against the impudence also of P. W. and his Clients and of the Cavaliers too Would not he and his admire to see men and in the later case men too so criminal so guilty themselves and yet forgiven all their Crimes through the merciful indulgence of a good King devest themselves notwithstanding of all mercy and all modesty and all shame and not of justice only of purpose to make that very King and for their own sakes who were in the supposed case always his enemies destroy a million of his friends and without any new cause given ruine them for ever without regard of either Mercy or Justice even to Articlers or Innocents or Widows or Orphans who had their Estates entayled upon them before the Wars and never acted in the Wars any thing against the Laws And yet I dare say that such a wish or endeavour of the Cavaliers or even of P. W. and his Clients alone would be in the former case or in that which really is of both sides now comparatively far more suiting with reason and more excusable by necessity than that of our Person of Quality here Though I withall confess my self to be of this Judgement as I have always been and as my Letter all along and after that my Irish Colours folded but most especially and plainly in the Irish Colours folded Pag 32. conclusion demonstrates I have that abstracting from the comparison all such desires or wishes and much more other answerable endeavours either of this Person of Quality or of P. W. should he entertain the thoughts of any such must be very uncharitable and very unreasonable and very unjust and very unchristian yea and inhumane too I say and becoming rather some Turk or some Tartar or a Lestrigon and Canibal than a man bred up amongst men who know any thing of Religion and retain any part of the common resentments of Nature 173. And for the practice of Joseph which herein that is in reserving the Lands of all to the Kings free dispose and transplanting the People this Gentleman further wishes may Pag. 93. be his Grace's the Duke of Ormonds pattern it is as farr as from East to West from giving any even probable argument that may justifie that our Person of Quality's most cruel barbarous and savage desire however he give this in the name of the Protestants of Ireland but I believe without the concurrence of those who are truly such Joseph reserved the Lands of all the Egyptians the Priests only excepted to the free dispose of Pharaoh because all the very Gen. 47. 26. Egyptians themselves every man freely of himself without any force coaction or necessity put upon them by Pharaoh or by Joseph or by any mortal Creature sold all their Lands to Joseph for meat in the seven years of the general Famine and Joseph bought all for the use of Pharaoh And Joseph removed the people from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other end thereof because the people themselves had upon the same occasion freely as above sold themselves even their own Bodies I say for Bread and Joseph had bought them all to Pharaoh's use for ever But Joseph notwithstanding so just a title dealed so equitably with them all that albeit he saved their lives for seven years together and preserved their stocks and gave them seed to sowe their lands and bought as I have said all both lands and stocks and bodies too yet when he removed them or those he thought fit he removed them not into one little corner of Egypt not into mountains rocks and boggs nor into uncouth Wildernesses but into a large and fruitfull soyl abounding with all good things as their own was even into all the rich lands of Egypt and into the mighty opulent and pleasant Cities in all those borders and quarters and midland too of Egypt and removed them also without encroaching on any others right without prejudicing any others title without forcing any of the antient Inhabitants out of their own dwellings or lands without any kind of injury done to any or any reluctancy or unwillingness being in any either these that took the new possessions or those that quitted their old habitations to give the new comers place because all as well these as those by their free act without any kind of constraint bound themselves to acquiesce and accordingly did so and even acknowledged publickly and thankfully that they did so And yet he dealed with them so equitably that notwithstanding he transplanted them all the Land of Egypt was still planted by those very transplanted persons no share in the lands of Egypt given to strangers none such brought or admitted in to supplant those Egyptians not even the very true Israelites of God themselves acquiring or possessing anew but what they had before the Famine and before any such bargain and without the prejudice of any Egyptian a little parcel in the land of Ramesses to graze the Cattle belonging to a small famâ—ly of 70 Souls And further yet he dealed so equitably with them in reserving to Pharaoh's free dispose the rights they had formerly and which now themselves had in as much as in them lay for ever bereaved themselves of by their own free consent and deed that nevertheless by a new Law which he made after all this to hold forever in that Kingdom those very Egyptians were entitled anew to four entire parts and Pharaoh only to a fifth of the encrease of those very lands which otherwise did for all parts wholly belong to him as likewise did the very Oxen that ploughed Gen. 47. 26. the lands and the very seed and the very persons that did sowe them 174. And this being the practice of Joseph and that which I related his title how can our Person of Quality expect any advantage from either to his purpose Certainly no sale of Lands much less of Bodies to the Duke of Ormond or to his Majesty or to any else for his Majesties use or even for any other Persons use as made by the Catholicks of Ireland themselves not only not so freely or without any kind of violence force compulsion or necessity put upon them by any mortal man but not even constrainedly made by them can be alleged by this Person of Quality nor donation nor exchange nor promise of either nor any other title whatsoever if not his false pretence of a general breach of the Articles of 48. Which because I have abundantly shewed to be such that is de non ente or a pretence of that which never had a being yet and have shewed this too by clearing most evidently all his Arguments to the contrary and even by shewing them to be ridiculous absurd and very meer non sense how can the practice of Joseph be a Patâ—ern to the Duke of Ormond for confiscating all the estates of the Irish and for the transplanting of all their persons even I say in case the confiscation and
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
in all capacities and by actual instances and those too very manifold of titles of honour and places of greatest authority profit and trust with his Majesties most faithful and approved Subjects 155. And I cannot but further observe the indiscretion of this Gentleman that by upbraiding others with a repetition of lesser Crimes or suppose them equivalent which they cannot be justly supposed and a repetition of such even to loathing leaves himself or his Cause and Party let himself be guiltless open to the same reproach or a farr greater He should have remebred how the godly Malefactor on the Cross did rebuke his fellow that railed Neque tu Deum times qui in eadem damnatione es Dost Luc. 26. 40. not thou fear God since thou art in the same condemnation Or at least reflected on that of the King in the Parable to the cruel inexorable Servant Serve nequam omne debitum dimisi tibi quia rogasti me nunquid ergo oportuit te misereri conservi tui sicut ego tui misertus sum Matth. 18. O Mat. 18. 32. thou wicked servant I pardoned thee ten thousand talents and pardoned thee so great a debt only of pure compassion only because thou desiredst me shouldst not thou also have compassion for thy fellow servant and not presently take him by the throat and throw him in prison for a hundred pence and be nothing moved with his extreme poverty and his unfeigned humiliation or with all his pittiful intreaties or with all his best purposes promises and offers Our Person of Quality might have reflected hereon if he pleased and on the terrible sentence immediately given on that hard-hearted Servant and on the Ministers of Justice apprehending him and binding him hand and foot and throwing him into utter darkness even into a place of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth And this Person of Quality might have on consideration of all determined with himself that he had done much better to have spared himself and me both some ink and some paper and some labour too 156. But I fear he is one of those we read in Solomon's Wisdom Blinded with their own malice or of those in Esay Wisdom c. 2. v. 21 Esay c. 6. v. 10. Jeremy c. 13. v. 23. Who hear and will not understand But whether also that question of the Prophet Jeremy in the 13 Chapter of his Book may not be and that very pertinently too asked here in relation to him Nunquid potest Aethiops mutare pellem suam aut Pardus varietates suas Can the Aethiopian change his Skin or the Leopard his spots the Reader may determine For my part I cannot otherwise think than that it may when I see this Gentleman tâ—ke a rise from P. W ' s. Parallel for the inserting of those two particulars which immediately Pag. 92. follow his former advice and when I yet see the further and plain explication of them both and the period of his otherwise incredible malignity in that which next comes after and which he calls and is indeed the conclusion of his whole infamous Book The first is If any of the Children of P. W ' s. Clyents lose their Lands though actually they were not guilty of their Pag. 92. Fathers Rebellion let him remember even in the Case which he instances that the seven Sons of Saul were hanged up to the Lord in Gibeah of Saul though they had not actually slain these Gibeonites for which they themselves were punished Let him also remember that till justice was done the famine lasted and after it was done the famine ceased Those lost their lives for their Fathers sin but these if any lose but their Fathers forfeited Lands for their Fathers crimes 157. Supposing Reader thou wilt not be abused by this Gentlemans if any twice repeated here either through some uncertainty belike of what he apprehended may be future or of purpose to conceal the Design which yet he cannot conceal in his next Particular joyned with his concluding Wish specially if you compare these to his very invidious and very false both suppositions and assertions before given of the whole Irish Nations having broken the Peace and consequently forfeited their Estates And moreover if you compare that his Particular and his conclusive Wish to the strict Qualifications of Innocents could he or his friends enact such as they strugled for I must beg your patience a little if I alter the Scene and place this Gentleman and his Party on the Stage to answer this first Particular instead of P. W. and his Countrymen and Clients 158. For put the case that some fourteeen years past in the very heat of War when the long Parliament was rampant and his late most sacred Majesty of glorious remembrance was forced to put himself into the power of his Enemies this Person of Quality and those he pleads for had out of remorse of Conscience and real sense of their duty though withall out of a desire to provide for their own safety under Kingly Government according to the Laws established in the Kingdom returned willingly and passionately to their Obedience and this too upon publick Articles of Peace but with intent partly and of design to rescue his Majesty whom they had never intended to dethrone or to exclude his Line or Family from the Crowns of England Ireland or Scotland notwithstanding any other evills which the nature of a War into which they had been hurried and partly constrained to undertake might be charged upon them yea notwithstanding the murther of some hundreds of innocent people which the rascal multitude amongst them had upon the first Insurrection committed and the plundring withall of many thousands and the killing also of yet a farr greater number in the prosecution of War and of Souldiers or men armed coming against them in hostile manner And suppose they had withall submitted or brought in with them to obey his Majesty so many strong Cities Forts Castles so many great Shires and fruitful Provinces and an Army so numerous of Horse and Foot as the Catholick Irish did even a whole Kingdom for the matter two Cities alone and some few Regiments and other scattered Companies adherents to them in Boggs and Woods and Mountains only excepted And that notwithstanding through some hidden causes or secret displeasure of God or accidents of War that are very ordinary or through some unlucky division arising or newly kindled or revived and heightned and strengthned too of purpose either by a distrustful or malevolent Party amongst them the common Enemy and suppose that Enemy had been the Irish did prevail And suppose moreover those repentant Converts of our Person of Quality as to their generality or greater part and even as to their Representatives had sadly beheld many of their own People and even some of their own Towns proving disobedient and refractory to commands and even most grievous affronts done and if you please too some thoughts of treachery
entertained by a few Citizens of one or two or three of their Towns and services lost and the Enemies power escaped through the peevish refractoriness or unreasonable distrusts of some and the heads of their Clergy besides endeavouring by threats of spiritual censures to withdraw the obedience of all their great and numerous Body from his Majesties Lieutenant over them but not prevailing herein as to the generality or farr greater part though hindring very much the service against the common Enemy And put the case too that all had been finally undone and the Kingdom lost occasionally through such unlawful oppositions of a few or the lesser part and yet that both sides of them as well the disobedient as obedient had to the last man refused any Capitulations with such their common Enemy to serve him against the King but had even very many thousands even three or four legions of them withdrawn out of the Country and ran his Majesties fortune abroad or waited his commands and in all Countries roamed after him perpetually fixing all their hopes upon and quitting all other services under forein Princes for him but such only as might stand with his pleasure alwayes ready to venture again limb and life to reinthrone his Majesty as likewise the remainders of them at home under the prevalent Usurpers had been waiting all opportunities for that end and therefore upon that account partly if not principally as persons suspected made the most miserable slaves in the World and every new Moon confined to Gaols And suppose that after many years had been so past over by this Person of Quality and his Party some wandring in exile abroad others at home groaning in captivity all waiting with impatience the occasion and hour God of his mercy were pleased at last to throw an Apple of Discord amongst those in that case now supposed usurping Victours to wit P. W. and his Party and raise between them such irreconcileable feuds as together with the continual fears arising partly from those abroad in banishment and those at home in bondage though peradventure principally from the more numerous Party of old Cavalliers and from their Friends dispersed in the three Nations had forced them viz. the said usurping Victours to concurr to though with much reluctancy or rather to behold but with heavy hearts and armes across the calling home of his Majesty to the possession of his Fathers Throne administration of Justice or dispensation of Mercy to each one of his people throughout the British Empire answerable to their several capacities and to the Laws and to the equity of them and above all to his own gracious benign and merciful Genius And suppose yet further that that usurping people which had partly so called or so looked upon his Majesty returning home and which had kept too this Person of Quality and his Friends for so many years in exile and slavery had been those too who had all along concurred and even acted with such others as bereaved his Majesties dear Father of his life contrived the Oath of Abjuration and so many others took it and the rest all and further made and to their power observed and forced upon others the observation of all those Oaths and Acts we have seen against the Line of King James and Family of the Stuarts and that the same Usurpers the supposed Enemies in our present case had for that concurrence of theirs and prosecution of it enjoyed so long the Lands and Estates of this very Person of Quality and his Friends even a great Kingdom And suppose lastly that after all his Majesty were sitting as he now is to administer Justice to all his Subjects indifferently and to give withall incomparable arguments of his Clemency and that P. W. were pleading there for himself and his own Party supposed still in such a case to be of that side whereof our Person of Quality and his People are now and were pleading there not for Pardon or Indempnity alone to himself and his Friends but for the acquisition moreover and continuation and that by a new Law too or by a Law to be made anew for that purpose against all former fundamental Laws and for the enjoyment for ever by his Majesties grant all the Lands Houses c. belonging formerly oâ— before the Wars to this Person of Quality and other his Friends who fighting so many years continually for the King were in that Cause dispossessed of them by him that is by P. W. and his Partners and that P. W. were pleading too against innocent Children the Rebellion at any time of their Fathers although early Converts and alwayes after constant Subjects and were pleading I say for the acquisition or continuation to himself and his of the Rights and Lands belonging othewise to them even by entail made in consideration of a Marriage-Portion given by their Mothers I demand in such a case not whether this Person of Quality pleading on the other side admitted unquestionably by all indifferent to be the better side would allow P. W. the impudence of such a Plea but whether he would find it any difficult matter to shew the unfitness of that Example of the Seven Sons of Saul hanged up to the Lord in Gibeah of Saul to justifie in that supposed case or to perswade or even to move his Majesty to the cutting off all Entails even such as were made before the War begun and such too as were made in consideration of a Marriage-Portion paid or move his Majesty to the bereaving of all right of succession or inheritance in their Fathers Estates the Children of his in such a case long suffering and loyal Party even those very Children that were not actually guilty of their Fathers Rebellion Or would he think it an hard task to prove the unsignificancy of the next allusion That till Justice was done the Famine lasted and after it was done the Famine ceased Or the ineptitude also to his end of that following Antithesis Those lost their Lives for their Fathers Sin but these if any lose but their Fathers forfeited Lands for their Fathers Crimes And whether he would not think that not only his Majesty and all the Court but all indifferent Persons on Earth would laugh even to scorn the brazen face of P. W. or at least his very extreme lack both of Grace and of Reason if in such a case he made use of this Rhetorical Divinity which our Person of Quality uses against him to get the Lands of all such Innocents the Children in our supposition of this Person of Quality's repentant early Converts bestowed on himself and his Clients still supposed in the case to have fought all along against his Majesty and continued obstinate even to the last hour in pursuance of the Good Old Cause and to have dispossessed those very Children of this Person of Quality and his Friends and to have dispossessed their Fathers too fighting for the Royal Quarrel 159. But not to perplex the