were Masters of Nor was it a difficult Matter for them so to do the Consternation being so great and so suddain that even the Officers of the Port either out of Commiseration to the departing Crowd of Women and Children or being amaz'd at the suddainness of the Fright neglected to do their Duty whereby this City and the Adjacent Parts are almost drained dry as to Cash and Plate which is manifest from Guineas being sold at 12 d. per piece over and above the usual Rate On the other Hand the Roman Catholicks were very many of them under equal Fears and indeed all of them except the Army who by their Calling are exempt from or at least from owning it pretend equal Dread from the Protestants who as they alledg'd far exceeded them in the Northern Parts and were extraordinarily well Arm'd and Hors'd but their greatest Apprehensions arise from a constant and uncontradicted Assurance which Private Letters by every Pacquet brought hither that the Duke of Ormond with a considerable Army and many experienc'd Officers was to Land forthwith in Munster And in this Condition now stands this poor Kingdom the Contending Parties being equally afraid or at least pretending to be so of each other which cannot but beget great Anxiety and Sorrow in the Mind of every good Man who hath the least Concern for his King or his Country In the interim the Lord Deputy intrusted by his Majesty with the Government of this Kingdom and keeping it entire in its Obedience to all his Commands doth daily grant Commissions to raise and procure Arms and Ammunition for great Numbers of Men In doing whereof considering the great Trust reposed in him no Man of Honour or moral Honesty can truly blame him But at the same time he takes all Opportunities both Private and Publick to declare That whenever his Majesty shall signifie his Royal Will and Pleasure for disbanding the Army that now is or hereafter shall be raised upon the Commissions now issuing or shall give direction for any other Alteration in the Government he will without one Day 's hesitation himself and those of his Relations and other Dependents in the Army whom you know to be very Numerous give an exact Obedience And if any should be so Fool-hardy as to scruple or make the least delay of doing so they shall in a few Days be taught and compelled to do their Duty I must likewise tell you That in this Conjuncture of Affairs the Thieves and Robbers are not only become more Numerous but likewise much more Insolent and instead of small Thefts do now drive away by Force whole Herds and sometimes when overtaken deny to restore the Prey This in many Places and especially in the North-west is done by the Cottiers and Idlers in the Country but father'd generally on the Army of which I have now an Instance before me from Ballenglass All this I know you have had repeated to you from divers Hands however I thought my self obliged in the Station which I hold to give you this summary Account of our present Condition which God knows is very bad and in all humane probability if we take not up more Charity than as yet we have for each other will receive sharp Corrosives and bitter Potions to bring us even to the hopes of living though in great Penury and Want Nor can we expect in Case that any Resistance shall be made by the Roman Catholicks here that we shall see any End thereof until the Buildings Plantations and other Improvements of Thirty Years Expence and Industry be utterly wasted and the Kingdom brought to the last degree of Poverty and Confusion and from the most improved and improving Spot of Ground in Europe as you saw it Six Years since become a meer Acheldama and upon the matter totally desart For Armies when once raised must be maintained by the Publick or will maintain themselves Nor can Military Discipline be expected where the Soldier hath not his Wages and whether that can be had out of the publick Treasury here I referr to you who have weighed the Revenue of the Kingdom when at the best even to a Drachm But after all this I am confident and assured That the Government of England will and must at length take place here against all Opposition whatsoever It hath cost England too much Blood and Treasure to be parted with but if it should come to a Contest of that kind the Victors I fear will have little to bragg of and will find in the Conclusion nothing but Ruins and Rubbish not to be repaired in another Age. Nor will the People thereafter reckon of any Security or Stability in this Kingdom so as to apply themselves to the repair of them but expecting such periodical Earthquakes here will provide themselves of Retreats in England and Scotland as many have of late and daily do Your Patience is I fear by this at an End when you begin to enquire with your self To what purpose it is that I have given you all this Trouble I must confess your Enquiry is not without Reason but however to you whose Friendship I have always found and valued my self much on it I do without difficulty declare what hath induced me hereunto The wonderful Alterations which a Month's Time hath produced in England in regard to the Protestant Religion and the Universality of it the little Blood that hath been spilt in so great a Change the few Acts of Hostility and little disquiet which has as yet appear'd has almost perswaded me That this Unfortunate Kingdom may by the Interposition of moderate Men be restored to the same Estate of Religion and Property that it rejoyced in Seven Years since with an addition of further Security for the preservation of both if more be requisite considering the many Acts of Parliament still in Force in this Kingdom It cannot be imagined Sir but there are very many who having either lost their Estates upon the Forfeitures of 1641. or by their Profuseness and Prodigality spent what they were restored to would willingly see the Kingdom once more in Confusion and Blood designing by Licentiousness and Rapine to supply their Extravagancies There want not on the other Hand some who conceive That the Court of Claims has contrary to the Settlement taken from them their Possessions without Reprisals and very many who being put by their Employments and Commands wish for a Time to expostulate with those who are possessed of them But all these in my humble Opinion ought to give way to the publick Quiet and Settlement of a whole Nation ready to fall into Ruine I am verily perswaded That with a little good Management the generality of the Roman Catholicks and indeed of the whole Kingdom would be very glad to be put into the same Condition in all respects as they were Six Years since and desire no more than an Assurance it should not be made worse And if there be Faith to be found in Man
the Lord Deputy and Roman Catholick Nobility and Gentry of the Kingdom who are universally concerned in the present Army and in that which is to be raised will upon the first signification of his Majesty's Pleasure to that purpose unanimously Disband retire to their several Dwellings and apply themselves to advance the Quiet and Wealth of the Kingdom Nor can I ever doubt his Majesty's Condescention and Care for the Preservation of this His Kingdom and preventing the Effusion of Christian Blood For most assuredly if War should happen here which God of his Infinite Mercy prevent His Majesty would be the only great Sufferer in the Loss of so many Subjects Lives wherein consists the Wealth and Strength of the greatest Monarchs There are very many now at London who know the State and Condition of this Kingdom much better than I pretend to what I now write I design not as a Secret but if you think it worth Consideration I leave it to you to Communicate it to such as you shall think fit And if there be any thing in it worthy their Thoughts I must declare that there is nothing within the reach of my Industry that I will not endeavour in the method of my Profession for the maintenance of Religion and Property as established by the Laws of this Kingdom and should die with the greatest satisfaction and reckon it a Nobler Posterity than any Man can pride himself in if I could be in the least Instrumental in the setling Peace and Quiet without more hazard or Loss to this my Native Country which I make no doubt the Almighty will in his good Time effect by his own Means and Instruments more deserving of so great a Blessing from him than I am If this find any Room with your self other thinking Men or such who have great Stakes here let me know your Thoughts with what convenient speed you can it being a matter in which a moment is not to be lost and the first Step to be made there since it cannot be expected that the Lord Deputy will do any thing in a matter of so great Moment without His Majesty's Directions N o 15. Proposals humbly offered to the Earl of Tyrconnell Lord Deputy by the Bishop of Meath about the intended Search for Arms. WHEREAS Your Excellency hath ordered by Your Declaration That a Search shall be made in every House in Dublin for Arms and Ammunition and that in Case any shall be found upon Search that the Persons with whom they are found shall be left to the Mercy of the Soldiers This Penalty is thought unreasonable on these following Accounts First Because it is not determin'd by the Declaration who shall be the Searchers for if the matter be manag'd as hitherto it hath been that every one who pretends to be a Soldier must have liberty to search and in such Numbers and as often as they please no House can be safe for that some have been already searched by Six Companies after one another and that in the same Day And if any of these should pretend to find a Pistol or Bagonet or Horn of Powder though he brought it out of his Pocket with a design to draw an inconvenience on the House yet by the Declaration the House and all that is in it must be left to the Mercy of the Soldiers and by this means the Innocent may suffer as well as the Guilty Secondly That if the Soldiers be permitted to search there will be so much Damage by it to this City that an Age cannot Repair it For by this means every Place that is capable of concealing Arms must be left to their Discretion the Boards will be rip'd up partition Walls broken down Wainscot taken down Cellars digg'd up the Foundations of Houses endanger'd Barrels of Beer open'd Provocations offer'd and received the Safety of the People in apparent hazard many things taken away without hopes of Restitution the Looms of Tradesmen and the Instruments of Artificers destroyed and his Majesty's Interest dis-served after all by the Soldiers endeavouring rather to serve their own Ends than his Majesty's true Interest Thirdly In many Houses there are several Families Lodgers and Servants of several Sorts and if any of these either out of Malice or Folly or good Will to their Masters conceal any Arms though never so inconsiderable all the rest though Innocent must suffer for it which is against Equity and Justice that requires every Man to suffer only for his own Fault and not for the Fault of others Fourthly Many have had Lodgers in their Houses for several Years whose Truncks and Papers are still there and possibly Arms may be in them which the House-keeper knows nothing of It is therefore Unreasonable That either the Owners of such Goods being absent or the Masters of the House that know nothing of it should suffer for what they cannot help By this means Papers may miscarry and the Estates of Men be ruin'd and undone Fifthly Many Landlords Owners of Houses are either gone for England or absent elsewhere about their lawful Occasions and their Servants may either not know where their Arms are or foolishly endeavour to conceal them and so expose their innocent Masters to Ruine Sixthly The leaving Persons to the Mercy of the Soldiers is a Punishment so unknown to our Laws and so strange to these Kingdoms that the Execution of it will be agreat prejudice to his Majesty's Affairs and alienate the Hearts of his Subjects more from him and do him whose Presence they expect more mischief than the Arms can do him good It is an ill President and may in time destroy the whole Kingdom and subvert the Law It is therefore humbly proposed That in case your Excellency be not satisfied with the Returns already made and to be made but you will still go on with the Search that your Excellency would graciously condescend to these following Expedients for the better Ease and Quiet of his Majesty's Subjects First That whereas each Parish is divided into its several Wards that your Excellency would order the Search to be made by the Deputy Alderman of each Ward with the Assistance of One or more Military Officers as your Excellency shall think fit and not by the Soldiers for by this means what Arms are found will be secured for his Majesty's Use and the Subject freed from the fears of Plunder and Ruine The Search intended is so provided for to be by an Alderman and an Officer Secondly That no Man be responsible for more than his own Goods nor the Punishment inflicted on any but the Guilty His Excellency consents to this Thirdly That regard be had to the Goods and Papers of all Persons that be absent and who by reason of their Absence before the Declaration was published cannot be presumed to be Violaters of it His Excellency consents to this Fourthly That a Declaration be published to this purpose for informing the People of your Excellency's Intentions which will contribute
at once inriched and civilized it would hardly be believed it were the same Spot of Earth Nay Over-flown and Moorish Grounds were reduced to the bettering of the Soyl and Air. The Purchasers who brought the Kingdom to this flourishing Condition fly to your Majesty for Succour offering not only their Estates and Fortunes but even their Lives to any Legal Trial within this your Majesties Kingdom being ready to submit their Persons and Estates to any established Judicature where if it shall be found that they enjoy any thing without Legal Title or done any thing that may forfeit what they have Purchased they will sit down and most willingly acquiesce in the Judgments But to have their Purchases made void their Lands and Improvements taken from them their Securities and Assurances for Money Lent declar'd Null and Void by a Law made ex post facto is what was never practised in any Kingdom or Countrey If the Bill now design'd to be made a Law had been attempted within two three four or five years after the Court for the execution of these Acts was ended the Purchasers would not have laid out their Estates in acquiring of Lands or in Building or Improving on them Thousands who had sold small Estates and Free-holds in England and brought the Price of them to Purchase or Plant here wou'd have stayed at home And your Majesties Revenue with that of the Nobility and Gentry had never come to the Height it did If your Majesty please to consider upon what Grounds and Assurances the Purchasers of Lands and Tenements in this Kingdom proceed you will soon conclude that never any proceeded upon securer Grounds The Acts of xvij and xviij of King Charles your Father of blessed Memory the First takes notice that there was a Rebellion begun in this Kingdom on the 23d of October 1641 And so doth a Bill once read in the House of Lords whoever looks into the Royal Martyrs Discourse upon that Occasion will see with what an abhorrence he laments it and that he had once thoughts of coming over in Person to suppress it Those Acts promise Satisfaction out of Forfeited Lands to such as would advance Money for reducing these disturbers of the publick Peace unto their Duty The Invitation was his late Majesties your Royal Brothers Letters from Breda some few weeks before his Restauration which hapned the 29th of May 1660 And within six Months after came forth his Majesties most Gracious Declaration for the Settlement of this Kingdom This may it please your Majesty is the Basis and Foundation of the Settlement and was some years after Enacted and made a Law by two several Acts of Parliament It is true that the Usurping Powers in the Year 1653. having by the permission of the Almighty as a just Judgment on us for our Sins prevailed here did dispose and set out the Estates of Catholicks unto Adventurers and Soldiers and in a year or two after transplanted out Catholick Free-holders for no other Reason but their being so in Connought where Lands were set out unto them under divers Qualifications which they and their Heirs or those deriving under them as Purchasers enjoy'd and still do enjoy under the Security of the before mentioned Acts of Parliament and Declaration His Majesties gracious Declaration of the 30th of November 1660. which I call the Foundation of the Settlement was before it was concluded on under the Consideration of that great Prince and the Lords of his Council of England where all Persons concerned for the Proprietors as well old as new were heard whoever reads will find the many Difficulties which he and his Council met with from the different and several Pretenders what Consideration was had and Care taken to reconcile the jarring Interests and to accommodate and settle as well as was possible the Mass and Body of Subjects here It was some years after before the Act for the Execution of his Majesties most Gracious Declaration became a Law It was neer two years upon the Anvil It was not a Law that past in few days or sub silentio It was first according to the then Course of passing Laws here framed by the Chief Governour and Council of this Kingdom by the Advice and with the Assistance of all the Judges and of his Majesties Council Learned in the Law and then transmitted into England to be further consider'd of by his Majesty and Lords of his Council there where the Counsel at Law and Agents of all Pretenders to the Propriety of Lands in this Kingdom were heard and that Act commonly called the Act of Settlement approved of and retransmitted under the Seal of England to receive the Royal Assent which it did after having passed both Houses of Parliament The Innocent Proprietors being restored pursuant to thiâ— Act and some Difficulties appearing as to the further execution of it Another Act passed commonly called the Act of Explanation which went the same Course and under the same Scrutiny It is confessed that though they are two Acts it was by the same Parliament who were chosen according to the ancient Course of Chusing Parliaments But if any miscarriage were in bringing that Parliament together or the procuring the aforesaid Acts of Parliament to pass which we can in no wise admit and the less for that your Majesties Revenue was granted and settled by the same Parliament and many good and wholsom Laws therein Enacted Yet it is manifest that nothing of that kind ought to affect the Plain and honest Purchaser who for great and valuable Considerations acquired Lands under the Security aforesaid and expended the remainder of his Means in Building Improving and Planting on them and that for the following Reasons First The Purchaser advising with his Counsel how to lay out or secure his Money that it may not lie dead not only to his but the publick detriment tells him that he is offer'd a Purchase of Lands in Fee or desired by his Neighbours to accommodate him with Money upon the Security of Judgment or Statute Staple and upon the enquiry into the Title he finds a good and Secure Estate as firm in Law as two Acts of Parliament in force in this Kingdom can make it and in many Cases Letters Patents upon a Commission of Grace for remedying of defective Titles he finds Possession both of many years gone along with this Title several descents past and possibly that the Lands have been purchased and passed through the hands of divers Purchasers He resorts to the Records where he meets with Fines and Common Recoveries the great Assurance known to the Laws of England Under which by the Blessing of God we live and tells him there is no scruple nor difficulty of Purchasing under this Title since he hath Security under two Acts of Parliament Certificates and Letters Patents Fines and Recoveries and that no Law of force in this Kingdom can stir much less shake this Title How is it possible to imagine that the
Possession and Letters Patents on Record are all blown off at once and nothing left sure or firm in the Kingdom For my part I cannot understand that any Man will Purchase an Acre of Land hereafter when former Purchasers that thought themselves secure are so much discouraged Improvements must perish likewise for by the Petitions that have been preferred to this House your Lordships may perceive that some Proprietors have but small Estates 20 40 or 100 Acres on which Sumptuous Houses and large Gardens and Orchards have been erected and the Income of their Estates is not able to repair the Glass Windows or defray the Wages of the Gardiner And as for Husbandry what between the Old Proprietor that is to be restor'd and cannot Manure the Ground till he is possessed of it and the present Possessor that knows not how long his Term will hold and therefore will be at no Charges upon a Term that depends on the Will of the Commissioners We shall have the Plow neglected and must feed on one another instead of Corn. My Lords This is not all the inconvenience in it but it is likewise to the prejudice of the People in the Kingdom both Protestants and Catholicks The Protestants are already ruin'd by the Rapparees and if their Estates are taken from them I know nothing wanting to make them compleatly miserable The rich Catholicks have as yet escap'd the Depredations of their Neighbours but they will be almost as miserable as the Protestants when their Estates and Improvements are taken from them My Lords This Bill doth likewise destroy the Publick Faith and Credit of the Nation it destroys the Credit of England by Repealing the Act Pass'd there for the Satisfaction of Adventurers it destroys the Publick Faith of Ireland by Repealing the Acts of Settlement and Explanation it violates the Faith of his late Majesty which hath been pass'd to his Subjects in his Gracious Declaration for the Settlement of this Kingdom and in his Letters Patents pursuant to it It subverts the Credit of his present Majesty in his Letters Patents that he hath Pass'd since his coming to the Crown on the Commission of Grace for he has receiv'd the Composition money and if these Grants must be vacated I cannot forbear to speak it plainly that the Subject is deluded it commits a Rape upon the Common Law by making all Fines and Recoveries useless and ineffectual and it invades the Property of every private Subject by destroying all Settlements on valuable Considerations My Lords This Bill is Inconvenient in point of Time Is it now a time for men to seek for Vineyards and Olive yards when a Civil War is rageing in the Nation and we are under Apprehensions I will not say fears for it is below Men of Courage to be afraid of Invasions from abroad is it not better to wait for more peaceable times and Postpone our own Concerns to the Concerns of his Majesty and the publick Peace of the Nation To do otherwise is to divide the Spoyl before we get it to dispose of the Skin before we catch the Beast We cannot in this case set a better President before Us than the Case of the Israelites in the Book of Joshua they had the Land of Canaan given them by God but yet Joshua did not go about to make a Distribution of it to the Tribes till they had subdued their Enemies and the Lord had given them peace Nay My Lords I am confident that it will prejudice His Majesties Service because every Mans eye and heart will be more on his own Concerns than His Majesties Business it is possible that their affections may be more set upon the gaining of their Estates than the Fighting for the King and then all their Endeavours will be drowned in the Consideration of their own profit Moses was Jealous of this when the Two Tribes and an half desired to have their Possessions on this side Jordan before the Land was intirely subdued and there may be the same motives to the like suspitions now My Lords Either there was a REBELLION in this Kingdom or there was not If there was none then we have been very unjust all this while in â—â—eping so many Innocents out of their Estates And God forbid that I should open my Mouth in the Defence of so gross an Injustice but then what shall we say to His Majesties Royal Fathers Declaration in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who there owns that there was a Rebellion and in pursuance of that Opinion passed an Act to secure such as should adventure Money for the suppressing of it Nay What shall we say to the Two Bills that have been brought into this House the one by an Honourable Lord which owns it fully the latter from the Commoners which owns a Rebellion but extenuates it I take it then for granted that there was a Rebellion and if so it was either a total or a partial one If it was a general one then all were guilty of it and none can pretend to be restored to his Estate farther than the King in his Mercy shall think fit to grant it him If it was a partial one then some Discrimination ought to be made between the Innocent and the Guilty The Innocent should be restored and the Guilty excluded from their Estates but here is a Bill that makes no distinction between them but Innocent and Nocent are all to fare alike The one is to be put in as good a Condition as the other and can your Lordships imagine that it is reasonable to do this when we all know that there has been a Court of Claims erected for the Tryal of Innocents that several have put themselves upon the Proof of their Innocence and after a full Hearing of all that they could offer for themselves have been adjudged Nocent My Lords I have Ventur'd Candidly and Impartially to lay my Thoughts before you and I have no other design in it than honestly to acquit my Conscience towards my KING and Country If my Freedom hath given your Lordships any Offence I do here submissively beg your Pardon for it but it is the Concern of the Nation in general that hath made me so warm in this Affair I have but one thing more to add That God would so direct and instruct your hearts that you may pitch upon those Courses that may be for the Honour of the King and the Benefit of the Kingdom Objections against the Particulars of the Bill made by the Lord Bishop of Meath I. No Penalty on such as shall enter without Injunctions II. No Consideration for Improvements III. No Saving for Remainders IV. No Time given to Tenants and Possessors to Remove their Stock and Corn. V. No Provision for Protestant Widows VI. It allows only Reprisals for Original Purchase-Money which is hard to make out and is an Injury to the Second or Third Purchaser No. 24. Copies of the ORDERS for giving Possessions c. Com. Kildare
Body in their Employments had not substance enough to answer the Charges of a Suit much less the Damages expected by way of Reparation 2. After the Earl of Tyrconnel had named his Sheriffs of this stamp for the year 1687 it will hardly be found that any Protestant recovered any Debt by Execution The main Reason of this was the Poverty of Sheriffs which made Men unwilling to trust the Execution of a Bond for twenty pounds into their Hands they not being responsible even for such á small Summ as too many found to their cost The Mayors and other Magistrates in their new modelled Corporations were generally of the same sort In Dublin they could not pick up Men enough that had the face to appear as Burgesses and some of those that they named had not Mony to buy themselves Gowns I think their number was never complete It was yet worse in the Country Corporations in many places they were not able to pay the Attorney General 's Fees which stopped their new Charters till the calling a Parliament necessitated him to pass them gratis As to the inferior Officers of the Army such as Captains Lieutenants and Ensigns some hundreds of them had been Cow-herds Horse-boys or Footmen and perhaps these were none of their worst Men for by reason of their Education amongst Protestants they had seen and understood more than those who had lived wild on the Mountains 3. 'T is observable that the Men of clear Estates who followed his late Majesty from England through France as they were but very few so they had but little interest with him of which Duke Powis was one Instance and Lord Dover another Duke Powis made the Protestants believe and perhaps he was sincere in it that he was much against the Proceedings of the pretended Parliament and used his Interest with the King to put a stop to them but was not able to do it Lord Dover was actually dismissed from all his Employments and ready to leave the Kingdom some time before the Alteration happened by the Victory at the Boyn Now King James's Aversion to employ or trust Men of Estates and Fortunes and the reason of his Fondness of such Creatures as had no Being but what he gave them was obvious enough to us that felt it and they themselves did not deny it nay boasted of it as a great instance of his Wisdom He knew these could never thrive but by making him absolute that they would never demur at any Command or enquire for any other Law than his Will that they were out of all fear of being questioned afterwards or of having their Estates forfeited or Families beggared all which are great Restraints on Men of Estates and Honor. 4. And surely there cannot be a fuller Demonstration of a Prince's Design to lay aside the Laws and to rule by force without controul than his putting out Men of Substance and employing Men of broken and desperate Fortunes in places of Trust and Honor who having nothing else to depend upon but the Prince's pleasure must be absolute Slaves to it and yield a blind Obedience to all that is given them in Commission This is the Misery of a People when Servants rule over them And this was the Reason King James employed rather such than any others And it was impossible the Grand Segnior should have fitted himself better with Instruments for promoting an arbitrary Government than he did SECT VI. II. The Insufficiencies of the Persons employed by King James was of mischievous Consequence to the Kingdom 1. THE Poverty and Meanness of the Men was not their worst Fault It is possible that a poor Man may be both honest and able for the greatest Trust. But the Officers employed by King James were such that tho they had been very honest and willing to do Justice they yet must have done much Mischief by their Unskilfulness and Insufficiency for the Offices with which he intrusted them It was both King James's Misfortune and his Subjects that he employed very few of sober Sense and Experience about him whether it was that he could not get Men of Sense to go through with him in all things that he would have had done or whether it proceeded from the Servility observable in dull People whereby they flatter and gain on Princes Or lastly from a Humor incident to great Men which makes them unwilling to have Servants able to pry into their Designs But however it was it was remarkable in King James that dull heavy Men kept his Favor longer and more steadily than Men of Sense and Parts and he generallly chose out the most unfit and most uncapable for Preferments It is plain that even in England he designed the Army should be supplyed with Irish and this Project went farther than the Army he was filling the Burroughs and Corporations with them also and no Body knew where the humour would have stopped Now if there had been nothing else their being kept out of all Employments and Trusts by the Laws for many years past must have incapacitated them and all Roman Catholicks for managing the Affairs of the Kingdom to advantage they neither had fit Education nor had they applyed their minds to the Management of such Affairs they were absolute Strangers to every thing that concerned the publick and then no wonder that they went aukwardly and untowardly about Business How was it conceivable that they should escape signal and mischievous Errors in the Discharge of Offices to which they had never been bred up and of which they never thought till they were put to manage them And yet this they were constrained to do without the Aid or Assistance of any to help them and that under the most difficult Circumstances for the former Officers looked on their Offices as their Freeholds and conceived a great Resentment against such as had turned them out of them against Law and Justice and therefore left them as inâ—â—icate and their Successors as little Information as they could who according to the Nature of ignorant Men were too proud to ask assistance from the others if those had been willing to afford them instruction 2. It is not imaginable how many Inconveniences happened on this Account nothing was done by any Rule or Method the Subjects were every day oppressed and the Officers made themselves ridiculous by their Blunders and Mistakes every Body was petitioning by reason of these Grievances and no Body knew how to redress them None of the new Officers understood his own Business or how to distinguish his Province from another Man's The knavish part of Offices in putting Tricks on People and getting Money were all the Study of the new employed Gentlemen The real and substantial parts of the Offices for which they were instituted and designed were little known and less minded nor could it be expected to be otherwise Could any imagine for Example that Chancellor Fitton that had lain in prison many years and not appeared in any
Judicature in such a method as tended to destroy the Protestant English Interest of Ireland 1. THE support and happiness of a Kingdom consists chiefly in the equal and impartial Administration of Justice and that depends on the choice of fit and duly qualified Persons for filling the Courts and Executing the Laws but King James made choice of such Persons for these Offices as were so far from answering the intent of their Places that they made it their business to destroy the Protestant Interest and the Laws that preserve the Liberty of the Subject in general by those Laws no Man was capable of being a Judg who had not taken the Oath of Supremacy The Judges he found on the Bench had taken it but yet some of them were known to be rather too favourable to Papists and considering the influence King James had in his Brothers time in disposing of Offices it is not to be imagined that he would suffer any Man to sit as a Judge who had not been favourably represented unto him in that Point though we must own he was mistaken in some of them hence it came that Protestants did frequently complain of the Favour and Countenance their Adversaries found in the Courts of Justice even in King Charles II. time But when King James came to the Crown moderate nay favourable Judges would not do the Work he designed He found it necessary to Employ the most Zealous of his Party those who both by Interest and Inclination were most deeply ingaged to destroy the Protestant English Interest and accordingly such were picked out and set on all the Benches 2. The Chancery is the great and highest Court wherein the great Frauds and other matters belonging to Trusts and Equity are determined and neither the Lord Primate Boyle who had managed that Court about twenty years nor Sir Charles Porter who succeeded him could answer the Kings intention but Sir Alexander Fitton of whom I have already given some account a Person detected of Forgery not only at Westminster and Chester but likewise Fined by the House of Lords in Parliament must be brought out of Goal and set on the highest Court of the Kingdom to keep the Kings Conscience though he wanted Law and natural Capacity as well as Honesty and Courage to discharge such a Trust and had no other quality to recommend him besides his being a Convert Papist that is a Renegado to his Religion and his Country but the mystery of this was easily found out The Papists of Ireland had gone a great way to retrieve the Estates they had forfeited by the Rebellion 1641 by counterfeit Settlements Forgeries and Perjuries and to do their business in a great measure there needed no more than to find a Judg that would be favourable to and countenance such proceedings and where could they find a more favourable Judg than one who was notoriously involved in the same guilt and who probably in some Cases did not esteem such Arts unlawful but besides this there is requisite to a Chancellor a peculiar quickness of Parts and Dexterity to penetrate into the contrivances of Cheats and Forgeries for which Sir Alexander Fittons natural slowness and heaviness incapacitated him but this very defect together with his Zeal for Popery fitted him to execute the Kings design as effectually as any that could have been found He could not understand the merit of a Cause of any difficulty and therefore never failed to give Sentence according to his inclination having no other Rule to lead him and how he was inclined towards Protestants appeared from his Declarations on all occations against them he did not stick on a Hearing to declare that they were all Rogues and that amongst forty thousand there was not one who was not a Traitor a Rebel and a Villain for this Reason he would not allow the Guardianship of a Child to the Protestant Mother but gave it against the positive words of the Law to the Popish Relations for this Reason he refused to hear so much as a demurrer in the Popish Dean of Christs Church Mr. Staffords Case For this Cause he over-ruled both the common Rules of Practice of the Courts and the Laws of the Land declaring in open Court that the Chancery was above all Laws that no Law could bound his Conscience and he acted accordingly in many Cases where Protestants were concerned After hearing a Cause between one of them and a Papist he would often declare that he would consult a Divine before he gave a Decree that is he would have the Opinion of a Popish Priest his Chaplain Educated in Spain and furnished with Destinctions to satisfie his Conscience how far he should do Justice to Protestants many Papists came and made Affidavits of being in Possession when they never were and got Injunctions and Orders without any more ado to quiet their Possessions But a Protestant though never so palpably disturbed could not procure any Order but was sent to the Common-Law to recover his Possession by a Popish Jury returned by a Popish Sheriff before a Popish Judg that is he must expect Law from Judges and Officers that Sate and Acted in defiance of Law If at any time the Chancellor was forced to grant an Injunction or Decree it was with all the difficulties and delays that could be and often the thing was lost and destroyed before the Order came for recovering it 3. The Administration of Justice and Equity is the great end of Government and it is as good nay better to be without Governours than to have Governors under whom Men cannot reasonably hope for these We see from the choice of a Chancellor what care King Iames took for the Administration of Equity to Protestants To help the matter he added as Assistants to the Chancellor Mr. Stafford a Popish Priest for one Master of the Chancery and Felix ô Neal Son of Turlogh ô Neal the great Rebel in 1641 and Massacrer of the Protestants for another To these generally the Causes between Protestants and Papists were referred and upon their Report the Chancellor past his Orders and Decrees 4. The Courts of Common-Law were put into the same method and great care taken to fill them with Judges who might be ingaged in a profest enmity to the Protestant Interest In Ireland there are only three Judges on a Bench and it was thought fit for a colour till things were Riper to keep one Protestant on every Bench but whilst there were two Votes to one the Protestant Judg could neither do Right to Protestants or retard a Sentence to be given in the favour of a Papist This mock method of seeming to trust Protestants they took likewise in naming Burgesses and Aldermen for Corporations they generally put some few into their New Charters to serve for a pretence of impartiallity and yet to signifie nothing this Method of continuing some few Protestants in Courts and Corporations serving only to silence and exasperate us to be thus
Robbers and Tories immediately they were Besieged and though they Surrendred themselves as soon as Summoned having no design to resist Authority and put themselves into the Hands of King James's Officers upon promise of Freedom nay on Articles yet afterward they were imprisoned and prosecuted as Mr. Price of Wicklow Some of them Condemned and Executed which happened to Mr. Maxwel and one Lewis in the Queens County They thought it not safe to Execute some till the War was over and therefore only kept them in Prison So Sir Laurence Parsons and many others were served 5. At last it came to a general Seizure and almost all the Protestant Gentlemen without Reason or pretence of Reason without so much as a Warrant or Form of Law were put in Goals under the custody of mean and barbarous Guards Whose very Captains had had no better Education than that of Footmen or Cowherds who exercised what understanding they had to invent new methods of vexing their Prisoners This general Confinement continued with most from the middle of Summer 1689 till Winter and with some till his Majesties Victory at the Boyne set them all at Liberty during all which time no Reason or Ground of their Committal was given nor were Habeas Corpus's allowed them though earnestly sollicited One indeed was allowed to Mr. Thomas King a Minister which being the only one that took place it may be proper to give the Reader an account of the Case The Reason of his Committal was really a Quarrel picked designedly with him by an Officer of the Guards because he refused to admit one Ambrose the Popish Quarter-Master of the City for a Godfather to a Protestant Child whom he Christened in Revenge whereof the Officer intruded into his Company whilst at Meat as was common with them and would needs oblige him to drink Confussion and Damnation to the Prince of Orange which he modestly declining and alledging that it was unfit for a Christian much more for a Clergy-man to drink Damnation to any the Officer hurried him away to Newgate by his own Authority and after lying there till the Term his Habeas Corpus was allowed him Upon the Return made by the Goalour the Court was so vexed at it that they fined the Goalour for making such a Return but in earnest because he made any for that was the contrivance they had to keep People in Goal and after all he was still kept a Prisoner notwithstanding his Habeas Corpus till most were bailed and then upon Bail of five thousand pound he was permitted to go out under which Bail he continued as all the rest did under the like sums till the general Deliverance After his no more Habeas Corpus's were allowed Most of the Prisoners towards the depth of Winter were indeed bailed and continued so from Term to Term till the news of his present Majesties arrival and then all were confined anew notwithstanding their Bail with some that had not been confined before At the hour when the last of King James's Forces were leaving Dublin they were ordered to carry away four hundred Prisoners along with them but the Officers were too much afraid of a Pursuit and too busie in carrying off their own Baggage to embarrass themselves with Prisoners and therefore for a little Gold dismissed them How the Protestants of Drogheda who were all made Prisoners were used whilst the Town was surrounded is not to be forgotten They carried them to the Mount where they expected the Canon would play tyed them together and set them to receive the Shot if the Town had been Attacked but their Hearts failed them who were to Defend it and so it pleased God to preserve the poor Protestants they being delivered together with the Town to his Majesty upon Summons and Articles The Protestants of Cork and other Towns were yet worse used they were carried from their own Homes to some remote Castles and there kept without Conveniencies till many of them perished There were some very barbarous Circumstances in their Sufferings which I must leave to the Persons themselves to relate having not yet had full Information 6. During their Confinement the Prisoners were kept very strictly their Servants Children and Wives were often debarred from seeing them or when admitted not suffered to speak to them but in presence of the Soldiers In Dublin when they had filled the Goals the Hospitals the College and other places of Confinement they at last imprisoned the Citizens in Churches They were crowded into stinking nasty unhealthy Rooms sometimes twenty sometimes forty in a Room At the College and at a House called White Friars where there were many Prisoners they put Barrels of Powder under them threatning to blow them up if they should be prest and not able to keep the Places Collonel Luttrell Governor of Dublin denyed indeed that this was done by his Order but yet when he was informed of it by Sir John Davis then a Prisoner and Witness of it he commended the Discretion of the Officer that did it This Confinement did not only fall on Gentlemen but also on the Clergy nay on the meanest Citizens Whoever pleased had a power to Commit Protestants and if at any time they asked by what Authority they were committed those that committed them made no other answer than that they committed them let them get out as they could Some few Gentlemen were indeed committed by C. J. Nugents Warrant upon a kind of Affidavit made by one Leak whom most of them had never seen several of these by express Orders of the Lord Chief Justice were sent to Newgate and committed in the Common Goal in the same Room with Thieves and Common Rogues though Gentlemen of the best Quality in the Kingdom and so hasty was his Lordship in it that he did it before he knew some of their names which he was forced afterward to send for and learn from themselves A Bill was prepared against them and offered to the Grand Jury but Leak was unwittingly clapt up by one of themselves for a former Robbery at the time he should have given Evidence and so the Gentlemen escaped being tryed The Confinement was yet more severe and uneasie in the Country the Gentlemen being at such distances from their own Homes that they could hardly be supplyed with Necessaries 7. It may be thought that these things were unknown to King James and therefore are not to be imputed to him but it is certain that if he did not Contrive and and Order them he yet consented to them neither did he seem to have the least resentment or pity for their Sufferings as appeared from his Carriage to the Bishop of Lymerick His Lordship by his Majesties Command on a particular Service waited often on him he took one of those Opportunities that seemed most favourable to lay before his Majesty the manifold hardships which were put on the Clergy and the Protestants in general of his Diocess He represented to him how they
were first Robbed of all and then laid in Goal and that they had no way offended his Majesty or disturbed his Government and begged his favour in their behalf His Majesty heard him but made him no answer instead thereof he fell into discourse of another Affair with a Papist that chanced to be by and that with an Air more than ordinarily pleasant and unconcerned Indeed his Majesty had by one general Order and Proclamation dated July 26. 1689 confined all Protestants without distinction of Age or Sex to their Parishes and Cities though their Occasions were such that he very well knew that this alone without any more was a very great encroachment on their Liberty and a mighty inconveniency to their Affairs especially when it was continued without Reason or Limitation No body knew when this would be relaxed and it was Executed with great strictness till his present Majesties success put an end to it and to the Power that imposed it 8. But least these hardships and restraints should either be avoided by our flight or known in England where King James had a Party to cry up the mildness of his Government and face down the World that the Protestants lived easily and happily under him in Ireland a most strict Embargo was laid on all Ships and effectual care taken to destroy all Correspondence with our Friends there insomuch that to avoid a Goal great numbers of Gentlemen and other persons were forced to make their escapes in small Wherries and Fishing-Boats which before these times durst never venture out of the sight of the Shoar but it seemed more tolerable to every body that could compass it to cross the Irish Seas so famous for their boisterousness and Shipwracks in that hazardous manner than to continue under a Government where they could call nothing their own where it was in the power of any that pleased to deprive them of their Liberty where they durst not Travel three Miles for fear of incurring the severest penalties where they could not send a Letter to a Friend though in the next Town and about the most necessary Occasions and where tho never so cautious and innocent they were sure at last to be sent to a Goal A Government that thus encroached on our Liberties could not expect we should continue under it longer than we needs must and it had been unpardonable folly in us not to desire much more to refuse a deliverance especially from England which if Blood and Treasure or a Possession of five hundred years can give a right to a Country is justly intitled to the Government of Ireland And which if it had no other exception against King James's Government but his Carriage towards Ireland and his attempts to separate it from its dependence on England must be justified by all the World in their laying him aside as a Destroyer of his People and a disinheritor of the Crown of his Ancestors SECT VIII 7. The preparations made by the Earl of Tyrconnel to ruin the Estates and Fortunes of the Protestants by taking away their Arms. 1. 'T Is Property that makes Government necessary and the immediate end of Government is to preserve Property where therefore a Government instead of preserving intirely ruins the Property of the Subject that Government dissolves it self Now this was the State of the Protestants in Ireland the Government depriv'd them contrary to Law and Justice nay for the most part without so much as the pretence of a Crime of every thing to which persons can have a Property even of the necessaries of life Food and Rayment To lay this more fully before the Reader I will shew First That King James took away the Arms of Protestants Secondly That he took away their personal and Thirdly their real Estates 2. When his present Majesty made his descent into England King James had an Army of Papists in Ireland consisting of between 7 and 8000 of which near 4000 were sent over to him into England there remain'd then about 4000 behind scattered up and down the Kingdom which were but a handful to the Protestants there being Men and Arms enough in Dublin alone to have dealt with them When therefore the News came that K. J. had sent Commissioners to treat with the Prince of Orange it was propos'd by some to seize the Castle of Dublin where the Stores of Arms and Ammunition lay the possibility of this was demonstrated and the Success extreamly probable insomuch that the persons who offer'd to undertake it made no doubt of effecting it they considered that the Papists besides the 4000 of the Army were generally without Arms that those who were in Arms were raw and cowardly and might easily be supprest that to do it effectually there needed no more but to seize the Deputy Tyrconnel who had not then above 600 Men in the City to guard him and secure it that their hearts were generally sunk and they openly declar'd themselves to be desirous to lay down their Arms proposing to themselves no other Conditions but to return to the station in which they were when K. J. came to the Crown This was so universally talk'd of by themselves that if any one could have assured them of these terms there was no doubt but they would readily have comply'd and have left the Lord Tyrconnel to shift for himself nay it is probable the wiser sort amongst them would have bin glad that the Protestants had seiz'd him and he himself commanded some Protestants to signifie to their Friends in England that he was willing to part with the Sword on these terms so he might have leave to do it from K. J. But the Protestants had bin educated in such a mighty veneration to the very name of Authority and in so deep a sense of Loyalty that notwithstanding the many provocations given them and their fear of being serv'd as in 1641 the memory of which was still fresh to them they yet abhorr'd any thing that look'd like an Insurrection against the Government and generally condemn'd the design of medling with the Lord Deputy tho they knew he was no Legal Governour and uncapable by the Law of that Trust. Especially the Lord Mountjoy laboured for his safety and prevented the forementioned proposal of seizing him and the Castle with as much industry as if he himself had bin to perish in it The truth is it was an unanimous resolution of all the Protestants of the Kingdom that they would not be the Aggressors and they held steadily to their resolution None offered or attempted any thing till they saw the whole body of the Papists in Ireland forming themselves into Troops and Companies and these new rais'd Men permitted nay put under a necessity to rob and plunder for their subsistence They pitied the hard Fortune of K. J. and notwithstanding they were half ruin'd themselves when he came into the Kingdom yet if he had carried himself with any tolerable moderation towards them and his
for Three Months from the First of January a thing impossible without allowing them to Steal and Plunder It was this struck so much terror into Protestants and made them so jealous and apprehensive of Danger that they fled into England in great numbers especially when they found that the New Raised Men as they surmised began to make havock of all things It was this gave Credit to a Letter dated December the Third 1688 sent to the Lord Mount Alexander whether true or counterfeit I cannot determine intimating a design to Destroy the Protestants on Sunday the Ninth of the same Month which Letter was spread over the whole Kingdom The People of Derry had beside this several Letters and Intimations of Mischief designed against them and against the Protestants of Ireland And though that directed to the Lord Mount Alexander may not seem of great weight yet whoever considers the circumstances of the Protestants of Ireland at that time will acknowledge that it was not to be despised In the Year 1641 the Seizing of Dublin by the Lord Mac Guire was prevented by as improbable a discovery as this Letter while the Protestants in the rest of the Kingdom were Massacred through the incredulity of some who could not be perswaded to give ear to such intimations of the Design as were brought before them In England the Gun-powder Treason was revealed and the destruction of the Three Kingdoms prevented by a Letter as insignificant as that directed to the Lord Mount Alexander About the very time intimated in the Letter for the Massacre a new raised Regiment belonging to the Earl of Antrim appeared before the Town without the King's Livery without any Officers of Note or the least warning given by the Earl of their coming lastly without any Arms besides Skeans Clubs and such other Weapons as Kearnes and Tories used 6. The People of the Town were frightened at the Sight and refused them entrance into the City this was the First rub or provocation the Lord Deputy met with it was a meer accident and proceeded from his own Ignorance or Negligence who had left that Garrison the only one of any considerable strength in Ulster where most Protestants lived without one Soldier to Guard it and then sent such a pack of Ruffians to take Possession of it many of whose Captains and Officers were well known to the Citizens having lain long in their Jails for Thefts and Robberies When therefore such a Body of Men came to demand entrance at the very time that they expected a Massacre what could they imagin but that these Men came to execute it and who could blame them for shutting their Gates They were well assured that these were Men fit for such an Execution and that they were ready on command to do it and perhaps would not stay for an Order The Lord Deputy bethought himself too late of his Error but could never retrieve it though by means of the Lord Mountjoy he did all in it that was possible having brought the City to accept of a Pardon and receive a Garrison of Soldiers but then it was such a Garrison as they were able to Master and no more by the Articles were to be admitted into it before the ensuing March. 7. We ought to remember the reason of Building Londonderry and 't is plain from its Charter granted by King James the First that it was Founded to be a Shelter and Refuge for Protestants against the Insurrections and Massacres of the Natives who were known always to design and be ready to execute their malice on their Conquerors To keep them therefore in awe and secure the Plantation was the Design of Building the City it was upon this condition and by these Covenants the Proprietors of the City held their Estates and the Inhabitants had been false to the very design and end of their Foundation if they had given up the City with the keeping of which they were intrusted into the Hands of those very men against whom by the Charter it was designed to be a Security and Bulwark At this rate the Lord Deputy might give away any mans Estate and have bestowed it on his greatest Enemy and that with much less injury to the Publick The People therefore of Londonderry had good reason to refuse to deliver their City to the Kearnes and Tories of Ulster though inlisted under the Earl of Antrim by a Commission from a pretended Lord Deputy these were excluded by their very Charter and by the design of Building the Place from possessing it much less had they reason to deliver it to a parcel of men of whose Commission they knew nothing and whose Errand they had reason to believe was to cut their Throats 8. 'T is to be considered that Londonderry was under a further provocation to lay hold on the first opportunity to do themselves Justice and that was the wicked and illegal Invasion made on their Charter Liberties Priviledges and Estates by a most unjust and oppressive Sentence given by an unqualified Lord Chief Baron on a Quo Warranto for which there was not the least pretence in the World as may appear to any one that will be at the pains to view the Proceedings in Court By this Sentence grounded on a foolish nicety objected to the Plea the whole English Interest and Plantations in that County were ruined and the whole Designs of them destroyed and perverted and therefore it was not to be wondered if they took the first opportunity to save themselves from imminent Destruction They concluded that a Government who on a nicety could take away their Charter their Priviledges their Estates and subvert the design of Building their City might as easily and unavoidably find another nicety to take away what remained together with their Lives and therefore they cannot be much blamed if they had been under no other Temptation but this that they were willing to withdraw themselves from a Government whom they durst not trust and which took all advantages against them to destroy them 9. The shutting up of Derry against the Earl of Antrim's Regiment was all that was done by any Protestant in Ireland in opposition to the Government till King James deserted England except what was done at Enniskillin where the People were under the same circumstances with those of Derry having about the same time refused to quarter two Companies sent to them by the Lord Deputy They were not so much as summoned by him nor did they enter into any Act of Hostility or Association or offend any till assaulted being content to stand on their Guard against such as they knew to be Mortal Enemies to the English Interest to subdue whom they were planted in that wild and fast Country But as soon as the News of King James's deserting the Government came into Ireland all Protestants look'd on themselves as obliged to take care of their own Preservation and finding that continual Robberies and Plunderings were committed by such
as the Lord Deputy against the Laws of the Kingdom and the Interest of the Nation had intrusted with Arms and Employments and that no Care was taken by him to prevent those Mischiefs but on the contrary the Robbers were secretly cherished and encouraged the Gentlemen in the North to prevent their own Ruin and the Ruin of all the Protestants of Ireland which they saw unavoidable entred into Associations to defend themselves from these Robbers their Associations did really reach no farther than this nor did they attempt any thing upon the Armed Robbers except in their own Defence when invaded and assaulted by them Insomuch that I could never hear of one act of Hostility committed wherein they were not on the Defensive Their crime then if any was only this they were not willing to suffer themselves to be robb'd and plundered as their Neighbours were without opposition but disarmed some of those who under colour of being King James's Soldiers destroyed the Country This was all the reason the Lord Deputy and Council had to call them Rebels and to charge them in their Proclamation dated March the 7th 1688 with actual Rebellion and with Killing and Murdering several of his Majesties Subjects and with Pillaging and Plundering the Country whereas it was notorious they never killed any whom they did not find actually Robbing to kill whom the Laws of the Kingdom not only indemnified them but likewise assigned them a Reward and for Plundering it is no less notorious that they preserved the whole Country within their Associations from being Pillaged when all the rest of Ireland was destroyed And their great care of themselves and their Country was the Crime which truly provoked the Lord Deputy and made him except from Pardon Twelve of the principal Estated Men in the North when he sent down Lieutenant General Hamilton with an Army which he tells us in the same Proclamation would inevitably occasion the total ruin and destruction of the North. 10. And lest there should be any Terms proposed or accepted by the People in the North and so that Country escape being Plundered and Undone he made all the haste he could to involve the Kingdom in Blood King James was every day expected from France and landed at Kinsale March the 12th but no Perswasions would prevail with the Lord Deputy to defer sending the Army to the North till the King came though he had good assurance given him by several who knew their Minds and Tempers that in all probability if King James himself appeared amongst them and offered them Terms they would have complyed with him at least so far as to submit quietly to his Government But it was the Lord Deputy's design to destroy the Protestants there as well as in the rest of the Kingdom and therefore he hasted to make the Parties irreconcilable by engaging them in Blood and by letting loose the Army to Spoil and Plunder The War therefore was entirely imputable to him and the Protestants were forced into it having no other choice than either to be undone without offering to make any Defence for themselves or else with their Arms in their Hands to try what they could do in their own Preservation 11. But it must be considered that Ireland is a Kingdom dependent on the Crown of England and part of the Inheritance thereof and therefore must follow its fate which it cannot decline without most apparent ruin to the English Interest in it Now King James having abdicated the Government of England and others being actually possessed of the Throne it was the business of the Protestants of Ireland to preserve themselves rather than dispute the Titles of Princes they were sure it was their Interest and their Duty to be subject to the Crown of England but whether King James was rightly intitled to that Crown is not so easily determinable by the common People No wonder therefore they declared for King William and his Queen whom they found actually in the Throne of England and own'd as rightful Possessors by those who had best reason to know rather than for King James who indeed pretended to it but with this disadvantage amongst many others that he was out of Possession and he had not used the Power when he was in possession so well that they should be desirous to restore him to it with the danger of their own ruin 12. They considered further that their defending themselves and those Places of which they were possest would in all probability very much contribute to save not only themselves but likewise the Three Kingdoms and the Protestant Interest in Europe to which it did certainly in some Measure contribute King James and his Party believed it and declared themselves to this effect and some of them were very liberal of their Curses on the Rebels in the North as they called them for this reason had said they the Rebels in the North joined with King James he had such a Party in England and Scotland which together with the Succours he might then have sent from Ireland and the assistance of the French King would in all probability have shaken the Government of England before it had been settled but the opposition of Enniskillin and Derry lost the opportunity that will not easily be retrieved How far this Conjecture of theirs was probable I leave it to the Reader what has happened since shews that it was not altogether groundless if the Design had taken the condition of Europe especially of the Protestants had been most deplorable but it pleased God to spoil all their Measures by the opposition made by a small Town Mann'd with People before that time ofâ— no extraordinary Reputation in the World for Arms Valour or Estates and who perhaps had never before seen an Enemy in Arms King James was pleased to call them a Rabble but it must be remembred to their Honour that they outdid in Conduct Courage and Resolution all his Experienced Generals To a Man that seriously reflects on it the thing must almost seem miraculous all Circumstances considered the rest of the Kingdom except Enniskillin had yielded without a Blow most of the chief Officers Gentlemen and Persons of Note Courage or Interest in the North had deserted their new rais'd Troops without Fighting the Succours designed for them from England came at the very time when the Town was ready to be invested and the Officers that came with those Succors as well as their own Officers were of opinion that the Place was not to be defended that they had neither Provision nor Necessaries to hold out a Siege The Officers therefore privately took a resolution to return for England and carried along with them most of the Gentlemen and Leaders of the Town without leaving any Governor or Instructions for the People what they were to do and without offering to make any conditions for them but neither this nor their extream want of Provision to which they were at last reduced nor the
consideration of their Friends whom their Enemies treated barbarously in their sight could prevail with them to give up themselves or their cause but by patience and resolution they wearied out their Enemies and instead of letting them make approaches to their Walls they enlarged their Out-works upon them and made them confess after a Siege of Fifteen Weeks that if the Walls of Derry had been made of Canvas they could not have taken it The same may be said of the People of Enniskillin who lived in a wild Country and untenable place surrounded with Enemies on every side and removed from almost all possibility of Succour being in the heart of Ireland yet they chose to run all Hazards and Extremities rather than trust their Faithless Enemies or contribute to the ruin of the Protestant Interest by yielding After almost all their Gentry of Estates or Note had left them or refused to joyn heartily with them they formed themselves into Parties and though in a manner without Arms and Ammunition yet by meer Resolution and Courage they worsted several Parties of the Enemy and almost naked recovered Arms and Ammunition out of their Hands and signalized themselves in many Engagements by which they not only saved themselves but likewise did considerable Service to the Protestants that were under the Power of King James for this Handful of Men by their frequent Incursions and carrying off Prisoners in every Engagement terrified even the Papists of Dublin into better Humour and more moderate Proceedings as to the Lives of Protestants that lived amongst them than perhaps they would otherwise have been inclined to They saw from this that their Game was not so sure as they imagined and the Prisoners taken by those of Enniskillin were Hostages for their Friends that lived in Dublin and the Humanity with which the Prisoners were used there was a Reproach on the Barbarity exercised by the other Party In short it appeared that it was neither Malice nor Factiousness that engaged them in Arms but meer Self-preservation and the Obligation of their Tenures and Plantations by which they were bound to keep Arms and Defend themselves and their Country from the power of the Popish Natives which were then Armed against them 13. But to return to the Lord Deputy's Proceedings in his new Levies in order to gain time and delude the Protestants he sent for the Lord Mountjoy out of the North after he had compounded the business of Derry and perswaded him to go with Chief Baron Rice to King James into France to represent to him the weakness of the Kingdom and the necessity to yield to the Time and wait a better opportunity to serve himself of his Irish Subjects The Lord Tyrconnel swore most solemnly that he was in earnest in this Message and that he knew the Court of France would oppose it with all their Power for said he that Court minds nothing but their own Interest and they would not care if Ireland were sunk to the Pit of Hell they are his own Words so they could give the Prince of Orange but Three Months diversion but he added if the King be perswaded to ruin his fastest Friends to do himself no Service only to gratify France he is neither so Merciful nor so Wise as I believe him to be If he recover England Ireland will fall to him in course but he can never expect to Conquer England by Ireland if he attempts it he ruins Ireland to do himself no kindness but rather to exasperate England the more against him and make his Restoration impossible and he intimated that if the King would not do it he would look on his Refusal to be forced on him by those in whose power he was and that he would think himself obliged to do it without his Consent 14. Every body told the Lord Mountjoy that this was all sham and trick and that the design was only to amuse the Protestants and get him who was the likeliest Man to head them out of the way But his Answer was that his going into France could have no influence on the Councils of England who were neither privy nor Parties to it and if they had a mind to reduce the Kingdom it was easy to do it without his Assistance that he must either go on this Message now the Deputy had put him upon it or enter into an actual War against him and against such as adhered to King Jame's Interest that he did not think it safe to do the latter having no order or encouragement from England but on the contrary all the Advice he received from thence was to be quiet and not to meddle that he was obliged to King James and neither Honour Conscience nor Gratitude would permit him in his present Circumstances to make a War on his own Authority against him whilst there was any possibility of doing the business without one Upon these considerations against the general Opinion of all the Protestants in Ireland he undertook the business and went away from Dublin about the Tenth of January 1688 having first had these general Concessions made him in behalf of the Protestants 1. That no more Commissions should be given out or new Men raised 2. That no more of the Army should be sent into the North 3. That none should be questioned for what was passed And 4. That no Private House should be garrison'd or disturb'd with Soldiers these he sent about with a Letter which will be found in the Appendix But he was no sooner gone but the Lord Deputy according to his usual Method of Falshood denyed these Concessions seemed mighty angry at the dispersing the Letter and refused to observe any of them The first News we heard from France was that the Lord Mountjoy was put into the Bastile which further exasperated the Protestants against King James and made them look on him as a Violater of Publick Faith to his Subjects As for the Lord Deputy this clearly ruined his Credit if ever he had any amongst them and they could never after be brought to give the least belief to what he said on the contrary they look'd on it as a sure sign that a thing was false if he earnestly affirmed it 15. But it was not yet in his power to master them he had not sufficiently Trained and Exercised his Men but as soon as he found that nothing was to be feared from England before the End of Summer and that he was assured King James would be with him soon he laid aside his Vizour and fell upon disarming them It was no difficult matter to do this for in the very beginning of King James's Reign the Protestant Militia had been dissolved and though they had bought their own Arms yet they were required to bring them into the Stores and they punctually obeyed the Order Such of the Protestant Army as remained in the Kingdom after their Cashiering were likewise without Arms being as I shewed before both disarmed and strip'd upon
not done but because it would have prevented the ruin of the Protestants as well as it now preserv'd the Papists It is manifest what the Government designed when by a few Robberies committed on Papists it was alarm'd and issued out Commissions to hang the Robbers yet could not be prevailed with to take notice of the many Thousand Robberies committed on the Protestants For the Proof of this see Albavill's Instructions to the forementioned Commissioners in the Appendix SECT XI The Methods by which Kings James compleated the ruin of the Protestants Personal Fortunes 1. THE Protestants by the Deputies taking away their Horses and the Army their Cattle were put out of a possibility of Living in the Country or of making any thing of their Farms by Plowing or Grazing and had saved nothing but their Houshold-Stuff and Mony only some of them when they saw the Irish taking away their Cattle slaughtered part of them Barrelled them up and sent them to Dublin and other Towns they preserved likewise their Hides and Tallow of the Year 1688 not having any vent for them and the Merchants upon the same account were stored with such Commodities as used to be sent Yearly into England or Foreign Parts and many of these went out of the Kingdom for their own Safety and left their Goods in the Hands of their Servants or Friends Their going away though they had License for it and those Licenses not expired was made a pretence to Seize their Goods and in March 1688 the Officers of the Army throughout the Kingdom without any Law or Legal Authority by order from the Lord Deputy Seized all Goods Houses Lands c. belonging to any who were out of the Kingdom there was no other reason given for this but that it was the Deputies Pleasure it should be so in May the Commissioners of the Revenue took it out of the Soldiers Hands and that they might be the better able to go through with it endeavoured to procure from their pretended Parliament an Act to confirm all they had done till that time and further to empower them to examin Witnesses upon Oath concerning concealed Goods of Absentees The Bill as it was drawn by the Commons added a power to oblige every body to discover upon Oath what they concealed belonging to their absent Friends and to Commit whom they pleased without Bail or Mainprize during pleasure not excepting the Peers of the Realm which made the House of Lords correct these Clauses and several others in the Bill upon the Motion and earnest Struggling of the Bishop of Meath though the Commissioners did in a great Measure put the Act in Execution as the Commons intended it for where-ever they expected any good of Absentees to be they sent and seized all that was in the place and then refused to restore any thing to the Owners but upon Oath that it was their own proper Goods the rest they supposed to belong to some Absentee and made it lawful Prize all such being by the Act vested in the King though the Owners who were absent without any Fault of their own should have come back and claimed by which Act all Protestants that had fled for their Refuge into England or any other place or were gone upon their lawful Occasions to the number of many Thousands were absolutely divested of all their Personal Fortunes and cut off from all Claim to their Goods and Chattels whatever The Condition of those who staid behind was very little better so many Contrivances were set on foot to ruin them and take away the little Goods that were yet left them that they were as effectually destroy'd as their Neighbours that went for England they knew that besides Goods the Protestants had some ready Money and Plate their chief aim was to come by them and several ways were thought of to effect it sometimes they were for setting up a Mint and for forcing every Body to bring in on Oath to be coined whatever Plate was in their Possession sometimes they were for searching Houses and seizing all they found but these Methods were looked on as too Violent and not likely to succeed if they should put them in Practice they therefore defer'd these for the present and appli'd themselves to the following Courses by which they got from us a great part of our Mony Plate and Goods and if our Deliverance had not been speedy would â—â—fallibly have got the rest 1. They would pretend for a Summ of Mony to procure License for a Ship to go off and when they had gotten the Mony and the People had Ship'd themselves and their Effects they then ordered the Ship to be unloaded again and seized all the Mony and Plate they found which had been privately conveyed on Shipboard tho' not forfeited by any Law 2. They would take off the Embargo which was generally laid on Ships and pretend that they would suffer the Merchants to Trade and as soon as they had got the Custom-houses full of Goods and receiv'd vast Rates for Custom besides Bribes to the Officers that attended the Ships they would put on the Embargo again stop the Goods and not return one Farthing 3. They promised Licenses for England to all who would pay for them and when they had gotten vast Summs from the Crowd that press'd to get away they would then stop the Ships and make their Licenses useless There was nothing to be done without a Bribe at what Rate may be imagined from this that an ordinary Tide-waiter one White at Rings-End was accounted to have gotten in Bribes for conniving at Peoples going off at least 1000 l. in a few Months 4. All Protestants that lived in the Country were forced to take out Protections these were sold at great Rates and it was not sufficient to buy them once they were often voided either by new Orders or the Change of Governors and then they were obliged to take them out a new some had Protections not only for their Goods but likewise for some Arms and Horses and renewed them five or six times paying a good Rate for them every time and yet at last they lost all their Horses Arms and Goods as well as their Neighbors who had no Protections 5. Where they learnt any Man had Mony they seiz'd him on some Pretence or other and if they found the Mony it was sufficient Evidence of his Guilt they sent him to Goal and converted the Mony to their own use at the worst they knew it was only restoring it in Brass Thus they serv'd Mr. Heuston in Bridg-street and Mr. Gabriel King in the County of Roscommon who could never get any satisfaction for his Silver and Plate thus taken from him and the case was the same with many others 6. In several places the Governors went into Mens Houses and Shops and seiz'd whâ—â— they found without the Formality of a Pretence and took it away Cork was used at this rate their Governor Mounsieur Boiselot
Purchases and Settlements This was the Bishop of Meath's Case whose Father purchased an Estate in 1636. and both he and the Bishop had continued in Peaceable Possession of it ever since yet he was now outed of it by an old Injunction from the Court of Claims granted on a pretended Deed of Settlement made for Portions to the Daughters of the Man that had sold it to the Bishop's Father This Deed ought to have been proved at Common-Law before he should have been disturbed but the Popish Sheriff of the County of Meath one Nangle executed the Injunction on the Bishop and two other Protestants without any such Formality some Papists were as deeply concern'd as they as holding part of the same Estate but the Sheriff durst not or would not execute the Injunction on their part though he did it on that part which was in the Hands of Protestants at this rate many Protestants were outed of their Estates and the old Proprietors having gotten Possession put the Suit and Proof on Protestants to recover them near a hundred English Gentlemen lost considerable Estates in less than a Year and the Papists were in hopes to do their work by their False Oaths Forged Deeds Corrupt Judges and Partial Juries No one Suit that I could learn having been determin'd against them in either the King's-Bench or Exchequer 4. But this was not the way design'd by the Grandees they saw it was like to be Tedious Expensive and must have been in many cases Insuccessful and therefore they were intent on a Parliament and they had in less than nine Months fitted all things for it So that we should infallibly have had one next Winter if the Closeted Parliament design'd to sit at Westminster in November 1688. had succeeded and the News of the Prince of Orange's intended Descent into England had not diverted them but it was not judged convenient to proceed farther in Ireland till the Penal Laws and Test were removed in England 5. After King James's deserting England and getting into France which mightily rejoyced them their great Care was to get him into their own Hands and they easily prevailed on him to come into Ireland where he landed at Kinsale March 12. 1688. and made his entry into Dublin on Palm-Sunday March 24. Upon his coming into Dublin every Body was intent to see what he would do in relation to the Affairs of Ireland it was manifestly against his Interest to call a Parliament and much more unseasonable to pass such Acts in it as he knew the Papists expected For First The Kingdom was not intirely in Obedience to him London-derry Enniskillin and a great part of the North being then unreduced which gave occasion to many even of his own Party to ridicule him and his Councils who so contrary to his Interest had call'd a Parliament to spend their time in wrangling about Settling the Kingdom and disposing Estates before they had reduced it But had they instead of Passing such Acts as made them Odious to all Good Men applied themselves to the Siege of Derry it is like it had been reduced before the Succors came and then all Ireland had been their own and no Body can tell what might have been the Consequence of it 6. Secondly It a little reflected on King James's Sincerity who in his Answer to the Petition of the Lords for a Parliament in England presented Nov. 17. 1688. gave it as one Reason why he could not comply because it was impossible whilst part of the Kingdom was in the Enemies Hands to have a Free Parliament The same Impossibility lay on him against holding a Parliament in Ireland at his coming to Dublin if that had been the True Reason and his not acting uniformly to it plainly discover'd That the True Reason why he would not hold a Parliament in England and yet held one in Ireland under the same Circumstances was not the pretended Impossibility but because the English Parliament would have secured the Liberties and Religion of the Kingdom whereas he was sure the Irish Parliament would Subvert them 7. Thirdly His Compliance with all the most Extravagant Proposals of the Papists in Ireland was unavoidable if he call'd a Parliament and to comply with them was to do so palpable and inexcusable Injustice to the Protestants and English Interest of Ireland that he could not expect but that he should lose the Hearts of those Protestants in England and Scotland who were indifferent or well affected to him before as soon as they were fully inform'd of what he had done in Ireland and to lose their Assistance was to lose the fairest Hopes he could have of recovering his Crown 8. Fourthly By holding a Parliament he manifesty weakened his Forces in Ireland for the Papists whom he was to restore to their Estates were most of them poor insignificant People not able or capable to do him Service for the Richer sort of Papists were either disoblig'd by it being losers as well as the Protestants or else under a necessity to neglect the King's Service and spend their time to make Interest to secure themselves of Reprizals for what they lost by the Parliament 9. Fifthly He strengthened and united his Enemies by rendering all the Protestants that were not under his Power Desperate and by convincing the rest of the Necessity of joyning with them as fast as they could since no other Choice was left them but either to do this or to be ruined 10. All these Reasons lay before the King against calling a Parliament and made it manifestly unseasonable to do it now however bent to comply with the long and earnest Sollicitations of the Irish as we see in Nagles Coventry Letter and the two Papers in the Appendix But contrary to all the Rules of Interest and true Policy he was resolv'd to gratifie them for which we were able to give no other reason but the Resolution ascribed to him in the Liege Letter either to dye a Martyr or to establish Popery and therefore he issued out a Proclamation for a Parliament to sit May 7. 1688. at Dublin The Proclamation was dated March 25. the next day after he came to Dublin but was not published till April 2. it was said to be antedated four days but of that I can say nothing 11. Every Body foresaw what a kind of Parliament this would be and what was like to be done in it Our Constitution lodges the Legislative Power in the King Lords and Commons and each of these is a Check on the other that if any one of them attempt a thing prejudicial to the Kingdom the other may oppose and stop it but our Enemies had made all these for their purpose and therefore no Law could signifie any thing to oppose them it being in their power to remove any Law when they pleased by repealing it The King was their own both inclined of himself and easie to be prevail'd on by them to do what they would have him So
that we could promise our selves no help from his Negative Vote 13. The House of Lords if regularly assembled had consisted for the most part of Protestants and might have been a Check to the King's Intentions of taking away our Laws in a legal Method there being if we reckon the Bishops about Ninety Protestant Lords to Forty five Papists taking in the new Creations and attainted Lords But first to remove this Obstacle care had been taken to reverse the Outlawries of the Popish Lords in order to capacitate them to sit in the House 2. New Creations were made Sir Alexander Fitton the Chancellor was made Baron of Gosworth Thomas Nugent the Chief Justice Baron of Riverston Justin M'Carty Viscount Mountcashell Sir Valentine Brown Viscount Kenmare A List was made of more to be call'd into the House if there were occasion 3. They had several Popish Titular Bishops in the Kingdom and it was not doubted but if necessity required those would be call'd by Writs into the House 4. It was easie to call the eldest Sons of Noble-men into the Parliament by Writ which would not augment the Nobility and yet fill the House But there were already sufficient to over-vote the Protestants for there remain'd of about Sixty nine Protestant Temporal Lords only four or five in Ireland to sit in the House and of Twenty two Spiritual Lords only seven left in the Kingdom of which Dr. Michael Boyle Arch-bishop of Ardmah Dr. Hugh Gore Bishop of Waterford Dr. Roan Bishop of Killalâ—o were excused on the account of Age and Sickness The other four were Dr. Anthony Dopping Bishop of Meath Dr. Thomas Otway Bishop of Ossory Dr. Simon Digby Bishop of Lymerick and Dr. Edward Wettenhall Bishop of Cork and Ross these were oblig'd to appear upon their Writs directed to them and King James was forced sometimes to make use of them to moderate by way of Counterpoise the Madness of his own Party when their Votes displeas'd him But in the general they protested against most of the Acts and entered their Dissent It is observable that all these Acts of this pretended Parliament are said to be by the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal whereas not one Spiritual Lord consented to many of them but on the contrary unanimously protested against them and at passing the Act of Attainder of which more hereafter they were not so much as present They complain'd of this but were refus'd redress and the express mention of their consent continued Of Thirty seven Papist Lords there appear'd besides the new created Lords Twenty four at times of which Fifteen were under Attainders by Indictments and Outlawries two or three were under Age and there remain'd only Six or Seven capable of Sitting and Acting Chancellor Fitton now Baron of Gosworth was Speaker of the House of Lords King James was present constantly in the House and directed them not only in their Debates but likewise in their Forms and Ceremonies hardly one in either House having ever sate in a Parliament before 14. The House of Commons makes the Third Estate in Parliament and 't is by them that the People have a more immediate Interest in the Legislative Power the Members of this House being such as are return'd by the Peoples Free Election which is look'd on as the Fundamental Security of the Lives Liberties and Properties of the Subject These Members of the House of Commons are elected either by the Free-holders of Counties or the Free-men of Corporations And I have already shew'd how King James wrested these out of the Hands of Protestants and put them into Popish Hands in the new Constitution of Corporations by which the Free-men and Free-holders of Cities or Boroughs to whom the Election of Burgesses originally belongs are excluded and the Election put into the Hands of a small number of Men named by the King and removable at his pleasure The Protestant Free-holders if they had been in the Kingdom were much more than the Papist Free-holders but now being gone tho many Counties could not make a Jury as appear'd at the intended Tryal of Mr. Price and other Protestants at Wicklow who could not be tried for want of Free-holders yet notwithstanding the Paucity of these they made a shift to return Knights of the Shire The common way of Election was thus The Earl of Tyrconnel together with the Writ for Election commonly sent a Letter recommending the Persons he design'd should be chosen the Sheriff or Mayor being his Creature on receipt of this call'd so many of the Free-holders of a County or Burgesses of a Corporation together as he thought fit and without any noise made the return It was easie to do this in Boroughs because by their new Charters the Electors were not above Twelve or Thirteen and in the greatest Cities but 24 and commonly not half of these on the place The Method of the Sheriffs proceeding was the same the number of Popish Freeholders being very small sometimes not a Dozen in a County it was easie to give notice to them to appear so that the Protestants either did not know of the Election or durst not appear at it By these means the pretended Parliament consisted of the most Bigotted Papists and of such as were most deeply Interested to destroy the Protestant Religion and Protestants of Ireland One Gerrard Dillon Serjeant at Law a most furious Papist was Recorder of Dublin and he stood to be chosen one of the Burgesses for the City but could not prevail because he had purchased a considerable Estate under the Act of Settlement and they fear'd lest this might engage him to defend it Several Corporations had no Representatives either because they were in the Enemies hands or else because the Persons named by the Charter for Electors were so far remote that they could not come in such Numbers as to secure the Elections for Papists against the few Protestants that were left still in the Charters and who lived generally on the place I have mark'd the Boroughs and Counties that had no Representatives in number about Twenty nine few Protestants could be prevail'd with to stand tho they might have been chosen because they foresaw no possibility of doing good and thought it unsafe to sit in a Parliament which they judged in their Conscience Illegal and purposely design'd for Mischief to them and their Religion however it was thought convenient that some should be in it to observe how things went and with much perswasion and Intreaty Sir John Mead and Mr. Joseph Coghlan Counsellors at Law were prevail'd on to stand for the University of Dublin the University must chuse and it could not stand with their Honor to chuse Papists and therefore they pitch'd on these two Gentlemen who were hardly brought to accept of it as thinking it Scandalous to be in so ill Company and they could not prevail with themselves to sit out the whole Session but withdrew before the Act of Attainder
came to be concluded not enduring to be present at the passing of that and some other Barbarous Acts against which they found their Votes signified nothing while they staid There were four more Protestants return'd of whose Behaviour I can give no account or how they came to be return'd The generality of the Houses consisted of the Sons and Descendents of the Forfeiting Persons in 1641. Men that had no Freeholds or Estates in the Kingdom but were purposely elected to make themselves Estates by taking them away from Protestants 15. Now whilst the power of making and repealing Laws was in such hands what Security could Protestants promise themselves from any Laws or what probability was there that any Laws already made in their Favour would be continued Especially if we consider further that this Parliament openly profess'd it self a Slave to the King's Will and he was look'd on as Factiously and Rebelliously inclin'd that would dare to move any thing after any Favorite in the House had affirm'd that it was contrary to the King's pleasure Several Bills were begun in the House of Commons one for erecting an Inns of Court another for repealing an Act commonly call'd Poinings Act which requires that all Acts should be perused by the King and Council of England before they be offered to be pass'd by the Parliament in Ireland but King James signified his Dissatisfaction to these Bills and for that reason they and several others were let fall tho the Irish had talk'd much and earnestly desir'd the Repeal of Poinings Act it being the greatest Sign and means of their Subjection to England There was a doubt made in the House concerning the Earl of Strafford whether he should be attainted for Estate and Life several moved in his behalf but it was carried against him upon this Evidence Colonel Simon Lutterell affirmed in the House That he had heard the King say some hard things of him The King's pleasure therefore was the Law to which we were to trust for our Lives and Fortunes our Enemies having entirely engross'd the power of making and repealing Laws and devolved it on the King's pleasure the very Protestant Lords and Bishops being denied their Priviledge of entering their Protestations against such Votes as they conceiv'd Destructive to the Kingdom The King told them That Protestations against Votes were only used in Rebellious times and with much ado they were allowed to enter their Dissent tho after that was allowed them the Clerk of the Parliament one Polewheele a Nephew of Chancellor Fitton 's shifted them off and did not enter their Dissent to some Votes tho often sollicited and press'd to do it according to the Orders of the House 16. When King James had labour'd as much as in him lay to get a Parliament that would repeal the Penal Laws and Test in England and open the Houses to Papists he found at last that the great Obstacle that rendered the Kingdom so averse to this was the general Fear and Apprehension that the Legislative Authority would be engross'd by them and turn'd against Protestants this was so obvious and reasonable a Surmise that he knew there was no hopes that the People would side with him against their present Majesties if something were not done to satisfie them and therefore to remove this fear he published his Proclamation dated Sept. 20. 1688. wherein he declares himself willing that Roman Catholicks should remain incapable to be Members of the House of Commons if the Protestants of England had reason to apprehend that Papists would engross the Legislative Authority in England and from the Example of Queen Mary's House of Commons to dread such Law givers how much more reason had the Protestants of Ireland to dread that power when entirely engrossed by their most inveterate Popish Enemies whose Interest as well as Religion oblig'd them to divest all those that profess'd the Reform'd Religion not only of the Favour but likewise of the Benefits of Law 17. They sate from the Seventh of May till the Twentieth of July following and in that short time entirely destroy'd the Settlement of Ireland and outed both the Protestant Clergy and Laity of their Freeholds and Inheritances It is not to be exspected I should give an account of all their Acts that which concerns this present Section is to shew how they destroy'd the Protestants real Estates 1. And that was first by an Act of Repeal whereby they took away the Acts of Settlement and Explanation by virtue of which as I have already shew'd two thirds of the Protestants of the Kingdom held their Estates that is all that which is call'd New Interest was lost by this Repeal there is no consideration had in it how any Man came to his Estate but tho he purchased it at ever so dear a rate he must lose it and it is to be restor'd without Exception to the Proprietor or his Descendent that had it before October 22. 1641. upon what account soever he lost it tho they themselves did not deny but many deserv'd to lose their Estates even Sir Phelim O Neal's Son the great Murtherer and Rebel was restor'd 2. In order to make a final Extirpation of Protestants they contrive and pass an Act of Attainder by which all Protestants whose Names they could find of all Ages Sexes and Degrees are attainted of High Treason and their Estates vested in the King the pretence of this Attainder was their being out of the Kingdom at the time of passing the Act as shall be shewn in the next Section 3. Least some should be forgotten of those that were absent and not put into the Bill of Attainder they contriv'd a general Clause in the Act of Repeal whereby the real Estates of all who Dwelt or staid in any place of the three Kingdoms which did not own King Jame's Power or corresponded with any such as they term Rebels or were any ways aiding abetting or assisting to them from the First day of August 1688. are declared to be forfeited and vested in his Majesty and that without any Office or Inquisition found thereof By which Clause almost every Protestant that could Write in the Kingdom had forfeited his Estate for the Packets went from London to Dublin and back again constantly from August to March 1688. and few had Friends in England or in the North but corresponded with them by Letters and every such Letter is made by this clause a Forfeiture of Estate They had intercepted and search'd every Packet that went or came the later part of this time and kept vast Heaps of Letters which were of no Consequence at all to the Government we wondered what the meaning of their doing so should be but by this Parliament we came to understand it for now these Letters were produced as Evidences in the House of Commons against those that appear'd in behalf of their absent Friends or oppos'd the attainting of such Protestants as they had some kindness for and they were
but by the legal course of Juries But King James and his Parliament intended to do the work of Protestants speedily and effectually and not to wait the slow methods of proceeding at the Common Law They resolv'd therefore on a Bill of Attainder and in order to it every Member of the House of Commons return'd the Names of such Protestant Gentlemen as liv'd near him or in the County or Burrough for which he serv'd and if he was a stranger to it he sent into the County or Place for information they were in great haste and many escaped them on the other hand some that were actually in King James's Service and fighting for him at Derry of which Cornet Edmund Keating Nephew to my Lord Chief Justice Keating was one were return'd as absent and attainted in the Act. When they had made a Collection of Names they cast them into several Forms and attainted them under several Qualifications and accordingly allow'd them time to come in and put themselves on Tryal the Qualifications and Numbers were as follow 1. Persons Attainted of Rebellion who had time given them till till the Tenth of August to surrender themselves and be tryed provided they were in the Kingdom and amenable to the Law at the time of making the Act otherwise were absolutely Attainted One Archbishop One Duke Fourteen Earls Seventeen Viscounts and one Viscountess Two Bishops Twelve Barons Twenty six Baronets Twenty two Knights Fifty six Clergymen Eleven hundred fifty three Esquires Gentlemen c. 2. Persons who were absentees before the Fifth of Novem. 1688 not returning according to the Proclamation of the Twenty fifth of March attainted if they do not appear by the First of September 1689. One Lord. Seven Knights Eight Clergymen Sixty five Esquires Gentlemen c. 3. Persons who were Absentees before the Fifth of November 1688. not returning according to the Proclamation of the Twenty fifth of March attainted if they do not appear by the First day of October 1689. One Archbishop One Earl One Viscount Five Bishops Seven Baronets Eight Knights Nineteen Clergymen Four hunder'd thirteen Esquires Gentlemen c. 4. Persons usually resident in England who are to signifie their Loyalty in case the King goes there the First of October 1689. and on His Majesties Certificate to the Chief Governour here they to be discharged otherwise to stand attainted One Earl Fifteen Viscounts and Lords Fourteen Knights Four hunder'd ninety two Esquires Gentlemen c. 5. Absentees by reason of sickness and noneage on proving their Loyalty before the last day of the first Term after their return to be acquitted and restor'd in the mean time their Estates Real and Personal are vested in His Majesty One Earl Seven Countesses One Viscountess Thirteen Ladies One Baronet Fifty nine Gentlemen and Gentlewomen 6. They vest all Lands c. belonging to Minors Ladies Gentlewomen in the King till they return and then upon Proof of their Loyalty and Faithfulness to King James they are allow'd to sue for their Estates before the Commissioners for executing the Acts of Repeal and Attainder if sitting or in the High Court of Chancery or Court of Exchequer and upon a Decree obtain'd for them there the Sheriffs are to put them in possession of so much as by the Decree of one of those Courts shall be adjudged them The Clauses in the Act are so many and so considerable that it never having been printed intire I thought it convenient to put it into the Appendix Perhaps it was never equall'd in any Nation since the time of the Proscription in Rome and not then neither for here is more than half as many Condemned in the small Kingdom of Ireland as was at that time proscribed in the greatest part of the then known World yet that was esteemed an unparallel'd Cruelty When Sir Richard Nagle Speaker of the House of Commons presented the Bill to King James for his Royal Assent he told him that many were attainted in that Act by the House of Commons upon such Evidence as fully satisfied the House the rest of them were attainted he said upon common Fame A Speech so very brutish that I can hardly perswade my self that I shall gain credit to the Relation but it is certainly true the Houses of Lords and Commons of their pretended Parliament are Witnesses of it and let the World judge what security Protestants could have of their Lives when so considerable a Lawyer as Sir Richard Nagle declares in so solemn an occasion and King James with his Parliament approves that common Fame is a sufficient Evidence to deprive without hearing so many of the Gentry Nobility and Clergy of their Lives and Fortunes without possibility of pardon and not not only cut off them but their Children and Posterity likewise By a particular Clause from advantages of which the former Laws of the Kingdom would not have deprived them though their Fathers had been found guilty of the worst of Treasons in particular Tryals 7. I shall only add a few Observations on this Act and leave the Reader to make others as he shall find occasion 1. Then this Act leaves no room for the King to pardon after the last day of November 1689. if the Pardon be not Enroll'd before that time the Act declares it absolutely void and null 2. The Act was conceal'd and no Protestant for any Money permitted to see it much less take a Copy of it till the time limited for Pardons was past at least Four Months So that the State of the Persons here attainted is desperate and irrecoverable except an Irish Popish Parliament will relieve them for King James took care to put it out of the power of any English Parliament as well as out of his own Power to help them by consenting to another Act of this pretended Parliament Intituled An Act declaring that the Parliaments of England cannot bind Ireland and against Writs of Errors and Repeals out of Ireland into England 3. It is observable with what hast and confusion this Act was drawn up and past perhaps no man ever heard of such a crude imperfect thing so ill digested and compos'd past on the World for a Law We find the same Person brought in under different Qualifications in one Place he is expresly allow'd till the First of October to come and submit to Tryalâ— and yet in another Place he is attainted if he do not come in by the First of September many are attainted by wrong Names many have their Christian Names left out and many whose Names and Sirnames are both put in are not distinguished by any Character whereby they may be known from others of the same Names 4. Many considerable Persons are left out which certainly had been put in if they could have gotten their Names which is a further proof of their hast and confusion in passing the Bill It is observable the Provost Fellowâ— and Scholars of the Colledge by Dublin are all omitted the Reason was
and Corn belong'd to Protestants by these and other such Contrivances from the year 1686. till King James's Power was put to an end by the Victory at the Boyn hardly any Protestant enjoy'd any Tythes in the Country all which was represented to the Government but to no purpose 7. In Corporate Towns and Cities there was a peculiar Provision made for Ministers by Act of Parliament in King Charles the Second's time by which Act the Houses in those Places were to be valued by Commissioners at a moderate value and the Lord Lieutenant or chief Governour for the time being did assign a certain Proportion for the Ministers maintenance not greater than the Twentieth part of the yearly value return'd by the Commissioners That therefore the City Protestant Clergy might not be in a better condition than those in the Country an Act was past in their pretended Parliament to take away this altogether the Clergy of Dublin desir'd to be heard concerning this Act at the Bar of the House of Lords before it past and their Council were admitted to speak to it who shew'd the unreasonableness and unjustice of it so evidently and insisted so boldly on King James's Promise to the Protestant Clergy at his first arrival in this Kingdom when he gave them the greatest assurances of maintaining them in their Rights and Priviledges and further bid them if aggriev'd in any thing to make their Complaints immediately to him and engaged to see them redrest that he seemed to be satisfied and the House of Lords with him yet the design to ruin them was so fixt that without offering any thing by way of Answer to the Reasons urged against it the Act past and thereby left the Clergy of the Cities and Corporate Towns without any pretence to a maintenance except they could get it from the voluntary Contributions of their People nay so malicious were they against the Protestant Clergy that they cut off the Arrears due to them as well as the growing Rent having left no means to recover them as appear'd upon Tryal at the Council-board afterward when some of the Clergy petitioned for relief therein 8. Upon the Plantation of Ulster 1625. there was a Table of Tythes agreed on by the King and Council and the Planters to whom the Grants were made by the King obliged to pay Tythes according to that Table the pretended Parliament took away this Table also for no other Reason that we could learn but because most of the Inhabitants of Ulster were Protestants and consequently the Protestant Clergy would pretend to them 9. The Livings of Ireland were valued by Commissions in Henry the Eight and Queen Elizabeths time and paid First Fruits and Twentieth Parts according to that valuation other Livings were held in Farm from the Crown and paid yearly a considerable reserved Rent commonly call'd Crown Rents others appertain'd to the Lord Lieutenant and other Officers of State and paid a certain rate of Corn for their use commonly call'd Port Corn. Now all these Payments were exacted from the Protestant Clergy notwithstanding the greatest part of their Tythes were taken from them The remaining part where any remained was seiz'd in many Places by the Commissioners of the Revenue and a Custodiam granted of it for the King's use for the payment of the Duties which accru'd out of the whole and not one Farthing allow'd for the Incumbent or the Curate nay in some Places they seiz'd the Incumbents Person and laid him in Jail till he paid these Duties though at the same time they had seiz'd his Livings and found that they were not sufficient to answer what they exacted and because the Clerk of the First Fruits Leiutenant Colonel Roger Moore being a Protestant himself would not be severe with the Clergy and seize their Livings and Persons to force them to pay what he knew they were not in a capacity to do they found pretence to seize his Person and sent him with Three Files of Musquetiers Prisoner to the Castle of Dublin where he and two Gentlemen more lay in a cold nasty Garret for some Months By these Contrivances the few Benefices yet in the hands of the Protestants instead of a support became a burthen to them and they were forced to cast themselves for a maintenance on the kindness of their People who were themselves undone and beggar'd SECT XVII 3. King James took away the Jurisdiction of the Church from Protestants 1. IT is impossible any society should subsist without a power of rewarding and punishing its Members now Christ left no other power to his Church but what is purely Spiritual nor can the Governours of the Church any other way punish their Refractory Subjects but by refusing them the Benefits of their society the Administration of the Word and Sacraments and the other Spiritual Offices annexed by Christ to the Ministerial Function But Kings and Estates have become Nursing Fathers to the Church and lent their Temporal power to second her Spiritual Censures The Jurisdiction therefore of the Clergy so far as it has any Temporal effect on the Bodies or Estates of Men is intirely derived from the Favour of States and Princes and acknowledged to be so in the Oath of Supremacy However this is now become a right of the Clergy by ancient Laws through all Christendom and to take it away after so long continuance must needs be a great blow to Religion and of worse Consequence than if the Church had never possessed it yet this was actually done by King James to the Protestant Clergy and is a plain sign that he intended to destroy their Religion when he depriv'd them of their support 2. For first he past an Act of Parliament whereby he exempted all that dissented from our Chruch from the Jurisdiction thereof and a Man needed no more to free him from all punishment for his Misdemeanors though only cognizable and punishable in the Ecclesiastical Courts than to profess himself a Dissenter or that it was against his Conscience to submit to the Jurisdiction of our Church nay at the first the Act was so drawn and past the House of Commons that no Protestant Bishop could pretend to any Jurisdiction even over his own Clergy but that and several other passages in the Commons Bills were so little pleasing to some who understood the King's Interest that Sir Edward Herbert was employed by King James to amend the Act for the House of Lords which he did in the form it is now in nothing of the Commons Bill being left in it but the word Whereas tho after all it effectually destroyed the Jurisdiction of the Church 3. But second in most places there was no Protestant Bishop left and consequently the Popish Bishop was to succeed to the Jurisdiction they being by another Act invested in Bishopricks as soon as they could procure King Jame's Certificate under his privy Signet that they were Archbishops or Bishops all incapacities by reason of their religion by any Statute
your Revenue to boot And tho no King can well avoid being impos'd on by his Servants I believe it in my Conscience that the present Managers of your Revenues in Ireland think it no Sin to rob a Popish King of his Due Hence it is that there is an universal Agreement and Combination betwixt the ..... Merchants ..... we will by way of Retaliation take care that no Catholick be admitted into the Civil This Combination makes your Letters for Civil Places the Reversion of Outlawries and for Catholicks being admitted free of Corporations so little regarded in Ireland by those that past for Tories here c. yet publickly espouse the whiggish Quarrel the other side the Water I beseech you Sir consider that however your Kingly Prudence may prevail with You to dissemble Your Resentments of the Non-compliance and Disobedience of Your stiff-neck'd English Protestant Subjects You ought to exert Your Regal Authority in Ireland a Kingdom more peculiarly Your own where ..... month before or at least not outlive Your Majesty a month for if that poor Nation be not made considerable during Your Reign his Lordship must not hope for the Favour my Lord Stafford had of being legally Murdered by a formal Trial but may well expect all Formality laid aside to be sacrificed to the unbridled Fury of the lawless Rabble and dissected into little Morsels as the De-Wits were in Holland And truly the Fanaticks threaten no less and it were to be wished they cried out upon more of Your Ministers than they do at present for You may take it for granted they will never speak well of Your real Friends ..... other will endeavour to marr and the Work will go on like that of Babel confusedly for want of good Intelligence among the Workmen Sir You are under God the great Architect that will with the Blessing of Jesus live to see the glorious Structure fully finish'd In order to which 't is requisite You lose no time in making Ireland intirely Your own that England and Scotland may follow You are gone too far if You do not go farther not to advance is to lose Ground Delays are dangerous and all the World allow Expedition and Resolution to ..... if this were once compassed France could no more hope upon a falling out with England to take advantage of the diversity of our Sects and what may spring thence Domestick Jars and Divisions Sir Notwithstanding the Doubts and Fears of Trimming Courtiers and some Cow-hearted Catholicks You may live long enough to undertake and crown this great Work with the Grace and Assistance of the same Almighty God that defeated the Rebels in the West and made them instrumental in settling You in Your Throne and that permitted this Country to be lately sprinkled with the Blood of Martyrs which must infallibly contribute to the Conversion of Souls in this Kingdom for the Blood of Martyrs is and ever was the fruitful Seed of the Church The Seed is sown in many parts of England and the Harvest will without doubt be great and plentiful but the Workmen too too few if You do not provide your self with Catholick Privy-Counsellors Ministers Judges Officers Civil and Military and Servants As to the Choice of which I will mind Your Majesty of the Advice given Moses by Jethro his Father-in-Law in the following words Provide out of all the People able Men such as fear God Men of Truth hating Covetousness When Your Counsellors and Ministers are thus qualified and not till then You may hope to do what becomes a James the Second And to furnish Your self with able Men You must follow Your Royal Father's Advice to the Prince of Wales that is With an equal Eye and impartial Hand distribute Favours and Rewards to all Men as You find them for their real Goodness both in Ability and Fidelity worthy and capable of them Such as fear God as the truly Wisest will advise You to the best Measure for promoting God's Glory Men of Truth will like Tyrconnel serve You faithfully without trimming tho with never so apparent Hazard to their Fortunes and Lives And Men hating Covetousness will not betray Your Interest be corrupted nor sell Places to such Undermanagers of Your Revenue as buying them for a Spill in gross will be sure to retail them at Your Cost a Practice much in use here and in Ireland at present where few or no Places can be had without Bribes by which means You are cheated in both Kingdoms of an Hundred thousand Pounds a Year in the opinion of understanding honest and indifferent Judges for no Man will give a Shilling surreptitiously for an Office but with a design to cheat You of Twenty To prevent which there is no Remedy but that of employing smart Men of known Integrity to be chosen without Favour or Affection that will be content with their respective Salleries and imploy their utmost Industry to improve not imbezel Your Revenues the Ornaments of Peace and Sinews of War SIR These Kingdoms are of Opinion Popery will break in upon them and it were a pity to disappoint them and when You take effectual Measures Your trimming Courtiers will unmask and come over nay half the Kingdom will be converted of it self What I have here presumed to write is the effect of my unfeigned Zeal for the Good of Religion and Your Majesties Interest which I hope will induce You to pardon a plain-dealing and loving Subject that daily beseeches God to bless Your Majesty and these Kingdoms with a long and prosperous Reign and with numerous long-liv'd Male Issues and to inspire You with wholsom Thoughts that may direct You to the performance of such Heroick Actions as may gain You immortal Fame in this World and eternal Glory in the next Lord Clarendon's Speech in Council on his leaving the Government of Ireland My Lords IT has been sometimes used to make Speeches upon these Occasions but I know my insufficiency for that Task and therefore shall trouble your Lordships with very few words In the first place my Lords I give your Lordships many thanks for the Civilities I have received from every one of you and for the great Assistance I have had from you in the discharge of my Duty here I know your Lordships can witness for me that I never desir'd your concurrence in any thing that was not for the King's Service I do again beg your Lordships to accept of my Thanks with this assurance that I shall give the King an account when I have the honour to kiss his Hand of your Lordships great readiness and diligence to advance his Service My Lord Deputy I shall not long detain your Lordship The King hath placed your Excellency in a very great Station has committed to your Care the Government of a great and flourishing Kingdom of a Dutiful Loyal and Obedient People It is extreamly to be lamented that there are such Feuds and Animosities among them which I hope your Excellency's Prudence with
the assistance of so wise a Council will disperse I must needs say both from my own Observation and the Information I have had from my Lords the Judges who often visit the whole Kingdom that there is a great readiness and willingness in all People to serve and obey the King I must here a little enlarge to your Excellency because I reckon my self bound to give the King an account of his Subjects and I would not willingly say any thing when I am at such a distance which I have not mentioned here The English in this Country have been aspersed with the Character of being generally Fanaticks which is a great Injury to them I must do them the justice to say that they are of the Church of England as appears by their Actions as well as Professions The Churches here are as much frequented and the Discipline of the Church as well observed as in England it self which is to be attributed to the Piety and Labour of my Lords the Bishops We of the Church of England can brag that when Rebellion overspread the three Kingdoms not one Orthodox Member of our Church was engaged against the Crown And in our late Disorders we can boast we were Opposers of the Bills of Exclusion and the Sense his Majesty has been graciously pleas'd to express of our Loyalty will never be forgotten by us I had the happiness to be born a Member of the Church of England and I hope God will give me the Grace to die one One thing the English of this Country have to glory in That of all his Majesty's Subjects they made the earliest Advances towards his Majesty's Restoration when the three Kingdoms were governed by Usurpers And after all the Endeavours of his Loyal Subjects in England seemed to be disappointed and there appeared no Hopes by the total defeating of Sir G. Booth the English then in this Kingdom offered to submit to his Majesty's Authority I do not say this my Lord to detract from his Majesty's R. C. Loyal Subjects many of whom I my self knew serv'd and suffered with him abroad but I speak it in justice to the others who did their Duty There is but one thing more I shall trouble your Excellency with I am sorry that I cannot say that I leave a full Treasure but I can say that I leave no Debts The Revenue is in good Order which must be owned to be due to the unwearied Industry and Diligence of the Commissioners The Army is intirely paid to Christmass day last and I have advanced a Month's Subsistence-money for January The Civil and Pensionary Lists are likewise cleared to Christmass I doubt not but your Excellency's Care will carry all things on in the same Method God Almighty bless the King and grant him long Life and I beseech God to prosper this excellent Country I received this Sword in Peace and I thank God by the King's Command I deliver it in Peace to your Excellency and I heartily wish you Joy of the Honour the King has done you A General Abstract of the Gross Produce of his Majesty's Revenue in Ireland in the three first Years of the Management beginning at Christmass 1682. ending Christmass 1685.  1683 1684 1685. Customs Inwards Impt. Excise 85844 17 2â…œ 91424 8 8â— â— 91117 13 65 â— Customs Outwards 32092 11 4½ 33425 15 2 29428 8 11½ Seizures and Fines 965 2 3½ 615 1 5â— â— 460 11 5¼ Prizage 1452 1693 1882 Inland Excise 68344 1 3â…œ 77580 3 7¼ 79169 4 4¾ Ale Licenses 8283 14 11â— 4 9538 4 46 8 99â—5 14 11â— â— Wine c. Licenses 2736 12 3114 10 2â— 2 3467 11 3¾ Quit Crown and Custodiam Rents 68699 9 7â…œ 68385 8 0¼ 68922 4 5â— 2 Hearth-Money 31041 31646 32953 12 00 Casual Revenue 820 3 3 1745 16 2 1564 16 11¼ Totals l. 300297 11 11â— 4 319168 7 9 318961 18 0â— 8 Arrears of each of the above-Years remaining uncollected at Christmass 1685. 7659 1 6â…œ 9799 9 8½ 34971 9 3â…ž Net Cash paid into the Treasury in the three Years above-mention'd over and besides the Charges of Management and Sallaries to the Officers of the Revenue in the said time 712972 17 2â…œ Cash remaining in the Collectors Hands at Christmass 1685 ready to be paid in 55655 10 3½ The Solvent Part of the above-mention'd Arrears which was actually levied and paid into the Treasury before Christmass 1688. 30000 00 00 Total Cash l. 798628 07 5â…ž Which at a Medium for three Years amounts for each Year to the Sum of 266209 00 00 Sheriffs for the Year 1687. Febr. 16. 1686. Counties Sheriffs Ardmagh Marcus Clarke Antrim Cormuck O. Neil Cavan Lucas Reily Clare John Mac. Nemara of Cratelagâ— Corke Nicholas Brown of Bantrey Catherlogh Sir Lawrence Esmond Dublin Thomas Warren Downe Valentine Russell Donnegall Charles Hamilton Fermanagh Cohonnagh Mac-Gwire Galway John Keâ—â— Esq Kildare John Wogan King's County Hewar Oxburgh Kilkenny John Grace Esq Kerry Donogh Mac-Gellicuddy Leitrim Alexander Mac-Donnel Lowth Patrick Bellew Limerick Edward Rice of Ballynitty Longford James Nugent Esq Meath Walter Nangle Esq Monoghan Sir John Flemming Mayo Dominick Browne Queen's County Edmond Morris Esq Roscomon John Dillon Esq Sligoe Henry Crafton of Longford Tyrone Terence Donelly Wexford Patrick Colclough Westmeath Thomas Nugent Wicklow Francis Meara Waterford John Nugent Londonderry Elected by the Charter Cipperary Appointed by the Duke of Ormond John Plunkett Lessee of Christ. Lord Baron of Dunsany Plantiff Philip Tuite and John Rawlins Defendants Sir Edward Tyrrell's Affidavit about packing of Juries WHereas there issued two several Venire Faciases at the Plantiff's Suit returnable to his Majesty's Court of Exchequer directed to Edward Tyrrell Esq then High Sheriff of the County of Meath the first Year of his now Majesty's Reign Now Sir Edward Tyrrell Baronet came this day before me and made Oath That one Mr. Plunket Brother to the said Lord of Dunsany came to Longwood to this Deponent's House and desired this Deponent to stand the Lord Dunsany's Friend and to give him a Jury that would do him Right and withal said this Deponent should have after the said Lord of Dunsany should be restored to the Possession of his Estate the sum of three or four hundred Pounds To which this Deponent answered He would do him Justice The said Mr. Plunket desired this Deponent to meet him at Mr. Nugent his Counsel's House where he would further discourse the Matter This Deponent did accordingly meet the said Thomas Plunket where several Proposals and Overtures were made all to no purpose This Deponent further deposeth That in some short time after the said Lord of Dunsany came to this Deponent's said House and after some Discourse he the said Dunsany desired this Deponent to befriend him against those that wronged him and kept him out of his Estate Whereupon this Deponent told the said Lord of Dunsany what offer his Brother made him The said Lord of Dunsany replying said His Brothers
Major Sir Michael Creagh Coll. John Power Lieu. Coll. Theobald Bourk Major Hâ—yward Oxbrough Coll. Edward Scot Lieu. Coll. Laurence Delahunty Major Dom. Browne Coll. ....... Lieu. Coll. Le Sir Mountyouge Major Owen Mac Carty Coll. James Dupuy Lieu. Coll. Terence O Brien Major John Barret Coll. Donogh Mac Callaghane L. Coll. ....... Major Charles O Brien Coll. ........ Lieu. Coll. William Saxby Major Daniel O Donnovane Coll. Fran. Napper Lieu. Coll. Sir Alphon. Mottit Major Lord Ireagh Coll. Brien Magennis 1st L. Coll. Francis Wahup 2d L. Coll. ........ Major Roger Mac Elligot Coll. Maurice Hussy Lieu. Coll. Edmund Fitz-gerald Major Edmund Reyley Coll. ......... Lieu. Coll. ........ Major Cuconnogh Mac Gwyre Coll. Alex. Mac Gwyre Lieu. Coll. Cornelius Mac Gwyre Major Walter Bourk Coll. ............ Lieu. Coll. ............ Major Felix O Neile Coll. ..... O Neile Lieu Coll. ........... Major Hugh Mac Mahon Coll. Owen Mac Mahon Lieu. Coll. Christopher Plunket Major Lord Inniskillin Coll. ............. Lieu. Coll. ............ Major Dennis Mac Gillicuddy Coll. ............ Lieu. Coll. ........... Major James Purcell Coll. ........... Lieu. Coll. ........... Major Lord Hunsdon Coll. Rob. Ingram 1st Lieu. Coll. John Gifford 2d Lieu. Coll. Francis Gyles Major Regiments sent to France viz. Collonels Lord Mounteashell Daniel O Bryen Richard Butler Robert Fielding N o 12. A Copy of the Letter dispers'd about the Massacre said to be design'd on the 9th of December 1688. Good my Lord December 3d. 1688. I Have written to let you know That all our Irishmen through Ireland are sworn that on the 9th Day of this Month being Sunday next they are to fall on to kill and murder Man Wife and Child and to spare none and I do desire your Lordship to take care of your self and all others that are adjudged by our Men to be Heads for whoever of them can kill any of you is to have a Captain 's Place So my Desire to your Honour is to look to your self and to give other Noblemen warning and go not out at Night or Day without a good Guard with you and let no Irishman come near you whatever he be This is all from him who is your Friend and Father's Friend and will be though I dare not be known as yet for fear of my Life Direct this with Care and Haste to my Lord Mountgomery N o 13. Lord Mountjoy's Circular Letter on his going to France Gentlemen Dublin 10th January 1688. YOU had an Account how long I staid on the Way after I left you and the Reasons which made me since go forwards And whatever any Jealousies were at my first Arrival I am now satisfied at my coming and with God's Blessing I hope it will come to good to us all As soon as I saw my Lord Deputy he told me he designed to send me to the King jointly with my Lord Chief Baron Rice to lay before him the State of the Kingdom and to tell him That if he pleased he could Ruine it for him and make it a heap of Rubbish but it was impossible to preserve it and make it of use to him and therefore to desire leave to treat for it The Objections I made to this were Two My being not so well qualified as a Northern Roman Catholick whom in all likelyhood the King would sooner give Credit to And the improbability of being able to perswade the King who is now in the French Hands to a Thing so plainly against their Interest To the First of these I was answered what is not fit for me to repeat and the other is so well answered that all the most knowing Englishmen are satisfied with me and have desired me to undertake this Matter which I have done this Afternoon my Lord Deputy having first promised me on his Word and Honour to perform the Four Particulars in the within Paper Now because a Thing of this Nature cannot be done without being Censur'd by some who perhaps would be sorry to have their Wishes in quiet means and by others who think all that Statesmen do are Tricks and that there is no Sincerity amongst them I would have such to consider That it is more probable I and the most intelligent in this Place without whose Advice I do nothing should judge right of this than they who are at greater Distance and as it is not likely we should be Fooled so I hope they will not believe we design to betray them our selves and the Nation I am morally assured this must do our Work without Blood or the Misery of the Kingdom I am sure it is the Way proposed in England who depend so on it that no Forces are appointed to come hither and I am sure what I do is not only what will be approved of in England but what had its beginning from thence I do therefore conjure you to give your Friends and mine this Account and for the Love of God keep them from any Disorder or Mischief if any had such Design which I hope they had not and I am fully satisfied every Man will have his own Heart's Desire I will write to this Effect to some other Places and I desire you will let such in the Country as you think fit see this Let the People fall to their Labour and think themselves in less Danger than they believed c. N o 14. Judge Keating's Letter to Sir John Temple December 29th 1688. SIR I Had ere this acknowledged the Favour of your last and returned you my Thanks for your kind Advice relating to the small Concerns I had in England which I have now disposed of here but to deal freely with you the Distractions arising from the Great and Suddain Alterations in England and the pannick but I believe groundless Fears which hath possessed the Minds not only of the Weaker Sex and Sort but even of Men who would pass for Sober and Judicious hath render'd Matters with Us so uncertain that I profess seriously I know not what to write nor dare I yet give you any Account relating either to particular Persons or Places of the Kingdom scarcely of what I hear from the Remote Parts of this City since what we have at Night for certain Truth from those who pretend to be Eye or Ear Witnesses of what they relate we find before the next Days Exchange is over to be altogether False and Groundless The fear of a Massacre hath been mutual the Protestants remembring past Times and being alarm'd by a Letter neither directed to nor subscribed by any Person but drop'd at Cumber of which Copies were dispers'd throughout all Parts of the Kingdom were frighted to that degree that very many of them betook themselves to the Ards and other Places of Security in the North Some into Scotland and very many Families Embark'd from this Part for Chester Leverpoole Beaumaris and the next Adjacent Ports of England and Wales who you may easily conclude carried with them all the ready Money and Plate which they
Successors to give them relief in a Case of so great moment and general concern as this is As for the general Reprizal mentioned to be made them out of the Rebels Estate which must not be conceived to give any colour to this manner of proceeding and ought to be equal to the Estate which the Proprietors shall be outed of that will be very uncertain for it must be known who the Rebels are and what their Lands amount to since it may be probably concluded that there are many of your Subjects now in England no way concerned in the Rebellion and would have ere this attended your Majesty here if they had not been hindred from coming by duress and Imbargo and many other legal and justifiable excuses too long for this present Paper and withal that where any of them are seised of any new Estates so much must be restored to the old Proprietors and what is also subject to their Settlements and other Incumbrances After all this it is in the power of your Majesty to prevent the total ruine of so many of your Subjects as have been Purchasers and Improvers in this Kingdom by prescribing more moderate ways than depriving them of the whole of what they have legally and industriously acquired and that Committees of both Houses may hear and enquire whether any medium may be found out betwixt the Extreams for the accommodating as near as may be the Purchaser and the old Proprietor so that if there because of Complaint it may not arise from a total disappointment of either Party This is a little of what may be said on this occasion but the hast of those who drew on this Bill will allow no further time at present It is proposed that his Majesty will hear Council on this occasion No. 23. The Lord Bishop of Meath's Speech in Parliament June the 4th 1689. Spoken on the Bill of Repeal of the Act of Settlement My Lords YOur Lordships have now under yoâ—â— Consideration a Bill of great Weight and Importance for the future Prosperity or Ruine of the King and Kingdom depends upon it A Bill that unsettles a former Foundation upon which this Kingdom 's Peace and Flourishing was superstructed and Designs to erect another in its stead the Success whereof is dubious and uncertain I shall therefore humbly crave your Leave to represent my Thoughts candidly and impartially upon it And that so much the rather because I am here summoned by the Kings Writ to give his Majesty my best Advice for his own Service and the good of the Nation My Lords In every Law two things are to be consider'd First that it be just and doth no Man wrong Secondly and that it be pro bono publico And I am humbly of Opinion that this Bill is faulty in both these Respects and therefore ought not to pass this House It is unjust to turn men out of their Possessions and Estates without any Fault or Demerit To deprive Widows of their Jointures and Children of their Portions when they have done nothing to forfeit them But the Injustice will rise much higher if we consider it with a respect to Purchasers who have laid out all their Substance upon Estates deriv'd under the Acts that are now design'd to be Repeal'd What have they done to make them Delinquents except it be the laying out their Money on the Publick Faith of the Nation declared in two Acts of Parliament and on the Publick Faith of his Majesties Royal Brother expressed in his Letters Patents Their Case is yet harder If we consider the great Improvements they have made upon their Purchases which by this Bill they are like to lose without any Reprizal for them And if it be reasonable to restore the Old Proprietors to their Estates 't is enough for them to enjoy them in the same plight and condition that they left them But I see no Reason why they should have them in a better Condition or enjoy the Benefit of other mens Labours and Expences to the utter ruine of them and their Families Here Mercy should take place as well as Justice for the Purchasers are the Objects of them both Two things I am sensible may be reply'd to this and I am willing to consider them both First That if it be unjust to turn them out It is as unjust not to restore the Old Proprietor who hath been so long kept out of his Estate Secondly That there is no injury done to the present Possessor because he is to be repriz'd for his Losses As to the first of these I shall not at present meddle with the Reasons why they lost their Estates nor touch upon the Grounds and Occasions of their forfeiting their Interests in them being sensible that neither the time nor the place will admit a Discourse of this nature I shall therefore take it for granted that they were unjustly put out that it is just and reasonable that they should be restored but then it must be granted that it is unjust to turn out the present Purchaser and Possessor What then is to be done in this Case where the Justice or the Injury is alike on both sides If we restore the Old Proprietor we injure the present Possessor if we do do not we injure the Old Proprietor My Lords It is my humble Opinion which I submit to your Lordships better Judgments that we are to consider in this Case who hath most Justice on his side and incline the Ballance that way If it lies on the Old Proprietors side let him have it If not let the present Possessor enjoy it Now it appears to me that the Purchaser hath more Justice on his side than the Old Proprietor For he has both Law and Equity on his side he hath the Law on his side by two Acts of Parliament and the Kings Letters Patents and he hath the Equity by his Purchase Money whereas the Proprietor hath the Law against him and nothing but Equity to pretend to And I hope your Lordships will never think it reasonable to relieve a bare Equitable Right against a Purchaser that hath both Law and Equity If you do I am confident it is the first President of this kind As for the Reprizals I hear the Name of them in the Bill but I find nothing agreeable to the nature of them There are certain Conditions agreed on all hands to make up the Nature of a Reprizal None of which are like to be observed or kept here I shall name some of them and leave it to your Lordships Consideration how far they are like to be performed with the present Purchasers It is necessary to a Reprizal that it be as good at least if not in some respects better than the thing I am to part with That I my self be Judge whether it be better or worse That I keep what I have till I am reprized If my Neighbour comes to me and tells me that he hath a mind to my Horse
or to a Field of mine that lies convenient for him I tell him that I have no mind to part with them He offers me Money for them I tell him that I will not sell them He tires me out with Importunities and at length I consent to part with them in exchange for some other things as good as they But I tell him withall that I my self will be Judge whether they are so or not since it is at his importunity and to please him that I part with them And besides that I am resolv'd to be possessed of the Equivolent at the same time that I part with my own there being no reason why I should dance attendance after him and wait his leisure for my Reprizal My Lords If these be the true Conditions of Reprizals as I presume they are I am confident that not one of them is like to be observed in the intended Reprizals not the first of them For by the Petitions that have been before your Lordships and by an additional Clause in your Lordships Alterations wherein you have saved all Remainders expectant on Estates for Lives most of the Reprizable Persons must Part with an Inheritance to them and their Heirs and get only in Lieu of it an Estate for Life which will determine with the Life of the forfeiting Persons So here is not Equal Value Worth and Purchase Not the Second For the Parties themselves are not made the Judges but the Commissioners And I dare say that if they were made the Judges there is not one of them that are to be turn'd out that will part with their present Possessions or that judge the Reprizal to bear any proportion with the Estates they are to quit Not the Third For by the Commons Bill they are to be turn'd out immediatly and wait for a Reprizal afterwards and all the Favour they can obtain from your Lordships is only to have a competent time for their removal which may be long or short as the Commissioners please but out they must go at the discretion of the Commissioners and wait their leisure for a Reprizal This is the first Objection against this Bill The next is that it is not for the Publick Good either for the King or the Kingdom or the People in it It is not for the good of the King who is the Vital Head of this great Body and that whether we respect his Majesties Honour or his Profit It is not for his Majesties Honour to consent to the Ruining of so many Innocent Loyal Persons as must unavoidably perish if this Bill doth pass It is not for his Honour to rescind those just Acts of his Royal Father and Brother the Act for Adventurers passed in England and the Declaration and Acts of Settlement and Explanation which if I am not misinform'd were five years upon the Anvil and at last not pass'd till all Parties were fully heard It is not for his Majesties Honour to break his word with his People nor violate so many repeated Promises as he hath made that he would not Consent to the Repeal of them And as it is not for his Honour so it is not for his Profit or Advantage it will neither preserve him in the Kingdom that he enjoys nor restore him to those that he has unhappily lost His Profit in this Kingdom must arise out of a Constant Payment of his Revenue both Ordinary and Extraordinary And who is able to pay His Revenue or support the Dignity of his Crown if this Bill passeth into a Law The Protestants are not able the Rapparees have Plundered them of all their Substance and here is a Bill to take away their Estates and consequently they will have nothing left to pay the Publick Taxes of the Nation And as for the Romanists they will be in as ill a Condition as the Protestants The Old Proprietor comes Poor and Hungry into his Estate and can pay nothing till his Tenants raise it and the present Possessor loseth the Benefit of his Purchases and Improvements and who then is able to supply the Necessities of His Majesty Besides this in many parts of the Kingdom the Land is hardly able to pay the Kings Quit-Rent by reason of the Universal Depredations that Reign every where and can it be imagin'd but that things will grow far worse when the ablest Catholick Merchants and the most Wealthy Purchasers of that Communion are ruin'd and undone And as it is not for the Kings Profit in this Kingdom so it is to the utter Ruine of his Interest in the Kingdoms that he has lost Will the Protestants in England and Scotland join heartily in restoring him to his Crown when they understand how their Brethren here are used No My Lords They will rather bend and unite all their Forces to hinder his Restitution when they consider that the mischief is like to come home to their own Doors and that what is a doing here is but a Model of what they must suffer if he be restored Will they trust his Word in England when he breaks it in Ireland or rely on his Promises to them when he doth not keep them to his Subjects here This my Lords will abate their Affections for him and gain him more Enemies there than he can have Friends here It is not for the good of the Kingdom and that if we consider it in reference to Trade Wealth Improvements Husbandry It will ruine the Kingdom in point of Trade Divine Providence hath placed us in an Island where we must Trade or want many conveniences of Life and can we expect that the Trade of this Nation will increase in our hands when we find it sunk so low by the removal of the Protestant Merchants effects out of the Kingdom and for those Catholick Merchants that carry it on in some measure can we believe that they will be able to carry it on when we are ruining their Stocks by taking away their Estates and Improvements from them Nay we shall not only ruine our own Traders at home but break their Correspondents abroad whose effects are in their hands We have passed a Bill in this House for the Inviting Strangers to Settle and Trade among us but it is worth considering whether the Course we are now taking will not hinder the Nation of the intended benefit of that Bill for if Foreign Merchants come among us what Security have they but the Publick Faith of the Nation and it is not probable that Strangers will rely upon it when they observe that it is so ill kept towards our own people If Trade decays the Wealth of the Nation must perish with it for they live and die together Wealth cannot subsist without Trade or without security for Debt And who will ever lend Money or Purchase or Improve in this Kingdom after this when the Money that hath been lent and the Purchases made from Persons deriving their Estates under two Acts of Parliament many years
By the Lord Lieutenant of the County of Kildare and one of His MAJESTIES most Honourable Privy Council Note The Copy of the First Order for Garrisoning the House of Ballisannan could not be gotten WHereas I have been informed That Ballysannan now belonging to Mr. Annesley was a House of Strength and therefore fit to have a Garrison and now being convinc'd of the contrary These are therefore in His Majesties Name to require you forthwith to remove your Men to their former Garrison out of the said House Given under my Hand this First day of April 1690. Charles White For Captain Patrick Nugent or the Officer in Chief Commanding the Troop at Kildare SIR THIS is to let you understand that I am Authoriz'd to give the Proprietor possession of the Lands of Ballysannan c. according to the Act of Parliament and that you may not be surpriz'd therein I give you this Notice from Sir Your Loving Friend and Servant Charles White Naas the 8th of April 1690. For John Annesly Esquire or in his Absence to Francis Annesly Esq These Second Order for Ballysannan WHereas Luke Fitzgerald Esquire has proved himself before me to be the Ancient Proprietor of the Town and Lands of Ballysannan and that his Ancestors were Posses'd of their Mansion-house there in the Year 1641. I do therefore in pursuance of His Majesties Orders unto me appoint the under-named Persons to give possession of the Mansion-house there to Luke Fitzgerald Esquire And for so doing this shall be your Warrant Given under my Hand and Seal this 6th day of May 1690. Charles White I do hereby appoint Captain Walter Archbold or Captain John Dillon of Athy to give possession of the Mansion-house of Ballysannan to Luke Fitzgerald Esquire An Account of Absentees Goods and how they were imbezelled THE beginning of March 1688. or before several Persons Officers of the Army who were impowered or pretended to be impowered by my Lord Deputy seized on the Goods of Absentees in most Counties of the Kingdom except the City of Dublin May 7th 1689. A Warrant comes to the Commissioners of His Majesties Revenue under His Majesties Privy Signet and Sign Manual dated April 29th 1689. to impower the Commissioners of the Revenue to call all such Persons to Account that had seiz'd any Goods or Chattels of Absentees May 9th 1689. The Commissioners of the Revenue issued out Instructions to several Persons in the respective Counties pursuant to His Majesties said Warrant As to the Country it must be observed That betwixt the 1st of March 1688. being the Time of seizing by the Officers of the Army and 9th of May 1689. when the Commissioners were impowered a great part of the Goods of Absentees were stolen or disposed The Officers that seiz'd were at the Camp at Denry and if any Accounts were return'd by them to the Lord Deputy the same never came to the Commissioners though they often endeavoured with the Secretary to find any such Accounts The Commissioners of the Revenue thereupon sollicited a Bill to pass in Parliament to vest the Goods of all Absentees in the King with some fitting Power to the Commissioners of the Revenue for the more easie and expeditious bringing all Persons to Account that had formerly seiz'd But this met with much delay and alterations At last the Bill pass'd the 18th of July 1689. and the Scope of it amounts to no more than to vest in His Majesty the Goods of such Persons only as are declared Forfeiting Persons by the Act of Attainder or Persons absent who abet or assist the Prince of Orange with exception of Minors and some Proviso's by the Act of Attainder most had time to return till the First of September and the general Clause of all Persons that have aided or abetted the Prince of Orange does not intitle the King without an Office found that such Persons did aid or abet and this requiring Proof and a Great Charge there did not appear sufficient profit to arise to answer the Charge Upon the whole Matter this Bill seemed rather to lessen the Zeal of those employed to seize Absentees Goods than otherwise when they consider'd that upon debate in Parliament it was denyed to pass a Law that should indemnifie them for more than half their Seizures even in the City of Dublin half the Persons whose Goods were there seized not being named in the Bill of Attainder However Aug. 9th 1689. The Commissioners of the Revenue having appointed four Provincial Surveyors gave them Instructions that the Surveyor General and the Collectors should dispose of the Stocks of Absentees whereby it appears that instead of neglecting that Matter of the Goods of Absentees they seemed rather to have given Order for the disposal of them before they were forfeited Septemb. 14th 1689. The Commissioners finding no satisfactory Returns from the Commissioners employed by them most of the Commissioners being in the Army or neglecting the Matter or applying the Goods to their own Use they superseded those Commissioners and lest the whole Matter to their Collectors which if done at first some profit might have redounded to His Majesty 2. The Goods of Absentees in the City of Dublin were not ordered by the Lord Deputy to be seized but the people observing what was done in the Country and there being free Transportation for England in March the Custom-house-Key became like a Fair and the most of Absentees Goods were then sent for England scarce any thing valuable was then left unless by the Carelesness of the persons employed by the Absentees The said 9th of August 1689. the Commissioners impowered several persons to seize the Goods of Absentees in the City of Dublin with like directions as the Lord Deputy gave formerly in other Counties viz. To inventory and take security for the forth-coming of these Goods and not to strip the Houses or hinder Trade for many Brewers Ale-sellers and other Handy-Crafts and Traders though absent yet had left behind them Servants Friends and sometimes their Wives to manage their Trade and to have strip't those Houses had but added to the Number of Wast Houses and lessened His Majesties Revenue some Ale-houses not having the Value of Forty Shillings of Absentees Goods draw three or four Barrels of Drink per Week besides their Quartering of Souldiers which has cost the Inhabitants more generally by far than the Goods could be sold for these Times And this Matter ought at present to be well considered for though now the Goods are vested in the King by Law and the best of them is to be made for the King's advantage yet Rotten Hangings will sell only to those that have the House No. 25. Albavilles Instructions to the Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer Gentlemen THE many Robberies Oppressions and Outrages committed through all parts of the Kingdom to the utter Ruine thereof and to the great Scandal of the Government as well is of Christianity forces his Majesty to a great resentment against those that prove
Romish Priests and Monks Writen by the Author of the former Book Entituled The Frauds of Romish Priests and Monks set forth in Eight Letters L. Annaei Flori Rerum Romanarum Epitome cum Interpretatione Notis in usum Serenissimi Delphini unà cum Indicibus copiosissimis oppidò necessariis Compendium Graecum Novi Testamenti continens ex 7959 versiculis totius Novi Testamenti tantum versiculos 1900 non tamen integros in quibus omnes universi Novi Test. voces unà cum Versione Latina inveniuntur Auctore Iohanne Leusden Editio quinta in qua non tantum Themata Graeca Voces derivatae exprimuntur sed etiam Tempora Verborum adduntur Tandem ne aliquid ubicunque desideretur in hac Novissima Editione Londinensi cuilibet Voci aut Compositae aut Derivatae Radix adjicitur propria in Tyronum gratiam De Presbyteratu Dissertatio Quadripartita Presbyteratûs sacri Origines naturam Titulum Officia Ordines ab ipsis Mundi primordiis usquè ad Catholicae Ecclesiae consummatum plantationem complectens in qua Hierarchiae Episcopalis Jus Divinum immutabile ex Auctoritate scripturarum Canonicè expositarum Ecclesiasticae Traditionis suffragiis brevitèr quidem sed luculentèr asseriter Authore Samuele Hill Diaeceseôs Bathoniensis Wellensis Presbytero Londini Typis S. Roycroft L. L. Oriental Typographi Regis Impensis R. Clavel in Coemeterio D. Pauli MDCXCI Sometime since Published for R. Clavel FOrms of Private Devotion for every day in the Week in a Method agreeable to the Liturgy with Occasional Prayers and an Office for the Holy Communion and for the Time of Sickness A Scholastical History of the Primitive and General Use of Lyturgies in the Christian Church together with an Answer to David Clarkson's late Discourse concerning Liturgies Roman Forgeries in the Councils during the first Four Centuries together with an Appendix concerning the Forgeries and Errors in the Annals of Baronius Ait idem Barclaius amitti regnum si Rex vere hostili animo in totius populi exitium feratur quod concedo confistere enim simul non possunt voluntas imparandi voluntas perdendi quare qui se hostem populi totius prositetur is eo ipso abdicat regnum Sed vix videtur id accidere posse in rege mentis compote qui uni populo imperet quod si pluribus populis imperet accidere potest ut unius populi in gratiam alterum vult preditum Idcirco enim frater carissime copiosum corpus est Sacerdotum concordiae mutuae glutino atque unitatis vinculo copulatum ut siquis eâ— collegio nostro Haeresim facere gregem Christi lacerare vastare tentaverit subveniant caeteri quasi pastores utiles misericordes qui oves dominicas in gregem colligant Cypri Ep. 67. Pamelii Socrates lib. 2. c. 22. Acts of the late pretended Irish Parliament C. 3. Pro defensione fidei prestant juramentum quod de terris suae jurisdictioni Subjectis universos haereticos ab ecclesia denotatos bona fide pro viribus exterminare studebunt Conc. Later IV. cap. 3. Concil Constantiens Sess. 45. Bull. Mart. De erroribus Johan Wickleff Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in Scotland See Appendix 28. Henry 8. cap. 13. 2. Elizab cap. 1. 10. Henry 7. cap. 13. Lord Clarendon's Speech at giving up the Sword to the Earl of Tirconnel and the Abstract of the Revenue for 1685. Appendix N. 5. 6. By what Interest and for what Design he came to be employed and at last to be made Deputy will appear from the Copy of a Letter found amongst Bishop Tyrrel's Papers his Secretary 'T is in the Appendix N. 3. Vide Ch. 2. Sect. 6. N. 2. Felix ô Neal was removed in 1689. and made a Collonel Sanders de oblig conscien praelect 9. 12. 19. Ubi tam gravis premit necessitas ut vir pius prudens non possit dubitare legislatorem ipsum si praesens esset legit sibi gratiam relaxationem concessurum liceat subditis communis utilitatis quae suprema lex est omnium legum finis rationem habere magis quam legum particulaâ—â—â—m Salus populi suprema Lex The Equity of which Maxim as it leaveth in the Law-giver a power of dispensing with the Law as he shall see it expedient to the publick Good so it leaveth in the Subject a Liberty upon just Occasions to do otherwise than the Law requires Dr. Sanderson's Judgment concerning Submission to Usurpers pag. 17. Edit Lond. 1678. Appendix N. 10. N. 7. See the Appendix for the List of Privy-Counsellors N. 9. a See Appendix N o 14. Appendix N o 14. Appendix N o 11. See Appendix Appendix See Appendix N o 15. Appendix N o 18. See the First Proclamation by the Earl of Tyrconnel Feb. 21. 1686. WHereas a late Proclamation issued forth by the Lord Lieutenant and Council of this Kingdom in December last for the Suppressing of Tories Robbers and their Harbourers in these Words following Whereas there have been of late many Burglaries and Robberies committed in several parts of this Kingdom to the ruin of some of his Majesties good Subjects and to the great disquiet of many others and it is found by experience that his Majesties Mercy that hath been heretofore extended to some Persons that have been attainted of such Crimes hath been an encouragement to others to commit the like c. Which Proclamation hath not yet met with the full effect c. See Appendix N o. 25. 'T was an ancient Law of England some say as Old as King Alfred That no King should change his Mony nor impair nor inhanse nor make any Mony but of Silver without the Assent of the Lords and all the Commons See Power of Parliaments asserted by Sir Robert Atkins p. 17. And Lord Cook Exposition of Stat. Artic super Chart. Cap. 2â— 2 Iâ—st 577. Chap. II. Sect. 4. See the Copy of a Letter to King James and Malony's Letter in the Appendix N. 4. 17. How is it possible a Parliament should be Free in all its Circumstances whilst an Enemy is in the Kingdom Append. N. 21. Appendix N. 24. See Appendix N. 23. Appendix N. 22. See the Articles in the Appendix n. 1â— See Appendix n. 28. See Dr. Walkers Siege of Derry See Appendix N. 31. See Appendix See Appendix N. 3 4. 17. 12 Eliz. Chap. 1st See the Appendix Molony's Scheme in his Letter N. 17. See the Proceedings of the Parliament of Paris upon the Pope's Bull Printed at London 1688. P. 5. Appendix N. 27. See the Petition in the Appendix N. 26. See Appendix N. 31. See Appendix N. 30. See Appendix N. 29. 1. It is unjust Reprizals It is not for the publick good Not for the King 's good It ruins the Kingdom It ruins the People in it It destroys the Publick Faith Inconvenient in point of time Loco Sigill '