Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n
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A25428
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A letter from a person of honour in the countrey written to the Earl of Castlehaven : being observations and reflections upon His Lordships memoires concerning the wars of Ireland.
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Anglesey, Arthur Annesley, Earl of, 1614-1686.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing A3170; ESTC R613
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23,258
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78
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taking the contrary part and his Lordship escaping soon after the Rebellion to Dublin only with the Kings Troop which he Commanded and some Servants that attended him The Earl of Leicester Lord Lieutenant as he was upon his Journey for Ireland was discharged that Imployment to make way for the Marquess of Ormond to succeed him who had an unlimitted Commission sent him sole to examine the pretended Grievances of the Irish and for making a Cessation with the Rebels which he did and was after made Lord Lieutenant and concluded the two first Peaces before-mentioned I have heard Sir Philip Percival a very worthy Person and of a fair Estate being asked why he would by his Certificates of Defect of Stores give countenance and furtherance to a Cessation which he knew could only advantage the Rebels and be ruinous to the English Answer The Stores were really wasted upon unprofitable fruitless Marches and then his Certificates being required he durst not as an Officer refuse them though he was aware of the use would be made of them To shew your Lordship how the Cessation operated laying aside at present the question of the warrantableness on necessity thereof and that the two first Peaces were against Law and several Acts of Parliament in both Kingdoms and upon that and other accounts the validity thereof I must take another opportunity when I may discourse things more fully with your Lordship I can now only briefly tell your Lordship that all the Proceedings of the Rebels in Arms and all their Demands were Treason That the English and Protestants had the Laws on their side which the Irish by combination and force did break and designed wholly to subvert That the Irish tollerated no Protestants in their Quarters though that Religion were the only legal Establishment but seized and forfeited all their Estates whilst the Protestants afforded the measure and benefit of the Laws to the Irish and Papists even to those who had been in Rebellion whensoever they came in or submitted It is not then to be wondred at that the chief and most of the English Nobility in Ireland and the generality of English Scotch and Irish Protestants of all qualities and degrees sooner or later opposed both the Cessation and Peaces as destructive to them and derogatory to the Crown in which number we find the Earls of Kildare Thomond Cork Barrimore Drogheda Donnagall Claubrasill Mount Alexander c. The Viscounts of Valentia Conoway Ranelagh Kinnelmeky Shannon c. Barons or Lords Elsmond Juchequin Blaney Broghill c. But it were endless to name all and of no use to your Lordship who know this as well as I. By this it appears how ungratefully the Irish did requite the Marquess of Ormond for his unwillingness that the whole Irish Nation should ruin themselves by their persisting in Rebellion And now whether it was their vain confidence to carry the day or what else occasioned it they lost the opportunity of deliverance which the Marquess of Ormond being related to so many of them by Blood and Alliance had compassionately designed for them though with great hardship and damage to the English And whatever grounds the Marquess of Ormond had for the Cessation and Peaces by which he could have got nothing but would have incurred manifest loss which it chiefly concerns himself to vouch that in the eye of the World he may stand clear as a true English Man and faithful Subject It is apparent that now by the Forfeiture and Punishment of the Irish his Lordship and Family are the greatest gainers of the Kingdom and have added to their Inheritances vast scopes of Land and a Revenue three times greater than what his Paternal Estate was before the Rebellion and most of his increase is out of their Estates who adheared to the Peaces or served under his Majesties Ensigns abroad which shews that whatsoever of Compassion or Natural Affection or otherwise might incline him to make those Peaces he is in Judgment and Conscience against them and so hath since appeared and hath advantage by their laying aside The like may be said of the Duke of York the Earl of Arlington Lord Lanesborough and others who have great Estates of the Irish freely given them upon the same foundation So that 't is to be hoped whether the Bills already come over to confirm the forfeited Rebels Estates to English and Protestants will do the work or no That his Grace or whosoever shall succeed him in the Lieutenancy will in time transmit such Bills as shall do that work effectually and unite and strengthen his Majesties Protestant Subjects to oppose and break the further Designs of that Rebellious Generation which they will never keep free from so long as they acknowledge and obey a Forreign Head I shall make no reflection at this time upon the Peace called Glamorgan's Peace but what your Lordship gives occasion for by mentioning it viz. That it was the most destructive of all to the English and Protestants but suited best with the Confederate Design of establishing the Romish Idolatry which your Lordship in your Oath of Association engaged as deep in as any excepting the first foundation laid in Blood a fit basis for a Faction only supported by Fraud and Cruelty One passage in your Lordships Memoires I cannot but take notice of for your Honour as an English Man That when the Marques of Ormond in his extremity between the Nuncio party and the Parliament of England asked your Lordship with which of his Enemies he should treat You answered That you were confident he had resolved that before there being no question in the case when it was no question with your Lordship I wonder how it came to be one with his Lordship but the success of your Council was happy and founded upon solid grounds of Reason Your Lordship sees I can but glance at particulars in this Letter and being by so noble a Pens ingaging in justification of a Quarrel which casts reflection upon all that took contrary part to the Irish of which number I was one contrary to my first intention upon the matter necessitated in vindication of as just a cause as ever was managed under the Sun to hasten out the last part of the general History of Ireland first Wherein I shall so impartially make relation beyond all possibility of contradiction that I doubt not your Lordship will reflect with remorse upon what you have done and written wherein I differ from you and the World will know exactly the truth of that sad story I shall in the mean time only as in an abstract ser these things before you and upon the whole matter in answer to your Lordships specious justification and for your present mortification let you know that by Judgment of the King and his Privy Councils and Parliaments in both Kingdoms You are involved in the guilt of Treason and under forfeiture of all you have and as a friend yet advise you to get his
Majesties Pardon if the Acts of Parliaments have not precluded you for it s more than I know if all your Lordships active Services in Ireland be not yet liable to the utmost penalties and Severities of the Law So far are they from being fit to be offered as entertainment to his Majesty by an Epistle Dedicatory as your Lordship hath done I find your Lordship in several places reflects upon those who broke the first Peace and call it unparallell'd breach of Faith punished by heavy Judgments from Heaven and yet this was the Confederates own Act. But as if the breach of the Oath of Allegiance by the Irish and their treacherous and bloody defection from the Crown of England were a Peccadillo your Lordship hardly takes notice of it but repines at the forfeiture of Estates grounded thereupon though God and Man agreed in that Vengeance and Punishment And let this Rebellion be compared to all before it there will not appear since the English Title to Ireland so just and clear grounds of forfeiture and extirpating a Nation as have done upon this but the King hath mingled Mercy with Justice and though by a Providence from Heaven to the English the Marquesses of Ormond and Clanrickard his Majestles chief Governors incouraged the Irish to keep up a War against the English wherein they were so much hardened to their ruin that they were at length intirely subdued without condition to any save for life and left to be as miserable as they had made others in all other respects yet multitudes of them have been restored and must yet own their Lives and Estates to the Clemency of the King and the mildness of the English Government which they had cast off and put themselves under a Forreign Yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear The Wisdom of God thus punishing one sin of theirs with another till they are scarce a People and the English and Protestant interest never more flourishing in that Kingdom Insomuch that it would be now the greatest folly imaginable in the Government of England and Ireland ever to suffer the Papists to grow capable of raising such a Rebellion again which they will certainly do when able Bigottery and sottish Ignorance both of Priests and People in Religion being the growing root of mischief there Upon the whole since the Cobweb excuses your Lordship hath made cannot cover the Blood that hath been shed or bring quiet to the Consciences of any that had hand therein and since your Lordship so well knows the Temper and Constitution of the Irish by your long continuance and interest among them I cannot but yet hope and therefore do with the most friendly adjurations beseech your Lordship herein that the zeal which you yet seem to have for the King his Laws and the English Government will incline you to let him know the truth you cannot be ignorant of that they are a Nation never to be trusted till reformed that so his Majesty and his English Subjects may run no more hazards of suffering by confidence in them or regard to their Crocodile Tears and groundless Complaints by which they have deceived the English in all times And that by your Repentance imitating your Ghostly Father Peter Walsh his Advice to his Countrey Men for Repentance and change of Principles your Lordship may give another instance to the World that Allegiance and the Religion you profess may dwell in the same Breast then which nothing can more conduce to divert the Irish from future Attempts of Rebellion My Lord I find many Queries fit to be made on your Memoires and many other particulars a Redire therein but you will perhaps think I have done too much already I shall therefore reserve these to another opportunity and here close in the wonted manner with the assurance of my being saving in the Irish Confederacy and Matter of Religion My Lord Your Lordships Affectionate Friend and Servant Postscript THis Letter was written as appears in August 1680 presently after the Earl of CASTLE-HAVEN had Published his Memoires with a Dedication only to the King but since his Lordships Receipt of this Letter he was it seems convinced of the necessity of writing the Epistle to the Reader in Condemnation of the Irish Rebellion which his Lordship hath since caused to be Printed with the said Memoires FINIS