffs in the chief Towns till approved by the Kings chief Governor for the time being Their yielding this to the King was a sufficient security one would have thought to the Royal Interest A great diminution of their Liberties and such as never was yielded before to any King but this would not serve King James to be Absolute he must have the intire Disposition of them and the Power to put in and turn out whom he pleased without troubling the Formalities of Law To bring them therefore to this it was resolved to Dissolve them all Tyrconnel knew that the Protestants would never give up their Charters without being compelled by Law and therefore he endeavoured to prevail with them to admit Papists to Freedom and Offices in them that by their means he might have them surrendred but the Resolution of Sir John Knox then Lord Mayor of Dublin and of the then Table of Aldermen spoiled that Design and forced the King to bring Quo Warranto's against them since they would not easily consent to destroy themselves 2. The Chief Baron Rice and the Attorney General Nagle were employed as the fittest Instruments to carry on this Work To prevent Writs of Error into England all these Quo Warranto's were brought in the Exchequer and in about two Terms Judgments were entred against most Charters Whereas if either Equity or Law had been regarded longer time ought to have been allowed in matters of such Consequence for the Defendants to draw up their Plea than the Chief Baron took to dispatch the whole Cause and seize their Franchises Attorney General Nagle plaid all the little Tricks that could be thought of and had an ordinary Attorney brought such Demurrers or Pleadings into Court in a common Cause as he did in this most weighty Affair of the Kingdom he would have received a publick Rebuke and been struck out of the Roll for his Knavery or ignorance After all there was not one Corporation found to have Forfeited by a Legal Tryal neither was any Crime or Cause of forfeiture objected against them yet the Chief Baron gave Judgment against
designs to ruin them had not bin so apparent he might have prevail'd on them in a great measure But his behaviour was such as shall appear in the sequel of this discourse that it left no room for them to expect or hope for any safety under his Government of which such Protestants as had followed him from England were generally so sensible that many of them repented too late their having stuck to his interest and heartily wished themselves at home again openly professing that they could not have believ'd that he was such a Man or his designs such as they found them nay several of the English Papists that came from France with him abhorr'd his Proceedings and us'd to alledge that he not only hated the English Protestant but also the English Man The very Ambassador d'Avaux if he might be believ'd was dissatisfied with K. J's Measures and condemned them alledging that he had intirely given himself up to the conduct of the bigotted Irish Clergy and of Tyrconnel who in earnest was the only Minister he trusted and would effectually ruin him and the Kingdom Whatever the Ambassador thought it is certain he has discours'd in this manner and the event has answer'd the prediction 4. But to return to the Lord Tyrconnel's dealing with the Protestants When he found himself so very weak and so much in the power of the Protestants that nothing but their own Principles of Loyalty secur'd him against them he betook himself to his usual Arts that is of falshood of dissimulalation and of flattery which he practis'd with the deepest Oaths and Curses protesting that he would be rid of the Government very willingly so it might be with Honour that it was easie for him to ruin and destroy the Kingdom and make it not worth one groat but impossible to preserve it for his Master Every body wondred to find so great a Truth come so frankly out of the mouth of one they usually stil'd Lying Dick Talbot and who had bin known not without reason many years by that name Some believed that in earnest he intended to part with the Sword and perhaps if it had bin demanded before K. J. went into France it had not bin denied There wanted not several to second the same Truth to him with all earnestness and application both in writing and by word of mouth which the Deputy seem'd to approve all that he answered to their perswasions to surrender and save the Kingdom was that he could not do it with Honour till it was demanded and sometimes he ask'd them in Raillery if they would have him cast the Sword over the Castle-Walls What he desired the World should at that time believe concerning his intentions may be best collected by the Letters he procur'd to be written and sent into England I have in the Appendix given the Copy of one written by his Command and perused by him before it was sent it was from a Protestant of good sense and interest in the Kingdom to another in London Several were written by his order to the same purpose 'T is observable in this Letter in the Appendix 1st That the Lord Deputy owns the Robberies then committed but would have it believ'd that the members of the Army were not the Robbers which sufficiently shews the falshood of the Allegation whereby the Papists would excuse themselves as if they had not begun to Rob till the Protestant Associations were set on foot whereas those were some while after this Letter and occasion'd by the Robberies mentioned in it 2ly He would have it believ'd that the Papists fear'd a Massacre from the Protestants as much as the Protestants from the Papists which had no ground The Arms Forts Magazins c. being in the Papists hands and a vast number of Men every where enlisted by their new Officers it is true that the Priests did by order of their Grandees endeavour to spread such a Rumour to make their own people arm the faster which if it were at all credited by some few of them was look'd on as ridiculous by all others 3ly He would have the people in England believe that he and the Roman Catholicks were willing to give up the Sword and return to the Condition in which they were before the death of King Charles the Second This is plainly the main design of the Letter and some think he was sincere in it till the coming over of Coll. Richard Hamilton altered his Measures but that is not at all probable his actions all along signifying his resolution to destroy the Kingdom rather than part with his greatness However he made a shift to perswade some Protestants that he meant it their own earnest Desires that it might be so helping to impose on them amongst whom the Writer of this Letter happened to be one but was not singular many of good Sense being deceived as well as he Lastly it appears from the Letter that the Roman Catholicks as well as the Protestants were of opinion that the Kingdom must be ruined if not yielded up to the Prince of Orange And if so had not the Protestants in the North reason to do that which in the opinion of all could only save the Kingdom The case then stood thus with them if they joined with King James or sate still they were certainly undone if he perished they must perish with him if he conquered he would then be in a capacity to execute his destructive Intentions against them which he had entertained long before But if they joyned with their Present Majesties they were sure of Safety and Protection as long as England is able to Master Ireland which in probability will be for ever But whatever the Lord Tyrconnel profest of his being desirous to give up the Sword 't is certain he meant nothing less and the generality of Protestants believed that he only designed to gain time and delude them till he had gotten something like an Army to Master them and they had the more reason to believe it because whilst he profest the greatest Inclinations to Peace and Accommodation he was most intent on providing for War and gave out about Five Hundred Commissions of one sort or other in a day which yet he did in such a manner as to make the least Noise not passing them in the regular forms or entring them in the usual Offices but antedating them the more to delude and amuse the Protestants which put the Muster-Masters Office out of Order ever after most of these Commissions being never entred in it Nor was it ever able to furnish a perfect List of the very Field Officers as will appear from the List it self in the Appendix 5. These new made Officers were set on Foot partly on the first noise of the Prince of Orange's descent and partly in the beginning of December 1688 and were without Mony Estate or any other visible means to raise their Troops and Companies and to subsist so they term'd maintaining them
came to be concluded not enduring to be present at the passing of that and some other Barbarous Acts against which they found their Votes signified nothing while they staid There were four more Protestants return'd of whose Behaviour I can give no account or how they came to be return'd The generality of the Houses consisted of the Sons and Descendents of the Forfeiting Persons in 1641. Men that had no Freeholds or Estates in the Kingdom but were purposely elected to make themselves Estates by taking them away from Protestants 15. Now whilst the power of making and repealing Laws was in such hands what Security could Protestants promise themselves from any Laws or what probability was there that any Laws already made in their Favour would be continued Especially if we consider further that this Parliament openly profess'd it self a Slave to the King's Will and he was look'd on as Factiously and Rebelliously inclin'd that would dare to move any thing after any Favorite in the House had affirm'd that it was contrary to the King's pleasure Several Bills were begun in the House of Commons one for erecting an Inns of Court another for repealing an Act commonly call'd Poinings Act which requires that all Acts should be perused by the King and Council of England before they be offered to be pass'd by the Parliament in Ireland but King James signified his Dissatisfaction to these Bills and for that reason they and several others were let fall tho the Irish had talk'd much and earnestly desir'd the Repeal of Poinings Act it being the greatest Sign and means of their Subjection to England There was a doubt made in the House concerning the Earl of Strafford whether he should be attainted for Estate and Life several moved in his behalf but it was carried against him upon this Evidence Colonel Simon Lutterell affirmed in the House That he had heard the King say some hard things of him The King's pleasure therefore was the Law to which we were to trust for our Lives and Fortunes our Enemies having entirely engross'd the power of making and repealing Laws and devolved it on the King's pleasure the very Protestant Lords and Bishops being denied their Priviledge of entering their Protestations against such Votes as they conceiv'd Destructive to the Kingdom The King told them That Protestations against Votes were only used in Rebellious times and with much ado they were allowed to enter their Dissent tho after that was allowed them the Clerk of the Parliament one Polewheele a Nephew of Chancellor Fitton 's shifted them off and did not enter their Dissent to some Votes tho often sollicited and press'd to do it according to the Orders of the House 16. When King James had labour'd as much as in him lay to get a Parliament that would repeal the Penal Laws and Test in England and open the Houses to Papists he found at last that the great Obstacle that rendered the Kingdom so averse to this was the general Fear and Apprehension that the Legislative Authority would be engross'd by them and turn'd against Protestants this was so obvious and reasonable a Surmise that he knew there was no hopes that the People would side with him against their present Majesties if something were not done to satisfie them and therefore to remove this fear he published his Proclamation dated Sept. 20. 1688. wherein he declares himself willing that Roman Catholicks should remain incapable to be Members of the House of Commons if the Protestants of England had reason to apprehend that Papists would engross the Legislative Authority in England and from the Example of Queen Mary's House of Commons to dread such Law givers how much more reason had the Protestants of Ireland to dread that power when entirely engrossed by their most inveterate Popish Enemies whose Interest as well as Religion oblig'd them to divest all those that profess'd the Reform'd Religion not only of the Favour but likewise of the Benefits of Law 17. They sate from the Seventh of May till the Twentieth of July following and in that short time entirely destroy'd the Settlement of Ireland and outed both the Protestant Clergy and Laity of their Freeholds and Inheritances It is not to be exspected I should give an account of all their Acts that which concerns this present Section is to shew how they destroy'd the Protestants real Estates 1. And that was first by an Act of Repeal whereby they took away the Acts of Settlement and Explanation by virtue of which as I have already shew'd two thirds of the Protestants of the Kingdom held their Estates that is all that which is call'd New Interest was lost by this Repeal there is no consideration had in it how any Man came to his Estate but tho he purchased it at ever so dear a rate he must lose it and it is to be restor'd without Exception to the Proprietor or his Descendent that had it before October 22. 1641. upon what account soever he lost it tho they themselves did not deny but many deserv'd to lose their Estates even Sir Phelim O Neal's Son the great Murtherer and Rebel was restor'd 2. In order to make a final Extirpation of Protestants they contrive and pass an Act of Attainder by which all Protestants whose Names they could find of all Ages Sexes and Degrees are attainted of High Treason and their Estates vested in the King the pretence of this Attainder was their being out of the Kingdom at the time of passing the Act as shall be shewn in the next Section 3. Least some should be forgotten of those that were absent and not put into the Bill of Attainder they contriv'd a general Clause in the Act of Repeal whereby the real Estates of all who Dwelt or staid in any place of the three Kingdoms which did not own King Jame's Power or corresponded with any such as they term Rebels or were any ways aiding abetting or assisting to them from the First day of August 1688. are declared to be forfeited and vested in his Majesty and that without any Office or Inquisition found thereof By which Clause almost every Protestant that could Write in the Kingdom had forfeited his Estate for the Packets went from London to Dublin and back again constantly from August to March 1688. and few had Friends in England or in the North but corresponded with them by Letters and every such Letter is made by this clause a Forfeiture of Estate They had intercepted and search'd every Packet that went or came the later part of this time and kept vast Heaps of Letters which were of no Consequence at all to the Government we wondered what the meaning of their doing so should be but by this Parliament we came to understand it for now these Letters were produced as Evidences in the House of Commons against those that appear'd in behalf of their absent Friends or oppos'd the attainting of such Protestants as they had some kindness for and they were
again into our communion at his death and that with such remarkable circumstances of repentance and sorrow that King James heard of it and blam'd his Physician Dr. Constable for his neglect in not giving notice to the Priest 7. They endeavoured to bring the Ministers of Dublin under all the Contempt they could and at last put on them the drudgery that belonged to the Office of Constables and Deputy Aldermen it belonged to those Officers on all occasions to return the names of the several Inhabitants and Inmates of their Wards the Government desired to know the names of Protestants in each Parish and their numbers and they took them several times but Colonel Lutterel the Governour of Dublin would not be satisfied till the Ministers went about in Person and returned every Man his respective Parishioners names it was in vain for them to plead the unreasonableness of this imposition they aleadged the pains the charges and the meanness of the thing which was done more effectually already than could be done by them by the proper Officers but all in vain they must comply or go to Jail This return made by the Ministers was of no real use to the Government for they had an exact account given about a Fortnight before by their own Officers and took another about a Week after the design therefore was either to lay a Snare for the Ministers or else to render them contemptible to their People but instead of doing that it only incensed the People against their unreasonable Governours who thus affronted their Clergy SECT XX. 6. King James and his Party endeavoured to destroy the Protestant Religion by misrepresenting the Persons and Principles of Protestants 1. THe violences used to out us of our Churches and to discourage our Clergy had no great success in making Converts but there was another way set on foot which did seduce some and it was by making a Monster of the Protestant Religion and Protestants insomuch that young People who liv'd remote from Conversation and had not opportunity to inform themselves of the Truth conceiv'd strange Ideas of both by the insinuation of the Priests 2. It was one of the first steps of the Reformation to renounce the usurped power of the Pope and to restore to the Crown the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction which originally belongs to the Civil Magistrate that is the power of punishing Offenders with the Temporal Sword whatever their Crime be whether Ecclesiastical or Civil Now the Priests represented this Doctrine after a strange manner they perswaded those that would lend them their attention that the Protestants believed all Spiritual power to be in the King that he could Consecrate whom he pleas'd Bishops set up what Religion he had a mind to and oblige all his Subjects to be of his Faith and they railed most grievously at the Protestants for not turning Papists in complyance to their King calling them Traitors and perjur'd Persons from their own Principles 3. 'T was another Principle amongst Protestants that private Men should not take up the Sword or resist the King upon any pretence such resistance being against Law by which no more was understood than that Subjects should according to the Laws and Gospel behave themselves peaceably and submissively towards their Superiors and not upon any pretence of private injury or wrong done to them in particular enter into Conspiracie and Combinations against their Governours but by it was never intended to give up the Constitution of the Government or to part with the Liberties and Priviledges of the Kingdom yet the Priests would needs perswade the World that by this Principle the Protestants were obliged to part with all at the King's command that he might use them if he pleased as the Grand Signior or the French King use their Subjects and their Lives their Liberties and Estates were all at his Mercy and they Devils and Traitors and Perjur'd Villains I use their words if they demur'd at his Command There was hardly any Principle peculiar to the reform'd Religion but they thus misrepresented it 4. Nor did the persons of Protestants escape better than their Principles They loaded them with the most odious Calumnies and Misrepresentations they aleadged that the Protestants had no Religion at all that they only pretended to it but were Atheists and Traitors in their Hearts they were more especially malicious against the Clergy King James himself contributing to it as appear'd on this occasion two young Gentlemen Brothers to the Earl of Salisbury followed King James out of France they profest themselves Protestants and associated with such the Bishops of Meath and Limerick had an Eye on the Gentlemen and endeavoured to secure them against any attempts which might be made to pervert them but King James called the young Men to him forbad them the company of Protestants nay even of one Mr. C ham a Gentleman that came over with them but above all he forbad them conversing with the Bishops and Clergy-men for said he they are all false to me and will pervert you to disloyalty and Treason this was the common saying of them all even of the Chancellour on the Bench and tho they would on occasion magnifie the loyalty of some of the Protestant Clergy in England and Scotland yet at other times they would profess that they believed them all treacherous and would never trust any of them 5. In order to abuse the Protestants and especially the Clergy they set up one Yalden a Convert Councellor at Law to write a weekly Paper which he called an Abhorrence in which he endeavoured to rake together all the little Stories that might reflect on Protestants and all the arguments his Wit could furnish him with for his Cause he made it his business to invent false stories and lies concerning the Clergy and began with Dr. King and Dr. Foy He had published a Collection of passages out of the Bishop of Ely's Sermon and some Sixteen others for Passive Obedience whether this was his own work or only as I have been informed a Peice compos'd by some others which he assumed to himself I cannot say but it met with very slender reception in Ireland and lay on the Booksellers hand To vent it therefore as some thought or rather to abuse the Clergy he published an Advertisement in his Abhorrence declaring that Dr. King and Dr. Foy had approv'd this Book by their Certificate under their hand by this he thought to intrap them for either they as he imagined must have let this pass and then the Protestants must think them if not ill at least very imprudent Men or else they must disown it and then he knew how to improve their refuting his calumny so as to render them odious to the Government and the Papists did a little please themselves with the contrivance But Dr. Foy and Dr. King found means without concerning themselves much in the matter to let all Dublin know that they never read Mr. Yalden's
a little time have unavoidably starv'd a Trades-man might expect to live by his Industry a Gentleman on his Credit in a peaceable Countrey or in War by listing themselves in any Army But in Ireland where Men neither were suffered to use their Industry nor batake themselves to Arms where they could neither enjoy the means of gaining a livelihood in Peace or War to what purpose should they stay to live at the best in Poverty Contempt and Slavery 5. As to the Clergy that left the Kingdom it is to be considered that most of those in the Countrey were robb'd and plunder'd and nothing left them to support themselves and families before they went away many were deserted by their People their Parishioners leaving them and getting to England or Scotland before them some Parishioners were so kind to their Ministers that they begg'd and entreated them to be gone which they were mov'd to do because they saw the spite and malice of their Enemies was more peculiarly bent against the Clergy and they imagined that their removing would a little allay the heat of those spiteful Men and that the Robbers would not so often visit the neighbourhood when the Minister was gone which in many places had the effect intended for the Robbers would come a great way to rob a Gentleman or Clergyman and would be sure to visit the poor peoples houses in their passages But when these were remov'd the obscurity of the meaner People did protect them from many violences Lastly many Clergymen were forc'd to remove because they had nothing left to live on their Parishioners were as poor as themselves and utterly unable to help them I do consess that there was no reason to complain of the Peoples backwardness to maintain the Clergy on the contrary they contributed to the utmost of their power and beyond it and made no distinction of Sects many Dissenters of all sorts except Quakers contributing liberally to this good end which ought to be remembred to their honour but after all in many places a whole Parish what with the ruin and desolation brought on the Kingdom and what with the removal of the Protestant Parishioners was not able to contribute 20 s. to maintain their Minister and meer necessity forced away these Ministers Against some others the Government had peculiar piques and exceptions those were in manifest hazard of their Lives and in fear every day of being seiz'd and brought to a Tryal on some feign'd Crime And several both of the Clergy and Laity were forc'd to fly on this account for their safety All these I look on to be justifiable reasons of Mens withdrawing If any went away on any other principles who were not in these or the like circumstances I shall leave them to the censure of the World but I believe very few will be found for whom either their publick or private circumstances may not justly apologize 6. It is not to be suppos'd that Men would have left their plentiful Estates and Settlements their well furnisht Houses and comfortable ways of living as most of these who went away did had they not been under the greatest fears and pressures Wives would not have left their Husbands nor Parents their Children Men of Estates and Fortunes would not have ventured their Lives in little Wherries and Boats to pass Seas famous for their Ship wracks if they could with any comfort or safety have stayed at home I know King James took care to have it suggested in England that all these left Ireland not out of any real fear or necessity but only with a disign to make him and his Government odious but sure they must think the Protestants of Ireland were very fond of a Collection in England that can imagine so many thousand people of all sorts and sexes should conspire together to ruine themselves and throw away all that they had in the World out of malice and only to bring an Odium on a Party that had done them no harm 7. Neither was it as some suggest a vain and pannick fear that possessed them that went away for that could not continue for a Year or Two but those that had lived under King James a Year and half were as earnest to get away as those that went at first and the longer they liv'd under him their fear and apprehensions increas'd the more on them being already ruined in their Fortunes and their Lives in daily and apparent hazard from military and illegal proceedings They liv'd amongst a People that daily robb'd plundered and affronted them that assaulted their Persons and threatned their Lives and wanted only the word to cut their Throats and sure 't was then time to withdraw from the danger at any rate and I am confident I speak the sence of the generality of those that stayed that if the Seas had been left open some few Months before his Majesty appear'd in the Field in Ireland far the greatest part I may venture to say almost all of those that had stayed till then would have gone away with their Lives only rather than have continued here longer Whoever knows the cruelty and malice of those with whom we had to deal will own these fears to be reasonable Yet for this we were condemned to death and forfeiture and the very Children barr'd of their rights against the known Laws and Customs of the Kingdom SECT II. A justification of those Protestants who staid in Ireland and lived in submission to King James's Government 1. NOt withstanding the great number of Protestants that fled to England yet many stay'd behind perhaps some may accuse their Prudence in venturing to stay under such circumstances but otherwise I think little can be objected against them however lest any should entertain any sinister thoughts of them 't will be necessary to say something in their behalf They were of Four sorts 1. the meaner People 2. Gentry of Estates 3. Such as had employments and 4. the Clergy 2. First as to the meaner People 't is to be considered that it was no easy thing to get away the freight of Ships and Lycences were at very high rates and sometimes not to be purchased at all Many of the Countrey People could not get to the Sea Ports they had little Money their riches were in their Stocks and these being plundered they were not able to raise so much money as would transport them and their Families and they generally came too late to the Ports A strict Embargo being laid on all Ships before they could get to the Sea side many of the Citizens of Dublin and other Sea Ports got off but were forc'd to leave their Shops and Concerns behind in the hands of their Relations and Dependents who were obliged to stay to take care of them Others thought it unreasonable to leave all they had to go to beg in a strange Countrey and having no body to trust with their Concerns resolv'd to hazard themselves together with them If these
same any thing in this or the said Act of Repeal to the contrary notwithstanding And it is further enacted by the Authority aforesaid That all Letters Patents hereafter to be granted of any Offices or Lands whatsoever shall contain in the same Letters Patents a Clause requiring and compelling the said Patentees to cause the said Letters Patents to be enrolled in the Chancery of Ireland within a time therein to be limited and all Letters Patents wherein such Clause shall be omitted are hereby declared to be utterly void and of none effect Provided always that if your sacred Majesty at any time before the first Day of November next by Letters Patents under the Broad Seal of England if reâ—â—ding there or by Letters Patents under the Great Seal of Ireland during your Majesties abode here shall grant your gracious Pardon or Pardons to any one or more of the Persons herein before mentioned or intended to be attainted who shall return to their Duty and Loyalty that then and in such case such Person and Persons so pardoned shall be and is hereby excepted out of this present Act as if they had never been therein named or thereby intended to be attainted and shall be and are hereby acquitted and discharged from all Attainders Penalties and Forfeitures created or inflicted by this Act or the said Act of Repeal excepting such Share or Proportion of their real or personal Estate as your Majesty shall think fit to except or reserve from them any thing in this present Act or in the said Act of Repeal contained to the contrary notwithstanding Provided always that every such Pardon and Pardons be pursuant to a Warrant under your Majesties Privy Signet and Sign manual and that no one Letters Patents of Pardon shall contain above one Person and that all and every such Letters Patents of Pardon and Pardons shall be enrolled in the Rolls Office of your Majesties High Court of Chancery in this Kingdom at or before the last Day of the said Month of November or in Default thereof to be absolutely void and of none Effect any thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding Provided likewise that if any Person or Persons so pardoned shall at any time after the Date of the said Pardon join with or aid or assist any of your Majesties Enemies or with any Rebels in any of your Majesties Dominions and be thereof convict or attainted by any due Course of Law that then and in such Case they shall forfeit all the Benefit and Advantage of such Pardon and shall be again subject and liable to all the Penalties and Forfeitures inflicted on them and every of them by this or the said Act of Repeal as if such Pardon or Pardons had never been granted Provided always that nothing in this Act contained shall extend or be construed to extend to or vest in your Majesty any Lands Tenements or Hereditaments or other Interest of any ancient Proprietor who by the said Act of Repeal is to be restored to his ancient Estate but that all such Person and Persons and all their Right Title and Interest are and shall be saved and preserved according to the true Intent and Meaning of the said Act any thing in these Presents to the contrary notwithstanding Copia vera Richard Darling Cleric in Offic. M ri Rot. The Perswasions and Suggestions the Irish Catholicks make to his Majesty Supposed to be drawn up by Talbot titular Arch-bishop of Dublin and found in Col. Talbot's House July 1. 1671. 1. THAT the Rebellion in Anno 1641. was the Act of a few and out of fear of what was doing in England That they were provoked and driven to it by the English to get their Forfeitures That they were often willing to submit to the King and did it effectually Anno 1648 and held up his Interest against the Usurper who had murdered his Father till 1653. After which time they served his Majesty in Foreign Parts till his Restauration 2. That they acquiesce in his Majesty's Declaration of Novemb. 30. 1660. And are willing that the Adventurers and Souldiers should have what is therein promised them but what they and others have more may be resumed and disposed of as by the Declaration 3. They desire for what Lands intended to be restored them shall be continued to the Adventurers and Souldiers that they may have a Compensation in Money out of his Majesty's new Revenues of Quit-Rents payable by the Adventurers and Souldiers The Hearth Money and Excise being such Branches as were not in 1641 and hope that the one will ballance the other 4. They say That his Majesty has now no more need of an Army than before 1641 That the remainder of his Revenue will maintain now as well as then what Forces are necessary 5. They desire to be restored to Habitations and Freedom within Corporations 1. That the General Trade may advance 2. That Garisons and Cittadels may become useless 3. That they may serve his Majesty in Parliament for bettering his Revenue and crushing and securing the Seditious in all Places 6. They desire to be Sheriffs and Justices of the Peace c. for the Ends and Purposes aforesaid and to have the Power of the Civil and Ordinary Militia 7. They also desire to be form'd into a Militia and to be admitted to be of the standing Army 8. That their Religion is consonant to Monarchy and implicit Obedience That they themselves have actually serv'd his Majesty in Difficulties That they have no other way to advantage themselves than by a strict adherence to the King That they have no other Refuge whereas many of his Majesty's Subjects do lean hard another way 9. That the Roman Catholicks are six to one of all others that of the said one to six some are Atheists and Neuters who will profess the Roman Catholick Religion others devoutly given will affect the same course that the rest may have their Liberty of Conscience and may be corrected in case they abuse it 10. That the Roman Catholicks having the full Power of the Nation they can at all times spare his Majesty an Army of Sixty thousand Men there being Twelve hundred thousand Souls in Ireland and so consequently an Hundred and fifty thousand between sixteen and sixty Years old Which Forces if allowed to Trade shall have Shipping to transport themselves when his Majesty pleaseth 11. That they have a good Correspondence abroad for that great numbers of their Nation are Souldiers Priests and Merchants in esteem with several great Princes and their Ministers 12. That the Toleration of the Roman Catholicks in England being granted and the Insolence of the Hollanders taken down a Confederacy with France which can influence England as Scotland can also will together by God's Blessing make his Majesty's Monarchy Absolute and Real 13. That if any of the Irish cannot have their Lands in specie but Money in lieu as aforesaid some of them may transport themselves into America possibly
that produced such Fatal Effects ought to be insisted upon or embraced If the King of France had not been too generous and too Christian a Prince were it not a sufficient Motive for him to reject the King in his Disgrace that upon those rotten Principles rejected his Alliance yet those and only those Principles will be made use of to perswade you there that you must not think of your own Restauration and Assurance at Home first but go into England to restore the Catholicks And if there be any other Adherents of the King 's there and that it will be time enough to think of your own Restauration after Which is the same as to say at Dooms-day For never a Catholick or other English will ever think or make a step nor suffer the King to make a step for your Restauration but leave you as you were hitherto and leave your Enemies over your Heads to crush you any time they please and cut you off Root and Branch as they now publickly declare And blame themselves they have not taken away your Lives along with your Estates long ago nor is there any Englishman Catholick or other of what Quality or Degree soever alive that will stick to sacrifice all Ireland for to save the least Interest of his own in England and would as willingly see all Ireland over inhabited by English of whatsoever Religion as by the Irish and yet by their fine Politicks they would perswade the Irish to come and save their Houses from burning whilst they leave their own on fire Which is no better than to look upon People as so many Fools when every body knows that Charity begins at Home that one's Charity for himself is the Rule and Measure of that he ought to have for his Neighbour diliges proximum tuum sicut teipsum Is it not a better and more Christian Politick for the King and all that are faithful unto him to restore first a whole Kingdom that stands out for him when all the rest failed to their Birth-right which they have been out of these Thirty Six Years only for being obstinately Loyal to his Father Brother and himself than to displease those who have been and are still Loyal and who can get any Condition they please from the Enemy to join with them by thus pleasing or trimming with those who never were or ever will be True or Faithful and when they are thus restored and no Enemies left in their Bowels that can do his Majesty or them any Harm then to go in a strong Body together with his Majesty into England join with all such that will prove Faithful and Loyal and so restore his Majesty to his Throne and each one to his right I would fain know from these trimming Politicks whether it be not securer and more honourable for the King to offer all fair Means and shew his Clemency to his People when he is in Condition to force them to what he pleases to exact of them than to be daily undervaluing himself by offering them all the fair Means imaginable which they slight and scorn because they seeing he has no Means to force them or do them Harm think he does all only out of fear and not by any sincere or true Affection And I would fain further know if it be not better and greater Policy for him to put the Kingdom of Ireland still so Loyal unto him upon the best and highest Foot both Ecclesiastical and Temporal he can contrive and yet granting it nothing but its natural Right and Due that it may be a Check upon the People of England who are ready every New-Moon to Rebel then to keep it still in a continual Slavery and full dependance on such perfidious and inconstant People and himself deprived of the support he can still have from thence against their Revolt I dare averr if Ireland were put upon such a foot by the King he shall never fear any Rebellion in England especially if Scotland be faithful to him and France a Friend all which can now be well contrived and concerted But when all is done I would fain yet know from those Politick Trimmers by what Law of God or Man Ecclesiastical or Politick they think Ireland is bound to be the Sacrifice and Victim of the Rebellion of England either for to hinder those turbulent People from Rebelling or for to Reconcile them to their Duty by giving them forsooth as Recompence the Estates of those unfortunate Catholicks and send themselves a begging I dare say no Catholick in England much less a Protestant who would so easily give his consent and advice that the Estates of the Irish Catholicks may serve as a Recompence for the English Rebels would willingly give a Plow-Land of his own Estate to Reconcile all the Rebels of England to their Duty if he were not afraid to lose his own whole Estate by the Rebellion and yet would advise to do to others what he would not have to be done to himself contrary to the great Rule and Maxim of Nature and Christianity Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri ne feceris I would fain further know from this Politick Trimmer so large of other Peoples Goods and so sparing of his own if one Province in England had revolted against their King as the whole Kingdom does now and that the rest of the Provinces continued faithful would they think fit or prudent to give their Lands and Estates to those Rebels for laying down their Arms and go beg themselves Or would the King expect or desire it from them No sure but rather that they should take up Arms and joyn with His Majesty to reduce and punish such Rebels in lieu of recompencing them with the Loyal's Estates And is not that the case of the Irish Why do you not then judge alike Or if you do not look upon an Irish man as a Fool why will you have him do what you say is not fit for your self or other fellow-Subjects to do in like case And sure you must think him a Fool and after-wit as you use to say if he will be perswaded by your Trimming Politick to leave his own Estate to his Enemy and come to save yours who would but laugh at him the next day at the best for his folly If their great and long Vexations have not given the Irish better understanding and know how little regard all the English whatsoever have for them they deserve to be dealt with like Fools But who would think it were Prudent or Politick for the King to bring a great Body of Men out of Ireland into England or Scotland leaving behind him in Ireland a considerable strong Party of Phanaticks all Enemies whatever outward shew they make to the contrary to rise in Arms as soon as they see the King turn his Back to them and they get a supply from their fellow Rebels out of England which will not be wanting at any time and so cut the Throats
of all His Majesty's true Subjects in Ireland and shut himself up between two Potent Enemies in England and Ireland whereas by setting the Irish on a sure foot he always hath for a Refuge that Country which he will find to be far better than nothing and may be with time a means to come into England But Trimmers will tell him That it is no matter for His Majesty if he can gain the English Rebels by sacrificing Ireland to them who will inhabit it whether English or Irish nay I believe rather English and so make it an English Interest all along and he will be apt to believe it but it imports the Irish to look about them and consider if that be their Interest Add to all these considerations with many more and better you can think of an essential and indispensible one which is to please this King and Court of whom his Majesty now and you all depend solely and wholly by saving their Interest along with that of his Majesty and your own which cannot be done but by settling of Ireland upon the best and most advantageous foot that can be contrived with Reason and Justice 〈◊〉 it may be a Check upon England as Scotland formerly to keep it from Rebellion against their own Prince From trouble and Invasion upon France and a Tye upon the Kings of England hereafter to keep good Correspondence with France and keep Ireland in a flourishing happy condition and not to be Slaves to all the People and Scums of England If 48 or other were loath to press any such Conditions or Proposals on the King they may make use of the French Minister Count D'Avaux who is with him as a good Adviser and for to manage his Masters Interest I think it may be well and rationally proposed if by the King of France's means such an advantageous settlement may be procured for the Nation and that he would be as a Guarranty or Protection of it to give him as well for his assurance or Guarranty as for the payment of what he advances for the King and Country some Sea-ports in Ireland as you have hinted in your last This is what now comes into my head upon this Subject which M. B. does not neglect to insinuate and imprint as much as he can though not well in his health into the Heads and Hearts of the Ministers and People about Court Though 27 gave no Power or Credit to any body here to speak of Business but to his Son-in-Law L. W. in Cypher 110. but M. B. does it privately upon his own account and acquaintance with the People without thwarting him in any of his Ways But you know what one says tanquam potestatem habeâ—s carries more weight than what he says as a private man And therefore I think it were not amiss that 48. from himself or by the said French Ministers means may get order from 27 that 92 may be heard and Credited at Court as to the Concerns of 78 which to prevent and hinder some that would not have it put into 27's head as 't is thought to desire 92 to follow him as soon as he were well in his health along with 23 and before he saw himself to tell him so knowing he was sick gave orders to 18's fellow traveller whom I added to the Cypher thus 112 to tell him so which he has perform'd only by another Master Barry belonging to 34 for he never came himself to see him which I think was not prudently done of him setting civility aside for they may communicate one to another what may be best to do with 86 for the service of 78 and certainly without any vanity 92 knew better how to manage that interest with 86 than he or any of his profession there But I find some do suspect the sincerity of that Man for the Publick Interest I know not if they wrong him but one thing I know he does not like to see any of 64 or 65 have any hand in Business Of which I think I gave you once already a hint from 87 when he and 98 were there and I cannot tell but it may be he that might have given 27 that advice of drawing 92 from hence who desires not to be but where he may be most useful to his Religion King and Country and if any necessity may be of his Vote there he can send you a Procuration in blank if he be thought more useful or necessary here 'T is now high time I suppose you should ask me what is this great and solid settlement I would have for Ireland To which I answer That you and others there likely know best But that I may speak my own little sense on the matter I say I would have two or three of the Irish Nation to be still of the Kings Council and one of them Secretary of State for the Affairs of Ireland as Scotland has I would have some of their Nobility to be of the Bedchamber by reason both of Honour and Interest I would have all the Employments Civil and Military given to the Natives of the Country Unless the Country thought â—it to introduce some Strangers for better advantage and improvements I would have them restored to their Estates both Spiritual and Temporal usurped by the Cromwellians or under the Title of being Protestants yet with that Proviso for the Spiritual that a Competent Pension should be allowed to the Protestant Possessor during his Life for he can pretend no longer Lease of it or that he should give the Catholick Bishop or Incumbenâ— a competent Pension if it were thought fitter to let him enjoy his Possession during Life I would have the Commerce and Traffick settled with all the Advantage due to a 〈◊〉 Nation and Subjects of which the Merchants 〈◊〉 inform best without any other dependence on or relation to England but what Subjects ought to the King and Crown of which I would not derogate in the least but nothing to do with the Merchants and People of England no more than with those of France Spain and Holland But my Politick Trimmer will say this is of a dangerous consequence for England and for the King in relation to it for they will say the King intends to establish the same Government amongst them both in Spirituals and Temporals that he has in Ireland To which I answer in the first place That we are not here to manage or speak for the Interest of England which would not fail to speak and stand for it self Secondly I say That the Consequence from Ireland's Case to England's does not follow For in Ireland the Catholick Party is much more numerous and strong than the Protestant So that it is for the King's Interest there to favour them or at least do them Justice But in England where the number of Protestants and other Sectaries is by much the greater he can order things otherwise without any Contradiction for â—â—om the one to the other the Consequence does
at once inriched and civilized it would hardly be believed it were the same Spot of Earth Nay Over-flown and Moorish Grounds were reduced to the bettering of the Soyl and Air. The Purchasers who brought the Kingdom to this flourishing Condition fly to your Majesty for Succour offering not only their Estates and Fortunes but even their Lives to any Legal Trial within this your Majesties Kingdom being ready to submit their Persons and Estates to any established Judicature where if it shall be found that they enjoy any thing without Legal Title or done any thing that may forfeit what they have Purchased they will sit down and most willingly acquiesce in the Judgments But to have their Purchases made void their Lands and Improvements taken from them their Securities and Assurances for Money Lent declar'd Null and Void by a Law made ex post facto is what was never practised in any Kingdom or Countrey If the Bill now design'd to be made a Law had been attempted within two three four or five years after the Court for the execution of these Acts was ended the Purchasers would not have laid out their Estates in acquiring of Lands or in Building or Improving on them Thousands who had sold small Estates and Free-holds in England and brought the Price of them to Purchase or Plant here wou'd have stayed at home And your Majesties Revenue with that of the Nobility and Gentry had never come to the Height it did If your Majesty please to consider upon what Grounds and Assurances the Purchasers of Lands and Tenements in this Kingdom proceed you will soon conclude that never any proceeded upon securer Grounds The Acts of xvij and xviij of King Charles your Father of blessed Memory the First takes notice that there was a Rebellion begun in this Kingdom on the 23d of October 1641 And so doth a Bill once read in the House of Lords whoever looks into the Royal Martyrs Discourse upon that Occasion will see with what an abhorrence he laments it and that he had once thoughts of coming over in Person to suppress it Those Acts promise Satisfaction out of Forfeited Lands to such as would advance Money for reducing these disturbers of the publick Peace unto their Duty The Invitation was his late Majesties your Royal Brothers Letters from Breda some few weeks before his Restauration which hapned the 29th of May 1660 And within six Months after came forth his Majesties most Gracious Declaration for the Settlement of this Kingdom This may it please your Majesty is the Basis and Foundation of the Settlement and was some years after Enacted and made a Law by two several Acts of Parliament It is true that the Usurping Powers in the Year 1653. having by the permission of the Almighty as a just Judgment on us for our Sins prevailed here did dispose and set out the Estates of Catholicks unto Adventurers and Soldiers and in a year or two after transplanted out Catholick Free-holders for no other Reason but their being so in Connought where Lands were set out unto them under divers Qualifications which they and their Heirs or those deriving under them as Purchasers enjoy'd and still do enjoy under the Security of the before mentioned Acts of Parliament and Declaration His Majesties gracious Declaration of the 30th of November 1660. which I call the Foundation of the Settlement was before it was concluded on under the Consideration of that great Prince and the Lords of his Council of England where all Persons concerned for the Proprietors as well old as new were heard whoever reads will find the many Difficulties which he and his Council met with from the different and several Pretenders what Consideration was had and Care taken to reconcile the jarring Interests and to accommodate and settle as well as was possible the Mass and Body of Subjects here It was some years after before the Act for the Execution of his Majesties most Gracious Declaration became a Law It was neer two years upon the Anvil It was not a Law that past in few days or sub silentio It was first according to the then Course of passing Laws here framed by the Chief Governour and Council of this Kingdom by the Advice and with the Assistance of all the Judges and of his Majesties Council Learned in the Law and then transmitted into England to be further consider'd of by his Majesty and Lords of his Council there where the Counsel at Law and Agents of all Pretenders to the Propriety of Lands in this Kingdom were heard and that Act commonly called the Act of Settlement approved of and retransmitted under the Seal of England to receive the Royal Assent which it did after having passed both Houses of Parliament The Innocent Proprietors being restored pursuant to thiâ— Act and some Difficulties appearing as to the further execution of it Another Act passed commonly called the Act of Explanation which went the same Course and under the same Scrutiny It is confessed that though they are two Acts it was by the same Parliament who were chosen according to the ancient Course of Chusing Parliaments But if any miscarriage were in bringing that Parliament together or the procuring the aforesaid Acts of Parliament to pass which we can in no wise admit and the less for that your Majesties Revenue was granted and settled by the same Parliament and many good and wholsom Laws therein Enacted Yet it is manifest that nothing of that kind ought to affect the Plain and honest Purchaser who for great and valuable Considerations acquired Lands under the Security aforesaid and expended the remainder of his Means in Building Improving and Planting on them and that for the following Reasons First The Purchaser advising with his Counsel how to lay out or secure his Money that it may not lie dead not only to his but the publick detriment tells him that he is offer'd a Purchase of Lands in Fee or desired by his Neighbours to accommodate him with Money upon the Security of Judgment or Statute Staple and upon the enquiry into the Title he finds a good and Secure Estate as firm in Law as two Acts of Parliament in force in this Kingdom can make it and in many Cases Letters Patents upon a Commission of Grace for remedying of defective Titles he finds Possession both of many years gone along with this Title several descents past and possibly that the Lands have been purchased and passed through the hands of divers Purchasers He resorts to the Records where he meets with Fines and Common Recoveries the great Assurance known to the Laws of England Under which by the Blessing of God we live and tells him there is no scruple nor difficulty of Purchasing under this Title since he hath Security under two Acts of Parliament Certificates and Letters Patents Fines and Recoveries and that no Law of force in this Kingdom can stir much less shake this Title How is it possible to imagine that the
Universal or if it be Universal where it is yet tolerable and not so mischievous in the consequence as a Civil-War and I am apt to believe were meant no otherwise by the Authors Our Homilies press with great force the inconveniencies of such a War and the Author of Jovian designed his 11. Chap to shew that Resistance would be a greater mischief than Passive Obedience and tells us in the body of the Chapter that the inconvenience of Resisting the Sovereign would be of ten times worse consequence than it Which in the general is true as it relates to private injuries or the ordinary Male-Administration of Government but if it be applyed to the case of a Governour who designs the destruction of the Laws Lives and Liberties of his People and has gotten Ministers to execute his intention it is a manifest mistake and is confuted by Examples and Experience in all Ages If we look back into History we shall find the best the happiest most prosperous People most jealous of their Liberty and while they continued firm in their resolution of maintaining it against the encroachment of their Governours even with the hazzard of their lives they have continued great and happy but no sooner did they degenerate from this Zeal but they became contemptible and dwindled into nothing and at this day let us look into the whole world and we shall find every Nation happy and thriving at home and easie to their Neighbours abroad according as they have preserved themselves from slavery whereas all Countries under unlimitted Monarchies decay in their strength and improvements and though they may flourish for a little time by the ruin of their lesser Neighbours yet they at last unpeople their own Countries and seem to be permitted by God to come to that exorbitant power for their own ruin and for a plague to mankind And indeed the greatest mischief of a Civil-War is the danger of subjecting the State to the absolute power of some potent General as it happened in Rome Florence and in England in the late Civil-War for to lose even half the Subjects in a War is more tolerable than the loss of Liberty since if Liberty and good Laws be preserved an Age or two will repair the loss of Subjects and Improvements though they be ever so great but if Liberty be lost it is never to be retrieved but brings certain and infallible destruction as it did to Rome and has brought in a great measure to Florence and will to England if ever the Prerogative do swallow up the Liberties and Priviledges of the Subjects So far it is from truth that the allowing of Resistance in some cases of extremity has greater inconveniencies than absolute Subjection The Scriptures do indeed command Obedience without expressing any exception but cases of extream necessity may as reasonably be presumed to be excepted here as in the command for observation of the Sabbath which is as positive as any Command for Obedience to Governors Thou shalt do no manner of work saith the Commandment and yet it is acknowledged by all to contain a tacit exception for Works of necessity and Charity and whoever will consider the Commands for Obedience to Governours will find room in them for as reasonable an exception from that Obedience in cases of necessity as for servile works on the Sabbath day of which our Saviour himself approves it being as true that Governours were made for their Kingdoms as the Sabbath for Man 4. If then in some cases the mischiefs of tamely submitting to the tyranny and usurpation of a Governour may be worse and have more dangerous and mischievous consequences to the Common-Wealth than a War I suppose it ought to be granted that where this necessity is certain and apparent people may lawfully resist and defend themselves even by a War as being the lesser evil and then there needs no more to justifie the Protestants of Ireland for their deserting King James and accepting their Majesties protection than to shew I. That it is lawful for one Prince or State to interpose between another Prince and his Subjects who uses them cruelly or endeavours to enslave or destroy them and to rescue them from his hands even by a War if other means prove ineffectual and that it is lawful for the Subjects to accept of such interposition and protection if they can find no better way to preserve themselves II. That King James designed to destroy and utterly ruin the Protestant Religion the Liberty and Property of the Subjects in general the English Interest in Ireland in particular and alter the very Frame and Constitution of the Government III. That he not only design'd but attempted it with great success and made a considerable progress in it IV. That there remained no other prospect or human possibility of avoiding this slavery and destruction designed against the Kingdom and Protestants of Ireland but by accepting of the Protection and submitting to the Government of their present Majesties If I make these particulars manifest beyond contradiction and if the very Consciences of Roman Catholicks cannot but own them to be true I do not see how they can condemn us for what we have done or what else they could have expected from us except they would have had us held up our Throats till they cut them which no man had reason to expect from a whole body of people and they least of all who designed to be actors in it CHAP. I. Shewing that it is lawful for one Prince to interpose between another Prince and his Subjects when he uses them cruelly or endeavours to enslave or destroy them 1. THIS Assertion has been made so clear in several Discourses of late that I shall not need insist much on it A few Arguments will be sufficient for this place 2. First therefore it may be lawful for one Prince to interpose between another Prince and his Subjects because he may have an Interest in that People and Government to defend which Interest he may lawfully concern himself and prevent their Ruin by a War Such an Interest is Consanguinity Community of Religion but more especially a Prospect of Succession in the Government for in that Case if the People be destroyed or weakened the Inheritance is the worse and he is injured in his hopes which often are very valuable The present Possessor who is only an Usufructuary or Tenant for Life by destroying the Inheritance gives a just provocation to him who is in Reversion to cross his design by opposing him by all means that are in his power and this Argument is the stronger if there be just reason to suspect that there are any unlawful means used to defeat him of his Succession which alone were sufficient to justifie their present Majesties Interposition between the late King and his Subjects 3. But secondly the same may be lawful if the Destruction of a People by their Prince be only a step and degree to the destruction of a
make it an incredible Thing is so far from being impossible that it is very common of which there are so many Examples both ancient and modern that it is a wonder that Men who know any thing of History should overlook them Nero Caligula Domitian Maximinus Heliogabalus Commodus not only endeavoured but professed it and some of them were mightily concerned that it was not in their power to accomplish it No longer ago than the time of Philip the Second of Spain we have an Example of a Christian King no better than those Heathens Whoever reads the Story of his dealing with the Low Countries must confess that he design'd the utter Destruction of the Laws and Liberties of those People and that in particular he was resolved that not one Protestant should be left alive amongst them The same has been designed and effected in a great measure by the present French King against his Protestant Subjects and he must have a great share either of Impudence or Stupidity that can deny this Prince to have designed and purposely contrived that destruction and by the same Rule that a Man can be so wicked and barbarous as to design the destruction of a third or fourth part of his People he may design the destruction of the greatrr part if they will be such Fools as to suffer him to effect it SECT II. Shewing from the Obligations of his Religion that King James designed to destroy us IT is easie to demonstrate that every Roman Catholick King if he throughly understand his Religion and do in earnest believe the Principles of it is obliged if he be able to destroy his Protestant Subjects and that nothing can excuse him from doing it but want of power This is plain from the third Chapter of the fourth Lateran Council and from the Council of Constance in the Bull that confirms it read in the 45. Session if therefore a Popish King can persuade his Protestant Subjects to submit to him whilst he doth it he is obliged by his Principles to destroy them even when they are the greater part and Body of his Subjects Now King James was as is known to all the World a most zealous Roman Catholick and ingaged with that party of them that most zealously assert and practise this Doctrine of rooting out Hereticks He gave himself up intirely to the Conduct and guidance of Jesuits these were the Governors and Directors of his Conscience and he seemed to have no other Sentiments than such as they inspired into him If then these have prevailed with the French King whom some report to be a merciful Man in his own Nature and certainly a mighty Zealot for his Honor to break his most solemn established Laws violate his repeated Declarations and Oaths and in spite of all these to persecute and destroy his Protestant Subjects if the same have prevailed with the Duke of Savoy to do the like though as he is now convinced manifestly against his Interest nay almost to his own Destruction having lost thereby his best and most resolute and useful Subjects who would have served him most Cordially against France the Enemy he ought most to dread and which one day will swallow up his Dukedom if his Allies do not prevent it If lastly they have prevailed with the Emperor to involve himself in a War that has now lasted about twenty years and almost lost him his Empire rather than suffer a few Protestants to live quietly in Hungary Is not our late Kings being of the same Principles and under the Government of the same Directors of Conscience is not his fondness of France and his Alliance with it his affecting to imitate that King in every thing and above all his prosecuting the same if not worse methods towards the Protestants in Ireland that the King of France did with the Hugonots in his Dominions a clear and full proof of both Kings being in the same design to root out not only the Protestants of these Kingdoms but likewise of all Europe and that we must all have expected the same usage our Brethren met with in France Nor could our Kings Promises and Engagements be any greater assurances to us than those of the French King were to his Subjects It is observable that King James was more than ordinarily liberal in his Promises and Declarations of favour towards Protestants He boasted in a Declaration sent to England and dispersed by his Friends there dated May 8. 1689. at Dublin That his Protestant Subjects their Religion Priviledges and Properties were his especial care since he came into Ireland He often professed that he made no distinction between them and Roman Catholicks and both he here and his Party there did much extol his kind dealings with his Protestants in Ireland What those dealings truly were I shall have occasion to shew the representation of them made in England by him and his Party was no less false than his Promises were unsincere it being plain he had a reserve in them all It is a maxim as I take it in Law that if the King be deceived in his Grant though it pass the Great Seal yet it is void much more must all his verbal Promises be void if he be deceived in them Now if we consider who were the Directors of the Kings Conscience we ought not to wonder that he made no great scruple to evade them Doctor Cartwright one of his Instruments gives us a right notion of King James's Promises in his Sermon at Rippon where in effect he tells us that the Kings Promises are Donatives and ought not to be too strictly examined or urged and that we must leave his Majesty to explain his own meaning in them this Gloss pleased King James so well that he rewarded the Author with the Bishoprick of Chester though very unfit for that Character and shewed in all his actions that he meant to proceed accordingly and the humour run through the whole party whenever they were at a pinch and under a necessity of serving themselves by the assistance or credulity of Protestants they promised them fair and stuck at no terms with them but when their turn was served they would not allow us to mention their promise much less to challenge the performance 2. It plainly appeared that it was not in King James's power if he had been disposed himself to perform his promises to us The Priests told us that they would have our Churches and our Tyths and that the King had nothing to do with them and they were as good as their words nor could his Majesty upon trial hinder them One Mr. Moore preached before the King in Christs Church in the beginning of the year 1690. his Sermon gave great offence he told his Majesty that he did not do justice to the Church and Churchmen and amongst other things said that Kings ought to consult Clergymen in their temporal affairs the Clergy having a temporal as well as a spiritual right in the
a hundred Charters or thereabouts upon such little Exceptions and pittiful Cavils that it must be the greatest affront to the understanding of Mankind to think to put such on them for Justice and the greatest profanation of the name of Law to endeavour to pass such Proceedings for Legal Admit that a Corporation which is an invisible Body in Law could do any thing to destroy its own being or that it were reasonable it should be divested of a particular Privilege which it has manifestly abused or when by alteration of Circumstances such a Privilegde becomes a Prejudice to the Publick as it sometimes happens Yet to Dissolve all the Corporations in a Kingdom without the least Reason or Pretence of abuse of Priviledge or Forfeiture to take advantage from the Ignorance of a Lawyer or the mistake of a Clerk nay to pretend these when really there is no such thing is such an abuse of the Kings Prerogative and the Law that it is enough to make the People oppressed by colour of them to hate both at least to wish the Administration of them in other Hands and this was clearly the Case of the Corporations in Ireland The City of Dublin was not allowed so much time to put in their Plea as was really sufficient to transcribe it as it ought to have been The Clerk mistakes the Date of one of their Charters they pray leave to mend it this is denyed them and the Chief Baron gives Judgment The same Term the Charter of Londonderry in which the City of London was so deeply concerned was condemned on a yet more frivolous Pretence upon which the Chief Baron gave Judgment against the Charter And upon the like wrangling Cavils were the rest dissolved except a few which were on Noblemens Estates Some of these Noblemen employed Roman Catholick Agents or Receivers who so managed their Estates for them as chiefly to encourage Papists and now became the Instruments to betray their Corporations Those Agents employed the Power and Interest they had amongst their Masters Tenants by Threats and Intrigues to procure Surrenders and by these means some few were influenced Thus one Potter a Papist employed as a Receiver by the Earl of Kildare betrayed his Lord and prevailed with Athy and some other Corporations on his Estate to Surrender 3. Whether they did not think fit to destroy the Charters upon their usual and trivial pretence of defective Pleading there they found out other Expedients without Tryal to destroy them And that was by granting a New Charter as in the Case of Bangor in the County of Down to such Men as the Attorney General thought fit who by the Sheriff should be put in Possession of the Government of the Town and then if the former Possessors thought themselves injured they might bring their Actions against the Intruders in the Tryal of which they had Reason to expect no more fairness than they found in the Proceedings against their Charters 4. This Contrivance of superseding a former Charter by granting a new one served to very good purpose There were many particular Charters granted to Corporations in the City of Dublin Such were the Corporations of Taylors Skinners Feltmakers c. where these refused to Surrender they got a few of the Trade to take out a new Charter by which Papists were constituted Masters and Wardens and as soon as they had taken it out they committed to Prison such of the ancient Members as would not submit to them 5. Every Body dreaded the Effects of these Proceedings the Gentry considered that they held their Estates by Patents from the King and the Title was no stronger than that of a Charter And if Men were outed of their Priviledges and Freedoms by such Tricks and Shaddows of Law they began to fear that one day or other the like might be found to void their Patents 6. As soon as the Corporations came to be supplied with new Charters it plainly appeared that no English or Protestant Freeman could expect a comfortable Life in Ireland for in the first place the Corporations were made absolute Slaves to the King's Will it being one Clause in all the new Charters that the King 's chief Governor should have power to turn out or put in whom he pleased without giving any Reason and without any Form of Legal Proceeding by which the Corporations were so much in the King's Power that he might with as much reason have named his Regiment of Guards a Free Parliament as the Burgesses return'd by such Elections The whole Kingdom had therefore reason to resent such Proceedings as being absolutely destructive to their Liberties but more especially the English Protestants for it plainly appeared in the second place that all this Regulation was more immediately designed for their Destruction The persons every where named for Aldermen and Burgesses in the new Charters being above two thirds Papists some few Protestants were kept in for form sake that they might not seem absolutely to discountenance them and to avoid discovering their Designs of turning them out of all but yet so few in comparison of the Papists that they were incapable of doing either good or hurt And when they saw that they must be insignificant they generally declined serving at all The Papists employed were commonly the most inveterate and exasperated persons against Protestants and their Interest that could be found Many of them never saw the Corporations for which they were named they were never concerned in Trade or Business many of them were named for several Corporations because they wanted Men qualified as they would have had them to make up the number of Aldermen or Burgesses Most of them were poor and mean and such whose very Names spake Barbarities 7. The Protestants foresaw very well what they were to expect from Corporations thus settled and a great many of the richest trading Citizens removed themselves and their Effects into England The Gentry likewise endeavoured to make Provisions for themselves there and such as could compass Money laid it out in England and fled after it to avoid the Storm they saw coming on Ireland The Truth is 't was intolerable to them to live under the Government of their Footmen and Servants which many must have done had they staid and they could not but dread a Parliament that should not only be Slaves to the King's Will who they saw was bent to settle Popery at any rate but which must consist of Members that they knew to be their inveterate and hereditary Enemies who would not stick to sacrifice the Liberties and Laws of the Kingdom to the King's Will so they might procure from him Revenge on the Protestants and turn them out of their Estates For what would they stick at that were so servile as to accept such precarious Charters They saw in this their own Ruin design'd and the Event has shewn that they were not mistaken perhaps no King in the World much less a King who had been obliged in
at all at least without any given in their Warrants it was time enough to invent some against the next Assizes There never wanted Evidence enough to accuse a Man the very Priests being forward to encourage such Perjuries as were to the prejudice of Protestants Of this there are several Instances on Record in the Courts of Justice where we find them sometimes swearing Falshoods themselves and sometimes encouraging others to do it Of which the Courts even in spite of all their partiality were satisfied I gave one Example before in Sir William Petty's Case There is another of Mr. Balfours in the County of Fermanagh where the false Affidavit of one Hultaghan a Priest had almost destroyed his Cause and lost him a considerable Estate 2. Upon this account Perjuries became so common that if a Tenant owed his Protestant Landlord his Rent he payed him by swearing him into a Plot or by fixing on him some Treasonable or Seditious Words If a Papist had any former Quarrel with his Protestant Neigbor or owed him Money he paid him in the same Coin Many were indicted by these Contrivances many found guilty and excessively fin'd some were imprisoned for their Fines not being able to satisfie the King who seised both their Bodies and Estates Hardly any County in Ireland was free from numerous Indictments of this kind and very few Country Gentlemen escaped being accused Great numbers were indicted and found guilty in the Counties of Wexford and Wicklow to the number at least of sixty the most considerable Gentlemen in the County of Meath were indicted but had better luck the Perjury of their Accusers being made so manifest that even a Popish Bench had not the confidence to countenance it nor a Popish Jury to find it Thus Mr. Meredith Mr. Parry Mr. Chetwin a Minister and several others escaped having discovered the very bottom of a wicked Contrivance to carry on a Trade of Swearing against all the Gentlemen in the Country but though they discovered it yet they durst not prosecute it by reason of some Priests being concerned in it and of the Discountenance of the Courts a great many in the County of Tipperary were likewise brought into Trouble but escaped the first time by a kind of Miracle one of the Jurors was so maliciously bent against them that he swore he would die before he would acquit them It happened to him according to his own desire he fell dead in the place whilst they were disputing about returning the Verdict which saved the Gentlemen for that time Yet this did not discourage their Prosecutors they caused them to be indicted anew and upon their second Tryal Justin Macarty afterwards made Lord Mountcashell by King James came into the Court threatened and hectored Sir John Mead who then sate as Judge for the Duke of Ormond it being within his Graces Palatinate because he would not direct the Jury to find them guilty but Sir John stood his Ground and declared that there was no sufficient Evidence against them upon which they were acquitted It vexed them that they could not bring their Popish Judges and Sheriffs into that County as they did into the rest of Ireland by reason that the nomination of them was in his Grace as Lord of the Regalities and therefore in their pretended Parliament they not only Attainted him but likewise by a particular Act dissolved his Principality Their First Plot against the Gentlemen of the County having miscarried they began a second and got Depositions against several but they were as unlucky in this as in the first They laid the Scheme of their Affairs so unskilfully that the Witnesses swore that the Gentlemen met to carry on their Plot at Nenagh a place above sixty Miles from Dublin on the same day that some of them had been examined before the Council Board on the first Informations This appearing to the Council by an entry made in their own Books quashed the Design against them and saved them a third time It would make a Volume to enumerate all the Particulars of this Nature 3. The new Mayors and Justices of the Peace were no less troublesome to Protestants in their Employments they made no scruple to send their Tokens and Warrants for Persons of the best Quality And wherever a Papist and Protestant had any difference there needed no more but a complaint to procure a Committal and to be sure it was done with all the indignity and affronting Circumstances imaginable Sir Thomas Hackett whilst Lord Mayor of Dublin did so many brutish and barbarous things of this nature that it were endless to recount them taking example from the Lord Tyrconnel who made him Mayor he treated every body with Oaths Curses ill Names and barbarous Language The Lord Primate Boyles Family could not escape his Warrants he or his Clerk as he afterwards pretended sent one for Mr. Francis Cuff and Mr. Jephson who lived in my Lords Family being his Son in Law and Nephew their Crime was refusing to Contribute to the maintenance of two begging Fryars one of them was one Magee a Debauchee and Renegado who had the impudence to have demanded it from my Lord Primate if he had been permitted access The Fryars vexed that they should be repulsed procured a Warrant for the two Gentlemen that refused them and attempted the Execution of it in my Lord Primates House with a Rabble of near two hundred Sir Thomas was not content to Execute his Authority within his own Precincts but extended it where the Mayors Power was never owned He sent his Warrant and committed the Officers of Christs Church Dublin to the Stocks because he fancied they did not make the Bells ring merrily enough for the Birth of the Prince of Wales It was in vain for the Officers to tell him that their Church and Persons were not subject to his Jurisdiction that if the Bells did not ring merrily enough as he alledged it was the Ringers fault not theirs That no body besides his Lordship could observe any such thing in their Ringing His brutish Passion would not give him leave to hearken to Reason but upon all occasions he proceeded in the same method which made every body that valued his Liberty get out of his Power and prevailed with a great many to leave their Estates and Concerns and Transport themselves and what Effects they could carry with them into England It was unsafe and uneasie living both in the City and in the Country and he reckoned himself happy that could get out of them at any rate 4. But when the Descent was made by his present Majesty into England things grew yet more troublesome The Protestants were every where Robbed and Plundered The new Commissioned Officers and their Souldiers under the new name of Rapperies committed many Outrages and Devastations on their Protestant Neighbours insomuch that they could not be safe in their Houses If any endeavoured to keep their Houses though merely to secure themselves from the
were first Robbed of all and then laid in Goal and that they had no way offended his Majesty or disturbed his Government and begged his favour in their behalf His Majesty heard him but made him no answer instead thereof he fell into discourse of another Affair with a Papist that chanced to be by and that with an Air more than ordinarily pleasant and unconcerned Indeed his Majesty had by one general Order and Proclamation dated July 26. 1689 confined all Protestants without distinction of Age or Sex to their Parishes and Cities though their Occasions were such that he very well knew that this alone without any more was a very great encroachment on their Liberty and a mighty inconveniency to their Affairs especially when it was continued without Reason or Limitation No body knew when this would be relaxed and it was Executed with great strictness till his present Majesties success put an end to it and to the Power that imposed it 8. But least these hardships and restraints should either be avoided by our flight or known in England where King James had a Party to cry up the mildness of his Government and face down the World that the Protestants lived easily and happily under him in Ireland a most strict Embargo was laid on all Ships and effectual care taken to destroy all Correspondence with our Friends there insomuch that to avoid a Goal great numbers of Gentlemen and other persons were forced to make their escapes in small Wherries and Fishing-Boats which before these times durst never venture out of the sight of the Shoar but it seemed more tolerable to every body that could compass it to cross the Irish Seas so famous for their boisterousness and Shipwracks in that hazardous manner than to continue under a Government where they could call nothing their own where it was in the power of any that pleased to deprive them of their Liberty where they durst not Travel three Miles for fear of incurring the severest penalties where they could not send a Letter to a Friend though in the next Town and about the most necessary Occasions and where tho never so cautious and innocent they were sure at last to be sent to a Goal A Government that thus encroached on our Liberties could not expect we should continue under it longer than we needs must and it had been unpardonable folly in us not to desire much more to refuse a deliverance especially from England which if Blood and Treasure or a Possession of five hundred years can give a right to a Country is justly intitled to the Government of Ireland And which if it had no other exception against King James's Government but his Carriage towards Ireland and his attempts to separate it from its dependence on England must be justified by all the World in their laying him aside as a Destroyer of his People and a disinheritor of the Crown of his Ancestors SECT VIII 7. The preparations made by the Earl of Tyrconnel to ruin the Estates and Fortunes of the Protestants by taking away their Arms. 1. 'T Is Property that makes Government necessary and the immediate end of Government is to preserve Property where therefore a Government instead of preserving intirely ruins the Property of the Subject that Government dissolves it self Now this was the State of the Protestants in Ireland the Government depriv'd them contrary to Law and Justice nay for the most part without so much as the pretence of a Crime of every thing to which persons can have a Property even of the necessaries of life Food and Rayment To lay this more fully before the Reader I will shew First That King James took away the Arms of Protestants Secondly That he took away their personal and Thirdly their real Estates 2. When his present Majesty made his descent into England King James had an Army of Papists in Ireland consisting of between 7 and 8000 of which near 4000 were sent over to him into England there remain'd then about 4000 behind scattered up and down the Kingdom which were but a handful to the Protestants there being Men and Arms enough in Dublin alone to have dealt with them When therefore the News came that K. J. had sent Commissioners to treat with the Prince of Orange it was propos'd by some to seize the Castle of Dublin where the Stores of Arms and Ammunition lay the possibility of this was demonstrated and the Success extreamly probable insomuch that the persons who offer'd to undertake it made no doubt of effecting it they considered that the Papists besides the 4000 of the Army were generally without Arms that those who were in Arms were raw and cowardly and might easily be supprest that to do it effectually there needed no more but to seize the Deputy Tyrconnel who had not then above 600 Men in the City to guard him and secure it that their hearts were generally sunk and they openly declar'd themselves to be desirous to lay down their Arms proposing to themselves no other Conditions but to return to the station in which they were when K. J. came to the Crown This was so universally talk'd of by themselves that if any one could have assured them of these terms there was no doubt but they would readily have comply'd and have left the Lord Tyrconnel to shift for himself nay it is probable the wiser sort amongst them would have bin glad that the Protestants had seiz'd him and he himself commanded some Protestants to signifie to their Friends in England that he was willing to part with the Sword on these terms so he might have leave to do it from K. J. But the Protestants had bin educated in such a mighty veneration to the very name of Authority and in so deep a sense of Loyalty that notwithstanding the many provocations given them and their fear of being serv'd as in 1641 the memory of which was still fresh to them they yet abhorr'd any thing that look'd like an Insurrection against the Government and generally condemn'd the design of medling with the Lord Deputy tho they knew he was no Legal Governour and uncapable by the Law of that Trust. Especially the Lord Mountjoy laboured for his safety and prevented the forementioned proposal of seizing him and the Castle with as much industry as if he himself had bin to perish in it The truth is it was an unanimous resolution of all the Protestants of the Kingdom that they would not be the Aggressors and they held steadily to their resolution None offered or attempted any thing till they saw the whole body of the Papists in Ireland forming themselves into Troops and Companies and these new rais'd Men permitted nay put under a necessity to rob and plunder for their subsistence They pitied the hard Fortune of K. J. and notwithstanding they were half ruin'd themselves when he came into the Kingdom yet if he had carried himself with any tolerable moderation towards them and his
for Three Months from the First of January a thing impossible without allowing them to Steal and Plunder It was this struck so much terror into Protestants and made them so jealous and apprehensive of Danger that they fled into England in great numbers especially when they found that the New Raised Men as they surmised began to make havock of all things It was this gave Credit to a Letter dated December the Third 1688 sent to the Lord Mount Alexander whether true or counterfeit I cannot determine intimating a design to Destroy the Protestants on Sunday the Ninth of the same Month which Letter was spread over the whole Kingdom The People of Derry had beside this several Letters and Intimations of Mischief designed against them and against the Protestants of Ireland And though that directed to the Lord Mount Alexander may not seem of great weight yet whoever considers the circumstances of the Protestants of Ireland at that time will acknowledge that it was not to be despised In the Year 1641 the Seizing of Dublin by the Lord Mac Guire was prevented by as improbable a discovery as this Letter while the Protestants in the rest of the Kingdom were Massacred through the incredulity of some who could not be perswaded to give ear to such intimations of the Design as were brought before them In England the Gun-powder Treason was revealed and the destruction of the Three Kingdoms prevented by a Letter as insignificant as that directed to the Lord Mount Alexander About the very time intimated in the Letter for the Massacre a new raised Regiment belonging to the Earl of Antrim appeared before the Town without the King's Livery without any Officers of Note or the least warning given by the Earl of their coming lastly without any Arms besides Skeans Clubs and such other Weapons as Kearnes and Tories used 6. The People of the Town were frightened at the Sight and refused them entrance into the City this was the First rub or provocation the Lord Deputy met with it was a meer accident and proceeded from his own Ignorance or Negligence who had left that Garrison the only one of any considerable strength in Ulster where most Protestants lived without one Soldier to Guard it and then sent such a pack of Ruffians to take Possession of it many of whose Captains and Officers were well known to the Citizens having lain long in their Jails for Thefts and Robberies When therefore such a Body of Men came to demand entrance at the very time that they expected a Massacre what could they imagin but that these Men came to execute it and who could blame them for shutting their Gates They were well assured that these were Men fit for such an Execution and that they were ready on command to do it and perhaps would not stay for an Order The Lord Deputy bethought himself too late of his Error but could never retrieve it though by means of the Lord Mountjoy he did all in it that was possible having brought the City to accept of a Pardon and receive a Garrison of Soldiers but then it was such a Garrison as they were able to Master and no more by the Articles were to be admitted into it before the ensuing March. 7. We ought to remember the reason of Building Londonderry and 't is plain from its Charter granted by King James the First that it was Founded to be a Shelter and Refuge for Protestants against the Insurrections and Massacres of the Natives who were known always to design and be ready to execute their malice on their Conquerors To keep them therefore in awe and secure the Plantation was the Design of Building the City it was upon this condition and by these Covenants the Proprietors of the City held their Estates and the Inhabitants had been false to the very design and end of their Foundation if they had given up the City with the keeping of which they were intrusted into the Hands of those very men against whom by the Charter it was designed to be a Security and Bulwark At this rate the Lord Deputy might give away any mans Estate and have bestowed it on his greatest Enemy and that with much less injury to the Publick The People therefore of Londonderry had good reason to refuse to deliver their City to the Kearnes and Tories of Ulster though inlisted under the Earl of Antrim by a Commission from a pretended Lord Deputy these were excluded by their very Charter and by the design of Building the Place from possessing it much less had they reason to deliver it to a parcel of men of whose Commission they knew nothing and whose Errand they had reason to believe was to cut their Throats 8. 'T is to be considered that Londonderry was under a further provocation to lay hold on the first opportunity to do themselves Justice and that was the wicked and illegal Invasion made on their Charter Liberties Priviledges and Estates by a most unjust and oppressive Sentence given by an unqualified Lord Chief Baron on a Quo Warranto for which there was not the least pretence in the World as may appear to any one that will be at the pains to view the Proceedings in Court By this Sentence grounded on a foolish nicety objected to the Plea the whole English Interest and Plantations in that County were ruined and the whole Designs of them destroyed and perverted and therefore it was not to be wondered if they took the first opportunity to save themselves from imminent Destruction They concluded that a Government who on a nicety could take away their Charter their Priviledges their Estates and subvert the design of Building their City might as easily and unavoidably find another nicety to take away what remained together with their Lives and therefore they cannot be much blamed if they had been under no other Temptation but this that they were willing to withdraw themselves from a Government whom they durst not trust and which took all advantages against them to destroy them 9. The shutting up of Derry against the Earl of Antrim's Regiment was all that was done by any Protestant in Ireland in opposition to the Government till King James deserted England except what was done at Enniskillin where the People were under the same circumstances with those of Derry having about the same time refused to quarter two Companies sent to them by the Lord Deputy They were not so much as summoned by him nor did they enter into any Act of Hostility or Association or offend any till assaulted being content to stand on their Guard against such as they knew to be Mortal Enemies to the English Interest to subdue whom they were planted in that wild and fast Country But as soon as the News of King James's deserting the Government came into Ireland all Protestants look'd on themselves as obliged to take care of their own Preservation and finding that continual Robberies and Plunderings were committed by such
as the Lord Deputy against the Laws of the Kingdom and the Interest of the Nation had intrusted with Arms and Employments and that no Care was taken by him to prevent those Mischiefs but on the contrary the Robbers were secretly cherished and encouraged the Gentlemen in the North to prevent their own Ruin and the Ruin of all the Protestants of Ireland which they saw unavoidable entred into Associations to defend themselves from these Robbers their Associations did really reach no farther than this nor did they attempt any thing upon the Armed Robbers except in their own Defence when invaded and assaulted by them Insomuch that I could never hear of one act of Hostility committed wherein they were not on the Defensive Their crime then if any was only this they were not willing to suffer themselves to be robb'd and plundered as their Neighbours were without opposition but disarmed some of those who under colour of being King James's Soldiers destroyed the Country This was all the reason the Lord Deputy and Council had to call them Rebels and to charge them in their Proclamation dated March the 7th 1688 with actual Rebellion and with Killing and Murdering several of his Majesties Subjects and with Pillaging and Plundering the Country whereas it was notorious they never killed any whom they did not find actually Robbing to kill whom the Laws of the Kingdom not only indemnified them but likewise assigned them a Reward and for Plundering it is no less notorious that they preserved the whole Country within their Associations from being Pillaged when all the rest of Ireland was destroyed And their great care of themselves and their Country was the Crime which truly provoked the Lord Deputy and made him except from Pardon Twelve of the principal Estated Men in the North when he sent down Lieutenant General Hamilton with an Army which he tells us in the same Proclamation would inevitably occasion the total ruin and destruction of the North. 10. And lest there should be any Terms proposed or accepted by the People in the North and so that Country escape being Plundered and Undone he made all the haste he could to involve the Kingdom in Blood King James was every day expected from France and landed at Kinsale March the 12th but no Perswasions would prevail with the Lord Deputy to defer sending the Army to the North till the King came though he had good assurance given him by several who knew their Minds and Tempers that in all probability if King James himself appeared amongst them and offered them Terms they would have complyed with him at least so far as to submit quietly to his Government But it was the Lord Deputy's design to destroy the Protestants there as well as in the rest of the Kingdom and therefore he hasted to make the Parties irreconcilable by engaging them in Blood and by letting loose the Army to Spoil and Plunder The War therefore was entirely imputable to him and the Protestants were forced into it having no other choice than either to be undone without offering to make any Defence for themselves or else with their Arms in their Hands to try what they could do in their own Preservation 11. But it must be considered that Ireland is a Kingdom dependent on the Crown of England and part of the Inheritance thereof and therefore must follow its fate which it cannot decline without most apparent ruin to the English Interest in it Now King James having abdicated the Government of England and others being actually possessed of the Throne it was the business of the Protestants of Ireland to preserve themselves rather than dispute the Titles of Princes they were sure it was their Interest and their Duty to be subject to the Crown of England but whether King James was rightly intitled to that Crown is not so easily determinable by the common People No wonder therefore they declared for King William and his Queen whom they found actually in the Throne of England and own'd as rightful Possessors by those who had best reason to know rather than for King James who indeed pretended to it but with this disadvantage amongst many others that he was out of Possession and he had not used the Power when he was in possession so well that they should be desirous to restore him to it with the danger of their own ruin 12. They considered further that their defending themselves and those Places of which they were possest would in all probability very much contribute to save not only themselves but likewise the Three Kingdoms and the Protestant Interest in Europe to which it did certainly in some Measure contribute King James and his Party believed it and declared themselves to this effect and some of them were very liberal of their Curses on the Rebels in the North as they called them for this reason had said they the Rebels in the North joined with King James he had such a Party in England and Scotland which together with the Succours he might then have sent from Ireland and the assistance of the French King would in all probability have shaken the Government of England before it had been settled but the opposition of Enniskillin and Derry lost the opportunity that will not easily be retrieved How far this Conjecture of theirs was probable I leave it to the Reader what has happened since shews that it was not altogether groundless if the Design had taken the condition of Europe especially of the Protestants had been most deplorable but it pleased God to spoil all their Measures by the opposition made by a small Town Mann'd with People before that time ofâ— no extraordinary Reputation in the World for Arms Valour or Estates and who perhaps had never before seen an Enemy in Arms King James was pleased to call them a Rabble but it must be remembred to their Honour that they outdid in Conduct Courage and Resolution all his Experienced Generals To a Man that seriously reflects on it the thing must almost seem miraculous all Circumstances considered the rest of the Kingdom except Enniskillin had yielded without a Blow most of the chief Officers Gentlemen and Persons of Note Courage or Interest in the North had deserted their new rais'd Troops without Fighting the Succours designed for them from England came at the very time when the Town was ready to be invested and the Officers that came with those Succors as well as their own Officers were of opinion that the Place was not to be defended that they had neither Provision nor Necessaries to hold out a Siege The Officers therefore privately took a resolution to return for England and carried along with them most of the Gentlemen and Leaders of the Town without leaving any Governor or Instructions for the People what they were to do and without offering to make any conditions for them but neither this nor their extream want of Provision to which they were at last reduced nor the
they were taught to answer when their Rents were demanded that they had spent what they designed for their Landlords to fit themselves or their Sons for the King's Service and he was sure to be represented as disaffected that did not sit down with this Answer If any Landlord was so hardy as to Sue them they either got themselves inlisted in the Army or got a particular Protection against Arrests If any distrained they let their Cattle be taken to the Pound and then by Night they either stole or forced them from thence and when they had thus secretly recovered and conveyed them away they brought Actions against the Landlord that distrained as if he had imbezelled them in which case they were sure to meet with favour and countenance in the Courts Sometimes they avoided paying Rents by Swearing their Protestant Landlords into a Plot or by affixing Treasonable Words on them insomuch that hardly any Protestant durst distrain or even demand his Rent And for Two Years before the Revolution in England very few received any profit out of their Estates This stop of Receits for so long time obliged Gentlemen to live upon the main Stock and for want of their growing Rents which should have answered their Expences they were as low as possible in ready Mony when the late Troubles fell upon them and this made many of them on their Flight to England need Charity for their Subsistence 2. This hardship was the more heavy upon them by the necessity they lay under of leaving their Farms and setled manner of Living in the Country and of either repairing to Dublin or removing into England where nothing could be useful to them but ready Mony yet this was unavoidable for there was no living for them amongst a People that made no Conscience to pilfer or rob them of their Goods or to lay Snares for their Lives by false Oaths and suborned Evidence Neither did their repairing to Cities and Towns protect them but the same Persons that drove them from their Country Houses by their Robberies and Oppressions did afterwards indict and imprison them for leaving them of which I have given an Example in the Appendix Some indeed notwithstanding all the hard usage they met with ventured to stay on their concerns in the Country but were at last burnt out of their Houses and forced to follow their Nighbours A House within Four Miles of Dublin was Burnt and several Women and Children Murthered in it at the very beginning of Modelling the Army Thus Mr. Thomas Corker's House in the County of Meath by Navan was Burnt as supposed by the Popish Parish Priest who after he had done this injury to the Gentleman gave out that Mr. Corker had burnt his own House to make the Roman Catholicks odious Mr. Henry Gonnes a Ministers House in Connaught was likewise Burnt because they could not otherwise prevait with him to leave the Country And many others were served in the same way and their Families Murthered or else were put to a vast Charge to guard their Houses against these Cut-throats and Robbers Even about Dublin hardly any Gentleman's House escaped without being Robbed or at least several times attempted and if any were caught in the Fact they easily got a Pardon for it 3. Add to this in the Third Place that though of a good while the Protestants got nothing out of their Estates yet they were put to vast Charges to defend them for the Papists having gotten Judges Juries and Sheriffs of their own brought in their Counterfeit Deeds and false Claims in great numbers and either in forma Pauperum or by the favour of the Courts carried on their Suits with little Expences and when worsted in them as sometimes in spite of the most manifest partiality they were there was nothing to be recovered of them whereas the Protestants were forced to row against the Stream and to struggle with all the expensive delays and tricks the Courts could put on them If at any time they were found tardy in the least circumstance or form of Law though no advantage used formerly to be made of such Mistakes yet they were sure to pay severely for it every body who has been concerned in Law business knows the difference of these cases as to expences and the consequence was that Protestants were forced to part with a considerable share of their ready Mony to recover or defend their Estates which when in their Possession yielded them nothing 4. They met with the same measure from the Treasury as from their Tenants where any Salary Pension or Payment was due to any of them from the King they either did not get it at all or if by importunity and interest they did get any thing it was with such Expences Bribes to Courtiers and Delays that they lost the benefit of it But where any thing was due from them it was exacted with all the rigour imaginable and the most strict punctilio's observed to bring them under Fines and Forfeitures The Chief Baron Rice could not contain himself on the Bench but on occasion of a Protestant Lawyers pressing somewhat importunately for his Client that he might have Justice he answered he should have Justice but as I said before that it should be Summum Jus. Nay such discouragement and discountenance was given to the Protestant Lawyers that many of the most celebrated Counsellors forsook their Practice and the Kingdom and such as staid could hardly come in for a share of the Fees expended by their former Protestant Clients for it was enough to destroy a Cause to have them appear at the Bar for it The consequence of which was that the Protestants were forced to employ their Enemies for Counsel and give them their Mony too often to betray their Cause at least they could not expect Lawyers that wished so ill to it and them in their Hearts would be earnest to carry it for them 5. In Cities and Corporate Towns the Townsmen were put to great Charges to defend their Charters and when Judgment was given against them they were put to another Charge to take them out anew and to purchase their Freedoms It is true some few Papists generally joined to take out the new Charter but when it was taken out they forced the Protestants to pay for it at what rate they pleased or obliged them to leave the Town The Attorny General got some Thousands for his share and every petty Officer and Head of a Country Borrough enrich'd himself with some part of the Protestants spoil on this account 6. The next means used to impoverish them was that of Free Quarters by which they extorted from the Inn-keepers vast Sums of Mony It was a hardship in time of Peace to be obliged to entertain such rude nasty Guests as the private Soldiers generally were and to endure the insolencies of their Officers who practised several Arts with a design to destroy their Quarters Sometimes they would quarter a
further reserv'd to prove a Correspondence against the few Estated Men that were in the Kingdom Lastly It was the end of Sept. 1688. before we heard any thing of the Prince of Orange's design to make a Descent into England and yet to have been in England or Scotland any time in the Month before or to have corresponded with any there is made Forfeiture of Estate by the Letter of this Statute 4. Least the Children and Descendents of the Protestants thus attainted who had Estates before 1641. should come in and claim them after the Death of the attainted Persons by virtue of Settlements made on valuable Considerations and upon Marriages all such Remainders and Reversions are cut off for there is an express Exception to all Remainders on such as are commonly call'd Plantation-lands and likewise to such Lands c. as are held by Grants from the Crown or upon Grants by Commissioners upon defective Titles It were too tedious to explain these several kinds of Tenures it is sufficient to let the Reader know that they comprehend all those Estates which were acquir'd by Protestants before the year 1641. Thus then the case stood with the Protestants if they purchased or acquired their Estates since the year 1641. out of any of the Lands then forfeited they were to lose them whether Guilty or Innocent by the Act of Repeal if their Estates were such as belong'd to Protestants before 1641. and consequently were what we call Old Interest then to have been in England or Scotland or to have corresponded with any of their Friends there or in the North since August 1. 1688. was a Forfeiture of Estate and a Bar for their Remainders for ever tho the Heirs had done nothing to divest themselves of the Estates derived to them by legal Settlements on valuable Considerations And here the Partiality of this Parliament is visible for there is a saving in the Act for all such Remainders as they thought might relate to any Papist whereas all the Remainders in which they did imagine Protestants could be concern'd are bar'd 5. There is indeed a promise of reprizing Purchasers in the Act of Repeal which was put in to qualifie the manifest Injustice of it and to satisfie the Clamors of several amongst themselves who were to lose their Estates by it as having purchased new interested Land But least any Protestant who staid in the Kingdom should hope for Benefit by this Clause or be repriz'd for the Lands he had purchased perhaps from a Papist they contrive a Clause in the latter end of the Act Whereby the King is enabled to gratifie Meriting Persons and to order the Commissioners to set forth Reprizals and likewise to appoint and ascertain where and what Lands should be set out to them By which the Protestants were excluded from all hopes of Reprizals for to be sure where any of them put in for a piece of Land there would never want a Meriting Papist to put in for the same and when it was left intirely to K. James which he would prefer of those two let the World judge what hope any Protestant could have of a Reprizal Thus when Sir Thomas Newcomen put in Proposals for a Custodiam in order to a Reprizal Mr. Robert Longfield a Convert and Clerk of the Quit-rents and Absentees Goods is said to have put his own Name to Sir Thomas's Proposal and to have got the Custodiam for himself 6. Lastly Some might think that tho near 3000 Protestants were attainted and the Estates of all the rest in a manner vested in the King yet this was only done in terrorem and that K. James never meant to take the Forfeiture To this I answer That it was not left in his power to pardon any that was attainted or whose Estate was vested in him by this Act this was if we believe his Majesty more than he knew when he pass'd it and was one reason why the Act of Attainder was made so great a Secret that no Copy could be gotten of it by any Protestant till the Easter after it was pass'd and then it was gotten by a meer accident We had from the beginning labor'd to get it and offer'd largely for a Copy but could not by any means prevail Chancellor Fitton keeping the Rolls lock'd up in his Closet till at last a Gentleman procur'd it by a Stratagem which was thus Sir Thomas Southwell had been condemned for High-Treason against King James amongst other Gentlemen at Gallway in March 1688. and attainted in the Act of Attainder also he continued a Prisoner till my Lord Seaforth became acquainted with him my Lord undertook to reconcile him to the King and to get his Pardon K. James promis'd it on the Earl's Application and order was given to draw up a Warrant for it The Gentleman I mentioned being a Lawyer and an Acquaintance of Sir Thomas's was employ'd to draw it up he immediately apprehended this to be a good opportunity to get a Copy of the Act of Attainder which he had labor'd for in vain before and which was kept from us by so much Injustice He told the Earl therefore and Sir Thomas what was the real Truth that he could not draw up an effectual Pardon except he saw the Act that attainted him Hereupon the Earl obtain'd an express order from the King to have a Copy deliver'd to him Thus I believe was the only Copy taken of it after it was inrolled it was taken for the use of a Papist and was lent to the Earl who was permitted to shew it to his Lawyer and accordingly left it with him only for one day who immediately imploy'd several Persons to Copy it and the Copy was sent by the first Opportunity into England The List of the Names of those that were attainted had been obtained the January before with difficulty the Commissioners in the Custom-house who seiz'd Absentees Goods and set their Estates could not do their Work without such a List and that which was Printed in England with some of the Acts of our Irish Parliament was coppied from thence but the Act it self could not then be procured and therefore was not Printed with them When the Lawyer had drawn up the Warrant for Sir Thomas's Pardon with a full Non obstante to the Act of Attainder the Earl brought it to the Attorney General Sir Richard Nagle to have a Fiant drawn the Attorney read it and with Indignation threw it aside the Earl began to expostulate with him for using the King's Warrant at that rate The Attorney told him That the King did not know what he had done that he had attempted to do a thing that was not in his power to do that if the Earl understood our Laws or had seen the Act of Attainder he would be satisfied that the King could not dispense with it My Lord answered That he understood Sense and Reason and that he was not a Stranger to the Act of Attainder Sir Richard would
But they found a way to elude this by another Clause in the same Act which orders the Mansion House and Demeasnes of the Proprietor or his Assignee in 1641. to be restor'd and the Leases made of such to be void Now they never wanted an Affidavit to prove any beneficial Farm or good House they found in the Hands of a Protestant to have been Demeasnes and a Mansion House and then the Leiutenants of the Counties put them in Possession 3. The same Lieutenants had an Order from Albiville Secretary of State to turn all Protestants out of their Houses if they judged them to be Houses of any strength and to garrison them with Papists We could never procure any Copy of this Order from the Office though they own'd there was such an Order and we found the Effects of it the Reasons of concealing it I suppose were the same with concealing the Act of Attainder The design of the Order was to turn out the few Protestant Gentlemen that liv'd on their ancient Estates and had neither forfeited them by the Act of Attainder nor lost them by the Act of Repeal it was left to the discretion of the Lieutenant of the County whom they would turn out and they acted according to their Inclinations and turn'd out almost every body and 't was with great difficulty and interest that any procured to be eased of this trouble I have given a Copy of some of their Orders in the Appendix In short the Soldiers or Militia took Possessions of such Gentlemens Houses as durst venture to live in the Country and they themselves were sent to Jail and had K. James got the better they must never have expected to have gotten possession of their Houses or been releas'd of their confinement till they had gone to execution for though they had been very cautious how they convers'd yet there would not have wanted Witnesses to prove they had corresponded with some body in England or Scotland since the First of August 1688. and then their Estates were forfeited The Gentlemen thus used were very sensible of one inconveniency that befel them on this Account it troubled them more than their confinement to see their Houses and Improvements destroy'd for when the Soldiers got into the Houses under pretence of garrisoning them they sometimes burnt them and always spoil'd the Improvements As for the Estates of Absentees the Commissioners of the Revenue dispos'd of them and hardly one Estate in Ireland but was already promis'd to some Favourite Papist or other who by Leases from the Commissioners were in actual possession of them through the whole Kingdoms as far as King James's Authority was owned 20. It may be imagined by some that King James did not know that the Repealing the Acts of Settlement and Explanation was of such mischievous Consequence to Protestants and that the Protestants were wanting to themselves and him in not giving him due Information But these Persons will find themselves mistaken in their surmises if they consider 1. That King James when Duke of York was present at all the Debates concerning the Settlement of Ireland at the Council Board in England and was one of the Council when those Acts of Settlement and Explanation past it he had heard every Clause in them debated for near Two years and from time to time he had perfect information and was continually sollicited about them having a fair Estate in Ireland settled on him by them containing by estimation 108000 Acres to the value of 10m Pounds per Annum and perhaps there was not any thing he understood better relating to the Affairs of his Kingdoms then the Consequence of these Acts. We have seen before how many Promises and Assurances King James had given for maintaining them as well knowing the importance of them to this Kingdom But notwithstanding this he of his own accord was the first that motioned the Repealing of them in his Speech at the opening the Parliament in Dublin 2. The Protestants prest and earnestly sollicited to be heard at the Bar of the Lords House upon the Subject of those Acts that they might shew the reasonableness of them and demonstrate the injustice and mischief of repealing them but were deny'd to be heard and an Order made that nothing should be offered in their favour If therefore King James wanted information it was because he would not receive it 3. The Bishop of Meath so far as was allow'd him laid open the Consequences of repealing these Acts so fully in his Speech which he made in the House of Lords when he voted against the Act of Repeal that no Man who heard him as his Majesty did could pretend to want information 4. The Protestants were so far from being silent or letting things pass without opposition that they laboured every Point with all imaginable industry and used all the industry they could with King James to inform and perswade him and when they could not gain one Point they stuck at the next and endeavour'd to gain it till he had deliberately over-rul'd all their Reasons and Pleas from Point to Point and this they did to make his Designs against them the more undeniably plain not out of any hope of success or expectation to prevail with him for they knew their appearing for a thing in the Parliament was enough to damn it of which they had many Experiments One was so remarkable that I shall mention it Mr. Coghlan had a mind to procure a favour for a Friend from the House of Commons whereof he was a Member he knew if he mentioned it it would miscarry and therefore he got a Papist to propose it the House seem'd averse to it and he for Experiments sake rose up and with some seeming warmness oppos'd it immediately the House took the Alarm and in opposition to him voted it They knew likewise that it was determined to destroy them and gratifie their Enemies and that the reason why they were not allow'd to debate the main Point the justice and reasonableness of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation was because that could not be done without shewing what Traitors and Murtherers the Papists had been whom King James was then about to gratifie a thing which he would by no means endure to hear 5. The Reason therefore why the Protestants made so vigorous an opposition and plyed the King and his pretended Parliament with so many Petitions Representations and Intercessions was to stop the Mouths of those that they foresaw would be apt to impute their Misfortunes to their sullenness or negligence that would not be at the pains of an Application to save themselves and to demonstrate to the World that the Destruction brought on them was not a thing of chance but that it proceeded from a formed and unalterable design of their Enemies to destroy them insomuch that they never could have expected to enjoy one Foot of Estate or quiet hour in the Kingdom if King James had continued
his Government over them 6. The Case of the Purchasers and Improvers in Ireland seem'd the hardest the Land forfeited by the Rebellion in 1641. was set out to those that had been Adventurers and Soldiers in that War and many of these had sold them at Twelve or Fifteen years Purchase the Purchasers had built fair Houses and Villages on them inclos'd Deer-Parks planted Orchards and Gardens and laid out vast Sums in these and other Improvements it seem'd hard to turn them out without consideration to try therefore whether any thing would make King James relent they endeavour'd to see what he would do for these poor Men how their Case was prest and represented to King James may be judged by a Paper given him by the Lord Granard and drawn up by the Chief Justice Keating with the Approbation of other Protestants 't is in the Appendix King James read it and made no other answer to it but That he would not do evil that good might come of it the meaning of which Words as then apply'd is not easily understood It has been a common Question put to the Gentlemen of Ireland by some that neither know them nor their Affairs What have you lost But sure whosoever knows the extent of Ireland and the value of Land in it will see that the Interest of the English Protestants ruined by King James since he came to the Crown is of greater value than the Estates of all that favour his Cause in England and Scotland and I suppose it would put them out of conceit with him or any other King that should take away but one half of their Estates from them SECT XIII Eighthly King James brought the Lives of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland into imminent danger 1. I Suppose from the former Sections it is sufficiently apparent what Invasions King James made on the Liberties and Fortunes of his Protestant Subjects there remained to them only their Lives and these as will appear from this Section were put in imminent danger by him many were lost and the rest escap'd with the greatest hazard When King James came into Ireland it was certainly his Interest to exercise his Clemency towards his Protestant Subjects and he knew it to be so and therefore in his Declaration which he sent privately into England he made large Professions of his tenderness towards them and boasted how much their safety had been his care every body expected a Proclamation for a General Pardon and Indemnity should have been sent before him and that â—e would have put an effectual stop to the illegal Prosecutions against their Lives and to the Robberies of their Fortunes that every where were going on at his coming but on the contrary he rather pusht on both and not content with the Laws that already were in force which Partial Judges and Juries wrâ—sted to destroy them he made new snares for them by Acts of his pretended Parliament and by several private declarations whereby not only he but his inferior Officers took on them to dispose of the Lives of Protestants 2. It is not reasonable to charge his Majesty with the private Murther committed on Men in their Houses which were many up and down the Kingdom several even in the City of Dublin Only thus far in some degree he may be thought responsible for them he knew very well with what barbarous Murthers the Papists of Ireland had been charg'd in the Rebellion of 1641 he knew what inveterate hatred they carried towards the Protestants and how many Tories and Robbers constantly disturbed the Peace of the Kingdom and yet without any necessity at all he threw himself upon these People he encouraged them he Armed them he gave Commissions even to those that had been Tories and guilty of Murthers and therefore cannot altogether be excused from the Irregularities committed by them especially when there was no search made after or Prosecution of the Murthers as it happened in the case of Colonel Murry of Westmeath Brother in law to my Lord Granard an old Gentleman who had serv'd King Charles the first and second and suffered considerably for his Loyalty he was way-laid and shot dead as he rode to his own House under King James's Protection and with some marks as he imagined of his Favour Yet no enquiry was made after it There were many such private Murthers but I do not think it necessary to insist on them I shall confine my self to such as are of a more publick Nature which gave us just reasons to fear that the Government had a design upon our Lives 3. Such were first encouraging Witnesses to swear us into feigned Plots and Conspiracies of these there were many set up in the Kingdom almost every County had one set up in it and many were put into Prison and indicted for high Treason as Captain Phillips and Mr. Bowen in the County oâ— Westmeath and several others in other places some of which I have before mentioned and when the perjuries of the Witnesses came to be plainly discovered they yet were encouraged and protected from any Legal prosecution Of this nature a Conspiracy was framing against one Mr. William Spike and if it had taken effect it would have reached to a great many more The contrivance was thus one Dennis Connor had a mind to a small Employment which Mr Spike held in the Castle he had petitioned for it but Spike by the Interest of my Lord Powis tho a Protestant kept his place being found diligent in it Connor resolv'd to try another experiment to get him removed he framed a Letter as from one in Inniskilling directed to Spike in which the writer thanks him for his Intelligence and refers to a method agreed on for seizing the Castle of Dublin on a certain Day The Letter to make the thing more credible abuses King James in very ill terms Connor drops this Letter in the Castle where Spike came every Day knowing that as soon as it was found Spike would be seized and then he might manage the Plot as he pleased but his Contrivance was spoiled for the Sentinel saw him drop the Paper and procured him immediately to be seized he was examined before the Chief Justice and I think before King James also why he wrote such a wicked Letter he said it was for the Kings service to remove Spike whom he believed to be a Rogue and who being a Protestant would betray the King Spike Prosecuted him in the Kings-Bench but after all that could be done the Jury brought Connor in not Guilty pretending that it did not appear that this was the very Letter dropt by Connor tho he had confest it before the King and the Lord Cheif Justice and tho it was proved and owned to be his hand and a rough draft of it found with him and the Sentinel swore he dropt a Letter which he delivered to the Officer and the Officer swore that was the Letter delivered by the Sentinel to him tho
Women big with Child nor old decrepit Creatures some Women in Labour some that were just brought to Bed were driven amongst the rest the very Papist Officers that executed the thing confest that it was the most dismal sight they had ever seen and that the cries of the poor People seem'd to be still in their Ears They owned that they gathered above 4000. others say 7000. and that they kept many of them without Meat or Drink for a whole Week that several hundreds dyed in the Place before they were dismist and many more on the way as they went home again to their Houses nor were they better when they came there for the stragling Soldiers Raparies and Pilferers that follow'd the Army had left them neither Meat Drink Houshold-Stuff nor Cattel but had taken away all in their absence so that the generality of them afterwards perish'd for want and many were knockt on the head by the Soldiers I need not trouble the Reader with the success of this cruel and foolish Stratagem it was the same which any thinking Man would have expected it confirm'd the besieg'd in their Resolutions never to yield to such barbarous People and it made them set up Gallows and threaten to hang all the Prisoners they had in their hands if their Friends were not immediately dismist with which the Besiegers being startled and finding that it did not answer their design to keep them still under the Walls did at last comply after they had kept them there three days without Meat this was the security Men had of their Lives by King James's Protections the news of this Order came to Dublin before it was executed and the Bishop of Meath went immediately to King James to see if he could prevail with him to prevent such a barbarous proceeding His Majesty very calmly told the Bishop That he had heard of it before and that he had sent Orders to stop it that General Rosen was a Forreigner and us'd to such Proceedings as were strange to us though common in other places and that if he had been his own Subject he would have call'd him to account for it Yet he continued him still in his Employment 'T was he burnt the Country about Derry when he was forced to raise the Siege and lâ—â—t after the French Custom the Gentlemens Houses and Villages that lay in his way towards Dublin in Ashes It was commonly said that he and Mámmo who was kill'd before Derry were the Persons employ'd to Dragoon the Protestants of Languedock and that committed so many Barbarities on those poor People If so it is not strange that they should commit the like on the Protestants of Ireland but it is strange that King James should employ such Men and not at all punish such monstrous violation of Faith as well as of Humanity and yet expect that we should depend on him for our Protection His Protections were in every Place alike insignificant many Protestants lost the value of Three many of Four and some of 10 m. Pounds Sterling notwithstanding their repeated Protections and their approv'd and peaceable demeaning themselves of which Captain Barton in the County of Monaghan was a signal Example he had a Protection for his House at Carrick Mac Ross and Arms and had left his Servants in his House to preserve it and his Goods he himself staying in Dublin as a Hostage to the Government that they might not suspect him to have any design to withdraw to the North or join with such Protestants as were in Arms there yet in his absence a Party of Colonel Mac Mahon's Regiment about February 1688. came and demanded the House the Servants shew'd their Protection and told him who commanded the Soldiers that they had Orders from the Government to keep the House the Commander assur'd them that he would not disturb them and that he only design'd to lodge some of his Men in it to secure it more effectually for the King and the Owner upon which promise the Servants let him and his Soldiers into the House they no sooner had obtain'd entrance but they fell a plundring destroying and defacing and in a few hours by ruining his Improvements and robbing his Goods Stock and Furniture they damnified him to near the value of 10 m. Pounds He complain'd of this false and injurious dealing to the Government but could never obtain any redress or procure the Actors of it to be brought to any Account or Punishment instead of obtaining any thing of that nature they added new Injuries to their former and at last burnt his House to the Ground And here it will not be amiss by the way to give some further Instances of their violation of Articles as well as of Protections About Thirty Soldiers January 1688. deserted from Dublin and endeavour'd to make their escape to Inniskilling they were pursued by one Captain Nugent with a Party of Horse and overtaken near Navan within Twenty Miles of Dublin they put themselves in a posture to fight and were ready to fire at him but he by fair Promises and good Words perswaded them to Capitulate and at last upon Articles to yield He Covenanted with them that they should be safe and free and should suffer no other injury but the loss of their Arms notwithstanding which as soon as they gave up their Arms he stript and pinion'd them and with much interest they escaped present death this Mercy was due to the circumstances of the time which obliged the Government to reserve them in Jail till a more proper season though in a condition more grievous than if they had been hang'd immediately The Fort of Culmore near Derry yielded on Articles to King James by which the Gentlemen that surrendred it were to be indemnified and liberty allow'd them either to live secure and quietly in the Kingdom or else go to any other place where they thought fit but notwithstanding these Articles they were were disarm'd and stript and several of them seiz'd and put into Prison nay attainted in their pretended Act of Parliament The Garrison of Londonderry after the Forces which came under Colonel Cuningham and Colonel Richards to succour it had resolved to return for England sent one Captain White to King James to receive Proposals from him it being the Opinion of many of those that remain'd in the Town that they must surrender it the Conditions were not difficult to concert in the mean time it was agreed as a Preliminary Article that the Army should not march within Four Miles of the Town but before the Terms could be adjusted or any answer be return'd from the City the King himself marched his Army towards it and was in view almost as soon as the Commissioners that came with the Proposals This being against his Engagement and an absolute breach of the Preliminary Article already agreed on put a stop to the Treaty and contributed to the Resolution of the Besieged who durst never trust any Articles after
this Mr. Coghlan served as one of the Burgesses for the Colledge the House of Commons requir'd him to come into the House for he had withdrawn himself from it as we observed before at the passing this Act and to give in the Names of the absent Members of the Colledge that they might be put into the Bill he demurr'd at first but was over-rul'd then upon Consultation with Doctor Acton the Vice Provost he moved the House to send for the Colledge Buttler alledging that he had the Buttery Book wherein the Names of the Collegians were in order and without this he could not get them the House hereupon ordered a Serjeant at Arms to be sent for the Butler but he on Mr. Coghlans intimation absconded for some days The House was in haste to pass the Bill and by this means the Collegians escaped an Attainder 5. It was observable that any Application made in behalf of Absentees by their Friends who staid or were in the House constantly made their Condition worse The Application of Mr. Henry Temple in behalf of his Brother Sir John Temple removed him upwards into the first Rank of Attainted Persons the like Petition had the same effect as as to Mr. Richard Warburton and so upon several others The Papists did this to rid themselves of trouble and importunity and to let the Protestants know that all their endeavours for themselves and Friends should do them no Service and that their ruin was absolutely resolved on 6. That their allowing Persons a certain time to come in and submit to Tryal to prove their Innocency was a meer nothing for they very well knew that it was impossible any body should certainly know what time was given each man to come in and it had been a foolish venture for such as were absent to come into a Place where for ought they knew they were already condemned and should be immediately hang'd without a Tryal 2. No body knew what they could call Innocency perhaps writing to or petitioning any one that had King William's Commission nay conversing with such might be reckoned corresponding with Rebels and sufficient Evidence of their Guilt and indeed Judge Nugent had in a manner determin'd this Case for he interpreted one Mr. Desminiers answering a Bill of Exchange for Sir Thomas Southwell who was Prisoner at Galloway a corresponding with Rebels and committed him to Jail for it he likewise put one Mr. Ginnery in Jail for High Treason because being Agent for the Prisoners at Galloway to procure them a Reprieve and other Affairs he received Letters from them though Mr. Ginnery's Father and Brother were amongst them 3. When this pretended Parliament past this Act they were very well aware that the Embargo here was so exceedingly strict that from the time of passing the Act till the First of October nay of November following which was the longest time allowed any one to come in not one Ship or Boat was suffered to pass from hence into England so that it was absolutely impossible the Persons concern'd in this Law should have had any knowledge of it before they were Condemned by it to the loss of Life and Estate beyond the power of the King to Pardon them 4. King James and his Parliament knew perfectly well that the Embargo was so strict on the other side that if the Gentlemen could have had Information yet it was impossible for them to have gotten out of England to tender themselves to Justice within the time wherein the Act required they should do it on no less Penalty than the irrecoverable Forfeiture of Life and Estate which is a plain demonstration that the allowing time for the Attainted Persons to come in and prove their Innocency was a meer colour and had nothing of sincerity in it since they themselves that made the Law were fully informed and satisfied that this was an impossible condition 5. Suppose it had been possible yet it had been a very unwise part for such Protestants as were safe in England to have left it and to have come into Ireland a ruinous Kingdom the actual seat of a War where all the goods and moveables they had left behind them were Imbezell'd by Robbers or by those that had seiz'd them for King James and their real Estates given away to such as were Descendents of their Fathers Murtherers or at least had been in that Rebellion where they must abide a Tryal before Judges and Juryes of profest Enemies whether their Lives should be their own and after all if acquitted could have no other prospect of supporting themselves but Begging amongst a People that had reduced them to this condition These considerations were of such weight with all People that they who were absent were so far from thinking of a return that on the contrary Men of the best Estates who had stayed here wished themselves away and many were content to leave all and venture their Lives in little Boats to the Mercy of the Seas in the depth of Winter reckoning any thing safer and easier than to stay under a Government which had effectually destroyed all the Measures of right and wrong and Condemned so many Gentlemen to the loss of all without allowing them either the favour of being Tryed or so much as Heard 4. I know it will be objected that very few Protestants lost their Lives in Ireland under King James notwithstanding all the severe Proclamations and Laws and the apprehensions under which they lay of danger But to this I answer First that when a full enquiry comes to be made concerning those that were Kill'd by the Soldiers Murthered in their Houses Executed by Martial Law Starv'd and Famish'd in Jails and that Perished by other Violences the number will not be so small as is imagined 2. It is to be considered that the Irish Papists lay under the strictest obligations not to begin Acts of Cruelty for the Murthers they had committed in the last Rebellion were chiefly objected against them they were sensible they had gained nothing by them and that the Cruelty exercised in them was the thing that especially rendred them Odious and lost them their Estates and therefore they thought it the best way not to be too forward in the like practises till they were sure not to be call'd to an after-reckoning They further considered that many of their own Friends were Prisoners in the North and that if they began with Examples of Cruelty on the Protestants who were in their Power their Friends must expect the like from the Enemy in whose Hands they were 'T was this made them dismiss the Poor People they had resolv'd to starve before Derry And they were made believe that not only the Prisoners would Suffer but that the Cruelties they exercised on the Protestants would be Revenged on all the Roman Catholicks in England This was given out by some who understood King James's true interest and that he depended on some Protestants in England for succour and
to take us out of Jail to restore our Laws our Employments the free exercise of our Religion our Fortunes and Estates when we were unjustly depriv'd of them and 't was a very modest expectation in them and answerable to their other measures of Politicks to think a People harrass'd and stript and plundred and condemned by them to lose their Lives and Estates which was the Case of all those who fled from hence to England and in great measure of most of those that staid here should in the height of their smart and sufferings reject the kind offers of a Deliverer to depend on a Miracle yet they pretend this is what we ought to have done and because we did it not they rail at us in the most bitter Terms they call us Rebels and Traitors Villains and Atheists and load us with all the approbrious Names their Malice and Revenge can suggest But we cannot blame them to be angry the hungry Wolf if he could speak would curse and rail as heartily at the Shepherd that rescues the Lamb out of his Paws as they do at us or our Deliverer they had devour'd us in their Imaginations they had got the Civil and Military Sword into their Hands and engrost all Places of Trust and Profit these with the Legislative Power in the hands of our ancient and most malicious Enemies were more than enough to have destroy'd us but just when they should have divided the Spoil and concluded the fatal Tragedy the Prince of Orange his present Majesty interposeth and rescueth us this disappointment mads them beyond all bounds of patience and casts them into strange fits of railing and cursing Hell Damnation Confusion to him and his Royal Consort were continually in the Mouths of their Men Women and Children with these they used to entertain one another at their Tables and Debauches and endeavoured to force them by way of Healths on Protestants In short they spare no ill Name or Execration that impotent Rage could vent or invenom'd Rancour could suggest but when all is done in their quiet Intervals their Consciences cannot but acquit us and many of them made no scruple to confess That there was no medium but that either we or they must be undone and when that was the unavoidable choice that they according to their own confession had put on us I assure my self the World will not only excuse us but will think it was our Duty to have done what we did since they had left us no other visible way but this to avoid certain and apparent Destruction CHAP. V. A short Account of those Protestants who left the Kingdom and of those that staid and submitted to King James SECT I. Concerning those who went away 1. THE former Discourse I suppose is sufficient to justifie the Protestants of Ireland as to their submission to the Government of their present Majesties and to shew the Reasons for their earnest desiring and thankfully accepting of that Deliverance which Providence offered us by their means It remains only to speak a few words in particular of those that left the Kingdom and of those that staid and submitted to King James that they may understand the truth of each others Circumstances and not either of them unjustly censure the other 2. As to those that absented themselves out of the Kingdom it is certain that they offended against no Law in doing so it being lawful for any Subject to transport himself out of one part of the Dominions of England into another it is true that there is a Law or Custom that requires such as hold Offices from the King to take a Licence from the Chief Governour but the Penalty of this is no more than the forfeiture of their Offices and I find it disputed among the Lawyers whether it reach so far now few of those that went away compar'd with the whole number of them were Officers those that were generally took Licences of absence and at worst it was at their own Peril and it had been a great severity to have taken the forfeiture which was the sence of the whole Parliament of England in making an Act to exempt such from incurring any loss 3. But Secondly they had great reason to go out of the Kingdom because they foresaw that it would be the seat of Warr they saw 40 or 50 m Men put into Arms without any fund to maintain them they knew these to be their bitter and sworn Enemies they saw the course of Justice stopt against them and their Stocks and Cattle taken away before their faces several Gentlemen of the Country lost to the value of some 1000 l. before they stirr'd and to what purpose should they stay in a place where they certainly knew that all they had would be taken from them and their Lives expos'd to the fury of their Enemies Thirdly They had no reason to stay because they could not expect to do any good by their staying or to save the Kingdome the Papists had all the Forts and Magazins of the Kingdom in their hands they had all the Arms and publick Revenues they were in number Four or Five to one Protestant and they had the face of Authority on their side and then what could a scattered Multitude without Arms without Leaders and without Authority hope to do in their own defence by going into England they reckon'd themselves not only safe but likewise in a way of serving their Countrey 'T was from thence they expected Arms Ammunition and Commissions by the help of which they might put themselves in some capacity of rescuing their Estates and Friends they left behind which they lookt on as much better Service than to stay and perish with them 4. Fourthly the memory of the cruel usage and difficult times those met with who staid in Ireland in 1641. did frighten and terrifie all that reflected on them the number of those that were then massacred and starv'd was incredible and those that escap'd got away with such circumstances that the memory of what they had suffered was as ill as death if any will be but at the pains of reading over Sir John Temples account of the first half Year of the War or rather Massacre he will be satisfied that it was no unreasonable fear made so many Protestants withdraw out of the reach of such barbarities the same Men or their Sons that committed all those bloody murders and inhumanities were again arm'd in a much more formidable manner than they ever had been before and yet at that time they were able to maintain a War for Twelve Years and live by spoil and robbery and then what were the Children of those whose Parents had been murthered by them to expect but the same fate or at best a miserable Life in a desolate and spoild Country in which no wise Man would choose to live if he could help it indeed they could not expect to live long after all was taken from them but must in
George of Athlone and John Gardner of Tulsk Gent. all in the County of Roscomon Thomas Jones of Armurry in the County of Mayo Gent. Hunry Gun of .... Clerk Francis Cuffe of Ballinrobe Esq Henry Nicholson of Dromneene Gent. William Pullen of Ballinrobe Clerk and all in the County of Mayo Thomas Osborne of ...... in the County of Leytrim Gent. Thomas Buckridge of ....... Gent. Thomas Coote of ....... Esq Charles Campell of ...... Esq Benjamin Fletcher of James-town Esq and Dr. John Lessley all late of the County of Leytrim Have absented themselves from this Kingdom and have gone into England or some other Places beyond the Seas since the Fifth day of November last or in some short Time before and did not return although called Home by your Majesties gracious Proclamation Which absenting and not returning cannot be construed otherwise than to a wicked and traiterous Purpose and may thereby justly forfeit All their Right and Pretentions to all and every the Lands Tenements and Hereditamentsto them belonging in this Kingdom Be it therefore enacted by the Authority aforesaid That in case the said Person and Persons do not by the First day of September One thousand six hundred eighty and nine of his or their own accord without Compulsion return into this Kingdom and tender him and themselves to the Chief Justice of his Majesties Court of King's-Bench or to some other Judg of the said Court or Judg of Assize in the Circuit or any of the Lords of your Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council to be charged with any Crimes to him or them to be imputed that then or in case he or they upon such his or their Return shall be Convicted by Verdict of twelve Men or by his or their own Confession upon his or their Arraignment for Treason or upon his or their Arraignment stand Mute such Person and Persons so Absent and not returning as aforesaid or after his or their Return being Convict of High-Treason as aforesaid shall from and after the First day of September One thousand six hundred eighty nine be deemed reputed and taken as Traitors convict and attainted of High-Treason and shall suffer such Pains of Death and other Forfeitures and Penalties as in Cases of High-Treason are accustomed But in case such Person and Persons so returning be upon such his or their Trial acquitted or discharged by Proclamation then such Person and Persons respectively shall from thenceforth be freed discharged and acquitted from all Pains Punishments and Forfeitures by this Act incurred laid or imposed any thing in this Act to the contrary notwithstanding And whereas the several Persons hereafter named viz. Robert Ridgway Earl of Londonderry Arthur Loftus Viscount Loftus of Ely .... Beamount Viscount Beamount of Swords ..... Chaworth Viscount Chaworth of Armagh .... Fairfax Viscount Fairfax of Emly ..... Tracy Viscount Tracy of Rathcoole ..... Ogle Viscount Ogle of Catherlogh Lewis Trevor Viscount Dungannon Folliott Lord Folliott of Ballyshannon George Lord George of Dundalk ..... Fitz-Williams Lord Fitz-Williams of Lifford .... Hare Lord Colerain Richard Lord Baron of Santery Antham Annesly Lord Baron of Altham Lawrence Barry commonly called Lord Battevant John Power commonly called Lord Deces Sir Standish Hartstonge of Broffe Kt. Sir Walter Plunket of Rathbeale Kt. Sir William Meredith of Kilriske Kt. Sir John Parker of Farmyle Kt. Sir Richard Stephens of Rosse Kt. Sir Maurice Eustace of Baltinglass Kt. Sir St. John Broderick of Ballyannon Kt. Sir Michael Cole of Enniskilling Kt. Sir Charles Chiney Kt. Sir Charles Lloyd Kt. Sir Algernon Mayo of Rogers-town Kt. Sir Richard May Kt. Sir Joseph VVilliamson Kt. Sir William Barker of Abbeykillcooly Kt. Christopher Usher of the City of Dublin Esq Richard Leeds Merchant Maurice Kealing Esq Dr. .... Dominick Dr. .... Dunne Capt. John Quelsh of St. Stephens Green William Bazil Esq Thomas Howard Clerk to the Yeield Richard Nuttall Merchant Gideon Delane Gent. William Robinson Esq Richard Barry Gent. Capt. William Shaw and Philip Harris Esq all late of the City of Dublin John Bulkely of Old-Bawne in the County of Dublin Gent. Robert Boridges of Finglass Esq Alexander Frazier of Meagstown Esq Edward Bolton of Brazille Gent. Humphrey Booth of Ballyhack Gent. Edmond Keating of Corballis Esq Chambre Brabazon of Thomas-Court Esq Dacre Barrett of Cripple-stown Esq Arch-Deacon John Fitz-Gerrald Richard Bolton Esq William Barry of Sautery Gent. and Martin Bazill of Donicarney Gent. all late of the County of Dublin James Barry of Kelleystown in the County of Kildare Gent. Thomas Holmes of Castledermott Gent. Cornet Richard Wybrants of Bunchestown Maurice Keating of Norraghmore Esq Garrett Wesly of Old-Connel Esq Richard Mereeith of Shrewland Esq Samuel Syng Dean of Kildare and Christopher Lovett of Nourny Gent. all late of the County of Kildare Richard Boyle of Old-Leighlin in the County of Caterlogh Esq John Hollam of Island in the King's-County Gent. Joseph Hawkins Gent. Samuel Hawkins Gent. Arthur Shane Esq Son to Sir James Shane Henry Westenray Esq Martin Baldwin of Geshell Esq all late of the King's County George Bridges of Burrows in the Queen's County Esq Richard Pryor of Rathdowny Gent. Francis Barrington of Cullenagh .... Daniel of Ironworks Gent. Brooke Bridges of Kilmensy Gent. Charles Vaughan of Derringvarnoge Gent. Hugh Merrick Gent. Nathaniel Huett Gent. Robert Hedges of Borres Esq and Richard Warburton of Garryhinch Esq all late of the Queen's County Capt. Nicholas Sankey of Caldraghmore in the County of Longford Robert Viner of Killmure in the County of Meath Esq John Humpheries of Hollywood Gent. Dr. Robert Gorge late of Killbrew William Napper of Loghcrew Esq and Anthony Nixon of Oâ—chestone Gent. all late of the County of Meath James Stopford of Castletown in the County of West-Meath Gent. John Adams of Ledwitchtown Gent. Thomas Cooper late of Conmistown Gent. Richard Stephens of Athlone Gent. George Farmer of Rathnemodagh Gent. and John Meares of Mearescourt Gent. all late of the County of West-Meath Moses Bush of Kilfane in the County of Kilkenny Gent. John Bush of the same Gent. William Harrison of Grenane Gent. Zachary Cornick of Kilkenny Merchant Edward Stubbers of Callan Esq Hierom Hawkins of Killmuskulloge Gent. Joseph Bradshaw of Foulkesrath Gent. and Henry Ryder Prebendary of Mayne all of the County of Kilkenny Richard Rooth of .... in the County of Wexford Gent. Husband to the Countess Dowager of Donnegall John Bulkeley of Ballymorroghroe in the County of Wicklow Gent. John Humphery of Dunard Gent. Christopher Usher of Grange Esq Henry Whitfield of Portballintagart Esq William Robinson of Wicklow Gent. John Vice of the same Gent. Robert Peppard of the same Esq and Lawrence Hutson of Coolekennagh Gent. all late of the County of Wicklow Timothy Armitage of Atherdee in the County of Lowth Gent. Major John Reade of Ballorgan Robert Smith of Dromcashel Gent. Brabazon Moore of Atherdee Gent. and Thomas Bellingham of Garnanstown Esq all late of the County of Lowth Thomas Willis of Drogheda Gent.
more faithful Army than you have at present And now that a needful Alteration is begun in Ireland it should be carried on speedily for your own and Catholick Subjects security for all the Sectaries in your Dominions are so gall'd at some of the Phanaticks being discarded in Ireland that they join Heads concert Councils swear and contrive Vengeance against all Papists who must expect no Quarters but during your Majesty's Reign But all good Men have reason to hope that that God who delivered you from the manifold Dangers of your Life and made your Enemies your Footstool will spare your precious Life till you accomplish the glorious Work reserv'd for you by that Providence that is your best Life-guard And 't is the comfort of all good Subjects that besides your being of all sides descended from healthy Parents you have I thank God at present all the Symptoms of a vigorous long-lived Man Nay that your having been suckled by a very healthy long-liv'd Woman must in reason contribute much to the length of your Life therefore put your Trust in that God that never failed any good Man that placed his Hopes with considence in him and consider the Proverb That he that begins well has in a manner half done his Work which cannot be more aptly applied than to the auspicious beginning of your Reign for God has so dashed the Enterprizes and Hopes of your Enemies that the terror of your Name and their experience of your good Fortune is with the help of the Army they gave you way to raise sufficient if not to change their Hearts at least to curb their Insolence Therefore listen not to trimming Counsellors whose aversion to your Religion and cunning Design of spinning out your Life with their pian piano may put them upon urging to you that great Alterations are dangerous when carried on otherwise than by slow and imperceptible Degrees Which is true where Matters are not so ordered in point of Power as not to need fear a Perturbation in the State but otherwise Celerity and Resolution adds Life and Vigour to all Actions especially such as relate to Change which is often prevented by tedious Deliberations for the Party fearing an Alteration is always as having more reason more jealous and vigilant than he from whom it is feared and therefore leaves no Stone unturn'd to hinder the accomplishment of Designs that might take Effect if not marr'd for not being vigorously push'd on as soon as resolv'd upon And as Precipitation is an Error so is Irresolution which is never to be practised by any especially a known wise and resolute Prince but when the Issue of Enterprizes depends more upon Chance than a prudent management of Causes and rational foresight of Events But nothing causes Irresolution more than a medly of Counsellors of a different Religion with their Prince who will be on all Occasions as industrious to prevent as he can be to carry on any Design for re-establishing Religion And inasmuch as Authority Courage and Prudence are the three most necessary Qualifications in a Prince that conduce most of all ordinary Means to the replantation of a Religion and that all three meet to the highest pitch in your Majesty no protestant Counsellor will advise you to any alteration in the Government that may directly or indirectly tend to a Change in Religion Nay they lie under such Jealousy and Prejudice as may induce them to magnify Danger where there is none at all and take no notice where it really is A Device much practised in England of late Years Hence in the late King's time No Danger threatned his Majesty but from the Catholick Quarters whilst the greatest of Dangers hovered over his and your Sacred Heads warpt up in the dark Cloud of Fanatick Treachery and Dissimulation Sir It is plain that the reality of the Danger lies in your Delay of making your Catholick Subjects considerable For God's sake consider that yours and their sworn Enemies threaten above-board that Popery or Protestantism must and shall be for ever extirpated in these Kingdoms and that all Papists must inevitably split upon a Rock in that Haven where they had reason to hope for Safety if not secured against the threatning Storm during your Majesty's Life whereof the Days and Hours are precious considering the important Game you have to play and the indispensable Obligation you lie under before that God ..... and contribute as much from the Helm to the conversion of Souls as the best of Preachers from Pulpits for Words do but move but Examples and especially those of great Men have more resistless Charms and a more than ordinary Ascendent over the Minds of the common People Which Consideration should prevail with your Majesty to prefer without delay couragious wise and zealous Catholicks to the most eminent and profitable Stationâ— especially in your Houshold where you are King by a two-â—old Title by which means you would in a short time be stock'd with faithful Counsellors all of a piece that would join Heads Hearts and Hands and would contribute unanimously to the effectual carrying on so good a Design ..... distinction 'twixt his politick and natural Capacity fighting against the one in defence of the other it is to be fear'd the Protestants of your English Army would in case of a Rebellion be too inclinable to fight for the King Parliament and Protestant Religion against the King as Papist his Popish Cabals and Popery To prevent which as Matters now stand there is but one sure and safe Expedient that is to purge without delay the rest of your Irish Army increase and make it wholly Catholick raise and train a Catholick-Militia there place Catholicks at the Heâ—â— of that Kingdom issue out Quo-warranto's against all the Corporations in it put all Employs Civil as well as Military into Catholick Hands This done call a Parliament of Loyal ..... present Revenues of that Kingdom cannot answer other State-Contingencies and maintain a greater Army than is already on foot especially when the Revenues rather fall than rise there The Solution to this Objection is to be expected also from your Majesty in whose Breast it lies to take off by a Law the Restraint that Country is under as to Trade and Traffick for which it lies much more convenient than any of your Kingdoms When this is done the Irish Merchants will like the Souldiers flock home from all parts of the World but with this difference that as the Souldiers come to get your Money the Merchants will bring all their ..... that there are few or none Protestants in that Country but such as are join'd with the Whigs against the Common Enemy And as to your Revenues you are cheated of them by the mismanagement and sinistrous Practices of your Commissioners whereof the major part are in their Hearts rank Whigs and of a whiggish Race and hence it is that they employ no Officers but Men of their own Kidney that swallow the Oaths and
your Revenue to boot And tho no King can well avoid being impos'd on by his Servants I believe it in my Conscience that the present Managers of your Revenues in Ireland think it no Sin to rob a Popish King of his Due Hence it is that there is an universal Agreement and Combination betwixt the ..... Merchants ..... we will by way of Retaliation take care that no Catholick be admitted into the Civil This Combination makes your Letters for Civil Places the Reversion of Outlawries and for Catholicks being admitted free of Corporations so little regarded in Ireland by those that past for Tories here c. yet publickly espouse the whiggish Quarrel the other side the Water I beseech you Sir consider that however your Kingly Prudence may prevail with You to dissemble Your Resentments of the Non-compliance and Disobedience of Your stiff-neck'd English Protestant Subjects You ought to exert Your Regal Authority in Ireland a Kingdom more peculiarly Your own where ..... month before or at least not outlive Your Majesty a month for if that poor Nation be not made considerable during Your Reign his Lordship must not hope for the Favour my Lord Stafford had of being legally Murdered by a formal Trial but may well expect all Formality laid aside to be sacrificed to the unbridled Fury of the lawless Rabble and dissected into little Morsels as the De-Wits were in Holland And truly the Fanaticks threaten no less and it were to be wished they cried out upon more of Your Ministers than they do at present for You may take it for granted they will never speak well of Your real Friends ..... other will endeavour to marr and the Work will go on like that of Babel confusedly for want of good Intelligence among the Workmen Sir You are under God the great Architect that will with the Blessing of Jesus live to see the glorious Structure fully finish'd In order to which 't is requisite You lose no time in making Ireland intirely Your own that England and Scotland may follow You are gone too far if You do not go farther not to advance is to lose Ground Delays are dangerous and all the World allow Expedition and Resolution to ..... if this were once compassed France could no more hope upon a falling out with England to take advantage of the diversity of our Sects and what may spring thence Domestick Jars and Divisions Sir Notwithstanding the Doubts and Fears of Trimming Courtiers and some Cow-hearted Catholicks You may live long enough to undertake and crown this great Work with the Grace and Assistance of the same Almighty God that defeated the Rebels in the West and made them instrumental in settling You in Your Throne and that permitted this Country to be lately sprinkled with the Blood of Martyrs which must infallibly contribute to the Conversion of Souls in this Kingdom for the Blood of Martyrs is and ever was the fruitful Seed of the Church The Seed is sown in many parts of England and the Harvest will without doubt be great and plentiful but the Workmen too too few if You do not provide your self with Catholick Privy-Counsellors Ministers Judges Officers Civil and Military and Servants As to the Choice of which I will mind Your Majesty of the Advice given Moses by Jethro his Father-in-Law in the following words Provide out of all the People able Men such as fear God Men of Truth hating Covetousness When Your Counsellors and Ministers are thus qualified and not till then You may hope to do what becomes a James the Second And to furnish Your self with able Men You must follow Your Royal Father's Advice to the Prince of Wales that is With an equal Eye and impartial Hand distribute Favours and Rewards to all Men as You find them for their real Goodness both in Ability and Fidelity worthy and capable of them Such as fear God as the truly Wisest will advise You to the best Measure for promoting God's Glory Men of Truth will like Tyrconnel serve You faithfully without trimming tho with never so apparent Hazard to their Fortunes and Lives And Men hating Covetousness will not betray Your Interest be corrupted nor sell Places to such Undermanagers of Your Revenue as buying them for a Spill in gross will be sure to retail them at Your Cost a Practice much in use here and in Ireland at present where few or no Places can be had without Bribes by which means You are cheated in both Kingdoms of an Hundred thousand Pounds a Year in the opinion of understanding honest and indifferent Judges for no Man will give a Shilling surreptitiously for an Office but with a design to cheat You of Twenty To prevent which there is no Remedy but that of employing smart Men of known Integrity to be chosen without Favour or Affection that will be content with their respective Salleries and imploy their utmost Industry to improve not imbezel Your Revenues the Ornaments of Peace and Sinews of War SIR These Kingdoms are of Opinion Popery will break in upon them and it were a pity to disappoint them and when You take effectual Measures Your trimming Courtiers will unmask and come over nay half the Kingdom will be converted of it self What I have here presumed to write is the effect of my unfeigned Zeal for the Good of Religion and Your Majesties Interest which I hope will induce You to pardon a plain-dealing and loving Subject that daily beseeches God to bless Your Majesty and these Kingdoms with a long and prosperous Reign and with numerous long-liv'd Male Issues and to inspire You with wholsom Thoughts that may direct You to the performance of such Heroick Actions as may gain You immortal Fame in this World and eternal Glory in the next Lord Clarendon's Speech in Council on his leaving the Government of Ireland My Lords IT has been sometimes used to make Speeches upon these Occasions but I know my insufficiency for that Task and therefore shall trouble your Lordships with very few words In the first place my Lords I give your Lordships many thanks for the Civilities I have received from every one of you and for the great Assistance I have had from you in the discharge of my Duty here I know your Lordships can witness for me that I never desir'd your concurrence in any thing that was not for the King's Service I do again beg your Lordships to accept of my Thanks with this assurance that I shall give the King an account when I have the honour to kiss his Hand of your Lordships great readiness and diligence to advance his Service My Lord Deputy I shall not long detain your Lordship The King hath placed your Excellency in a very great Station has committed to your Care the Government of a great and flourishing Kingdom of a Dutiful Loyal and Obedient People It is extreamly to be lamented that there are such Feuds and Animosities among them which I hope your Excellency's Prudence with
the assistance of so wise a Council will disperse I must needs say both from my own Observation and the Information I have had from my Lords the Judges who often visit the whole Kingdom that there is a great readiness and willingness in all People to serve and obey the King I must here a little enlarge to your Excellency because I reckon my self bound to give the King an account of his Subjects and I would not willingly say any thing when I am at such a distance which I have not mentioned here The English in this Country have been aspersed with the Character of being generally Fanaticks which is a great Injury to them I must do them the justice to say that they are of the Church of England as appears by their Actions as well as Professions The Churches here are as much frequented and the Discipline of the Church as well observed as in England it self which is to be attributed to the Piety and Labour of my Lords the Bishops We of the Church of England can brag that when Rebellion overspread the three Kingdoms not one Orthodox Member of our Church was engaged against the Crown And in our late Disorders we can boast we were Opposers of the Bills of Exclusion and the Sense his Majesty has been graciously pleas'd to express of our Loyalty will never be forgotten by us I had the happiness to be born a Member of the Church of England and I hope God will give me the Grace to die one One thing the English of this Country have to glory in That of all his Majesty's Subjects they made the earliest Advances towards his Majesty's Restoration when the three Kingdoms were governed by Usurpers And after all the Endeavours of his Loyal Subjects in England seemed to be disappointed and there appeared no Hopes by the total defeating of Sir G. Booth the English then in this Kingdom offered to submit to his Majesty's Authority I do not say this my Lord to detract from his Majesty's R. C. Loyal Subjects many of whom I my self knew serv'd and suffered with him abroad but I speak it in justice to the others who did their Duty There is but one thing more I shall trouble your Excellency with I am sorry that I cannot say that I leave a full Treasure but I can say that I leave no Debts The Revenue is in good Order which must be owned to be due to the unwearied Industry and Diligence of the Commissioners The Army is intirely paid to Christmass day last and I have advanced a Month's Subsistence-money for January The Civil and Pensionary Lists are likewise cleared to Christmass I doubt not but your Excellency's Care will carry all things on in the same Method God Almighty bless the King and grant him long Life and I beseech God to prosper this excellent Country I received this Sword in Peace and I thank God by the King's Command I deliver it in Peace to your Excellency and I heartily wish you Joy of the Honour the King has done you A General Abstract of the Gross Produce of his Majesty's Revenue in Ireland in the three first Years of the Management beginning at Christmass 1682. ending Christmass 1685.  1683 1684 1685. Customs Inwards Impt. Excise 85844 17 2â…œ 91424 8 8â— â— 91117 13 65 â— Customs Outwards 32092 11 4½ 33425 15 2 29428 8 11½ Seizures and Fines 965 2 3½ 615 1 5â— â— 460 11 5¼ Prizage 1452 1693 1882 Inland Excise 68344 1 3â…œ 77580 3 7¼ 79169 4 4¾ Ale Licenses 8283 14 11â— 4 9538 4 46 8 99â—5 14 11â— â— Wine c. Licenses 2736 12 3114 10 2â— 2 3467 11 3¾ Quit Crown and Custodiam Rents 68699 9 7â…œ 68385 8 0¼ 68922 4 5â— 2 Hearth-Money 31041 31646 32953 12 00 Casual Revenue 820 3 3 1745 16 2 1564 16 11¼ Totals l. 300297 11 11â— 4 319168 7 9 318961 18 0â— 8 Arrears of each of the above-Years remaining uncollected at Christmass 1685. 7659 1 6â…œ 9799 9 8½ 34971 9 3â…ž Net Cash paid into the Treasury in the three Years above-mention'd over and besides the Charges of Management and Sallaries to the Officers of the Revenue in the said time 712972 17 2â…œ Cash remaining in the Collectors Hands at Christmass 1685 ready to be paid in 55655 10 3½ The Solvent Part of the above-mention'd Arrears which was actually levied and paid into the Treasury before Christmass 1688. 30000 00 00 Total Cash l. 798628 07 5â…ž Which at a Medium for three Years amounts for each Year to the Sum of 266209 00 00 Sheriffs for the Year 1687. Febr. 16. 1686. Counties Sheriffs Ardmagh Marcus Clarke Antrim Cormuck O. Neil Cavan Lucas Reily Clare John Mac. Nemara of Cratelagâ— Corke Nicholas Brown of Bantrey Catherlogh Sir Lawrence Esmond Dublin Thomas Warren Downe Valentine Russell Donnegall Charles Hamilton Fermanagh Cohonnagh Mac-Gwire Galway John Keâ—â— Esq Kildare John Wogan King's County Hewar Oxburgh Kilkenny John Grace Esq Kerry Donogh Mac-Gellicuddy Leitrim Alexander Mac-Donnel Lowth Patrick Bellew Limerick Edward Rice of Ballynitty Longford James Nugent Esq Meath Walter Nangle Esq Monoghan Sir John Flemming Mayo Dominick Browne Queen's County Edmond Morris Esq Roscomon John Dillon Esq Sligoe Henry Crafton of Longford Tyrone Terence Donelly Wexford Patrick Colclough Westmeath Thomas Nugent Wicklow Francis Meara Waterford John Nugent Londonderry Elected by the Charter Cipperary Appointed by the Duke of Ormond John Plunkett Lessee of Christ. Lord Baron of Dunsany Plantiff Philip Tuite and John Rawlins Defendants Sir Edward Tyrrell's Affidavit about packing of Juries WHereas there issued two several Venire Faciases at the Plantiff's Suit returnable to his Majesty's Court of Exchequer directed to Edward Tyrrell Esq then High Sheriff of the County of Meath the first Year of his now Majesty's Reign Now Sir Edward Tyrrell Baronet came this day before me and made Oath That one Mr. Plunket Brother to the said Lord of Dunsany came to Longwood to this Deponent's House and desired this Deponent to stand the Lord Dunsany's Friend and to give him a Jury that would do him Right and withal said this Deponent should have after the said Lord of Dunsany should be restored to the Possession of his Estate the sum of three or four hundred Pounds To which this Deponent answered He would do him Justice The said Mr. Plunket desired this Deponent to meet him at Mr. Nugent his Counsel's House where he would further discourse the Matter This Deponent did accordingly meet the said Thomas Plunket where several Proposals and Overtures were made all to no purpose This Deponent further deposeth That in some short time after the said Lord of Dunsany came to this Deponent's said House and after some Discourse he the said Dunsany desired this Deponent to befriend him against those that wronged him and kept him out of his Estate Whereupon this Deponent told the said Lord of Dunsany what offer his Brother made him The said Lord of Dunsany replying said His Brothers
Major Sir Michael Creagh Coll. John Power Lieu. Coll. Theobald Bourk Major Hâ—yward Oxbrough Coll. Edward Scot Lieu. Coll. Laurence Delahunty Major Dom. Browne Coll. ....... Lieu. Coll. Le Sir Mountyouge Major Owen Mac Carty Coll. James Dupuy Lieu. Coll. Terence O Brien Major John Barret Coll. Donogh Mac Callaghane L. Coll. ....... Major Charles O Brien Coll. ........ Lieu. Coll. William Saxby Major Daniel O Donnovane Coll. Fran. Napper Lieu. Coll. Sir Alphon. Mottit Major Lord Ireagh Coll. Brien Magennis 1st L. Coll. Francis Wahup 2d L. Coll. ........ Major Roger Mac Elligot Coll. Maurice Hussy Lieu. Coll. Edmund Fitz-gerald Major Edmund Reyley Coll. ......... Lieu. Coll. ........ Major Cuconnogh Mac Gwyre Coll. Alex. Mac Gwyre Lieu. Coll. Cornelius Mac Gwyre Major Walter Bourk Coll. ............ Lieu. Coll. ............ Major Felix O Neile Coll. ..... O Neile Lieu Coll. ........... Major Hugh Mac Mahon Coll. Owen Mac Mahon Lieu. Coll. Christopher Plunket Major Lord Inniskillin Coll. ............. Lieu. Coll. ............ Major Dennis Mac Gillicuddy Coll. ............ Lieu. Coll. ........... Major James Purcell Coll. ........... Lieu. Coll. ........... Major Lord Hunsdon Coll. Rob. Ingram 1st Lieu. Coll. John Gifford 2d Lieu. Coll. Francis Gyles Major Regiments sent to France viz. Collonels Lord Mounteashell Daniel O Bryen Richard Butler Robert Fielding N o 12. A Copy of the Letter dispers'd about the Massacre said to be design'd on the 9th of December 1688. Good my Lord December 3d. 1688. I Have written to let you know That all our Irishmen through Ireland are sworn that on the 9th Day of this Month being Sunday next they are to fall on to kill and murder Man Wife and Child and to spare none and I do desire your Lordship to take care of your self and all others that are adjudged by our Men to be Heads for whoever of them can kill any of you is to have a Captain 's Place So my Desire to your Honour is to look to your self and to give other Noblemen warning and go not out at Night or Day without a good Guard with you and let no Irishman come near you whatever he be This is all from him who is your Friend and Father's Friend and will be though I dare not be known as yet for fear of my Life Direct this with Care and Haste to my Lord Mountgomery N o 13. Lord Mountjoy's Circular Letter on his going to France Gentlemen Dublin 10th January 1688. YOU had an Account how long I staid on the Way after I left you and the Reasons which made me since go forwards And whatever any Jealousies were at my first Arrival I am now satisfied at my coming and with God's Blessing I hope it will come to good to us all As soon as I saw my Lord Deputy he told me he designed to send me to the King jointly with my Lord Chief Baron Rice to lay before him the State of the Kingdom and to tell him That if he pleased he could Ruine it for him and make it a heap of Rubbish but it was impossible to preserve it and make it of use to him and therefore to desire leave to treat for it The Objections I made to this were Two My being not so well qualified as a Northern Roman Catholick whom in all likelyhood the King would sooner give Credit to And the improbability of being able to perswade the King who is now in the French Hands to a Thing so plainly against their Interest To the First of these I was answered what is not fit for me to repeat and the other is so well answered that all the most knowing Englishmen are satisfied with me and have desired me to undertake this Matter which I have done this Afternoon my Lord Deputy having first promised me on his Word and Honour to perform the Four Particulars in the within Paper Now because a Thing of this Nature cannot be done without being Censur'd by some who perhaps would be sorry to have their Wishes in quiet means and by others who think all that Statesmen do are Tricks and that there is no Sincerity amongst them I would have such to consider That it is more probable I and the most intelligent in this Place without whose Advice I do nothing should judge right of this than they who are at greater Distance and as it is not likely we should be Fooled so I hope they will not believe we design to betray them our selves and the Nation I am morally assured this must do our Work without Blood or the Misery of the Kingdom I am sure it is the Way proposed in England who depend so on it that no Forces are appointed to come hither and I am sure what I do is not only what will be approved of in England but what had its beginning from thence I do therefore conjure you to give your Friends and mine this Account and for the Love of God keep them from any Disorder or Mischief if any had such Design which I hope they had not and I am fully satisfied every Man will have his own Heart's Desire I will write to this Effect to some other Places and I desire you will let such in the Country as you think fit see this Let the People fall to their Labour and think themselves in less Danger than they believed c. N o 14. Judge Keating's Letter to Sir John Temple December 29th 1688. SIR I Had ere this acknowledged the Favour of your last and returned you my Thanks for your kind Advice relating to the small Concerns I had in England which I have now disposed of here but to deal freely with you the Distractions arising from the Great and Suddain Alterations in England and the pannick but I believe groundless Fears which hath possessed the Minds not only of the Weaker Sex and Sort but even of Men who would pass for Sober and Judicious hath render'd Matters with Us so uncertain that I profess seriously I know not what to write nor dare I yet give you any Account relating either to particular Persons or Places of the Kingdom scarcely of what I hear from the Remote Parts of this City since what we have at Night for certain Truth from those who pretend to be Eye or Ear Witnesses of what they relate we find before the next Days Exchange is over to be altogether False and Groundless The fear of a Massacre hath been mutual the Protestants remembring past Times and being alarm'd by a Letter neither directed to nor subscribed by any Person but drop'd at Cumber of which Copies were dispers'd throughout all Parts of the Kingdom were frighted to that degree that very many of them betook themselves to the Ards and other Places of Security in the North Some into Scotland and very many Families Embark'd from this Part for Chester Leverpoole Beaumaris and the next Adjacent Ports of England and Wales who you may easily conclude carried with them all the ready Money and Plate which they
much to the allaying of their Fears and the Quiet of their Minds His Excellency allows the Bishop of Meath to declare this to all Persons Fifthly That whereas your Excellency did by your Declaration order all Arms to be returned into the Parish-Churches and yet in some Parish-Churches there were no Officers appointted to receive them that your Excellency would by a new Proclamation order such Arms as have not yet been delivered for want of such Officers to receive them be received by such as your Excellency shall think fit to appoint An Account of this to be given to the People by themselves or Church-Wardens or Clerks as also publick Notice in the Church to Morrow Morning The Return to be made to the Clergy by the Inhabitants and by the Clergy to the Bishop of Meath That his Excellency doth not intend to bind himself from searching for Arms in the City of Dublin by the late Declaration because it was published before its Time and without his Order in Case a more due Return of Arms be not made then he hath hitherto received N o 16. An Account of the Conditions made in the Field between the High-Sheriff of Galway and the Prisoners after condemned WHEREAS James Power Esquire High-Sheriff of the County of Galway Captain Thomas Burk Commander in Chief of his Majesty's Forces quarter'd in the Town of Loughreagh having Intelligence That several Gentlemen and others on the First Day of March instant travelled the Road leading from Irris in the County of Clare towards the Town of Loughreagh being the Road they intended to go met them there and demanded their Horses and Arms for his Majesty's Use which upon Capitulations made between the said James Power Esquire and Captain Thomas Burk of the one Part and Sir Thomas Southwell Baronet Bartholomew Purdon Esquire and Thomas Miller Esquire on the other Part in behalf of themselves and of all as well Gentlemen and others that were with them and of their Company were freely and peaceably delivered and given up by them to us for his Majesty's Service on these following Conditions The Capitulation which we the said James Power Esquire and Captain Thomas Bourk promised them in behalf of the Government should be honourably and punctually perform'd and kept Imprimis That they and every of them should have their Lives preserved and that whatsoever they had acted in that Affair they affirming that their coming in that posture was for preservation of their Lives should be forgiven and forgotten and Passes given them or any of them to go where they pleased provided they did not go to the North or Sligo without being rifled or any thing taken from them except such Horses and Arms as were fit for his Majesty's Service Secondly That every Gentleman of them should have their own Pistols and Swords and one Nagg or Horse given them to ride on in Case his own being musterable should be taken from him Thirdly That if they desired it they should have a Party of Horse or Foot to protect them for their greater Safety in Travelling where they or any of them had a desire to go except to the North or Sligo as aforesaid Given under our Hands and Seals the First Day of March 1688. and in the First Year of his Majesty's Reign James the Second by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland c. Note That it happened near Night when they met so that the Agreement before-mentioned could not be reduced into Writing in the Field but several times since being tendred to the said High-Sheriff and Captain to Sign they still declined it but nevertheless acknowledged the Truth thereof before the Lord Galway Father Dolphin the Friar and others in Loughreagh And about Eight or Nine Days after the said Captain Bourk Signed a Certificate in Presence of Captain Arthur French and the said High-Sheriff writ a Letter to the Lord-Deputy containing the principal Part of the said Articles as by the following Copy may appear Captain Bourk's Certificate deliver'd by Captain .... to Captain French Good Friday 1688. WHereas on the First Day of this Instant March Sir Thomas Southwell with a considerable party of Horse were Travelling from the County of Clare through the County of Galway near Loughreagh an account whereof being brought to Captain Thomas Bourk whose Troop Quartered at Loughreagh and on Notice immediately with his Troop repaired to meet the said Thomas Southwell and his Party and having drawn up within Shot each of other the said Thomas sent one to give an account of his and his friend's Design to ride without Offence through the County and prayed not to be molested Whereupon the said Captain Thomas Bourk made answer That without the Governments Pass so considerable a Party should not ride where he had power to hinder them Then the said Sir Thomas desired to be permitted to return whence he came To which he was answered That by a late Order from the Government Captain Bourk was to seize all Arms and Horse fit for his Majesty's Service in the County of Galway and that he would not permit them to go on nor return till he had their Horse and Arms and persisting firm therein the said Sir Thomas and his Party submitted and declared their Obedience to the Governments Order he the said Captain Thomas Bourk assuring them that he would secure them their Lives and offer'd them such small Naggs as he thought fit to carry the said Sir Thomas and Chief Gentlemen back to their respective Homes This I the said Captain Thomas Bourk having promised on my word do now Certifie for Truth as Witness my hand this 9th Day of March 1688 9. THO. BOURK A Copy of the High-Sheriff's Letter delivered to Mr. French on Good-Friday 1688. per Captain Jourdon May it please your Excellency Loughreagh March 9th 1688 9. IT happened on Friday last the first Day of this Instant I had Intelligence that a Party of Horse with Sir Thomas Southwell and others were making their way through this Country to Sligo or the North being routed out of Munster whereupon the Horse and Foot in this Town being commanded by Captain Thomas Bourk and Captain Charles Dawly made ready to intercept the said Sir Thomas and his Party who met upon a Pass and faced one another but a Treaty being proposed they came to Capitulation wherein it was agreed that the said Thomas and his Party should lay down such Horse and Arms as was fit for the King's Service and after so doing that they and every of their Lives should be secured them and dismissed with such Passes and Convoys as may bring them safe to their several Habitations without any Harm to their Persons or Goods All which with Submission at their requests I humbly offer to your Excellency and subscribe Your Excellency's Most Humble and Most Obedient Servant JAMES POWER N o 17 A Copy of a Letter from Bishop Maloony to Bishop Tyrrel the Original found amongst Bishop
Fitzgerald Esquires Bur. Trim. Captain Nicholas Cusack Walter Nangle Esquire Bur. of Navan Christoph. Cusack of Corballis Esquires Christ. Cusack of Ratholdran Esquires Bur. Athboy John Trinder Esquires Robert Longfield Esquires Duleek Kells Com. Monoghan Bryan Mac Mahon Esquires 9 th July 1689 Hugh Mac Mahon Esquires 9 th July 1689 Town of Monoghan Com. Fermanagh Enniskillen Queens County Sir Patrick Trant Knight Edmond Morris Esq Bur. Maryborough Peirce Bryan Esquires Thady Fitz Patrick Esquires Bur. Ballinkill Sir Gregory Bourne Baronet Oliver Grace Esquire Port Arlington Sir Henry Bond Baronet Sir Thomas Hacket Knight Com. Roscommon Charles Kelly Esquire John Bourk Bur. Roscommon John Dilton Esquires John Kelly Esquires Bur. Boyle John King Captain Terence Mac Dermot Alder. 6th May 1689. Tulske Com. Sligoe Henry Crofton Esquires Oliver O Gara Esquires Bur. Sligoe Terence Mac Donogh Esquires 8th May 1689. James French Esquires 8th May 1689. Com. Tipperary Nicholas Purcell of Loghmore Esquires James Butler of Grangebeg Esquires City of Cashell Dennis Kearney Aldermen James Hacket Aldermen Bur. Clonmell Nicholas White Aldermen John Bray Aldermen Bur. Fethard Sir John Everard Baronet James Tobin of Fethard Esq Bur. Thurles Bur. Tipperary Com. Tyrone Coll. Gordon O Neile Esquires Lewis Doe of Dungannon Esquires Bur. Dungannon Arthur O Neil of Ballygawly Esquires Patr. Donenlly of Dungannon Esquires Bur. Strabane Christopher Nugent of Dublin Esquire Dan. O Donelly of the same Gent. 8th May 89. Clogher Augher Com. Waterford John Power Esquires Math. Hore Esquires Bur. Dungarvan John Hore Esquires 7th May 89. Martin Hore Esquires 7th May 89. City of Waterford John Porter Esquires Nicholas Fitzgerald Esquires Bur. Lismore Tallow Com. Wexford Walter Butler of Munfine Patrick Colclogh of Moulnirry Bur. Wexford William Talbot Esquire Francis Rooth Merchant Bur. New Rosse Luke Dormer Esquires Richard Butler Esquires Bur. Bannow Francis Plowden Esq Commis of the Revenue Dr. Alexius Stafford Bur. Newborough Abraham Strange of Tobberduff Esq Richard Daley of Kilcorky Gent. Bur. Eniscorthy James Devereux of Carrigmenan Esquires Dudley Colclough of Mougâ—ery Esquires Arther Waddington Esq by a new Election Bur. Taghmon George Hore of Polhore Esquires Walter Hore of Harpers-town Esquires Bur. Cloghmyne Edward Sherlock of Dublin Esquire Nicholas White of New Rosse Merchant Bur. Arklow Fytherd Coll. James Porter Capt. Nicholas Stafford Com. Wicklow Richard Butler Esquires William Talbot Esquires Bur. Caryesfort Hugh Byrne Esquire Peice Archbold Esq Upon whose default of Appearance Barth Polewheele Bur. Wicklow Francis Toole Esquires Thomas Byrne Esquires Bur. Blesington James Eustace Esq Maurice Eustace Gent. Baltinglass Com. Westmeath The Honorable Coll. William Nugent The Honorable Coll. Henry Dillon Bur. and Mannor of Mullingar Garret Dillon Esq Prime Sergeant Edmond Nugent of Garlans-town Esq Bur. Athlone Edmond Malone of Ballynehown Esq Edmond Malone Esq Councellor at Law Bur. Kilbeggan Bryan Geoghegan of Donore Esquires Charles Geoghenan of Syenan Esquires Bur. Fore John Nugent of Donore Esq Christoph. Nugent of Dardis town Esq Com. Londonderry City Londonderry Bur. Colerane Bur. Lamavudy No. 22. An Address to King James in Behalf of the Purchasers under the Act of Settlement by Judge Keating THis humble Representation made unto your Sacred Majesty is in the Behalf of many Thousands of your Majesties dutiful and obedient Subjects of all Degrees Sexes and Ages The Design and Intention of it is to prevent the Ruine and Desolation which a Bill now under Consideration in order to be made a Law will bring upon them and their Families in case your Majesty doth not interpose and by your Moderation and Justice protect them so far as the known Laws of the Kingdom and Equity and good Conscience will warrant and require It is in the Behalf of Purchasers who for great and valuable Considerations have acquired Lands and Tenements in this Kingdon by laying out not only their Portions and Provisions made for them by their Parents but also the whole Product of all their own Industry and the Labour of their Youth together with what could be saved by a frugal Management in order to make some certain Provision for Old Age and their Families in Purchasing Lands and Tenements under the Security of divers Acts of Parliament Publick Declarations from the late King And all these accompanied with a Possession of Twenty five Years Divine Providence hath appointed us our Dwelling in an Island and consequently we must Trade or live in Penury and at the mercy of our Neighbours This necessitates a Transmutation of Possessions by Purchase from one hand to another of Mortgaging and Pledging Lands for great and Considerable Sums of Money by charging them with Judgments and indeed gives Name to one of the greatest Securities made use of in this Kingdom Statutes Merchant and of the Staple and very many especially Widows and Orphans have their whose Estates and Portions secured by Mortgages Bond of the Staple and Judgments Where or when shall a Man Purchase in this Kingdom Under what Title or on what Security shall he lay out his Money or secure the Portions he designs for his Children If he may not do it under divers Acts of Parliament the solemn and reiterated Declarations of his Prince and a quiet and uncontroverted Possession of Twenty Years together And this is the Case of thousands of Families who are Purchasers under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation It were a hard task to justifie those Acts in every Particular contained in them I will not undertake it but if it be consider'd that from 23. October 1641. until 29. May 1660. the time of his Majesties Restauration the Kingdom was upon the matter in one continued Storm That the alterations of Possessions was so universal and Properties so blended and mixt by Allotments and Dispositions made by the then Usurping Powers It may be well concluded that they must be somewhat more then Men that could or can frame a Law to take in every particular Case though it should have swoln to many Volumes and Laws which are to be of such universal Consequence as this was are to have a Regard to the Generality of a Kingdom or People though possibly some particular Person may have some hardship in his private Concern But if we may judge by general Laws by the produce and effect of them and at the same time have a Prospect to the Estate and Condition of this Kingdom from 1640. and as far backwards as you please until the time of his late Majesties happy Restauration and at the same time take into Consideration what the Kingdom became in few years after the Commission for the Execution of those Acts were at an end the Buildings and other Improvements the Trade and Commerce the vast Heads of Cattel and Flocks of Sheep equal to those of England together with great Sums of money brought over by our Fellow-Subjects of England who came to Purchase and Plant in this Kingdom The Manufactures set on foot in divers parts whereby the meanest Inhabitants were
not hold for the Reasons aforesaid Thirdly There is no such thing as Restitution of Temporal Estates in England for they were wiser there than to lose their Estates though they would be free to consent or advise that others may so it is very free for the King to make any Settlement of any Spiritual or Temporal Estates there as he shall think fit notwithstanding any Settlement he makes in Ireland Now remains I think one Objection to solve which may give some Obstruction to this intended Settlement which is that of the Gown-men or others who made Purchases of some New Interests bona fide Must they lose 〈◊〉 Purchase and Money To which I answer That although it may be reply'd Caveat emptor especially to the Gown-men who knew best of all that horrid Act of Settlement or so called was most unjust and could by no true Law hold yet because they are Persons useful for the Common-wealth and acted bona fide seeing the Estate out of the Ancient Proprietors Hands by so many Publick Acts as it was not like ever to come to him again there ought an Expedient to be found for the like that they be not losers and that either they or the Ancient Proprietors may be recompensed one way or other rather than it should be an Obstacle to the common Good And so I have done with this matter which I leave and recommend to God and you This is all the advice I can now give upon this matter and the Observations I make by my Conversation and Acquaintance with the People this year past and I am sure I am not deceived in my Opinion of them in relatition to 78 nor in the reasons they will make use of to perswade you to neglect your own Interest to save theirs and I am no less certain 27 is all inclined that way So you are to look to your selves and whilst Sun shines to make your Hay Nune tempus acceptabile Nunc dies Salutis Dum ergo tempus habemus operemur bonum maxime ad domesticos fidei 92 if authoriz'd will make all this Court go in your way by shewing them it is their Interest of which he has laid some Foundations already There remains another Observation which is That a Benedictine English Monk called Price is gone thither with the King who pretends to play that we call here premier aâ—mosnier in England they call it Clerk of the Closet to the King which Father Peters had there And here it is always a Bishop Now the Bishop of Orleans whose Office is to assist the King at Mass and all other Ecclesiastical Functions as Chief when the Lord High Almoner is not present gives the orders and spiritual directions cum privilegio exceptionis in the King's Palace and Liberties of it Why should we in our Country have any in that place but one of our selves Let them take place in England and so why would not you have this place for your self there or get it for M. B. and exercise the Functions in his absence rather than a Stranger should have it before our face and laugh at us Now to other business you are to know your business in Rome is concluded upon and past all difficulties only remains the Expedition of the Bulls which you may ever move as you please The Expences whereof by Dr. Sleyn's great care and Sollicitation with the help of Cardinal Howard and means of Monsieur Casone Favorite to his Holiness are reduced to a hundred Roman Crowns though it cost Dr. Fuller for worse 170. notwithstanding all the Favours and Sollicitations which were many he could employ Dr. Sleyn this Seignior Cousin should be thanked by a Civil Letter to which I wrote one of which I here send you a Draught you No. 19. A List of all the Men of Note that came with King James out of France or that followed him after so far as could be Collected THe Duke of Berwick Mr. Fitz-James Grand Prior. Duke Powis Count D' Avaux Ambassador from France Earl of Dover Lord Henry Howard Lord Thomas Howard Lord Drummond Marquess D' Estrades Earl Melfort Lord Seaforth Bishop of Chester who died here and is buried in Christ Church Gourdon Bishop of Galway Hamilton Dean of Glasgow Sir Edward Herbert Sir John Sparrow Collonel Porter Mr. Pedle Monsieur Pontee Engineer Captain Stafford Captain Trevanyon Sea Capt. Sir Roger Strickland ditto Captain Arundel ditto Collonel Sarsfield Coll. Anthony Hamilton Coll. John Hamilton Coll. Symon Lutterel Coll. Henry Lutterel Coll. Ramsey killed at Derry Lord Abercorne Coll. Dorrington Major Thomas Arthur Lord Dungan Capt. Mac Donnel Sea Capt. Sir William Jennings Coll. Sotherland Sir Hen. Bond Receiver Gen. Mr. Collins Com. of the Reven Coll Clifford Coll. Parker Marshal de Rosene Lieutenant General Mamve killed at Derry Lieu. Gen. Pusignan kill'd there also Major General Leary Lord Trendraught Lord Buchan Major John Gourdon Lieutenant Coll. John Skelton Major John Ennis Major William Douglas Lieut. Coll. Hungate Major William Connock Sir Charles Carney Lieut. Coll. Alex. Mackenzy Major James Fountaine Major Teig Regan Lieut. Coll. Edward Scott Major Robert Frayne Major Symon O Hogherne Lieut. Coll. Bynns Coll. James Purcel Lieut. Coll. George Traps Major Robert Ingram Major Edmond Pendergast Major John Gifford Lord Hunsdon Coll. Lieutenant Collonel Francis Leonard Coll. Alexander Cannon went for Scotland Major Edmond Bourk Major James Dempsy Major Frederick Cunningham Coll. Robert Fielding Major Richard Hillersden Major Boepry Monsieur Boisâ—ean made Governour of Cork His Brother St. Martin Commissary of the Artillery killed at Cromp-Castle Sir Edward Vaudrey Sir Charles Murray Sir Robert Parker Chaplains viz. FAther Nich. Dunbar Father Dan. Mac Ayliffe Anthony Mac Gwyre Nicholas Trapps John Madden Austin Mathews Laurence Moore Father Edmond Reyly John de Gravell John Hologhan Father Richard Peirce Patr. Aghy Darby Daley Thady Croley Danniel Mac Carthy Chirurgeons viz. JOhn Brunton Thady Regan Jo. Baptista Monlebeck Charles Stapleton John James Aremore John Cassel Edmond Tully Nicholas Reynard Captains WIlliam Charters William Oliphant Robert Charters Peter Blare Thomas Brown Francis Creighton James Buchan Alexander Gourdon George Lattin Sir Alphonso Moiclo John Baptista du Moll John Mollins John Wynnel John Fortescue Robert London George Roberts Thomas Scott James Fitz Symons William Gibbons William Delaval Mau. Flynn Richard Scott Connor O Toghil Anthony Ryan Rupert Napier Terence O Brian Edmund Kendelan Henry Crofton Richard Anthony Edmund Nugent John Plunkett John Dungan Rowland Smyth Gowen Talbot Simon Barnwell John Broder John Cavenagh Edmund Stack Walter Hastings Edward Widdrington Samuel Arnold Robert Welsh David Rock Charles Booth Jornoe Robert Fielding Francis Gyles John Barnardy Anthony Power John Chaple Rowland Watson Thomas Arundel Robert Hacket Sir William Wallis Richard Burton Cornelius Mac Mahon Talbot Lassels Richard Bucker Charles Fox Anthony Vane Strickland Tyrwhit John Manback Francis Cullange John Lumendato Fran. Lappanse Bernardo Buskett Jos. Pamnett Captain Millio George Coney Chevalier Devalory Sir Samuel