the Law when upon just cause they do desire it And it is further my Lord that I plead yet more particularly for a People who are sufficiently known to have preserved and our of their natural affection to the true English Interest and self-preservation by that Interest and out of a Conscience too of their obligation by all the Laws of God and Man to be loyal Sbjects to his most sacred Majesty who only is the supreme and most proper Judge of that Interest to have so preserved the Kingdom of Ireland in the late Wars from being alienated from the Crown of England and from his Majesty to a powerful Foreiner and whose Ancestors in Tirones Rebellion against Queen Elizabeth and in so many preceding Revolutions during the fatal Divisions of Lancaster and York under Henry the 6. and in the Barons Wars in King John's Reign as likewise in all other occasions which have been but too frequent since the first Conquest by Henry the Second are famous in Chronicles for having mantain'd and commonly at their own private charges and their own private hazard alone the very same true English Interest in that Nation But if notwithstanding two such weighty considerations besides those many other given your Grace not in this Work only but also in my two former Addresses the Catholicks of Ireland must be eternally miserable and if it be so decreed that these poor People must be utterly destroyed and at this time too and by the very impression of King Charles's the no less Just than Merciful's Royal Hand and Seal and by the very concurrence of the Duke of Ormond and as well by occasion of their most loyal endeavours or of having fought constantly for so many years while any fighting was in any of the three Kingdoms for his Majesty as upon account of those other which they have long since reâ—entantly acknowledg'd to have been illegal in the beginning or prosecution of the Irish War by any of them untill his Majesty had by Articles of Peace graciously own'd them all for dutiful Subjects Or if it be so decreed that the poor Catholick Party of Ireland must be the Scape-Goat of Leviticus devoted to all the Vengeance Levit. 16. both of Heaven and Earth and that upon the unlucky head of this caytiff beast and even by the imposition of Aarons's hands at the door of the Tabernacle before and in the name of the whole Congregation of God's chosen People of the British Empire all their own sins and all their own transgressions must be laid and all the maledictions and imprecations of punishment which their own iniquities or those of any of them at any time deserved to bring upon themselves if I say this devoted sin-offering must be loaden so and with so much ceremony sent away and by a man of opportunity led along to the Wilderness to a Land not inhabited and if all this appear just and fit in your eyes to be accomplish'd in his Majesties Catholick Subjects of Ireland may the good pleasure of God and will of the King be done And may the rest of his People of so many different Nations Religions and Interests enjoy all the blessings of a prosperous Peace under the shadow of his Wings and protection of his Laws and Armes Which my Lord and that your Grace may however determine of this great Affair by those Rules of heavenly Knowledge which cannot err and which God alone can sufficiently instruct you with shall be the continual Prayer of My Lord Your Graces most humble most obsequious and most faithful Servant THE PUBLISHER's BRIEF Advertisement To the READER HAving read above two years and a half since a Book first Printed in Dublin without the Author's Name otherwise expressed than by that of a Person of Quality and the same Piece after of another Edition at London with the Frontispiece or Title-Page twice changed but into farr worse every time with that Person of Quality's Titles prefixed and the Gentleman's Name likewise 'gainst whose Letter he writ and by perusal of it having sadly considered the eternal Infamy this Person of Quality would have left to after Ages affixed to the memory of the Catholick Confederates and People of Ireland who profess the Roman Faith and no less the general destruction of all those poor unfortunate Confederates and People designed by him if his advice prevail I could not after some months more had pass'd but admire the supine carelessness of all my Countrymen at home that none of them would undertake the pains of replying to him and speak in Print those known clear Truths both against his manifest falsities and manifold fallacies which I have so often heard by word of mouth from very knowing and sincere Gentlemen of that Country who were privy to all the Transactions there since 41. Which was the reason together with that resentment every good Patriot should have I writ to my Friends in Ireland and such as were likelyest to know whether any one had thought of a Reply or whether they all did give the Person of Quality's Answer for un-answerable At last after much enquiry and pains taken in this Business and some Charges too it pleased God I should receive a Manuscript Copy of this you have here And though I know not the Author but by report nor understand the reason why he would not do his Country right in appeasing this strom which had been raised to so great a height by occasion partly of his own former Writings in behalf of his distressed Countrymen albeit that could be no just occasion either for this Person of Quality or the Man in the Dark in England who writ formerly against him The Irish Colours displayed and whom P. W. did soon after and ever since put to silence by his former Reply entitled The Irish Colours solded nor even for any other to write against P. W's Countrymen or himself yet I found my self obliged to do both the Author and his Country the kindness to publish to the World in Print and with all sincerity without any corruption or the least alteration that very Manuscript as it came to my hands boping the Author will take this my kindness in good part for I am sure my Country will since it doth all Irish Catholicks that right than which scarce ought any thing be more desirable to men that regard their honour and reputation Bâ—sides the Demonstrations are so clear in point of Conscience Equity Honour and even Interest of His Majesty and the English Nation which P. W. gives all along in this Piece where occasion requires it against our Person of Quality's inhumane Counsells given throughout his Answer to the Duke of Ormond and even to His Majesty that Providence I hope will make some use of this Reply by some means or other to let His Grace the Duke of Ormond and by His Grace our most gracious King see through this cruel Design of our Person of Quality's advice for destroying the Irish
of Sauls Children and the Gibeonites Pag. 90. 130. Where in the first place I must tell our Person of Quality he hath very ill endeavoured to shew how far that is Pag. 90. parallel to the present Case of the Irish and how far it is not And I must tell him that neither his paralleling differencing The Parallel made and the Differences given by the Person of Quality in the Case or Example of Saul 's Children and the Gibeonites proved ridâ—lous end unconcludiâ—g c. or indeed imposing here on the Reader and on holy Scripture too can prove that I have unjustly applyed tâ—ose examples of Gods most righteous Judgements 131. He might without any labour have seen in that Letter which without any reason he took so much pains to contradict matter enough for a more pertinent and more ample parallel He might have observed the great King of Heaven and Earth in a Parliament of Angels bestowing the Land Canaan on the Descendants of Abraham for the Rebellion of the Inhabitants and this gift again confirmed by him to them many hundred years after even in that other great Parliament of Angels and Men both which he held on Sina Mount amidst lightnings and thunders and those terrible voices and the sound of Clarions mingled in that loud dinn confirmed I say with so much solemnity and even confirmed in his written Laws given there by Moses to the Children of Israel and yet confirmed in a special command given them never to make Peace or Truce with the old Inhabitants of Palestine not even with the Amorhites by name He might have remembred the vast expence of an Army of 600000 fighting men employed by him to get possession of them even by force and blood and by so many prodigious miracles and wonders and Kings slain and Monsters quell'd and Cities overthrown and Kingdoms harraz'd and ruined for ever to make way for his beloved People to enjoy the gift he had once made to them so solemnly He might after this have considered a Treaty of Peace entertained nevertheless with some of those very Nations with the Gibeonites I say who were the Children of Amorheus and a Peace concluded with them by Josuah even God's own Lieutenant over his peculiar chosen people and by his 12 great Captains and without the knowledge or consent of any other Assembly Council or Parliament of Israel or of his great Army or of the infinite number of other persons young men old men and women and children of Abraham and Jacobs posterity who yet were all highly concerned in the effects of it as being in part destructive to their rights and lessening the gift which God made to them and quitting their claim to so many great Cities and the territories adjoyning He might further have remembred the delusion and circumvention were such whereby those Gibeonites obtained the Peace that they were not known or thought by Josua or by his Captains to be Inhabitants of that Land which God had bestowed on the Children of Israel the tatter'd rags and old Shooes and wine bottles rent and the dry and mouldy bread of these crafty Inhabitants and even those manifest express verbal lyes which the Book of Josuah relates having been made use of by the fearful Gibeonites to circumvent Josuah till he concluded with them He might likewise have remembered the advancing of the Camp within three dayes after this Treaty perfected to the very Cities of the Gibeonites to storm them as being within the Lot of that Army of God and such as they had been long before commanded by God himself and in his Law to Conquer even by destroying utterly the Inhabitants root and branch And might remember the Countermand given by Josuah nevertheless when he understood they belonged to those he made Peace with and this Countermand given and yet a further command to observe strictly the Articles yea notwithstanding the general murmurings of his Army and people against him This great Commander of the Legions of God who had in all his enterprizes the Spirit of God judging it without any peradventure to be the pleasure of this great King of Kings as flowing from the Dictates of natural Reason that such as though by such arts had undisposed themselves to a War and their own defence and wholly relyed on his word should be protected in all their rights and their Articles observed most religiously to them and that no commands of God in his positive Laws though in general terms seemingly against it did reach to this or such a particular Case Finally our Person of Quality might have considered the Gibeonites not only interceded for four principal Cities in particular and for the teâ—ritories adjoyning but were even themselves and their Cities professors of Idolatry and Heathenisme and worshipers of false Gods as on the other side Josuah and his Army and people the propagators of the only true worship of the God of Heaven 132. Our Person of Quality might have considered all this which if he had and then reflected on the Rebellion of Ireland even of those very Septs which without question he accounts not only as pricks in his sides and thorns in his eyes but even as bad as the Canaanites Hittites c. or the very worst of the Amorhites and to be extirpated as these were out of the good Land flowing with milk and honey but not the Land of Promise I hope to him alone or to the Saints of his Calender and after did reflect on a good King his late Majesty so justly incensed by this provocation and on his Parliament and Laws of 17 Caroli and on his donation and division therein of the Rebels Estates and on the Army employed and Captains made and the great Commander of them in that Kingdom under his Majesty and on the bloody though just prosecution of that War and Battails fought and Legions vanquished and the better part of the four Provinces of Ireland utterly destroyed if he had then remembered the application made to his Majesty and his Lieutenant and the Treaty admitted and a Peace concluded even with those very Septs before designed for destruction even that very Peace of 48. I mean if I say our Person of Quality had soberly considered all this and the circumstances and the advantages which are for me certainly he might have seen matter enough for a more pertinent and more ample parallel and might have seen it in the Kings in the Subjects in the Lands or Countries in the Crimes in the just offences in the resolutions of punishment in the Parliaments in the Laws of Donation and Partition in the Armies and Commanders in the sharp prosecutions of the War in the Treaties nevertheless entertained with the Rebels and Peaces concluded with them in the murmuring complaints of Armies and of inconsiderate People and in their unjust endeavours to ruine those for ever and specially four Cities who relying on the words of their great Commanders unfurnished themselves of all
be a Joseph not only to the Israel of God the Religious Protestants Pag. 93. but also a Joseph even to the Egyptians themsâ—lves feeding and preserving them yet so as becomes Pharaoh 's Steward And although I dispute not at this time the limitation or extension of this Author's meaning under these notions the Protestants of Ireland the Israel of God the Religious Protestants nor his allusions moreover to the Egyptians themselves and Pharaoh's Steward on all which I could say enough to his confusion and notwithstanding himself makes it appear sufficiently that his feeding and preserving them was not so much an effect of his Charity as a further argument of his Hypocrisie yet for the second part of his own additional Wish which I am sure he had not from my Letter or from elsewhere but from the abundance of his own heart and from theirs who are such as himself I know not what to admire most therein his extreme hatred and malice or his extreme impudence and rashness that in harbouring in his own breast or thoughts a desire so merciless cruel so unjust and tyrannical even beyond almost all imagination this in giving it as a good Wish to the Duke of Ormond and publishing it in print to all others and in these very words Yet so as becomes Pharaoh 's Steward reserving Pag. 93. the Lands of all but the Priests to the King 's free dispose and removing that is transplanting the people from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other end thereof No regard of any Innocents no remembrance of any Articles no more thoughts of the services and sufferances of any no Justice to no Pitty for the Irish Nation but the Laws of Nations even in that of Publick Faith and the Laws of God too in so many particulars and the Laws of the Land also even the very Fundamental Laws of England and Ireland both must be controuled by a new Law against all those former of purpose to make Slaves of the King's Friends to the King's Enemies even hewers of Wood and drawers of Water even in the very worst sense of such hewers or such drawers and to bestow for ever the Estates of those upon these and even to transplant their very persons Men Women and Children from one end of the borders of Ireland to another and even to transplant them to a very narrow nook there and that too for most of the transplanted so if it should so happen set out in Boggs and Rocks and uncouth horrid Wildernesses and the Duke of Ormond must be the great instrument hereof and the King himself the primary efficient by this Person of Quality's good wish to the Duke and just desire from him And the Lands of the Priests and the King 's free dispose must cloak all this As if our Person of Quality and his Consorts had not long since deprived of Lands and Houses both the Priests of the Egyptians and the Priests of the Israel of God or that he would now exempt either had he had the least hope to prevail or the least pretence to quarrel agaâ—nst these And as if that must be termed the Kings free dispose which the dayly Machinations and bloody Contrivings and threatning Demeanour of so many of this Person of Quality's most godly Brethren necessitates his Majesty at present seemingly to own or connive at Or that any freedom whatsoever in disposing the lands of Innocent Subjects to him and his against the Laws or the Lands of the Article-makers that never transgressed after such Articles made could excuse from a breach of the Laws and a breach of Covenant or Publick Faith such disposal And I am sure this Person of Quality will insist no longer on the Kings free dispose than it shall relate to himself and his party or that the Estates of the Irish be disposed to his advantage 172. But if notwithstanding all this he will struggle yet in justification of his good wish or desire I would fain know of him what would himself or his party think of P. W. or even of the Protestant Cavaliers that from the first of the War to the last continued unchangeably faithfull to his late and present Majesty if I sâ—y P. W. or these Loyal Gentlemen of all the three Nations or of any of them would even in the present conjuncture and reflecting on so many horrid Plots dayly set on foot wish desire and labour with the Duke of Ormond and present Parliament of England and with his Majesty that a new Law should be made and a new Act revoking the late Act of Indempnity or a new and far other Declaration set forth by his Majesty and by the Parliament after and with his Majesties Royal consent made a Law whereby all the Lands belonging at any time even by a just title or before the Wars to this Person of Quality's good friends whether Anabaptists Quakers Fifth Monarchy men Independents or even Presbyterians or any other sect of what Judgement soever throughout the three Kingdoms should be reserved to the Kings free dispose that is for ever disposed by his Majesties Royal grant to these Cavaliers and a fit proportion too to P. W. and such of his Clyents as lost themselves and adher'd unalterably at least since 48 to his Majesties interests and whereby moreover all the above named our Person of Quality's good friends should be removed that is transplanted from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other end thereof all those in Scotland to some narrow steril corner in the Highlands or to the Hebrides or Isles of Orkney and all their conforts in England to the most barren and mountainous part of Wales and all his beloved in Ireland to Iarchonnaght and Barrin I would fain I say know what in such case our Person of Quality and his friends would think of P. W. and his Cavaliers wishing desiring and labouring so Nay what if the case had thus only stood with the Person of Quality and all those his friends that they might have alleged to themselves Articles of Peace and Publick Faith given them in such Articles made suppose it so with his Majesty before his return from Breda And what if the case had thus moreover stood with them and P. W. and his Clients and even with all those Cavaliers that our Person of Quality and his people might have alleged against all for themselves so many years constant fighting Warring suffering for and adhering to the Kings Interest in bondage and in banishment and that P. W.'s Irish friends and the English Cavaliers had been the very persons who had for so many years too and ever since 41 unalterably even to the year 59 or 60. when they could no longer fought against the King and them and brought all the miseries of those times on all would not he and his in such cases and specially in the later except against the unreasonable groundless unmercifull rigour and against the inhumanity injustice and
this Reply and partly in my Printed Letter and Irish Colours Folded and others have more amply in several occasions and his Majesty whose testimony and authority is above all exception most graciously and truly declares in his publick Act of Settlement as we have now seen That what this Trifling Author of Horae subsecivae objects of an interloping Conquerer c. makes no alteration in the Case For 1. I must tell this Gentleman he doth no less ignorantly than improperly style the success of the Usurper a Conquest or him a Conquerer The raising of Armes by Subjects against their Soveraign had never yet any name in England or Ireland or in the Laws of either but Rebellion and Treason And the effects of Treason and Rebellion can never be termed properly or truly a Conquest nor the prevailing Traytor a Conquerour For that were to give a Right and Title that might pass to the Traytor 's Posterity in succession 2. That Charles the 2. whom God preserve and his Father are looked on by this Author and by this Objection as dispossess'd by the Usurper Which is plain ignorance or at least a willful and malicious mistake of the Laws of England which so preserve the Possessions of the Crown as the King cannot be dispossessed by a Subject A Subject may intrude and take the profits of the Land belonging to the King But this in Law can never amount to the dispossessing of the King Where-ever Charles the 2. was the 30th of January in the Year 1648. being the fatal day of his Father's death eo instanti he began his Reign and therefore now is the 16. Year thereof Whereas if he could be dispossess'd of his Crown by his rebellious Subjects and that horrid Action could be styled a Conquest and his regaining thereof again a new Conquest this should be but the fourth Year of his Reign And who sees not it were a very ill exchange for his Majesty to forgoe his antient and undoubted Right to the Crown of England and to own his holding and enjoyment thereof by Conquest on an Usurper who could pretend no right thereunto 3. That that his ground of his former bold impious and bloody Assertion or after-conclusion thence derived of an interloping usurping Conquerour if admitted for sound or solid for good or true Doctrine might prove very disadvantagious and injurious to his Majesties Subjects in general English and Scots of what Religion soever no less than Irish Papists even I say in their Estates Liberties and Lives For if a King come even to a Christ an Kingdom by Conquest he hath Vitae Necis potestatem He may at his pleasure alter and change the Laws of that Kingdom as appears in Cook l. 7. Report Calamy s Case 4. That he falsly charges the Irish Papists to have owned c. the Usuprer as I have a little above declared 5. That he doth as falsly and ignorantly or at least out of designed malice and against his own Conscience averr That the Civilians have in like Cases long since decided this Case of the Irish truly stated as I have above or any way decided for him that of an interloping usurping Conquerour c. applyed to Charles the 2. and his good Subjects whether English Scots or Irish even I mean those very Irish Papists that formerly had been Confederates and after submitted to his Majesty or his Father upon Articles fought constantly for him and under his Banner and by his Commission against the Usurper and never submitted since to any other Power whatsoever but with his said Majesties own consent If this Gentleman can allege but even one Civilian for himself even I say in this Case of his or any other such interloping usurping Conquerour truly applyed I will grant him somewhat to excuse his no less inhumane than uncharistian and most horrid Assertion But I am confident all his malice cannot find one whom he dares quote in writing or print So farr doth he speak as out of all reason so out of all Books 6. That by consequence necessary following the obligation of publick Agreements the Irish cannot be punished by the King as this Author sayes they may Lege Talionis no more than he can by any other Law as is before shewed of God or Man War or Nations For the King hath already bound his own hands from acting against them by retaliation or otherwise acknowledges himself to be so bound in honour and justice according I mean to those Articles of 48. and to such as cannot be proved to have by after disobedience or siding with an Enemy forfeited them And so I bid this learned honest prudent Author of Horaesubsecivae adieu and to his impertinent reflections on this subject and my self And will only add this to thee judicious Reader to be considered whether it be not agreeable to all justice and equity that those who lost their lives and fortunes in asserting his Majesties Cause as they have been losers and afflicted with him and for him too in his adversity ought not in these dayes of his Majesties power and prosperity regain thereby their lost fortunes especially where the Publick Faith was engaged for their restitution As for that scruple which peradventure some may think uncleared as yet of some few or even many of those Articling Papists of Ireland to have forfeited the benefit of those Articles and not for themselves alone but even for all the rest of their Countrymen though not in their own persons guilty of any such breach as those were or any at all And for the ground or reason alleged by some for this scruple viz. That by the prevarication of those few or many whether the greater or lesser part of that People whether the Representatives of the whole or nor the Kings end in granting those Articles was frustrated forasmuch as thereby it happened that he could not carry on his main Design then against the Usurpers And as for that too which is further alleged to this purpose or for the illustration of it and further grounding of that scruple That if a Garrison be dismissed out of a Town upon certain Articles of War to be freely and safely conveighed to their own Quarters or General and that any part of them break any of these Articles which they were to observe at their peril the whole number have forfeited their right to any such free passage or safe convey and are at the mercy of the Conquerour It is answer'd That the End by either side proposed to themselves in making a Peace or Articles being frustrated doth not invalidate such Peace or Articles unless such End be in those Articles expressed and further clear express caution inserted in the Agreement that otherwise it shall be void Else I pray what Stipulation Pact Agreement or Peace on Earth can hold or oblige either side And for that Example of a Garrison Town or Souldiers capitulating on Articles of War it s answered The condition of Subjects enjoying the benefit and protection of the Laws is faâ—r different from that of Enemies A just Coâ—querour may without injustice if he please so he break not his word take from his Enemies even thâ—ir lives and that not only for the crime or breach of some but in some cases without any such crime or breach by any of them But a just King cannot so carry himself towards his own Subjects whom he doth once own as such and as such to be protected and governed by his Laws as other free-born Subjects For such he cannot without injustice punish for the Disobedience Breach or Rebellion of any other lesser or even greater part of their fellow Subjects whether these represent the whole body of his Subjects or not whether they frustrate or not his best Designes and his greatest most glorious and just Enterprizes or nor Otherwise what should become according to such Law and Justice I speak of all the good Subjects of England Ireland Scotland if the King pleased to proceed according to that rigour of Justice against them when he was re-inthroned Nay what should become of all other good Subjects of any Prince or State on Earth ' gainst whom there have been such frequent Rebellions Besides it is against the true meaning of all Laws Divine and Humane that a Judge or Prince doing Justice to his â—ubjects in a legal way not by force of Armes should involve the Innocent in the guilt or punishment of the Nocent And therefore it is plain that neither that Scruple Reason of it nor Example or Similitude brought to strengthen it can make any thing for them that would thence conclude the King is wholly free from any Obligation to any part of the Irish Catholicks arising from the Articles of 48. They have been since that Peace of 48 Subjects not Enemies And those Articles had not any such Clause inserted that in case any part lesser or greater Representatives or not should break the Conditions the rest should likewise forfeit and the End frustrated doth not make them to forfeit FINIS
Wight had he given any as he did not to the then Parliament might and ought to be rescinded But withall I affirm that Princes are not by any other obvious necessity imposed upon them by disobedient or disloyal Subjects excused from performing agreements howsoever otherwise forced compelled or necessitated they be provided the Covenants be not against the Laws of God and Nature For this being denyed what should the Plea of Magna Charta or Charta de Foresta avail the Barons that forced both from King John What so many pacifications throughout the World So many Acts of Indempnity Modern or Antient Forein or Domestick which Princes would not at least in the Latitude they were in have assented to had not the Rebellious Contumacy of their Subjects forced compelled and necessitated them 24. It were in truth to be wished that the corrupt Nature of Man did at no time fly out to Crimes so fatal and so destructive as Rebellion which neither the menaces of having the Nation and their Religion extirpated nor the Petition See the Author 's mâ—re ample Account from Page 64. to the Page 104. where he demonstrates the unlawfulness to take Aâ—ms againâ—t the Magâ—stâ—â—te in any case imiginable Grotius de Jure Bell. Pac. c 19. n. 6. Quid dicemus de Subditorum â—ellis adversus Reges aliasque summas Potestates His etiamsi causam per se non in justam hâ—beant jus tamen per viâ— agâ—ndi dâ—â—sse ostendimus alibi l. 1. c. 4 Pâ—test interdum tanta esse aut causae injustitia aut resistendi improbites ut puniri gravi er possit Tamen si quasi cum dese toribus aut rebellibus actum sit poeâ—a pâ—omisso opponi non potest secundúm ea quae modo dixâ—mus Nam servis fidâ—m seâ—vandâ—m Veâ—erum pietas existimavit cred to Lâ—ced emâ—nios iram divinam expertos quod Tâ—narenses servos contra pactâ— occiâ—â—ssent Aeâ— 6 7 E Diodoruâ— Sâ—culus l. 11. Notat fidem servis datam in faâ—o Palicorum nunquam à quoquam Domino fuisse violâ—tem Metus autem illaâ—i exceptio hic poterit elidi interposito jurejurando sicut Marcus Pamponâ—us Tribuâ—us plebis jurejurando obstrictas servavit quod L Maâ—â—â—câ—actus prom serat to that effect with some thousand of hands to it nor the Lords Justices favouring the party that oppos'd the King nor any other kind of argument could justifie in the Irish But being Rebellion is a mischief that in all ages extended it self to all the parts of the Earth to prevent perpetual slaughter and the entire desolation of Mankind agreements were admitted 'twixt Kings and their Rebellious Subjects and allowed to be binding by the Law of Nations Whereof our Person of Quality may read the most Learned Hugo Grotius one of the reformed Church in his Work de jure Belli Pacis And thus I hope I have demonstrated that That which his Majesty calls forced compelled and necessitated may stand with that which P. W. calls freely putting themselves into his Graces hands 25. And suppose I had not but on the contrary had granted the Gentleman all the advantages his own heart could desire from my allowing a truth in that his charge or allowing it in the whole Latitude of his meaning that I had even granted the force had been such on his Majesty and put on him by the Irish Confederates only that he had had no internal no moral freedom left at least freedom from those more violent kinds of coaction and therefore no obligation on him to perform the Articles which must be the final scope as it was the great argument at first of some of this Person of Qualities Partners at London against that Peace of his repeating so many times and in so many passages of his book that circumstance of compelled forced and necessitated will I say all this granted prove those Articles were such as forced from his Majesty all the Regalia both Ecclesiastical and Pag. 7. Temporal which this Gentleman says Not to give for answer that certainly this is both a bold Assertion which the printed Articles will convince of untruth and a very unworthy Calumny with which the Duke of Ormond is aspers'd who farr from betraying his Master to that degree or in any wise indeed express'd abundantly his prudent care of his Majestyes Honour and Interests in all his Transactions I will only demand of this Gentleman whether the Guisian League in France forc'd from Henry the Third all the Regalia both Ecclesiastical and Temperal Or the Hugonots from Henry â—e Grand Or the Barons of England in Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta from King John and his Successors all the said Royalties If not as he must grant they did not let him acknowledge the falsity of his Assertion since it is apparent that the Articles of the Irish come short of these Agreements in lessening or imposing on the Prerogative Royal and that the French Kings and English Monarchs after notwithstanding a most Religious observance of the Articles of these Pacifications have been very absolute and never thought to have been deprived of either Ecclesiastical or Temporal Regalia 26. What this Gentleman alleges next wants but truth to make it a convincing Argument For if we should â—â—low that the Irish Catholicks by contempt disobedience and opposition broke those Articles what benefit could they claim by them But nothing can clear this so satisfactorily as a faithful relation of what pass'd at that time upon that occasion 27. The Prelates and others of the Clergy that met at James-town by their Letters of the 20th of August and not in April as is alleged deputed the Bishop of Dromore Pag. 9. and Doctor Charles Kâ—lly to bring a Message from them to his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant the substance of which Message was reduced to writing by his Lordships command and subsigned by those that brought it and was in effect under pretence of procuring aid from his Majesty for his distressed Subjects to invite him to depart the Kingdom and to leave the Kings Authority in the hands of some Person or Persons faithful to his Majesty and trusty to the Nation c. In the neck of this and without taking notice of the Answer the Lord Lieutenant sent them that fatal Declaration Pag. 9 10. and Excommunication issued in which besides those set forth by this Gentleman there are many strange Expressions which if they could be proved to have proceeded from the Irish Catholicks or their free Representatives whose publick acts Pag. 13. sayes this Gentleman in all societies virtually and interpretatively include all who declaratively oppose not they might be justly charged with contempt disobedience and opposition to the King's Authority But I shall appeal to the Duke of Ormond whom without doubt my Adversary will allow to be Judge without all exception in this case who can inform those that being pre-possessed with this Gentleman of Quality's so
guilt for which this Gentleman will not find a Parallel among the Irish as he will not for those horrid Oaths to maintain a new erected Government written in the blood of our late Soveraign of ever happy memory and to debaâ— our new King and his Posterity from any access to the Crown so solemnly and so frequently sworn by many anâ— many thousands in the three Dominions 34. Must it be said then that P. W's eye is evill or does â—e Pag. 12. â—epine at any grace conferr'd upon others because he pretends a share in the Kings Mercy and as an inducement thereunto alleges that his Majesty has already conferr'd it on those who were more faulty 35. I believe this Gentleman is as ignorant of the Popish Tenet of Merit as he is sollicitoâ—s to invent slaws in the Pag. 13. proceedings of the Irish and then to comment upon them Our Saviour engages himself by promise to bring us to his Kingdom if we perform the will of his Father and he gives us way to claim it by vertue of that Promise as our own right although it be himself that gives us vellâ— agere 36. Here I must intreat the Reader that in all passages where he finds mention of the English Protestants he do remember with what fallacy my Adversary would circumvent him and elude my intentions under the notion of that name And in confidence that he will not forget how I disclaim in having spoken or intending to speak hereafter any thing of the English Protestant Royalists but with honour applause of their resolute Loyalty I proceed to those which this Gentleman calls rational Inducements for his Majesty in the degrees Pag. 13. of his Grace to discriminate between the Irish Papists and English Protestants 1. I am most certainâ— that those who could best represent the hearty affections of the English Nation would never The Person of Quality's Inducemenâ—s for his Majesty to discriminate retorted consent to cast off his Majesties Authority and that as soon as the People in general that for a long time stood amazed and were astonished at these strange things which they saw acted had recovered their Senses and were free from the Fright which seized on them they brought home his Majesty For let me speak it to their honour that although many were instrumental and the Duke of Albemarle eminently in performing that duty yet it was the People of England in general that did the work The Banks of Power that were rais'd against the Sea of their affections began to shrink And as is said of Bees it was known they were prepared to fight by their unusual humming King Charles began to be spoken of with reverence in the Market-place They drank his Health in Taverns No reproach from the Magistrate no fear of the Laws of the Times could silence the Multitude King Charles was prayed for in some Churches and his Picture was sought for by all men When this was observ'd that which must have been done was done in the most convenient manner What is alleg'd Pag. 13. against the Irish in the Comparison is already abundantly refelled where we demonstrate that the Representatives of that Nation opposed the proceedings of the Clergy at Jame-stown And therefore this Gentleman might well have spar'd the rest of that Paragraph with that quaint expression of their banishing and their Excomâ—unicating his Majesty Pag. 13. in effigie in his Vice-Roy 37. 2ly If those English Protestants submitted absolutely and freely to his Majesty they cannot deny that they deferr'd Pag. 13. so doing too long and did but their duty when they submitted And if to obtain a promise from the King by Articles be so hainous a Crime in the Irish Catholicks what share must they have that forc'd that compell'd that necessitated his Majesty to do so Who were the Contrivers the Fomenters and Maintainers of the late troubles spoken of in the Kings Dcelaration Who were those that erected that odious Court for taking away the life of his dear Father Let those English Protestants claim his Majesties Grace Pag. 13. because sayes he they submitted to his Majesty freely and absolutely And let this Gentleman be contented the Irish Catholicks claim the Grace of his Majesties promise in the Articles of Peace untill he brings more pregnant arguments to perswade the Reader that the foundation of them is dissolv'd on Pag. 14. all parts Those Articles are printed and such as will read them may find that they merit not the Character they receive from this Gentleman as if by them the King had transferr'd all the Regalia both Ecclesiastical and Temporal which is an Hyperbole of the first Magnitude Yet if a nice judgement should find any thing less moderate in those concessions who are most to be blam'd either those that necessitated the King to grant them or those that accepted them And sure I am it sufficiently appears out of his Majesties own words in his fore-mentioned Declaration for the settlement of Ireland that the force compulsion and necessity was put on him by those that erected that odious Court for taking away his Fathers life 38. â— ly The Irish repine not that those English have been remitted their Forfeitures and are in possession of their Estates nor do they oppose the satisfaction set forth Pag. 14. by the Act of Parliament for the Adventurer according to the intention of it 39. 4ly If the over powring of a People that fought by the Kings Commission against the Men the Purse and the Fleet of England strengthned with the revolted Party that betrayed Cork and the rest of his Majesties Towns and Forts in Munster and assisted by Owen ô Neill and his Army shall be call'd a Conquest those English Protestants can only be said to have been Conquerours in their turn For the English Catholicks more than four hundred years before had planted the English Interest in all the parts of it under a much more lawful Authority than that under which those English Protestants prevail'd And this Person of Quality in Ireland having made use of those Arguments which the Man in the dark in England gave in against me concerning the incompatibility of these two Parties living together and P. W. having disproved that Position by a long discourse in his former Reply he will not trouble the Reader with Repetitions This only I will add that it is Pag. 14. more probable those English Protestants that once held Anti-Monarchical Principles should again assume them than that the Irish Catholicks who at all times express'd an aversion from them should embrace them And since both Parties sought at several times by his Majesties Commission it is more probable that the Irish Papists who fought longest in the dayes of His adversity and against all extremities for his Interest at home and stuck to him in his Banishment abroad should have more hearty affection for his Person and Royal Authority than those Protestants
charged on most of his Majesties Protestant Cities and that I was sure there had been in the very worst of them and in the most disobedient more than fifty the greatest number Abraham proposed for obtaining mercy to Sodom just men said I to his Majesty and his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant And after I had in prosecution of my discourse asked what besides could render these Towns unfit objects of his Majesties Mercy if not perhaps their Religion which yet being so Christian and allowed by Articles could be no exception After all this I say this other passage immediately follows whence our Person of Quality takes his ground to lay to my charge that I task his Majesty with unequal proceedings Yet if notwithstanding all this the few and miserable Survivers and Heirs of the dead in the general desolation must suffer again under his Royal Justice I beseech you my Lord let not the Tables of Sylla and Marius let not their general Proscriptions or Confiscations be renewed on this occasion or affixed in the Courts and Judicatures of the British Monarchy Let not these bright dayes of universal joy be rendered to the Irish Catholicks alone dark sad and dismal Nor let these dayes be infamously memorable to posterity for a distinction so unequal Behold Reader whence this Person of Quality takes his arguments to charge me with exclaiming insolently against his Majesties Royal proceedings as unjust and unequal Can indeed a prayer and such a prayer and in such a mood if I may so speak with Grammarians and to the then Marquess of Ormond and a prayer made before the King had determined any thing concerning these Corporations or settlement of Ireland be an insolent exclumation against his Majesties proceedings which then had no being at all 57 As for the remainder of this charge that I should have no less insolently exclaimed against his Majesties Royal proceedings in relation to these guilty Corporations Or that I should have said His Majesties proceedings against them to be such as cannot accord with a good Conscience I have already answer'd that he finds no such thing in my Letter since my words and sense of tâ—em relate only to the obedient Corporations and such as had no way transgressed the Articles of 48. And now further add as to that expression of my judgement then concerning these that whatever his Majesty hath since determin'd it can argue no exclaiming insolency in a Letter which preceded the knowledge and existence of any such determination Besides that I cannot believe yet this Gentleman's interpretation of his Majesties Act of Settlement or which is the same thing that his Majesties meaning is to exclude these obedient Corporations from a Plea of Justice in pursâ—ance of their Articles as neither those good men of even Galway Limerick and Waterford that no way concurred to the transgressions of the sometimes prevailing either malignant or inconsiderate Party in them 58. Even my harmless peradventure must not pass without Pag. 28. some unfavourable reflection from this Gentleman as if it should have related to all the three guilty Corporations or as if I had doubted whether any one of them had been guilty Whereas in truth it must not import in any equal construction not even to the most rigorous Logician Grammarian or Lawyer considering what goes before and follows after any more than some doubt or some scruple about some one of the three granting the other two without any contradiction guilty And that one P. W. ingeniously confesses to have been Galway And the reason of his doubt or scruple then concerning this Town which occasioned the addition of that wary peradventure to have been that he had not then had from such hands as he could wish or could rely upon the perfect relation of that Towns carriage since 48. towards my Lord Lieutenant or the Marquess of Clanrickard But whatsoever it was nay whatever that of Waterford or Limerick either has been and however the evidence of their transgressions Pag. 28. amount to much more than P. W's peradventure yet is it very untrue what this Gentleman further asserts that the subject reacheth much farther than P. W ' s. two or three Corporations Or that the highest Acts of Treachery and Rebellion Pag. 29. have been the general pâ—actice of all such into which his Majesties Lord Lieutenant desired admission But his tongue is no slander as the Proverb is especially since he neither doth fix nor as I believe can fix upon even any one more since the Peace of 48. For if he should instance any other before that his allegation would be impertinent against me even as to such or to overthrow the Articles of that Peace And I say moreover that whatever the transgressions of the said three and if you please add three more disobedient Corporations have been I am sure they amount not to the Crimes of those other Towns possessed even at that time in Ireland and ever since the beginning of the Wars to this very day by English Protestants such I mean as went under that Notion which a Person of as great Quality as this Gentleman either concurred with or induced to manifest Rebellion and inexcusable Treachery both without any comparison surmounting the transgressions of Galway Limerick and Waterford even to fall away openly from his Grace and from his Majesty and turn professed Enemies to both even to declare for Cromwell and the long Parliament and receive in their Forces long before Galway Limerick and Waterford can be said to have been guilty of any of the transgressions true or false charged upon them and even I say to receive those Enemy-Forces without any kind of necessity nay to declare for them even before they had seen an Enemy come within sixscore miles of them nay to have made their bargain with them before Cromwell set his foot on Irish ground And I am yet further certain that however Waterford Limerick and Galway transgressed their guilt cannot in justice render the generality of other Corporate places guilty nor consequently forfeitable much less the generality of the Catholick people or Proprietors of Estates in Ireland Nay not even the faithful honest Inhabitants of those very Towns I mean Limerick Waeerford Galway or such Inhabitants of them I say as were not guilty of the Crimes committed by their fellow-Gitizens Unless peradventure this Person of Quality can evince that the Laws involve the Innocent with the Nocent and that a good King doing Justice to his People not by the Sword drawn or Cannon charged or Legions marshall'd assaulting a Rebellous Town or Men in Armes but by the Laws and Judges and other Civil Ministers of Justice ought not to discriminate 'twixt the just and the wicked Or unless â—e can maintain that Kings may without injustice confiscate all Cities Towns and even whole Kingdomes where any Dâ—sobediences Contempts Plots Conspiracies or Rebellions may be truly charged on some of their fellow-Citizens or Countrymen Or that his Majesty
this Gentleman would prove Pag. 57. that the Peace was designedly broken before it was made As nothing did ever yet conduce more to the vindication of Charles the First of ever blessed memory from the horrid Calumnies with which his Enemies did asperse him than the printing of his Letters taken at the Battel of Nasby So with due reverence to his Sacred name I may say that nothing could have befallen of more advantage to the Irish Catholicks than that all their Books and all the original Papers of their home and forein Transactions have come into the hands of their Adversaries and that the whole substance of them should be thus spread abroad and be thus illustrated with such a Comment as leaves nothing unsaid that Art or Malâ—ce could suggest For if they had not been masters of those Books and Papers they who now accuse the Roman Catholicks to have sought for assistance in their greatest necessities from a forein protection would then proclame to the World that they were become the Subjects of another Prince and had sworn Fealty to him They that now by all the Cavills and Fallacies imaginable endeavour to find out Contradictions in their Oaths and do comment only upon their Intentions would then publish that they had expresly sworn to exclude his Majesty and to choose a King of the Nation They who now by weak inferences would prove that the Irish Papists meaâ—t to suppress Protestant Religion would then averr that they had sworn to extirpate all Protestants the Protestant Prelates especially They who now only upbraid them for having proceeded against the Laws of the Kingdom would then loudly declare that they had clean laid them aside and that they had introduced and were sworn to maintain the Brehon Law Their Crimes would have been as many and as hainous as their Adversaries could fancy them and their actions would have been conveighed to Posterity in a torrent of horrour and perfidy But now they give us the Text out of their own Record and nothing is left them but to comment upon it which this Gentleman omits not to doe with such a sophistry and so great a willingness to make them seem black and hideous as the Catholicks may esteem it happy for them that he is not wholly left at large to follow his invention 108. But although this Person of Quality may have those Records in his custody yet I will give him my assistance to sort them by letting him know the Time and Occasion upon which these several Oaths were taken And with his good leave I must tell him that this which he sets forth to be in the first roul is a complicated Oath to which the later part which begins Moreover was not added untill the Year Pag. 58. Pag. 59. 1646. In which year likewise the Oath of adhering to the present Union of the Confederate Catholicks that rejected the Peace was administred And it might very well have happened that the Grand Committee upon failer of the performance of the Articles of Peace then to be concluded obliged themselves to reassume their Union But this must have been in the Year 1645. before the Peace of 46. was assented unto by a Party that in favour of the Nuncio who opposed it moved all scruples imaginable and might have objected that if such another as Sir William Parsons who would not perform those Articles came to govern the Kingdom what was to be done in that Case This remedy might perhaps have been thought proper for their satisfaction But that this should have happened in the Year 48. is an assertion as vain as it is malicious For the World knows that the Peace of 48. was treated and concluded unanimously by the Assembly the Lord Lieutenant being in the same City with them And as to the Committee the name and use of it was very superfluous in a place where a few Persons daily brought the sense of the House in difficult matters to his Excellency and what seemed to be knotty of the part of his Excellency was upon all occasions resolved by the Assembly that constantly sate at so near a distance 109. I shall likewise give the Reader this faithful relation as to the other Oaths When the Peace of 46. was rejected by the greater Vote of those who by the terrour of the Northern Army by the suggestion of the Nuncio's Pag. 64 65. active Emissaries and by the affright of an Excommunication were induced to violate the publick Faith Which undoubtedly is the ground of all the sufferings of the Nation Then it was that the same Assembly framed that Oath of adhering to the Union of the Confederate Roman Catholicks that rejected the Peace And having chosen a supreme Council composed for the most part of the rejecters of the Peace they for that time conceived themselves secure But the People having had some respite from the fears they had before entertained coming to a new Election for the succeeding Assembly such for the most part were chosen to be of the supreme Council that had served in that place before and were known to have good inclinations to settle the Kingdom under his Majesties Government Wherefore the Prelates distrusting those hands into which the power of the Confederates was committed got that part which begins with the word Moreover to be added to the Oath of Pag. 59. Association and the general Assembly that knew it was and alwayes kept it in their power to approve of or consent to any Peace they thought fit gave them satisfaction in that which could no longer interrupt a settlement than they list 110. Having thus placed the Gentlemans Records in due order and given the Reader some light to lead him through Pag. 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68. a discourse knotty and perplext and endeavoured to be made so if I be not much deceived I shall descend to the Commentary But I shall first desire the Reader to consider that I take not upon me with relation to these happy times when the Restoration of his Majesty hath given life to his Laws to justifie the Irish Catholicks against Mr. Attorney at the Bar. His Majesties Mercy is their sole plea and the Sanctuary to which they resort 111. Wherefore laying aside those legal Tryals by which infallibly those who set up a Government in opposition to his Majesties by what hand soever that Government was managed those that swear to obey and ratifie all the Orders and Decrees made and to be made by such a Government would be adjudged Traytors let us resort back to those confused times and examine whether as things then were carried it might stand with the rules of Reason and Self-preservation to admit that to swear to bear true Faith and Allegiance to the King and to swear to obey and ratifie all the Orders and Decrees made and to be made by the Supreme Council are flat and known contradictories To prevent confusion they swear to obey the Orders
Calamities And upon reflection upon that Allegiance we owe and ought by all Divine and Humane Laws and which we are and have been alwayes ready to swear and perform to your Majesty our only Soveraign Lord on Earth and on the scandal notwithstanding which some persons who are unwilling to understand dright our Religion cast upon it as if it were not consistent with all dutiful Obedience and Faith to the supreme Temporal Magistrate And upon consideration likewise of a further tye of Conscience on us for endeavouring as much as in us lyes to clear your Majesties Royal Breast from all fears and jealousies whatsoever if any peradventure your Majesty entertain of us thâ—ough the suggâ—stion of such as hate our Communion or Nation And to wipe off that Scandal and allay the Odium under which our Church hath lyen this last Century of years among other Christian people in these Nations of a different way from ours in the Worship of God We humbly crave your Majesties pardon to vindicate both our selves and our holy belief in that particular of our Allegiance by the ensuning Protestation Which in imitation of the good example given by our Clergy and pursuant to the general Doctrine and Practice of the Catholick Church we make in the sight of Heaven and in the presence of your Majesty sincerely and truly without Equivocation or mental Reservation We do acknowledge and confess your Majesty to be our true and lawful King supreme Lord and rightful Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other your Majesties Dominions And therefore we acknowledge and confess our selves to be obliged under pain of sin to obey your Majesty in all Civil and Temporal Affairs as much as any other of your Majesties Subjects and as the Laws and Rules of Government in this Kingdom do require at our hands And that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope or See of Rome or any Sentence or Declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by the Pope his Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from him or his See against your Majesty or Royal Authority we will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of our abilities our faithful Loyalty and true Allegiance to your Majesty And we openly disclaim and renounce all forein power be it either Papal or Princely Spiritual or Temporal in as much as it may seem able or shall pretend to free discharge or absolve us from this Obligation or shall any way give us leave or licence to raise Tumults bear Armes or offer any violence to your Majesties Person Royal Authority or to the State or Government being all of us ready not only to discover and make known to your Majesty and to your Ministers all the Treasons made against your Majesty or them which shall come to our hearing but also to lose our lives in the defence of your Majesties Person and Royal Authority and to resist with our best endeavours all Conspiracies and Attempts against your Majesty be they framed or sent under what pretence or patronized by what forein Power or Authority soever And further we profess that all absolute Princes and supreme Governours of what Religion soever they be are Gods Lieutenants on Earth and that Obedience is due to them according to the Laws of each Common-wealth respectively in all Civil and Temporal Affairs and therefore we do here protest against all Doctrine and Authority to the contrary And we do hold it impious and against the Word of God to maintain that any private Subject may kill or murther the Annointed of God his Prince though of a different Belief and Religion from his And we abhorr and detest the practice thereof as damnable and wicked These being the Tenents of our Religion in point of Loyalty and Submission to your Majesties Authority and our Observance and Veneration of or Communion with the See of Rome in matters purely Spiritual no way entrenching on that perfect Obedience which by our Birth by the Laws of God and Man we are bound to pay to your Majesty our natural and lawful Soveraign Prostrate at your Majesties feet we most humbly beg that all your Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects of Ireland who shall by subscription or consent concurr to this publick Protestation of Loyalty be protected from Persecution for the profession or exercise of their Religion and all former Laws upon that account against them repealed Luke Earl of Fingall Mourrogh Earl of Inchequin Donoghe Earl of Clancarthy Oliver Earl of Tyrconell Theobald Earl of Carlingford Edmond Viscount Montgarett Thomas Viscount Dillon Arthur Viscount Jueagh William Viscount Clane Charles Viscount Muskry William Viscount Taaffe Oliver Baron of Lowth William Baron of Castle-Conell Colonel Charles Dillon Matthew Plunkett Esquire Lieutenant Colonel Ignatius Nugent Edward Plunkett Esquire Nicholas Plunkett Knight Matthew Plunkett of Dunsany James Dillon Knight Colonel Christopher Brian Robert Talbot Baronet Villick Burk Baronet Edward Fitz Harris Baronet Valentine Brown Baronet Luke Bath Baronet Henry Slingsby Knight John Bellew Knight Colonel William Burk Colonel John Fitz Patrick Colonel Brian Mac-Mahon Colonel Miles Relly Colonel Gilbert Talbott Colonel Milo Power Lieutenant Colonel Pierce Lacy. Lieutenant Colonel Villick Burk Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Scurlog Esquires and Gentlemen Jeoffry Brown of Galway John Walsh of Ballyuoher Patrick Brian James Fitz Gerald of Lackagh John Talbot of Malahyde Thomas Luttrell of Luttrells-Town John Holywood of Artayne Henry O Neill Son to Sir Phelim O Neill Dudley Bagnell of Dunlickny Henry Dracott of Mornanton Edward Buttler of Monihore Nicholas Darcy of Platin. Patrick Sarsfield of Lucan John Macna-Mara of Creattlagh James Talbott of Bela-connell Robert Balf of Corstown James Talbot of Templeoge Patrick Archer Luke Dowdall of Athlumny Philip Hore of Killsalghan James Barnewall of Bremore James Allen of Saint Wolstans Thomas Cantuell of Balymakeddy John Cantuell of Cantuells-Court Edmond Dillon of Stream's-Town John Flemming of Stahalmock Peter Sherlog of Gracedieu Christopher Archbald of Tymolin Patrick Moore of Duan's Town Nicholas Haly of Towrine Pierce Butler of Callan Pierce Butler of Killuealegher John Sedgraw of Cabragh Richard Wadding of Killbarry Thomas Brown of Clan-Donel-Roe Oliver Cassell of Dundalke Patrick Clenton of Irish-Town Captain Christopher Turner John Baggott William Grace John Arthur of Hogestown Marcas Laffan of Greaâ—s-Town Christopher Aylmer of Balrath James Plunkett of Gibston Thomas St. John of Mortles-Town William Barioge of Rincorran Richard Strange of Rockwell-Castle James Butler of Ballenekill Anthony Colclough Thomas Sarsfield of Sarsfieldstown Pierce Nangle of Monanimy James Wolverston of Stalergan Michael Brett Patrick Boyton of Bally-turny-macâ—oris James White of Chambolly Major Lawrence Dempsy Captain Richard Dempsy Edward Nugent of Calvin Patrick Porter of Kingston Major Marcas Furloag 129. Notwithstanding this Gentlemans rare faculty of commenting I believe he will find little to be said upon this subject And now we will descend to his Paâ—allels upon my example
Majesty and binding even before God and Man in order to such as have not forfeited them whereon I said enough before and that therefore it is impertinent for any material difference or to this Gentleman's purpose whether I reject or admit his Charge here being it cannot be denied that the delusion whereof the Gibeonites made use imposed a farr greater and even an intrinsick force compulsion or necessity on Joshua or such as deprived of essential freedom and all kind of consent as to these Gibeonites or to any had been within the Lot appointed in the Law for his People which yet I have shewed the force compulsion or necessity imposed on his Majesty by whomsoever to conclude any of those Cessations or Peaces with the Irish cannot be said to have imposed So it is no less manifest this Gentleman imposes on his Majesty that which he shall never prove or that his Majesty should have said that the Irish Papists forced compelled necessitated him into Cessations and Peaces Whereas indeed if we make any true construction of his Majesties words in his Declaration whence only this Gentleman must pretend his ground for an assertion so false it must be obvious even to the most common understanding that his Majesty sayes that force compulsion necessity for concluding a Peace with the Irish were imposed upon him by those that erected that odious Court for taking away the life of his dear Father as I have before demonstrated by giving and granting at large his Majesties very words 2. The Gibeon tes were strangers but the Irish Papists were at least ought to have been Subjects All true but nothing Pag. 91. to his purpose Articles made by a King with his Subjects in Armes bind even by the Law of Nations even before they are confirmed in Parliament else what could the Barons plead before a Parliament sate if Magna Charta did not bind the King that gave it What so many other agreements in the world as I have before said Or how should Kings or their Rebellious Subjects when a Parliament can not be held without them ever come to an attonement And surely this very Gentleman would plead for his life and his estate too since he can now to possess other mens the Letters from Breda even before the Act of Indempnity was passed and when he was in Armes against the King as I suppose he was sometimes had he yielded in some extremity upon Articles of War wherein he had conditioned for life liberty and estate for himself and his party he would plead these Articles if he saw any danger of his or their estates and even plead them before such Articles were confirmed by a Parliament nay plead them I say even in case his own estate and all those belonging to his party had been formerly sold or bestowed by the King on Adventurers in Parliament And yet both he and his party would be in that case by the Laws and Conditions of his and their Birth Subjects Whether he or they be so by inclination or longer at least than the loaves will hold I know not certainly though I hope better of them all than this Person of Quality seems to do of me or my Countrymen 3. The Gibeonites never broke those conditions granted to Pag. 91. them though by those conditions they were in effect Slaves but the Irish Papists broke yea often if not alwayes theirs though after an unparalleld Rebellion they were in effect made Lords of all the Land even the bloody Stage upon which they had acted their guilt Lest this Gentleman should have intended it as material to say that the Gibeonites were in effect Slaves I must tell the Reader these Gibeonites enjoyed peaceably without fear or danger when their Articles had been once published and debated not their lives only nor their liberty alone but life and liberty and houses and goods and lands and Cities and all they did pretend either of religious or civil right And that their slavery was no other than to provide Water and Wood for the Sacrifices and publick House of the God of Heaven And therefore any man will think they had a great deal of reason never to break those conditions granted And albeit I think there was as little reason for any Irish Catholick to break the conditions given them especially in that Peace of 48. and that I know nevertheless some if not many have yet I do and will constantly till I be convinced with other arguments than this answerer gives which I believe I shall never be always deny the universality generality or indefiniteness of this proposition The Irish Papists broke yea often if not always theirs in that sense at least he must have had or intended to import if he would speak to any purpose that is in relation to the Peace of 48. in which meaning as I have before sufficiently declared by relating this Gentleman's proofs and otherwise the falsity of this assertion so I now again briefly averr that neither the universality or generality nor greater part nor ruling power nor the formal or virtual representatives of the Irish Papists broke as much as once that Peace so far were they from brcaking often if not alwayes the conditions of it And if none of all these did though confessedly some of the Irish did or the lesser or even a great or considerable part of them if he will have it so did what is that to the Universality or Generality at least which that indefinite charge of his imports or what indeed to any other Irish Catholick to conclude them but the very individuals that did so He might as well and as truly have said that the Protestants of England or English Nation were against the King and for Cromwel or the Rump Parliament when both or either did most cruelly Tyranize For not only some of those Protestants or of that Nation but even so great and considerable a party were so nay which is more both the representing and ruling power which the Protestants or Nation of England were known at that time to own or at least which in effect and even with all formalities represented and ruled them whether by force and coaction or not it matters not here without any contradiction were so Whence it is that I may advance a little further yet and may tell this Gentleman that can be no refuge for him if he should say that he can maintain peradventure some appearance of Truth in some part at least of this proposition that the Irish Papists broke yea often if not alwayes theirs or which is the thing I mean that he can maintain that latitude universality generality or indefiniteness in relation at least to some one breach and some one Peace viz. that of 46. For I can averr confidently that all his arguments to prove this will by a manifest sequel of reason prove that the Protestants or Nation of England broke all their ties of Duty and Allegiance and Faith
to his late Majesty and his lawfull Successor whom God of his mercy contâ—nâ—e long and happiâ—y aâ—d gâ—oriously sitting on his Fathers Throne and his Posterity to the Worlds end I confess that Peace was rejected and most perfidiously scandalously and fatally too rejected but I will ever say nevertheless it was rejected by a disobedient Army by some in that ungodly Clergy men and a few other contrivers of mischief who by their numbers proceedings hypocrisie force craft c. and by their breach of their own Oath of Association and by their faithfulness to their own acknowledged supreme Governours of the Confederacy the Council and general Assembly and by making themselves by such arts the prevailing party amongst the Irish Catholicks at that very nick of time when the Peace of 46. was proclamed in Dublin Kilkenny not only may be said to have had in many things a perfect resemblance unto the Janizaries of England and their Adherents there in the Parliament and Council and amongst the Clergy and Laity in general but even to have had the same proportion to the Confederate Catholicks in general which those English Mamalukes and their partakers had to the loyal Protestants and mournful at that time Nation of England To demonstrate which I shall give more evident proofs if it shall and when it shall be necessary as now it is not in answer to this Gentleman 's present Design or Book than he shall be able to give satisfactory answers And shall at this time content my self with telling the Reader that if the then Donogh Lord Viscount of Muskry now Earl of Clancarthy Edmond Lord Viscount Montgarrett Walter Bagnell Esquire Sir Robert Talbott Baronet Thomas Tyrell Esquire Richard Beallings Esquire Gerott Fennel Esquire Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Jeoffry Brown Esquire Sir Pierce Crosby Knight Sir Richard Blake and other Members of the supreme Council and Commissioners who concluded that Peace and published it at Kilkenny and in pursuance thereof received there the Lord Lieutenant with all due respects and demonstrations of hearty joy and loyalty their imprisonments soon after both there at Wexford and other places and their other sufferings then by and under their lately before fellow-Confederates and the power or authority by which they were so imprisoned and under which they so much suffered the illegal violent forcible usurpation of it even I say against the Laws of the Confederacy and Oath of Association and without any consent or even advice or requisition but plainly against the known will and inclinations of the generality of the Confederates when the Lord Nuncio and two or three more by the countenance and terrour of armed Legions beeking them made a new supreme Council and himself President of it and joyned Council and Congregation together and immediately after hurried on two Armies in an evil hour to besiege the Lord Lieutenant at Dublin and harass'd the Country in their march und being disappointed by the justice of God towards them and favour of Heaven to the Loyal Party and to the generalâ—â—y even of the Confederatss returned in great displeasure and rage and through despair convoked an Assembly which otherwise he was never like to do but of such men where they could possibly as were known to be most averse from all thoughts of Peace and being sate overawed them and took away all freedom from them however they were composed and even forced them by threats of Excommunications and power of that Army near the Town whereof they were sure for such designes to reject the Peace even after the Commissioners who concluded it were cleared upon too manifest evidence to have proceeded according to their instructions to a tittle and by a full Authority given them by the precedent General and free Assembly of the Nation I say that if all these proceedings be considered and particularly the force that lay then upon all the Provinces and Quarters and People that should otherwise have freedom of Election to Assemblies and Suffrages in them and that would in case of such due freedom unquestionably vote for a perfect submission to that Peace the resemblance and proportion above given will appear manifestly to all indifferent men that have but even a very ordinary knowledge of the Irish Nation and affairs since 41. and of the difference of interests among that People these 500. years past since the first English Conquest under Henry 2. and consequently it will appear that our Person of Quality will find himself obliged either to maintain a truth in this very false assertion which yet I believe he will not dare The Protestants and Nation of England were guilty of the sacrilegious breach with Charles the 1. which through so many wiles brought him at last to the Scaffold Or to confess that the Irish Catholicks or Nation of Ireland cannot be said to be guilty even of that one persidious breach of the Articles of 46. much less guilty of having often if not always broke the Conditions either of that or any other And yet I alwayes grant him what I know to be true and am right sorry to know that even some thousands have been guilty of that horrible breach in 46. Nay grant moreover all my Conscience or knowledge or which is the same thing to me all that the truth it self will permit me to grant him that some few Persons of Quality and some Regiments and some Towns too of the Irish Catholicks have often if not alwayes broke the Conditions either of the first or last Peace or of both but withall say that some Persons of Quality and some Regiments of England and Scotland both and some Towns too broke their Allegiance and Faith and often too if not alwayes in a farr more pernicious and horrible nature with his late and present Majesty And that my Answerer will not therefore charge their Crimes on the Protestants or Nation of England or on the universality generality or greater part of them which yet such an indefinite expression had he used it must do 135. But however this be or any thing else I have said in relation to that Peace of 46 it can neither make nor marr his Objections or my Answers on the subject of the last Peace or that of 48. which is that only where on our contest is and must be Neither can any thing said here be drawn to a consequence that I would recall or decline what I have confessed in my Letter of the Judgements of God most justly pursuing the Irish Nation in general for the breach of publick Faith so notorious and scandalous in that of 46. albeit the Nation in general be not guilty of it We know the very Army of God hath been defeated for the Judges Chap. 7. V 4. aâ—d 5. sin even of one man alone as we find in the case of Achan at Ai and whole Nations and great Kingdoms and flourishing Empires most exemplarly punished and by conquest and slavery and subjection to a forein power
for the sins of the lesser part of the people and sometimes for those of a very few and Innocents too involved in the common calamity but involved justly by him who is above all Laws by his Soveraign Dominion over all Creatures and by that privilege which is incommunicable to any earthly Judge or King doing Justice in a legal way where he may discriminate persons 136. To that which our Person of Quality adds here to end his third difference that the Irish after an unparalleld Rebellion were in effect made Lords of all Ireland even the bloody Pag. 91. stage upon which they had acted their guilt I say that in a few words are two manifest untruths and one superfluous impertinent exaggeration so often repeated and one too which may be returned on himself and those he pleads for not only with so many wicked Maxims and sinfull advices but with so many known falsities and impertinencies 137. Though I detest all kind of Rebellion against lawfull power as being condemned by the Laws of God and Nature yet I can tell this Gentleman that Rebellion of Ireland was not only parallel'd but surpassed and surpassed too in a thousand degrees by many Rebellions of other Countries even amongst Christians For not to speak of that of Catalonia in our own days the Sicilian Vespers and the Butchery of Suisses and the murther of the Danes in England and a hundred others which we read in History did surpass it and surpass it so And all those did that by design and in effect subverted the very fundamentals of all Government Civil and Religious And I am sure if none else did that of this Gentlemans Clients and their partakers must have done so who made their Rebellion the most unparallel'd indeed by the most execrable Parricide that ever was not to mention so many other adjuncts to render it incomparably worse than that of the Irish the cruel butchery of so many thousand subjects the perpetual ruine of so many millions of innocent people in the three Nations and the subversion in part executed and for the rest intended of all the very fundamentals of the Commonwealth both Temporal and Ecclestical yea of all Religion and of all propriety and birth-right whatsoever And though I acknowledge and hope all Irish Catholicks do his Majesties very gracious Concessions and favours in the Articles of 48. Yet I must tell this Gentleman those very Articles no less manifestly convince of untruth what he says here that by them or otherwise the Irish were in effect Pag. 9 made Lords of all Ireland then it is apparent out of the very Articles and no man of reason would believe otherwise though he never had read them and yet seen this Gentlemans assertion to the contrary they were not such as forced from his Majesty all the Regalia both Ecclesiastical and Temporal nay I say now nor any essential or integral part of the Regalia albeit this Gentleman affirms in another they were and I have already proved they were not And if this be true my answer to his Oâ—jection concerning the Regalia as it is evidently such without any question or contradiction but that very untrue and very irrational one of this Person of Quality how can it be true that the Irish were in effect by these Articles made Lords of all Ireland For to have been made otherwise he doth not dispute as there is no ground for any such dispute Nay since the Irish Catholicks by these Articles or otherwise were not made Lords or did not pretend the Lordship Right Possession or Use of any Protestants Goods Lands Houses Estates c. either English Scots Welsh Irish or of any other Nation having right by his Majesties Laws or pretending such to live in Ireland how could they in effect be made Lords of all Ireland So farr they were from any such thing that they excluded not any nor were made capable to exclude any at all from any kind of Rights either Civil or Religious the very possession of such Churches as they then held in their own quarters at the making of that Peace not being assured them otherwise by Articles of Peace Pag. 8. Art 1. those Articles than that they should be permitted or should not be disturbed from that possession till a Parliament were convened As for his exaggerating repetition of the bloody Stage upon which they had acted their guilt I am sure he may be upon Pag. 91. certain grounds and particular instances answered 1. by charging those who are his white boyes with having made that Stage more bloody and as inhumanly too nay yet far more than those very Irish miscreants of the rascal multitude have that acted their guilt even of so barbarous murthers either precedently concomitantly or subsequently however this Gentleman will have it upon their fellow Subjects of the Protestant Religion in that Country Whereof if he will see some particulars I refer him to R. S. in his Book printed at London 1662. intituled A Collection of some of the Murthers and Massacres committed on the Irish in Ireland since the 23. of October 1641. 2. By denying his supposition of the Irish Nation or Catholicks of Ireland or of their known Representatives the Supreme Council or General Assembly or Commissioners that concluded that Peace or of the generality nay of any considerable party of the people after at any time confederated with the rest or that submitted to that Peace or now desire the benefit of it to have so acted their guilt upon that Stage as to be guilty of the bloodiness of it by any barbarous or inhumane Crimes of Murther which I know this Gentleman aims at in this exaggerating repetition For if he mean any thing else or that of the breach it is answered already And that he may see I give him not a bare denyal for an answer I refer him to the 18 Article of that Peace of 48. where in the 21 Page of these Articles printed he may read the publick desires of that whole Nation For there he will find it provided by them that such barbarous and inhumane crimes as shall be particularized Articles of Peace in 48. Pag. 21. and agreed upon by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costilloe Lord President of Connaght Donogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athenry Alexander M. Domel Esquire Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Jeffrey Brown Donagh O Callaghan Tirlagh O Neile Miles Relly and Gerrald Fennel Esquire or any seven or more of them as to the actors and procurers thereof be left to be tryed and adjudged by such indifferent Commissioners as shall be agreed upon by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costilloe c. or any seven or more of them and that the power of the said Commissioners shall continue only for two years next ensuing after the date of their
Commission c. And I refer him besides to the several Petitions of late exhibited by Sir Robert Talbott Baronet and Coloâ—eâ— Gerroâ—t Moore and others in behalf of their Countrymen to his Majesty at London when a Committee of the Council sate there or the whole Council did upon the debate betwixt the Convention Commissioners first and after these betwixt the present Parliament of Dublins Commissioners of one side and those of the Irish Catholicks of the other at several times And referr him likewise to some other Papers then printed at London in answer to some writings published or given by those of the Convention against the said Catholicks and on this Subject In which Petitions and printed Papers as likewise in so many other publick and private addresses at both times the request of the Catholick Irish Nobility and Gentry there was very urgent in behalf of themselves and the whole Nation of their party that all murthers on both sides might be without any exception tryed and punished according to Law 139. Now wherefore the publick and known Representatives of the Confederates the general Assembly of the whole Nation which consisted of their Lords Spiritual and Temporal Knights of Shires and Burgesses of Corporations did provide so for the punishment of all barbarous and inhumane Crimes committed by any of their own sides and the Commissioners Nobility and Gentry at London since his Majesties Restauration did petition and desire that all murthers of both sides may be exempted from any pardon or out of any general Act of Oblivion and Indempnity and that this Gentleman's Friends for whom he pleads would not assent to this there is no man of reason but understands it was therefore because the Irish Nation who concluded and submitted to that Peace were not guilty of the bloodiness of that Stage by barbarous or inhumane Crimes or by Murthers notwithstanding any other guilt that might be justly charg'd upon them And that those who charge them so exorbitantly with such found themselves or those of their Party more truly chargeable with more numerous and more barbarous and more inhumane Crimes and Murthers which in a superlative degree blooded that very Stage too of Ireland whereon they had acted and yet but pâ—rtly their own proper guilt For many of them did likewise partly act their guilt also on that of Great Britain even the most horrid guilt imaginable by the most bloody and most execrable Murther and in the most unheard of and most hideous manner of the best and most innocent of Kings 4. But his 4th and last difference in the Cases remains Pag. 91. as yet Saul 's Children were not executed sayes he for their Father his having made the Gibeonites hewers of wood and drawers of water the utmost that the Protestants desire even to the worst principled of the Irish Papists but for killing the Gibeonites after they were peaceably slaves So that those Judgements P. W. seems to threaten his Majesty with if they have not the Articles of 1648. made good he and his Country-men have only reason to fear for his Majesty kept them and they have broke them The Man in the dark in England was once upon thoughts of relying on this difference but immediately after finding the unsignificancy of that evasion and his own weakness therein or rather indeed the clearness and evidence and applicableness of my Example to the purpose I drove and of all passages of holy Scripture made use of by me in my Letter changed his resolution and confessed in plain terms he would not answer me at this weapon Adding too some prophane expressions that not unsignificantly imported he would not have the Saints governed by the Oracles of God or believe in them but when they made for gaining or preserving to them the good things of the Earth And that so manifest confession of his made me slight in my Reply to his Irish Colours displayed the transient reflection he made on the Gibeonites being made hewers of wood and drawers of water 140. But for as much as a Person of Quality professedly insists upon it as his very last refuge to shew at least some kind of difference that might seem not immaterial I will not slight his Animadversions on this subject but take the pains to prove them as unfortunate as any of those he hath given all along either in his Parallel or difference of both Cases or indeed in any other passage of his Book since he turned Divine I must therfore let the Reader know this Gentleman hath not yet declined his customary arts of endeavouring to impose on the simplicity of some and careless observation of others in running over his lines not eveâ— to impose as much as in him lyes on holy Scripture in this very passage For I demand of himself whether he would not have the Reader understand him here as if King Saul had been the man that made the Gibeonites hewers of wood and drawers of water And this to have been a slavery and oppression so grievous as it might be answerable to that he would perswade his Majesty to lay on the Irish by depriving them for ever of their Estates of their Cities Corporations Villages Houses Lands of all their Liberties either Civil or Religious And to have been moreover against the Articles of the League made with Joshua And besides that King Sauls Children were executed only for their Fathers killing of those Gibeonites And the three years mortal Famine on the twelve Tribes of Israel was for that killing alone And that neither this Famine nor that Execution have been even in any part for any of those other oppressions the Gibeonites suffered from Saul And further yet that no kind of unjust oppressions of these peaceable Slaves would have had provoked the wrath of God in any wise against Saul or his Children or the People had he abstained only from that of killing And lastly that all that Vengeance upon their Tribes aad the seven Children of Saul had no relation to the breach of Arricles or of the League formerly made with the Gibeonites and should have been either deserved by or inflicted for the cruelty of Saul to these poor people had they never made by themselves or by their Predecessors before them any kind of League with the Israelites If our Person of Quality shall answer his meaning was not to abuse the Reader so or to perswade him to any of those Particulars I demand of him then what will his acute Animadversion signifie to prove any difference here that is not very immaterial Would it not be think you Reader an excellent Ratiocination if this Gentleman discoursed thus in plain terms Saul's Children were not executed nor the twelve Tribes of Israel punished with a grievous Famine of three years because the Gibeonites had been continued by Saul hewers of wood and drawers of Water unto the House of the Lord as they had been many hundreds of years before and had been so
first insurrection on the 23 of October 41. not seven persons alone but seven thousand nay sevenscore if not seventy times seven score thousand have been long since punished by the Justice and by the hands of men and punished even most exemplarly and not the nocent only but the innocent without any distinction or compassion even armless and harmless day-labourers and women and children even babes and Chrysome-sucklings hanging at their Mothers breasts yea very many punished in a legal way tryed in open Courts condemned executed hang'd shot beheaded and quartered So that to pretend in this case of Ireland any defect of exemplary punishment or sufficient publick Justice even by the hand of Man and from such defect a Famine or other visible Judgement upon the Kingdom now or since the Restoration of his Majesty were to allege a cause that is not and an effect which we perceive not being we cannot but see and acknowledge ever since that happy return of his Majestie a return likewise of all plenty and other both earthly and heavenly blessings throughout his Majesties Dominions Which had this Person of Quality better considered it is like he would not have mentioned here in this allusion the lasting of the Famine till Justice was done and the ceaslng of it after that was done For if his allusion hold the cessation of all those foregoing publique Judgements and the succession of the greatest mercies throughout the English Empire must be rather an argument that so much Justice is done already as the just anger of God required than that any more should be 164. Thirdly Or to shew the ineptitude likewise to his end of his Antithesis Those lost their lives for their Fathers Sin but these if any lose but their Fathers forfeited Pag. 92. Estates P. W. entreats the Reader to weigh this following Ratiocination which our Person of Quality will find himself obliged to build upon it 165. By Miracle and by Oracle or by a special Revelation or Inspiration from Heaven and by wonderful Judgements on the twelve Tribes of Israel universally for three whole years David the Prophet and Familiar of God was instructed that it was the good will of God notwithstanding the Law of Moses to the contrary he should resign to the Gibeonites the 7 Sons of Saul though innocent of their Fathers Crimes to lose their lives Therefore his Majesty without any kind of Miracle Oracle Revelatiō Inspiration or any visible Judgement inducing him may for the sin of others long since repented or at least pardoned by Articles resign over and for ever also to such men as this Person of Quality and his Associates are the Rights Estates and Inheritances of above seventy thousand innocent Children and Children unquestionably innocent and Children to Fathers too that fighting as became loyal Subjects did through Gods permission thereby make themselves and these their Children so miserable as they are known to be at present and to have been those ten years past And his Majesty not only may but ought to do so And not only may or ought not to regard the condition of Innocency or the justice of publick Articles of Peace or the Laws of God or Nations in this Case but even to forget his never to be forgotten Clemency to a million of other Children and Children to Parents guilty of more atrocious Rebellions than the most frequently or most obstinately guilty of these Irish Childrens Fathers 166. Behold Reader the Argument contained in that rare Antithesis And if this be not Logick out of Schools and Divinity out of Hell I confess I know not what it may be But this Person of Quality will perhaps defend both with his English Interest and his Protestant Religion though I am perswaded he could sometimes have shaken hands for his own Interest and his own Religion with the most disloyal Genevians in Scotland and thrive there too amongst them The second Particular is Though even the Spirit of God it self Pag. 92. witnesseth that Saul sought to slay the Gibeonites in his Zeal to the Children of Israel and Juda yet that it self could not silence or suspend the Justice of God And therefore let P. W. know that though in the third Article of their Instructions to the titular Bishop of Fernes and Sir Nicholas Plunkett their Commissioners to Rome they own to the Pope that in their Zeal they raised Armes for the freedom of the Catholick Religion yet no Zeal in Religion can apologize for or will hinder the effects of Gods Justice on his Countrymen for their unparallel'd Murthers and their often breaches against Nature and against Stipulation To do evill that good may come of it may be the Doctrine of Rome but is not the Doctrine of Christ and by the fruit the tree is best known 167. I am inclinable to believe there is nothing of Zeal as this Gentleman gives it in that passage or any other of these Instructions not that I think it had been improper to such as had been reduced to the straights the Confederates were in then although some of themselves brought themselves and all the rest to such even by a very unlawful rejection of the first Peace in 46. But that I know my self those of the supreme Council was then to have been of this perswasion that no Zeal of Religion could warrant before God or Man the justice of raising Armes against the Prince Magistrate or Laws And that I know the Commissioners sent by the Confederates to Oxford and Dublin pleaded alwayes the necessity was put upon them by the Lords Justices even for the safety of their lives to take Armes Besides this Gentleman who is curious enough in distinguishing material words related unto by a different Character from the Roman that is by Italick Letters omitted to give so here that word Zeal albeit the only word was material above all the rest there which yet he delivers in Italique as part of that third Instruction And this partly too makes me suspect it as a pretty additional invention of purpose to parallel the Zeal of Saul in killing the Gibeonites which I said in my Letter could not divert the wrath of God incensed against Saul 168. But whether it be so or no or whether this Gentleman relates those Instructions truly or not it matters not being the contest is not indeed material and that he disputes against me whose constant belief is even as part of Catholick Doctrine clearly delivered in the Scriptures and in the Fathers and would this Gentleman's and his Party's perswasion were so too that no Zeal in Religion can apologize for any kind of Rebellion much less for unparallel'd Murthers or often breaches against Nature or against stipulation committed therein or indeed for any murther at all or any one even single breach of a just promise 169. Yet I must dissent from this Gentleman in two things he says here And must affirm again because he provokes me again That even those very horrid
draught did import a precedent and designed Resolution of the breach of the Peace made in the Year 1648. and so that rough draught having no certain date was made use of to the prejudice of that last Peace Whereas in truth that rough draught and the Order of the Assembly that followed it was made and intended to relate to the former Peace concluded in the Year 1646. At which time there could be no thought of the later Peace made in the Year 1648. But to satisfie any indifferent Person of the truth of this Assertion let him if he please resort to the Book of the Entries of Orders made in the general Assembly in the Year 1646. which Book is now in the Crimination-Office at Dublin but was formerly in the Usurped Powers hands where he will find there is no cause to doubt of this truth and will find himself necessitated to supply the defect of a date in the said rough draught and reconcile the frivolous Objection raised thereon in order to the later Peace concluded in the Year 1648. It was likewise long and no less than a year and a half after I had finished the fore-going Reply to the Person of Quality that a Book entitled Horae Subsecivae Printed at London 1664. came to my hands where I found the Author D. W. Pag. 81 and 83. fall fouly upon the Irish Papists and their Peace of 48. and take it for granted that P. W's former Writings for that People and Peace have been already so fully refuted c. Which is the reason I find my self engaged to add here my brief Observations on what he sayes And thus take them Reader That in relation to the taking Armes in the Year 1641. and to the extenuation of the Crimes of those who began first or were after involved in that Quarrel or Insurrection the relation given out of the Brief Narrative which you have near the beginning of this Reply cannot in my judgement but satisfie any indifferent person That to his bold temerarious false ignorant and impudent Assertion Pag. 83. viz. That the Son of our late King of glorious memory Charles the 2. is not obliged in the least by any Law of God or Man of War or Nations to keep any one Particle of the Irish Articles made or granted by King Charles the Father in the Year 1648. There have been such clear and satisfactory Answers made already and in several Instances and Occasions by Mouth Pen and Print since his Majesties happy Restauration that more needs not be said here since this Author alleges nothing for his own shameful and sinful Assertion but another only of his own which we shall give here presently and such a one too as convinces him of no less ignorance and impudence than the former if not of more That besides we have his Royal Majesties own judgement in point P. the 10th of the Act of Settlement Which now being past into a Law is likewise the judgement of a Parliament of Ireland where many of those possessed of the Estates of the former Proprietors who claim the benefit of the said Articles do sit and vote His Majesties own words in his gracious Declaration of the 30th of Nov. 1660. and in the said Act of Settlement are these We could not but hold our self obliged to perform what we owe by that Peace And in Page the 11th saith That others advising or concurring in that Settlement had a due sense of the Obligations which lay upon his Majesties Honour and Justice But this Author of Horae subsecivae goes further on to his Reason or Ground for sooth that is to his other not only no less false and impudent but even farr more pernicious and dangerous both Assertion and Supposition therein contained An interloping usurping Conquerour dispessessed both the Father and the Son and also those very Popish Confederates with whom those Articles were made To which Usurper also those very Catholick Confederates and their Associates submitted owned him and complyed with him Then comes the Son and dispossesseth the Usurper again and recovers Ireland as it were â—y a new Conquest In such Case I say the Son or Successor is not obliged to any Articles the Father made with his rebellious Subjects no nor if he had made them himself but is freed of all such Obligations both Jure Belli and Jure Gentium as the Civilians in like Cases have long since decided it in their Books And therefore King Charles the 2. may Jure Belli Gentium Lege Talionis for these too are this very Author 's own words a little before to wit Pag. 81. without breach of Faith or Articles not excepting those of 1648. so much insisted on and so mightily pleaded for by P. W. and so fully refuted by the Earl of Oâ—ery by that just Law so often used and prescribed by God himself take the Lives and Fortunes of all those blood-thirsty Popish Rebells and their Confederates and Associaies c. So and in such terms this moderate knowing Author states the Case of the Irish and gives his Opinion without any other kind of reason than what you see here nay without once mentioning much less solving even any one Argument to the contrary or once seeming to doubt of the known falsity of not only one but of many of his Suppositions involved in the Antecedent of such a Consequent or the fallacious Premisses of so wicked a Conclusion But he must give me leave to unseel his eyes if himself will not or at least to undeceive thee good Reader if any way prepossessed by this Gentleman's either bare Assertion or by his stating of the Case For in lieu of his willful Omissions and false Suppositions in his stating of it I must give you these known truths That the said rebellious Subjects so styled before the Usurping Conquerour dispossessed either the Father or the Son were returned to their former Obedience and accepted own'd and govern'd as such by his Majesty and his Father of glorious memory and fought both the Father and Sons Cause therein lost their blood and fortunes and never submitted to the said Usurped Authority till they were over-pow'red and forced thereunto That when they could not resist any longer the tyranny of the Usurper many thousands of them followed the Son's fortune in forein parts and there inlisted themselves under his Ensignes And that such as stayed at home never made any Conditions with the Usurpers till they were licenced so to do by the Son This being the full and true state of the Case it is to be considered Whether on the whole matter the Son be obliged to perform the said Articles I say he is both by the Law of God and Man by the Laws of War and Nations because Promises Pacts or Agreements in things lawful or that are not sinful even betwixt Kings and their Subjects whether at any time Rebells or not are binding by all these Laws as I have my self at large evidenced partly in
that issue out of the Kings Courts No man is a perfect Statesman that hath not seen forein Countries and known forein Affâ—irs therefore all men are perfect States-men that have seen forein Countries and known forein Affairs No man goes to Heaven but he that is baptized therefore all men goe to Heaven that are baptized The Man in the dark in England was pleased to entertain me with much bitterness and this Gentleman of Quality in Ireland gives me this Logick to boot 51. If all this do not satisfie this Person of Quality's very scrupulous Conscience against these Petitions he is briefly answer'd That the Transplanted Persons and generality of Irish Catholicks openly disown those Petitions or any Commission from themselves impowering in that particular those Gentlemen albeit without any question they being employed to petition against the Oath of Abjuration and other Oppressions of their Countrymen not to establish that of Transplantation their endeavours even in this particular as matters were then proceeded from their desires to serve them Neither doth the continuance of these two Gentlemen since that time in their publik employment for the Irish Catholicks prove what this Person of Quality labours in the 22th Page of his Book or that all they did or do is by allowance or command from their Countrymen It is well known the Irish Catholicks never gave them any such general power much less a particular allowance or command for this which indeed few or none of them either knew heard or thought of untill some few did of late by reading this Gentleman's Book 52. As for other arguments made use of to answer my assertion concerning the Transplanted persons they signifie nothing Our Person of Quality has not yet proved the foundation of those Articles and consequently the Articles themselves Pag. 16. are thrown down by the Irish Papists Nor hath he told us yet what those many other Countries and Ages are that have formerly on less grounds used traâ—splantation and been justified therein as just and equal by Lawyers and Casuists Pag. 16. And no more has he told us what these Lawyers and Casuists are and whether according to the Law of God they could on less grounds justifie the like Transplantation 53. What this Person of Quality further sayes or indeed objects in the first place that my Concluâ—â—on on this Pag. 16. subject without any proof with the same facility as it is said may be gainsaid is answered That my Letter in general being written to the Duke of Ormond who concluded and well remembred the Conditions of the Peace and the observance of it with much affection by some hundreds at least if not thousands of the Transplanted persons my assertion in particular that such could not be deprived of the benefit of the Articles or their Transplantation continued upon accompt of Crimes after 48. needed no proof to him or indeed to any other that knew the affairs of Ireland 54. Concerning Corpoâ—ations my request discriminates the Innocent from the Nocent Although that in a time Pag. 28. when his Majesty out of the abundance of his goodness makes it his glory to out-goe all his Predecessours in a profusion The Person of Quality's Answer to P. W 's Determination in the Case of Corporate places considered of Mercy I seek a share for them likewise in the general dole And then I descend to those persons that have been Innocent in the most guilty of them For those I claim as of justice his Mâ—jesties Grace and the benefit of the Articles as I do for the generality of those other Corporate places which offended not against the Peace of 48. And I am still of opinion if I may be again permitted to speak out of my element that no reason of State could exclude them even although there were no matter of Conscience in the Case For if the Kingdom be to be enriched with traffick and that encreasing of the publick wealth be a principal point of State-policy it is evident that most of the Corporations of Ireland are grown despicably poor by excluding the Natives from free commerce and traffique and that the little life which is yet preserv'd in negotiation is maintained by the trade they drive a Factors to those that live in those Corporations Other arguments I omit at this present being ready nevertheless to give them when it shall be thought necessary with answers to all objections which this person shall or can make even on this subject 55. Had I stood up to justifie Limerick Waterford or Galway in their affronts done to his Majesties Lieutenant of Ireland I could not be upbraided with a more severe expostulation than this is What falshood will P. W. be afraid to suggest Pag. 30. to strangers and what wickedness will he be afraid to patronize at home when he shall dare thus to assert to the Lord Lieutenant himself and publish it in print to the world that no reason of State can accord with the dictates of a good Conscience to exclude these Corporations But when I avow them Criminal and beg mercy for them not by extenuating their guilt but by alleging the examples of his Majesties unbounded goodness why will this Writer vent his malice to the Nation by rayling at me in terms unworthy a Person of Quality Nay wherefore doth he charge me with asserting or publishing that which I never did with that which the clear text or discourse on this subject in my Letter convinces manifestly I did not And that you Reader may be Judge between me and this Person of Quality without any further trouble to your self than to read here a few Lines I give the whole Paragraph well nigh wherein I treated of this matter But withall my Lord I will give your Excellence my most earnest and humble desires that you delay no longer than shall be necessary to clear these clouds of darkness and clear them in this present conjuncture by an effectual demonstration of that justice and favour you intended the Catholicks of Ireland in your Articles of 48. when they so freely put themselves and their power into your hands I am not ignorant that some have after transgressed in a high nature But you know my Lord there are many thousands of Protestants in the three Kingdoms who have been far more hainously criminal both against his Majesty and against his Father of blessed memory and who have contributed or intended as little for bringing home his Majesty as the most wickedly principled of the Roman Confederates of Ireland And we all know my Lord that all the Protestants are not only pardoned except a very few of the most immediate Regicides but equall'd in all capacities with his Majâ—sties most faithfull and most approved Subjects Yet if these unfortunate Catholick transgressors must be alone in this general Jubilee of the three Nations held unworthy to rejoyce at â—he Kings restoration if they alone besides their most grievous and unparallel'd sufferings
under Tyranny these eight or nine years past must a new suffer and yet a more heavy judgement under the most Clement Prince on Earth if they alone must experience all the rigour of his Laws and Judicatures for their Offences after the Peace of 48. which Offences however criminal were not bloody your Excellence may be nevertheless pleased to consider the Transplantation cannot be continued on any such accompt nor on any other which may stand either with those Articles or with the Equity of the Laws and much less with the Justice of a Prince whom God hath restored to redeem the oppressed from the yoak of Tyranny to lead Captivity captive and give gifts to men And your Excellence may be further pleased to consider that the Corporations generally cannot be excluded on this account nor on any other may stand with his Majesties gracious Concessions in those Articles Neither do I think there can be any Reasons of State may accord with the Dictates of a good Conscience to exclude them 56. I now demand of any that understands English or Sense whether Limerick Waterford and Galway all three or even any of these three must be understood there where I say That the Corporations generally cannot be excluded on this account that is on account of Crimes against the Articles of 48. or on any other may stand with his Majesties gracious Coâ—cessions in those Articles Or when I say that I do not think there can be any Reasons of State may accord with a good Conscience to exclude them And whether this word them demonstrates not and relates not here to the Generality of Corporations but by no means to the particulars of Limerick Waterford and Galway Or indeed to any other Criminal Town whatsoever if any other such be And without question there are a hundred Iriâ—h Corporations which are not to this day charged with any such guilt and which I then did thâ—nk when I writ that Letter as I do still cannot be charged on that account And therefore on that account not to be excluded and consequently and for many other obviouâ— reasons are such as I must then have thought no Reasons of State could accord with a righteous Conscience to exclude them But what hath all this to do with Galâ—ay Limerâ—ck and Waterford Is it not a manifest aâ—use of the Reader to leave out the word Generally where he should not if he had sincerely quoted my words in the 28. Page of his Book where he treats of the guilt of Pag. 8. Corporations and charges P. W. with saying indefinitely the Corporations cannot be excluded on that account whereas P. W. sayes no such thing but another very different in these terms The Corporations generally cannot be excluded c. And I am sure this is a true Proposition yea notwithstanding the inexcusable transgressions of Galway Limerick and Waterford or any other and even as true as it is that the People of England generally desired the Kings Restoration when this Person of Quality and his Consorts did not But our cunning Sophister did foresee that the word generally added by me would if rehersed by him render three whole Pages of his Book impertinent For admit all his charge against those three Cities were true in the whole latitude of it and in every particular as I fear it is in too much could he therefore conclude that the Irish Corporations generally had been Criminal against the Peace of 48 Surely three and three and three more added to help him do not argue the generality of more than a hundred or do not falsifie my Proposition that notwithstanding the Crime of so few particulars exempts the generality of so great a number from that Crime Yet he must proceed with his malicious impertinent Narrative and having vented all his Choler against the miserable Survivers and Heirs of the dead in these three Towns â—e must demand as in triumph What falshood will P. W. be afraid to suggest to strangers and what wickedness will he be afraid to patronize at home when he dares thus to assert to the Lord Lieutenant himself and publish it in print to the World that no Reasons of State can accord with the Dictates of a good Conscience to exclude these Corporations from the future capacity of repeating such signal Acts of Rebellion If this be other than a meer Leger-demain of words and an illusion of eyes and a plain imposture of sense and words and even of intention too may all Strangers and Patriots believe him against me But if it be may the suggestion of falshood and patronage of wickedness be his reward and a reproach returned upon him by all men both at home and abroad And be thou Reader here likewise as above an impartial Judge Doth not he change the sentence alter the sense foist in these instead of them add to and impose on me all that follows in that period quite contrary to my words to the obvious meaning of them and to the very thoughts of my soul abundantly there and soon after expressed where I speak thus Nevertheless my Lord farr be it from my thoughts to desire the obstruction of any lawful and honest course can be justly taken to secure the Peace of that Country from rational dangers if any such can be in our dayes from the Catholique Natives And is it not therefore as manifest that he charges me without any ground but his own groundless perverse construction with exclaiming insolently against his Maâ—esties Royal proceedings in the particular of these Pag. 32. Towns as unjust unequal and such as cannot accord with the dictates of a good Conscience The word unjust or even his sense of it cannot be found in all my Letter And for that of unequal it is so used by P. W. and only in relation to an equal distribution not of Justice but of Mercy becoming the most merciful of Princes that it is manifest this Gentleman of Quality abuses not P. W. alone but himself too and the Reader Whereof I give here the full evidence For after I had from the special regard of God to save one just man that was found in Sodom and from his readiness to forgive the whole Pentapolitan Region for ten such men of justice nay for one alone to pardon Jerusalem when most Criminal and by his revenging justice designed to a general desolation and after I had from these arguments of Gods mercy proceeded to his Majesties imitation of Him in pardoning all the Protestant Criminal Cities in his Dominions and then demanded whether so Merciful a Prince would not pardon the miserable remainders of one poor Catholick Town or two or three at most if perhaps there have been so many that have any way offended and after I had further adjoyned that whatever the Crime of these Towns have been it had been these many years past sufficiently punished and had been even of the most Criminal of them incomparably less than what may be