But here we have another Testimony of King James's Care of the Protestants in his turning out of all places in the Army those of that persuasion to make room for others of his own Religion It was the policy of all Nations to keep the people they had conquer'd in as great ignorance of the Art of War as possible lest some time or other they might shake off their Yoke by a vigorous Rebellion But King James inclin'd to take other measures and be at the greatest pains to teach an indocible Nation the use of Arms that they might learn in due time to shake off the English Government As to the other part of the above-mentioned Assertion That he had advanced several of the Protestants in Ireland to places both of the highest Honour and Trust about his person as well as in his Army To pass a just Judgment upon his Assertion we need only consider what sort of persons are at present about King James both in Civil and Military Capacities and we shall find it hard to meet with one single person of the Protestant persuasion in the number I could heartily wish that all King James his Actions could as easily admit an excuse as this For the Authority assum'd upon Him by Monsieur d' Avaux and his other French Guardians puts it almost beyond his power to employ English Roman Catholicks far less English Protestants At the Council-board we find none of the Protestants The Offices of Lord Lieutenant Chancellor Privy Seal Secretary of State Commissioners of the Treasury Lord Chief Justice Sollicitor General Attorney General and all the places of the Long Robe are enjoy'd by Roman Catholicks As to Military Capacities there is not one single Garison Fort nor Castle within the whole Kingdom except London-derry and Iniskilling but are fill'd up with both popish Governors Officers and Soldiers In the Army all the Field Officers are either French or Native Irish of the same Religion Yea the French's absoluteness both at the Council-Board and the Army has of late given the greatest Jealousie and Discontentment to some that have done King James the best service In the end of this first paragraph we are told That King James ly granting his Royal protection to such whose minds were shaken by the Arts of his Rebellious Subjects has dispell'd their apprehensions and effectually secured them against the attempts even of their private Enemies And then adds His Ears have been always open to their just Complaints And so far has his Royal Mercy been extended to those that were in Arms against him that he has actually pardoned several hundreds of them and most notorious Criminals are kept in an easie Confinement In reading this period I find King James would Impose upon our Belief and Senses something as much contradictory to it left as Transubstantiation and the one as hard to be digested as the other The Church of Rome tells us magisterially That albeit our Seeing Feeling Smeling and Taste combine together to assure us that the Bread and Wine is really such yet we must not give credit to these fallible Senses of ours but take it upon trust from the Church That what our Senses tell us to be Bread and Wine is quite another thing and that there is nothing there left of any such Elements after once the priest has mumbled over the three Words Thus King James having long accustomed himself to an Arbitrary power over our persons and properties when King He cannot refrain from venturing an Essay of it upon our Reasons and Senses even when he is laid aside For albeit out Senses are continually entertained with hundreds of Objects that bear in upon our Reason a certain perswasion that the poor protestants of Ireland are every day flying away from that Countrey at any rate to avoid the many Barbarities exercised upon them and that that Kingdom is become the Scene of Misery and Dissolution yet King James would have us wisely lay aside these mean helps of Sense and Reason and take it upon his bate Word that there is no such thing which I think very few will be inclinable to do If what is asserted upon this Subject be true and consequently our Senses and Reason so strangely beguiled It necessarly behoves us to pass no milder Judgment upon those Noblemen Bishops Gentlemen and persons of all ranks that have left their Countrey since King James's arrival there but that they are quite out of their wits For what better Name can be given to persons that have left their Countrey Estates and Employments to become here the greatest objects of Charity when not only they might have been safe at home but secured against the attempts of their private Enemies In this Word private Enemies we are obliged to King James's Secretary whether our of Ignorance or Design I know not for a fairly insinuated distinction of the Protestants in Ireland their private and publick Enemies We know that all Roman Catholicks are tyed by the Dictats of their Church to be Enemies to protestants and to extirpate them when it comes in their power And this as flowing from a publick Interest of Religion may justly be termed a publick Enmity But the Natives of Ireland over and above that publick quarrel of Religion have a private one of Revenge for recovering from the Protestants their Lands acquired by the Sword and no age has passed since the Conquest of Ireland but what has afforded bloody proofs of the revengful Spirit of that people upon this score If free quartering plundering robbing disarming seizing on Estates imprisoning murdering in cold Blood and the likâ— be a securing these poor Protestants against their private Enemies they have no reason to complain of King James his conduct But alas to be ruin'd and in the mean time to see the Authors of it boldly affirm that they do us all the Offices of kindness is the hardest of Fates I would fain know where are these hundreds that he has pardoned for those that flee every day from that unhappy Countrey cannot instance us a single one of them And for these that are kept in such easie Confinements their condition of all men is most deplorable seing they ly at the Mercy of an Enemy that waits but for a favourable juncture to Sacrifice them to their Revenge What sort of securing the Protestants of Ireland meet with against their private Enemies and what is the ordinary effect of protections given to these poor credulous people will appear by this one instruce among thousands of others of a protection given to a Farmer in the County of Antrâ—m in these Words I Richard Hamilton Lieutenant-General of his Majesties Forces in Uâ—ster do hereby receive into his Majesties protection the Body and Goods of James Hunter of Bully menach in the County of Antrim Yeoman and do promise and oblige my self that none of the Army shall molest and hurt him or take any thing from him Given c. The poor protected Man thus
â—â—oos'd returns of his House and follows his labour but anone down comes upon him the Rabble of the Army like an inundation of Goths and Vandals sweep all before them and leaves nothing behind them but a starving Family The wretched man making his address to Hamilton received this cold answer I promised to protect you from the Army but I have no power to restrain the Rabble In the beginning of the second Paragraph we are told of the Care King James has taken of the Church of England that they be not disturbed in the exercise of their Religion and possession of their Benefices and that all Protestant Dissenters enjoy Liberty of their Consciences without the least molestation And out of his Royal Care for the prosperity of his People as he calls them he has recommended to his Parliament as the first thing necessary to be dispatched to settle such a security and Liberty both in Spiritual and Temporal Matters as may put an end to these Divisions which have been the source of all their Miseries being resolved as much as in him lies to entail Liberty and Happiness on his People so far as to put it out of the power of his Successors to invade the one or revenge the other And this he takes God to witness was always his design The first part of this long period is but a repetition of what had been formerly said in the first Paragraph of the Protestants their Religion Priviledges and Properties being his chief Care and what truth that can bear we have shewed already There is one thing that I find King James was ever inclinable to value himself upon and which he here likewise mentions I mean his tenderness to Protestant Dissenters and his Principle for Liberty of Conscience They are very thick sighted that could not discern what lay at the bottom of this Liberty and what could be the true motive that should have induced one of King James's Religion to do it But because he has been at the pains so often during his Reign to assure us That it was his Opinion Conscience should not be constrained nor People forced in Matters of Religion and particularly in his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience dated August 4. 1687. I 'll beg leave to say That in this King James is no obedient Son of the Church of Rome for it has over and over again decreed the extirpation of Hereticks It encourages Princes to it by the offer of the Pardon of their Sins It threatens them to it by denouncing to them not only the Judgments of God but that which is often more sensible the loss of their Dominions It 's true Bellarmine tells us The Church does not always execute her power of deposing Heretical Princes though she always retains it and he gives a very good reason for it because she is not at all times in a capacity to put it in Execution So the very same Reason might have made it unadviseable to King James when he was so liberal of his Tolerations to extirpate Heresie because it could not be then easily done But we see the Right remains intire and is put in execution in such an unrelenting manner in our neighbouring Countries that it has a very Grace to see any Member of that Church pretend to be against constraining the Conscience in point of Religion And when we consider that neither the Policy and true Interest of France nor the greatness of their Monarch could withstand these bloody Counsels that are indeed parts of that Religion I could never see any reason to induce us to believe that the late Tolerations of Religion were proposed with any other design but either to divide the Protestants among themselves or to lay them asleep till it was time to give the alarm for destroying them And that in the Opinion of that Church the Glory of extirpating Heresie is valued above all other great Actions we have a remarkable instance in that famous Harrangue made by the Bishop of Violence to the French King in the Name of the Convention of the French Clergy at St. Germans in June 1684 where that Prelate having recounted the innumerable Conversions made by the Kings Orders Cares and Liberalities to use his very Words he subsumes thus Je bien même que chercherois vainement dans les sicoles passés que l'appulerois vainement a mon secours touts les eloges des pâ—â—miers des plus saints Empereurs It were says he in vain to search into the Ages past It were in vain to call to my assistance all the Panegyricks of the first and holiest of the Emperours And afterwards he treats him with the Title of the Great Restorer of the Faith and extirpator of Heresie and tells him that these infinitely surmount all his other glorious Titles And then speaking of his Masters great Victories in Germany Flanders c. and the Peace of Nimiguen made upon the back of them he concludes thus That the Fruit which the King had received by that Peace made it fully apparent what was the principal end he aimed at in the Victories meaning the Extirpation of Hereticks The late King James has always copied so fair after Lewis le Grand That we have no Reason to question but in this so glorious a work of extirpating Heresie it would have come up to the Original if his Designs and a favourable juncture of time had concurr'd together When he tells us That the first thing he has recommended to his Parliament is to settle such a Security and Liberty as may put an end to these Divisions which have been the source of all our Miseries I find the greatest exactness of Truth in these Words if we but take them in the sence and meaning of the Speaker viz. a Roman Catholick Prince For albeit we all know that the first thing recommended by King James to his Irish Parliament was The Repealing the Act of Settlement which is indeed the Great Charter by which most of the Protestants enjoy their Estates And tho' the destroying that Act gives a mortal blow to the Protestant Interest in Ireland yet according to the native Principles of King James his Religion the repealing of this Act of Settlement may well be called The setling a Security that may put an end to their Divisions which has been the source of all our Miseries That is to say King James from a Principle of Religion is resolved to remove that Barrier that protects the Protestants in Ireland in their Separation from the Church of Rome That by its removal he may be in a capacity conform to the Holy Dictates of that Church and the laudable Example of Lewis XIV to put an end to all Divisions in point of Religion by forcing them to return to the Mother Church by the calm Methods of late so happily used in France And this I am very inclinable to believe he may with a safe Conscience take God to Witness was always his Design I am
AN ANSWER TO THE Late King JAMES's Declaration To all his pretended Subjects in the Kingdom of England Dated at Dublin-Castle May 8. 1689. Published according to Order WHEN one reflects upon the continued Conduct of the Late King James both before and after his Accession to the Crown and the dismal Consequences thereof to these Three Kingdoms and at last to himself I cannot but regrate the Fate of those Princes that abandon their true Interest Reason Conscience and Honour to Jesuitick Councils and enslave themselves to a Party justly abominated by the better part of the Romish Church it self for their gross Encroachments upon Religion Morality and all that 's Sacred among men When I look back to the many Tragedies acted by that Fraternity both in this and the last Age scarce a Kingdom of State in Europe where their Villanies have not come up to the utmost reach of depraved Nature When I call to mind the Horrid Desolations Murders and Wars they have been Instrumental of in the most remote parts of the World witness some Millions of Souls is Japan and other parts of Asia sacrificed not many Years ago to their Ambition and Intrigues under the Notion of propagating the Catholick Faith I say when I confider all there things I am the less surprized with the dismal Effects of their Councils in England since the same Fate attends them every where But I must confess That among all the Martyrs to Loyola's Principles there is none more justly claims our Compassion than the Late King James To see a Prince naturally of no bad Temper Imposed upon by these zealous Bigots to trample upon the Religion and Liberties of His People contrary to Fundamental Laws and the most solemn Promises and Oaths under the false Mask of piety and Zeal to the Catholick Faith and at length to find him seduc'd to abandon His Kingdoms and thereby an absolute necessity put upon the Representatives of the People to fill up His Throne vacated by His own Fault is a Subject that naturally displays the vanity of human Greatness And I may add That the unaccountable Doctrine of Passive-Obedience as it was the Source of a great many Mischiefs among our selves so what has befallen that King may be partly imputed to it for believing That without controul he might do what he pleas'd encourag'd him to take such measures as have brought upon him all his Misfortunes I cannot but at the same time represent to my self with that emotion of mind the affrighted Passenger looks back upon the devouring Billows he has lately escap'd the dismal Scene of Ruin that so lately threatned us and that Abyss of Misery we had certainly been plung'd into e're now if his present Majesty had not opportunely delivered us from the very Jaws of Death and Ruin. That any of the Protestant Perswasion at home should be found Repiners at this mighty deliverance is in my humble opinion an unaccountable place of Ingratitude and Weakness at once When all the Reformed States abroad look upon this great Revolution in Brittain as the most happy Providence that has appear'd on the Theatre of Europe this Century of Years The late mighty Enterprize of His Majesty was the Result of the united Consultations of all the Foreign Protestant States and Princes in this part of Christendom who settled upon it as the last Cast of the Dyce for their Religion and Liberty and with a trembling Expectation made Vows to Almighty God for the Success of an Attempt they wisely forsaw carried in its Womb the Fate not only of these Three Kingdoms but of all the Reformed Churches of Europe When Heaven laid smil'd upon this stupendious Attempt and had beyond the usual Tract of Providence vouchsafed us a Deliverance scarce equal'd in the Records of Time Who would have imagin'd that England should produce such a sort of Monsters as seem to be in love with Slavery and Ruin the necessary Consequences of their unhappy Wretches that have so industriously dispers'd through this great City that Paper called King James His Declaration to all His Loving Subjects in the Kingdom of England A Paper I could have wish'd for King James's own Honour had been buried in Eternal Oblivion since it contains a heap of Falsities that was below a Prince to affirm and which are known to be so by no fewer than the people of Three Kingdoms In giving my Reflections upon this Declaration the Respect due to one that was lately a Crowned Head with some other just motives obliges me to do it with more reservedness than perhaps such a Paper deserves and in stead of a needless exposing a Prince that has his Honour too much sunk already in the eyes of all Europe I shall with all the Calmness and Candor possible examine the Declaration it self without Reflections upon the Prince whose it is and shall not omit one single Sentence in it that can be interpreted even by Himself of any Consequence Thus His Declaration begins Altho the many Calumnies and dismal Stories by which Our Enemies have endeavoured to render Us and Our Government odious to the World do now appear to have been advanc'd by them not only without any ground but against their own certain knowledge as is evident by their not daring to attempt the proving these Charges to the World which we cannot but hope hath opened the eyes of Our good Subjects to see how they have been imposed upon by designing men who to promote their own Ambitious Ends care not what Slavery they reduce Our Kingdoms to It seems King James continues in His wonted road of taking wrong measures both of Persons and Actions which has been the occasion of all His Misfortunes When he talks of his Enemies that have rendred him and his Government odious to the World He mistakes himself if he means those Worthy Patriots that being weary of his insupportable Incroachments upon the Religious and Civil Liberties of these Nations did lend a hand to deliver themselves and Fellow subjects from a Ruin that seem'd almost inevitable But if He had been at the pains to make an impartial Survey of his own Actings and the pernicious Counsels of a sort of Men about him He might easily come to know That His only and real Enemies were those Popish Emissaries that valued not how much His Honour suffer'd nor his Crown were indanger'd if so be they might bring about their own hidden Designs and were willing to sacrifice both Him and His Interest to their own by ends Never Prince was so unhappy in His Cabinet-Council as He and that false light which led Him to imploy none about Him with any intimacy of confidence but those of His own Perswasion prov'd an ignis fatuus than cheated Him into paths never trode by any of His Predecessors but to their destruction If he had been so happy as to have continued in His most Secret Councils a great many Persons of the Reform'd Religion whom he kept at a distance
whole Counties and acted Barbarities proper only to themselves and their French Confederats and by which they have forc'd away a great many Thousands from their Countrey at the point of Starving having sav'd nothing of their Fortunes from so universal a Calamity Yet no withstanding all this appears in the Face of the Sun King James that he may not come short of his Patron boldly affirms That the Religion Priviledges and Properties of his Protestant Subjects as he names them are his chiefest Care ever and above What a gross Contradiction is it to common Sense and Reason that a Prince bigotted to the Romish Religion and enslav'd to Jesuitick Councils should make that Religion which in his Opinion is an execrable Heresy become his equal Care with what he calls the Recovery of his Right Sure I am in this Expression he has mightily overacted his part and nothing but a belief capable to receive Transubstantiation can be perswaded of the fair meaning of it If the proposition could possibly admit of favourable Construction then it must necessarily follow That King James is of another Communion than that of Rome which were a great injury done him to suppose seing he has given us such convincing proofs to the contrary For every Roman Catholick is obliged to look upon the Protestants as Hereticks and their Religion as Heresy and we have once every year the imaginary Successor of Saint Peter formally Cursing us in person and from his plenary power declaring us to be fallen from all our Civil Rights If King James had said the Protestants are his Care meaning the Conversion of them to his Religion by the calm methods of a Dragoon Mission he would have found no great difficulty to have been believ'd But to affirm that That pestilent Northern Heresy the the Protestant Religion was his Care is indeed a stretch beyond the ordinary pitch of Jesuitick Equivocation it self We have had occasion enough to be acquainted with the charity of the Church of Rome towards those of our Religion it has been both fervent and burning And lest we should forget what has been done in former Ages France and Savoy have of late set before us new Instances of the Charity of that Church No doubt King James's sincerity in this assertion is the same with that of all his promises And albeit when he was upon the Throne we were told in some of his Proclamations That we were bound to obey without reserve It 's hardship upon hardship to be oblig'd now when he is justly Abdicated to believe without reserve But that we may the easier be persuaded of King James's care of the Protestants of Ireland and their properties let us take a short glance of the great favours he has bestowed on them since his Arrival there One would think that a Mans's Estate his House Furniture his Arms Money Chattels and the like were included under the word Property King James his care has been so transcendently great of this sort of Property that there are at this day in England and the Neighbouring Nations Noblemen Gentlemen Clergy Merchants and Tradesmen whose Estates seiz'd upon by King James's Order amounts to no more than four Million of pounds Sterling If any doubt of the Truth of this I refer them to List and Account taken of the Irish Protestants by the Commissioners appointed by the King for that effect Neither is there at present one single Protestant within that Kingdom that can rationally assure himself of one moments possession of what the Barbarous Irish has left them yet undestroyed Who knows not That upon weighty Reasons the Wisdom of the Kings of England thought it very dangerous to trust the Natives of Ireland with Arms knowing from many funest Experiences they were a people impatient of the English Yoke and ready to accept all occasions to throw it off But King James treads quite another path in stead of dis-arming these his darling Wild Irish they are the only people he can trust as knowing their furious Zeal to his Religion and their Hereditary hatred to the English Nation renders them fit Instruments to execute the designs concerted betwixt him and his intimate Allie the French King And which to capacitate them the better to effectuate he has wisely disarmed before hand the whole Protestants of that Kingdom and prepared them ready Victims for their Bloody Enemies when ever it shall be time to give the blow I confess it requires the greatest stock of patience to hear one boldly affirm his care of my life and at the same time to see him give me up bound and deâ—enceless into the hands of my cruel and mortal Enemies There is another transcendent Instance of King James's Care of the Protestants in Ireland their Religion and Property which merits to be engraven in Corinthian Brass to posterity All that are in the least acquainted with the Laws and Affairs of that Kingdom know that the Act of Settlement is the great Security of the Protestants their Religion and properties and the Fundamental Right they have to their Estates conquer'd from the Rebellious Irish at the expence of their Blood and Treasure By this Act the lasting Landmarks are fixt among the Protestants themselves and between them and the Natives This is indeed the Magna Charta of the Protestants of Ireland and the true Basis of their Liberties and Properties upon the taking away of which the Superstructure must tumble to the ground Now King James's Care of the Protestants is of so high a nature that in his first Speech to his Mock-parliament consisting all of Papists except about five or six May 7. he assures them He would consent to the enacting such Laws as might relieve them of the Act of Settlement And May â—0 we find it moved in the House That nothing could be more advantageous to the King and Countrey than to destroy the horrid barbarous act of Settlement and whosoever shall alledge the contrary shall be deem'd an Enemy to both Thereafter we find it mov'd by one of the Worthy Members of that Parliament That the Act of Settlement should be publickly burnt by the Commons Hangman Behold the transcendent care of King James for the Priviledges and Properties of the Protestants of Ireland His accustomed Zeal obliges him at the first meeting of his packt-up Popish Parliament to put them in mind of the best methods to Repeal the Great Security of he Protestants Estates His impatience to have this done could not stay till it had been propos'd by any of the Members themselves He must needs demonstrat his tenderness to his belov'd Irish by leading them the way how to break off the English Yoke and make an inroad upon those Properties the Protestants had acquired at the Expence of their Blood. As I intimated before it was ever the Maxim of English Policy to bridle in the unwearied Attempts of the Irish for regaining their Countrey by a good standing Army in that Kingdom consisting of Protestants