of their Parliament destroyed this Jurisdiction by exempting all that please to be Dissenters p. 203 3. In most Diocesses the Bishops Dead or Attainted ibid. 4. They encouraged the most Refractory Dissenters Quakers against the Church p. 204 5. Likewise leud and debauched Converts ibid. 6. The Kings Courts hindred Bishops Proceedings against debauched Clergymen Instance in Ross and the Bishop of Killmore ibid. 7. King James appointed Chancellors Gordon a Papist in Dublin King James asserted a Power over his Protestant though not over his Roman Catholick Clergy A gross breach of Trust and provoking Temptation to his People p. 205 206 8. Papists encouraged Debauchery and had rather have us of no Religion than Protestants p. 206 Sect. 18. Fourthly By taking away their Churches p. 208 1. Priests declared they would have our Churches Act of their Parliament gave them to them with the Livings as they fell ibid. 2. At Duke Schonberg's landing they set the Rabble to deface them Instance in Trim and other Rudenesses p. 209 3. The Churches seized in Dublin Feb. 24. 1688. to put Arms in September 6. 1689. to search for Arms. Barbarities used in them In October and November the Churches seized throughout the Kingdom ibid. 4. By the Officers or Magistrates of the Army Christ Church Dublin seized p. 210 5. Protestants Complain and press to King James the Act for Liberty of Conscience Are referred by him to the Law ibid. 6. The injustice of this p. 211 7. For a colour to England and Scotland King James issues a Proclamation against seizing Churches which served only to hasten the doing of it ibid. 8. Priests slighted the Proclamation p. 212 9. Applications made to the King for Relief ibid. 10. On behalf of Waterford and Wexford King James Orders Restitution but is refused to be obeyed by the Mayors and Officers ibid. 11. On new Applications from the Protestants he refers Waterford Petition to the Earl of Tyrone Governor of Waterford who calls their Church a place of strength and turns it into a Garrison The Mayor of Wexford turned out but the Church never restored p. 213 12. When King James would have kept his word to us it was not in his Power by means of his Clergy ibid. 13. Act for Liberty of Conscience provides not against Disturbers of Assemblies p. 214 14. Many Disorders committed by their Soldiers in our Churches ibid. 15. Christ Church Dublin shut up September 6. Seized October 27. September 13. all Protestants are forbid to assemble July 13. 1689. all Protestants confined to their Parishes though two or three Parishes have but one Church June 30. more than five Protestants forbid to meet on pain of Death Had King James succeeded at the Boyne we should never have had our Churches again Liberty of Conscience brought to this p. 215 216 Sect. 19. Fifthly By encouraging Converts and ill Treatment of the Protestant Clergy p. 216 1. Protestant Wives severely treated by their Husbands Servants by their Masters Tenants by their Landords ibid. 2. Those that turned escaped Robberies c. p. 217 3. Protestant Clergy sure to be Plundered Bishops of Laughlin and Waterford ibid. 4. Without Horses in the Country and afronted in the Streets of Dublin p. 218 5. Dr. Foy's Treatment for resuting Mr. Hall Dr. King 's in his own Church Mr. Knight's by the Mayor of Scarborough c. ibid. 6. Oaths tendered them and upon their refusal imprisoned Hindred from visiting their Sick by Priests p. 219 7. Forced the Ministers to go about to take the number of their Parishoners p. 220 Sect. 20. Sixthly By Misrepresentations of them and their Principles p. 221 1 2. Priests told ignorant People that our Church allowed the King might oblige all his Subjects to be of his Faith ibid. 3. From the Doctrine of Non-Resistance they told us the King might use us as the Grand Seignior or the French King does his Subjects ibid. 4. King James warned the young Mr. Cecills against our Bishops as ill Men and all false to him p. 222 5. Yalden's weekly Abhorrences Scandalous falshood of Dr. King and Dr. Foy ibid. 6. Defence upon the whole of desiring and promoting King William to rescue us p. 224 7. From the lawfulness of the Grecians to desire or accept the like from a Christian Army ibid. Chap. IV. That there remained no prospect of Deliverance for us but from their present Majesties p. 225 1. There remained no defence for us from the Laws or King James ibid. 2. Unreasonable to trust to a new Miracle ibid. 3. Our Adversaries scoft us with Preaching Patience as Julian did the Christians ibid. 4 Mad at their Prey being rescued by his present Majesty p. 226 CHAP. V. A short Account of those Protestants who left the Kingdom and of those that stayed 228 Sect. 1. Concerning those who went away ibid. 1. Reason of this Section ibid. 2. No Law against Subjects Transporting themselves into the English Dominions ibid. 3. The Danger of staying and no prospect of doing good by their stay in Ireland 229 4. No prospect of being able to subsist in Ireland ibid. 5. The Reason of Clergy Mens going 230 6. The going away of so many of all sorts could not be without sufficient cause p. 231 7. Nor from a sudden and panick fear because it continued to the last p. 232 Sect. 2. Concerning those that stayed p. 233 1. Distribution of those that stayed into four sorts ibid. 2. First The meaner People either could not get away or were left in charge with the Concerns of those that went ibid. 3. Secondly The Gentlemen dreaded to beg or starve in England ibid. 4. Were willing to secure what they had if they could p. 234 5. Were desirous to Protect their poor Dependants ibid. 6. Were useful in interceding for and relieving many Distrest p. 235 7. In Counselling and advising inferior Protestants ibid. 8. Thirdly Those that had Employments their stay of great importance in preserving Records c. p. 236 9. Not safe for them to decline Acting till they were forced p. 237 10. In many Cases they were very beneficial to their Fellow Protestants ibid. 11. The few that did otherwise ought to suffer ibid. 12. Fourthly The Clergy need no Apology for staying Their Serviceableness in several instances p. 238 Conclusion 1. DIsclaiming Prejudice and Partiality p. 239 2. It were to be wished that Commissions might issue to enquire into the Damages of Protestants ibid. 3. The Irish may blame themselves for what they shall suffer in Consequence of these Troubles ibid. Index of the Appendix THE Act of Attainder in Ireland at large p. 241 The Persuasions and Suggestions the Irish Catholicks make to his Majesty supposed to be drawn up by Talbot Titular Archbishop of Dublin and found in Collonel Talbot's House July 1. 1671. p. 298 A Copy of a Letter of the Irish Clergy to King James in favour of the Earl of Tirconnell found amongst Bishop Tirrell's Papers in Dublin p. 301 The Copy
not believe him till he shewed the Copy which much surpriz'd Sir Richard he began to enquire how his Lordship came by it and intimated that the Keepers of the Rolls were Treacherous in letting any one see it much more in letting a Copy of it go abroad His Lordship with good reason express'd his Admiration that an Act of Parliament should be made a Secret and the Laws upon the Observation of which the Lives and Fortunes of so many Men depended should be conceal'd with so much care from them At last the Attorny told him That he himself would draw up a Warrant for Sir Thomas Southwell's Pardon that should do his Business and get the King to Sign it But the Earl refused to accept his offer unless his Lawyer might first peruse it which being granted the Lawyer upon perusal found it to be such as would not hold in Law and intended only to delude him The Earl made new Application to King James and Sir Richard being sent for the King ask'd him why he did not prepare a Fiant for Sir Thomas Southwell's Pardon according to the Warrant sent to him He answered That his Majesty could not grant such a Pardon That his Majesty was only a Trustee for Forfeited Estates and could not Dispense with the Act that by an express Clause in it all Pardons that should be granted were declar'd void The King in some Passion told him That he hoped they did not intend to retrench his Prerogative Sir Richard replied That his Majesty had read the Act before he pass'd it The King answered He had betray'd him that he depended on him for drawing the Act and if he had drawn it so that there was no room for Dispensing and Pardoning he had been false to him or words to that effect Thus the Matter ended and Sir Thomas went into Scotland with my Lord Seaforth without being able to obtain his Pardon for Estate or Life the Act voiding any Pardon granted to any attainted by it after Nov. 1. 1689. or not enrolled before the last day of that Month. 18. And now I doubt not but the Reader from this Story which is literally true will observe first the Juggling of the Popish Lawyers with King James and will pity a Prince who gave himself up to such False and Double-dealing Counsellors when an Act of Parliament is made against a Papist then it is no less than Treason to question the King 's Pardoning and Dispensing Power but when an Act bears hard on a Protestant and the King has a mind to ease him then the King has no power to Dispense he cannot grant a Pardon tho he earnestly desire it From whence we may see that the Dispensing Power was only set up to shelter Papists from the Law and ruin Protestants and that Papists in their Hearts are as much against it as Protestants 2. We may observe what fair Justice was design'd for Protestants a Law was made to turn near 3000 out of their Estates and to take away their Lives if they did not come in against a certain day and yet the Law that subjected them to this Penalty was made a Secret and they not suffer'd to know one word of it till the time allow'd them to come in was past at least three Months but there was an Intrigue in this they knew they had a Party in England who were to face down the World that there were no such Acts made a Party that were to represent it as a Sham and Contrivance of King James's Enemies to make him Odious and the great Argument they were to urge to prove it must be to alledge Where is the Act Why doth it not appear If there were any such Act would not the People that came so often from Ireland and tell such Frightful Stories have brought it with them This is the part the Favourers of King James were to act in England and Scotland and this is the reason the Act was so long kept Secret 3. We may observe the Folly of those Men who were attainted in this Act themselves and yet Flatter themselves with the hopes of living Happily and enjoying their Estates nay and getting Preferment under K. James when restor'd to his Kingdoms these Men do not consider that this Act would be restor'd together with him and that then it is not in his power to do this for them that if they expect any such thing they must be oblig'd to an Irish Popish Parliament for it and he is much a Stranger to Ireland that knows not what Mercy an English-man and a Protestant is to exspect from them especially when they can give him nothing but what is taken from one of themselves Till therefore the Papists of Ireland become so good natur'd as to give away by their own voluntary act their Estates of which they were in actual Possession to Protestants it is the greatest Folly in the World for any Protestant to think of enjoying any Estate in Ireland 4. For 't is observable that the Protestants Estates were not only given away by this Act of Attainder but the Papists were likewise in Possession of them by the following means The Act of Repeal was to be executed by Commissioners appointed by the King who were to determine the Claims of the Proprietors or Heirs to the Proprietors of the respective Estates October 22. 1641. and give Injunctions to the Sheriff to put them in Possession In the mean time the Protestants were to keep their Possessions till the First of May 1690. and to pay Rent to the Popish Proprietors The same Commissioners were to set out Reprizals to reprizable Persons But notwithstanding this no such Commissioners ever sate the Protestants were generally outed and the Papists possess'd both of their old Estates and likewise of the Estates of Protestants they compass'd this by several Stratagems 19. Wherever the Protestants had set their Lands to Papist Tenants those Tenants forsook their Protestant Landlords and became Tenants to the pretended Popish Proprietors Several Protestants complained in Chancery of this as contrary to the Act which allowed them to keep Possession till May 1690. which not being yet come nor any Commissioners being yet appointed to execute the Act they mov'd for an Injunction to quite their Possessions but the Chancellor answer'd That this did not concern Landlords that set their Lands but only such as occupied Farms themselves and that the Parliament had granted that indulgence to them only that they might have time to dispose of their Stocks which not being their Case who had Tenants they must go to Common Law and try their Titles by this means most of the old Popish Proprietors got into their Estates Nay they not only outed the Landlords of their Estates but even the Protestant Tenants of their Leases made in consideration of a valuable reserv'd Rent though this was positively against the intent of the Act which confirm'd such Leases and only gave the reserved Rent to the restor'd Proprietor 2.
seized on most of the Churches in the Kingdom 4. The manner of their doing it was thus The Mayor or Governour in the Towns with the Priests went to the Churches sent for the Keys to the Sextons and if they were found forced them from them if not they broke open the Doors pull'd up the Seats and Reading Desk and having said Mass in them lookt upon them as their own and said the King himself had then nothing to do with them being consecrated places and to alienate them or give them back to Hereticks was Sacriledge In the Country the Militia Captains or Officers of the Army that chanced to be quartered in the several places performed the same part that the Mayors or Governors did in Corporations thus Christ's Church in Dublin was seized by Luttrel the Governour and about Twenty six Churches and Chappels in the Diocess of Dublin 5. Of this Protestants complained to King James as a great violation of his own Act for Liberty of Conscience in which it is expresly provided that they should have Liberty to meet in such Churches Chappels and other places as they shall have for that purpose they further represented to him That all the Churches of Ireland were in a manner ruined in the late War in 1641. That it was with great difficulty and cost that the Protestants had new built or repaired them That many were built by private Persons on their own Costs and that the Roman Catholicks had no Pretence or Title to them but his Majesty answered That they were seiz'd in his absence at the Camp without his knowledge or consent That nevertheless he was so much obliged to his Roman Catholick Clergy that he must not dispossess them that they alledged a Title to the Churches that they had seiz'd and if the Protestants thought their Title was better they must bring their Action and endeavour to recover their Possessions by Law 6. This Answer was what the Attorney General had suggested to him and the Reader will perceive that the whole was a piece of deceit that the pretence of the Churches being seiz'd whilst his Majesty was absent was a meer Collusion and that there could not be a more false Suggestion than that the Papists had any Right to the Churches or a more unjust thing than to put the Protestants on recovering a Possession by a Suit at Law which was gotten from them by so open violence but this was the Justice we lookt for and constantly met with from him and therefore there being no Remedy to be expected we were forced to acquiesce 7. Only to colour the matter a little and lest this should make too great a noise in England and Scotland where King James at this time had very encouraging hopes he issued out a Proclamation December 13. 1689. in which he acknowledges that the seizing of Churches was a violation of the Act for Liberty of Conscience yet doth not order any restitution only forbids them to seize any more They had in many places notice of this Proclamation before it came out and therefore were more diligent to get into the remaining Churches for they look't on the Proclamation as a confirmation of their Possessions which they had before the publishing of it and in some places the Popish Officers kept it from being published till they had done their Work the Protestants not being allowed to go out of their Parishes could not come by it till it pleas'd their Popish Neighbours to produce it and so it prov'd like other Proclamations of his Majesty in favour of his Protestant Subjects it was not published till the inconveniency it pretended to prevent was brought upon them and the mischief actually executed and it made their Enemies more hasty and diligent to do it than otherwise they would have been lest they should slip the time and lose the opportunity 8. But after all some were too late and the Protestants got sight of the Proclamation before their Churches were seiz'd but here the Priests put off their Vizors and acted bare-faced they told the People the King had nothing to do with them or their Churches that they were immediately under the Pope and that they would neither regard him nor his Proclamations or Laws made to the damage of Holy Church 9. The Protestants had a mind to make an Experiment how far this would go and whether the Priests or King would get the better in order therefore to make the Tryal they chose out some Instances in which the violence and injustice of turning them out of their Churches were most undenyable and laid their Case before His Majesty and his Council by their Petitions and that the Petitions might not be laid aside or lost as was the common Custom to deal with Petitions and Affidavits to which they were ashamed to return a flat denial they engaged some of the Privy Council to espouse their Cause and had the luck to gain several of the Popish Nobility to favour their Suits especially of such as had Estates in England and knew King James's true Interest and their own 10. The Petitions of Waterford and Wexford were the most favourably received and in spite of all the opposition that the Attorny General Nagle or the Sollicitor General one Butler who concern'd himself with singular impudence against the Petitions could make they obtained an Order for restitution of these two Churches the Wexford Petition sets forth the Loyalty of the Minister the peaceableness of the People their having contributed to the building of several Popish Chappels within and without the Walls of that Town and that the Roman Catholiks had no occasion for the Church the reasonableness of this Petition was so manifest that King James and his Council made an Order for the restitution of the Church but he now found how precariously he reign'd in Ireland notwithstanding their mighty professions of Loyalty and absolute Subjection upon all occasions and more particularly in their Act of Recognition for the Mayors and Officers refused to obey his Order 11. Upon which he was importuned by the Protestants with new Complaints but being ashamed to own his want of power to make good his former Order he referr'd the Waterford Petition to the then Governour of that place the Earl of Tyrone who reported that the Church of Waterford was a Place of strength and consequently not fit to be trusted into the Hands of Protestants and so all they obtain'd by their Petition Attendance and Charges was to have their Church turn'd into a Garrison instead of a Mass-house this pretence could not be made for the Church of Wexford it having no appearance of strength and therefore the Order for restoring it was renewed and the disobedient Mayor sent for and turn'd out for which the Popish Clergy made him ample satisfaction but notwithstanding that King James appear'd most zealous to have the Church restored and express'd himself with more passion than was usual that he would be obeyed and
Thirdly From Orders about Garrisoning Mansion-Houses Sending the Protestant Owners to the Goal who must never have expected either their Houses or Lives if King James had prevailed ibid. Estates of Absentees disposed of and promised to Papists p. 162 20. Objection That King James did not know the Consequence of Repealing the Acts of Settlement ibid. Answer First King James understood them better than any and held ten thousand pounds a year by them when Duke of York ibid. Secondly King James would not hear the Protestants plead at the Bar against the Repeal p. 163 Thirdly Bishop of Meath in a Speech in the House set forth the ill Consequences at large ibid. Fourthly The Protestants opposed it from Point to Point ibid. Fifthly Protestants were resolved to use their utmost that the ill intents of their Adversaries might appear the more p. 164 Sixthly Lord chief Justice Keating's Paper given to King James in behalf of Purchasers rejected ibid. 21. Protestants lost more in Ireland than all that favour King James's Cause in England are worth p. 165 Sect. 13. Eighthly The danger into which King James brought the lives of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland ibid. 1. At King James's Coming no General Pardon though it had been his Interest in respect of England ibid. 2. Is not chargeable with particular Murders further than by arming such Men as would be guilty of them p. 166 3. The Governments Design upon our Lives ibid. First by feigned Plots and Protecting the Perjured Witnesses Instance in Spikes Case The Dumb Friar p. 167 Secondly By wresting Facts to Treason Nugent declar'd Protestants having Arms to be so p. 168 Thirdly By violating Articles Mr. Brown of Cork Town of Bandon Earl of Inchiquin Captain Boyle Sir Thomas Southwell and his Party Lord Mountjoy's Soldiers Fort of Culmore King James's approach to Derry Captain Dixy Kenaght Castle p. 169 170 Fourthly By violating Protections p. 171 Protestants of Down p. 171 Protestants brought before Derry by General Rosen Bishop of Meath applyed to King James about it King James excused Rosen p. 173 174 Captain Barton of Carrick Mac Cross p. 175 Fifthly By private Orders and Proclamations with the penalty of Death Several Instances p. 178 Sixthly By the Act of Attainder Abstract of it Archbishops 2 Duke 1 Temporal Lords 63 Ladies 22 Bishops 7 Knights 85 Clergymen 83 Esquires and Gentlemen 2182 2445 p. 179 180 Not equalled by the Proscription at Rome Great part Attainted on Common Fame p. 182 Observations on the Act ibid. 1. Leaves no room for the King to Pardon ibid. 2. The Act concealed Out of the Power of an English Parliament to Repeal it by the Act for cutting off Ireland from England p. 183 3. The hast in drawing it up ibid. 4. Many left out particularly the Collegians and how ibid. 5. Applications in behalf of Protestants made their Case worse p. 184 6. Allowing of time to prove Innocency a meer Collusion ibid. 1. None knew what time was given ibid. 2. None knew what they would call Innocency Instance Desmineer and Ginnery ibid. 3. The Embargo on this side would not let them know on the other side 4. The Embargo on the other side would not let them come hither 5. To have come would have been an unwise Venture p. 177 4. Objection That few Protestants lost their Lives p. 178 Answer 1. When it is known how many have perished they will not appear few ibid. 2. The Irish Papists would not venture at much Murthering till they were past an after Reckoning they feared such Cruelty would be revenged on Roman Catholicks in England ibid. 3. Protestants were cautious not to provoke them and were true to one another p. 179 4. We dont know what would have been done with Attainted Persons ibid. 5. Protestants if Obnoxious absconded or escaped ibid. 6. The Support of King James's Army depended on the Protestants p. 179 Scotch Officers that came here wondered to find how Protestants were used having heard so much the contrary at home p. 180 The same given out in England Pity but those who believed and forwarded it had been sent hither ibid. The Irish doing what they did in their Circumstances what would they have done if left to their swing ibid. Sect. 14. Ninthly The method King James took to destroy our Religion p. 181 1. The Attempts against our Lives and Fortunes no sudden thing but the result of a long Design for which Tirconnel had 20000 l. per annum ibid. 2. King James pretended Liberty of Conscience but not to be expected from a Roman Catholick ibid. 3. The Laws and Coronation Oath secured our Religion The Clergy had merited from King James by opposing the Exclusion and disobliged their People p. 182 4. At his coming to the Crown the Roman Catholicks declared that his Promises to the Church were not intended for Ireland p. 183 Sect. 15. First By taking away our Schools and Universities p. 184 1. Lord Tirconnell put the Schools contrary to Law into the hands of Papists ibid. 2. And would have put in Popish Fellows into the College ibid. 3. Stopt the College Pension of 388 l. per annum from Easter 1688. turned out the Fellows and Students seized on the Library and Furniture p 193 4. Forbid three of them on pain of Death not to meet together p. 194 5. King James did not fill up vacant Bishopricks and Livings in his Gift ibid. 6. And allowed nothing for supplying the Cures p. 195 7. All the Bishops and Livings in the Kingdom would soon have come into the Kings hands p. 196 8. This not the effect of our Constitution the same in Popish Countries Thirty five Bishopricks void in France in 1688. King James's Ungratefulness to the Protestant Clergy ibid. Sect. 16. Secondly By taking away the Maintenance of the Clergy p. 197 1. Book-Mony denyed by the Papists from King James's coming to the Crown ibid. 2. Priests put in for Tythes Hardly recovered by Protestants p. 198 3. An Act of their Parliament applied Papists Tythes to the Priests ibid. 4. And Protestants Tythes too when the Priests had the Benefices ibid. 5. The Priests forc'd into Possession of Glebes where there were any p. 199 6. Protestant Clergy little better for the Tythes left to them Protestants had little Tythings left Priests by Dragoons seized what there was never wanted Pretences ibid. 7. House-Mony in Corporations taken away by their Parliament Pleaded against before the House of Lords but in vain p. 200 8. The same took away Ulster Table of Tythes p. 201 9. Duties payable to the King out of Livings were exacted wholly from the Protestant Incumbents though they had nothing left to them of their Livings their Persons seized and sent to Goal ibid. Collonel Moore Clerk of the First Fruits imprisoned because he would not be severe against them p. 202 Sect. 17. Thirdly By taking away the Jurisdiction of the Protestant Church ibid. 1. The Churches Right by Prescription to Jurisdiction ibid. 2. Act
Neighbouring People In that Case there is all the Reason in the World that the Prince and People so threatened should prevent their own Ruin by timely interposing in behalf of their Neighbours and by forcing their King to desist from his Injustice and Violence against his own Subjects tho it cost a War to compass it if there appear no other means to do it And this is not only Charity to them but a point of Prudence which every Prince ows to himself Now if we consider the State of Europe at that time the growing Power of France and how much the late King was in the French Interests it will clearly appear that the Measures he took with his Subjects must have been fatal to all Europe especially to the Protestant Interest which he almost openly declared that he designed to destroy and therefore it concerned all Europe more especially Holland who lay nearer to Destruction to interpose in time and nip these Designs in the beginning which they and all Europe saw would have ended in their Destruction as soon as the Ruin of the Protestants in England and Ireland was accomplished and the present Confederacy shews this to be the general Sense of all the States and Princes in Europe as well of the Roman Catholicks as of the Protestants the Pope himself not excepted so that this which has been done to King James is not to be looked on as the single act of their present Majesties or of the People of England but of all Europe as the only means to oppose the intolerable Encroachments or the French King and his Faction 4. Thirdly the same is lawful by the common Rights of Humanity and Charity which are due to the distressed If I see a Man about to kill or destroy another tho I have no authority over either or concern with them yet Humanity obliges me to succour and rescue the oppressed and tho it be a Son that is thus wronged by his Father yet while the Father proceeds with Cruelty and apparent Injustice it alters not the Case or makes it any thing more unlawful for me to afford relief or for him to desire and accept it tho the Father should take it so ill as to engage me in a quarrel to the loss of his life Much more is it lawful for Princes to interpose with a Neighbor-Prince when they see him cruelly and injustly oppress his Subjects and there is much more reason for those Subjects to desire and accept of the kind Offers of such a Deliverer than for a Son to accept it against his Father 5. Fourthly God seems purposely to have divided the World into several Principalities and Dominions and ballanced them a mong themselves that there might be a Refuge for the oppressed and afflicted and that if one King should turn Tyrant or endeavour to destroy his People the others might interpose and stop his Hands and that the fear of being deserted by his Subjects in such a Quarrel might oblige every one to preserve their Love and Affection by Justice and good Government I have reason to believe that the Primitive Church and especially S. Cyprian was of this opinion for they give this Reason why the Church was not trusted to one but to many Bishops Saith S. Cyprian Therefore the Body of Bishops is numerous that if one be guilty of Heresie and dissipate the Flock the rest may interpose and rescue them out of his Hands And sure the Argument is as strong for the number of Temporal as of Spiritual Governors and the Necessity and Justice of their interposing with their Neighbor Princes when they attempt the Destruction of their People is as great as of a Bishops being chastised and restrained by his Fellow Bishops when he attempts to introduce Heresie 6. Fifthly This is agreeable to the Opinion of Christian Civilians and Casuists for which I desire the Reader may consult Grotius de Jure c. lib. 2. cap. 25. n. 8. where he tells us That if it were granted that Subjects might not take Arms lawfully even in the extremest necessity which yet saith he I see is doubted by those who professedly defend the Power of Kings it would not follow from thence but others might take Arms in their behalf This he proves from Reason and Authority and answers the Arguments brought against it See more to the same purpose lib. 2. cap. 20. S. 40. where he tells us That it is so much more honorable to avenge the Injuries done to another than to our selves by how much there is less danger that the sense of anothers pain should make us exceed in exacting such Revenge than of our own or byass our Judgment 7. Sixthly The same appears to be lawful from the Practice of Christian Princes who are celebrated in Histories for doing it this was the Case of Constantine the Great and the Cause of his Quarrel to Maxentius whom for his Tyranny over the Romans Constantine invaded and was received as their Deliverer when he had slain him The Cause of his invading Licinius his Brother in Law was of the like nature against whom he commenced a War for his persecuting the Christians and after he had overcome him he was received by the Christians in Licinius's room and celebrated by the Church and Historians of that time as a most holy and generous Champion in the Cause of Christ. When the King of Persia persecuted the Christians the same Prince threatened him with a War in case he did not desist and no doubt but he would have been as good as his word if the Persian King had not complyed We may observe the same to have been done in the Cause of the Orthodox against the Arrians by Constantine the Younger Son of Constantine the Great who threatened his elder Brother Constantius with a War if he did not desist from persecuting the Catholick Bishops and restore Athanasius to his Bishoprick of Alexandria that great and holy Man accepted of this Mediation and was restored by it which he would not have done if he had judged it unlawful The same was practised by King Pepin and Charles the Great against the Lombards and by all the Princes of Europe in favour of the Christians oppressed by the Turks in the holy War Queen Elizabeth did the same for Holland King James for the Prince Palatine and King Charles the First for Rochel and Bishop Laud who certainly understood the Principles of our Church encouraged both and it is one of the greatest Blemishes of the Reign of King Charles the Second that he suffered the French King to proceed so far in destroying his Protestant Subjects without interposing in their behalf which if he had effectually done he had either prevented it or got an opportunity of rendering his Reign glorious and his Kingdom faâ—e by a War which would in all probability have humbled that Monarch to the advantage of all Europe 8. I know nothing that can be objected against this except it
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
as the Lord Deputy against the Laws of the Kingdom and the Interest of the Nation had intrusted with Arms and Employments and that no Care was taken by him to prevent those Mischiefs but on the contrary the Robbers were secretly cherished and encouraged the Gentlemen in the North to prevent their own Ruin and the Ruin of all the Protestants of Ireland which they saw unavoidable entred into Associations to defend themselves from these Robbers their Associations did really reach no farther than this nor did they attempt any thing upon the Armed Robbers except in their own Defence when invaded and assaulted by them Insomuch that I could never hear of one act of Hostility committed wherein they were not on the Defensive Their crime then if any was only this they were not willing to suffer themselves to be robb'd and plundered as their Neighbours were without opposition but disarmed some of those who under colour of being King James's Soldiers destroyed the Country This was all the reason the Lord Deputy and Council had to call them Rebels and to charge them in their Proclamation dated March the 7th 1688 with actual Rebellion and with Killing and Murdering several of his Majesties Subjects and with Pillaging and Plundering the Country whereas it was notorious they never killed any whom they did not find actually Robbing to kill whom the Laws of the Kingdom not only indemnified them but likewise assigned them a Reward and for Plundering it is no less notorious that they preserved the whole Country within their Associations from being Pillaged when all the rest of Ireland was destroyed And their great care of themselves and their Country was the Crime which truly provoked the Lord Deputy and made him except from Pardon Twelve of the principal Estated Men in the North when he sent down Lieutenant General Hamilton with an Army which he tells us in the same Proclamation would inevitably occasion the total ruin and destruction of the North. 10. And lest there should be any Terms proposed or accepted by the People in the North and so that Country escape being Plundered and Undone he made all the haste he could to involve the Kingdom in Blood King James was every day expected from France and landed at Kinsale March the 12th but no Perswasions would prevail with the Lord Deputy to defer sending the Army to the North till the King came though he had good assurance given him by several who knew their Minds and Tempers that in all probability if King James himself appeared amongst them and offered them Terms they would have complyed with him at least so far as to submit quietly to his Government But it was the Lord Deputy's design to destroy the Protestants there as well as in the rest of the Kingdom and therefore he hasted to make the Parties irreconcilable by engaging them in Blood and by letting loose the Army to Spoil and Plunder The War therefore was entirely imputable to him and the Protestants were forced into it having no other choice than either to be undone without offering to make any Defence for themselves or else with their Arms in their Hands to try what they could do in their own Preservation 11. But it must be considered that Ireland is a Kingdom dependent on the Crown of England and part of the Inheritance thereof and therefore must follow its fate which it cannot decline without most apparent ruin to the English Interest in it Now King James having abdicated the Government of England and others being actually possessed of the Throne it was the business of the Protestants of Ireland to preserve themselves rather than dispute the Titles of Princes they were sure it was their Interest and their Duty to be subject to the Crown of England but whether King James was rightly intitled to that Crown is not so easily determinable by the common People No wonder therefore they declared for King William and his Queen whom they found actually in the Throne of England and own'd as rightful Possessors by those who had best reason to know rather than for King James who indeed pretended to it but with this disadvantage amongst many others that he was out of Possession and he had not used the Power when he was in possession so well that they should be desirous to restore him to it with the danger of their own ruin 12. They considered further that their defending themselves and those Places of which they were possest would in all probability very much contribute to save not only themselves but likewise the Three Kingdoms and the Protestant Interest in Europe to which it did certainly in some Measure contribute King James and his Party believed it and declared themselves to this effect and some of them were very liberal of their Curses on the Rebels in the North as they called them for this reason had said they the Rebels in the North joined with King James he had such a Party in England and Scotland which together with the Succours he might then have sent from Ireland and the assistance of the French King would in all probability have shaken the Government of England before it had been settled but the opposition of Enniskillin and Derry lost the opportunity that will not easily be retrieved How far this Conjecture of theirs was probable I leave it to the Reader what has happened since shews that it was not altogether groundless if the Design had taken the condition of Europe especially of the Protestants had been most deplorable but it pleased God to spoil all their Measures by the opposition made by a small Town Mann'd with People before that time ofâ— no extraordinary Reputation in the World for Arms Valour or Estates and who perhaps had never before seen an Enemy in Arms King James was pleased to call them a Rabble but it must be remembred to their Honour that they outdid in Conduct Courage and Resolution all his Experienced Generals To a Man that seriously reflects on it the thing must almost seem miraculous all Circumstances considered the rest of the Kingdom except Enniskillin had yielded without a Blow most of the chief Officers Gentlemen and Persons of Note Courage or Interest in the North had deserted their new rais'd Troops without Fighting the Succours designed for them from England came at the very time when the Town was ready to be invested and the Officers that came with those Succors as well as their own Officers were of opinion that the Place was not to be defended that they had neither Provision nor Necessaries to hold out a Siege The Officers therefore privately took a resolution to return for England and carried along with them most of the Gentlemen and Leaders of the Town without leaving any Governor or Instructions for the People what they were to do and without offering to make any conditions for them but neither this nor their extream want of Provision to which they were at last reduced nor the
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
and intended more if their Power had continued 11. The Deputy-Mayor of Dublin Edmund Reily issued out an Order dated Sept. 27. 1689. for regulating the Rates of Provisions Country Goods and Manufactories to be sold in the City of Dublin in which he took care to set a very low Rate on such Goods as were then most in the hands of Protestants the Rate at which he ordered them to be sold was not one half of what they generally yielded When therefore any Papist had a mind to put off his Brass Mony he went to some Protestant Neighbor whom he knew to have a quantity of these Goods offered him the Mayor's Rate in Brass and carried away the Goods by Force This was practised even by the Lady Tyrconnel and several of their Grandees But the case was otherwise with Papists they sold at what Rate they pleased not minding the Proclamation of which Alderman Reily who issued it was an Instance He had a quantity of Salt in his hands and sold it at excessive Rates above what he compelled Protestants to part with theirs Complaint was made against him and he was indicted at the Tholsel which is the City Court that very Term in which the Proclamation came out upon the Traverse the Petty-Jury found him guilty and the Court Fin'd him in an 100 l. but all this was only a Blind for the Sheriffs set him at Liberty on his Parole after he was committed to them He brought his Writ of Error returnable into the King's-Bench but the Record was never remov'd nor the Fine levied And the Consequence was that neither he nor any Papist took notice of the Order and yet kept it in its full Force against Protestants 12. They saw therefore that it was resolved to leave them nothing that was easily to be found for Sir Thomas Hacket had made a Proposal to Seize Feather-Beds and other Furniture of Houses alledging that they would be good Commodities in France upon which the Protestants thought it the best way to exchange what Brass Mony they had into Silver and Gold and gave 2 l. 10 s. 3 l. 4 l. and at last 5 l. for a Guiney but even so 't was thought too beneficial for them and to stop it they procured a Proclamation dated June 15. 1690. whereby it is made Death to give above 1 l. 18 s. for a Guiney or for a Louis d'Or above 1 l. 10 s. c. The Papists needed not fear a Proclamation or the Penalty of it they had Interest enough to avoid it and therefore still bought up Gold at what rate they pleased but if any Protestant had been found Transgressing he must have expected the utmost Severity 13. And thus the case stood when His Majesty's Victory at the Boyn delivered us and let any one judge whether we had reason to be pleased with the Success and gratefully receive him that came to restore to us not only our Goods and Fortunes but the very Necessaries of Life and what Obligations we could have of Fidelity or Allegiance to King James who treated us plainly as Prisoners of War and as Enemies not Subjects and by designing and endeavoring our Ruin declared in effect he would govern us no longer but more expresly at his going away freely allowed us to shift for our selves and advised those about him both at the Boyn when he quitted the Field and the next Morning in Council at the Castle of Dublin to make the best Terms they could and quietly submit to the Conqueror who he said was a Merciful Prince SECT XII King James destroyed the Real as well as the Personal Estates of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland 1. THere remains yet to be spoken of a third part of the Property belonging to Protestants I mean their Real Estates and care was effectually taken to divest them of these as well as of their Personal Fortunes Their Estates of Inheritance were either acquir'd before the Year 1641. and were call'd Old Interest or else since that time and pass'd by the name of New Interest The greater part of Estates belonging to Protestants were of this last sort and they stood on this ground The Papists of Ireland as I have noted before had raised a most Horrid Rebellion against the King and Barbarously Murthered some Hundred Thousands of Protestants in Cold Blood in 1641. for which most of their Gentry were indicted and outlawed by due course of Law and consequently their Estates forfeited The English after a War of twelve Years reduced them with vast Expence of Blood and Treasure and according to an Act of Parliament past 17 Car. I. at Westminster the forfeited Estates were to be disposed of When King Charles II. was restored he restored many of the Papists and after two years Deliberation and the full hearing of all Parties before himself and Council in England he pass'd an Act in a Parliament held at Dublin commonly call'd The Act of Settlement whereby a general Settlement was made of the Kingdom and Commissioners appointed to hear and determine every Man's Claim After this upon some Doubts that arose another Act pass'd 17 Car. II. commonly call'd The Act of Explanation which made a further and final Settlement Every Protestant made his Claim before the Commissioners of Claims and was forced to prosecute it at vast Expences After this he got a Certificate from those Commissioners of what appear'd to belong to him for Arrears or Debentures and having retrenched a third of what was actually set out to him and in his Possession and paid one Years full improv'd value of what remain'd every Man pass'd a Patent for it a certain considerable yearly Rent called Quit-rent being reserved to the King out of every Acre these two Acts of Parliament at Dublin with that and other Acts at Westminster together with a Certificate from the Court of Claims and Letters Patents from the King pursuant to the Certificate from the Commissioners made up the Title which two thirds of the Protestants in Ireland had to their Estates Those Papists that had forfeited in 1641. were commonly known by the Name of Old Proprietors who notwithstanding their Outlawries and Forfeitures and the Acts of Parliament that were against them still kept up a kind of Claim to their forfeited Estates they were still suggesting new Scruples and Doubts and either disturbing the Protestant Possessors with Suits in which by Letters from Court they obtained Favour from some of the Judges or else threatning them with an after-reckoning The Protestants earnestly desired a New Parliament which might settle things beyond any Doubt and cut the Papists off from their Hopes and Expectations but King James when Duke of York had so great Interest with his Brother King Charles II. that he kept off a Parliament against all the Sollicitations that could be made for it for Twenty four Years to the no small Damage of the Kingdom on other accounts as well as this and he so encouraged those forfeiting Proprietors and
came to be concluded not enduring to be present at the passing of that and some other Barbarous Acts against which they found their Votes signified nothing while they staid There were four more Protestants return'd of whose Behaviour I can give no account or how they came to be return'd The generality of the Houses consisted of the Sons and Descendents of the Forfeiting Persons in 1641. Men that had no Freeholds or Estates in the Kingdom but were purposely elected to make themselves Estates by taking them away from Protestants 15. Now whilst the power of making and repealing Laws was in such hands what Security could Protestants promise themselves from any Laws or what probability was there that any Laws already made in their Favour would be continued Especially if we consider further that this Parliament openly profess'd it self a Slave to the King's Will and he was look'd on as Factiously and Rebelliously inclin'd that would dare to move any thing after any Favorite in the House had affirm'd that it was contrary to the King's pleasure Several Bills were begun in the House of Commons one for erecting an Inns of Court another for repealing an Act commonly call'd Poinings Act which requires that all Acts should be perused by the King and Council of England before they be offered to be pass'd by the Parliament in Ireland but King James signified his Dissatisfaction to these Bills and for that reason they and several others were let fall tho the Irish had talk'd much and earnestly desir'd the Repeal of Poinings Act it being the greatest Sign and means of their Subjection to England There was a doubt made in the House concerning the Earl of Strafford whether he should be attainted for Estate and Life several moved in his behalf but it was carried against him upon this Evidence Colonel Simon Lutterell affirmed in the House That he had heard the King say some hard things of him The King's pleasure therefore was the Law to which we were to trust for our Lives and Fortunes our Enemies having entirely engross'd the power of making and repealing Laws and devolved it on the King's pleasure the very Protestant Lords and Bishops being denied their Priviledge of entering their Protestations against such Votes as they conceiv'd Destructive to the Kingdom The King told them That Protestations against Votes were only used in Rebellious times and with much ado they were allowed to enter their Dissent tho after that was allowed them the Clerk of the Parliament one Polewheele a Nephew of Chancellor Fitton 's shifted them off and did not enter their Dissent to some Votes tho often sollicited and press'd to do it according to the Orders of the House 16. When King James had labour'd as much as in him lay to get a Parliament that would repeal the Penal Laws and Test in England and open the Houses to Papists he found at last that the great Obstacle that rendered the Kingdom so averse to this was the general Fear and Apprehension that the Legislative Authority would be engross'd by them and turn'd against Protestants this was so obvious and reasonable a Surmise that he knew there was no hopes that the People would side with him against their present Majesties if something were not done to satisfie them and therefore to remove this fear he published his Proclamation dated Sept. 20. 1688. wherein he declares himself willing that Roman Catholicks should remain incapable to be Members of the House of Commons if the Protestants of England had reason to apprehend that Papists would engross the Legislative Authority in England and from the Example of Queen Mary's House of Commons to dread such Law givers how much more reason had the Protestants of Ireland to dread that power when entirely engrossed by their most inveterate Popish Enemies whose Interest as well as Religion oblig'd them to divest all those that profess'd the Reform'd Religion not only of the Favour but likewise of the Benefits of Law 17. They sate from the Seventh of May till the Twentieth of July following and in that short time entirely destroy'd the Settlement of Ireland and outed both the Protestant Clergy and Laity of their Freeholds and Inheritances It is not to be exspected I should give an account of all their Acts that which concerns this present Section is to shew how they destroy'd the Protestants real Estates 1. And that was first by an Act of Repeal whereby they took away the Acts of Settlement and Explanation by virtue of which as I have already shew'd two thirds of the Protestants of the Kingdom held their Estates that is all that which is call'd New Interest was lost by this Repeal there is no consideration had in it how any Man came to his Estate but tho he purchased it at ever so dear a rate he must lose it and it is to be restor'd without Exception to the Proprietor or his Descendent that had it before October 22. 1641. upon what account soever he lost it tho they themselves did not deny but many deserv'd to lose their Estates even Sir Phelim O Neal's Son the great Murtherer and Rebel was restor'd 2. In order to make a final Extirpation of Protestants they contrive and pass an Act of Attainder by which all Protestants whose Names they could find of all Ages Sexes and Degrees are attainted of High Treason and their Estates vested in the King the pretence of this Attainder was their being out of the Kingdom at the time of passing the Act as shall be shewn in the next Section 3. Least some should be forgotten of those that were absent and not put into the Bill of Attainder they contriv'd a general Clause in the Act of Repeal whereby the real Estates of all who Dwelt or staid in any place of the three Kingdoms which did not own King Jame's Power or corresponded with any such as they term Rebels or were any ways aiding abetting or assisting to them from the First day of August 1688. are declared to be forfeited and vested in his Majesty and that without any Office or Inquisition found thereof By which Clause almost every Protestant that could Write in the Kingdom had forfeited his Estate for the Packets went from London to Dublin and back again constantly from August to March 1688. and few had Friends in England or in the North but corresponded with them by Letters and every such Letter is made by this clause a Forfeiture of Estate They had intercepted and search'd every Packet that went or came the later part of this time and kept vast Heaps of Letters which were of no Consequence at all to the Government we wondered what the meaning of their doing so should be but by this Parliament we came to understand it for now these Letters were produced as Evidences in the House of Commons against those that appear'd in behalf of their absent Friends or oppos'd the attainting of such Protestants as they had some kindness for and they were
further reserv'd to prove a Correspondence against the few Estated Men that were in the Kingdom Lastly It was the end of Sept. 1688. before we heard any thing of the Prince of Orange's design to make a Descent into England and yet to have been in England or Scotland any time in the Month before or to have corresponded with any there is made Forfeiture of Estate by the Letter of this Statute 4. Least the Children and Descendents of the Protestants thus attainted who had Estates before 1641. should come in and claim them after the Death of the attainted Persons by virtue of Settlements made on valuable Considerations and upon Marriages all such Remainders and Reversions are cut off for there is an express Exception to all Remainders on such as are commonly call'd Plantation-lands and likewise to such Lands c. as are held by Grants from the Crown or upon Grants by Commissioners upon defective Titles It were too tedious to explain these several kinds of Tenures it is sufficient to let the Reader know that they comprehend all those Estates which were acquir'd by Protestants before the year 1641. Thus then the case stood with the Protestants if they purchased or acquired their Estates since the year 1641. out of any of the Lands then forfeited they were to lose them whether Guilty or Innocent by the Act of Repeal if their Estates were such as belong'd to Protestants before 1641. and consequently were what we call Old Interest then to have been in England or Scotland or to have corresponded with any of their Friends there or in the North since August 1. 1688. was a Forfeiture of Estate and a Bar for their Remainders for ever tho the Heirs had done nothing to divest themselves of the Estates derived to them by legal Settlements on valuable Considerations And here the Partiality of this Parliament is visible for there is a saving in the Act for all such Remainders as they thought might relate to any Papist whereas all the Remainders in which they did imagine Protestants could be concern'd are bar'd 5. There is indeed a promise of reprizing Purchasers in the Act of Repeal which was put in to qualifie the manifest Injustice of it and to satisfie the Clamors of several amongst themselves who were to lose their Estates by it as having purchased new interested Land But least any Protestant who staid in the Kingdom should hope for Benefit by this Clause or be repriz'd for the Lands he had purchased perhaps from a Papist they contrive a Clause in the latter end of the Act Whereby the King is enabled to gratifie Meriting Persons and to order the Commissioners to set forth Reprizals and likewise to appoint and ascertain where and what Lands should be set out to them By which the Protestants were excluded from all hopes of Reprizals for to be sure where any of them put in for a piece of Land there would never want a Meriting Papist to put in for the same and when it was left intirely to K. James which he would prefer of those two let the World judge what hope any Protestant could have of a Reprizal Thus when Sir Thomas Newcomen put in Proposals for a Custodiam in order to a Reprizal Mr. Robert Longfield a Convert and Clerk of the Quit-rents and Absentees Goods is said to have put his own Name to Sir Thomas's Proposal and to have got the Custodiam for himself 6. Lastly Some might think that tho near 3000 Protestants were attainted and the Estates of all the rest in a manner vested in the King yet this was only done in terrorem and that K. James never meant to take the Forfeiture To this I answer That it was not left in his power to pardon any that was attainted or whose Estate was vested in him by this Act this was if we believe his Majesty more than he knew when he pass'd it and was one reason why the Act of Attainder was made so great a Secret that no Copy could be gotten of it by any Protestant till the Easter after it was pass'd and then it was gotten by a meer accident We had from the beginning labor'd to get it and offer'd largely for a Copy but could not by any means prevail Chancellor Fitton keeping the Rolls lock'd up in his Closet till at last a Gentleman procur'd it by a Stratagem which was thus Sir Thomas Southwell had been condemned for High-Treason against King James amongst other Gentlemen at Gallway in March 1688. and attainted in the Act of Attainder also he continued a Prisoner till my Lord Seaforth became acquainted with him my Lord undertook to reconcile him to the King and to get his Pardon K. James promis'd it on the Earl's Application and order was given to draw up a Warrant for it The Gentleman I mentioned being a Lawyer and an Acquaintance of Sir Thomas's was employ'd to draw it up he immediately apprehended this to be a good opportunity to get a Copy of the Act of Attainder which he had labor'd for in vain before and which was kept from us by so much Injustice He told the Earl therefore and Sir Thomas what was the real Truth that he could not draw up an effectual Pardon except he saw the Act that attainted him Hereupon the Earl obtain'd an express order from the King to have a Copy deliver'd to him Thus I believe was the only Copy taken of it after it was inrolled it was taken for the use of a Papist and was lent to the Earl who was permitted to shew it to his Lawyer and accordingly left it with him only for one day who immediately imploy'd several Persons to Copy it and the Copy was sent by the first Opportunity into England The List of the Names of those that were attainted had been obtained the January before with difficulty the Commissioners in the Custom-house who seiz'd Absentees Goods and set their Estates could not do their Work without such a List and that which was Printed in England with some of the Acts of our Irish Parliament was coppied from thence but the Act it self could not then be procured and therefore was not Printed with them When the Lawyer had drawn up the Warrant for Sir Thomas's Pardon with a full Non obstante to the Act of Attainder the Earl brought it to the Attorney General Sir Richard Nagle to have a Fiant drawn the Attorney read it and with Indignation threw it aside the Earl began to expostulate with him for using the King's Warrant at that rate The Attorney told him That the King did not know what he had done that he had attempted to do a thing that was not in his power to do that if the Earl understood our Laws or had seen the Act of Attainder he would be satisfied that the King could not dispense with it My Lord answered That he understood Sense and Reason and that he was not a Stranger to the Act of Attainder Sir Richard would
his Government over them 6. The Case of the Purchasers and Improvers in Ireland seem'd the hardest the Land forfeited by the Rebellion in 1641. was set out to those that had been Adventurers and Soldiers in that War and many of these had sold them at Twelve or Fifteen years Purchase the Purchasers had built fair Houses and Villages on them inclos'd Deer-Parks planted Orchards and Gardens and laid out vast Sums in these and other Improvements it seem'd hard to turn them out without consideration to try therefore whether any thing would make King James relent they endeavour'd to see what he would do for these poor Men how their Case was prest and represented to King James may be judged by a Paper given him by the Lord Granard and drawn up by the Chief Justice Keating with the Approbation of other Protestants 't is in the Appendix King James read it and made no other answer to it but That he would not do evil that good might come of it the meaning of which Words as then apply'd is not easily understood It has been a common Question put to the Gentlemen of Ireland by some that neither know them nor their Affairs What have you lost But sure whosoever knows the extent of Ireland and the value of Land in it will see that the Interest of the English Protestants ruined by King James since he came to the Crown is of greater value than the Estates of all that favour his Cause in England and Scotland and I suppose it would put them out of conceit with him or any other King that should take away but one half of their Estates from them SECT XIII Eighthly King James brought the Lives of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland into imminent danger 1. I Suppose from the former Sections it is sufficiently apparent what Invasions King James made on the Liberties and Fortunes of his Protestant Subjects there remained to them only their Lives and these as will appear from this Section were put in imminent danger by him many were lost and the rest escap'd with the greatest hazard When King James came into Ireland it was certainly his Interest to exercise his Clemency towards his Protestant Subjects and he knew it to be so and therefore in his Declaration which he sent privately into England he made large Professions of his tenderness towards them and boasted how much their safety had been his care every body expected a Proclamation for a General Pardon and Indemnity should have been sent before him and that â—e would have put an effectual stop to the illegal Prosecutions against their Lives and to the Robberies of their Fortunes that every where were going on at his coming but on the contrary he rather pusht on both and not content with the Laws that already were in force which Partial Judges and Juries wrâ—sted to destroy them he made new snares for them by Acts of his pretended Parliament and by several private declarations whereby not only he but his inferior Officers took on them to dispose of the Lives of Protestants 2. It is not reasonable to charge his Majesty with the private Murther committed on Men in their Houses which were many up and down the Kingdom several even in the City of Dublin Only thus far in some degree he may be thought responsible for them he knew very well with what barbarous Murthers the Papists of Ireland had been charg'd in the Rebellion of 1641 he knew what inveterate hatred they carried towards the Protestants and how many Tories and Robbers constantly disturbed the Peace of the Kingdom and yet without any necessity at all he threw himself upon these People he encouraged them he Armed them he gave Commissions even to those that had been Tories and guilty of Murthers and therefore cannot altogether be excused from the Irregularities committed by them especially when there was no search made after or Prosecution of the Murthers as it happened in the case of Colonel Murry of Westmeath Brother in law to my Lord Granard an old Gentleman who had serv'd King Charles the first and second and suffered considerably for his Loyalty he was way-laid and shot dead as he rode to his own House under King James's Protection and with some marks as he imagined of his Favour Yet no enquiry was made after it There were many such private Murthers but I do not think it necessary to insist on them I shall confine my self to such as are of a more publick Nature which gave us just reasons to fear that the Government had a design upon our Lives 3. Such were first encouraging Witnesses to swear us into feigned Plots and Conspiracies of these there were many set up in the Kingdom almost every County had one set up in it and many were put into Prison and indicted for high Treason as Captain Phillips and Mr. Bowen in the County oâ— Westmeath and several others in other places some of which I have before mentioned and when the perjuries of the Witnesses came to be plainly discovered they yet were encouraged and protected from any Legal prosecution Of this nature a Conspiracy was framing against one Mr. William Spike and if it had taken effect it would have reached to a great many more The contrivance was thus one Dennis Connor had a mind to a small Employment which Mr Spike held in the Castle he had petitioned for it but Spike by the Interest of my Lord Powis tho a Protestant kept his place being found diligent in it Connor resolv'd to try another experiment to get him removed he framed a Letter as from one in Inniskilling directed to Spike in which the writer thanks him for his Intelligence and refers to a method agreed on for seizing the Castle of Dublin on a certain Day The Letter to make the thing more credible abuses King James in very ill terms Connor drops this Letter in the Castle where Spike came every Day knowing that as soon as it was found Spike would be seized and then he might manage the Plot as he pleased but his Contrivance was spoiled for the Sentinel saw him drop the Paper and procured him immediately to be seized he was examined before the Chief Justice and I think before King James also why he wrote such a wicked Letter he said it was for the Kings service to remove Spike whom he believed to be a Rogue and who being a Protestant would betray the King Spike Prosecuted him in the Kings-Bench but after all that could be done the Jury brought Connor in not Guilty pretending that it did not appear that this was the very Letter dropt by Connor tho he had confest it before the King and the Lord Cheif Justice and tho it was proved and owned to be his hand and a rough draft of it found with him and the Sentinel swore he dropt a Letter which he delivered to the Officer and the Officer swore that was the Letter delivered by the Sentinel to him tho
but by the legal course of Juries But King James and his Parliament intended to do the work of Protestants speedily and effectually and not to wait the slow methods of proceeding at the Common Law They resolv'd therefore on a Bill of Attainder and in order to it every Member of the House of Commons return'd the Names of such Protestant Gentlemen as liv'd near him or in the County or Burrough for which he serv'd and if he was a stranger to it he sent into the County or Place for information they were in great haste and many escaped them on the other hand some that were actually in King James's Service and fighting for him at Derry of which Cornet Edmund Keating Nephew to my Lord Chief Justice Keating was one were return'd as absent and attainted in the Act. When they had made a Collection of Names they cast them into several Forms and attainted them under several Qualifications and accordingly allow'd them time to come in and put themselves on Tryal the Qualifications and Numbers were as follow 1. Persons Attainted of Rebellion who had time given them till till the Tenth of August to surrender themselves and be tryed provided they were in the Kingdom and amenable to the Law at the time of making the Act otherwise were absolutely Attainted One Archbishop One Duke Fourteen Earls Seventeen Viscounts and one Viscountess Two Bishops Twelve Barons Twenty six Baronets Twenty two Knights Fifty six Clergymen Eleven hundred fifty three Esquires Gentlemen c. 2. Persons who were absentees before the Fifth of Novem. 1688 not returning according to the Proclamation of the Twenty fifth of March attainted if they do not appear by the First of September 1689. One Lord. Seven Knights Eight Clergymen Sixty five Esquires Gentlemen c. 3. Persons who were Absentees before the Fifth of November 1688. not returning according to the Proclamation of the Twenty fifth of March attainted if they do not appear by the First day of October 1689. One Archbishop One Earl One Viscount Five Bishops Seven Baronets Eight Knights Nineteen Clergymen Four hunder'd thirteen Esquires Gentlemen c. 4. Persons usually resident in England who are to signifie their Loyalty in case the King goes there the First of October 1689. and on His Majesties Certificate to the Chief Governour here they to be discharged otherwise to stand attainted One Earl Fifteen Viscounts and Lords Fourteen Knights Four hunder'd ninety two Esquires Gentlemen c. 5. Absentees by reason of sickness and noneage on proving their Loyalty before the last day of the first Term after their return to be acquitted and restor'd in the mean time their Estates Real and Personal are vested in His Majesty One Earl Seven Countesses One Viscountess Thirteen Ladies One Baronet Fifty nine Gentlemen and Gentlewomen 6. They vest all Lands c. belonging to Minors Ladies Gentlewomen in the King till they return and then upon Proof of their Loyalty and Faithfulness to King James they are allow'd to sue for their Estates before the Commissioners for executing the Acts of Repeal and Attainder if sitting or in the High Court of Chancery or Court of Exchequer and upon a Decree obtain'd for them there the Sheriffs are to put them in possession of so much as by the Decree of one of those Courts shall be adjudged them The Clauses in the Act are so many and so considerable that it never having been printed intire I thought it convenient to put it into the Appendix Perhaps it was never equall'd in any Nation since the time of the Proscription in Rome and not then neither for here is more than half as many Condemned in the small Kingdom of Ireland as was at that time proscribed in the greatest part of the then known World yet that was esteemed an unparallel'd Cruelty When Sir Richard Nagle Speaker of the House of Commons presented the Bill to King James for his Royal Assent he told him that many were attainted in that Act by the House of Commons upon such Evidence as fully satisfied the House the rest of them were attainted he said upon common Fame A Speech so very brutish that I can hardly perswade my self that I shall gain credit to the Relation but it is certainly true the Houses of Lords and Commons of their pretended Parliament are Witnesses of it and let the World judge what security Protestants could have of their Lives when so considerable a Lawyer as Sir Richard Nagle declares in so solemn an occasion and King James with his Parliament approves that common Fame is a sufficient Evidence to deprive without hearing so many of the Gentry Nobility and Clergy of their Lives and Fortunes without possibility of pardon and not not only cut off them but their Children and Posterity likewise By a particular Clause from advantages of which the former Laws of the Kingdom would not have deprived them though their Fathers had been found guilty of the worst of Treasons in particular Tryals 7. I shall only add a few Observations on this Act and leave the Reader to make others as he shall find occasion 1. Then this Act leaves no room for the King to pardon after the last day of November 1689. if the Pardon be not Enroll'd before that time the Act declares it absolutely void and null 2. The Act was conceal'd and no Protestant for any Money permitted to see it much less take a Copy of it till the time limited for Pardons was past at least Four Months So that the State of the Persons here attainted is desperate and irrecoverable except an Irish Popish Parliament will relieve them for King James took care to put it out of the power of any English Parliament as well as out of his own Power to help them by consenting to another Act of this pretended Parliament Intituled An Act declaring that the Parliaments of England cannot bind Ireland and against Writs of Errors and Repeals out of Ireland into England 3. It is observable with what hast and confusion this Act was drawn up and past perhaps no man ever heard of such a crude imperfect thing so ill digested and compos'd past on the World for a Law We find the same Person brought in under different Qualifications in one Place he is expresly allow'd till the First of October to come and submit to Tryalâ— and yet in another Place he is attainted if he do not come in by the First of September many are attainted by wrong Names many have their Christian Names left out and many whose Names and Sirnames are both put in are not distinguished by any Character whereby they may be known from others of the same Names 4. Many considerable Persons are left out which certainly had been put in if they could have gotten their Names which is a further proof of their hast and confusion in passing the Bill It is observable the Provost Fellowâ— and Scholars of the Colledge by Dublin are all omitted the Reason was
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
and John Sandisford of the same Gent. Henry Westenra of Athlacca in the County of Limerick Esq John Piggot of Kilfenny Esq Richard Stephens of Newcastle Gent. William Trenchard of Mountrenchard Esq ... Trenchard his eldest Son Eramus Smith of Carrigogonnagh Esq .... Harrison of Ballyvorneene Gent. Hugh Massey sen. of Doontrilige Esq Randall Clayton of Williamstown Gent. Henry Hartstonge Arch-Deacon of the Diocess of Limerick and William Harrison of Tuoreen Gent. all late of the County of Limerick Elnathan Lâ—m Merchant Vincent Gookin of Court-Mac-Shiry Esq Jonas Stowell of Killbritten Esq Philip Dimond of Cork Merchant Thomas Mitchell of the same Merchant Richard Boyle of Shannon-Parke Esq Achilles Daunt of Dortigrenau Gent. Nicholas Lysaght of Ardohnoge Gent. and William Harman of Carrigdownam Esq all late of the County of Cork William Gibbs of ... in the County of Waterford Gent. Loftus Brightwell Gent. Robert Beard Gent. Barzilla Jones Dean of Lismore Matthias Aldington of Tircuillinmore Gent. William Aldlington of the same Gent. and Richard Silver of Youghall Gent. all late of the Counties of Waterford and Cork Henry Brady of Tomgreny in the County of Clare Gent. Richard Picket of Clonmel in the County of Tipperary Esq John Lovet Esq John Castle of Richard's-Town Gent. Joseph Ruttorne of Poolekerry Gent. Thomas Vallentine of Killoman Gent. George Clarke of Ballytarsney Gent. John Bright of Shanrehin Gent. George Clarke of the same Gent. Thomas Climmuck of Tullamacyne Gent. William Warmsby Gent. Richard Clutterbuck of Derryluskane Gent. Erasmus Smith of Tipperary Esq William Watts of Drangan Gent. John Evelin of the same Gent. .... Shapcoate of Loghkent Gent. .... Page of the same Gent. Thomas Moor of Carrageenesâ—iragh Gent. Humphery Wray of Ballyculline Gent. Edward Crafton of Luorhane Gent. Alderman ... Clarke of .... John Clarke Gent. Arthur Annesloe Gent. William Warwick and Purefoy Warwick of Ballysidii Gent. Capt. .... Cope Robert Boyle of Killgraunt Gent. Hugh Radcliffe of Clonmel Gent. Edward Nelthrop Gent. Robert Dixon Samuel Clarke Gent. John Jones Gent. Henry Payne Gent. George Clarke of Tobberheny Gent. Edward Huchinson of Knocklosty Gent. Richard Aldworth late chief Remembrancer John Baiggs of Castletowd Gent. and John Buckworth of Shanballyduffe Esq all late of the County of Cipperary John Kingsmell of Castlesin in the County of Donnegall Esq James Hamilton of Dunmanagh in the County of Tyrone Gent. John Aungier Minister of the Vicarage of Lurgen in the County of Cavan William Allen of Kilmore in the County of Monaghan Gent. James Davys of Carrickfergus in the County of Antrim Gent. Samuel Warring of Warringstown in the County of Down Gent. Henry Cope of Loghall in the County of Ardmagh Gent. Gilbert Thacker of Cluttan Esq Archibald Johnson of Loghelly Clerk Oliver St. John of Toneregee Esq and William Brookes of Droincree Clerk all late of the County of Ardmagh Capt. Thomas Caulfeild of Dunamon in the County of Galloway Josepb Stuart of Turrock in the County of Roscomon Gent. and Henry Dodwell of Leytrin in the same County Gent. Paul Gore of Newton in the County of Mayo Esq Have before the said fifth Day of November last absented themselves from this Kingdom and live in England Scotland or the Isle-of-Man and there now abide and by their not coming or returning into this Kingdom upon your Majesties Proclamation to assist in Defence of this Realm according to their Allegiance must be presumed to adhere to the said Prince of Orange in case they return not within the time by this Act prescribed and thereby may justly forfeit all the Lands Tenements the Hereditaments which they or any of them are intituled unto within this Kingdom Be it therefore enacted by the Authority aforesaid that in case the said Person and Persons last mentioned do not by the first Day of October one thousand six hundred eighty nine of his and their own Accord without Compulsion return into this Kingdom and tender him and themselves to the chief Justice of your Majesties Court of Kings-Bench oâ— to some other Judg of the said Court or Judg of Assize in his Circuit or to any of the Lords of your Majesties most honourable Privy Council to be charged with any Crime or Crimes to him or them to be charged or imputed that then or in case he or they upon such his or their Return shall be convict by Verdict of twelve Men or by his or their own Confession upon his or their Arraignment for Treason or upon his or their Arraignment stand mute such Person and Persons so absent and not returning as aforesaid or after his or their Return being convict of Treason as aforesaid shall from and after the said first Day of October one thousand six hundred eighty nine be deemed reputed and taken as Traytors convict and attainted of High-Treason and shall suffer such Pains of Death and other Forfeitures and Penalties as in Cases of High-Treason is accustomed But in case such Person and Persons so returning upon such his or their Trial be acquitted or discharged by Proclamation then such Person and Persons respectively shall from thence-forth be freed discharged and acquitted from all Pains Punishments and Forfeitures by this Act incurred laid or imposed any thing in this Act to the contrary notwithstanding Provided always that in case your Majesty shall happen to go into the Kingdom of England or Scotland before the first Day of October one thousand six hundred eighty nine Then if the said Sir William Meredith Sir Charles Chiney Sir Charles Lloyd Sir Algernon Mayo Sir Richard May Sir Joseph Williamson Sir William Barker Alexander Fraizer Esq John Hollam .... Daniel of the Iron-Works Brooke Bridges Charles Vaughan Hugh Merrick Nathaniel Huett Hierom Hawkins Major John Reade William Trenchard .... Trenchard his eldest Son Erasmus Smith .... Harrison of Ballyverneen Achilles Daunt John Power Lord Decies William Gibbs Loftus Brightwell Robert Beard Matthias Aldington William Aldington John Lovett John Castle Joseph Rittorne Thomas Vallentine George Clarke of Ballytrasiny John Bright George Clarke of Shaurelin Thomas Chinnucks William Warmsby Richard Clutturbruck Erasmus Smith William Watts John Evellin .... Shapcoate of Loghkent .... Page of the same Thomas Moore Humphery Wray Edward Crofton Alderman Clarke John Clarke Arthur Anslow William Warwick Purefoy Warwick Capt. ... Coapes Robert Boyle of Killgrant Hugh Radcliffe Edward Nelthrop Robert Dixon Samuel Clarke John Jones Henry Payne George Clarke and Gilbert Thacker whose Dwelling and Residence always hath been in England shall give your Majesty such Testimony of their Loyalty and Fidelity as that your Majesty will be pleased on or before the said first Day of October one thousand six hundred eighty nine to certify under your Privy Signet or Sign manual unto your chief Governor or Governors of this Kingdom That your Majesty is satisfied or assured of the Loyalty and Fidelity of the Persons last before-named or of any of them That then if such Certificate shall on or before the first Day of November
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
that produced such Fatal Effects ought to be insisted upon or embraced If the King of France had not been too generous and too Christian a Prince were it not a sufficient Motive for him to reject the King in his Disgrace that upon those rotten Principles rejected his Alliance yet those and only those Principles will be made use of to perswade you there that you must not think of your own Restauration and Assurance at Home first but go into England to restore the Catholicks And if there be any other Adherents of the King 's there and that it will be time enough to think of your own Restauration after Which is the same as to say at Dooms-day For never a Catholick or other English will ever think or make a step nor suffer the King to make a step for your Restauration but leave you as you were hitherto and leave your Enemies over your Heads to crush you any time they please and cut you off Root and Branch as they now publickly declare And blame themselves they have not taken away your Lives along with your Estates long ago nor is there any Englishman Catholick or other of what Quality or Degree soever alive that will stick to sacrifice all Ireland for to save the least Interest of his own in England and would as willingly see all Ireland over inhabited by English of whatsoever Religion as by the Irish and yet by their fine Politicks they would perswade the Irish to come and save their Houses from burning whilst they leave their own on fire Which is no better than to look upon People as so many Fools when every body knows that Charity begins at Home that one's Charity for himself is the Rule and Measure of that he ought to have for his Neighbour diliges proximum tuum sicut teipsum Is it not a better and more Christian Politick for the King and all that are faithful unto him to restore first a whole Kingdom that stands out for him when all the rest failed to their Birth-right which they have been out of these Thirty Six Years only for being obstinately Loyal to his Father Brother and himself than to displease those who have been and are still Loyal and who can get any Condition they please from the Enemy to join with them by thus pleasing or trimming with those who never were or ever will be True or Faithful and when they are thus restored and no Enemies left in their Bowels that can do his Majesty or them any Harm then to go in a strong Body together with his Majesty into England join with all such that will prove Faithful and Loyal and so restore his Majesty to his Throne and each one to his right I would fain know from these trimming Politicks whether it be not securer and more honourable for the King to offer all fair Means and shew his Clemency to his People when he is in Condition to force them to what he pleases to exact of them than to be daily undervaluing himself by offering them all the fair Means imaginable which they slight and scorn because they seeing he has no Means to force them or do them Harm think he does all only out of fear and not by any sincere or true Affection And I would fain further know if it be not better and greater Policy for him to put the Kingdom of Ireland still so Loyal unto him upon the best and highest Foot both Ecclesiastical and Temporal he can contrive and yet granting it nothing but its natural Right and Due that it may be a Check upon the People of England who are ready every New-Moon to Rebel then to keep it still in a continual Slavery and full dependance on such perfidious and inconstant People and himself deprived of the support he can still have from thence against their Revolt I dare averr if Ireland were put upon such a foot by the King he shall never fear any Rebellion in England especially if Scotland be faithful to him and France a Friend all which can now be well contrived and concerted But when all is done I would fain yet know from those Politick Trimmers by what Law of God or Man Ecclesiastical or Politick they think Ireland is bound to be the Sacrifice and Victim of the Rebellion of England either for to hinder those turbulent People from Rebelling or for to Reconcile them to their Duty by giving them forsooth as Recompence the Estates of those unfortunate Catholicks and send themselves a begging I dare say no Catholick in England much less a Protestant who would so easily give his consent and advice that the Estates of the Irish Catholicks may serve as a Recompence for the English Rebels would willingly give a Plow-Land of his own Estate to Reconcile all the Rebels of England to their Duty if he were not afraid to lose his own whole Estate by the Rebellion and yet would advise to do to others what he would not have to be done to himself contrary to the great Rule and Maxim of Nature and Christianity Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri ne feceris I would fain further know from this Politick Trimmer so large of other Peoples Goods and so sparing of his own if one Province in England had revolted against their King as the whole Kingdom does now and that the rest of the Provinces continued faithful would they think fit or prudent to give their Lands and Estates to those Rebels for laying down their Arms and go beg themselves Or would the King expect or desire it from them No sure but rather that they should take up Arms and joyn with His Majesty to reduce and punish such Rebels in lieu of recompencing them with the Loyal's Estates And is not that the case of the Irish Why do you not then judge alike Or if you do not look upon an Irish man as a Fool why will you have him do what you say is not fit for your self or other fellow-Subjects to do in like case And sure you must think him a Fool and after-wit as you use to say if he will be perswaded by your Trimming Politick to leave his own Estate to his Enemy and come to save yours who would but laugh at him the next day at the best for his folly If their great and long Vexations have not given the Irish better understanding and know how little regard all the English whatsoever have for them they deserve to be dealt with like Fools But who would think it were Prudent or Politick for the King to bring a great Body of Men out of Ireland into England or Scotland leaving behind him in Ireland a considerable strong Party of Phanaticks all Enemies whatever outward shew they make to the contrary to rise in Arms as soon as they see the King turn his Back to them and they get a supply from their fellow Rebels out of England which will not be wanting at any time and so cut the Throats
of all His Majesty's true Subjects in Ireland and shut himself up between two Potent Enemies in England and Ireland whereas by setting the Irish on a sure foot he always hath for a Refuge that Country which he will find to be far better than nothing and may be with time a means to come into England But Trimmers will tell him That it is no matter for His Majesty if he can gain the English Rebels by sacrificing Ireland to them who will inhabit it whether English or Irish nay I believe rather English and so make it an English Interest all along and he will be apt to believe it but it imports the Irish to look about them and consider if that be their Interest Add to all these considerations with many more and better you can think of an essential and indispensible one which is to please this King and Court of whom his Majesty now and you all depend solely and wholly by saving their Interest along with that of his Majesty and your own which cannot be done but by settling of Ireland upon the best and most advantageous foot that can be contrived with Reason and Justice 〈◊〉 it may be a Check upon England as Scotland formerly to keep it from Rebellion against their own Prince From trouble and Invasion upon France and a Tye upon the Kings of England hereafter to keep good Correspondence with France and keep Ireland in a flourishing happy condition and not to be Slaves to all the People and Scums of England If 48 or other were loath to press any such Conditions or Proposals on the King they may make use of the French Minister Count D'Avaux who is with him as a good Adviser and for to manage his Masters Interest I think it may be well and rationally proposed if by the King of France's means such an advantageous settlement may be procured for the Nation and that he would be as a Guarranty or Protection of it to give him as well for his assurance or Guarranty as for the payment of what he advances for the King and Country some Sea-ports in Ireland as you have hinted in your last This is what now comes into my head upon this Subject which M. B. does not neglect to insinuate and imprint as much as he can though not well in his health into the Heads and Hearts of the Ministers and People about Court Though 27 gave no Power or Credit to any body here to speak of Business but to his Son-in-Law L. W. in Cypher 110. but M. B. does it privately upon his own account and acquaintance with the People without thwarting him in any of his Ways But you know what one says tanquam potestatem habeâ—s carries more weight than what he says as a private man And therefore I think it were not amiss that 48. from himself or by the said French Ministers means may get order from 27 that 92 may be heard and Credited at Court as to the Concerns of 78 which to prevent and hinder some that would not have it put into 27's head as 't is thought to desire 92 to follow him as soon as he were well in his health along with 23 and before he saw himself to tell him so knowing he was sick gave orders to 18's fellow traveller whom I added to the Cypher thus 112 to tell him so which he has perform'd only by another Master Barry belonging to 34 for he never came himself to see him which I think was not prudently done of him setting civility aside for they may communicate one to another what may be best to do with 86 for the service of 78 and certainly without any vanity 92 knew better how to manage that interest with 86 than he or any of his profession there But I find some do suspect the sincerity of that Man for the Publick Interest I know not if they wrong him but one thing I know he does not like to see any of 64 or 65 have any hand in Business Of which I think I gave you once already a hint from 87 when he and 98 were there and I cannot tell but it may be he that might have given 27 that advice of drawing 92 from hence who desires not to be but where he may be most useful to his Religion King and Country and if any necessity may be of his Vote there he can send you a Procuration in blank if he be thought more useful or necessary here 'T is now high time I suppose you should ask me what is this great and solid settlement I would have for Ireland To which I answer That you and others there likely know best But that I may speak my own little sense on the matter I say I would have two or three of the Irish Nation to be still of the Kings Council and one of them Secretary of State for the Affairs of Ireland as Scotland has I would have some of their Nobility to be of the Bedchamber by reason both of Honour and Interest I would have all the Employments Civil and Military given to the Natives of the Country Unless the Country thought â—it to introduce some Strangers for better advantage and improvements I would have them restored to their Estates both Spiritual and Temporal usurped by the Cromwellians or under the Title of being Protestants yet with that Proviso for the Spiritual that a Competent Pension should be allowed to the Protestant Possessor during his Life for he can pretend no longer Lease of it or that he should give the Catholick Bishop or Incumbenâ— a competent Pension if it were thought fitter to let him enjoy his Possession during Life I would have the Commerce and Traffick settled with all the Advantage due to a 〈◊〉 Nation and Subjects of which the Merchants 〈◊〉 inform best without any other dependence on or relation to England but what Subjects ought to the King and Crown of which I would not derogate in the least but nothing to do with the Merchants and People of England no more than with those of France Spain and Holland But my Politick Trimmer will say this is of a dangerous consequence for England and for the King in relation to it for they will say the King intends to establish the same Government amongst them both in Spirituals and Temporals that he has in Ireland To which I answer in the first place That we are not here to manage or speak for the Interest of England which would not fail to speak and stand for it self Secondly I say That the Consequence from Ireland's Case to England's does not follow For in Ireland the Catholick Party is much more numerous and strong than the Protestant So that it is for the King's Interest there to favour them or at least do them Justice But in England where the number of Protestants and other Sectaries is by much the greater he can order things otherwise without any Contradiction for â—â—om the one to the other the Consequence does
or to a Field of mine that lies convenient for him I tell him that I have no mind to part with them He offers me Money for them I tell him that I will not sell them He tires me out with Importunities and at length I consent to part with them in exchange for some other things as good as they But I tell him withall that I my self will be Judge whether they are so or not since it is at his importunity and to please him that I part with them And besides that I am resolv'd to be possessed of the Equivolent at the same time that I part with my own there being no reason why I should dance attendance after him and wait his leisure for my Reprizal My Lords If these be the true Conditions of Reprizals as I presume they are I am confident that not one of them is like to be observed in the intended Reprizals not the first of them For by the Petitions that have been before your Lordships and by an additional Clause in your Lordships Alterations wherein you have saved all Remainders expectant on Estates for Lives most of the Reprizable Persons must Part with an Inheritance to them and their Heirs and get only in Lieu of it an Estate for Life which will determine with the Life of the forfeiting Persons So here is not Equal Value Worth and Purchase Not the Second For the Parties themselves are not made the Judges but the Commissioners And I dare say that if they were made the Judges there is not one of them that are to be turn'd out that will part with their present Possessions or that judge the Reprizal to bear any proportion with the Estates they are to quit Not the Third For by the Commons Bill they are to be turn'd out immediatly and wait for a Reprizal afterwards and all the Favour they can obtain from your Lordships is only to have a competent time for their removal which may be long or short as the Commissioners please but out they must go at the discretion of the Commissioners and wait their leisure for a Reprizal This is the first Objection against this Bill The next is that it is not for the Publick Good either for the King or the Kingdom or the People in it It is not for the good of the King who is the Vital Head of this great Body and that whether we respect his Majesties Honour or his Profit It is not for his Majesties Honour to consent to the Ruining of so many Innocent Loyal Persons as must unavoidably perish if this Bill doth pass It is not for his Honour to rescind those just Acts of his Royal Father and Brother the Act for Adventurers passed in England and the Declaration and Acts of Settlement and Explanation which if I am not misinform'd were five years upon the Anvil and at last not pass'd till all Parties were fully heard It is not for his Majesties Honour to break his word with his People nor violate so many repeated Promises as he hath made that he would not Consent to the Repeal of them And as it is not for his Honour so it is not for his Profit or Advantage it will neither preserve him in the Kingdom that he enjoys nor restore him to those that he has unhappily lost His Profit in this Kingdom must arise out of a Constant Payment of his Revenue both Ordinary and Extraordinary And who is able to pay His Revenue or support the Dignity of his Crown if this Bill passeth into a Law The Protestants are not able the Rapparees have Plundered them of all their Substance and here is a Bill to take away their Estates and consequently they will have nothing left to pay the Publick Taxes of the Nation And as for the Romanists they will be in as ill a Condition as the Protestants The Old Proprietor comes Poor and Hungry into his Estate and can pay nothing till his Tenants raise it and the present Possessor loseth the Benefit of his Purchases and Improvements and who then is able to supply the Necessities of His Majesty Besides this in many parts of the Kingdom the Land is hardly able to pay the Kings Quit-Rent by reason of the Universal Depredations that Reign every where and can it be imagin'd but that things will grow far worse when the ablest Catholick Merchants and the most Wealthy Purchasers of that Communion are ruin'd and undone And as it is not for the Kings Profit in this Kingdom so it is to the utter Ruine of his Interest in the Kingdoms that he has lost Will the Protestants in England and Scotland join heartily in restoring him to his Crown when they understand how their Brethren here are used No My Lords They will rather bend and unite all their Forces to hinder his Restitution when they consider that the mischief is like to come home to their own Doors and that what is a doing here is but a Model of what they must suffer if he be restored Will they trust his Word in England when he breaks it in Ireland or rely on his Promises to them when he doth not keep them to his Subjects here This my Lords will abate their Affections for him and gain him more Enemies there than he can have Friends here It is not for the good of the Kingdom and that if we consider it in reference to Trade Wealth Improvements Husbandry It will ruine the Kingdom in point of Trade Divine Providence hath placed us in an Island where we must Trade or want many conveniences of Life and can we expect that the Trade of this Nation will increase in our hands when we find it sunk so low by the removal of the Protestant Merchants effects out of the Kingdom and for those Catholick Merchants that carry it on in some measure can we believe that they will be able to carry it on when we are ruining their Stocks by taking away their Estates and Improvements from them Nay we shall not only ruine our own Traders at home but break their Correspondents abroad whose effects are in their hands We have passed a Bill in this House for the Inviting Strangers to Settle and Trade among us but it is worth considering whether the Course we are now taking will not hinder the Nation of the intended benefit of that Bill for if Foreign Merchants come among us what Security have they but the Publick Faith of the Nation and it is not probable that Strangers will rely upon it when they observe that it is so ill kept towards our own people If Trade decays the Wealth of the Nation must perish with it for they live and die together Wealth cannot subsist without Trade or without security for Debt And who will ever lend Money or Purchase or Improve in this Kingdom after this when the Money that hath been lent and the Purchases made from Persons deriving their Estates under two Acts of Parliament many years
p. 118 119 3. Protestants impoverished by vexatious Law Suits p. 119 4. By Delays and the Treachery of Popish Council p. 120 5. By defending their Charters and being forced to take out new ones ibid. 6. By free Quarters Inkeepers and Houskeepers ruined p. 121 7. By the burden of Priests and Fryars p. 122 Sect. 10. Thirdly King James's own Attempts on the same p. 123 1. Quartering on private Houses contrary to the Articles to Lord Mountjoy Most Soldiers had many Quarters Mischievous in their Quarters Instance in Brown who robbed his Landlord and swore Treason against him p. 123 124 2. Plundering and killing the Protestants Stock Vast numbers destroyed and stolen p. 125 3. Irish encouraged to do so no Redress upon Complaints p 126 4. Nugent avowed it Rapparees Necessary Evils Stop put to this Trade when they began to rob one another p. 127 Sect. 11. Fourthly King James's further Methods to compleat the ruin of the Protestants Personal Fortunes p. 128 1. Taking away Absentees Goods Bill for it in Parliament ibid. Methods to drain those that staid of their ready Mony p. 129 1. By Licences for Ships to go for England ibid. 2. By pretended Liberty of Transporting Goods p. 130 3. Licences for Persons to go for England ibid. 4. By Protections granted and voided ibid. 5. By seizing Mony and Plate upon Informations ibid. 6. Boiselot's Dragooning of Cork ibid. 7. Act for the Subsidy at 20000 l. per Month on Lands ibid. 2. Second Subsidy of 20000 l. per Month on Personal Estates ibid. Debates in Council about this and Manner of ordering it ibid. 3. Tax for the Militia p. 132 4. Tax for fortifying the Avenues of Dublin ibid. 5. Tax for quartering Soldiers call'd Bed-Mony p. 133 6. Brass Mony Illegal Void the necessity of Parliaments ibid. Of what Metal and how much coined viz. 965375 l. in one year p. 134 Forced to be taken in all Payments ibid. Fitton forced it on Trustees for Orphans p. 135 7. Lutterell forced it on pain of Death by the Provost-Martial ibid. On Smith Leeson Bennet Widow Chapman her barbarous usage ibid. Papists not forced to receive it from Protestants p 136 8. Seizing of Protestants Wooll Hides Tallow p. 137 Peircy to have bin hanged for saying he was not willing to part with them p. 138 Protestants not permitted to Export them Their Imports seized ibid. 9. Seizing of Corn and Mault The Treason of having Bisket Giles Meigh p. 139 Difficult for Protestants to get Corn or Bread this before Harvest would have forced out all their Silver ibid. 10. Seizing Wool as soon as shorn p. 140 Searching Houses for Copper and Brass for the Mint and taking private Accompts of what else the Protestants had in in their Houses ibid. 11. Lord Mayors rating of Merchant Goods Forced on the Protestants but disregarded by the Papists instance in the very Lord Mayor himself ibid. 12. Proclamation to Rate Silver and Gold in Exchange for Brass on pain of death p. 141 13. Inference from the whole ibid. Sect. 12. Fifthly King James's destruction of the Protestants Real Estates p. 142 1. Explication of old and new Interest and account of the Acts of Settlement and of the Tenure by which the Protestants held their Estates ibid. The Papists outed of their Estates by the late Rebellion still kept up a claim to them and made Jointures and Settlements of them which were confirmed in King James's Parliament p. 143 2. King James at his first coming to the Crown gave out he would preserve the Acts of Settlement Lord Clarendon Lord Chancellor Porter and the Judges in Circuit directed to declare it ibid. The Papists knew it was only colour p. 144 Nagle's Coventry Letter first openly broke the matter October 26. 1686. ibid. Tirconnell at his coming Governour leaves it out of the Proclamation ibid. Nugent and Rice sent to England to concert the methods of Repealing it but concealed for the present their success p. 145 At their return prepared for a Parliament ibid. For which Matters had been fitted by the Quo Warranto's and reversal of Outlawries against the Irish Peers ibid. 3. Papists had not patience to wait for their Estates till a Parliament but went to work by counterfeit Deeds and by old Injunctions of the Court of Claims p. 146 4. Matters ripe for a Parliament but put off till the Parliament which was to sit in England November 1688. should take off the Penal Laws c. p. 147 5. at King James's arrival in Ireland it was against his Interest to call a Parliament First because of loss of time the Kingdom not reduced ibid. 6. Secondly which was King James's Allegation for not calling one in England this reflected on his sincerity p. 148 7. Thirdly It was the way to disoblige all that were inclined to him in England and Scotland ibid. 8. Fourthly It disobliged a great many of the Irish themselves ibid. 9. Fifthly It rendered all not under his power desperate p. 149 10. Against all Reason and Interest he called one being resolved to Dye a Martyr or Establish Popery ibid. 11. This Parliament fitted for our ruin both in respect of the King and of both Houses ibid. 13. Method of filling the House of Lords with Popish Peers Only four or five Protestant Temporal and four Spiritual Lords ibid. Several Acts past not by consent of these last though it be pretended in their Preambles p. 150 14. House of Commons how filled Manner of Electing Members Only two Protestants that could be called such in it p. 151 15. The whole House a slave to the Kings Will. No Protestations allowed p. 153 16. How much Reason we as well as England had to dread Papists in a Parliament p. 154 17. First Account of the Act of Repeal ibid. Secondly Of the Act of Attainder p. 155 Thirdly Clause in it of holding Correspondence since Aug. 1. 1688. ibid. Fourthly Clause of cutting off Remainders p. 156 Fifthly No Protestant might hope to be reprized by the Act of Repeal ibid. Sixthly Clause in the Act of Attainder against the Kings Pardoning which was the Reason this Act was kept so secret Copy procured by Mr. Coghlan Upon account of Sir Thomas Southwell's Pardon Sollicited by Lord Seaforth King James in a Passion with Sir Richard Nagle for betraying his Prerogative by this Clause against Pardoning p. 157 158 159 18. Observations First King James could not dispense when the Irish pleased ibid. Secondly Near three thousand Protestants condemned for not coming in by a day and yet the Act never published but kept secret ibid. Thirdly Folly of attainted Persons to think of ever being Pardoned if King James be restored since it is not in his power p. 160 Fourthly Papists got into their Estates before the time set in the Act of Repeal ibid. 19. Means how the Papists got Possessions p. 161 First Popish Tenants attorn'd to their old Popish Landlords ibid. Secondly Advantages taken of Clauses in the Act of Repeal ibid.
observable how they evaded this Statute It positively requires that every Officer shall take and receive a Corporal Oath there set down and if any refused to take it then he is to forfeit whatever Office he hath at the time of the refusal and be disabled to retain or Exercise any Office Now to elude this Law the Oath was never tendered to their new Officers and consequently said they they never refused it neither are they liable to the Penalties of this Act. This was plainly against the design of the Statute a playing with the Words of it and shewed us that all Laws were insufficient to secure us against such Jusuitical Prevaricators By an Act made in the time of Henry VII it is Treason to stir up the Irish Country to War against the English and by several other Laws made both in England and Ireland the Papists especially the Irish are disabled to hold Places of Power or Trust and particularly Papists are excluded from Freedom in Corporations by a Clause in the Act of Settlement on which the new Rules for Regulating Corporations made by the Earl of Essex at his first coming to the Government are founded Now so great was King James's Passion for these People that he was not content to have them about him to shew them Countenance and Favour but in defiance of so many Laws he would needs thrust them into the Government and set them over Protestants who in making those Laws had resolved not to be Governed by them and the Laws themselves being designed to exclude them we must not imagine that King James made this bold adventure for nothing or that he would disoblige the Body of his People without designing some signal advantage to himself by it he must have some peculiar service for these unqualified Persons to do in which the rest of the Nation would not assist him and that could be nothing else but the destruction of their Laws and Religion for in every thing else they were rather too ready to comply with him but those that came into their Places of Trust and of Profit in defiance of the Laws merely by his Favour must be ingaged as deeply as he to support the Power that preferred them and destroy the Laws that laid such Bars in their way to Honor and Profit The Contest is here between our Laws Religion and Liberties on the one side and the Kings Power on the other and the King was sure that those to whom the Laws were Enemies would likewise be Enemies to the Laws and never stick at any thing to support the Power that made them what they were if they should they must needs sink having nothing else to support them besides it Whoever therefore accepted any Place or Preferment against the Laws did thereby oblige himself to a boundless submission to all the Kings Commands and to Execute them however illegal and consequently was become a fit Instrument to Sacrifice the Laws and Religion of the Kingdom to the will of his Sovereign If therefore King James designed the destruction of these as I suppose is apparent that he did from what has been said in this Chapter we have no Reason to imagin that he would not have been able to compass his design for want of assistants to Execute it having so many fitted to his Hand in this Kingdom 2. And this answers that Objection which we hear from some who will not understand our Circumstances but tell us that we ought to have had Patience and let King James take his Course for though he had destructive Designs yet he was but one Man and could not Execute them against us in his own Person nor procure others to Execute them for him since all Men would be afraid to obey his illegal Commands as long as they could not but know that they were accountable to the Laws for every thing done against them but it appears from the account I have given of those Persons whom King James employed that they neither knew nor feared nor cared for the Laws And that their business and enmity was as great against them as against us being resolved to destroy both together which they had effectually done had not God sent us a Deliverer to prevent it CHAP. III. King James not only designed but attempted and made a considerable progress in our Destruction SECT I. The Introduction to the proof of this head grounded on a short view of the State of Ireland at the time of King James's coming to the Crown and of the vain assurances Protestants gave themselves of Security from the consideration of their Merits towards him the Repute of his good Nature and his own true Interest 1. THE destruction of a People is so horrid a thing that it is not easie to persuade a good natured Man that such an unnatural design can enter into any ones heart and we our selves though almost ruined dare hardly relate it to others lest they should not believe us It is certain that if the Protestants of these Kingdoms could have believed that King James would have attempted what he did they would never have entred into such Feuds against their fellow Subjects and Friends to prevent his Exclusion but their Zeal for the Monarchy and Succession made them willing to overlook the danger and they persuaded themselves that the absurdity and difculty of the thing would keep him if he came to the Crown from attempting it notwithstanding they knew that his Principles inclined him and his Counsellors would prompt him to it I question much if any thing but sad Experience would ever have opened the Eyes or convinced the generality of these Nations that his designs were such as we found them in the event and perhaps it is worth all our Sufferings though very heavy to have learned as we have done by this Example never to trust Men of King James's Principles and Religion with a Power that may destroy us since it appears in him that no Interest Difficulties or Obligations are sufficient to hinder such from employing that Power to effect it No Man could be under deeper Obligations to use his Power with Moderation than King James was yet in the short time he possessed it he employed it with so much diligence and earnestness to destroy us that he in a great measure accomplished it and we must thank God only and his present Majesties victorious Arms that saved us from a total and final Destruction to which we were so manifestly devoted To make this appear it will be necessary to take a short view of the State of Ireland at and since King James's coming to the Crown and by the Alteration he introduced it will plainly appear what he designed At his coming to the Crown Ireland was in a most flourishing Condition Lands were every where improved and Rents advanced to near double what they had been in a few years before the Kingdom abounded with Money Trade flourished even to the Envy of our
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
so kept them in Heart by countenancing them that they did not doubt some time or other to recover their Estates and they often told the English when heated by Drink or Passion that the time was drawing near when they would out them of their Estates and Improvements and send them to Dig or Beg. This Hope kept the Irish Idle and hindred them from applying themselves to any thing else and they were so sure of regaining their forfeited Estates that they disposed of them by Wills and Settlements as if in Possession which Wills and Settlements made by them whilst out of Possession are confirmed by a particular Act made in their late pretended Parliament 2. When King James came to the Crown they reckoned they had gained their Point and did not fail to labour it with all possible Industry and no doubt but his Majesty designed to gratifie them in it but he did not think fit to let the Protestants know his Intentions on the contrary he industriously concealed them He sent over the Lord Clarendon Lord-Lieutenant in the Year 1685. who arrived here January 10. he gave him in Charge to declare That he would preserve the Acts of Settlement and Explanation inviolable And accordingly the Lord Clarendon made this Declaration in Council and further gave it in Charge to all the Judges who solemnly declared on the Bench in their respective Circuits the Kings firm Intentions to preserve those Acts and in them the Protestant English Interest of Ireland At the same time Sir Charles Porter was sent over Chancellor of Ireland and he likewise had a Command from the King to assure all his Subjects that he would preserve these Acts as the Magna Charta of Ireland and Sir Charles at his entrance on his Office declared this solemnly on the Bench as Chancellor Fitton also after did and used withall to term it The Darling of the Nation and that it was the King's Pleasure to give his Subjects this Assurance These kind of Declarations were often repeated and gain'd Belief from the credulous Protestants especially that made by Sir Charles who behaving himself with Courage and Integrity in his Office went a great way to perswade them But the Papists were nothing daunted at it they knew that this was only a piece of Policy to â—ull us asleep till the Army was modelled and things fitted for repealing these Acts and then all the Protestations to the contrary would signifie nothing The new Attorney General Nagle was the first that durst openly propose the Repealing of them in his Letter from Coventry dated October 26. 1686. in which he endeavours to shew some Nullities and Invalidities in the Acts but mainly insists on the Inconveniency it would bring to the Popish Interest to have those Acts continued When the Earl of Tyrconnel came to the Government things were Riper and so King James ventured to discover his Intentions a little further and therefore in the first Proclamation issued out by the Lord-Deputy Tyrconnel and dated Feb. 21. 1686. he promised to defend the Laws Liberties and established Religion but upon debate at the Council-Board leaves out the Preservation of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation In Spring 1688. he sends over to England Chief Justice Nugent and Baron Rice to concert the Methods of repealing it That this was their Errand was publickly known and is confessed by my Lord Sunderland in his Letter to his Friend in London dated March 23. 1689. and if we believe him they bid 40000 l. to gain his Lordship to assist them but whatever his Lordship did with them it is certain they succeeded in their Design though perhaps a little delay'd in point of time and agreed on the several Steps by which they were to bring it to pass they knew it was generally discoursed that they went on this Errand and it would have alarm'd the whole Kingdom if they had own'd their Success they therefore dissembled it and contrived to have it given out that the King had rejected their Proposals but granted others that were very Beneficial to the Kingdom the Heads of which they took care to have published In the mean while they fell on prosecuting their Design according to the Secret Resolutions agreed on and began immediately to put things in order to have a Parliament that would be sure to answer their Intentions they proceeded to finish the Regulations of Corporations against which Quo Warranto's had before been issued as we have already shewed and that things might not stick in the House of Lords by reason of the Numerousness of the Protestant Peers and Bishops a List was drawn up of such Papists as the King might by Writ call into the House to Out-vote them The Sons of such Lords as had been Indicted and Out-lawed for the Rebellion in 1641. had brought Writs of Error to reverse their Father's Outlawries which made them uncapable of Sitting which was in effect to destroy the Act of Settlement that was founded on those Out-lawries The Protestants saw the Consequence of the Reversing them and therefore earnestly opposed it but Lord Chief Justice Nugent and his Fellow-Judges over-ruled all Oppositions that could be made and reversed as many as desired it Some of them when they had reversed the Outlawries ask'd the Attorney General whether they might not now Sue for their Estates He answered that they should have a little Patience perhaps they would come more easily meaning that when a Parliament sate it would by repealing the Act of Settlement give them their Estates without a Suit 3. But many had not Patience to wait the General Restitution and therefore as soon as they had Judges and Sheriffs to their mind they set up Counterfeit Deeds and easily obtained Verdicts if the Protestants brought a Writ of Error yet that did not benefit them nor stop their being outed of Possession for the Sheriffs on their own Heads gave the Old Proprietors Possession and left the Protestants to recover it by Injunction out of Chancery or by Common-Law Thus Doctor Gorge was outed by Mr. Barnwell of a great Estate and many others notwithstanding their Writs of Error Some Old Proprietors had gotten some Conditional Orders from the Commissioners of the Court of Claims for Estates many of which only enabled them to bring their Actions at Common-Law These had laâ—â— dormant since the sitting of the Court of Claims which was above Twenty Years but now instead of bringing their Actions into the Court they carried their old Injunctions which they had procured from the Court of Claims and which they thought not fit in all this time to execute as knowing legally they could not yet I say so long after the Dissolution of the Court which granted them they carried them to the Sheriffs and they without any more ado put them into Possession whereby they deprived the Subject of the Benefit of those Laws that make Fines levied with Non-claim a perpetual Bar and also dispossess'd and put by all intermediate
Purchases and Settlements This was the Bishop of Meath's Case whose Father purchased an Estate in 1636. and both he and the Bishop had continued in Peaceable Possession of it ever since yet he was now outed of it by an old Injunction from the Court of Claims granted on a pretended Deed of Settlement made for Portions to the Daughters of the Man that had sold it to the Bishop's Father This Deed ought to have been proved at Common-Law before he should have been disturbed but the Popish Sheriff of the County of Meath one Nangle executed the Injunction on the Bishop and two other Protestants without any such Formality some Papists were as deeply concern'd as they as holding part of the same Estate but the Sheriff durst not or would not execute the Injunction on their part though he did it on that part which was in the Hands of Protestants at this rate many Protestants were outed of their Estates and the old Proprietors having gotten Possession put the Suit and Proof on Protestants to recover them near a hundred English Gentlemen lost considerable Estates in less than a Year and the Papists were in hopes to do their work by their False Oaths Forged Deeds Corrupt Judges and Partial Juries No one Suit that I could learn having been determin'd against them in either the King's-Bench or Exchequer 4. But this was not the way design'd by the Grandees they saw it was like to be Tedious Expensive and must have been in many cases Insuccessful and therefore they were intent on a Parliament and they had in less than nine Months fitted all things for it So that we should infallibly have had one next Winter if the Closeted Parliament design'd to sit at Westminster in November 1688. had succeeded and the News of the Prince of Orange's intended Descent into England had not diverted them but it was not judged convenient to proceed farther in Ireland till the Penal Laws and Test were removed in England 5. After King James's deserting England and getting into France which mightily rejoyced them their great Care was to get him into their own Hands and they easily prevailed on him to come into Ireland where he landed at Kinsale March 12. 1688. and made his entry into Dublin on Palm-Sunday March 24. Upon his coming into Dublin every Body was intent to see what he would do in relation to the Affairs of Ireland it was manifestly against his Interest to call a Parliament and much more unseasonable to pass such Acts in it as he knew the Papists expected For First The Kingdom was not intirely in Obedience to him London-derry Enniskillin and a great part of the North being then unreduced which gave occasion to many even of his own Party to ridicule him and his Councils who so contrary to his Interest had call'd a Parliament to spend their time in wrangling about Settling the Kingdom and disposing Estates before they had reduced it But had they instead of Passing such Acts as made them Odious to all Good Men applied themselves to the Siege of Derry it is like it had been reduced before the Succors came and then all Ireland had been their own and no Body can tell what might have been the Consequence of it 6. Secondly It a little reflected on King James's Sincerity who in his Answer to the Petition of the Lords for a Parliament in England presented Nov. 17. 1688. gave it as one Reason why he could not comply because it was impossible whilst part of the Kingdom was in the Enemies Hands to have a Free Parliament The same Impossibility lay on him against holding a Parliament in Ireland at his coming to Dublin if that had been the True Reason and his not acting uniformly to it plainly discover'd That the True Reason why he would not hold a Parliament in England and yet held one in Ireland under the same Circumstances was not the pretended Impossibility but because the English Parliament would have secured the Liberties and Religion of the Kingdom whereas he was sure the Irish Parliament would Subvert them 7. Thirdly His Compliance with all the most Extravagant Proposals of the Papists in Ireland was unavoidable if he call'd a Parliament and to comply with them was to do so palpable and inexcusable Injustice to the Protestants and English Interest of Ireland that he could not expect but that he should lose the Hearts of those Protestants in England and Scotland who were indifferent or well affected to him before as soon as they were fully inform'd of what he had done in Ireland and to lose their Assistance was to lose the fairest Hopes he could have of recovering his Crown 8. Fourthly By holding a Parliament he manifesty weakened his Forces in Ireland for the Papists whom he was to restore to their Estates were most of them poor insignificant People not able or capable to do him Service for the Richer sort of Papists were either disoblig'd by it being losers as well as the Protestants or else under a necessity to neglect the King's Service and spend their time to make Interest to secure themselves of Reprizals for what they lost by the Parliament 9. Fifthly He strengthened and united his Enemies by rendering all the Protestants that were not under his Power Desperate and by convincing the rest of the Necessity of joyning with them as fast as they could since no other Choice was left them but either to do this or to be ruined 10. All these Reasons lay before the King against calling a Parliament and made it manifestly unseasonable to do it now however bent to comply with the long and earnest Sollicitations of the Irish as we see in Nagles Coventry Letter and the two Papers in the Appendix But contrary to all the Rules of Interest and true Policy he was resolv'd to gratifie them for which we were able to give no other reason but the Resolution ascribed to him in the Liege Letter either to dye a Martyr or to establish Popery and therefore he issued out a Proclamation for a Parliament to sit May 7. 1688. at Dublin The Proclamation was dated March 25. the next day after he came to Dublin but was not published till April 2. it was said to be antedated four days but of that I can say nothing 11. Every Body foresaw what a kind of Parliament this would be and what was like to be done in it Our Constitution lodges the Legislative Power in the King Lords and Commons and each of these is a Check on the other that if any one of them attempt a thing prejudicial to the Kingdom the other may oppose and stop it but our Enemies had made all these for their purpose and therefore no Law could signifie any thing to oppose them it being in their power to remove any Law when they pleased by repealing it The King was their own both inclined of himself and easie to be prevail'd on by them to do what they would have him So
But they found a way to elude this by another Clause in the same Act which orders the Mansion House and Demeasnes of the Proprietor or his Assignee in 1641. to be restor'd and the Leases made of such to be void Now they never wanted an Affidavit to prove any beneficial Farm or good House they found in the Hands of a Protestant to have been Demeasnes and a Mansion House and then the Leiutenants of the Counties put them in Possession 3. The same Lieutenants had an Order from Albiville Secretary of State to turn all Protestants out of their Houses if they judged them to be Houses of any strength and to garrison them with Papists We could never procure any Copy of this Order from the Office though they own'd there was such an Order and we found the Effects of it the Reasons of concealing it I suppose were the same with concealing the Act of Attainder The design of the Order was to turn out the few Protestant Gentlemen that liv'd on their ancient Estates and had neither forfeited them by the Act of Attainder nor lost them by the Act of Repeal it was left to the discretion of the Lieutenant of the County whom they would turn out and they acted according to their Inclinations and turn'd out almost every body and 't was with great difficulty and interest that any procured to be eased of this trouble I have given a Copy of some of their Orders in the Appendix In short the Soldiers or Militia took Possessions of such Gentlemens Houses as durst venture to live in the Country and they themselves were sent to Jail and had K. James got the better they must never have expected to have gotten possession of their Houses or been releas'd of their confinement till they had gone to execution for though they had been very cautious how they convers'd yet there would not have wanted Witnesses to prove they had corresponded with some body in England or Scotland since the First of August 1688. and then their Estates were forfeited The Gentlemen thus used were very sensible of one inconveniency that befel them on this Account it troubled them more than their confinement to see their Houses and Improvements destroy'd for when the Soldiers got into the Houses under pretence of garrisoning them they sometimes burnt them and always spoil'd the Improvements As for the Estates of Absentees the Commissioners of the Revenue dispos'd of them and hardly one Estate in Ireland but was already promis'd to some Favourite Papist or other who by Leases from the Commissioners were in actual possession of them through the whole Kingdoms as far as King James's Authority was owned 20. It may be imagined by some that King James did not know that the Repealing the Acts of Settlement and Explanation was of such mischievous Consequence to Protestants and that the Protestants were wanting to themselves and him in not giving him due Information But these Persons will find themselves mistaken in their surmises if they consider 1. That King James when Duke of York was present at all the Debates concerning the Settlement of Ireland at the Council Board in England and was one of the Council when those Acts of Settlement and Explanation past it he had heard every Clause in them debated for near Two years and from time to time he had perfect information and was continually sollicited about them having a fair Estate in Ireland settled on him by them containing by estimation 108000 Acres to the value of 10m Pounds per Annum and perhaps there was not any thing he understood better relating to the Affairs of his Kingdoms then the Consequence of these Acts. We have seen before how many Promises and Assurances King James had given for maintaining them as well knowing the importance of them to this Kingdom But notwithstanding this he of his own accord was the first that motioned the Repealing of them in his Speech at the opening the Parliament in Dublin 2. The Protestants prest and earnestly sollicited to be heard at the Bar of the Lords House upon the Subject of those Acts that they might shew the reasonableness of them and demonstrate the injustice and mischief of repealing them but were deny'd to be heard and an Order made that nothing should be offered in their favour If therefore King James wanted information it was because he would not receive it 3. The Bishop of Meath so far as was allow'd him laid open the Consequences of repealing these Acts so fully in his Speech which he made in the House of Lords when he voted against the Act of Repeal that no Man who heard him as his Majesty did could pretend to want information 4. The Protestants were so far from being silent or letting things pass without opposition that they laboured every Point with all imaginable industry and used all the industry they could with King James to inform and perswade him and when they could not gain one Point they stuck at the next and endeavour'd to gain it till he had deliberately over-rul'd all their Reasons and Pleas from Point to Point and this they did to make his Designs against them the more undeniably plain not out of any hope of success or expectation to prevail with him for they knew their appearing for a thing in the Parliament was enough to damn it of which they had many Experiments One was so remarkable that I shall mention it Mr. Coghlan had a mind to procure a favour for a Friend from the House of Commons whereof he was a Member he knew if he mentioned it it would miscarry and therefore he got a Papist to propose it the House seem'd averse to it and he for Experiments sake rose up and with some seeming warmness oppos'd it immediately the House took the Alarm and in opposition to him voted it They knew likewise that it was determined to destroy them and gratifie their Enemies and that the reason why they were not allow'd to debate the main Point the justice and reasonableness of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation was because that could not be done without shewing what Traitors and Murtherers the Papists had been whom King James was then about to gratifie a thing which he would by no means endure to hear 5. The Reason therefore why the Protestants made so vigorous an opposition and plyed the King and his pretended Parliament with so many Petitions Representations and Intercessions was to stop the Mouths of those that they foresaw would be apt to impute their Misfortunes to their sullenness or negligence that would not be at the pains of an Application to save themselves and to demonstrate to the World that the Destruction brought on them was not a thing of chance but that it proceeded from a formed and unalterable design of their Enemies to destroy them insomuch that they never could have expected to enjoy one Foot of Estate or quiet hour in the Kingdom if King James had continued
Women big with Child nor old decrepit Creatures some Women in Labour some that were just brought to Bed were driven amongst the rest the very Papist Officers that executed the thing confest that it was the most dismal sight they had ever seen and that the cries of the poor People seem'd to be still in their Ears They owned that they gathered above 4000. others say 7000. and that they kept many of them without Meat or Drink for a whole Week that several hundreds dyed in the Place before they were dismist and many more on the way as they went home again to their Houses nor were they better when they came there for the stragling Soldiers Raparies and Pilferers that follow'd the Army had left them neither Meat Drink Houshold-Stuff nor Cattel but had taken away all in their absence so that the generality of them afterwards perish'd for want and many were knockt on the head by the Soldiers I need not trouble the Reader with the success of this cruel and foolish Stratagem it was the same which any thinking Man would have expected it confirm'd the besieg'd in their Resolutions never to yield to such barbarous People and it made them set up Gallows and threaten to hang all the Prisoners they had in their hands if their Friends were not immediately dismist with which the Besiegers being startled and finding that it did not answer their design to keep them still under the Walls did at last comply after they had kept them there three days without Meat this was the security Men had of their Lives by King James's Protections the news of this Order came to Dublin before it was executed and the Bishop of Meath went immediately to King James to see if he could prevail with him to prevent such a barbarous proceeding His Majesty very calmly told the Bishop That he had heard of it before and that he had sent Orders to stop it that General Rosen was a Forreigner and us'd to such Proceedings as were strange to us though common in other places and that if he had been his own Subject he would have call'd him to account for it Yet he continued him still in his Employment 'T was he burnt the Country about Derry when he was forced to raise the Siege and lâ—â—t after the French Custom the Gentlemens Houses and Villages that lay in his way towards Dublin in Ashes It was commonly said that he and Mámmo who was kill'd before Derry were the Persons employ'd to Dragoon the Protestants of Languedock and that committed so many Barbarities on those poor People If so it is not strange that they should commit the like on the Protestants of Ireland but it is strange that King James should employ such Men and not at all punish such monstrous violation of Faith as well as of Humanity and yet expect that we should depend on him for our Protection His Protections were in every Place alike insignificant many Protestants lost the value of Three many of Four and some of 10 m. Pounds Sterling notwithstanding their repeated Protections and their approv'd and peaceable demeaning themselves of which Captain Barton in the County of Monaghan was a signal Example he had a Protection for his House at Carrick Mac Ross and Arms and had left his Servants in his House to preserve it and his Goods he himself staying in Dublin as a Hostage to the Government that they might not suspect him to have any design to withdraw to the North or join with such Protestants as were in Arms there yet in his absence a Party of Colonel Mac Mahon's Regiment about February 1688. came and demanded the House the Servants shew'd their Protection and told him who commanded the Soldiers that they had Orders from the Government to keep the House the Commander assur'd them that he would not disturb them and that he only design'd to lodge some of his Men in it to secure it more effectually for the King and the Owner upon which promise the Servants let him and his Soldiers into the House they no sooner had obtain'd entrance but they fell a plundring destroying and defacing and in a few hours by ruining his Improvements and robbing his Goods Stock and Furniture they damnified him to near the value of 10 m. Pounds He complain'd of this false and injurious dealing to the Government but could never obtain any redress or procure the Actors of it to be brought to any Account or Punishment instead of obtaining any thing of that nature they added new Injuries to their former and at last burnt his House to the Ground And here it will not be amiss by the way to give some further Instances of their violation of Articles as well as of Protections About Thirty Soldiers January 1688. deserted from Dublin and endeavour'd to make their escape to Inniskilling they were pursued by one Captain Nugent with a Party of Horse and overtaken near Navan within Twenty Miles of Dublin they put themselves in a posture to fight and were ready to fire at him but he by fair Promises and good Words perswaded them to Capitulate and at last upon Articles to yield He Covenanted with them that they should be safe and free and should suffer no other injury but the loss of their Arms notwithstanding which as soon as they gave up their Arms he stript and pinion'd them and with much interest they escaped present death this Mercy was due to the circumstances of the time which obliged the Government to reserve them in Jail till a more proper season though in a condition more grievous than if they had been hang'd immediately The Fort of Culmore near Derry yielded on Articles to King James by which the Gentlemen that surrendred it were to be indemnified and liberty allow'd them either to live secure and quietly in the Kingdom or else go to any other place where they thought fit but notwithstanding these Articles they were were disarm'd and stript and several of them seiz'd and put into Prison nay attainted in their pretended Act of Parliament The Garrison of Londonderry after the Forces which came under Colonel Cuningham and Colonel Richards to succour it had resolved to return for England sent one Captain White to King James to receive Proposals from him it being the Opinion of many of those that remain'd in the Town that they must surrender it the Conditions were not difficult to concert in the mean time it was agreed as a Preliminary Article that the Army should not march within Four Miles of the Town but before the Terms could be adjusted or any answer be return'd from the City the King himself marched his Army towards it and was in view almost as soon as the Commissioners that came with the Proposals This being against his Engagement and an absolute breach of the Preliminary Article already agreed on put a stop to the Treaty and contributed to the Resolution of the Besieged who durst never trust any Articles after
this Mr. Coghlan served as one of the Burgesses for the Colledge the House of Commons requir'd him to come into the House for he had withdrawn himself from it as we observed before at the passing this Act and to give in the Names of the absent Members of the Colledge that they might be put into the Bill he demurr'd at first but was over-rul'd then upon Consultation with Doctor Acton the Vice Provost he moved the House to send for the Colledge Buttler alledging that he had the Buttery Book wherein the Names of the Collegians were in order and without this he could not get them the House hereupon ordered a Serjeant at Arms to be sent for the Butler but he on Mr. Coghlans intimation absconded for some days The House was in haste to pass the Bill and by this means the Collegians escaped an Attainder 5. It was observable that any Application made in behalf of Absentees by their Friends who staid or were in the House constantly made their Condition worse The Application of Mr. Henry Temple in behalf of his Brother Sir John Temple removed him upwards into the first Rank of Attainted Persons the like Petition had the same effect as as to Mr. Richard Warburton and so upon several others The Papists did this to rid themselves of trouble and importunity and to let the Protestants know that all their endeavours for themselves and Friends should do them no Service and that their ruin was absolutely resolved on 6. That their allowing Persons a certain time to come in and submit to Tryal to prove their Innocency was a meer nothing for they very well knew that it was impossible any body should certainly know what time was given each man to come in and it had been a foolish venture for such as were absent to come into a Place where for ought they knew they were already condemned and should be immediately hang'd without a Tryal 2. No body knew what they could call Innocency perhaps writing to or petitioning any one that had King William's Commission nay conversing with such might be reckoned corresponding with Rebels and sufficient Evidence of their Guilt and indeed Judge Nugent had in a manner determin'd this Case for he interpreted one Mr. Desminiers answering a Bill of Exchange for Sir Thomas Southwell who was Prisoner at Galloway a corresponding with Rebels and committed him to Jail for it he likewise put one Mr. Ginnery in Jail for High Treason because being Agent for the Prisoners at Galloway to procure them a Reprieve and other Affairs he received Letters from them though Mr. Ginnery's Father and Brother were amongst them 3. When this pretended Parliament past this Act they were very well aware that the Embargo here was so exceedingly strict that from the time of passing the Act till the First of October nay of November following which was the longest time allowed any one to come in not one Ship or Boat was suffered to pass from hence into England so that it was absolutely impossible the Persons concern'd in this Law should have had any knowledge of it before they were Condemned by it to the loss of Life and Estate beyond the power of the King to Pardon them 4. King James and his Parliament knew perfectly well that the Embargo was so strict on the other side that if the Gentlemen could have had Information yet it was impossible for them to have gotten out of England to tender themselves to Justice within the time wherein the Act required they should do it on no less Penalty than the irrecoverable Forfeiture of Life and Estate which is a plain demonstration that the allowing time for the Attainted Persons to come in and prove their Innocency was a meer colour and had nothing of sincerity in it since they themselves that made the Law were fully informed and satisfied that this was an impossible condition 5. Suppose it had been possible yet it had been a very unwise part for such Protestants as were safe in England to have left it and to have come into Ireland a ruinous Kingdom the actual seat of a War where all the goods and moveables they had left behind them were Imbezell'd by Robbers or by those that had seiz'd them for King James and their real Estates given away to such as were Descendents of their Fathers Murtherers or at least had been in that Rebellion where they must abide a Tryal before Judges and Juryes of profest Enemies whether their Lives should be their own and after all if acquitted could have no other prospect of supporting themselves but Begging amongst a People that had reduced them to this condition These considerations were of such weight with all People that they who were absent were so far from thinking of a return that on the contrary Men of the best Estates who had stayed here wished themselves away and many were content to leave all and venture their Lives in little Boats to the Mercy of the Seas in the depth of Winter reckoning any thing safer and easier than to stay under a Government which had effectually destroyed all the Measures of right and wrong and Condemned so many Gentlemen to the loss of all without allowing them either the favour of being Tryed or so much as Heard 4. I know it will be objected that very few Protestants lost their Lives in Ireland under King James notwithstanding all the severe Proclamations and Laws and the apprehensions under which they lay of danger But to this I answer First that when a full enquiry comes to be made concerning those that were Kill'd by the Soldiers Murthered in their Houses Executed by Martial Law Starv'd and Famish'd in Jails and that Perished by other Violences the number will not be so small as is imagined 2. It is to be considered that the Irish Papists lay under the strictest obligations not to begin Acts of Cruelty for the Murthers they had committed in the last Rebellion were chiefly objected against them they were sensible they had gained nothing by them and that the Cruelty exercised in them was the thing that especially rendred them Odious and lost them their Estates and therefore they thought it the best way not to be too forward in the like practises till they were sure not to be call'd to an after-reckoning They further considered that many of their own Friends were Prisoners in the North and that if they began with Examples of Cruelty on the Protestants who were in their Power their Friends must expect the like from the Enemy in whose Hands they were 'T was this made them dismiss the Poor People they had resolv'd to starve before Derry And they were made believe that not only the Prisoners would Suffer but that the Cruelties they exercised on the Protestants would be Revenged on all the Roman Catholicks in England This was given out by some who understood King James's true interest and that he depended on some Protestants in England for succour and
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
a little time have unavoidably starv'd a Trades-man might expect to live by his Industry a Gentleman on his Credit in a peaceable Countrey or in War by listing themselves in any Army But in Ireland where Men neither were suffered to use their Industry nor batake themselves to Arms where they could neither enjoy the means of gaining a livelihood in Peace or War to what purpose should they stay to live at the best in Poverty Contempt and Slavery 5. As to the Clergy that left the Kingdom it is to be considered that most of those in the Countrey were robb'd and plunder'd and nothing left them to support themselves and families before they went away many were deserted by their People their Parishioners leaving them and getting to England or Scotland before them some Parishioners were so kind to their Ministers that they begg'd and entreated them to be gone which they were mov'd to do because they saw the spite and malice of their Enemies was more peculiarly bent against the Clergy and they imagined that their removing would a little allay the heat of those spiteful Men and that the Robbers would not so often visit the neighbourhood when the Minister was gone which in many places had the effect intended for the Robbers would come a great way to rob a Gentleman or Clergyman and would be sure to visit the poor peoples houses in their passages But when these were remov'd the obscurity of the meaner People did protect them from many violences Lastly many Clergymen were forc'd to remove because they had nothing left to live on their Parishioners were as poor as themselves and utterly unable to help them I do consess that there was no reason to complain of the Peoples backwardness to maintain the Clergy on the contrary they contributed to the utmost of their power and beyond it and made no distinction of Sects many Dissenters of all sorts except Quakers contributing liberally to this good end which ought to be remembred to their honour but after all in many places a whole Parish what with the ruin and desolation brought on the Kingdom and what with the removal of the Protestant Parishioners was not able to contribute 20 s. to maintain their Minister and meer necessity forced away these Ministers Against some others the Government had peculiar piques and exceptions those were in manifest hazard of their Lives and in fear every day of being seiz'd and brought to a Tryal on some feign'd Crime And several both of the Clergy and Laity were forc'd to fly on this account for their safety All these I look on to be justifiable reasons of Mens withdrawing If any went away on any other principles who were not in these or the like circumstances I shall leave them to the censure of the World but I believe very few will be found for whom either their publick or private circumstances may not justly apologize 6. It is not to be suppos'd that Men would have left their plentiful Estates and Settlements their well furnisht Houses and comfortable ways of living as most of these who went away did had they not been under the greatest fears and pressures Wives would not have left their Husbands nor Parents their Children Men of Estates and Fortunes would not have ventured their Lives in little Wherries and Boats to pass Seas famous for their Ship wracks if they could with any comfort or safety have stayed at home I know King James took care to have it suggested in England that all these left Ireland not out of any real fear or necessity but only with a disign to make him and his Government odious but sure they must think the Protestants of Ireland were very fond of a Collection in England that can imagine so many thousand people of all sorts and sexes should conspire together to ruine themselves and throw away all that they had in the World out of malice and only to bring an Odium on a Party that had done them no harm 7. Neither was it as some suggest a vain and pannick fear that possessed them that went away for that could not continue for a Year or Two but those that had lived under King James a Year and half were as earnest to get away as those that went at first and the longer they liv'd under him their fear and apprehensions increas'd the more on them being already ruined in their Fortunes and their Lives in daily and apparent hazard from military and illegal proceedings They liv'd amongst a People that daily robb'd plundered and affronted them that assaulted their Persons and threatned their Lives and wanted only the word to cut their Throats and sure 't was then time to withdraw from the danger at any rate and I am confident I speak the sence of the generality of those that stayed that if the Seas had been left open some few Months before his Majesty appear'd in the Field in Ireland far the greatest part I may venture to say almost all of those that had stayed till then would have gone away with their Lives only rather than have continued here longer Whoever knows the cruelty and malice of those with whom we had to deal will own these fears to be reasonable Yet for this we were condemned to death and forfeiture and the very Children barr'd of their rights against the known Laws and Customs of the Kingdom SECT II. A justification of those Protestants who staid in Ireland and lived in submission to King James's Government 1. NOt withstanding the great number of Protestants that fled to England yet many stay'd behind perhaps some may accuse their Prudence in venturing to stay under such circumstances but otherwise I think little can be objected against them however lest any should entertain any sinister thoughts of them 't will be necessary to say something in their behalf They were of Four sorts 1. the meaner People 2. Gentry of Estates 3. Such as had employments and 4. the Clergy 2. First as to the meaner People 't is to be considered that it was no easy thing to get away the freight of Ships and Lycences were at very high rates and sometimes not to be purchased at all Many of the Countrey People could not get to the Sea Ports they had little Money their riches were in their Stocks and these being plundered they were not able to raise so much money as would transport them and their Families and they generally came too late to the Ports A strict Embargo being laid on all Ships before they could get to the Sea side many of the Citizens of Dublin and other Sea Ports got off but were forc'd to leave their Shops and Concerns behind in the hands of their Relations and Dependents who were obliged to stay to take care of them Others thought it unreasonable to leave all they had to go to beg in a strange Countrey and having no body to trust with their Concerns resolv'd to hazard themselves together with them If these
near New-England to check the growing Independents of that Country 14. That the next Parliament being formed as aforesaid great Sums of Money will be given his Majesty Query Whether the Roman Catholick Clergy may not be admitted into the House of Peers this next Parliament or stay a little 15. That for effecting the Premises 't is better his Majesty should govern Ireland by a Committee of such of his Privy Council as approved the Conjunction with France and as are not concern'd in Ireland rather than by the Council of Ireland 16. Let such a Lord Lieutenant be in Ireland who in Inclination and for fear of being displaced will begin this Work of laying the Foundation of his Majesty's Monarchy and hazard his Concernments upon that account 17. That the Army be gradually reform'd and opportunity taken to displace Men not affected to this Settlement and to put into the Army or Garisons in Ireland some fit Persons to begin this Work and likewise Judges upon the Benches 18. Query What Precedents may be found to break the several Farms and to be Master of the Exchequer and pole the Gains of the Bankers Brewers and Farmers 1. Whether the paying of a Fine or Income upon all Grants of Charters Officers and Commanders may not bind and fasten the Grant Duty and Allegiance as with Silver Chains more firmly to the King's Government 2. Whether any Grants may be presumed to be new obtained without paying a great Value at least to some great Officer or Courtier for procuring the same 3. Whether it be not â—â—â—sonable a Year's Value be paid as a grateful Acknowledgment to the Prince's Bounty upon Temporal Grants as First Fruits from Spiritual 4. Whether to reserve such Grants to the immediate dispose of the King be not the Interest of the Crown and a Means to create a closer adherence to the Person of the Prince and so make Monarchy more Absolute and Real instead of factious Dependences on great Men who are often acted more by Self-interest than the Advantage of their Master 5. Whether a considerable Revenue may not be raised to the Crown that if such Courtiers received it upon procuring Grants it were paid to the Private or Privy-Purse 6. Whether the Subject would not more chearfully pay a Years Value or two to the Prince upon passing Grants than to be liable to the unreasonable Exaction of hungry Courtiers who sometimes make a Prey both of the Subject and the Prince's Favour 7. Whether many worthy and deserving Men have not been put by and denied the benefit of his Majesty's Grant by false Insinuation for not gratifying some such viperous Officers 8. Whether his Majesty might not expect to have a fitter Person recommended when there is no Advantage to be made by their Recommendations than when Offices are canted by Courtiers and such only recommended as will give most but the least fit 9. Whether if by the Silver Key Men chance to get admittance into Offices the Prince may not make Advantage by their Misbehaviour since by losing both their Mony and Employment the King will not only get a Fine and better Servants but also gratify the People by displacing an ill One. A Copy of a Letter of the Irish Clergy to King James in favour of the Earl of Tyrconnel Found amongst Bishop Tyrrell's Papers in Dublin SIR SInce it has pleased the Almighty Providence by placing your Majesty in the Throne of your Ancestors to give you both Authority and Occasion of exercising those Royal Vertues which alone do merit and would acquire you the Crown to which you were born We though comprehended in the general Clemency and Indulgence which you extend to the rest of our fellow Subjects are nevertheless so remote from your Majesty's Presence that our Prayers can have no access to you but by a Mediator And since of all others the Earl of Tyrconnel did first espouse and chiefly maintain these Twenty five Years last past the Cause of your poor oppressed Roman Catholick Clergy against our many and powerful Adversaries and is now the only Subject of your Majesty under whose Fortitude and Popularity in this Kingdom we dare chearfully and with assurance own our Loyalty and assert your Majesty's Interest Do make it our humble Suit to your Majesty that you will be pleased to lodg your Authority over us in his Hands to the Terror of the Factious and Encouragement of your faithful Subjects here since his Dependence on your Majesty is so great that we doubt not but that they will receive him with such Acclamations as the long captivated Israelites did their Redeemer Mordecai And since your Majesty in Glory and Power does equal the mighty Ahashuerus and the Vertue and Beauty of your Queen is as true a Parallel to his adored Hester We humbly beseech she may be heard as our great Patroness against that Haman whose Pride and Ambition of being honour'd as his Master may have hitherto kept us in Slavery And tho we wish none the fate of so dreadful an Example but rather a timely Penitence and Conversion we yet humbly crave your Majesty's Protection against all such if it may consist with your Royal Wisdom and Pleasure to which we with all humility submit in the establishing of the â—aâ—d Earl of Tyrconnel in such Authority here as may secure us in the exercise of our Function to the Honour of God and offering up our Prayers and Sacrifice for the continuation of your Majesty's long and prosperous Reign over us Dublin the of July 1685. Your Majesty's most dutiful and obedient Subjects The Copy of a Letter sent the King August 14. 1686. Found in Bishop Tirrel's Papers but imperfect May it please your Majesty I Humbly beg of you for God's sake and your own to read what I here presume to write not but that I know it may well be thought an inexcusable piece of Presumption in any Subject to say or write any thing that may look like prescribing to a King especially a King that from his own knowledg and the best Mother of it long Experience must with universal consent be allowed the most competent Judg in his Dominions of what ought or ought not to be done Yet inasmuch as your present Counsellors are for the most part divided from you by the unhappy difference in Religion I hope your Majesty will pardon a loyal Plain-dealer for presuming to offer his well-meaning Opinion of the present Posture of Affairs Sir As I am one that makes it my Business to study your Interest I took the liberty of telling you in former Letters That in order to replant Religion in your Dominions you ought to begin with Ireland where the Work is more than half done to your Hand and where your Prerogative allows you to do with that Kingdom as you please for it was not to be expected that England and Scotland so irreconcileable to Popery would consent to take off the Penal Laws by a Parliament if not aw'd by a
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
were Masters of Nor was it a difficult Matter for them so to do the Consternation being so great and so suddain that even the Officers of the Port either out of Commiseration to the departing Crowd of Women and Children or being amaz'd at the suddainness of the Fright neglected to do their Duty whereby this City and the Adjacent Parts are almost drained dry as to Cash and Plate which is manifest from Guineas being sold at 12 d. per piece over and above the usual Rate On the other Hand the Roman Catholicks were very many of them under equal Fears and indeed all of them except the Army who by their Calling are exempt from or at least from owning it pretend equal Dread from the Protestants who as they alledg'd far exceeded them in the Northern Parts and were extraordinarily well Arm'd and Hors'd but their greatest Apprehensions arise from a constant and uncontradicted Assurance which Private Letters by every Pacquet brought hither that the Duke of Ormond with a considerable Army and many experienc'd Officers was to Land forthwith in Munster And in this Condition now stands this poor Kingdom the Contending Parties being equally afraid or at least pretending to be so of each other which cannot but beget great Anxiety and Sorrow in the Mind of every good Man who hath the least Concern for his King or his Country In the interim the Lord Deputy intrusted by his Majesty with the Government of this Kingdom and keeping it entire in its Obedience to all his Commands doth daily grant Commissions to raise and procure Arms and Ammunition for great Numbers of Men In doing whereof considering the great Trust reposed in him no Man of Honour or moral Honesty can truly blame him But at the same time he takes all Opportunities both Private and Publick to declare That whenever his Majesty shall signifie his Royal Will and Pleasure for disbanding the Army that now is or hereafter shall be raised upon the Commissions now issuing or shall give direction for any other Alteration in the Government he will without one Day 's hesitation himself and those of his Relations and other Dependents in the Army whom you know to be very Numerous give an exact Obedience And if any should be so Fool-hardy as to scruple or make the least delay of doing so they shall in a few Days be taught and compelled to do their Duty I must likewise tell you That in this Conjuncture of Affairs the Thieves and Robbers are not only become more Numerous but likewise much more Insolent and instead of small Thefts do now drive away by Force whole Herds and sometimes when overtaken deny to restore the Prey This in many Places and especially in the North-west is done by the Cottiers and Idlers in the Country but father'd generally on the Army of which I have now an Instance before me from Ballenglass All this I know you have had repeated to you from divers Hands however I thought my self obliged in the Station which I hold to give you this summary Account of our present Condition which God knows is very bad and in all humane probability if we take not up more Charity than as yet we have for each other will receive sharp Corrosives and bitter Potions to bring us even to the hopes of living though in great Penury and Want Nor can we expect in Case that any Resistance shall be made by the Roman Catholicks here that we shall see any End thereof until the Buildings Plantations and other Improvements of Thirty Years Expence and Industry be utterly wasted and the Kingdom brought to the last degree of Poverty and Confusion and from the most improved and improving Spot of Ground in Europe as you saw it Six Years since become a meer Acheldama and upon the matter totally desart For Armies when once raised must be maintained by the Publick or will maintain themselves Nor can Military Discipline be expected where the Soldier hath not his Wages and whether that can be had out of the publick Treasury here I referr to you who have weighed the Revenue of the Kingdom when at the best even to a Drachm But after all this I am confident and assured That the Government of England will and must at length take place here against all Opposition whatsoever It hath cost England too much Blood and Treasure to be parted with but if it should come to a Contest of that kind the Victors I fear will have little to bragg of and will find in the Conclusion nothing but Ruins and Rubbish not to be repaired in another Age. Nor will the People thereafter reckon of any Security or Stability in this Kingdom so as to apply themselves to the repair of them but expecting such periodical Earthquakes here will provide themselves of Retreats in England and Scotland as many have of late and daily do Your Patience is I fear by this at an End when you begin to enquire with your self To what purpose it is that I have given you all this Trouble I must confess your Enquiry is not without Reason but however to you whose Friendship I have always found and valued my self much on it I do without difficulty declare what hath induced me hereunto The wonderful Alterations which a Month's Time hath produced in England in regard to the Protestant Religion and the Universality of it the little Blood that hath been spilt in so great a Change the few Acts of Hostility and little disquiet which has as yet appear'd has almost perswaded me That this Unfortunate Kingdom may by the Interposition of moderate Men be restored to the same Estate of Religion and Property that it rejoyced in Seven Years since with an addition of further Security for the preservation of both if more be requisite considering the many Acts of Parliament still in Force in this Kingdom It cannot be imagined Sir but there are very many who having either lost their Estates upon the Forfeitures of 1641. or by their Profuseness and Prodigality spent what they were restored to would willingly see the Kingdom once more in Confusion and Blood designing by Licentiousness and Rapine to supply their Extravagancies There want not on the other Hand some who conceive That the Court of Claims has contrary to the Settlement taken from them their Possessions without Reprisals and very many who being put by their Employments and Commands wish for a Time to expostulate with those who are possessed of them But all these in my humble Opinion ought to give way to the publick Quiet and Settlement of a whole Nation ready to fall into Ruine I am verily perswaded That with a little good Management the generality of the Roman Catholicks and indeed of the whole Kingdom would be very glad to be put into the same Condition in all respects as they were Six Years since and desire no more than an Assurance it should not be made worse And if there be Faith to be found in Man
much to the allaying of their Fears and the Quiet of their Minds His Excellency allows the Bishop of Meath to declare this to all Persons Fifthly That whereas your Excellency did by your Declaration order all Arms to be returned into the Parish-Churches and yet in some Parish-Churches there were no Officers appointted to receive them that your Excellency would by a new Proclamation order such Arms as have not yet been delivered for want of such Officers to receive them be received by such as your Excellency shall think fit to appoint An Account of this to be given to the People by themselves or Church-Wardens or Clerks as also publick Notice in the Church to Morrow Morning The Return to be made to the Clergy by the Inhabitants and by the Clergy to the Bishop of Meath That his Excellency doth not intend to bind himself from searching for Arms in the City of Dublin by the late Declaration because it was published before its Time and without his Order in Case a more due Return of Arms be not made then he hath hitherto received N o 16. An Account of the Conditions made in the Field between the High-Sheriff of Galway and the Prisoners after condemned WHEREAS James Power Esquire High-Sheriff of the County of Galway Captain Thomas Burk Commander in Chief of his Majesty's Forces quarter'd in the Town of Loughreagh having Intelligence That several Gentlemen and others on the First Day of March instant travelled the Road leading from Irris in the County of Clare towards the Town of Loughreagh being the Road they intended to go met them there and demanded their Horses and Arms for his Majesty's Use which upon Capitulations made between the said James Power Esquire and Captain Thomas Burk of the one Part and Sir Thomas Southwell Baronet Bartholomew Purdon Esquire and Thomas Miller Esquire on the other Part in behalf of themselves and of all as well Gentlemen and others that were with them and of their Company were freely and peaceably delivered and given up by them to us for his Majesty's Service on these following Conditions The Capitulation which we the said James Power Esquire and Captain Thomas Bourk promised them in behalf of the Government should be honourably and punctually perform'd and kept Imprimis That they and every of them should have their Lives preserved and that whatsoever they had acted in that Affair they affirming that their coming in that posture was for preservation of their Lives should be forgiven and forgotten and Passes given them or any of them to go where they pleased provided they did not go to the North or Sligo without being rifled or any thing taken from them except such Horses and Arms as were fit for his Majesty's Service Secondly That every Gentleman of them should have their own Pistols and Swords and one Nagg or Horse given them to ride on in Case his own being musterable should be taken from him Thirdly That if they desired it they should have a Party of Horse or Foot to protect them for their greater Safety in Travelling where they or any of them had a desire to go except to the North or Sligo as aforesaid Given under our Hands and Seals the First Day of March 1688. and in the First Year of his Majesty's Reign James the Second by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland c. Note That it happened near Night when they met so that the Agreement before-mentioned could not be reduced into Writing in the Field but several times since being tendred to the said High-Sheriff and Captain to Sign they still declined it but nevertheless acknowledged the Truth thereof before the Lord Galway Father Dolphin the Friar and others in Loughreagh And about Eight or Nine Days after the said Captain Bourk Signed a Certificate in Presence of Captain Arthur French and the said High-Sheriff writ a Letter to the Lord-Deputy containing the principal Part of the said Articles as by the following Copy may appear Captain Bourk's Certificate deliver'd by Captain .... to Captain French Good Friday 1688. WHereas on the First Day of this Instant March Sir Thomas Southwell with a considerable party of Horse were Travelling from the County of Clare through the County of Galway near Loughreagh an account whereof being brought to Captain Thomas Bourk whose Troop Quartered at Loughreagh and on Notice immediately with his Troop repaired to meet the said Thomas Southwell and his Party and having drawn up within Shot each of other the said Thomas sent one to give an account of his and his friend's Design to ride without Offence through the County and prayed not to be molested Whereupon the said Captain Thomas Bourk made answer That without the Governments Pass so considerable a Party should not ride where he had power to hinder them Then the said Sir Thomas desired to be permitted to return whence he came To which he was answered That by a late Order from the Government Captain Bourk was to seize all Arms and Horse fit for his Majesty's Service in the County of Galway and that he would not permit them to go on nor return till he had their Horse and Arms and persisting firm therein the said Sir Thomas and his Party submitted and declared their Obedience to the Governments Order he the said Captain Thomas Bourk assuring them that he would secure them their Lives and offer'd them such small Naggs as he thought fit to carry the said Sir Thomas and Chief Gentlemen back to their respective Homes This I the said Captain Thomas Bourk having promised on my word do now Certifie for Truth as Witness my hand this 9th Day of March 1688 9. THO. BOURK A Copy of the High-Sheriff's Letter delivered to Mr. French on Good-Friday 1688. per Captain Jourdon May it please your Excellency Loughreagh March 9th 1688 9. IT happened on Friday last the first Day of this Instant I had Intelligence that a Party of Horse with Sir Thomas Southwell and others were making their way through this Country to Sligo or the North being routed out of Munster whereupon the Horse and Foot in this Town being commanded by Captain Thomas Bourk and Captain Charles Dawly made ready to intercept the said Sir Thomas and his Party who met upon a Pass and faced one another but a Treaty being proposed they came to Capitulation wherein it was agreed that the said Thomas and his Party should lay down such Horse and Arms as was fit for the King's Service and after so doing that they and every of their Lives should be secured them and dismissed with such Passes and Convoys as may bring them safe to their several Habitations without any Harm to their Persons or Goods All which with Submission at their requests I humbly offer to your Excellency and subscribe Your Excellency's Most Humble and Most Obedient Servant JAMES POWER N o 17 A Copy of a Letter from Bishop Maloony to Bishop Tyrrel the Original found amongst Bishop
Fitzgerald Esquires Bur. Trim. Captain Nicholas Cusack Walter Nangle Esquire Bur. of Navan Christoph. Cusack of Corballis Esquires Christ. Cusack of Ratholdran Esquires Bur. Athboy John Trinder Esquires Robert Longfield Esquires Duleek Kells Com. Monoghan Bryan Mac Mahon Esquires 9 th July 1689 Hugh Mac Mahon Esquires 9 th July 1689 Town of Monoghan Com. Fermanagh Enniskillen Queens County Sir Patrick Trant Knight Edmond Morris Esq Bur. Maryborough Peirce Bryan Esquires Thady Fitz Patrick Esquires Bur. Ballinkill Sir Gregory Bourne Baronet Oliver Grace Esquire Port Arlington Sir Henry Bond Baronet Sir Thomas Hacket Knight Com. Roscommon Charles Kelly Esquire John Bourk Bur. Roscommon John Dilton Esquires John Kelly Esquires Bur. Boyle John King Captain Terence Mac Dermot Alder. 6th May 1689. Tulske Com. Sligoe Henry Crofton Esquires Oliver O Gara Esquires Bur. Sligoe Terence Mac Donogh Esquires 8th May 1689. James French Esquires 8th May 1689. Com. Tipperary Nicholas Purcell of Loghmore Esquires James Butler of Grangebeg Esquires City of Cashell Dennis Kearney Aldermen James Hacket Aldermen Bur. Clonmell Nicholas White Aldermen John Bray Aldermen Bur. Fethard Sir John Everard Baronet James Tobin of Fethard Esq Bur. Thurles Bur. Tipperary Com. Tyrone Coll. Gordon O Neile Esquires Lewis Doe of Dungannon Esquires Bur. Dungannon Arthur O Neil of Ballygawly Esquires Patr. Donenlly of Dungannon Esquires Bur. Strabane Christopher Nugent of Dublin Esquire Dan. O Donelly of the same Gent. 8th May 89. Clogher Augher Com. Waterford John Power Esquires Math. Hore Esquires Bur. Dungarvan John Hore Esquires 7th May 89. Martin Hore Esquires 7th May 89. City of Waterford John Porter Esquires Nicholas Fitzgerald Esquires Bur. Lismore Tallow Com. Wexford Walter Butler of Munfine Patrick Colclogh of Moulnirry Bur. Wexford William Talbot Esquire Francis Rooth Merchant Bur. New Rosse Luke Dormer Esquires Richard Butler Esquires Bur. Bannow Francis Plowden Esq Commis of the Revenue Dr. Alexius Stafford Bur. Newborough Abraham Strange of Tobberduff Esq Richard Daley of Kilcorky Gent. Bur. Eniscorthy James Devereux of Carrigmenan Esquires Dudley Colclough of Mougâ—ery Esquires Arther Waddington Esq by a new Election Bur. Taghmon George Hore of Polhore Esquires Walter Hore of Harpers-town Esquires Bur. Cloghmyne Edward Sherlock of Dublin Esquire Nicholas White of New Rosse Merchant Bur. Arklow Fytherd Coll. James Porter Capt. Nicholas Stafford Com. Wicklow Richard Butler Esquires William Talbot Esquires Bur. Caryesfort Hugh Byrne Esquire Peice Archbold Esq Upon whose default of Appearance Barth Polewheele Bur. Wicklow Francis Toole Esquires Thomas Byrne Esquires Bur. Blesington James Eustace Esq Maurice Eustace Gent. Baltinglass Com. Westmeath The Honorable Coll. William Nugent The Honorable Coll. Henry Dillon Bur. and Mannor of Mullingar Garret Dillon Esq Prime Sergeant Edmond Nugent of Garlans-town Esq Bur. Athlone Edmond Malone of Ballynehown Esq Edmond Malone Esq Councellor at Law Bur. Kilbeggan Bryan Geoghegan of Donore Esquires Charles Geoghenan of Syenan Esquires Bur. Fore John Nugent of Donore Esq Christoph. Nugent of Dardis town Esq Com. Londonderry City Londonderry Bur. Colerane Bur. Lamavudy No. 22. An Address to King James in Behalf of the Purchasers under the Act of Settlement by Judge Keating THis humble Representation made unto your Sacred Majesty is in the Behalf of many Thousands of your Majesties dutiful and obedient Subjects of all Degrees Sexes and Ages The Design and Intention of it is to prevent the Ruine and Desolation which a Bill now under Consideration in order to be made a Law will bring upon them and their Families in case your Majesty doth not interpose and by your Moderation and Justice protect them so far as the known Laws of the Kingdom and Equity and good Conscience will warrant and require It is in the Behalf of Purchasers who for great and valuable Considerations have acquired Lands and Tenements in this Kingdon by laying out not only their Portions and Provisions made for them by their Parents but also the whole Product of all their own Industry and the Labour of their Youth together with what could be saved by a frugal Management in order to make some certain Provision for Old Age and their Families in Purchasing Lands and Tenements under the Security of divers Acts of Parliament Publick Declarations from the late King And all these accompanied with a Possession of Twenty five Years Divine Providence hath appointed us our Dwelling in an Island and consequently we must Trade or live in Penury and at the mercy of our Neighbours This necessitates a Transmutation of Possessions by Purchase from one hand to another of Mortgaging and Pledging Lands for great and Considerable Sums of Money by charging them with Judgments and indeed gives Name to one of the greatest Securities made use of in this Kingdom Statutes Merchant and of the Staple and very many especially Widows and Orphans have their whose Estates and Portions secured by Mortgages Bond of the Staple and Judgments Where or when shall a Man Purchase in this Kingdom Under what Title or on what Security shall he lay out his Money or secure the Portions he designs for his Children If he may not do it under divers Acts of Parliament the solemn and reiterated Declarations of his Prince and a quiet and uncontroverted Possession of Twenty Years together And this is the Case of thousands of Families who are Purchasers under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation It were a hard task to justifie those Acts in every Particular contained in them I will not undertake it but if it be consider'd that from 23. October 1641. until 29. May 1660. the time of his Majesties Restauration the Kingdom was upon the matter in one continued Storm That the alterations of Possessions was so universal and Properties so blended and mixt by Allotments and Dispositions made by the then Usurping Powers It may be well concluded that they must be somewhat more then Men that could or can frame a Law to take in every particular Case though it should have swoln to many Volumes and Laws which are to be of such universal Consequence as this was are to have a Regard to the Generality of a Kingdom or People though possibly some particular Person may have some hardship in his private Concern But if we may judge by general Laws by the produce and effect of them and at the same time have a Prospect to the Estate and Condition of this Kingdom from 1640. and as far backwards as you please until the time of his late Majesties happy Restauration and at the same time take into Consideration what the Kingdom became in few years after the Commission for the Execution of those Acts were at an end the Buildings and other Improvements the Trade and Commerce the vast Heads of Cattel and Flocks of Sheep equal to those of England together with great Sums of money brought over by our Fellow-Subjects of England who came to Purchase and Plant in this Kingdom The Manufactures set on foot in divers parts whereby the meanest Inhabitants were
at once inriched and civilized it would hardly be believed it were the same Spot of Earth Nay Over-flown and Moorish Grounds were reduced to the bettering of the Soyl and Air. The Purchasers who brought the Kingdom to this flourishing Condition fly to your Majesty for Succour offering not only their Estates and Fortunes but even their Lives to any Legal Trial within this your Majesties Kingdom being ready to submit their Persons and Estates to any established Judicature where if it shall be found that they enjoy any thing without Legal Title or done any thing that may forfeit what they have Purchased they will sit down and most willingly acquiesce in the Judgments But to have their Purchases made void their Lands and Improvements taken from them their Securities and Assurances for Money Lent declar'd Null and Void by a Law made ex post facto is what was never practised in any Kingdom or Countrey If the Bill now design'd to be made a Law had been attempted within two three four or five years after the Court for the execution of these Acts was ended the Purchasers would not have laid out their Estates in acquiring of Lands or in Building or Improving on them Thousands who had sold small Estates and Free-holds in England and brought the Price of them to Purchase or Plant here wou'd have stayed at home And your Majesties Revenue with that of the Nobility and Gentry had never come to the Height it did If your Majesty please to consider upon what Grounds and Assurances the Purchasers of Lands and Tenements in this Kingdom proceed you will soon conclude that never any proceeded upon securer Grounds The Acts of xvij and xviij of King Charles your Father of blessed Memory the First takes notice that there was a Rebellion begun in this Kingdom on the 23d of October 1641 And so doth a Bill once read in the House of Lords whoever looks into the Royal Martyrs Discourse upon that Occasion will see with what an abhorrence he laments it and that he had once thoughts of coming over in Person to suppress it Those Acts promise Satisfaction out of Forfeited Lands to such as would advance Money for reducing these disturbers of the publick Peace unto their Duty The Invitation was his late Majesties your Royal Brothers Letters from Breda some few weeks before his Restauration which hapned the 29th of May 1660 And within six Months after came forth his Majesties most Gracious Declaration for the Settlement of this Kingdom This may it please your Majesty is the Basis and Foundation of the Settlement and was some years after Enacted and made a Law by two several Acts of Parliament It is true that the Usurping Powers in the Year 1653. having by the permission of the Almighty as a just Judgment on us for our Sins prevailed here did dispose and set out the Estates of Catholicks unto Adventurers and Soldiers and in a year or two after transplanted out Catholick Free-holders for no other Reason but their being so in Connought where Lands were set out unto them under divers Qualifications which they and their Heirs or those deriving under them as Purchasers enjoy'd and still do enjoy under the Security of the before mentioned Acts of Parliament and Declaration His Majesties gracious Declaration of the 30th of November 1660. which I call the Foundation of the Settlement was before it was concluded on under the Consideration of that great Prince and the Lords of his Council of England where all Persons concerned for the Proprietors as well old as new were heard whoever reads will find the many Difficulties which he and his Council met with from the different and several Pretenders what Consideration was had and Care taken to reconcile the jarring Interests and to accommodate and settle as well as was possible the Mass and Body of Subjects here It was some years after before the Act for the Execution of his Majesties most Gracious Declaration became a Law It was neer two years upon the Anvil It was not a Law that past in few days or sub silentio It was first according to the then Course of passing Laws here framed by the Chief Governour and Council of this Kingdom by the Advice and with the Assistance of all the Judges and of his Majesties Council Learned in the Law and then transmitted into England to be further consider'd of by his Majesty and Lords of his Council there where the Counsel at Law and Agents of all Pretenders to the Propriety of Lands in this Kingdom were heard and that Act commonly called the Act of Settlement approved of and retransmitted under the Seal of England to receive the Royal Assent which it did after having passed both Houses of Parliament The Innocent Proprietors being restored pursuant to thiâ— Act and some Difficulties appearing as to the further execution of it Another Act passed commonly called the Act of Explanation which went the same Course and under the same Scrutiny It is confessed that though they are two Acts it was by the same Parliament who were chosen according to the ancient Course of Chusing Parliaments But if any miscarriage were in bringing that Parliament together or the procuring the aforesaid Acts of Parliament to pass which we can in no wise admit and the less for that your Majesties Revenue was granted and settled by the same Parliament and many good and wholsom Laws therein Enacted Yet it is manifest that nothing of that kind ought to affect the Plain and honest Purchaser who for great and valuable Considerations acquired Lands under the Security aforesaid and expended the remainder of his Means in Building Improving and Planting on them and that for the following Reasons First The Purchaser advising with his Counsel how to lay out or secure his Money that it may not lie dead not only to his but the publick detriment tells him that he is offer'd a Purchase of Lands in Fee or desired by his Neighbours to accommodate him with Money upon the Security of Judgment or Statute Staple and upon the enquiry into the Title he finds a good and Secure Estate as firm in Law as two Acts of Parliament in force in this Kingdom can make it and in many Cases Letters Patents upon a Commission of Grace for remedying of defective Titles he finds Possession both of many years gone along with this Title several descents past and possibly that the Lands have been purchased and passed through the hands of divers Purchasers He resorts to the Records where he meets with Fines and Common Recoveries the great Assurance known to the Laws of England Under which by the Blessing of God we live and tells him there is no scruple nor difficulty of Purchasing under this Title since he hath Security under two Acts of Parliament Certificates and Letters Patents Fines and Recoveries and that no Law of force in this Kingdom can stir much less shake this Title How is it possible to imagine that the
Legislative Power should be made use of to void this Mans Estate who perhaps was never in this Kingdom until after these Acts were Enacted and became Laws it will be the like Case with all Persons who upon the Marriage of their Children and considerable Marriage Portions paid and receiv'd have procured Settlements for Jointured Portions and Remainders for their Children and Grand Children And all these are to be laid aside without any Consideration of Law or Equity in the Case of the Purchasers or any misdemeanor or offence committed by them Whereby vast Numbers of your Majesties dutiful Subjects the present Proprietors and their Lessees and in very many Cases Widows Orphans Merchants and Traders will be at one stroke outed and removed from the possessions of their Lands and Improvements which in many places are more in value than the Township whereon they are made This with submission without some fraud decelt or default of the Purchaser never was and it is hoped never will be done by a People or Nation professing Christianity Nor is it for the Honour Welfare or Advantage of the King or Kingdom to have it so done What will strangers and our fellow-subjects of England and Scotland say We sold our Estates in England transported us and our Families into Ireland to purchase improve and plant there We acquired Lands under as secure Titles as Acts of Parliament the greatest known Security could make them Our Conveyances both by Deeds and matters of Record are allowed good firm and unquestionable by any Law in force at the time of the Purchase We have had the possession 10 12 or 15 years and are grown old upon them We have clearly drawn our Effects from England and settled here not doubting but our Posterity may be so likewise We have purchased Annuities and Rent Charges out of Lands under the same Securities And now the Old Proprietors though many of them had Satisfaction in Connaught would fain have a new Law to dispossess us of our Estates and Improvements made as aforesaid It will not be believed that the chief of those who drew on this Design should in Parliament and elsewhere which ought to consist of the gravest wisest and wealthiest Free-holders of the Kingdom for such the Law presumes them make a noise with that good and wholsome advice Caveat emptor in this Case or can think that Caveat is proper here The Purchaser ought to be wary of any Flaw in the Title at the time of the Purchase made and purchases at his peril if any such there be But who is that Purchaser that must beware of a Law to be made 20 30 or 40 years after his Purchase or to destroy his Security for Money lent or Settlement upon Marriage this is not a desect in the Title but under favour is a President which no humane foresight can prevent and if once introduced no Purchaser could ever be safe the worst of Lotteries affording a securer way of dealing than Ireland would Can it be your Majesties Honour or Advantage to have thousands of Families ruined by such a Proceeding as this is What will become of our Credit and consequently of our Trade abroad Where will be the Reputation and publick Faith and Security of the Kingdom when Foreign Merchants shall know from their Correspondents here that they cannot comply with their Engagements to them their Estates Houses and Improvements both in Countrey and City which they had acquired for great and valuable Consideration and within the Securities of the Laws are taken from them by a Law made yesterday in case this Bill should pass So that in Effect we are not only contriving to break and ruine our own Trades and Merchants at home but even those in Foreign parts which will infallibly destroy your Majesties Revenue and sink that of every Subject Surely these Particulars and the Consequences of them are worth more then two or three days consideration which is as much as this Bill could have since the Parliament was not open'd till the 7th of this Month The very Report of what is designed by this Bill hath already from the most improved and improving Spot of Earth in Europe From stately Herds and Flocks From plenty of Money at 7 or 8 per Cent. whereby Trade and Industry were encouraged and all upon the Security of those Acts of Parliament From great and convenient Buildings newly erected in Cities and other Corporations to that degree that even the City of Dublin is ruined The passing of these Acts and the securities and quiet promised from them inlarged double what it was That the Shipping in divers Ports were 5 or 6 times more than ever was known before to the vast increase of your Majesties Revenue reduced to the saddest and most disconsolate condition of any Kingdom or Countrey in Europe Infinite numbers of the Inhabitants having transported themselves and Families with what remained unfixed in Purchases and Improvements and was portable of their Estates into other Kingdoms that very many of the Buildings both new and old in this City and in the very Heart and Trading Part of it are uninhabited and waste It is grievous to see as you pass through the City the Houses and Shops shut up The Herds and Flocks in the Countrey are utterly destroyed So that of necessity the Tenant must break throw up his Lease leave the Key under the Door and the Lands become waste and from hence will necessarily follow that the Farm-houses and Improvements must go to decay and Beef Tallow Hides Wooll and Butter from whence arise the Wealth of the Countrey will fail us What is become of the frequent Declarations made by the Earl of Clarendon and the Earl now Duke of Tyrconnel of your Majesties fix'd Resolutions never to lay aside the Acts of Settlement and Explanation Why did the Judges in their several Circuits declare in all places where they sate unto the Countries there assembled that your Majesty was resolved to preserve the Acts of Settlement and Explanation and that they were appointed by the then Chief Governour here to declare the same unto them from whence they took confidence to proceed in their Purchases and Improvements and with submission be it spoken if this Bill pass are deluded Shall Patents on the Commission of Grace signify nothing The Great Seal of England tells them they may proceed upon the publick Faith and here again they become Purchasers paying considerable Fines to the King to whom Rents were reserved where none were due before and many places the Rent increased as in case of Fairs and Markets granted together with the Lands on them Patents of Liberties of Free Warren and to enclose and empale for Park surely some consideration ought to be had of those whose money was paid on this account It would be farther considered That your Majesty before your access to the Crown had passed several Lands and Tenements in this Kingdom in Certificate and Patent pursuant to these Acts of