Judicature in such a method as tended to destroy the Protestant English Interest of Ireland 1. THE support and happiness of a Kingdom consists chiefly in the equal and impartial Administration of Justice and that depends on the choice of fit and duly qualified Persons for filling the Courts and Executing the Laws but King James made choice of such Persons for these Offices as were so far from answering the intent of their Places that they made it their business to destroy the Protestant Interest and the Laws that preserve the Liberty of the Subject in general by those Laws no Man was capable of being a Judg who had not taken the Oath of Supremacy The Judges he found on the Bench had taken it but yet some of them were known to be rather too favourable to Papists and considering the influence King James had in his Brothers time in disposing of Offices it is not to be imagined that he would suffer any Man to sit as a Judge who had not been favourably represented unto him in that Point though we must own he was mistaken in some of them hence it came that Protestants did frequently complain of the Favour and Countenance their Adversaries found in the Courts of Justice even in King Charles II. time But when King James came to the Crown moderate nay favourable Judges would not do the Work he designed He found it necessary to Employ the most Zealous of his Party those who both by Interest and Inclination were most deeply ingaged to destroy the Protestant English Interest and accordingly such were picked out and set on all the Benches 2. The Chancery is the great and highest Court wherein the great Frauds and other matters belonging to Trusts and Equity are determined and neither the Lord Primate Boyle who had managed that Court about twenty years nor Sir Charles Porter who succeeded him could answer the Kings intention but Sir Alexander Fitton of whom I have already given some account a Person detected of Forgery not only at Westminster and Chester but likewise Fined by the House of Lords in Parliament must be brought out of Goal and set on the highest Court of the Kingdom to keep the Kings Conscience though he wanted Law and natural Capacity as well as Honesty and Courage to discharge such a Trust and had no other quality to recommend him besides his being a Convert Papist that is a Renegado to his Religion and his Country but the mystery of this was easily found out The Papists of Ireland had gone a great way to retrieve the Estates they had forfeited by the Rebellion 1641 by counterfeit Settlements Forgeries and Perjuries and to do their business in a great measure there needed no more than to find a Judg that would be favourable to and countenance such proceedings and where could they find a more favourable Judg than one who was notoriously involved in the same guilt and who probably in some Cases did not esteem such Arts unlawful but besides this there is requisite to a Chancellor a peculiar quickness of Parts and Dexterity to penetrate into the contrivances of Cheats and Forgeries for which Sir Alexander Fittons natural slowness and heaviness incapacitated him but this very defect together with his Zeal for Popery fitted him to execute the Kings design as effectually as any that could have been found He could not understand the merit of a Cause of any difficulty and therefore never failed to give Sentence according to his inclination having no other Rule to lead him and how he was inclined towards Protestants appeared from his Declarations on all occations against them he did not stick on a Hearing to declare that they were all Rogues and that amongst forty thousand there was not one who was not a Traitor a Rebel and a Villain for this Reason he would not allow the Guardianship of a Child to the Protestant Mother but gave it against the positive words of the Law to the Popish Relations for this Reason he refused to hear so much as a demurrer in the Popish Dean of Christs Church Mr. Staffords Case For this Cause he over-ruled both the common Rules of Practice of the Courts and the Laws of the Land declaring in open Court that the Chancery was above all Laws that no Law could bound his Conscience and he acted accordingly in many Cases where Protestants were concerned After hearing a Cause between one of them and a Papist he would often declare that he would consult a Divine before he gave a Decree that is he would have the Opinion of a Popish Priest his Chaplain Educated in Spain and furnished with Destinctions to satisfie his Conscience how far he should do Justice to Protestants many Papists came and made Affidavits of being in Possession when they never were and got Injunctions and Orders without any more ado to quiet their Possessions But a Protestant though never so palpably disturbed could not procure any Order but was sent to the Common-Law to recover his Possession by a Popish Jury returned by a Popish Sheriff before a Popish Judg that is he must expect Law from Judges and Officers that Sate and Acted in defiance of Law If at any time the Chancellor was forced to grant an Injunction or Decree it was with all the difficulties and delays that could be and often the thing was lost and destroyed before the Order came for recovering it 3. The Administration of Justice and Equity is the great end of Government and it is as good nay better to be without Governours than to have Governors under whom Men cannot reasonably hope for these We see from the choice of a Chancellor what care King Iames took for the Administration of Equity to Protestants To help the matter he added as Assistants to the Chancellor Mr. Stafford a Popish Priest for one Master of the Chancery and Felix ô Neal Son of Turlogh ô Neal the great Rebel in 1641 and Massacrer of the Protestants for another To these generally the Causes between Protestants and Papists were referred and upon their Report the Chancellor past his Orders and Decrees 4. The Courts of Common-Law were put into the same method and great care taken to fill them with Judges who might be ingaged in a profest enmity to the Protestant Interest In Ireland there are only three Judges on a Bench and it was thought fit for a colour till things were Riper to keep one Protestant on every Bench but whilst there were two Votes to one the Protestant Judg could neither do Right to Protestants or retard a Sentence to be given in the favour of a Papist This mock method of seeming to trust Protestants they took likewise in naming Burgesses and Aldermen for Corporations they generally put some few into their New Charters to serve for a pretence of impartiallity and yet to signifie nothing this Method of continuing some few Protestants in Courts and Corporations serving only to silence and exasperate us to be thus
really believed that in few years he would by some contrivance or other have given away most of the Protestants Estates in Ireland without troubling a Parliament to Attaint them which was a more compendious but not a more certain way to destroy them than the Methods he took It was he that without Hearing after he had Dissolved the Corporations by giving Sentence against their Charters declared void all the Leases of Lands or of Perquisites made by them though long before their Dissolution and on very good considerations and thereupon outed several Protestants of their Leases but it were endless to mention all the Oppressions and unjust proceedings of this Court it were in effect to transcribe the Records of it Let me only observe that the Chief Baron was assisted by Sir Henry Lynch as Second Baron who came indeed short of him in Parts but yielded nothing to him in Malice to the Protestant Religion and Interest 7. The Court of Common Pleas had little to do the business so far as concerned the Protestants and Papists was intirely carried out of it to the Kings Bench or Exchequer and therefore they permitted the Lord Chief Justice Keating still to sit in it but Pinioned with two of their own sort that if any thing should chance to come before him he might be out-voted by them The truth is they were jealous of this Court not only because a Protestant was Chief Justice in it but likewise because Judg Dally sat as puny Judg who though a Roman Catholick yet understood the Common-Law so well and behaved himself so impartially that they did not care to bring their Causes before him so much did they dread the prospect of Justice though before Judges that were of their own Party and Persuasion 8. The Circuits are an extention of the Courts whereby Justice is carried into the Country these were managed much at the same rate with the Courts and where the Sheriff and Judg were both Papists it is not difficult to guess what Justice Protestants must expect what packing of Juries there was amongst them and how deeply the Judges themselves were concerned in such Practices is evident to all that had any Concerns in the Country at that time 9. It will be requisite to say something of the Attourney General which King James made instead of Sir William Domvile whom he turned out after near thirty years supplying the place but he was a Protestant and would not consent to reverse the Popish Outlawries nor to the other Methods they took to destroy the Settlement of Ireland and therefore he was laid aside In his place King James substituted Mr. Richard Nagle whom he afterwards Knighted and made Secretary of State he was at first designed for a Clergy-Man and educated amongst the Jesuits but afterwards betook himself to the Study of the Law in which he arrived to a good Perfection and was employed by many Protestants so that he knew the weak part of most of their Titles Every Body knows how great a part the Attorney General has in the Administration of Justice it being his Office to prosecute and in his power to stop any Suit wherein the King is concerned How he used this Power will appear in one instance tho many may be given One Fitz Gerald of Tycrohan the Heir of a forfeiting Papist had a Suit for a great Estate against Sir William Petty it was tryed in the Exchequer before Chief Baron Rice and Fitz Gerald carried the Cause by the Perjury of two Friars and a Woman who swore a person to be dead in Spain and themselves to be present at his Burial upon whose Life Sir William's Title depended This person soon after appeared to be alive and is so still for ought we know and his being alive was so notorious and manifest that the Attorney General could not deny it Sir William's Counsel and Lawyers designed to indict the Friars and Woman for their Perjury but the Grand Jury refused to find the Bill and I was credibly informed that the Attorney General said that if they did not desist he would enter a Noli prosequi It is certain he refused to prosecute it and it was imputed to his Contrivance that they escaped By such means the Course of Justice was stopped to Protestants and the like Tenderness the Courts generally shewed to Perjurers when the Perjury served their Interest And sure the Protestants were in an ill case whose Lives and Fortunes lay at the Mercy of such Judges and Juries and they must conclude that nothing less than Destruction was designed for them by a King who put them under such Administrators of Justice The same Sir Richard Nagle was the Speaker of the House of Commons in their pretended Parliament and had the chief Hand in drawing up their Acts King James confided chiefly in him and the Acts of Repeal and Attainder were looked on as his Work in which his Malice and Jesuitical Principles prevailed so far that he was not content to out two Thirds of the Protestant Gentlemen of their Estates by the Act of Repeal by which all Estates acquired since 1641 were taken away and to attaint most of those that had old Estates by the Bill of Attainder But to make sure Work he put it out of the King's Power to pardon them therein betraying the King's Prerogative as the King himself told him when he discovered it to him Of which and of him we shall have occasion to give a further account hereafter 10. Into such Hands as we have been speaking of the Administration of Justice and of the Laws was put which were so far from preventing our Ruin that they were made the Means and Instruments thereof and it had been much better for us to have had no Laws at all and been left to our natural Defence than to be cheated into a necessity of Submission by Laws that were executed only to punish and not to defend us 11. It was common for some of those that served King James to come upon the Exchange and without any reason or provocation to fall upon Protestant Gentlemen if they looked a little more fashionable than other people and beat them One was thus beaten with a Cane severely before the Gentleman was aware he was advised for an Experiment to indict the Ruffian that used him thus to see what protection the Law would give us after they had taken away our Swords but the Grand Jury did not think it worth while to trouble the Courts with redressing the Grievances of Protestants and so would not find the Bill A Merchant in Thomas street Dublin found a Fellow that had broken into his Ware house and was conveying his Goods out at the Window to his Fellow Soldiers that stood in the Street to receive them he seised him and brought an Indictment against him for Felony but the Jury acquitted him and then he brought his Action against the Merchant for false Imprisonment and Slander and it cost a good Sum
Let this be Printed Nottingham White-Hall Octob. 15. 1691. THE STATE OF THE PROTESTANTS OF 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 freed from his Government and of submitting to their present Majesties is demonstrated LONDON Printed for Robert Clavell at the Peacock at the West-end of St. Paul's 1691. HEADS of the DISCOURSE The INTRODUCTION Containing an Explication of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and stating the true Notion and Latitude of it page 1 N. 1. That a King who designs to destroy a People abdicates the Government of them ib. 2. The Assertors of Passive Obedience own this but alledge the Case is not to be put p. 2 3. The Arguments of Passive Obedience from Reason and Scripture reach only Cases where the Mischief is particular or tolerable p. 3 4. A War not always a greater Evil than Suffering p. 5 5. The Division of the whole Discourse into four parts ib. Chap. 1. That it is lawful for one Prince to interpose between another Prince and his Subjects when he uses them cruelly p. 6 N. 1. This Point already cleared by several ib. 2. 1. Argument One Prince may have an Interest in the People and Government of another Prince ib. 3. 2. Argument That tho Destruction of a People by their Prince may only be a step to the Destruction of his Neighbours ib. 4. 3. Argument Charity and Humanity oblige every one who is able to succour the oppressed p. 7 5. 4. Argument God seems for this Reason to have divided the World into several Principalities ib. 6. 5. Argument From the Authority of Christian Casuists p. 8 7. 6. From the Practice of Christian Princes Constantine the Great Constantine his Son King Pepin the Holy War c. ib. 8. The Objection from the Oath of Allegiance c. answered from Falkner p. 9 9. From it not being lawful to assist any Prince in an ill Cause p. 10 10. From King Jame's abolishing those Oaths here in Ireland ib. Chap. 2. King James designed to destroy the Protestant Religion p. 12 Sect. 1. The possibility of a King 's designing the Destruction of his Subjects ib. N. 1. That it is necessary the Princes Design should be very evident to justifie the Opposition of his Subjects ib. 2. An Answer to the Objection who shall be Judge ib. 3. Example of Princes that have had such Designs against their Subjects p. 13 Sect. 2. Shewing from the Obligations of his Religion that King James designed to destroy Protestant Subjects p. 14 N. 1. Proved from the Councils of Lateran and Constance from King James's Zeal Confessors and Allies ib. 2. That no Promises of the Prince nor Laws of the Land can secure Protestant Subjects p. 16 Account of Jerome of Prague's safe Conduct p. 17 Sect. 3. King James's Design to ruin his Protestant Subjects proved from the Profession of that whole Party that were most privy to his Councils who privately warned their Protestant Friends of it ib. Sect. 4. The same destructive Designs proved from the Officers employed by him p. 19 N. 1. The Ground of the different Interests of Ireland Account of the Rebellion in 1641 ib. 2. The Subjects Security is that the Officers employed by the King are responsible for what they do amiss p. 20 3. The Officers employed by King James not only not responsible but fitted to destroy us upon account of the five Qualifications following p. 21 Sect. 5. Upon Account of their being Men generally of no Fortune p. 22 N. 1. King James employed such in the Army and Civil Offices and such were his Favourites p. 22 2. He employed such in Corporations p. 23 3. Men of Estates that followed him out of England had little Interest with him ib. 4. The Reason of this that they might not stick at illegal Commands p. 24 Sect. 6. Upon Account of their Insufficiency for their Emploments ib. N. 1. The Roman Catholicks generally insufficient for Business by their long Disuse ib. 2. The Inconveniences of this in the Courts and City p. 25 3. In the Country p. 26 4. Those employed were incapable of Improvement p. 27 Sect. 7. Upon account of their loose Principles and want of Moral Honesty ib. N. 1. Knavery Robbery or Forgery no Bar to Preferments in King James his Army or Employments ib. 2. The lewdest Converts favour'd p. 29 3. All of them very uncharitable and void of Compassion to Hereticks p. 30 4. Many Perjuries amongst them ib. Sect. 8. Upon Account of their Genius and Inclination to destroy the Laws c. p. 31 N. 1. The ancient Condition of the Tenants and Landlords of Ireland ib. 2. The Landlords that did not forfeit their Estates 1641 retained the Genius of their Ancestors p. 32 3. The Humour and Way of Living of such as formerly forfeited or had sold their Estates ibid. 4. The English Laws were intolerable to the old Landlords that retain'd their Estates p. 33 5. Much more to those that had lost them and most of all to the Popish Clergy ibid. 6. King James employed and trusted those most whose Interest and Temper made them greatest Enemies to the Laws p. 34 by the Laws in employing Soldiers ibid. 8. Secondly That Protestants would not serve his turn Answer This only shews what he designed against us p. 57 9. Thirdly That such Levies were necessary in the Kings Circumstances Answer The Papists had brought that necessity The raising and modeling this Army a plain instance of King James's design to destroy us ibid. Sect. 3. Secondly King James's dealing with the Courts of Judicature p. 58 1. Justice in the Hands of â—it Persons the support of a Kingdom King James put it into the most unfit Hands being such as were bent to destroy the Protestants and English Interest ibid. 2. Chancery Primate Boyle and Sir Charles Porter removed Fitton put in His Character His Inclination and Behaviour towards Protestants and great partiality to them ibid. 3. Masters of Chancery of the same sort p. 60 4. On the other Benches one Protestant Judg kept in for a Colour without Power The like done by Burgesses in Corporations p. 61 5. Kings Bench Nugent's Character great Partiality Instance in Captain Fitz Gerald anâ— Sir Gregory Birn Nugent's great hand in the Bill of Attainder c. Sir Bryan ô Neal's Character p. 61 62 6. Excâ—equer Sir Stephen Rice's Character His Inveteracy to Protestants and enmity to the Act of Settlement p. 63 7. Common Pleas little to do Keating's and Daley's Characters p. 64 8. Circuits Alike ill for Protestants Instance Tirrell's Affidavit ibid. 9. Attorney General Sir Richard Nagle his Character and Partiality Instance in Fitz Gerald and Sir William Petty Speaker of the House of Commons drew up the Acts of Repeal and Attainder and betrayed the Kings Prerogative p. 65 66 10. Administration of the Laws turned to the Protestants ruin p. 66 11. Instances in
beating and injuring Protestants ibid. 12. In disarming them p. 67 13. The Dispensing Power of more mischief still than ill Administration First Only to be allowed in Cases of Necessity ibid. 14. Secondly In such Cases the People have as much right to it as the King Instance in the Sheriff of Warwickshire from Dr. Sanderson p. 68 15. Thirdly The wickedness either in King or People in pretending Necessity where there is none p. 69 16. King James's employing Popish Officers was such a Dispensation ibid. 17. And no Necessity for it unless such as was Criminal p. 70 18. King James dispensed with all when it was against Protestants p. 71 Sect. 4. Thirdly King James's dealing with Civil Offices and the Privy Council p. 72 1. Several outed notwithstanding Patents ibid. 2. Act of Parliament for voyding Patents Irish hereby made Keepâ—rs of Records which before they had corrupted when they could get to them p. 73 3. Revenue Officers changed for Roman Catholicks though to the Prejudice of the Revenue p. 74 4. Sheriffs and Justices of Peace from the Scum of the People ibid. 5. Privy-Councellors all in effect Papists p. 76 Sect. 5. Fourthly King James's dealing with Corporations p. 77 1. The Peoples security in these Kingdoms is the choice of Representatives in Parliament To preserve this Papists excluded from Corporations in Ireland Protestants had made great Concessions to the King by their New Rules for Corporations The King not satisfied with this but would have all p. 77 78 2. Rice and Nagle's managing of Quo Warranto's a horrid Abuse of the Kings Prerogative and the Law p. 78 79 3. Other methods of destroying Charters p. 80 4. Particular Corporations in Dublin how ordered ibid. 5. Voyding Charters led to voyding Parents for Estates ibid. 6. Corporations by the New Charters made absolute Slaves to the Kings Will. First by Consequence no free Parliament could be Returned Secondly Protestants could not serve in the Corporations p. 80 81 7. Protestants hereby driven from the Kingdom ibid. Sect. 6. Fifthly King James's Destruction of the Trade p. 82 1. Trade to be destroyed that the King might have his Will of his Subjects Poor People willing to serve for little in an Army as in France ibid. 2. In order to ruin the Protestants who were the chief Traders Driven hereby out of the Kingdom p. 83 3. This ruined a great many that depended on them ibid. 4. The Irish in employ who had the ready Mony gave it only to Papist Tradesmen p. 84 5. Exactions of the Revenue-Officers great discouragement to Merchants and Traders p. 85 6. Protestant Shoopkeepers quitted for fear of being forced to Trust ibid. 7. Transportation of Wooll connived at by Lord Tirconnell to ruin our woollen Trade p. 86 8. Roman Catholick principal Traders ruined also by King James by the Act of Repeal p. 87 Sect. 7. Sixthly King James's Destruction of our Liberty p. 88 1. No general Pardon at King James's Accession to the Crown Protestants hereby questioned for things in the Popish Plot on false Evidences ibid. 2. Protestants sworn into Plots and seditious Words Instance 1. In County Meath 2. In County Tipperary p. 88 89 3. New Magistrates in Corporations plagued Protestants p. 90 4. New Levies and Rapparee's imprisoned those that resisted their Robberies Instance in Mr. Brice of Wicklow Maxwel and Levis Queens County Sir Laurence Parsons p. 91 5. General imprisonment of Protestants from Midsummer 1689. to Christmas No Habeas Corpus's allowed Protestants of Drogheda barbarously used at the Siege and of the County of Cork by imprisonments p. 92 93 6. Hard Usage of Protestants in Prisons Powder placed to blow them up Leak's Evidence against the Prisoners in Dublin defeated by an Accident p. 93 7. K. James aware of all the ill Treatment of Protestants informed at large by the Bishop of Limrick All Protestants confined by his Proclamation to their Parishes p. 94 8. Arts to conceal this in England Intollerable staying in Ireland Necessary to close in with King William p. 95 Sect. 8. Seventhly King James's destruction of our Estates 1. By disarming the Protestants by Lord Tirconnell p. 97 1. Government dissolved that does not preserve Property ibid. 2. The Irish very low at the Prince of Oranges's Invasion Would easily have been brought to submit Protestants able to have mastered them Lord Mountjoy opposed seizing Tirconnell p. 97 98 3. Protestants resolved not to be the Aggressors were inclined to submit to King James till they found his destructive designs Monsieur d' Avaux complained of the Measures put on King James by Tirconnell p. 98 99 4. Tirconnell's Arts and Lyes to gain time pretending to be ready to submit to King William till he form'd his new Levies Lord Chief Justice Keatings Letters and Observations on it p. 99 5. New Levies necessary to be subsisted on Plunder This gave credit to the Letter to Lord Mount Alexander Decemb. 6. 1688. p. 101 6. And made Derry shut its Gates against the Earl of Antrims Regiment p. 102 7. Obliged to do thus by their Foundation p. 103 8. Provoked to it by the unjust taking away their Charter p. 104 9. This made also the Enniskiliners refuse two Companies sent by Lord Tirconnell and the Northern Gentlemen to enter into an Association for their own defence ibid. 10. Lord Tirconnell hastened to run them into blood before King James's coming p. 106 11. Justification of their declaring for their present Majesties ibid. 12. Their defence of themselves of great benefit to the Protestant Cause and almost miraculous p. 107 13. Lord Tirconnell's Lyes and Wheedles to Lord Mountjoy to send him to France p. 109 14. Lord Mountjoy's Reasons to accept it Articles granted to him by Tirconnell for the Protestants not kept p. 110 15. Lord Tirconnell proceeds to disarm the Protestants Manner of doing it and taking away their Horses A perfect Dragooning p. 111 16. Proclamation issued after it had been done by verbal Orders p. 113 17. The Arms for the most part embezled by the Soldiers who took them This had like to have occasioned a worse Dragooning prevented by the Bishop of Meath p. 113 114 18. The manner of taking up and embezling Horses p. 114 19. Miserable condition of the Protestants being disarmed amongst their Irish Enemies Protestants had the highest Legal Property in their Arms. The Government by taking them away must design their ruin p. 115 20. No Reason for disarming us but to make us a Prey p. 116 21. It was necessary in King James's Circumstances but the Necessity occasioned by his own fault ibid. Sect. 9. Secondly Lord Tirconnell's Attempts on the Protestants Personal Fortunes p. 117 1. Which he destroyed by encouraging Popish Tenants against their Protestant Landlords and swearing them into Plots Gentlemen forced to live for some time before the Turn on their Stocks p. 117 118 2. Forced into England with little ready Mony Many burnt out of their Houses in the Country Many robbed and some murthered
Thirdly From Orders about Garrisoning Mansion-Houses Sending the Protestant Owners to the Goal who must never have expected either their Houses or Lives if King James had prevailed ibid. Estates of Absentees disposed of and promised to Papists p. 162 20. Objection That King James did not know the Consequence of Repealing the Acts of Settlement ibid. Answer First King James understood them better than any and held ten thousand pounds a year by them when Duke of York ibid. Secondly King James would not hear the Protestants plead at the Bar against the Repeal p. 163 Thirdly Bishop of Meath in a Speech in the House set forth the ill Consequences at large ibid. Fourthly The Protestants opposed it from Point to Point ibid. Fifthly Protestants were resolved to use their utmost that the ill intents of their Adversaries might appear the more p. 164 Sixthly Lord chief Justice Keating's Paper given to King James in behalf of Purchasers rejected ibid. 21. Protestants lost more in Ireland than all that favour King James's Cause in England are worth p. 165 Sect. 13. Eighthly The danger into which King James brought the lives of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland ibid. 1. At King James's Coming no General Pardon though it had been his Interest in respect of England ibid. 2. Is not chargeable with particular Murders further than by arming such Men as would be guilty of them p. 166 3. The Governments Design upon our Lives ibid. First by feigned Plots and Protecting the Perjured Witnesses Instance in Spikes Case The Dumb Friar p. 167 Secondly By wresting Facts to Treason Nugent declar'd Protestants having Arms to be so p. 168 Thirdly By violating Articles Mr. Brown of Cork Town of Bandon Earl of Inchiquin Captain Boyle Sir Thomas Southwell and his Party Lord Mountjoy's Soldiers Fort of Culmore King James's approach to Derry Captain Dixy Kenaght Castle p. 169 170 Fourthly By violating Protections p. 171 Protestants of Down p. 171 Protestants brought before Derry by General Rosen Bishop of Meath applyed to King James about it King James excused Rosen p. 173 174 Captain Barton of Carrick Mac Cross p. 175 Fifthly By private Orders and Proclamations with the penalty of Death Several Instances p. 178 Sixthly By the Act of Attainder Abstract of it Archbishops 2 Duke 1 Temporal Lords 63 Ladies 22 Bishops 7 Knights 85 Clergymen 83 Esquires and Gentlemen 2182 2445 p. 179 180 Not equalled by the Proscription at Rome Great part Attainted on Common Fame p. 182 Observations on the Act ibid. 1. Leaves no room for the King to Pardon ibid. 2. The Act concealed Out of the Power of an English Parliament to Repeal it by the Act for cutting off Ireland from England p. 183 3. The hast in drawing it up ibid. 4. Many left out particularly the Collegians and how ibid. 5. Applications in behalf of Protestants made their Case worse p. 184 6. Allowing of time to prove Innocency a meer Collusion ibid. 1. None knew what time was given ibid. 2. None knew what they would call Innocency Instance Desmineer and Ginnery ibid. 3. The Embargo on this side would not let them know on the other side 4. The Embargo on the other side would not let them come hither 5. To have come would have been an unwise Venture p. 177 4. Objection That few Protestants lost their Lives p. 178 Answer 1. When it is known how many have perished they will not appear few ibid. 2. The Irish Papists would not venture at much Murthering till they were past an after Reckoning they feared such Cruelty would be revenged on Roman Catholicks in England ibid. 3. Protestants were cautious not to provoke them and were true to one another p. 179 4. We dont know what would have been done with Attainted Persons ibid. 5. Protestants if Obnoxious absconded or escaped ibid. 6. The Support of King James's Army depended on the Protestants p. 179 Scotch Officers that came here wondered to find how Protestants were used having heard so much the contrary at home p. 180 The same given out in England Pity but those who believed and forwarded it had been sent hither ibid. The Irish doing what they did in their Circumstances what would they have done if left to their swing ibid. Sect. 14. Ninthly The method King James took to destroy our Religion p. 181 1. The Attempts against our Lives and Fortunes no sudden thing but the result of a long Design for which Tirconnel had 20000 l. per annum ibid. 2. King James pretended Liberty of Conscience but not to be expected from a Roman Catholick ibid. 3. The Laws and Coronation Oath secured our Religion The Clergy had merited from King James by opposing the Exclusion and disobliged their People p. 182 4. At his coming to the Crown the Roman Catholicks declared that his Promises to the Church were not intended for Ireland p. 183 Sect. 15. First By taking away our Schools and Universities p. 184 1. Lord Tirconnell put the Schools contrary to Law into the hands of Papists ibid. 2. And would have put in Popish Fellows into the College ibid. 3. Stopt the College Pension of 388 l. per annum from Easter 1688. turned out the Fellows and Students seized on the Library and Furniture p 193 4. Forbid three of them on pain of Death not to meet together p. 194 5. King James did not fill up vacant Bishopricks and Livings in his Gift ibid. 6. And allowed nothing for supplying the Cures p. 195 7. All the Bishops and Livings in the Kingdom would soon have come into the Kings hands p. 196 8. This not the effect of our Constitution the same in Popish Countries Thirty five Bishopricks void in France in 1688. King James's Ungratefulness to the Protestant Clergy ibid. Sect. 16. Secondly By taking away the Maintenance of the Clergy p. 197 1. Book-Mony denyed by the Papists from King James's coming to the Crown ibid. 2. Priests put in for Tythes Hardly recovered by Protestants p. 198 3. An Act of their Parliament applied Papists Tythes to the Priests ibid. 4. And Protestants Tythes too when the Priests had the Benefices ibid. 5. The Priests forc'd into Possession of Glebes where there were any p. 199 6. Protestant Clergy little better for the Tythes left to them Protestants had little Tythings left Priests by Dragoons seized what there was never wanted Pretences ibid. 7. House-Mony in Corporations taken away by their Parliament Pleaded against before the House of Lords but in vain p. 200 8. The same took away Ulster Table of Tythes p. 201 9. Duties payable to the King out of Livings were exacted wholly from the Protestant Incumbents though they had nothing left to them of their Livings their Persons seized and sent to Goal ibid. Collonel Moore Clerk of the First Fruits imprisoned because he would not be severe against them p. 202 Sect. 17. Thirdly By taking away the Jurisdiction of the Protestant Church ibid. 1. The Churches Right by Prescription to Jurisdiction ibid. 2. Act
of a Letter sent the King August 14. 1686. found in Bishop Tirrel's but imperfect p. 303 Lord Clarendon's Speech in Council on his leaving the Government of Ireland p. 310 A General Abstract of the Gross Produce of his Majesties Revenue in Ireland in the three first years of the Management beginning at Christmas 1682. and ended Christmas 1685. p. 312 Sheriffs for the year 1687. p. 313 Lord Lieutenants and Debuty Lieutenants of Counties p. 324 Privy Councellors appointed by Letters from King James dated February 28. 1684. and such as were sworn since by particular Letters p. 333 The Civil List of Officers and the times of their entring on their Offices p. 334 An account of the General and Field Officers of King James's Army out of the Muster Rolls p. 341 A Copy of the Letter dispersed about the Massacre said to be designed on December 9. 1688. p. 345 Lord Mountjoy's Circular Letter on his going to France p. 346 Judge Keating's Letter to Sir John Temple December 29. 1688. p. 347 Proposals humbly offered to the Earl of Tyrconnell Lord Deputy by the Bishop Meath about the intended search for Arms p. 353 An account of the Conditions made in the Field between the High Sheriff of Gallway and the Prisoners afterwards condemned p. 356 A Copy of a Letter from Bishop Maloony to Bishop Tyrrell the Original found amongst Bishop Tyrrell's Papers March 8. 1689. p. 360 Presentment of the Grand Jury of Tipperary against Protestants p. 365 A List of all the Men of Note that came with King James out of France or that followed him after so far as could be Collected p. 366 A List of the Lords that sate in the pretended Parliament at Dublin held May 7. 1689. p. 369 The names of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses returned to the Parliament beginning May 7. 1689. p. 370 An Address to King James in behalf of Purchasers under the Act of Settlement by Judg Keating p. 377 The Lord Bishop of Meath's Speech in Parliament June 4. 1689. p. 389 Copies of the Orders for giving Possessions p. 388 Albaville's Instructions to the Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer p. 392 A Petition of the Minister of Wexford for his Church and the Order thereupon p. 395 Mr. Prowd Minister of Trim his account of the remarkable Accident that happened upon Plundering the Church of Trim p. 397 General Rosen's Order to bring the Protestants before Derry p. 399 Advertisement as it was published by Mr. Yalden in his weakly Abhorrence concerning Dr. King and Dr. Foy p. 404 Collonel Lutterell's Order for numbering Protestants p. 406 Collonel Lutterell's Order forbidding above five Protestants to meet any where p. 407 THE STATE OF THE Protestants of 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 freed from his Government and of submitting to their present Majesties is demonstrated INTRODUCTION Containing an Explication of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and stating the true Notion and Latitude of it 1. IT is granted by some of the highest assertors of Passive Obedience that if a King design to root out a people or destroy one main part of his Subjects in favour of another whom he loves better that they may prevent it even by opposing him with force and that he is to be judged in such a case to have Abdicated the Government of those whom he designs to destroy contrary to Justice and the Laws This is Grotius's Opinion in his Book De jure Belli Pacis lib. 1. cap. 4. § 11. where citing Barclay he says If a King be carried with a malitious design to the destruction of a whole Nation he loses his Kingdom which I grant since a will to Govern and to Destroy cannot consist together therefore he who professes himself an Enemy to a whole People doth in that very act Abdicate his Kingdom But it seems hardly possible that this should enter into the heart of a King who is not mad if he govern only one people but if he govern many it may happen that in favour of one people he may desire the other were destroyed Doctor Hammond asserts Passive Obedience as high as any yet he approves this passage of Grotius and of Barclay in his vindication of Christ's reprehending S. Peter from the exceptions of Mr. Marshall p. 327. of his first Volume Grotius saith he mentions some cases wherein a King may be resisted As in case a King shall Abdicate his Kingdom and manifestly relinquish his Power then he turns private man and may be dealt with as any other such And some other the like 2. And it is observable that generally in all Books and Sermons concerning Obedience to Governors where this case is put suppose a King endeavour to destroy his people there are only two answers given to it one is that his Officers and Ministers ought not to obey him if they do the Law will punish them The other is that this case ought not to be put that we ought not to suppose that any King will designedly endeavour to destroy his people nay the Author of Jovian will not allow us to suppose that any King will attempt in England to Govern altogether by Arbitrary Power and the Sword For says he Chap. 12. p. 272. To suppose this is plainly to suppose the utmost impossibility and p. 273. If a King should shut up the Courts obstruct or pervert Justice he allows that all his good Subjects and all the bad too that tendered their own safety would desert him and Chap. 6. p. 152. He says he should be tempted to pray for the destruction of such a Prince as the only means of delivering the Church Falkner in his Christian Loyalty B. 2. Chap. 5. N. 19 20 tells us But if ever any such strange case as is supposed should really happen I confess it would have its great difficulties He brings in Grotius De jure Belli Pacis lib. 1. cap. 4. N. 7. And Bishop Bilsons Christian Subjection Part 3. p. 519. edit 1585. as allowing it and seems to allow their judgment in the case but then tells us that the case above-mentioned ought not at all to be supposed or taken into consideration All which plainly grants that if a King do in earnest design the destruction of his Subjects and get Ministers and Officers to concur with him in it who are ready to execute his wicked intentions and against whom the Law yields no Protection that in such a case the Subjects may desert their Prince decline his Government and Service and seek Protection where they can find it 3. And indeed whoever considers the Discourses that have been written concerning Non-Resistance will find that the reasons given for it either from the nature of the Thing or Scripture reach only tolerable evils and prove that a man ought to be patient under pressures laid on him by his Governor when the mischief is not
be the peculiar Obligation that lies on us from the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance which tho it should be allowed lawful for a Foreign Prince to interpose would yet make it necessary for us to fight for our own Prince But to this I answer 1. That those Oaths were made by us to the King as Supreme Governor of these Kingdoms and while he continued such they did oblige us but by endeavouring to destroy us he as Grotius observes in that very Act abdicated the Government since an intention of Governing cannot consist with an intention of Destroying and therefore in all equity we are absolved from Oaths made to him as Governor That this may not seem a new Doctrine I would have the Reader observe that I only transcribe the Learned Falkner in his Christian Loyalty l. 1. c. 5. s. 2. n. 19. Such Attempts saith he of ruining do ipso facto include a disclaiming the governing those Persos as Subjects and consequently of being their Prince or King and then the Expression of our publick Declaration and Acknowledgment would still be secured that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King 9. But Secondly No Oath of Allegiance doth oblige any Subject to assist his Prince in an ill Cause If therefore a King should against the Rules of Justice attempt to destroy a Neighbor Nation his Subjects who were convinced of this ought not to fight for him in such a War and if they ought not to assist him to oppress Foreigners much less is it lawful for them to assist him to destroy themselves or to fight against a Prince who comes to rescue them from Destruction intended against them and if no Protestant Subject could lawfully fight for King James in his Quarrel against their present Majesties it is manifest that he himself had thereby voided that Branch of the Oath of Allegiance of fighting for him by making the matter of it unlawful he having brought the Nation into such a Condition that at the same time they defended his Person they must enable him to accomplish his destructive Designs against them which no Casuist will say they were obliged to do They therefore that urge us with the Obligation of the Oaths of Allegiance ought either to make it appear that it was lawful for us to fight for him in an ill Cause or else that it was not an ill Cause to help him to destroy his People Or Thirdly That he had no such Design against us none of which I have yet seen attempted in any Paper that has appeared in his Defence 10. But Thirdly As to us particularly in Ireland his late Majesty King James and his Parliament here by a formal Act did repeal and make void all former Acts that required the tendering or taking those Oaths and left not one legal standing Oath in force whereby we or any other Subjects besides Soldiers were obliged to profess Subjection to him therefore those Oaths being repealed and voided by the King 's own express Act how could he expect that we should look upon our selves to be bound or obliged by them And indeed we must conclude from his Majesties consenting to repeal them either that he designed to release us from the peculiar Obligation arising from them as too strict or else that he did not design to depend on our Oaths for our Loyalty 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 intrusted and can signifie nothing less than that he did not intend to rule us as his Predecessors did or to depend on those Obligations of Subjection which they judged proper for the Subjects of these Kingdoms to give their King and that as he did not intend to keep his Coronation Oath to us so he did not value our Oath of Allegiance to him having left none that we know of in this Kingdom which any Law obliges us to take CHAP. II. King James designed to destroy the Protestant Religion the Liberty and Property of his Subjects in general the English Interest in particular and so alter the very Frame and Constitution of the Government SECT I. Shewing the Possibility of a Kings designing the Destruction of his Subjects 1. I Have in the former Chapter shewed that it is lawful for a Prince to interpose between another Prince and his Subjects if he attempt to destroy them I promised in the second place to shew that the late King designed and endeavoured to destroy and utterly ruin the Protestant Religion and English Interest in Ireland and to alter the very Frame and Constitution of the Government This I look on as the most material point of our Apology and to need the most clear and full proof for Jealousies and Fears in such a Case ought not to pass for Arguments or be brought into competition with a certain and plain Duty that is with Obedience to lawful Governors The Arguments therefore brought by Subjects to prove their Governors Design to destroy them in those Interests to preserve which is the only Reason of Mens desiring or submitting to Government ought to be so plain and evident that the Conscience of Mankind cannot but see and be convinced of their Truth especially the generality of the Subjects themselves ought to be fully satisfied and acquiesce in them 2. I know 't is commonly objected Who shall be Judge And for this Reason alone some conclude it can never be lawful to make any opposition against a Governor or to side with a Deliverer that comes only to rescue miserable Subjects but I answer there are some Cases so plain that they need no Judge at all every Man must be left to judge for himself and for his Integrity he must be answerable to God and his own Conscience Matters of Fact are often of this Nature and I take this to be one of them for either the People must be left to judge of the Designs of their Governor by what they see and feel from him or else they must be obliged to a blind and absolute Submission without employing their understanding in the case And I dare appeal to all the World whether it be safer to leave it to the Judgments and Consciences of a whole Kingdom to determine concerning the Designs of their Governor or to leave it to the Will and Conscience of the King whether he will destroy them One of these is unavoidable and I am assured it is less probable that the Generality of a Kingdom will concur in a Mistake of this Nature and less mischievous if they should mistake than that a King by Weakness wicked Counsellors or false Principles should design to make his People Slaves subvert the ancient Government or destroy one part of his People whom he hates in favour of another 3. That a Prince may design to destroy his Subjects tho the Asserters of Absolute Passive Obedience would
make it an incredible Thing is so far from being impossible that it is very common of which there are so many Examples both ancient and modern that it is a wonder that Men who know any thing of History should overlook them Nero Caligula Domitian Maximinus Heliogabalus Commodus not only endeavoured but professed it and some of them were mightily concerned that it was not in their power to accomplish it No longer ago than the time of Philip the Second of Spain we have an Example of a Christian King no better than those Heathens Whoever reads the Story of his dealing with the Low Countries must confess that he design'd the utter Destruction of the Laws and Liberties of those People and that in particular he was resolved that not one Protestant should be left alive amongst them The same has been designed and effected in a great measure by the present French King against his Protestant Subjects and he must have a great share either of Impudence or Stupidity that can deny this Prince to have designed and purposely contrived that destruction and by the same Rule that a Man can be so wicked and barbarous as to design the destruction of a third or fourth part of his People he may design the destruction of the greatrr part if they will be such Fools as to suffer him to effect it SECT II. Shewing from the Obligations of his Religion that King James designed to destroy us IT is easie to demonstrate that every Roman Catholick King if he throughly understand his Religion and do in earnest believe the Principles of it is obliged if he be able to destroy his Protestant Subjects and that nothing can excuse him from doing it but want of power This is plain from the third Chapter of the fourth Lateran Council and from the Council of Constance in the Bull that confirms it read in the 45. Session if therefore a Popish King can persuade his Protestant Subjects to submit to him whilst he doth it he is obliged by his Principles to destroy them even when they are the greater part and Body of his Subjects Now King James was as is known to all the World a most zealous Roman Catholick and ingaged with that party of them that most zealously assert and practise this Doctrine of rooting out Hereticks He gave himself up intirely to the Conduct and guidance of Jesuits these were the Governors and Directors of his Conscience and he seemed to have no other Sentiments than such as they inspired into him If then these have prevailed with the French King whom some report to be a merciful Man in his own Nature and certainly a mighty Zealot for his Honor to break his most solemn established Laws violate his repeated Declarations and Oaths and in spite of all these to persecute and destroy his Protestant Subjects if the same have prevailed with the Duke of Savoy to do the like though as he is now convinced manifestly against his Interest nay almost to his own Destruction having lost thereby his best and most resolute and useful Subjects who would have served him most Cordially against France the Enemy he ought most to dread and which one day will swallow up his Dukedom if his Allies do not prevent it If lastly they have prevailed with the Emperor to involve himself in a War that has now lasted about twenty years and almost lost him his Empire rather than suffer a few Protestants to live quietly in Hungary Is not our late Kings being of the same Principles and under the Government of the same Directors of Conscience is not his fondness of France and his Alliance with it his affecting to imitate that King in every thing and above all his prosecuting the same if not worse methods towards the Protestants in Ireland that the King of France did with the Hugonots in his Dominions a clear and full proof of both Kings being in the same design to root out not only the Protestants of these Kingdoms but likewise of all Europe and that we must all have expected the same usage our Brethren met with in France Nor could our Kings Promises and Engagements be any greater assurances to us than those of the French King were to his Subjects It is observable that King James was more than ordinarily liberal in his Promises and Declarations of favour towards Protestants He boasted in a Declaration sent to England and dispersed by his Friends there dated May 8. 1689. at Dublin That his Protestant Subjects their Religion Priviledges and Properties were his especial care since he came into Ireland He often professed that he made no distinction between them and Roman Catholicks and both he here and his Party there did much extol his kind dealings with his Protestants in Ireland What those dealings truly were I shall have occasion to shew the representation of them made in England by him and his Party was no less false than his Promises were unsincere it being plain he had a reserve in them all It is a maxim as I take it in Law that if the King be deceived in his Grant though it pass the Great Seal yet it is void much more must all his verbal Promises be void if he be deceived in them Now if we consider who were the Directors of the Kings Conscience we ought not to wonder that he made no great scruple to evade them Doctor Cartwright one of his Instruments gives us a right notion of King James's Promises in his Sermon at Rippon where in effect he tells us that the Kings Promises are Donatives and ought not to be too strictly examined or urged and that we must leave his Majesty to explain his own meaning in them this Gloss pleased King James so well that he rewarded the Author with the Bishoprick of Chester though very unfit for that Character and shewed in all his actions that he meant to proceed accordingly and the humour run through the whole party whenever they were at a pinch and under a necessity of serving themselves by the assistance or credulity of Protestants they promised them fair and stuck at no terms with them but when their turn was served they would not allow us to mention their promise much less to challenge the performance 2. It plainly appeared that it was not in King James's power if he had been disposed himself to perform his promises to us The Priests told us that they would have our Churches and our Tyths and that the King had nothing to do with them and they were as good as their words nor could his Majesty upon trial hinder them One Mr. Moore preached before the King in Christs Church in the beginning of the year 1690. his Sermon gave great offence he told his Majesty that he did not do justice to the Church and Churchmen and amongst other things said that Kings ought to consult Clergymen in their temporal affairs the Clergy having a temporal as well as a spiritual right in the
Kingdom but Kings had nothing to do with the managing of spiritual affairs but were to obey the Orders of the Church It is true King James highly resented this and the Preacher was banished or voluntarily withdrew from Court but in this he spake the general sense of the Clergy indeed of the Roman Church to which the King had given himself up and must be forced to submit to it at last The Kings Promises therefore or his Laws could signifie nothing towards the securing us except he could get the Roman Church to join in them and become a party to them for whilst the Governours of that Church challenge the whole management of spiritual things and King James owned their power so far that he consented to abolish the Oath of Supremacy that denies it for him to promise safety and liberty to Hereticks and make Laws about the worship of God and Liberty of Conscience is clearly according to their Doctrine to give away what is not his own and dispose the rights of another without consulting the party interessed and according to all Casuists such promises are void they that speak most favourably of the Council of Constance which is supposed to determine that no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks make this Apology for the Council The Emperor Sigismond granted without consulting the Council a safe conduct to Jerome of Prague the Council condemned him for Heresie and ordered him to be burnt the Emperor interpos'd to justifie his safe conduct but the Council answered that he was not obliged to make it good to the Heretick because it was not in the Emperor to grant a safe conduct to secure a Man against the Justice of the Council without consulting it this is the most favourable representation I have met with of this matter and even thus it is a sufficient caution for all Protestants not to trust Kings or Princes of the Roman Communion in matters that relate to the Church or Religion without the express consent of that Church or Religion without the express consent of that Church if they do it is at their own peril and they cannot blame those Princes when they fail in their Promises for they had sufficient warning not to trust them since they engage for a thing that according to their own confession is not in their power but is avowedly the right of another SECT III. The same proved from the Professions of that whole party who were most privy to King James's Counsels THE second Argument whence it appears that the King designed utterly to destroy and ruin his Protestant Subjects in Ireland is from the Oaths Professions and Affirmations of those who were his Confidents and Instruments used by him to bring it to pass From the very beginning of the French Persecution the Papists of Ireland began to shew their fondness of that Monarch and as their love to him commenced with that Persecution so it increased in proportion to his barbarity and they could never speak of it without Passion and Transport but after his late Majesty came to the Crown they openly declared that they liked no Government but that of France that they would make the King as absolute here as that King was there they affirmed both publickly and privately with many Oaths that they would in a short time have our Estates and Churches that if they suffered us to live they would make us hewers of wood and drawers of water that Ireland must be a Catholick Country whatever it cost and as for the English they would make them as poor devils as when they came first into Ireland and they assured us that this was no rash surmise of their own but that it was premeditated and resolved and that we should quickly find it by the effects of which they were so confident though we could not believe them that some of the most serious amongst them advised their Protestant Friends in private with all earnestness to change their Religion for said they you will be forced to do it at length and if you delay but a little time it will be too late and perhaps you may not be accepted for no Protestant must expect to injoy any thing in this Kingdom and we resolve to reduce all things to the state they were in under Henry VII before Poinings Act. In answer to this we told them that the Laws were on our side and the King had promised to Govern according to Law and to protect our Church and Liberties but they laught at our Credulity pisht at the Laws as mere Trifles and unanimously declared that the Kings Promises to maintain the Government in Church and State were intended only for England and were not meant to reach us and withal intimated that the same would be done in England though not so soon for the truth of all which I may refer my self to almost as many Protestants as were then in Ireland there being few but were Witnesses of such Discourses and the Kings Conduct towards us was such as left no room for us to doubt but that these People knew his mind and that all his Promises and Declarations in our favour were perfectly coppied from the French Kings Declarations to preserve the Edict of Nants and of as little Sincerity and that notwithstanding these he had as fully determined our ruin as that King had resolved the voiding the Edict of Nants when he made his solemn Declarations to the contrary SECT IV. The same destructive designs against his Subjects proved from the qualifications of the Officers employed by King James 1. THIS destructive design appears in the third place from the persons he Employed in all Offices of Trust or Power It is well known to the World and to many thousands yet alive that in the year 1641. there was a most bloody Massacre committed in this Kingdom on the Protestants by their Neighbours the Papists in which some hundred thousands perished and that not one Protestant whom they spared escaped without being robbed and plundered of all he had if not stripped and turned out naked to the extremities of Cold and a desolate Country and to such a degree of madness they proceeded that they destroyed the Houses Buildings Churches and Improvements of the Kingdom out of their malice and inveteracy to the Protestants the Founders of them but these Barbarians at last were by the Protestants subdued and brought to submit to mercy after which Conquest the Conquerors in the year 1660. joined indeed were more forward than the People of England in bringing home King Charles II. and generously gave up themselves together with the Kingdom of Ireland without Articles or Conditions into his hands The King in recompence of so signal a Service and to reprise the Conquerors for their Blood Treasure and Losses gave them back a part of what they had given him but withal restored the Conquered under certain qualifications to another part of the forfeited Lands who though restored by the Kings mere
Body in their Employments had not substance enough to answer the Charges of a Suit much less the Damages expected by way of Reparation 2. After the Earl of Tyrconnel had named his Sheriffs of this stamp for the year 1687 it will hardly be found that any Protestant recovered any Debt by Execution The main Reason of this was the Poverty of Sheriffs which made Men unwilling to trust the Execution of a Bond for twenty pounds into their Hands they not being responsible even for such á small Summ as too many found to their cost The Mayors and other Magistrates in their new modelled Corporations were generally of the same sort In Dublin they could not pick up Men enough that had the face to appear as Burgesses and some of those that they named had not Mony to buy themselves Gowns I think their number was never complete It was yet worse in the Country Corporations in many places they were not able to pay the Attorney General 's Fees which stopped their new Charters till the calling a Parliament necessitated him to pass them gratis As to the inferior Officers of the Army such as Captains Lieutenants and Ensigns some hundreds of them had been Cow-herds Horse-boys or Footmen and perhaps these were none of their worst Men for by reason of their Education amongst Protestants they had seen and understood more than those who had lived wild on the Mountains 3. 'T is observable that the Men of clear Estates who followed his late Majesty from England through France as they were but very few so they had but little interest with him of which Duke Powis was one Instance and Lord Dover another Duke Powis made the Protestants believe and perhaps he was sincere in it that he was much against the Proceedings of the pretended Parliament and used his Interest with the King to put a stop to them but was not able to do it Lord Dover was actually dismissed from all his Employments and ready to leave the Kingdom some time before the Alteration happened by the Victory at the Boyn Now King James's Aversion to employ or trust Men of Estates and Fortunes and the reason of his Fondness of such Creatures as had no Being but what he gave them was obvious enough to us that felt it and they themselves did not deny it nay boasted of it as a great instance of his Wisdom He knew these could never thrive but by making him absolute that they would never demur at any Command or enquire for any other Law than his Will that they were out of all fear of being questioned afterwards or of having their Estates forfeited or Families beggared all which are great Restraints on Men of Estates and Honor. 4. And surely there cannot be a fuller Demonstration of a Prince's Design to lay aside the Laws and to rule by force without controul than his putting out Men of Substance and employing Men of broken and desperate Fortunes in places of Trust and Honor who having nothing else to depend upon but the Prince's pleasure must be absolute Slaves to it and yield a blind Obedience to all that is given them in Commission This is the Misery of a People when Servants rule over them And this was the Reason King James employed rather such than any others And it was impossible the Grand Segnior should have fitted himself better with Instruments for promoting an arbitrary Government than he did SECT VI. II. The Insufficiencies of the Persons employed by King James was of mischievous Consequence to the Kingdom 1. THE Poverty and Meanness of the Men was not their worst Fault It is possible that a poor Man may be both honest and able for the greatest Trust. But the Officers employed by King James were such that tho they had been very honest and willing to do Justice they yet must have done much Mischief by their Unskilfulness and Insufficiency for the Offices with which he intrusted them It was both King James's Misfortune and his Subjects that he employed very few of sober Sense and Experience about him whether it was that he could not get Men of Sense to go through with him in all things that he would have had done or whether it proceeded from the Servility observable in dull People whereby they flatter and gain on Princes Or lastly from a Humor incident to great Men which makes them unwilling to have Servants able to pry into their Designs But however it was it was remarkable in King James that dull heavy Men kept his Favor longer and more steadily than Men of Sense and Parts and he generallly chose out the most unfit and most uncapable for Preferments It is plain that even in England he designed the Army should be supplyed with Irish and this Project went farther than the Army he was filling the Burroughs and Corporations with them also and no Body knew where the humour would have stopped Now if there had been nothing else their being kept out of all Employments and Trusts by the Laws for many years past must have incapacitated them and all Roman Catholicks for managing the Affairs of the Kingdom to advantage they neither had fit Education nor had they applyed their minds to the Management of such Affairs they were absolute Strangers to every thing that concerned the publick and then no wonder that they went aukwardly and untowardly about Business How was it conceivable that they should escape signal and mischievous Errors in the Discharge of Offices to which they had never been bred up and of which they never thought till they were put to manage them And yet this they were constrained to do without the Aid or Assistance of any to help them and that under the most difficult Circumstances for the former Officers looked on their Offices as their Freeholds and conceived a great Resentment against such as had turned them out of them against Law and Justice and therefore left them as inâ—â—icate and their Successors as little Information as they could who according to the Nature of ignorant Men were too proud to ask assistance from the others if those had been willing to afford them instruction 2. It is not imaginable how many Inconveniences happened on this Account nothing was done by any Rule or Method the Subjects were every day oppressed and the Officers made themselves ridiculous by their Blunders and Mistakes every Body was petitioning by reason of these Grievances and no Body knew how to redress them None of the new Officers understood his own Business or how to distinguish his Province from another Man's The knavish part of Offices in putting Tricks on People and getting Money were all the Study of the new employed Gentlemen The real and substantial parts of the Offices for which they were instituted and designed were little known and less minded nor could it be expected to be otherwise Could any imagine for Example that Chancellor Fitton that had lain in prison many years and not appeared in any
Court a Stranger to the Kingdom to the Laws and to the Practice and Rules of Court and withal a Man of a heavy and slow Understanding should on a sudden be able to dispatch the Business of the highest Court in the Kingdom and penetrate into the most intricate Causes which are commonly determined in that Court He was so far from this that he was forced to make many needless References to the Masters in Causes that had no difficulty in them This was the general way of his dispatching Causes And then what Report could be expected from Mr. Stafford one of these Masters a Popish Priest noted and exposed by his own party for want of Sense and who perhaps had never been within the Courts till he sate down as one of the Masters of the Chancery or from the other Masters who were yet more ignorant and unexperienced if possible than he 3. If we take a view of the Country we shall find their Case rather worse One that a few days before was no other than a Cowherd to his Protestant Landlord perhaps was set before him on the Bench as a Justice of the Peace and preferred to command as Captain in the Field or a Deputy Lieutenant in the County I am assured that some were thus preferred without passing through any intermediate steps to prepare or fit themselves for the better Discharge of those Places The Consequence of which is easie to be imagined every one that is acquainted with Business and Dispatch knows what a Torment it is to have to do with raw and unexperienced Officers who must be taught by him that comes to have his Business done how they should go about it and which is often hardest to do he must convince them that they are mistaken or do not understand their own Offices which such Men are most unwillingly brought to own and yet no Busisiness can be rightly done till they are convinced of it This was the condition of all the Offices in Ireland from the King 's Privy Council and Secretaries of State to the High Constables which without any other Defect must and did bring many Inconveniencies to the Kingdom 4. But after all if none but Men of ordinary parts and tolerable natural fagacity had been employed tho unexperienced and uneducated time might have taught them and made them at least tolerable if not dexterous at their Business But the generality of those who were preferred had such weak Understandings and unimprovable Capacities that they who were superseded by them could not reflect on it without the greatest Indignation to see Men not much removed from Idiots put into their Places and Offices which they had bought with their Mony and had taken considerable pains and spent a good part of their Lives to qualifie themselves to execute whereas those that succeeded them had nothing of Improvement or Education and withal were so proud and lazy and dull that they neither would nor could make themselves better by Application or Industry who had nothing to recommend them to the King but that they were Papists and such as he believed would never scruple any Command however illegal or absurd so it tended to weaken or destroy Protestants which was the sole Qualification that recommended them SECT VII III. King James had gotten a Sett of Officers fitted to destroy a Kingdom by reason of their loose Principles and want of Moral Honesty 1. THE Instruments King James used to carry on his Design were not only very poor and insufficient for their Places but they were likewise Men fit to be employed in ill Designs and it is hardly credible how rare it was to find amongst them a Man that had ordinary Moral Honesty It is true they seemed to make Conscience of hearing Mass and not eating Flesh on Fridays but hardly of any thing else To have been always reckoned a Knave was no Exception or Bar to any Man's Preferment amongst them they declared they must make use of such Those that were infamous whilst the Government was in the Hands of Protestants for Forgeries Perjuries Robberies and Burglaries were all indifferently employed by them That some such should be admitted into the Army is not so much to be wondered at but that honest Gentlemen should be turned out to make room for them was intolerable and yet here not only the Army but even the Courts of Justice were filled with such One of the new Examinators of the Chancery was formerly detected of a Forgery Several of their Burgesses nay Sheriffs were notorious Thieves and some burnt in the Hand The Speech of one of their new Justices of the Peace gave some Diversion it was one Mr. Stafford for whom the Master of Chancery his Son had procured a Commission of the Peace it was soon after the Earl of Tyrconnel came over Governour and it fell to the new Justice's turn to give the Charge at the Quarter-Sessions in which he set forth as well as he could the Happiness of the Kingdom under the new Government Amongst other Conveniences that we reap by it said he it has rid us of Tories for all those are taken into the King's Army And the Truth was many of these that had been indicted outlawed nay condemned got Commissions The famous Tories the Brannans who had been guilty not only of Burglary and Robbery but of Murther also who were under Sentence of Death and had escaped it by breaking Goal were made amongst the rest Officers and the Earl of Tyrconnel seemed to bear a peculiar favour to these Tories and a spite to such as had been diligent to suppress them There was a famous Tory in Munster one Power who did abundance of Mischief and disturbed the whole Country Mr. Fitz-Simons a Gentleman of the Army had rid the Country of him by which Piece of Service he deserved very well but instead of being rewarded he was one of the first Protestant Officers that was cashiered There was another notable Tory one Flemming that was very troublesom and mischievous in Leinster some Troopers by their diligence surprized him and cut him off it was observed that the Earl call'd out those Troopers first and cashiered them some considerable time before he turned out the rest of the Troop which every Body interpreted to be a Mark of his Displeasure for that Service I have heard it observed that there were at least twenty noted Tories Officers in one Regiment and very few Regiments were without some 2. There was another sort of People had mighty favour with them I mean Converts to their Religion A man may I confess upon just motives or such as seem just to him change his Opinion and Religion and cannot justly be condemned of Dishonesty for so doing but he is certainly a very dishonest Man that dissembles or alters his Opinion without any other visible motive besides Gain or Preferment Now this was the Case of many of their Officers Several of the Children of the Papists of the Kingdom had
and the old petty Tyrants that claimed not only a Right to all his Tenant's Substance but likewise a power over his life 3. But many of the old Landlords lost their Estates by Outlawries and Attainders for their Rebellion in the year 1641 and for their murthering the Protestants at that time Many of them had sold their Estates and some had mortgaged them for more than their value two or three times to several persons a Practice very common in Ireland but it is observable that it is the humor of these People to count an Estate their own still tho they have sold it on the most valuable Considerations or have been turned out of it by the most regular Proceedings of Justice so that they reckon every Estate theirs that either they or their Ancestors had at any time in their possession no matter how many years ago And by their pretended Title and Gentility they have such an influence on the poor Tenants of their own Nation and Religion who live on those Lands that these Tenants look on them still tho out of possession of their Estates as a kind of Landlords maintain them after a fashion in Idleness and entertain them in their Coshering Manner These Vagabonds reckoned themselves great Gentlemen and that it would be a great Disparagement to them to betake themselves to any Calling Trade or Way of Industry and therefore either supported themselves by stealing and torying or oppressing the poor Farmers and exacting some kind of Maintenance either from their Clans and Septs or from those that lived on the Estates to which they pretended And these pretended Gentlemen together with the numerous Coshering Popish Clergy that lived much after the same manner were the two greatest Grievances of the Kingdom and more especially hindered its Settlement and Happiness The Laws of England were intolerable to them both nor could they subsist under them 4. As to the Popish Landlords who yet retained their Estates it put them out of all patience to find that the Bodough their Tenant so as they call the meaner sort of People should have equal Justice against them as well as against his Fellow Churl that a Landlord should be called to an account for killing or robbing his Tenant or ravishing his Daughter seemed to them an unreasonable Hardship It was insufferable to Men that had been used to no Law but their own Will to be levelled with the meanest in the Administration of Justice and every time they were crossed by a Tenant that would not patiently bear their Impositions they cursed in their Hearts the Laws of England and called to mind the glorious Days of their Ancestors who with a Word of their Mouths could hang or ruin which of their Dependents they pleased and had in themselves the power of Peace and War 5. This Humor in the Gentry of Ireland has from time to time been their Ruin and engaged them in frequent Rebellions being impatient of the Restraint the Laws of England put on their Power tho they enjoyed their Estates and they still watched an opportunity to restore themselves to their petty Tyrannies and were ready to buy the Reftitution of them at any rate The other sort of Gentlemen I mentioned as they called themselves who were outed of their Estates as well as of their Power by the same Laws hated them yet worse and their Clergy pushed them on with all the Arguments that ignorant Zeal or Interest could suggest insomuch that all sober Men as well as Protestants reckoned these the sworn Enemies of the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and were assured that they would stick at no conditions to destroy them their Interest Inclination and Principles all concurring to engage them to do it 6. Now these very Men were the Officers and Instruments King James employed and trusted above all others He espoused their Interest from the time that he had thoughts of the Crown they were his Favourites and Confidents and to provide for them he turned his English and Protestant Subjects first out of the Army then out of their Civil Trusts and Employments and lastly out of their Fortunes and Estates He knew very well that the Tempers and Genius of those Men were at enmity to the Laws and fitted for that Constitution of Slavery under which he designed to bring the Kingdoms He found that none were more fawning to their Superiors than they nor did any flatter with more Meanness and Servility and according to the nature of such People none are more insolent and tyrannous to their Inferiors And this was the reason that they were so dear to King James and that he preferred and trusted them rather than his Protestant and English Subjects The Bargain between him and them was plainly this restore us to our former Power Estates and Religion and we will serve you as you please in your own way An Expression that King James and all his Creatures often used and were very fond of 7. These People found that the King 's Legal Power could never restore them to the condition at which they aimed that the Power and Station they desired was absolutely contrary to the Laws in being and that no Legal Parliament would ever alter the Laws and Constitution of the Kingdom to gratifie them No wonder therefore if they espoused and promoted an absolute and despotick Power in the King and if he and they concurred so heartily to introduce it To do them Justice they made no Secret of it but professed it publickly and on all occasions and accordingly practised it in their several Stations They reckoned and called every one a Whig and Rebel that talked of any other Law than the King's Pleasure They were liberal of their Curses and Imprecations on all occasions but they exceeded and became outrageous against any one that durst alledge that their Proceedings were against Law Damn your Laws was frequently their word it is the Kings pleasure it should be so we know no reason why our King should not be as absolute as the King of France and we will make him so before we have done Nay so extravagant were many of them that they would swear with repeated Or ths that all Protestants were Rebels because they would not be of the King's Religion An Expression I suppose they learned from the French Dragoons 8. Some would undertake to argue the Case with such as seemed more moderate amongst them and put them in mind of the possibility of the Change of the Government and that then the Argument would be good against themselves but they had not patience to hear any such thing mentioned And they generally swore with the most bloody Oaths and bitter Imprecations that they would never subject themselves to any King that was not of their own Religion and that they would lose the last drop of their Blood rather than part with the Sword and Power put into their Hands on any consideration whatsoever These were not the Discourses of one or
Neighbours Cities especially Dublin encreased exceedingly Gentlemens Seats were built or building every where and Parks Enclosures and other Ornaments were carefully promoted insomuch that many places of the Kingdom equalled the Improvements of England The Papists themselves where Rancour Pride or Laziness did not hinder them lived happily and a great many of them got considerable Estates either by Traffick by the Law or by other Arts and Industry 2. There was a free Liberty of Conscience by connivence tho not by the Law and the King's Revenue encreased proportionably to the Kingdom 's Advance in Wealth and was every day growing it amounted to more than three hundred thousand pounds per annum a Sum sufficient to defray all the Expence of the Crown and to return yearly a considerable Sum into England to which this Nation had formerly been a constant Expence If King James had minded either his own Interest or the Kingdoms he would not have interrupted this happy Condition But the Protestants found that neither this nor the Services of any towards him nor his own good Nature were Barrs sufficient to secure them from Destruction 2. It is certainly the Interest of all Kings to govern their Subjects with Justice and Equity if therefore they understood or would mind their true Interest no King would ruin any of his Subjects but it often happens that either Men are so weak that they do not understand their Interest or else so little at their own Command that some foolish Passion or Humour sways them more than all the Interest in the World and from these proceeds all the ill Government which has ruined so many Kingdoms Now King James was so bent on gaining an absolute Power over the Lives and Liberties of his Subjects and on introducing his Religion that he valued no Interest when it came in competition with those 3. Every Body that knew King James's Interest and the true Interest of his Kingdoms knew that it concerned him to keep fair with Protestants especially with that party who were most devoted to him and had set the Crown on his Head and this had been in the Opinion of thinking Men the most effectual way to inlarge his Power and introduce his Religion but because it did not suit with the Methods his bigotted Counsellors had proposed he took a Course directly contrary to his Interest and seemed to take a peculiar pleasure in affronting and oppressing those very Men whom in Interest he was most concerned to cherish and support His Proceeding thus in England was visibly the Cause of his Ruin he had left himself no Friend to stand by him when he stood in greatest need of them Upon his coming to Ireland the Protestants had entertained some favourable Hopes that he would have seen and been convinced of his Error and would now at last govern himself by other measures it was manifestly his Interest to have done so and nothing in probability could have allayed the Heats of England and Scotland so much as his Justice and Kindness to the Protestants of Ireland nor could any thing have had so much the Appearance of an Answer to those many and evident Arguments by which they demonstrated his destructive Designs against those Kingdoms as to have had it to say that in Ireland where it was in his Power he was far from doing what they surmised he intended to do in England or if he had ever any such intentions it was plain he had now altered them These things were laid before him by some that wish'd well to his Affairs and had more Prudence than his furious and bigotted Counsellors and sometimes they seemed to make Impressions on him but the Priests and needy Courtiers who had swallowed in their Imaginations the Spoils and Estates of the Protestants of England as well as of Ireland could not endure to hear of this They seemed mightily afraid lest he should be restored to his Throne by consent of his Protestant Subjects For if so said they we know it will be on so strict Conditions that we shall gain but little by it it will not be in his power to gratifie us And not only they but the Irish in general likewise endeavoured to make his Restitution by way of Articles or Peace impracticable and impossible A Design so extremely foolish that it is strange any should be found so sillily wicked as to promote it or that King James should be so imposed on as to hearken to it and yet it is certain he did at least at some times entertain it and was heard to express himself to one that pressed him to Moderation to Protestants on this account that he never expected to get into England but with Fire and Sword However his Counsellors were not so weak but they saw what disadvantage his dealing with the Protestants had on his Interest in England and therefore they took care to conceal it as much as possible they stopped all Intercourse as far as they could with England they had a party to cry up the mildness of King James's Government towards the Protestants to applaud the Ease the Plenty the Security in which they lived and to run down and discredit all Relations to the contrary that came from Ireland These endeavoured to perswade the World that there was no such thing as a Bill of Attainder or of Repeal no Act taking away the Preferments or Maintenance of the Clergy nor any Imprisonment or Plundering of Protestants no taking away of Goods by private Orders of the King or levying of Monies by Proclamations In short they did that which on all occasions is the Practice and indeed Support of Popery They endeavoured to face down plain matter of Fact with Forehead and Confidence and to perswade the World that all these were mere Forgeries of King James's Enemies As many as believed these Allegations of theirs and were persuaded by them that the Protestants of Ireland were well used by King James were inclined to favour him a certain sign that if they had been really well used by him it would have gotten him many Friends and perhaps reconciled some of his worst Enemies But the Design entertained by him and his Party required the Ruin of Protestants and of their Religion whereas his Interest required that it should not be believed that he designed either and therefore Care was taken to prosecute the Design with all eagerness and deny the Matter of Fact with all impudence and his Majesty took care to promote both for he ruined the Protestants of Ireland by his Acts of Parliament and by the other Methods we shall hereafter speak of and by his Proclamations sent privately into England to his Partisans there assured the World that the Protestant Religion and Interest were his special care and that he had secured them against their Enemies It was his Interest to have done as well as pretended this but the carrying on his Design was so much in his Thoughts that he chose to sacrifice his
prevail all that could be obtained was a Clause implying that the Commissioners that should be appointed to execute the Act should set him out a Reprizal under the same Limitations under which he held the Town and Lands of Mollingar which as one of the House of Commons expressed it was a Mouthful of Moonshine So little regard was had to the Services or Merits of Protestants 6. And they had no reason to expect it should be otherwise for there was no regard had to the most considerable Papists where their Interest interfered with the general Design It was resolved to destroy the Act of Settlement the Foundation of the English and Protestant Interest in Ireland This brought along with it Destruction to many Papists that held Estates under it which they had purchased since the year 1662 as well as to Protestants Those Papists were very numerous and more wealthy than the rest especially in Connaught and they were likewise very zealous for King James and many of them in his actual Service and venturing their Lives for him at the time of passing the Act of Repeal yet this did not hinder him from giving away their Estates by that Act to the old Proprietors In short if serving King James truly and faithfully even to their own prejudice whilst it was for his Advantage and his Circumstances needed their Service could have merited his Favour most Protestants had supererogated but all this passed for nothing with him he would be served his own way that is he would have Protestants been active to destroy their Properties Liberty and Religion he would have had them lend their Hands to tie the Chains of Slavery for them and their Posterity to which they had already contributed too far to oblige his Humor both before and after his coming to the Crown against the common Interest of the Kingdom Nothing less than the same blind Obedience would serve him in the State which his Clergy require in the Church which we would not by any means pay him and therefore it was in vain for us to think of preserving our selves by any Merit or Service we could render him he did not think any thing a Protestant could do with a good Conscience to be a Service And if we did all was required yet there never wanted persons about his Majesty who had Malice enough towards us and Interest enough with him to misrepresent our most meritorious Actions 8. Nor was the good Nature and merciful Disposition of King James any greater Security to the Protestants of Ireland than their own Merits towards him There are 't is true Kings in the World that have an absolute Power over the Lives and Liberties of their Subjects and yet govern them with such Justice and Mercy that they suffer very little inconveniency by it but the Examples of this kind are so very rare that it is ill trusting any one with such a Power King James's Partizans made it their Business to represent their Master as the most merciful and justest Prince in the World and then they railed at us that grudged to lay our own and our Posterities Lives and Liberties at his Feet Perhaps if he alone had been to have had the Disposal of them and would have followed his natural Inclinations we should not so much have feared to have trusted him but whilst he had such Ministers about him and embraced a Religion of such Principles as he professed we had no Reason to depend much on his natural Clemency or Inclination for these were sufficient to corrupt the best natured Man in the World 9. No doubt but Charles the Fifth of Germany was of as compassionate and generous a Nature as any Man yet that did not keep him from making havock of his Subjects on account of Religion besides all his Wars and Bloodshed to suppress the Reformation he destroyed by way of legal Process fifty thousand in the Inquisition a Barbarity I believe hardly equalled by Nero Francis the First of France was a Prince equal to any in Generosity and Nobleness of Nature and yet he made no less Havock and Destruction in his Dominions on the same Account The present French King is a Demonstration that neither Love of Glory nor of Interest neither Greatness of Mind nor Goodness of Nature are Antidotes against the Force of Romish Principles or can restrain the Prince that has throughly imbibed them from Blood and Persecution otherwise he would never have made himself infamous by such horrid Cruelties as he has committed on his Protestant Subjects or brought an indelible Blot on a Reign which he would fain have represented to be more glorious than any of his Predecessors It is not necessary that what has been said should bring in question the good Nature or merciful Temper of King James tho we confess we were unwilling to trust it too far We had before our Thoughts the Proceedings in the West of England where we saw his Clemency did not interpose but suffered more to be prosecuted tryed condemned and executed for that one Rebellion and yet it was not so considerable as many others than perhaps had suffered in that manner for many of the Rebellions since the Conquest We found that he consented to attaint above two thousand five hundred of the most considerable persons of this Kingdom and that his good Nature might not be a Temptation to pardon them he put it out of his power to do it by the same Act. After his coming into Ireland very few Pardon 's passed the Great Seal perhaps not three nor had many so much as the promise of a Pardon given them tho very many needed and desired it Many of the Country People who were not of the Army were brought up Prisoners they pleaded that they were not concerned in the Wars that they lived in their Houses and on their Farms and submitted only to the stronger without engaging in the Cause but all to no purpose they were used worse than the Soldiers who were Prisoners and suffered to starve in Jails if the Charity of their Fellow Protestants had not relieved them Many who were wronged and oppressed petitioned his Majesty for Redress but their Petitions were rejected at best mislaid and the Petitioners were so far from obtaining any Answer that they often could never hear what became of their Petitions 10. The chief Counsellors of the King were the Popish Clergy and the Descendents of such as had shed the Blood of so many Protestants in the year 1641 who then ruined and destroyed the Kingdom and made it a heap of Rubbish and a Slaughter-House and whilst he hearkened to the Suggestions and Councils of such it was not possible for him to exert his good Nature and Clemency towards us It was the continual Business of these Counsellors to incense the King against us to represent us as People unworthy of any Favour Humanity or Justice that we were all Rogues Villains and Traitors and not fit to be allowed
of Money to compound the Matter This Trick was very common and at last no Protestant tho he had ever so good Evidence against a Papist durst prosecute him for he was sure to be acquitted and then the Prosecutor was liable to the Revenge of an Action of the Case and the Damages that a Popish Jury pleased to give against him 12. There is an Act of Parliament 10 Henrici 7. cap. 12. That forbids keeping Guns or Ordnance without License from the Lord Lieutenant or Deputy The Design of it was to prevent the Irish from fortifying themselves in their little Castles whereby at that time they created the Government great Trouble and raised daily Rebellions But the Lord Chief Justice Nugent interpreted this to the disarming of all Protestants and because there chanced to be a Sword and Case of Pistols found September 6 1689 in some outward by place in Christs Church Dublin one Wolf the Subverger was committed to Newgate indicted and found guilty and had good luck to escape with his Life the Chief Justice declaring it was Treason tho Wolf was only indicted for a Misdemeanour 13. But had the Laws been in never so good Hands it could not have secured us from Destruction when the King who designed that Destruction against us pretended to be above all Laws and made no Scruple to dispense with them every Law in these Kingdoms is really a Compact between the King and People wherein by mutual consent they agree on a Rule by which he is to govern and according to which they oblige themselves to pay him Obedience But there is no general Rule but in some Cases it may prove inconvenient it is therefore agreed by all that in Cases of sudden and unforeseen Necessity there is no Law but may be dispensed with but then first it is observable that this Necessity must be so visible and apparent that all reasonable Men may see and be satisfied that it is not pretended and where the Necessity has been thus real no Man can shew that either the People or Parliament ever quarrelled with a King for using a dispensing Power 14. Secondly It must be observed that this Power of Dispensing in Cases of Necessity is mutual and belongs to the People as well as the King it being as lawful for a Subject in Cases of Necessity to dispense with his Obedience to a Law nay with his Allegiance to his King as for a King to dispense with the Execution of a Law or the exacting Obedience and this mutual power of dispensing with the Laws which are publick Compacts in Cases of Necessity is tacitly understood in them as well as in all other Covenants Doctor Sanderson proves this Power of Dispensing to belong to the People as well as to the Prince in his tenth Praelection N. 21. and he gives an Example in N. 22. The Case is thus The Conspirators after the Gunpowder Treason was discovered fled into Warwickshire and made an Insurrection the Sheriff raises the Posse Comitatus against them they fled from thence into Worcestershire where by the Law the Sheriffs of Warwick could not follow them but the Sheriff dispensed with the Law Judging saith he as he ought to have done That if he would perform right the Office of a good Subject the Observation of the Law in that Case of Necessity was very unseasonable and he ought to obey the Supreme Law which is the Safety of his Country The Sheriff did accordingly and was highly commended by King James the First for it There might be many Examples of this kind given in which the People are allowed to dispense even with their Allegiance in case of Necessity It is against the Allegiance of a Subject to own the Power of an Usurper to bear Arms to judge of Life and Death or administer Justice between Man and Man by his Commission and yet Dr. Sanderson determines it to be the Duty of a good Man to do all these if required by an Usurper Praelect 5. N. 19. and accordingly we find Judge Hales acted under the worst of Usurpers Oliver Cromwell and executed the Office of a Judge as may be seen in his Life 15. Thirdly 'T is the most wicked as well as hazardous thing that a King or People can do to pretend a necessity for dispensing with those publick Compacts when the pretence is not real for the publick Faith is hereby violated the party unconsulted is abused a just reason of Distrust raised between the King and People and they of the two that assume to themselves this power of dispensing upon a pretended not real necessity in Cases of great Moment to the Kingdom are in a fair way to lay a real necessity on the other party to dispense with their part of the Compact that is to say if the King will pretend a Necessity where there is none for his not governing by Laws in Cases that concern the common safety of the Kingdom he gives a shrewd Temptation and a justifiable Colour to his People to dispense with their Submission and Allegiance to him And it is full as good a Reason for a Peoples taking Arms to defend themselves against illegal Violence to alledge that they were necessitated to do so to prevent the Ruin and Destruction of them and their Posterity as it is for a King to alledge that he uses illegal Officers and Force to preserve himself and his Kingdoms And if the Allegation be real I do not see why it should not justifie the one as well as the other tho the one be against the Oath of Allegiance and the other against the Coronation Oath Cases of extreme Necessity being tacitly excepted in both Kings therefore that take on themselves to dispense with Laws without the consent either tacit or express of their People give an ill Precedent against themselves and must blame themselves if their People taught by them return it upon them 16. 'T is plain the Officers employed by King James in Ireland both Civil and Military were unqualified and uncapable by Law of those Employments If Lord Tirconnell for instance claimed Subjection of us by the Laws I do not see why he should expect the People to be better Observers of the Laws than he was Suppose that it was against the Law for them to resist him it was likewise against the Laws that he should command them if he dispensed in one Case they only dispensed in the other and in this Case it was as lawful for the one to dispense as the other I suppose the only Reason in a settled Government why one Man can claim our Submission and not another is because the known Laws give the one and not another the power of commanding but the Laws as well as the Interest of this Kingdom said positively that the Earl of Tirconnell and Men of his Character and Religion should not have any Office Civil or Military and therefore those Protestants that stood on their Defence against him
did not look on themselves to have resisted any persons legally commissioned by the King nor was there any need of a Judge or Judgment in the Case the Question being no other than Whether the Law required that our Governors and Army should not be Papists And whether the Earl of Tirconnell and those he employed were Papists Both which were notorious and confessed by all without the Determination of a Court or Judges 17. As to the point of Necessity 't is as plain there was no Necessity on King James to employ these persons whom the Law had disabled to serve him Protestants were numerous enough and willing enough to serve him in every thing that was for the Interest of the Kingdom but he not only refused to entertain them but turned out such as he found employed without the least Crime or Accusation and put in their places persons not only unqualified by Law for the Employments into which he put them but also unfit and uncapable to discharge them which sufficiently shewed that it was Choice not Necessity made him employ them But he foresaw that such persons as the Laws designed for Employments would not assist to destroy the Laws Liberties and Religion of the Kingdom and therefore he exchanged them for those new Servants whose Interest it was to join with him in his ill Designs and whose Service was their Crime who deserved the most severe punishments not only for accepting these Employments against the Laws but likewise using them to the Subversion of all Law and Justice If therefore there was any necessity on King James to employ such Servants it was a criminal Necessity and intirely of his own making and if he imagined that such a Necessity would excuse him from his Coronation Oath of governing according to the Laws and justifie his dispensing with all the Laws made for the Security of his Subjects why should he not allow the same Liberty to his Subjects and think that an inevitable Necessity of avoiding Ruin should be a sufficient Reason for them to dispense with their Obedience to him notwithstanding their Oaths of Allegiance especially where the Necessity is not pretended or created by themselves as his was but apparent and forced on them by him According therefore to his own Rules he cannot blame them for refusing to obey him where no Law required their Obedience or for resisting him in those unlawful Methods they saw him engaged in to their manifest Destruction But King James was resolved to venture all and as many of his Favourites expressed it would not be a Slave to the Laws and therefore endeavoured to be their Master In England he granted without any apparent Necessity nay against not only the Interest and Safety of the Kingdom but even to his own prejudice several Dispensations but these passed in some colour or form of Law and many of them at least passed the Offices and Seals but in Ireland they did not trouble themselves with these Formalities A verbal Command from the King was a sufficient Dispensation to all Laws made in favour of a Protestant the Officers acted and the Courts judged as if there had been no such Laws in being Here the Dispensations went much higher than in England even to dispensing with the Laws against robbing and taking away property for if King James had a mind to any thing he sent an Officer with a File of Musquetiers and fetched it away without considering the Owners and to shew us that his Commands were not merely pretended by these Officers which I confess often happened when they did such illegal things the King himself to shew I say that it was his determinate Resolution to act us did sometimes send Orders under his Hand to take away many things of great value without offering any Retribution or Satisfaction to the Owners Many Instauces of this kind may be given I shall only mention one because it made some noise A Grant in nature of a Lease with a reserv'd Rent to the Crown was made by King Charles the Second to some of his Courtiers as a Gratuity for considerable Services whereby the sole Liberty to coin Copper-Money in the Kingdom of Ireland for one and twenty years was given to them This Grant was purschased at a dear rate from the Grantees by Sir John Knox late Lord Mayor of Dublin and was renewed not without great Trouble and Charges to him by King James after his Accession to the Crown When he came into Ireland he found this Grant in the Hands of Collonel Roger Moor to whom it came by way of Legacy from the Purchaser King James designing to set up a Brass Mint sent for this Grant and had it strictly canvast to see if any Flaw could be found in it none could be found nor would the Collonel be persuaded to give it up The King therefore commanded it to be laid aside and his own Mint to be proceeded on without regard to it But having occasion for the coining Tools and Engines belonging to this without consulting the Owner or enquiring whether he was willing to part with them he sent and seised on them violently forcing open the Doors and taking away to a considerable Value Collonel Moore petitioned for Redress or at least some Consideration for his Loss but his Petition was rejected without being heard Such proceedings were common and shews us plainly what a weak Barrier Laws are against a person who designs absolute Power and who believes according to our late Act of Recognition That the Decision in all Cases of a misused Authority by a Lawful Hereditary King must be left to the sole Judgment of God SECT IV. III. King James's Progress to destroy his Protestant Subjects by his disposing of Civil Offices and ordering the Privy Council 1. I Have already taken notice how King James disposed the Military Offices in such a Method as must unavoidably ruin the Protestant Interest in Ireland it was not altogether so easie to out Men of their Civil Employment as of their Military 1. Because many had Patents for Life or Good Behaviour And 2. Because some of the Offices themselves were so difficult to be managed that it was not easie to find Roman Catholicks capable of discharging them yet it appeared necessary in order to ruin the Protestants that they should be turned out of them and therefore King James and his Ministers resolved to do it as fast as they could As soon as they could find a Papist that would or durst undertake them they put him in and they plainly declared that no Protestant after a little while should have any Office of Trust or Profit left in his Hands Some Offices they disposed of without more ado by new Patents and put the Patentee in Possession without taking notice that there was another Patent in being leaving the former Proprietor to bring his Action at Law if he pleased Thus they served Sir Charles Meredith for his Chancellorship of the Exchequer and thus they
were first Robbed of all and then laid in Goal and that they had no way offended his Majesty or disturbed his Government and begged his favour in their behalf His Majesty heard him but made him no answer instead thereof he fell into discourse of another Affair with a Papist that chanced to be by and that with an Air more than ordinarily pleasant and unconcerned Indeed his Majesty had by one general Order and Proclamation dated July 26. 1689 confined all Protestants without distinction of Age or Sex to their Parishes and Cities though their Occasions were such that he very well knew that this alone without any more was a very great encroachment on their Liberty and a mighty inconveniency to their Affairs especially when it was continued without Reason or Limitation No body knew when this would be relaxed and it was Executed with great strictness till his present Majesties success put an end to it and to the Power that imposed it 8. But least these hardships and restraints should either be avoided by our flight or known in England where King James had a Party to cry up the mildness of his Government and face down the World that the Protestants lived easily and happily under him in Ireland a most strict Embargo was laid on all Ships and effectual care taken to destroy all Correspondence with our Friends there insomuch that to avoid a Goal great numbers of Gentlemen and other persons were forced to make their escapes in small Wherries and Fishing-Boats which before these times durst never venture out of the sight of the Shoar but it seemed more tolerable to every body that could compass it to cross the Irish Seas so famous for their boisterousness and Shipwracks in that hazardous manner than to continue under a Government where they could call nothing their own where it was in the power of any that pleased to deprive them of their Liberty where they durst not Travel three Miles for fear of incurring the severest penalties where they could not send a Letter to a Friend though in the next Town and about the most necessary Occasions and where tho never so cautious and innocent they were sure at last to be sent to a Goal A Government that thus encroached on our Liberties could not expect we should continue under it longer than we needs must and it had been unpardonable folly in us not to desire much more to refuse a deliverance especially from England which if Blood and Treasure or a Possession of five hundred years can give a right to a Country is justly intitled to the Government of Ireland And which if it had no other exception against King James's Government but his Carriage towards Ireland and his attempts to separate it from its dependence on England must be justified by all the World in their laying him aside as a Destroyer of his People and a disinheritor of the Crown of his Ancestors SECT VIII 7. The preparations made by the Earl of Tyrconnel to ruin the Estates and Fortunes of the Protestants by taking away their Arms. 1. 'T Is Property that makes Government necessary and the immediate end of Government is to preserve Property where therefore a Government instead of preserving intirely ruins the Property of the Subject that Government dissolves it self Now this was the State of the Protestants in Ireland the Government depriv'd them contrary to Law and Justice nay for the most part without so much as the pretence of a Crime of every thing to which persons can have a Property even of the necessaries of life Food and Rayment To lay this more fully before the Reader I will shew First That King James took away the Arms of Protestants Secondly That he took away their personal and Thirdly their real Estates 2. When his present Majesty made his descent into England King James had an Army of Papists in Ireland consisting of between 7 and 8000 of which near 4000 were sent over to him into England there remain'd then about 4000 behind scattered up and down the Kingdom which were but a handful to the Protestants there being Men and Arms enough in Dublin alone to have dealt with them When therefore the News came that K. J. had sent Commissioners to treat with the Prince of Orange it was propos'd by some to seize the Castle of Dublin where the Stores of Arms and Ammunition lay the possibility of this was demonstrated and the Success extreamly probable insomuch that the persons who offer'd to undertake it made no doubt of effecting it they considered that the Papists besides the 4000 of the Army were generally without Arms that those who were in Arms were raw and cowardly and might easily be supprest that to do it effectually there needed no more but to seize the Deputy Tyrconnel who had not then above 600 Men in the City to guard him and secure it that their hearts were generally sunk and they openly declar'd themselves to be desirous to lay down their Arms proposing to themselves no other Conditions but to return to the station in which they were when K. J. came to the Crown This was so universally talk'd of by themselves that if any one could have assured them of these terms there was no doubt but they would readily have comply'd and have left the Lord Tyrconnel to shift for himself nay it is probable the wiser sort amongst them would have bin glad that the Protestants had seiz'd him and he himself commanded some Protestants to signifie to their Friends in England that he was willing to part with the Sword on these terms so he might have leave to do it from K. J. But the Protestants had bin educated in such a mighty veneration to the very name of Authority and in so deep a sense of Loyalty that notwithstanding the many provocations given them and their fear of being serv'd as in 1641 the memory of which was still fresh to them they yet abhorr'd any thing that look'd like an Insurrection against the Government and generally condemn'd the design of medling with the Lord Deputy tho they knew he was no Legal Governour and uncapable by the Law of that Trust. Especially the Lord Mountjoy laboured for his safety and prevented the forementioned proposal of seizing him and the Castle with as much industry as if he himself had bin to perish in it The truth is it was an unanimous resolution of all the Protestants of the Kingdom that they would not be the Aggressors and they held steadily to their resolution None offered or attempted any thing till they saw the whole body of the Papists in Ireland forming themselves into Troops and Companies and these new rais'd Men permitted nay put under a necessity to rob and plunder for their subsistence They pitied the hard Fortune of K. J. and notwithstanding they were half ruin'd themselves when he came into the Kingdom yet if he had carried himself with any tolerable moderation towards them and his
But they found a way to elude this by another Clause in the same Act which orders the Mansion House and Demeasnes of the Proprietor or his Assignee in 1641. to be restor'd and the Leases made of such to be void Now they never wanted an Affidavit to prove any beneficial Farm or good House they found in the Hands of a Protestant to have been Demeasnes and a Mansion House and then the Leiutenants of the Counties put them in Possession 3. The same Lieutenants had an Order from Albiville Secretary of State to turn all Protestants out of their Houses if they judged them to be Houses of any strength and to garrison them with Papists We could never procure any Copy of this Order from the Office though they own'd there was such an Order and we found the Effects of it the Reasons of concealing it I suppose were the same with concealing the Act of Attainder The design of the Order was to turn out the few Protestant Gentlemen that liv'd on their ancient Estates and had neither forfeited them by the Act of Attainder nor lost them by the Act of Repeal it was left to the discretion of the Lieutenant of the County whom they would turn out and they acted according to their Inclinations and turn'd out almost every body and 't was with great difficulty and interest that any procured to be eased of this trouble I have given a Copy of some of their Orders in the Appendix In short the Soldiers or Militia took Possessions of such Gentlemens Houses as durst venture to live in the Country and they themselves were sent to Jail and had K. James got the better they must never have expected to have gotten possession of their Houses or been releas'd of their confinement till they had gone to execution for though they had been very cautious how they convers'd yet there would not have wanted Witnesses to prove they had corresponded with some body in England or Scotland since the First of August 1688. and then their Estates were forfeited The Gentlemen thus used were very sensible of one inconveniency that befel them on this Account it troubled them more than their confinement to see their Houses and Improvements destroy'd for when the Soldiers got into the Houses under pretence of garrisoning them they sometimes burnt them and always spoil'd the Improvements As for the Estates of Absentees the Commissioners of the Revenue dispos'd of them and hardly one Estate in Ireland but was already promis'd to some Favourite Papist or other who by Leases from the Commissioners were in actual possession of them through the whole Kingdoms as far as King James's Authority was owned 20. It may be imagined by some that King James did not know that the Repealing the Acts of Settlement and Explanation was of such mischievous Consequence to Protestants and that the Protestants were wanting to themselves and him in not giving him due Information But these Persons will find themselves mistaken in their surmises if they consider 1. That King James when Duke of York was present at all the Debates concerning the Settlement of Ireland at the Council Board in England and was one of the Council when those Acts of Settlement and Explanation past it he had heard every Clause in them debated for near Two years and from time to time he had perfect information and was continually sollicited about them having a fair Estate in Ireland settled on him by them containing by estimation 108000 Acres to the value of 10m Pounds per Annum and perhaps there was not any thing he understood better relating to the Affairs of his Kingdoms then the Consequence of these Acts. We have seen before how many Promises and Assurances King James had given for maintaining them as well knowing the importance of them to this Kingdom But notwithstanding this he of his own accord was the first that motioned the Repealing of them in his Speech at the opening the Parliament in Dublin 2. The Protestants prest and earnestly sollicited to be heard at the Bar of the Lords House upon the Subject of those Acts that they might shew the reasonableness of them and demonstrate the injustice and mischief of repealing them but were deny'd to be heard and an Order made that nothing should be offered in their favour If therefore King James wanted information it was because he would not receive it 3. The Bishop of Meath so far as was allow'd him laid open the Consequences of repealing these Acts so fully in his Speech which he made in the House of Lords when he voted against the Act of Repeal that no Man who heard him as his Majesty did could pretend to want information 4. The Protestants were so far from being silent or letting things pass without opposition that they laboured every Point with all imaginable industry and used all the industry they could with King James to inform and perswade him and when they could not gain one Point they stuck at the next and endeavour'd to gain it till he had deliberately over-rul'd all their Reasons and Pleas from Point to Point and this they did to make his Designs against them the more undeniably plain not out of any hope of success or expectation to prevail with him for they knew their appearing for a thing in the Parliament was enough to damn it of which they had many Experiments One was so remarkable that I shall mention it Mr. Coghlan had a mind to procure a favour for a Friend from the House of Commons whereof he was a Member he knew if he mentioned it it would miscarry and therefore he got a Papist to propose it the House seem'd averse to it and he for Experiments sake rose up and with some seeming warmness oppos'd it immediately the House took the Alarm and in opposition to him voted it They knew likewise that it was determined to destroy them and gratifie their Enemies and that the reason why they were not allow'd to debate the main Point the justice and reasonableness of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation was because that could not be done without shewing what Traitors and Murtherers the Papists had been whom King James was then about to gratifie a thing which he would by no means endure to hear 5. The Reason therefore why the Protestants made so vigorous an opposition and plyed the King and his pretended Parliament with so many Petitions Representations and Intercessions was to stop the Mouths of those that they foresaw would be apt to impute their Misfortunes to their sullenness or negligence that would not be at the pains of an Application to save themselves and to demonstrate to the World that the Destruction brought on them was not a thing of chance but that it proceeded from a formed and unalterable design of their Enemies to destroy them insomuch that they never could have expected to enjoy one Foot of Estate or quiet hour in the Kingdom if King James had continued
his Government over them 6. The Case of the Purchasers and Improvers in Ireland seem'd the hardest the Land forfeited by the Rebellion in 1641. was set out to those that had been Adventurers and Soldiers in that War and many of these had sold them at Twelve or Fifteen years Purchase the Purchasers had built fair Houses and Villages on them inclos'd Deer-Parks planted Orchards and Gardens and laid out vast Sums in these and other Improvements it seem'd hard to turn them out without consideration to try therefore whether any thing would make King James relent they endeavour'd to see what he would do for these poor Men how their Case was prest and represented to King James may be judged by a Paper given him by the Lord Granard and drawn up by the Chief Justice Keating with the Approbation of other Protestants 't is in the Appendix King James read it and made no other answer to it but That he would not do evil that good might come of it the meaning of which Words as then apply'd is not easily understood It has been a common Question put to the Gentlemen of Ireland by some that neither know them nor their Affairs What have you lost But sure whosoever knows the extent of Ireland and the value of Land in it will see that the Interest of the English Protestants ruined by King James since he came to the Crown is of greater value than the Estates of all that favour his Cause in England and Scotland and I suppose it would put them out of conceit with him or any other King that should take away but one half of their Estates from them SECT XIII Eighthly King James brought the Lives of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland into imminent danger 1. I Suppose from the former Sections it is sufficiently apparent what Invasions King James made on the Liberties and Fortunes of his Protestant Subjects there remained to them only their Lives and these as will appear from this Section were put in imminent danger by him many were lost and the rest escap'd with the greatest hazard When King James came into Ireland it was certainly his Interest to exercise his Clemency towards his Protestant Subjects and he knew it to be so and therefore in his Declaration which he sent privately into England he made large Professions of his tenderness towards them and boasted how much their safety had been his care every body expected a Proclamation for a General Pardon and Indemnity should have been sent before him and that â—e would have put an effectual stop to the illegal Prosecutions against their Lives and to the Robberies of their Fortunes that every where were going on at his coming but on the contrary he rather pusht on both and not content with the Laws that already were in force which Partial Judges and Juries wrâ—sted to destroy them he made new snares for them by Acts of his pretended Parliament and by several private declarations whereby not only he but his inferior Officers took on them to dispose of the Lives of Protestants 2. It is not reasonable to charge his Majesty with the private Murther committed on Men in their Houses which were many up and down the Kingdom several even in the City of Dublin Only thus far in some degree he may be thought responsible for them he knew very well with what barbarous Murthers the Papists of Ireland had been charg'd in the Rebellion of 1641 he knew what inveterate hatred they carried towards the Protestants and how many Tories and Robbers constantly disturbed the Peace of the Kingdom and yet without any necessity at all he threw himself upon these People he encouraged them he Armed them he gave Commissions even to those that had been Tories and guilty of Murthers and therefore cannot altogether be excused from the Irregularities committed by them especially when there was no search made after or Prosecution of the Murthers as it happened in the case of Colonel Murry of Westmeath Brother in law to my Lord Granard an old Gentleman who had serv'd King Charles the first and second and suffered considerably for his Loyalty he was way-laid and shot dead as he rode to his own House under King James's Protection and with some marks as he imagined of his Favour Yet no enquiry was made after it There were many such private Murthers but I do not think it necessary to insist on them I shall confine my self to such as are of a more publick Nature which gave us just reasons to fear that the Government had a design upon our Lives 3. Such were first encouraging Witnesses to swear us into feigned Plots and Conspiracies of these there were many set up in the Kingdom almost every County had one set up in it and many were put into Prison and indicted for high Treason as Captain Phillips and Mr. Bowen in the County oâ— Westmeath and several others in other places some of which I have before mentioned and when the perjuries of the Witnesses came to be plainly discovered they yet were encouraged and protected from any Legal prosecution Of this nature a Conspiracy was framing against one Mr. William Spike and if it had taken effect it would have reached to a great many more The contrivance was thus one Dennis Connor had a mind to a small Employment which Mr Spike held in the Castle he had petitioned for it but Spike by the Interest of my Lord Powis tho a Protestant kept his place being found diligent in it Connor resolv'd to try another experiment to get him removed he framed a Letter as from one in Inniskilling directed to Spike in which the writer thanks him for his Intelligence and refers to a method agreed on for seizing the Castle of Dublin on a certain Day The Letter to make the thing more credible abuses King James in very ill terms Connor drops this Letter in the Castle where Spike came every Day knowing that as soon as it was found Spike would be seized and then he might manage the Plot as he pleased but his Contrivance was spoiled for the Sentinel saw him drop the Paper and procured him immediately to be seized he was examined before the Chief Justice and I think before King James also why he wrote such a wicked Letter he said it was for the Kings service to remove Spike whom he believed to be a Rogue and who being a Protestant would betray the King Spike Prosecuted him in the Kings-Bench but after all that could be done the Jury brought Connor in not Guilty pretending that it did not appear that this was the very Letter dropt by Connor tho he had confest it before the King and the Lord Cheif Justice and tho it was proved and owned to be his hand and a rough draft of it found with him and the Sentinel swore he dropt a Letter which he delivered to the Officer and the Officer swore that was the Letter delivered by the Sentinel to him tho
he did not see it dropt About the same time a Fryer was brought up to Town who pretended to be dumb and maimed the Popish Clergy gave out that Duke Schomberg had cut out his Tongue and thus maimed him and declared that he would serve all the Priests and Fryers after the same manner and they made proposals to revenge it on the Protestant Clergy King James caused the Fryer to be examined and discovered the deceit which falling immediately on Mr Spikes business made the King say in great Anger that for ought he saw the Protestants were wronged and misrepresented unto him and that there were some as great Rogues among the Roman Catholicks as amongst them The Fryers to acquit themselves of the Cheat got their Brother Fryer severely lasht pretending that he was a Spy and none of their Fraternity upon which he was carryed naked through the Town on a Cart in a Savage manner to execution as was suppos'd but was brought back and put into Prison from which after sometime he was dismissed and his Habit restor'd him Many such contrivances there were against the Lives of Protestants and they could not look on themselves as safe while such wicked Men were unpunished the Courts also declaring that the Witnesses though perjur'd could not be punisht because they Swore for the King 2 No Protestant was secure of his Life because the Courts wrested such facts to Treason as were not declared so by any Law Thus Cheif Justice Nugent declared it was Treason for any Protestant to keep Arms or wear a Sword after the King had forbidden it by his Proclamation and declared them Rebels that did so several Gentlemen in the Country had kept their Horses and Arm'd their Servants to watch them against the Robbers commonly call'd Rapparies that plundered them this was construed a Levying War against the King and the pretended Parliament Attainted them of High Treason In the County of Cork one Mr Brown had appear'd in a company of Men who endeavoured to make their escape from those that came to plunder them of their Arms and Horses but misliking the design went home to his own Houfe He was brought before Judg Dally for this at Limerick who upon examination of the matter dismist him judging him innocent of any crime that would bear an Indictment but he was taken up again for the same Fact at Cork and brought before Judg Nugent at the time when King James came first thither Judg Nugent seem'd at first to be of the same opinion with Judg Dally but after he had discours'd his Majesty he proceeded vigourously against the Gentleman and procured him to be found guilty by a partial Jury Every body lookt on this only as an occasion sought for the King to shew his Clemency Mrs. Brown the convicted Gentlemans Wife with five or six Children presented him a Petition begging her Husbands Life at his Feet as the first Act of Grace on his coming into the Kingdom but he rejected her Petition and notwithstanding she reinforc't it with all the Friends and interest she could make the Gentleman was hanged drawn and quartered This awakened all the Protestants in Ireland it made them remember the bloody Executions in the West of England on the account of Monmouth's Rebellion and how small a matter serv'd to take away Mens Lives there they suspected that Judg Nugent would act the same part in Ireland that Chief Justice Jeffreys had done in England and they knew that if the King did not interpose neither Juryes nor Witnesses would be wanting to destroy them in short they became very sensible that their Lives were in imminent danger when they saw a Gentleman of some Estate and Credit in his Country hang'd for being but in the Company for a little time without acting any thing of some others who endeavoured to make their escape from a Crew of Robbers that without Order or Commission came to Plunder them of their Horses and Arms they had the more reason to be Apprehensive of their Lives when they found that no Advantage was let slip against them nor any Articles or Promises however solemnly made to them for their safety and indemnity were regarded of which there were many Examples 3. At the time of the disarming February 24. the Town of Bandon near Cork being frightned and surpriz'd with such an unjust and sudden thing and not knowing where it would end shut up their Gates and turn'd out some Dragoons who were appointed to disarm them General Mac Carty went to reduce them and they believing him to be a Man of Honour yielded to him upon Articles for which they paid him 1000 l. ster by the Articles they were to be indemnified for what was past and a Pardon to be granted them Notwithstanding which Articles the Grand Jury at Cork by direction of Chief Justice Nugent found Bills against them resolving to serve them as he had served Mr. Browne and it was suppos'd that he was encouraged to do it by King James himself The time allowed him for the Assizes would not permit him to try them then and for this reason and on the Importunity and Menaces of General Mac Carty who being on the place thought himself obliged to make good his Articles he put off their Tryal till the next Assizes These Bills lay over their Heads no pardon was granted them and some of them were condemned in the Act of Attainder The Earl of Inchiquin and Captain Henry Boyle had put themselves under General Mac Carty's Protection and he engaged to secure them and their Houses but he did not perform his Promise for Castle-martyr belonging to Captain Henry Boyle with all the Improvements and Furniture to the value of some Thousands of Pounds were destroyed and plundered by his Soldiers assisted with the Rabble and he with the Earl were glad to provide for their safety by leaving all and flying into England In Connaught some Protestants got into Headford Castle belonging to Sir Oliver St. George to avoid the violence of the Rabble They were besieged by the Lord Gallway and surrendred on Articles of Pardon and Safety But at the next Assizes a Bill was prepared against them and presented the Grand Jury at Gallway the Jury tho Papists considered as they said that it might be their own Case another day and some stickled so earnestly against the Bill that there were not enough to find it However no body knew whether every Jury would be of that humour and no care was taken to discountenance such Proceedings Sir Thomas Southwell with some Gentlemen of Munster were unwilling to part with their Horses and Arms many of them having been robbed and plunder'd of their Stocks before and justly suspecting that as soon as their Arms were gone neither their Lives nor the remainder of their Substance could be safe They got together therefore with their Servants to the number of near Two hundred and resolved to march to Sligoe to joyn the Lord Kingston for their
Clergy were established in Ireland by as firm Laws as the Properties of the Laity The King by his Coronation Oath was obliged to maintain them Their Tithes and Benefices were their Free-holds and their Priviledges and Jurisdiction were settled and confirmed to them by the known and current Laws of the Kingdom according to which the King was obliged to govern them and whereof he was the Guardian The Clergy had beside all this peculiar Obligations on him and a Title to his Protection for they had espous'd his Interest most cordially Whilst Duke of York they used their utmost diligence to perswade the People to submit to Gods Providence and be content with his Succession to the Crown in case his Brother dyed before him and they prest that point so far that many of their People were dissatisfied with them and told them often with heat and concern what reward they must expect for their pains if ever he came to the Throne they saw their danger but could not imagine any man would be so unpolitick and ungrateful as to destroy such as had brought him to the Throne and could only keep him safe in it and therefore they ventured all to serve him and many of them by their Zeal for him lost the Affections of their People and their Interest with them It was chiefly due to their diligence and care that his Title from the beginning met not the least opposition in Ireland tho the Army in it were intirely Protestant Had they and the rest of the Protestants in this Kingdom been in any measure disloyally principled in the time of Monmouth and Argile's Rebellion they might easily have made an Insurrection more dangerous than both those and the least Mutiny or revolt amongst them could hardly have failed to have ruined King James's Affairs at that critical time but they were so far from attempting any such thing that they were as ready and as zealous to assist him as his very Guards at Whitehall which he himself could not but acknowledge how he rewarded them I have already shewn and how grateful he was to the Clergy that thus principled them will appear by the Sequel 4. First therefore when his Majesty came to the Crown he declared that he would protect the Church of England in her Government and Priviledges under which we suppos'd the Church of Ireland to be concluded And accordingly the Clergy and People of this Kingdom return'd his Majesty their Address of Thanks though they very well knew that this was no more than was due to them by the Laws and by the King's Coronation Oath in particular But they were soon told by the Roman Catholicks that his Majesty did not intend to include Ireland in that Declaration and that it must be a Catholick Kingdom as they term'd it Every discerning Protestant soon found by the method they saw his Majesty take that he in earnest intended to settle Popery in England as well as Ireland but he thought himself so sure of effecting it suddenly in Ireland that his Instruments made no scruple to declare their intentions nay they were so hasty to ruin our Religion that they did not so much as consult their own Safety but even before it was either seasonable or safe in the opinion of the wiser sort amongst themselves they began openly to apply all their Arts and Engines to effect it 1. By hindring the Succession and Supplies of Clergy-men 2. By taking away their maintenance 3. By weakning and then invading their Jurisdiction 4. By seizing on their Churches and hindring their Religious Assemblies 5. By violence against their Persons And 6. By slandering and misrepresenting them and their Principles SECT XV. 1. King James in order to destroy the Protestant Religion hindred the Education and Succession of Clergy-men 1. THE Good and Support of Religion doth very much depend on the educating and principling Youth in Schools and Universities and the Law had taken special care that these should be in the hands of English men and Protestants and the better to secure them the Nomination of the Schoolmasters in every Diocess except four is by a particular Act of Parliament lodged in the Lord Lieutenant or Chief Governour for the time being The Clergy of each Diocess by the Act are obliged to maintain a Schoolmaster and his Qualifications are described in the Act. But when the Earl of Tyrconnel came to the Government he took no notice of those Laws but when any School became void he either left it unsupplyed or put a Papist into it And in the mean time great care was taken to discourage such Protestant Schoolmasters as remain'd and to set up Popish Schools in opposition to them Thus they dealt with the School of Killkenny founded and endowed by the charitable Piety of the late Duke of Ormond they set up a Jesuits School in the Town and procured them a Charter for a Colledge there they drove away the Protestant Schoolmaster Doctor Hinton who had officiated in it with great industry and success and seiz'd on the School-house commonly call'd the Colledge and converted it to an Hospital for their Soldiers Thus in a few years they would not have left one publick School in the hands of a Protestant for the Education of their Youth 2. There is but one University in Ireland and there is a Clause in the Statutes thereof that gives the King Power to dispense with the said Statutes it was founded by Queen Elizabeth and certainly never designed by her or her Successors to be converted against the fundamental Design of its Institution into a Seminary of Popery yet advantage was taken of this Clause though we had reason to believe it would have been done if there had been no such Clause to put in Popish Fellows as soon as the Fellowships became vacant one Doyle a Convert was the first who was named a Person of so exceedingly lewd and vicious a Conversation as was fully prov'd before the Lord Tyrconnell and of so little Sence or Learning that it seemed impossible that any Government should have countenanc'd such a Man yet this did not much weigh with his Excellency and therefore the Colledge insisted upon another Point the Dispensation that Doyle had gotten through his ignorance was not for his purpose for it required in express Terms that he should take the Oath of a Fellow and that Oath includes in it the Oath of Supremacy the Provost tendered it to him but he durst not take it for fear of disobliging his own Party upon this they refused to admit him he insists on his Claim and complains to the Lord Deputy upon a hearing Justice Nugent Baron Rice and the Attorny General supplyed the Place of Advocates for him but the Case was so plain that even Justice Nugent had not the confidence to deny the insufficiency of his Dispensation and therefore they ordered him to get another But to be even with the Colledge for demurring on the King's Mandate they stopt
the Money due to it out of the Exchequer 3. The Foundation consists of a Provost Seven Senior and Nine Junior Fellows and Seventy two Scholars these are partly maintain'd by a Pension out of the Exchequer of 388. l. per Annum this Pension the Earl of Tyrconnel stopt from Easter 1688. and could not be prevail'd with by any intercession or intreaties to grant his Warrant after that time for it by which means he in effect dissolv'd the Foundation and stopt the Fountains of Learning and of Religion this appeared to have been his design more plainly afterwards for King James and his Party not content to take their maintenance from them proceeded and turn'd out the Vice Provost Fellows and Scholars seiz'd upon the Furniture Books and publick Library together with the Chappel Communion Plate and all things belonging to the Colledge or to the private Fellows or Scholars notwithstanding that when they waited on him upon his first arrival in Dublin he promis'd That he would preserve them in their Liberties and Properties and rather augment than diminish the Priviledges and Immunities granted to them by his Predecessors In the House they placed a Popish Garrison turn'd the Chappel into a Magazin and many of the Chambers into Prisons for Protestants the Garrison destroy'd the Doors Wainscots Closets and Floors and damnified it in the Building and Furniture of private Rooms to at least the value of 2000. l. One Doctor Moore a Popish Priest was nominated Provost one Macarty Library Keeper and the whole designed for them and others of their Fraternity 4. It is observable that there was not the least Colour or Pretence of Law for this violence nor could they give the least Reason in Law or Equity for their proceeding except the necessity of destroying of the Protestant Seminaries of Learning in order to destroy their Religion This made them so eager against the Collegians that they were not content to turn them without Process or Colour of Law out of their Free-holds but they sent a Guard after them to sieze and apprehend their Persons and it cost the Bishop of Meath their Vice-Chancellor all his Cunning and Interest with the Governour Lutterell to prevent their Imprisonment With much ado he was prevailed on to let them enjoy their Liberties but with this Condition that on pain of Death no Three of them should meet together So sollicitous were they to prevent the Education of Protestants under Persons of the same Profession and that there might be none to succeed the present Clergy 5. With the same design they hindred the succession of Bishops and inferiour Clergy-men into the room of those that dyed or were removed the Support of Religion as is well known depends very much on the choice and settling of able and fit Persons in Vacancies and it so happened that partly by the uncertainty of Estates partly by frequent Forfeitures to the King partly by the grasping of the Prerogative and other Accidents most of the considerable Preferments and Benefices of the Church were in the disposal of the Crown there are very few Livings in Ireland in the Presentation of Lay Patrons but they either belong to the King or the Bishops The Bishopricks are all in the King and all the Livings in the Bishops Patronage are in the Vacancy of the Bishoprick likewise the Kings This is a great Trust and the King is bound to dispose of it for the good of the Church But King James plainly design'd by the means of his Trust to destroy the Church that had intrusted him for instead of giving the Preferments as they fell to good and able men who might preserve and maintain the Interest of their Religion he seiz'd them into his own hand had the Profits of them returned into the Exchequer and let the Cures lye neglected The Archbishoprick of Cashell the Bishopricks of Clogher of Elphin and of Clonfert were thus seiz'd with many Inferiour Livings and the Money received out of them dispos'd to the maintenance of Popish Bishops and Priests directly against the Laws and Constitution of the Kingdom 6. At this rate in a few years all the Preferments and Livings of the Kingdom of any value must have fallen into the King's hands and we must have expected to have seen them thus dispos'd of for as many as fell after King James's time were put to this use and we were assured by the Popish Priests that all the rest as they became vacant were design'd to the same Purpose and they were so unreasonable that though both Law and Justice allow a competency for serving the Cure whilst a Living upon any Account whatsoever is in the King's Hand yet the Commissioners of the Revenue and Barons of the Exchequer would allow nothing the Bishop of Meath made an Experiment of this Some Livings in his Diocess upon the Death of one Mr. Duddle the Incumbent were seiz'd by the Commissioners of the Revenue being in the King's Presentation the Bishop did what was in his Power towards supplying the Cure and according to his Duty appointed a Curate assigning him a Salary according to the Canons but the Commissioners would not allow him any thing and though the Bishop endeavoured it and petition'd both the Commissioners and Barons of the Exchequer yet he could never get any thing for the Curate This was a Precedent and the same was practis'd in all other Cases all the Absentees Cures were in the same Condition and though they yielded plentifully to King James yet the Curates had no other maintenance than the voluntary Contributions of the poor plunder'd Protestant Parishioners who were forced to pay their Tythes either to King James's Commissioners or to Popish Priests who had Grants of them 7. This was an effectual though a slow way of putting an end to the Ministry at least to deprive them of all legal Title to Preferments for the Bishops being most of them old would soon have dropt off and King James was resolved to have named no more and so the legal Successions of Bishops must in a short time have ceas'd and all the Livings depending on them must likewise have gone in course to maintain Popish Priests that is all the Deanries Dignitaries and most other Benefices 8. The Papists upbraided us with out want of Power and seem'd to laugh at the Snare into which we were fallen by means of our Popish King not considering that this proceeded from a manifest Breach of Trust and Faith in him and that the Case is the same in all Trusts if the Trustees prove faithless and even in all Popish Countries the Kings have the nomination of Bishops as well as in England and that the Succession of Bishops had almost lately failed in Portugal upon some difference between the King and Pope and the Advocate General of France Mr. Dennis Tallon tells us in 1688. that Thirty five Bishopricks being about a third part of the whole Number were vacant in that Kingdom on the same account
seized on most of the Churches in the Kingdom 4. The manner of their doing it was thus The Mayor or Governour in the Towns with the Priests went to the Churches sent for the Keys to the Sextons and if they were found forced them from them if not they broke open the Doors pull'd up the Seats and Reading Desk and having said Mass in them lookt upon them as their own and said the King himself had then nothing to do with them being consecrated places and to alienate them or give them back to Hereticks was Sacriledge In the Country the Militia Captains or Officers of the Army that chanced to be quartered in the several places performed the same part that the Mayors or Governors did in Corporations thus Christ's Church in Dublin was seized by Luttrel the Governour and about Twenty six Churches and Chappels in the Diocess of Dublin 5. Of this Protestants complained to King James as a great violation of his own Act for Liberty of Conscience in which it is expresly provided that they should have Liberty to meet in such Churches Chappels and other places as they shall have for that purpose they further represented to him That all the Churches of Ireland were in a manner ruined in the late War in 1641. That it was with great difficulty and cost that the Protestants had new built or repaired them That many were built by private Persons on their own Costs and that the Roman Catholicks had no Pretence or Title to them but his Majesty answered That they were seiz'd in his absence at the Camp without his knowledge or consent That nevertheless he was so much obliged to his Roman Catholick Clergy that he must not dispossess them that they alledged a Title to the Churches that they had seiz'd and if the Protestants thought their Title was better they must bring their Action and endeavour to recover their Possessions by Law 6. This Answer was what the Attorney General had suggested to him and the Reader will perceive that the whole was a piece of deceit that the pretence of the Churches being seiz'd whilst his Majesty was absent was a meer Collusion and that there could not be a more false Suggestion than that the Papists had any Right to the Churches or a more unjust thing than to put the Protestants on recovering a Possession by a Suit at Law which was gotten from them by so open violence but this was the Justice we lookt for and constantly met with from him and therefore there being no Remedy to be expected we were forced to acquiesce 7. Only to colour the matter a little and lest this should make too great a noise in England and Scotland where King James at this time had very encouraging hopes he issued out a Proclamation December 13. 1689. in which he acknowledges that the seizing of Churches was a violation of the Act for Liberty of Conscience yet doth not order any restitution only forbids them to seize any more They had in many places notice of this Proclamation before it came out and therefore were more diligent to get into the remaining Churches for they look't on the Proclamation as a confirmation of their Possessions which they had before the publishing of it and in some places the Popish Officers kept it from being published till they had done their Work the Protestants not being allowed to go out of their Parishes could not come by it till it pleas'd their Popish Neighbours to produce it and so it prov'd like other Proclamations of his Majesty in favour of his Protestant Subjects it was not published till the inconveniency it pretended to prevent was brought upon them and the mischief actually executed and it made their Enemies more hasty and diligent to do it than otherwise they would have been lest they should slip the time and lose the opportunity 8. But after all some were too late and the Protestants got sight of the Proclamation before their Churches were seiz'd but here the Priests put off their Vizors and acted bare-faced they told the People the King had nothing to do with them or their Churches that they were immediately under the Pope and that they would neither regard him nor his Proclamations or Laws made to the damage of Holy Church 9. The Protestants had a mind to make an Experiment how far this would go and whether the Priests or King would get the better in order therefore to make the Tryal they chose out some Instances in which the violence and injustice of turning them out of their Churches were most undenyable and laid their Case before His Majesty and his Council by their Petitions and that the Petitions might not be laid aside or lost as was the common Custom to deal with Petitions and Affidavits to which they were ashamed to return a flat denial they engaged some of the Privy Council to espouse their Cause and had the luck to gain several of the Popish Nobility to favour their Suits especially of such as had Estates in England and knew King James's true Interest and their own 10. The Petitions of Waterford and Wexford were the most favourably received and in spite of all the opposition that the Attorny General Nagle or the Sollicitor General one Butler who concern'd himself with singular impudence against the Petitions could make they obtained an Order for restitution of these two Churches the Wexford Petition sets forth the Loyalty of the Minister the peaceableness of the People their having contributed to the building of several Popish Chappels within and without the Walls of that Town and that the Roman Catholiks had no occasion for the Church the reasonableness of this Petition was so manifest that King James and his Council made an Order for the restitution of the Church but he now found how precariously he reign'd in Ireland notwithstanding their mighty professions of Loyalty and absolute Subjection upon all occasions and more particularly in their Act of Recognition for the Mayors and Officers refused to obey his Order 11. Upon which he was importuned by the Protestants with new Complaints but being ashamed to own his want of power to make good his former Order he referr'd the Waterford Petition to the then Governour of that place the Earl of Tyrone who reported that the Church of Waterford was a Place of strength and consequently not fit to be trusted into the Hands of Protestants and so all they obtain'd by their Petition Attendance and Charges was to have their Church turn'd into a Garrison instead of a Mass-house this pretence could not be made for the Church of Wexford it having no appearance of strength and therefore the Order for restoring it was renewed and the disobedient Mayor sent for and turn'd out for which the Popish Clergy made him ample satisfaction but notwithstanding that King James appear'd most zealous to have the Church restored and express'd himself with more passion than was usual that he would be obeyed and
Fran. ô Cahan Donegal Conel ô Donnel Manus ô Donnel  Tyrlagh Oge ô Boyle  Daniel ô Donnel Downe Lord Iveagh Shilling Magennis  Arthur Magennis Antrim Earl of Antrim Shane ô Neil Sheriff  Col. Thady ô Hara Fermanagh Lord of Eniskillen Cuconaght Mac Gwyre A List of the Principal Officers employed in the Revenue 24 Jun. 1690. Dublin Port Chief Commissioners and Officers established by Patent Commissioners of the Revenue SIR Patrick Trant Knight Francis Plowden Esquires John Trinder Esquires Prot. Richard Collins Esquires Prot. Sir William Ellis Knight Charles Playdel Secretary Nicholas Fitz-Gerald Solicitor Prot. James Bonnel Accomptant General Collectors and Officers appointed by the Commissioners Viz. Doctor James Fitz Gerald Collector Prot. Nathaniel Evans Clerk to the Commissioners Prot. William Alcock Examiner of the Port-Accounts and Warrants and Casheer Prot. Sinolphus Bellasis Clerk of the Coast. Prot. John Kent Land Surveyor and Comptroller of the Store Prot. Edward Prescott Land-Surveyor Land-Waiters Prot. John Robinson Prot. Dennis Boyle Prot. Francis Isaackson Henry Fitz Gerald. Prot. Bartholomew Wybrantz Store Keeper Robert Longfield Chief Clerk of the Quit and Crown-Rents Surveyors of Ringsend William Briscoe Phelim Dempsy Francis Creagh Surveyor at Dunlary Dublin Excise Viz. Prot. Francis Babe Collector Prot. Bernard Waight Surveyor General of Excise _____ Carol Examiner of Excise Accounts Surveyors of Excise Prot. Benjamin Powning Examiner of Diaries Prot. Henry Davis Prot. Jacob Walton Philip Clayton Ports and Districts Athlone Christopher Nicholson Collector Peter Duffe Survveyor Baltimore Dominick Nagle Collector Clonmel Terence Magrath Collector Edward Morris Surveyor Cork Port Sir James Cotter Collector Edward Trant Surveyor Florence Mac Carty Surveyor at Cove Cork Excise Francis Garvan Collector James Griffith Surveyor Dingle Ambrose Moore Collector Drogheda Bernard Byrne Collector Walter Babe Surveyor of Excise Morris Morierty Survey at New-key Dungarvan Thomas Mead Collector Ennis John Mac Nemara Collector James Dalton Surveyor Foxford Valentine Kirwan Collector Nicholas Toppin Prot. Surveyor Galway Port Arthur Nagle Collector Galway Excise James Brown Fitz Jeffrey Collector Kilkenny Caesar Colclough Collector Samuel Pigeon Prot Surveyor Kinsale Dominick Rice Collector Dominick Murrogh Surveyor Limerick John Rice Collector Nicholas Skiddy Surveyor Loughrea Stephen Dean Collector Maryburrow Garret Trant Collector William Bourne Surveyor Moyallow John Longfield Collector Richard Aylward Surveyor Naas Edmond Fitzgerald Collector Robert Dowdal Surveyor Rosse James Butler Collector Mark Whitty Surveyor of Excise Sligoe Owen Dermot Collector Trim Richard Barnwal Collector Hugh Mac Donogh Surveyors Richard Barton Waterford Councellor Butler Collector James Heas Surveyor Wexford Anthony Talbot Collector Wicklow Barnaby Hacket Collector Youghal Patrick Fitzgerald Collector David Fitzgerald Surveyor A List of the Names of the New Burgesses of Strabane and Londonderry Viz. STRABANE Commonly call'd Soveraign JOhn ô Neile Shane Mac Con Backagh ô Neile Burgesses Gordon ô Neile Son of Sir Phelim ô Neile the Great Rebel who was Hang'd Drawn and Quarter'd He burnt Strabane in 1641. John ô Neile Shane Mac Neile Rammar Ô Neile William Roe Hamilton Constantine ô Neile James Cunningham Robert Adams Cloud Hamilton Brian ô Neil Mac Brian Mac Cormuc Mac Rory Grana ô Neil John Browne Robert Gamble Patrick Bellew James Mac Gee Art ô Neile Art Mac ô Neile Ramar ô Neile John Donnelly Shane fadda ô Donnelly James Mac Enally John Mac Rory Shane groom Mac Philip Mac Rory Burnt in the Hand Terence Donnelly Turlogh ô Donnelly Henry ô Neile Henry Mac Phelmy Duff Mac Art Mac Rory ô Neile His Father hang'd Roger Mac Cony Rory Mac Brian Mac Con modura Mac Conway His Father hang'd Dominick Mac Hugh Dominick Mac Rory Ballagh Mac Hugh Charles ô Cahan Cormuck Mac Manus Keiogh ô Cahan Charles ô Conway Cormuck Mac Owen oge Mac Owen Modera Mac Conway LONDONDERRY COrmuck ô Neile Mayor Sheriffs Horace Kennedy and Edward Brooks Aldermen Cohanagh Mac Gwire Gordon ô Neile Constantine ô Neile Constance ô Neile Manus ô Donnel Peter Manby Peter Dobbin Antho. Dobbin John Campsie Daniel ô Dogherty William Hamilton Roger ô Cahan Daniel ô Donnel Nicho. â—urside Alexander Lacky Constance ô Dogherty Daniel ô Sheile Roger ô Dogherty Brian ô Neile and John Buchanan Daniel ô Sheile Chamberlain Burgesses Francis ô Cahan Robert Butler Cornelius Callaghan Thomas Moncriefe Hugh ô Hogan John Mackenny John Campsie Henry Campsie James Lenox John ô Hogan William Stanly James Connor Hugh Eady John Donnogh Alexander Gourdon John Crookshanks Phel Mac Shaghlin John ô Linshane Art ô Hogan Charles ô Sheile Johnlius ô Mullan John Sheridan James Sheridan Constance ô Rorke Dom. Boy Mac Loghlin John Nugent William ô Boy John ô Boy William ô Sullivan Dionysius Mac Loghlin Manus ô Cahan Hugh Mac Loghlin Hugh More ô Dogherty Ulick ô Hogurty Henry Ash Tho. Broome Pet. Mac Peake Hen. Dogherty Robert Shenan Cornelius Magreth Art ô Hogan N o. 9. Privy Councellers appointed by Letters from King James Dated the 28th of February 1684 and such as are Sworn since by particular Letters for the Time being LOrd Primate Lord Chancellor Lord Archbishop Dublin Lord High Treasurer Secretary of State Chancellor of the Exchequer Master of the Ordnance Lord Chief Justice of the King 's Bench. Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer Lieut. General of the Army Colonel of the Regiment of Guards James Duke of Ormond not sworn Henry Earl of Thomond Cary Earl of Roscomon ... Earl of Ardglass Henry Earl of Drogheda Hugh Earl of Mount-Alexander Richard Earl of Ranelagh not sworn Francis Earl of Longford Maurice Viscount Fitzharding Murrogh Viscount Blesinton Robert Fitzgerald Esq not sworn Sir Charles Fielding not sworn Sir Richard Reynel not sworn Sir Thomas Newcomen Sir Robert Hamilton Esquires not sworn Adam Loftus Lemuel Kingdon Sworn afterwards by particular Letters Sir Paul Rycaut Thomas Heitley Esq Earl of Tyrconnel Earl of Lymerick Lord Viscount Ikerin Lord Viscount Galmoy Esquires Thomas Nugent Dennis Daly Stephen Rice Rich. Hamilton Sir William Wentworth Earl of Ballymore Nicholas Purcel Esq Earl of Clanrickard Earl of Antrim Justin Mac Carty Esq Lord Viscount Gormanst own Lord Viscount Rosse Earl of Tyrone Lord Viscount Netterville Lord Lowth Sir William Talbot Esquires Anth. Hamilton Thomas Sheridan Symon Luttrel Fitzgerald Villers Esq Colonel Garret Moore Lord Bellew Charles White Esq Col. Cormusk ô Neil Francis Plowden Esq Privy Consellors Sworn before King James after his coming to Ireland DUke of Powis Duke of Berwick Earl of Abercorne Lord Thomas Howard Earl of Melfort Lord Chief Justice Herbert Lord Dover Colonel William P Colonel Dorrington Marquis D'Albeville Lord Kilmallock Colonel Sarsfield Lord Merryon Earl of Carlingford Earl of Clanrickard Lord Kenmare Lord Clare N o 10 The Civil List of Officers and the Times of their Entring on their Offices CHANCERY SIR Alexander Fitton Knight Created Lord Fitton and Baron of Gosworth in the County of Lymrick Lord High Chancellor of Ireland 23 April 1689. Sir William Talbot Baronet made
of all His Majesty's true Subjects in Ireland and shut himself up between two Potent Enemies in England and Ireland whereas by setting the Irish on a sure foot he always hath for a Refuge that Country which he will find to be far better than nothing and may be with time a means to come into England But Trimmers will tell him That it is no matter for His Majesty if he can gain the English Rebels by sacrificing Ireland to them who will inhabit it whether English or Irish nay I believe rather English and so make it an English Interest all along and he will be apt to believe it but it imports the Irish to look about them and consider if that be their Interest Add to all these considerations with many more and better you can think of an essential and indispensible one which is to please this King and Court of whom his Majesty now and you all depend solely and wholly by saving their Interest along with that of his Majesty and your own which cannot be done but by settling of Ireland upon the best and most advantageous foot that can be contrived with Reason and Justice 〈◊〉 it may be a Check upon England as Scotland formerly to keep it from Rebellion against their own Prince From trouble and Invasion upon France and a Tye upon the Kings of England hereafter to keep good Correspondence with France and keep Ireland in a flourishing happy condition and not to be Slaves to all the People and Scums of England If 48 or other were loath to press any such Conditions or Proposals on the King they may make use of the French Minister Count D'Avaux who is with him as a good Adviser and for to manage his Masters Interest I think it may be well and rationally proposed if by the King of France's means such an advantageous settlement may be procured for the Nation and that he would be as a Guarranty or Protection of it to give him as well for his assurance or Guarranty as for the payment of what he advances for the King and Country some Sea-ports in Ireland as you have hinted in your last This is what now comes into my head upon this Subject which M. B. does not neglect to insinuate and imprint as much as he can though not well in his health into the Heads and Hearts of the Ministers and People about Court Though 27 gave no Power or Credit to any body here to speak of Business but to his Son-in-Law L. W. in Cypher 110. but M. B. does it privately upon his own account and acquaintance with the People without thwarting him in any of his Ways But you know what one says tanquam potestatem habeâ—s carries more weight than what he says as a private man And therefore I think it were not amiss that 48. from himself or by the said French Ministers means may get order from 27 that 92 may be heard and Credited at Court as to the Concerns of 78 which to prevent and hinder some that would not have it put into 27's head as 't is thought to desire 92 to follow him as soon as he were well in his health along with 23 and before he saw himself to tell him so knowing he was sick gave orders to 18's fellow traveller whom I added to the Cypher thus 112 to tell him so which he has perform'd only by another Master Barry belonging to 34 for he never came himself to see him which I think was not prudently done of him setting civility aside for they may communicate one to another what may be best to do with 86 for the service of 78 and certainly without any vanity 92 knew better how to manage that interest with 86 than he or any of his profession there But I find some do suspect the sincerity of that Man for the Publick Interest I know not if they wrong him but one thing I know he does not like to see any of 64 or 65 have any hand in Business Of which I think I gave you once already a hint from 87 when he and 98 were there and I cannot tell but it may be he that might have given 27 that advice of drawing 92 from hence who desires not to be but where he may be most useful to his Religion King and Country and if any necessity may be of his Vote there he can send you a Procuration in blank if he be thought more useful or necessary here 'T is now high time I suppose you should ask me what is this great and solid settlement I would have for Ireland To which I answer That you and others there likely know best But that I may speak my own little sense on the matter I say I would have two or three of the Irish Nation to be still of the Kings Council and one of them Secretary of State for the Affairs of Ireland as Scotland has I would have some of their Nobility to be of the Bedchamber by reason both of Honour and Interest I would have all the Employments Civil and Military given to the Natives of the Country Unless the Country thought â—it to introduce some Strangers for better advantage and improvements I would have them restored to their Estates both Spiritual and Temporal usurped by the Cromwellians or under the Title of being Protestants yet with that Proviso for the Spiritual that a Competent Pension should be allowed to the Protestant Possessor during his Life for he can pretend no longer Lease of it or that he should give the Catholick Bishop or Incumbenâ— a competent Pension if it were thought fitter to let him enjoy his Possession during Life I would have the Commerce and Traffick settled with all the Advantage due to a 〈◊〉 Nation and Subjects of which the Merchants 〈◊〉 inform best without any other dependence on or relation to England but what Subjects ought to the King and Crown of which I would not derogate in the least but nothing to do with the Merchants and People of England no more than with those of France Spain and Holland But my Politick Trimmer will say this is of a dangerous consequence for England and for the King in relation to it for they will say the King intends to establish the same Government amongst them both in Spirituals and Temporals that he has in Ireland To which I answer in the first place That we are not here to manage or speak for the Interest of England which would not fail to speak and stand for it self Secondly I say That the Consequence from Ireland's Case to England's does not follow For in Ireland the Catholick Party is much more numerous and strong than the Protestant So that it is for the King's Interest there to favour them or at least do them Justice But in England where the number of Protestants and other Sectaries is by much the greater he can order things otherwise without any Contradiction for â—â—om the one to the other the Consequence does
Successors to give them relief in a Case of so great moment and general concern as this is As for the general Reprizal mentioned to be made them out of the Rebels Estate which must not be conceived to give any colour to this manner of proceeding and ought to be equal to the Estate which the Proprietors shall be outed of that will be very uncertain for it must be known who the Rebels are and what their Lands amount to since it may be probably concluded that there are many of your Subjects now in England no way concerned in the Rebellion and would have ere this attended your Majesty here if they had not been hindred from coming by duress and Imbargo and many other legal and justifiable excuses too long for this present Paper and withal that where any of them are seised of any new Estates so much must be restored to the old Proprietors and what is also subject to their Settlements and other Incumbrances After all this it is in the power of your Majesty to prevent the total ruine of so many of your Subjects as have been Purchasers and Improvers in this Kingdom by prescribing more moderate ways than depriving them of the whole of what they have legally and industriously acquired and that Committees of both Houses may hear and enquire whether any medium may be found out betwixt the Extreams for the accommodating as near as may be the Purchaser and the old Proprietor so that if there because of Complaint it may not arise from a total disappointment of either Party This is a little of what may be said on this occasion but the hast of those who drew on this Bill will allow no further time at present It is proposed that his Majesty will hear Council on this occasion No. 23. The Lord Bishop of Meath's Speech in Parliament June the 4th 1689. Spoken on the Bill of Repeal of the Act of Settlement My Lords YOur Lordships have now under yoâ—â— Consideration a Bill of great Weight and Importance for the future Prosperity or Ruine of the King and Kingdom depends upon it A Bill that unsettles a former Foundation upon which this Kingdom 's Peace and Flourishing was superstructed and Designs to erect another in its stead the Success whereof is dubious and uncertain I shall therefore humbly crave your Leave to represent my Thoughts candidly and impartially upon it And that so much the rather because I am here summoned by the Kings Writ to give his Majesty my best Advice for his own Service and the good of the Nation My Lords In every Law two things are to be consider'd First that it be just and doth no Man wrong Secondly and that it be pro bono publico And I am humbly of Opinion that this Bill is faulty in both these Respects and therefore ought not to pass this House It is unjust to turn men out of their Possessions and Estates without any Fault or Demerit To deprive Widows of their Jointures and Children of their Portions when they have done nothing to forfeit them But the Injustice will rise much higher if we consider it with a respect to Purchasers who have laid out all their Substance upon Estates deriv'd under the Acts that are now design'd to be Repeal'd What have they done to make them Delinquents except it be the laying out their Money on the Publick Faith of the Nation declared in two Acts of Parliament and on the Publick Faith of his Majesties Royal Brother expressed in his Letters Patents Their Case is yet harder If we consider the great Improvements they have made upon their Purchases which by this Bill they are like to lose without any Reprizal for them And if it be reasonable to restore the Old Proprietors to their Estates 't is enough for them to enjoy them in the same plight and condition that they left them But I see no Reason why they should have them in a better Condition or enjoy the Benefit of other mens Labours and Expences to the utter ruine of them and their Families Here Mercy should take place as well as Justice for the Purchasers are the Objects of them both Two things I am sensible may be reply'd to this and I am willing to consider them both First That if it be unjust to turn them out It is as unjust not to restore the Old Proprietor who hath been so long kept out of his Estate Secondly That there is no injury done to the present Possessor because he is to be repriz'd for his Losses As to the first of these I shall not at present meddle with the Reasons why they lost their Estates nor touch upon the Grounds and Occasions of their forfeiting their Interests in them being sensible that neither the time nor the place will admit a Discourse of this nature I shall therefore take it for granted that they were unjustly put out that it is just and reasonable that they should be restored but then it must be granted that it is unjust to turn out the present Purchaser and Possessor What then is to be done in this Case where the Justice or the Injury is alike on both sides If we restore the Old Proprietor we injure the present Possessor if we do do not we injure the Old Proprietor My Lords It is my humble Opinion which I submit to your Lordships better Judgments that we are to consider in this Case who hath most Justice on his side and incline the Ballance that way If it lies on the Old Proprietors side let him have it If not let the present Possessor enjoy it Now it appears to me that the Purchaser hath more Justice on his side than the Old Proprietor For he has both Law and Equity on his side he hath the Law on his side by two Acts of Parliament and the Kings Letters Patents and he hath the Equity by his Purchase Money whereas the Proprietor hath the Law against him and nothing but Equity to pretend to And I hope your Lordships will never think it reasonable to relieve a bare Equitable Right against a Purchaser that hath both Law and Equity If you do I am confident it is the first President of this kind As for the Reprizals I hear the Name of them in the Bill but I find nothing agreeable to the nature of them There are certain Conditions agreed on all hands to make up the Nature of a Reprizal None of which are like to be observed or kept here I shall name some of them and leave it to your Lordships Consideration how far they are like to be performed with the present Purchasers It is necessary to a Reprizal that it be as good at least if not in some respects better than the thing I am to part with That I my self be Judge whether it be better or worse That I keep what I have till I am reprized If my Neighbour comes to me and tells me that he hath a mind to my Horse
Encouragers and Abettors of them by an unpardonable neglect in the Execution of his Royal Orders And whereas the Issuing out Commissions of Oyer and Terminer in all the Counties of the Kingdom which was done some Months ago was judged by his Majesty with the Advice of his Privy Council the most Efficacious means to prevent and quash such horrid Disorders I. You are Ordered by his Majesty on sight hereof to let Me his Principal Secretary of State know what you can alledge to justifie your selves from the Imputation of having strangely Neglected all this time the Execution of your Commission which proves the chiefest Cause of this general Desolation of the Country II. You are Commanded by his Majesty to proceed without the least delay to the Execution of your Commission and send to me for his Majesties information a Weekly Account of your Proceedings III. That you Adjourn from one Week to another and at farthest not above a Fortnight IV. That you proceed with all Just Severity against such of the Justices of the Peace as have Bayled contrary to Law Malefactors And against all such as favour in any manner Robbers and Thieves V. That you proceed against all persons whatsoever who have given or will give any Obstruction to the Execution of your Commission And if they prove Officers of the Army or Absent so as you do not think fit to proceed against them that you forthwith send me an Account thereof VI. That you proceed with all Rigour against all persons found Guilty of Counterfeiting the Kings Coyn. VII And lastly That you Order all men to fall upon publick Robbers who have no regard of their Duty towards GOD their King or Country destitute of all sense of humanity and consider them but as wild beasts who live upon Prey and Rapine This is Gentlemen what I have at present in Command from his Majesty to send to you to which I will adde this Advertisement That you cannot light upon better Measures to Allay the KINGS just Resentment of your former Neglects the occasion of a world of Mischief then by a speedy and vigorous Execution of your Commission Let the present general cryes of the people for Justice and the present general Oppression under which the Country groans move you to have a Compassion of it and to raise in you such a publick spirit as may Save it from this inundation of Miseries that break in upon it by a Neglect of his Majesties Orders and by a general relaxation of all Civil and Military Laws Consider that our Enemies leaving us to our selves as they do conclude we shall prove greater Enemies to one another than they can be to us and that we will destroy the Country and enslave our selves more than they are able to do What Inhumanities are daily committed against one another gives but too much ground to the truth of what our Enemies conclude of us I had almost forgot a special Command of his Majesty that is That you will consider the Liberty of Conscience granted by Act of Parliament and to punish the Infringers of that Law who by an indiscreet and inconsiderable Zeal usurp his Majesties Prerogative not reflecting how much his Majesties and the Nations interest and not only the Religion of the Nation but the Catholick Religion in all the parts of Christendom is involved in a Religious Execution of that Liberty of Conscience Dublin-Castle Jan. 2. 1689. I am Gentlemen Your most humble Servant Marquis D Albaville To the Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer for the County of Dublin or to any or either of them to be Communicated to the rest To the Lord Chief Justice Nugent No. 26. A Copy of a Petition of the Minister of Wexford for his Church and the Order thereupon To the KING 's most Excellent Majesty The humble Petition of Alex r. Allen of Wexford Clerk Most humbly Sheweth THAT your Petitioner being Minister of the Parish Church of St. Iberius in the Town of Wexford hath therein for several Years past daily celebrated Divine Service and exercised all other Offices of his Function with Piety to GOD and constant Loyalty to your Majesty Yet Your Petitioner on the 25th of October last was Dispossessed of his said Church contrary to the late Act of Liberty of Conscience by Edward Wiseman Esq Mayor of Wexford who a few dayes after did not only by the Rabble introduced by him brake down and demolish all the Pewes and Altar of the said Church but did seize and unjustly deny your Petitioners Vestmonts Church Book and other Ornaments thereof to the great prejudice of your Petitioner and his Parishoners although your Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects have several Chappels fit for the free Exercise of their Religion both within and without the Walls of the said Town and whereunto several Protestant Inhabitants have given liberal Contribution Your Petitioner further sheweth That he the said Edward Wiseman as Magistrate of the Town of Wexford is obliged as usually it hath been by Act of Vestry to encourage and provide for the relief of distressed Orphans and other poor of the said Town of Wexford yet uncharitably refuseth to interpose his Authority in the behalf of such poor whereby they must inevitably perish if not speedily Relieved May it therefore please Your Majesty to Restore your Petitioner to his Parish Church which was never Forfeited by Absence or otherwise And that the said Edward Wiseman may be obliged to Repair it and leave it in the same condition he found it and that such care may be taken for Relief of distressed Orphans and other Poor from Famine as is usual And Your Petitioner shall ever pray c. At the Court in Dublin-Castle Jan. 28th 1690. Present the KING 's most Excellent Majesty in Council WHEREAS His Majesty is Informed upon Oath That Edw. Wiseman late Mayor of the Town of Wexford did Illegally seize upon the Parish Church of St. Iberius in the said Town of Wexford broke down the Pews and Altar of the said Church and detained the Vestmonts Church-Books and other Ornaments thereunto belonging His Majesty was Graciously pleased to Order Mr. Nicholas Stafford present Mayor of the said Town of Wexford forthwith to cause the said Church and Goods to be Restored to Alex r. Allen Minister of the said Parish in the same condition they were in when Seiz'd upon by the said Edward Wiseman Hugh Reily No. 27. Mr. Prowd Minister of Trim his Account of the Remarkable Accident that hapned upon Plundring the Church of Trim. SIR THIS will give you an Account of an eminent Instance of Gods Vengeance shewn on one John Keating a Church Rapparee who in the very act of Plundring and Breaking of our Church was struck with a sudden Madness in which he continued for the space of Three Weeks and that day three weeks he was struck Mad dyed in a sad and miserable Condition The manner of it was thus This Keating was a Souldier in the Lord of Kinmares
malitiosus pernitiosus nequissimus machinansque â—…ns pacem commune tranquilit ' hujus Regni Hibernioe perturbare discord ' inter Dominum Regem subditos suos incitare movere dict' Dom ' Regem gubernationem suam in odium contempt ' vilipendentiam inducer ' in Insurrectionem Rebellionem in hoc Regno Hibernioe suscitar ' mover ' inferr ' vicessimo die Januar ' Anno Regni Domini nostri Jacobi secundi Deâ— gra ' Angl ' Scot ' Franc ' Hiberniae Regis Fidei Defensor ' c. quinto apud Castrum de Dublin ' in Com' Dublin ' proedict ' seditiosam malitiosam illicit ' scripsit ' vel scribi fecit quandam seditiosam malitiosam Epistolam sive Chartam cujus quidem seditiosam malitiosam Epistoloe tenor sequitur in hoec verba scilicet Eniskillin the 10th of January 1689. Cosin Spike YOurs I'receiv'd January the 1 st it being the greatest satisfaction I could expect to hear of your good Health and Welfare and the rest of your good Family getting the convenience of the honest Bearer makes me acknowledge your often kindnesses to me Yesterday we received Letters from Londonderry they all agree with our Proposals as in carrying on our Design in Dublin The day appointed is the 4th of February at Supper-time in the Castle and for some of our men intended for that purpose to go in a little before as many as can well not being suspected others to stay in the Street and Houses thereabout till the Word is given GOD be with Us Then all to Force in Killing the Guards after giving the Tinker and the rest of his Function their last Supper Mr. Drury he is intended to Fire the Suburbs with others of his assistance as might be thought fit it being a means to force the Souldiers out of the City We question not but our People is in number enough to do the Work as well in the City as Castle One night does all We have here in these parts 14000 Horse and Foot in readiness to be with you in Dublin in five or six dayes at farthest I hope God will inspire into our peoples hearts to persevere with Undaunted Hearts to pull down that Yoke of Popery which we are likely to lie under unless by God prevented We are in the Truth and I hope God is with Us although our Expectations being Failed hereto we might think it rather Punishment for our Sins than in any wise hindrance of our Victory Last Week we had an Account from Derry that there Landed two Ships laden with Ammunition and Provision and to the number of Fifty-Six Volunteers the most of them now being here with Us They giving us an Account of our English Resolution That they will every man Die rather than be yeilding to Popery likewise that great Preparations are made for our English to come over this Spring to the value of Two and Twenty Thousand Souldiers and Inhabitants to settle the Country Cosin I desire you 'l direct the Bearer to Mr. Pains with a Letter he has for him And likewise I desire you to go to my Cosin and give my kind Love to him the rest of his good Family I suppose the Pacquet of Letters as touching this Matter wholly is directed to Mr. Smith which meeting with him will give you the full at large My kind Love to my Cosin George and your Wife This being all at present Your loving Cosin to command during Life These For Mr. Will. Spike Living at Colledg-Green in the old Parliament-house Dublin Mary Smith Et ulterius Jurator ' proedict ' super Sacrament ' suum proedict ' dicunt proesent ' quod idem Dionisius Connor sciens eandem Epistolam sive Chartam fore falsam malitiosam seditiosam postea scilicet eodem vicessimo die Januarii Anno Regni dict' Domini Regis quint ' supradict ' apud Castrum Dublin ' in Com' Dublin ' proedict ' seditiosam malitiosam Epistolam sive Chartam proedict ' publicavit publicari fecit contra debit ' ligeantiam suam in malum exemplum aliorum in tali casu delinquentium contra pacem dicti Domini Regis nunc coronam dignitatem suam c. Copia vera Examnat per F. Nugent No. 36. Capt. Browns Acknowledgment That he Perjured himself Whereas I John Brown Gent. Did on or about the last day of December last come before the Right Honourable the Lord Chief Justice Riverstown L d Ch. Justice of all Ireland and did in an Examination taken before him upon Oath accuse Edward Brock of the City of Dublin for speaking and uttering several Seditious Words reflecting on His Majesty and the Government Now I the said John Brown do hereby Acknowledg and Declare That I did very much Wrong and Abuse the said Edward Brock in the said matter he never having uttered or spoke any such or the like Words wherewith I accused him before the said Lord Chief Justice As Witness my Hand this Third day of February 1689. Witness present The Words upon Oath being first Interlined John Brown Fra. Rica Ja. Somervill No. 29. Advertisement as it was published by Mr. Yalden in his Weekly Abhorrence concerning Dr. King and Dr. Foy THERE was lately published by John Yalden Esq the substance of Fifteen Sermons Entituled An Abhorrence from the Bishop of Ely c. of the proceedings of the Prince of Orange and the Lords c. that Invited Him But some Protestants believing the said Book to be a Popish contrivance and that such Doctrines as were therein were never Preached by the Divines there named Upon which a Gentleman of Quality to satisfie these Doubts applyed himself to two Reverend Divines of this City viz. Dr. King and Dr. Foy who both certified under their hands that the Doctrines contained in the said Book were honest and true Christian Divinity and obliging to all Christians to put immediately in practice upon the peril of their Salvation Which Certificate satisfied several Protestants here and confirmed them in an unchangeable Loyalty March 8th 1689. Reverend Sir I Intended to have waited on you this Afternoon but found my self so Indisposed that I durst not venture abroad I have been made sensible That the Publisher of the Weekly Abhorrence has made use of your Name and Mine And Affirms That WE have Certified under our Hands That the Doctrines contained in a Book published by one John Yalden Esq containing a Collection of the Substance of Fifteen Sermons were honest and true Christian Divinity and Obliging to all Christians to put immediately in Practice upon the Peril of their Salvation And he intimates that this Certificate has been shewn to several Protestants here Sir For my own part I do profess that I never Read the aforesaid Book nor did any Gentleman of Quality as he affirms ever apply himself to me to satisfie him in any doubts concerning it that I remember I am sure never any
the common Offices of Humanity This Chancellor Fitton declared on the Bench This the King's Favourites and Attendants suggested publickly to him at his times of Eating at his Couchee and Levee and upon all occasions However it was it is evident by the effect that King James in great measure completed the Ruin of the Protestants and English Interest in this Kingdom which will plainly appear 1. In his dealing with the Army 2. With the Courts of Judicature 3. With the Privy Council and Offices 4. With Corporations 5. With Trade and the trading People of the Nation 6. With our Liberties 7. With our Fortunes 8. With the Lives of his Protestant Subjects And 9. With their Religion SECT II. I. King James's Dealing with the Army of Ireland in order to destroy the Protestants and English Interest 1. THE Army of Ireland which King James found at his coming to the Crown consisted of about seven thousand as Loyal Men and as Cordial to the King's Service as any could be both Officers and Soldiers had been inured to it for many years They looked on him as their Master and Father intirely depending on him and expecting nothing from any Body else When Monmouth's and Argile's Rebellion called for their assistance to suppress them no People in the World could shew more Chearfulness or Forwardness than they did and it is observable that no one Man in Ireland was ever found to be conscious or consenting to those Rebellions the Protestants of all sorts shewed great Horror and Detestation of them and were discernably melancholy till the Rebels were suppressed Most of the Officers of this Army had been so zealous to serve the King that they had by his permission and encouragement bought their Employments many of them had laid out their whole Fortunes and contracted Debts to purchase a Command yet no sooner was King James settled in his Throne but he began to turn out some of the Officers that had been most zealous for his Service and had deserved best of him merely because they had been counted firm to the Protestant Religion and English Interest The first who were made Examples to the rest were the Lord Shannon Captain Robert Fitz-Gerald Captain Richard Coote and Sir Oliver S. George The three first were Earls Sons who either in their own persons or by their Fathers and Relations had been signally active in restoring King Charles the Second and the Royal Family to their just Rights 1660 so had Sir Oliver S. George and they were all of them without any other Exception but their Zeal for their Religion and the English Interest in Ireland But the common Saying was that King James would regard no Man for any Service done to him his Father or Brother but only for future Service that he expected from them and since he could fot expect that these Gentlemen should assist him to destroy the Protestant Religion or the Liberties of his Subjects which was the Service he then expected he took their Troops from them and gave them to persons of mean or broken Fortunes who must do any thing to keep them some of them unqualified by Law It is fit their Names should be known that the Reader may the better observe what kind of Change the King began with when he substituted Captain Kerney if I remember right one of the Ruffians Captain Anderson a person of no Fortune Captain Sheldon a professed Papist and Captain Graham in the places of the Lord Shannon Captain Fitz-Gerald Captain Coote and Sir Oliver S. George 2. But to convince the World that no Consideration was to be had of Loyalty or Merit except a Man were a Papist The Duke of Ormond was sent for abruptly and devested of the Government with such Circumstances that did no ways correspond with the Service he had rendered the Crown in general and King James in particular Immediately the modelling of the Army was put into the Hands of Collonel Richard Talbott a person more hated than any other Man by the Protestants and who had been named by Oates in his Narrative for this very Employment When therefore the Protestants saw him put into it many who believed nothing of a Plot before gave credit now to his Narrative and the common Saying was that if Oates was an ill Evidence he was certainly a good Prophet Collonel Talbott afterwards Earl of Tyrconnell knew the Necessity of having the Army fitted to his purpose it being the Engine he depended on for destroying the Religion Liberty and Laws of the Kingdom and therefore set about it with all expedition and prosecuted it in such a manner as might be expected from a Man of his insolent temper He exercised at the same time so much Falshood and Barbarity that if the Army had not been the best principled with Loyalty and Obedience of any in the World they would have 〈◊〉 or at least dispatched him In the Morning he would take an Officer into his Closet and with all the Oaths Curses and Damnations that were never wanting to him he would profess Friendship and Kindness to him and promise him the continuance of his Commission and yet in the Afternoon cashier him with all the contempt he could heap on him nay perhaps while he was thus caressing him he had actually given away his Commission The Officers of Ireland then cashiered and their Acquaintance can vouch the truth of this in many instances As for the Soldiers and Troopers his way with them was to march them from their usual Quarters to some distant place where he thought they were least known where they would be put to greatest Hardships and there he stripped them the Foot of their Cloaths for which they had payed and the Troopers of their Horses Boots and Furniture bought with their own Money and set them to walk barefooted one hundred or one hundred and fifty Miles to their Homes or Friends if they had any Sometimes he would promise them something for their Horses but then he told them that they must come to Dublin for it if any came to demand the small pittance promised them for their Horses or Arrears of Pay he contrived it so that they should be obliged to wait till they had spent twice as much as they expected and most of them after all got nothing By this means two or three hundred Protestant Gentlemen who had laid out all or a good part of their Fortunes and contracted Debts on Commissions were not left worth any thing but were turned out without reason or any consideration and sive or six thousand Soldiers sent a begging a hardship perhaps never put on any Army before without any provocation against whom there was no other Exception but that they were English Men and Protestants and King James by substituting Irish Men and Papists in their places contrary to the Laws and to the very Design of keeping a standing Army in Ireland clearly demonstrated that he had no regard to the Laws or to the
did worse that is betrayed it by their Compliance whilst yet they profest it Many who would not be guilty of such servility were turned out even from the mean Employments of a High or Petty Constable of a Goalour or Turn-Key of all which it were easie to give Examples but the thing being Universal makes that unnecessary Even these mean Employments were now counted too good for Protestants and all this contrary to the express Letter of the Law which admitted none but such as would take the Oath of Supremacy to any Office but they took a peculiar Pleasure to act in contempt and despite of the Laws and it seemed to them a kind of Conquest to turn a Man out of his Employment Office or Freehold contrary to Law In the mean time it was a melancholy thing for Protestants to live under such illegal Officers and have their Lives Estates and Liberties at the mercy of Sheriffs Justices and Juries some of whose Fathers or nearest Relations they had either hanged for Thieving Robbery and Murthering or killed in the very Act of Torying 5. I reckon as a fourth sort of Officers in the Kingdom such as were of the Privy-Council which in Ireland is a great part of the Constitution and has considerable Privileges and Power annexed to it Regularly no Act of Parliament can pass in Ireland till the chief Governor and Privy-Council do first certifie the Causes and Reasons of it It was therefore no less than necessary that King James should model this to his mind and he quickly ordered it so that the Papists made the majority in it and whereas before it was a Refuge and Sanctuary to the oppressed it now became a most effectual Instrument to strengthen the Popish Interest and give Reputation to their Proceedings We may guess what kind of Government King James designed when he was attended with such a Council and yet it is certain even some of these who were Protestants would have been turned out if they had not absented themselves and declined appearing at the Board but whether they appeared or no was of no consideration since it is plain they could do Protestants little service SECT V. Fourthly King James's ordering Corporations was an effectual means to destroy his Protestant Subjects and to alter the very Nature of the Government 1. WOever knows the Constitution of England and Ireland must observe that the Subjects have no other security for their Liberties Properties and Lives except the Interest they have of choosing their own Representatives in Parliament This is the only Barrier they have against the Encroachments of their Governor Take it away and they are as absolute Slaves to the Kings Will and as miserable as the Peasants in France Whoever therefore goes about to deprive them of this Right utterly destroys the very Constitution and Foundation of the Government Now the Protestants of Ireland finding the necessity of securing this right in their own Hands to preserve the Kingdom in Prosperity and Peace had procured many Corporations to be Founded and built many considerable Corporate Towns at their own Cost and Charges They thought it reasonable to keep these in their own Hands as being the Foundation of the Legislative power and therefore secluded Papists as Enemies to the English Interest in Ireland from Freedom and Votes in them by the very Foundation and Rules of planting them This Caution they extended by a Law to all other Corporations in the Kingdom excluding Papists likewise from them which they justly did if we remember that these Papists had forfeited their Right in them by their Rebellion in 1641 and by their having turned those Towns where they had Interest into Nests of Traitors against the King and into places of Refuge for the Murtherers of the English insomuch that it cost England some Millions to reduce them again into Obedience witness Killkenny Waterford Galway Lymerick and every other place where they had power to do it Add to this that generally the trading industrious Men of the Kingdom were Protestants who had built most of the Corporate Towns above thirty at once in King James the First 's time and a great part of the Freeholds of the Kingdom did also belong to Men of the same Religion insomuch that if a fair Election had been allowed in probability no Papist could have carryed it in any one County of Ireland All which considered it was but reasonable that the Protestants that had by so much Blood and Treasure brought the Kingdom into subjection to the Laws of England and planted it in such a manner as to render it worth the Governing by the King should be secured of their Representatives in Parliament especially when out of their great Loyalty and Confidence in the Kings kind intention to them they by some new Rules had condescended that none should Officiate as Majors Portrieves Magistrates or Sheriffs in the chief Towns till approved by the Kings chief Governor for the time being Their yielding this to the King was a sufficient security one would have thought to the Royal Interest A great diminution of their Liberties and such as never was yielded before to any King but this would not serve King James to be Absolute he must have the intire Disposition of them and the Power to put in and turn out whom he pleased without troubling the Formalities of Law To bring them therefore to this it was resolved to Dissolve them all Tyrconnel knew that the Protestants would never give up their Charters without being compelled by Law and therefore he endeavoured to prevail with them to admit Papists to Freedom and Offices in them that by their means he might have them surrendred but the Resolution of Sir John Knox then Lord Mayor of Dublin and of the then Table of Aldermen spoiled that Design and forced the King to bring Quo Warranto's against them since they would not easily consent to destroy themselves 2. The Chief Baron Rice and the Attorney General Nagle were employed as the fittest Instruments to carry on this Work To prevent Writs of Error into England all these Quo Warranto's were brought in the Exchequer and in about two Terms Judgments were entred against most Charters Whereas if either Equity or Law had been regarded longer time ought to have been allowed in matters of such Consequence for the Defendants to draw up their Plea than the Chief Baron took to dispatch the whole Cause and seize their Franchises Attorney General Nagle plaid all the little Tricks that could be thought of and had an ordinary Attorney brought such Demurrers or Pleadings into Court in a common Cause as he did in this most weighty Affair of the Kingdom he would have received a publick Rebuke and been struck out of the Roll for his Knavery or ignorance After all there was not one Corporation found to have Forfeited by a Legal Tryal neither was any Crime or Cause of forfeiture objected against them yet the Chief Baron gave Judgment against
a hundred Charters or thereabouts upon such little Exceptions and pittiful Cavils that it must be the greatest affront to the understanding of Mankind to think to put such on them for Justice and the greatest profanation of the name of Law to endeavour to pass such Proceedings for Legal Admit that a Corporation which is an invisible Body in Law could do any thing to destroy its own being or that it were reasonable it should be divested of a particular Privilege which it has manifestly abused or when by alteration of Circumstances such a Privilegde becomes a Prejudice to the Publick as it sometimes happens Yet to Dissolve all the Corporations in a Kingdom without the least Reason or Pretence of abuse of Priviledge or Forfeiture to take advantage from the Ignorance of a Lawyer or the mistake of a Clerk nay to pretend these when really there is no such thing is such an abuse of the Kings Prerogative and the Law that it is enough to make the People oppressed by colour of them to hate both at least to wish the Administration of them in other Hands and this was clearly the Case of the Corporations in Ireland The City of Dublin was not allowed so much time to put in their Plea as was really sufficient to transcribe it as it ought to have been The Clerk mistakes the Date of one of their Charters they pray leave to mend it this is denyed them and the Chief Baron gives Judgment The same Term the Charter of Londonderry in which the City of London was so deeply concerned was condemned on a yet more frivolous Pretence upon which the Chief Baron gave Judgment against the Charter And upon the like wrangling Cavils were the rest dissolved except a few which were on Noblemens Estates Some of these Noblemen employed Roman Catholick Agents or Receivers who so managed their Estates for them as chiefly to encourage Papists and now became the Instruments to betray their Corporations Those Agents employed the Power and Interest they had amongst their Masters Tenants by Threats and Intrigues to procure Surrenders and by these means some few were influenced Thus one Potter a Papist employed as a Receiver by the Earl of Kildare betrayed his Lord and prevailed with Athy and some other Corporations on his Estate to Surrender 3. Whether they did not think fit to destroy the Charters upon their usual and trivial pretence of defective Pleading there they found out other Expedients without Tryal to destroy them And that was by granting a New Charter as in the Case of Bangor in the County of Down to such Men as the Attorney General thought fit who by the Sheriff should be put in Possession of the Government of the Town and then if the former Possessors thought themselves injured they might bring their Actions against the Intruders in the Tryal of which they had Reason to expect no more fairness than they found in the Proceedings against their Charters 4. This Contrivance of superseding a former Charter by granting a new one served to very good purpose There were many particular Charters granted to Corporations in the City of Dublin Such were the Corporations of Taylors Skinners Feltmakers c. where these refused to Surrender they got a few of the Trade to take out a new Charter by which Papists were constituted Masters and Wardens and as soon as they had taken it out they committed to Prison such of the ancient Members as would not submit to them 5. Every Body dreaded the Effects of these Proceedings the Gentry considered that they held their Estates by Patents from the King and the Title was no stronger than that of a Charter And if Men were outed of their Priviledges and Freedoms by such Tricks and Shaddows of Law they began to fear that one day or other the like might be found to void their Patents 6. As soon as the Corporations came to be supplied with new Charters it plainly appeared that no English or Protestant Freeman could expect a comfortable Life in Ireland for in the first place the Corporations were made absolute Slaves to the King's Will it being one Clause in all the new Charters that the King 's chief Governor should have power to turn out or put in whom he pleased without giving any Reason and without any Form of Legal Proceeding by which the Corporations were so much in the King's Power that he might with as much reason have named his Regiment of Guards a Free Parliament as the Burgesses return'd by such Elections The whole Kingdom had therefore reason to resent such Proceedings as being absolutely destructive to their Liberties but more especially the English Protestants for it plainly appeared in the second place that all this Regulation was more immediately designed for their Destruction The persons every where named for Aldermen and Burgesses in the new Charters being above two thirds Papists some few Protestants were kept in for form sake that they might not seem absolutely to discountenance them and to avoid discovering their Designs of turning them out of all but yet so few in comparison of the Papists that they were incapable of doing either good or hurt And when they saw that they must be insignificant they generally declined serving at all The Papists employed were commonly the most inveterate and exasperated persons against Protestants and their Interest that could be found Many of them never saw the Corporations for which they were named they were never concerned in Trade or Business many of them were named for several Corporations because they wanted Men qualified as they would have had them to make up the number of Aldermen or Burgesses Most of them were poor and mean and such whose very Names spake Barbarities 7. The Protestants foresaw very well what they were to expect from Corporations thus settled and a great many of the richest trading Citizens removed themselves and their Effects into England The Gentry likewise endeavoured to make Provisions for themselves there and such as could compass Money laid it out in England and fled after it to avoid the Storm they saw coming on Ireland The Truth is 't was intolerable to them to live under the Government of their Footmen and Servants which many must have done had they staid and they could not but dread a Parliament that should not only be Slaves to the King's Will who they saw was bent to settle Popery at any rate but which must consist of Members that they knew to be their inveterate and hereditary Enemies who would not stick to sacrifice the Liberties and Laws of the Kingdom to the King's Will so they might procure from him Revenge on the Protestants and turn them out of their Estates For what would they stick at that were so servile as to accept such precarious Charters They saw in this their own Ruin design'd and the Event has shewn that they were not mistaken perhaps no King in the World much less a King who had been obliged in