next under God chiefly to the Clemency of K. J. who restrained all he could the Insolence and Outrage of their Enemies of which I can give you some remarkable Instances and good Vouchers I appeal to the E. of Granard whether Duke Powis did not give him Thanks from K. J. for the Opposition he made in the House of Lords to the passing the Act of Attainder He encouraged the Protestant Lords â—o spâ—â—â— against it 〈◊〉 Paâ—liaâ—â—â— and the Act for Repeal of the Acts of Settlement and desired that he and the other Protestant Lords should use their Endeavours to obstruct them To which the Lord Granard answered That they were too few to effect that but if the King would not have them pass his way was to engage some of the Roman Catholick Lords to stop them To which the Duke replied with an Oath That the King durst not let them know that he had a mind to have them stopt And yet this Author c. 2. s 5. n. 3. p. 23. would have us believe That the Duke used his Interest with the King to put a stop to them but was not able to do it I farther appeal to that noble Lord the E. of Granard whether the same day that the News of the driving the Protestants before the Walls of Derry come to Dublin as his Lordship was going to the Parliament House he did not meet K. J. who asked him where he was going His Lordship answered to enter his Protestation against the Repeal of the Acts of Settlement Upon which K. J. told him That he was fallen into the hands of a People who ramm'd that and many other things down his Throat His Lordship took that occasion to tell his Majesty of the driving before Derry The King told him that he was grieved for it That he had sent immediate Orders to discharge it and that none but a barbarous Moscovite so he stiled General Rosen who commanded that driving who thereby it seems was bred or born in Moscovy could have thought of so cruel a Contrivance Let me add to this Testimony of my Lord Granard's what I had from the Mouth of a Scots Clergyman who being in King James's Army the 26th of June 1690. the Thursday before the Boyne asked Major-General Maxwell a Roman Catholick how K. J. came to pass the Act of Attainder and the Repeal of the Acts of Settlement being at that time so visibly against his Interest The General replied Sir if you did but know the Circumstances the King is under and the Hardships these Men the Irish put upon him you would bemoan him with Tears instead of blaming him But what would you have him to do All his other Subjects have deserted him this is the only Body of Men he has to appear for him he is in their hands and he must please them Yet this Author affirms confidently c. 3. s 12. n. 20. p. 163. That K. J. of his own accord was the first who motioned the Repealing of the Acts of Settlement in his Speech at the opening of the Parliament in Dublin But the Author has not annexed that Speech in his long Appendix where many other Papers of greater Bulk less Consequence and much harder to be procured are inserted at large But no doubt he had a Reason for it therefore I have annexed it to this No. 1. and there you will see not a Word of what this Author avers but rather the contrary viz. That the King did not desire a Repeal of the Acts of Settlement but only a Relief to such as had been injured by those Acts which may happen in the justest Acts in the World especially of the Settlement of a whole Nation after such a Rebellion and terrible Revolution as that of 41. And K. J. there desires no farther for them than may be consistent with Reason Justice and the publick Good of his People All the Words of his Speech which relate to the Acts of Settlement are these I shall also most readily consent to the making such good and wholsom Laws as may be for the general Good of the Nation the Improvement of Trade and the Relieving such as have been injured by the late Acts of Settlement as far forth as may be consistent with Reason Justice and the Publick Good of my People These are his Words and if our Author had set them down he would have thought it a hard Task to have found fault with them I never heard any Protestant say but that there were many hard Cases and even unjust in the Acts of Settlement But they excuse it by saying that it is impossible to be otherwise in so general and great a Settlement where so many thousands are concerned and that it is better to bear with that than to unsettle a Nation which may have worse Consequences and fall into the like Mistakes again and again And this seems to be King James's Sense of that Matter all along But will any say that such as shall appear to be injured ought not to be redressed if a way can be found agreeable to Reason Justice and Publick Good This would be to plead expresly against Reason and Justice and likewise against the Publick Good I am told that King James's meaning was to have a Sum of Money raised for such as had been injur'd by the Acts of Settlement but by no means to encroach upon the Acts And what Fault could our Author have found with this unless he thinks that Justice ought not to be done to the Irish or not to be executed against Protestants which may be the Reason why in all his Railings at the cruel Act of Attainder he has forgot to give one Reason why Rebels should not be attainted or why these Irish Protestants should not have been so dealt with supposing them to be Rebels as K. J. and that Parliament did certainly suppose But was it not very cruel to attaint so many To this they will reply was it not as cruel and more criminal that so many should be Rebels But this is said only for Arguments sake for it is most certain that K. J. did not propose nor was inclined either to this Act of Attainder or to the Repeal of the Acts of Settlement as this Author slanderously reports of him but with exceeding ill luck as to his Vouchers of which he gives another Instance c. 3. s 12. n. 2. p. 145. where he says it is certain Chief Justice Nugent and Baron Rice succeeded in their Design when they came over to England in Spring 88. to concert the methods of Repealing the Acts of Settlement Whereas all here upon the place know that K. J. did then positively refuse to consent to it which my Lord Sunderland does witness in his Letter of the 23 of March 89. and says that the King was resolved not to think of that year and perhaps never And yet this Author confidently quotes that very Letter in this same place as a Voucher on his side but
by Gentlemen of the Association all the Arms were taken from him and made use of to Arm their own Men. They did not find him actually Robbing nor did he Invade or Assault them All these things our Author has to Answer And many more Instances might be given They tell me that hardly a Day past in the North without something of this Nature The Prison at Cavan was broken open by the Associators and the Prisoners set at Liberty The like was done in other Northern Counties for ought I know in all Of this the Lord Deputy complains in that same Parliament which our Author quotes of the 7th of March 88. Our Author should have considered whether these Prisoners or their Creditors were actually Robbing and Assaulting these Associators or whether this was no Offence against the Government at their own hand and without Law to release Debtors Fellons Thieves and Murderers and how he will bring this about to be meerly Acting on the Defensive As likewise their ordering the Collectors of the Revenue most of whom if not all in the North joyn'd with them to bring in to them the King's Money after the Example of their Friends in England being for their Majesty's Service But their Reign was so short that I think their Accompts amounted to no great matter But to make an end of this Head viz. Whether the Northern Associators gave no other Provocation to the Government before the Descent of the Army in March 88. than to defend themselves against Robbers Before this Army came down they had received Commissions from the Prince of Orange even before he was declared King in England for his Commissions bore date before that time viz. Feb. 5.88 as you will see by one of the subaltern Commissions which was shewn to me the Copy of which I have annexed numb 18. These Commissions were brought over by Captain Leighton whom the Associators sent to the Prince to manage their Business and procure thess Commissions which I am told his Highness was very unwilling to grant thinking it rash and unseasonable but was over-powered by their Importunity In short they not only acted by these Commissions but proclaimed the Prince for their King before the Descent of that Army This you will allow to be somewhat of a higher nature than bare Self-defence against Robbers And now judge whether as our Author says this viz. Defending themselves against Râ—â—â—â—â— was all the reason the Lord Deputy and Council had to call them Rebels c. and to send that Army to Reduce them Yet this Author from p. 111. to 117. inveighs bitterly against the Government 's disarming the Protestants in Dublin 24 Feb. 88. and again by King James's Proclamation dated 20 July 89. and makes this no less a Tyranny than the French Dragooning and a plain Design to rob them of all their Estates and Property and put them to a Massacre But because he must foresee how horribly ridiculous even to madness it wou'd appear to make all these Declamations for disarming ones Enemies which none but Fools would neglect he brings himself off thus C. 3. s 8. n. 20. p. 116. It may perhaps be imagined says he by those who are Strangers to our Affairs that we had abus'd our Arms to oppress or wrong our Neighbours or to oppose the King and therefore deserv'd to lose them But it is observable that it doth not appear that any one Protestant in Ireland before this disarming had us'd his Arms to injure any Roman Catholick nor did they hurt any that was not either actually Robbing them of their Goods or Assaulting their Persons no not in the North where they refus'd to give up their Arms they kept even there on the Defensive and offended no Man but when first assaulted so that there was not the least Reason or Colour to disarm us Thus our Author and a great deal more to the same purpose You have heard what the Protestants did before the first Disarming 24 Feb. 89. But the second which was 20 July 89. was in the very heat of the War 'twixt King James and the Northern Associators Kirk was come from England and Riding with his Ships in Lough Foyle for the relief of Derry This Disarming was but ten days before Lieutenant-General Mack Carty was defeated and himself taken Prisoner at Eneskillen and but eleven days before the Relief of Derry which was the first of August and the other the last of July 8â— and a Month after Schomberg landed with the whole English Army Yet all this notwithstanding our Author is very sure that not one Protestant in Ireland before this Disarming no not in the North had oppos'd King James so that there was not the least Reason or Colour to Disarm them This Author knows very well that long before this the People of Derry took out their Pardon for shutting their Gates against the Earl of Antrim's Regiment which was a confession of some sort of Guilt Though none could imagine he had ever been inform'd of these things It is true he was in Dublin at that time and so might not know if you can think that possible But he has been since in the North where his Friends and Relations live and is now in a great Post there even in Derry and was a considerable while before he wrote this Book and if his Intelligence can be so bad where he pretends it is capable of knowing most we may justly suspect him in other matters and where he assumes to pass Judgment upon the Arcana of all the States of Europe as if he had been of the Cabinet Council to all the Governments in Christendom He tells you p. 9 where King Charles the Second mistook his Measures and if he had taken the Author's Advice wou'd in all probability have humbled that French Monarch to the advantage of all Europe And p. 14 and 15. he reads the same Politicks to France Savoy the Emperor c. and tells them their true Interest and what may ruin their Countries But this is so familiar with him and you will meet with it so often that I will not trouble you with Quotations you may trace him by the Observator Thus much for what he asserts n. 9. p. 105. viz. That there was no Provocation given by the Protestants in the North for the Lord Deputy to send down an Army against them in March 1688. All this concerns the North where this Author then was not but to shew that the Protestants even in Dublin where the Author was were not idle he tells p. 97. and 98. of a Plot they had no less than to seize the Lord Deputy himself with the Castle of Dublin where the Stores of Arms and Ammunition lay And this he takes pains to demonstrate to have been very feasible and discovers plainly a regret and disdain at their Loyalty who hinder'd it He in a witty Sarcasm lays the blame upon that mighty Veneration to the very Name of Authority in which the
of K. James II. when he came among them sacrificing his Interest to the carrying on of their own Designs did justly deserve that Judgment which fell upon them in the Issue of that War We have done with their Loyalty at least their Mouths are stopt against the Defection of so many of the Church of England Of the Roman Catholicks of England And I think the Roman Catholicks of England too are not to insult For though the Oaths be not come to them and therefore we cannot say certainly whether they will Swear or not yet there lies this against them viz. in their publick Chapels here in London they pray for K. W. and Q. M. which some of their Communion told me I hear that all the Protestant Non-Jurors say There is the same Argument against praying as swearing And of all their number none did allow himself to pray but Dr. Sherlock alone who as he tells in the Preface to his Recantation stood single among the Non-swearing Clergy upon this account and you see he did not stay with them But the same Principle that led him to pray brought him to swear too rather than stick out Therefore let not these Roman Catholicks be high-minded because others have fallen but rather fear lest having gone already Dr. Sherlock's length of Praying they may come to Swear like him if they should be pinch'd as he was Nay I have heard several of them argue for the Lawfulness of it only they would keep from it as long as they could I say not that this does conclude upon others who do not so but it may make them more modest in rejoycing over our Fall Non-Jurors of the Church of England Upon the whole I must say That there are none have cleverly stuck to the Principles they profess'd but the Non-jurors of the Church of England For as they profess'd them all along in the same sense they have stuck to them now and have given that demonstration of their being in earnest that they are content to lose all rather than deviate from them And this is one Discovery among the rest that this Revolution has made It has discovered the inflexible Loyalty of these Men whom neither personal Injuries nor Attempts upon their Religion Liberty or Property can move from that Duty to the King which they think a Principle of their Religion and this is a high Vindication of their Religion and a Recommendation of it But now we are upon the Discovery let us not forget to do Justice to all We cannot forget the Rise and Source of our Disease whence all these Evils we now feel and foresee have come upon us and that is our wicked Presbyterian Rebellion against K. C. 1. which banished his Children into Popish Countries God thereby fulfilling a just Judgment upon these Unchristian Rebels Presbyterian Loyalâ—y permitting his Son to suck in the Principles of Roman Catholick Religion of which these Hypocrites against their own Consciences accus'd his Father and on that pretence instigated his deluded Subjects to Rebell against him Therefore it is plainly the Presbyterians we have to thank for K. J's being a Roman Catholick and all the ill Consequences which depend upon it God often in his All-wise Providence suffers Rebellion to bring on those same Evils for prevention of which we chose to Rebell as the Jews crucified Christ lest the Romans should come Joh. 11.48 and his Death brought the Romans who did take away their Place and Nation This had been an Application more befitting a Divine and to have warn'd us of those Sins which have provok'd God to send his Judgments amongst us rather than to bite the Stone not minding the Hand that threw it to lay all upon K. J. if it had been true But to tell down-right Untruths of him or to misrepresent the Truth to appear other than really it is which is likewise Lying and perhaps the more wicked of the two being harder to be discovered and so more apt to impose upon unwary and unthinking People This is direct Diabolical the Office and the Denomination of the Adversary and false Accuser Popish Principles which are embraced It had been a more proper and serviceable Undertaking of this Author to justifie himself and others of his complection from this Imputation and several other things formerly rail'd at against Popery as the Deposing Doctrine Dispensing with Oaths Jesuitical Equivocations and Mental Reservations Not keeping Faith with Hereticks c. where we own we must have kept the same Promises made to another and all this or any other Falsity or Immorality to be allow'd for the Good of the Church If to preserve the Protestant Religion will excuse us to dispense with God's Commands as much as we say the Papists have done to preserve their Church we must expect that the Protestant Religion will grow as hateful to all good Men as the Church of Rome is to the most Bigotted against it or the Jewish Doctrine of Corban which dispenses with the fifth Commandment upon the same Pretences viz. for the Good of the Church to enrich the Treasury of the Temple or the Phanatick Confession of Faith That Dominion is founded in Grace But all these have the Advantage of our Church of England Clergy The Jews had the Tradition of their Elders to plead and the Church of Rome have their Great Council of Lateran for the Deposing Doctrine the Council of Constance for Violating Faith to Hereticks c. and they have their Traditions too for the Benefit of the Church and the Presbyterian has his Solemn League and Covenant But the Church of England Clergy are destitute of all these Helps There is nothing of these but the direct contrary in all her Articles Homilies Canons Rubricks or any Constitutions of her Church The Church of England Vindicated And the Metropolitan of all England with a Quorum of Bishops and several hundreds of the Inferiour Clergy have adhered to the Doctrine of their Church and suffered themselves to be Deprived rather than act or teach contrary to it Therefore this cannot be called a Defection of the Church of England but only of particular Persons who have done it in opposition to their Superiors in the Church as well as in the State and let them answer for it but let the Reputation of the Church be preserved It has already received both a Testimony and a Vindication from the Mouth of K. J. himself who as some present have told when an Irish Lord at Dublin attending upon His Majesty at Supper began to reproach the Church of England for her Apostacy from her former Principles of Loyalty c. The King reply'd They are the Church of England who have kept to the Principles of the Church of England The Lord made Answer But Sir how few are they in comparison with the rest The King said They are more than Christ had to begin Christianity with And all Rightful Kings of England have this
expended by Parliament and little of the Credit come to K. James Whereas in Sir Peter Petts Speech n. 10. Apendix and other Vouchers you will see That K. James expended Millâ—ons out of his own Pocket upon the Navy Then you say in the Latter End of K. James's Regin Innuendo as if he had not minded the Navy from the Beginning of his Reign The contrary to which you will see in the short Abstract of Mr. Pepys's Account of the Navy n. 11. Appendix And no doubt your Informer could have told you this as well as the rest if you had had a mind to be inform'd But the Reason you give of your former Mistake is beyond all this You say You were led into this Inference viz. Of K. James's letting the English Fleet Decay on purpose to Rume the Trade of England that the French might grow Great at Sea by hearing that the then Prince of Orange found no Opposition at Sea when he came for England Could there be no other Reason why the Prince of Orange found no Opposition at Sea but K. James's purposely letting the Ships of England Decay c What if the Prince of Orange missed the English Fleet which was the Case He found no Opposition at Salisbury neither Our Author might hence as well infer that K. James purposely let all the Pikes and Guns in England Rot and Rust c Are these Inferences fit for a Bishop upon his serious Repentance for his publick Breach of the Ninth Command and Slandering the Foot-steps of GOD's Ancinted And yet in the same Breath continuing to do it still again in Malice that grows Ridiculous with its Rage For in the next words after his Confessing his Mistake he would have you believe that K. James did own this Lye against himself But the preceding Discourses of K. James sayes the Author are exactly Related What were these Discourses You have it told in his Book in the same place where his Recantation is viz. c. 3. § 6. n. 1. Where he tells How many Roman Catholicks who pretended to know his K. James's mind confidently affirmed That he purposely let the Ships of England Decay and Râ—t that the French might grow Great at Sea and Destroy the Trade of the English And sayes the Author the King himself could not sometimes forbear words to the same purpose Now this the Author even in Penitentials Affirms to be Exactly Related And no doubt he must think his stock of Credit very great that upon his bare Word we should believe so very improbable a Story as that K. James should himself tell so great a Lye against himself to render himself the most Odious to England that could possibly be Contrived All the Aspertions which his Enemies cast upon Him put together would not Blacken him so much in the Eyes of English-men as such a Design to Ruin their Trade on purpose to let the French get it And indeed it must raise a very strange Idea of him to all People in the World that a King could have so much ill Nature so much Treachery as to Ruin and Betray his own People who were then very kind to him on purpose to bring them into the Power of their Enemies and that he should be transported with such an implacable Malice against them as to be content to Ruin himself to be Revenged on them to make himself a Vassal to France that they might become French Slaves Which our Author sayes is Evident as I have before Quoted him And that a King should be so fond of this Character as to Invent Lyes against himself on purpose to have it believed And to harden the Hearts of all English-men against Him at the same time that He was Courting them and as Dr. Gorges's Letter tells us spoke the kindest Things of them upon all Occasions and as this Author in several places of this Book that He Reckoned much upon His Friends in England And c. 3. near the end of § 13. that the Irish Papists Refrained from Massacring the Protestants in Ireland lest It should shock many of their Friends in England and Scotland from whom they expected Great Matters And that K. James depended on some Protestants in England for Succour and Assistance rather more than on the Roman Catholicks c. Judge then how probable it is that K. James should Report such things of himself as He knew must Disgust all these and indeed all Honest Men But the Author finds a Reason for it It was sayes he in his loose Recantation to incourage the Irish Nation into the Facility of Invading England And was there no other way to do it but for King James to tell so Scandalous a Lye of himself And which my Lord Tyrconnel and many others of the Irish Nobility and Gentry besides all the English knew to be false The chief Encouragement they had to come to England was what our Author tells the Friends they supposed they had especially the Protestants in England and Scotland To whom this Account of King James especially from his own Mouth would have been a strange sort of a Recommendation But if that thing in which K. James was most to be admired and took greatest Pains and which was most Visible viz. his care of the Navy can by this Author's Art be thus turn'd into the Greatest and most Invidious Objection against him what fair Representation of K. James can be expected from such an Observator as as this Or what Credit to any thing he has said Who would have you believe him because he takes God to Witness of his Sincere Representing K. James and his Party in this Book And even where he must Cenfess his Error Repents as you have seen But we have been too long upon this Pray God this Author's Repentance for this pretended Repentance and all other his Sins may be more sincere and hearty before he Dye And particularly that God may give him Grace to Repent Sincerely and Confess Honestly all the Errors Willful or Malicious Representations in this Book of his with which I now proceed C. 3. § 12. p. 148. n. 6. He Reflects upon K. Jame's Sincerity who in his Answer to the Petition of the Lords for a Parliament in England presented 17. Nov. 88. gave it as one Reason why he could not Comply because it was Impossible whilst part of the Kingdom was in the Enemies Hands to have a Free Parliament Thus he and to make you believe him very exact he qutoes the Kings Answer in the Margent But on purpose leaves out those Words which would shew the Inference he makes from it to be very Inconsequential his Inference is That the same Impossibility lay on him K. James against holding a Parliament in Ireland The Kings Words quoted in his Margent are these How is it possible a Parliament should be Free in all its Circumstances whilst an Enemy is in the Kingdom There are but a very few Words more in that Answer which are these And can
present Government Thus excellently does our Author argue Now Imagine he had such a Story as Glencoe to tell of any of King James's Officers in Ireland how easily cou'd he by his Art make it Reflect upon the King himself and absolve all those High-landers from their Allegiance and give them leave to Protect their Lives another way O what Declamations we should have had of the Bloody Irish Cut-Throats Massacrers c And what use would he have made of their giving it under their Hands that what they did was by the Kings Express Command and none Punish'd for it He would never have given K. James Liberty to Deny it or make any Defence but would have Represented to the Three Kingdoms what they were to Expect from him who could give such Orders exceeding in in Cruel Barbarity the Wild Irish or Tartars He would have made more of this than of all the Storys he has Collected in his Book if they were all true But his Zeal must be Commended p. 206. n. 8. where he reckons as a means of Destroying the Protestant Religion the Debauchery and universal Corruption of Manners that then prevail'd Take his own Words p. 207. The Perjuries in the Courts the Robberys in the Country the Lewd Practices in the Stews the Oaths â—lasphemys and Curses in the Armys and Streets c. And these indeed are a means to Destroy not only the Protestant but any Christian Religion I cannot wish as I hear one did that the Irish Army were more Guilty of this than the Protestant Army But that these are Increas'd beyond former Examples in the Protestant Army all of them that retain the least sense of Religion do bemoan with Regret but I have mentioned this already I am sure it can be no good Religion which is promoted by these Means or suffers them to secure any Interest whatsoever God does not need our Vertue much less our Vices to help him to Govern the World And he will not be serv'd by the Breach of his Commands Can we expect says Dr. Gorge in his Letter Sodom to destroy Babylon or Debauchery to destroy Popery Our Enemy says he Fights with the Principle of a Mistaken Conscience against us we against the Conviction of our Principles against them I might inlarge upon this Subject But to returne to our Author He speaks with Just Indignation p. 173. against General Rosen's Stratagem of bringing the Protestants in that Country before the Walls of Derry and to threaten to Destroy them all if the City would not receive them which would have brought a Famine into the Town and forced them to Surrender I need not take pains against the Barbarity of this design For K. James express'd his Just Resentment of it and Countermanded it upon the first notice And in his Circular Letters to the Governors of Towns and Officers Commanding in chief in the North to whom these Orders of Rosens had come he Commands them by no means to obey these Barbarous Orders of Rosen's And accordingly Rosen's Orders for the Driving were not Executed in most places in the North. This I have from the Officers to whom these Orders were sent and from several Protestants who have seen them and can produce them But our Author discovers his skill in War when he says that he never met with any thing like it in History nor do I believe says he it was ever Practis'd by any Nation unless the French have used it in their late Wars Many instances might be given him of as Barbarous Exploits in War particularly that of Reducing places by Famine But to speak Impartially Is not Starving a County or a Province as Barbarous as Starving a City And was not Crowding all the Irish Men Women and Children over the River Shannon done on purpose to reduce them to Famine And it had its effect and many of them Dyed and Women Miscarried and many were Starv'd in that Driving over the Shannon insomuch that some of the Protestant Officers who were employed on that Expedition expressed the greatest Regret to see such Lamentable Spectacles and were asham'd of their Commissions And those who were thus Driven had King William's Protections in their pockets In exposing these things our Author should take care not to Wound the Government through the Sides of the Irish But his Zeal carry'd him too far where in the Heads of his Discourse he makes this one That when the Bishop of Meath apply'd to King James concerning this Driving King James he sayes excus'd Rosen And when you turn to the Book to see this made out p. 174. All you find is that King James told the Bishop That he had sent Orders to stopt it and if he Rosen had been his own Subject he would have call'd him to Account for it This is a strange way of excusing him But it shews how sharp-sighted this Author is in finding Faults You may be sure by this that none have escaped him Nor can he spare them even where it plainly Reflects upon the present Government which he pretends to Complement But this is only by Innuendos Tho' he has brought it so near as to make the Application very easie This Author Renders the Kings Preregative Hateful to the People and Inclines them to a Common Wealth This is more pardonable than his plain and express proclaiming War against K. William and Q. Mary That is Sounding an Alarum to the Nation to beware of them and watch them narrowly as their greatest Enemies He sayes p. 4. That Certain and Infallible Destruction will be brought to England as it was to Rome and in a Great measure to Florence if ever the Prerogative do swallow up the Liberties and Priviledges of the Subject p. 77. That their choosing their own Representatives is the only Barrier they have against The Encroachments of their Governor p. 57. That it is the Kingdoms money that payes the Souldiers p. 85. That Abuses in the Kingdom proceeded from the Long Disuse of Parliaments p. 133. n. 6. He would Limit that Prerogative of the Crown of Coyning Money and by his Quotation in the Margent would take it quite away giving the King no power To change his Money nor impair nor inhanse nor make any Money but of Silver without the Assent of the Lords and all the Commons Yet he cannot forget to have heard of Leather Money Coyn'd in England and past-board in Holland Here he discovers what he would be at To Depress the Prerogative even to a Common-Wealth And this or Arbitrary Monarchy must be the Consequence of dividing the Interest of King and People and setting them up to Fight against one another to Watch and Guard against one another as the Greatest Enemies that if one prevail the other must be destroyed A Kingdom divided Mat. 12.25 This is not altogether so pleasant a prospect as the Passive-Obedience-Men afford us while they represent the Prerogative as the greatest Safe-guard of the Rights and Priviledges of the People
And therefore to be Lov'd by the People and kept Great and Inviolable as their Greatest Security and Glory The Author's Conclusion Protestation of his Sincerity It is now time to come to a Conclusion If I have not tyred you I am sure I have my self I will therefore Close this Discourse with a small Reflection upon this Authors Conclusion p. 239. Wherein he protests before God That he has not Aggravated or Mis-represented the Proceedings against us out of Favour or Affection to a Party c. By this he would seem as equal to the Irish as to the English to the Papist as to the Protestant For which I must Refer you to what has been already said But if this had been his Principle why would he lay such Loads upon a Popish King for choosing to trust Papists in his Army and even to prefer them to the Protestants Is it not the same reason as for a Protestant Prince to desire a Protestant Army And if in such a Case you could not sind persons so Qualify'd as you desire would you not take the best you could get and give them time and opportunities farther to Accomplish themselves This Author knows very well this was King James's Case with the Irish That there was not a Gentleman among them but was employ'd My Lord Chief Justice Keating in his Letter to Sir John Temple 29. Decemb. 88. sayes The Roman Catholick Nobâ—â—â—â—y and Gentry of the Kingdom are Vniversally concerned in the present Army and in that which is to be rais'd p. 351. of this Authors Book But he King James was forc'd to take in the Scum likewise to make up an Army Yet this Author makes it one of the Heads of his Discourse p. 25. The insufficiency of the persons Employ'd by King James And Improves that to an Argumnnt for his Abdication I am very sensible of the many ill Steps were made in K. James's Government and above all of the Mischievous Consequence of the Lord Tyrconnel's Administration which the most of any one thing brought on the Misfortunes of his Master But when by what means soever things were brought to that pass that K. James was deserted by England and the Protestants in Ireland no Man in his Senses can blame him for making use of the Irish nor my Lord Tyrconnel for Arming Inlisting Arraying them c. In doing whereof considering the great Trust reposed in him no man of Honour or Moral Honesty can truly blame him Says my Lord Chief Justice Keating as inserted by this Author p. 349. And this Author knows very well that Lord Chief Justice Keating was a firm Protestant and a Man of Sense And this Author does Confess p. 101. n. 5. That these new made 〈◊〉 were set on Foot partly on the first Noise of the P. of Orange's descent and partly in the beginning of Decem. 88. Now at this time to hinder K. James to raise an Army of Irish to assist him is the Argument our Author had undertaken and for which he blackens K. James to the utmost He says p. 166. That without any Necessity at all he K. James threw himself upon these People he Encourag'd them he Armed them gave Commissions even to those that had been Torys c. Some such perhaps he might Employ I have known a High-way-Man an Officer in the Army in K. Charles II. time and no Notice taken of it but it was because he could get no better as is said above But to say he had no Necessity at all to raise these Men cannot have common Sence in it unless this Author thinks that at that time the Protestants of Ireland would have Fought for K. James against the P. of Orange and so that he had no need of the Irish If that be our Authors meaning I hope he will Explain himself And likewise whether he does not a little Aggravate the Case which he protest before GOD he does not when he assures us p. 15. That K. James did Prosecute the same if not worse Methods towards the Protestants in Ireland than the K. of France did with the Hugonots in his Dominions Why Was there any Dragooning in Ireland such as we have heard of in France Yes Our Author tells us C. 3. § 8. n. 15. p. 112. This was perfect Dragooning to the Protestants Terrible Dragooning Pray what was this It must raise a Dismal Apprehension in the Reader some Exquisit Torture Protestant Bridles or some-thing like Amboina Parturiunt Montes The whole matter was Disarming the Protestants in Dublin 24. Feb. 88. But what Occasion was there for this Disarming What Reason had the Government to be Apprehensive of these Protestants All the Protestants Generally in Vlster Connoght and Munster in all Ireland except Dublin and other Parts of Linster whom the. Lord Deputy kept in Awe with what Forces he had were then actually in Armes in Opposition to the Government and had enter'd into Associations to carry on their War But may be these Protestants in Dublin were more Loyal than the other Protestants of Ireland What Reason had the Lord Deputy to Suppose that But this Author tells us in the same Section p. 97. That they had a Plot to Seize my Lord Deputy himself and the Castle of Dublin with the Stores Ammunition c. But when was this It was says the Author when the News came that K. James had sent Commissioners to Treat with the P. of Orange This was very early And what if the â—râ—nce had Aâ—cepâ—â—d of a Treaty How did they know but the King and Prince might have Agreed But they were resolv'd to Anticipate all this And not to wait even the Princes Commands They were for Supererogation and to shew Zeal Extraordinary But after all if their Numbers were not Considerable in Proportion to the Kings Army or if they were not well Arm'd the Government might have over look'd their Rashness and let them alone In Answer to this our Author tells in the same Place That they K. Jame's Army were but a Handful to the Protestants there being Men and Arms Enough in Dublin alone to have dealt with them And p. 111. That they the Protestants had Arms enough to make the Papists Afraid and to beat them too if they had had a little Assistance and Encouragement of Authority to Attempt it And they knew how to Supply the want of Authority another way Now let any one Judge in the point of Reason Is there a Man in his Senses that had to do with these People in the Circumstances they and the rest of the Protestants of Ireland stood but would have Disarm'd them if he could And for our Author to Equal this to the French Dragooning is betraying of his Cause It is rendring the whole Suspected To Aggravate things beyond the Truth does not make them more but nothing at all What Notion does this give us of the French Persecution Had that King as much to say against the Hugonots as K. James had against
of his Majesty's Letters thereunto annexed in favor of the Right Honorable Jennico Ld. Viscount Gormanstowne and James Ld. Viscount Ikerin concerning the Reversion of the Outlawries against their Ancestors and having advised with the rest of his Majesty's Counsel at Law in this Kingdom we humbly offer to your Excellency's Consideration That some time after his late Majesty's happy Restauration we find several Applications were made for the allowing of Writs of Error to be issued in order to the Reversion of Outlawries in High Treason and Attainders upon Account of the late Rebellion which being referred to his Majesty 's then Judges in this Kingdom there were several Debates then had before them whether such Outlawries could be reversed by reason of the Statute made in the 27th Year of Queen Elizabeth in this Kingdom for the Attainder of James Eustace late Viscount Baltinglass and others therein mentioned who had been lawfully and by due course of Law outlawed and attained of Treason and the Statute confirms those Outlawries and Attainders which were past any Error Insufficiency or other Defect in form or Matter in them to the contrary notwithstanding and farther enacts for the time to come that every offender thereafter being lawfully convict of Treason by Verdict or Process of Outlawry according to the due course of the Common Laws or Statutes of this Realm should forfeit all his Lands of any Estate of Inheritance and that every such Attainder according to the course of the common Laws and Statutes of this Realm should be of the same force as if it had been by Act of Parliament and by reason also that since the making of that Statute they did not find that any Outlawry or Attainder for Treason in this Kingdom had been reversed by Writ of Error especially after the death of the Party outlawed and his Lands granted from the Crown to others Whereupon the said Judges having then heard Counsel on both sides did not come to any Resolution or was any thing farther done upon those Applications We do therefore offer to your Excellencies Consideration that many of his Majesty's Subjects in England and in this Kingdom have at this time in their Possession the Lands of divers old Proprietors who in the Year 1641. and after were outlawed for Treason which Lands have been granted to them by Letters Patents upon the late Settlement of this Kingdom some of whose Titles may be weakened or prejudiced as we humbly conceive by the Reversal of such Outlawries and some parts of these two Lords Estates are now as appears by the Petition of Captain Daniel Gahan Sir William Petty and Samuel Green Esq which your Excellency hath referred unto us in their possessions who hold the same by Letters Patents from his Majesty and have thereupon humbly Petitioned your Excellency to take their Case into your Excellency's Consideration That as to such Lands as these two Lords or the Heirs of such other persons who have been so outlawed are in possession of or have been restored unto by virtue of the late Acts of Settlement they are not as we conceive disabled or any ways hindred by such Outlawries from enjoying the same Neither do we conceive that there would be any Inconvenience in restoring these two noble Lords who do well deserve his Majesty's Grace and Favour to their Blood and Honours with a Proviso that they should not thereby be entituled to any Lands out of their Possession which have been granted by Letters Patents to others as might be done by Act of Parliament but upon the reversal of any Outlawries by Writs of Error there can be no restriction in the Judgment which must by Law be general that they shall be restored to whatsoever they lost by reason of such Outlawries But whether upon the whole Matter your Excellency will think fit to issue such Warrants forthwith in order to the reversal of the said Outlawries as by his Majesty's said Letters are directed on behalf the said Lords Viscounts Gormanstowne and Ikerin or will forbear the same till his Majesty's Pleasure herein shall be farther known is humbly submitted to your Excellency's Consideration June 29. 1686. William Domvile Jo. Temple The Extract of my Ld. Clarendon's Letter to the E. of Sunderland July 6. 1686. of so much as relates to the Matter of the Outlawries My Lord AS soon as I had the King's Letters permitting the Lords Gormanstowne and Ikerin to reverse the Outlawries of their Ancestors I acquainted my Lord Chancellour and Mr. Attorney therewith But the Noise of this matter was come before the Letter for some time before Caveats were entered against the granting any such Writs of Reversal by three Persons who by virtue of the Acts of Settlement are in Possession of some Lands the ancient propriety of those Lords I referred the Matter to Mr. Attourney and Mr. Sollicitour for I could doe no less requiring them to call to their Assistence the rest of the King 's learned Counsel several of whom are Roman Catholicks and to report their opinions to me which they have done and I herewith transmit their Report to your Lordship which I beseech you to lay before his Majesty it is a thing of very great Consequence and deserves the most serious Consideration Numb 21. King James his Speech to the Lord Mayor c. upon his quitting of Dublin soon after the Action at the Boyne the 2d of July 1690. Gentlemen I Find all things at present run against Me. In England I had an Army consisting of Men stout and brave enough which would have fought but they proved false and deserted me Here I had an Army that was loyal enough but that they wanted true Courage to stand by me at the critical Minute Gentlemen I am now a second time necessitated to provide for my own Safety and seeing I am now no longer able to to protect you and the rest of my good Subjects the Inhabitants of this City I advise you all to make the best terms you can for your selves and likewise for my menial Servants in regard that I shall now have no occasion to keep such a Court as I have done I desire you all to be kind to the Protestant Inhabitants and not to injure them or this City for though I at present quit it yet I do not quit my Interest in it Numb 22. To the King 's most Excellent Majesty the humble Address of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Sheriffs of the City and Liberty of Dublin in behalf of themselves and others the Protestant Freemen and Inhabitants thereof THus long great Sir our unparallel'd late Deliverance wrought by the hand of God the first Mover the principal Author of all our Good hath hitherto most justly employed all the Faculties of our Souls in the profound Contemplation of his mysterious and unbounded Providence receiving from us the slender Reward but necessary Sacrifice of our hearty Praise and Thanks but now to you great Sir the next recollected Thought with
AN ANSWER TO A BOOK Intituled The State of the PROTESTANTS IN IRELAND Under the Late King JAMES's Government In which Their Carriage towards him is Justified and the Absolute Necessity of their endeavouring to be Free'd from his Government and of Submitting to their present Majesties is Demonstrated London Printed in the Year 1692. TO THE READER READER I Did not intend to have troubled you with any Preface But this is occasioned by a Pamphlet lately published called An Answer to GREAT BRITAIN's JUST COMPLAINT wherein pag. 54. there is this Character of the Book I have Answered which he calls Dr. King's whom I have not nam'd but now may from the Authority of this Author A Book says he writ with that known Truth and Firmness of Reason that every Page of it is a Demonstration which hath been often threatned with an Answer but the long silence of the Party shews Guilt and Despair For the long silence I must tell the Reader That this Answer was prepared upon the first coming out of Dr. King's Book and therefore the Quotations of the Page are according to the first Edition of it in Quarto in the later Editions the Doctor has found cause to make some Amendment which I have taken notice of That this Answer has not before this time appeared in Print has been occasioned by the severe Watch that is kept over all the Presses which has made many interruptions and long delays considering which it is more to be wonder'd at that it has now got through the Briars than that it has stuck so long This must excuse a Difference you will find in the Paper in some Sheets and other Eye-sores of the Impression being done at different Times and Places For these I shall be less concern'd if you will pardon one which was occasioned by the Importunity and Fears of some of the Printers that is to call People by their usual though not proper Names like the Woman of Samaria's de Facto Husband Joh. iv 16. or as Oliver was called a Protector and Absalom a King This Answer to Britain's Complaint recites some of the grossest Mistakes of Dr. King's Book and from his Credit delivers them for most undoubted Truths As pag. 54. That the Repeal of the Acts of Settlement was carried on by King James 's own Sollicitation and that he did struggle with his Bishops and Judges to carry it and after he was duly informed of the Cruelty and Injustice of it that he still pressed it and at last got it passed The notorious Falshood of which I have shewn from undeniable and good Protestant Vouchers and more are to be had if either of these Authors have the hardiness not to submit upon that Point Pamphlet pag. 55. Every where Protestant Churches were taken from them by Force and given to Popish Priests by the Order or Connivance of the late King Which is so far from Truth that Dr. King himself gives Instances to the contrary and tells c. 3. s 18 n. 11. how King James did struggle against the Popish Clergy in behalf of the Protestants and turn'd out the Mayor of Wexford for not obeying His Majesty's Orders in Restoring the Protestants Church there which the Popish Clergy had usurp'd and that He appear'd most zealous to have the Church Restored and exprest himself with more passion than was usual upon that occasion And Dr. King cannot name one Protestant Church in Ireland that was taken from them either by King James's Order or Connivance His Majesty was so very careful in this Point that even at Dublin where he kept his Court neither the Cathedral nor any Parish-Church in the whole City was taken from the Protestants The King only took Christ-Church for his own use which was always reputed as the King's Chappelâ— And Dr. King himself and others then preached Passive Obedience in their own Pulpits in Dublin to that degree as to give offence to some of their Protestant Hearers who thought they stretched it even to Flattery Pamphlet This was done in those parts of Ireland where the Protestants were very peaceable under King James That is where they were so under his Power that they durst not stir for none else then in that Kingdom were quiet and even those who lived under King James's Protection were giving Intelligence against him and betraying him all they could which Dr. King does not only confess but justifies it and was himself one of the Chief which I have sufficiently shewn and I suppose he will not deny but reckons it now as his Merit Pamphlet Those Protestants who scaid in Ireland were oppressed c. But it is evident that they preserved their Effects Houses and Improvements better than those who left the Kingdom and now live Richer and have more to shew which they preserved by King James's Clemency than their Neighbours brought with them from the Countries whither they fled from his Protection Pamphlet Upon Complaint no Protestant could have Redress I have shewn many who had And I believe Dr. King cannot shew one who had not as far as was in the King's Power to grant it And that much more than they deserved at his Hands by their own Confession at this Day and many of them do complain that their Grievances have not been so well Redressed since And if King James can be represented by these Men as a Tyrant and a Bloody Persecutor while he Courted them and sought by all winning Ways to gain them which was certainly the Case while he was among them in Ireland it may bring Men into suspence to believe what is told of the French Hungarian or of any other Persecution But I will not Anticipate what you will find in the following Leaves to which I refer you Only I think it necessary to acquaint you That Pag. 8. of this Answer upon the Head of One Prince interposing between another Prince and his Subjects when he uses them Cruelly I refer to a Book which I thought would have been Published as soon as this and therefore said little to that Point But now that I see no Hopes of its coming out give me leave to enlarge a little and tell Dr. King what advantage the Jacobites make of this Doctrine They say it would justifie King Lewis or any other King to interpose between them and King William For they pretend that they are much more Cruelly used by King William than even Dr. King himself says the Protestants were by King James In England they tell us That their Clergy are Deprived that they are imprisoned without Law for no other fault than Reading the Liturgy of the Church of England in their Houses They complain of Double Taxes Excessive Fines and Bail and Illegal Imprisonments That in Ireland besides the Deprivation of the Clergy all Men and Women who refuse the New Oaths incur a Premunire That in Scotland they are Fined Imprisoned Massacred as Glen-coe c. and put to the Torture against the very Claim of Right
Book of Common Prayer where-ever they could find it calling it the Mass in English This was the Western Fanatick Rabble who began their Work upon Christmas Day to be witty in their Malice That at Edinburgh it self the Tumult was so high that the Mob forced the King's Palace rifted the Chancellor's Lodgings gutted the Chappel designed for the Order of the Knights of St. Andrew carried the King's Picture to the Mercat-Cross and there publickly stabb'd and tore it with the like Indignities as some ungrateful and bruitish Villains express'd in the rancor of their Hearts against the King's Statue at Newcastle and Glocester That upon these violent Disorders the King being gone from England and no settled Government in the Nation the College of Justice at Edinburgh took Arms and kept Watch and Ward to secure the Peace of the City and their Clergy from being Rabbled That then a Proclamation came from the Prince of Orange commanding all persons to lay down their Arms That the College of Justice did thereupon lay down their Arms but the Fanaticks did not for they said that they knew the Order was not intended against them and they proceeded to greater Insults against the Episcopal Clergy and fell upon those they had not medled with before and a Tumult was raised at Glasgow and those of the Rabbled Clergy who thought themselves protected by the Prince's Proclamation and thereupon returned to their Churches and Livings were much more rudely treated than before and particular Favours were granted to the Town of Glasgow by 15 Act of 2 Sess of 1 Parl. of W. and M. for the Zeal of the Community of the said City who were the principal Rabblers for the Protestant Religion as it is expressed in the Act. That the Rabbled Clergy made application to the P. of O. for Protection from this Outrage and sent Dr. Scot Dean of Glasgow who assisted by Dr. Fall Principal of the College of Glasgow did represent their deplorable Condition to his Highness who gave them no other Answer than to refer them to the Meeting of the Estates which did not assemble till 14 March following That they suffering unspeakable Hardships and Indignities all that time from December to March made the same Request for Protection from the Rabble to the Meeting of Estates then convened In answer to which That the Meeting of Estates by their Act 13 Apr. 89. excluded from the Protection of the Goverument all the Ministers who had been Rabbled before that day and were not then in Possession of their Churches And being turned into a Parliament by their Act 7 June 90. declared That these Rabbled Ministers had Deserted their Churches and therefore adjudged them to be Vacant and ordered those Presbyterian Ministers who without any Law had taken possession of them when the Incumbents were driven away by the Rabble to continue their possession and have Right to the Benefices and Stipends according to their entry in the Year 89. viz. when the Incumbents were Rabbled And to this being an Act of Parliament the Royal Assent was given That these Ministers Rabbled before 13 Apr. 89. and for that only reason declared to have abdicated by the Parliament were about 300. That the foresaid Act 13. Apr. 89. obliged all that remained to Pray for K. W. and Q. M. as King and Queen of Scotland and read a Proclamation publickly from their Pulpits against the owning of King James And that they might not have too long time to consider of it it was to be read under pain of Deprivation the next day viz. 14 Apr. 89. by all the Ministers of Edinburgh the 21st by all on that side the River Tay on the 28th by all be-north Tay which was hardly time to have the Proclamation transmitted to them all At Edinburgh the Proclamation came not from the Press till late on Saturday night and it was to be read at Morning-Service next day so that many of them it is supposed had not an hours time to resolve That this severe Act was more severely executed by the Earl of Crawford then President of the Council and other Presbyterian Lords and that near as many were turn'd out by the Rabble within doors as the Field-Rabble had done That Matters being thus prepared for total Abolition of Episcopacy all haste was made to do it An Act was framed for that purpose and Instructions were sent to the Commissioner in these words You are to Touch the Act already passed Abolishing Episcopacy as soon as you can and to Rescind all Acts inconsistent therewith That the haste required was observed for these Instructions were signed by King William at Whitehall the 17th of July 89. and the Act was Touched at Edinburgh the 22d of the same month Thus fell Episcopacy in Scotland Two Months and eleven Days after King William and Queen Mary took upon them the Crown of that Kingdom which was the eleventh of May 89. That those Presbyterian Ministers who were ejected by Law Anno 1662. upon the Restoration of Episcopacy were restored to the Churches they had before by Act of this Parliament 25 April 90. without any Provision made for those who were ejected That they did not pretend to that Regard to any who should be Deprived as the Parliament of England seemed to do by allowing Twelve of the Clergy who should refuse the Oaths the Third of their Bishopricks or Livings during their Life and left it to K. W. to apply it to which Twelve of them he thought fit But that he has applied it to none lest they should fare better than their Deprived Brethren in Scotland That not only those Presbyterian Ministers who were outed by the Bishops Anno 1662. but even those who had been Deposed and put under Censure as Incendiaries and wicked Men by their own Presbyterian Synods Anno 1660 and 1661. without being released from those Censures by any Synod or Ecclesiastical Authority of their own were Restored Anno 1690. by Act of Parliament That these as being most violent were most esteem'd and one of them Mr. Hugh Kennedy was made Moderator of the General Assembly Anno 1690. while he lay under the Censure of their own Kirk which was not taken off till the end of that same Assembly That thus their Church was established by Men thrust out of their Church as the State by Men Forefaulted by the State That by Act of their Parliament 7 June 90. Setling Presbyterian Church Government the whole Church-Government and Authority is placed in the hands of those Presbyterian Ministers outed since the first of January 1661. who were not then above Fifty or Sixty in number and such as they should admit exclusive of all other Presbyters which was a greater Superiority settled in one Presbyter above another than that which they Abolished in the Bishops as an insupportable Grievance And these new-modell'd Presbyters invested with Episcopal Power in Opposition to Episcopacy did exercise it with a Tyranny and Lordliness the Bishops had never
shewn For being by a particular Clause in that Act enabled by themselves or whom they should appoint to try and purge out all insufficient negligent scandalous and erroneous Ministers they erected Tribunals in every Presbytery as arbitrary but more senseless than the Inquisition and did but one good Act to purge out those Episcopal Presbyters who complied with their Schism and Usurpation for which they could never want a pretence because Ordination or Collation from Prelates was always made one Article in their Visitations and thought erroneous enough to spew any out of their Churches But as to these Deprived Clergy I must here take notice of a distinction much used in England to mollifie Lay-Deprivations viz. That the Bishops and Clergy Deprived by Act of Parliament lose not their Character only are barr'd by the Secular Power to exercise it in such Districts But Act 35. of Sess 2. of the first Parliament of William and Mary in Scotland those Ministers who did not Pray for King William and Queen Mary and were therefore Depriv'd were afterwards prohibited to preach or exercise any part of the Ministerial Function either in Churches or elsewhere upon any pretext whatsoever And in the 38th Act of the same Session they do as much confound our State-distinction of de Facto and de Jure which they say is cunningly of late spread abroad to weaken and invalidate the Allegiance sworn to their Majesties And therefore they order a Certificate to be subscrib'd by all who take the Oath declaring K. W. and Q. M. to be King and Queen as well de Jure as de Facto And they say That in all these things they have dealt more frankly and plainly if not more honestly and sincerely than we have done in England They think it more fair and open Dealing plainly to Foresault the King for Male-administration than to Abdicate him for flying to save his Life And when he is gone that he should not take the Right to the Crown along with him and leave K. W. nothing but a de Facto Possession which they think a Betraying K. W. to the last Degree and making him no better than an Usurper They think it the same thing to debar Clergy-men from the Exercise of the Ministerial Function as to leave them no Place to exercise it in And as Charitable to allow nothing to the Depriv'd as to name something for them and put it into Hands where they are sure never to come by it But I know not so well how they 'll solve that Contradiction which seems to be betwixt their Claim of Right 11 Ap. 89. and their Confession of Faith Ratified and Established Act 5. of 2 Sess 1 Parl. William and Mary Read over in their Presence and inserted Verbatim in the Body of the Act. The Claim of Right begins in these Words Whereas King James being a profest Papist did assume the Regal Power c. And the first of their Claims is in these Words That by the Law of this Kingdom no Papist can be King or Queen of this Realm And yet in the abovesaid Confession of Faith Chap. 23. It is Decreed and Established as the true Christian Doctrine in these Words viz. Infidelity or Difference in Religion doth not make void the Magistrates just and legal Authority nor free the People from their due Obedience to him But I must not exceed the bounds of a Preface For if I should only Name all the Hardships and Oppressions the illegal and arbitrary Proceedings of which the Jacobites complain of in Scotland say they are ready to make good by undeniable Vouchers I should swell this beyond the Bulk of Dr. King's Book and that the Truths of the Proceedings in Scotland would if possible out-number the Falstoods he relates of Ireland But for a fuller Account of these Scots Affairs I refer you to a small Tract called A Letter to a Friend giving an Account of all the Treatises that have been Publish'd with Relation to the present Persecution against the Church of Scotland Printed for Jo. Hindmarsh Among these as to the State Affairs be pleased to consult that Tract called The late Proceedings and Votes of the Parliament of Scotland contained in an Address delivered to the King And for the Affairs of the Church An Account of the present Persecution of the Church of Scotland in several Letters The Case of the present Afflicted Clergy of Scotland The Historical Relation of the late General Assembly held at Edinburgh And the Presbyterian Inquisition And there you will find such Cruelties used towards the Loyal and Episcopal Party in Scotland as were unheard of in Ireland and by Dr. King's Principles would justifie any Foreign Prince to interpâ—se on their behalf And if it be true which he lays down as the Foundation upon which he builds all that he says in his Book viz. That if a King design to destroy one main Part of his People in favour if anâ—ther whom he loves better he does Abdicate the Government of those whom he designs to destroy contrary to Justice and the Laws If this be true the Episcopal Party in Scotland think it would free them from all Obligation to K. William's Government But how far it is Applicable to the Protestants in Ireland to justifie their Carriage towards King James will be seen in what follows Suppose say they it were true which Dr. King asserts as it is most false That K. James while he was in Ireland did endeavour totally to overthrow the Church Established by Law there and set up that which was most agreeable to the Inclinations of the major Number of the People in that Kingdom who are Roman Catholicks The Jacobites ask if this were so Whether it be not fully vindicated in the 4th Instruction of those which King William sent to his Commissioner in Scotland dated at Copt-Hall 31. May 89. in these Words You are to pass an Act Establishing that Church Government which is most agreeable to the Inclinations of the People By which Rule they say That it was as just to set uâ— Popery in Ireland as Presbytery in Scotland And that the Law was not more against the one in Ireland than against the other in Scotland That the Parliament in Ireland was liable to less Exception than that in Scotlandâ— The one called in the usual Form by Writs from their Natural King to whom they had Sworn the other by Circular Letters from a Foreign Prince to whom they ow'd no Obedience who could not nor did pretend any other Authority over them or Right to the Crown besides The Inclinations of the People Which therefore they say in return for their Kindness he has made the Standard for Church Government as well as the Government of the State That it is only alleged that King James intended to do in Ireland what he did not do when it was in his Power and what King William actually did in Scotland viz. To overturn the Church then by Law Established
Though King James had truly the Argument of the Inclinations of the People i. e. of the major Part in Ireland which was but a Pretence and falsly Collected in Scotland from the Fanatick Rabble being let loose and encouraged to act all outrage upon the Episcopal Clergy That the Argument is carry'd in Dr. King's Book and many Pamphlets grafted upon it that the Church of England ought to expect from K. J. the like Treatment which they pretend the Church of Ireland met with from him and his Popish Parliament But yet have no apprehensions from what K. William has done to the Church of Scotland which he and a Presbyterian Convention have pluckt up by the Roots tho' living peaceably and offending no Man while K. James and the Popish Parliament left the Church of Ireland Established by Law when all her Members to a very small Number were actually in Arms against him in as Universal a Rebellion they say as ever was heard of in any Nation wherein there are fewer Exceptions than of Loyal Irish in 41. Many other things the Jacobites do plead with which I will not detain the Reader they have made large Apologies for themselves and Dr. King's Book will afford them Mâ—tter for more I know not if it will be needful to advertise the Reader That he will meet with several Expressions and Arguments which I use only ad hominem following Dr. King's Phrase and Logick and not to mistake them for my own Sense or Approbation of his Principles or Characters which he gives As pag 33. paragr 5. and elsewhere And p. 191. where I take notice of his Comparison betwixt King James and the French King and according to his Representation of them I ask Whether any would have King James to be worse than the French King That is than that Character with which some take Pains to blacken the French Monarch But we know now what stress is to be laid upon their Representations by the many false and malicious Slanders which they have spread abroad and vouch'd with as much Confidence of their own King and of Matters done within our own Country It is not just to frame an Idea of any Man by that Represantation of him which is given by his Enemy And yet no King that ever was in the World has had his Praises sung to a greater pitch by the most flattering Poet than the French King 's most bitter Enemies have extalled him even while they were spitting Venom at him A Prince says the Mighty Cant. in his last Thanksgiving-Sermon before K. W. and Q. M. 27 Octob. 92. who governs his Affairs by the deepest and the steadiest Councils and the most refin'd Wisdom of this World A Prince Mighty and Powerful in his Preparations for War Formidable for his vast and well-disciplin'd Armies and for his great Naval Force and who hath brought the Art of War almost to that Perfection as to be able to Conquer and do his Business without Fighting A Mystery hardly known to former Ages and Generations And lastly that he has an almost-inexhaustible Treasure and Revenue Perhaps he said all this with a Prospect of standing him in stead another day What Roman Caesar's Greatness or God-like Power and Wisdom was ever set out in a higher strain than this Nay he makes the French Caesar exceed in the Art of War all former Ages and Generations And for his Civil Government within his own Kingdom suppressing and effectually curing Duels Robberies and other publick Vices which were most rooted in France for immemorial Generations it is the Amazement and envy'd Pattern of his Neighbor-Nations and really the greatest and most noble of all his Victories How does every one that comes over tell us That Travellers may carry Gold open through all France without danger of any Robbers But as soon as you set your foot upon Spanish Flanders you must prepare to fight your way to be Robb'd or Murder'd And in England we all too well know that none now are secure neither on the High-way nor in their Houses from Thieves and Robbers There is one Objection against this Great King which makes it an Offence to many to hear any thing though Truth spoken to his Advantage and that is Banishing the Hugonot Ministers and Dragooning others to work them into another Religion which does and justly eclipse his Glory with those who know not the true Grounds and Motives which induc'd him to Methods so rigid and severe But his very Enemies who know the Reasons he had for it do even in this Excuse him and turn it into an Argument of his wise Foresight and Prudence They tell you that he was under an invincible Necessity of being rid of these Men or hazarding such a Revolution as befel King James That he knew they would endanger him by a Revolt if he were Invaded by a Protestant Prince Which are the very Words of the Answer to Great Britain's Just Complaint pag. 47. That their Refugees here do generally all own the Principle of Resistance And that their Ministers march'd last Campaign before the Army into Dauphine Preaching to the People as they went the lawfulness of taking Arms against their King This is a plain Demonstration what the Answer to Britain's Complaint has told us The French King being thus vindicated by his Enemies in that which was most colourably Objected against him and which if not done upon the abovesaid Motives would leave him inexcusable The Jacobites think themselves for ever oblig'd to acknowlege with all Gratefulness the Noble and Generous Reception he has given to King James in his Distress which as no King in Europe was able to have done but Himself so none but he could have done it in such a manner with that Greatness and every Punctilio of Honor which if all the particulars were repeated would fill a Volume and is such an Original as is not to be found in former Ages and will be Recorded in History as the most glorious Scene of his Life And that if he perfect what he has so Heroically undertaken the Jacobites say he will not find readier Trumpeters of his Glory than the present Complying Divines late of the Church of England They would in that Day resume their old Theams with which their Pulpits us'd to ring but are now forgotten of the Persecutions of the Protestants by those Popish Princes who are now in Confederacy with England against France They would then tell us of the declar'd Principle of the House of Austria not to suffer any Protestants whom they call Hereticks to live within their Dominions And pursuant to that have Erected the Spanish Inquisition which occasioned the great Revolution in the Netherlands They wouâ—d set out likewise in their Colours the many Persecutions of the Protestants in Bohemia Hungary and Transilvania and the long Persecutions in Piedmont by the Dukes of Sarvoy and that by this preâ—ent Duke They would then inform us That all these Perfecutors were more Popish and
Account of which he may be deprived of c. And pag. 23. he says of these Principles That they have poisoned the very Springs and Fountains of Government and so deeply tinctur'd Mens Minds that he prays God we may not still live to see the miserable Effects of it Thus Dr. Sherlock even since his Conversion But you may say how does it appear that this Author now sets up these Principles You shall be Judge Pag. 49. he says That it is ill trusting any one any King with such a Power This is in his c. 3. s 1. n. 8. Again c. 1. n. 10. p. 11. he expresses himself in these Words viz. The antient Government with which he the King was intrusted p. 41. he falls upon those who stopt the Bill of Exclusion with this wholsome Advice Never to trust Men of King James's Principles and Religion with a Power that may destroy us Here the King's Power is onely what the People please to trust him with Pag. 57. He says That it is not the King's Money that pays the Soldiers but the Kingdoms and thence it will follow that they are not the King's Soldiers but the Kingdoms 67. He says That every Law is certainly a Compact between the King and the People wherein by a mutual Consent they agree on a Rule by which he is to govern and according to which they oblige themselves to pay him Obedience That therefore the People may as lawfully dispence with their Allegiance to the King 68. as the King dispence with the Execution of a Law That the Subjects have no other Security for their Liberties 77. Properties and Lives except the Interest they have of chusing their own Representatives in Parliament Whereby he will exclude by very much the greatest part of the Nation from having any security for their Lives c. i. e. all but the Electors of Parliament men for none other have any Vote in chusing their own Representatives But the Author makes them amends by giving every one of them a power to dispence with their Allegiance to the King when ever they think that the King dispences with the Execution of any Law He makes them all Popes to dispence with Oaths or any other Duty when they think it reasonable And as he gives them Power over their Oaths of Allegiance so he does over the King's Treasury and Army It is Their Mony Their Army and why should not They command them The King himself acts but by their Commission and by all Rule and Right every Man is accountable to him from whom he has his Commission But now our Author is upon the Rode you shall see how he improves He derives the Eccles Authorily from the People p. 206. he stops at nothing And since he is a granting to the People they shall have all even the Ecclesiastical Authority which is trusted in the Crown shall be derived from the People and transferrable by them to whom they think fit For he makes King James's breach of trust in the Ecclesiastical Authority a provoking temptation to his People to think of transferring it to some other Person This will gratify the Phanaticks as well as Commonwealth-men That even the Ecclesiastical Authority is derived from the People His Interpretation of its not being Lawful upon any Pretence to take Arms against the King c. pag. 221. n. 3. And now to Crown all He gives as large and loose an Interpretation of that famous Principle of the Ch. of England viz. of it s not being Lawful upon any Pretence whatever to take Arms against the King c. as Bradshaw Rutherford Bellarmin or Mariana could desire viz. He says it was only meant That private Men should not take up the Sword or resist the King upon any Pretence that is says he upon any Pretence of private Injury or Wrong done to them in particular Beyond this none of the Republicans Phanaticks and Jesuits in the World could go So that this was no very distinguishing Principle of the Church of England as we us'd to call it But if you will allow the same Parliament which enacted the abovesaid Principle of Non-Resistance to the King c. to understand their own Meaning or think that the declared Sense of the Legislators is the true Sense of the Law then our Author has widely mistaken his Mark and misinterpreted this Law For 12 Car. 2. c. 30. it is declared That neither the Peers nor Commons nor both together nor the People Collectively nor Representatively in Parliament or out of Parliament nor any other Persons whatsoever have any Coercive Power over the Kings of England Now judge whether all this is meant only of Private Men as our Author would make you believe And take Notice that this is not to be taken as a Grant from that Parliament It is a Recognition wherein they declare what was the Law before them And they vouch that this Prerogative of the King to be exempt from all Coercive Power is by the undoubted and fundamental Laws of this Kingdom And that neither Lords nor Commons nor any other Persons not only now have not or hereafter shall not have any such Power over the King but that they never had or ever ought to have such Power I hope our Author will confess That this is somewhat a greater Authority and ought to have greater Weight with us than his single Opinion which he has taken up but of late And to confound that Distinction of the Parliament being Coordinate with the King and making the King but one of the three Estates which would imply their having something to do with the Sword which is the Supreme Power of Government joyntly with the King and therefore in some Cases might restrain him by Force which was the Pretence in 41. to obviate all this the Militia which is the Sword of England is by Act of Parliament put in the Hands of the King alone And it is declared in express Words 13 Car. 2. That the Sword is solely in the King's Power and that neither one nor both Houses of Parliament can or Lawfully may Raise or Levy any War offensive or defensive against his Majesty c. The Title of this Section p. 221. is King James and his Party endeavoured to destroy the Protestant Religion by misrepresenting the Persons and Principles of Protestants But it is not in the Power of Jesuit or any you can imagine to misrepresent the Protestant Principles more than this Author in this same Section as you have seen that is if you will allow that the Protestants did ever represent them Right before And whereas he Objects in the foremention'd Place That by it the abovesaid Principle of Non-Resistance it was never intended to give up the Constitution of the Government or to part with the Liberties and Privileges of the Kingdom The Answer is very easy for by the Judgment of what he calls the Constitution of the Government viz. King and Parliament
Government yet disarming such of these as the Government could come at this Author proves by his usual Climax to be a Design even of Massacre For had they not reason says he p. 115. to believe that they were disarm'd purposely that they might be the more easily Robb'd or Massacred And p. 112. he calls that Disarming perfect Dragooning terrible Dragooning Now consider what a Scheme of Government this Author has given us viz. That if the Government have a Design against our Lives the Government is dissolv'd And if they take a Peny from us or so much as dispute the Charter of any Town or presume but to Disarm any of their Subjects though they be actually in Arms against them this shall be improv'd into a Design of Massacre and then we owe no more Obedience to the Government It is dissolv'd c. The Author's Rule of Abdication consider'd I come now to the Third Point that is of Abdication and the only true Notion of it by all Civilians is A King 's Voluntary Resignation of the Crown to the next Heir But take it in that Sense which by some of late has been put upon it and it will by no means help this Author's Cause For I suppose none even of them will allow that it is left to every private Person to determine what sort of Withdrawing himself shall be judged an Abdication in the King so as to Dissolve the Government and Absolve the Subjects from their Allegiance King Charles the First fled to Scotland to save his Life from those who pretended to make him A GLORIOUS KING King Charles the Second withdrew himself into foreign Countries for several Years yet neither of them was ever said to have Abdicated And it was debated strongly in the Convention Whether King James the Second's Withdrawing was an Abdication or not This shews that they thought the Decision of some Regular Assembly necessary to settle that Point and that it was not lest to every Man to decide so great a Matter whereon the Safety of the Nation does depend Therefore this Author 's justifying what his Protestants of Ireland did upon the Account of King James's Abdication will do them no Service upon that Notion of Abdication set up by the Convention in England because they were up in Arms against King James before the Convention in England declared him to have Abdicated and even before his Withdrawing himself upon which they pretended to ground their Sentence of Abdication But this Author must not stay for that He gives every Man Authority to pass Sentence of Deprivation against his Sovereign when he pleases C. 1. n. 8. p 10. he says By endeavouring to destroy us he the King in that very Act abdicated the Government and therefore in all Equity we are absolved from Oaths made to him as Governor In that very Act Nay even his Design as you have heard to take a Peny from us or to bring a Quo Warranto against a Charter that is to take the Benefit of the Law against any of his Subjects in a Legal manner shall be a Dissolution of the Government and Absolution from our Oaths c. Fifth Reason as to the dissolving Oaths of Allegianee Here is very good Learning as to the Nature of Oaths and Arguments most convincing He goes on in the same Section n. 10. p. 11. That King James consenting to Repeal the Oath of Supremacy in Ireland proved either that be designed to Release us from the Peculiar Obligation arising from them our Oaths of Allegiance as too strict or else that he did not design to depend on our Oaths for our Loyalty whoever does will be mistaken you have given demonstration and therefore laid them aside as of no force to oblige us either of which must proceed from an Intention to destroy the Ancient Government with which he was entrusted Now let us suppose with this Author That King James having seen and experimented the little Security Oaths were to Government against the Byass of Interest or Inclination were willing to remove such a Stumbling-block for the future and that Men should Swear no more would this absolve the Oaths that were taken before Again most know the Objection which the Papists have against our Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy viz. That it depresses the Pope's Power in Spirituals Now because K. James Repeals this our Author would infer That he meant to Release the Protestants from their Allegiance to himself in Temporals Does this Author think That K. James Repeal'd this Oath because it was too full of Loyalty or because there was something else in it which K. James thought was against the Tenets of the Church of Rome I am asham'd to ask the Question none are ignorant of the Reason of it Our Author will find this Argument of his Verbatim almost in the Writings of the Cameronian Presbyterians I know not if he had it from them but at least he sees how near he is come to them for when Men jump in the same Principles it is likely they will find out the same Arguments These Cameronians do prove That K. Charles II. consenting to Repeal the Covenant did thereby Remit the Subjects Allegiance by annulling the Bond of it Vid. The Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Printed at London 1692. p. 49. This Covenant was Established by Act of their Parliament as well as General Assembly and K. Charles II. consented to it and took it and swore by his Coronation Oath in Scotland to maintain it and it swore Faith and Allegiance to him and therefore this Author would do well to think of a Disparity 'twixt his Argument and that of the Cameronians 'twixt K. Charles II. consenting to Repeal the Covenant and K. James II. consenting to Repeal the Oath of Supremacy Each Oath was to Establish a Supremacy over the Church the one a Lay-Regal the other a Lay-Elder and Presbyterial Supremacy And the one King might think the one as faulty as the other thought the other But that either of these Kings meant to weaken the Allegiance of his Subjects by taking away these Oaths the one is as true as the other Our Author has one Argument more why this Allegiance to K. James did cease He K. James having left none no Oath of Allegiance that we know of in this Kingdom which any Law obliges us to take And what then Is there no Allegiance due where there is no Oath Our Allegiance is due by the Law of England prior to the King's Oath to us or ourâ—s to him Oaths in that Case do not create the Duty they are only in Confirmation of what was our Duty before In the Eastern Monarchies they do not use Coronation Oaths nor Oaths of Allegiance And Augustus was so wise says the Unreasonableness of a new Separation on account of the Oaths p. 40. as when they offered him their Oaths he refused them for this Reason Dio. l. 54. He consider'd well saith Dio that if they gave
How the Empire was to be Divided betwixt the Turk and the German Princes and the Dauphin to be King of the Romans Savoy was to be brought under Pupillage the Princes of Italy to be Frighted Bought or Wheedled Genoa to be Bomb'd England Bought and Holland Drown'd alass Poor Holland The Queen of Spain designedly made Barren and the Prince of Wales a Cheat. There 's a Plot for you And p. 10. he asks K. James What business had he with an Army But leaving his Politicks let us come with him a little to the Argument He has Established it before That Jealousies and Fears are not to pass for Arguments against the certain and plain Duty of Obedience to Lawful Governors But that what is brought against them ought to be so Plain and Evident that the Consciences of Mankind cannot but see and be convinc'd of its Truth And yet he brings here against K. James such Trash as Grub-street would be asham'd to own and if the Sermon were not so common I should be afraid to Quote least it should be thought an Imposition upon this Author But he has set his Name to it and Dedicated it to the Lords Justices of Ireland before whom he Preach'd it Of all the Instances above-nam'd we are more immediately concern'd in that of the Prince of Wales Pr. of Wales against whom he gives no other proof but p. 5 of his Sermon where he says We are satisfied i.e. of his being a Cheat. If these Gentlemen for whom and in whose Name this Author here speaks had been so Good or this Author for them to have told us what Evidence they had to satisfie themselves in a Point so Important as this Now when all the sensible Men of England are fully satisfied to the contrary viz. That the Prince of Wales was truly born of the Queen When it is no longer made a doubt of nor endur'd to be mention'd at Court or Parliament The but Questioning of it is a stob at the heart of this Prince says the History of the Desert p. 107. you need not ask which Prince it is who does not love to hear of it And who they are who press it to be heard and examin'd For which I refer you to n. 16. Append. It is likewise well known that this was but the tail of an old Plot to say the same of any Son the Duke of York should ever have of which n. 17. Appendix contains a Proof sufficient And shews the indefatigable Pains of that Phanatick Republican Hogan Mogan Party to render the Bill of Exclusion effectually servicable to the End for which it was intended This was thought to have been handsomly cover'd when Zuylestein was sent over to congratulate the Birth of the P. of Wales Nay he was publickly Prayed for as P. of Wales in her Royal Highness Chappel at the Hague where Dr. Burnet himself did often Officiate To say that they did not believe him to be P. of Wales at that time is to accuse them of such Atheistical Hypocrisy making a mock of God in his solemn Worship as would render them an abhorring to all Flesh To avoid this terrible Charge you will be forced to acknowledge That their Highnesses and Dr. Burnet too did not then believe the Reports of the Queens False-Belly for they were spread abroad long before And what Evidence they have got since besides these same Reports is what the Nation wants to know but are not like to be satisfied Nihil Dicit is confessing of Judgment Yet our Author says that he and the Irish Protestants of his Party are all satisfied for those I suppose he means by the We all are satisfied of the Imposture of the P. of Wales And by his Principles here laid down their Proofs must exceed Jealousies and Fears and be so plain and evident as the Consciences of Mankind cannot but see and be convinced of their Truth And then why should not he Produce them If he says as I suppose he must that he once thought it was Evident So it was for some time thought by the Generality of the People of England that the 3500 Irish who were disbanded by K. James before he went away were about to Massacre all England and had actually begun the Work and the whole Nation was terribly allarm'd There is nothing so Ridiculous may not be put upon some People as Plain and Evident in some Junctures Earl of Essex That the Earl of Essex was assassinated went down greedily with some sort of People for a while though People of sense did not then believe it nor his Lady as she declared to many noble Relations of his Lordship and her own But now the Trick is all come out and how that whole matter was managed Mr. Hook then Chaplain to the Duke of Monmouth and who came over with him from Holland wrote a Narrative of it at Amsterdam as himself declared for a Preparatory to their Undertaking Another was wrote by Col. Danvers and another at Amsterdam and was taken in Col. Danvers's House in London And they bragg'd how much Service it did in the West and stirr'd up the People against K. James and to join with the Duke of Monmouth A Committee of Lords was appointed since this Revolution to Rake into that matter again but after long Sitting and Examinations could make nothing of it and were forced to let it fall I suppose now for ever Sir Richard Haddock at present first Commissioner of the Navy declared before the said Committee That he saw the Earl of Essex lying in his Blood and having considered the narrowness of the Place where he lay and all other Circumstances he could not have been so Murther'd by any but himself Braddon's Tryal it self is enough to Detect it to any unprejudiced Reader But that this Author may not be accus'd for proving of nothing that he says he has undertaken to make out the Grand League before told in the aforesaid Sermon from a Letter of Bishop Maloony's to Bishop Tyrrel which our Author has printed in the Appendix of his Book There Page 363. Bishop Maloony is inveighing against K. James's Politicks in trusting too much to the English and seeking to please them while he rejected the assistance which the French King offered him If the King of France says that Bishop 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 This is that Alliance with France says our Author in his abovesaid Sermon p. 5. which Maloony the Popish Bishop of Killa loo in a Letter of his to Bishop Tyrrel is so very angry that some Trimmers as he calleth them oblig'd King James to disown These Trimmers were the abovesaid rotten Principles as that Bishop calls them of trusting to the English And these oblig'd King James to disown such an Alliance with France which he Rejected and yet found that his
People were allarm'd with the Report of it which was designedly spread abroad And what Reason can this Author give why King James should not disown it since there was no such Thing And that his Principle of trusting entirely to the English and letting them know so much should oblige him to disown an Alliance which he had Rejected meerly out of his Confidence in them This Bishop Maloony says And that This fair Politick as he calls it hindered him King James from making up a Catholick Army that would stick to him instead of a Protestant one that betray'd him hindered him also from having any Succor from France offered him There is none here but knows that Succor was offer'd him from France against the Prince of Orange and that he Rejected it Now who would ever Guess that the abovesaid French League could be prov'd from hence From these Words of Bishop Maloony's Letter which speak the direct contrary Yet this is all our Author's Proof and he boasts in it and crys out This is the very Source and Fountain of all the present Calamities of Europe but more particularly of ours Is not this Magnificent This is a Hardiness of no common Hero To bring without a Blush the strongest Objection against him as an Argument for him What better Proof could have been brought to shew there was no such League than the Confession of a Popish Bishop one of their Managers in a Letter from Paris to his Correspondent another Popish Bishop who was Secretary of State in Ireland and which neither of them Design'd should ever be seen by Protestants Would they dissemble and not speak their Thoughts freely to one another Would they tell one another that King James had Rejected the French Alliance if it were not so Yet these very Words of this Bishop our Author brings to prove that there was such an Alliance If you say there is still a Jealcusy of these Things Our Author has barr'd that from being any Pretence against the plain and certain Duty of Obedience to Lawful Governors Yet these our Author names among the Pretences for throwing off our Lawful Governors as well in this Book as in his said Thanksgiving Sermon which I shall have more occasion to mention hereafter I only name this to shew you his way of Arguing and withal to tell you that they are such Things of which he at that Distance from Affairs and his Correspondence consider'd could have no other Account than from the common News Letters and Observators and such small Intelligencers And yet he would put this upon us who live nearer the Helm and know the value of these Coffee-house Papers as such infallible Proofs that it is not in our Power not to see and be convinc'd of their Truth But this is no new Matter It is the constant and never-failing Method in all Rebellions and Commotions of State They all say their Grievances are apparent and undoubted And generally the greater the Calumny the Asseverations are the more positive to make it be believ'd Matchiavil prescribes fortiter Calumniare Bespatter confidently Throw much Dirt some will stick Of King Ch. 1. and Archbishop Laud's being Papists c. How many in England were made believe that Charles the First and Bishop Laud were Papists How many believe it still I refer this Author to a Pamphlet printed this Year called A Letter from Major General Ludlow to Sir E. S. comparing the Tyranny of the first Four years of King Charles the Martyr with the Tyranny of the Four years Reign of the late Abdicated King And there he will find King Charles made much the greater Tyrant of the two the greater Invader of our Laws and Liberties our Properties our Lives and that the Case is full as plain and apparent as that against King James And he has printed two or three Vindications of it since There are many very many in England of that Opinion and so positive in it that they think all Men mad or obstinately prejudic'd who offer to deny it or in our Author's Words they think that the Consciences of Mankind cannot but see it and be convinc'd of the Truth of it Yet there are many who will not confess it but think King Charles to have been a good Man and a Martyr and that he stood up more for the Laws and Liberty of the Subject than his illegal Murtherers or Deposers who offended more against the Law and much more apparently by their Rebelling against him than he did if all they charg'd him with had been true Our Author himself was once of this Opinion Dathan and Abiram their Charge against Moses Never any Charge against a Government was averr'd to be more apparent and undeniable than that of Dathan and Abiram against Moses Num. 16.13 14 where he was accus'd of Arbitrary Government and Breach of Promise It was as plain as the Nose on ones Face as we use to say as any Thing we see with our Eyes that he might as well perswade them to disbelieve their Eye-sight as not think him Guilty Is it a small Thing that thou hast brought us up out of a Land that floweth with Milk and Honey to kill us in the Wilderness except thou make thy self altogether a Prince over us Moreover thou hast not brought us into a Land flowing with Milk and Honey or given us Inheritance of Fields and Vineyards wilt thou put cut the Eyes of these Men And besides this positive Assurance which they had they likewise as our Author had the Faculty of improving a Breach of Promise or an Arbitrary Design into a Design against their very Lives Because he disappointed them as they were very sure in their Inheritance in their Fields and Vineyards and had a mind to make himself more Arbitrary altogether a Prince over them therefore they charg'd him with a Design to kill them in the Wilderness Now if People could be so impos'd upon by the Cunning of designing Men as to believe the falsest and most notorious Untruths against the best Governor as ever was in the World what Government can subsist upon our Author's Principles which give a Latitude to every Man to try his hand upon the soft part of the People And if he can perswade them into an ill Opinion of their Governors and cry it is certain and notorious absolves them ipso facto from all Obedience to their Governors from their Oaths and all tyes of Humane or Divine Law and so frees their Conscience which is the chief hold Government has upon Men. And what Evils that can be suffered from Government can be of such destructive Consequence to the People as these loose Principles which unsettles them every Minute and puts it in the Power of every Boutefeu to set the Nation in a Flame at his Pleasure The Author's Distinction of Evil. N. 3. of his Introduction was design'd to obviate this its Title in the Heads of Discourse is in these Words The Arguments of
as deeply imprinted in that Country as of their unbridl'd Violence Plunder Burning and Destruction of Protestants and Friends as well as Enemies This War has taught those People Wickedness they never knew before in comparison they never knew what Wickedness was before Now let us compute how Religion is serv'd by all this The Spirit of Atheism is let loose and has overspread all the Land It is the Common-place of all our Men of Wit to run down and ridicule the Holy Scriptures and all Reveal'd Religion and this Publickly in Coffee-houses every where without any Restraint or Shame So far from that that they Laugh at and Despise all those who pretend to believe the Revelations in the Bible or that God ever spoke to any Man or gave them any Law by Moses or any body else other than by giving Men Wisdom to invent good Laws as Solon Licurgus or the like And no other Account do they make of Moses or the Prophets or of Christ I am sorry to say it that I am a Witness to the truth of this if it needed any Witness for it is notorious and universal but more within these Four years and more Publickly own'd than since we knew the World In short we have lost Christianity both as to Faith and Practise This is the Advantage Religion has gain'd by our Wars But all is no matter so we beat down Popery And yet Popery was never more Tolerated in Ireland than since the Conclusion of our War against Popery even by the Articles and Agreements of the War And how freely it is Tolerated in England we all know Nay it is taken ill if any call this a Religious War Are we not Confederate with the most Bigot Popish Princes in Christendom But we will keep Popery out of England for the time to come If it be by letting in Atheism or Socinianism it were better keep the old Popery still This is the Method to reconcile Men to Popery when they see you advance in its place Principles more Antichristian than it self and introduce them by all the Wicked and Prophane Practises in the World To my knowledge several have turn'd Papists and more are in danger from the Scandal of this Revolution the Lewdness of the Army and base Apostacy of the Clergy as they call it have turn'd their hearts against us they think we have no Religion It may seem a Paradox but it is true That there have been more Converts to Popery in England these last Four years than in the Four years before Indeed all that King James was a doing did prove to the Ruin of Popery in England And if he had been suffer'd to go on he had turn'd all English hearts for ever against it So far were we from the Danger of Popory in his Reign But now Men's Rage at Popery is abated by seeing the very wicked Artifices have been used against it I wish our Methods to keep it out do not bring it in It is a Rule that seldom fails but never almost in Religion That Civil War and Rebellion prove in the end to be the Destruction and Undoing of those good Things which are made the Pretences and for the Preservation of which Men are perswaded to Rebel That is commonly the end of Reformations made by the Sword especially of Subjects against their Sovereign And it is for such a Reformation as this that our Author can give up the half of the Nation to the Slaughter And all the Care he takes is An Age or two will repair the Loss of Subjects Murther will be a small Sin upon this Account It was counted a Tyrannical Expression in the Prince of Conde when one told him That he expos'd his Men too much in the Storm of a Town he replied There are as many Bastards gotten in Paris last Night as I shall loose Men to Day But this was modest by many Degrees to the fierce Sentence of this Author He had not time in his Fury to consider the Reason God gives Gen. 9.6 why shedding of Man's Blood is so Grievous a Sin in his Sight that he will require it from the Beasts of the Field much more from his Guilty Brother This Author makes nothing of destroying the Image of God What is the Matter Another Age will get more Images This was spoke like a Divine But good Sir there is something else which if you would give me leave I would presume to mind you of in your own Profession which is The care of Souls Sir in this Slaughter you make of Bodies there will some Souls be lost And an Age or two will not Repair that I am sorry this did not come into your Consideration For in this Revolution which you suppose and in which you are content to Sacrifice half the Nation you reckon about the Number it cost in your Country as themselves compute it In this Quarrel Sir you cannot suppose both Parties to be in the Right There must be Rebels on one side or other And you used to tell us That Rebellion was a damning Sin And is it nothing in your Account to send half the Souls of the Nation to Hell Are these the Bowels of a Spiritual Guide Good God! Whether are we come Here is no face of Christianity This is propagating Religion with the Sword beyond the Principles of Mahomet But will an Age or two cure the Infection of universal Debauchery and Prophaneness which this Civil War has spread over the Face of Ireland and in proportion of Scotland and England where the Armies have come Does this Author find it so easy a Task to remove all Lewdness and Prophanity where it has once taken root Or to hinder it to Descend to the next Generation And it is not only this War but it has been observ'd of War in all Ages that it destroys Men's Principles takes them off all Foundations of Sobriety and instills a Dissoluteness of Life and an Insensibility and Difregard of Religion and of all Rules of Justice 'twixt Man and Man most of any Thing in the World And of all Wars such universal Corruption of Manners is most fruitful in a Civil War and sticks longest to our Posterities leaves Seeds of Animosities till one Revolution begets another and entails Blood and Destruction Hatred Treachery Rebellion and all Wickedness from Generation to Generation And no Evils these can Cure are so Intolerable as these This made some of our Forefathers of so much a contrary Opinion to this Author as to make it a Proverb That the worst Peace is more Eligible than the best War However from the Consideration above said of all Pretences Religion is the most Ridiculous for a Civil War because a Civil War is more destructive to Religion than any Thing it can Remedy There is another Thing this Author has forgot while he had his Eyes upon nothing but new Bodies of Men being rais'd up next Age and so all the Evils of this to be done away God has
the publick printed Accounts of the Persecution and violent Rabbling of the Episcopal Ministers and others of their Principles they have suffered more from the Presbyterians in Scotland than even this Author was afraid of from King James in Ireland But not only the Papists in England and Episcopal Party in Scotland and the present Papists in Ireland may justifie their taking Arms against the Present Government when they please but the Irish Papists in 41 might have justified their Rebellion against King Charles I. by this Author's Principles which do indeed justifie all the Rebellions that ever were in the World or all that can be invented for none can want some of the Pretences which he allows for Rebellion But especially it gives full Liberty to all Dissenters in Religion to take Arms against the Government but more plainly if the Government shut them out from Places of Trust and Profit for such a jealousie of them may easily be improved into a Design for their Destruction But if any Penal Laws be made against them then the Design is apparent it goes beyond a Design it is a real Attempt upon them actually assaulting them c. But of all things How could the Irish who adhered to K. James be made Rebels to K. William before they submitted to him How could this be doâ—e by our Author's Principles If you say he had Title to Ireland by being King of England because Ireland is but an Appendix to the Crown of England Answer But from the beginning it was not so and the Government of England being dissolved as you say by Abdication and returned back to the suppos'd Original Contract or first Right of Mankind to erect Government for their own Convenience of consequence the Tye which England had upon Ireland by Conquest was dissolved and Ireland left as well as England in their suppos'd Original Freedom to chuse what Government and Governours they pleas'd But all this notwithstanding this Author's Principles freed them from K. William because of the Presumptions they had to think that K. William intended to invade their Property Lives and Religion He declared that he came to Establish the Protestant Religion By his Declaration of Grace 7 July 90 he pardons none either as to Life or Estate but only Poor Labourers Common Souldiers Country Farmers Plow men and Cottiers and such Citizens Townsmen Tradesmen and Artificers who should return by the 1st of August and even these were to forfeit all but their personal Chattels as you will see in the Declaration N. 6. Appendix And by the publick Resolution of his Judges 21 Nov. 90. which you will see in the Appendix N. 7. very few had hopes lest them either of Life or Estate even upon their submitting to King William and living peaceably under his Government pursuant to his Declarations And I am told that thousands of them are out-law'd since they submitted to his Protection notwithstanding of the many fair Promises which were made to them afterward upon several Occasions particularly General Ginckle's Proclamation printed at Dublin 4 Feb. 90. wherein he assures the Irish Papists in their Majesties Names that all of them who wâ—â—â—d submit to their Majesties Government should be protected as to their Religion Estates and Liberties These following Words are verbatim the Words of that Proclamation viz. Their Majesties hereby giving demonstration to the World that it is not their Design to oppress the Inhabitants of this Nation either by persecuting them for their Religion Ruining them in their Estates and Fortunes or Enslaving them in their Liberty These are the Words of that Proclamation which have not hinder'd the multitude of Out lawrys and other Proceedings and Forfeitures against those Irish who submitted to the Government As to their Religion they do not complain but that K. William has been very Gracious to them and they enjoy it in more ample Manner than ever they had it under any Protestant Prince But as to their Persons Estates and Liberties they cry out heavily of Breach of Publick Faith and Great Oppression If our Author had the improving of these and other their Circumstances how easily could he argue them into the lawfulness of taking Arms for their Defence But if the Argument of Glenco were on his side no doubt he would summon the Nation to rise as one Man and would Abdicate all the Governments in the World It is well for the Government that this Author is not touched by the late Act imposing the Oaths in Ireland the Refusal of which is no less than Premunire which does not only invade your Property but makes you uncapable of having any Property at all so much as to the Cloaths upon your Back or ever to breath the common Air out of a Jayl and none above eighteen years of Age no not Women of any sort Maids Wives or Widows are exempted What Declamations could our Author make upon this How far would he make this exceed the French Dragooning or even the Spanish Inquisition if he had such a Handle against King James Some Instances of the Author's manner of Argumentation I have heard from some who are acquainted with this Author that he is a Man of good Reason But in this Book I must say that his Zeal has transported him to take that for Reason which is the farthest from it in the World and which it is impossible he should think to be so in any other Case C. 3. s 8. n. 6. p. 102. He tells how Derry shut its Gates against the Earl of Antrim's Regiment And n. 7. p. 103. he proves they were obliged to do thus by their Foundation and names the Charter granted by K. James I. One would wonder how the King should grant a Charter to oppose himself The Author's Reason is That this Town was founded to be a Shelter and Refuge for Protestants against the Insurrections and Massacres of the Natives The Natives had before that time made frequent Rebellions and Derry was built as a Security against them therefore our Author thinks that if ever it should so happen that the Protestants should turn Rebels and the Natives be Loyal the King's Charter was meant to support the Protestants in their Rebellion This is too extravagant to need Confutation C. 3. s 12. n. 16. p. 154. He inlarges upon the Reasons they had in Ireland as well as in England to dread Papists in a Parliament and grounds his Argument from Q. Mary's House of Commons which was not well thought on for his Purpose for though that Parliament did overturn the Protestant Religion and set up Popery in its place yet the Protestants of England thought it their Duty for Conscience sake to suffer Martyrdom under those cruel Laws rather than to take Arms against their Popish Governours It is a Topick as ill chosen which he urges in the third Paragraph of n. 18. of the same Section p. 160. where the Argument he uses to cure the Folly of those Jacobites who were
were Eye-witnesses That long before K. J. left England the Protestants in the North of Ireland were generally all in Arms appointed themselves Officers Inlisted Men Arm'd and Array'd them they Regimented themselves and had frequent Rendevouzes they appear'd in the Field with Drums beating and Colours flying they chose Governors of Counties and appointed Councils and Committees to carry on their Business they Disarmed the Irish and such of the Protestants as they suspected not to be Cordial to their Cause I need not mind you that all this was not only without any Authority from the King but that it was not so much as pretended on the contrary iâ— appears by what they did after and boast of here as their Merit that all this was intended at least by many of them in direct Opposition to the King You cannot imagine that they could in a moment march out Horse and Foot in good Order and all Officer'd as they did at Eneskillen against those two Companies that were sent to quarter there It is therefore certain that sometime before this they had Marshall'd themselves Inlisted their Men chosen their Officers c. which was Treason by the Law tho they had not entred upon Action and I believe no Man in the World but our Author will deny this to be in Opposition to the Government What Government would not think it so Therefore the shutting up of Derry Gates against the E of Antrim's Regiment and Eneskillen refusing to quarter two Companies sent to them by the Lord Deputy was not all that was done by any Protestant in Ireland in opposition to the Government till K. J. deserted England as our Author words it Their former Preparations in order to that Resistance they then made was as much Treason in the eye of the Law tho not so great Treason as the Resistance it self But when did they begin to make these Preparations We are told in one of the Accounts Printed by the Irish Protestants intituled A faithful History of the Northern Affairs of Ireland from the late K. James ' s Accession to the Crown to the Siege of London-Derry by a Person who bore a great share in thâ—se Transactions We are told in this Account p. 7. That they began to Arm and to engage themselves in Associations about Sept. 88. before those written Associations which were afterwards published In the Prosecution of which Affair the Lord B. in the Counties of Armagh and Monaghan and Sir A. R. in Down and Antrim appeared most forward This was when the report grew hot of the P. of O's design'd Expedition into England they then as that Author says p. 6. did presume too far upon the Opinion of their own strength and finding the Affairs of England run successfully on the Protestants side rashly fancy'd themselves able enough to attempt their Deliverance I am the rather inclin'd to believe him not only because he says that himself bore a great share in those Transactions but I find him so far from being a Friend to K. James or writing on his side that he dips his Pen in Gall against him and represents him even with Virulence and he writes on purpose to vindicate their Proceedings in the North of which himself he says bore a great share and therefore not likely to speak with any Design to Prejudice their Cause and he tells us quite contrary to our present Author That the Protestants in the North of Ireland began very early two Months before the P. of O. Landed here and were from that time gathering strength Arming Marshalling and Training their Men to the Discipline of War and the use of their Arms in which I am told they were very diligent till at length they were able to make that first opposition which our Author speaks of at Derry and Eneskillen This was before the P. of O. came into England and I find a little after viz. about the end of Novemb. 88. When the happy tydings of the P. of O. Landing had reached our Ears in Ireland says Mr. J. Boyse in his Vindication of Mr. Osborn in reference to the Affairs of the North of Ireland p. 11. Mr. Osborn was entrusted by his Brethren the Nonconformist Ministers and other Gentlemen of Note and Interest in the Province of Ulster to get some Gentleman or other sent over from Dublin to the Prince with these following Instructions sign'd by those two whose names are subscribed in the name of the rest 1. That in our Name you congratulate the arrival of the P. of O. into England and his success hitherto in so glorious an undertaking to deliver these Nations from Popery and Slavery 2. That you Represent the Dangers and Fears of the Protestants in Ireland and particularly in the Province of Ulster and humbly beseech him to take some speedy and effectual care for their Preservation and Relief 3. That you Represent our readiness to serve him and his Interest in Prosecution of so glorious a Design as far as we have access Subscribed ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ALEXANDER OSBORNE Accordingly on Dec the 8th they sent over a Gentleman now in Town says the Book who in pursuance of these Instructions delivered in a memorial enlarging on these heads for they begg'd no particular favour for a Party to the then P. of O. the Originals of both which Papers are in my hands says Mr. Boyse whose Words these are Now I must inform you that the Nonconformists are much the most numerous Party of the Protestants in Ulster which is that is called the North of Ireland some Parishes have not ten not six that come to Church While the Presbyterian Meetings are crowded with thousands covering all the Fields this is ordinary in the County of Antrim especially which is the most populous of Scots of any in Ulster who are generally Presbyterians in that Country in other of the Northern Counties the Episcopal Protestants bear a greater Proportion some more some less But upon the whole as I have it from those that live upon the Place they are not One to Fifty nor so much but they would speak within Compass From hence we may conclude That the abovesaid Address to the P. of O. may be said to be the Address of the Protestants of Ulster especially considering that none of the others did Discent from it I suppose many Joyn'd in it for the Contest then was who should be most forward in shewing their Affection to the Cause and who could first meet his Highness thought they had most title to his favour And this our Author knows was before King James deserted England and I suppose he will not have the hardiness to say That this was nothing done in opposition to the Government I will give one Instance more We have heard and this Author could not but know of the great Alarm of an intended Massacre of the Protestants in Ireland upon the Ninth day of Decemb. 1688. The whole of this arose from a Letter said to be found in Cumber-street
which was carried to the Earl of M. discovering the said Massacre intended The foolish but artificial Alarm of the few Disbanded Irish cutting all our Throats in England did not fly more Incredibly to be in all Parts of England on the self same Night than this of the Letter found at Cumber flew through Ireland and wrought Prodigious Effects upon a People fitted for such an Impression When this News arrived in Dublin as the faithful History before quoted tells us pag. 8. It so alarm'd the City that above 5000 Protestants appeared in Arms that same night and many Hundred Families embarqued from all Parts in such confusion that they left every thing but their Lives behind them and yet all this as this Historian says he is very well assured was only a contrivance devised as the readiest means to engage the E. of M. who till then was deaf to all arguments for entring into their Association and to animate a dejected People who of themselves were backward to all Arguments of that nature Thus the Historian and that Letter did attain its desired end for not only the said E. of M. did heartily engage and after took upon him to be General of the Association in the North but the generality of the People as if all set on fire at one How to their Arms as readily as they could be commanded so that the whole North of Ireland appeared on the sudden all in one Blaze all in Arms all Marching up and down and all in confusion as themselves give the Account It was this made Derry shut their Gates and was the occasion of all the confusion that followed The Man they first pitcht upon for their General was the E. of Granard who was upon all accompts more competent for that Imployment than any amongst the Associators Pursuant to this Resolution Mr. Hamilton of Tollimore went to Dublin to Represent to his Lordship the number and posture of the Protestants in the North and to invite his Lordship to put himself upon the Head of their Troops But that Noble Lord would not suffer himself to be perswaded by the seeming Advantages of appearing so early and in so considerable a Post for the P. of O. wherein he might by all humane reckoning have turn'd the Ballance of that Kingdom For he wisely considered that tho the Protestants in the North were numerous and arm'd and of Resolution and Courage to excess yet they were Undiciplin'd all Voluntiers and consequently not Party for a form'd Army he told Mr. Hamilton that he did not know what it was to command a Rabble But besides that he had lived Loyal all his Life and would not depart from it in his old age and he was resolved That no Man should write Rebell upon his Gravestone this was his very expression and he pursu'd it for he not only refused to Command the Associators in the North but persuaded them to leave off their mad Enterprise told them they would be ruin'd as it came to pass and Sign'd several Proclamations declaring them Rebels and summoning them to lay down their Arms. Now this Alarme of the intended Massacre and Mr Hamilton's Invitation to the E of Granard to Command the Army of the Northern Association was in the beginning of December 88. about the 6th or 7th and therefore before K. James left England and before the shutting up of Derry against the E. of Antrims Regiment and before Eneskillen refused to quarter the two Companies sent to them by the Lord Deputy which was the 16th of December 88. as you will see in Hamiltons actions of the Eneskillen Men p. 3. So much has the Authors Information fail'd him when he avers without any hesitation That the shutting up of Derry Gates and this of Eneskillen as avovesaid was all that was done by any Protestant in Ireland in opposition to the Government till King James deserted England Though as I have shown before it would not have served much to the use for which our Author brought it if it had been done after the King went away or any time before the Convention declared his Recess to be an Abdication c. But now here is a more material Thing coming and that is The Descent of King James's Army into the North of Ireland in March 1688. Our Author would make us believe That it was wholly Causeless as to any Provocation given by the Protestants but that it was only a Design of my Lord Tyrconnel's to involve the Kingdom in Blood and that therefore he made all the haste he could to send down that Army and that no Perswasions would prevail upon him to defer fending it till the King should come lest there should be any Terms proposed or accepted by the People in the North and so that Country escape being Plundered and Undone This is in his num 10. § 8. of ch 3. p. 106 which has this Title in the Heads of his Discoure viz. Lord Tyrconnel hastned to run them into Blood before King James's Coming In the num before p. 104 105. he tells us there was no Provocation or not Sufficient given for the Descent of that Army and here p. 106. what was the true Cause of it We will Examine both For the first he asserts p. 105. They the Protestants were not so much as summoned by him the Lord Deputy This shows the unreasonable haste and precipitancy of the Lord Deputy To send an Army and enter into Blood without so much as summoning the offending Party But our Author goes on Nor did they the Protestants enter into any act of Hostility or Association or offend any till assaulted But finding that continual Robberies and Plunderings were committed by such as the Lord Deputy had intrusted with Arms and Employments The Gentlemen in the North to prevent their own Ruin entered 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 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 Murthering several of his Majesties Subjects and with Pillaging and Plundering the Country whereas it was notorious they never kill'd any whom they did not find actually Robbing 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 Lieut. General Hamilton with an Army which he tells us in the same Proclamation would
against the Repeal In his Book where he comes to prove this he only says that the Protestants were denied to be heard at the Bar of the Lords House and an Order made that nothing should be offered in their Favour First This is only his saying he produces no such Order nor any Vouchers Secondly If the Lords made such an Order What is that to the King They did many Things against His Will as I have shewn the Repeal it self to be and this Author knows it yet he charges all upon K. J. himself Well! God forgive this Author he has written every Word with the Spirit of Malice against his much injur'd Sovereign to whom he had sworn who fell by other Mens Faults rather than His own and being down all press upon Him and try who can wound Him deepest even those who Flattered Him Addressed to Him and were obliged by Him when in Power This Author was guilty of Treason against K. J. when under His Protoction and Favor Nay I have been told That the Author owes it to King James's Mercy that he now lives to thank him for his Goodness Was not be accused for holding Correspondence and giving Intelligence to the Rebels as they were then called both in England and the North of Ireland And was it not true Did he not give frequent Intelligence to Schomberg by one Sherman and keep constant Correspondence with Mr. Tollet and others in London He knows this would have been called Treason in those days and a bloody-minded Tyrant would have found another Remedy for it than a short Imprisonment And you may see by the vast number of Papers which he kept and Entries of all that past to K. J's Disadvantage that he all along intended him the Kindness he has now pay'd I suppose he will not deny it He makes no Secret of it but plainly justifies it c. 3. s 20. n. 6. p. 224. Nor can any reasonable man say she blame those amongst us who desired or assisted in this Deliverance and to their utmost power laboured to procure it One would reasonably ask upon this How it came to pass that so very few Protestants lost their Lives in Ireland under K. J. being so universally involved in Treason against him Our Author in answer to this c. 3. s 3. p. 179. but it is falsly pag'd it ought to be p. 187. among other Reasons gives this for one That they the Protestants were so true to one another Which this Author repeated and further explain'd soon after the Revolution there in a Letter to an Irish Protestant Bishop then in London wherein he said That tho it was in almost every Protestants Power to hang the rest yet they were so true to one another they did not discover it This shews how generally they were guilty of Treason against K. J. Add to this what I have been told by Protestants then in Dublin That K. J. had once so good an Opinion of this Author that he had him frequently in private and trusted him in his Affairs till at last he found him out and his old Friend the Lord Chief-Justice Herbert was so far mistaken in him that he vouched for him at the Council-Table with so much zeal as to say That he was as Loyal a Man as any sat at that Board which did retrieve this Author from some Inconveniencies that then lay upon him and continued him some time longer in the King 's good Opinion There is another Passage very surprizing I know a Person to whom this Author wrote about Sept. 88. when the News was hot of the Prince of Orange's intended Descent into England and before the Depositions concerning the P. of Wales were published and this Author did in his Letter mightily bemoan that there was no care taken to make some proof of his Birth to stop the Stories were every where spread about it without any Answer to them which made some give the more Credit to them If said this Author any thing of this sort were done to satisfie rational Men of the Birth of the Prince I am confident the Church of England would once more as in the Bill of Exclusion venture to oppose the Current of the Nation and stand by the Truth Accordingly when all this was done by the Depositions which were published in October 88. we heard of no more Objections from this Author as to the P. of W. and suppose he was satisfied of which no Man could doubt with any tollerable Charity for a Man of this Author's Character considering that till the Battel of the Boyne he did acknowlege this same P. of W. as P. of W. in his solemn Addresses to God in the face of the People Nay even after the Boyne a Gentleman told me that this Author did mightily complain to him That the Parliament in England had neither proved the Imposture of the Prince of Wales nor the French League with which the Nations had been so allarmed and that it was imposing upon the Nation to think to make them swallow these things without Proof And yet all this notwithstanding in his Thanksgiving Sermon 16 Novemb. 90. for the. Victory of the Boyne c. he speaks of that League with as much Assurance as if he had transacted it himself and makes it the chief head of his Declamations against K. J. and the great Reason for our Abdicating of him a Taste of which I have given you before And of the P. of W. he says in the same Sermon p. 16. That it was not so much as a well contrived Cheat. And p. 5. We all are satisfied says he that this Popish Contrivance was the only Womb that conceived a P. of W. for us and gave him a Birth He tells us not what new Light he had got in these Particulars but you ought to suppose that he was very well assured of them before he brought them into the Pulpit and yet being so well assured as this Author himself perhaps if not others of his Brethren will tell you now That he with the rest of the Dublin Clergy pray'd daily for this ill contrived Cheat The gross Hypocrisie of the Irish Clergy in Praying for K James and the Prince of Wales as P. of W. and for his Father too That God would give him Victory over all his Enemies when that was the thing they least wisht and confess that they laboured all they could against it Good God! what Apprehension what Thought had these Men of their publick Prayers bantring God Almighty and mocking him to his Face who heard their Words and saw their Hearts Is not Atheism a smaller Sin than this since it is better to have no God than to set up one to laugh at him I am not able to spare them in this Before the Association in the North of Ireland Septemb. 88. they prayed for K. J. The beginning of March following they proclaimed the P. of O. King and prayed for him The 14th day King James's Army
Pardon which he granted them And the Bishop of Cork constantly attended at the King 's Levee while His Majesty stay'd there Friday the 22d of March K. J. came to Kilkenny where the Bishop and Clergy were introduc'd by the Bishop of Chester to kiss His Majesty's Hand who received them very graciously Sunday the 24th the King came to Dublin Monday the 25th 1689 Primate Boyle Arch-bishop of Ardmagh advised the Bishop of Chester to accept of the Bishoprick of Cloghor then void which was owning K. J. to have had at that time full right to confer it and consequently to be Rightful King But that was fully and absolutely owned in ample form on Wednesday the 27th of March 1689 by the Bishop of Meath and Proctor of the University in the Name and at the Head of the Body of the Clergy and University The Bishop printed his Speech and is inserted No. 8 Append. But the Proctor thô commanded by the King to print his Speech modestly declined it he was more cautious and considered that it was framed only for that Juncture and is very well satisfied that we have it not now to print with the Bishop's Tuesday the 2d of April 1689 K. J. told the Bishop of Chester that complaint was made to him that the Clergy of Dublin did not readily pray for the Prince of VVales Upon which Notice the Dublin-Clergy met and consulted and thô they did not believe the reality of the Prince of VVales yet they resolved the King should not have that Pretence against them they would trust themselves in the Hand of God rather than Man presume Deliberately to act the Hypocrite with God and pray against their Consciences rather than displease the King But enough of this before There is another thing Not one of these complying Irish Protestants but will freely acknowledge That if K. VV. or any other King should turn Papist and do all that K. J. has done they wou'd and ought to serve him as they did K. J. They cannot otherwise justifie their Carriage towards K. J. The consideration of this made the Parliament in England abolish that Declaration viz. That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King c. But this by some neglect is left still upon the Irish Protestant Clergy under the Penalty of forfeiting their Livings And as many as have come into any Livings since this Revolution have read the said Declaration publickly in time of Divine Service and are to continue so to do and declare that they will do it till some Parliament take it away This will be called as gross a mocking of God as their former praying for K. J. that is whether they believe or do not belive that Declaration If they believe it they condemn themselves in taking Arms against K. J. If they do not belive it they make it visible to all the World That there is no Tye or Obligation Civil or Sacred can touch their Consciences when they so Solemnly while they are Officiating in the Divine Service and offering up to God the Prayers of their Flocks dare at that very time and with the same Breath declare before God and the People that they do believe it when they do not belive it and the People know that they do not believe it For they make no Secret of it will tell every one that asks them nay they stay not to be asked they Preach against it and Dispute against it and Instruct their Congregations against it and would call any one a Jacobite and a Papist who durst own it and hunt him to the next Goal And yet to save their Livings they continue still to subscribe this hated Declaration before their Ordinaries and take Certificates under their Hands and Seals that they have done it as they are obliged by the Act and publickly and openly Read the same upon the Lord's Day in their Parish Churches where they Officiate in the presence of the Congregation there Assembled in the time of Divine Service c. They Read it in the Desk and Preach against it in the Pulpit and when they come out of Church rail at the Parliament that Imposed it and say That it was soon after the Restauration Anno 1660. when People were Drunk with Loyalty after being wearied with the direful Effects of Rebellion under all its specious Pretences and thought they could never run far enough from it till they run to the quite contrary Extreme and advanc'd Prerogative to the utmost And they Wonder and Curse the hard Fate that this Declaration was not taken out of the way in Ireland as well as in England and wish it were done But in the mean time they will lose nothing by it they can swallow and it will swallow them if they do not Repent God grant them Grace to do it And that the Shame of this their Sin may Convent and not Harden them But this Charge is general Our Author is only involved in it with many others Let us return to what is more Particular as to himself which I think I am obliged to give you an Account of only so far as relates to the present Business because it ought to weigh with you in the Credit you are to give of what he says where he brings no other Reason than his own Averring This Author was formerly a zealous Man for Passive Obedience even in the beginning 〈◊〉 this Revolution Know then that according to certain Information I have had that no Man was or could be a higher Assertor of Passive Obedience than this Author has been all his life even at the begining of this Revolution that he told a Person of Honor from whose Mouth I have it That if the P. of O. came over for the Crown or should accept of it he pray'd God might blast all his Designs That there was no way to preserve the Honor of our Religion but by adhering unalterably to our Loyalty That it would be a glorious Sight to see a Cart full of Clergy-men going to the Stake for Passive Obedience as the Primitive Christians did That it would prove the Support and Glory of our Religion but that a Rebellion would ruine and disgrace it He said if it were no more than that Declaration which he had Subscribed of It s not being lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King c. he would dye a Hundred Deaths rather than do it At a Meeting of the Clergy of Dublin in the begining of this Revolution in 88. to consider what Measures they were to take he declared That their taking Arms in the North of Ireland at that time was Rank Rebellion if there could be any Rebellion particularly Derry shutting their Gates against the King's Forces sent thither And when one there present did affirm That the Subjects might take Arms in Defence of their Laws c. This Author did violently oppose it even in relation to Derry and urged that
the Bishop of Derry Hopkins who was then there did protest against their shutting out the King's Forces and refused to joyn with those who did it for which and other Reasons this Author then gave he was against any Bodies going to the North or joyning with them as being a joyning in Rebellion About the Year 86. or 87. After his going from Wexford Waters to several of the Bishops of Munster he wrote a Letter to a Person of undoubted Credit giving an Account of what happened in his Journey and of the Substance of what he Discoursed with the Bishops of Waterford Corke and Cloyne he wrote That among other things he advised them as the only way to prevent the Dangers that were imminent to a steaddiness in their Loyalty and Religion and that he asserted that if the King and our Temporal Governors should enact unjust Laws that the Subject has no Remedy but Patience against whom we allow no other Weapons but Prayers and Tears and that it was a most unlawful thing for any to call in a Foreign Force or erect a New Government to redress unjust Laws And adds That it is a sad thing that it is not observed that Rebellions in the State and Schisme in the Church arise from this one Principle to wit That Subjects may in some Cases resist or seperate from their Lawful Governors set over them by God Whereas the Principle of Non Resistance is a steady Principle of Loyalty and it will be found no easier Matter to shake either the Church or State that is settled on it And he repeats it again That it is intolerable for the Members of any State to flee to Foreign Succors out of Pretence that their own Governors have made Laws against Reason Conscience and Justice and foolish to allege in their Defence That all Mankind is of one Blood and bound to help one another Which now he has made his great Argument in this Book Chap. 1. Sect. 5 What is above-written I have from the Person to whom he wrote it and more to the same purpose and if he desire it his Letters shall be produced The same Person told me that about the beginning of this Revolution he was in Company with the Author and another Gentleman I think it was Dr. Dun who blamed the preaching of Passive Obedience so high as the cause of what had befallen us whom this Author smartly reproved and vindicated the Doctrine of Passive Obedience to the highth But that Zeal and Courage has left him with his Principles or while he counterfeits his Principles there is a difference of assurance in defending some Causes which makes him now shun all those who knew his former Principles and have not changed as well as himself He refused to see all the time he was in London last August and September a Deprived Bishop with whom he was as intimate as any Man and had contracted a great Friendship and when he was minded of it to see his Old Friend he would not said they should fall into Heats And beginning of this last October 1692 being in Oxford on his Road to Ireland Mr. Hudson of University-College was with this Author in the Schools-Quadrangle at the very time Mr. Dodwell his admired Acquaintance was going up to the Library and Mr. Hudson asking whether he should call after him our Author forbad him saying He knew Mr. Dodwell would be angry with him If he thought that Mr. Dodwell was in an Error he ought to have endeavoured to convince him No he knew that Mr. Dodwell stood upon the same Ground where he left him and that it was he himself had Prevaricated and forsaken his first Love and therefore was ashamed to meet with the Man who knew his Principles so well before and who had stuck close to them in the Day of Tryal The very sight of such a Man is an upbraiding of their Cowardise and Unconstancy who have deserted their Principles and raises Guilt in their Faces which their Eyes would discover though they were hardened against a Blush Heu quantum mutatus ab illo From the well reputed and deserving Dr. K. who honoured and admired and loved Mr. Dodwell above most Men would have gone far to see him and was proud of corresponding with him and now shuns his sight as Guilty Sinners would the Face of Heaven O if this Author had retained his Integrity how much greater would he have appeared in the Friendship Esteem and Fellow-Suffering of this Great Man then in his Guilty Purple But Deserters must shew their Zeal and discover their own Shame Behold now how he starts and quotes it as a full Proof of King James's Arbitrary Designs That it was Enacted in their Act of Recognition in Ireland That the Decision in all Cases of a misused Authority by a Lawful Hereditary King must be left to the sole judgment of God Indeed I was amazed to see him quote this as so strange a thing which is over and over to be found in the Acts both of England and Scotland and Ireland as if he had not only forsaken but quite forgot what he had formerly taught He has got new Principles and a new Language p. 182. it ought to be 190. for it is false Printed he says K. J. was ungrateful to the Irish Protestant Clergy This is very familiar but what was the King's Ingratitude Because if they had been disloyal in Monmouth or Argile's Rebellion they might have made an Insurrection c. So that this Author thinks the King is in their Debt for not Rebelling And I suppose this is all the way that they brought him to the Throne as this Author says in the same place It seems these Irish Clergy have been mighty Men and we have not known it But he says that by their Zeal for King James they lost the Affections of their People This is a Scandal I verily believe upon the Irish Protestants They were I hope better Men I have known some of them and this Author ought to know them better I have not heard that any of the Irish Protestants took Offence at that Passage which this Author Printed in the Preface to a Sermon of the Lord Bishop of Kilmore's preached in the Author's Church of St. Warborrough's in Dublin in March 1684. the first year of King James's Reign It was entituled St. Paul's Confession of Faith There in a Letter of this Author 's to the Lord Bishop which is Printed in the Preface he avers positively in these words viz. It is impossible for any one of our Communion to be disloyal without renouncing his Religion This past better with the Irish Protestants Dr. Till Extent of Loyalty in his Serm. 2 Apr. 80 before K. C. 2. than that Super-Loyal Strain of our famous Dr. Tillotson which he Preached before the King at Whitehall Apr. 2. 1680. upon Josh 24.15 did please the Church of England men here other than those who took the Court for the Standard of their
Power which God hath put in our Sovereign's hands This Doctrine we justly glory in and if any that had their Educations in our Church have turned Renegadoes from this they prove no less Enemies to the Church her self than to the Civil Authority So that this Apostacy leaves no Blame on our Church If you think the Titles of Renegado and Apostate to be too plain Dealing I cannot help it they are the Doctors own Words and no dout proceeded from a godly Zâ—al and Indignation against such base Deserters of these Principles of Loialty which are taught by the Church of England in her Homilies Canons Articles and Authentick Records As did likewise that pious Ejaculation of our Author c. 2. s 7. n. 2. p. 29. That he is a very dishonest man that dissembles or alters his Opinion without any other visible motive besides Gain or Preferment And that their living so long in the profession of the Protestant Religion he is speaking of Converts to Popery and you may apply it to the Converts from Passive Obedience to the Doctrine of Resistance and Common-wealth Principles if they did not believe it was to all honest men an Argument of so great Hypocrisie that the person guilty of it one would think should not have been trusted by any that valued either Truth or Honesty but if this Declaration viz of their new Opinion was only feigned as I am apt to believe it was in many then their Conversion was on Effect of Covetousness or Ambition and an Act of Hypocrisie to be ababhorred by all good men However to persuade the World that they were real they were very mischievous to Protestants in general to those whose Principles they had forsaken especeally to those that had been kind to them whil'st in an inferiour condition And it was observable of these Converts That they immediately on their Reconcilement made themselves signal by some eminently wicked Act. Thus our Author And he says p. 31. The truth is they were people that made no distinction between Right and Wrong but as they served their Interest It would perhaps be thought malicious if I should retort every word of this upon our Author in relation to his present Conversion from his former Principles of Loyalty and Passive Obedience And if his present Principles be not true he has hansel'd his Conversion by an Act much more eminently wicked beyond all Comparison by the writing of this Book than what he observes of Converts to Popery in Ireland What Proportion is ' there twixt tossing a Butcher in a Blanket which he tells p. 29. or two or three small Murders in the heat of Blood and breaking a Cryer's head which is set out p. 30 as the first Fruits of these Papists Conversion what Proportion do these bear to a Bishop's deliberate giving up of half the Nation at a time to the Slaughter and Hallowing it in all past and to all suture Generations This I have enlarged upon already Again if his Matters of Fact be false or but in the least aggravated or misrepresented how eminently wicked will this first remarkable Act of our Author's Conversion appear when he takes God to Witness and protests before him p. 239 that he has neither aggravated nor misrepresented But before I take leave of this Author with the rest of his Brethren the Dublin Clergy who remained there and complemented as it proved K. J. with full assurance of their adhering unalterably to their Church of England Loyalty who durst doubt it even with Relation to K. J. after he was declared Abdicate and a new King even K. W. himself set upon the Throne and claiming the Allegiance of his Subjects in Dublin and the rest of Ireland even then did the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Meath at the Head and in the Name of their Dublin Clergy with some others as many as could get thither out of the Country again affirm their Allegiance to K. J. in most express Terms and all the Rhetorick he could invent to perswade K. James into an entire Confidence of their adhering to him as their Rightful King and that it was pursuant to the Principles of the Church of England so to do Which Speech we had here printed two Years agoe together with another of the same Bishop to K. W. when he came to Ireland in the Name of the same Clergy and I have annexed them to this with the Answers of both Kings No. 8. Appendix Now before we part with these Gentlemen I would earnestly desire them to answer me with the same Sincerity with which they addressed to one or both of these Kings Whether it King James had suceeded at the Boyne and been then re-established in England they would have put that Comment upon their Speech to him which they did afterwards in their Speech to K. W And whether if any Man should have charged them for meaning it with that Reserve they would not have called it a base Calumny and sworn to the contrary if K J. had required it at least if an Act of Parliament had been made to have Deprived them if they did not I ask again Whether they would have confest as now they do that they did not mean sincerely in what they Prayed for K. James viz. That God would give him strength to vanquish and overcome all his Enemies Nay farther Whether they would not have boasted of their Loyalty and sincere Intentions towards King James and reproached those of Disaffection to Him who had forsaken Him and of quitting the true Principles of the Church of England and that they were ready to suffer not only much more than they did but even Death it self without Threatning or Reviling much less Resisting the Lord 's Anointed according to the Command of Scripture the Practice of Christ and his Apostles and the Primitive Christians and the express Doctrine of our Homilies c. All these good Words we should have had from themâ— no doubt these only had been the Men of Principles Firmness Courage nay even of Christianity But they are detected God would not suffer such masked Hypocrisie to deceive the World It is told Luke 2.35 as one of the Effects of Christ's coming into the World That the Thoughts of many hearts should be revealed The Behaviour of the Clergy in taking the Oaths This has been remarkably fulfilled in this Revolution but especially in the Clergy There never was so sudden and so shameful a Turn of Men professing Religion and the manner of doing it so impolitick as to make it evident they took the Oaths with at least a doubting and scrupalous Conscience the Sentence of which they may read Rom. 14.23 for they did not take them freely but haggled and kept off some to the last day roaring against them all the while and then coming about all at once with new coyn'd Distinctions and Declarations point blank contrary to the declared Sense of the Imposers They differed among themselves every one had a
Security from the Members of the Church of England more than from either Popish or Presbyterian Dissenters That when either of these two last-nam'd take Arms against the King for the Propagation of their Religion they act pursuant both to the Principles and Practice of their Churches but no true church-of-Church-of-England man can take Arms against the King in Defence of his Religion Liberty Property or any pretence whatsoever without at the same time renouncing the Principles of his Church or in Dr. Burnet's words turning Renegado and Apostate from it and from the constant Practices of its true Professors to this present Age. And though God has sifted Her and discovered Her unsound Members most of whom were Phanaticks grafted contrary to Nature yet we may perceive by the Remnant He has left that it will end in rendring her more Pure and Glorious after she has past the Refiner's Fire These Considerations have taken me a little out of the Road if it be out of the Road of the present Business I will return to the Author We have seen his Sincerity in the Original Matter of Fact and Mother of all the rest viz. Who were the Aggressors in the late miserable Revolution of Ireland for they were answerable for all that followed Matter◠of Fact set down by this Author at random But there are many other Particulars besides those to which I have spoken wherein the Author shews great variety of prevarication And tho he pretends to so great exactness which any one would believe by his Method yet it is visible that he set down things at random meerly for want of pains to examin them C. 3. S. 12. at the end p. 165. he pretends to compute what the Estates of all the Jacobites in England and Scotland are worth But this may pass more innocently than where it reflects upon any particular Persons Reputation in these Cases it is not only uncharitable but unjust to say any thing at a venture If we know not the thing to be true we are to err on the charitable side and not mention what may reflect upon another but if we do we must be sure to set down our Vouchers so as to leave no umbrage to suspect the Truth This our Author I am afraid has not so punctually observed through all this Book particularly in the Characters which he takes upon him to give of so many persons C. 3. S. 3. he accuses the Judges particularly the Lord Chief Justice Nugent ibid. n 5. p. 61. of down-right Bribery That he went sharer in Causes before him and not only appeared for them on the Bench but also secretly encouraged and fomented them I have heard others say who are no Admirers of that Judge That they are confident this is a rank Slander and Calumny and that no such thing can be proved against him However an Accusation of so heinous a Nature ought not to have been exhibited especially in Print without some Proofs along with it This Nugent says the Author was pitch'd on by K. J. to judge whether the Outlawries against his Father and his Fellow Rebels should be reversed Now I am assur'd That his Father viz. the Earl of Westmeath was not Outlawed which if so this is such another careless Mistake as this Author makes ibid. n. 3. pag. 60. where he calls Felix O Neil a Master of Chancery in King James's time Son of Turlogh O Neil the great Rebel in 41 and Massacrer of the Protestants That Turlogh O Neil was Brother to the Famous Sir Phelom O Neil and was not Father to this Felix O Neil I have been told by Men of Ireland That this Felix O Neil's Father's Name was Phelom and that he was so far from being a bloody Masacrer in 41. that he was civil to the Protestants in those times particularly to 〈…〉 Guilliam Father to Meredith Guilliam now a Major in K. W's Army whom he obliged by his civil Usage of him when he was Prisoner with the Irish and the same Guilliam's Relations do still acknowlege it But as to the Reversing of these Outlawries this Author has not done right to K. J. For upon the Representation made to his Majesty by the Earl of Clarendon then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland of the ill Consequences of the Reversal of these Outlawries particularly the Jealousie it gave of encroaching upon the Acts of Settlement which you will see more at large in King James's Letter of the Third of May 86. to the Earl of Clarendon and his Lordships proceedings thereupon which are hereunto annexed No. 20 His Majesty did not press that matter any farther and so there was a stop put to these Reversals during the Government of my Lord Clarendon in Ireland and for any thing I can hear afterwards till this Revolution So that this seems rather an Imposition upon the K. as there were many by my Lord Tyrconnel and those of his Party than a thing that sprung immediately from the King 's own Breast or that he pitcht upon Judge Nugent on purpose to carry it on violently as this Author sets it out in his Guesses at Random and would have it pass for some mighty Matter To this Class will justly belong what I have before mentioned of this Author 's bold and positive Politicks upon foreign Princes and States and likewise of the P. of W. Fr. League c. which he had from the same Intelligence and avers with the same Assurance By Innendoes wherein his groundless and unjust Reflection upon the E. of Clarendon He has likewise an Art of making many things pass by Innendo's whose Falshood would have appeared if they had been plainly related For Example c. 3 s 12. p. 144. telling of the assurances sent over by King James to Ireland by the Earl of Clarendon Lord Lieutenant and Sir Charles Porter Lord Chancellor he says These Declarations gained belief from the credulous Protestants especially that made by Sir Charles who behaving himself with Courage and Integrity in his Office went a great way to persuade them which being the Ground of their being persuaded by him more especially than by my Lord Clarendon plainly insinuates as if my Lord Clarendon had not behaved himself with Courage and Integrity in his Office there This Author is the first Irish Protestant I have heard give my Lord Clarendon an ill word as to his Government in Ireland On the contrary they all speak exceeding things of him particularly of his Zeal and Pains for Supporting the Protestant Interest in that Kingdom which gain'd their hearts to as great a degree if not more than most Chief Governours had ever been there they never parted with any Chief Governour with so much regret and as I have been told none courted him more when he was there than this Author who was admitted one of his Excellency's Chaplains but now thinks fit that should be forgotten at least kept for a more seasonable Juncture But C 2. S. 4 n. 1. p. 19. he
has an Inuendo of a higher Nature than this It imports no less than that the Protestants of Ireland conquering the Irish there gives them a Title to Ireland independent on the Crown of England He places the Scene indeed in another Reign but the Application is too obvious to be mistaken I suppose none will deny but K. C. 2. at his Restauration in the year 1660. to the Crown of England had thereby a good Title to Ireland But this Author plainly insinuates as if the English Rebels who Conquer'd Ireland as he calls it under Oliver had thereby gained a Right to it for themselves and therefore makes it not a Duty but a meer Act of Generosity in them to call home K. C. 2. and says That they bestow'd Ireland upon him c. These are his words viz. The Conquerers viz. Oliver's Army joined in bringing home K. C. 2. and generously gave up themselves together with the Kingdom of Ireland without Articles or Conditions into his hands Where observe They had a Right to have kept him out and not to have admitted him without such Articles and Conditions as they thought fit And our Author does not seem to approve of their receiving him without such Articles as he does not the King 's restoring the Conquered under certain Qualifications to a part of the forfeited Lands Kings are in a good condition when all their Actions are thus to be Arraign'd by every one who can take the Boldness to call them to an Accouâ—â— and Publish their Censure of Majesty to the World The same Language is now in many of their mouths as to the present Reduction of Ireland and they grudge the Articles of Limerick and Galloway c. not considering that there is no Government but by the necessity of their Affairs may be forced sometimes to take Measures which may alarm some sort of People and if for this People have liberty to attack the Government in every Coffee-house and Cabal what Peace can be lasting tho' they should do it by such discreet Inuendo's as this Author Kings now indeed are upon their good Behaviour as this Author of late loyally expressed it on the Thirtieth of January in Christ-Church Dublin applying it to that Day to shew the glorious Change of his Principles But for a Noble stroke both for speaking at Random for Inuendo's and for weight of Argument see C. 3. S. 12. n. 21. p. 165. It is thus stil'd in the Heads of Discourse Protestants lost more in Ireland than all that favour K. J 's Cause in England are worth In the Section it self he adds Scotland too This is a Discovery the Parliament would thank him for at least Mr. Fuller I dare not ask this Author by what means he came to know more than King and Parliament or any in England pretend to to find out all the Jacobites in England and Scotland and the value of their Estates Well it must pass by Inuendo and that cannot be disprov'd But he inuendo's in the Jacobites Thoughts too as well as their Estates And I suppose says he it would put them the Jacobites out of conceit with Him K. J. or any other King there he handsomly brings in K. W. and shews the Opinion as he believes of the Williamites at least you may conclude it is his own that should take away but one half of their Estates from them There the Government has the stint of his Obedience But has not this Author's Intelligence brought him the News yet of the Deprivation of the Archbishop of Canterbury and other English Bishops and Clergy with a greater Number in Scotland who have lost the whole of their Estates and it is believed would lay down their Lives too for what they think to be their Duty to their King And there are many Lay-Jacobites as resolute even as they Did this Author never hear that Mr. Ashton suffered Death and would not own this to be a Fault And that the Bishops of Chichester and Worcester asserted it upon their Death-beds and that they would have gone to the Stake rather than have forsaken their Passive Obedience or taken the present Oaths How is it possible that a Man so well read as the Author in the Primitive Persecutions should think losing but half ones Estate so mighty a Matter in asserting the Principles of our Religion But these things we can better hear than where he would impose upon us such Incredible Stories as would not pass at a Country Wake Incredible Matters of Fact Such is that c. 2. s 8. n. 4. p. 33. where he gives us such an Idea of the Wild Irish as he that said he had seen some of them so tame that they would eat Meat out of his hand He says that it seemed an unreasonable Hardship to those of them who were Landlords That they should be called to an account for killing or robbing their Tenants or ravishing their Daughters I confess this so startled me from an Author of his Gravity and living in that Country that it put me upon the Curiosity of enquiring of some Gentlemen of that Country who told me it was just as true as their having Hair upon their Teeth That there were ill Men among them and Murthers and Rapes have been committed as in other places but that they were so savage and ignorant at this time of day as not to expect to be called to an account for such horrible Crimes is an Assertion that astonishes every body that hears of it If he means that in the time of this War such Crimes went unpunished others have the same to say Witness Dr. Gorge's Letter But the Author 's Topick in this place is not of the time of the War but of the manner of these People before so that it is an egregious Imposition upon our English Understandings to think to pass this upon us It is almost as strange as this what he tells c. 3. s 11. n. 8. p. 138. That Colonel Luttrel Governor of Dublin condemned Mr. Piercy a Merchant to be hanged for saying very calmly That he was not willing to part with his Goods if he could help it And as strange that Mr. Piercy should escape because the Governour could not find any of the Provoes If you can hardly believe that Mr. Piercy should be condemned for speaking such innocent words and that very calmly you will be no Proselyte to this Author who as confidently and with as little Voucher that is none at all tells in the same place That Mr. Bell a Protestant Merchant was confined to close Prison and no body allowed to speak to him for I would have the Reader guess the Crime less if it could be than that of Mr. Piercy It was without any Crime so much as alledged against him says our Author We say It is easie to find a Stick to beat a Dog Were the Protestants so Loyal to K. J. or the Irish so dull that they could make no pretence of a Fault when
here do tell it The Earl of Inchiquin and Captain Henry Boyle with the generality of the Protestant Gentlemen in the Province of Munster having entred into an Association in Decemb. 88. as the Protestants in Ulster and Connaught had done they resolved to seize upon Corke and Bandon as the places of greatest Strength and Consequence in the Province Their Design took effect at Bandon which joyned with them But the Lord Deputy having notice of their Proceedings sent Major-General Mac-Carty now Lord Mount-Cassell to observe them He pretending to keep fair with them they attempted bringing him over to declare for the P. of Orange and some of them had hopes of it but he proved too cunning for them prevented their seizing of Corke and when Captain Henry Boyle upon that disappointment fortified his House Castle-Martyr he besieged him there Upon this Sir Tho. Southwell in the County of Limerick and several other Protestant Gentlemen marched with the greatest Force they could make to raise the Siege in their march they seiz'd on all the Papists Horses and this Mr. Browne who was then one of them took the Horses of Neagle of Moyallow who was then High-Seriff of the County of Corke and a Man was killed in the Fray and all this our Author calls only making his escape from those who came to plunder him But to tell out my Story Sir T. Southwell and his Company hearing upon their March that Castle Martyr was surrendred he endeavoured to make his way to Sligo to joyn the Lord Kingston and other Associators in Connaught who were all in Arms and as this Author tells p. 170. he and 200 of his Men were taken by a small Party of K. J's Dragoons not much to the Glory of their Courage And this Author says p. 171. That they were over-persuaded to plead Guilty though they had not been guilty of any Overt Act that could be construed Treason What this Author means by Overt Acts or what by Treason he will tell us in the next and likewise give us some probable Reason why K. J. should Reprieve and afterwards Pardon Sir Thomas Southwell and all the rest who were engaged in that business and have such a particular Malice only at Browne whom he knew as little as any of the rest Otherwise he must give us leave to suspend a little our belief of his Narrative in this matter particularly that K. J. should influence either Judge or Jury to take away Mr. Brown's Life and that he should be inexorable in Mr. Brown's Case alone and yet so very merciful to all the rest is a Contradiction to believe if his Case or Circumstances did in no ways differ from theirs But it is no wonder that this Author cannot keep him self from Contradictions through the whole Series of his Book when the very Titles the Heads of his Discourse are contradictory one to another which one would think an ordinary Care might have avoided C. 2. s 8. n 10. the Title is That K. J's Desire to be absolute induced him to change his Religion And yet c. 3. s 1. n. 5. the Title is Zeal for his Religion made him act against his Interest to that Degree says this Author in his Prosecution of this c. 3. s 1. n. 5. p. 46. that the Protestants could not but conclude that K. J. was so intent upon destroying them that so he compassed that Design he cared not if he enslaved himself and the Kingdoms P. 45. That he had a setled Resolution not to mind any Interest which came in Competition with his grand Design of advancing Popery and the Slavery of the Nations To effect which it is manifest he was content to be a Vassal to France Thus the Author Here are Contradictions upon Contradictions That K. J. should be content to be a Vassal that he might be Absolute If you say that must be understood only of his other Grand Design viz. advancing Popery which had the Ascendant even over his Interest or his desire of being Absolute This will contradict the other Head of Discourse which gives the desire of Absoluteness in him the Ascendant over his Religion as being the Ground-work and Motive which induc'd him to change his Religion And yet page 10. of his Thanksgiving-Sermon Perhaps says he K. J. chiefly desired an Absolute Authority over his Subjects that he might compel them into the bosom of his Church And it does not appear a less Contradiction than any of these that a King should change the Principles of the Church of England as then taught for those of Rome out of a desire to be the more Absolute The Church of Rome 4 Coun. Lat C. 3 c. gives Power to the Popes to Depose Kings and they have shewn many Examples of it On the other hand the Church of England when K. J. forsook her Communion damn'd this Deposing Doctrine and the Practice of it and valued themselves upon the Principle of Non-Resistance to their King upon any Pretence whatsoever as their distinguishing Character and an essential part of their Religion and they had never varied from it nor was it thought by any or themselves that ever they would I am sure if they were not in earnest with it then they can give no demonstration now that they can be in earnâ—st with any thing and it is in every bodies mouth That K. J's trusting too much to their Passive Obedience hastened his Ruin which could not be if he had not thought this to have been their Principle Now for a King of this Opinion to quit this Church and go to that Church which teaches the Deposing Doctrine to do this out of a desire of Abâ—â—luteness is such a Contradiction as this Author would have seen at another time C. 3. s 12. n. 15. p. 153. he makes K. J. most absolute in the Parliament in Ireland That this Parliament openly profess'd it self a Slave to the King's Will and that he was look'd upon as a Man factiously and rebelliously inclin'd that would dare to move any thing after any Favourite in the House had affirm'd that it was contrary to the King's Pleasure Accordingly the Author instances several particulars of K. J's Absoluteness in this Parliament particularly That upon his signifying his dissatisfaction to the Repeal of Poyning's Act the Parliament let it fall with several other Acts tho' the Irish had talk'd much and earnestly desired the Repeal of Poyning's Act it being the greatest sign and means of their Subjection to England Yet p. 37. you have the Irish dispute his Orders and and stand on the Laws and they would not suffer him to dispense with their Act of Attainder c. And yet p. 18. They pish'd at the Laws as Trifles and declared they liked no Government but that of France that they would make the King as Absolute here as that King was there P. 31. The Temper and Genius of these Men were at Enmity to the Laws and fitted for Slavery They promoted and
in Ireland while King James was there will attest the Truth of what I have said I appeal to Thomas Pottinger Esq who was then Sovereign of Belfast the grearest Town of Trade in the North of Ireland whether upon his Application to King James his Majesty did not give him Protection after Protection for Belfast and the Country about And whether such Protections were not made good to them by King James's Officers and where any of the Irish offered to transgress against the said Protections they were not severely punished upon the first Application to the King or those commanding under him This is likewise attested by Colonel John Hill present Governor of Fort-William at Innerlochy in Scotland but living at that time in Belfast in his Letter from Belfast to the Sovereign of Belfast then in Dublin inserted No. 25. Appendix and which Letter he desires the Sovereign to shew to none and therefore spoke his mind in it and not to flatter the Government There he tells how well Grievances were redressed and King James's Army kept to strict Discipline I demand further Whether the said Mr. Pottinger did not upon his application to King James obtain leave for the Merchants of Belfast and of the Country about to return from Scotland and other places whither they had fled even after the time limitted by His Majesties Proclamation for their Return And whether upon a second application to His Majesty and representing that there was an Embargo on the Scots side King James did not grant them time to return without stinting them to any day while any reasonable Excuse could be made for their delay And whether he the said Mr. Pottinger did not send Notice of this to the Belfast Merchants and others then in Scotland And though few or none of them came over till after Schomberg landed in Ireland with the English Army in August 89 yet whether their Goods were not preserved for them all that time by King James's Order still expecting their Return And whether they did not accordingly find their Goods at their Return Nay ever when Schomberg landed and King James was obliged to remove from that Country and leave it to the Enemy Whether he did not give special Directions to Major-General Maxwell then Commanding in Belfast not to suffer any of the Goods of the Protestants to be plundered nor any of the Country to be burnt upon their leaving it And whether these Commands of His Majesty were not punctually observed not only at Belfast but at Lisburn Hillsborough and all that Country and even at Dundalk it self which King James left in good Order for Schomberg to encamp in and make his Frontier his first Campagne Neither will Mr. Pottinger deny That Mr. Thomas Crocker Merchant of Yoghall in the Province of Munster in Ireland and several other Merchants of Yoghall Cork and other places of that Province did complain to him That their Friends which stay'd behind in Ireland while King James was there did make no application in their behalf to King James whether out of negligence or stubbornness which if it had been done they did not doubt but they would have had their Goods preserved for them as they had at Belfast and other places in the North of Ireland indeed in all places which desired it And I likewise desire Mr. Pottinger to tell whether the several Protections he obtained for these parts of the Country about Belfast were not given gratis without any Fees And whether there was any Conditions so much as an Oath required of those who returned and took the benefit of His Majesties Grace And though their taking the Oath of Fidelity to King James was named in one of the Protections granted to Belfast and the Country about here inserted n. 23. Appendix yet whether upon Mr. Pottinger's representing to my Lord Melfort That the Oath might perhaps startle some and hinder their Return his Lordship did not allow Mr. Pottinger and the other Magistrates not to require the said Oaths And whether accordingly the Retinning Protestants and others were not received into Protection without any Oath at all required from them King James had tried the Security of Oaths before They are certain Snares and a very uncertain Security Mr. Pottinger can likewise give Attestation to the Truth of what Secretary Gorge has told in his Letter of King James's not only keeping his Protections to the Protestants in Ireland but of the extraordinary kindness he upon all Occasions expressed to the English How several English Ships which came into Belfast some from the Indies who knew not of the War others by stress of Weather or other Causes and were seized by the Irish were always Released by King James were suffered to unload and to load again and pursue their Voyage to England Mr. Pottinger can tell the Ships their Burthen aad their Masters Names Nay King James did not only release particular Ships upon their application but gave general Orders to Major-General Maxwell and others Commanding on the Sea-Coasts in the North and we suppose the like in other places That no English Ship should be disturb'd which came thither Many more Instances might be given but these are sufficient to demonstrate that King James did not only freely grant and inviolably keep his Protections to the Protestants in Ireland but extended it likewise to as many of the English as came under his Power though against their Will The French Fleet which carried King James into Ireland took some English Merchant-men while His Majesty was on board and some of the Masters were brought before King James who expecting nothing but Death fell down upon their knees begging their Lives which brought Tears into the King's Eyes and he not only restored them their Ships with all their Effects but ordered two Frigats to attend them and see them safe through all the French Fleet. Dr. Gorge has told you of some severe Examples made in Dublin to shew King James's positive Resolution to protect the Protestants and Mr. Pottinger whom I have quoted as to the North can tell how Lieutenant-General Hamilton when he marched into Lisburn after the Break of Drommore was so far from taking the Plunder of the Country that he caused a Soldier to be shot in the Streets of Lisburn for taking a Silver Spoon from one Mrs. Ellis thâ—â—â—â— Mrs. Ellis and many more of the Protestant Inhabitants did beg his Life The 15th of March 88. the day before the Break of Drommore when the Protestants were generally fled and the Irish thought the Plunder was their own the Lieutenant-General upon Mr. Pottinger's Representation sent immediately his Protection to Belfast which preserved it from 400 Men of the Garison of Carrickfergus which is but 8 miles distance who were on their march to have Plunder'd Belfast but they obeyed the Protection The 23d the Lieutenant-General gave Mr. Pottinger another Protection for Town and Country The 3d of June following Mr. Pottinger had that Protection from King
pains to Reckon over the Mens Names and there were Deserters from the Royal William two hundred ninety one and from the St. Andrew three hundred forty nine men both make six hundred and forty Now our Authors Logick would infer First What Numbers may we suppose have Deserted and how many would Desert if they had opportunity out of the whole Fleet Secondly That these men are not paid are very ill used or otherwise Disaffected to the Government Thirdly That K. W. did this on purpose for the abovesaid Reason c. What Stop can there be to Malice and Invention This Author has not produced so plausible Reasons even as these for K. J.'s Design to Destroy the English Fleet yet he Avers it positively and Builds upon it But after all Does our Author know very well how K. J. left the Fleet or how he minded the Trade of the Nation we live here where we have reason to know better than this Author in Ireland And we know that among all K. J.'s Faults this was never reckoned one No King of England ever minded the Affairs of the Fleet and the Encouragement of Trade so much as King James witness the noble Store-Houses he built at Chattam and other Ports such as England never saw the like Nor were the Magazines and Stores ever better provided than when K. James left them for which I refer you and this Author to the Worthy Mr. Pepy's Secretary to the Admiralty his Momoires touching the Royal Navy printed here in the Year 1690. Of which I have put a short Abstract in the Appendix n. 11. for their benefit who have not his book As likewise Sir Peter Petts Speech and the Seamens Address to King J. By all which it will appear how perfectly groundless this Accusation of our Authors is against King James I remember it was stuffed into some News Letters about that time for a certain Reason and our Author sends it over to us now as a great Discovery He sayes some body told him so but he tells not who they were But he has eased his Spleen and Discovered his poor Intelligence That his Reader may duely Weigh and Consider upon what solid and sure Grounds he sets down all his Matters of Fact and Consequently what Regard is to be paid to them This Author had shewn himself a better Politician and Historian if he had Turn'd this Charge against King James as I have heard several and in good earnest urge it as a thing of the most dangerous Consequence to the Liberties of England and was with some men not the least Objection against King James's Reign viz. That he was so good a Husband of his money that he was able to spare such vast summs to the Navy and many other Works for the publick yet not Impose or Demand any Supply from his Subjects who grew Rich in Trade beyond the Example of former Reigns And they saw it visibly proceed from his great Care and Application to Maritine Affairs beyond any of his Predecessors This say these Politicians would have made him over popular and put him out of the power of Parliaments for he would have wanted no money and by shewing his people that his Greatness made them Live without Taxes which their many years Experience had told them alwayes did attend the Return of Parliaments It would have been a Dangerous Temptation to them to have wisht him Absolute while it kept them Rich and Free from Taxes And had not Popery been in the case he might have bid fairer for Arbitrariness in this method than by that this Author has found out of letting the English Fleet decay on purpose that he might become a Vassal to France Since I wrote this I met in the Third Edition of this Authors Book c. 3. § 6. n. 1. p. 93 a Nota Bene in the Margent in these words viz. N. B. The Author living in another Kingdom and not knowing how much had been expended on the English Navy towards the end of King James's Reign was led into this Inference by hearing that the then Prince of Orange found no Opposition at Sea when he came for England But the preceding Discourses of King James and his Friends in Ireland are exactly Related and might purposely be Design'd to encourage the Irish Nation into the Facility of Invading England nothing being at that time more universally talk'd of or resolved by them Thus the N. B. And let us Mark it well It is a Recantation of what he had said of K. James's letting the English Fleet Decay c. By this he would induce his Reader to Believe That this was the only Erratum of his whole Book and that he was ready to own it as soon as Convinc'd Whereby he settles a good Opinion of his own Integrity and Ingenuity And at the same time Confirms the Truth of all the other Matters of Fact in his Book because it is to be suppos'd That if he could have found any other Mistakes in his Book he would have Rectified them as well as this Which if it be true we must have more N. B.'s in his next Edition after his seeing this Answer or otherwise he must Confute the Matters of Fact I have set down upon which I do promise to Confess and Amend my Errors as freely as I expect the like from him He gives for his Excuse his Living in another Kingdom This Good Sir will invalidat not only Great Part and the most Beauish of your Book but of your Famous Thanksgiving Sermon before-mentioned where you play your Politicks upon the most private Intrigues of most of the States and Princes in Europe and tell which Prince is to be Wheedled which Frighted which brought under Pupillage what Queen to be made Burren what Country to be Bomb'd what Bought what Sold and what Drown'd And you were farther from all these than from England and these Designs were harder to be known than the publick Condition of our own Fleet which any one may know that pleases the Lists of them being commonly Printed In the next place Since as you now Confess you did not know the State of the Navy when K. James left it How come you to be so positive in it in your Book Must not we believe by this instance That you are capable of Asserting very positively what you know very little of But this being a Falshood so notoriously known in England you thought by Confessing that to Lull them Asleep to inquire no farther into what was done in Ireland Your very Confession argues your Guilt and shews it came not from a clear Conversion of your Conscience For you do it by halves and unwillingly You are loath to Allow K. James any Credit or as little as you can in his Care of the Navy First You do not call it his Act only you say that you knew not Of the Money had been expended on the English Navy towards the end of K. James's Reign This might have been
of these People would make any Body suspect he had not been sairly Represented and that he did not really design any such thing as the Destruction of these People at least not altogether so fully as the French King resolved the voiding the Edict of Nants which this Author avers p. 19. I say who would believe that K. James did as fully determin our Ruin as our Author there Words it since he not only refused to do it when it was in his Power and he Apprehended so great Danger from them but took Pains and used his utmost Authority to keep back others from doing it who were ready and zealous to have done it and thought it their Interest to do it Therefore in this Distress our Author was obliged to find out some other Reasons for this besides K. Jame's Clemency And a Man of less Ingenuity than his cou'd make a shift to find Reasons for any thing There is no Subject upon which something may not be said Pro and Câ—n and so here our Author contrives Reasons for this Clemency of K. James which may not spoil that Bloody Character he had given of him and he turns it upon Policy Interest not to Provoke England c. not foreseeing that the same Interest must remain while ever he was King of England and so secure the Protestants in Ireland and disapoint this Authors whole Book And likewise he was under a Necessity of Contradicting what he had said before of making the Irish the Assaylants and Murderers c. because he is now forced to give Reasons why they were not so You know who should have good Memorys and it is very difficult when a Cause has several and Contrary Aspects It runs a Man some times to bespatter that side which he means to Defend As truly I think has happened in the present Case For if the most Malicious Jacobite had gone about to expose the present Government under the Name of K. James This Author Wounds the Present Government in the Person of K. James and the Papists he could not have done it more effectually than it is done in this Book For Example when England found the old Oath of Supremacy inconsistent with the Present Settlement they wisely abrogated it and made a new one But Ireland could not do this wanting a Parliament And in the Acts of Parliament in Ireland as in England there is a Penalty upon the refusal of this Oath which the then Civil and Military Officers in Ireland avoided by ordering it so That that Oath should not be tender'd to them as it was not at first to the Military nor to all the Civil Officers Now see how our Author exposes this Practice in the Person of the Papists c. 2. p. 38. § 9. He tells of an Horrible Artifice the Papists had to avoid the Oath enjoin'd on all Officers Civil and Military by Act. 28. Hen. 8. c. 13. and 2. Eliza. c. 1. viz. The Oath was never tender'd to their new Officers and Consequently said they they never refused it neither are they lyable to the Penalties of the Act. This was plainly against the design of the Statute a playing with the Words of it and shewed us that Laws are Insufficient to secure us against such Jesuitical Prevarications Thus our Author not Considering that the same Jesuitical Prevarications must by his Rule be Charged not only upon the Irish Protestants as abovesaid but upon the Roman Catholicks in K. Williams Army who are many more in England than K. James had in his Army here and before the Alteration of the Oaths here by Act of Parliament they must either have this same excuse for avoiding these Oaths or have none at all p. 114. He says the Protestants in Ireland chose rather to ly in Jayl than take some new invented Oath that was put to them without any Law to enjoin it Why would not this Author tell us what Oath this was I am told that there was no new Oath Imposed upon the Protestants in Ireland by K. James and it is not very likely where as you have heard from the Sovereign of Belfast and other Vouchers before Nam'd K. James did not trouble the Protestants even with the Oaths enjoyn'd by Law But I have been told that in Cork Limerick and other Garrisons upon the Sea Coast where there were many Protestants the Officers without any Order from K. James thought it reasonable to take that Security of these Protestants when they drew their Men out of these Garrisons into the Field and when they were Alaram'd with the English Fleet that these Protestants would not Joyn with their Enemies but be true to K. J. And I am told likewise that none of these Protestants did refuse it But if they did as this Author says could they take it ill to be secured in Prison who when the Enemy was hourly expected refused to promise not to Joyn with them or betray the Garrison to them Secondly this is an ill Reason for what the Author told us before viz. That K. James had not the least Reason to suspect or Disarm the Protestants and therefore this Author calls it perfect Dragooning of them as bad as was done in France But this Author tells his own Reason why they would rather ly in Jayl than take this Oath viz. Because there was not any Law to enjoyn it and they thought this a Violation of the Law and therefore that they ought to Suffer any hardship rather than Comply with it For if you break one Law you may break all c. Now this is perfect Wounding the present Government and Condemning what the Protestants in Ireland even this Author himself has done viz. Taking an Oath of Fidelity to K. William and Q. Mary without any Law to enjoyn it That is before this late Act of Parliament for abrogating the Old Oaths of Allegiance and Imposing the new Oaths in Ireland But here I must not be mistaken for I am not of our Author's Opinion that there was no Law to enjoyn these Oaths I have shewn before That by the Common Law there is an Oath of Allegiance may be required from the Subjects which for greater Satisfaction I have set down in the Appendix n. 13. as it was Taken to K. J. in Ireland by these Protestants With some Authorities out of the Common Law to Justify the Legality of it But our Author either knew not this or was willing not to remember it and would rather Wound the present Government than miss such a Blow and Reflection upon the Government of K. J. whether this was done in the full sincerity of his Heart without Aggravation or Misrepresenting against K. J. he has taken GOD to witness and there we must leave it The 26. Septemb. 90. There Issued three Proclamations from the Lords Justices of Ireland which I have hereunto Annex'd one Banishing the Wives Children and Familys of all in Rebellion against their Majesties or Kill'd in that Rebellion and of all
the Protestants in Ireland Did the French King use them no Worse than K. James did these Protestants Our Author says as above that K. James used worse Methods towards the Protestants of Ireland than the King of France did with the Hugonots If so Mounsieur Claud has mightily Misinform'd us in his Account of the Persecution of the Hugonots in France And since our Author will have this Comparison because he could not think of another would Render K. James so Odious I have a Curiosity to know his Opinion as to the Cause of these Hugonots viz. Whether their King 's breaking the Edict of Nants and using them as he did was Sufficient to absolve them from their Allegiance and to set up a King of their own Religion where-ever they could find him I doubt not but this Author will Answer in the Affirmative and that it was nothing but want of Power kept them from Abdicating that King who they thought had Abdicated the Government of them by his ill usage of them And this will be a better Plea for the French King to Rid himself of these sort of People than any I have yet heard offered for him But in this Comparison 'twixt King James and the French King our Author makes King James the more wicked Man of the Two using worse Method with his Protestants as you have heard And in his Character of the French King he gives him the Advantage over King James with an Innuendo-reflection upon King James in this same place p. 14. He reports the French King to be a Merciful Man in his own Nature and certainly says he a mighty Zealot for his Honour As if King James were not so indeed he was far from it as this Author represents him You see to what a Height this Authors Zeal has carried him when he will give so fair a Character even of the French King that he may thereby blacken K. J. the more And upon this Head I hope no Man will take it ill at least to do Right to K. James Would any Body desire him to be worse than the French King Therefore give me leave to say and in this I believe I shall have the Major part on my side That if the Hugonots in France had Invited a Forreign Hugonot Prince to enter France with an Army had joyn'd with him and Proclaim'd him for their King and Forc'd K. Lewis to Fly out of France and afterward recovering part of his own he should reduce the Hugonots in Brettaigne for example and they when they were come again under the Power of their Old Master should shew all the Signs of Disloyalty and Disaffection to him Deserting him every day to their new Hugonot King and giving an Account to him of the same disposition in them that could not make their Escape from K. Lewis and K. L. to know all this and that those that staid gave all the Intelligence they could to his Enemies and did all the Mischief they could to him their Natural King under whose Protection they then Liv'd And those of them that were able in Brettaigne to hold out in open Arms against him keeping two Towns in the same Province he had Reduc'd where they Fortify'd themselves and Declared for their Hugonot King and to Rescue those Hugonots that were under King Lewis I say if this had been the Case 'twixt K. Lewis and the Hugonots I believe I shall have the Major part of England of my Opinion That King Lewis would have dealt otherwise with them than King James did with the Protestants in Ireland And perhaps had any King in Christendom but K. James had them in his Power as he had for a whole Summer he would not have left them in a Capacity to have Driven him out of the Kingdom as they did And he was Morally assured they would do so when it was in his Power to have prevented them But rather than Destroy them he put it in their Power to Destroy him which they did without the least sense of all his Goodness to them which they Disdain'd to own but pursued him as a Tyrant Secretary Gorge Assures us in his Large Letter that the Irish Protestants were more Active against King James and were more dreaded by the Irish than any other of K. William's Army If K. James were as great a stranger to us as Caesar or Pompey and the Scene were plac'd as far off as those Times yet who would not have a Zeal to Vindicate the Truth who would not be mov'd to see a King who suffered himself to be visibly Ruin'd by his unprovocable Clemency to Obstinate Rebels represented by them for so doing as the Bloodiest Tyrant in the World To see this Authors Book Transport Men so far without examining as that the Principal Secretary of State should License a Pamphlet call'd The Pretences of the French Invasion Examined which 〈◊〉 14. lays the stress of our Objections against King James upon his Cruelty to the Loyal Irish Protestants while he was among them in Ireland His King James's Carriage in Ireland says the Pamphlet to the Loyal Protestants writ this viz. His implacable hatred to the Protestants in Capital Letters and it must be suppos'd they have Drunk deep of Lethe who can forget all this Thus positively does the Pamphleteer averr upon the Credit of our Author And therefore it is Incumbent upon our Author to produce some Catalogue of these Protestants in Ireland who remain'd Loyal to King James while he was there except those few who were in his Army whom our Author or our Phamphleteer cannot mean because they reckon these among the number of the Persecutors and by some thought worse of than the Papists for Assisting the Papists against the Protestants we desire a List of these Loyal Protestants in Ireland who suffered any thing from King James while he was there Can this Author find so many as their were Righteous Men in Sodom But this is much more certain that King James's Mercy to the Disloyal Protestants in Ireland put them in a Capacity to help to Drive him out of the Kingdom for his pains Does this Author really believe That King Lewis would have used them as kindly as King James did while he knew they were Plotting and would Joyn against him I Appeal to this Author Whether he would have thought himself so Secure in King Lewis's hands if he had been betraying his Councils and giving Intelligence to his Enemies as he was under these Circumstances in King James's Power But our Author never fails to make a round Character That King James should not be so Good a Man as King Lewis is not so great a Matter But now our Author's hand is in you shall see him carry King James's Character to be full as Inhumane as that of the Great Turk himself You have it â—nd of c. 3. § 20. n. 7. p. 224. The Vsage we met with being says the Author full as Inhumane as any thing they the
Christians under the Slavery of the Turk suffer Who would not expect from this Representation to hear of Protestants Gassooted in Ireland Arbitrarily thrown over Precipices Drown'd Tore in Pieces Flead Alive Staking upon the High-Way Mutes and Bowstrings And to take GOD to Witness That this is not Aggravating nor Misrepresenting The Address of the Lord Mayor Aldermen c. of Dublin to King William Printed here Anno. 1690. and Annex'd in the Appendix n. 21. Saith that the Sufferings of the Protestants there under King James Did infinitely surpass an Aegyptian servitude This is as far as words can go This is making King James worse than the Devil himself for the Devil does not Infinitly exceed Pharaoh in Wickedness They were resolved to out-do the Clergy-Addess of their own City spoke by the Bishop of Meath For there he Modestly Confesses to K. William that K. James was able to Crush the Protestants far Worse than he did But Secretary Gorge in his Letter before quoted speaks out and tells in plain English what the Bishop so Gentilely Minc'd The King King James is much avers says the Doctor to all Severity to the Protestants yet clearly sees he can make no Impression of Loyalty on them Notwithstanding as the same Letter tells us He often gave Command to his Officers That in their Engagements with the English they should be Treated as mistaken Subjects and not as obstinate Rebels Yet these were his bitterest Enemies as you have seen And themselves are forc'd to Confess that he used them with less Severity than he might or than they deserved at his hands And after all this to hear them complain of Aegyptian Servitude and cry out upon him as a Tyrant infinitely surpassing Pharaoh the Turk or the French King whom some are made to believe is the Worst of the three is Ridiculous and Wicked it is supposing us all to be Naturals to think to pass such Stuff upon us and this is the most effectual Method to Betray the Cause he pretends to Defend This is Bending a Bow till it breaks to heap up Calumnys and Aggravate them till you make the whole Incredible And the Consequence is not only Dis-believing what Pieces of Truths may be told in this Book of our Authors But if Protestants do own and Countenance it as a True Narrative of the Affairs of Ireland in this Revolution it may bring into Question their true Relations of the Horrible and Bloody Massacre of 41. Mounsieur Clauds Account of the French Persecution And whatever is Written by Protestants It is indeed a discredit to Mankind to all History and will not fail to bring Dis-reputation to whatever Party makes use of it whether Protestant or Papist How has the Legends broken and Ruin'd the Veracity of the Roman Church No Cause is long serv'd by deceit It will one time or other be Discovered Down-right Honesty is the best Policy Let us not be afraid to confess our own Faults nor desire to Enlarge those of our Enemys Humanum est Errare And no doubt there are Errors on both sides But to persist in our Error and to defend it is the Devils part Therefore in the Name of GOD let Truth prevail And let all the People say Amen An Appendix Numb 1. King James's Speech to both Houses of Parliament in Ireland Published by his Majesty's Order May 10. 1689. My Lords and Gentlemen THE exemplary Loyalty which this Nation exprest to Me at a time when others of my Subjects so Undutifully behaved themselves to Me or so basely betrayed Me and your seconding my Deputy as you did in his bold and resolute asserting my Right and preserving this Kingdom for Me and putting it in a posture of Defence made Me resolve to come to you and to venture my Life with you in the Defence of your Liberty and my Right and to my great Satisfaction I have not only found you ready and willing to serve Me but that your Courage has equal'd your Zeal I have always been for Liberty of Conscience and against Invading any Man's Property having still in my Mind the saying of Holy Writ Doe as you would be done by for that is the Law and the Prophets It was this Liberty of Conscience I gave which my Enemies both abroad and at home dreaded especially when they saw that I was resolved to have it established by Law in all my Dominions and made them set themselves up against Me though for different Reasons seeing that if I had once settled it my People in the Opinion of the one would have been too Happy and I in the Opinion of the other too Great This Argument was made use of to persuade their own People to join with them and too many of my own Subjects to use Me as they have done but nothing shall ever persuade Me to change my Mind as to that And wheresoever I am Master I design God willing to establish it by Law and to have no other Test or Distinction but that of Loyalty I expect your Concurrence in so Christian a Work and in making effectual Laws against Profaneness and Debauchery I shall also most readily consent to the making such good and wholsome Laws as may be for the general Good of the Nation the Improvement of Trade and the Relieving such as have been injured by the late Acts of Settlement as far forth as may be consistent with Reason Justice and the publick Good of my People And as I shall do my part to make you happy and rich so I make no doubt of your Assistence by enabling Me to oppose the unjust Designs of my Enemies and to make this Nation flourish And to encourage you the more to it you know with how great Generosity and Kindness the Most Christian King gave a secure Retreat to the Queen my Son and my Self when we were forced out of England and came to seek Protection and Safety in his Dominions how he embraced my Interest and gave such Supplies of all forts as enabled Me to come to you which without his obliging Assistence I could not have done This he did at a time when he had so many and so considerable Enemies to deal with and you see still continues to do I shall conclude as I began and assure you I am as sensible as you can desire Me of the signal Loyalty you have exprest to Me and shall make it my chief Study as it always has been to make you and all my Subjects happy The Parliament of Ireland's Address to the King Most Gracious Sovereign WE Your Majesty's most dutifull and loyal Subjects the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled being highly sensible of the great Honor and Happiness we enjoy by Your Royal presence amongst us do most humbly and heartily thank Your sacred Majesty for vouchsafing to come into this your Kingdom of Ireland and for your Grace and Goodness to Your Subjects in calling this Parliament and for Your Majesty's Tender and
hereby declare that as soon as the War shall be ended they may again return to their former Habitations And as We shall take care that all such Papists that shall in compliance with this our Proclamation remove shall be civilly treated as other their Majesties Subjects and have the Countenance and Protection of the Government whilst they behave themselves as becometh So We hereby declare that all such Papists that from and after the fourteenth day of October next shall presume to dwell or shall at any time afterwards be found within ten miles of any of their Majesties Frontier Garisons as aforesaid or within ten miles of the River Shannon that they and every of them shall be looked upon as Spies and persons corresponding with their Majesties Enemies And shall be prosecuted accordingly Given at their Majesties Castle of Dublin 26th of September 1690. in the second year of their Majesties Reign John Davis Numb 5. By the Lord Deputy and Council A PROCLAMATION Tyrconnel FOrasmuch as several persons in the Province of Vlster and Town of Sligo in this His Majesty's Kingdom have entered into several Associations containing no less offence than High Treason and thereupon formed themselves into several Parties dividing and Marshalling themselves into several Regiments Troops and Companies marching well Armed up and down the Countrey to the great terror of the King's Leige People in manifest breach of the Law and of the Peace of this Realm And having resolved within Our selves to prevent the effusion of blood as long as it was possible by using all peaceable means to reduce the said Malefactors to their Obedience have of late issued out a Proclamation setting forth the said disorders requiring all the said Parties to disperse and repair to their several Habitations and Callings assuring every of them of His Majesty's Pardon and Protection And whereas We see the said Offenders instead of complying with our said Proclamation still do persist in their wickedness by continuing in actual Rebellion breaking of Prisons and discharging of Prisoners secured by due course of Law for Robberies Fellonies and other hainous Crimes by seizing upon His Majesty's Arms and Ammunion imprisoning several of His Majesty's Army disarming and dismounting them killing and murdering several of His Majesty's Subjects pillaging and plundering the Countrey and daily committing several other acts of Hostility and finding no other way to suppress the said Rebellion We the Lord Deputy have caused a Party of His Majesty's Army under the Command of Lieutenant General Rich. Hamilton to march into the Province of Vlster to reduce the Rebels there by force of Arms the consequence whereof cannot but be very fatal to that Country and the Inhabitants thereof and will inevitably occasion the total Ruine and Destruction of that part of His Majesty's Kingdom The consideration whereof hath given Us great disquiet and trouble of mind that a Countrey well planted and inhabited should now by the insolency and traiterous wickedness of its own Inhabitants be brought to ruine and desolation which we are still willing to prevent if any spark of Grace be yet remaining in the Hearts of those Conspirators hereby declaring notwithstanding the many affronts by them put upon His Majesty's Government notwithstanding the several Acts of Hostility by them hitherto Committed that if they will now submit and become dutiful Subjects His Majesty's Mercy shall be extended to them excepting the persons hereafter excepted and in order thereunto We the Lord Deputy and Council do strictly charge and command all such persons in Arms in Vlster or the Town of Sligo forthwith to lay down their Arms and that the principal persons among them now in the North do forthwith repair to Leiutenant General Richard Hamilton and deliver up to him their Arms and serviceable Horses and to give him Hostages as an assurance of their future Loyalty and Obedience to His Majesty and that all their adherents do deliver up their Arms and serviceable Horses to such person or persons as he the said Lieutenant General Richard Hamilton shall appoint to receive them And We do also farther charge and command all the principal persons of other Commotions and Insurrections in Sligo to repair forthwith either to Us the Lord Deputy or to Collonel Mac Donnald at the Boyle and deliver up their Arms and serviceable Horses and to give Hostages as security for their future peaceable deportment and their adherents to lay down their Arms to be delivered up together with their serviceable Horses to the said Collonel Mac Donnald We the Lord Deputy hereby giving safe conduct to such of them as will submit according to this Our Proclamation And we do hereby farther declare That such of the said persons as shall give obedience to these our Commands except the persons hereafter excepted shall have His Majesty's Protection and Pardon for all past offences relating to the said Commotions and Insurrections but in case they shall be so unhappy as to persist in their wicked designs and treasonable practices We the Lord Deputy do hereby command all His Majesty's Forces to fall upon them wherever they meet them and to treat them as Rebels and Traitors to His Majesty yet to the end the innocent may not suffer for the Crimes of the nocent and that the committals of inhumane acts may be prevented We do hereby strictly charge and command His Majesty's Army now upon their march to the North and all other his Majesty's Forces that they or either of them do not presume to use any violence to Women Children aged or decrepid Men Labourers Plow-men Tillers of the ground or to any other who in these Commotions demean themselves inoffensively without joining with the Rebels or aiding or assisting them in their traiterous actings and behaviours But in regard Hugh Earl of Mount-Alexander John Lord Vicount of Mazareen Robert Lord Baron of Kingstone Clothworthy Schevington Esq Son to the Lord Vicount Mazareen Sir Robert Colvill Sir Arthur Rawden Sir John Magil John Hawkins Robert Sanderson and Francis Hamilton Son to Sir Charles Hamilton have been the principal actors in the said Rebellion and the persons who advised and fomented the same and inveigled others to be involved therein We think fit to except them out of this Proclamation as persons not deserving his Majesty's mercy or favour Given at the Council-Chamber of Dublin March 7. 1688. A. Fytton C. Granard Limrick Bellew Will. Talbot Tho. Neucomen Rich. Hamilton Fran. Plouden Numb 6. The Declaration of William and Mary King and Queen of England Scotland France and Ireland To all the People of this our Kingdom of Ireland whom it may concern William R. AS it hath pleased Almighty God to bless our Arms in this Kingdom with a late Victory over our Enemies at the Boyn and with the possession of our Capital City of Dublin and with a general dispersion of all that did oppose us We are now in so happy a prospect of our Affairs and of extinguishing the Rebellion of this
Duty to Your Majesty who has a double Title to our Services not only as our King but as our Gracious Benefactor and Deliverer To pray for the Success of your Majesty's Forces for the Consummation of that Good Work that you have with so much Personal Hazard undertaken that you may carry your Victorious Arms in to other Countries where the Cries and the Groans and the Oppressions of the Afflicted Protestants are as great as they have been here That God would be an Helmet of Salvation to you in the day of Battle and deal with you as he did with Nebuchadnezzar when he promised him the Kingdom of Egypt for his hard Service against Tyrus May he likewise recompense your hard Labour in this Kingdom with the Addition of another that is far more valuable And may you prove as Happy and Successful an Instrument in the succouring of others as you have been of the poor Afflicted People of this Kingdom His ANSWER I Am come hither to deliver you from the Tyranny of Popery and Slavery to protect the Protestant Religion and restore you to your Liberties and Properties and you may depend upon it Numb 9. To the King 's most Excellent Majesty the Humble Address of your Loyal and Obedient Subjects the Inhabitants of Wapping Shadwel Ratcliff and Lime-House and others therein concerned Most Dread and most Gracious Sovereign AS those of us who profess our selves Sons of the Church of England do here as in Duty bound return our most humble and hearty thanks to your Sacred Majesty for the repeated assurance you have in your Royal Declaration of Indulgence given to all your Subjects of that Church in protecting and maintaining them in the free exercise of their Religion so others of us who for Non-conformity to that Church felt so much of the severity of the Penal Laws do return such our thanks to your Majesty for our being eased from the same by such your Declaration Nor can we without great Ingratitude to Heaven and to your Majesty forbear to take notice of your particular Tenderness expressed to us in our common Concern on the fourteenth of October last and when the hearts of so many of us were transported with joy upon our hearing those Gracious Words from your Royal Lips namely That what was for the good of your People was for your good We therefore beg your Majesty's leave in the sight of all the World to present you with our most Cordial and Solemn assurances that as your Majesty hath been a Witness of the Loyalty and Fidelity of some of us who served the Crown at Sea in the last Reign when you so much exposed the safety of your Royal Person for the Honour and defence of the Realm that we and all of us who are Mariners shall be as ready to venture our Lives in any such Employment whensoever your Majesty shall call us to it as any could then be And that all of us of what different Persuasion in Religion soever we may be shall yet most firmly agree in the discharge of the Duty of our natural Allegiance to your Majesty and like true Englishmen think no Dangers too great for us to encounter with in the most faithfull Service of your Majesty either by Sea or Land Numb 10. Sir Peter Pett's Speech to his Majesty at Whitehall on the 25th of May 1688. after the most Honourable the Lord Marquis of Powis had read the Address of the Inhabitants of Wapping Shadwel Ratcliff Lime-House c. Together with His Sacred Majesty's most Gracious Expressions thereupon relating to the Seamen THe Ld. Marquess of Powis having represented to his Majesty the Merits of the Petition of many Inhabitants in Wapping Shadwell Ratcliff and Lime-House in which places the greatest part of the Seamen and Naval Manufacturers of England is supposed to dwell and having pleased at the request of some of those Inhabitants to read their Address to his Majesty the which Address was signed by some who had been Captains in the King's Men of War and by many now Masters and Commanders Boat-Swains Carpenters and Gunners and many hundreds of other Mariners in Merchant Ships in Subscriptions filling five large Skins of Parchment Sir Peter Pett after his Lordship's reading of the said Address made this following Speech to his Majesty May it please Your Majesty I Finding that your Majesty is now going to Council shall not presume to detain your Majesty long from the Grandia Regni that there attend you but shall only beg your Majesty's leave that I may acquaint those Gentlemen here who are Seamen with some particulars of your late vast Expences of your Time and Treasure upon your Navy Royal and of your Majesty's extraordinary Care in preserving the Walls of your Kingdom the which your Ships and your Seamen have always been reputed to be to the end that they may acquaint their Neighbours therewith It is known Sir that as for the Seamen your Majesty never paid them with Tickets and that you have paid the greatest part of your Brother's Debts to them and also to the Ship Wrights and that the Seamen have been by your Majesty punctually paid as the Ships they belong to came home and were unrigg'd and that the Workmen in the Yards are quarterly paid as soon as their Wages become due and that the Chest at Chatham out of which the maim'd Soldiers have been still provided for has been plentifully supplied by your Majesty out of your Own Purse to the value of about 20000 l. the Revenue of that Chest by the Collections from the Seamen having been so very inconsiderable that it did not near support the Charge And I account that since the last Parliament your Majesty has laid out great Sums of Money in rebuilding and repairing the Thirty Sail and the rest of the Navy and that to the value of 350000 l. The Charge of your Majesty's having since your Parliament built six new Men of War will appear but comparatively inconsiderable when it shall be thought of how your Majesty has since built new Store-Houses at Portsmouth and Chatham wherein Cables are sorted and lye at length and all manner of Sea Stores for Boat-Swains and Carpenters laid distinct for the respective Ships to which the same belong as also their Rigging distinctly laid apart which things were never done in England before and by means whereof your Ships may be Equipt for Sea in less than a quarter of the time that they were formerly In the building of those Store-Houses and furnishing them with vast quantities of Stores and all bought by your Majesty with ready money and at the best hand I account your Majesty hath expended Millions of Pounds Sterling The Gazetts that have in part made Publication of your Majesty's vast Charge in buying with ready money Masts Timber Hemp Sail-Cloth and all other Naval Stores have necessarily awakened the thoughts of your Subjects to reflect with a high Veneration on your Majesty's having so freely imploy'd
time of Monmouth's Rebellion that the King told some of the Council of which I was one that he was resolved to give Employments to Roman Catholicks it being fit that all Persons should serve who could be usefull and on whom he might depend I think every body advised him against it but with little effect as was soon seen That Party was so pleased with what the King had done that they persuaded him to mention it in his Speech at the next meeting of the Parliament which he did after many Debates whether it was proper or not in all which I opposed it as is known to very considerable Persons some of which were of another opinion for I thought it would engage the King too far and it did give such Offence to the Parliament that it was thought necessary to prorogue it After which the King fell immediately to the supporting the Dispensing Power the most Chimerical Thing that was ever thought of and must be so till the Government here is as absolute as in Turkey all Power being included in that one This is the sense I ever had of it and when I heard Lawyers defend it I never changed my Opinion or Language However it went on most of the Judges being for it and was the chief Business of the State till it was looked on as settled Then the Ecclesiastical Court was set up in which there being so many considerable Men of several kinds I could have but a small part and that after Lawyers had told the King it was legal and nothing like the High Commission Court I can most truly say and it is well known that for a good while I defended Magdalen Colledge purely by Care and Industry and have hundreds of times begg'd of the King never to grant Mandates or to change any thing in the regular course of Ecclesiastical Affairs which he often thought reasonable and then by perpetual importunities was prevailed upon against his own Sense which was the very Case of Magdalen Colledge as of some others These things which I endeavoured though without Success drew upon me the Anger and ill Will of many about the King The next thing to be tried was to take off the Penal Laws and the Tests so many having promised their Concurrence towards it that his Majesty thought it fecible but he soon found it was not to be done by that Parliament which made all the Catholicks desire it might be dissolved which I was so much against that they complained of me to the King as a Man who ruined all his Designs by opposing the only thing could carry him on Liberty of Conscience being the Foundation on which he was to build That it was first offered at by the Lord Clifford who by it had done the work even in the late King's Time if it had not been for his Weakness and the Weakness of his Ministers Yet I hindred the Dissolution several Weeks by telling the King that the Parliament in Being would doe every thing he could desire but the taking off the Penal Laws and the Tests or the allowing his Dispensing Power and that any other Parliament tho' such a one could be had as was proposed would probably never repeal those Laws and if they did they would certainly never do any thing for the support of the Government whatever Exigency it might be in At that time the King of Spain was sick upon which I said often to the King that if he should dye it would be impossible for his Majesty to preserve the Peace of Christendom that a War must be expected and such a one as would chiefly concern England that if the present Parliament continued he might be sure of all the Help and Service he could wish but in case he dissolved it he must give over all thoughts of foreign Affairs for no other would ever assist him but on such terms as would ruine the Monarchy so that from abroad or at home he would be destroyed if the Parliament were broken and any Accident should happen of which there were many to make the Aid of his People necessary to him This and much more I said to him several times privately and in the hearing of others but being over-powered the Parliament was broke the Closeting went on and a new one was to be chosen Who was to get by Closeting I need not say but it was certainly not I nor any of my Friends many of them suffered who I would fain have saved And yet I must confess with Grief that when the King was resolved and there was no remedy I did not quit as I ought to have done but served on in order to the calling another Parliament In the midst of all the preparations for it and whilst the Corporations were regulating the King thought fit to order his Declarations to be read in all Churches of which I most solemnly protest I never heard one word till the King directed it in Council That drew on the Petition of my Lord the Arch Bp. of Canterbury and the other Lords the Bishops and the Prosecution which I was so openly against that by arguing continually to shew the Injustice and Imprudence of it I brought the Fury of the Roman Catholicks upon me to such a degree and so unanimously that I was just sinking and I wish I had then sunk But whatever I did foolishly to preserve my self I continued still to be the object of their Hatred and I resolved to serve the Publick as well as I could which I am sure most of the considerable Protestants then at Court can testifie and so can one very eminent Man in the Country whom I would have persuaded to come into business which he might have done to have helped me to resist the Violence of those in power but he despaired of being able to doe any good and therefore would not engage Some time after came the first News of the Prince's Designs which were not then looked on as they have proved no body foreseeing the Miracles he has done by his wonderful Prudence Conduct and Courage for the greatest thing which has been undertaken these thousand years or perhaps ever could not be effected without Vertues hardly to be imagined till seen nearer hand Upon the first thoughts of his coming I laid hold of the opportunity to press the King to doe several things which I would have had done sooner the chief of which were to restore Magdalen Colledge and all other Ecclesiastical Preferments which had been diverted from what they were intended for to take off my Lord Bp. of London's Suspension to put the Counties into the same hands they were in some time before to annull the Ecclesiastical Court and to restore entirely all the Corporations of England These things were done effectually by the help of some about the King and it was then thought I had destroyed my self by enraging again the whole Roman Catholick party to such a height as had not been seen they dispersed Libels