came to be concluded not enduring to be present at the passing of that and some other Barbarous Acts against which they found their Votes signified nothing while they staid There were four more Protestants return'd of whose Behaviour I can give no account or how they came to be return'd The generality of the Houses consisted of the Sons and Descendents of the Forfeiting Persons in 1641. Men that had no Freeholds or Estates in the Kingdom but were purposely elected to make themselves Estates by taking them away from Protestants 15. Now whilst the power of making and repealing Laws was in such hands what Security could Protestants promise themselves from any Laws or what probability was there that any Laws already made in their Favour would be continued Especially if we consider further that this Parliament openly profess'd it self a Slave to the King's Will and he was look'd on as Factiously and Rebelliously inclin'd that would dare to move any thing after any Favorite in the House had affirm'd that it was contrary to the King's pleasure Several Bills were begun in the House of Commons one for erecting an Inns of Court another for repealing an Act commonly call'd Poinings Act which requires that all Acts should be perused by the King and Council of England before they be offered to be pass'd by the Parliament in Ireland but King James signified his Dissatisfaction to these Bills and for that reason they and several others were let fall tho the Irish had talk'd much and earnestly desir'd the Repeal of Poinings Act it being the greatest Sign and means of their Subjection to England There was a doubt made in the House concerning the Earl of Strafford whether he should be attainted for Estate and Life several moved in his behalf but it was carried against him upon this Evidence Colonel Simon Lutterell affirmed in the House That he had heard the King say some hard things of him The King's pleasure therefore was the Law to which we were to trust for our Lives and Fortunes our Enemies having entirely engross'd the power of making and repealing Laws and devolved it on the King's pleasure the very Protestant Lords and Bishops being denied their Priviledge of entering their Protestations against such Votes as they conceiv'd Destructive to the Kingdom The King told them That Protestations against Votes were only used in Rebellious times and with much ado they were allowed to enter their Dissent tho after that was allowed them the Clerk of the Parliament one Polewheele a Nephew of Chancellor Fitton 's shifted them off and did not enter their Dissent to some Votes tho often sollicited and press'd to do it according to the Orders of the House 16. When King James had labour'd as much as in him lay to get a Parliament that would repeal the Penal Laws and Test in England and open the Houses to Papists he found at last that the great Obstacle that rendered the Kingdom so averse to this was the general Fear and Apprehension that the Legislative Authority would be engross'd by them and turn'd against Protestants this was so obvious and reasonable a Surmise that he knew there was no hopes that the People would side with him against their present Majesties if something were not done to satisfie them and therefore to remove this fear he published his Proclamation dated Sept. 20. 1688. wherein he declares himself willing that Roman Catholicks should remain incapable to be Members of the House of Commons if the Protestants of England had reason to apprehend that Papists would engross the Legislative Authority in England and from the Example of Queen Mary's House of Commons to dread such Law givers how much more reason had the Protestants of Ireland to dread that power when entirely engrossed by their most inveterate Popish Enemies whose Interest as well as Religion oblig'd them to divest all those that profess'd the Reform'd Religion not only of the Favour but likewise of the Benefits of Law 17. They sate from the Seventh of May till the Twentieth of July following and in that short time entirely destroy'd the Settlement of Ireland and outed both the Protestant Clergy and Laity of their Freeholds and Inheritances It is not to be exspected I should give an account of all their Acts that which concerns this present Section is to shew how they destroy'd the Protestants real Estates 1. And that was first by an Act of Repeal whereby they took away the Acts of Settlement and Explanation by virtue of which as I have already shew'd two thirds of the Protestants of the Kingdom held their Estates that is all that which is call'd New Interest was lost by this Repeal there is no consideration had in it how any Man came to his Estate but tho he purchased it at ever so dear a rate he must lose it and it is to be restor'd without Exception to the Proprietor or his Descendent that had it before October 22. 1641. upon what account soever he lost it tho they themselves did not deny but many deserv'd to lose their Estates even Sir Phelim O Neal's Son the great Murtherer and Rebel was restor'd 2. In order to make a final Extirpation of Protestants they contrive and pass an Act of Attainder by which all Protestants whose Names they could find of all Ages Sexes and Degrees are attainted of High Treason and their Estates vested in the King the pretence of this Attainder was their being out of the Kingdom at the time of passing the Act as shall be shewn in the next Section 3. Least some should be forgotten of those that were absent and not put into the Bill of Attainder they contriv'd a general Clause in the Act of Repeal whereby the real Estates of all who Dwelt or staid in any place of the three Kingdoms which did not own King Jame's Power or corresponded with any such as they term Rebels or were any ways aiding abetting or assisting to them from the First day of August 1688. are declared to be forfeited and vested in his Majesty and that without any Office or Inquisition found thereof By which Clause almost every Protestant that could Write in the Kingdom had forfeited his Estate for the Packets went from London to Dublin and back again constantly from August to March 1688. and few had Friends in England or in the North but corresponded with them by Letters and every such Letter is made by this clause a Forfeiture of Estate They had intercepted and search'd every Packet that went or came the later part of this time and kept vast Heaps of Letters which were of no Consequence at all to the Government we wondered what the meaning of their doing so should be but by this Parliament we came to understand it for now these Letters were produced as Evidences in the House of Commons against those that appear'd in behalf of their absent Friends or oppos'd the attainting of such Protestants as they had some kindness for and they were
this Mr. Coghlan served as one of the Burgesses for the Colledge the House of Commons requir'd him to come into the House for he had withdrawn himself from it as we observed before at the passing this Act and to give in the Names of the absent Members of the Colledge that they might be put into the Bill he demurr'd at first but was over-rul'd then upon Consultation with Doctor Acton the Vice Provost he moved the House to send for the Colledge Buttler alledging that he had the Buttery Book wherein the Names of the Collegians were in order and without this he could not get them the House hereupon ordered a Serjeant at Arms to be sent for the Butler but he on Mr. Coghlans intimation absconded for some days The House was in haste to pass the Bill and by this means the Collegians escaped an Attainder 5. It was observable that any Application made in behalf of Absentees by their Friends who staid or were in the House constantly made their Condition worse The Application of Mr. Henry Temple in behalf of his Brother Sir John Temple removed him upwards into the first Rank of Attainted Persons the like Petition had the same effect as as to Mr. Richard Warburton and so upon several others The Papists did this to rid themselves of trouble and importunity and to let the Protestants know that all their endeavours for themselves and Friends should do them no Service and that their ruin was absolutely resolved on 6. That their allowing Persons a certain time to come in and submit to Tryal to prove their Innocency was a meer nothing for they very well knew that it was impossible any body should certainly know what time was given each man to come in and it had been a foolish venture for such as were absent to come into a Place where for ought they knew they were already condemned and should be immediately hang'd without a Tryal 2. No body knew what they could call Innocency perhaps writing to or petitioning any one that had King William's Commission nay conversing with such might be reckoned corresponding with Rebels and sufficient Evidence of their Guilt and indeed Judge Nugent had in a manner determin'd this Case for he interpreted one Mr. Desminiers answering a Bill of Exchange for Sir Thomas Southwell who was Prisoner at Galloway a corresponding with Rebels and committed him to Jail for it he likewise put one Mr. Ginnery in Jail for High Treason because being Agent for the Prisoners at Galloway to procure them a Reprieve and other Affairs he received Letters from them though Mr. Ginnery's Father and Brother were amongst them 3. When this pretended Parliament past this Act they were very well aware that the Embargo here was so exceedingly strict that from the time of passing the Act till the First of October nay of November following which was the longest time allowed any one to come in not one Ship or Boat was suffered to pass from hence into England so that it was absolutely impossible the Persons concern'd in this Law should have had any knowledge of it before they were Condemned by it to the loss of Life and Estate beyond the power of the King to Pardon them 4. King James and his Parliament knew perfectly well that the Embargo was so strict on the other side that if the Gentlemen could have had Information yet it was impossible for them to have gotten out of England to tender themselves to Justice within the time wherein the Act required they should do it on no less Penalty than the irrecoverable Forfeiture of Life and Estate which is a plain demonstration that the allowing time for the Attainted Persons to come in and prove their Innocency was a meer colour and had nothing of sincerity in it since they themselves that made the Law were fully informed and satisfied that this was an impossible condition 5. Suppose it had been possible yet it had been a very unwise part for such Protestants as were safe in England to have left it and to have come into Ireland a ruinous Kingdom the actual seat of a War where all the goods and moveables they had left behind them were Imbezell'd by Robbers or by those that had seiz'd them for King James and their real Estates given away to such as were Descendents of their Fathers Murtherers or at least had been in that Rebellion where they must abide a Tryal before Judges and Juryes of profest Enemies whether their Lives should be their own and after all if acquitted could have no other prospect of supporting themselves but Begging amongst a People that had reduced them to this condition These considerations were of such weight with all People that they who were absent were so far from thinking of a return that on the contrary Men of the best Estates who had stayed here wished themselves away and many were content to leave all and venture their Lives in little Boats to the Mercy of the Seas in the depth of Winter reckoning any thing safer and easier than to stay under a Government which had effectually destroyed all the Measures of right and wrong and Condemned so many Gentlemen to the loss of all without allowing them either the favour of being Tryed or so much as Heard 4. I know it will be objected that very few Protestants lost their Lives in Ireland under King James notwithstanding all the severe Proclamations and Laws and the apprehensions under which they lay of danger But to this I answer First that when a full enquiry comes to be made concerning those that were Kill'd by the Soldiers Murthered in their Houses Executed by Martial Law Starv'd and Famish'd in Jails and that Perished by other Violences the number will not be so small as is imagined 2. It is to be considered that the Irish Papists lay under the strictest obligations not to begin Acts of Cruelty for the Murthers they had committed in the last Rebellion were chiefly objected against them they were sensible they had gained nothing by them and that the Cruelty exercised in them was the thing that especially rendred them Odious and lost them their Estates and therefore they thought it the best way not to be too forward in the like practises till they were sure not to be call'd to an after-reckoning They further considered that many of their own Friends were Prisoners in the North and that if they began with Examples of Cruelty on the Protestants who were in their Power their Friends must expect the like from the Enemy in whose Hands they were 'T was this made them dismiss the Poor People they had resolv'd to starve before Derry And they were made believe that not only the Prisoners would Suffer but that the Cruelties they exercised on the Protestants would be Revenged on all the Roman Catholicks in England This was given out by some who understood King James's true interest and that he depended on some Protestants in England for succour and
p. 118 119 3. Protestants impoverished by vexatious Law Suits p. 119 4. By Delays and the Treachery of Popish Council p. 120 5. By defending their Charters and being forced to take out new ones ibid. 6. By free Quarters Inkeepers and Houskeepers ruined p. 121 7. By the burden of Priests and Fryars p. 122 Sect. 10. Thirdly King James's own Attempts on the same p. 123 1. Quartering on private Houses contrary to the Articles to Lord Mountjoy Most Soldiers had many Quarters Mischievous in their Quarters Instance in Brown who robbed his Landlord and swore Treason against him p. 123 124 2. Plundering and killing the Protestants Stock Vast numbers destroyed and stolen p. 125 3. Irish encouraged to do so no Redress upon Complaints p 126 4. Nugent avowed it Rapparees Necessary Evils Stop put to this Trade when they began to rob one another p. 127 Sect. 11. Fourthly King James's further Methods to compleat the ruin of the Protestants Personal Fortunes p. 128 1. Taking away Absentees Goods Bill for it in Parliament ibid. Methods to drain those that staid of their ready Mony p. 129 1. By Licences for Ships to go for England ibid. 2. By pretended Liberty of Transporting Goods p. 130 3. Licences for Persons to go for England ibid. 4. By Protections granted and voided ibid. 5. By seizing Mony and Plate upon Informations ibid. 6. Boiselot's Dragooning of Cork ibid. 7. Act for the Subsidy at 20000 l. per Month on Lands ibid. 2. Second Subsidy of 20000 l. per Month on Personal Estates ibid. Debates in Council about this and Manner of ordering it ibid. 3. Tax for the Militia p. 132 4. Tax for fortifying the Avenues of Dublin ibid. 5. Tax for quartering Soldiers call'd Bed-Mony p. 133 6. Brass Mony Illegal Void the necessity of Parliaments ibid. Of what Metal and how much coined viz. 965375 l. in one year p. 134 Forced to be taken in all Payments ibid. Fitton forced it on Trustees for Orphans p. 135 7. Lutterell forced it on pain of Death by the Provost-Martial ibid. On Smith Leeson Bennet Widow Chapman her barbarous usage ibid. Papists not forced to receive it from Protestants p 136 8. Seizing of Protestants Wooll Hides Tallow p. 137 Peircy to have bin hanged for saying he was not willing to part with them p. 138 Protestants not permitted to Export them Their Imports seized ibid. 9. Seizing of Corn and Mault The Treason of having Bisket Giles Meigh p. 139 Difficult for Protestants to get Corn or Bread this before Harvest would have forced out all their Silver ibid. 10. Seizing Wool as soon as shorn p. 140 Searching Houses for Copper and Brass for the Mint and taking private Accompts of what else the Protestants had in in their Houses ibid. 11. Lord Mayors rating of Merchant Goods Forced on the Protestants but disregarded by the Papists instance in the very Lord Mayor himself ibid. 12. Proclamation to Rate Silver and Gold in Exchange for Brass on pain of death p. 141 13. Inference from the whole ibid. Sect. 12. Fifthly King James's destruction of the Protestants Real Estates p. 142 1. Explication of old and new Interest and account of the Acts of Settlement and of the Tenure by which the Protestants held their Estates ibid. The Papists outed of their Estates by the late Rebellion still kept up a claim to them and made Jointures and Settlements of them which were confirmed in King James's Parliament p. 143 2. King James at his first coming to the Crown gave out he would preserve the Acts of Settlement Lord Clarendon Lord Chancellor Porter and the Judges in Circuit directed to declare it ibid. The Papists knew it was only colour p. 144 Nagle's Coventry Letter first openly broke the matter October 26. 1686. ibid. Tirconnell at his coming Governour leaves it out of the Proclamation ibid. Nugent and Rice sent to England to concert the methods of Repealing it but concealed for the present their success p. 145 At their return prepared for a Parliament ibid. For which Matters had been fitted by the Quo Warranto's and reversal of Outlawries against the Irish Peers ibid. 3. Papists had not patience to wait for their Estates till a Parliament but went to work by counterfeit Deeds and by old Injunctions of the Court of Claims p. 146 4. Matters ripe for a Parliament but put off till the Parliament which was to sit in England November 1688. should take off the Penal Laws c. p. 147 5. at King James's arrival in Ireland it was against his Interest to call a Parliament First because of loss of time the Kingdom not reduced ibid. 6. Secondly which was King James's Allegation for not calling one in England this reflected on his sincerity p. 148 7. Thirdly It was the way to disoblige all that were inclined to him in England and Scotland ibid. 8. Fourthly It disobliged a great many of the Irish themselves ibid. 9. Fifthly It rendered all not under his power desperate p. 149 10. Against all Reason and Interest he called one being resolved to Dye a Martyr or Establish Popery ibid. 11. This Parliament fitted for our ruin both in respect of the King and of both Houses ibid. 13. Method of filling the House of Lords with Popish Peers Only four or five Protestant Temporal and four Spiritual Lords ibid. Several Acts past not by consent of these last though it be pretended in their Preambles p. 150 14. House of Commons how filled Manner of Electing Members Only two Protestants that could be called such in it p. 151 15. The whole House a slave to the Kings Will. No Protestations allowed p. 153 16. How much Reason we as well as England had to dread Papists in a Parliament p. 154 17. First Account of the Act of Repeal ibid. Secondly Of the Act of Attainder p. 155 Thirdly Clause in it of holding Correspondence since Aug. 1. 1688. ibid. Fourthly Clause of cutting off Remainders p. 156 Fifthly No Protestant might hope to be reprized by the Act of Repeal ibid. Sixthly Clause in the Act of Attainder against the Kings Pardoning which was the Reason this Act was kept so secret Copy procured by Mr. Coghlan Upon account of Sir Thomas Southwell's Pardon Sollicited by Lord Seaforth King James in a Passion with Sir Richard Nagle for betraying his Prerogative by this Clause against Pardoning p. 157 158 159 18. Observations First King James could not dispense when the Irish pleased ibid. Secondly Near three thousand Protestants condemned for not coming in by a day and yet the Act never published but kept secret ibid. Thirdly Folly of attainted Persons to think of ever being Pardoned if King James be restored since it is not in his power p. 160 Fourthly Papists got into their Estates before the time set in the Act of Repeal ibid. 19. Means how the Papists got Possessions p. 161 First Popish Tenants attorn'd to their old Popish Landlords ibid. Secondly Advantages taken of Clauses in the Act of Repeal ibid.
of a Letter sent the King August 14. 1686. found in Bishop Tirrel's but imperfect p. 303 Lord Clarendon's Speech in Council on his leaving the Government of Ireland p. 310 A General Abstract of the Gross Produce of his Majesties Revenue in Ireland in the three first years of the Management beginning at Christmas 1682. and ended Christmas 1685. p. 312 Sheriffs for the year 1687. p. 313 Lord Lieutenants and Debuty Lieutenants of Counties p. 324 Privy Councellors appointed by Letters from King James dated February 28. 1684. and such as were sworn since by particular Letters p. 333 The Civil List of Officers and the times of their entring on their Offices p. 334 An account of the General and Field Officers of King James's Army out of the Muster Rolls p. 341 A Copy of the Letter dispersed about the Massacre said to be designed on December 9. 1688. p. 345 Lord Mountjoy's Circular Letter on his going to France p. 346 Judge Keating's Letter to Sir John Temple December 29. 1688. p. 347 Proposals humbly offered to the Earl of Tyrconnell Lord Deputy by the Bishop Meath about the intended search for Arms p. 353 An account of the Conditions made in the Field between the High Sheriff of Gallway and the Prisoners afterwards condemned p. 356 A Copy of a Letter from Bishop Maloony to Bishop Tyrrell the Original found amongst Bishop Tyrrell's Papers March 8. 1689. p. 360 Presentment of the Grand Jury of Tipperary against Protestants p. 365 A List of all the Men of Note that came with King James out of France or that followed him after so far as could be Collected p. 366 A List of the Lords that sate in the pretended Parliament at Dublin held May 7. 1689. p. 369 The names of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses returned to the Parliament beginning May 7. 1689. p. 370 An Address to King James in behalf of Purchasers under the Act of Settlement by Judg Keating p. 377 The Lord Bishop of Meath's Speech in Parliament June 4. 1689. p. 389 Copies of the Orders for giving Possessions p. 388 Albaville's Instructions to the Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer p. 392 A Petition of the Minister of Wexford for his Church and the Order thereupon p. 395 Mr. Prowd Minister of Trim his account of the remarkable Accident that happened upon Plundering the Church of Trim p. 397 General Rosen's Order to bring the Protestants before Derry p. 399 Advertisement as it was published by Mr. Yalden in his weakly Abhorrence concerning Dr. King and Dr. Foy p. 404 Collonel Lutterell's Order for numbering Protestants p. 406 Collonel Lutterell's Order forbidding above five Protestants to meet any where p. 407 THE STATE OF THE Protestants of Ireland Under the late King James's Government IN WHICH Their Carriage towards him is justified and the absolute Necessity of their endeavouring to be freed from his Government and of submitting to their present Majesties is demonstrated INTRODUCTION Containing an Explication of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and stating the true Notion and Latitude of it 1. IT is granted by some of the highest assertors of Passive Obedience that if a King design to root out a people or destroy one main part of his Subjects in favour of another whom he loves better that they may prevent it even by opposing him with force and that he is to be judged in such a case to have Abdicated the Government of those whom he designs to destroy contrary to Justice and the Laws This is Grotius's Opinion in his Book De jure Belli Pacis lib. 1. cap. 4. § 11. where citing Barclay he says If a King be carried with a malitious design to the destruction of a whole Nation he loses his Kingdom which I grant since a will to Govern and to Destroy cannot consist together therefore he who professes himself an Enemy to a whole People doth in that very act Abdicate his Kingdom But it seems hardly possible that this should enter into the heart of a King who is not mad if he govern only one people but if he govern many it may happen that in favour of one people he may desire the other were destroyed Doctor Hammond asserts Passive Obedience as high as any yet he approves this passage of Grotius and of Barclay in his vindication of Christ's reprehending S. Peter from the exceptions of Mr. Marshall p. 327. of his first Volume Grotius saith he mentions some cases wherein a King may be resisted As in case a King shall Abdicate his Kingdom and manifestly relinquish his Power then he turns private man and may be dealt with as any other such And some other the like 2. And it is observable that generally in all Books and Sermons concerning Obedience to Governors where this case is put suppose a King endeavour to destroy his people there are only two answers given to it one is that his Officers and Ministers ought not to obey him if they do the Law will punish them The other is that this case ought not to be put that we ought not to suppose that any King will designedly endeavour to destroy his people nay the Author of Jovian will not allow us to suppose that any King will attempt in England to Govern altogether by Arbitrary Power and the Sword For says he Chap. 12. p. 272. To suppose this is plainly to suppose the utmost impossibility and p. 273. If a King should shut up the Courts obstruct or pervert Justice he allows that all his good Subjects and all the bad too that tendered their own safety would desert him and Chap. 6. p. 152. He says he should be tempted to pray for the destruction of such a Prince as the only means of delivering the Church Falkner in his Christian Loyalty B. 2. Chap. 5. N. 19 20 tells us But if ever any such strange case as is supposed should really happen I confess it would have its great difficulties He brings in Grotius De jure Belli Pacis lib. 1. cap. 4. N. 7. And Bishop Bilsons Christian Subjection Part 3. p. 519. edit 1585. as allowing it and seems to allow their judgment in the case but then tells us that the case above-mentioned ought not at all to be supposed or taken into consideration All which plainly grants that if a King do in earnest design the destruction of his Subjects and get Ministers and Officers to concur with him in it who are ready to execute his wicked intentions and against whom the Law yields no Protection that in such a case the Subjects may desert their Prince decline his Government and Service and seek Protection where they can find it 3. And indeed whoever considers the Discourses that have been written concerning Non-Resistance will find that the reasons given for it either from the nature of the Thing or Scripture reach only tolerable evils and prove that a man ought to be patient under pressures laid on him by his Governor when the mischief is not
make it an incredible Thing is so far from being impossible that it is very common of which there are so many Examples both ancient and modern that it is a wonder that Men who know any thing of History should overlook them Nero Caligula Domitian Maximinus Heliogabalus Commodus not only endeavoured but professed it and some of them were mightily concerned that it was not in their power to accomplish it No longer ago than the time of Philip the Second of Spain we have an Example of a Christian King no better than those Heathens Whoever reads the Story of his dealing with the Low Countries must confess that he design'd the utter Destruction of the Laws and Liberties of those People and that in particular he was resolved that not one Protestant should be left alive amongst them The same has been designed and effected in a great measure by the present French King against his Protestant Subjects and he must have a great share either of Impudence or Stupidity that can deny this Prince to have designed and purposely contrived that destruction and by the same Rule that a Man can be so wicked and barbarous as to design the destruction of a third or fourth part of his People he may design the destruction of the greatrr part if they will be such Fools as to suffer him to effect it SECT II. Shewing from the Obligations of his Religion that King James designed to destroy us IT is easie to demonstrate that every Roman Catholick King if he throughly understand his Religion and do in earnest believe the Principles of it is obliged if he be able to destroy his Protestant Subjects and that nothing can excuse him from doing it but want of power This is plain from the third Chapter of the fourth Lateran Council and from the Council of Constance in the Bull that confirms it read in the 45. Session if therefore a Popish King can persuade his Protestant Subjects to submit to him whilst he doth it he is obliged by his Principles to destroy them even when they are the greater part and Body of his Subjects Now King James was as is known to all the World a most zealous Roman Catholick and ingaged with that party of them that most zealously assert and practise this Doctrine of rooting out Hereticks He gave himself up intirely to the Conduct and guidance of Jesuits these were the Governors and Directors of his Conscience and he seemed to have no other Sentiments than such as they inspired into him If then these have prevailed with the French King whom some report to be a merciful Man in his own Nature and certainly a mighty Zealot for his Honor to break his most solemn established Laws violate his repeated Declarations and Oaths and in spite of all these to persecute and destroy his Protestant Subjects if the same have prevailed with the Duke of Savoy to do the like though as he is now convinced manifestly against his Interest nay almost to his own Destruction having lost thereby his best and most resolute and useful Subjects who would have served him most Cordially against France the Enemy he ought most to dread and which one day will swallow up his Dukedom if his Allies do not prevent it If lastly they have prevailed with the Emperor to involve himself in a War that has now lasted about twenty years and almost lost him his Empire rather than suffer a few Protestants to live quietly in Hungary Is not our late Kings being of the same Principles and under the Government of the same Directors of Conscience is not his fondness of France and his Alliance with it his affecting to imitate that King in every thing and above all his prosecuting the same if not worse methods towards the Protestants in Ireland that the King of France did with the Hugonots in his Dominions a clear and full proof of both Kings being in the same design to root out not only the Protestants of these Kingdoms but likewise of all Europe and that we must all have expected the same usage our Brethren met with in France Nor could our Kings Promises and Engagements be any greater assurances to us than those of the French King were to his Subjects It is observable that King James was more than ordinarily liberal in his Promises and Declarations of favour towards Protestants He boasted in a Declaration sent to England and dispersed by his Friends there dated May 8. 1689. at Dublin That his Protestant Subjects their Religion Priviledges and Properties were his especial care since he came into Ireland He often professed that he made no distinction between them and Roman Catholicks and both he here and his Party there did much extol his kind dealings with his Protestants in Ireland What those dealings truly were I shall have occasion to shew the representation of them made in England by him and his Party was no less false than his Promises were unsincere it being plain he had a reserve in them all It is a maxim as I take it in Law that if the King be deceived in his Grant though it pass the Great Seal yet it is void much more must all his verbal Promises be void if he be deceived in them Now if we consider who were the Directors of the Kings Conscience we ought not to wonder that he made no great scruple to evade them Doctor Cartwright one of his Instruments gives us a right notion of King James's Promises in his Sermon at Rippon where in effect he tells us that the Kings Promises are Donatives and ought not to be too strictly examined or urged and that we must leave his Majesty to explain his own meaning in them this Gloss pleased King James so well that he rewarded the Author with the Bishoprick of Chester though very unfit for that Character and shewed in all his actions that he meant to proceed accordingly and the humour run through the whole party whenever they were at a pinch and under a necessity of serving themselves by the assistance or credulity of Protestants they promised them fair and stuck at no terms with them but when their turn was served they would not allow us to mention their promise much less to challenge the performance 2. It plainly appeared that it was not in King James's power if he had been disposed himself to perform his promises to us The Priests told us that they would have our Churches and our Tyths and that the King had nothing to do with them and they were as good as their words nor could his Majesty upon trial hinder them One Mr. Moore preached before the King in Christs Church in the beginning of the year 1690. his Sermon gave great offence he told his Majesty that he did not do justice to the Church and Churchmen and amongst other things said that Kings ought to consult Clergymen in their temporal affairs the Clergy having a temporal as well as a spiritual right in the
and the old petty Tyrants that claimed not only a Right to all his Tenant's Substance but likewise a power over his life 3. But many of the old Landlords lost their Estates by Outlawries and Attainders for their Rebellion in the year 1641 and for their murthering the Protestants at that time Many of them had sold their Estates and some had mortgaged them for more than their value two or three times to several persons a Practice very common in Ireland but it is observable that it is the humor of these People to count an Estate their own still tho they have sold it on the most valuable Considerations or have been turned out of it by the most regular Proceedings of Justice so that they reckon every Estate theirs that either they or their Ancestors had at any time in their possession no matter how many years ago And by their pretended Title and Gentility they have such an influence on the poor Tenants of their own Nation and Religion who live on those Lands that these Tenants look on them still tho out of possession of their Estates as a kind of Landlords maintain them after a fashion in Idleness and entertain them in their Coshering Manner These Vagabonds reckoned themselves great Gentlemen and that it would be a great Disparagement to them to betake themselves to any Calling Trade or Way of Industry and therefore either supported themselves by stealing and torying or oppressing the poor Farmers and exacting some kind of Maintenance either from their Clans and Septs or from those that lived on the Estates to which they pretended And these pretended Gentlemen together with the numerous Coshering Popish Clergy that lived much after the same manner were the two greatest Grievances of the Kingdom and more especially hindered its Settlement and Happiness The Laws of England were intolerable to them both nor could they subsist under them 4. As to the Popish Landlords who yet retained their Estates it put them out of all patience to find that the Bodough their Tenant so as they call the meaner sort of People should have equal Justice against them as well as against his Fellow Churl that a Landlord should be called to an account for killing or robbing his Tenant or ravishing his Daughter seemed to them an unreasonable Hardship It was insufferable to Men that had been used to no Law but their own Will to be levelled with the meanest in the Administration of Justice and every time they were crossed by a Tenant that would not patiently bear their Impositions they cursed in their Hearts the Laws of England and called to mind the glorious Days of their Ancestors who with a Word of their Mouths could hang or ruin which of their Dependents they pleased and had in themselves the power of Peace and War 5. This Humor in the Gentry of Ireland has from time to time been their Ruin and engaged them in frequent Rebellions being impatient of the Restraint the Laws of England put on their Power tho they enjoyed their Estates and they still watched an opportunity to restore themselves to their petty Tyrannies and were ready to buy the Reftitution of them at any rate The other sort of Gentlemen I mentioned as they called themselves who were outed of their Estates as well as of their Power by the same Laws hated them yet worse and their Clergy pushed them on with all the Arguments that ignorant Zeal or Interest could suggest insomuch that all sober Men as well as Protestants reckoned these the sworn Enemies of the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and were assured that they would stick at no conditions to destroy them their Interest Inclination and Principles all concurring to engage them to do it 6. Now these very Men were the Officers and Instruments King James employed and trusted above all others He espoused their Interest from the time that he had thoughts of the Crown they were his Favourites and Confidents and to provide for them he turned his English and Protestant Subjects first out of the Army then out of their Civil Trusts and Employments and lastly out of their Fortunes and Estates He knew very well that the Tempers and Genius of those Men were at enmity to the Laws and fitted for that Constitution of Slavery under which he designed to bring the Kingdoms He found that none were more fawning to their Superiors than they nor did any flatter with more Meanness and Servility and according to the nature of such People none are more insolent and tyrannous to their Inferiors And this was the reason that they were so dear to King James and that he preferred and trusted them rather than his Protestant and English Subjects The Bargain between him and them was plainly this restore us to our former Power Estates and Religion and we will serve you as you please in your own way An Expression that King James and all his Creatures often used and were very fond of 7. These People found that the King 's Legal Power could never restore them to the condition at which they aimed that the Power and Station they desired was absolutely contrary to the Laws in being and that no Legal Parliament would ever alter the Laws and Constitution of the Kingdom to gratifie them No wonder therefore if they espoused and promoted an absolute and despotick Power in the King and if he and they concurred so heartily to introduce it To do them Justice they made no Secret of it but professed it publickly and on all occasions and accordingly practised it in their several Stations They reckoned and called every one a Whig and Rebel that talked of any other Law than the King's Pleasure They were liberal of their Curses and Imprecations on all occasions but they exceeded and became outrageous against any one that durst alledge that their Proceedings were against Law Damn your Laws was frequently their word it is the Kings pleasure it should be so we know no reason why our King should not be as absolute as the King of France and we will make him so before we have done Nay so extravagant were many of them that they would swear with repeated Or ths that all Protestants were Rebels because they would not be of the King's Religion An Expression I suppose they learned from the French Dragoons 8. Some would undertake to argue the Case with such as seemed more moderate amongst them and put them in mind of the possibility of the Change of the Government and that then the Argument would be good against themselves but they had not patience to hear any such thing mentioned And they generally swore with the most bloody Oaths and bitter Imprecations that they would never subject themselves to any King that was not of their own Religion and that they would lose the last drop of their Blood rather than part with the Sword and Power put into their Hands on any consideration whatsoever These were not the Discourses of one or
did worse that is betrayed it by their Compliance whilst yet they profest it Many who would not be guilty of such servility were turned out even from the mean Employments of a High or Petty Constable of a Goalour or Turn-Key of all which it were easie to give Examples but the thing being Universal makes that unnecessary Even these mean Employments were now counted too good for Protestants and all this contrary to the express Letter of the Law which admitted none but such as would take the Oath of Supremacy to any Office but they took a peculiar Pleasure to act in contempt and despite of the Laws and it seemed to them a kind of Conquest to turn a Man out of his Employment Office or Freehold contrary to Law In the mean time it was a melancholy thing for Protestants to live under such illegal Officers and have their Lives Estates and Liberties at the mercy of Sheriffs Justices and Juries some of whose Fathers or nearest Relations they had either hanged for Thieving Robbery and Murthering or killed in the very Act of Torying 5. I reckon as a fourth sort of Officers in the Kingdom such as were of the Privy-Council which in Ireland is a great part of the Constitution and has considerable Privileges and Power annexed to it Regularly no Act of Parliament can pass in Ireland till the chief Governor and Privy-Council do first certifie the Causes and Reasons of it It was therefore no less than necessary that King James should model this to his mind and he quickly ordered it so that the Papists made the majority in it and whereas before it was a Refuge and Sanctuary to the oppressed it now became a most effectual Instrument to strengthen the Popish Interest and give Reputation to their Proceedings We may guess what kind of Government King James designed when he was attended with such a Council and yet it is certain even some of these who were Protestants would have been turned out if they had not absented themselves and declined appearing at the Board but whether they appeared or no was of no consideration since it is plain they could do Protestants little service SECT V. Fourthly King James's ordering Corporations was an effectual means to destroy his Protestant Subjects and to alter the very Nature of the Government 1. WOever knows the Constitution of England and Ireland must observe that the Subjects have no other security for their Liberties Properties and Lives except the Interest they have of choosing their own Representatives in Parliament This is the only Barrier they have against the Encroachments of their Governor Take it away and they are as absolute Slaves to the Kings Will and as miserable as the Peasants in France Whoever therefore goes about to deprive them of this Right utterly destroys the very Constitution and Foundation of the Government Now the Protestants of Ireland finding the necessity of securing this right in their own Hands to preserve the Kingdom in Prosperity and Peace had procured many Corporations to be Founded and built many considerable Corporate Towns at their own Cost and Charges They thought it reasonable to keep these in their own Hands as being the Foundation of the Legislative power and therefore secluded Papists as Enemies to the English Interest in Ireland from Freedom and Votes in them by the very Foundation and Rules of planting them This Caution they extended by a Law to all other Corporations in the Kingdom excluding Papists likewise from them which they justly did if we remember that these Papists had forfeited their Right in them by their Rebellion in 1641 and by their having turned those Towns where they had Interest into Nests of Traitors against the King and into places of Refuge for the Murtherers of the English insomuch that it cost England some Millions to reduce them again into Obedience witness Killkenny Waterford Galway Lymerick and every other place where they had power to do it Add to this that generally the trading industrious Men of the Kingdom were Protestants who had built most of the Corporate Towns above thirty at once in King James the First 's time and a great part of the Freeholds of the Kingdom did also belong to Men of the same Religion insomuch that if a fair Election had been allowed in probability no Papist could have carryed it in any one County of Ireland All which considered it was but reasonable that the Protestants that had by so much Blood and Treasure brought the Kingdom into subjection to the Laws of England and planted it in such a manner as to render it worth the Governing by the King should be secured of their Representatives in Parliament especially when out of their great Loyalty and Confidence in the Kings kind intention to them they by some new Rules had condescended that none should Officiate as Majors Portrieves Magistrates or Sheriffs in the chief Towns till approved by the Kings chief Governor for the time being Their yielding this to the King was a sufficient security one would have thought to the Royal Interest A great diminution of their Liberties and such as never was yielded before to any King but this would not serve King James to be Absolute he must have the intire Disposition of them and the Power to put in and turn out whom he pleased without troubling the Formalities of Law To bring them therefore to this it was resolved to Dissolve them all Tyrconnel knew that the Protestants would never give up their Charters without being compelled by Law and therefore he endeavoured to prevail with them to admit Papists to Freedom and Offices in them that by their means he might have them surrendred but the Resolution of Sir John Knox then Lord Mayor of Dublin and of the then Table of Aldermen spoiled that Design and forced the King to bring Quo Warranto's against them since they would not easily consent to destroy themselves 2. The Chief Baron Rice and the Attorney General Nagle were employed as the fittest Instruments to carry on this Work To prevent Writs of Error into England all these Quo Warranto's were brought in the Exchequer and in about two Terms Judgments were entred against most Charters Whereas if either Equity or Law had been regarded longer time ought to have been allowed in matters of such Consequence for the Defendants to draw up their Plea than the Chief Baron took to dispatch the whole Cause and seize their Franchises Attorney General Nagle plaid all the little Tricks that could be thought of and had an ordinary Attorney brought such Demurrers or Pleadings into Court in a common Cause as he did in this most weighty Affair of the Kingdom he would have received a publick Rebuke and been struck out of the Roll for his Knavery or ignorance After all there was not one Corporation found to have Forfeited by a Legal Tryal neither was any Crime or Cause of forfeiture objected against them yet the Chief Baron gave Judgment against
and intended more if their Power had continued 11. The Deputy-Mayor of Dublin Edmund Reily issued out an Order dated Sept. 27. 1689. for regulating the Rates of Provisions Country Goods and Manufactories to be sold in the City of Dublin in which he took care to set a very low Rate on such Goods as were then most in the hands of Protestants the Rate at which he ordered them to be sold was not one half of what they generally yielded When therefore any Papist had a mind to put off his Brass Mony he went to some Protestant Neighbor whom he knew to have a quantity of these Goods offered him the Mayor's Rate in Brass and carried away the Goods by Force This was practised even by the Lady Tyrconnel and several of their Grandees But the case was otherwise with Papists they sold at what Rate they pleased not minding the Proclamation of which Alderman Reily who issued it was an Instance He had a quantity of Salt in his hands and sold it at excessive Rates above what he compelled Protestants to part with theirs Complaint was made against him and he was indicted at the Tholsel which is the City Court that very Term in which the Proclamation came out upon the Traverse the Petty-Jury found him guilty and the Court Fin'd him in an 100 l. but all this was only a Blind for the Sheriffs set him at Liberty on his Parole after he was committed to them He brought his Writ of Error returnable into the King's-Bench but the Record was never remov'd nor the Fine levied And the Consequence was that neither he nor any Papist took notice of the Order and yet kept it in its full Force against Protestants 12. They saw therefore that it was resolved to leave them nothing that was easily to be found for Sir Thomas Hacket had made a Proposal to Seize Feather-Beds and other Furniture of Houses alledging that they would be good Commodities in France upon which the Protestants thought it the best way to exchange what Brass Mony they had into Silver and Gold and gave 2 l. 10 s. 3 l. 4 l. and at last 5 l. for a Guiney but even so 't was thought too beneficial for them and to stop it they procured a Proclamation dated June 15. 1690. whereby it is made Death to give above 1 l. 18 s. for a Guiney or for a Louis d'Or above 1 l. 10 s. c. The Papists needed not fear a Proclamation or the Penalty of it they had Interest enough to avoid it and therefore still bought up Gold at what rate they pleased but if any Protestant had been found Transgressing he must have expected the utmost Severity 13. And thus the case stood when His Majesty's Victory at the Boyn delivered us and let any one judge whether we had reason to be pleased with the Success and gratefully receive him that came to restore to us not only our Goods and Fortunes but the very Necessaries of Life and what Obligations we could have of Fidelity or Allegiance to King James who treated us plainly as Prisoners of War and as Enemies not Subjects and by designing and endeavoring our Ruin declared in effect he would govern us no longer but more expresly at his going away freely allowed us to shift for our selves and advised those about him both at the Boyn when he quitted the Field and the next Morning in Council at the Castle of Dublin to make the best Terms they could and quietly submit to the Conqueror who he said was a Merciful Prince SECT XII King James destroyed the Real as well as the Personal Estates of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland 1. THere remains yet to be spoken of a third part of the Property belonging to Protestants I mean their Real Estates and care was effectually taken to divest them of these as well as of their Personal Fortunes Their Estates of Inheritance were either acquir'd before the Year 1641. and were call'd Old Interest or else since that time and pass'd by the name of New Interest The greater part of Estates belonging to Protestants were of this last sort and they stood on this ground The Papists of Ireland as I have noted before had raised a most Horrid Rebellion against the King and Barbarously Murthered some Hundred Thousands of Protestants in Cold Blood in 1641. for which most of their Gentry were indicted and outlawed by due course of Law and consequently their Estates forfeited The English after a War of twelve Years reduced them with vast Expence of Blood and Treasure and according to an Act of Parliament past 17 Car. I. at Westminster the forfeited Estates were to be disposed of When King Charles II. was restored he restored many of the Papists and after two years Deliberation and the full hearing of all Parties before himself and Council in England he pass'd an Act in a Parliament held at Dublin commonly call'd The Act of Settlement whereby a general Settlement was made of the Kingdom and Commissioners appointed to hear and determine every Man's Claim After this upon some Doubts that arose another Act pass'd 17 Car. II. commonly call'd The Act of Explanation which made a further and final Settlement Every Protestant made his Claim before the Commissioners of Claims and was forced to prosecute it at vast Expences After this he got a Certificate from those Commissioners of what appear'd to belong to him for Arrears or Debentures and having retrenched a third of what was actually set out to him and in his Possession and paid one Years full improv'd value of what remain'd every Man pass'd a Patent for it a certain considerable yearly Rent called Quit-rent being reserved to the King out of every Acre these two Acts of Parliament at Dublin with that and other Acts at Westminster together with a Certificate from the Court of Claims and Letters Patents from the King pursuant to the Certificate from the Commissioners made up the Title which two thirds of the Protestants in Ireland had to their Estates Those Papists that had forfeited in 1641. were commonly known by the Name of Old Proprietors who notwithstanding their Outlawries and Forfeitures and the Acts of Parliament that were against them still kept up a kind of Claim to their forfeited Estates they were still suggesting new Scruples and Doubts and either disturbing the Protestant Possessors with Suits in which by Letters from Court they obtained Favour from some of the Judges or else threatning them with an after-reckoning The Protestants earnestly desired a New Parliament which might settle things beyond any Doubt and cut the Papists off from their Hopes and Expectations but King James when Duke of York had so great Interest with his Brother King Charles II. that he kept off a Parliament against all the Sollicitations that could be made for it for Twenty four Years to the no small Damage of the Kingdom on other accounts as well as this and he so encouraged those forfeiting Proprietors and
this but rather than depend on the Faith of King James or his Party chose to suffer the utmost Extremity The Breach of Articles by my Lord Galmoy to Mr. Dixey a Young Gentleman Son to the Dean of Kilmore and Mr. Charlton was yet more barbarous the Lord Galmoy went down in March 168 to the County of Cavan and surpriz'd these two Gentlemen he had a Party of the Army with him and took up his Quarters at Belturbet His two Prisoners were to be exchanged for one Captain Mac Gwire then Prisoner at Crum a small Castle and the only place that stood out against King James in that County the owner of the Castle was one Captain Creighton who permitted Captain Mac Gwire to go to Belturbet on his parol to be a true Prisoner Mac Gwire so negotiated the matter that he return'd with a Summons and proposals as well for Inniskilling as the Castle of Crum and he suppos'd them not averse to a Surrender on good terms but the Lord Galmoy immagined that these Proposals would make the People of Crum secure and therefore that very Night without waiting for any answer he march'd to the Castle before they were aware and had almost surpriz'd them but the resolution of those within prevented the success of his perfidious design and forc'd him back without being able to do any other mischeif than the venting his Anger on his two Prisoners whom after his return to Belturbet he contrary to his Faith and Engagement hang'd on a Sign-Post and suffer'd their Bodies to lie unburied and be barbarously abused This was Captain Mac Gwires own account of the matter the consequence of which falshood was that those People would never hear of any terms afterwards and upon trial found much more safety in their Arms than in the Promises of King James or of any of his Party having baffled and cut off several considerable Bodies of his Forces sent against them and taken many and considerable prisoners whom yet they used with all Humanity as it were to reproach the barbarous and perfidious usage which their Prisoners met with but it was avowed and profest by the generality of King James's Men that they did not look on themselves to be obliged to treat the Rebels of the North as they call'd them as fair Enemies but as Traitors and infamous Persons whom they might destroy at any rate In the County of Longford some Protestants got into the Castle of Kenaught belonging to Sir Thomas Newcomen his Lady and those with her surrendred it on Articles January 13. 1689 to Brigadier Nugent slain afterwards by the Inniskillin Men at Cavan one of the Articles was for the Goods belonging to those in the House and their Friends notwithstanding which Nugent seiz'd and took away several parcels of Goods and several that were in the House as soon as they came out were plundered and stript naked Another Article was that the House of Kenaught should not be Burnt nor Injured notwithstanding which it was burnt to the Ground by Colonel Cohannaught Mac Gwire In short it was observ'd that amongst all the Articles into which King James or his Officers entred they never kept any to Protestants 5 A fifth Invasion on our Lives was that both King James and his inferiour Officers took on them to dispose of them by private Orders and Proclamations the penalty of violating which was often present Death thus the Proclamation that required us to bring in our Arms was on the Penalty of being left to the discretion of the Soldiers which was to expose our Lives and Fortunes to the Mercy of our greatest Enemies By a Proclamation dated July 20th 1689 all Protestants are required to bring in their Swords and other Arms on penalty of being dealt with as Rebels and Traitors The Proclamation dated June 15. 1690 forbad any to change a Guiney c. for more than 36 s. in Brass under pain of death and Colonel Lutterel published a Declaration forbidding more than five Protestants to assemble together or to be out of their Lodgings after Ten of the Clock at Night on the same Penalty the Declaration was of his own Penning and to gratifie the Curious I have put it in the Appendix the order to the Ministers to number the Protestants was likewise Penned by him and in it he declared that every one who did not enter in their Names by a certain Day should be treated as a Spy or Enemy nay sometimes he took on him to make Death the penalty of his verbal orders without a Declaration published Thus he commanded the Fellows and Scholars of the Colledge of Dublin upon pain of Death not to meet together or converse above Two or Three at a time and he would needs hang Mr. Piercy the Merchant as I shewed before without any notice given for saying that he was unwilling to part with his Goods In April 1690. The Quarter-Sessions for the County of Dublin were held at Kilmainham near Dublin Colonel Lutterel Governour of Dublin was on the Bench and in a Speech declared that King James wanted Wheat and other Grain for his Horses and that he had given the Countrey Farmers Three Weeks to bring in their Corn and had waited for their complyance during that time that he resolv'd to wait further til the Saturday after and if they did not bring it in by that time he would compel them that it was the King's will they should do it and he the King's Servant who would see his Masters Commands Executed and with a grear Oath swore he would hang that Man before his own Door that did not obey and bring in his Corn according to order Of this Speech the whole Bench and Country were Witnesses May the 7. 1690. the Lord Mayor thought fit to reinforce a former Proclamation about the rate of Goods in the Market but Colonel Lutterell did not think the Mayors Order sufficient and therefore published an Order of his own by beat of Drum declaring that whoever transgrest the Lord Mayors Order either by buying or selling should be hanged before their own doors About the same time Brigadier Sarsfield Published an Order requiring all Protestants on the borders to leave their Houses and retire Ten Miles from the Frontiers on pain of Death These were the Laws King James's Council and Ministers prescribed us by their Proclamations and Orders and these were the Acts of his Generals and Governours whom he made Guardians of the Lives and Fortunes of Protestants and yet they all came short of the inhumanity of his Parliament 6. It has been usual in Parliaments to attaint notorious Rebels and Traitors who were too strong for the Law or who being kill'd in their Rebellion could not be tryed or condemned by the ordinary course of it and when one or two in a King's Reign were thus attainted upon the most evident Proof and notoriety of the Fact it was counted a great matter even in the late Irish Rebellion none were attainted
Successors to give them relief in a Case of so great moment and general concern as this is As for the general Reprizal mentioned to be made them out of the Rebels Estate which must not be conceived to give any colour to this manner of proceeding and ought to be equal to the Estate which the Proprietors shall be outed of that will be very uncertain for it must be known who the Rebels are and what their Lands amount to since it may be probably concluded that there are many of your Subjects now in England no way concerned in the Rebellion and would have ere this attended your Majesty here if they had not been hindred from coming by duress and Imbargo and many other legal and justifiable excuses too long for this present Paper and withal that where any of them are seised of any new Estates so much must be restored to the old Proprietors and what is also subject to their Settlements and other Incumbrances After all this it is in the power of your Majesty to prevent the total ruine of so many of your Subjects as have been Purchasers and Improvers in this Kingdom by prescribing more moderate ways than depriving them of the whole of what they have legally and industriously acquired and that Committees of both Houses may hear and enquire whether any medium may be found out betwixt the Extreams for the accommodating as near as may be the Purchaser and the old Proprietor so that if there because of Complaint it may not arise from a total disappointment of either Party This is a little of what may be said on this occasion but the hast of those who drew on this Bill will allow no further time at present It is proposed that his Majesty will hear Council on this occasion No. 23. The Lord Bishop of Meath's Speech in Parliament June the 4th 1689. Spoken on the Bill of Repeal of the Act of Settlement My Lords YOur Lordships have now under yoâ—â— Consideration a Bill of great Weight and Importance for the future Prosperity or Ruine of the King and Kingdom depends upon it A Bill that unsettles a former Foundation upon which this Kingdom 's Peace and Flourishing was superstructed and Designs to erect another in its stead the Success whereof is dubious and uncertain I shall therefore humbly crave your Leave to represent my Thoughts candidly and impartially upon it And that so much the rather because I am here summoned by the Kings Writ to give his Majesty my best Advice for his own Service and the good of the Nation My Lords In every Law two things are to be consider'd First that it be just and doth no Man wrong Secondly and that it be pro bono publico And I am humbly of Opinion that this Bill is faulty in both these Respects and therefore ought not to pass this House It is unjust to turn men out of their Possessions and Estates without any Fault or Demerit To deprive Widows of their Jointures and Children of their Portions when they have done nothing to forfeit them But the Injustice will rise much higher if we consider it with a respect to Purchasers who have laid out all their Substance upon Estates deriv'd under the Acts that are now design'd to be Repeal'd What have they done to make them Delinquents except it be the laying out their Money on the Publick Faith of the Nation declared in two Acts of Parliament and on the Publick Faith of his Majesties Royal Brother expressed in his Letters Patents Their Case is yet harder If we consider the great Improvements they have made upon their Purchases which by this Bill they are like to lose without any Reprizal for them And if it be reasonable to restore the Old Proprietors to their Estates 't is enough for them to enjoy them in the same plight and condition that they left them But I see no Reason why they should have them in a better Condition or enjoy the Benefit of other mens Labours and Expences to the utter ruine of them and their Families Here Mercy should take place as well as Justice for the Purchasers are the Objects of them both Two things I am sensible may be reply'd to this and I am willing to consider them both First That if it be unjust to turn them out It is as unjust not to restore the Old Proprietor who hath been so long kept out of his Estate Secondly That there is no injury done to the present Possessor because he is to be repriz'd for his Losses As to the first of these I shall not at present meddle with the Reasons why they lost their Estates nor touch upon the Grounds and Occasions of their forfeiting their Interests in them being sensible that neither the time nor the place will admit a Discourse of this nature I shall therefore take it for granted that they were unjustly put out that it is just and reasonable that they should be restored but then it must be granted that it is unjust to turn out the present Purchaser and Possessor What then is to be done in this Case where the Justice or the Injury is alike on both sides If we restore the Old Proprietor we injure the present Possessor if we do do not we injure the Old Proprietor My Lords It is my humble Opinion which I submit to your Lordships better Judgments that we are to consider in this Case who hath most Justice on his side and incline the Ballance that way If it lies on the Old Proprietors side let him have it If not let the present Possessor enjoy it Now it appears to me that the Purchaser hath more Justice on his side than the Old Proprietor For he has both Law and Equity on his side he hath the Law on his side by two Acts of Parliament and the Kings Letters Patents and he hath the Equity by his Purchase Money whereas the Proprietor hath the Law against him and nothing but Equity to pretend to And I hope your Lordships will never think it reasonable to relieve a bare Equitable Right against a Purchaser that hath both Law and Equity If you do I am confident it is the first President of this kind As for the Reprizals I hear the Name of them in the Bill but I find nothing agreeable to the nature of them There are certain Conditions agreed on all hands to make up the Nature of a Reprizal None of which are like to be observed or kept here I shall name some of them and leave it to your Lordships Consideration how far they are like to be performed with the present Purchasers It is necessary to a Reprizal that it be as good at least if not in some respects better than the thing I am to part with That I my self be Judge whether it be better or worse That I keep what I have till I am reprized If my Neighbour comes to me and tells me that he hath a mind to my Horse
Romish Priests and Monks Writen by the Author of the former Book Entituled The Frauds of Romish Priests and Monks set forth in Eight Letters L. Annaei Flori Rerum Romanarum Epitome cum Interpretatione Notis in usum Serenissimi Delphini unà cum Indicibus copiosissimis oppidò necessariis Compendium Graecum Novi Testamenti continens ex 7959 versiculis totius Novi Testamenti tantum versiculos 1900 non tamen integros in quibus omnes universi Novi Test. voces unà cum Versione Latina inveniuntur Auctore Iohanne Leusden Editio quinta in qua non tantum Themata Graeca Voces derivatae exprimuntur sed etiam Tempora Verborum adduntur Tandem ne aliquid ubicunque desideretur in hac Novissima Editione Londinensi cuilibet Voci aut Compositae aut Derivatae Radix adjicitur propria in Tyronum gratiam De Presbyteratu Dissertatio Quadripartita Presbyteratûs sacri Origines naturam Titulum Officia Ordines ab ipsis Mundi primordiis usquè ad Catholicae Ecclesiae consummatum plantationem complectens in qua Hierarchiae Episcopalis Jus Divinum immutabile ex Auctoritate scripturarum Canonicè expositarum Ecclesiasticae Traditionis suffragiis brevitèr quidem sed luculentèr asseriter Authore Samuele Hill Diaeceseôs Bathoniensis Wellensis Presbytero Londini Typis S. Roycroft L. L. Oriental Typographi Regis Impensis R. Clavel in Coemeterio D. Pauli MDCXCI Sometime since Published for R. Clavel FOrms of Private Devotion for every day in the Week in a Method agreeable to the Liturgy with Occasional Prayers and an Office for the Holy Communion and for the Time of Sickness A Scholastical History of the Primitive and General Use of Lyturgies in the Christian Church together with an Answer to David Clarkson's late Discourse concerning Liturgies Roman Forgeries in the Councils during the first Four Centuries together with an Appendix concerning the Forgeries and Errors in the Annals of Baronius Ait idem Barclaius amitti regnum si Rex vere hostili animo in totius populi exitium feratur quod concedo confistere enim simul non possunt voluntas imparandi voluntas perdendi quare qui se hostem populi totius prositetur is eo ipso abdicat regnum Sed vix videtur id accidere posse in rege mentis compote qui uni populo imperet quod si pluribus populis imperet accidere potest ut unius populi in gratiam alterum vult preditum Idcirco enim frater carissime copiosum corpus est Sacerdotum concordiae mutuae glutino atque unitatis vinculo copulatum ut siquis eâ— collegio nostro Haeresim facere gregem Christi lacerare vastare tentaverit subveniant caeteri quasi pastores utiles misericordes qui oves dominicas in gregem colligant Cypri Ep. 67. Pamelii Socrates lib. 2. c. 22. Acts of the late pretended Irish Parliament C. 3. Pro defensione fidei prestant juramentum quod de terris suae jurisdictioni Subjectis universos haereticos ab ecclesia denotatos bona fide pro viribus exterminare studebunt Conc. Later IV. cap. 3. Concil Constantiens Sess. 45. Bull. Mart. De erroribus Johan Wickleff Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in Scotland See Appendix 28. Henry 8. cap. 13. 2. Elizab cap. 1. 10. Henry 7. cap. 13. Lord Clarendon's Speech at giving up the Sword to the Earl of Tirconnel and the Abstract of the Revenue for 1685. Appendix N. 5. 6. By what Interest and for what Design he came to be employed and at last to be made Deputy will appear from the Copy of a Letter found amongst Bishop Tyrrel's Papers his Secretary 'T is in the Appendix N. 3. Vide Ch. 2. Sect. 6. N. 2. Felix ô Neal was removed in 1689. and made a Collonel Sanders de oblig conscien praelect 9. 12. 19. Ubi tam gravis premit necessitas ut vir pius prudens non possit dubitare legislatorem ipsum si praesens esset legit sibi gratiam relaxationem concessurum liceat subditis communis utilitatis quae suprema lex est omnium legum finis rationem habere magis quam legum particulaâ—â—â—m Salus populi suprema Lex The Equity of which Maxim as it leaveth in the Law-giver a power of dispensing with the Law as he shall see it expedient to the publick Good so it leaveth in the Subject a Liberty upon just Occasions to do otherwise than the Law requires Dr. Sanderson's Judgment concerning Submission to Usurpers pag. 17. Edit Lond. 1678. Appendix N. 10. N. 7. See the Appendix for the List of Privy-Counsellors N. 9. a See Appendix N o 14. Appendix N o 14. Appendix N o 11. See Appendix Appendix See Appendix N o 15. Appendix N o 18. See the First Proclamation by the Earl of Tyrconnel Feb. 21. 1686. WHereas a late Proclamation issued forth by the Lord Lieutenant and Council of this Kingdom in December last for the Suppressing of Tories Robbers and their Harbourers in these Words following Whereas there have been of late many Burglaries and Robberies committed in several parts of this Kingdom to the ruin of some of his Majesties good Subjects and to the great disquiet of many others and it is found by experience that his Majesties Mercy that hath been heretofore extended to some Persons that have been attainted of such Crimes hath been an encouragement to others to commit the like c. Which Proclamation hath not yet met with the full effect c. See Appendix N o. 25. 'T was an ancient Law of England some say as Old as King Alfred That no King should change his Mony nor impair nor inhanse nor make any Mony but of Silver without the Assent of the Lords and all the Commons See Power of Parliaments asserted by Sir Robert Atkins p. 17. And Lord Cook Exposition of Stat. Artic super Chart. Cap. 2â— 2 Iâ—st 577. Chap. II. Sect. 4. See the Copy of a Letter to King James and Malony's Letter in the Appendix N. 4. 17. How is it possible a Parliament should be Free in all its Circumstances whilst an Enemy is in the Kingdom Append. N. 21. Appendix N. 24. See Appendix N. 23. Appendix N. 22. See the Articles in the Appendix n. 1â— See Appendix n. 28. See Dr. Walkers Siege of Derry See Appendix N. 31. See Appendix See Appendix N. 3 4. 17. 12 Eliz. Chap. 1st See the Appendix Molony's Scheme in his Letter N. 17. See the Proceedings of the Parliament of Paris upon the Pope's Bull Printed at London 1688. P. 5. Appendix N. 27. See the Petition in the Appendix N. 26. See Appendix N. 31. See Appendix N. 30. See Appendix N. 29. 1. It is unjust Reprizals It is not for the publick good Not for the King 's good It ruins the Kingdom It ruins the People in it It destroys the Publick Faith Inconvenient in point of time Loco Sigill '
of their Parliament destroyed this Jurisdiction by exempting all that please to be Dissenters p. 203 3. In most Diocesses the Bishops Dead or Attainted ibid. 4. They encouraged the most Refractory Dissenters Quakers against the Church p. 204 5. Likewise leud and debauched Converts ibid. 6. The Kings Courts hindred Bishops Proceedings against debauched Clergymen Instance in Ross and the Bishop of Killmore ibid. 7. King James appointed Chancellors Gordon a Papist in Dublin King James asserted a Power over his Protestant though not over his Roman Catholick Clergy A gross breach of Trust and provoking Temptation to his People p. 205 206 8. Papists encouraged Debauchery and had rather have us of no Religion than Protestants p. 206 Sect. 18. Fourthly By taking away their Churches p. 208 1. Priests declared they would have our Churches Act of their Parliament gave them to them with the Livings as they fell ibid. 2. At Duke Schonberg's landing they set the Rabble to deface them Instance in Trim and other Rudenesses p. 209 3. The Churches seized in Dublin Feb. 24. 1688. to put Arms in September 6. 1689. to search for Arms. Barbarities used in them In October and November the Churches seized throughout the Kingdom ibid. 4. By the Officers or Magistrates of the Army Christ Church Dublin seized p. 210 5. Protestants Complain and press to King James the Act for Liberty of Conscience Are referred by him to the Law ibid. 6. The injustice of this p. 211 7. For a colour to England and Scotland King James issues a Proclamation against seizing Churches which served only to hasten the doing of it ibid. 8. Priests slighted the Proclamation p. 212 9. Applications made to the King for Relief ibid. 10. On behalf of Waterford and Wexford King James Orders Restitution but is refused to be obeyed by the Mayors and Officers ibid. 11. On new Applications from the Protestants he refers Waterford Petition to the Earl of Tyrone Governor of Waterford who calls their Church a place of strength and turns it into a Garrison The Mayor of Wexford turned out but the Church never restored p. 213 12. When King James would have kept his word to us it was not in his Power by means of his Clergy ibid. 13. Act for Liberty of Conscience provides not against Disturbers of Assemblies p. 214 14. Many Disorders committed by their Soldiers in our Churches ibid. 15. Christ Church Dublin shut up September 6. Seized October 27. September 13. all Protestants are forbid to assemble July 13. 1689. all Protestants confined to their Parishes though two or three Parishes have but one Church June 30. more than five Protestants forbid to meet on pain of Death Had King James succeeded at the Boyne we should never have had our Churches again Liberty of Conscience brought to this p. 215 216 Sect. 19. Fifthly By encouraging Converts and ill Treatment of the Protestant Clergy p. 216 1. Protestant Wives severely treated by their Husbands Servants by their Masters Tenants by their Landords ibid. 2. Those that turned escaped Robberies c. p. 217 3. Protestant Clergy sure to be Plundered Bishops of Laughlin and Waterford ibid. 4. Without Horses in the Country and afronted in the Streets of Dublin p. 218 5. Dr. Foy's Treatment for resuting Mr. Hall Dr. King 's in his own Church Mr. Knight's by the Mayor of Scarborough c. ibid. 6. Oaths tendered them and upon their refusal imprisoned Hindred from visiting their Sick by Priests p. 219 7. Forced the Ministers to go about to take the number of their Parishoners p. 220 Sect. 20. Sixthly By Misrepresentations of them and their Principles p. 221 1 2. Priests told ignorant People that our Church allowed the King might oblige all his Subjects to be of his Faith ibid. 3. From the Doctrine of Non-Resistance they told us the King might use us as the Grand Seignior or the French King does his Subjects ibid. 4. King James warned the young Mr. Cecills against our Bishops as ill Men and all false to him p. 222 5. Yalden's weekly Abhorrences Scandalous falshood of Dr. King and Dr. Foy ibid. 6. Defence upon the whole of desiring and promoting King William to rescue us p. 224 7. From the lawfulness of the Grecians to desire or accept the like from a Christian Army ibid. Chap. IV. That there remained no prospect of Deliverance for us but from their present Majesties p. 225 1. There remained no defence for us from the Laws or King James ibid. 2. Unreasonable to trust to a new Miracle ibid. 3. Our Adversaries scoft us with Preaching Patience as Julian did the Christians ibid. 4 Mad at their Prey being rescued by his present Majesty p. 226 CHAP. V. A short Account of those Protestants who left the Kingdom and of those that stayed 228 Sect. 1. Concerning those who went away ibid. 1. Reason of this Section ibid. 2. No Law against Subjects Transporting themselves into the English Dominions ibid. 3. The Danger of staying and no prospect of doing good by their stay in Ireland 229 4. No prospect of being able to subsist in Ireland ibid. 5. The Reason of Clergy Mens going 230 6. The going away of so many of all sorts could not be without sufficient cause p. 231 7. Nor from a sudden and panick fear because it continued to the last p. 232 Sect. 2. Concerning those that stayed p. 233 1. Distribution of those that stayed into four sorts ibid. 2. First The meaner People either could not get away or were left in charge with the Concerns of those that went ibid. 3. Secondly The Gentlemen dreaded to beg or starve in England ibid. 4. Were willing to secure what they had if they could p. 234 5. Were desirous to Protect their poor Dependants ibid. 6. Were useful in interceding for and relieving many Distrest p. 235 7. In Counselling and advising inferior Protestants ibid. 8. Thirdly Those that had Employments their stay of great importance in preserving Records c. p. 236 9. Not safe for them to decline Acting till they were forced p. 237 10. In many Cases they were very beneficial to their Fellow Protestants ibid. 11. The few that did otherwise ought to suffer ibid. 12. Fourthly The Clergy need no Apology for staying Their Serviceableness in several instances p. 238 Conclusion 1. DIsclaiming Prejudice and Partiality p. 239 2. It were to be wished that Commissions might issue to enquire into the Damages of Protestants ibid. 3. The Irish may blame themselves for what they shall suffer in Consequence of these Troubles ibid. Index of the Appendix THE Act of Attainder in Ireland at large p. 241 The Persuasions and Suggestions the Irish Catholicks make to his Majesty supposed to be drawn up by Talbot Titular Archbishop of Dublin and found in Collonel Talbot's House July 1. 1671. p. 298 A Copy of a Letter of the Irish Clergy to King James in favour of the Earl of Tirconnell found amongst Bishop Tirrell's Papers in Dublin p. 301 The Copy
two hot headed Fellows amongst them but they universally talked at this rate And it was the common and encouraging Speech of the Earl of Tyrconnel from the very beginning of his Government and particularly when he took leave of several Privy Councellors and Officers at his going to wait on King James at Chester August 1687 I have put the Sword into your Hands And then in his usual Stile prayed God to damn them all if ever they parted with it again 9. 'T is further to be remembred that their Predecessors were so eager and earnest to recover this Power over their Vassals and to establish their Religion that they attempted to gain their Designs by that bloody Rebellion and Massacre in the year 1641. An Attempt no less desperate and unlikely to succeed than wicked and when their own Power appeared insufficient to gain their ends their supreme Council at Killkenny sent Commissioners with Instructions to offer up the Kingdom and themselves to the Pope the King of Spain or any other Foreign Popish Prince that would accept the Offer This was very well known to King James he was at the Council-Board when the original Instructions signed by order of the Supreme Council that then managed the Affairs of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland were produced before King Charles II and his Council in England in the year 1662 empowering their Agents to this effect and he might very well conclude that they who were willing to submit themselves to a Foreign Power to be rid of the Laws of England would heartily join with him to destroy them 10. Whosoever will consider Circumstances and lay things together will be apt to believe what is averred by some that King James before he declared his Religion had a desire and resolution to destroy the Laws and Liberties of these Kingdoms and make himself absolute if ever he came to the Crown after the manner of France and that the great motive of declaring himself a Roman Catholick at first wàs to make sure of that Party there are several things that rightly weighed will make this probable 1. If we consider that no Party amongst us was likely to be so wicked as to have bought his favour by joining with him in such a design except the Papists 2. Amongst Papists he chose out those and preferred them which he thought would be most Cordial to him and serve him most effectually in that design There can be no other reason given why he should be fonder of the Irish than the English Papists but that he thought the one more likely to go through with him than the other The English Papists are as Zealous in their Religion as the Irish and generally more honest Men yet the King rather chose to Cherish and Employ the latter The only imaginable Reason of his doing so was because the English were not so ready to give up the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom to the Prerogative as the Irish and since King James's kindness was distributed according to the readiness he found in Men to betray their Country rather than according to their Zeal for their Religion have we not reason to conclude the first to be the true motive of his kindness rather than the latter 3. Those Protestants or pretended Protestants that cordially and heartily espoused this design and served him effectually to oppress and ruin their fellow Subjects kept his favour pretty well and were Employed by him notwithstanding their being reputed Protestants a certain sign that the Reason he discharged Protestants from their Trusts and Offices was chiefly because he thought they would not serve him as he expressed it without reserve or contribute heartily to inslave themselves and their Posterity 4. He often declared and more especially in his Act for Liberty of Conscience made in his Parliament in Ireland that it was his constant Resolution that there should be no other Test or distinction amongst his Subjects but that of Loyalty by which all knew that he meant an absolute submission in every thing to his Will for he accounted every body disloyal that disputed or demurred at any of his Commands 5. As soon as the Irish began to dispute his Orders and stand on the Laws he took it heinously from them and they lost much of his favour he spake hardly of them and wished at any rate to be rid of them when the House of Commons crost some proposal of his he was very much out of humor and declared that all Commons were the same as he found by them when they quarrelled with the Earl of Melford his Secretary of State he complained that they used him basely and unkindly and that he never would have come amongst them if he had thought that they would not let him choose his own Servants when they would not suffer him to Dispense with their Act of Attainder or Pardon any Attained in it with a non obstante he is said to have fallen into so violent a Passion that his Nose fell a bleeding He was very angry with some of his Council when they demurred at his Levying twenty thousand pounds per month without Act of Parliament and said he could do nothing if he could not do that From whence we see that he reckoned all his Power nothing except he could impose Taxes as the King of France doth and that this lay at the bottom of all his Designs Nay it was commonly reported by the Roman Catholicks that King James boasted and pleased himself mightily that he had made himself Absolute which none of his Predecessors could do and had a more numerous Army than any of them and consequently was a more glorious King If then his chiefest design was to oppress our Laws and Liberties no body can doubt but he had Instruments whose Genius and Temper inclined them to assist him as long as they were like to go sharers with him in the Purchase SECT IX V. The Officers employed by King James were most of them unqualified by Law and consequently fit Instruments to destroy the Laws 1. MEN may live very comfortably in a Nation and yet be excluded from the Power or Government of it therefore it is no injustice to exclude a certain Rank of Men that want such Qualifications as may give the Common-Wealth confidence in them from intermedling in the Government Of this Nature we have had Laws in all Countries in the World and whatever be pretended they are very often both just and necessary nor is it reasonable that the King should have a power to dispense with such since they are often made on purpose to secure the Common-Wealth against his encroachments Of this Nature are our Laws that disable Papists from all Employments Civil and Military by an Act of Parliament made in the Reign of Henry VIII no Man is to Execute any Employment till he has taken the Oath of Supremacy This is repeated and confirmed by another in the second of Elizabeth And here it is
imposed on but contributed nothing to relieve us as we found to our Costs and the Protestant Judges and Burgesses finding that they were made Cyphers and Properties of themselves declined at last to Act in their Stations 5. Next to Chancery is the Kings Bench where Subjects are tryed for their Lives and Fortunes upon this was set Mr. Thomas Nugent made afterwards Baron of Riverstown the Son of one who had been Earl of Westmeath but had lost his Honor and Estate for being an Actor in the late Rebellion begun in 1641. This Mr. Nugent who had never been taken notice of at the Bar but for a more than ordinary Brogue on his Tongue as they call it and ignorance in the Law was pitched on by King James to judg whether the Outlawries against his Father and his fellow Rebels should be reversed and whether the Settlement of Ireland founded on those Outlawries should stand good It was a Demonstration to us what the King intended when he assigned us such a Chief Justice and indeed the Gentleman did not fail to answer the expectation conceived of him He reversed the Outlawries as fast as they came before him notwithstanding a Statute made in point against it and in all the Causes that ever came before him wherein the Plaintiffs and Defendants were Papist and Protestant I could not learn from the most diligent Observer that ever he gave Sentence for the latter Nay it is Shrewdly suspected that he went sharer in some considerable Causes and not only appeared for them on the Bench but also secretly incouraged and fomented them Before him a Deed should be judged Forged or not Forged according as it served a Popish Interest And a Protestant needed no more to gain a Cause against another Protestant than to turn Papist which manifestly appear'd in Sir Gregory Birns Case who merely by turning Papist as is noted before in the midst of his Suit against Captain Robert Fitz Gerald got a Deed condemned of Forgery and recovered five or six hundred pounds per annum notwithstanding Mr. Daniel Birn his Father some years before for pretending it was Forged had been Sued in an Action of the Case and forced to pay two hundred pound damages and though there appeared in Court a Bond under Birns Hand obliging him to pay two hundred pound to the Witnesses in case they should prove Captain Fitz Geralds Deed to be Forged yet the proof was accepted But these were common things in this Court and the mischief had been much greater had not a Writ of Error lyen from his Court to the Kings Bench in England In one thing more he signalized himself it was by committing and prosecuting people for feigned Offences and Treasons and by countenancing and encouraging and after discovery protecting false Witnesses against Protestants Many were brought in danger of their Lives by his contrivances and when the accused were acquitted on Tryal by a palpable Demonstration that the Witnesses were Perjured he declared that they neither could nor should be Prosecuted for they only sware for the King and he believed the accused persons guilty though it could not be proved In short he shewed all the venom and rigour against them he could he was set up to destroy them and he went as far in it as his power could reach his weakness not his inclination hindred him from carrying it farther It is not imaginable by any that have not seen and heard him how furiously and partially he was bent against Protestants it may be guessed how he stood inclined to them by the great Hand he had in promoting the Bill of Attainder and the Bill to vest all Absentees Goods in the King whereby much the greater part of the Protestants of Ireland lost all their Estates Personal and Real of which we shall speak more hereafter He was assisted on the Bench by Sir Bryan ô Neal as puny Judg a weak Man that had nothing to recommend him but Venom and Zeal being otherwise disabled both in his Reason and Body Only he had the faculty to do what he was bid especially when it suited with his own inveteracy against Englishmen and Protestants This Character may seem rigid but as many as knew him will not think it exceeds 6. The next Court for business though not for Precedence is the Exchequer in which all Actions wherein the Kings Revenue or any other Mans Estate is concerned may be tryed From this Court no Writ of Error lies in England so they were free here from that Check which was so troublesom to them in other Courts Upon this consideration it was that the whole business of the Kingdom so far as it concerned them was brought into this Court though not so proper for it Here were brought all Actions of Trespasses and Ejectments concerning Estates all Quo Warranto's against Corporations and Scire Facias's about Offices and they thought themselves concerned to have an able Man and one throughly Cordial to their Interest for the Chief Judg in it for if he had wanted Sense or Law though willing as they found by Experience in some of the other Courts he might have been unable to serve them in all Cases They therefore fixed on Mr. Stephen Rice afterward Sir Stephen who had formerly been noted for a Rook and Gamester at the Inns of Court He was to give him his due a Man of the best Sense amongst them well enough versed in the Law but most signal for his inveteracy against the Protestant Interest and Settlement of Ireland having been often heard to say before he was a Judg that he would drive a Coach and Six Horses through the Act of Settlement upon which both depended And before that Act was Repealed in their pretended Parliament he declared on the Bench that it was against Natural Equity and could not oblige This Man did King James choose for Chief Baron and for the final determination of all the Suits that lay between Protestants and Papists either in Common-Law or Equity And it is no hard matter to conjecture what success the Protestants met with in their Suits before a Judg that declared as he did that they should have no favour but Summum jus that is the utmost rigour of the Law Immediately his Court was filled with Popish Plaintiffs every one that had a forged Deed or a false Witness met with Favour and Countenance from him and he knowing that they could not bring his Sentences into England to be re-examined there acted as a Man that feared no after Account or Reckoning It was some considerable time before he would allow a Writ of Error into the Exchequer Chamber though that was in effect to themselves and when it was allowed it was to little purpose before such Judges It was before him all the Charters of the Kingdom were damned and that in a Term or two in such a manner that proved him a Man of Dispatch though not of Justice If he had been left alone it was
of Money to compound the Matter This Trick was very common and at last no Protestant tho he had ever so good Evidence against a Papist durst prosecute him for he was sure to be acquitted and then the Prosecutor was liable to the Revenge of an Action of the Case and the Damages that a Popish Jury pleased to give against him 12. There is an Act of Parliament 10 Henrici 7. cap. 12. That forbids keeping Guns or Ordnance without License from the Lord Lieutenant or Deputy The Design of it was to prevent the Irish from fortifying themselves in their little Castles whereby at that time they created the Government great Trouble and raised daily Rebellions But the Lord Chief Justice Nugent interpreted this to the disarming of all Protestants and because there chanced to be a Sword and Case of Pistols found September 6 1689 in some outward by place in Christs Church Dublin one Wolf the Subverger was committed to Newgate indicted and found guilty and had good luck to escape with his Life the Chief Justice declaring it was Treason tho Wolf was only indicted for a Misdemeanour 13. But had the Laws been in never so good Hands it could not have secured us from Destruction when the King who designed that Destruction against us pretended to be above all Laws and made no Scruple to dispense with them every Law in these Kingdoms is really a Compact between the King and People wherein by mutual consent they agree on a Rule by which he is to govern and according to which they oblige themselves to pay him Obedience But there is no general Rule but in some Cases it may prove inconvenient it is therefore agreed by all that in Cases of sudden and unforeseen Necessity there is no Law but may be dispensed with but then first it is observable that this Necessity must be so visible and apparent that all reasonable Men may see and be satisfied that it is not pretended and where the Necessity has been thus real no Man can shew that either the People or Parliament ever quarrelled with a King for using a dispensing Power 14. Secondly It must be observed that this Power of Dispensing in Cases of Necessity is mutual and belongs to the People as well as the King it being as lawful for a Subject in Cases of Necessity to dispense with his Obedience to a Law nay with his Allegiance to his King as for a King to dispense with the Execution of a Law or the exacting Obedience and this mutual power of dispensing with the Laws which are publick Compacts in Cases of Necessity is tacitly understood in them as well as in all other Covenants Doctor Sanderson proves this Power of Dispensing to belong to the People as well as to the Prince in his tenth Praelection N. 21. and he gives an Example in N. 22. The Case is thus The Conspirators after the Gunpowder Treason was discovered fled into Warwickshire and made an Insurrection the Sheriff raises the Posse Comitatus against them they fled from thence into Worcestershire where by the Law the Sheriffs of Warwick could not follow them but the Sheriff dispensed with the Law Judging saith he as he ought to have done That if he would perform right the Office of a good Subject the Observation of the Law in that Case of Necessity was very unseasonable and he ought to obey the Supreme Law which is the Safety of his Country The Sheriff did accordingly and was highly commended by King James the First for it There might be many Examples of this kind given in which the People are allowed to dispense even with their Allegiance in case of Necessity It is against the Allegiance of a Subject to own the Power of an Usurper to bear Arms to judge of Life and Death or administer Justice between Man and Man by his Commission and yet Dr. Sanderson determines it to be the Duty of a good Man to do all these if required by an Usurper Praelect 5. N. 19. and accordingly we find Judge Hales acted under the worst of Usurpers Oliver Cromwell and executed the Office of a Judge as may be seen in his Life 15. Thirdly 'T is the most wicked as well as hazardous thing that a King or People can do to pretend a necessity for dispensing with those publick Compacts when the pretence is not real for the publick Faith is hereby violated the party unconsulted is abused a just reason of Distrust raised between the King and People and they of the two that assume to themselves this power of dispensing upon a pretended not real necessity in Cases of great Moment to the Kingdom are in a fair way to lay a real necessity on the other party to dispense with their part of the Compact that is to say if the King will pretend a Necessity where there is none for his not governing by Laws in Cases that concern the common safety of the Kingdom he gives a shrewd Temptation and a justifiable Colour to his People to dispense with their Submission and Allegiance to him And it is full as good a Reason for a Peoples taking Arms to defend themselves against illegal Violence to alledge that they were necessitated to do so to prevent the Ruin and Destruction of them and their Posterity as it is for a King to alledge that he uses illegal Officers and Force to preserve himself and his Kingdoms And if the Allegation be real I do not see why it should not justifie the one as well as the other tho the one be against the Oath of Allegiance and the other against the Coronation Oath Cases of extreme Necessity being tacitly excepted in both Kings therefore that take on themselves to dispense with Laws without the consent either tacit or express of their People give an ill Precedent against themselves and must blame themselves if their People taught by them return it upon them 16. 'T is plain the Officers employed by King James in Ireland both Civil and Military were unqualified and uncapable by Law of those Employments If Lord Tirconnell for instance claimed Subjection of us by the Laws I do not see why he should expect the People to be better Observers of the Laws than he was Suppose that it was against the Law for them to resist him it was likewise against the Laws that he should command them if he dispensed in one Case they only dispensed in the other and in this Case it was as lawful for the one to dispense as the other I suppose the only Reason in a settled Government why one Man can claim our Submission and not another is because the known Laws give the one and not another the power of commanding but the Laws as well as the Interest of this Kingdom said positively that the Earl of Tirconnell and Men of his Character and Religion should not have any Office Civil or Military and therefore those Protestants that stood on their Defence against him
to what he ought and this was a great Discouragement to Trading The Complaints of all People in general as well as of Merchants were great on the account of Exactions of the Officers of the Revenue who were grown up to a high degree of Exorbitance which with many other Abuses in the Kingdom proceeded from the long Disuse of Parliaments the inferior Officers being freed from that fear for twenty four years did forget that there were any to whom they were accountable besides their own Masters and therefore not only exacted upon and oppressed the Subjects but likewise treated them with insufferable Insolence while the Commissioners or Farmers strained and perverted the Laws for their own profit or to ingratiate themselves with the Courtiers on whose Favour they depended 6. There was a fourth thing that more peculiarly ruined the Protestant Trade and 't was thus the King's Revenue in Ireland was so considerable a part of each Man's Estate that most of the current Coin in the Kingdom came into the Treasury once in a year either for Hearth Money Crown Rents or some other Duties And the King having turned Protestants out of all profitable Employments and out of the Army and put in Papists his Revenue was paid out again to them and ought to have circulated indifferently amongst his Subjects as it used to do But so great was the Malice of these new Officers to Protestants that they combined amongst themselves to let them have as little of it as was possible and therefore where-ever they could lay it out with one of their own Religion they did it And very few Protestants ever received a Groat of their Money as the Citizens of Dublin can universally witness When they wanted Money they came to the Protestant Shops where they abused and affronted and terrified them if they refused to trust calling them Dogs Whigs Rebels and Traitors swearing with many Oaths that they would be revenged on them But if they had ready Money tho they had been formerly Customers to Protestants and in their Books they never came near them any more This Practice was so universal amongst them that even the Women learn'd it particularly the Lady Tyrconnel's Daughters for thus the Lady Ross and her Sister Dillon treated several Shopkeepers falling furiously upon them in the former Terms because their Servants refused to trust By the like rudeness the Exchange was intirely ruined neither Buyers nor Sellers being able to keep in it by reason of the Insolencies of the new Popish Officers who walked in it affronted and assaulted every Body or extorted their Goods from them for nothing the Shopkeepers not daring to refuse to trust them By this means the rich Shopkeepers were driven away and most of the considerable Shops shut up even in the principal Streets of the City long before we heard any News of the Prince of Orange As soon as the Earl of Tyrconnel came to the Government there was almost a Desolation in the Town and there were at least fourteen or fifteen Trades that had nothing to do the Government knew very well that this would be the Effect of their Proceedings and that the Trade Manufactures and Improvements of the Kingdom must cease if they went on at the Rate they did but they were so far from being concerned at it that they rather seemed well pleased with it 7. And to ruin our Trade intirely they suffered and connived at the Transportation of our Wool to France a thing so fatal to England as well as to Ireland that the Law has made it Felony to be punished with Death The new Mayor of Gallway Mr. Kyrovan was catched in the very Fact and the Delivery of a considerable Cargo sent by him into France was fully proved for which he ought to have been hanged but the Lord Deputy Tyrconnel notwithstanding all his Oaths and pretended Displeasure when the Mischief of it was laid before him quickly shewed this to be only a Copy of his Countenance for he not only granted him a Pardon and remitted his Forfeiture of about 10000 l. but as a further Mark of his Favour he continued him in his Mayoralty for another year Thus the Trade of the Kingdom was ruined and the Protestants who with vast Hazard and Charge carried it on had it left to their Choice whether they would stay here and starve or remove themselves to another Kingdom and I believe no Body will wonder if they had no great affection for a Government that designedly brought this hardship upon them 8. It must be acknowledged that King James did not only ruin the Protestant Trade but that he went a great way in destroying the Trade of the Roman Catholicks also It is well known that the Citizens of Gallway are the most considerable Roman Catholick Traders in Ireland many of whom had purchased Estates under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation and must therefore fall together with them They foresaw their own Ruin in the Repeal of thâ—se Acts and petitioned the Parliament that Consideration might be had of their Purchases and Improvements but this reasonable Request was denyed them those Acts were repealed and by their Repeal left the most considerable Roman Catholick Traders in Ireland without Estates or Credit to follow their Trade or to answer their Correspondents abroad I might add here the further steps made by King James towards ruining the Protestant Trade by his coining Brass Money by his lodging it in Protestants Hands seising their Stocks and Commodities whereby they were utterly disabled to trade whilst Papists were not only spared but had the Protestants Goods put into their Hand But these with the other Influences the Brass Money had to destroy us will be more proper when we come to consider the Invasions made on our Properties SECT VII VI. King James's destructive Proceedings against the Liberties of his Protestant Subjects 1. THere is no worldly thing more valuable to Man than Liberty Many prefer it to life and few can live long without it 'T is the Darling of our Laws and there is nothing of which they are more tender But the Protestants of Ireland from the very beginning of King James's Reign had their Liberties invaded and at last intirely destroyed 'T was observable that at his coming to the Crown he made no Proclamation for a general Pardon as has been usual with Kings neither did he pass any Act of Grace in his first Parliament which gave a fair opportunity to the Papists of Ireland to revenge themselves on their Protestant Neighbors No sooner had they gotten Judges and Juries that would believe them but they began a Trade of Swearing and ripping up what they pretended their Neighbors had said of His late Majesty whilst Duke of York some years before especially in time of the Popish Plot. The new Justices of the Peace were eager to exercise their Offices and therefore on the slightest occasion bound over and committed their Protestant Neighbors many times without any reason
best it was left to the discretion of a Dragoon what he would count a Serviceable Horse and what he would do with them when he had taken them so that of 10000 Horses at least that were taken from the Protestants at that time the King received not 100 nor had he one Troop raised out of them but whoever could get a Horse whether he were Officer or Soldier from a Protestant went away with it and converted it to his private use of which the Lord Deputy complains in a Proclamation dated March the 1st 1688 but this Proclamation though dated the 1st of March was not published till the 12th the reason of the delay was this the Proclamation ordered Horses that were not fit for Service to be restored and if it had come out according to the date thereof many Protestants that knew in whose Hands their Horses were would have claimed them To defeat them therefore some that had interest with the Deputy got the Proclamation delayed till those that took them might have time to convey them far enough from being found And this was their usual Method they first did the mischief they intended to the Protestants and then they published some antedated Proclamation forbidding it to be done and sometimes when a Proclamation came out before they had gone through with what they intended they denyed to be concluded by it alledging it came out surreptitiously as it happened in this very case of Searching for Arms. 19. Now Arms are the Hedges that secure and preserve our Goods and Lives especially in a Conquered Country such as Ireland is and it was but reason that the Law did allow none but Protestants to have them though they never hindred any Man from arming himself so far as was necessary for his own Defence When therefore they saw the keeping of Arms was made penal to them in the highest degree King James's Proclamation having made it Treason and Rebellion as I shewed before and some would needs perswade them it was really so to which opinion the Lord Chief Justice inclined when he gave charge to the Jury concerning one Wolf who was indicted for keeping some Arms and fined for it as a Misdemeanor when I say they saw that which the Law required them to do made so highly criminal for the Law requires every Freeman of Dublin to keep Arms and those Arms put into the Hands of Tories and Ruffians who had already robb'd them of a great part of their Substance had they not reason to believe that they were disarm'd purposely that they might be the more easily Robb'd or Massacred and that it was as easy for a Government that in one day disarmed them through the whole Kingdom against Reason Law and Justice to find a pretence at another time to take away their Lives they could neither doubt their inclinations nor question their ability to do it If one should tye a Mans Hands and turn him naked amongst Wild Beasts all the World would believe he designed they should devour him and sure we had reason to suppose the same of our Governours and they that treated us thus without provocation and against the Laws could not expect that we should be unwilling to change our Masters if a fair opportunity offered By the Law we have as much property in our Arms and Horses that we buy with our Mony and in a conquered Country such as Ireland is where every Forty Years we constantly have had a Rebellion they are as necessary for us as our Cloathes or Estates which indeed can signify nothing without them And the King might as justly pretend that he had occasion for them and take them from us without consideration as our Horses and Arms the oppression to us in our circumstances was really equal 20. It may perhaps be imagined by those who are Strangers to our Affairs that we had abused our Arms to oppress and wrong our Neighbours or to oppose the King and therefore deserv'd to lose them but it is observable that it doth not appear that any one Protestant in Ireland before this Disarming had used his Arms to injure any R. C. nor did they hurt any that was not either actually robbing them of their Goods or assaulting their Persons no not in the North where they refused to give up their Arms they kept even there on the defensive and offended no Man but when first Assaulted So that there was not the least reason or colour to disarm us except that we might be Plundered and Robb'd without being able to make resistance Our crime for which we lost our Arms for which we were exposed naked to our Enemies and for which the best Gentlemen in the Kingdom were obliged to walk without a Sword was because they suspected that we would not otherwise tamely part with our Goods or suffer our selves to be abused and affronted in the Streets by every Ruffian which was the condition of the best amongst us 21. 'T is true King James could not carry on a War for the advancement of Popery without our Goods and he could not be secure of them whilst we had Arms but I hope all the World is convinced that it was not our Counsels nor Actings that brought him to these Straits nor was it to be expected that we should be content to be undone to repair the errors and faults of those Wicked Counsellors who put him on those desperate courses which lost him his Crown All our crime is then that we could not be content to be undone with him and by him and rather chose to desire Protection Liberty and the restitution of our Priviledges and Arms from their present Majesties than to be in the condition of the Vilest of Slaves under King James a crime for which I am confident no Papist condemns us in his Conscience however he may rail at us and call us disloyal SECT IX The attempts made on the Personal Estates of Protestants before the Revolution in England 1. THe Earl of Tyrconnel when made Deputy of Ireland found the Riches of the Kingdom in the Hands of Protestants the Flocks the Herds the rich Houshold-Stuff and Plate Beneficial Leases improved Rents Trade and Mony were almost intirely theirs whereas the Papists by their Idleness Ignorance and numerous Begging Clergy were so low in their Fortunes that they were in no condition to raise or maintain such an Army as was necessary to carry on his Designs in this Kingdom and he was sure the Protestants that had the Riches would not contribute to support them He therefore applied himself with all art and industry to impoverish them He did what he could as I have already shew'd to destroy their Trade he put all the hardships imaginable on Protestant Tenants that they might not be able to pay their Rents and he encouraged the Popish Tenants to oppose their Landlords It was whispered amongst them that they need not pay their Rents for the Land in a little time would be their own
they were taught to answer when their Rents were demanded that they had spent what they designed for their Landlords to fit themselves or their Sons for the King's Service and he was sure to be represented as disaffected that did not sit down with this Answer If any Landlord was so hardy as to Sue them they either got themselves inlisted in the Army or got a particular Protection against Arrests If any distrained they let their Cattle be taken to the Pound and then by Night they either stole or forced them from thence and when they had thus secretly recovered and conveyed them away they brought Actions against the Landlord that distrained as if he had imbezelled them in which case they were sure to meet with favour and countenance in the Courts Sometimes they avoided paying Rents by Swearing their Protestant Landlords into a Plot or by affixing Treasonable Words on them insomuch that hardly any Protestant durst distrain or even demand his Rent And for Two Years before the Revolution in England very few received any profit out of their Estates This stop of Receits for so long time obliged Gentlemen to live upon the main Stock and for want of their growing Rents which should have answered their Expences they were as low as possible in ready Mony when the late Troubles fell upon them and this made many of them on their Flight to England need Charity for their Subsistence 2. This hardship was the more heavy upon them by the necessity they lay under of leaving their Farms and setled manner of Living in the Country and of either repairing to Dublin or removing into England where nothing could be useful to them but ready Mony yet this was unavoidable for there was no living for them amongst a People that made no Conscience to pilfer or rob them of their Goods or to lay Snares for their Lives by false Oaths and suborned Evidence Neither did their repairing to Cities and Towns protect them but the same Persons that drove them from their Country Houses by their Robberies and Oppressions did afterwards indict and imprison them for leaving them of which I have given an Example in the Appendix Some indeed notwithstanding all the hard usage they met with ventured to stay on their concerns in the Country but were at last burnt out of their Houses and forced to follow their Nighbours A House within Four Miles of Dublin was Burnt and several Women and Children Murthered in it at the very beginning of Modelling the Army Thus Mr. Thomas Corker's House in the County of Meath by Navan was Burnt as supposed by the Popish Parish Priest who after he had done this injury to the Gentleman gave out that Mr. Corker had burnt his own House to make the Roman Catholicks odious Mr. Henry Gonnes a Ministers House in Connaught was likewise Burnt because they could not otherwise prevait with him to leave the Country And many others were served in the same way and their Families Murthered or else were put to a vast Charge to guard their Houses against these Cut-throats and Robbers Even about Dublin hardly any Gentleman's House escaped without being Robbed or at least several times attempted and if any were caught in the Fact they easily got a Pardon for it 3. Add to this in the Third Place that though of a good while the Protestants got nothing out of their Estates yet they were put to vast Charges to defend them for the Papists having gotten Judges Juries and Sheriffs of their own brought in their Counterfeit Deeds and false Claims in great numbers and either in forma Pauperum or by the favour of the Courts carried on their Suits with little Expences and when worsted in them as sometimes in spite of the most manifest partiality they were there was nothing to be recovered of them whereas the Protestants were forced to row against the Stream and to struggle with all the expensive delays and tricks the Courts could put on them If at any time they were found tardy in the least circumstance or form of Law though no advantage used formerly to be made of such Mistakes yet they were sure to pay severely for it every body who has been concerned in Law business knows the difference of these cases as to expences and the consequence was that Protestants were forced to part with a considerable share of their ready Mony to recover or defend their Estates which when in their Possession yielded them nothing 4. They met with the same measure from the Treasury as from their Tenants where any Salary Pension or Payment was due to any of them from the King they either did not get it at all or if by importunity and interest they did get any thing it was with such Expences Bribes to Courtiers and Delays that they lost the benefit of it But where any thing was due from them it was exacted with all the rigour imaginable and the most strict punctilio's observed to bring them under Fines and Forfeitures The Chief Baron Rice could not contain himself on the Bench but on occasion of a Protestant Lawyers pressing somewhat importunately for his Client that he might have Justice he answered he should have Justice but as I said before that it should be Summum Jus. Nay such discouragement and discountenance was given to the Protestant Lawyers that many of the most celebrated Counsellors forsook their Practice and the Kingdom and such as staid could hardly come in for a share of the Fees expended by their former Protestant Clients for it was enough to destroy a Cause to have them appear at the Bar for it The consequence of which was that the Protestants were forced to employ their Enemies for Counsel and give them their Mony too often to betray their Cause at least they could not expect Lawyers that wished so ill to it and them in their Hearts would be earnest to carry it for them 5. In Cities and Corporate Towns the Townsmen were put to great Charges to defend their Charters and when Judgment was given against them they were put to another Charge to take them out anew and to purchase their Freedoms It is true some few Papists generally joined to take out the new Charter but when it was taken out they forced the Protestants to pay for it at what rate they pleased or obliged them to leave the Town The Attorny General got some Thousands for his share and every petty Officer and Head of a Country Borrough enrich'd himself with some part of the Protestants spoil on this account 6. The next means used to impoverish them was that of Free Quarters by which they extorted from the Inn-keepers vast Sums of Mony It was a hardship in time of Peace to be obliged to entertain such rude nasty Guests as the private Soldiers generally were and to endure the insolencies of their Officers who practised several Arts with a design to destroy their Quarters Sometimes they would quarter a
not believe him till he shewed the Copy which much surpriz'd Sir Richard he began to enquire how his Lordship came by it and intimated that the Keepers of the Rolls were Treacherous in letting any one see it much more in letting a Copy of it go abroad His Lordship with good reason express'd his Admiration that an Act of Parliament should be made a Secret and the Laws upon the Observation of which the Lives and Fortunes of so many Men depended should be conceal'd with so much care from them At last the Attorny told him That he himself would draw up a Warrant for Sir Thomas Southwell's Pardon that should do his Business and get the King to Sign it But the Earl refused to accept his offer unless his Lawyer might first peruse it which being granted the Lawyer upon perusal found it to be such as would not hold in Law and intended only to delude him The Earl made new Application to King James and Sir Richard being sent for the King ask'd him why he did not prepare a Fiant for Sir Thomas Southwell's Pardon according to the Warrant sent to him He answered That his Majesty could not grant such a Pardon That his Majesty was only a Trustee for Forfeited Estates and could not Dispense with the Act that by an express Clause in it all Pardons that should be granted were declar'd void The King in some Passion told him That he hoped they did not intend to retrench his Prerogative Sir Richard replied That his Majesty had read the Act before he pass'd it The King answered He had betray'd him that he depended on him for drawing the Act and if he had drawn it so that there was no room for Dispensing and Pardoning he had been false to him or words to that effect Thus the Matter ended and Sir Thomas went into Scotland with my Lord Seaforth without being able to obtain his Pardon for Estate or Life the Act voiding any Pardon granted to any attainted by it after Nov. 1. 1689. or not enrolled before the last day of that Month. 18. And now I doubt not but the Reader from this Story which is literally true will observe first the Juggling of the Popish Lawyers with King James and will pity a Prince who gave himself up to such False and Double-dealing Counsellors when an Act of Parliament is made against a Papist then it is no less than Treason to question the King 's Pardoning and Dispensing Power but when an Act bears hard on a Protestant and the King has a mind to ease him then the King has no power to Dispense he cannot grant a Pardon tho he earnestly desire it From whence we may see that the Dispensing Power was only set up to shelter Papists from the Law and ruin Protestants and that Papists in their Hearts are as much against it as Protestants 2. We may observe what fair Justice was design'd for Protestants a Law was made to turn near 3000 out of their Estates and to take away their Lives if they did not come in against a certain day and yet the Law that subjected them to this Penalty was made a Secret and they not suffer'd to know one word of it till the time allow'd them to come in was past at least three Months but there was an Intrigue in this they knew they had a Party in England who were to face down the World that there were no such Acts made a Party that were to represent it as a Sham and Contrivance of King James's Enemies to make him Odious and the great Argument they were to urge to prove it must be to alledge Where is the Act Why doth it not appear If there were any such Act would not the People that came so often from Ireland and tell such Frightful Stories have brought it with them This is the part the Favourers of King James were to act in England and Scotland and this is the reason the Act was so long kept Secret 3. We may observe the Folly of those Men who were attainted in this Act themselves and yet Flatter themselves with the hopes of living Happily and enjoying their Estates nay and getting Preferment under K. James when restor'd to his Kingdoms these Men do not consider that this Act would be restor'd together with him and that then it is not in his power to do this for them that if they expect any such thing they must be oblig'd to an Irish Popish Parliament for it and he is much a Stranger to Ireland that knows not what Mercy an English-man and a Protestant is to exspect from them especially when they can give him nothing but what is taken from one of themselves Till therefore the Papists of Ireland become so good natur'd as to give away by their own voluntary act their Estates of which they were in actual Possession to Protestants it is the greatest Folly in the World for any Protestant to think of enjoying any Estate in Ireland 4. For 't is observable that the Protestants Estates were not only given away by this Act of Attainder but the Papists were likewise in Possession of them by the following means The Act of Repeal was to be executed by Commissioners appointed by the King who were to determine the Claims of the Proprietors or Heirs to the Proprietors of the respective Estates October 22. 1641. and give Injunctions to the Sheriff to put them in Possession In the mean time the Protestants were to keep their Possessions till the First of May 1690. and to pay Rent to the Popish Proprietors The same Commissioners were to set out Reprizals to reprizable Persons But notwithstanding this no such Commissioners ever sate the Protestants were generally outed and the Papists possess'd both of their old Estates and likewise of the Estates of Protestants they compass'd this by several Stratagems 19. Wherever the Protestants had set their Lands to Papist Tenants those Tenants forsook their Protestant Landlords and became Tenants to the pretended Popish Proprietors Several Protestants complained in Chancery of this as contrary to the Act which allowed them to keep Possession till May 1690. which not being yet come nor any Commissioners being yet appointed to execute the Act they mov'd for an Injunction to quite their Possessions but the Chancellor answer'd That this did not concern Landlords that set their Lands but only such as occupied Farms themselves and that the Parliament had granted that indulgence to them only that they might have time to dispose of their Stocks which not being their Case who had Tenants they must go to Common Law and try their Titles by this means most of the old Popish Proprietors got into their Estates Nay they not only outed the Landlords of their Estates but even the Protestant Tenants of their Leases made in consideration of a valuable reserv'd Rent though this was positively against the intent of the Act which confirm'd such Leases and only gave the reserved Rent to the restor'd Proprietor 2.
his Government over them 6. The Case of the Purchasers and Improvers in Ireland seem'd the hardest the Land forfeited by the Rebellion in 1641. was set out to those that had been Adventurers and Soldiers in that War and many of these had sold them at Twelve or Fifteen years Purchase the Purchasers had built fair Houses and Villages on them inclos'd Deer-Parks planted Orchards and Gardens and laid out vast Sums in these and other Improvements it seem'd hard to turn them out without consideration to try therefore whether any thing would make King James relent they endeavour'd to see what he would do for these poor Men how their Case was prest and represented to King James may be judged by a Paper given him by the Lord Granard and drawn up by the Chief Justice Keating with the Approbation of other Protestants 't is in the Appendix King James read it and made no other answer to it but That he would not do evil that good might come of it the meaning of which Words as then apply'd is not easily understood It has been a common Question put to the Gentlemen of Ireland by some that neither know them nor their Affairs What have you lost But sure whosoever knows the extent of Ireland and the value of Land in it will see that the Interest of the English Protestants ruined by King James since he came to the Crown is of greater value than the Estates of all that favour his Cause in England and Scotland and I suppose it would put them out of conceit with him or any other King that should take away but one half of their Estates from them SECT XIII Eighthly King James brought the Lives of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland into imminent danger 1. I Suppose from the former Sections it is sufficiently apparent what Invasions King James made on the Liberties and Fortunes of his Protestant Subjects there remained to them only their Lives and these as will appear from this Section were put in imminent danger by him many were lost and the rest escap'd with the greatest hazard When King James came into Ireland it was certainly his Interest to exercise his Clemency towards his Protestant Subjects and he knew it to be so and therefore in his Declaration which he sent privately into England he made large Professions of his tenderness towards them and boasted how much their safety had been his care every body expected a Proclamation for a General Pardon and Indemnity should have been sent before him and that â—e would have put an effectual stop to the illegal Prosecutions against their Lives and to the Robberies of their Fortunes that every where were going on at his coming but on the contrary he rather pusht on both and not content with the Laws that already were in force which Partial Judges and Juries wrâ—sted to destroy them he made new snares for them by Acts of his pretended Parliament and by several private declarations whereby not only he but his inferior Officers took on them to dispose of the Lives of Protestants 2. It is not reasonable to charge his Majesty with the private Murther committed on Men in their Houses which were many up and down the Kingdom several even in the City of Dublin Only thus far in some degree he may be thought responsible for them he knew very well with what barbarous Murthers the Papists of Ireland had been charg'd in the Rebellion of 1641 he knew what inveterate hatred they carried towards the Protestants and how many Tories and Robbers constantly disturbed the Peace of the Kingdom and yet without any necessity at all he threw himself upon these People he encouraged them he Armed them he gave Commissions even to those that had been Tories and guilty of Murthers and therefore cannot altogether be excused from the Irregularities committed by them especially when there was no search made after or Prosecution of the Murthers as it happened in the case of Colonel Murry of Westmeath Brother in law to my Lord Granard an old Gentleman who had serv'd King Charles the first and second and suffered considerably for his Loyalty he was way-laid and shot dead as he rode to his own House under King James's Protection and with some marks as he imagined of his Favour Yet no enquiry was made after it There were many such private Murthers but I do not think it necessary to insist on them I shall confine my self to such as are of a more publick Nature which gave us just reasons to fear that the Government had a design upon our Lives 3. Such were first encouraging Witnesses to swear us into feigned Plots and Conspiracies of these there were many set up in the Kingdom almost every County had one set up in it and many were put into Prison and indicted for high Treason as Captain Phillips and Mr. Bowen in the County oâ— Westmeath and several others in other places some of which I have before mentioned and when the perjuries of the Witnesses came to be plainly discovered they yet were encouraged and protected from any Legal prosecution Of this nature a Conspiracy was framing against one Mr. William Spike and if it had taken effect it would have reached to a great many more The contrivance was thus one Dennis Connor had a mind to a small Employment which Mr Spike held in the Castle he had petitioned for it but Spike by the Interest of my Lord Powis tho a Protestant kept his place being found diligent in it Connor resolv'd to try another experiment to get him removed he framed a Letter as from one in Inniskilling directed to Spike in which the writer thanks him for his Intelligence and refers to a method agreed on for seizing the Castle of Dublin on a certain Day The Letter to make the thing more credible abuses King James in very ill terms Connor drops this Letter in the Castle where Spike came every Day knowing that as soon as it was found Spike would be seized and then he might manage the Plot as he pleased but his Contrivance was spoiled for the Sentinel saw him drop the Paper and procured him immediately to be seized he was examined before the Chief Justice and I think before King James also why he wrote such a wicked Letter he said it was for the Kings service to remove Spike whom he believed to be a Rogue and who being a Protestant would betray the King Spike Prosecuted him in the Kings-Bench but after all that could be done the Jury brought Connor in not Guilty pretending that it did not appear that this was the very Letter dropt by Connor tho he had confest it before the King and the Lord Cheif Justice and tho it was proved and owned to be his hand and a rough draft of it found with him and the Sentinel swore he dropt a Letter which he delivered to the Officer and the Officer swore that was the Letter delivered by the Sentinel to him tho
Clergy were established in Ireland by as firm Laws as the Properties of the Laity The King by his Coronation Oath was obliged to maintain them Their Tithes and Benefices were their Free-holds and their Priviledges and Jurisdiction were settled and confirmed to them by the known and current Laws of the Kingdom according to which the King was obliged to govern them and whereof he was the Guardian The Clergy had beside all this peculiar Obligations on him and a Title to his Protection for they had espous'd his Interest most cordially Whilst Duke of York they used their utmost diligence to perswade the People to submit to Gods Providence and be content with his Succession to the Crown in case his Brother dyed before him and they prest that point so far that many of their People were dissatisfied with them and told them often with heat and concern what reward they must expect for their pains if ever he came to the Throne they saw their danger but could not imagine any man would be so unpolitick and ungrateful as to destroy such as had brought him to the Throne and could only keep him safe in it and therefore they ventured all to serve him and many of them by their Zeal for him lost the Affections of their People and their Interest with them It was chiefly due to their diligence and care that his Title from the beginning met not the least opposition in Ireland tho the Army in it were intirely Protestant Had they and the rest of the Protestants in this Kingdom been in any measure disloyally principled in the time of Monmouth and Argile's Rebellion they might easily have made an Insurrection more dangerous than both those and the least Mutiny or revolt amongst them could hardly have failed to have ruined King James's Affairs at that critical time but they were so far from attempting any such thing that they were as ready and as zealous to assist him as his very Guards at Whitehall which he himself could not but acknowledge how he rewarded them I have already shewn and how grateful he was to the Clergy that thus principled them will appear by the Sequel 4. First therefore when his Majesty came to the Crown he declared that he would protect the Church of England in her Government and Priviledges under which we suppos'd the Church of Ireland to be concluded And accordingly the Clergy and People of this Kingdom return'd his Majesty their Address of Thanks though they very well knew that this was no more than was due to them by the Laws and by the King's Coronation Oath in particular But they were soon told by the Roman Catholicks that his Majesty did not intend to include Ireland in that Declaration and that it must be a Catholick Kingdom as they term'd it Every discerning Protestant soon found by the method they saw his Majesty take that he in earnest intended to settle Popery in England as well as Ireland but he thought himself so sure of effecting it suddenly in Ireland that his Instruments made no scruple to declare their intentions nay they were so hasty to ruin our Religion that they did not so much as consult their own Safety but even before it was either seasonable or safe in the opinion of the wiser sort amongst themselves they began openly to apply all their Arts and Engines to effect it 1. By hindring the Succession and Supplies of Clergy-men 2. By taking away their maintenance 3. By weakning and then invading their Jurisdiction 4. By seizing on their Churches and hindring their Religious Assemblies 5. By violence against their Persons And 6. By slandering and misrepresenting them and their Principles SECT XV. 1. King James in order to destroy the Protestant Religion hindred the Education and Succession of Clergy-men 1. THE Good and Support of Religion doth very much depend on the educating and principling Youth in Schools and Universities and the Law had taken special care that these should be in the hands of English men and Protestants and the better to secure them the Nomination of the Schoolmasters in every Diocess except four is by a particular Act of Parliament lodged in the Lord Lieutenant or Chief Governour for the time being The Clergy of each Diocess by the Act are obliged to maintain a Schoolmaster and his Qualifications are described in the Act. But when the Earl of Tyrconnel came to the Government he took no notice of those Laws but when any School became void he either left it unsupplyed or put a Papist into it And in the mean time great care was taken to discourage such Protestant Schoolmasters as remain'd and to set up Popish Schools in opposition to them Thus they dealt with the School of Killkenny founded and endowed by the charitable Piety of the late Duke of Ormond they set up a Jesuits School in the Town and procured them a Charter for a Colledge there they drove away the Protestant Schoolmaster Doctor Hinton who had officiated in it with great industry and success and seiz'd on the School-house commonly call'd the Colledge and converted it to an Hospital for their Soldiers Thus in a few years they would not have left one publick School in the hands of a Protestant for the Education of their Youth 2. There is but one University in Ireland and there is a Clause in the Statutes thereof that gives the King Power to dispense with the said Statutes it was founded by Queen Elizabeth and certainly never designed by her or her Successors to be converted against the fundamental Design of its Institution into a Seminary of Popery yet advantage was taken of this Clause though we had reason to believe it would have been done if there had been no such Clause to put in Popish Fellows as soon as the Fellowships became vacant one Doyle a Convert was the first who was named a Person of so exceedingly lewd and vicious a Conversation as was fully prov'd before the Lord Tyrconnell and of so little Sence or Learning that it seemed impossible that any Government should have countenanc'd such a Man yet this did not much weigh with his Excellency and therefore the Colledge insisted upon another Point the Dispensation that Doyle had gotten through his ignorance was not for his purpose for it required in express Terms that he should take the Oath of a Fellow and that Oath includes in it the Oath of Supremacy the Provost tendered it to him but he durst not take it for fear of disobliging his own Party upon this they refused to admit him he insists on his Claim and complains to the Lord Deputy upon a hearing Justice Nugent Baron Rice and the Attorny General supplyed the Place of Advocates for him but the Case was so plain that even Justice Nugent had not the confidence to deny the insufficiency of his Dispensation and therefore they ordered him to get another But to be even with the Colledge for demurring on the King's Mandate they stopt
near New-England to check the growing Independents of that Country 14. That the next Parliament being formed as aforesaid great Sums of Money will be given his Majesty Query Whether the Roman Catholick Clergy may not be admitted into the House of Peers this next Parliament or stay a little 15. That for effecting the Premises 't is better his Majesty should govern Ireland by a Committee of such of his Privy Council as approved the Conjunction with France and as are not concern'd in Ireland rather than by the Council of Ireland 16. Let such a Lord Lieutenant be in Ireland who in Inclination and for fear of being displaced will begin this Work of laying the Foundation of his Majesty's Monarchy and hazard his Concernments upon that account 17. That the Army be gradually reform'd and opportunity taken to displace Men not affected to this Settlement and to put into the Army or Garisons in Ireland some fit Persons to begin this Work and likewise Judges upon the Benches 18. Query What Precedents may be found to break the several Farms and to be Master of the Exchequer and pole the Gains of the Bankers Brewers and Farmers 1. Whether the paying of a Fine or Income upon all Grants of Charters Officers and Commanders may not bind and fasten the Grant Duty and Allegiance as with Silver Chains more firmly to the King's Government 2. Whether any Grants may be presumed to be new obtained without paying a great Value at least to some great Officer or Courtier for procuring the same 3. Whether it be not â—â—â—sonable a Year's Value be paid as a grateful Acknowledgment to the Prince's Bounty upon Temporal Grants as First Fruits from Spiritual 4. Whether to reserve such Grants to the immediate dispose of the King be not the Interest of the Crown and a Means to create a closer adherence to the Person of the Prince and so make Monarchy more Absolute and Real instead of factious Dependences on great Men who are often acted more by Self-interest than the Advantage of their Master 5. Whether a considerable Revenue may not be raised to the Crown that if such Courtiers received it upon procuring Grants it were paid to the Private or Privy-Purse 6. Whether the Subject would not more chearfully pay a Years Value or two to the Prince upon passing Grants than to be liable to the unreasonable Exaction of hungry Courtiers who sometimes make a Prey both of the Subject and the Prince's Favour 7. Whether many worthy and deserving Men have not been put by and denied the benefit of his Majesty's Grant by false Insinuation for not gratifying some such viperous Officers 8. Whether his Majesty might not expect to have a fitter Person recommended when there is no Advantage to be made by their Recommendations than when Offices are canted by Courtiers and such only recommended as will give most but the least fit 9. Whether if by the Silver Key Men chance to get admittance into Offices the Prince may not make Advantage by their Misbehaviour since by losing both their Mony and Employment the King will not only get a Fine and better Servants but also gratify the People by displacing an ill One. A Copy of a Letter of the Irish Clergy to King James in favour of the Earl of Tyrconnel Found amongst Bishop Tyrrell's Papers in Dublin SIR SInce it has pleased the Almighty Providence by placing your Majesty in the Throne of your Ancestors to give you both Authority and Occasion of exercising those Royal Vertues which alone do merit and would acquire you the Crown to which you were born We though comprehended in the general Clemency and Indulgence which you extend to the rest of our fellow Subjects are nevertheless so remote from your Majesty's Presence that our Prayers can have no access to you but by a Mediator And since of all others the Earl of Tyrconnel did first espouse and chiefly maintain these Twenty five Years last past the Cause of your poor oppressed Roman Catholick Clergy against our many and powerful Adversaries and is now the only Subject of your Majesty under whose Fortitude and Popularity in this Kingdom we dare chearfully and with assurance own our Loyalty and assert your Majesty's Interest Do make it our humble Suit to your Majesty that you will be pleased to lodg your Authority over us in his Hands to the Terror of the Factious and Encouragement of your faithful Subjects here since his Dependence on your Majesty is so great that we doubt not but that they will receive him with such Acclamations as the long captivated Israelites did their Redeemer Mordecai And since your Majesty in Glory and Power does equal the mighty Ahashuerus and the Vertue and Beauty of your Queen is as true a Parallel to his adored Hester We humbly beseech she may be heard as our great Patroness against that Haman whose Pride and Ambition of being honour'd as his Master may have hitherto kept us in Slavery And tho we wish none the fate of so dreadful an Example but rather a timely Penitence and Conversion we yet humbly crave your Majesty's Protection against all such if it may consist with your Royal Wisdom and Pleasure to which we with all humility submit in the establishing of the â—aâ—d Earl of Tyrconnel in such Authority here as may secure us in the exercise of our Function to the Honour of God and offering up our Prayers and Sacrifice for the continuation of your Majesty's long and prosperous Reign over us Dublin the of July 1685. Your Majesty's most dutiful and obedient Subjects The Copy of a Letter sent the King August 14. 1686. Found in Bishop Tirrel's Papers but imperfect May it please your Majesty I Humbly beg of you for God's sake and your own to read what I here presume to write not but that I know it may well be thought an inexcusable piece of Presumption in any Subject to say or write any thing that may look like prescribing to a King especially a King that from his own knowledg and the best Mother of it long Experience must with universal consent be allowed the most competent Judg in his Dominions of what ought or ought not to be done Yet inasmuch as your present Counsellors are for the most part divided from you by the unhappy difference in Religion I hope your Majesty will pardon a loyal Plain-dealer for presuming to offer his well-meaning Opinion of the present Posture of Affairs Sir As I am one that makes it my Business to study your Interest I took the liberty of telling you in former Letters That in order to replant Religion in your Dominions you ought to begin with Ireland where the Work is more than half done to your Hand and where your Prerogative allows you to do with that Kingdom as you please for it was not to be expected that England and Scotland so irreconcileable to Popery would consent to take off the Penal Laws by a Parliament if not aw'd by a
Fitzgerald Esquires Bur. Trim. Captain Nicholas Cusack Walter Nangle Esquire Bur. of Navan Christoph. Cusack of Corballis Esquires Christ. Cusack of Ratholdran Esquires Bur. Athboy John Trinder Esquires Robert Longfield Esquires Duleek Kells Com. Monoghan Bryan Mac Mahon Esquires 9 th July 1689 Hugh Mac Mahon Esquires 9 th July 1689 Town of Monoghan Com. Fermanagh Enniskillen Queens County Sir Patrick Trant Knight Edmond Morris Esq Bur. Maryborough Peirce Bryan Esquires Thady Fitz Patrick Esquires Bur. Ballinkill Sir Gregory Bourne Baronet Oliver Grace Esquire Port Arlington Sir Henry Bond Baronet Sir Thomas Hacket Knight Com. Roscommon Charles Kelly Esquire John Bourk Bur. Roscommon John Dilton Esquires John Kelly Esquires Bur. Boyle John King Captain Terence Mac Dermot Alder. 6th May 1689. Tulske Com. Sligoe Henry Crofton Esquires Oliver O Gara Esquires Bur. Sligoe Terence Mac Donogh Esquires 8th May 1689. James French Esquires 8th May 1689. Com. Tipperary Nicholas Purcell of Loghmore Esquires James Butler of Grangebeg Esquires City of Cashell Dennis Kearney Aldermen James Hacket Aldermen Bur. Clonmell Nicholas White Aldermen John Bray Aldermen Bur. Fethard Sir John Everard Baronet James Tobin of Fethard Esq Bur. Thurles Bur. Tipperary Com. Tyrone Coll. Gordon O Neile Esquires Lewis Doe of Dungannon Esquires Bur. Dungannon Arthur O Neil of Ballygawly Esquires Patr. Donenlly of Dungannon Esquires Bur. Strabane Christopher Nugent of Dublin Esquire Dan. O Donelly of the same Gent. 8th May 89. Clogher Augher Com. Waterford John Power Esquires Math. Hore Esquires Bur. Dungarvan John Hore Esquires 7th May 89. Martin Hore Esquires 7th May 89. City of Waterford John Porter Esquires Nicholas Fitzgerald Esquires Bur. Lismore Tallow Com. Wexford Walter Butler of Munfine Patrick Colclogh of Moulnirry Bur. Wexford William Talbot Esquire Francis Rooth Merchant Bur. New Rosse Luke Dormer Esquires Richard Butler Esquires Bur. Bannow Francis Plowden Esq Commis of the Revenue Dr. Alexius Stafford Bur. Newborough Abraham Strange of Tobberduff Esq Richard Daley of Kilcorky Gent. Bur. Eniscorthy James Devereux of Carrigmenan Esquires Dudley Colclough of Mougâ—ery Esquires Arther Waddington Esq by a new Election Bur. Taghmon George Hore of Polhore Esquires Walter Hore of Harpers-town Esquires Bur. Cloghmyne Edward Sherlock of Dublin Esquire Nicholas White of New Rosse Merchant Bur. Arklow Fytherd Coll. James Porter Capt. Nicholas Stafford Com. Wicklow Richard Butler Esquires William Talbot Esquires Bur. Caryesfort Hugh Byrne Esquire Peice Archbold Esq Upon whose default of Appearance Barth Polewheele Bur. Wicklow Francis Toole Esquires Thomas Byrne Esquires Bur. Blesington James Eustace Esq Maurice Eustace Gent. Baltinglass Com. Westmeath The Honorable Coll. William Nugent The Honorable Coll. Henry Dillon Bur. and Mannor of Mullingar Garret Dillon Esq Prime Sergeant Edmond Nugent of Garlans-town Esq Bur. Athlone Edmond Malone of Ballynehown Esq Edmond Malone Esq Councellor at Law Bur. Kilbeggan Bryan Geoghegan of Donore Esquires Charles Geoghenan of Syenan Esquires Bur. Fore John Nugent of Donore Esq Christoph. Nugent of Dardis town Esq Com. Londonderry City Londonderry Bur. Colerane Bur. Lamavudy No. 22. An Address to King James in Behalf of the Purchasers under the Act of Settlement by Judge Keating THis humble Representation made unto your Sacred Majesty is in the Behalf of many Thousands of your Majesties dutiful and obedient Subjects of all Degrees Sexes and Ages The Design and Intention of it is to prevent the Ruine and Desolation which a Bill now under Consideration in order to be made a Law will bring upon them and their Families in case your Majesty doth not interpose and by your Moderation and Justice protect them so far as the known Laws of the Kingdom and Equity and good Conscience will warrant and require It is in the Behalf of Purchasers who for great and valuable Considerations have acquired Lands and Tenements in this Kingdon by laying out not only their Portions and Provisions made for them by their Parents but also the whole Product of all their own Industry and the Labour of their Youth together with what could be saved by a frugal Management in order to make some certain Provision for Old Age and their Families in Purchasing Lands and Tenements under the Security of divers Acts of Parliament Publick Declarations from the late King And all these accompanied with a Possession of Twenty five Years Divine Providence hath appointed us our Dwelling in an Island and consequently we must Trade or live in Penury and at the mercy of our Neighbours This necessitates a Transmutation of Possessions by Purchase from one hand to another of Mortgaging and Pledging Lands for great and Considerable Sums of Money by charging them with Judgments and indeed gives Name to one of the greatest Securities made use of in this Kingdom Statutes Merchant and of the Staple and very many especially Widows and Orphans have their whose Estates and Portions secured by Mortgages Bond of the Staple and Judgments Where or when shall a Man Purchase in this Kingdom Under what Title or on what Security shall he lay out his Money or secure the Portions he designs for his Children If he may not do it under divers Acts of Parliament the solemn and reiterated Declarations of his Prince and a quiet and uncontroverted Possession of Twenty Years together And this is the Case of thousands of Families who are Purchasers under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation It were a hard task to justifie those Acts in every Particular contained in them I will not undertake it but if it be consider'd that from 23. October 1641. until 29. May 1660. the time of his Majesties Restauration the Kingdom was upon the matter in one continued Storm That the alterations of Possessions was so universal and Properties so blended and mixt by Allotments and Dispositions made by the then Usurping Powers It may be well concluded that they must be somewhat more then Men that could or can frame a Law to take in every particular Case though it should have swoln to many Volumes and Laws which are to be of such universal Consequence as this was are to have a Regard to the Generality of a Kingdom or People though possibly some particular Person may have some hardship in his private Concern But if we may judge by general Laws by the produce and effect of them and at the same time have a Prospect to the Estate and Condition of this Kingdom from 1640. and as far backwards as you please until the time of his late Majesties happy Restauration and at the same time take into Consideration what the Kingdom became in few years after the Commission for the Execution of those Acts were at an end the Buildings and other Improvements the Trade and Commerce the vast Heads of Cattel and Flocks of Sheep equal to those of England together with great Sums of money brought over by our Fellow-Subjects of England who came to Purchase and Plant in this Kingdom The Manufactures set on foot in divers parts whereby the meanest Inhabitants were
at once inriched and civilized it would hardly be believed it were the same Spot of Earth Nay Over-flown and Moorish Grounds were reduced to the bettering of the Soyl and Air. The Purchasers who brought the Kingdom to this flourishing Condition fly to your Majesty for Succour offering not only their Estates and Fortunes but even their Lives to any Legal Trial within this your Majesties Kingdom being ready to submit their Persons and Estates to any established Judicature where if it shall be found that they enjoy any thing without Legal Title or done any thing that may forfeit what they have Purchased they will sit down and most willingly acquiesce in the Judgments But to have their Purchases made void their Lands and Improvements taken from them their Securities and Assurances for Money Lent declar'd Null and Void by a Law made ex post facto is what was never practised in any Kingdom or Countrey If the Bill now design'd to be made a Law had been attempted within two three four or five years after the Court for the execution of these Acts was ended the Purchasers would not have laid out their Estates in acquiring of Lands or in Building or Improving on them Thousands who had sold small Estates and Free-holds in England and brought the Price of them to Purchase or Plant here wou'd have stayed at home And your Majesties Revenue with that of the Nobility and Gentry had never come to the Height it did If your Majesty please to consider upon what Grounds and Assurances the Purchasers of Lands and Tenements in this Kingdom proceed you will soon conclude that never any proceeded upon securer Grounds The Acts of xvij and xviij of King Charles your Father of blessed Memory the First takes notice that there was a Rebellion begun in this Kingdom on the 23d of October 1641 And so doth a Bill once read in the House of Lords whoever looks into the Royal Martyrs Discourse upon that Occasion will see with what an abhorrence he laments it and that he had once thoughts of coming over in Person to suppress it Those Acts promise Satisfaction out of Forfeited Lands to such as would advance Money for reducing these disturbers of the publick Peace unto their Duty The Invitation was his late Majesties your Royal Brothers Letters from Breda some few weeks before his Restauration which hapned the 29th of May 1660 And within six Months after came forth his Majesties most Gracious Declaration for the Settlement of this Kingdom This may it please your Majesty is the Basis and Foundation of the Settlement and was some years after Enacted and made a Law by two several Acts of Parliament It is true that the Usurping Powers in the Year 1653. having by the permission of the Almighty as a just Judgment on us for our Sins prevailed here did dispose and set out the Estates of Catholicks unto Adventurers and Soldiers and in a year or two after transplanted out Catholick Free-holders for no other Reason but their being so in Connought where Lands were set out unto them under divers Qualifications which they and their Heirs or those deriving under them as Purchasers enjoy'd and still do enjoy under the Security of the before mentioned Acts of Parliament and Declaration His Majesties gracious Declaration of the 30th of November 1660. which I call the Foundation of the Settlement was before it was concluded on under the Consideration of that great Prince and the Lords of his Council of England where all Persons concerned for the Proprietors as well old as new were heard whoever reads will find the many Difficulties which he and his Council met with from the different and several Pretenders what Consideration was had and Care taken to reconcile the jarring Interests and to accommodate and settle as well as was possible the Mass and Body of Subjects here It was some years after before the Act for the Execution of his Majesties most Gracious Declaration became a Law It was neer two years upon the Anvil It was not a Law that past in few days or sub silentio It was first according to the then Course of passing Laws here framed by the Chief Governour and Council of this Kingdom by the Advice and with the Assistance of all the Judges and of his Majesties Council Learned in the Law and then transmitted into England to be further consider'd of by his Majesty and Lords of his Council there where the Counsel at Law and Agents of all Pretenders to the Propriety of Lands in this Kingdom were heard and that Act commonly called the Act of Settlement approved of and retransmitted under the Seal of England to receive the Royal Assent which it did after having passed both Houses of Parliament The Innocent Proprietors being restored pursuant to thiâ— Act and some Difficulties appearing as to the further execution of it Another Act passed commonly called the Act of Explanation which went the same Course and under the same Scrutiny It is confessed that though they are two Acts it was by the same Parliament who were chosen according to the ancient Course of Chusing Parliaments But if any miscarriage were in bringing that Parliament together or the procuring the aforesaid Acts of Parliament to pass which we can in no wise admit and the less for that your Majesties Revenue was granted and settled by the same Parliament and many good and wholsom Laws therein Enacted Yet it is manifest that nothing of that kind ought to affect the Plain and honest Purchaser who for great and valuable Considerations acquired Lands under the Security aforesaid and expended the remainder of his Means in Building Improving and Planting on them and that for the following Reasons First The Purchaser advising with his Counsel how to lay out or secure his Money that it may not lie dead not only to his but the publick detriment tells him that he is offer'd a Purchase of Lands in Fee or desired by his Neighbours to accommodate him with Money upon the Security of Judgment or Statute Staple and upon the enquiry into the Title he finds a good and Secure Estate as firm in Law as two Acts of Parliament in force in this Kingdom can make it and in many Cases Letters Patents upon a Commission of Grace for remedying of defective Titles he finds Possession both of many years gone along with this Title several descents past and possibly that the Lands have been purchased and passed through the hands of divers Purchasers He resorts to the Records where he meets with Fines and Common Recoveries the great Assurance known to the Laws of England Under which by the Blessing of God we live and tells him there is no scruple nor difficulty of Purchasing under this Title since he hath Security under two Acts of Parliament Certificates and Letters Patents Fines and Recoveries and that no Law of force in this Kingdom can stir much less shake this Title How is it possible to imagine that the
Legislative Power should be made use of to void this Mans Estate who perhaps was never in this Kingdom until after these Acts were Enacted and became Laws it will be the like Case with all Persons who upon the Marriage of their Children and considerable Marriage Portions paid and receiv'd have procured Settlements for Jointured Portions and Remainders for their Children and Grand Children And all these are to be laid aside without any Consideration of Law or Equity in the Case of the Purchasers or any misdemeanor or offence committed by them Whereby vast Numbers of your Majesties dutiful Subjects the present Proprietors and their Lessees and in very many Cases Widows Orphans Merchants and Traders will be at one stroke outed and removed from the possessions of their Lands and Improvements which in many places are more in value than the Township whereon they are made This with submission without some fraud decelt or default of the Purchaser never was and it is hoped never will be done by a People or Nation professing Christianity Nor is it for the Honour Welfare or Advantage of the King or Kingdom to have it so done What will strangers and our fellow-subjects of England and Scotland say We sold our Estates in England transported us and our Families into Ireland to purchase improve and plant there We acquired Lands under as secure Titles as Acts of Parliament the greatest known Security could make them Our Conveyances both by Deeds and matters of Record are allowed good firm and unquestionable by any Law in force at the time of the Purchase We have had the possession 10 12 or 15 years and are grown old upon them We have clearly drawn our Effects from England and settled here not doubting but our Posterity may be so likewise We have purchased Annuities and Rent Charges out of Lands under the same Securities And now the Old Proprietors though many of them had Satisfaction in Connaught would fain have a new Law to dispossess us of our Estates and Improvements made as aforesaid It will not be believed that the chief of those who drew on this Design should in Parliament and elsewhere which ought to consist of the gravest wisest and wealthiest Free-holders of the Kingdom for such the Law presumes them make a noise with that good and wholsome advice Caveat emptor in this Case or can think that Caveat is proper here The Purchaser ought to be wary of any Flaw in the Title at the time of the Purchase made and purchases at his peril if any such there be But who is that Purchaser that must beware of a Law to be made 20 30 or 40 years after his Purchase or to destroy his Security for Money lent or Settlement upon Marriage this is not a desect in the Title but under favour is a President which no humane foresight can prevent and if once introduced no Purchaser could ever be safe the worst of Lotteries affording a securer way of dealing than Ireland would Can it be your Majesties Honour or Advantage to have thousands of Families ruined by such a Proceeding as this is What will become of our Credit and consequently of our Trade abroad Where will be the Reputation and publick Faith and Security of the Kingdom when Foreign Merchants shall know from their Correspondents here that they cannot comply with their Engagements to them their Estates Houses and Improvements both in Countrey and City which they had acquired for great and valuable Consideration and within the Securities of the Laws are taken from them by a Law made yesterday in case this Bill should pass So that in Effect we are not only contriving to break and ruine our own Trades and Merchants at home but even those in Foreign parts which will infallibly destroy your Majesties Revenue and sink that of every Subject Surely these Particulars and the Consequences of them are worth more then two or three days consideration which is as much as this Bill could have since the Parliament was not open'd till the 7th of this Month The very Report of what is designed by this Bill hath already from the most improved and improving Spot of Earth in Europe From stately Herds and Flocks From plenty of Money at 7 or 8 per Cent. whereby Trade and Industry were encouraged and all upon the Security of those Acts of Parliament From great and convenient Buildings newly erected in Cities and other Corporations to that degree that even the City of Dublin is ruined The passing of these Acts and the securities and quiet promised from them inlarged double what it was That the Shipping in divers Ports were 5 or 6 times more than ever was known before to the vast increase of your Majesties Revenue reduced to the saddest and most disconsolate condition of any Kingdom or Countrey in Europe Infinite numbers of the Inhabitants having transported themselves and Families with what remained unfixed in Purchases and Improvements and was portable of their Estates into other Kingdoms that very many of the Buildings both new and old in this City and in the very Heart and Trading Part of it are uninhabited and waste It is grievous to see as you pass through the City the Houses and Shops shut up The Herds and Flocks in the Countrey are utterly destroyed So that of necessity the Tenant must break throw up his Lease leave the Key under the Door and the Lands become waste and from hence will necessarily follow that the Farm-houses and Improvements must go to decay and Beef Tallow Hides Wooll and Butter from whence arise the Wealth of the Countrey will fail us What is become of the frequent Declarations made by the Earl of Clarendon and the Earl now Duke of Tyrconnel of your Majesties fix'd Resolutions never to lay aside the Acts of Settlement and Explanation Why did the Judges in their several Circuits declare in all places where they sate unto the Countries there assembled that your Majesty was resolved to preserve the Acts of Settlement and Explanation and that they were appointed by the then Chief Governour here to declare the same unto them from whence they took confidence to proceed in their Purchases and Improvements and with submission be it spoken if this Bill pass are deluded Shall Patents on the Commission of Grace signify nothing The Great Seal of England tells them they may proceed upon the publick Faith and here again they become Purchasers paying considerable Fines to the King to whom Rents were reserved where none were due before and many places the Rent increased as in case of Fairs and Markets granted together with the Lands on them Patents of Liberties of Free Warren and to enclose and empale for Park surely some consideration ought to be had of those whose money was paid on this account It would be farther considered That your Majesty before your access to the Crown had passed several Lands and Tenements in this Kingdom in Certificate and Patent pursuant to these Acts of