strength in the losse of so many Subjects You seemed to take great care at the beginning of this Rebellion that it should not be thought a Warre for Religion you would not provoke all of that profession to think themselves concerned in it and you did wisely the Earle of Clenrickard hath as much reason to expect that Religion should be magnified in his Loyalty as to find it suffer in the defection of my Lord Maguâ—yre but you must take an equall care that as you will not have it thought in them a Warre for Religion so they must not think it a warre in you against Religion that will produce the same danger We that have enjoyed that full measure of prosperity and plenty in this Kingdome cannot doubt of enjoying the same in the same Company Let the Lawes of the Land be judge of their Actions and God in his good time will rectify or pardon their Opinions Why then must we have no Peace because they are Rebells Is this your Proposition No Rebellion must be extinguished but with the blood extirpation of the Rebells put it to the Question No man looks upon this Rebellion with more horror then I do few men have felt sadder effects of it either in the exercise of the sword or fire my Houses burned and my two Sonnes killed in cold blood yet I doe beleive very many honest men have been cozened into this Action by the power and perswasion of their Leaders or frighted into it by the ill managery of affaires here who never entertained disloyall thought towards their Soveraigne or seditious thought towards their Country And there are good men who imagine that there hath not been lesse skill and industry used by some of your friends in England and some of my friends in Ireland to improve and continue this Rebellion then were in the most active Contrivers to begin it otherwise why were the first Proclamations of Pardon sent out of England with so much care concealed here and unpublished but in two Counties and such who within the time prefixed rendred themselves according to that Proclamation imprisoned and used with that severity as if they had been taken in the Act of Rebellion beleive it Sir when all miscarriages of that kind shall be scann'd unpardonable faults will be found in those who have cryed out most upon this Rebellion but J am farre from excusing even those who have bin in truth missed if there hath not bin an absence of Loyalty then hath bin of Conscience Courage and Descretion without which the other is but a dream and no doubt the Contrivers of these distempers had in their purpose as much Confusion Cruelty and Inhumanity as much Malice to the English Government and the English Nation as can be imagined and yet they make specious pretences and arguments for all that they do There was a Fryer taken in the last expedition into Conaight about whom was found a Collection of all your Votes Ordinances and Declarations in England very carefully perused and marked with short Marginall Notes by him and out of them a large Manuscript framed by himselfe and entitled An Apology of the Catholiques of Jreland or a Iustification of their defensive Armes for the preservation of their Religion the maintenance of his Majesties Rights and Prerogatives the naturall and iust defence of their Lives and Estates and the Liberty of their Country by the practise of the State of England and the judgement and authority of both Houses of Parliament in England in truth so unhappily penned with so little variation of Language that but for the alteration of Ireland for England and some great Persons of this Kingdom in the places of some named by you your owne Clarke would hardly know it from one of your owne Declarations All that they doe is for the good of the King and Kingdom The King is trusted with the Forts Magazines Treasure and Offices for the good and safety of the People if he doeth not discharge this Trust but is advised by Evill Counsellors and Persons they cannot confide in 't is their duty to see this trust discharged according to the Condition and true intent thereof That they saw their Religion and Liberty in danger of extripation and therefore they had reason to put themselves into a posture of defence That they are ready to lay downe these defensive Armes as soone as the great Offices of the Kingdome are put into such hands as they can confide in with all those other common places which are so much insisted on by you in your severall Declarations But admit this Rebellion were an intire Act of the whole Irish Nation that it was designed by an unanimous consent to free theÌ„selves from the yoke of England If they repented now of that Designe having felt the smart of that Folly and Madnesse desired to returne to their Allegiance can there be no doore open to Mercy and Oblivion I beleive you would Vote him an Evill Councellour that should give the King that Councell in England I am glad your Letter from the two Houses to our Iustices and Councell the Copie of which I received inclosed in yours hath miscarried for I am sure 't is not yet come to their hands You will finde you are mistaken in the temper of Our Board and that they will not beare those reproches from Persons they are in no degree subject to They think themselves as competent Iudges of their expressions in their own Acts of State as you are of yours in your Votes and Ordinances and being imediately trusted by His Majesty with the Government of this Kingdom understand better what is in order to the preservation and destruction of it then you do You tell them they must not conceive the charge of the Warre is onely referred to you as if your part were to be our Bankers only to provide Money and were not to advise and direct the managing of the Warre which power you say was granted you by Act of Parliament and you will assume it as the meanes to save this Kingdome We know no such Act of Parliament and we hope there is none nay the King must pardon us if we say there can be none He is our Soveraigne and we are his Subjects he can no more give us away and exclude us from His Protection which if He excludes Himselfe from managing this Warre or redeeming us from this Warre by Peace He doth absolutely do then we can put off our subjection say He shall be Our King no longer Pray consider the condition you would have us understand our selves to be in you seeme to apprehend us in great streights in great necessities reduced into narrow circuits without Money Victuall or Munition in that proportion to contend with our Adversaries You do not pretend to have Authority to make a Peace for us be the termes never so honourable and if He hath not power to do it neither our portion must be an eternall VVarre which
is no comfortable thing to believe You say you will bring those to condigne punishment who advised the late Commission to heare what the Rebells can say or propound for their own advantage If you can charge them with no other crime but that Advice they will never feare the barre of Justice Why are you offended do you conceive the case of the Rebells to be such as by any skill or managery in a free and publique debate may get credit It were an austere reservednesse in the King for which God Almighty would require a strict account of Him when those He trusts here present the misery of their condition to him and implore his care and protection and when those from whom all the mischiefes seem to proceed pretend to do all those mischiefes in their own defence and desire to be heard for themselves if he should refuse to hear them because they are Rebells Wee have seen a Declaration of yours in which you seem with great vehemency to accuse the King that He refused to receive a Petition from you to hear what you could say for your selves and it was a charge of so great weight that we find the King taking much paines to free Himself from by absolutely denying it as conceiving it an unkingly thing not to heare what the worst Subject can alleadge in his own defence How comes His Office to be so inverted must the King of England receive all Petitions and the King of Ireland refuse all Indeed if the King were guided by such sinister Rules of Policy and Craft as govern your Actions he would not now subject himself to the difficulties and hazard of recovering what you have with so much Industry and Cunning made desperate and would content himself that the blood of this poore People should be cast upon your Account and that Posterity might see that the losse of such a Kingdom was the fruit of a perpetual Parliament But His Majesty is too much acquainted with the Royall duty of a King to think he can depute His Office of protecting to other hands and be excused if by their ill managery a Nation committed to his care be lost I assure you all sober men here are so farre from repining at this Commission which you are so scandalized with that we look upon it as the dawning of that power which for so many moneths hath been eclipsed by the interposition of a monstrous and unnaturall Iurisdiction and which we hope will every day break out with that brightnesse that will dispell those Mists and Clouds of confusion which hath so fatally covered us and that instead of the punishment you threaten we shall have cause to erect Trophyes to that Counsell which advised this blessed overture of Accommodation You will expect I know my Opinion of your New Covenant which you have prepared for the three Kingdomes and which you say will unite all your Party and distinguish you from your Adversaries I wish it would I would there were so much sense of Religion left that for pietie and conscience sake men would refuse the taking of any Oathes your experience tells you the contrary and you see your selves every day left by those of whom you thought you were very sure under that bond they looking upon themselves as awed and compelled to take it and so absolved from the obligation at the instant they are forced to sweare and in truth you might consider that if they have heretofore sworne any thing that is contrary to this you have no reason to expect that they should observe this Oath who have broken the former and I must tell you 't is a shrewd evidence that what you propose is not the desire and solicitation of the Kingdome when you are put to these shifts by Force and Fraude by Threats and Promises to croude the free-born Subjects into a Faction you see the King does not countermine you with these Arts and Preparatives He applies no Anti-Covenants to His followers not so much as reinforces the known lawfull Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy He is contented to depend upon the naturall fruits of Loyalty Honour and Generosity under which Obligation His handfull of men have swollen into thousands and spread themselves almost over all the Kingdom whil'st the Proselites under your Oathes Covenants and Protestations waste daily and fall off and are well neer shrunk from the foure quarters of the Realme which they possessed within the verge of one City And if you consider how many of those who have taken this new Covenant you have sent mee even at the time of taking it desire in their hearts That Episcopacy should still continue and how many more who hate Bishops and think them Anti-Christian would yet rather live under them then under a Presbytery which is the case of the Independents and both these and many more who are so farre from caring what Government of the Church is established that they would be content all the Churches in England were pulled downe and both Preaching and Praying put downe for seven yeers are directly bound to set up the Presbytery I lay when you consider that men of these severall and distinct tempers with the same zeale take this Covenant 't is no wonder that in stead of Union you finde nothing but jealousie and Confusion amongst your selves and instead of advancing the Religion you pretend to you draw upon you a generall suspition of having no Conscience or sense of Religion at all For the comming in of the Scots which you say is your greatest and last hope I confesse I think you will be deceived But by the way you are wonderfull kinde to us to advise us to Petition against Peace whilest you are labouring to draw so great a part of our Army as the Scots in Vister from assisting Vs to serve you in England 't is too great a businesse for me to deliver an opinion in but me thinks it should lessen very much your reputation with the People to see that after your charging the King so long with the purpose of bringing in Forraine Forces which you have pressed as the most odious charge and as a colour and ground for most of your Actions you your selves at last call in Forraigne Ayde to helpe you to doe that which you had or can have no pretence of doing but that all the people of England desire it and doe not thinke that saying they are your Brethren of Scotland and your fellow Subjects will make them be thought lesse Forraigne power you will not be content that the King shall call in the Irish under the same consideration and can you thinke it possible if the Scots shall obey your desires herein which after all their Vowes and Covenants of Loyalty Duty and Affection to their native KING I cannot thinke they will ever doe that the KING will not powre in all the Forces He can procure from all the parts of the World both into that and the other Kingdome No doubt he looks upon that Remedy as the most grievous and most hazardous and therefore with great mercy to His people hath not suffered Himselfe to be tempted by all His wants all His weaknesse and your example of entertaining so many Dutch Walloones and all Nations against him to suffer such a supply which infallibly he might long since have had but if you â—â—â—ll be contented to give away your Countrey to strangers for doe not thinke they will be as easily got out as they are brought in and that you may be revenged of those you have injured involve the whole Kingdom in such a lasting confusion you 〈◊〉 not wonder if strangers be brought in to beat out strangers though all the mischief is to be done at the charge of your poor Countrey I say I cannot beleeve though some particular Persons may be concerned to keep up this distraction that the Scotch Nation will engage themselves in a quarrell against their Native KING to whom they have such generall and particular Obligations and against the whole Nobility and Gentry of England for matters in no degree Relative to their own affaires and venture that blessed calme and Peace they now enjoy only to kindle a fire amongst their Neighbours which probably will not be quenched till it hath burned to their own habitations They know well the inveterate mortall hatred this Nation of Ireland bears to them and how glad they would be to be let loose to their revenge and they are too wise to think the two Houses whose publike Faith stands so deeply engaged will be as liberall and bountifull a Master to them as their Royall Soveraign Be not deceived One of their principall Commanders upon whose personall assistance you much depend asked me whether I thought them so sottish to declare themselves against their King whilest the two Houses were governed by my Lord Say who hated their Religion and the Army by the Earle of Essex who hated both their Religion and Nation and then told me the bitter invectives made by the first against a Presbytery and the sharpe and scornfull mention by the other of the Scots and Scotland And intruth if ever they enter into your Kingdome the mischiefe and confusion they will bring in not submitting to your Government for what discipline soever they affect in the Church they are assuredly for independency in the State will be greater then the advantage and Ayde you will receive by their supplies In a word besides the perfect hatred you will finde from all the Northern parts which you have thrown away to them and which must be inhabited by them you will finde your selves deserted by all men who have any desire of Peace and are not willing to entayle this Warre from Generation to Generation DUBLIN this third of October 1643.
A LETTER FROM A PROTESTANT IN IRELAND TO A MEMBER OF The House of COMMONS in ENGLAND Vpon occasion of the TREATY in that Kingdome Printed 1643. SIR THat you have no sooner received an answer to yours of the fourth of the last Moneth you must impute to the length thereof and weight of the Argument which J was resolved to communicate to those upon whose Affections and Judgements you principally rely of any in this place and of their Approbation and consent to your Proposition and your Reasons J cannot give you such an account as I presume you expect for I must tell you as you of London grow more elate in your stile and mention of us here as a poor people totally at your devotion and to be preserved or ruined as you please to vouchsafe your consideration of us so our sufferings and our wants have given us so much Courage and Pride that we look upon you as our equalls too negligent and unmindfull of your fellow Subjects And Sr Iohn Clottworthyes own speciall friend said passionately at the reading your Letter that he plainly saw the intention of the House of Commons in England was only that we should change our Masters not improve our conditions and that all the compassions you seem to have of the miseries of Ireland was but to get credit enough to work mischiefe in England Truly Sir the face of things and dispositions of Persons are much altered since you left us and what J now write to you is the sense of all those one only excepted with whom you directed me to conferr Your other correspondent shew'd us the copy of the Petition you sent hither to be subscribed by the Protestants of this Kingdome against making or consenting to any Peace with the Rebells and desired us to distribute our selves to severall Quarters for the getting of hands to it telling us that his Neighbour the Lecturer whom you used to frequent on Frydaies had already gotten neare 200. hands to it that you expected it again in England by the twentieth of this Moneth because you deferred the publishing your last Declaration concerning Ireland till then upon perusall of it we all wished it were in your hands again or at least that that Gentlemans zeale to whom you committed it had vouchsafed to have taken our advice before he made it so publique for we are confident it will not only be disappointed of that consent and approbation you expect but we feare it may make a contrary impression in many and those of the greatest power interest and Reputation who have only borne the uneasinesse and calamity of a Warre in hope of a speedy safe and honourable Peace and what must these men think when they see a Protestation entred against Peace in generall without any consideration of the Iustice Honour or security of it Pardon me if I tell you in what Language the grief and sorrow of some very good men even in your own Calendar hath vented it selfe upon the view of this Petition They say you sit like a proud wanton People upon a secure fruitfull Hill and barbarously inhumanely delight your selves with the prospect of Battailes Contentions Desolation and Famine in the Vallies that you are gotten upon a safe and pleasant Rock and recreate your selves with the miseries and destruction other men endure by Tempests and Shipwracks about you I beseech you Sir consider what it is you adâ—â—se us to That all the Protestants in Ireland joyne in a Petition to His Majesty or to both Houses of Parliament in England for you say you have not yet determined to whom the Petition shall be directed that may be done when it comes to London against making a Peace with the Rebells in Ireland An excellent evidence and testimony of our Religion have the protestants with so much acrimony and bitternesse differed amongst themselves so long about Formes and Circumstances and can there be no expediment found out to unite and reconcile us but a peremptory dislike of Peace Good Sir let such Petitions be framed and preserred by Turkes Jnsidels which have no reverence of the pretions image of their Maker but with the same temper behold the slaughter of a man and of a Horse who have no principles of charity and brotherly compassion or apprehension of future punishment for the want of them Let those whose Religion you say is Rebellion and whose doctrine you excuse to be inconsistant with Peace preferre Petitions against Peace God forbid the Protestants of any Kingdome should consent to such a Petition If your Reformation of Religion must be made by blood and desolation and your propagation of the Gospell by the extirpation of Nations call it a progresse to any Religion rather then of the Protestants whose glory and custom hath alwayes been to give up their own not the Lives of other men a sacrifice to the Truth they professe What are the Argumenâ—s in Religion or Policy which you can give us or that we can give His Majesty to perswade Him that a speedy Peace and Accommodation is not good for this miserable and distracted Kingdome You say they are Papists and ought not to be suffered to live amongst us I hope I may with more freedome speak in this Argument then other men for you know I have been alwaies passionately enclined against the growth of that Religion and concurred with you in any proposition for the suppression thereof I would to God you had vertuously used the advantages have been offered you to that purpose at least that you had not so much played with Religion in your Votes and Declarations and totally excluded it in your Actions believe it Sir Good workes which comprehend Loyalty and Obedience will be never so much disgraced under the Imputation of Popery as not to be thought an essentiall part of Christian Religion into what Opinions soever distinguished I may without ostentation tell you no man hath spent more houres in Prayer that it will please God to strike the hearts of this Nation with the true knowledge of his worship that we may be all of one mind both in the substance and circumstance of Religion but you must pardon me if J doe not believe the way to remove the Errors is to destroy the men that the way to People Ireland with Protestants is to cut the throats of all the Papists Religion can never be fruitfull in that soyle which is tainted and over flowed with Rivers and streames of blood Admit there were no consideration of Justice of Christianity in the Case no motion of those bowels which must yarne at the murthering and massacring of Mankind doe you think it were a most prudent a most politique position for His Majesty to publish That He is resolved to have no Papist to live in any of His Dominions if He were in a condition to execute such a sentence and all men ready to give obedience to it would he not robbe himselfe of an unvaluable Treasure