Title to their Estates but that of the Sword which they have always imployed against the late King and his present Majesty enjoying as a Sallary for their service all the Irish Estates in twelve Counties I do not think any man will be so impudent as to justifie this prodigious Title I am sure their greatest Patrons never durst say they were just but they said very often it was convenient to confirm them in possession of other Mens Land And perhaps we shall not find many other States-men among the Followers of the Gospel who will allow a conveniency so apparent against Justice Ruat Coelum fiat Justicia is a Motto which better becomes a Lord Chancellour Then let us not do what is just but what is convenient It is indeed a most wonderful conveniency to dispossess the Ancient Proprietor who Fought for the King and give his Estate to a Fanatick Souldier who Fought for Cromwel To suppor this pretended Conveniency the first Minister of State made use of a strong Argument derived from the great power of the Cromwellists in Ireland and thus he makes it out The English Army is very considerable now in Ireland they have Swords in their hands and they are in possession of all the great Towns and strong holds in that Kingdom it is not therefore safe to irritate them Nay there is an absolute necessity as the case stands to confirm them in their present possessions For we must not do what is just but what is is convenient These words were often delivered in Councel as so many Oracles and perhaps the greater Statesman did not seriously reflect whether the same Argument might not serve as well to confirm all the Cromwellists in England in their unlawful Acquisitions of the Crown and Church-Lands and so many Cavaliers Estates whereof they were dispossessed upon his Majesties Restauration without any great noise and less danger and yet they were then very considerable They had Swords in their hands and they were in possession of all the strong holds of the Kingdom c. My Lord I have been all over the Kingdom of Ireland and assure your Lordship that the old Inhabitants and Natives of Ireland are Ten for one and far the more considerable Party But large Sums have made that corrupt Minister say any thing that seemed advantagious to support that other Interest I am confident My Lord admitting them as inconsiderable as he would have them it cannot be half so formidable as the power of that party was in England when the King came in These were all disbanded in less then Six Months time and now 't is more than Seven years that the Fanatick Army is maintained in Ireland without any necessity which occasions that his Majesty receives no Revenue out of that vast and fertil Kingdom Nay he is obliged to send yearly a considerable sum of Money out of England for the maintenance of that Army For my part I cannot nnderstand how the King might safely reduce the English Army and that it should be dangerous for him to disband the Irish Forces who were not half so numerous nor so much to be feared as those in England If the want of Money hindred their disbanding at once with their Brethren in England and Scotland might not they reduce by degrees and by Regiments in eight years time I think it is sufficiently evidenced that the Cromwellian party in Ireland have no more power than what his Majesty hitherto is pleased to grant them by the advice of his first Minister who upholds that Fanatick Army for his own sordid if not wicked ends Let that Favourite that perswades his Master to tolerate Injustice and Oppression upon the account of a Servile Fear have a care that he be not one day convinced either of ignorance Rex est qui posuit metus diramala pectoris quem non ambitio popularis nunquam stabilis faveur Vulgi praecipitis movet The third grand interest and the most destructive to the Natives is that of the Protestant Officers who served his Majesty or the Parliament in Ireland before the year 1649. Whose arrears have been cast up and stated to the vast sum of Eighteen hundred thousand pounds sterl in satisfaction whereof the part of a whole Kingdom which certainly is worth many Millions is conferred upon them They are entitled to all the Natives Estates in four great Counties to all the Cities Corporations and Walled Towns in Ireland to all the Land situated within a mile to the Sea and to the River of Shanon in the Province of Conaught and County of Clare to all the Debts Leases Mortgages and the Reversions of the Irish for not only the real Estates but also all other pretensions and Titles of the unhappy Natives are forfeited And leest all this should come short to content this insatiable Party the last act allows them one hundred thousand pounds out of the two half years Rent from Adventurers Souldiers and restored Irish Though the Roman Catholick Officers have always faithfully adhered to the Kings Interest and never deserted his service as all or most of these Protestant Officers in Ireland have done when the Usurper prevailed yet they being Papist disables them from any satisfaction for their service which was a Qualification not imposed on the Catholicks in England c. But since the Cessation of Arms concluded in the year 1643. There was no more fighting between his Majesties Protestant and Roman Catholick Subjects which makes a great difference between their Loyalty in the point of merit and that of our Cavaliers in England who out of a generous resolution without any necessity or consideration of private Interest did freely embrace his Majesties Quarrel siding always with the best although weakest party which they maintained for the space of Six years at their own charges with the loss of so many thousand brave lives who were all Sacrificed as unspotted Victims on the Altar of Loyalty How comes it then to pass that a handful of Irish Protestants should be allowed 1800000 l. for two years service and that our English Royalists who were a hundred times more numerous continued thrice longer in serving the King and whose pure Loyalty was never tainted with the mixture of any treachery or private Interest should get among them all without distinction of Nation or Religion but 70000 l. to be distributed among the Needy Cavaliers who had neither Estates of their own nor any publick Chrges or imployments to keep them from starving Upon what account should the Officers of the Four or five Garrisons in Ireland that plundered ten times more then their pay came to enjoy four large Counties and all the great Towns and Corporations of a Kingdom whilst the whole body of the Royallists in England are so much slighted that there is not one Parish in the Country nor Street in any City conferred upon them Will not the Irish Forty nine Men allow us that Prince Rupert the Duke of
Oblivion so satisfactory to the Convention Agents if all other passages to his Majesties further Graces and Favours were not shut up against them And in order thereunto they prevailed with the first Minster of State whom they had gained to their side by what coloured Arguments he knows best himself to re-call the Commission of Lord Deputy which was formerly given to the Lord Roberts a person of known Honour and Integrity The Conventionists having observed that his Lordship was not to be won upon any account to forward their Design This grand obstacle being removed out of the way Broghil Anglesey Clotworthy and Mervin with the assistance of Steel Roberts and Petit after three Months labour brought forth that monstrous issue of their brain which was exposed to the World under the Name and Title of His Majesties most Gracious Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland This was their Master-piece and hath been ever since the ground-work of all subsequent Acts which were established for the farther Settlement of that Nation The first branch of the Declaration confirms the Adventurer in his possession the Second secures the Soldier in his Debenture the Third satisfies the 49 Men the Forth assures unto the Transplanted Irish the Land Decreed unto them in the Province of Conaught and County of Clare The Fifth makes mention of those Irish Officers who served his Majesty in Flanders as also the Generality of the Nation who pretend to Articles My Lord is not this a blessed Declaration which provides in so large a manner for so many different Interests A Declaration that satisfies the Natives and yet dispossesseth none of the Cromwellists To understand it well we must mount a little higher and call to our remembrance how the Rump-Parliament divided the spoils of that conquered Nation in the Year 1653. Ten Counties were allotted to the Adventurers Twelve conferred on Cromwel's Souldiers and three of the Barren Counties given by way of charity to the transplanted Irish These by computation make up 25 Counties the remaining seven for Ireland contains in all but 32 Counties together with all the Cities and Corporations of that Kingdom were reserved to the Common-wealth Now this Declaration confirms the Adventurers Souldiers and transplanted Irish in their present possessions And moreover it assigns to several other uses the Seven remaining Counties and all the great Towns of Ireland which were not disposed of by the Common-wealth One of the Counties being designed to supply the deficiency of the Adventurers Lots another to satisfie the Incumbrances on the Lands already laid out to Adventurers and Souldiers The third to reprize such as were removed from the Lord Duke of Ormond's Estate and the other Four Counties with all the Cities and Corporations of the whole Kingdom a pretty grant being assigned to the Protestant Officers who serv'd His Majesty in Ireland at any time before the year 1649. After this Solemn division and distribution made of every House and every Acre of Land over all the Kingdom of Ireland Some 500 Irish Gentlemen who also serv'd his Majesty in Flanders are named in the Declaration to be forthwith restored to their ancient Estates but not until Lands of equal value worth and purchase are first found out to reprize the Adventurers Souldiers and the rest now in possession a work no more nor less feasible than the creation of another Ireland My Lord this Declaration was published on the 30th of Novomber 1660. and at the same time Broghil created Earl of Orery and Sir Charles Coot made Earl of Montrath were joyned in Commission with the Lord Chancellor Eustace as his Majesties Lords Justices of that Kingdom Sir John Clotworthy who was also created Lord Viscount Masserene Sir Audley Mervin and some others of the Convention-Agents staid at Court to draw up privare Instructions for the better executing his Majesties Declaration And because Innocents viz. Such as never offended his Majesty or His Royal Father were the only people to be restored without previous reprisals the Conventionists made it their grand work to qualifie an Innocent that it should be Morally impossible to find any such in rerum natura virum innocentum quis inveniet Eleven qualifications were ordered for their Tryal and those so rigid and severe that Clotworthy and his Companions who had the wording of them did verily believe there could not be a man found in all Ireland that should pass untoucht through so many Pikes For not only the inoffensive persons who never took Arms who never enter'd into the Confederacy with the rest of their Countreymen if they did but pay them the least Contribution out of their Estates if they did but reside in the Irish quarters although in their own own houses not only these I say were declared to be no Innocents but such as lived all the War-time in England such as were with Hiâ— Majesty at Oxford and served in his Army if they received any Rent from their Tenants in Ireland were by virtue of one of the Eleven Qualifications to be held for Nocents But among all the other Qualifications that of taking an Engagement which was administred unto all his Majesties Subjects in the three Kingdoms was a very notable one This Engagement was forced upon the Irish in so high a nature that those who would not take it were debarred not only from the benefit of the Law but also exposed to an innevitable danger of death the Souldiers of Cromwels Army being commanded by publick Proclamation to kill all they met on the High-way who carried not a Certificate about him of having taken that Engagement Commands which were cruelly executed on silly Peasants who out of Ignorance or want of care having left their Tickets at home were barbarously murdered by the merciless Souldiers My Lord it is very remarkable that they who devised this Engagement who heartily subscribed unto it and forced others to take it shall not be questioned or held criminal and that those who never saw it before it was ministered unto them who abhorred it in their hearts and were forced to sign it to avoid a bloody and violent death shall be declared Nocents and an irrevocable sentence of losing their Estates given against them and the Estates so forfeited to be conferred on those very Persons who compelled the Proprietors to that Forfeiture By this Qualification alone a Man may judge of the rest To Crown this grand work of settling Ireland the Conventionists having worded the Declaration and Instructions to their own advantage prevailed with their great Patron to have themselves named the only Commissioners to put in Execution his Majesties Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland This un-usual and perhaps never before heard of course of Justice one of the parties being made Judge of the Case appeared so ugly and terrible to the Irish that many of them could hardly be perswaded to believe that his Sacred Majesty was restored to the peaceable and free possessession of his Crown and Kingdoms seeing
easily gained at the rate of several vast sums of ready money and the promise of an Estate of 6000 l. a year for his Son and the pains of the other being modestly rewarded by a small Fee of 8000 l. sterl This Act I say so well supported was Signed and Sealed at Salisbury on the 25th of July 1665 notwithstanding all the opposition given thereunto and this in a time when the hand of God visibly appeared in the great Mortality which then began to increase in the City of London and when I heard many moderate men say we are justly punished by God for the injustice done to the Irish It is now more than two years since the Act went over into Ireland and the 52 Nominees who were to be restored as they verily believed to their chief houses and 2000 Acres of Land have not yet got the possession of a Cottage or of one Acre of Ground which agrees very well with Ororye's railery lately expressed That it was intended by the Act that they should be only Nominees nomine restorable but not re for that was never intended and yet the same Orrory assured to the King that there was a sufficient stock of Reprisals to satisfie all Interests My Lord this is the true state in brief of the Irish Case as to matter of Fact since the first day of his Majesties most happy Restauration to this Instant Let us now examine matter of Right and see what Title the several Interests obstructing there establishment of the Irish can justly pretend to the Estates of the distressed Natives These different Interests can be reduced to four principal ones the first is that of the Adventurers the second of the Souldiers the third of the Forty nine Men and the fourth of the Grantees We will begin with the Adventurers These are certain Inhabitants of London who in the year 1641. pretended to venture their momes to reduce the Rebels in Ireland but intended as afterwards appeared to destroy the King upon the assurance of getting such a quantity of the Rebels Lands in proportion to the sums they laid out and in pursuance of an Act of our English Parliament which then passed to that effect By which Act it is ordered that the mony so laid out should be employed in the Service of Ireland and that after the Rebels were declared by both houses to be wholly conquered a Commission should issue forth under the great Seal of England to make a strict enquiry through all the Counties of Ireland of Estates forfeited by the Rebellion to be disposed of for the satisfaction of the Adventurers Neither of these conditions were hitherto observed for the money laid out was all or at least for the greatest part imployed to buy arms and ammunition to fight against his Majesty in England The Rebels were never yet declared by both Houses of Parliament to have been conquered nor any Commission issued forth under the Great Seal of England to enquire after Forfeitures It is true that the remaining Members of the House of Commons made an Ordinance in the year 1652. without the concurrence of the House of Lords that the Rebels were wholly conquered And that consequently assigned Ten Counties to the Adventurers without issuing forth any Commission under the great Seal of England to examine whether the Lands therein contained were forseited or no. Of these ten Counties the Adventurers of the doubling Ordinance who were to have for their respective Sums laid out double the quantity of Land assigned to the first adventurers have proportion because their money was given to the long Parliament in the year 1644. When they were in actual Rebellion against His Majesty The late King understood very well the nullity of this act having never made mention of the adventurers interest in all the Treaties of Peace which pass'd between His Majesty and the Confederates in Ireland which certainly so just a Prince as Charles the First was known to be would never have done if he had conceived himself any way obliged by that act to provide for them But supposing that the act of decimo septimo Caroli in the behalf of the London adventurers had not been defective can those of the doubling Ordinance expect any benefit by that Law Can the first adventurers whose Moneys were disposed to other uses than the relief of the Protestants in Ireland pretend any advantage by that act nay can those few Persons of the first Rank whom we call the just adventurers and whose moneys were really imployed in the Irish War lawfully enjoy the Irish Land until the Rebels be declared by the two Houses of Parliament to be wholly conquered until a Commission issues forth under the great Seal of England to examine who are the Rebels and who are Innocents and until after the performing these essential Formalities required by the Act they receive by a just and legal way of proceeding their respective Proportions of the Forfeited Estates The first Minister of State a Lawyer by his first profession cannot be ignorant of these varieties especially when he perswades his Royal Master to speak after this manner in his Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland pag. 7. Therefore in the first place in order to the settlement of that Interest claimed by the Adventurers althâ—ugh the present Estates and Possessions they enjoy if they were examined by the strict Letter of the Law would prove very defective and invalid as being no ways pursuant to those Acts of Parliament upon which they pretend to be found but rather seem to be a structure upon their subsequent assent both to the different Mediums and ends than the observance of those yet who being always more ready to consult c. Can any thing be spoken more plain to prove the nullity of the Adventurers Title by the Act of 17. Car. 1 And could the supream Judge of the Court of Equity give a more unjust sentence than to say although this Party can pretend no right to the Estate in question yet I am pleased to adjudge it for him The matter in dispute is no less than the land of ten Counties the parties pretending are the Irish Proprietors and the London Adventurers The first enjoyed it for so many ages they have their Patents and Evidences to shew for it and they lost it at length upon the account of Loyalty fighing for the Kings Interest against the Murderers of his Royal Father the last as 't is acknowledged by the words of the Text have no other Title but what they derive from the Ordinance of an usurped Government for having disbursed vast sums of Money to countenance Rebellion to pull down Monarchy and put up a pretended Common-wealth And yet the Land is adjudged for them and confirmed to them and their Heirs for ever The Second main Interest obstructing the Restoration of the Irish is that of Cromwel's Souldiers who are not mentioned in the Act of 17 Caroli neither indeed do they pretend any other
is rendred impossible and the satisfaction of Adventurers and Souldiers already disposed by the Decrees of the last Court of Claims is much obstructed so many fresh Grants exhausting the stock of Reprisals My Lord I have hitherto set down in brief the hard usage extended to the Irish since his Majesties Re-establishment and examined the Title of the several Interests obstructing their Restoration Now it remains to say somewhat of the undoubted right and indisputable Claim of the Natives to those Estates which by Cromwels Decree and his Majesties confirmation are kept from them I will not take upon me to justifie their first rising although I have seen a Treatise in Latin proving the lawfulness or rather the necessity of that War on their side having begun it in their own defence to prevent the general ruin and destruction designed against the Kindom and themselves by the Presbyterian party both in England and Scotlana I shall not excuse any Subjects presuming to take Arms upon any account or pretence whatsoever without the Authority of their Prince I will only say that by their Insurrection how bloody and barbarous soever some are pleased to print and paint it four hundred English could not be found murdered in Ireland as appeareth by the proceedings and Records yet extant in Dublin of the Usurped Powers severe inquiry and their Court of Justice that for want of Men did hang Women not only without legal proof but without probability that they could or would be guilty of killing Souldiers or Innocent English The Irish insurrection I say hath not been accompanied with that Insolence and Malice in the beginning nor with those sad and dismal effects in the end which other Rebellions have been guilty of and some Pamphlets have charged the Irish with They were scarce 22 Months in Arms when they yielded to a Cessation upon the first notice given of his Majesties pleasure although they had then the upper hand of their Enemies and it was known the Protestant party could not be well preserved without it This Cessation was enlarged from time to time until a final Peace was solemnly concluded in the City of Kilkenny in the year of our Lord 1648 by and between the Lord Duke of Ormond his Majesties Commissioner in the behalf of his Majesty and the General Assembly of the Confederate Catholâ—cks of Ireland in the behalf of the said Confederate Catholicks This peace was no sooner published than all the Garrisons Forts Citadels Strong-holds and Magazines of the Irish were put under the Command of the Kings Lieutenant all the Nobility Gentry and Magistrates both in Cities and Country submitted to his Government And though the English Rebels have been ever since very succesful in all their attempts yet the Irish notwithstanding they were offered any conditions by the Usurper held out with an undaunted Courage until the last Town and the last Fortress was lost and until they received express Orders from his Majesty to yield to the times and to make the best conditions they could for their own preservation It is remarkable that this peace was concluded in a time when the Irish Nation was in a most flourishing condition having Armies in the Field and most of the Cities and great Towns in their possessions and more than three parts of the Kingdom under their command when they were courted by the Parliament of England and solicited by some Neighbouring Potentates and when by espousing his Majesties quarrel who was then destitute of all humane support they were to draw on their Country all their united Force and Power of the Victorious Rebels in England and Scotland and consequently expose themselves and their Posterity to the danger of an unevitable ruin and destruction I know their Adversaries have practised all the artifice that Malice could invent to perswade the World that his Majesty is no way obliged to make good that peace which was concluded by the Authority of his Royal Father And Solemnly confirmed by himself Those Articles they say were forced from His Majesty by the Irish Confederates who ought to loose the benefit of all his Majesties gracious concessions having banished the Lord Duke Ormond His Majesties Lieutenant out of Ireland It is easily proved that the King was forced to take the Solemn League and Covenant when he was environed by the Presbyteriam Army in Scotland But I do not understand how it can be made out that the Confederates of Ireland were able to exort that peace from his Majesty who was then in France It will seem very ridiculous to say that the Lord Marquess of Antrim and the Lord Muskry imploy'd by the Consederate Catholicks to solicit in a most humble manner for those Articles which only contain a pardon for the past and the liberty of Free-born Subjects for the future should come to Paris with a train sufficient to force a Sovereign Prince lodged in the Louvre who was Cousin German to his most Christian Majesty The other Assertion that the Lord Duke of Ormond was banished out of Ireland by the Confederates is very false His Lordship being driven out of the provinces of Leinster and Munster by the power of Cromwels Army and forced to retire to the province of Connaught from whence he took Shipping for France to inform the Queens Majesty of the sad condiâ—ion of that Kingdom and to implore some succour from abroad which if timely obtained might probably give a stop to Cromwels conquest and render him unable to bring his Victorious Forces out of Ireland and defeat his Majesty at Worcester His Lordship having appointed the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard to Command in his absence as the Kings Deputy to whom the Nation shewed all due obedience and submission is a manifest argument that his Lordship was not banished out of the Kingdom by the Confederate Catholiks for whom he named a Commander in his own absence neither can it reflect upon the generality of the Nation what was decreed by some prelates convened in Jamestown whose unseasonable zeal was soon after condemned and protested against by a general Assembly held in Loghreagh of the Clergy Nobility and Gentry of the whole Kingdom And the advantagious proposals then made by Cromwels Agents were generously rejected by that Assembly the Nation having unanimously resolved to rise or fall with the Kings Interest But what need we any other Evidence to prove that the Irish did not generally violate the Articles of that peace then His Majesties own words in the preamble of his Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland And therefore we could not but hold our self obliged to perform what we owe by that peace to those who had honestly and faithfully performed what they had promised to us c. The Irish being at the last over-power'd at home though they lost their Countrey they did not fail in their Loyalty most of their young Nobility and Gentry having followed his Majesty into Forreign Countries and resorted from all parts to side with those