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-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
imposed on but contributed nothing to relieve us as we found to our Costs and the Protestant Judges and Burgesses finding that they were made Cyphers and Properties of themselves declined at last to Act in their Stations 5. Next to Chancery is the Kings Bench where Subjects are tryed for their Lives and Fortunes upon this was set Mr. Thomas Nugent made afterwards Baron of Riverstown the Son of one who had been Earl of Westmeath but had lost his Honor and Estate for being an Actor in the late Rebellion begun in 1641. This Mr. Nugent who had never been taken notice of at the Bar but for a more than ordinary Brogue on his Tongue as they call it and ignorance in the Law was pitched on by King James to judg whether the Outlawries against his Father and his fellow Rebels should be reversed and whether the Settlement of Ireland founded on those Outlawries should stand good It was a Demonstration to us what the King intended when he assigned us such a Chief Justice and indeed the Gentleman did not fail to answer the expectation conceived of him He reversed the Outlawries as fast as they came before him notwithstanding a Statute made in point against it and in all the Causes that ever came before him wherein the Plaintiffs and Defendants were Papist and Protestant I could not learn from the most diligent Observer that ever he gave Sentence for the latter Nay it is Shrewdly suspected that he went sharer in some considerable Causes and not only appeared for them on the Bench but also secretly incouraged and fomented them Before him a Deed should be judged Forged or not Forged according as it served a Popish Interest And a Protestant needed no more to gain a Cause against another Protestant than to turn Papist which manifestly appear'd in Sir Gregory Birns Case who merely by turning Papist as is noted before in the midst of his Suit against Captain Robert Fitz Gerald got a Deed condemned of Forgery and recovered five or six hundred pounds per annum notwithstanding Mr. Daniel Birn his Father some years before for pretending it was Forged had been Sued in an Action of the Case and forced to pay two hundred pound damages and though there appeared in Court a Bond under Birns Hand obliging him to pay two hundred pound to the Witnesses in case they should prove Captain Fitz Geralds Deed to be Forged yet the proof was accepted But these were common things in this Court and the mischief had been much greater had not a Writ of Error lyen from his Court to the Kings Bench in England In one thing more he signalized himself it was by committing and prosecuting people for feigned Offences and Treasons and by countenancing and encouraging and after discovery protecting false Witnesses against Protestants Many were brought in danger of their Lives by his contrivances and when the accused were acquitted on Tryal by a palpable Demonstration that the Witnesses were Perjured he declared that they neither could nor should be Prosecuted for they only sware for the King and he believed the accused persons guilty though it could not be proved In short he shewed all the venom and rigour against them he could he was set up to destroy them and he went as far in it as his power could reach his weakness not his inclination hindred him from carrying it farther It is not imaginable by any that have not seen and heard him how furiously and partially he was bent against Protestants it may be guessed how he stood inclined to them by the great Hand he had in promoting the Bill of Attainder and the Bill to vest all Absentees Goods in the King whereby much the greater part of the Protestants of Ireland lost all their Estates Personal and Real of which we shall speak more hereafter He was assisted on the Bench by Sir Bryan ô Neal as puny Judg a weak Man that had nothing to recommend him but Venom and Zeal being otherwise disabled both in his Reason and Body Only he had the faculty to do what he was bid especially when it suited with his own inveteracy against Englishmen and Protestants This Character may seem rigid but as many as knew him will not think it exceeds 6. The next Court for business though not for Precedence is the Exchequer in which all Actions wherein the Kings Revenue or any other Mans Estate is concerned may be tryed From this Court no Writ of Error lies in England so they were free here from that Check which was so troublesom to them in other Courts Upon this consideration it was that the whole business of the Kingdom so far as it concerned them was brought into this Court though not so proper for it Here were brought all Actions of Trespasses and Ejectments concerning Estates all Quo Warranto's against Corporations and Scire Facias's about Offices and they thought themselves concerned to have an able Man and one throughly Cordial to their Interest for the Chief Judg in it for if he had wanted Sense or Law though willing as they found by Experience in some of the other Courts he might have been unable to serve them in all Cases They therefore fixed on Mr. Stephen Rice afterward Sir Stephen who had formerly been noted for a Rook and Gamester at the Inns of Court He was to give him his due a Man of the best Sense amongst them well enough versed in the Law but most signal for his inveteracy against the Protestant Interest and Settlement of Ireland having been often heard to say before he was a Judg that he would drive a Coach and Six Horses through the Act of Settlement upon which both depended And before that Act was Repealed in their pretended Parliament he declared on the Bench that it was against Natural Equity and could not oblige This Man did King James choose for Chief Baron and for the final determination of all the Suits that lay between Protestants and Papists either in Common-Law or Equity And it is no hard matter to conjecture what success the Protestants met with in their Suits before a Judg that declared as he did that they should have no favour but Summum jus that is the utmost rigour of the Law Immediately his Court was filled with Popish Plaintiffs every one that had a forged Deed or a false Witness met with Favour and Countenance from him and he knowing that they could not bring his Sentences into England to be re-examined there acted as a Man that feared no after Account or Reckoning It was some considerable time before he would allow a Writ of Error into the Exchequer Chamber though that was in effect to themselves and when it was allowed it was to little purpose before such Judges It was before him all the Charters of the Kingdom were damned and that in a Term or two in such a manner that proved him a Man of Dispatch though not of Justice If he had been left alone it was
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-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
Fitzgerald Esquires Bur. Trim. Captain Nicholas Cusack Walter Nangle Esquire Bur. of Navan Christoph. Cusack of Corballis Esquires Christ. Cusack of Ratholdran Esquires Bur. Athboy John Trinder Esquires Robert Longfield Esquires Duleek Kells Com. Monoghan Bryan Mac Mahon Esquires 9 th July 1689 Hugh Mac Mahon Esquires 9 th July 1689 Town of Monoghan Com. Fermanagh Enniskillen Queens County Sir Patrick Trant Knight Edmond Morris Esq Bur. Maryborough Peirce Bryan Esquires Thady Fitz Patrick Esquires Bur. Ballinkill Sir Gregory Bourne Baronet Oliver Grace Esquire Port Arlington Sir Henry Bond Baronet Sir Thomas Hacket Knight Com. Roscommon Charles Kelly Esquire John Bourk Bur. Roscommon John Dilton Esquires John Kelly Esquires Bur. Boyle John King Captain Terence Mac Dermot Alder. 6th May 1689. Tulske Com. Sligoe Henry Crofton Esquires Oliver O Gara Esquires Bur. Sligoe Terence Mac Donogh Esquires 8th May 1689. James French Esquires 8th May 1689. Com. Tipperary Nicholas Purcell of Loghmore Esquires James Butler of Grangebeg Esquires City of Cashell Dennis Kearney Aldermen James Hacket Aldermen Bur. Clonmell Nicholas White Aldermen John Bray Aldermen Bur. Fethard Sir John Everard Baronet James Tobin of Fethard Esq Bur. Thurles Bur. Tipperary Com. Tyrone Coll. Gordon O Neile Esquires Lewis Doe of Dungannon Esquires Bur. Dungannon Arthur O Neil of Ballygawly Esquires Patr. Donenlly of Dungannon Esquires Bur. Strabane Christopher Nugent of Dublin Esquire Dan. O Donelly of the same Gent. 8th May 89. Clogher Augher Com. Waterford John Power Esquires Math. Hore Esquires Bur. Dungarvan John Hore Esquires 7th May 89. Martin Hore Esquires 7th May 89. City of Waterford John Porter Esquires Nicholas Fitzgerald Esquires Bur. Lismore Tallow Com. Wexford Walter Butler of Munfine Patrick Colclogh of Moulnirry Bur. Wexford William Talbot Esquire Francis Rooth Merchant Bur. New Rosse Luke Dormer Esquires Richard Butler Esquires Bur. Bannow Francis Plowden Esq Commis of the Revenue Dr. Alexius Stafford Bur. Newborough Abraham Strange of Tobberduff Esq Richard Daley of Kilcorky Gent. Bur. Eniscorthy James Devereux of Carrigmenan Esquires Dudley Colclough of Mougâ—ery Esquires Arther Waddington Esq by a new Election Bur. Taghmon George Hore of Polhore Esquires Walter Hore of Harpers-town Esquires Bur. Cloghmyne Edward Sherlock of Dublin Esquire Nicholas White of New Rosse Merchant Bur. Arklow Fytherd Coll. James Porter Capt. Nicholas Stafford Com. Wicklow Richard Butler Esquires William Talbot Esquires Bur. Caryesfort Hugh Byrne Esquire Peice Archbold Esq Upon whose default of Appearance Barth Polewheele Bur. Wicklow Francis Toole Esquires Thomas Byrne Esquires Bur. Blesington James Eustace Esq Maurice Eustace Gent. Baltinglass Com. Westmeath The Honorable Coll. William Nugent The Honorable Coll. Henry Dillon Bur. and Mannor of Mullingar Garret Dillon Esq Prime Sergeant Edmond Nugent of Garlans-town Esq Bur. Athlone Edmond Malone of Ballynehown Esq Edmond Malone Esq Councellor at Law Bur. Kilbeggan Bryan Geoghegan of Donore Esquires Charles Geoghenan of Syenan Esquires Bur. Fore John Nugent of Donore Esq Christoph. Nugent of Dardis town Esq Com. Londonderry City Londonderry Bur. Colerane Bur. Lamavudy No. 22. An Address to King James in Behalf of the Purchasers under the Act of Settlement by Judge Keating THis humble Representation made unto your Sacred Majesty is in the Behalf of many Thousands of your Majesties dutiful and obedient Subjects of all Degrees Sexes and Ages The Design and Intention of it is to prevent the Ruine and Desolation which a Bill now under Consideration in order to be made a Law will bring upon them and their Families in case your Majesty doth not interpose and by your Moderation and Justice protect them so far as the known Laws of the Kingdom and Equity and good Conscience will warrant and require It is in the Behalf of Purchasers who for great and valuable Considerations have acquired Lands and Tenements in this Kingdon by laying out not only their Portions and Provisions made for them by their Parents but also the whole Product of all their own Industry and the Labour of their Youth together with what could be saved by a frugal Management in order to make some certain Provision for Old Age and their Families in Purchasing Lands and Tenements under the Security of divers Acts of Parliament Publick Declarations from the late King And all these accompanied with a Possession of Twenty five Years Divine Providence hath appointed us our Dwelling in an Island and consequently we must Trade or live in Penury and at the mercy of our Neighbours This necessitates a Transmutation of Possessions by Purchase from one hand to another of Mortgaging and Pledging Lands for great and Considerable Sums of Money by charging them with Judgments and indeed gives Name to one of the greatest Securities made use of in this Kingdom Statutes Merchant and of the Staple and very many especially Widows and Orphans have their whose Estates and Portions secured by Mortgages Bond of the Staple and Judgments Where or when shall a Man Purchase in this Kingdom Under what Title or on what Security shall he lay out his Money or secure the Portions he designs for his Children If he may not do it under divers Acts of Parliament the solemn and reiterated Declarations of his Prince and a quiet and uncontroverted Possession of Twenty Years together And this is the Case of thousands of Families who are Purchasers under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation It were a hard task to justifie those Acts in every Particular contained in them I will not undertake it but if it be consider'd that from 23. October 1641. until 29. May 1660. the time of his Majesties Restauration the Kingdom was upon the matter in one continued Storm That the alterations of Possessions was so universal and Properties so blended and mixt by Allotments and Dispositions made by the then Usurping Powers It may be well concluded that they must be somewhat more then Men that could or can frame a Law to take in every particular Case though it should have swoln to many Volumes and Laws which are to be of such universal Consequence as this was are to have a Regard to the Generality of a Kingdom or People though possibly some particular Person may have some hardship in his private Concern But if we may judge by general Laws by the produce and effect of them and at the same time have a Prospect to the Estate and Condition of this Kingdom from 1640. and as far backwards as you please until the time of his late Majesties happy Restauration and at the same time take into Consideration what the Kingdom became in few years after the Commission for the Execution of those Acts were at an end the Buildings and other Improvements the Trade and Commerce the vast Heads of Cattel and Flocks of Sheep equal to those of England together with great Sums of money brought over by our Fellow-Subjects of England who came to Purchase and Plant in this Kingdom The Manufactures set on foot in divers parts whereby the meanest Inhabitants were
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
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
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
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
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
to what he ought and this was a great Discouragement to Trading The Complaints of all People in general as well as of Merchants were great on the account of Exactions of the Officers of the Revenue who were grown up to a high degree of Exorbitance which with many other Abuses in the Kingdom proceeded from the long Disuse of Parliaments the inferior Officers being freed from that fear for twenty four years did forget that there were any to whom they were accountable besides their own Masters and therefore not only exacted upon and oppressed the Subjects but likewise treated them with insufferable Insolence while the Commissioners or Farmers strained and perverted the Laws for their own profit or to ingratiate themselves with the Courtiers on whose Favour they depended 6. There was a fourth thing that more peculiarly ruined the Protestant Trade and 't was thus the King's Revenue in Ireland was so considerable a part of each Man's Estate that most of the current Coin in the Kingdom came into the Treasury once in a year either for Hearth Money Crown Rents or some other Duties And the King having turned Protestants out of all profitable Employments and out of the Army and put in Papists his Revenue was paid out again to them and ought to have circulated indifferently amongst his Subjects as it used to do But so great was the Malice of these new Officers to Protestants that they combined amongst themselves to let them have as little of it as was possible and therefore where-ever they could lay it out with one of their own Religion they did it And very few Protestants ever received a Groat of their Money as the Citizens of Dublin can universally witness When they wanted Money they came to the Protestant Shops where they abused and affronted and terrified them if they refused to trust calling them Dogs Whigs Rebels and Traitors swearing with many Oaths that they would be revenged on them But if they had ready Money tho they had been formerly Customers to Protestants and in their Books they never came near them any more This Practice was so universal amongst them that even the Women learn'd it particularly the Lady Tyrconnel's Daughters for thus the Lady Ross and her Sister Dillon treated several Shopkeepers falling furiously upon them in the former Terms because their Servants refused to trust By the like rudeness the Exchange was intirely ruined neither Buyers nor Sellers being able to keep in it by reason of the Insolencies of the new Popish Officers who walked in it affronted and assaulted every Body or extorted their Goods from them for nothing the Shopkeepers not daring to refuse to trust them By this means the rich Shopkeepers were driven away and most of the considerable Shops shut up even in the principal Streets of the City long before we heard any News of the Prince of Orange As soon as the Earl of Tyrconnel came to the Government there was almost a Desolation in the Town and there were at least fourteen or fifteen Trades that had nothing to do the Government knew very well that this would be the Effect of their Proceedings and that the Trade Manufactures and Improvements of the Kingdom must cease if they went on at the Rate they did but they were so far from being concerned at it that they rather seemed well pleased with it 7. And to ruin our Trade intirely they suffered and connived at the Transportation of our Wool to France a thing so fatal to England as well as to Ireland that the Law has made it Felony to be punished with Death The new Mayor of Gallway Mr. Kyrovan was catched in the very Fact and the Delivery of a considerable Cargo sent by him into France was fully proved for which he ought to have been hanged but the Lord Deputy Tyrconnel notwithstanding all his Oaths and pretended Displeasure when the Mischief of it was laid before him quickly shewed this to be only a Copy of his Countenance for he not only granted him a Pardon and remitted his Forfeiture of about 10000 l. but as a further Mark of his Favour he continued him in his Mayoralty for another year Thus the Trade of the Kingdom was ruined and the Protestants who with vast Hazard and Charge carried it on had it left to their Choice whether they would stay here and starve or remove themselves to another Kingdom and I believe no Body will wonder if they had no great affection for a Government that designedly brought this hardship upon them 8. It must be acknowledged that King James did not only ruin the Protestant Trade but that he went a great way in destroying the Trade of the Roman Catholicks also It is well known that the Citizens of Gallway are the most considerable Roman Catholick Traders in Ireland many of whom had purchased Estates under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation and must therefore fall together with them They foresaw their own Ruin in the Repeal of thâ—se Acts and petitioned the Parliament that Consideration might be had of their Purchases and Improvements but this reasonable Request was denyed them those Acts were repealed and by their Repeal left the most considerable Roman Catholick Traders in Ireland without Estates or Credit to follow their Trade or to answer their Correspondents abroad I might add here the further steps made by King James towards ruining the Protestant Trade by his coining Brass Money by his lodging it in Protestants Hands seising their Stocks and Commodities whereby they were utterly disabled to trade whilst Papists were not only spared but had the Protestants Goods put into their Hand But these with the other Influences the Brass Money had to destroy us will be more proper when we come to consider the Invasions made on our Properties SECT VII VI. King James's destructive Proceedings against the Liberties of his Protestant Subjects 1. THere is no worldly thing more valuable to Man than Liberty Many prefer it to life and few can live long without it 'T is the Darling of our Laws and there is nothing of which they are more tender But the Protestants of Ireland from the very beginning of King James's Reign had their Liberties invaded and at last intirely destroyed 'T was observable that at his coming to the Crown he made no Proclamation for a general Pardon as has been usual with Kings neither did he pass any Act of Grace in his first Parliament which gave a fair opportunity to the Papists of Ireland to revenge themselves on their Protestant Neighbors No sooner had they gotten Judges and Juries that would believe them but they began a Trade of Swearing and ripping up what they pretended their Neighbors had said of His late Majesty whilst Duke of York some years before especially in time of the Popish Plot. The new Justices of the Peace were eager to exercise their Offices and therefore on the slightest occasion bound over and committed their Protestant Neighbors many times without any reason
best it was left to the discretion of a Dragoon what he would count a Serviceable Horse and what he would do with them when he had taken them so that of 10000 Horses at least that were taken from the Protestants at that time the King received not 100 nor had he one Troop raised out of them but whoever could get a Horse whether he were Officer or Soldier from a Protestant went away with it and converted it to his private use of which the Lord Deputy complains in a Proclamation dated March the 1st 1688 but this Proclamation though dated the 1st of March was not published till the 12th the reason of the delay was this the Proclamation ordered Horses that were not fit for Service to be restored and if it had come out according to the date thereof many Protestants that knew in whose Hands their Horses were would have claimed them To defeat them therefore some that had interest with the Deputy got the Proclamation delayed till those that took them might have time to convey them far enough from being found And this was their usual Method they first did the mischief they intended to the Protestants and then they published some antedated Proclamation forbidding it to be done and sometimes when a Proclamation came out before they had gone through with what they intended they denyed to be concluded by it alledging it came out surreptitiously as it happened in this very case of Searching for Arms. 19. Now Arms are the Hedges that secure and preserve our Goods and Lives especially in a Conquered Country such as Ireland is and it was but reason that the Law did allow none but Protestants to have them though they never hindred any Man from arming himself so far as was necessary for his own Defence When therefore they saw the keeping of Arms was made penal to them in the highest degree King James's Proclamation having made it Treason and Rebellion as I shewed before and some would needs perswade them it was really so to which opinion the Lord Chief Justice inclined when he gave charge to the Jury concerning one Wolf who was indicted for keeping some Arms and fined for it as a Misdemeanor when I say they saw that which the Law required them to do made so highly criminal for the Law requires every Freeman of Dublin to keep Arms and those Arms put into the Hands of Tories and Ruffians who had already robb'd them of a great part of their Substance had they not reason to believe that they were disarm'd purposely that they might be the more easily Robb'd or Massacred and that it was as easy for a Government that in one day disarmed them through the whole Kingdom against Reason Law and Justice to find a pretence at another time to take away their Lives they could neither doubt their inclinations nor question their ability to do it If one should tye a Mans Hands and turn him naked amongst Wild Beasts all the World would believe he designed they should devour him and sure we had reason to suppose the same of our Governours and they that treated us thus without provocation and against the Laws could not expect that we should be unwilling to change our Masters if a fair opportunity offered By the Law we have as much property in our Arms and Horses that we buy with our Mony and in a conquered Country such as Ireland is where every Forty Years we constantly have had a Rebellion they are as necessary for us as our Cloathes or Estates which indeed can signify nothing without them And the King might as justly pretend that he had occasion for them and take them from us without consideration as our Horses and Arms the oppression to us in our circumstances was really equal 20. It may perhaps be imagined by those who are Strangers to our Affairs that we had abused our Arms to oppress and wrong our Neighbours or to oppose the King and therefore deserv'd to lose them but it is observable that it doth not appear that any one Protestant in Ireland before this Disarming had used his Arms to injure any R. C. nor did they hurt any that was not either actually robbing them of their Goods or assaulting their Persons no not in the North where they refused to give up their Arms they kept even there on the defensive and offended no Man but when first Assaulted So that there was not the least reason or colour to disarm us except that we might be Plundered and Robb'd without being able to make resistance Our crime for which we lost our Arms for which we were exposed naked to our Enemies and for which the best Gentlemen in the Kingdom were obliged to walk without a Sword was because they suspected that we would not otherwise tamely part with our Goods or suffer our selves to be abused and affronted in the Streets by every Ruffian which was the condition of the best amongst us 21. 'T is true King James could not carry on a War for the advancement of Popery without our Goods and he could not be secure of them whilst we had Arms but I hope all the World is convinced that it was not our Counsels nor Actings that brought him to these Straits nor was it to be expected that we should be content to be undone to repair the errors and faults of those Wicked Counsellors who put him on those desperate courses which lost him his Crown All our crime is then that we could not be content to be undone with him and by him and rather chose to desire Protection Liberty and the restitution of our Priviledges and Arms from their present Majesties than to be in the condition of the Vilest of Slaves under King James a crime for which I am confident no Papist condemns us in his Conscience however he may rail at us and call us disloyal SECT IX The attempts made on the Personal Estates of Protestants before the Revolution in England 1. THe Earl of Tyrconnel when made Deputy of Ireland found the Riches of the Kingdom in the Hands of Protestants the Flocks the Herds the rich Houshold-Stuff and Plate Beneficial Leases improved Rents Trade and Mony were almost intirely theirs whereas the Papists by their Idleness Ignorance and numerous Begging Clergy were so low in their Fortunes that they were in no condition to raise or maintain such an Army as was necessary to carry on his Designs in this Kingdom and he was sure the Protestants that had the Riches would not contribute to support them He therefore applied himself with all art and industry to impoverish them He did what he could as I have already shew'd to destroy their Trade he put all the hardships imaginable on Protestant Tenants that they might not be able to pay their Rents and he encouraged the Popish Tenants to oppose their Landlords It was whispered amongst them that they need not pay their Rents for the Land in a little time would be their own
not believe him till he shewed the Copy which much surpriz'd Sir Richard he began to enquire how his Lordship came by it and intimated that the Keepers of the Rolls were Treacherous in letting any one see it much more in letting a Copy of it go abroad His Lordship with good reason express'd his Admiration that an Act of Parliament should be made a Secret and the Laws upon the Observation of which the Lives and Fortunes of so many Men depended should be conceal'd with so much care from them At last the Attorny told him That he himself would draw up a Warrant for Sir Thomas Southwell's Pardon that should do his Business and get the King to Sign it But the Earl refused to accept his offer unless his Lawyer might first peruse it which being granted the Lawyer upon perusal found it to be such as would not hold in Law and intended only to delude him The Earl made new Application to King James and Sir Richard being sent for the King ask'd him why he did not prepare a Fiant for Sir Thomas Southwell's Pardon according to the Warrant sent to him He answered That his Majesty could not grant such a Pardon That his Majesty was only a Trustee for Forfeited Estates and could not Dispense with the Act that by an express Clause in it all Pardons that should be granted were declar'd void The King in some Passion told him That he hoped they did not intend to retrench his Prerogative Sir Richard replied That his Majesty had read the Act before he pass'd it The King answered He had betray'd him that he depended on him for drawing the Act and if he had drawn it so that there was no room for Dispensing and Pardoning he had been false to him or words to that effect Thus the Matter ended and Sir Thomas went into Scotland with my Lord Seaforth without being able to obtain his Pardon for Estate or Life the Act voiding any Pardon granted to any attainted by it after Nov. 1. 1689. or not enrolled before the last day of that Month. 18. And now I doubt not but the Reader from this Story which is literally true will observe first the Juggling of the Popish Lawyers with King James and will pity a Prince who gave himself up to such False and Double-dealing Counsellors when an Act of Parliament is made against a Papist then it is no less than Treason to question the King 's Pardoning and Dispensing Power but when an Act bears hard on a Protestant and the King has a mind to ease him then the King has no power to Dispense he cannot grant a Pardon tho he earnestly desire it From whence we may see that the Dispensing Power was only set up to shelter Papists from the Law and ruin Protestants and that Papists in their Hearts are as much against it as Protestants 2. We may observe what fair Justice was design'd for Protestants a Law was made to turn near 3000 out of their Estates and to take away their Lives if they did not come in against a certain day and yet the Law that subjected them to this Penalty was made a Secret and they not suffer'd to know one word of it till the time allow'd them to come in was past at least three Months but there was an Intrigue in this they knew they had a Party in England who were to face down the World that there were no such Acts made a Party that were to represent it as a Sham and Contrivance of King James's Enemies to make him Odious and the great Argument they were to urge to prove it must be to alledge Where is the Act Why doth it not appear If there were any such Act would not the People that came so often from Ireland and tell such Frightful Stories have brought it with them This is the part the Favourers of King James were to act in England and Scotland and this is the reason the Act was so long kept Secret 3. We may observe the Folly of those Men who were attainted in this Act themselves and yet Flatter themselves with the hopes of living Happily and enjoying their Estates nay and getting Preferment under K. James when restor'd to his Kingdoms these Men do not consider that this Act would be restor'd together with him and that then it is not in his power to do this for them that if they expect any such thing they must be oblig'd to an Irish Popish Parliament for it and he is much a Stranger to Ireland that knows not what Mercy an English-man and a Protestant is to exspect from them especially when they can give him nothing but what is taken from one of themselves Till therefore the Papists of Ireland become so good natur'd as to give away by their own voluntary act their Estates of which they were in actual Possession to Protestants it is the greatest Folly in the World for any Protestant to think of enjoying any Estate in Ireland 4. For 't is observable that the Protestants Estates were not only given away by this Act of Attainder but the Papists were likewise in Possession of them by the following means The Act of Repeal was to be executed by Commissioners appointed by the King who were to determine the Claims of the Proprietors or Heirs to the Proprietors of the respective Estates October 22. 1641. and give Injunctions to the Sheriff to put them in Possession In the mean time the Protestants were to keep their Possessions till the First of May 1690. and to pay Rent to the Popish Proprietors The same Commissioners were to set out Reprizals to reprizable Persons But notwithstanding this no such Commissioners ever sate the Protestants were generally outed and the Papists possess'd both of their old Estates and likewise of the Estates of Protestants they compass'd this by several Stratagems 19. Wherever the Protestants had set their Lands to Papist Tenants those Tenants forsook their Protestant Landlords and became Tenants to the pretended Popish Proprietors Several Protestants complained in Chancery of this as contrary to the Act which allowed them to keep Possession till May 1690. which not being yet come nor any Commissioners being yet appointed to execute the Act they mov'd for an Injunction to quite their Possessions but the Chancellor answer'd That this did not concern Landlords that set their Lands but only such as occupied Farms themselves and that the Parliament had granted that indulgence to them only that they might have time to dispose of their Stocks which not being their Case who had Tenants they must go to Common Law and try their Titles by this means most of the old Popish Proprietors got into their Estates Nay they not only outed the Landlords of their Estates but even the Protestant Tenants of their Leases made in consideration of a valuable reserv'd Rent though this was positively against the intent of the Act which confirm'd such Leases and only gave the reserved Rent to the restor'd Proprietor 2.
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
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