charged on most of his Majesties Protestant Cities and that I was sure there had been in the very worst of them and in the most disobedient more than fifty the greatest number Abraham proposed for obtaining mercy to Sodom just men said I to his Majesty and his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant And after I had in prosecution of my discourse asked what besides could render these Towns unfit objects of his Majesties Mercy if not perhaps their Religion which yet being so Christian and allowed by Articles could be no exception After all this I say this other passage immediately follows whence our Person of Quality takes his ground to lay to my charge that I task his Majesty with unequal proceedings Yet if notwithstanding all this the few and miserable Survivers and Heirs of the dead in the general desolation must suffer again under his Royal Justice I beseech you my Lord let not the Tables of Sylla and Marius let not their general Proscriptions or Confiscations be renewed on this occasion or affixed in the Courts and Judicatures of the British Monarchy Let not these bright dayes of universal joy be rendered to the Irish Catholicks alone dark sad and dismal Nor let these dayes be infamously memorable to posterity for a distinction so unequal Behold Reader whence this Person of Quality takes his arguments to charge me with exclaiming insolently against his Majesties Royal proceedings as unjust and unequal Can indeed a prayer and such a prayer and in such a mood if I may so speak with Grammarians and to the then Marquess of Ormond and a prayer made before the King had determined any thing concerning these Corporations or settlement of Ireland be an insolent exclumation against his Majesties proceedings which then had no being at all 57 As for the remainder of this charge that I should have no less insolently exclaimed against his Majesties Royal proceedings in relation to these guilty Corporations Or that I should have said His Majesties proceedings against them to be such as cannot accord with a good Conscience I have already answer'd that he finds no such thing in my Letter since my words and sense of tâ—em relate only to the obedient Corporations and such as had no way transgressed the Articles of 48. And now further add as to that expression of my judgement then concerning these that whatever his Majesty hath since determin'd it can argue no exclaiming insolency in a Letter which preceded the knowledge and existence of any such determination Besides that I cannot believe yet this Gentleman's interpretation of his Majesties Act of Settlement or which is the same thing that his Majesties meaning is to exclude these obedient Corporations from a Plea of Justice in pursâ—ance of their Articles as neither those good men of even Galway Limerick and Waterford that no way concurred to the transgressions of the sometimes prevailing either malignant or inconsiderate Party in them 58. Even my harmless peradventure must not pass without Pag. 28. some unfavourable reflection from this Gentleman as if it should have related to all the three guilty Corporations or as if I had doubted whether any one of them had been guilty Whereas in truth it must not import in any equal construction not even to the most rigorous Logician Grammarian or Lawyer considering what goes before and follows after any more than some doubt or some scruple about some one of the three granting the other two without any contradiction guilty And that one P. W. ingeniously confesses to have been Galway And the reason of his doubt or scruple then concerning this Town which occasioned the addition of that wary peradventure to have been that he had not then had from such hands as he could wish or could rely upon the perfect relation of that Towns carriage since 48. towards my Lord Lieutenant or the Marquess of Clanrickard But whatsoever it was nay whatever that of Waterford or Limerick either has been and however the evidence of their transgressions Pag. 28. amount to much more than P. W's peradventure yet is it very untrue what this Gentleman further asserts that the subject reacheth much farther than P. W ' s. two or three Corporations Or that the highest Acts of Treachery and Rebellion Pag. 29. have been the general pâ—actice of all such into which his Majesties Lord Lieutenant desired admission But his tongue is no slander as the Proverb is especially since he neither doth fix nor as I believe can fix upon even any one more since the Peace of 48. For if he should instance any other before that his allegation would be impertinent against me even as to such or to overthrow the Articles of that Peace And I say moreover that whatever the transgressions of the said three and if you please add three more disobedient Corporations have been I am sure they amount not to the Crimes of those other Towns possessed even at that time in Ireland and ever since the beginning of the Wars to this very day by English Protestants such I mean as went under that Notion which a Person of as great Quality as this Gentleman either concurred with or induced to manifest Rebellion and inexcusable Treachery both without any comparison surmounting the transgressions of Galway Limerick and Waterford even to fall away openly from his Grace and from his Majesty and turn professed Enemies to both even to declare for Cromwell and the long Parliament and receive in their Forces long before Galway Limerick and Waterford can be said to have been guilty of any of the transgressions true or false charged upon them and even I say to receive those Enemy-Forces without any kind of necessity nay to declare for them even before they had seen an Enemy come within sixscore miles of them nay to have made their bargain with them before Cromwell set his foot on Irish ground And I am yet further certain that however Waterford Limerick and Galway transgressed their guilt cannot in justice render the generality of other Corporate places guilty nor consequently forfeitable much less the generality of the Catholick people or Proprietors of Estates in Ireland Nay not even the faithful honest Inhabitants of those very Towns I mean Limerick Waeerford Galway or such Inhabitants of them I say as were not guilty of the Crimes committed by their fellow-Gitizens Unless peradventure this Person of Quality can evince that the Laws involve the Innocent with the Nocent and that a good King doing Justice to his People not by the Sword drawn or Cannon charged or Legions marshall'd assaulting a Rebellous Town or Men in Armes but by the Laws and Judges and other Civil Ministers of Justice ought not to discriminate 'twixt the just and the wicked Or unless â—e can maintain that Kings may without injustice confiscate all Cities Towns and even whole Kingdomes where any Dâ—sobediences Contempts Plots Conspiracies or Rebellions may be truly charged on some of their fellow-Citizens or Countrymen Or that his Majesty
this Gentleman would prove Pag. 57. that the Peace was designedly broken before it was made As nothing did ever yet conduce more to the vindication of Charles the First of ever blessed memory from the horrid Calumnies with which his Enemies did asperse him than the printing of his Letters taken at the Battel of Nasby So with due reverence to his Sacred name I may say that nothing could have befallen of more advantage to the Irish Catholicks than that all their Books and all the original Papers of their home and forein Transactions have come into the hands of their Adversaries and that the whole substance of them should be thus spread abroad and be thus illustrated with such a Comment as leaves nothing unsaid that Art or Malâ—ce could suggest For if they had not been masters of those Books and Papers they who now accuse the Roman Catholicks to have sought for assistance in their greatest necessities from a forein protection would then proclame to the World that they were become the Subjects of another Prince and had sworn Fealty to him They that now by all the Cavills and Fallacies imaginable endeavour to find out Contradictions in their Oaths and do comment only upon their Intentions would then publish that they had expresly sworn to exclude his Majesty and to choose a King of the Nation They who now by weak inferences would prove that the Irish Papists meaâ—t to suppress Protestant Religion would then averr that they had sworn to extirpate all Protestants the Protestant Prelates especially They who now only upbraid them for having proceeded against the Laws of the Kingdom would then loudly declare that they had clean laid them aside and that they had introduced and were sworn to maintain the Brehon Law Their Crimes would have been as many and as hainous as their Adversaries could fancy them and their actions would have been conveighed to Posterity in a torrent of horrour and perfidy But now they give us the Text out of their own Record and nothing is left them but to comment upon it which this Gentleman omits not to doe with such a sophistry and so great a willingness to make them seem black and hideous as the Catholicks may esteem it happy for them that he is not wholly left at large to follow his invention 108. But although this Person of Quality may have those Records in his custody yet I will give him my assistance to sort them by letting him know the Time and Occasion upon which these several Oaths were taken And with his good leave I must tell him that this which he sets forth to be in the first roul is a complicated Oath to which the later part which begins Moreover was not added untill the Year Pag. 58. Pag. 59. 1646. In which year likewise the Oath of adhering to the present Union of the Confederate Catholicks that rejected the Peace was administred And it might very well have happened that the Grand Committee upon failer of the performance of the Articles of Peace then to be concluded obliged themselves to reassume their Union But this must have been in the Year 1645. before the Peace of 46. was assented unto by a Party that in favour of the Nuncio who opposed it moved all scruples imaginable and might have objected that if such another as Sir William Parsons who would not perform those Articles came to govern the Kingdom what was to be done in that Case This remedy might perhaps have been thought proper for their satisfaction But that this should have happened in the Year 48. is an assertion as vain as it is malicious For the World knows that the Peace of 48. was treated and concluded unanimously by the Assembly the Lord Lieutenant being in the same City with them And as to the Committee the name and use of it was very superfluous in a place where a few Persons daily brought the sense of the House in difficult matters to his Excellency and what seemed to be knotty of the part of his Excellency was upon all occasions resolved by the Assembly that constantly sate at so near a distance 109. I shall likewise give the Reader this faithful relation as to the other Oaths When the Peace of 46. was rejected by the greater Vote of those who by the terrour of the Northern Army by the suggestion of the Nuncio's Pag. 64 65. active Emissaries and by the affright of an Excommunication were induced to violate the publick Faith Which undoubtedly is the ground of all the sufferings of the Nation Then it was that the same Assembly framed that Oath of adhering to the Union of the Confederate Roman Catholicks that rejected the Peace And having chosen a supreme Council composed for the most part of the rejecters of the Peace they for that time conceived themselves secure But the People having had some respite from the fears they had before entertained coming to a new Election for the succeeding Assembly such for the most part were chosen to be of the supreme Council that had served in that place before and were known to have good inclinations to settle the Kingdom under his Majesties Government Wherefore the Prelates distrusting those hands into which the power of the Confederates was committed got that part which begins with the word Moreover to be added to the Oath of Pag. 59. Association and the general Assembly that knew it was and alwayes kept it in their power to approve of or consent to any Peace they thought fit gave them satisfaction in that which could no longer interrupt a settlement than they list 110. Having thus placed the Gentlemans Records in due order and given the Reader some light to lead him through Pag. 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68. a discourse knotty and perplext and endeavoured to be made so if I be not much deceived I shall descend to the Commentary But I shall first desire the Reader to consider that I take not upon me with relation to these happy times when the Restoration of his Majesty hath given life to his Laws to justifie the Irish Catholicks against Mr. Attorney at the Bar. His Majesties Mercy is their sole plea and the Sanctuary to which they resort 111. Wherefore laying aside those legal Tryals by which infallibly those who set up a Government in opposition to his Majesties by what hand soever that Government was managed those that swear to obey and ratifie all the Orders and Decrees made and to be made by such a Government would be adjudged Traytors let us resort back to those confused times and examine whether as things then were carried it might stand with the rules of Reason and Self-preservation to admit that to swear to bear true Faith and Allegiance to the King and to swear to obey and ratifie all the Orders and Decrees made and to be made by the Supreme Council are flat and known contradictories To prevent confusion they swear to obey the Orders
of Sauls Children and the Gibeonites Pag. 90. 130. Where in the first place I must tell our Person of Quality he hath very ill endeavoured to shew how far that is Pag. 90. parallel to the present Case of the Irish and how far it is not And I must tell him that neither his paralleling differencing The Parallel made and the Differences given by the Person of Quality in the Case or Example of Saul 's Children and the Gibeonites proved ridâ—lous end unconcludiâ—g c. or indeed imposing here on the Reader and on holy Scripture too can prove that I have unjustly applyed tâ—ose examples of Gods most righteous Judgements 131. He might without any labour have seen in that Letter which without any reason he took so much pains to contradict matter enough for a more pertinent and more ample parallel He might have observed the great King of Heaven and Earth in a Parliament of Angels bestowing the Land Canaan on the Descendants of Abraham for the Rebellion of the Inhabitants and this gift again confirmed by him to them many hundred years after even in that other great Parliament of Angels and Men both which he held on Sina Mount amidst lightnings and thunders and those terrible voices and the sound of Clarions mingled in that loud dinn confirmed I say with so much solemnity and even confirmed in his written Laws given there by Moses to the Children of Israel and yet confirmed in a special command given them never to make Peace or Truce with the old Inhabitants of Palestine not even with the Amorhites by name He might have remembred the vast expence of an Army of 600000 fighting men employed by him to get possession of them even by force and blood and by so many prodigious miracles and wonders and Kings slain and Monsters quell'd and Cities overthrown and Kingdoms harraz'd and ruined for ever to make way for his beloved People to enjoy the gift he had once made to them so solemnly He might after this have considered a Treaty of Peace entertained nevertheless with some of those very Nations with the Gibeonites I say who were the Children of Amorheus and a Peace concluded with them by Josuah even God's own Lieutenant over his peculiar chosen people and by his 12 great Captains and without the knowledge or consent of any other Assembly Council or Parliament of Israel or of his great Army or of the infinite number of other persons young men old men and women and children of Abraham and Jacobs posterity who yet were all highly concerned in the effects of it as being in part destructive to their rights and lessening the gift which God made to them and quitting their claim to so many great Cities and the territories adjoyning He might further have remembred the delusion and circumvention were such whereby those Gibeonites obtained the Peace that they were not known or thought by Josua or by his Captains to be Inhabitants of that Land which God had bestowed on the Children of Israel the tatter'd rags and old Shooes and wine bottles rent and the dry and mouldy bread of these crafty Inhabitants and even those manifest express verbal lyes which the Book of Josuah relates having been made use of by the fearful Gibeonites to circumvent Josuah till he concluded with them He might likewise have remembered the advancing of the Camp within three dayes after this Treaty perfected to the very Cities of the Gibeonites to storm them as being within the Lot of that Army of God and such as they had been long before commanded by God himself and in his Law to Conquer even by destroying utterly the Inhabitants root and branch And might remember the Countermand given by Josuah nevertheless when he understood they belonged to those he made Peace with and this Countermand given and yet a further command to observe strictly the Articles yea notwithstanding the general murmurings of his Army and people against him This great Commander of the Legions of God who had in all his enterprizes the Spirit of God judging it without any peradventure to be the pleasure of this great King of Kings as flowing from the Dictates of natural Reason that such as though by such arts had undisposed themselves to a War and their own defence and wholly relyed on his word should be protected in all their rights and their Articles observed most religiously to them and that no commands of God in his positive Laws though in general terms seemingly against it did reach to this or such a particular Case Finally our Person of Quality might have considered the Gibeonites not only interceded for four principal Cities in particular and for the teâ—ritories adjoyning but were even themselves and their Cities professors of Idolatry and Heathenisme and worshipers of false Gods as on the other side Josuah and his Army and people the propagators of the only true worship of the God of Heaven 132. Our Person of Quality might have considered all this which if he had and then reflected on the Rebellion of Ireland even of those very Septs which without question he accounts not only as pricks in his sides and thorns in his eyes but even as bad as the Canaanites Hittites c. or the very worst of the Amorhites and to be extirpated as these were out of the good Land flowing with milk and honey but not the Land of Promise I hope to him alone or to the Saints of his Calender and after did reflect on a good King his late Majesty so justly incensed by this provocation and on his Parliament and Laws of 17 Caroli and on his donation and division therein of the Rebels Estates and on the Army employed and Captains made and the great Commander of them in that Kingdom under his Majesty and on the bloody though just prosecution of that War and Battails fought and Legions vanquished and the better part of the four Provinces of Ireland utterly destroyed if he had then remembered the application made to his Majesty and his Lieutenant and the Treaty admitted and a Peace concluded even with those very Septs before designed for destruction even that very Peace of 48. I mean if I say our Person of Quality had soberly considered all this and the circumstances and the advantages which are for me certainly he might have seen matter enough for a more pertinent and more ample parallel and might have seen it in the Kings in the Subjects in the Lands or Countries in the Crimes in the just offences in the resolutions of punishment in the Parliaments in the Laws of Donation and Partition in the Armies and Commanders in the sharp prosecutions of the War in the Treaties nevertheless entertained with the Rebels and Peaces concluded with them in the murmuring complaints of Armies and of inconsiderate People and in their unjust endeavours to ruine those for ever and specially four Cities who relying on the words of their great Commanders unfurnished themselves of all
this Reply and partly in my Printed Letter and Irish Colours Folded and others have more amply in several occasions and his Majesty whose testimony and authority is above all exception most graciously and truly declares in his publick Act of Settlement as we have now seen That what this Trifling Author of Horae subsecivae objects of an interloping Conquerer c. makes no alteration in the Case For 1. I must tell this Gentleman he doth no less ignorantly than improperly style the success of the Usurper a Conquest or him a Conquerer The raising of Armes by Subjects against their Soveraign had never yet any name in England or Ireland or in the Laws of either but Rebellion and Treason And the effects of Treason and Rebellion can never be termed properly or truly a Conquest nor the prevailing Traytor a Conquerour For that were to give a Right and Title that might pass to the Traytor 's Posterity in succession 2. That Charles the 2. whom God preserve and his Father are looked on by this Author and by this Objection as dispossess'd by the Usurper Which is plain ignorance or at least a willful and malicious mistake of the Laws of England which so preserve the Possessions of the Crown as the King cannot be dispossessed by a Subject A Subject may intrude and take the profits of the Land belonging to the King But this in Law can never amount to the dispossessing of the King Where-ever Charles the 2. was the 30th of January in the Year 1648. being the fatal day of his Father's death eo instanti he began his Reign and therefore now is the 16. Year thereof Whereas if he could be dispossess'd of his Crown by his rebellious Subjects and that horrid Action could be styled a Conquest and his regaining thereof again a new Conquest this should be but the fourth Year of his Reign And who sees not it were a very ill exchange for his Majesty to forgoe his antient and undoubted Right to the Crown of England and to own his holding and enjoyment thereof by Conquest on an Usurper who could pretend no right thereunto 3. That that his ground of his former bold impious and bloody Assertion or after-conclusion thence derived of an interloping usurping Conquerour if admitted for sound or solid for good or true Doctrine might prove very disadvantagious and injurious to his Majesties Subjects in general English and Scots of what Religion soever no less than Irish Papists even I say in their Estates Liberties and Lives For if a King come even to a Christ an Kingdom by Conquest he hath Vitae Necis potestatem He may at his pleasure alter and change the Laws of that Kingdom as appears in Cook l. 7. Report Calamy s Case 4. That he falsly charges the Irish Papists to have owned c. the Usuprer as I have a little above declared 5. That he doth as falsly and ignorantly or at least out of designed malice and against his own Conscience averr That the Civilians have in like Cases long since decided this Case of the Irish truly stated as I have above or any way decided for him that of an interloping usurping Conquerour c. applyed to Charles the 2. and his good Subjects whether English Scots or Irish even I mean those very Irish Papists that formerly had been Confederates and after submitted to his Majesty or his Father upon Articles fought constantly for him and under his Banner and by his Commission against the Usurper and never submitted since to any other Power whatsoever but with his said Majesties own consent If this Gentleman can allege but even one Civilian for himself even I say in this Case of his or any other such interloping usurping Conquerour truly applyed I will grant him somewhat to excuse his no less inhumane than uncharistian and most horrid Assertion But I am confident all his malice cannot find one whom he dares quote in writing or print So farr doth he speak as out of all reason so out of all Books 6. That by consequence necessary following the obligation of publick Agreements the Irish cannot be punished by the King as this Author sayes they may Lege Talionis no more than he can by any other Law as is before shewed of God or Man War or Nations For the King hath already bound his own hands from acting against them by retaliation or otherwise acknowledges himself to be so bound in honour and justice according I mean to those Articles of 48. and to such as cannot be proved to have by after disobedience or siding with an Enemy forfeited them And so I bid this learned honest prudent Author of Horaesubsecivae adieu and to his impertinent reflections on this subject and my self And will only add this to thee judicious Reader to be considered whether it be not agreeable to all justice and equity that those who lost their lives and fortunes in asserting his Majesties Cause as they have been losers and afflicted with him and for him too in his adversity ought not in these dayes of his Majesties power and prosperity regain thereby their lost fortunes especially where the Publick Faith was engaged for their restitution As for that scruple which peradventure some may think uncleared as yet of some few or even many of those Articling Papists of Ireland to have forfeited the benefit of those Articles and not for themselves alone but even for all the rest of their Countrymen though not in their own persons guilty of any such breach as those were or any at all And for the ground or reason alleged by some for this scruple viz. That by the prevarication of those few or many whether the greater or lesser part of that People whether the Representatives of the whole or nor the Kings end in granting those Articles was frustrated forasmuch as thereby it happened that he could not carry on his main Design then against the Usurpers And as for that too which is further alleged to this purpose or for the illustration of it and further grounding of that scruple That if a Garrison be dismissed out of a Town upon certain Articles of War to be freely and safely conveighed to their own Quarters or General and that any part of them break any of these Articles which they were to observe at their peril the whole number have forfeited their right to any such free passage or safe convey and are at the mercy of the Conquerour It is answer'd That the End by either side proposed to themselves in making a Peace or Articles being frustrated doth not invalidate such Peace or Articles unless such End be in those Articles expressed and further clear express caution inserted in the Agreement that otherwise it shall be void Else I pray what Stipulation Pact Agreement or Peace on Earth can hold or oblige either side And for that Example of a Garrison Town or Souldiers capitulating on Articles of War it s answered The condition of Subjects enjoying the benefit and protection of the Laws is faâ—r different from that of Enemies A just Coâ—querour may without injustice if he please so he break not his word take from his Enemies even thâ—ir lives and that not only for the crime or breach of some but in some cases without any such crime or breach by any of them But a just King cannot so carry himself towards his own Subjects whom he doth once own as such and as such to be protected and governed by his Laws as other free-born Subjects For such he cannot without injustice punish for the Disobedience Breach or Rebellion of any other lesser or even greater part of their fellow Subjects whether these represent the whole body of his Subjects or not whether they frustrate or not his best Designes and his greatest most glorious and just Enterprizes or nor Otherwise what should become according to such Law and Justice I speak of all the good Subjects of England Ireland Scotland if the King pleased to proceed according to that rigour of Justice against them when he was re-inthroned Nay what should become of all other good Subjects of any Prince or State on Earth ' gainst whom there have been such frequent Rebellions Besides it is against the true meaning of all Laws Divine and Humane that a Judge or Prince doing Justice to his â—ubjects in a legal way not by force of Armes should involve the Innocent in the guilt or punishment of the Nocent And therefore it is plain that neither that Scruple Reason of it nor Example or Similitude brought to strengthen it can make any thing for them that would thence conclude the King is wholly free from any Obligation to any part of the Irish Catholicks arising from the Articles of 48. They have been since that Peace of 48 Subjects not Enemies And those Articles had not any such Clause inserted that in case any part lesser or greater Representatives or not should break the Conditions the rest should likewise forfeit and the End frustrated doth not make them to forfeit FINIS
the Law when upon just cause they do desire it And it is further my Lord that I plead yet more particularly for a People who are sufficiently known to have preserved and our of their natural affection to the true English Interest and self-preservation by that Interest and out of a Conscience too of their obligation by all the Laws of God and Man to be loyal Sbjects to his most sacred Majesty who only is the supreme and most proper Judge of that Interest to have so preserved the Kingdom of Ireland in the late Wars from being alienated from the Crown of England and from his Majesty to a powerful Foreiner and whose Ancestors in Tirones Rebellion against Queen Elizabeth and in so many preceding Revolutions during the fatal Divisions of Lancaster and York under Henry the 6. and in the Barons Wars in King John's Reign as likewise in all other occasions which have been but too frequent since the first Conquest by Henry the Second are famous in Chronicles for having mantain'd and commonly at their own private charges and their own private hazard alone the very same true English Interest in that Nation But if notwithstanding two such weighty considerations besides those many other given your Grace not in this Work only but also in my two former Addresses the Catholicks of Ireland must be eternally miserable and if it be so decreed that these poor People must be utterly destroyed and at this time too and by the very impression of King Charles's the no less Just than Merciful's Royal Hand and Seal and by the very concurrence of the Duke of Ormond and as well by occasion of their most loyal endeavours or of having fought constantly for so many years while any fighting was in any of the three Kingdoms for his Majesty as upon account of those other which they have long since reâ—entantly acknowledg'd to have been illegal in the beginning or prosecution of the Irish War by any of them untill his Majesty had by Articles of Peace graciously own'd them all for dutiful Subjects Or if it be so decreed that the poor Catholick Party of Ireland must be the Scape-Goat of Leviticus devoted to all the Vengeance Levit. 16. both of Heaven and Earth and that upon the unlucky head of this caytiff beast and even by the imposition of Aarons's hands at the door of the Tabernacle before and in the name of the whole Congregation of God's chosen People of the British Empire all their own sins and all their own transgressions must be laid and all the maledictions and imprecations of punishment which their own iniquities or those of any of them at any time deserved to bring upon themselves if I say this devoted sin-offering must be loaden so and with so much ceremony sent away and by a man of opportunity led along to the Wilderness to a Land not inhabited and if all this appear just and fit in your eyes to be accomplish'd in his Majesties Catholick Subjects of Ireland may the good pleasure of God and will of the King be done And may the rest of his People of so many different Nations Religions and Interests enjoy all the blessings of a prosperous Peace under the shadow of his Wings and protection of his Laws and Armes Which my Lord and that your Grace may however determine of this great Affair by those Rules of heavenly Knowledge which cannot err and which God alone can sufficiently instruct you with shall be the continual Prayer of My Lord Your Graces most humble most obsequious and most faithful Servant THE PUBLISHER's BRIEF Advertisement To the READER HAving read above two years and a half since a Book first Printed in Dublin without the Author's Name otherwise expressed than by that of a Person of Quality and the same Piece after of another Edition at London with the Frontispiece or Title-Page twice changed but into farr worse every time with that Person of Quality's Titles prefixed and the Gentleman's Name likewise 'gainst whose Letter he writ and by perusal of it having sadly considered the eternal Infamy this Person of Quality would have left to after Ages affixed to the memory of the Catholick Confederates and People of Ireland who profess the Roman Faith and no less the general destruction of all those poor unfortunate Confederates and People designed by him if his advice prevail I could not after some months more had pass'd but admire the supine carelessness of all my Countrymen at home that none of them would undertake the pains of replying to him and speak in Print those known clear Truths both against his manifest falsities and manifold fallacies which I have so often heard by word of mouth from very knowing and sincere Gentlemen of that Country who were privy to all the Transactions there since 41. Which was the reason together with that resentment every good Patriot should have I writ to my Friends in Ireland and such as were likelyest to know whether any one had thought of a Reply or whether they all did give the Person of Quality's Answer for un-answerable At last after much enquiry and pains taken in this Business and some Charges too it pleased God I should receive a Manuscript Copy of this you have here And though I know not the Author but by report nor understand the reason why he would not do his Country right in appeasing this strom which had been raised to so great a height by occasion partly of his own former Writings in behalf of his distressed Countrymen albeit that could be no just occasion either for this Person of Quality or the Man in the Dark in England who writ formerly against him The Irish Colours displayed and whom P. W. did soon after and ever since put to silence by his former Reply entitled The Irish Colours solded nor even for any other to write against P. W's Countrymen or himself yet I found my self obliged to do both the Author and his Country the kindness to publish to the World in Print and with all sincerity without any corruption or the least alteration that very Manuscript as it came to my hands boping the Author will take this my kindness in good part for I am sure my Country will since it doth all Irish Catholicks that right than which scarce ought any thing be more desirable to men that regard their honour and reputation Bâ—sides the Demonstrations are so clear in point of Conscience Equity Honour and even Interest of His Majesty and the English Nation which P. W. gives all along in this Piece where occasion requires it against our Person of Quality's inhumane Counsells given throughout his Answer to the Duke of Ormond and even to His Majesty that Providence I hope will make some use of this Reply by some means or other to let His Grace the Duke of Ormond and by His Grace our most gracious King see through this cruel Design of our Person of Quality's advice for destroying the Irish
did shrink and would have been guided in their retreat at any rate Therefore the Army ran away 66. I was astonish'd to find that this Gentleman because I writ that when England Scotland and the Protestants of Ireland wholly deserted the Royal Cause the Irish Pag. 33. Catholicks fought against the Regicides in defence of his Majesties Rights should break out into so immoderate passion against me And asking of some Friends whence they conceived this should proceed I was told by one of them better versed in the propriety of English words than I am that the words to desert in English are alwayes taken in a bad sense and among Souldiers signifie commonly not only a desisting from action but a joyning with the Enemy which I protest was not nor in truth could be my meaning I say in relation to those Protestant Royalists that having past unblemish'd through all tryals and being over-pow'red and seeing no way under Heaven left them to maintain the most just Cause which they endeavoured through all extremities to assert deseruerunt causam gave it over and laid down Armes And this and no other being the sense I intended that assertion should carry I believe this Gentleman himself will say the Irish Catholicks were the last in the three Dominions that laid down Armes and gave over to fight for the Royal Cause And it may be that he himself is a witness beyond all exception in the case since perhaps he might have assisted to take in Limerick and Galway after which sieges there was no further exercises of that kind given to Cromwell and his Associates any where in favour of his Majesties interests And this truth this Irish Papist dares speak in the sight of Heaven how bitter soever Pag. 33. this Person of Quality is pleased to be against him both in his expressions and silence And yet further can tell both him and others that since he is loath to call me Rebel as he sayes I am no less him though if the arguments to prove me a Rebel and those may be alleged for his having been such were put in equal ballance his side would perhaps Pag. 33. overweigh not only a thousand but even ten thousand to one 67. Now setting apart as I always do the Protestant Royalists of England and Scotland and those of Ireland who know and will aver that they were dismiss'd where the Irish Catholicks prosecuted the War against the Regicides under the Lord Lieutenant and the Marquess of Clanrickard Lord Deputy of Ireland I will proceed to give the Reader a more faithfull Narrative of the actions of those times As for the Irish Papists their being Regicides themselves at least so far as conspiring to murther his Majesty in effigie at Pag. 34. Waterford c. These are but flourishes that may amuse the ignorant but will not satisfie the judicious Reader 68. King Charles the First of happy memory having been forced during the late troubles in the year 43. to make a Cessation of Armes with his Irish Subjects the Covenanting Party of the Scots in Ulstor and some of the English both in Ulster and Connaght that adhered to them paying no Obedience to his Majesties Authority by which it was concluded continued their Acts of Hostility and found employment both for the Armes of the Irish Catholicks in them parts and those whom the Lord Lieutenant authorized to joyn to suppress them while the Party in Munster for some time submitted to his Majesties Commands in accepting the Cessation and in that space of time sent over Forces to his assistance following therein the Lord Lieutenants directions and examples who shipp'd from Dublin upon that occasion the greatest part of his Army under his command in Leinster 69. It is certain that both English and Irish were engaged by duty to transport their Armes into England for his Majesties assistance but to say that the Irish were engaged by Pag. 35. Articles to do the same is a meer fiction and the more notable that at this time the clamour the Kings Enemies in England had raised against Popery and his Majesties countenancing of it was so great as particular persons of that profession could scarce find admittance to serve in his Majesties Army At length those English Protestants in Munster in the Month of June 1644. upon pretence of Plots and Machinations against them by the Irish Catholicks Pag. 35. whereof to this day no proof was produced nor in that time any colour alleged without informing the chief Governour of the Kingdom or giving him the least intimation of their resolutions deserted the Royal Cause and thence after untill the year 48. fought under the banner of his Majesties Enemies and were enlisted in their pay 70. I cannot blame this Gentleman that he seeks good company for those whom he meant to patronize and would Pag. 36 34 35. rank them with those under the Lord Lieutenants immediate Command in Dublin who near upon four years after having seen two Armies of the Confederates under the Command of the Nuncio near the City fearing a second attempt having had their quarters entirely destroyed obeyed his Majesties command in giving up Dublin and the rest of the Garrisons to the Parliament To make the parity reach home the party in Munster should have attended the commands of a lawful power and although they have obeyed necessity and laid down their Armes yet it had been their duty as Subjects and Souldiers to have behaved themselves as did the generous Officers at Dublin who neither sued for nor accepted employment under the Enemy And I may well say that this their defection was fatal to his Majesties interest in Ireland for had they kept themselves in a condition to joyn with the rest of the English Protestants in the Peace which was concluded in the year 46. the confusion which was introduced by the breach of it had been prevented and Owen ô Neill had wanted strength to countenance that rupture 71. In the Year 48. the Lord of Inchiquin having been advertized out of France of the resolution taken again to engage the Lord Lieutenant in the service of Ireland and the supreme Council of the Confederates having received the same advertizement both readily condescended to a Cessation of Armes in order to the Peace which was to follow And the Lord of Inchiquin who with wonderful dexterity managed that affair maugre the opposition of some of the Officers prevail'd with the Army under his Command to declare for the King And it cannot be denied that they proved very useful in the Cause as well in the prosecution Pag. 34. as after in assisting to take in Drogheda Dundalk and other Garrisons kept by the Enemy after the conclusion of the Peace But the defeat at Rathmynes and the landing of Cromwell made them think of bettering their fortunes by siding with the more successful Party And their Fellows having already betrayed the Garrisons intrusted to them to Cromwell
inferences upon weak grounds For taking both the Texts together which this Gentleman to make the Comment the fuller hath divided and reflecting upon the evill times and the necessity to which the Catholicks were reduced and how nothing was to be acted but by the advice of those that were employed into France to his Majesty and the Queen his Mother it was no wonder supposing the Pope would be munificent towards the maintenance of that War which besides the interests of Catholick Religion had for scope the re-inthroning of the King that his Holiness should be admitted to receive reasonable satisfaction by the Articles and to oblige the Pope to descend to such Conditions as might be granted in matters of Religion that they were to represent to his Holiness the lowness of their own condition the power and strength of their Enemies and to solicit for considerable aides whereby to maintain a War And not only that but to ascertain and secure the same Pag. 46. 92. This and no other being the sense of those Instructions cited by this Gentleman himself And that their imploring of aid and protection tending to no other end Is it not strange he could conclude with saying Still the Pag. 47. Pope is their King Does it appear by this That the Irish Papists hang as their Faith in God so their Loyalty to the Prince on the Popes sleeve Yet after his accustomed manner Pag. 47. he comments thus upon that Text and would liken the protection they sought to the power of the Protector Pag. 47. in England which beyond Royal was Tyrannical although some men by elaborated speeches strove to make it Legitimate by conferring Kingship on Cromwell 93. We are now come to the Year 1648. and here again we find this Gentleman forgets not to allege with the same truth he had before that the Irish Papists disowned the Peace Pag. 47. then made disobeyed opposed conspired to murther excommunicated and banished his Majesties Vice-Roy But should I repeat my Answers as often as he reiterates his Charge my Reply would grow to a Volume And therefore I referr the Reader to what is formerly said as I do to what belongs to his summary Conclusion 94. It is true that in some points of Faith the Catholicks oppose both the Protestants and Sectaries but the Catholick Pag. 48. and Protestant Royalist agree in point of Loyalty The fighting against the Regicides or Sectaries And to prove this by an Experiment more convincing than that which this Gentleman formerly gave us these two Parties joyned for two or three years under the same Command in the same Army to fight against those this Gentleman's Protestants which can be no other than Sectaries And if not the fighting but the ground and end of the fighting Pag. 48. proves which is the good Subject This reaches home to those that to palliate their evill intentions feigned themselves Protestant Royalists And when Cromwell went into Ireland deserting his Majesties service presented him with the fruits of their treachery the City of Cork and the rest of those strong holds in Munster whilst the true Protestant Royalist and the Irish Catholick stuck to their Principles And not content to abstain from the Rebells in Ireland many of them adhered to his Majesty in his banishment and followed his fortune abroad Now how could Sampson himself tye their tails together that scarce ever met but as Enemies is a riddle to me Pag. 49. 95. The reason why I said that the power of this Gentleman 's Protestants in Ireland was no greater than his Majesty was pleased to make it was grounded on the reports which were daily brought to London of the Phanaticks menaces Pag. 49. not to give way to the execution of any of the Kings Orders by which any of the Natives was to be restored And knowing that there wanted no hands among the Protestant Royalists and the Irish Catholicks sufficient to bring them to reason I slighted their threats and their power to second them by saying that it is no greater as in truth it is not than his Majesty is pleased to make it As for the Elogium that follows if the Gentleman holds himself to my intention he must allow that it wholly concerns the Phanaticks 96. This Gentleman sayes after his manner That the Contents of those Articles are in themselves unwarrantable except Pag. 50. in case of necessity which hath no Law His Majesty Concerning the Pleâ— of Justice grounded on the Articles sayes he having condescended by them that the Militia Treasury and Army of fifteen thousand Foot two thousand five hundred Horse of Irish Papists and even in effect the Legistative power should be in the hands of twelve men to be chosen by Irish Papists and that there should be no alteration in England of what they in Ireland should thiâ—k sit to transmit to his Majesty and that the Rebells should be pardoned without consent of Parliament when his Maâ—esty in Parliament adjudged such pardons before conviction to be ruâ—l and void and that they assumed the Legislative power by repealing Poynings Act all which sayes he is against Law and the Oath the King takes at his Coronation 97. What a task would the answering of all these Heads this Gentleman vents at a breath prove to me if these Articles of Peace were not so common as to be in the hands of very many This Gentleman will give me leave to ask him whether he himself believes the King broke his Coronation Oath or Pag. 51. gave away his Militia because he granted that this so considerable an Army should be kept on foot under the conduct of his Lieutenant of Ireland for maintenance of his interests in so great streights as his Majesty was reduced to at a time when his enemies had thrice that number in the Field against him Did the King break his Oath or give away his right in the Treasury because he gave power to his Lieutenant with the advice of certain select Persons of the Natives to levy money for the maintenance of this Army and for other charges incident to the Government Or do those select persons assume the legislative power of the Kingdom because it is inserted in those Articles that both Houses of Parliament may consider what they shall think convenient touching the repeal or suspension of the Statute commonly called Poynings Act And cannot his Majesty pardon his Subjects of Ireland although he give his Royal Assent to an Act past in the Parliament of England by which such pardon before conviction is declared null and void 98. He adds That although the Irish Catholicks chiefly Pag. 51. pleaded for restitution of their Estates by vertue of those Articles yet if they had prevailed therein upon the score of that plea it must in consequence have adjudged for them the benefit of all the other Articles as a Right But this Gentleman foresees not that he is to
convince himself of an untruth fol. 79. where he says and that truly That the most essential parts of the Articles of Peace were to be finally obliging Pag. 79. but as they were to be confirmed by Act of Parliament in the next Parliament which should be assembled after the perfecting of the said Articles of Peace So as his Majesties promises are partly absolute partly relative to his further pleasure But no Wood comes amiss to this Gentleman of which Arrows may be made to shoot at the Irish Catholicks And although we find contradiction in his Words yet there is never any in his Intentions when the question is of aspersing them 99. This Gentleman might have taken notice that the Irish Catholicks have in all the Papers published by them Pag. 52. and in all their pleadings before his Majesty been so careful of the intention his Royal Father of happy memory expressed to see the just Adventurer satisfied that they made no opposition thereunto And although both Parties were allowed while the substance of his Majesties gracious Declaration of the 30th of November 1660. was controverted to speak their minds yet since his Majesties sentence is definitive in the point their duty obliges him to acquâ—esce as they did long before in order to the Declaration at Breda 100. And let not this Gentleman trouble himself to find an answer for that which P. W never intended to object For he is confident His Majesty was not under an Obligation precedent and opposite to those Articles which might extend to Pag. 52 53. Ireland as a legal engagement And therefore his excuses in behalf of the late King were very superfluous As it is untrue that the breach of those Articles on the Irish side occasioned so long and so tedious a War But the dividing Pag. 53 54. of the Bear 's skin as farr as it will goe hath at this time raised the malice of men to the height it is grown into As the hope to attain the dividing of it did at first foment the Rebellion by the testimony of the best of Kings in that incomparable Legacy which not long before his death he left to the World But some kind of Zeales counts all merciful moderation lukewarmness and rather be counted cruel than cold and is not seldom more greedy to kill the Bear for his skin than for any harm he has done the Confiscation of mens Estates being more beneficial than the charity of saving their Lives or mending their Errours 101. I shall intreat the Reader to observe that in the several Dishes served at this Feast all is but Pork in a different dress The difficult Conditions which the murtherers of his Father forced compelled and necessitated his Majesty to grant are written in Capital Letters and the breach of the Peace which cannot be proved is taken pro concesso And thence but not without too much straining this Gentleman inferrs That the breach on their side contributed to if Pag. 54. not acted that unparallel'd Crime And he again comments upon the word freely as if his Majesty driven to so great streights might not do that freely which he did upon difficult Pag. 54. Conditions 102. Again we have the broken Peace served up But now he adds to garnish the Dish That he had proved the Pag. 55. violation of it by undeniable evidences when the Reader is yet to seek even for any plausible argument to induce him to believe the breach of it And again The Irish Papists despised disowned rejected expelled banish'd and excommunicated Pag. 55. the Lord Lieutenant and all adhering to him and in him his Majesttes Authority Whereas we have already demonstrated that the Nation was innocent of that Crime 103. I cannot imagine wherefore a man that shews himself so witty in expressing his malice should repeat in every Leaf the Heads of his odious Accusation against the Irish Catholicks unless that like a Fidler who had in charge to sing the Ballad he meant at every close to put his party in mind of the Burden of the Song 104. Now indeed we have somewhat new but of the same stamp For this Gentleman alleges That the Irish Papists being not able to keep the Condition expressed in their Pag. 56. Recognition which preceded the Articles inviolable they broke them And because the Reader may have all before him I do here insert that Act of Recognition His Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects as thereunto bound by Allegiance Duty and Nature do most humbly and Articles of Peace Pag. 1 or 6. freely acknowledge and recognize their Soveraign Lord King Charles to be lawful and undoubted King of this Kingdom of Ireland and other his Highness Realms and Dominions And his Majesties said Roman Catholick Subjects apprehending with a deep sense the sad condition whereunto his Majesty is reduced as a further humble testimony of their Loyalty do declare that they and their posterity for ever to the uttermost of their power even to the expence of their blood and fortunes will maintain and uphold his Majesty his Heirs and lawful Successors their Rights Prerogatives Government and Authority and thereunto freely and heartily will render all due Obedience 105. No man denies that this Recognition was made by their ruling power And it might be accounted a natural and genuine Inference that those that brake it denied themselves the benefit of the Articles of Peace But that the ruling Power of the Irish Catholicks published the breach thereof to the World or that their ruling Power made that Doclaration Pag. 56. of the 12th of August 1650. is an evident untruth as is formerly proved 106. As for this Gentleman's Dilemma here in the 56. Page of his Book to prove That even those who made these Articles with the Lord Lieutenant were guilty of their breach Pag. 56. it is answered That such of that Assembly as broke them or did not effectually observe as much as lay in them the Conditions of the Recognition did really transgress the duty expressed therein yet not when they made those Articles but when they broke them so For it is evident that every one had sufficient power and liberty to observe them in his own particular if he pleased But to say therefore that such of that Assembly as preserved themselves from disobedience were answerable for other men specially since it is acknowledged that they resigned the power to others even by those Articles or were abusers of his Majesties Authority and service must be a very wild infeference Wherefore our Gentleman 's conditional not able and were able and his Conclusion intended thence is a meer Fallacy confounding Times and Abilities and Universall with Particulars and Effects with their Causes and the obligations of using their best endeavours with that of the future being of things and of a success which God alone could ascertain 107. Now we are come to the Oaths of Association and to another Oath by which
every of them And hereunto I subscribe my Name And I shall give the Reader that pure that holy Oath indeed the Solemn League and Covenant which was the Head-spring of those others and the Fountain of all Evills that overflowed the three Nations WE Noblemen Barons Knights Gentlemen Citizens The Solemn League and Covenant Burgesses Ministers of the Gospel and Commons of all sorts in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland by the Providence of God living under one King and being of one Reformed Religion having before our eyes the Glory of God and the Advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the Honour and Happiness of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity and the true publick Liberty Safety and Peace of the Kingdoms wherein every ones private Condition is included And calling to mind the treacherous and bloody Plots Conspiracies Attempts and Practices of the Enemies of God against the true Religion and Professors thereof in all places especially in these three Kingdoms ever since the Reformation of Religion and how much their rage power and presumption are of late and at this time increased and exercised whereof the deplorable Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Ireland the dâ—stressed Estate of the Church and Kingdom of England and the dangerous Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland are present and publick testimonies We have now at last after other means of Supplication Remonstrance Protestations and Sufferings for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter ruine and destruction according to the commendable practice of these Kingdoms in former times and the example of Gods people in other Nations after mature deliberation resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and solemn League and Covenant wherein we all subscribe and each one of us for himself with our hands lifted up to the most High do Swear 1. That we shall sincerely really and constantly through the Grace of God endeavour in our several Places and callings the Preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government against our common Enemies The Reformaâ—â—on of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of God and the Example of the best Reformed Churches And shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Coâ—fession of Faith Form of Church-Government Directory for Worship and Catechising that we and our Posterity after us may as Brethren live in Faith and Love the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us 2. That we shall in like manner without respect of persons endeavour the extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellours and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-Deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Prophaness and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues And that the Lord may be one and his Name one in the three Kingdoms 3. We shall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in our several vocations endeavour with our Estates and Lives mutually to preserve the Rights and Privileges of the Parliaments and the Liberties of the Kingdoms and to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms That the World may bear witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just power and greatness 4. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any faction or parties amongst the people contrary to this League and Covenant that they may be brought to publique Tryal and receive condign â—unishment as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve or the Supreme Judicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient 5. And whereas the happiness of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms denyed in former times to our Progenitors is by the good Providence of God granted unto us and hath been lately concluded and setled by both Parliaments We shall each one of us according to our place and interest endeavour that they may remain conjoyned in a firm Peace and Union to all Posterity and that Justice may be done upon the wilfull Opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article 6. Wee shall also according to our places and callings in this common Cause of Religion Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof and shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination perswasion or terrour to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed Union and conjunction whether to make defection to the contrary part or to give our selves to a detestable indifferencie or neutrality in this Cause which so much concerneth the glory of God the good of the Kingdoms and honour of the King but shall all the days of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition and promote the same according to our power against all lets and impediments whatsoever And what we are not able our selves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known that it may be timely prevented and removed All which we shall do as in the sight of God And because these Kingdoms are guilty of many Sins and provocations against God and his Son Jesus Christ as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers the fruits thereof We profess and declare before God and the World our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins and for the sins of these Kingdoms especially that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof aâ—d that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts nor to walk worthy of him in our Lives which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us And our true and unfeigned purpose desire and endeavour for our selves and all others under our power and charge both in publick and in private in all duties we owe to God and Man to amend our lives and each one to goe before another in the example of a real Reformation That the Lord may turn away his wrath and heavy indignation and establish these Churches and Kingdoms in Truth and Peace And this Covenant we make in the presence of Almighty God the
and increase of the Orthodox Religion and likewise will promove the Conservation of the Obedience and Subjection which is fit to be paid to the King We have chosen to execute this Employment our beloved Son Petrus Franciscus Scarampus who adorned with the fame of his Ancestors and his proper Virtues preferring the Discipline of Ecclesiastical Institution before his domestick advantages inlisted himself among the Congregation of Saint Philippus Nereus He carries you our Pontifical Benediction to whom we desire you give full credence especially when he declares with how propense an inclination we wish well to the affairs of Ireland and how earnestly we desire that all of you do walk with one consent in the House of the Lord and that all of you growing to one heart and one soul do serve the Almighty Truly we conceive that this is without doubt to be expected from the great zeal with which you are inflamed in defending the Worship of the Divine Glory and the publick good As for the rest we may well conjecture with what humanity you will receive this religious man who both for his merit but chiefly for the Charge in which he is employed by us carries more than ordinary Recommendations with him yet we assure you that all the testimonies of affection which you think sit to impart to our Minister will be grateful to us In the mean time we will pray to the Highest that he come to your assistance and that he hear you in the abundance of his mercy for whom from his Divine Clemency we implore lasting felicity Given at Saint Peters in Rome under the Fishers Ring this 18th of April 1642. of our Pontificate the 20th 126. The Reader may observe this Bull preceded that other which this Gentleman pretends to have and that in this the Pope makes it part of the Charge of his Minister to promove the Conservation of the Submission and Obedience which is fit to be paid to the King And therefore to make these two Bulls stand together if there be any such Bull as this Gentleman speaks of it must be said That the Pope excited the Irish against those only whom he well knew to be Enemies both to the Religion and to the King For it were a strange way of paying Obedience to the King to weaken his Party and to root out those that fought for him 127. But if our Person of Quality notwithstanding this other Bull and contradiction of it to his own and my rational Comment on both will needs have his Bull to be a real one and that indeed the Pope therein declared his mind throughly declining the former as to that part of Scarampus Charge To promove the Conservation of that Obedience and Subjection which is fit to be paid to the King And that indeed his Holiness that was then truly intended as much as lay in him to sanctifie the Rebellion or the Armes of the Irish against his Majesties Father of blessed memory I say that all this granted makes nothing for him noâ— against the Irish in general For as much as it is very well 〈…〉 â—hat it was never so much as heard of either by the supreme Council or general Assembly of the Confederates â—â—â—ndeed by any at all of the Irish Catholicks either Lay or Ecclesiastical for any thing I could ever yet learn and I call Goâ— tâ— witness that I speak truth And I am sure had the Keepers of that Bull if any such hath been ever made it known to others I should have heard of it some way Yeâ— I wâ—ll not deâ—â— but it may be probable there might have been some such Letters procured from his Holiness Urban the 8th and that those who were of the Cabal among the more disaffected Irish for I know some such persons have been might have had such Letters in their custody waiting a fit time when their Designs had been ripe to publish them or make use of them at least amongst a disloyal Party or such as would alienate the Crown and warr against the Right English Interest But I averr withall that the keeping of it so secret for so many years and in all the Revolutions of the Irish War must be rather an argument of the aversion of the Catholick Confederates or Irish Catholicks in general from the belief or Doctrine or practice of Indulgences in such a Case a theirs was and in the sense of that Bull understood by this Gentleman than of any approbation of it From which I profess my self to the World so averse that I would have to my power opposed all three or the practice Doctrine and belief of Pardons in that case and sense and no less that of the hopes of a holy Martyrdom as no part of the Catholick Faith professed by the greatest Nations in Christendom which yet are in a most holy strict Communion with the Roman See 128. But however this be or any thing else I have hitherto alleged of my own judgement or of my own knowledge of the judgement of others in answer to this Person of Quality's arguments grounded on his either true or forged Bull and supposing the Reader expects not from me that I should walk after this Gentleman in all the paths of those Comments he makes upon ill grounded Texts not that I should deny him the privilege to feast his Party with those hideous words of general if not universal massacring and bloody Principles and Designs but I write not to fill the eaâ—s Pag. 88. of men but I write truth and that will prevail yet that I may endeavour to reclaim this Gentleman if it be possible from that savage humour that makes him express his malice with so much acrimony against Irish Catholicks and shew him how absurdly he charges their Religion with disloyal Principles and shew this by manifest Arguments which he cannot deny and Arguments by this time known throughout England Ireland Scotland nay in most Kingdoms of Europe even at Rome it self I give the Reader those printed Remonstrances Declarations Protestations c. presented to his Majesty in the original Writings and Subscriptions To the Kings most Excellent Majesty The humble Remonstrance Acknowledgement Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland YOur Majesties faithful Subjects the Roman Catholick Clergy of your Maâ—esties Kingdom of Ireland do most humby represent this their present State and deplorable Condition That being intrusted by the indispensable Commission of the King of Kings with the Cure of Souls and the Care of their Flocks in order to the Administration of Sacraments and teaching the People that perfect Obedience which for Conscience sake they are bound to pay to your Majesties Commands they are loaden with Calumnies and persecuted with severity That being obliged by the Allegiance they owe and ought to swear unto your Majesty to reveal all Conspiracies and Practices against your Person and Royal Authority that come to their knowledge they are themselves clamour'd against as Conspirators plotting the
destruction of the English among them without any ground that may give the least colour to so foul a Crime to pass for probable in the judgement of an indifferent person That their Crimes are as numerous and as divers as are the Inventions of their Adversaries And because they cannot with freedom appear to justifie their Innocence all the Fictions and Allegations against them are received as undoubted Verities and which is yet more mischievous the Laity upon whose Conscieâ—ceâ— the Character of Priesthood gives them an influence â—uffer under all the Crimes thus falsly imputed to them it being their Adversaries principal design that the Irish whose Estate they enjoy should be reputed persons unfit and no way worthy any title to your Majesties mercy That no Wood comes amiss to make Arrows for their destruction for as if the Roman Catholick Clergy whom they esteem most Criminal were or ought to be a Society so perfect as no evill no indiscreet person should be found amongst them they are all of them generally cryed down for any Crime whether true or feigned which is imputed to one of them and as if no words could be spoken no Letter written but with the common consent of all of them the whole Clergy must suffer for that which is laid to the charge of any particular person amongst them We know what Odium all the Catholick Clergy lyes under by reason of the Calumnies with which our Tenents in Religion and our dependance upon the Popes Authority are aspers'd And we humbly beg your Majesties pardon to vindicate both by the ensuing Protestation which we make in the sight of Heaven and in the presence of your Majesty sincerely and truly without Equivocation or mental Reservation We do acknowledge and confess your Majesty to be our true and lawful King supreme Lord and rightful Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other your Majesties Dominions And therefore we acknowledge and confess our selves to be obliged under pain of sin to obey your Majesty in all Civil and Temporal Affairs as much as any other of your Majesties Subjects and as the Laws and Rules of Government in this Kingdom do require at our hands And that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope or See of Rome or any Sentence or Declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by the Pope his Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from him or his See against your Majesty or Royal Authority We will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of our abilities our faithful Loyalty and true Allegiance to your Majesty And we openly disclaim and renounce all forein power be it either Papal or Princely Spiritual or Temporal in as much as it may seem able or shall pretend to free discharge or absolve us from this Obligation or shall any way give us leave or licence to raise Tumults bear Armes or offer any violence to your Majesties Person Royal Authority or to the State or Government Being all of â—s ready not only to discover and make known to your Majesty and to your Ministers all the Treasons made against your Majesty or them which shall come to our hearing but also to lose our lives in the defence of your Majesties Person and Royal Authority and to resist with our best endeavours all Conspiracies and Attempts against your Majesty be they framed or sent under what pretence or patronized by what forein Power or Authority soever And further we profess that all absolute Princes and supreme Governours of what Religion soever they be are Gods Lieutenants on Earth and that Obedience is due to them according to the Laws of each Common wealth respectively in all Civil and Temporal Affairs And therefore we do here protest against all Doctrine and Authority to the contrary And we do hold it impious and against the Word of God to maintain that any private Subject may kill or murther the Aunointed of God his Prince though of a different Belief and Religion from his And we abhorr and detest the practice thereof as damnable and wicked These being the Tenents of our Religion in point of Loyalty and Submission to your Majesties Commands and our dependence of the See of Rome no way intrenching upon that perfect Obedience which by our Birth by all Laws Divine and Humane we are bound to pay to your Majesty our natural and lawful Soveraign We humbly beg prostrate at your Majesties feet that you would be pleased to protect us from the severe persecution we suffer meerly for our profession in Religion leaving those that are or hereafâ—er shall be guilty of other Crimes and there have been such in all times as well by their Pens as by their Actions to the punishment prescribed by the Law Fr. Oliver Darcy Bishop of Dromore Fr. George Dillon of S. Francis Ord. Guardian of the Irish Franciscans at Paris Fr. Philip Roch of S. Fran. Ord. Reader General of Divinity Fr. Anthony Gearnon of S. Fran. Ord. one of Her Majesties the Queen Mothers Chaplains Fr. John Everard of S. Francis Order Conf. and Preach Fr. Anthony Nash of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preacher Fr. William Linch of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. Fr. Nicholas Sall of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preach James Cusack Doctor of Divinity Cornelius Fogorty Protonot Apost and Doctor of the Civil and Canon Law Fr. Henry Gibon of S. Aug. Ord. and Conf. Preac Daniel Dougan Divine Fr. Redmond Moore of S. Dom. Ord. Conf. and Preac Bartholomew Bellew Dennis Fitz Ranna Bartholomew Flemming Fr. Peter Walsh of S. Fran. Ord. Reader of Divinity and Procuratour of the Rom. Cath. Clerg both Sec. and Reg. of Ireland Fr. Redmond Caron of S. Fran. Ord. Reader Jubilate of Divinity Fr. Simon Wafre of the same Order Reader of Divinity Fr. James Caverly of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. John Fitz Gerald of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. Theobald Burk of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. Matthew Duff of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. Peter Goghegan of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preacher To the Kings most Excellent Majesty The faithful Protestation and humble Remonstrance of the Roman Catholick Nobility and Gentry of Ireland YOur Majesties faithful Subjects the Roman Catholick Nobility and Gentry of your Majesties Kingdom of Ireland out of a deep sense of those prodigious Afflictions under which the Monarchy of Great Britain has before your Majesties happy Restauration groaned these twenty years And out of our sad thoughts which daily bring more and more sight from our breasts and tears from our eyes for not only the still and yet continued miseries and sufferings of the Catholick Natives of that our unfortunate Country even amidst and ever since the so much famed joyes and triumphs of your sacred Majesties most auspicious Inauguration but also of the Causes whereunto we have made the most narrow search we could of these our own unparallel'd
entertained by a few Citizens of one or two or three of their Towns and services lost and the Enemies power escaped through the peevish refractoriness or unreasonable distrusts of some and the heads of their Clergy besides endeavouring by threats of spiritual censures to withdraw the obedience of all their great and numerous Body from his Majesties Lieutenant over them but not prevailing herein as to the generality or farr greater part though hindring very much the service against the common Enemy And put the case too that all had been finally undone and the Kingdom lost occasionally through such unlawful oppositions of a few or the lesser part and yet that both sides of them as well the disobedient as obedient had to the last man refused any Capitulations with such their common Enemy to serve him against the King but had even very many thousands even three or four legions of them withdrawn out of the Country and ran his Majesties fortune abroad or waited his commands and in all Countries roamed after him perpetually fixing all their hopes upon and quitting all other services under forein Princes for him but such only as might stand with his pleasure alwayes ready to venture again limb and life to reinthrone his Majesty as likewise the remainders of them at home under the prevalent Usurpers had been waiting all opportunities for that end and therefore upon that account partly if not principally as persons suspected made the most miserable slaves in the World and every new Moon confined to Gaols And suppose that after many years had been so past over by this Person of Quality and his Party some wandring in exile abroad others at home groaning in captivity all waiting with impatience the occasion and hour God of his mercy were pleased at last to throw an Apple of Discord amongst those in that case now supposed usurping Victours to wit P. W. and his Party and raise between them such irreconcileable feuds as together with the continual fears arising partly from those abroad in banishment and those at home in bondage though peradventure principally from the more numerous Party of old Cavalliers and from their Friends dispersed in the three Nations had forced them viz. the said usurping Victours to concurr to though with much reluctancy or rather to behold but with heavy hearts and armes across the calling home of his Majesty to the possession of his Fathers Throne administration of Justice or dispensation of Mercy to each one of his people throughout the British Empire answerable to their several capacities and to the Laws and to the equity of them and above all to his own gracious benign and merciful Genius And suppose yet further that that usurping people which had partly so called or so looked upon his Majesty returning home and which had kept too this Person of Quality and his Friends for so many years in exile and slavery had been those too who had all along concurred and even acted with such others as bereaved his Majesties dear Father of his life contrived the Oath of Abjuration and so many others took it and the rest all and further made and to their power observed and forced upon others the observation of all those Oaths and Acts we have seen against the Line of King James and Family of the Stuarts and that the same Usurpers the supposed Enemies in our present case had for that concurrence of theirs and prosecution of it enjoyed so long the Lands and Estates of this very Person of Quality and his Friends even a great Kingdom And suppose lastly that after all his Majesty were sitting as he now is to administer Justice to all his Subjects indifferently and to give withall incomparable arguments of his Clemency and that P. W. were pleading there for himself and his own Party supposed still in such a case to be of that side whereof our Person of Quality and his People are now and were pleading there not for Pardon or Indempnity alone to himself and his Friends but for the acquisition moreover and continuation and that by a new Law too or by a Law to be made anew for that purpose against all former fundamental Laws and for the enjoyment for ever by his Majesties grant all the Lands Houses c. belonging formerly oâ— before the Wars to this Person of Quality and other his Friends who fighting so many years continually for the King were in that Cause dispossessed of them by him that is by P. W. and his Partners and that P. W. were pleading too against innocent Children the Rebellion at any time of their Fathers although early Converts and alwayes after constant Subjects and were pleading I say for the acquisition or continuation to himself and his of the Rights and Lands belonging othewise to them even by entail made in consideration of a Marriage-Portion given by their Mothers I demand in such a case not whether this Person of Quality pleading on the other side admitted unquestionably by all indifferent to be the better side would allow P. W. the impudence of such a Plea but whether he would find it any difficult matter to shew the unfitness of that Example of the Seven Sons of Saul hanged up to the Lord in Gibeah of Saul to justifie in that supposed case or to perswade or even to move his Majesty to the cutting off all Entails even such as were made before the War begun and such too as were made in consideration of a Marriage-Portion paid or move his Majesty to the bereaving of all right of succession or inheritance in their Fathers Estates the Children of his in such a case long suffering and loyal Party even those very Children that were not actually guilty of their Fathers Rebellion Or would he think it an hard task to prove the unsignificancy of the next allusion That till Justice was done the Famine lasted and after it was done the Famine ceased Or the ineptitude also to his end of that following Antithesis Those lost their Lives for their Fathers Sin but these if any lose but their Fathers forfeited Lands for their Fathers Crimes And whether he would not think that not only his Majesty and all the Court but all indifferent Persons on Earth would laugh even to scorn the brazen face of P. W. or at least his very extreme lack both of Grace and of Reason if in such a case he made use of this Rhetorical Divinity which our Person of Quality uses against him to get the Lands of all such Innocents the Children in our supposition of this Person of Quality's repentant early Converts bestowed on himself and his Clients still supposed in the case to have fought all along against his Majesty and continued obstinate even to the last hour in pursuance of the Good Old Cause and to have dispossessed those very Children of this Person of Quality and his Friends and to have dispossessed their Fathers too fighting for the Royal Quarrel 159. But not to perplex the
be a Joseph not only to the Israel of God the Religious Protestants Pag. 93. but also a Joseph even to the Egyptians themsâ—lves feeding and preserving them yet so as becomes Pharaoh 's Steward And although I dispute not at this time the limitation or extension of this Author's meaning under these notions the Protestants of Ireland the Israel of God the Religious Protestants nor his allusions moreover to the Egyptians themselves and Pharaoh's Steward on all which I could say enough to his confusion and notwithstanding himself makes it appear sufficiently that his feeding and preserving them was not so much an effect of his Charity as a further argument of his Hypocrisie yet for the second part of his own additional Wish which I am sure he had not from my Letter or from elsewhere but from the abundance of his own heart and from theirs who are such as himself I know not what to admire most therein his extreme hatred and malice or his extreme impudence and rashness that in harbouring in his own breast or thoughts a desire so merciless cruel so unjust and tyrannical even beyond almost all imagination this in giving it as a good Wish to the Duke of Ormond and publishing it in print to all others and in these very words Yet so as becomes Pharaoh 's Steward reserving Pag. 93. the Lands of all but the Priests to the King 's free dispose and removing that is transplanting the people from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other end thereof No regard of any Innocents no remembrance of any Articles no more thoughts of the services and sufferances of any no Justice to no Pitty for the Irish Nation but the Laws of Nations even in that of Publick Faith and the Laws of God too in so many particulars and the Laws of the Land also even the very Fundamental Laws of England and Ireland both must be controuled by a new Law against all those former of purpose to make Slaves of the King's Friends to the King's Enemies even hewers of Wood and drawers of Water even in the very worst sense of such hewers or such drawers and to bestow for ever the Estates of those upon these and even to transplant their very persons Men Women and Children from one end of the borders of Ireland to another and even to transplant them to a very narrow nook there and that too for most of the transplanted so if it should so happen set out in Boggs and Rocks and uncouth horrid Wildernesses and the Duke of Ormond must be the great instrument hereof and the King himself the primary efficient by this Person of Quality's good wish to the Duke and just desire from him And the Lands of the Priests and the King 's free dispose must cloak all this As if our Person of Quality and his Consorts had not long since deprived of Lands and Houses both the Priests of the Egyptians and the Priests of the Israel of God or that he would now exempt either had he had the least hope to prevail or the least pretence to quarrel agaâ—nst these And as if that must be termed the Kings free dispose which the dayly Machinations and bloody Contrivings and threatning Demeanour of so many of this Person of Quality's most godly Brethren necessitates his Majesty at present seemingly to own or connive at Or that any freedom whatsoever in disposing the lands of Innocent Subjects to him and his against the Laws or the Lands of the Article-makers that never transgressed after such Articles made could excuse from a breach of the Laws and a breach of Covenant or Publick Faith such disposal And I am sure this Person of Quality will insist no longer on the Kings free dispose than it shall relate to himself and his party or that the Estates of the Irish be disposed to his advantage 172. But if notwithstanding all this he will struggle yet in justification of his good wish or desire I would fain know of him what would himself or his party think of P. W. or even of the Protestant Cavaliers that from the first of the War to the last continued unchangeably faithfull to his late and present Majesty if I sâ—y P. W. or these Loyal Gentlemen of all the three Nations or of any of them would even in the present conjuncture and reflecting on so many horrid Plots dayly set on foot wish desire and labour with the Duke of Ormond and present Parliament of England and with his Majesty that a new Law should be made and a new Act revoking the late Act of Indempnity or a new and far other Declaration set forth by his Majesty and by the Parliament after and with his Majesties Royal consent made a Law whereby all the Lands belonging at any time even by a just title or before the Wars to this Person of Quality's good friends whether Anabaptists Quakers Fifth Monarchy men Independents or even Presbyterians or any other sect of what Judgement soever throughout the three Kingdoms should be reserved to the Kings free dispose that is for ever disposed by his Majesties Royal grant to these Cavaliers and a fit proportion too to P. W. and such of his Clyents as lost themselves and adher'd unalterably at least since 48 to his Majesties interests and whereby moreover all the above named our Person of Quality's good friends should be removed that is transplanted from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other end thereof all those in Scotland to some narrow steril corner in the Highlands or to the Hebrides or Isles of Orkney and all their conforts in England to the most barren and mountainous part of Wales and all his beloved in Ireland to Iarchonnaght and Barrin I would fain I say know what in such case our Person of Quality and his friends would think of P. W. and his Cavaliers wishing desiring and labouring so Nay what if the case had thus only stood with the Person of Quality and all those his friends that they might have alleged to themselves Articles of Peace and Publick Faith given them in such Articles made suppose it so with his Majesty before his return from Breda And what if the case had thus moreover stood with them and P. W. and his Clients and even with all those Cavaliers that our Person of Quality and his people might have alleged against all for themselves so many years constant fighting Warring suffering for and adhering to the Kings Interest in bondage and in banishment and that P. W.'s Irish friends and the English Cavaliers had been the very persons who had for so many years too and ever since 41 unalterably even to the year 59 or 60. when they could no longer fought against the King and them and brought all the miseries of those times on all would not he and his in such cases and specially in the later except against the unreasonable groundless unmercifull rigour and against the inhumanity injustice and