Neighbours Cities especially Dublin encreased exceedingly Gentlemens Seats were built or building every where and Parks Enclosures and other Ornaments were carefully promoted insomuch that many places of the Kingdom equalled the Improvements of England The Papists themselves where Rancour Pride or Laziness did not hinder them lived happily and a great many of them got considerable Estates either by Traffick by the Law or by other Arts and Industry 2. There was a free Liberty of Conscience by connivence tho not by the Law and the King's Revenue encreased proportionably to the Kingdom 's Advance in Wealth and was every day growing it amounted to more than three hundred thousand pounds per annum a Sum sufficient to defray all the Expence of the Crown and to return yearly a considerable Sum into England to which this Nation had formerly been a constant Expence If King James had minded either his own Interest or the Kingdoms he would not have interrupted this happy Condition But the Protestants found that neither this nor the Services of any towards him nor his own good Nature were Barrs sufficient to secure them from Destruction 2. It is certainly the Interest of all Kings to govern their Subjects with Justice and Equity if therefore they understood or would mind their true Interest no King would ruin any of his Subjects but it often happens that either Men are so weak that they do not understand their Interest or else so little at their own Command that some foolish Passion or Humour sways them more than all the Interest in the World and from these proceeds all the ill Government which has ruined so many Kingdoms Now King James was so bent on gaining an absolute Power over the Lives and Liberties of his Subjects and on introducing his Religion that he valued no Interest when it came in competition with those 3. Every Body that knew King James's Interest and the true Interest of his Kingdoms knew that it concerned him to keep fair with Protestants especially with that party who were most devoted to him and had set the Crown on his Head and this had been in the Opinion of thinking Men the most effectual way to inlarge his Power and introduce his Religion but because it did not suit with the Methods his bigotted Counsellors had proposed he took a Course directly contrary to his Interest and seemed to take a peculiar pleasure in affronting and oppressing those very Men whom in Interest he was most concerned to cherish and support His Proceeding thus in England was visibly the Cause of his Ruin he had left himself no Friend to stand by him when he stood in greatest need of them Upon his coming to Ireland the Protestants had entertained some favourable Hopes that he would have seen and been convinced of his Error and would now at last govern himself by other measures it was manifestly his Interest to have done so and nothing in probability could have allayed the Heats of England and Scotland so much as his Justice and Kindness to the Protestants of Ireland nor could any thing have had so much the Appearance of an Answer to those many and evident Arguments by which they demonstrated his destructive Designs against those Kingdoms as to have had it to say that in Ireland where it was in his Power he was far from doing what they surmised he intended to do in England or if he had ever any such intentions it was plain he had now altered them These things were laid before him by some that wish'd well to his Affairs and had more Prudence than his furious and bigotted Counsellors and sometimes they seemed to make Impressions on him but the Priests and needy Courtiers who had swallowed in their Imaginations the Spoils and Estates of the Protestants of England as well as of Ireland could not endure to hear of this They seemed mightily afraid lest he should be restored to his Throne by consent of his Protestant Subjects For if so said they we know it will be on so strict Conditions that we shall gain but little by it it will not be in his power to gratifie us And not only they but the Irish in general likewise endeavoured to make his Restitution by way of Articles or Peace impracticable and impossible A Design so extremely foolish that it is strange any should be found so sillily wicked as to promote it or that King James should be so imposed on as to hearken to it and yet it is certain he did at least at some times entertain it and was heard to express himself to one that pressed him to Moderation to Protestants on this account that he never expected to get into England but with Fire and Sword However his Counsellors were not so weak but they saw what disadvantage his dealing with the Protestants had on his Interest in England and therefore they took care to conceal it as much as possible they stopped all Intercourse as far as they could with England they had a party to cry up the mildness of King James's Government towards the Protestants to applaud the Ease the Plenty the Security in which they lived and to run down and discredit all Relations to the contrary that came from Ireland These endeavoured to perswade the World that there was no such thing as a Bill of Attainder or of Repeal no Act taking away the Preferments or Maintenance of the Clergy nor any Imprisonment or Plundering of Protestants no taking away of Goods by private Orders of the King or levying of Monies by Proclamations In short they did that which on all occasions is the Practice and indeed Support of Popery They endeavoured to face down plain matter of Fact with Forehead and Confidence and to perswade the World that all these were mere Forgeries of King James's Enemies As many as believed these Allegations of theirs and were persuaded by them that the Protestants of Ireland were well used by King James were inclined to favour him a certain sign that if they had been really well used by him it would have gotten him many Friends and perhaps reconciled some of his worst Enemies But the Design entertained by him and his Party required the Ruin of Protestants and of their Religion whereas his Interest required that it should not be believed that he designed either and therefore Care was taken to prosecute the Design with all eagerness and deny the Matter of Fact with all impudence and his Majesty took care to promote both for he ruined the Protestants of Ireland by his Acts of Parliament and by the other Methods we shall hereafter speak of and by his Proclamations sent privately into England to his Partisans there assured the World that the Protestant Religion and Interest were his special care and that he had secured them against their Enemies It was his Interest to have done as well as pretended this but the carrying on his Design was so much in his Thoughts that he chose to sacrifice his
he did not see it dropt About the same time a Fryer was brought up to Town who pretended to be dumb and maimed the Popish Clergy gave out that Duke Schomberg had cut out his Tongue and thus maimed him and declared that he would serve all the Priests and Fryers after the same manner and they made proposals to revenge it on the Protestant Clergy King James caused the Fryer to be examined and discovered the deceit which falling immediately on Mr Spikes business made the King say in great Anger that for ought he saw the Protestants were wronged and misrepresented unto him and that there were some as great Rogues among the Roman Catholicks as amongst them The Fryers to acquit themselves of the Cheat got their Brother Fryer severely lasht pretending that he was a Spy and none of their Fraternity upon which he was carryed naked through the Town on a Cart in a Savage manner to execution as was suppos'd but was brought back and put into Prison from which after sometime he was dismissed and his Habit restor'd him Many such contrivances there were against the Lives of Protestants and they could not look on themselves as safe while such wicked Men were unpunished the Courts also declaring that the Witnesses though perjur'd could not be punisht because they Swore for the King 2 No Protestant was secure of his Life because the Courts wrested such facts to Treason as were not declared so by any Law Thus Cheif Justice Nugent declared it was Treason for any Protestant to keep Arms or wear a Sword after the King had forbidden it by his Proclamation and declared them Rebels that did so several Gentlemen in the Country had kept their Horses and Arm'd their Servants to watch them against the Robbers commonly call'd Rapparies that plundered them this was construed a Levying War against the King and the pretended Parliament Attainted them of High Treason In the County of Cork one Mr Brown had appear'd in a company of Men who endeavoured to make their escape from those that came to plunder them of their Arms and Horses but misliking the design went home to his own Houfe He was brought before Judg Dally for this at Limerick who upon examination of the matter dismist him judging him innocent of any crime that would bear an Indictment but he was taken up again for the same Fact at Cork and brought before Judg Nugent at the time when King James came first thither Judg Nugent seem'd at first to be of the same opinion with Judg Dally but after he had discours'd his Majesty he proceeded vigourously against the Gentleman and procured him to be found guilty by a partial Jury Every body lookt on this only as an occasion sought for the King to shew his Clemency Mrs. Brown the convicted Gentlemans Wife with five or six Children presented him a Petition begging her Husbands Life at his Feet as the first Act of Grace on his coming into the Kingdom but he rejected her Petition and notwithstanding she reinforc't it with all the Friends and interest she could make the Gentleman was hanged drawn and quartered This awakened all the Protestants in Ireland it made them remember the bloody Executions in the West of England on the account of Monmouth's Rebellion and how small a matter serv'd to take away Mens Lives there they suspected that Judg Nugent would act the same part in Ireland that Chief Justice Jeffreys had done in England and they knew that if the King did not interpose neither Juryes nor Witnesses would be wanting to destroy them in short they became very sensible that their Lives were in imminent danger when they saw a Gentleman of some Estate and Credit in his Country hang'd for being but in the Company for a little time without acting any thing of some others who endeavoured to make their escape from a Crew of Robbers that without Order or Commission came to Plunder them of their Horses and Arms they had the more reason to be Apprehensive of their Lives when they found that no Advantage was let slip against them nor any Articles or Promises however solemnly made to them for their safety and indemnity were regarded of which there were many Examples 3. At the time of the disarming February 24. the Town of Bandon near Cork being frightned and surpriz'd with such an unjust and sudden thing and not knowing where it would end shut up their Gates and turn'd out some Dragoons who were appointed to disarm them General Mac Carty went to reduce them and they believing him to be a Man of Honour yielded to him upon Articles for which they paid him 1000 l. ster by the Articles they were to be indemnified for what was past and a Pardon to be granted them Notwithstanding which Articles the Grand Jury at Cork by direction of Chief Justice Nugent found Bills against them resolving to serve them as he had served Mr. Browne and it was suppos'd that he was encouraged to do it by King James himself The time allowed him for the Assizes would not permit him to try them then and for this reason and on the Importunity and Menaces of General Mac Carty who being on the place thought himself obliged to make good his Articles he put off their Tryal till the next Assizes These Bills lay over their Heads no pardon was granted them and some of them were condemned in the Act of Attainder The Earl of Inchiquin and Captain Henry Boyle had put themselves under General Mac Carty's Protection and he engaged to secure them and their Houses but he did not perform his Promise for Castle-martyr belonging to Captain Henry Boyle with all the Improvements and Furniture to the value of some Thousands of Pounds were destroyed and plundered by his Soldiers assisted with the Rabble and he with the Earl were glad to provide for their safety by leaving all and flying into England In Connaught some Protestants got into Headford Castle belonging to Sir Oliver St. George to avoid the violence of the Rabble They were besieged by the Lord Gallway and surrendred on Articles of Pardon and Safety But at the next Assizes a Bill was prepared against them and presented the Grand Jury at Gallway the Jury tho Papists considered as they said that it might be their own Case another day and some stickled so earnestly against the Bill that there were not enough to find it However no body knew whether every Jury would be of that humour and no care was taken to discountenance such Proceedings Sir Thomas Southwell with some Gentlemen of Munster were unwilling to part with their Horses and Arms many of them having been robbed and plunder'd of their Stocks before and justly suspecting that as soon as their Arms were gone neither their Lives nor the remainder of their Substance could be safe They got together therefore with their Servants to the number of near Two hundred and resolved to march to Sligoe to joyn the Lord Kingston for their
not done but because it would have prevented the ruin of the Protestants as well as it now preserv'd the Papists It is manifest what the Government designed when by a few Robberies committed on Papists it was alarm'd and issued out Commissions to hang the Robbers yet could not be prevailed with to take notice of the many Thousand Robberies committed on the Protestants For the Proof of this see Albavill's Instructions to the forementioned Commissioners in the Appendix SECT XI The Methods by which Kings James compleated the ruin of the Protestants Personal Fortunes 1. THE Protestants by the Deputies taking away their Horses and the Army their Cattle were put out of a possibility of Living in the Country or of making any thing of their Farms by Plowing or Grazing and had saved nothing but their Houshold-Stuff and Mony only some of them when they saw the Irish taking away their Cattle slaughtered part of them Barrelled them up and sent them to Dublin and other Towns they preserved likewise their Hides and Tallow of the Year 1688 not having any vent for them and the Merchants upon the same account were stored with such Commodities as used to be sent Yearly into England or Foreign Parts and many of these went out of the Kingdom for their own Safety and left their Goods in the Hands of their Servants or Friends Their going away though they had License for it and those Licenses not expired was made a pretence to Seize their Goods and in March 1688 the Officers of the Army throughout the Kingdom without any Law or Legal Authority by order from the Lord Deputy Seized all Goods Houses Lands c. belonging to any who were out of the Kingdom there was no other reason given for this but that it was the Deputies Pleasure it should be so in May the Commissioners of the Revenue took it out of the Soldiers Hands and that they might be the better able to go through with it endeavoured to procure from their pretended Parliament an Act to confirm all they had done till that time and further to empower them to examin Witnesses upon Oath concerning concealed Goods of Absentees The Bill as it was drawn by the Commons added a power to oblige every body to discover upon Oath what they concealed belonging to their absent Friends and to Commit whom they pleased without Bail or Mainprize during pleasure not excepting the Peers of the Realm which made the House of Lords correct these Clauses and several others in the Bill upon the Motion and earnest Struggling of the Bishop of Meath though the Commissioners did in a great Measure put the Act in Execution as the Commons intended it for where-ever they expected any good of Absentees to be they sent and seized all that was in the place and then refused to restore any thing to the Owners but upon Oath that it was their own proper Goods the rest they supposed to belong to some Absentee and made it lawful Prize all such being by the Act vested in the King though the Owners who were absent without any Fault of their own should have come back and claimed by which Act all Protestants that had fled for their Refuge into England or any other place or were gone upon their lawful Occasions to the number of many Thousands were absolutely divested of all their Personal Fortunes and cut off from all Claim to their Goods and Chattels whatever The Condition of those who staid behind was very little better so many Contrivances were set on foot to ruin them and take away the little Goods that were yet left them that they were as effectually destroy'd as their Neighbours that went for England they knew that besides Goods the Protestants had some ready Money and Plate their chief aim was to come by them and several ways were thought of to effect it sometimes they were for setting up a Mint and for forcing every Body to bring in on Oath to be coined whatever Plate was in their Possession sometimes they were for searching Houses and seizing all they found but these Methods were looked on as too Violent and not likely to succeed if they should put them in Practice they therefore defer'd these for the present and appli'd themselves to the following Courses by which they got from us a great part of our Mony Plate and Goods and if our Deliverance had not been speedy would â—â—fallibly have got the rest 1. They would pretend for a Summ of Mony to procure License for a Ship to go off and when they had gotten the Mony and the People had Ship'd themselves and their Effects they then ordered the Ship to be unloaded again and seized all the Mony and Plate they found which had been privately conveyed on Shipboard tho' not forfeited by any Law 2. They would take off the Embargo which was generally laid on Ships and pretend that they would suffer the Merchants to Trade and as soon as they had got the Custom-houses full of Goods and receiv'd vast Rates for Custom besides Bribes to the Officers that attended the Ships they would put on the Embargo again stop the Goods and not return one Farthing 3. They promised Licenses for England to all who would pay for them and when they had gotten vast Summs from the Crowd that press'd to get away they would then stop the Ships and make their Licenses useless There was nothing to be done without a Bribe at what Rate may be imagined from this that an ordinary Tide-waiter one White at Rings-End was accounted to have gotten in Bribes for conniving at Peoples going off at least 1000 l. in a few Months 4. All Protestants that lived in the Country were forced to take out Protections these were sold at great Rates and it was not sufficient to buy them once they were often voided either by new Orders or the Change of Governors and then they were obliged to take them out a new some had Protections not only for their Goods but likewise for some Arms and Horses and renewed them five or six times paying a good Rate for them every time and yet at last they lost all their Horses Arms and Goods as well as their Neighbors who had no Protections 5. Where they learnt any Man had Mony they seiz'd him on some Pretence or other and if they found the Mony it was sufficient Evidence of his Guilt they sent him to Goal and converted the Mony to their own use at the worst they knew it was only restoring it in Brass Thus they serv'd Mr. Heuston in Bridg-street and Mr. Gabriel King in the County of Roscommon who could never get any satisfaction for his Silver and Plate thus taken from him and the case was the same with many others 6. In several places the Governors went into Mens Houses and Shops and seiz'd whâ—â— they found without the Formality of a Pretence and took it away Cork was used at this rate their Governor Mounsieur Boiselot
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