THE PROPOSAL For Sending Back the NOBILITY and GENTRY OF IRELAND Together with a VINDICATION Of the same And an ANSWER to the Objections made against it in a LETTER to a Gentleman of Ireland Published by Authority LONDON Printed for Samuel Holford at the Crown in the Pall-Mall and Sold by R. Baldwin near the Black Bull in the Old Bayley 1690. THE PROPOSAL For Sending Back the NOBILITRY and GENTRY OF IRELAND THE VINDICATION OF THE PROPOSAL For Sending Back the Nobility and Gentry OF IRELAND In a Letter to a Gentleman of that Kingdom SIR SINCE the Clamour of some of my Countrymen is so very loud against my Proposal that some of them who dare not put their Honesty in the Balance with mine have called my Integrity in question as well as my Judgment for the Vindication therefore of both as also of the Proposal it self which you desired to see I have sent you this which contains my Arguments to prove both the Honesty and the Necessity of it and an Answer to every Objection that I have yet heard its Adversaries make of the strength and force of which you and all that read them may be Judges And to demonstrate both my first and chiefest Argument shall be only to produce the Proposal it self that every indifferent Person may take it in pieces and examine it for it fears the Examen of none It here follows A Proposal humbly presented to His Majesty for the good of his Subjects of Ireland After the last Rebellion in Ireland there followed a Famine and the Carkases of those who died of Famine caused a Plague so that many more died by Famine and Plague than by the War The same thing may be feared now there being little or no Tillage for the next year and the Common Irish who lived most upon their Potato-Gardens beng now in the Army do consume ten times more Corn than they did when they lived at home in their Cabins by which means that great Harvest of the English which they had this year will be eaten up before the next So that although that Kingdom should be entirely reduced the next Summer yet the want of Bread will make it desolate for the late King's Brass-money having eaten up all the Silver of that Kingdom there is no Money left to purchase Corn abroad so that the People must unavoidably die for want of Bread There is now near one half of that Kingdom reduced and yet the Protestants even of that part are most of them still in England the consequence of whose stay here must be a Famine there For the Irish are almost all of them taken up in the Service of the late King and those who are not will notwithstanding neither plow nor sow where they know not their Landlord so that while the English stay here and the Irish Farmers fly before our Army there it must necessarily follow that the more your Majesties Army advances the more must that Kingdom become wast But if the English of Ireland who are now here were in that part of the Kingdom which is reduced then the Irish who now fly before our Army would come in and gladly settle again on their old Farms when they have somebody to protect them Your Majesty has a fair opportunity to oblige the English that stay here to return by the Address which the House of Commons made to your Majesty in their behalf for one fourth part of a Years Allowance which in the whole did amount to Sixty Thousand Pounds Now if your Majesty were graciously pleased to give them here the Sum of Fifteen Thousand Pounds being a Fourth part thereof and to transmit into Ireland the the Sum of Forty Five Thousand Pounds more to be there paid to such of them as will go over with obligation on every Person who receives any of it to Sow a certain proportion of Summer Corn which may yet be done in March and April next it will be the only means to prevent a Famine it would send away a multitude of People whose wants make them importunate here and would in a great measure supply those wants And moreover such Numbers returning would be a terrour to the Irish Army and an incouragement to the Irish Labourer and Husbandman to return who are now fled and who had rather be at the Plow than the Musket Whereas now the Irish who are fed with Promises from the French will believe them and be thereby encouraged when they see the English so fearful to return Such of the English as have their own Estates to go to have no reason to expect to be under the same conditions with those whose Estates are yet under the Enemy and that difference made between them will be a considerable addition the better to enable those whose Estates are yet unconquered to settle for a present Subsistance on such little Farms as their circumstances will allow of whereby they may get a little stock of their own against they remove to their own Estates This will likewise be a great help to those of the North who have Land to set As this will be a competent Provision for the Nobility and Gentry so that which is yet remaining of the Collect-Money may be for the Poorer sort which being paid to them at one entire Sum would be a help to settle them under the Gentry to become Tenants as they were formerly and if they Plow but little yet their being in the Country will be an encouragement for others to go over If your Majesty be pleased to order that this Collect-Money also may be distributed in Ireland it will then be seen who are real objects of Charity and the Money will be laid out to a good use It is to be fear'd that all will not go over who yet complain now that they have not whereon to live It is of as great consequence speedily to Plant that Kingdom as to reduce it and perhaps Sixty Thousand Pounds may do that Now which cannot be done the next Year with Ten times that Sum and while the English of Ireland stay here it cannot be supposed that Strangers will go thither to Plant. If this Money be sent into Ireland to be there given to such as will go for it then those who will not go over will be left without excuse But if this Money be not now sent over and the English sent away to Sow Corn there a greater Sum than now pays the Army will not be sufficient the next Year to keep the English and Irish in that Kingdom with Bread And the Prospect is yet more terrible if we consider that when ever Corn was dear in England and Ireland we always fetch'd it from France but now we must go seek other Markets which cannot now be done without vast Expence since this general War throughout Europe will take up so much Corn for all the Fleets and Armies A Scheme or Method humbly laid down for the putting of the former Proposals
Civil one for the Privy Council but they made a Second a Third and a Fourth before they could agree the Contents of which I am a Stranger to but that Honourable Board was not so to the usage that the Paper receiv'd which was sent from them and therefore at the delivery of their Answer these Gentlemen as I have heard receiv'd the just reward of their temerity a severe Reproof to themselves And I fear that that poor Paper of theirs notwithstanding all the Florid Satyr it contains will hardly be able to save itself from the fate to which they had doom'd mine And it is now generally said that some of them who have refus'd to go with Money will now be ordered to go without Money viz. the Northern Gentry And indeed their staying here is unaccountable for I have heard it among themselves that some Gentlemen of that Country of the best Quality have not lost out of their Houses to the value of a Silver Spoon I envy not their good fortune though their staying here notwithstanding we suffer for it seems to argue that they pity not our misfortune But since those Objections made at their first Meeting and those contained in their first Answer may prevail upon some of those Persons who heard them or to whom they have been communicated it will therefore behove me to remove them in order to the undeceiving of those who may be ignorant of some matters of Fact 1. Obj. First they do blacken this Proposal with the Character of Cruel and Barbarous to send People over into a ruined Country in the depth of Winter to be starved both with Cold and Hunger To this I answer first supposing all this were true which it is not yet still it were better that some should go over and wrestle with some hardships in order to the future preserving of themselves and those that will stay here than that all should stay here and so inevitably perish together for Company It is just as if when there is a small leak in Ship every one should refuse going to labour at the Pump and so sit still at their ease till the Ship fill with water and they be all swallowed up in an instant But secondly I say that this is not true the Country is not so ruined but that by the help of Money they may be well furnished both with Food and Firing By the prizes which the Duke of Schomberg has set on all Victuals as on Beef a penny a Pound c. it is evident that there is no want of Food in that Country besides the many private Letters which do abundantly confirm the same and that the Irish themselves do now come in both with Horses and Cattle for we give them money for them whereas the late King's Army either takes them away or buys them with Brass But supposing that we should go there and that it should so happen that when we are there we should be distressed for Provisions in such Case I say when we are in a Body and do represent that in Obedience to His Majesties Commands we went over and exposed our selves to such hardships there is not the least room for doubt but that we should be taken care of whereas we may now stay here perishing in every Corner of the Streets undistinguished and unrelieved Instances of this are evident you see the Vaudois are no sooner returned to their Country but even so far from them as in London we are raising money for their relief yet we scarce thought on them while they remained in Suisserland though their misery and wants were much greater And when within these twenty years last past there was great want of Food in New-England even we in Ireland sent them store the City of Dublin alone sent them a Ship of three hundred Tuns loaden only with Wheat and other Victuals and as I have heard we payed for the very fraight of it also There is nothing necessary for life in this City excepting the Air and the River-water that a poor Irish man can receive within his lips without cost one might therefore justly wonder that those who have lived all their life upon Dapes Inempta have lived happily with little or no occasion or use of Money should be so difficultly persuaded to return to the same sort of life again to have their Bread and Beer-Corn in their Hagard their Hens and their Geese giving them Eggs which here are pence a piece and there were twenty nay forty for a penny their Cows and their Hogs and every thing else necessary for a comfortable living But though it be our happiness that all things are at present in great plenty in Ireland yet by the Time that by the Blessing of God we might reasonably compute that Kingdom may be reduced viz. about the latter end of the next Summer when this years Corn is spent and no harvest or very little to succeed it then will the Cry of a Famine begin to rise so that when we should be all going to take Possession of our Estates there will not be found a man possibly that will go over For Plague being the constant attendant of Famine it were as reasonable to expect that Men should go into a Pest-house as then to go for Ireland But if there were no apprehensions of the Plague to terrifie us from going over yet notwithstanding no man will then go over but he that carries Money enough to maintain him and his Family for one year I might say for two for so long it will be before we shall have any Wheat in that Kingdom and of such there will be but very few perhaps none for a greater Sum than the Revenue of the Crown would not keep the Inhabitants of Ireland in necessary Food Cloathing and Firing I know there are some of us that will not apprehend any such danger for they say that the Irish have sewed a great deal of Corn in the South this Winter but these men do not think that that Country is like to be the Scene of War the next year and to lye open to two Armies and especially that we have a French Enemy to deal with who if the Country were ten times fuller of Corn will soon according to his usual practice lay it all in Ashes It is no small satisfaction to me in the Cause that I have undertaken that the Government is of the same mind as to the necessity and benefit of it And that they are so I am satisfied from this that true Policy is the same in all wise States and by the Letters from Rome that School of Politicks of the Nineteenth of November last we are informed that the Colledge of Cardinals whose Authority is equivalent to that of our Parliament upon only the Prospect of a War the next year in Italy and a small Army of the Milanese now upon the March have resolved and declared they will lend money to all Persons whatsoever that will come and
West to London in our March I found this Gentleman at Windsor then a Justice of the Peace and I have heard several say he was a Deputy Lieutenant under the late King at the time when few honest Men in the Kingdom would accept of it And if what he told the Committee of the House of Commons be true that he had but fourscore Pounds a year in England it is then the more likely that he was put in for a Tool to serve some Turn in those Times But however the Gentry of Ireland do think that I have accidentally hindred their getting the 15000 l. this Gentleman did designedly endeavour it for he proposed it in the Committee that this fifteen thousand Pounds might not be given to us but applyed to a better use viz. to the raising of his Regiment and mounting them As for his Insolence it appears in tacitly providing himself of Soldiers before the Kings Pleasure be known 2 dly In making such Demands to have the best forfeited Lands in the Kingdom before they shew whether they shall deserve the Pay of other Men. But above all it appears in getting the Certificate of his Soldiers that are to be that he is a very fit Person to be their Colonel which Certificate has been on foot these Five Months and which is an insolence to his Majesty beyond all imagination to set the Feet above the Head that the Common Soldiers and other his Titular Officers should make their Colonel nay their General as was before shewn As to its being impracticable I have shewn that before under another head And now I will put my self in the Balance with him you must forgive me this little concern that I have shewn for I cannot pass by without resentment the Man that calls me a Knave My Reputation is the only thing left me in this Calamity and that no Man shall take from me especially I will vindicate it from the abuses of a man so scurrilous that he provokes even Clergy-men to beat him But set us by one another a little my Proposal is not to make me any thing much less a Collonel neither if the Treasurers place in it were worth asking for since that is the only Office that my Proposal makes neither is that yet made till a man can be found that will accept of it yet by my own Proposal as I am unable to execute it so I am unqualified for it for my Estate is setled and has been so these Four Generations past I got none of it by perjuring my self or other Men nor by any other indirect course I thank God but it has been in my Family so long as that by honest Industry and good Husbandry we have increas'd it in value not in quantity from nine Pence an Acre to Five and Twenty Shillings an Acre And that makes my Calamity now the greater he had no Plantations there to loose whatever he may pretend whereas I have lost what no Money nothing but time can repair I have never seen nor heard of in Ireland or England Plantations equal to what I have there lost both in Woods of Grafts and young Timber Trees of this your self and many of my Countrey-men can be my Vouchers For out of my great zeal to fill the Country with Orchards I gave Fruit Trees to all that ask'd which made me encrease my Nurserys so extravagantly But to return notwithstanding that my Proposal carries men over as Planters not as Soldiers yet if any man of us have a mind to go into the Army my Proposal will set him out very well After the charge of Sowing his Corn is paid he will have perhaps some scores of Pounds in his Purse to equip himself withall And every man whose share is under Twenty Pounds and who consequently is not obliged to Sow any Corn has no more to do but to receive his Money with which if he pleases he may immediately mount himself for the Army And I am sure those who cannot Fight through Age or Infirmity or that have numerous Families would have reason to approve of my Proposal which would give them a maintenance without Fighting and by it the most infirm or aged Person that is concern'd in the House of Commons List who would be otherwise useless is made as useful to the Publick as the best There are some other little Objections which scarce deserve to be repeated such as the carrying over of Arms which are design'd but for their own defence and which if it had not been mention'd they would then have cry'd out How can we an unarm'd People go over and plant in an Enemies Country But there are some Men among us that have fill'd their Brains with a Notion that the Parliament will maintain them here till they can send them home and that they shall have this 60000 l. of course without going over and will not be perswaded to the contrary and consequently will not hear of stirring the miserable consequences of which Opinion makes my heart ake to think upon If there are any more Objections they are not answered only because I know them not for they would not give me admittance among them when they were drawing their Answer which is another Mark of their fair dealing though possibly this was done with design that they might Reply to me with more advantage For some of us do make that use of the leisure we have by our Exile to answer every new Pamphlet that does not suit with our own Notion but if any of them do design to treat this so they shall keep the Field undisturb'd for me This Vindication was a debt to my Reputation but I shall never think for my part that so much is due to an Opinion But after all I am perswaded that the greatest part of these Gentlemen are deluded by a few of their Leaders Money'd Men and who are in a way of Living here who have told them that my Proposal sends all away and that unless they go they shall have no share in the Fifteen Thousand Pounds that when they come there they shall have but Ten Pounds a Man and that for that Ten Pounds they must Sow Two Acres of Oats and build a House and that on another Mans Land Whereas this is all false and on the contrary every man whose share of the 45000 l. is under Twenty Pounds is not obliged so much as to Sow Corn or any thing else only to carry over Arms for his own defence So that I hope their hard thoughts of this Proposal will vanish and of me for making it especially if they consider First That it would be far from being a Profit to me or a satisfaction to any thing that carrys the Nature of Man to see a People my own Nation Ruin'd and Destroy'd as some to my Knowledge put it into their Heads that that is my Design who are as much Strangers to my past Actions as to my present Inclinations on the contrary it is most manifest that the Good of the People in general must redound to my particular advantage But to satisfie them further they may see before that I have declared my purpose of going along and to undergo to the utmost of my Ability whatever hardships we shall meet with I would desire them to consider secondly that if either the King or the Council had thought this Proposal so ridiculous and foolish as these men have told them it is surely they would never have given themselves the trouble of twice reading it whereas we see on the contrary they thought it worthy their serious Consideration Thirdly That this Proposal is a force upon no man nor does any man any wrong that stays here and therefore that it is too like the Dog in the Manger to hinder other mens going because we cannot or will not go our selves Fourthly That the price of Corn is already risen from two Shillings fix-pence to four Shillings a Bushel and no Armies yet upon the March nor Fleet fitted out I wish that before the time that our Northern Corn could have grown the People of England do not think too much of all the Corn we have here eaten though for our Money when they shall want it themselves It is not long since Ireland has in one Year but in 84 exported of Victuals alone as I have seen in the account thereof to the value of Two Hundred Eighty Three Thousand Pounds Sterling of which not above Twenty Thousand Pounds was in Fish the rest was in Butter and Cheese Beef Mutton Pork and Bacon I speak not here of Tallow Hides Wool c. What an astonishment is it then to think that in so few Years it should be brought to that desolate condition as not to be able to Feed the few Inhabitants it carries The consideration of this does demonstrate to me the Service of Forty Five Thousand Pounds thus laid out to be so great that one can hardly doubt after having had so great proofs of the charitable Disposition of the Citizens of London but that among them there may be some found who will advance and lend the Treasury Money upon this Occasion if it be demanded The gift of which would indeed have been a great Favour to us at First if we had obtain'd it upon this Proposal without any words but to have it offered now will shew a true Paternal Affection in giving us what is good for us against our wills and though we have justly forfeited all hopes yet if those here and at Chester will upon better thoughts confess their fault and fairly lay the Saddle on the right Horse and justly expose those Men that have drawn them into this who as some of them were a burden to us in our best times so now have they in our greatest distress made us forfeit the favour of his Majesty by their Practises and with the worthy Irish Gentry of Leverpool who are no small number joyn in an humble Supplication to his Majesty that he would notwithstanding their Folly even yet dispose of them according to the said Proposal or in any other way that to his Wisdom shall seem fit there is yet room to hope that his Majesty will be graciously inclin'd to let them be partakers of his Favours I am Sir Your most Humble Servant R. B. FINIS *âŽ* Note that in October when this Paper was first given we had Sligo and Jamestown and almost all Conuaught to the Walls of Galway