to destroy so many thousand Widows and Orphans to confirm unlawful and usurped possessions to violate the publick Faith to punish Virtue to countenance Vice to hold Loyalty a Crime and Treason worthy of Reward The bloody and covetous States-man who chiefly occasioned all this disorder was very often heard to say with a fierce countenance and passionate tone the Irish deserve to be extirpated and then he would after his usual manner come out with a great Oath and swear they shall all be extirpated Root and Branch Good God what a Heathen expression is this in the mouth of a Christian who is expresly commanded to love his Enemies Does he think that the Divine Providence which orders the growth of Herbs the fall of Leaves and appoints an Angel for the guard of every individual person takes no care to preserve an entire Body of a Nation and that it shall be in the power of one man to destroy the work of God at his pleasure of such a Man that could not prevent his own disgrace not avoid the many other inconveniences which are like to fall upon him This proud Haman who joyntly with some few others to get Money for themselves and Estates for their Children contrived the general extirpation of the whole Irish race but before he could fully compass his wicked Design I must confess he went very near to do it and if God had given him a longer continuance of power he would undoubtedly make good his word was forced for his own safety and the preservation of his life to quit his fine House forsake his Family and bid his Countrey farewel and to travel in his old age in the dead of Winter through so many dangers at Sea and incommodities by Land to seek for some shelter abroad seeing he could not be secure at home Justu es Domine justum judicium tuum He is gone with all his Greatness and the miseries of the poor Irish do still continue however they are yet in being and live in hope that the fall of their Mortal Enemy may be a beginning of their Rise and that his Majesty will now seriously reflect upon the unparallel'd usage hitherto extended to that Nation who are deprived of the Benefit of Law Justice and publick Faith The cryes and tears of more than an hundred thousand Widows and Orphans being worthy his Majesties Princely consideration And certainly there can be no great difficulty met with to dissannul two illegal Acts which are evidently repugnant not only to the Law of God and Nature contrary to the common reason and consequently void in themselves but also to all sound Policy and reason of State For that the true Interest of England as relating to Ireland consists in raising he Irish as a Bulwark or ballance against our English and Scotch Presbyterians The Irish Papists agreed so well and lived so peaceably with our English Prelatiques during the Reign of King James and Seventeen years of King Charles the First that they seemed to be of one mind in all matters And when the Presbyterian practises and Covenant began to disturb these Kingdoms the Papists and Prelatiques in Ireland as well as in England joyned their hearts and hands against Presbytery for the King The great Earl of Strafford judged it was a true Protestant Cavalier Interest to raise an Army of Papists in Ireland thereby to keep in awe the Presbyterians of Scotland and England And indeed the Presbyterian designs could never have had been compassed if the King had not been forced to disband the same Army Then the Earl now Duke of Ormond thought it was the true English and Cavalier Interest joyn in Parliament with the Roman Catholick Nobility and Gentry of Ireland against the Presbyterian Lords Justices and their Faction and therefore joyntly with them resolved to secure their persons and seize upon the Castle and Magazine of Dublin for his Majesty But this their Design was quashed by an inconsiderate attempt of some Northern Gentlemen which occasioned the late Rebellion and encouraged the presbyterian Lords Justices to force the Kings Loyal Subjects into desperate Courses But no sooner were the presbyterian Lord Justices deposed and imprisoned by the Kings commands but the Roman Catholicks returned to their Duty first by a Cessation next by a submissive peace delivering the whole Kingdom to the Duke of Ormond and joyning with the Cavalier party against the Kings Enemies and so continued untill both were over-powered by Cromwel Another reason why understanding men judge the Irish ought to be preserved and their Interest preferred before that of Cromwels Creatures is that the English of Ireland are not able to defend themselves against the Scots in that Countrey If the Irish be Neuters The Scots are a people so numerous so needy and so near unto Ireland so cunning close and confederated in a common Interest that some of our States-men apprehend they may soon possess themselves of the whole Island they being at this present not only Masters of Vister but spread over the other provinces and very well armed Now if despair should dictate to the destroyed Irish that it is their conveniency to joyn with the Scots against the English that possess their Estates without question the English Interest will be lost in Ireland It is better therefore that the Irish Nation be gained by restoring them to their own such only excepted as had their hands in murdering English than that a few presbyterian and phanatick up-starts be made great by other Mens Estates and the whole Kingdom endangered to be wrested out of our hands and seperated from the Crown of England You see my Lord that there seems to be as little conveniency as Conscience in my Lord Clarendon's and his covetous partners Settlement of Ireland yet I must confess this Domestick affair agreeth well with his policy in Foreign Negotiations Until his time the Statesmen of Europe particularly the English made it their business to keep the scales equal between France and Spain least either of those two potentates might aspire unto an Universal Monarchy But the Earl of Clarendon made it his business to utterly destroy Spain and exalt the French King to such a height of power that in a short time he might be Master of the Netherlands and find no opposition in his way into England And indeed had not our Kings Conduct and Courage been extraordinary in closing up a new Defensive League so seasonably and in concluding a peace between Spain and Portugal no part of Europe that is worth the Coveting could be free from the French command I hope that as God hath inspired his Majesty to prevent by this League and peace the dangers which corrupt Ministers drew upon us so He will move him to establish a lasting peace in his Dominions by a just repeal of the Irish Act of Settlement And thereby to quash all the Designs against England That France or any Foreigner may endeavour to ground upon the discontents of a destroyed and desperate people Now my Lord that you have had this account of the transactions in Ireland since his Majesties Restauration it were an act worthy your Lordship being a leading Member in the House of peers in England and much relyed upon in the House of Commons to make it your request to his Majesty that the Business of Ireland may receive one publick hearing and all parties concerned appear by their Agents which if your Lordship prevail to get done if the Settlement as it is now Established be deemed Just will be happy for the possessours and take away all Calumnies that the Irish do over all the World east on the Managers of that Settlement But if it appear not to be a just Settlement then Justice in so high a degree will become the King and his Highest Court and will evidence the Truth or Nullitie of what hath been here been offered to your Lordship by My Lord Your Lordships most Faithful and most Humble Servant F. D. FINIS * The D of O hath added as much to his own ancient Estate by the new settlement of Ireland as would have satisfied all the Claims of the just Adventurers And Anglesey and Kingston little less In the Province of Ulster but Three of the Natives restored viz. My Lord of Antrim Sir Henry O-Neil and one more of an inconsiderable Estate In the Province of Conaught but Four viz. the Earl of Clanrickard Lord of Mayo Coll. John Kelley and Coll. Moor. Which the Natives call the black Bill
Oblivion so satisfactory to the Convention Agents if all other passages to his Majesties further Graces and Favours were not shut up against them And in order thereunto they prevailed with the first Minster of State whom they had gained to their side by what coloured Arguments he knows best himself to re-call the Commission of Lord Deputy which was formerly given to the Lord Roberts a person of known Honour and Integrity The Conventionists having observed that his Lordship was not to be won upon any account to forward their Design This grand obstacle being removed out of the way Broghil Anglesey Clotworthy and Mervin with the assistance of Steel Roberts and Petit after three Months labour brought forth that monstrous issue of their brain which was exposed to the World under the Name and Title of His Majesties most Gracious Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland This was their Master-piece and hath been ever since the ground-work of all subsequent Acts which were established for the farther Settlement of that Nation The first branch of the Declaration confirms the Adventurer in his possession the Second secures the Soldier in his Debenture the Third satisfies the 49 Men the Forth assures unto the Transplanted Irish the Land Decreed unto them in the Province of Conaught and County of Clare The Fifth makes mention of those Irish Officers who served his Majesty in Flanders as also the Generality of the Nation who pretend to Articles My Lord is not this a blessed Declaration which provides in so large a manner for so many different Interests A Declaration that satisfies the Natives and yet dispossesseth none of the Cromwellists To understand it well we must mount a little higher and call to our remembrance how the Rump-Parliament divided the spoils of that conquered Nation in the Year 1653. Ten Counties were allotted to the Adventurers Twelve conferred on Cromwel's Souldiers and three of the Barren Counties given by way of charity to the transplanted Irish These by computation make up 25 Counties the remaining seven for Ireland contains in all but 32 Counties together with all the Cities and Corporations of that Kingdom were reserved to the Common-wealth Now this Declaration confirms the Adventurers Souldiers and transplanted Irish in their present possessions And moreover it assigns to several other uses the Seven remaining Counties and all the great Towns of Ireland which were not disposed of by the Common-wealth One of the Counties being designed to supply the deficiency of the Adventurers Lots another to satisfie the Incumbrances on the Lands already laid out to Adventurers and Souldiers The third to reprize such as were removed from the Lord Duke of Ormond's Estate and the other Four Counties with all the Cities and Corporations of the whole Kingdom a pretty grant being assigned to the Protestant Officers who serv'd His Majesty in Ireland at any time before the year 1649. After this Solemn division and distribution made of every House and every Acre of Land over all the Kingdom of Ireland Some 500 Irish Gentlemen who also serv'd his Majesty in Flanders are named in the Declaration to be forthwith restored to their ancient Estates but not until Lands of equal value worth and purchase are first found out to reprize the Adventurers Souldiers and the rest now in possession a work no more nor less feasible than the creation of another Ireland My Lord this Declaration was published on the 30th of Novomber 1660. and at the same time Broghil created Earl of Orery and Sir Charles Coot made Earl of Montrath were joyned in Commission with the Lord Chancellor Eustace as his Majesties Lords Justices of that Kingdom Sir John Clotworthy who was also created Lord Viscount Masserene Sir Audley Mervin and some others of the Convention-Agents staid at Court to draw up privare Instructions for the better executing his Majesties Declaration And because Innocents viz. Such as never offended his Majesty or His Royal Father were the only people to be restored without previous reprisals the Conventionists made it their grand work to qualifie an Innocent that it should be Morally impossible to find any such in rerum natura virum innocentum quis inveniet Eleven qualifications were ordered for their Tryal and those so rigid and severe that Clotworthy and his Companions who had the wording of them did verily believe there could not be a man found in all Ireland that should pass untoucht through so many Pikes For not only the inoffensive persons who never took Arms who never enter'd into the Confederacy with the rest of their Countreymen if they did but pay them the least Contribution out of their Estates if they did but reside in the Irish quarters although in their own own houses not only these I say were declared to be no Innocents but such as lived all the War-time in England such as were with Hiâ— Majesty at Oxford and served in his Army if they received any Rent from their Tenants in Ireland were by virtue of one of the Eleven Qualifications to be held for Nocents But among all the other Qualifications that of taking an Engagement which was administred unto all his Majesties Subjects in the three Kingdoms was a very notable one This Engagement was forced upon the Irish in so high a nature that those who would not take it were debarred not only from the benefit of the Law but also exposed to an innevitable danger of death the Souldiers of Cromwels Army being commanded by publick Proclamation to kill all they met on the High-way who carried not a Certificate about him of having taken that Engagement Commands which were cruelly executed on silly Peasants who out of Ignorance or want of care having left their Tickets at home were barbarously murdered by the merciless Souldiers My Lord it is very remarkable that they who devised this Engagement who heartily subscribed unto it and forced others to take it shall not be questioned or held criminal and that those who never saw it before it was ministered unto them who abhorred it in their hearts and were forced to sign it to avoid a bloody and violent death shall be declared Nocents and an irrevocable sentence of losing their Estates given against them and the Estates so forfeited to be conferred on those very Persons who compelled the Proprietors to that Forfeiture By this Qualification alone a Man may judge of the rest To Crown this grand work of settling Ireland the Conventionists having worded the Declaration and Instructions to their own advantage prevailed with their great Patron to have themselves named the only Commissioners to put in Execution his Majesties Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland This un-usual and perhaps never before heard of course of Justice one of the parties being made Judge of the Case appeared so ugly and terrible to the Irish that many of them could hardly be perswaded to believe that his Sacred Majesty was restored to the peaceable and free possessession of his Crown and Kingdoms seeing
Title to their Estates but that of the Sword which they have always imployed against the late King and his present Majesty enjoying as a Sallary for their service all the Irish Estates in twelve Counties I do not think any man will be so impudent as to justifie this prodigious Title I am sure their greatest Patrons never durst say they were just but they said very often it was convenient to confirm them in possession of other Mens Land And perhaps we shall not find many other States-men among the Followers of the Gospel who will allow a conveniency so apparent against Justice Ruat Coelum fiat Justicia is a Motto which better becomes a Lord Chancellour Then let us not do what is just but what is convenient It is indeed a most wonderful conveniency to dispossess the Ancient Proprietor who Fought for the King and give his Estate to a Fanatick Souldier who Fought for Cromwel To suppor this pretended Conveniency the first Minister of State made use of a strong Argument derived from the great power of the Cromwellists in Ireland and thus he makes it out The English Army is very considerable now in Ireland they have Swords in their hands and they are in possession of all the great Towns and strong holds in that Kingdom it is not therefore safe to irritate them Nay there is an absolute necessity as the case stands to confirm them in their present possessions For we must not do what is just but what is is convenient These words were often delivered in Councel as so many Oracles and perhaps the greater Statesman did not seriously reflect whether the same Argument might not serve as well to confirm all the Cromwellists in England in their unlawful Acquisitions of the Crown and Church-Lands and so many Cavaliers Estates whereof they were dispossessed upon his Majesties Restauration without any great noise and less danger and yet they were then very considerable They had Swords in their hands and they were in possession of all the strong holds of the Kingdom c. My Lord I have been all over the Kingdom of Ireland and assure your Lordship that the old Inhabitants and Natives of Ireland are Ten for one and far the more considerable Party But large Sums have made that corrupt Minister say any thing that seemed advantagious to support that other Interest I am confident My Lord admitting them as inconsiderable as he would have them it cannot be half so formidable as the power of that party was in England when the King came in These were all disbanded in less then Six Months time and now 't is more than Seven years that the Fanatick Army is maintained in Ireland without any necessity which occasions that his Majesty receives no Revenue out of that vast and fertil Kingdom Nay he is obliged to send yearly a considerable sum of Money out of England for the maintenance of that Army For my part I cannot nnderstand how the King might safely reduce the English Army and that it should be dangerous for him to disband the Irish Forces who were not half so numerous nor so much to be feared as those in England If the want of Money hindred their disbanding at once with their Brethren in England and Scotland might not they reduce by degrees and by Regiments in eight years time I think it is sufficiently evidenced that the Cromwellian party in Ireland have no more power than what his Majesty hitherto is pleased to grant them by the advice of his first Minister who upholds that Fanatick Army for his own sordid if not wicked ends Let that Favourite that perswades his Master to tolerate Injustice and Oppression upon the account of a Servile Fear have a care that he be not one day convinced either of ignorance Rex est qui posuit metus diramala pectoris quem non ambitio popularis nunquam stabilis faveur Vulgi praecipitis movet The third grand interest and the most destructive to the Natives is that of the Protestant Officers who served his Majesty or the Parliament in Ireland before the year 1649. Whose arrears have been cast up and stated to the vast sum of Eighteen hundred thousand pounds sterl in satisfaction whereof the part of a whole Kingdom which certainly is worth many Millions is conferred upon them They are entitled to all the Natives Estates in four great Counties to all the Cities Corporations and Walled Towns in Ireland to all the Land situated within a mile to the Sea and to the River of Shanon in the Province of Conaught and County of Clare to all the Debts Leases Mortgages and the Reversions of the Irish for not only the real Estates but also all other pretensions and Titles of the unhappy Natives are forfeited And leest all this should come short to content this insatiable Party the last act allows them one hundred thousand pounds out of the two half years Rent from Adventurers Souldiers and restored Irish Though the Roman Catholick Officers have always faithfully adhered to the Kings Interest and never deserted his service as all or most of these Protestant Officers in Ireland have done when the Usurper prevailed yet they being Papist disables them from any satisfaction for their service which was a Qualification not imposed on the Catholicks in England c. But since the Cessation of Arms concluded in the year 1643. There was no more fighting between his Majesties Protestant and Roman Catholick Subjects which makes a great difference between their Loyalty in the point of merit and that of our Cavaliers in England who out of a generous resolution without any necessity or consideration of private Interest did freely embrace his Majesties Quarrel siding always with the best although weakest party which they maintained for the space of Six years at their own charges with the loss of so many thousand brave lives who were all Sacrificed as unspotted Victims on the Altar of Loyalty How comes it then to pass that a handful of Irish Protestants should be allowed 1800000 l. for two years service and that our English Royalists who were a hundred times more numerous continued thrice longer in serving the King and whose pure Loyalty was never tainted with the mixture of any treachery or private Interest should get among them all without distinction of Nation or Religion but 70000 l. to be distributed among the Needy Cavaliers who had neither Estates of their own nor any publick Chrges or imployments to keep them from starving Upon what account should the Officers of the Four or five Garrisons in Ireland that plundered ten times more then their pay came to enjoy four large Counties and all the great Towns and Corporations of a Kingdom whilst the whole body of the Royallists in England are so much slighted that there is not one Parish in the Country nor Street in any City conferred upon them Will not the Irish Forty nine Men allow us that Prince Rupert the Duke of
Princes who favoured his Interest when the King was in France they quitted the Spanish service and when he came to Flanders they abandoned the French service and flocked in great numbers about his Royal Person having made up in short time a handsome body of an Army which rendred his Majesty considerable to his Friends abroad and dreadful to his Enemies at home These are verities that none dare impugn seeing the King himself is most graciously pleased to own them in his Declaration And in the first place we did and must always remember the great affection a considerable part of that Nation expressed to Vs during the time of our being beyond the Seas when with all cheerfulness and obedience they received and submitted to our Orders and betook themselves to that service which we directed as most convenient and behooveful at that time to us though attended with inconveniency enough to themselves which demeanour of theirs cannot but be thought very worthy of our Protection Justice and Favour My Lord Is it not a sad case that the Irish Nation who sacrificed their Lives their Estates and Fortunes and all the Interest they had in their Country for the Kings service who followed his Majesty abroad and stuck to him in his Banishment when he was abandoned almost by all the rest of his Subjects in the three Kingdoms should now be in a far worse condition than they were reduced unto during the Usurpers Reign For then their Estates were kept from them by violence and the un-resistable power of Cromwel's Army but now they seem to be legally adjudged against them by two Acts of Parliament They were then in hopes that God would one day Re-establish his Sacred Majesty in a peaceable and entire Possession of his Crown and Kingdoms and consequently restore to them their ancient Patrimonies which they lost upon the account of his Interest But now they behold his Majesty seated in the Glorious Throne of his Ancestors and themselves out of all hopes of ever enjoying their Estates which are conferred on their and his Majesties Enemies by a final sentence pronounced against them and which surpasseth all the misery that can be Imagined they are eternally condemned by a Messias in whom they hoped for redemption and for whose sake they sacrificed their lives lost their Fortunes quitted their Countrey and forsook all that was dear to them in this World And this done by the corruption and covetousness of two or three persons whereof one was the first Minister The extraordinary merit of this Nation in his Majesties service was fresh in his Majesties memory when he spake after this man-to the House of Peers on the 27 July 1660. Touching the Act of Indempnity I hope I need say nothing of Ireland and that they alone shall not be without the benefit of my Mercy They have shewed much affection to me abroad and you will have a care of my honour and what I have poomised to them My Lord to pass by Honour and Gratitude which some States-men little value how shall we excuse the Injustice of these proceedings Suppose the Peace concluded in the year 1648. was invalid and that his Majesty received no service abroad from any of the Irish Nation can he in justice condemn 7000 Innocents before they are heard inoffensive Persons who never offended his Royal Father nor himself Let us suppose farther that an Innocent person could not be found in all Ireland that every individual of that Nation were an obstinate Rebel from the beginning and that none of them ever deserved the least favour from his Majesty in point of Conscience Honour or Gratitude can our prime Minister and his adherents say that so many thousand Widows and Orphans though never so criminal are not fit objects of his Majesties Compassion and Clemency That Kings are the Anointed of the Lord and his Lieutenants on Earth is an infallible truth received among Christians and as they derive their power immediately from God so they ought to imitate him in their Actions But of all the Divine Attributes his Mercy as it is above all the rest of his Works Misericordia ejus supra omnia opera ejus so is it that alone which Princes are most concerned to follow It is by this Heavenly Virtue that good Kings have been always distinguished from Tyrants and that they appeared to their Subjects as the very Images of Divinity I do not think that the English Crown was ever worn by a Prince more Benign and Merciful than Charles the Second I am confident there is no King now living on Earth who hath given a larger Testimony of his natural propensity and inclination that way How great then must be the Guilt of those Ministers of State that cunningly obstructed the effects of the Bounty and Clemency of so good and gracious a Prince towards an Innocent people and perhaps not the least deserving of his Subjects Their gettings by the Bills of Settlement spoils their plea and pretence for the promotion of protestancy It will seem a paradox to posterity that the Irish Nation which in all Insurrections hath been pardoned and preserved by the Royal Bounty of Kings meerly English should now be condemned to an eternal extirpation by a King of old Irish extraction lineally descended from Fergusius a Prince of the Royal blood of Ireland who of all the Kings that ever Regned in England was most obliged to the Irish Nation and that during the Reign of Charles the Second the most merciful Prince that ever wore a Crown so many thousand Innocents should be exempted from a hearing and others from a General pardon which by a Mercy wholly extraordinary doth extend to some of the very Regicides These are verities not to be doubted of in our dayes which after Ages will hardly admit seeing the like was never before Recorded in Annals or mentioned in any History For since the Creation of Adam to this day and perhaps our posterity to the Worlds end may be as far to seek we cannot produce another example of the like measure extended to a Christian people under the Goverment of a most Christian Prince The most bloody Tyrants of former Ages even those Monsters of Nature who seemed to be born for no other end than the desolation of Mankind did never extirpate their old Friends to make room for their reconciled Enemies So that it must be a very difficult matter to perswade those who are not Eye-witnesses of the Fact that the Royal Authority of our Gracious King which here in England maintains the Peer in his Splendor and Dignity the Commoner in his Birth-right and Liberty which protects the Weak from the oppression of the mighty secures the Nobility from the Insolence of the people and by which Equal and Impartial Justice is indifferently distributed to all the Inhabitants of this Great and Flourishing Realm should be at the same time made use of in his Kingdom of Ireland to condemn Innocents before they are heard
A NARRATIVE OF THE Settlement and Sale OF IRELAND Whereby the Just English Adventurer is much prejudiced the Antient Proprietor destroyed and publick Faith violated to the great discredit of the English Church and Government if not re-called and made void as being against the Principles of Christianity and true Protestancy Written in a Letter by a Gentleman in the Country to a Noble-man at Court LOVAIN Printed in the Year MDCLXVIII A LETTER My LORD I Have in obedience to your Lordships Commands set down in brief the sad and deplorable state of the Irish Nation and the apparent injustice and innequality used in the present Settlement of that Kingdom which in my opinion as I formerly told your Lordship hath chiefly occasioned the heavy Judgements of God which our English Nation hath sensibly felt these many years last past and is to be feared our Sufferings are not yet at an end if we do not take a speedy course to humble our selves and appease the wrath of his Divine Majesty who may punish us farther with as much Justice as we have contrary to all Justice hitherto oppressed the Irish It cannot be denyed but that the Roman Catholicks of Ireland have infinitely suffered during the late Usurped Governments But they have done it cheerfully and perhaps not without some comfort having had all that time as Companions in Suffering not only some of the Nobility and Gentry of England and Scotland but the King himself and all the Royal Family Ferre quam Sortem patiuntur omnes Nemo recusat But now since His Majesties happy Restauration and during the universal Jubilee of Joy over all the British Monarchy that the Irish alone shou'd be forced to mourn but condemued to a perpetual Sufferance far surpassing those they formerly endured under the Government of Cromwel is a Calamity rather to be deplored then exprest And yet I find very few of our Nation any way touched with a compassion of the Miserie 's snstained by those their Neighbours and that the Irish are not only vigorously persecuted by their Constant Enemies but that they are wholly abandoned by their former Friends I mean their fellow-sufferers for the same Cause who do not now concern themselves in their sufferings This consideration alone together with the zeal I have always had for Justice and the commiseration which nature imprints in every Man are the motives next to your Lordships commands which induce me to undertake this subject I shall therefore by setting down matter of Fact and by examining the title of the present Possessors as also of the antient proprietors discovered the wicked Artifices hitherto practised to deprive the Irish Nation not only of the benefit of His Majesties Mercies but also of His Justice Broghil and Coot having by several Emissaries sent into England felt the Pulse of the English Nation and finding the People generally inclined to concur with the Loyal and Successful endeavours of the Lord General Monk in order to the Restauration of His Sacred Majesty convoqued a Convention in Dublin of Persons newly Interested in that Kingdom to consult upon the best and safest course that might be taken to prevent the restoring of the Irish Cavallers to those Estates which the Conventionists and their Partizans enjoyed by the Usurpers bounty and which they had great reason to believe would be immediately restored to the ancient Proprietors upon his Majesties Re-establishment In order to this resolution it was agreed upon that all the Gentlemen of Ireland should be committed to close Prison to render them incapable of contributing to His Majesties Restauration in case His Majesty would choose to pursue His Royal Right by dint of Sword rather then to condescend to such disadvantageous conditions as the Conventionists did hope and were fully perswaded would be imposed upon him by the Parliament of England It was also concluded that a man of Parts and Faction among the Presbyterian Party should be imployed into England to prepossess the People there with the Dangers and inconveniences which the restoring of the Irish Natives to their Antient Estates would infallibly bring upon the new English Interest in that Kingdom In pursuance to these resolutions all the Prisons in Ireland were filled with the Nobility and Gentry of that Nation whom no imbecility of Age nor indisposition of body could excuse nor any offered Security answer for Sir John Clotworthy a man Famons for plundering Somerset House Murdering the Kings Subjects and committing many other Treasons and horrid Crimes was dispatched into England This Person who was always accounted as violent against the Irish as he was known to be Seditious and ill-affected to Monarchy No sooner arriv'd in London than he fill'd the peoples ears with such dreadful stories of a new Insurrection in Ireland where counterfeited Letters were read on the Exchange and several Copies dispersed over all the corners of the City that His Majesty was warm in his Fathers Throne when both Houses of Parliament grounding their belief on Clotworthy's assertion presented unto him a Proclamation to be signed against the Irish Papists who were said to be actually in Rebellion murdering his Majesties Protestant Subjects violently intruding into other Mens possessions with many other Characters of Infamy rendring them odious to all Nations This Proclamation was published in London on the Third day of June 1660. notwithstanding that it was very well known at that time that there was not an Irish Man in arms in any part of Ireland Clotworthy encouraged with the good success of his first Essay and strengthened by a new landed recruit of Convention Agents among whom Broghil himself made one having observed that a general Act of Indempnity was ready to be passed to all His Majesties Subjects and fearing that the Irish if concluded therein would be consequently restorable to their Estates presented a Proviso against them to be inserted in that Act But this Proviso seemed so unreasonable to both Houses especially after that His Majesty had made a Speech to them for comprehending the Irish in his general and Gracious Pardon that they were fully resolved to extend the Act of Oblivion to the Irish Papists as well as to the rest of his Majesties Subjects But the Conventionists after some conference with the D of O to whom as 't is said with what trust I know not they offer'd that great Estate and vast summs of Money which wrought so much upon his Grace that in the House of Lords he made a Speech against comprehending the Irish Papists in the Act of Oblivion saying that the King had taken that matter into his own hands notwithstanding that His Majesty had but few days before clearly declared himself for their being comprehended in his General Pardon so that it was carryed a-against them to the great astonishment of all persons of Honour and Conscience that were informed of the corrupt ways whereby they were excluded Neither my Lord was the exclusion of the Irish out of the Act of
the very same persons who tyranized over them during Oliver's Reign were now not only confirmed in their formed in their former charges and advanced to places of greater Trust but also newly Commissioned with an unlimited power to give a final and decisive Sentence of all the Titles and pretentions of the unfortunate Natives This preposterous way of proceeding having not only incensed the interessed Irish but also scandalized all the moderate men of England another course was judged fit to be taken less shameful in appearance but in effect the very same The new Court of Claims was annulled and the Lords Justices were ordered to call a Parliament which met on the 8th day of May 1661. The Lower House of this Parliament was all composed of Cromwellists and but very few of the Irish Peers were admitted to sit in the House of Lords under the pretence of former Indictments This Parliament made the first Act of Settlement which they entitled an Act for explaining His Majesties Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland This Act decides all the doubtful expressions of the Declaration in favour of the Cromwellists and to the disadvantage of the Natives it allows only a Twelve-months time for the tryal of Innocents But those Irish Gentlemen who served His Majesty abroad together with the generality of the Nation pretending to Articles half a score persons only excepted who were particularly provided for are for ever debarred by this Act to recover their Estates without previous Reprizals which is a thing not to be had in nature My Lord I cannot omit minding your Lordship of a remarkable expression in the preface of this Act that the Irish Rebels were conquered by His Majesties Protestant Subjects in his Majesties absence These Irish Rebels when they were conquered fought under the command of the Lord Duke of Ormond His Majesties Lord Lieutenant in Ireland and after under the command of the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard His Majesties Lord Deputy for that Kingdom and those Protestant Subjects who conquered them were called Cromwel Ireton Jones Reynolds Broghil Coot Venables Hewson Axtel c. who vigorously pursued the Irish Rebels for no other reason but that they constantly denyed the Authority of the pretended Commonwealth and unalterably adhered to the Interest of Charles Stewart for his Majesties now Protestant Subjects were wont in that time of conquest to call Our Gracious Soveraign but now adayes they sing another note and speak quite another language having established for a fundamental Law that the Irish Rebels were conquered by his Majesties Protestant Subjects in his Majesties absence This being passed and the Royal assent given to it Sir Richard Rainsford and the rest of the Commissioners appointed by his Majesty to decide the claims of the Irish in pursuance of this Act landed in Dublin about the of 1662. And having some time to study the Act they plainly understood that none of the unfortunate Natives could be restored to their Estates but the Ten persons who had particular proviso's inserted therein and such others as would prove their Innocence in open Court The Commissioners began their first Session on the day of February and the Court continued until the of August following During this time the Claims of near upon a thousand Irish were heard whereof the one half were declared Innocents notwithstanding all the rigid Qualifications against them The time limited for ajudging Innocents being expired Sir Richard Rainsford a most just and upright man would proceed no farther expecting an enlargement of time to hear out the rest who were 7000 in number and who had as much reason to pretend a title to their Estates until they were heard and condemned as those who were already judged For every man is to be held Innocent until he be convicted and especially those who durst venture upon so severe a tryal For that part of the Nation which was involved in the War did not pretend to Innocence but claim the benefit of Articles But this enlargement of time being flatly denyed by the first Minister of State the Court of Claims was at an end the interessed party made Judges by Clarendon and indifferent men not admitted and the Parliament prepared an aditional Bill of Settlement which came into England in the of May 1664. By this additional Act it is decreed that no benefit of Innocency or Articles shall be allowed from henceforth to any of the Irish Natives The words of the Text pag. 8. l. 22. are these And it is hereby declared that no Person or Persons who by the qualifications in the said former Act hath not been adjudged innoieut shall at any time hereafter be reputed Innocent so as to claim any Lands or Tenements hereby vested or be admitted to have any benefit or allowance of any future adjudications of Innocence or any benefit of Articles whatsoever To salve this grand breach of publick Faith the Law of God and Nations and to give some colour of Justice to an action which is evidently repugnant to Magna Charta and the Fundamental Laws of England to condemn so many thousands before they are heard it is ordered by the same Act that some Fifty four persons of the Nobility and Gentry of Ireland who likely deserved his Majesties particular favour and whose names are specified in the Act shall be restored unto their several and respective principal Seats and unto 2000 Acres of Land thereto adjoyning provided always that the Adventurers Souldiers and 49 men who are to be removed shall be first satisfied by some other forfeited Lands in equal value worth and purchase The transplanted Irish are purposely left by this Act upon very doubtful terms that in case of necessity if the stock of Reprizals should sall short their present possessions might serve to Reprize the Adventurers Souldiers 49 Men and Grantees already removed by the restored Innocents and the Ten Proviso-men in the former Act or to be removed by the nominees and some three or four persons more particularly provided for in this additional Act. The Forty Nine men are expresly forbidden by this Act to set or Let by way of Lease or otherwise any part of their Lots within the walled Towns and Corporations or at a certain distance thereunto to any Irish Papists under the penalty of loosing what is Let and forfeiting as much more there is a general Clause in the Act that all Clauses and provisoes therein contained which admit any doubtful expression shall be always construed to the advantage and favour of the English Protestants and several other provisons are made all tending to the designed extirpation of the Natives This destructive Act after many long consultations wherein the first Minister of State did always imploy the utmost of his uncontrouled power to countenance the Cromwellian party and the Kings Solicitor General who had the penning of the Act made use of his Rhetorick and Knowledge in the Law to plead in their behalf the favour of the one being