Let this be Printed Nottingham White-Hall Octob. 15. 1691. THE STATE OF THE PROTESTANTS OF IRELAND Under the late King James's Government IN WHICH Their Carriage towards him is justified and the absolute Necessity of their endeavouring to be freed from his Government and of submitting to their present Majesties is demonstrated LONDON Printed for Robert Clavell at the Peacock at the West-end of St. Paul's 1691. HEADS of the DISCOURSE The INTRODUCTION Containing an Explication of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and stating the true Notion and Latitude of it page 1 N. 1. That a King who designs to destroy a People abdicates the Government of them ib. 2. The Assertors of Passive Obedience own this but alledge the Case is not to be put p. 2 3. The Arguments of Passive Obedience from Reason and Scripture reach only Cases where the Mischief is particular or tolerable p. 3 4. A War not always a greater Evil than Suffering p. 5 5. The Division of the whole Discourse into four parts ib. Chap. 1. That it is lawful for one Prince to interpose between another Prince and his Subjects when he uses them cruelly p. 6 N. 1. This Point already cleared by several ib. 2. 1. Argument One Prince may have an Interest in the People and Government of another Prince ib. 3. 2. Argument That tho Destruction of a People by their Prince may only be a step to the Destruction of his Neighbours ib. 4. 3. Argument Charity and Humanity oblige every one who is able to succour the oppressed p. 7 5. 4. Argument God seems for this Reason to have divided the World into several Principalities ib. 6. 5. Argument From the Authority of Christian Casuists p. 8 7. 6. From the Practice of Christian Princes Constantine the Great Constantine his Son King Pepin the Holy War c. ib. 8. The Objection from the Oath of Allegiance c. answered from Falkner p. 9 9. From it not being lawful to assist any Prince in an ill Cause p. 10 10. From King Jame's abolishing those Oaths here in Ireland ib. Chap. 2. King James designed to destroy the Protestant Religion p. 12 Sect. 1. The possibility of a King 's designing the Destruction of his Subjects ib. N. 1. That it is necessary the Princes Design should be very evident to justifie the Opposition of his Subjects ib. 2. An Answer to the Objection who shall be Judge ib. 3. Example of Princes that have had such Designs against their Subjects p. 13 Sect. 2. Shewing from the Obligations of his Religion that King James designed to destroy Protestant Subjects p. 14 N. 1. Proved from the Councils of Lateran and Constance from King James's Zeal Confessors and Allies ib. 2. That no Promises of the Prince nor Laws of the Land can secure Protestant Subjects p. 16 Account of Jerome of Prague's safe Conduct p. 17 Sect. 3. King James's Design to ruin his Protestant Subjects proved from the Profession of that whole Party that were most privy to his Councils who privately warned their Protestant Friends of it ib. Sect. 4. The same destructive Designs proved from the Officers employed by him p. 19 N. 1. The Ground of the different Interests of Ireland Account of the Rebellion in 1641 ib. 2. The Subjects Security is that the Officers employed by the King are responsible for what they do amiss p. 20 3. The Officers employed by King James not only not responsible but fitted to destroy us upon account of the five Qualifications following p. 21 Sect. 5. Upon Account of their being Men generally of no Fortune p. 22 N. 1. King James employed such in the Army and Civil Offices and such were his Favourites p. 22 2. He employed such in Corporations p. 23 3. Men of Estates that followed him out of England had little Interest with him ib. 4. The Reason of this that they might not stick at illegal Commands p. 24 Sect. 6. Upon Account of their Insufficiency for their Emploments ib. N. 1. The Roman Catholicks generally insufficient for Business by their long Disuse ib. 2. The Inconveniences of this in the Courts and City p. 25 3. In the Country p. 26 4. Those employed were incapable of Improvement p. 27 Sect. 7. Upon account of their loose Principles and want of Moral Honesty ib. N. 1. Knavery Robbery or Forgery no Bar to Preferments in King James his Army or Employments ib. 2. The lewdest Converts favour'd p. 29 3. All of them very uncharitable and void of Compassion to Hereticks p. 30 4. Many Perjuries amongst them ib. Sect. 8. Upon Account of their Genius and Inclination to destroy the Laws c. p. 31 N. 1. The ancient Condition of the Tenants and Landlords of Ireland ib. 2. The Landlords that did not forfeit their Estates 1641 retained the Genius of their Ancestors p. 32 3. The Humour and Way of Living of such as formerly forfeited or had sold their Estates ibid. 4. The English Laws were intolerable to the old Landlords that retain'd their Estates p. 33 5. Much more to those that had lost them and most of all to the Popish Clergy ibid. 6. King James employed and trusted those most whose Interest and Temper made them greatest Enemies to the Laws p. 34 by the Laws in employing Soldiers ibid. 8. Secondly That Protestants would not serve his turn Answer This only shews what he designed against us p. 57 9. Thirdly That such Levies were necessary in the Kings Circumstances Answer The Papists had brought that necessity The raising and modeling this Army a plain instance of King James's design to destroy us ibid. Sect. 3. Secondly King James's dealing with the Courts of Judicature p. 58 1. Justice in the Hands of â—it Persons the support of a Kingdom King James put it into the most unfit Hands being such as were bent to destroy the Protestants and English Interest ibid. 2. Chancery Primate Boyle and Sir Charles Porter removed Fitton put in His Character His Inclination and Behaviour towards Protestants and great partiality to them ibid. 3. Masters of Chancery of the same sort p. 60 4. On the other Benches one Protestant Judg kept in for a Colour without Power The like done by Burgesses in Corporations p. 61 5. Kings Bench Nugent's Character great Partiality Instance in Captain Fitz Gerald anâ— Sir Gregory Birn Nugent's great hand in the Bill of Attainder c. Sir Bryan ô Neal's Character p. 61 62 6. Excâ—equer Sir Stephen Rice's Character His Inveteracy to Protestants and enmity to the Act of Settlement p. 63 7. Common Pleas little to do Keating's and Daley's Characters p. 64 8. Circuits Alike ill for Protestants Instance Tirrell's Affidavit ibid. 9. Attorney General Sir Richard Nagle his Character and Partiality Instance in Fitz Gerald and Sir William Petty Speaker of the House of Commons drew up the Acts of Repeal and Attainder and betrayed the Kings Prerogative p. 65 66 10. Administration of the Laws turned to the Protestants ruin p. 66 11. Instances in
be the peculiar Obligation that lies on us from the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance which tho it should be allowed lawful for a Foreign Prince to interpose would yet make it necessary for us to fight for our own Prince But to this I answer 1. That those Oaths were made by us to the King as Supreme Governor of these Kingdoms and while he continued such they did oblige us but by endeavouring to destroy us he as Grotius observes in that very Act abdicated the Government since an intention of Governing cannot consist with an intention of Destroying and therefore in all equity we are absolved from Oaths made to him as Governor That this may not seem a new Doctrine I would have the Reader observe that I only transcribe the Learned Falkner in his Christian Loyalty l. 1. c. 5. s. 2. n. 19. Such Attempts saith he of ruining do ipso facto include a disclaiming the governing those Persos as Subjects and consequently of being their Prince or King and then the Expression of our publick Declaration and Acknowledgment would still be secured that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King 9. But Secondly No Oath of Allegiance doth oblige any Subject to assist his Prince in an ill Cause If therefore a King should against the Rules of Justice attempt to destroy a Neighbor Nation his Subjects who were convinced of this ought not to fight for him in such a War and if they ought not to assist him to oppress Foreigners much less is it lawful for them to assist him to destroy themselves or to fight against a Prince who comes to rescue them from Destruction intended against them and if no Protestant Subject could lawfully fight for King James in his Quarrel against their present Majesties it is manifest that he himself had thereby voided that Branch of the Oath of Allegiance of fighting for him by making the matter of it unlawful he having brought the Nation into such a Condition that at the same time they defended his Person they must enable him to accomplish his destructive Designs against them which no Casuist will say they were obliged to do They therefore that urge us with the Obligation of the Oaths of Allegiance ought either to make it appear that it was lawful for us to fight for him in an ill Cause or else that it was not an ill Cause to help him to destroy his People Or Thirdly That he had no such Design against us none of which I have yet seen attempted in any Paper that has appeared in his Defence 10. But Thirdly As to us particularly in Ireland his late Majesty King James and his Parliament here by a formal Act did repeal and make void all former Acts that required the tendering or taking those Oaths and left not one legal standing Oath in force whereby we or any other Subjects besides Soldiers were obliged to profess Subjection to him therefore those Oaths being repealed and voided by the King 's own express Act how could he expect that we should look upon our selves to be bound or obliged by them And indeed we must conclude from his Majesties consenting to repeal them either that he designed to release us from the peculiar Obligation arising from them as too strict or else that he did not design to depend on our Oaths for our Loyalty and therefore laid them aside as of no force to oblige us either of which must proceed from an intention to destroy the ancient Government with which he was intrusted and can signifie nothing less than that he did not intend to rule us as his Predecessors did or to depend on those Obligations of Subjection which they judged proper for the Subjects of these Kingdoms to give their King and that as he did not intend to keep his Coronation Oath to us so he did not value our Oath of Allegiance to him having left none that we know of in this Kingdom which any Law obliges us to take CHAP. II. King James designed to destroy the Protestant Religion the Liberty and Property of his Subjects in general the English Interest in particular and so alter the very Frame and Constitution of the Government SECT I. Shewing the Possibility of a Kings designing the Destruction of his Subjects 1. I Have in the former Chapter shewed that it is lawful for a Prince to interpose between another Prince and his Subjects if he attempt to destroy them I promised in the second place to shew that the late King designed and endeavoured to destroy and utterly ruin the Protestant Religion and English Interest in Ireland and to alter the very Frame and Constitution of the Government This I look on as the most material point of our Apology and to need the most clear and full proof for Jealousies and Fears in such a Case ought not to pass for Arguments or be brought into competition with a certain and plain Duty that is with Obedience to lawful Governors The Arguments therefore brought by Subjects to prove their Governors Design to destroy them in those Interests to preserve which is the only Reason of Mens desiring or submitting to Government ought to be so plain and evident that the Conscience of Mankind cannot but see and be convinced of their Truth especially the generality of the Subjects themselves ought to be fully satisfied and acquiesce in them 2. I know 't is commonly objected Who shall be Judge And for this Reason alone some conclude it can never be lawful to make any opposition against a Governor or to side with a Deliverer that comes only to rescue miserable Subjects but I answer there are some Cases so plain that they need no Judge at all every Man must be left to judge for himself and for his Integrity he must be answerable to God and his own Conscience Matters of Fact are often of this Nature and I take this to be one of them for either the People must be left to judge of the Designs of their Governor by what they see and feel from him or else they must be obliged to a blind and absolute Submission without employing their understanding in the case And I dare appeal to all the World whether it be safer to leave it to the Judgments and Consciences of a whole Kingdom to determine concerning the Designs of their Governor or to leave it to the Will and Conscience of the King whether he will destroy them One of these is unavoidable and I am assured it is less probable that the Generality of a Kingdom will concur in a Mistake of this Nature and less mischievous if they should mistake than that a King by Weakness wicked Counsellors or false Principles should design to make his People Slaves subvert the ancient Government or destroy one part of his People whom he hates in favour of another 3. That a Prince may design to destroy his Subjects tho the Asserters of Absolute Passive Obedience would
make it an incredible Thing is so far from being impossible that it is very common of which there are so many Examples both ancient and modern that it is a wonder that Men who know any thing of History should overlook them Nero Caligula Domitian Maximinus Heliogabalus Commodus not only endeavoured but professed it and some of them were mightily concerned that it was not in their power to accomplish it No longer ago than the time of Philip the Second of Spain we have an Example of a Christian King no better than those Heathens Whoever reads the Story of his dealing with the Low Countries must confess that he design'd the utter Destruction of the Laws and Liberties of those People and that in particular he was resolved that not one Protestant should be left alive amongst them The same has been designed and effected in a great measure by the present French King against his Protestant Subjects and he must have a great share either of Impudence or Stupidity that can deny this Prince to have designed and purposely contrived that destruction and by the same Rule that a Man can be so wicked and barbarous as to design the destruction of a third or fourth part of his People he may design the destruction of the greatrr part if they will be such Fools as to suffer him to effect it SECT II. Shewing from the Obligations of his Religion that King James designed to destroy us IT is easie to demonstrate that every Roman Catholick King if he throughly understand his Religion and do in earnest believe the Principles of it is obliged if he be able to destroy his Protestant Subjects and that nothing can excuse him from doing it but want of power This is plain from the third Chapter of the fourth Lateran Council and from the Council of Constance in the Bull that confirms it read in the 45. Session if therefore a Popish King can persuade his Protestant Subjects to submit to him whilst he doth it he is obliged by his Principles to destroy them even when they are the greater part and Body of his Subjects Now King James was as is known to all the World a most zealous Roman Catholick and ingaged with that party of them that most zealously assert and practise this Doctrine of rooting out Hereticks He gave himself up intirely to the Conduct and guidance of Jesuits these were the Governors and Directors of his Conscience and he seemed to have no other Sentiments than such as they inspired into him If then these have prevailed with the French King whom some report to be a merciful Man in his own Nature and certainly a mighty Zealot for his Honor to break his most solemn established Laws violate his repeated Declarations and Oaths and in spite of all these to persecute and destroy his Protestant Subjects if the same have prevailed with the Duke of Savoy to do the like though as he is now convinced manifestly against his Interest nay almost to his own Destruction having lost thereby his best and most resolute and useful Subjects who would have served him most Cordially against France the Enemy he ought most to dread and which one day will swallow up his Dukedom if his Allies do not prevent it If lastly they have prevailed with the Emperor to involve himself in a War that has now lasted about twenty years and almost lost him his Empire rather than suffer a few Protestants to live quietly in Hungary Is not our late Kings being of the same Principles and under the Government of the same Directors of Conscience is not his fondness of France and his Alliance with it his affecting to imitate that King in every thing and above all his prosecuting the same if not worse methods towards the Protestants in Ireland that the King of France did with the Hugonots in his Dominions a clear and full proof of both Kings being in the same design to root out not only the Protestants of these Kingdoms but likewise of all Europe and that we must all have expected the same usage our Brethren met with in France Nor could our Kings Promises and Engagements be any greater assurances to us than those of the French King were to his Subjects It is observable that King James was more than ordinarily liberal in his Promises and Declarations of favour towards Protestants He boasted in a Declaration sent to England and dispersed by his Friends there dated May 8. 1689. at Dublin That his Protestant Subjects their Religion Priviledges and Properties were his especial care since he came into Ireland He often professed that he made no distinction between them and Roman Catholicks and both he here and his Party there did much extol his kind dealings with his Protestants in Ireland What those dealings truly were I shall have occasion to shew the representation of them made in England by him and his Party was no less false than his Promises were unsincere it being plain he had a reserve in them all It is a maxim as I take it in Law that if the King be deceived in his Grant though it pass the Great Seal yet it is void much more must all his verbal Promises be void if he be deceived in them Now if we consider who were the Directors of the Kings Conscience we ought not to wonder that he made no great scruple to evade them Doctor Cartwright one of his Instruments gives us a right notion of King James's Promises in his Sermon at Rippon where in effect he tells us that the Kings Promises are Donatives and ought not to be too strictly examined or urged and that we must leave his Majesty to explain his own meaning in them this Gloss pleased King James so well that he rewarded the Author with the Bishoprick of Chester though very unfit for that Character and shewed in all his actions that he meant to proceed accordingly and the humour run through the whole party whenever they were at a pinch and under a necessity of serving themselves by the assistance or credulity of Protestants they promised them fair and stuck at no terms with them but when their turn was served they would not allow us to mention their promise much less to challenge the performance 2. It plainly appeared that it was not in King James's power if he had been disposed himself to perform his promises to us The Priests told us that they would have our Churches and our Tyths and that the King had nothing to do with them and they were as good as their words nor could his Majesty upon trial hinder them One Mr. Moore preached before the King in Christs Church in the beginning of the year 1690. his Sermon gave great offence he told his Majesty that he did not do justice to the Church and Churchmen and amongst other things said that Kings ought to consult Clergymen in their temporal affairs the Clergy having a temporal as well as a spiritual right in the
and the old petty Tyrants that claimed not only a Right to all his Tenant's Substance but likewise a power over his life 3. But many of the old Landlords lost their Estates by Outlawries and Attainders for their Rebellion in the year 1641 and for their murthering the Protestants at that time Many of them had sold their Estates and some had mortgaged them for more than their value two or three times to several persons a Practice very common in Ireland but it is observable that it is the humor of these People to count an Estate their own still tho they have sold it on the most valuable Considerations or have been turned out of it by the most regular Proceedings of Justice so that they reckon every Estate theirs that either they or their Ancestors had at any time in their possession no matter how many years ago And by their pretended Title and Gentility they have such an influence on the poor Tenants of their own Nation and Religion who live on those Lands that these Tenants look on them still tho out of possession of their Estates as a kind of Landlords maintain them after a fashion in Idleness and entertain them in their Coshering Manner These Vagabonds reckoned themselves great Gentlemen and that it would be a great Disparagement to them to betake themselves to any Calling Trade or Way of Industry and therefore either supported themselves by stealing and torying or oppressing the poor Farmers and exacting some kind of Maintenance either from their Clans and Septs or from those that lived on the Estates to which they pretended And these pretended Gentlemen together with the numerous Coshering Popish Clergy that lived much after the same manner were the two greatest Grievances of the Kingdom and more especially hindered its Settlement and Happiness The Laws of England were intolerable to them both nor could they subsist under them 4. As to the Popish Landlords who yet retained their Estates it put them out of all patience to find that the Bodough their Tenant so as they call the meaner sort of People should have equal Justice against them as well as against his Fellow Churl that a Landlord should be called to an account for killing or robbing his Tenant or ravishing his Daughter seemed to them an unreasonable Hardship It was insufferable to Men that had been used to no Law but their own Will to be levelled with the meanest in the Administration of Justice and every time they were crossed by a Tenant that would not patiently bear their Impositions they cursed in their Hearts the Laws of England and called to mind the glorious Days of their Ancestors who with a Word of their Mouths could hang or ruin which of their Dependents they pleased and had in themselves the power of Peace and War 5. This Humor in the Gentry of Ireland has from time to time been their Ruin and engaged them in frequent Rebellions being impatient of the Restraint the Laws of England put on their Power tho they enjoyed their Estates and they still watched an opportunity to restore themselves to their petty Tyrannies and were ready to buy the Reftitution of them at any rate The other sort of Gentlemen I mentioned as they called themselves who were outed of their Estates as well as of their Power by the same Laws hated them yet worse and their Clergy pushed them on with all the Arguments that ignorant Zeal or Interest could suggest insomuch that all sober Men as well as Protestants reckoned these the sworn Enemies of the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and were assured that they would stick at no conditions to destroy them their Interest Inclination and Principles all concurring to engage them to do it 6. Now these very Men were the Officers and Instruments King James employed and trusted above all others He espoused their Interest from the time that he had thoughts of the Crown they were his Favourites and Confidents and to provide for them he turned his English and Protestant Subjects first out of the Army then out of their Civil Trusts and Employments and lastly out of their Fortunes and Estates He knew very well that the Tempers and Genius of those Men were at enmity to the Laws and fitted for that Constitution of Slavery under which he designed to bring the Kingdoms He found that none were more fawning to their Superiors than they nor did any flatter with more Meanness and Servility and according to the nature of such People none are more insolent and tyrannous to their Inferiors And this was the reason that they were so dear to King James and that he preferred and trusted them rather than his Protestant and English Subjects The Bargain between him and them was plainly this restore us to our former Power Estates and Religion and we will serve you as you please in your own way An Expression that King James and all his Creatures often used and were very fond of 7. These People found that the King 's Legal Power could never restore them to the condition at which they aimed that the Power and Station they desired was absolutely contrary to the Laws in being and that no Legal Parliament would ever alter the Laws and Constitution of the Kingdom to gratifie them No wonder therefore if they espoused and promoted an absolute and despotick Power in the King and if he and they concurred so heartily to introduce it To do them Justice they made no Secret of it but professed it publickly and on all occasions and accordingly practised it in their several Stations They reckoned and called every one a Whig and Rebel that talked of any other Law than the King's Pleasure They were liberal of their Curses and Imprecations on all occasions but they exceeded and became outrageous against any one that durst alledge that their Proceedings were against Law Damn your Laws was frequently their word it is the Kings pleasure it should be so we know no reason why our King should not be as absolute as the King of France and we will make him so before we have done Nay so extravagant were many of them that they would swear with repeated Or ths that all Protestants were Rebels because they would not be of the King's Religion An Expression I suppose they learned from the French Dragoons 8. Some would undertake to argue the Case with such as seemed more moderate amongst them and put them in mind of the possibility of the Change of the Government and that then the Argument would be good against themselves but they had not patience to hear any such thing mentioned And they generally swore with the most bloody Oaths and bitter Imprecations that they would never subject themselves to any King that was not of their own Religion and that they would lose the last drop of their Blood rather than part with the Sword and Power put into their Hands on any consideration whatsoever These were not the Discourses of one or
Interest to it 4. And no wonder if it be true what is reported of him that he resolved to die a Martyr rather than not settle his Religion and that he had rather die the next day that Design being compassed than live fifty years without effecting it All which sufficiently explains that which seemed a Riddle to many how King James should be so very hard on his Protestant Subjects when his Interest required that he should treat them with all imaginable kindness especially in the present Circumstances of his Affairs whilst in Ireland The Reasons of his acting contrary to his Interest in so palpable an instance were either from the Persuasions of his ill Counsellors who assured him that they would so order the Matter that what he did in Ireland should not be heard of or not be believed in England or else from a settled Resolution not to mind any Interest which came in competition with his grand Designs of advancing Popery and the Slavery of the Nations To effect which it is manifest he was content to be a Vassal to France for whosoever calls in a potent Neighbour to his assistance must reckon that will be the consequence if he get the better by his Means of which the Irish themselves were sensible when they saw the French Succors landed and the Protestants could not but conclude that King James was so intent upon destroying them that so he compassed that Design he cared not if he enslaved himself and the Kingdoms 5. Nor had the Services of any towards him more influence on him than his own Interest Never had any Prince fairer Opportunities to distinguish his Friends from his Enemies than King James the struggle he had to get to the Crown was so long and the issue so doubtful that there was no Temptation for any one to dissemble his Thoughts towards him and never had Subjects a fairer opportunity to serve and merit from a Prince Now his Carriage to those that then proved his Friends who against their own Interest and against the Endeavours of the most powerful and most diffused Faction that ever appeared in a Kingdom set the Crown on his Head is a plain demonstration of what force Merit or Service were with him towards altering his private Designs No sooner did it appear that those who were against the Exclusion designed to preserve the Kingdom as well as the Succession but he abandoned them and not only laid them aside but further exposed them to the revenge of those very Men that they had provoked by espousing his Quarrel It is no news to any how King James cast off his fastest Friends when he saw that they would not proceed after his Measures to destroy the Liberty and Religion of their Country and took into his Bosom and Council those that had been his most bitter Enemies when he perceived that they would assist him in that Design Which is a plain demonstration that he had no regard to Services or Merit further than they tended to enslave the Nations and destroy the settled Religion But no Protestant that had any value for his God his Conscience or Country could pretend to this Merit and therefore in the King's Opinion he could do nothing that his Majesty would count a Service King James had no desire to be served by Protestants as was manifest by his turning many out for no other reason but because they would not change their Religion By preferring Papists to all Places of Trust and Profit tho not so deserving or well qualified for them as those that possessed them By his declaring that he would have all that did eat his Bread of his own Religion If therefore he employed any it was for a colour either to cover his Partiality or because he could not find a Papist fit for their Places or because he believed that in time he might gain them to be of his Religion or lastly because he had some odious Work to do which he thought he could the better excuse if he could get a Protestant to do it where these Reasons ceased he never employed any But it is observable where he did employ them tho their places were considerable yet they never had the Interest with him or power proper to their place but were mere Cyphers in it Thus he made Sir Edward Herbert Chancellor of England and caused a Seal to be cut for him but he never allowed him that Interest with him or had that regard for him in Councils that his place required The puny Papist Judges had more influence on the King and could make bolder with him than he he was not admitted to the Secret of Affairs at all and at the publick Councils he was set below Fitton Chancellor of Ireland and several others whom I am informed whilst employed as Chancellor of England and in his Masters presence he ought to have preceded But generally Protestants were only admitted to inferior places and for the most part with a Companion and they had only the Name their Companions must do all and they durst not contradict them and tho they were intitled to rise according as Vacancies fell yet some inconsiderable Papist was sure to get the start of them and to be put over their Heads so that it was never in their power to serve the King considerably or merit at his Hands If they did chance to do any thing signal yet their Enemies had so much the advantage of King James's Ear that they were sure to be misrepresented and what those said having the dead Weight of Religion to help it did generally with him outweigh the Protestants Service Of this Sir Charles Murry is an Instance he followed King James through France to Ireland and all along appeared zealous for his Service Yet because he professed himself a Protestant upon his landing at Kinsale some that had an ill will to him prevailed with the King to clap him up a Prisoner in the Fort of Kinsale where he lay without being able to learn any Reason for his Confinement from the twelfth of March 168â— â— till toward the end of the following Summer and then they had occasion for him to help to order their Camp and fortifie Ardee which procured him his Liberty tho he never could have the satisfaction to learn either his Crime or his Accuser My Lord Forbess Son to the Earl of Granard is another remarkable Instance When the pretended Parliament sate in Dublin both Houses were informed that my Lord Forbess adhered to King James's Interest in England and that he was a Prisoner in the Tower upon that account his Friends thought it proper to improve this occasion with the King and the Parliament to save my Lord's Estate at Mollingar which he holds under the Act of Settlement And this seemed the more feasible because the Lands did if not all yet for the most part formerly belong not to private persons but to a Corporation But all the Interest could be made did not
the common Offices of Humanity This Chancellor Fitton declared on the Bench This the King's Favourites and Attendants suggested publickly to him at his times of Eating at his Couchee and Levee and upon all occasions However it was it is evident by the effect that King James in great measure completed the Ruin of the Protestants and English Interest in this Kingdom which will plainly appear 1. In his dealing with the Army 2. With the Courts of Judicature 3. With the Privy Council and Offices 4. With Corporations 5. With Trade and the trading People of the Nation 6. With our Liberties 7. With our Fortunes 8. With the Lives of his Protestant Subjects And 9. With their Religion SECT II. I. King James's Dealing with the Army of Ireland in order to destroy the Protestants and English Interest 1. THE Army of Ireland which King James found at his coming to the Crown consisted of about seven thousand as Loyal Men and as Cordial to the King's Service as any could be both Officers and Soldiers had been inured to it for many years They looked on him as their Master and Father intirely depending on him and expecting nothing from any Body else When Monmouth's and Argile's Rebellion called for their assistance to suppress them no People in the World could shew more Chearfulness or Forwardness than they did and it is observable that no one Man in Ireland was ever found to be conscious or consenting to those Rebellions the Protestants of all sorts shewed great Horror and Detestation of them and were discernably melancholy till the Rebels were suppressed Most of the Officers of this Army had been so zealous to serve the King that they had by his permission and encouragement bought their Employments many of them had laid out their whole Fortunes and contracted Debts to purchase a Command yet no sooner was King James settled in his Throne but he began to turn out some of the Officers that had been most zealous for his Service and had deserved best of him merely because they had been counted firm to the Protestant Religion and English Interest The first who were made Examples to the rest were the Lord Shannon Captain Robert Fitz-Gerald Captain Richard Coote and Sir Oliver S. George The three first were Earls Sons who either in their own persons or by their Fathers and Relations had been signally active in restoring King Charles the Second and the Royal Family to their just Rights 1660 so had Sir Oliver S. George and they were all of them without any other Exception but their Zeal for their Religion and the English Interest in Ireland But the common Saying was that King James would regard no Man for any Service done to him his Father or Brother but only for future Service that he expected from them and since he could fot expect that these Gentlemen should assist him to destroy the Protestant Religion or the Liberties of his Subjects which was the Service he then expected he took their Troops from them and gave them to persons of mean or broken Fortunes who must do any thing to keep them some of them unqualified by Law It is fit their Names should be known that the Reader may the better observe what kind of Change the King began with when he substituted Captain Kerney if I remember right one of the Ruffians Captain Anderson a person of no Fortune Captain Sheldon a professed Papist and Captain Graham in the places of the Lord Shannon Captain Fitz-Gerald Captain Coote and Sir Oliver S. George 2. But to convince the World that no Consideration was to be had of Loyalty or Merit except a Man were a Papist The Duke of Ormond was sent for abruptly and devested of the Government with such Circumstances that did no ways correspond with the Service he had rendered the Crown in general and King James in particular Immediately the modelling of the Army was put into the Hands of Collonel Richard Talbott a person more hated than any other Man by the Protestants and who had been named by Oates in his Narrative for this very Employment When therefore the Protestants saw him put into it many who believed nothing of a Plot before gave credit now to his Narrative and the common Saying was that if Oates was an ill Evidence he was certainly a good Prophet Collonel Talbott afterwards Earl of Tyrconnell knew the Necessity of having the Army fitted to his purpose it being the Engine he depended on for destroying the Religion Liberty and Laws of the Kingdom and therefore set about it with all expedition and prosecuted it in such a manner as might be expected from a Man of his insolent temper He exercised at the same time so much Falshood and Barbarity that if the Army had not been the best principled with Loyalty and Obedience of any in the World they would have 〈◊〉 or at least dispatched him In the Morning he would take an Officer into his Closet and with all the Oaths Curses and Damnations that were never wanting to him he would profess Friendship and Kindness to him and promise him the continuance of his Commission and yet in the Afternoon cashier him with all the contempt he could heap on him nay perhaps while he was thus caressing him he had actually given away his Commission The Officers of Ireland then cashiered and their Acquaintance can vouch the truth of this in many instances As for the Soldiers and Troopers his way with them was to march them from their usual Quarters to some distant place where he thought they were least known where they would be put to greatest Hardships and there he stripped them the Foot of their Cloaths for which they had payed and the Troopers of their Horses Boots and Furniture bought with their own Money and set them to walk barefooted one hundred or one hundred and fifty Miles to their Homes or Friends if they had any Sometimes he would promise them something for their Horses but then he told them that they must come to Dublin for it if any came to demand the small pittance promised them for their Horses or Arrears of Pay he contrived it so that they should be obliged to wait till they had spent twice as much as they expected and most of them after all got nothing By this means two or three hundred Protestant Gentlemen who had laid out all or a good part of their Fortunes and contracted Debts on Commissions were not left worth any thing but were turned out without reason or any consideration and sive or six thousand Soldiers sent a begging a hardship perhaps never put on any Army before without any provocation against whom there was no other Exception but that they were English Men and Protestants and King James by substituting Irish Men and Papists in their places contrary to the Laws and to the very Design of keeping a standing Army in Ireland clearly demonstrated that he had no regard to the Laws or to the
Clergy were established in Ireland by as firm Laws as the Properties of the Laity The King by his Coronation Oath was obliged to maintain them Their Tithes and Benefices were their Free-holds and their Priviledges and Jurisdiction were settled and confirmed to them by the known and current Laws of the Kingdom according to which the King was obliged to govern them and whereof he was the Guardian The Clergy had beside all this peculiar Obligations on him and a Title to his Protection for they had espous'd his Interest most cordially Whilst Duke of York they used their utmost diligence to perswade the People to submit to Gods Providence and be content with his Succession to the Crown in case his Brother dyed before him and they prest that point so far that many of their People were dissatisfied with them and told them often with heat and concern what reward they must expect for their pains if ever he came to the Throne they saw their danger but could not imagine any man would be so unpolitick and ungrateful as to destroy such as had brought him to the Throne and could only keep him safe in it and therefore they ventured all to serve him and many of them by their Zeal for him lost the Affections of their People and their Interest with them It was chiefly due to their diligence and care that his Title from the beginning met not the least opposition in Ireland tho the Army in it were intirely Protestant Had they and the rest of the Protestants in this Kingdom been in any measure disloyally principled in the time of Monmouth and Argile's Rebellion they might easily have made an Insurrection more dangerous than both those and the least Mutiny or revolt amongst them could hardly have failed to have ruined King James's Affairs at that critical time but they were so far from attempting any such thing that they were as ready and as zealous to assist him as his very Guards at Whitehall which he himself could not but acknowledge how he rewarded them I have already shewn and how grateful he was to the Clergy that thus principled them will appear by the Sequel 4. First therefore when his Majesty came to the Crown he declared that he would protect the Church of England in her Government and Priviledges under which we suppos'd the Church of Ireland to be concluded And accordingly the Clergy and People of this Kingdom return'd his Majesty their Address of Thanks though they very well knew that this was no more than was due to them by the Laws and by the King's Coronation Oath in particular But they were soon told by the Roman Catholicks that his Majesty did not intend to include Ireland in that Declaration and that it must be a Catholick Kingdom as they term'd it Every discerning Protestant soon found by the method they saw his Majesty take that he in earnest intended to settle Popery in England as well as Ireland but he thought himself so sure of effecting it suddenly in Ireland that his Instruments made no scruple to declare their intentions nay they were so hasty to ruin our Religion that they did not so much as consult their own Safety but even before it was either seasonable or safe in the opinion of the wiser sort amongst themselves they began openly to apply all their Arts and Engines to effect it 1. By hindring the Succession and Supplies of Clergy-men 2. By taking away their maintenance 3. By weakning and then invading their Jurisdiction 4. By seizing on their Churches and hindring their Religious Assemblies 5. By violence against their Persons And 6. By slandering and misrepresenting them and their Principles SECT XV. 1. King James in order to destroy the Protestant Religion hindred the Education and Succession of Clergy-men 1. THE Good and Support of Religion doth very much depend on the educating and principling Youth in Schools and Universities and the Law had taken special care that these should be in the hands of English men and Protestants and the better to secure them the Nomination of the Schoolmasters in every Diocess except four is by a particular Act of Parliament lodged in the Lord Lieutenant or Chief Governour for the time being The Clergy of each Diocess by the Act are obliged to maintain a Schoolmaster and his Qualifications are described in the Act. But when the Earl of Tyrconnel came to the Government he took no notice of those Laws but when any School became void he either left it unsupplyed or put a Papist into it And in the mean time great care was taken to discourage such Protestant Schoolmasters as remain'd and to set up Popish Schools in opposition to them Thus they dealt with the School of Killkenny founded and endowed by the charitable Piety of the late Duke of Ormond they set up a Jesuits School in the Town and procured them a Charter for a Colledge there they drove away the Protestant Schoolmaster Doctor Hinton who had officiated in it with great industry and success and seiz'd on the School-house commonly call'd the Colledge and converted it to an Hospital for their Soldiers Thus in a few years they would not have left one publick School in the hands of a Protestant for the Education of their Youth 2. There is but one University in Ireland and there is a Clause in the Statutes thereof that gives the King Power to dispense with the said Statutes it was founded by Queen Elizabeth and certainly never designed by her or her Successors to be converted against the fundamental Design of its Institution into a Seminary of Popery yet advantage was taken of this Clause though we had reason to believe it would have been done if there had been no such Clause to put in Popish Fellows as soon as the Fellowships became vacant one Doyle a Convert was the first who was named a Person of so exceedingly lewd and vicious a Conversation as was fully prov'd before the Lord Tyrconnell and of so little Sence or Learning that it seemed impossible that any Government should have countenanc'd such a Man yet this did not much weigh with his Excellency and therefore the Colledge insisted upon another Point the Dispensation that Doyle had gotten through his ignorance was not for his purpose for it required in express Terms that he should take the Oath of a Fellow and that Oath includes in it the Oath of Supremacy the Provost tendered it to him but he durst not take it for fear of disobliging his own Party upon this they refused to admit him he insists on his Claim and complains to the Lord Deputy upon a hearing Justice Nugent Baron Rice and the Attorny General supplyed the Place of Advocates for him but the Case was so plain that even Justice Nugent had not the confidence to deny the insufficiency of his Dispensation and therefore they ordered him to get another But to be even with the Colledge for demurring on the King's Mandate they stopt
the Money due to it out of the Exchequer 3. The Foundation consists of a Provost Seven Senior and Nine Junior Fellows and Seventy two Scholars these are partly maintain'd by a Pension out of the Exchequer of 388. l. per Annum this Pension the Earl of Tyrconnel stopt from Easter 1688. and could not be prevail'd with by any intercession or intreaties to grant his Warrant after that time for it by which means he in effect dissolv'd the Foundation and stopt the Fountains of Learning and of Religion this appeared to have been his design more plainly afterwards for King James and his Party not content to take their maintenance from them proceeded and turn'd out the Vice Provost Fellows and Scholars seiz'd upon the Furniture Books and publick Library together with the Chappel Communion Plate and all things belonging to the Colledge or to the private Fellows or Scholars notwithstanding that when they waited on him upon his first arrival in Dublin he promis'd That he would preserve them in their Liberties and Properties and rather augment than diminish the Priviledges and Immunities granted to them by his Predecessors In the House they placed a Popish Garrison turn'd the Chappel into a Magazin and many of the Chambers into Prisons for Protestants the Garrison destroy'd the Doors Wainscots Closets and Floors and damnified it in the Building and Furniture of private Rooms to at least the value of 2000. l. One Doctor Moore a Popish Priest was nominated Provost one Macarty Library Keeper and the whole designed for them and others of their Fraternity 4. It is observable that there was not the least Colour or Pretence of Law for this violence nor could they give the least Reason in Law or Equity for their proceeding except the necessity of destroying of the Protestant Seminaries of Learning in order to destroy their Religion This made them so eager against the Collegians that they were not content to turn them without Process or Colour of Law out of their Free-holds but they sent a Guard after them to sieze and apprehend their Persons and it cost the Bishop of Meath their Vice-Chancellor all his Cunning and Interest with the Governour Lutterell to prevent their Imprisonment With much ado he was prevailed on to let them enjoy their Liberties but with this Condition that on pain of Death no Three of them should meet together So sollicitous were they to prevent the Education of Protestants under Persons of the same Profession and that there might be none to succeed the present Clergy 5. With the same design they hindred the succession of Bishops and inferiour Clergy-men into the room of those that dyed or were removed the Support of Religion as is well known depends very much on the choice and settling of able and fit Persons in Vacancies and it so happened that partly by the uncertainty of Estates partly by frequent Forfeitures to the King partly by the grasping of the Prerogative and other Accidents most of the considerable Preferments and Benefices of the Church were in the disposal of the Crown there are very few Livings in Ireland in the Presentation of Lay Patrons but they either belong to the King or the Bishops The Bishopricks are all in the King and all the Livings in the Bishops Patronage are in the Vacancy of the Bishoprick likewise the Kings This is a great Trust and the King is bound to dispose of it for the good of the Church But King James plainly design'd by the means of his Trust to destroy the Church that had intrusted him for instead of giving the Preferments as they fell to good and able men who might preserve and maintain the Interest of their Religion he seiz'd them into his own hand had the Profits of them returned into the Exchequer and let the Cures lye neglected The Archbishoprick of Cashell the Bishopricks of Clogher of Elphin and of Clonfert were thus seiz'd with many Inferiour Livings and the Money received out of them dispos'd to the maintenance of Popish Bishops and Priests directly against the Laws and Constitution of the Kingdom 6. At this rate in a few years all the Preferments and Livings of the Kingdom of any value must have fallen into the King's hands and we must have expected to have seen them thus dispos'd of for as many as fell after King James's time were put to this use and we were assured by the Popish Priests that all the rest as they became vacant were design'd to the same Purpose and they were so unreasonable that though both Law and Justice allow a competency for serving the Cure whilst a Living upon any Account whatsoever is in the King's Hand yet the Commissioners of the Revenue and Barons of the Exchequer would allow nothing the Bishop of Meath made an Experiment of this Some Livings in his Diocess upon the Death of one Mr. Duddle the Incumbent were seiz'd by the Commissioners of the Revenue being in the King's Presentation the Bishop did what was in his Power towards supplying the Cure and according to his Duty appointed a Curate assigning him a Salary according to the Canons but the Commissioners would not allow him any thing and though the Bishop endeavoured it and petition'd both the Commissioners and Barons of the Exchequer yet he could never get any thing for the Curate This was a Precedent and the same was practis'd in all other Cases all the Absentees Cures were in the same Condition and though they yielded plentifully to King James yet the Curates had no other maintenance than the voluntary Contributions of the poor plunder'd Protestant Parishioners who were forced to pay their Tythes either to King James's Commissioners or to Popish Priests who had Grants of them 7. This was an effectual though a slow way of putting an end to the Ministry at least to deprive them of all legal Title to Preferments for the Bishops being most of them old would soon have dropt off and King James was resolved to have named no more and so the legal Successions of Bishops must in a short time have ceas'd and all the Livings depending on them must likewise have gone in course to maintain Popish Priests that is all the Deanries Dignitaries and most other Benefices 8. The Papists upbraided us with out want of Power and seem'd to laugh at the Snare into which we were fallen by means of our Popish King not considering that this proceeded from a manifest Breach of Trust and Faith in him and that the Case is the same in all Trusts if the Trustees prove faithless and even in all Popish Countries the Kings have the nomination of Bishops as well as in England and that the Succession of Bishops had almost lately failed in Portugal upon some difference between the King and Pope and the Advocate General of France Mr. Dennis Tallon tells us in 1688. that Thirty five Bishopricks being about a third part of the whole Number were vacant in that Kingdom on the same account
again into our communion at his death and that with such remarkable circumstances of repentance and sorrow that King James heard of it and blam'd his Physician Dr. Constable for his neglect in not giving notice to the Priest 7. They endeavoured to bring the Ministers of Dublin under all the Contempt they could and at last put on them the drudgery that belonged to the Office of Constables and Deputy Aldermen it belonged to those Officers on all occasions to return the names of the several Inhabitants and Inmates of their Wards the Government desired to know the names of Protestants in each Parish and their numbers and they took them several times but Colonel Lutterel the Governour of Dublin would not be satisfied till the Ministers went about in Person and returned every Man his respective Parishioners names it was in vain for them to plead the unreasonableness of this imposition they aleadged the pains the charges and the meanness of the thing which was done more effectually already than could be done by them by the proper Officers but all in vain they must comply or go to Jail This return made by the Ministers was of no real use to the Government for they had an exact account given about a Fortnight before by their own Officers and took another about a Week after the design therefore was either to lay a Snare for the Ministers or else to render them contemptible to their People but instead of doing that it only incensed the People against their unreasonable Governours who thus affronted their Clergy SECT XX. 6. King James and his Party endeavoured to destroy the Protestant Religion by misrepresenting the Persons and Principles of Protestants 1. THe violences used to out us of our Churches and to discourage our Clergy had no great success in making Converts but there was another way set on foot which did seduce some and it was by making a Monster of the Protestant Religion and Protestants insomuch that young People who liv'd remote from Conversation and had not opportunity to inform themselves of the Truth conceiv'd strange Ideas of both by the insinuation of the Priests 2. It was one of the first steps of the Reformation to renounce the usurped power of the Pope and to restore to the Crown the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction which originally belongs to the Civil Magistrate that is the power of punishing Offenders with the Temporal Sword whatever their Crime be whether Ecclesiastical or Civil Now the Priests represented this Doctrine after a strange manner they perswaded those that would lend them their attention that the Protestants believed all Spiritual power to be in the King that he could Consecrate whom he pleas'd Bishops set up what Religion he had a mind to and oblige all his Subjects to be of his Faith and they railed most grievously at the Protestants for not turning Papists in complyance to their King calling them Traitors and perjur'd Persons from their own Principles 3. 'T was another Principle amongst Protestants that private Men should not take up the Sword or resist the King upon any pretence such resistance being against Law by which no more was understood than that Subjects should according to the Laws and Gospel behave themselves peaceably and submissively towards their Superiors and not upon any pretence of private injury or wrong done to them in particular enter into Conspiracie and Combinations against their Governours but by it was never intended to give up the Constitution of the Government or to part with the Liberties and Priviledges of the Kingdom yet the Priests would needs perswade the World that by this Principle the Protestants were obliged to part with all at the King's command that he might use them if he pleased as the Grand Signior or the French King use their Subjects and their Lives their Liberties and Estates were all at his Mercy and they Devils and Traitors and Perjur'd Villains I use their words if they demur'd at his Command There was hardly any Principle peculiar to the reform'd Religion but they thus misrepresented it 4. Nor did the persons of Protestants escape better than their Principles They loaded them with the most odious Calumnies and Misrepresentations they aleadged that the Protestants had no Religion at all that they only pretended to it but were Atheists and Traitors in their Hearts they were more especially malicious against the Clergy King James himself contributing to it as appear'd on this occasion two young Gentlemen Brothers to the Earl of Salisbury followed King James out of France they profest themselves Protestants and associated with such the Bishops of Meath and Limerick had an Eye on the Gentlemen and endeavoured to secure them against any attempts which might be made to pervert them but King James called the young Men to him forbad them the company of Protestants nay even of one Mr. C ham a Gentleman that came over with them but above all he forbad them conversing with the Bishops and Clergy-men for said he they are all false to me and will pervert you to disloyalty and Treason this was the common saying of them all even of the Chancellour on the Bench and tho they would on occasion magnifie the loyalty of some of the Protestant Clergy in England and Scotland yet at other times they would profess that they believed them all treacherous and would never trust any of them 5. In order to abuse the Protestants and especially the Clergy they set up one Yalden a Convert Councellor at Law to write a weekly Paper which he called an Abhorrence in which he endeavoured to rake together all the little Stories that might reflect on Protestants and all the arguments his Wit could furnish him with for his Cause he made it his business to invent false stories and lies concerning the Clergy and began with Dr. King and Dr. Foy He had published a Collection of passages out of the Bishop of Ely's Sermon and some Sixteen others for Passive Obedience whether this was his own work or only as I have been informed a Peice compos'd by some others which he assumed to himself I cannot say but it met with very slender reception in Ireland and lay on the Booksellers hand To vent it therefore as some thought or rather to abuse the Clergy he published an Advertisement in his Abhorrence declaring that Dr. King and Dr. Foy had approv'd this Book by their Certificate under their hand by this he thought to intrap them for either they as he imagined must have let this pass and then the Protestants must think them if not ill at least very imprudent Men or else they must disown it and then he knew how to improve their refuting his calumny so as to render them odious to the Government and the Papists did a little please themselves with the contrivance But Dr. Foy and Dr. King found means without concerning themselves much in the matter to let all Dublin know that they never read Mr. Yalden's
of them 9. Secondly It was not safe for any Officer that was not forcibly turn'd out to refuse to act if he had either voluntarily resign'd his Place or refused to officiate in it he must have expected to be treated with more severe usage than other People as one peculiarly disaffected Some therefore were forc'd to keep even in the Army in their own defence but these were so few that there need not much be said for them I do not remember above three that had Commissions in the Army who were desirous to leave it and those were kept in only for a pretence of Impartiality and for such as acted as Justices of Peace they were often serviceable to Protestants in freeing them from Oppressions and Injuries Those few Protestants that took Commissions of Oyer and Terminer did it on a Publick Account and always acted for the Benefit of Protestants 3. Protestants by keeping in Employments though never so insignificant found means and opportunities of serving their distressed and oppressed Friends and they seldom fail'd to improve these means to the best advantage the poor People that stay'd in Ireland were sensible of this and often wisht that more had stay'd on this account and truely if they had by the advantage of their Address and Understanding above the Papists who generally were ignorant of business they might probably have done much good and have gained farther time for the poor People from their destruction 10. However I do not intend to justifie all that was done by Protestant Officers if any of them advanced abetted or concurr'd in an ill thing let them suffer for it but I humbly conceive the Protestants of Ireland that staid here and saw and observed every Man's behaviour and were the only sufferers by the ill management of any Officer whatever his Station was may be safely trusted to give a Character of each I own that it is not reasonable that a Certificate under a few hands should be accepted as a Vindication of any Man for an Officer might have serv'd and oblig'd a few who cannot in gratitude refuse to certifie for him and yet have done mischief enough to others but on the other hand is it reasonable that secret whispers or surmises especially of such as were absent and strangers to their behaviour should undo or misrepresent any Man and therefore I think if any dispute should arise concerning such Matters a fair and legal hearing in publick were the most equal way and is all the favour that generally any Protestant Gentleman who staid and officiated under King James needs desire They are so few that this would not be any great trouble and their Honesty and Prudence generally so notorious that it would not be any blemish to them nor were they guilty of any servile or mean Compliances or paid any other deference than what was due to a Government under whose Power God's Providence had placed them and which by unseasonable opposition they would only have exasperated to their own destruction 11. Fourthly As to the Clergy that staid it were an injustice to them to make any Apology for them they staid in pure sense and conscience of their Duty and minded it so effectually that their Labours were acceptable and useful to their People in many respects and I doubt not but will be approv'd by all good Men they foresaw what use Papists would make of empty Churches and deserted Congregations and that the Priests would not be wanting to perswade the People that they were no true Pastors that deserted them in time of danger they were acquainted with the Artifices us'd to draw Protestants from their Religion and that the present juncture would afford new Temptations which the Seducers would not fail to press with all possible advantage it required therefore all their Skill and Industry to arm their People against these Instruments of Seduction and keep them steady to their Principles under such mighty Temptations and we owe it to the Prudence Industry and Courage of the Clergy that remain'd next to God's goodness that so few were prevail'd with to change their Religion notwithstanding that they saw they must be ruined if they stood firm whereas if they comply'd they would not be only safe but sharers likewise in the Booty 'T is true many of them suffered by their staying and lay under great difficulties but it pleas'd God to support and deliver them and if they had perished it had been with this comfort that it was in their Office and in their Masters Work The Conclusion 1. AND here I do solemnly protest that no private disatisfaction that no ill will to King James's Person nor prejudice against any Body has moved me to say what I have said but that I might vindicate our selves by speaking truth in a matter that so nearly concern'd us both in our Temporal and Eternal Interest And I must likewise protest before God who will judge between us and our Enemies in this Point that I have not aggravated the Calamities we have suffered nor misrepresented the Proceedings against us out of favour or affection to a Party but have rather told things nakedly and in general than insisted on such Particulars as might seem to serve no other purpose but to make our Adversaries odious 2. It were much to be wished and in due time it is hoped that Commissions may be issued by the proper Authority into the several Counties to enquire of the treatment the Protestants underwent and the damages they suffered and I am well assured that if this be done and an Account be taken on Oath from the Eye Witnesses and Sufferers the matter will appear with a much worse Face than it is here represented and where one Story may happen undesignedly to be aggravated twenty worse will be to be added to supply it There is not a more necessary or effectual Means can be taken for clearing the Protestants in this Kingdom or justifying the State in their proceeding against the Irish and we are ready and willing to stand or fall in the Censure of the World by this Plea according as on proof of Particulars by sufficient Evidence the Truth shall appear 3. Upon the whole the Irish may justly blame themselves and their Idol the Earl of Tirconnel as King James may them both for whatever they have or shall suffer in the issue of this Matter since it is apparent that the necessity was brought about by them that either they or we must be ruin'd King James if the Earl of Tirconnel may be believed chang'd his Religion on His Sollicitations for he often brag'd that he was the King's Converter He preferr'd the gratifying this Favourites Ambition to the affections of his Protestant Subjects in England and Ireland He left England and came into Ireland on his invitation and he brought ruin and desolation on the Kingdom especially on his Protestant Subjects in prosecution of the measures laid down by him yet so far was he in love with
same any thing in this or the said Act of Repeal to the contrary notwithstanding And it is further enacted by the Authority aforesaid That all Letters Patents hereafter to be granted of any Offices or Lands whatsoever shall contain in the same Letters Patents a Clause requiring and compelling the said Patentees to cause the said Letters Patents to be enrolled in the Chancery of Ireland within a time therein to be limited and all Letters Patents wherein such Clause shall be omitted are hereby declared to be utterly void and of none effect Provided always that if your sacred Majesty at any time before the first Day of November next by Letters Patents under the Broad Seal of England if reâ—â—ding there or by Letters Patents under the Great Seal of Ireland during your Majesties abode here shall grant your gracious Pardon or Pardons to any one or more of the Persons herein before mentioned or intended to be attainted who shall return to their Duty and Loyalty that then and in such case such Person and Persons so pardoned shall be and is hereby excepted out of this present Act as if they had never been therein named or thereby intended to be attainted and shall be and are hereby acquitted and discharged from all Attainders Penalties and Forfeitures created or inflicted by this Act or the said Act of Repeal excepting such Share or Proportion of their real or personal Estate as your Majesty shall think fit to except or reserve from them any thing in this present Act or in the said Act of Repeal contained to the contrary notwithstanding Provided always that every such Pardon and Pardons be pursuant to a Warrant under your Majesties Privy Signet and Sign manual and that no one Letters Patents of Pardon shall contain above one Person and that all and every such Letters Patents of Pardon and Pardons shall be enrolled in the Rolls Office of your Majesties High Court of Chancery in this Kingdom at or before the last Day of the said Month of November or in Default thereof to be absolutely void and of none Effect any thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding Provided likewise that if any Person or Persons so pardoned shall at any time after the Date of the said Pardon join with or aid or assist any of your Majesties Enemies or with any Rebels in any of your Majesties Dominions and be thereof convict or attainted by any due Course of Law that then and in such Case they shall forfeit all the Benefit and Advantage of such Pardon and shall be again subject and liable to all the Penalties and Forfeitures inflicted on them and every of them by this or the said Act of Repeal as if such Pardon or Pardons had never been granted Provided always that nothing in this Act contained shall extend or be construed to extend to or vest in your Majesty any Lands Tenements or Hereditaments or other Interest of any ancient Proprietor who by the said Act of Repeal is to be restored to his ancient Estate but that all such Person and Persons and all their Right Title and Interest are and shall be saved and preserved according to the true Intent and Meaning of the said Act any thing in these Presents to the contrary notwithstanding Copia vera Richard Darling Cleric in Offic. M ri Rot. The Perswasions and Suggestions the Irish Catholicks make to his Majesty Supposed to be drawn up by Talbot titular Arch-bishop of Dublin and found in Col. Talbot's House July 1. 1671. 1. THAT the Rebellion in Anno 1641. was the Act of a few and out of fear of what was doing in England That they were provoked and driven to it by the English to get their Forfeitures That they were often willing to submit to the King and did it effectually Anno 1648 and held up his Interest against the Usurper who had murdered his Father till 1653. After which time they served his Majesty in Foreign Parts till his Restauration 2. That they acquiesce in his Majesty's Declaration of Novemb. 30. 1660. And are willing that the Adventurers and Souldiers should have what is therein promised them but what they and others have more may be resumed and disposed of as by the Declaration 3. They desire for what Lands intended to be restored them shall be continued to the Adventurers and Souldiers that they may have a Compensation in Money out of his Majesty's new Revenues of Quit-Rents payable by the Adventurers and Souldiers The Hearth Money and Excise being such Branches as were not in 1641 and hope that the one will ballance the other 4. They say That his Majesty has now no more need of an Army than before 1641 That the remainder of his Revenue will maintain now as well as then what Forces are necessary 5. They desire to be restored to Habitations and Freedom within Corporations 1. That the General Trade may advance 2. That Garisons and Cittadels may become useless 3. That they may serve his Majesty in Parliament for bettering his Revenue and crushing and securing the Seditious in all Places 6. They desire to be Sheriffs and Justices of the Peace c. for the Ends and Purposes aforesaid and to have the Power of the Civil and Ordinary Militia 7. They also desire to be form'd into a Militia and to be admitted to be of the standing Army 8. That their Religion is consonant to Monarchy and implicit Obedience That they themselves have actually serv'd his Majesty in Difficulties That they have no other way to advantage themselves than by a strict adherence to the King That they have no other Refuge whereas many of his Majesty's Subjects do lean hard another way 9. That the Roman Catholicks are six to one of all others that of the said one to six some are Atheists and Neuters who will profess the Roman Catholick Religion others devoutly given will affect the same course that the rest may have their Liberty of Conscience and may be corrected in case they abuse it 10. That the Roman Catholicks having the full Power of the Nation they can at all times spare his Majesty an Army of Sixty thousand Men there being Twelve hundred thousand Souls in Ireland and so consequently an Hundred and fifty thousand between sixteen and sixty Years old Which Forces if allowed to Trade shall have Shipping to transport themselves when his Majesty pleaseth 11. That they have a good Correspondence abroad for that great numbers of their Nation are Souldiers Priests and Merchants in esteem with several great Princes and their Ministers 12. That the Toleration of the Roman Catholicks in England being granted and the Insolence of the Hollanders taken down a Confederacy with France which can influence England as Scotland can also will together by God's Blessing make his Majesty's Monarchy Absolute and Real 13. That if any of the Irish cannot have their Lands in specie but Money in lieu as aforesaid some of them may transport themselves into America possibly
more faithful Army than you have at present And now that a needful Alteration is begun in Ireland it should be carried on speedily for your own and Catholick Subjects security for all the Sectaries in your Dominions are so gall'd at some of the Phanaticks being discarded in Ireland that they join Heads concert Councils swear and contrive Vengeance against all Papists who must expect no Quarters but during your Majesty's Reign But all good Men have reason to hope that that God who delivered you from the manifold Dangers of your Life and made your Enemies your Footstool will spare your precious Life till you accomplish the glorious Work reserv'd for you by that Providence that is your best Life-guard And 't is the comfort of all good Subjects that besides your being of all sides descended from healthy Parents you have I thank God at present all the Symptoms of a vigorous long-lived Man Nay that your having been suckled by a very healthy long-liv'd Woman must in reason contribute much to the length of your Life therefore put your Trust in that God that never failed any good Man that placed his Hopes with considence in him and consider the Proverb That he that begins well has in a manner half done his Work which cannot be more aptly applied than to the auspicious beginning of your Reign for God has so dashed the Enterprizes and Hopes of your Enemies that the terror of your Name and their experience of your good Fortune is with the help of the Army they gave you way to raise sufficient if not to change their Hearts at least to curb their Insolence Therefore listen not to trimming Counsellors whose aversion to your Religion and cunning Design of spinning out your Life with their pian piano may put them upon urging to you that great Alterations are dangerous when carried on otherwise than by slow and imperceptible Degrees Which is true where Matters are not so ordered in point of Power as not to need fear a Perturbation in the State but otherwise Celerity and Resolution adds Life and Vigour to all Actions especially such as relate to Change which is often prevented by tedious Deliberations for the Party fearing an Alteration is always as having more reason more jealous and vigilant than he from whom it is feared and therefore leaves no Stone unturn'd to hinder the accomplishment of Designs that might take Effect if not marr'd for not being vigorously push'd on as soon as resolv'd upon And as Precipitation is an Error so is Irresolution which is never to be practised by any especially a known wise and resolute Prince but when the Issue of Enterprizes depends more upon Chance than a prudent management of Causes and rational foresight of Events But nothing causes Irresolution more than a medly of Counsellors of a different Religion with their Prince who will be on all Occasions as industrious to prevent as he can be to carry on any Design for re-establishing Religion And inasmuch as Authority Courage and Prudence are the three most necessary Qualifications in a Prince that conduce most of all ordinary Means to the replantation of a Religion and that all three meet to the highest pitch in your Majesty no protestant Counsellor will advise you to any alteration in the Government that may directly or indirectly tend to a Change in Religion Nay they lie under such Jealousy and Prejudice as may induce them to magnify Danger where there is none at all and take no notice where it really is A Device much practised in England of late Years Hence in the late King's time No Danger threatned his Majesty but from the Catholick Quarters whilst the greatest of Dangers hovered over his and your Sacred Heads warpt up in the dark Cloud of Fanatick Treachery and Dissimulation Sir It is plain that the reality of the Danger lies in your Delay of making your Catholick Subjects considerable For God's sake consider that yours and their sworn Enemies threaten above-board that Popery or Protestantism must and shall be for ever extirpated in these Kingdoms and that all Papists must inevitably split upon a Rock in that Haven where they had reason to hope for Safety if not secured against the threatning Storm during your Majesty's Life whereof the Days and Hours are precious considering the important Game you have to play and the indispensable Obligation you lie under before that God ..... and contribute as much from the Helm to the conversion of Souls as the best of Preachers from Pulpits for Words do but move but Examples and especially those of great Men have more resistless Charms and a more than ordinary Ascendent over the Minds of the common People Which Consideration should prevail with your Majesty to prefer without delay couragious wise and zealous Catholicks to the most eminent and profitable Stationâ— especially in your Houshold where you are King by a two-â—old Title by which means you would in a short time be stock'd with faithful Counsellors all of a piece that would join Heads Hearts and Hands and would contribute unanimously to the effectual carrying on so good a Design ..... distinction 'twixt his politick and natural Capacity fighting against the one in defence of the other it is to be fear'd the Protestants of your English Army would in case of a Rebellion be too inclinable to fight for the King Parliament and Protestant Religion against the King as Papist his Popish Cabals and Popery To prevent which as Matters now stand there is but one sure and safe Expedient that is to purge without delay the rest of your Irish Army increase and make it wholly Catholick raise and train a Catholick-Militia there place Catholicks at the Heâ—â— of that Kingdom issue out Quo-warranto's against all the Corporations in it put all Employs Civil as well as Military into Catholick Hands This done call a Parliament of Loyal ..... present Revenues of that Kingdom cannot answer other State-Contingencies and maintain a greater Army than is already on foot especially when the Revenues rather fall than rise there The Solution to this Objection is to be expected also from your Majesty in whose Breast it lies to take off by a Law the Restraint that Country is under as to Trade and Traffick for which it lies much more convenient than any of your Kingdoms When this is done the Irish Merchants will like the Souldiers flock home from all parts of the World but with this difference that as the Souldiers come to get your Money the Merchants will bring all their ..... that there are few or none Protestants in that Country but such as are join'd with the Whigs against the Common Enemy And as to your Revenues you are cheated of them by the mismanagement and sinistrous Practices of your Commissioners whereof the major part are in their Hearts rank Whigs and of a whiggish Race and hence it is that they employ no Officers but Men of their own Kidney that swallow the Oaths and
your Revenue to boot And tho no King can well avoid being impos'd on by his Servants I believe it in my Conscience that the present Managers of your Revenues in Ireland think it no Sin to rob a Popish King of his Due Hence it is that there is an universal Agreement and Combination betwixt the ..... Merchants ..... we will by way of Retaliation take care that no Catholick be admitted into the Civil This Combination makes your Letters for Civil Places the Reversion of Outlawries and for Catholicks being admitted free of Corporations so little regarded in Ireland by those that past for Tories here c. yet publickly espouse the whiggish Quarrel the other side the Water I beseech you Sir consider that however your Kingly Prudence may prevail with You to dissemble Your Resentments of the Non-compliance and Disobedience of Your stiff-neck'd English Protestant Subjects You ought to exert Your Regal Authority in Ireland a Kingdom more peculiarly Your own where ..... month before or at least not outlive Your Majesty a month for if that poor Nation be not made considerable during Your Reign his Lordship must not hope for the Favour my Lord Stafford had of being legally Murdered by a formal Trial but may well expect all Formality laid aside to be sacrificed to the unbridled Fury of the lawless Rabble and dissected into little Morsels as the De-Wits were in Holland And truly the Fanaticks threaten no less and it were to be wished they cried out upon more of Your Ministers than they do at present for You may take it for granted they will never speak well of Your real Friends ..... other will endeavour to marr and the Work will go on like that of Babel confusedly for want of good Intelligence among the Workmen Sir You are under God the great Architect that will with the Blessing of Jesus live to see the glorious Structure fully finish'd In order to which 't is requisite You lose no time in making Ireland intirely Your own that England and Scotland may follow You are gone too far if You do not go farther not to advance is to lose Ground Delays are dangerous and all the World allow Expedition and Resolution to ..... if this were once compassed France could no more hope upon a falling out with England to take advantage of the diversity of our Sects and what may spring thence Domestick Jars and Divisions Sir Notwithstanding the Doubts and Fears of Trimming Courtiers and some Cow-hearted Catholicks You may live long enough to undertake and crown this great Work with the Grace and Assistance of the same Almighty God that defeated the Rebels in the West and made them instrumental in settling You in Your Throne and that permitted this Country to be lately sprinkled with the Blood of Martyrs which must infallibly contribute to the Conversion of Souls in this Kingdom for the Blood of Martyrs is and ever was the fruitful Seed of the Church The Seed is sown in many parts of England and the Harvest will without doubt be great and plentiful but the Workmen too too few if You do not provide your self with Catholick Privy-Counsellors Ministers Judges Officers Civil and Military and Servants As to the Choice of which I will mind Your Majesty of the Advice given Moses by Jethro his Father-in-Law in the following words Provide out of all the People able Men such as fear God Men of Truth hating Covetousness When Your Counsellors and Ministers are thus qualified and not till then You may hope to do what becomes a James the Second And to furnish Your self with able Men You must follow Your Royal Father's Advice to the Prince of Wales that is With an equal Eye and impartial Hand distribute Favours and Rewards to all Men as You find them for their real Goodness both in Ability and Fidelity worthy and capable of them Such as fear God as the truly Wisest will advise You to the best Measure for promoting God's Glory Men of Truth will like Tyrconnel serve You faithfully without trimming tho with never so apparent Hazard to their Fortunes and Lives And Men hating Covetousness will not betray Your Interest be corrupted nor sell Places to such Undermanagers of Your Revenue as buying them for a Spill in gross will be sure to retail them at Your Cost a Practice much in use here and in Ireland at present where few or no Places can be had without Bribes by which means You are cheated in both Kingdoms of an Hundred thousand Pounds a Year in the opinion of understanding honest and indifferent Judges for no Man will give a Shilling surreptitiously for an Office but with a design to cheat You of Twenty To prevent which there is no Remedy but that of employing smart Men of known Integrity to be chosen without Favour or Affection that will be content with their respective Salleries and imploy their utmost Industry to improve not imbezel Your Revenues the Ornaments of Peace and Sinews of War SIR These Kingdoms are of Opinion Popery will break in upon them and it were a pity to disappoint them and when You take effectual Measures Your trimming Courtiers will unmask and come over nay half the Kingdom will be converted of it self What I have here presumed to write is the effect of my unfeigned Zeal for the Good of Religion and Your Majesties Interest which I hope will induce You to pardon a plain-dealing and loving Subject that daily beseeches God to bless Your Majesty and these Kingdoms with a long and prosperous Reign and with numerous long-liv'd Male Issues and to inspire You with wholsom Thoughts that may direct You to the performance of such Heroick Actions as may gain You immortal Fame in this World and eternal Glory in the next Lord Clarendon's Speech in Council on his leaving the Government of Ireland My Lords IT has been sometimes used to make Speeches upon these Occasions but I know my insufficiency for that Task and therefore shall trouble your Lordships with very few words In the first place my Lords I give your Lordships many thanks for the Civilities I have received from every one of you and for the great Assistance I have had from you in the discharge of my Duty here I know your Lordships can witness for me that I never desir'd your concurrence in any thing that was not for the King's Service I do again beg your Lordships to accept of my Thanks with this assurance that I shall give the King an account when I have the honour to kiss his Hand of your Lordships great readiness and diligence to advance his Service My Lord Deputy I shall not long detain your Lordship The King hath placed your Excellency in a very great Station has committed to your Care the Government of a great and flourishing Kingdom of a Dutiful Loyal and Obedient People It is extreamly to be lamented that there are such Feuds and Animosities among them which I hope your Excellency's Prudence with
Universal or if it be Universal where it is yet tolerable and not so mischievous in the consequence as a Civil-War and I am apt to believe were meant no otherwise by the Authors Our Homilies press with great force the inconveniencies of such a War and the Author of Jovian designed his 11. Chap to shew that Resistance would be a greater mischief than Passive Obedience and tells us in the body of the Chapter that the inconvenience of Resisting the Sovereign would be of ten times worse consequence than it Which in the general is true as it relates to private injuries or the ordinary Male-Administration of Government but if it be applyed to the case of a Governour who designs the destruction of the Laws Lives and Liberties of his People and has gotten Ministers to execute his intention it is a manifest mistake and is confuted by Examples and Experience in all Ages If we look back into History we shall find the best the happiest most prosperous People most jealous of their Liberty and while they continued firm in their resolution of maintaining it against the encroachment of their Governours even with the hazzard of their lives they have continued great and happy but no sooner did they degenerate from this Zeal but they became contemptible and dwindled into nothing and at this day let us look into the whole world and we shall find every Nation happy and thriving at home and easie to their Neighbours abroad according as they have preserved themselves from slavery whereas all Countries under unlimitted Monarchies decay in their strength and improvements and though they may flourish for a little time by the ruin of their lesser Neighbours yet they at last unpeople their own Countries and seem to be permitted by God to come to that exorbitant power for their own ruin and for a plague to mankind And indeed the greatest mischief of a Civil-War is the danger of subjecting the State to the absolute power of some potent General as it happened in Rome Florence and in England in the late Civil-War for to lose even half the Subjects in a War is more tolerable than the loss of Liberty since if Liberty and good Laws be preserved an Age or two will repair the loss of Subjects and Improvements though they be ever so great but if Liberty be lost it is never to be retrieved but brings certain and infallible destruction as it did to Rome and has brought in a great measure to Florence and will to England if ever the Prerogative do swallow up the Liberties and Priviledges of the Subjects So far it is from truth that the allowing of Resistance in some cases of extremity has greater inconveniencies than absolute Subjection The Scriptures do indeed command Obedience without expressing any exception but cases of extream necessity may as reasonably be presumed to be excepted here as in the command for observation of the Sabbath which is as positive as any Command for Obedience to Governors Thou shalt do no manner of work saith the Commandment and yet it is acknowledged by all to contain a tacit exception for Works of necessity and Charity and whoever will consider the Commands for Obedience to Governours will find room in them for as reasonable an exception from that Obedience in cases of necessity as for servile works on the Sabbath day of which our Saviour himself approves it being as true that Governours were made for their Kingdoms as the Sabbath for Man 4. If then in some cases the mischiefs of tamely submitting to the tyranny and usurpation of a Governour may be worse and have more dangerous and mischievous consequences to the Common-Wealth than a War I suppose it ought to be granted that where this necessity is certain and apparent people may lawfully resist and defend themselves even by a War as being the lesser evil and then there needs no more to justifie the Protestants of Ireland for their deserting King James and accepting their Majesties protection than to shew I. That it is lawful for one Prince or State to interpose between another Prince and his Subjects who uses them cruelly or endeavours to enslave or destroy them and to rescue them from his hands even by a War if other means prove ineffectual and that it is lawful for the Subjects to accept of such interposition and protection if they can find no better way to preserve themselves II. That King James designed to destroy and utterly ruin the Protestant Religion the Liberty and Property of the Subjects in general the English Interest in Ireland in particular and alter the very Frame and Constitution of the Government III. That he not only design'd but attempted it with great success and made a considerable progress in it IV. That there remained no other prospect or human possibility of avoiding this slavery and destruction designed against the Kingdom and Protestants of Ireland but by accepting of the Protection and submitting to the Government of their present Majesties If I make these particulars manifest beyond contradiction and if the very Consciences of Roman Catholicks cannot but own them to be true I do not see how they can condemn us for what we have done or what else they could have expected from us except they would have had us held up our Throats till they cut them which no man had reason to expect from a whole body of people and they least of all who designed to be actors in it CHAP. I. Shewing that it is lawful for one Prince to interpose between another Prince and his Subjects when he uses them cruelly or endeavours to enslave or destroy them 1. THIS Assertion has been made so clear in several Discourses of late that I shall not need insist much on it A few Arguments will be sufficient for this place 2. First therefore it may be lawful for one Prince to interpose between another Prince and his Subjects because he may have an Interest in that People and Government to defend which Interest he may lawfully concern himself and prevent their Ruin by a War Such an Interest is Consanguinity Community of Religion but more especially a Prospect of Succession in the Government for in that Case if the People be destroyed or weakened the Inheritance is the worse and he is injured in his hopes which often are very valuable The present Possessor who is only an Usufructuary or Tenant for Life by destroying the Inheritance gives a just provocation to him who is in Reversion to cross his design by opposing him by all means that are in his power and this Argument is the stronger if there be just reason to suspect that there are any unlawful means used to defeat him of his Succession which alone were sufficient to justifie their present Majesties Interposition between the late King and his Subjects 3. But secondly the same may be lawful if the Destruction of a People by their Prince be only a step and degree to the destruction of a
two hot headed Fellows amongst them but they universally talked at this rate And it was the common and encouraging Speech of the Earl of Tyrconnel from the very beginning of his Government and particularly when he took leave of several Privy Councellors and Officers at his going to wait on King James at Chester August 1687 I have put the Sword into your Hands And then in his usual Stile prayed God to damn them all if ever they parted with it again 9. 'T is further to be remembred that their Predecessors were so eager and earnest to recover this Power over their Vassals and to establish their Religion that they attempted to gain their Designs by that bloody Rebellion and Massacre in the year 1641. An Attempt no less desperate and unlikely to succeed than wicked and when their own Power appeared insufficient to gain their ends their supreme Council at Killkenny sent Commissioners with Instructions to offer up the Kingdom and themselves to the Pope the King of Spain or any other Foreign Popish Prince that would accept the Offer This was very well known to King James he was at the Council-Board when the original Instructions signed by order of the Supreme Council that then managed the Affairs of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland were produced before King Charles II and his Council in England in the year 1662 empowering their Agents to this effect and he might very well conclude that they who were willing to submit themselves to a Foreign Power to be rid of the Laws of England would heartily join with him to destroy them 10. Whosoever will consider Circumstances and lay things together will be apt to believe what is averred by some that King James before he declared his Religion had a desire and resolution to destroy the Laws and Liberties of these Kingdoms and make himself absolute if ever he came to the Crown after the manner of France and that the great motive of declaring himself a Roman Catholick at first wàs to make sure of that Party there are several things that rightly weighed will make this probable 1. If we consider that no Party amongst us was likely to be so wicked as to have bought his favour by joining with him in such a design except the Papists 2. Amongst Papists he chose out those and preferred them which he thought would be most Cordial to him and serve him most effectually in that design There can be no other reason given why he should be fonder of the Irish than the English Papists but that he thought the one more likely to go through with him than the other The English Papists are as Zealous in their Religion as the Irish and generally more honest Men yet the King rather chose to Cherish and Employ the latter The only imaginable Reason of his doing so was because the English were not so ready to give up the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom to the Prerogative as the Irish and since King James's kindness was distributed according to the readiness he found in Men to betray their Country rather than according to their Zeal for their Religion have we not reason to conclude the first to be the true motive of his kindness rather than the latter 3. Those Protestants or pretended Protestants that cordially and heartily espoused this design and served him effectually to oppress and ruin their fellow Subjects kept his favour pretty well and were Employed by him notwithstanding their being reputed Protestants a certain sign that the Reason he discharged Protestants from their Trusts and Offices was chiefly because he thought they would not serve him as he expressed it without reserve or contribute heartily to inslave themselves and their Posterity 4. He often declared and more especially in his Act for Liberty of Conscience made in his Parliament in Ireland that it was his constant Resolution that there should be no other Test or distinction amongst his Subjects but that of Loyalty by which all knew that he meant an absolute submission in every thing to his Will for he accounted every body disloyal that disputed or demurred at any of his Commands 5. As soon as the Irish began to dispute his Orders and stand on the Laws he took it heinously from them and they lost much of his favour he spake hardly of them and wished at any rate to be rid of them when the House of Commons crost some proposal of his he was very much out of humor and declared that all Commons were the same as he found by them when they quarrelled with the Earl of Melford his Secretary of State he complained that they used him basely and unkindly and that he never would have come amongst them if he had thought that they would not let him choose his own Servants when they would not suffer him to Dispense with their Act of Attainder or Pardon any Attained in it with a non obstante he is said to have fallen into so violent a Passion that his Nose fell a bleeding He was very angry with some of his Council when they demurred at his Levying twenty thousand pounds per month without Act of Parliament and said he could do nothing if he could not do that From whence we see that he reckoned all his Power nothing except he could impose Taxes as the King of France doth and that this lay at the bottom of all his Designs Nay it was commonly reported by the Roman Catholicks that King James boasted and pleased himself mightily that he had made himself Absolute which none of his Predecessors could do and had a more numerous Army than any of them and consequently was a more glorious King If then his chiefest design was to oppress our Laws and Liberties no body can doubt but he had Instruments whose Genius and Temper inclined them to assist him as long as they were like to go sharers with him in the Purchase SECT IX V. The Officers employed by King James were most of them unqualified by Law and consequently fit Instruments to destroy the Laws 1. MEN may live very comfortably in a Nation and yet be excluded from the Power or Government of it therefore it is no injustice to exclude a certain Rank of Men that want such Qualifications as may give the Common-Wealth confidence in them from intermedling in the Government Of this Nature we have had Laws in all Countries in the World and whatever be pretended they are very often both just and necessary nor is it reasonable that the King should have a power to dispense with such since they are often made on purpose to secure the Common-Wealth against his encroachments Of this Nature are our Laws that disable Papists from all Employments Civil and Military by an Act of Parliament made in the Reign of Henry VIII no Man is to Execute any Employment till he has taken the Oath of Supremacy This is repeated and confirmed by another in the second of Elizabeth And here it is
that we could promise our selves no help from his Negative Vote 13. The House of Lords if regularly assembled had consisted for the most part of Protestants and might have been a Check to the King's Intentions of taking away our Laws in a legal Method there being if we reckon the Bishops about Ninety Protestant Lords to Forty five Papists taking in the new Creations and attainted Lords But first to remove this Obstacle care had been taken to reverse the Outlawries of the Popish Lords in order to capacitate them to sit in the House 2. New Creations were made Sir Alexander Fitton the Chancellor was made Baron of Gosworth Thomas Nugent the Chief Justice Baron of Riverston Justin M'Carty Viscount Mountcashell Sir Valentine Brown Viscount Kenmare A List was made of more to be call'd into the House if there were occasion 3. They had several Popish Titular Bishops in the Kingdom and it was not doubted but if necessity required those would be call'd by Writs into the House 4. It was easie to call the eldest Sons of Noble-men into the Parliament by Writ which would not augment the Nobility and yet fill the House But there were already sufficient to over-vote the Protestants for there remain'd of about Sixty nine Protestant Temporal Lords only four or five in Ireland to sit in the House and of Twenty two Spiritual Lords only seven left in the Kingdom of which Dr. Michael Boyle Arch-bishop of Ardmah Dr. Hugh Gore Bishop of Waterford Dr. Roan Bishop of Killalâ—o were excused on the account of Age and Sickness The other four were Dr. Anthony Dopping Bishop of Meath Dr. Thomas Otway Bishop of Ossory Dr. Simon Digby Bishop of Lymerick and Dr. Edward Wettenhall Bishop of Cork and Ross these were oblig'd to appear upon their Writs directed to them and King James was forced sometimes to make use of them to moderate by way of Counterpoise the Madness of his own Party when their Votes displeas'd him But in the general they protested against most of the Acts and entered their Dissent It is observable that all these Acts of this pretended Parliament are said to be by the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal whereas not one Spiritual Lord consented to many of them but on the contrary unanimously protested against them and at passing the Act of Attainder of which more hereafter they were not so much as present They complain'd of this but were refus'd redress and the express mention of their consent continued Of Thirty seven Papist Lords there appear'd besides the new created Lords Twenty four at times of which Fifteen were under Attainders by Indictments and Outlawries two or three were under Age and there remain'd only Six or Seven capable of Sitting and Acting Chancellor Fitton now Baron of Gosworth was Speaker of the House of Lords King James was present constantly in the House and directed them not only in their Debates but likewise in their Forms and Ceremonies hardly one in either House having ever sate in a Parliament before 14. The House of Commons makes the Third Estate in Parliament and 't is by them that the People have a more immediate Interest in the Legislative Power the Members of this House being such as are return'd by the Peoples Free Election which is look'd on as the Fundamental Security of the Lives Liberties and Properties of the Subject These Members of the House of Commons are elected either by the Free-holders of Counties or the Free-men of Corporations And I have already shew'd how King James wrested these out of the Hands of Protestants and put them into Popish Hands in the new Constitution of Corporations by which the Free-men and Free-holders of Cities or Boroughs to whom the Election of Burgesses originally belongs are excluded and the Election put into the Hands of a small number of Men named by the King and removable at his pleasure The Protestant Free-holders if they had been in the Kingdom were much more than the Papist Free-holders but now being gone tho many Counties could not make a Jury as appear'd at the intended Tryal of Mr. Price and other Protestants at Wicklow who could not be tried for want of Free-holders yet notwithstanding the Paucity of these they made a shift to return Knights of the Shire The common way of Election was thus The Earl of Tyrconnel together with the Writ for Election commonly sent a Letter recommending the Persons he design'd should be chosen the Sheriff or Mayor being his Creature on receipt of this call'd so many of the Free-holders of a County or Burgesses of a Corporation together as he thought fit and without any noise made the return It was easie to do this in Boroughs because by their new Charters the Electors were not above Twelve or Thirteen and in the greatest Cities but 24 and commonly not half of these on the place The Method of the Sheriffs proceeding was the same the number of Popish Freeholders being very small sometimes not a Dozen in a County it was easie to give notice to them to appear so that the Protestants either did not know of the Election or durst not appear at it By these means the pretended Parliament consisted of the most Bigotted Papists and of such as were most deeply Interested to destroy the Protestant Religion and Protestants of Ireland One Gerrard Dillon Serjeant at Law a most furious Papist was Recorder of Dublin and he stood to be chosen one of the Burgesses for the City but could not prevail because he had purchased a considerable Estate under the Act of Settlement and they fear'd lest this might engage him to defend it Several Corporations had no Representatives either because they were in the Enemies hands or else because the Persons named by the Charter for Electors were so far remote that they could not come in such Numbers as to secure the Elections for Papists against the few Protestants that were left still in the Charters and who lived generally on the place I have mark'd the Boroughs and Counties that had no Representatives in number about Twenty nine few Protestants could be prevail'd with to stand tho they might have been chosen because they foresaw no possibility of doing good and thought it unsafe to sit in a Parliament which they judged in their Conscience Illegal and purposely design'd for Mischief to them and their Religion however it was thought convenient that some should be in it to observe how things went and with much perswasion and Intreaty Sir John Mead and Mr. Joseph Coghlan Counsellors at Law were prevail'd on to stand for the University of Dublin the University must chuse and it could not stand with their Honor to chuse Papists and therefore they pitch'd on these two Gentlemen who were hardly brought to accept of it as thinking it Scandalous to be in so ill Company and they could not prevail with themselves to sit out the whole Session but withdrew before the Act of Attainder
assistance rather more than on the Roman Catholicks now they knew very well that Murther is so hateful a thing that if they once fell a Massacring it would shock many of their Friends in England and Scotland from whom they expected great matters and therefore they thought it their interest to be as tender of Lives as they could and even the Priests when they encouraged them to Rob their Protestant Neighbours charg'd them not to kill them assuring them that every thing else would be forgiven them 3. The Protestants were extreamly cautious not to give the least offence they walked so warily and prudently that it was hardly possible to find any occasion against them and they were so true to one another and conversed so little with any of King James's Party that it was as difficult to fix any thing on them or to get any Information against them though several designs were laid against them and several false Witnesses produc'd as has been shewn yet their Stories still destroyed themselves by their Improbabilities inconsistency and the notorious infamy of the Witnesses 4. We had no experiment of what would have been done with the attainted Absentees for none of them run the hazard of a Tryal but we are sure no good could have been done them for they could neither have been pardoned for Estate nor Life and the best they could have expected was to have been sent to some other Kingdom as Sir Thomas Southwell was sent to Scotland for there could have been no living for them in Ireland 5. When any Protestant found himself obnoxious to the Government or but fancyed they had any thing to object against him he got out of the Kingdom or made his escape to the North as well as he could and in the mean time absconded many escaped hanging by these means which otherwise in all probability had been executed Lastly It was so much the Interest of King James in his Circumstances to have been kind to the Protestanâ—s of Ireland that we might rather have expected to have been courted than ill used by him the whole support and maintenance of his Army in Ireland depended on them they clothed fed armed and quartered them which they could not avoid doing with any safety to themselves or indeed possibility of living and the Officers of the Army were so sensible of this that when it was propos'd to turn all the Protestants out of the City of Dublin one of them answered that whenever they were turned out the Army must go with them for they could not be furnished with what they wanted by others And as it was King James's Interest to use them well upon the account of their being necessary to him in Ireland so his Affairs in England and Scotland did more particularly require it and he was forced to employ his Emissaries there to give it out that he did so Sir Daniel Mac Daniel who came out of the Isles of Scotland to Dublin in Winter 1689. and several Gentlemen of the Highlands with him declared that their Ministers in the Pulpit had assured them that the Protestants in Ireland lived under King James in the greatest freedom quiet and security both as to their Properties and Religion and that if their Countrymen knew the truth of the matter as they then found it here they would never fight one stroak for him and they seemed to stand amazed at what they saw and could hardly believe their own Eyes It is certain that King James had the like Instruments in England as I have noted before who forced down the World in Coffee-Houses and publick places that the Protestants in Ireland lived easie and happy under his Government however this shews how much it was really his Interest to have given his Protestant Subjects here no just cause of complaint and that it must proceed from a strange eagerness to destroy them that King James and his Party ventured in their Circumstances to go so far in it as they did their own imminent danger disswaded them from severity and their Interest manifestly obliged them to mildness and if notwithstanding these they condemned near Three thousand of the most Eminent Gentlemen Citizens Clergymen and Nobility of the Kingdom to death and loss of Estates we may easily guess what they would have done when their fear and interest were removed and they left to the swing of their own natural Inclinations and the tendency of their Principles Whosoever considers all Circumstances will conclude that no less was designed by them than the execution of the third Chapter of the Lateran Council the utter extirpation of the Hereticks of these Kingdoms SECT XIV Ninthly Shewing King James's Methods for destroying the Protestant Religion 1. THE design against the Lives and Fortunes of the Protestants is so apparent from the execution thereof especially by the Acts of the late pretended Parliament that they themselves can hardly deny it nay some were apt to glory in it and to let us know that it was not a late design taken up since the revolt of England as they call it from King James they thought fit to settle on the Duke of Tirconnel above 20 m. Pounds per Annum in value out of the Estates of some Protestant Gentlemen attainted by them as aforesaid in consideration of his signal Service of Twenty Years which he spent in contriving this Work and bringing it to pass as one of their most eminent Members exprest it in his Speech in Parliament and the particular Act which vests this Estate in him shews 2. But it may be thought that King James was more tender in the matter of Religion and that he who gloried so much in his resolution to settle Liberty of Conscience wherever he had Power as he told his pretended Parliament and set forth almost in every Proclamation would never have made any open Invasion on the Consciences of his Protestant Subjects But they found by experience that a Papist whatever he professes is but an ill Guardian of Liberty of Conscience and that the same Religion that obliged the King of Spain to set up an Inquisition could not long endure the King of England to maintain Liberty If indeed King James had prevailed with Italy or Spain to have tolerated the open exercise of the Protestant Religion it had been I believe a convincing Argument to England to have granted Roman Catholicks Liberty in these Dominions but whilst the Inquisition is kept up to the height in those Countries and worse than an Inquisition in France against the publick Edicts and Laws of the Kingdom and against the solemn Oath and Faith of the King it is too gross to go about to perswade us that we might expect a free exercise of our Religion any other way than the Protestants enjoy it in France that is under the Discipline of Dragoons after the Papists had gotten the Arms the Offices the Estates and Courts of Judicature into their Hands 3. The Protestant Religion and
Settlement and that you made Leases of them on which many and great Improvements have been made It is likewise true that your Majesty sold and exchanged some small proportions of the same Lands and received in Money Twelve Years Purchase some of which your Majesty conveyed by Fines and other assurances in Law and though your Majesty may if it seem meet unto you part with all that Estate yet it is humbly conceived it ought to be with reservation to the Lessees and those few Purchasers as it was done by Mary Queen of England who though zealous in the highest degree to the Religion she professed and that she restored such part of Lands belonging unto Monasteries as remained in her hands undisposed did nevertheless permit the Grantees and Purchasers quietly and peaceably to retain such part of them as they were possessed of by Grant or Purchase and which for ought appearing is enjoyed by them and those deriving under them to this day though she came to the Crown within few years after Passing the Act for Dissolving Monasteries For if no consideration be had of them your Majesty gives away the Term of Years and Improvements from your Lessees and the Land from him to whom your Majesty sold it without restoring the Purchase mony than which no case can be harder and without your Roy-Assent neither of these can be done For the Objections commonly made against the Acts of Settlement and Explanation which are usually that many Innocents were never heard and that there was not time sufficient for hearing of them but how this should affect those who purchased after the Acts passed and Certificates and Letters Patents passed on them is not demonstrable from any Rule of Law or Equity The person designing to Purchase inquires whether the Title of the Land or Tenement to be Sold be good in Law and Equity and being assured in that he forbears further Inquiry being assured that never any Purchaser in Possession having Law and Equity on his side was dispossessed by any person whatsoever upon ground of Equity and the Purchaser here hath the Law with him by the Acts of Settlement and the Equity by the payment of his Money It is to be wished that if Widows Orphans or any other persons have fallen under hardship by the general settlement of the Kingdom that some way may be devised to make them reparation but the way prescribed by this Bill is to Rob the Innocent Purchasers Creditors and Orphans of their Estates to do it contrary to the Publick Faith Laws of the Land and Precept of Holy Writ which forbids doing of Evil that good may come thereof It s manifest by what has been said that if this Bill proceed as is now contrived that all the Protestants in the Kingdom are undoubtedly and without reserve ruined since the Rapparees that is the Armed multitude have taken away all their moveable Estates and this Design is to take away all the Lands and Tenements purchased by them The thriving Catholicks who were Purchasers as most of the Province of Connaught are are likewise to be turned out of their Estates and Possessions and their own and the improvements of those who hold under them utterly lost As to the Politick part which these great Statesmen who drive on this Bill make mention of that will be worthy of consideration It s said that this will unite your Majesties Subjects in this Kingdom That is too gross to pass since the first mentioning thereof hath it not made a division and a breach betwixt them nay where there was none before and doth it not grow daily wider It was never heard that Accommodation between parties that were all in contest could stand unless the terms were continued for if what was given to one of the Parties be taken away it makes the whole Award void and of none effect and admitting the Old Proprietor had right it is not enough except he have it against the Purchaser And if the Design be what is pretended to restore this Kingdom to the Peace and Plenty which it flourished in some years since to unite your Majesties Subjects whereby they may be enabled according to their Duty and Allegiance to restore your Majesty to the exercise of your Royal Dignity in all your Kingdoms this can never be effected except all pretenders recede in some degree from the full of their pretensions for the accommodation of the whole and the publick quiet and safety Would it not be an unreasonable thing in a Cargo where divers Merchants are concerned and have Goods and Merchandizes in a Storm to throw out by consent the Goods of any one Merchant though in the bottom of the Hold and hardest to come by for the safety of all concerned without satisfaction given him by a contribution from those who had the advantage of it or if it could be done or had time for it were it not much more just that the loss should be equally divided amongst them by throwing out a just proportion from all concerned than to single out one part of the people and by their ruine to advance the other This is not in my judgment the readiest way of uniting them Sufferance to make one step more and Quaere Whether the Catholick Purchasers now to be turned out of Possession will join heartily with those that enter upon them Farewel Trade and Commerce where Acts of Parliament shall be made to destroy securities that were good when made Farewell all Improvements in Ireland where no man shall ever know what Estate he hath if the foundation of the general settlement should now be overturned I cannot foresee what the consequences may be of having it published and made known in your Majesties other Kingdoms and Dominions and elsewhere where the Protestant Religion is professed that such a Proposal as this in relation to such of your Protestant Subjects as have made no defection hath been prepared for your Majesties Consideration in order to be passed into a Law and this when they were secure of the Laws of the Land not so much as Common Equity to question the Title by which they held That nevertheless use should be made of the Legislative power to Enact a new Law after so many assurances given them to the contrary and after so many years quiet possession to turn them out of their Estates altogether It is much to be feared that those who first advised this method of Proceedings have considered their own particular advantage and that of their Friends and Relations without the least thoughts of your Majesties Service for surely this can never be thought so nor the way to settle this Kingdom whereby it may be serviceable to your Majesty nor can it be imagined but that men thus despoiled will as often as Parliaments shall be called make application for Redress and Repeal as in the Case of the Spencers to Repeal a Repeal and they and their Posterity will be always solliciting your Majesty and your