blameable therefore but esteemed by his Majesty and all good men faithful truly loving and nothing less observant and respectful Subjects Neither can that Observation of this Person of Quality prejudice P. W. in the Judgement of his sacred Majesty or of any good man or of any indifferent or judicious Reader especially when P. W. may be known to such as please to enquire after him to be such a man as having already given sufficient asguments of his faith and his affection and respects and reverence and veneration too of his Majesties most sacred Person is ready alwayes to run all kind of hazards for him which any the most loyal Subject ought even without expectation of other reward in this World but what the discharge of his duty and satisfaction of a good Conscience must make him professor of 151. After this Gentleman had proved himself though a cunning yet a very bad Expositour and no less unfortunately given all along and perclosed his Differences than he made a Parallel to his own disadvantage he must seek applause from the Reader at least for some godly advice to the Irish Nation first and then to P. W. Since the breach of Faith is so foul a sin and deserves such heavy punishments even by P. W 's own confession and since it is fully Pag. 92. proved those for whom he pleads have not only once but often yea alwayes broken their agreements let them with patience bear what they have drawn upon themselves and let him henceforth employ his Pen and his Press in inviting his Countrymen rather to acknowledge his Majesties mercy that no more are punished than some are and that so little too comparatively to their Crimes But if that undeniable Maxim hold Bonum ex integra causa malum ex quocunque defectu how can this holy Preacher expect even upon this passage that applause of his Auditory which he proposed to himself For not to take notice of a Confession attributed by him here to P. W. where he should ingenuously have himself confessed it was the grand assertion of P. W. in that Letter so famous now by the man in the dark and the Person of Quality's impugnation of it in two several books that the breach of Faith is so foul a sin and deserves such heavy punishments and therefore allowing as I must his first supposition here without exception I am confident the Judicious Readers of this impartial Reply will not be perswaded without farther proof than any or all he hath given that it is fully proved those for whom P. W. pleads have not only once but often yea always broken their agreements P. W. pleads the Justice of publick Articles and of the performance of publique Faith only to and for the Iriâ—h Nation in general or as to the generality or greater part or in all contingencies for those only who cannot be disproved before his Majesty or the Lord Lieutenant or those other men of Honour appointed by his Majesty as impartial Commissioners and Judges to have forfeited the benefit of those Articles by an unlawfull breach of them And P. W. desires only his Majesties Royal and mercifull regard of such unfortunate Irish Catholicks as have unlawfully transgressed against that Peace And I am sure the first admitted supposition or the confession or assertion too of Gods Judgements pursuing most justly the breach of publique Faith will not argue any unlawfulness injustice or unchristianity either in that plea or this desire of P. W. Yet I grant him notwithstanding that his advice of bearing with patience simply taken in it self or which is the same thing without mâ—xture of ungranted unproved or even untrue supposals would be commendable whoever gave it and the practice of it more whether such as gave it made other addition true or false And therefore I cannot allow his meaning in those words what they have drawn upon themselves 152. For the Irish Nation or Catholicks of Ireland generally taken or taken only for the greater part or if he please for the Representatives alone never drew upon themselves by a publick breach of those Articles of 48. whereof they may be said to have been guilty that whatsoever it be this Gentleman intends in the fore mentioned words Well they might by other sins have provoked Heaven to involve them in the common punishment and so drawn upon themselves that which they have suffered hitherto either from the justice of God immediately or from the injustice violence or tyranny of men But that they have by any sins whatsoever drawn upon themselves what this Gentleman further or indeed solely intends here to wit an absolute final resolution of his Majesty by a clear significative Declaration of his will in his Laws or Acts of Parliament to make the Irish Nation evermore hewers of wood and drawers of water in this Gentleman's interpretation or in that of the Man in the dark that is to let them live only and make them ten million of times more pittiful slaves than the Gibeonitet were by taking away from them all their Cities Castles Mannours Villages Houses Lands even to a foot and make them the contempt and scorn of all Christian Countries of Mankind I must confess I want both Revelation and Reason to believe this Gentleman's bare word for it 153. Upon his advice to my self I shall not demurr being I have anticipated it long agoe and not by my Pen or Press alone but my Tongue and Voice and Mouth and Lungs also and by all the very faculties of my Soul and Pag. 92. not only to acknowledge his Majesties mercy that no more are punished of those I mean who are by the Laws punishable than that some are whether by his Majesty or not I dispute not and that as by his Majesty so little too comparatively to their Crimes but also to celebrate his Majesties Justice that notwithstanding all those even disobedient Oppositions and prevaricating Contradictions of this Gentleman's Party these two years past some though very few are in some measure delivered already out of the Lions throat and Harpies tallons And I hope to have daily more and more cause to magnifie this Justice and that Mercy and to sing to his Majesty as David did sometime to God Misericordiam Judicium cantabo tibi Domine 154. Yet I cannot but observe here how much more incomparably this Gentleman is bound to employ his own Pen and his own Press in inviting his own beloved people even to super-magnifie and super-exalt his Majesties unspeakable Mercy to themselves and not his mercy alone but his munificence and his bounteous goodness and extraordinary favours being that not only none of them except those very few of the most immediate Actors in that horrible Tragedy on the Scaffold at White-Hall are punished either so little comparatively to their superlative Crimes or at all positively without any such comparison And being they are not only pardoned not only indemnified in all respects but even equalled
means for defence And he might have seen that considering the powerfull though most ungodly endeavours and wicked arguments used to perswade his most Sacred Majesty not to regard the performance of that Peace P. W. cannot be justly said to have in that occasion unjustly applyed or made use of the Judgements of God on Saul and his Children for being mis-lead by such perfidious Counsels against the Laws of God Nature and Nations Not that P. W. did wish as God knows he did not but was and is from the bottom of his Soul far enough from any such wish that in the conditional contingency of such non-performance or of such a breach by his Majesty with those can justly pretend to the benefit of that Peace the like or indeed any other Judgements should light on himself or on his Posterity but that his Majesty might be minded of this example as of an antidote against the poyson of such Viperous Counsellers as our Person of Qâ—ality seems to be and the rest of his Consorts that with so much importunitie so much falsity and such other evil arguments which I will not mention here did then sollicite as they do still for the perpetual destruction of all Irish Catholicks that is to say of more than a million of people yea of a great though as yet through such arts and the endeavours of this Gentleman and his Associates uncomfortable Nation and Kingdom to the generality of Catholick Natives and did and do sollicite for the ruining them so for ever without any regard of their Articles or of Publick Faith given them with so much solemnity by two great and good Kings and upon considerations so valuable as the World knows Nay did and do at this very present sollicit this destruction to involve even those of that Nation and Religion who are confessedly innocent of the Rebellion or prosecution of it or of any breach of Articles or Peace which yet is so well known to be against the most known fundamental Laws of the Land and against all Divine and Humane Laws and against the very first Dictates or even glimmers of Natural reason that I need not dilate upon it any further 133 But that I may not seem to decline observing the advantages this Person of Quality proposed to himself in that Parallel he would needs frame for me let us consider every Particular apart 1. Josua sayes he knew not the Persons of those with whom he made that League neither did the King know the hearts of those with whom he made that Peace I would fain know of this Gentleman whether Josua knew the hearts of the Gibeonites Or whether any of both sides that make Peace or League whatever they be on Earth the hearts of the other Pag. 90. The French of the Spaniards or Spaniards of the French the English of the Hollanders or Hollanders of the English And since he must answer not then I demand where is the advantage hence for him that his Majesty knew not the hearts of those with whom he made that Peace Or is the Peace therefore not obligatory Indeed were the Persons of the Irish unknown to his Majesty and his Lieutenant who treated with them and so unknown I say to both as to think they had not been of the Irish Nation at all but English or Scots inhabiting some other Tract of Land and some other Cities than those they did or had his Majesty and Lieutenant been so ignorant of those Irish Commissioners that they had taken them at that time to be another People or of another Country not of that which was before and through their Rebellion forfeitable to the Crown and by the Act of 17. Caroli of the Parliament of Westminster if that be of any force in Ireland to be assured to and shared amongst adventurers and Souldiers then might this Gentleman with some reason say the Articles obliged not whereas there was an errour about the very Persons than which nothing seems more against freedom of consent as to that wherein the errour is even that essential freedom I mean without which a man hath no free consent in any sense at all And yet in this case my Parallel would be more plain in the extension of it but his advantage no more but rather less as from thence to any purpose he ought to drive at 2. Those were Neighbours nay lived amongst the Israelites Pag 90. to whom Josuah promised Peace though they said they were of a far Country The Irish were Neighbours at least locally nay they lived long amongst us though at last they would not let us live amongst them But indeed they were from a very far Country even from Rome it self Behold Reader two manifest impostures in a few lines The Confederate Catholicks when such or come to be joyned in a body or social defence and have a general Assembly which they had very soon after the first insurrection were so far from denying English Scots or any other Protestant Subjects to his Majesty to live amongst them that even in their printed model of Government which I suppose this Gentleman hath they invited all such as Pleased to come and live amâ—â—g 〈◊〉 oâ— Gâ—â—â—rnment them And their being from a very far Country even as far as Rome in this Gentlemans sense or their being so from Rome that they acknowledge any dependence from the Pope in Temporal affairs or any that are not purely Spiritual or such a dependence as cannot stand with a most Christian most Loyal and indispensable Allegiance by any on Earth to his Sacred Majesty King Charles the â— of England Ireland and Scotland the former Declarations Protestations and their famous opposition of the Lord Nâ—ncio and of his Excommunications and Interdicts in tâ—e Case of the Cessation with the then Baron now Eaâ—l of Inchiquin and the Book printed at Kilkeny and subscribed by David Osoriensis and approved by Thomas Midensis and subscribed and approved by the rest of the Divines convoked to that purpose entituled Quaeries concerning the lawfulness of the present Cessation c. whereof P. W. is known and confesses himself to have been the Author manifestly convince they are not Yet I confess most freely and truly they are as to their Religion from a Country as farr as Rome because they received it thence and from Countries too in that as farr as Constantinople Antioch Alexandria or Hierusalem as all the People of England have had theirs even from Rome I say for a 1000. years and amongst them a hundred millions of people that have been all their lives as unalterably loyal to their Princes as any people could be and more loyal without comparison than I doubt this Person of Quality can pretend himself to be or at least to have been sometime in his life past But suppose that notwithstanding their being Neighbours at least locally and their living long with this Person of Quality and amongst those he makes his own they have after a War
transplantation of them intended by this Gentleman were as mild and as tollerable as that of the Egyptians by Joseph And since it is not by very many and those too most highly considerable degrees how can yet the practice of Joseph be a pattern to the Duke therein even I say in case he had for such reservation and such transplantation of the Lands and Persons of the Irish the very same or like right or some other equivalent to that which Joseph had to râ—serve the lands and remove the People of Egypt The reservation enacted by Joseph to the use of Pharaoh was of the fifth part only throughout all Egypt leaving four answerable entire proportions for the Egyptians themselves but the reservation or confiscation this Gentleman drives at in Ireland is of â—ll the five parts even of the whole not so much as leaving one sole foot of Land uâ—to the Catholick Irish And the Transplantation made by Joseph was into a Land as rich and as large as the fields and whole extent of Egypt and even unto the pleasant and beautiful Cities of that Country But the Transplantation this Gentleman intends of the Irish must be from all the best Land of Ireland into the very worst of it and must be from nineteen parts of the Land of Ireland whereof they were the lawful Proprietors and lately the Possessors into farr less than the twentieth part of the whole divided into twenty equal proportions and must be into barren desert horrid places too and must be without Cattel to stock that very Land without Seed to sow or Plough to manure it without Servants without Shelter without House or Cabbin to lodge these Transplanted People in or defend them from the Wolves or from the Robbers or Heat or Cold or other Injuries of the open Air. And the miserable Irish Transplanted so must not even in those small Tracts allotted for them within the narrow precincts of some parts of three or four Counties in Connaght and Tuomond pitch in any place or fix their dwelling Houses or take any Lands within two miles of the River Shanon four of the Sea and four of Galway the only City within their precinct They must not enter this Town or any other Corporate or Garrison'd Place without particular Orders at their peril even of being taken by the throat and thrown presently into Gaol but if to look back on the Country of their Nativity they dare set foot on the Bridge of Athlone without Pass woe be unto them either a builet or a cord must end their dayes And none of them all must as much as bear the Office of a petty Constable even amongst themselves even within those very narrow precincts assigned for them to sojourn in For the dwelling intended them even there can be no other than that of Sojourners or at least of Tenants at Will since all the Lands of Ireland except those of the Priests are desired by this Gentleman to be reserved by Law to the Kings free dispose viz. to be disposed again by the King to him and to his People So that if he prevail the whole Irish Nation must be perpetual Bondslaves in their own Country or like the accursed Jewes wandring and roaming abroad for ever amongst Foreiners 175. Behold Reader the Transplantation of the People of Ireland and the Reservation of their Lands which our Person of Quality drives at even the very same Transplantation and the very same Reservation invented first but not for the Kings use and put in execution after by Usurpers and by Tyrants by the Rump Parliament and by the Protector Cromwel and by Ludlow and Corbet and Jones and Fleetwood their Commissioners in Ireland in the days of dread and darkness And whether such reserving of the Irish lands and such Transplanting of the Irish People to be made into a Law for ever by the Duke of Ormonds furtherance or by him to be renewed or by him to be as much as either continued or permitted have the practice of Joseph for a pattern do you judge even I mean in case the Duke had undeniably the very title of sale or emption or the right acquired by forfeiture or any other answerable to that which Joseph had 176. But forasmuch as our Person of Quality's malice to the Irish and Catholicks in general is known to be such that he will make use of any thing how weak and insignificant soever to give some colour of Justice or some right or some title at least to enact or continue this Transplantation so unmercifull and because I doubt not he will endeavour to abuse those that will believe him with a pretext of some exchange or some bargain made by the Irish themselves when they were thrown out of their own habitations and put to Conaght and the proprietors of or dwellers in such lands in Conaght as were assigned to the rest of the Irish were likewise constrained to flit You good Reader may be pleased to observe 1. That of twenty or thirty nay I may say thirty and twice thirty thousand Irish Proprietors not one thousand of all or near a thousand received the least kind of compensation not so much as one foot of land either in Conaght or Clare or elsewhere from the Tyrants or from any else since their time 2. That the twentieth part nay the fortieth of those that sued for Decrees Intents or Charitable subsistence or whatever else you call it according to the language and rule in the then Courts of Athlone Logriagh held for such purposes and according to the variety of Qualifications prescribed by the cruel mercy of those Parliamentary Cromwellians who then ruled all nay not the fortieth part of such as prevailed in their sute and were looked upon with some kind of pity had yet any valuable consideration of lands assigned them not only not for Inheritance but not even for tenancy at will for which any rational man in the world might presume they had made an exchange of their own proper estates whereunto no body else but Rebels then and Usurpers did then any way pretend and whereof themselves I mean the Irish then or a little before were lawfully possess'd and their posterity after them should have the lawfull inheritance 3. That we know some of those had not above ten pound Lands per annum assigned them in Conaght whose proper Estates at home in their own Countries whence they had been so removed were worth a thousand a year 4. That in case a bargain could be alleged here as it can not and although it be true that a bargain is a bargain yet it is likewise true that a forced bargain is still a forced bargain and not simply or properly speaking any bargain at all when it is betwixt Subjects or twixt a Loyal Subject and a Rebel or with an usurping Tyrannical Traytor that by plain force and starving and threats of exile and death put in execution on some to terrifie others and signified to
of Sauls Children and the Gibeonites Pag. 90. 130. Where in the first place I must tell our Person of Quality he hath very ill endeavoured to shew how far that is Pag. 90. parallel to the present Case of the Irish and how far it is not And I must tell him that neither his paralleling differencing The Parallel made and the Differences given by the Person of Quality in the Case or Example of Saul 's Children and the Gibeonites proved ridâ—lous end unconcludiâ—g c. or indeed imposing here on the Reader and on holy Scripture too can prove that I have unjustly applyed tâ—ose examples of Gods most righteous Judgements 131. He might without any labour have seen in that Letter which without any reason he took so much pains to contradict matter enough for a more pertinent and more ample parallel He might have observed the great King of Heaven and Earth in a Parliament of Angels bestowing the Land Canaan on the Descendants of Abraham for the Rebellion of the Inhabitants and this gift again confirmed by him to them many hundred years after even in that other great Parliament of Angels and Men both which he held on Sina Mount amidst lightnings and thunders and those terrible voices and the sound of Clarions mingled in that loud dinn confirmed I say with so much solemnity and even confirmed in his written Laws given there by Moses to the Children of Israel and yet confirmed in a special command given them never to make Peace or Truce with the old Inhabitants of Palestine not even with the Amorhites by name He might have remembred the vast expence of an Army of 600000 fighting men employed by him to get possession of them even by force and blood and by so many prodigious miracles and wonders and Kings slain and Monsters quell'd and Cities overthrown and Kingdoms harraz'd and ruined for ever to make way for his beloved People to enjoy the gift he had once made to them so solemnly He might after this have considered a Treaty of Peace entertained nevertheless with some of those very Nations with the Gibeonites I say who were the Children of Amorheus and a Peace concluded with them by Josuah even God's own Lieutenant over his peculiar chosen people and by his 12 great Captains and without the knowledge or consent of any other Assembly Council or Parliament of Israel or of his great Army or of the infinite number of other persons young men old men and women and children of Abraham and Jacobs posterity who yet were all highly concerned in the effects of it as being in part destructive to their rights and lessening the gift which God made to them and quitting their claim to so many great Cities and the territories adjoyning He might further have remembred the delusion and circumvention were such whereby those Gibeonites obtained the Peace that they were not known or thought by Josua or by his Captains to be Inhabitants of that Land which God had bestowed on the Children of Israel the tatter'd rags and old Shooes and wine bottles rent and the dry and mouldy bread of these crafty Inhabitants and even those manifest express verbal lyes which the Book of Josuah relates having been made use of by the fearful Gibeonites to circumvent Josuah till he concluded with them He might likewise have remembered the advancing of the Camp within three dayes after this Treaty perfected to the very Cities of the Gibeonites to storm them as being within the Lot of that Army of God and such as they had been long before commanded by God himself and in his Law to Conquer even by destroying utterly the Inhabitants root and branch And might remember the Countermand given by Josuah nevertheless when he understood they belonged to those he made Peace with and this Countermand given and yet a further command to observe strictly the Articles yea notwithstanding the general murmurings of his Army and people against him This great Commander of the Legions of God who had in all his enterprizes the Spirit of God judging it without any peradventure to be the pleasure of this great King of Kings as flowing from the Dictates of natural Reason that such as though by such arts had undisposed themselves to a War and their own defence and wholly relyed on his word should be protected in all their rights and their Articles observed most religiously to them and that no commands of God in his positive Laws though in general terms seemingly against it did reach to this or such a particular Case Finally our Person of Quality might have considered the Gibeonites not only interceded for four principal Cities in particular and for the teâ—ritories adjoyning but were even themselves and their Cities professors of Idolatry and Heathenisme and worshipers of false Gods as on the other side Josuah and his Army and people the propagators of the only true worship of the God of Heaven 132. Our Person of Quality might have considered all this which if he had and then reflected on the Rebellion of Ireland even of those very Septs which without question he accounts not only as pricks in his sides and thorns in his eyes but even as bad as the Canaanites Hittites c. or the very worst of the Amorhites and to be extirpated as these were out of the good Land flowing with milk and honey but not the Land of Promise I hope to him alone or to the Saints of his Calender and after did reflect on a good King his late Majesty so justly incensed by this provocation and on his Parliament and Laws of 17 Caroli and on his donation and division therein of the Rebels Estates and on the Army employed and Captains made and the great Commander of them in that Kingdom under his Majesty and on the bloody though just prosecution of that War and Battails fought and Legions vanquished and the better part of the four Provinces of Ireland utterly destroyed if he had then remembered the application made to his Majesty and his Lieutenant and the Treaty admitted and a Peace concluded even with those very Septs before designed for destruction even that very Peace of 48. I mean if I say our Person of Quality had soberly considered all this and the circumstances and the advantages which are for me certainly he might have seen matter enough for a more pertinent and more ample parallel and might have seen it in the Kings in the Subjects in the Lands or Countries in the Crimes in the just offences in the resolutions of punishment in the Parliaments in the Laws of Donation and Partition in the Armies and Commanders in the sharp prosecutions of the War in the Treaties nevertheless entertained with the Rebels and Peaces concluded with them in the murmuring complaints of Armies and of inconsiderate People and in their unjust endeavours to ruine those for ever and specially four Cities who relying on the words of their great Commanders unfurnished themselves of all