Surset or his Physicke Or last of all They must meane that They doe not know what an Alteration is and that may be True but supposing the Wisedome of the Parliament it were better for their credit to be False And then take these words of theirs in any one of these foure sences which you please and they signifie just nothing in the way of a true Answer to that objection concerning Alteration which our Commissioners urg'd them with before For the words taken in either of the three first sences doe indeed containe an Answer but that Answer is not Truth and taken in the last sence They may indeed containe a Truth but that Truth is no Answer This Demand notwithstanding so sencelesse and unreasonable in the very substance of the thing receives a new accession of Insolence from the circumstance of time For as if their Soveraignty could have no soule unlesse that soule were Immortall First they desire this nomination of the Commissioners without any limitation or restriction of Time and Secondly they desire it for seaven yeares at least and after the expiration of that tearme to be setled and exercised in such manner as shall be agreed on by His Majestie and the Two Houses of Parliament in England and by His Majestie and the Estates of the Parliament in Scotland and not otherwise So that for these seaven yeares it seems they will proceed with the King as God did with Nebuchad-nezzar for his seaven times He shall converse with Beasts that is He shall be no better then any one of the Beasts of the People as the Prophet speaks His Royalty and His Imperiall Rights all this while being taken from Him which after those seaven yeares like Nebuchad-nezzars understanding shall revert and return safe again unto Him And is not this a gracious condescension Is not this a kind relaxation of the former Rigour are not these men willing to comply and to do any thing for Peace I will not say that either this is a condescension and a complying on their parts or that nothing is but I will say that either this was a condescension and complying on their parts or that nothing was for in all those Twenty dayes of the Treaty which should have bin intended by both sides for reciprocall abatements of the rigour of their first Desires They never receded from any one part of any one of their Propositions but only in the particular of this Limitation and eighteen of the twenty dayes were full elapsed and expired before ever they expressed that But what if these Oraculous words of theirs should have a double sense what if that which we are willing to take as a little Grant should prove a greater Grievance I think if these words And after the expiration of the said tearme the Militia of the Kingdome to be seiled and exercised in such manner as shall be agreed on by His Majestie and the two Houses of Parliament c. be well weigh'd and examined although they may seem to return the King after His seaven yeares Apprenticeship unto his Liberty againe and as it were make Him Free yet they will signifie no more in order to any such true Freedom then in that old expression of For ever and a day that Day there signifies in order unto any true time For if the King shall not exercise His own Legall Power of the Militia when those seaven yeares are expired Otherwise then by both Houses of Parliament shall be agreed on as their words expresly say he shall not what is the difference between His condition during these seaven yeares and His condition when those seaven yeares shall be expired but only in this that for seaven yeares He shall have no Power with them and after those seaven yeares He shall have no Power without them so that either way He is bereaved of His Right and for ought I can see yet more this last way which is proposed in the way of Concession and Favour then he is the first way which is imposed by way of Oppression and Rigour For the King having no Power with them but being excluded for seaven yeares from the nomination of Commissioners hath thus much of Liberty left him that he is not oblig'd either to God or Man to answer for those miscarriages of State that shall happen in the mean while by Persons that may abuse their Trust and although he suffer something yet all this while he is sure that He shall Doe nothing against his owne will But the King having no power without them that is having his Power ordered as it is like to be when his Seaven yeares are out by both His Houses of Parliament and OTHERWISE not to be exercised may be reduced to this straite and necessity that if both His Houses of Parliament shall agree upon some Person notoriously disaffected to His Majesties Rights or Governement who thereby perchance shall have merited some marke of His Displeasure The King notwithstanding shall be compelled and enforced to Doe something against his owne will and to set upon such a man a speciall stampe of Confidence and Favour Which indeed rather is a piece of infelicity then a part of any Power as we call it Power in God whereby he is able to doe any Thing and yet doe not call it Power but Weaknesse even in God himselfe if he should be able to sinne And having thus extracted all the Pure Metall of the Crowne by their demands having thus extenuated and annihilated all the Kings Power of making Warre they begin to bethink themselves of disposing the Allay too for their best advantage They will not leave Him so much as a Power neither of Making Peace For they demand That the Cessation of Ireland and all Treaties with the Rebells without consent of both Houses of Parliament be pronounced voyde And that the Prosecution of the Warre in Ireland be setled in both Houses of Parliament to be managed by the joynt advice of both the Kingdomes Good God! That these ill men should not be content to rob their King of all His Power and Royalty that they should not be content to render Him no True King But their petulant insolence must attempt His very Faith and Honesty But they must attempt to render Him no True Man As if they had a purpose to constraine Him to a needlesse breach of Promise now that with more colour and better credit hereafter they might distrust Him as they report of the daughter of Sejanus who was first purposely ravisht that after wards she might be put to death because being a Virgin by the Law she could not suffer For this particular demand of making the Cessation voide was made in the moneth of February last and that very Cessation voyded of it selfe expired in the Moneth of March Now if the Kings Commissioners had agreed to the latter part of this Demand the setling of the prosecution of the Warre in both Houses of Parliament for the
the Church and Church-men were heretofore oblig'd by any known established Law of the Kingdome whatsoever And now let all men Iudge of their Faith in other Testimonies which cannot easily be reduc't to a convenient Teste who dare thus abuse the World with Falshhood in This which lyes so open and obnoxious to a plaine and ordinary Tryall Secondly For the Militia they say We made no good Progresse therein and therefore were resolv'd it seemes the Treaty should break up Because We thought it not fit to consent to any one of their Demandes but made some new Propositions of our owne which were not in any degree sufficient for the setling and securing of the Peace of both the Kingdomes I did ever thinke till now that it was one thing to make a Progresse and another thing to make an End Doe they say We made no good Progresse in the Militia because We consented not unto their whole Demands They might altogether as properly say that a Country-man travailing towards London hath made no good Progresse in his Iourney because He is not come as yet to Charing-Crosse Questionlesse a Progresse is made on their Demandes when We Consent but unto any part thereof and the better that part is that is consented to the better is the Progresse Now if halfe of any Thing be a good part then is our Progresse upon their Demands a good Progresse for We consented to the one halfe of every thing that was required They demanded the Nomination of all the Commissioners and We granted them the Nomination of halfe They demanded the Militia for Seaven yeares and We would have given them it for Three But I perceive He grants them nothing that does not grant them all and it fares with the Parliaments Demands as some report it does in the fortunate Ilands of Arabia with the People Dayes They know not what belongs to dawning They never see Day till the whole Sunne appears unto them Besides if Our Commissioners had made no better Progresse then They pretend if We had exhausted all those Twenty Dayes assigned for the Treating upon Their Propositions in meere Tergiversation and Cavill if We had denyed Our Assent to all their Demands and then had been never able to make good any colourable Reason for that Our Denyall yet certainly Their Originall Commission having a kind of Counter part and they being authorized to Treat upon those Three Propositions offered by Vs to Them as well as upon these other Three offered by Them to Vs Reason and equity would that an equall number of Propositions should have been allow'd an equall number of Dayes and then if the Successes and Issues of both had happily falne out equally unprofitable yet no one side could have had just cause for to complaine of the partiall and uneven proceedings of the other And although We doe not urge it as an Argument of Insolence and Pride that Their Propositions must be Treated on in the first place before the Kings yet when the pretence of Our ill Progresse upon Theirs is made a Reason of their no Progresse at all on Ours We cannot but look upon this Order and Disposall of the partes as an Argument of great Inconvenience against a Peace and which hath somewhat of the visage of an Affected and Studyed Obstruction cast in the wayes thereof For those Three Propositions of Theirs if They had been denyed at Vxbridge yet they might have been granted at Westminster in a Full and Free Convention of Parliament out of which I know not well indeed how They could be granted But these Three Propositions of Ours They cannot be granted at Westminster if They be denyed at Vxbridge unlesse you thinke it fit to perswade one man to lay downe the Bucklers whilest another beats him The Kings Proposition for a present Cessation in England could not be setled but in a Treatie The Parliaments Proposition against the Cessation which was already past in Ireland might be setled out of it and yet so inraged incensed are these men against that Cessation there that they will not endure the mention of any thing that sounds like it here as that impetuous Emperour who by witchcraft having learnt three letters of His name that was afterwards to Succeed him put every man to death whom he could lay hands on that had those three letters for the beginning of his Name His Majesties Returne to Westminster which Our Commissioners desired in the second place could not be Safe but as both Sides agree before He commes But Episcopacy which their Commissioners desired to have abolisht could not be but unsafe even after his comming for if there be just Reason to take it away now there will be reason then And yet so transported are they with a passionate and eager pursuit of a thing in the perswasion whereof both Parties professe they differ that they will not admit Discourse or Treat of another thing wherein both Sides professe before hand that They doe agree Both Armies cannot be Disbanded according to that Demand of Ours but before the King and Parliament doe meet but the Power of the Militia may be setled according to that Demand of Theirs after that Meeting and indeed there is but little reason that this Power of the Militia should now come in projection in these Times of Warre which must lye Dormant as Themselves confesse and not be put in Execution till the Time of Peace And yet so violent are these Men in setling of a Power which must not be exercis'd but in the Time of Peace That they will heare of no course that may be taken in the meane time for dissolving of the Warre like ordinary People in a Croude that will make such hast every man to get first out of dores that no man stirres So that upon viewing of the whole matter We can cast all these obstacles and Impediments in the wayes of Peace that arose out of this perverse Method of handling the Propositions into no other Mould but this That They never intending to conclude a Peace resolved in the first place to Treat of Their Propositions which they knew no man with Honesty or Conscience could Grant That in the second place they might with better colour avoyd the Treating upon Our Propositions which they knew no man with Conscience or Honesty could offer to Deny And if all this which hath bin said be not enough to perswade with men of common understanding that these Rebels never did intend a Peace but that they purpose to make this Warre which at first was their Necessity now become their Trade for too many of them know not how to live without it yet this One Consideration is sufficient to enforce them to beleife if they will but weigh it well and that is this That They never would allow the Tender and Offer of all those things for Overtures of Peace the Stoppe and Obstruction whereof they themselves ever professed till now was the greatest Incentive and
time to come what could the voyding of this Cessation contribute to the current of their designe but onely by way of scandalous Reflexion upon His Majesties breach of Faith and Promise when that Cessation would voyd it selfe would exhale and expire of it selfe before ever those Designes of theirs could be ripe for any prosecution I confesse when I look well upon it me thinkes the true state of this question concerning the Irish Cessation is the same with the state of that question in Plutarke concerning Demonides his shooes Demonides was a lame impotent man and therefore had his shooes made very wide and easy for his feet Those shooes when a cunning youth had stolne one day from him and some of his neighbours comming in and willing to extenuate and alleviate his Losse that he might be the lesse affected with it had told him that they were but a scurvy paire of clouterly shooes and very naughtily made Demonides replyed that the shooes indeed were no very good shooes but they were very good shooes for Demonides because a better paire would not have fitted his sore feet halfe so well In like manner it may be said of this Cessation That indeed it was no very good Cessation because peradventure other Cessations heretofore have been made according to the more punctuall Rules of Honour and Advantage But it was a very good Cessation for Ireland because the condition of her infirmity was such that she could admit no better For when the Chiefe Iustices and Officers of State when the chiefe Commanders and Officers of the Campe when both of them shall complaine unto the King of the miserable condition and posture of Ireland for very want of Food and advertise Him by their Letters of her present inabilities to maintaine the prosecution of a Warre what could the King doe more in discharge of His duty both to God and Man then to admit of a Cessation in order to a present Peace The Houses of Parliament it seems would not help them at all for after Six months expectation they send them provision of Victualls for some Seaven daies as if they purposed a scorne to the Miseries of their poore Brethren rather then a succour And the King could not help them better then by giving his Approbation to a Cessation which the Publique Ministers of the State of Ireland had ordered and assented to there as fittest for the present condition of that Kingdome and so shew Himselfe at least willing to Respite that Cause as well as He could which He well knew himselfe unable to Revenge Now in Inducijs Bellum manet quamvis Pugna cesset say our Books So long as the Parties ingaged in a Warre proceed no further then Cessations and Truces for a time There is only a suspension of the Fight there is no suffocation of the Quarrell which may better be resum'd again when they that manage it shall have out-grown those necessities and encombrances which compell'd them first unto it so that if this Cessation were Destructive to either of the Parties it is most like to be so to the Rebels who were not in that visible Distresse and want of all sort of Provision as the Protestant party was and if the condition of the protestants were the worse condition when the Cessation began because the actuall necessities of both sides were unequall and We wanted more then They certainly the condition of the Rebels cannot be the better condition when the Cessation shall end because the possible supplies of both sides must be confessed equall and They can be no more releiv'd then We Notwithstanding all this this Cessation of Ireland is exploded and exclaim'd against by both Houses of Parliament as destructive to His Maiesties good Subiects and to the Protestant Religion and only for the advantage of the Popish Rebels Indeed I do read that there may be Destruction in a Cessation for the Prophet David calling all men to behold the works of the Lord and what destruction he hath wrought upon the earth in the 46 Psalme makes his first instance in the poynt of a Cessation in the next words that follow He maketh Warrs to cease vers. 9. But the Prophet had a Mysticall meaning in his words and so no doubt have They For surely they mean that a Cessation is destructive to the good Subjects of Ireland just in the very same sense that the want of Victuals is a Preservative for them and if that be not a mysticall sence I know not what is But if these men would speak plaine they would say That this Cessation in Ireland is Destructive to His Majesties ill Subjects here in England who cannot have that convenient colour now to raise Forces and levy Monies for the suppression of a Rebellion there which Monies and Forces they may convert as heretofore too often they have done to the feeding and fomenting of their own Rebellion here And this is evidently the Reason why they so desire a prosecution of the Warre in Ireland and demand the settlement of that Prosecution in their own hands that having once a Power of impropriating all the Succours of Ireland to their own Rebellious ends and purposes they may with better advantage mannage the Warre here in England against the King when they shall have Two swords for His One and may fight against Him not only with His Enemies but with His Friends For if both Houses of Parliament intended only the prosecution of Iustice upon those accursed Rebells and not some vicious ends of their own no lesse accursed then they for the grounds of all Rebellions are alike and if there be any just ground for one no ground is unjust that is laid for any other Certainly the King would be thought on as a fitter instrument of execution whither He be considered as King or as one single Person who can have but one will and so cannot differ from himselfe then a collected body made out of many Persons of two Kingdoms those of each Kingdom having a negative voyce who thereby may have Two willes and so differ amongst themselves whereby the main businesse must needs receive obstruction Neither does that avoid this inconvenience which these men say namely That in case of any disagreement in the Committee the two Houses of Parliament are to prosecute that Warre unlesse they can imagine any man so simple as not to think it as possible for the two Houses of Parliament to disagree as for one Committee Besides when the Parliament had a mind to settle the Militia of England for the preservation of the Peace in the hands of some Commissioners of their own naming and would exclude the King from so much as the nomination of any one amongst them They give this as a reason of their desire That is the Commissioners should be severally named as the King would have had them probably they would have acted according to their severall interests and the warre thereby would be more
easily revived And is it not as probable now if the prosecution of the Warre in Ireland should be setled in a Committee of two severall Kingdoms England and Scotland that the Persons of that Committee should have severall interests and ends in the carrying on of that Warre according to their severall Necessities or Ambitions and so what one aymes at as a Conversion the other may intend as Conquest by which meanes the Warre either will be retarded or which is worse exchanged I doe not asperse either of the two Nations with the unworthinesse of these Designes But I must needs say this When a great mans House is on Fire which he is able to quench with the servants help of his own Family and yet strangers will be pressing in whether he will or no It is an even wager if Two men come in together to Helpe but One of them comes to Steale If this Committee of both Kingdoms should have but one and the same end and that end a good one The quenching of the Fire of that Rebellion in Ireland and the reducing of that unhappy Kingdome to His Majesties Obedience yet certainly reason would not that the prosecution of such a good end should be put into the hands of such State-Empericks who will goe about to cure a burnt Finger by putting it into another Fire who thinke to quench the flames of that Rebellion there by blowing up a greater Rebellion here And let no man wonder that I call this Rebellion a greater For as the Casuists use to say That when a man Sweares the greater the subject-matter of his Oath is the lesse is the sinne So doe I say That when a man Rebels the better his Ground is whither it be Religion or Gods Glory the worse is his Rebellion because he goes about to lay that for a Foundation which will never incorporate with any part of the Superstructure or Building Nay further then all this If it should please God to give these men the grace of true Repentance so that they should detest this unnaturall Rebellion here and with unfeigned hearts should set themselves to the extirpation and rooting out of that Rebellion there yet in reason were not the prosecution of that Warre to be put into their handes even then because in the Traverses of an uncertaine Warre In those ordinary reciprocations and returnes of Fortune In those ebbings and flowings of Successe which are not the lesse naturall to great Enterprizes because lesse certain There will fall out many particular emergent occasions both for Action and Councell quae non dum fiunt laudentur sed cum facta sunt as the Oratour speaks The Successe whereof will much depend upon the Secrecy and the greatest commendation that can be given the doing of them is that they are already done Which Councells can never runne so cleare through a Sive as through a Pipe where many Heads have the conveighing thereof as where but one And therefore it was not a piece of Pride but Policy in that great States-man who would usually debate all his Designes of Warre amongst his Councell but then would be sure never to follow that Advice which generally was accounted for the best because by long experience he had observ'd that a lesse Expedient accompanied with secrecy and silence operated more in the wayes of Advantage then a greater Expedient expos'd to common observation and knowledge And then let all the World Iudge whither it stand with ordinary Prudence and Reason to commit the prosecution of a Warre to their Hands who doe now manage an Actuall Warre against their owne Prince and are in open Rebellion against Him which ordinary Wisedome and Discretion would not entrust them with as being a Multitude if They should returne to their Subjection and Obedience IV. In the last place observe their inexorable obduration and deafnesse against all enlargement prorogation or reviging of the Treaty For being importun'd by the King Commissioners for an Addition of Time that so as they might give Fuller Answers to those Propositions of the Parliament if there were occasion so they might hope to receive some kind of Answer to those Propositions of the King of which some received no direct Answer and some no Answer at all They kept them still in suspence till the very Twentieth Day that Day when the Treaty was to break up before ever They would give them Answer And then they tell them That their Lordships having not given full and satisfactory answers concerning Religion the Militia and Ireland They cannot for those reasons expect an Addition of Time A man would thinke they should rather have given more time in hope of Fuller Answers specially having nothing else to doe but to receive the Homage of our Commissioners as if they had come rather to keep a Court then to speed a Commission Neither have they received any Instructions to continue this Treaty any longer then the Twenty Dayes of which this is the last Oh! the torment of having an ill Conscience and hearing Reason I dare say never was any Cheater in the Pillory gladder to see the Iudges come from Westminster then these ill men were to sâ—e the Twentieth Day that was to redeem them from the cruelties of a convinced understanding And yet as your ordinary Players when they cannot play that Comedy which was intended because some of their principall men of partes are drunke will lay the fault on the Spectators and say the House or Galleries are not full So these Actors of a Peace when they durst not continue the Treaty any longer because of those Overtures that were made by our Commissioners concerning a Cessation concerning the Kings Returne to Westminster and concerning a present disbanding of both Armies the very steame and ayre whereof was able to turne the braines of this Rebellion and to make it stagger They tell our Commissioners that it seemes We had resolved that the Treaty should end with the Twenty Dayes the meanes to continue it being so well knowne to be a good Progresse in the Propositions for Religion the Militia and Ireland wherein they cannot find any satisfaction that was intended by Vs to be agreed unto But when as any man would imagine did they tell them this Truely just when the last instant of the Twenty Dayes was now expired After Twelve a clock at night when They were sure no Answer could be given as part of the Treaty without their Consent As if the Rules of Treating were like those of Scolding and the simple World must needs imagine that because They had the last Word They had the best Cause I must professe ingenuously when I met with this particular and compar'd it with the drolleryes of many of their other Papers where meere Fumes are maintain'd like Fortifications and so much Reason as will hardly make a cracker is mounted like some whole piece of Canon that must sweep and carry all before it I could not on the suddain satisfie