Selected quad for the lemma: justice_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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Irish their Commission and under his Majesties Authority at other times and sometimes under both It will be fitter at present for me to be silent therein than to attempt the unblending such a mixture and seperate your Acts of Allegiance from those of Opposition to the King which I must always blame you for or to condemn you intirely when some things your Lordship did were by full Authority though very fatal to the English Protestant interest in that Kingdom and no ways advantageous to his Majesty or his Affairs But the First Part of your Story which takes up three Sections of your Memoirs I cannot let pass unanimadverted and corrected without condemning the generation of the just suffering Blemish and Calumny to lie upon his Majesty and Government both in England and Ireland and leaving your Lordship in a mistake of having done well when I hope I shall evince that you did very ill unless the galantry of a Souldier can expiate for all that was amiss For this end I must take notice to your Lordship that all I find you urge to satisfie your own Conscience or to vindicate your Honour and Integrity to the World in this your ingaging your self amongst the Irish is to this effect Your Lordship saith That at the first eruption of the Rebellion which you seem to tye to the North but was universal you acquainted the Lords Justices with your willingness to serve the King against the Rebels as your Ancestors had formerly done in Ireland but they replying that your Religion was an Obstacle there being then a Parliament in that Kingdom sitting you were resolved to see the event sending your Brother to your House at Madingstowne in the County of Kildare to secure and defend it in case there were any rising in those parts Sometime after the Parliament being dissolved but you do not mention that you attended your duty in Parliament when it was sitting and declaring against the Rebels your Lordship desired a Pass from the Justices to go to England but they refusing you acquainted them with the condition of your Estate and desired a supply of Money till you could apply to the Parliament of England for a Pass to bring you over which they denyed You press'd them then to direct you what course you should steer to which they replied Go home and make fair weather You took this advice and being come my Lord of Antrim and my Lady Dutchess of Buckingham both Papists and after that deeply ingaged in the Rebellion soon followed whether by concert with your Lordship is not said and you were very well pleased with so good company But in a short time the Irish came and drove away great part of your Stock which you recovered by a party sent out with your Brother who brought with him two or three of the chiefest Conductors of that Rabble This inraged the Irish so much as you conceived your Brother was not safe there and therefore sent him to Dublin to attend the Justices Orders and assure them of your readiness to return on a call they sending a Convoy which they promised to do as Occasion required But your Lordship hearing that you were indicted of High Treason and hereupon your Brother addressing to the Lords Justices again to let them know that they had not kept their words with him in suffering this clandestine proceeding against you as your Brothers Letter calls it you went to Dublin and addressed your self to my Lord of Ormond as your Brother did in your behalf to the Lords Justices and Council to acquaint them with your coming and upon your appearance before them they ordered you to come the day following at which time without calling you in they committed you to Mr. Woodcock 's House one of the Sheriffs of Dublin Your Brother seeing as he calls it this rigorous usage towards you and being refused a Pass for himself to go for England he got away to the King at York and petitioned him that you might be sent for over to be tryed here by your Peers But his Majesties Answer was That he had left all the Affairs of Ireland to the Parliament upon which he petitioned the Parliament to the same effect their Answer was that they could do nothing without the King After this your Brother saith he was continually serving his Majesty in England Your Lordship once more placeth your self at Madenstowne whither you had at first retired by advice of the Lords Justices and continued there some Five or six moneths after in peace and quietness but your Lordship doth not mention that other neighbouring places possessed by the English did so or what in diligence your Lordship had with or gave to the State But proceed to say That in the mean while Parties were sent out by the Justices from Dublin and the Towns adjacent to kill and destroy the Rebels and the like was done through all parts of the Kingdom But your Lordship adds the Officers and Souldiers did not take care enough to distinguish between the Rebels and Subjects but killed in many places promiscuously on which partly and partly on other provocations that proceeded and some too that followed the whole Nation finding themselves concerned took to Arms for their own defence and particularly the Lords of the Pale did so who yet at the same time desired the Justices to send their Petition to the King which was refused And for their further discouragement Sir John Read his Majesties sworn Servant a stranger to the Countrey uningaged and an Eye-witness of their proceedings then upon his Journey to England prevailed with by them to carry their Remonstrance to his Majesty and to beg his Pardon for what they had done coming to Dublin and not concealing his Message was put to the Rack for his good will The said Lords having tryed this and other ways to acquaint the King with their Grievances and all failing an open War broke forth generally throughout the Kingdom Your Lordship next takes notice of your accidental entertaining my Lord of Ormond at Dinner immediately after the Battle of Killrush which you were a Spectator of being in sight of your House but that some who came with him turned this another way and publishing through the Army that it was a mighty Feast for my Lord Mount Garret and the Rebels this through the English Quarters past for currant And you believe it was much the cause of this under-hand villainous proceedings as you call it against you fore-mentioned Your Lordship proceeds to tells us That after Twenty Weeks that you had remained in Prison you were ordered to be removed to the Castle of Dublin which startled you and brought to your thoughts the proceedings against the Earl of Strafford who confiding in his Innocency lost his Head you concluded then that Innocency was a scurvey plea in an angry time besides your Lordship looked upon the Justices and most of the Council to be of the Parliaments Perswasion wherefore you resolved to attempt
you incouraged to keep you as near the old Government as might be holding to the Ancient Laws of the Land This is as improbable as the other but if true is a demonstration that Irish Popish Lawyers are the worst instruments that can be tollerated in Ireland And it is notorious in Fact that these were the Men that did both contrive and put in order the Rebellion and frame their whole Constitution and without whose Council and Abilities having had their Education in the Inns of Court of England they had never come out of that Chaos of Confusion where they were at first or reduced their Affairs to a consistency but had been quickly mastered And therefore I hope this hint concerning the Lawyers will awaken his Majesty and Parliament of England and the Government in Ireland to provide against the continuance of such dangerous instruments as the Popish Lawyers have shewed themselves to be and in probability will so continue making use of their Learning and Skill for subversion of Government and good Order So that Ireland is never like to be quiet if they be tollerated Your Lordship proceeds to tell us that this Assembly without delay approved all the Council had done how could they well in gratitude do less being themselves a Creature of that Councils making and settled a Model of Government viz. That at the end of every General Assembly the supream Council should be confirmed or changed as they thought fit That it should consist of Twenty five six out of each Province three of the six still resident the 25th was your Lordship with no relation to any Province but to the Kingdom in general c. Your Lordships Relation was a mock Image of his Majesty which was also to the Kingdom in general and but that it is not now my business I could here evince that this Constitution cast the over balance of the Government clearly into the Irish hands such of the old English Extraction as joyned with them being Ciphers upon the matter as it appeared afterwards in practice so improbable was what your Lordship asserts that if a Letter came to them written in Irish it would be wondred at and hardly could one be found to read it unless you would confess that those skilled in reading the Irish Language are extinct for the meerest Irish of that Kingdom and all the Popish Clergy who if any are likliest to be skilled in it were ingaged in the Rebellion and constant promoters of it having their Colledges and Monasteries in Kilkenny and all Cities and chief Towns under the Confederate Irish Power and wholly at their Command For a close of this Paragraph your Lordship saith you were not in case to bring to Justice those that begun the Rebellion but you never saw any of them esteemed or advanced This is strange when Owen Roe Oneal Sir Phelemy Oneal Con Oneal the Mc. Donnels Mc. Thomas the Farrolls the Delyes the Mc. Cartyes Mc. Guires Mc. Mahans Fitzpatricks Mc. Gennis's and generally those of the meer Irish septs and Families were chiefly trusted whose names it were too tedious to repeat but I have Authentick Lists of them but indeed I do believe the Confederates even of English Extraction had as little will as power to question those that begun the Rebellion and to this day they are so far from any inclination to condemn it that all their Writings run in Justification of it and I never yet met with any that cordially seemed to repent it or perswade others to it except only Peter Walsh whom your Lordship calls your Ghostly Father Caron and some few Remonstrants with them who condemning the Doctrines of Rebellion King killing and Deposing c. do obliquely censure this Rebellion and some of them positively call the beginners and continuers thereof to repentance The rest of your Lordships Memoires is more History than Justification as well whilst you continued to serve under the Confederate Catholicks which was till the Peace of 1646 proclaimed as after till you left Ireland wherein your Lordships part being mixed of Gallentry and Generosity in some instances as well as Severity and fierce Prosecution of the English in others I will not be a critical observer thereof or lead any to envy your Lordship the just esteem of whatever you did honourably though in an ill cause But since your Lordship lays some weight of merit upon the Cessation and two Peaces of 1646 and 1648 and expresseth no unfavourable Opinion of that which goes by the name of Glamorgan's Peace and think much that the Irish their Estates were given away by the Acts of Settlement I shall only make some general Remarks upon those particulars and the whole state of that Rebellion and so put an end to your Lordships trouble and my own And first I must observe upon the whole matter that the Irish did the English more hurt and advantage themselves more by the Cessation and two first Peaces than ever they did or could do by open force after the first Massacre Upon this grounds the Lords Justices and Council were from the beginning averse to them and for me to shew the Design and Intrigue of the Cessation and Peaces which I can do by unquestionable Memorials and Records will make a great part of a Volumn and cannot well come within the bounds of a Letter but when I have said all I think fit to your Lordship upon occasion of your Letter your Lordship who as you were an Enemy as keen as generous having been by your place and interest privy to all the Cabals and secret Councils against the English and Protestants being deeply ingaged in the Roman Catholick Confederacy and any other Attempts against them in what shape or form soever they appeared will I hope if you find any thing written by me questionable or doubtful in your opinion favour me with your severest Reflections thereupon for as I design nothing but exact truth wherever it light so if by inadvertency or want of full information I should erre or come short in the least your Lordship shall find me ready to retract or supply but never to persist in it Your Lordship knows as well as any man that the Earl of Ormoud made afterwards Marquess and Duke with the same Title was the first of that Family of the Botelers that was Educated in the Protestant Religion his Mother the Lady Thurles Brothers Sisters and all his Relations continuing Roman Catholicks and in the Irish Quarters and those able to bear Arms as the Lord Muskery after Earl of Clancarty and Collonel Fitzpatrick his Brother in Law his Brother Collonel Richard Butler of Vilcash and Collonel George Mathewes and other his Relations as the Lords Mountgarret Dunboyne and divers other Lords and others of his Name and Family were Generals or Commanders of lower Quality in the Rebels Army so that his Lordship was upon the matter single in any Duty and Allegiance to the Crown all his Lordships Friends Kindred and Dependants