to destroy so many thousand Widows and Orphans to confirm unlawful and usurped possessions to violate the publick Faith to punish Virtue to countenance Vice to hold Loyalty a Crime and Treason worthy of Reward The bloody and covetous States-man who chiefly occasioned all this disorder was very often heard to say with a fierce countenance and passionate tone the Irish deserve to be extirpated and then he would after his usual manner come out with a great Oath and swear they shall all be extirpated Root and Branch Good God what a Heathen expression is this in the mouth of a Christian who is expresly commanded to love his Enemies Does he think that the Divine Providence which orders the growth of Herbs the fall of Leaves and appoints an Angel for the guard of every individual person takes no care to preserve an entire Body of a Nation and that it shall be in the power of one man to destroy the work of God at his pleasure of such a Man that could not prevent his own disgrace not avoid the many other inconveniences which are like to fall upon him This proud Haman who joyntly with some few others to get Money for themselves and Estates for their Children contrived the general extirpation of the whole Irish race but before he could fully compass his wicked Design I must confess he went very near to do it and if God had given him a longer continuance of power he would undoubtedly make good his word was forced for his own safety and the preservation of his life to quit his fine House forsake his Family and bid his Countrey farewel and to travel in his old age in the dead of Winter through so many dangers at Sea and incommodities by Land to seek for some shelter abroad seeing he could not be secure at home Justu es Domine justum judicium tuum He is gone with all his Greatness and the miseries of the poor Irish do still continue however they are yet in being and live in hope that the fall of their Mortal Enemy may be a beginning of their Rise and that his Majesty will now seriously reflect upon the unparallel'd usage hitherto extended to that Nation who are deprived of the Benefit of Law Justice and publick Faith The cryes and tears of more than an hundred thousand Widows and Orphans being worthy his Majesties Princely consideration And certainly there can be no great difficulty met with to dissannul two illegal Acts which are evidently repugnant not only to the Law of God and Nature contrary to the common reason and consequently void in themselves but also to all sound Policy and reason of State For that the true Interest of England as relating to Ireland consists in raising he Irish as a Bulwark or ballance against our English and Scotch Presbyterians The Irish Papists agreed so well and lived so peaceably with our English Prelatiques during the Reign of King James and Seventeen years of King Charles the First that they seemed to be of one mind in all matters And when the Presbyterian practises and Covenant began to disturb these Kingdoms the Papists and Prelatiques in Ireland as well as in England joyned their hearts and hands against Presbytery for the King The great Earl of Strafford judged it was a true Protestant Cavalier Interest to raise an Army of Papists in Ireland thereby to keep in awe the Presbyterians of Scotland and England And indeed the Presbyterian designs could never have had been compassed if the King had not been forced to disband the same Army Then the Earl now Duke of Ormond thought it was the true English and Cavalier Interest joyn in Parliament with the Roman Catholick Nobility and Gentry of Ireland against the Presbyterian Lords Justices and their Faction and therefore joyntly with them resolved to secure their persons and seize upon the Castle and Magazine of Dublin for his Majesty But this their Design was quashed by an inconsiderate attempt of some Northern Gentlemen which occasioned the late Rebellion and encouraged the presbyterian Lords Justices to force the Kings Loyal Subjects into desperate Courses But no sooner were the presbyterian Lord Justices deposed and imprisoned by the Kings commands but the Roman Catholicks returned to their Duty first by a Cessation next by a submissive peace delivering the whole Kingdom to the Duke of Ormond and joyning with the Cavalier party against the Kings Enemies and so continued untill both were over-powered by Cromwel Another reason why understanding men judge the Irish ought to be preserved and their Interest preferred before that of Cromwels Creatures is that the English of Ireland are not able to defend themselves against the Scots in that Countrey If the Irish be Neuters The Scots are a people so numerous so needy and so near unto Ireland so cunning close and confederated in a common Interest that some of our States-men apprehend they may soon possess themselves of the whole Island they being at this present not only Masters of Vister but spread over the other provinces and very well armed Now if despair should dictate to the destroyed Irish that it is their conveniency to joyn with the Scots against the English that possess their Estates without question the English Interest will be lost in Ireland It is better therefore that the Irish Nation be gained by restoring them to their own such only excepted as had their hands in murdering English than that a few presbyterian and phanatick up-starts be made great by other Mens Estates and the whole Kingdom endangered to be wrested out of our hands and seperated from the Crown of England You see my Lord that there seems to be as little conveniency as Conscience in my Lord Clarendon's and his covetous partners Settlement of Ireland yet I must confess this Domestick affair agreeth well with his policy in Foreign Negotiations Until his time the Statesmen of Europe particularly the English made it their business to keep the scales equal between France and Spain least either of those two potentates might aspire unto an Universal Monarchy But the Earl of Clarendon made it his business to utterly destroy Spain and exalt the French King to such a height of power that in a short time he might be Master of the Netherlands and find no opposition in his way into England And indeed had not our Kings Conduct and Courage been extraordinary in closing up a new Defensive League so seasonably and in concluding a peace between Spain and Portugal no part of Europe that is worth the Coveting could be free from the French command I hope that as God hath inspired his Majesty to prevent by this League and peace the dangers which corrupt Ministers drew upon us so He will move him to establish a lasting peace in his Dominions by a just repeal of the Irish Act of Settlement And thereby to quash all the Designs against England That France or any Foreigner may endeavour to ground upon the discontents of a destroyed and desperate people Now my Lord that you have had this account of the transactions in Ireland since his Majesties Restauration it were an act worthy your Lordship being a leading Member in the House of peers in England and much relyed upon in the House of Commons to make it your request to his Majesty that the Business of Ireland may receive one publick hearing and all parties concerned appear by their Agents which if your Lordship prevail to get done if the Settlement as it is now Established be deemed Just will be happy for the possessours and take away all Calumnies that the Irish do over all the World east on the Managers of that Settlement But if it appear not to be a just Settlement then Justice in so high a degree will become the King and his Highest Court and will evidence the Truth or Nullitie of what hath been here been offered to your Lordship by My Lord Your Lordships most Faithful and most Humble Servant F. D. FINIS * The D of O hath added as much to his own ancient Estate by the new settlement of Ireland as would have satisfied all the Claims of the just Adventurers And Anglesey and Kingston little less In the Province of Ulster but Three of the Natives restored viz. My Lord of Antrim Sir Henry O-Neil and one more of an inconsiderable Estate In the Province of Conaught but Four viz. the Earl of Clanrickard Lord of Mayo Coll. John Kelley and Coll. Moor. Which the Natives call the black Bill
the very same persons who tyranized over them during Oliver's Reign were now not only confirmed in their formed in their former charges and advanced to places of greater Trust but also newly Commissioned with an unlimited power to give a final and decisive Sentence of all the Titles and pretentions of the unfortunate Natives This preposterous way of proceeding having not only incensed the interessed Irish but also scandalized all the moderate men of England another course was judged fit to be taken less shameful in appearance but in effect the very same The new Court of Claims was annulled and the Lords Justices were ordered to call a Parliament which met on the 8th day of May 1661. The Lower House of this Parliament was all composed of Cromwellists and but very few of the Irish Peers were admitted to sit in the House of Lords under the pretence of former Indictments This Parliament made the first Act of Settlement which they entitled an Act for explaining His Majesties Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland This Act decides all the doubtful expressions of the Declaration in favour of the Cromwellists and to the disadvantage of the Natives it allows only a Twelve-months time for the tryal of Innocents But those Irish Gentlemen who served His Majesty abroad together with the generality of the Nation pretending to Articles half a score persons only excepted who were particularly provided for are for ever debarred by this Act to recover their Estates without previous Reprizals which is a thing not to be had in nature My Lord I cannot omit minding your Lordship of a remarkable expression in the preface of this Act that the Irish Rebels were conquered by His Majesties Protestant Subjects in his Majesties absence These Irish Rebels when they were conquered fought under the command of the Lord Duke of Ormond His Majesties Lord Lieutenant in Ireland and after under the command of the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard His Majesties Lord Deputy for that Kingdom and those Protestant Subjects who conquered them were called Cromwel Ireton Jones Reynolds Broghil Coot Venables Hewson Axtel c. who vigorously pursued the Irish Rebels for no other reason but that they constantly denyed the Authority of the pretended Commonwealth and unalterably adhered to the Interest of Charles Stewart for his Majesties now Protestant Subjects were wont in that time of conquest to call Our Gracious Soveraign but now adayes they sing another note and speak quite another language having established for a fundamental Law that the Irish Rebels were conquered by his Majesties Protestant Subjects in his Majesties absence This being passed and the Royal assent given to it Sir Richard Rainsford and the rest of the Commissioners appointed by his Majesty to decide the claims of the Irish in pursuance of this Act landed in Dublin about the of 1662. And having some time to study the Act they plainly understood that none of the unfortunate Natives could be restored to their Estates but the Ten persons who had particular proviso's inserted therein and such others as would prove their Innocence in open Court The Commissioners began their first Session on the day of February and the Court continued until the of August following During this time the Claims of near upon a thousand Irish were heard whereof the one half were declared Innocents notwithstanding all the rigid Qualifications against them The time limited for ajudging Innocents being expired Sir Richard Rainsford a most just and upright man would proceed no farther expecting an enlargement of time to hear out the rest who were 7000 in number and who had as much reason to pretend a title to their Estates until they were heard and condemned as those who were already judged For every man is to be held Innocent until he be convicted and especially those who durst venture upon so severe a tryal For that part of the Nation which was involved in the War did not pretend to Innocence but claim the benefit of Articles But this enlargement of time being flatly denyed by the first Minister of State the Court of Claims was at an end the interessed party made Judges by Clarendon and indifferent men not admitted and the Parliament prepared an aditional Bill of Settlement which came into England in the of May 1664. By this additional Act it is decreed that no benefit of Innocency or Articles shall be allowed from henceforth to any of the Irish Natives The words of the Text pag. 8. l. 22. are these And it is hereby declared that no Person or Persons who by the qualifications in the said former Act hath not been adjudged innoieut shall at any time hereafter be reputed Innocent so as to claim any Lands or Tenements hereby vested or be admitted to have any benefit or allowance of any future adjudications of Innocence or any benefit of Articles whatsoever To salve this grand breach of publick Faith the Law of God and Nations and to give some colour of Justice to an action which is evidently repugnant to Magna Charta and the Fundamental Laws of England to condemn so many thousands before they are heard it is ordered by the same Act that some Fifty four persons of the Nobility and Gentry of Ireland who likely deserved his Majesties particular favour and whose names are specified in the Act shall be restored unto their several and respective principal Seats and unto 2000 Acres of Land thereto adjoyning provided always that the Adventurers Souldiers and 49 men who are to be removed shall be first satisfied by some other forfeited Lands in equal value worth and purchase The transplanted Irish are purposely left by this Act upon very doubtful terms that in case of necessity if the stock of Reprizals should sall short their present possessions might serve to Reprize the Adventurers Souldiers 49 Men and Grantees already removed by the restored Innocents and the Ten Proviso-men in the former Act or to be removed by the nominees and some three or four persons more particularly provided for in this additional Act. The Forty Nine men are expresly forbidden by this Act to set or Let by way of Lease or otherwise any part of their Lots within the walled Towns and Corporations or at a certain distance thereunto to any Irish Papists under the penalty of loosing what is Let and forfeiting as much more there is a general Clause in the Act that all Clauses and provisoes therein contained which admit any doubtful expression shall be always construed to the advantage and favour of the English Protestants and several other provisons are made all tending to the designed extirpation of the Natives This destructive Act after many long consultations wherein the first Minister of State did always imploy the utmost of his uncontrouled power to countenance the Cromwellian party and the Kings Solicitor General who had the penning of the Act made use of his Rhetorick and Knowledge in the Law to plead in their behalf the favour of the one being
Oblivion so satisfactory to the Convention Agents if all other passages to his Majesties further Graces and Favours were not shut up against them And in order thereunto they prevailed with the first Minster of State whom they had gained to their side by what coloured Arguments he knows best himself to re-call the Commission of Lord Deputy which was formerly given to the Lord Roberts a person of known Honour and Integrity The Conventionists having observed that his Lordship was not to be won upon any account to forward their Design This grand obstacle being removed out of the way Broghil Anglesey Clotworthy and Mervin with the assistance of Steel Roberts and Petit after three Months labour brought forth that monstrous issue of their brain which was exposed to the World under the Name and Title of His Majesties most Gracious Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland This was their Master-piece and hath been ever since the ground-work of all subsequent Acts which were established for the farther Settlement of that Nation The first branch of the Declaration confirms the Adventurer in his possession the Second secures the Soldier in his Debenture the Third satisfies the 49 Men the Forth assures unto the Transplanted Irish the Land Decreed unto them in the Province of Conaught and County of Clare The Fifth makes mention of those Irish Officers who served his Majesty in Flanders as also the Generality of the Nation who pretend to Articles My Lord is not this a blessed Declaration which provides in so large a manner for so many different Interests A Declaration that satisfies the Natives and yet dispossesseth none of the Cromwellists To understand it well we must mount a little higher and call to our remembrance how the Rump-Parliament divided the spoils of that conquered Nation in the Year 1653. Ten Counties were allotted to the Adventurers Twelve conferred on Cromwel's Souldiers and three of the Barren Counties given by way of charity to the transplanted Irish These by computation make up 25 Counties the remaining seven for Ireland contains in all but 32 Counties together with all the Cities and Corporations of that Kingdom were reserved to the Common-wealth Now this Declaration confirms the Adventurers Souldiers and transplanted Irish in their present possessions And moreover it assigns to several other uses the Seven remaining Counties and all the great Towns of Ireland which were not disposed of by the Common-wealth One of the Counties being designed to supply the deficiency of the Adventurers Lots another to satisfie the Incumbrances on the Lands already laid out to Adventurers and Souldiers The third to reprize such as were removed from the Lord Duke of Ormond's Estate and the other Four Counties with all the Cities and Corporations of the whole Kingdom a pretty grant being assigned to the Protestant Officers who serv'd His Majesty in Ireland at any time before the year 1649. After this Solemn division and distribution made of every House and every Acre of Land over all the Kingdom of Ireland Some 500 Irish Gentlemen who also serv'd his Majesty in Flanders are named in the Declaration to be forthwith restored to their ancient Estates but not until Lands of equal value worth and purchase are first found out to reprize the Adventurers Souldiers and the rest now in possession a work no more nor less feasible than the creation of another Ireland My Lord this Declaration was published on the 30th of Novomber 1660. and at the same time Broghil created Earl of Orery and Sir Charles Coot made Earl of Montrath were joyned in Commission with the Lord Chancellor Eustace as his Majesties Lords Justices of that Kingdom Sir John Clotworthy who was also created Lord Viscount Masserene Sir Audley Mervin and some others of the Convention-Agents staid at Court to draw up privare Instructions for the better executing his Majesties Declaration And because Innocents viz. Such as never offended his Majesty or His Royal Father were the only people to be restored without previous reprisals the Conventionists made it their grand work to qualifie an Innocent that it should be Morally impossible to find any such in rerum natura virum innocentum quis inveniet Eleven qualifications were ordered for their Tryal and those so rigid and severe that Clotworthy and his Companions who had the wording of them did verily believe there could not be a man found in all Ireland that should pass untoucht through so many Pikes For not only the inoffensive persons who never took Arms who never enter'd into the Confederacy with the rest of their Countreymen if they did but pay them the least Contribution out of their Estates if they did but reside in the Irish quarters although in their own own houses not only these I say were declared to be no Innocents but such as lived all the War-time in England such as were with Hiâ— Majesty at Oxford and served in his Army if they received any Rent from their Tenants in Ireland were by virtue of one of the Eleven Qualifications to be held for Nocents But among all the other Qualifications that of taking an Engagement which was administred unto all his Majesties Subjects in the three Kingdoms was a very notable one This Engagement was forced upon the Irish in so high a nature that those who would not take it were debarred not only from the benefit of the Law but also exposed to an innevitable danger of death the Souldiers of Cromwels Army being commanded by publick Proclamation to kill all they met on the High-way who carried not a Certificate about him of having taken that Engagement Commands which were cruelly executed on silly Peasants who out of Ignorance or want of care having left their Tickets at home were barbarously murdered by the merciless Souldiers My Lord it is very remarkable that they who devised this Engagement who heartily subscribed unto it and forced others to take it shall not be questioned or held criminal and that those who never saw it before it was ministered unto them who abhorred it in their hearts and were forced to sign it to avoid a bloody and violent death shall be declared Nocents and an irrevocable sentence of losing their Estates given against them and the Estates so forfeited to be conferred on those very Persons who compelled the Proprietors to that Forfeiture By this Qualification alone a Man may judge of the rest To Crown this grand work of settling Ireland the Conventionists having worded the Declaration and Instructions to their own advantage prevailed with their great Patron to have themselves named the only Commissioners to put in Execution his Majesties Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland This un-usual and perhaps never before heard of course of Justice one of the parties being made Judge of the Case appeared so ugly and terrible to the Irish that many of them could hardly be perswaded to believe that his Sacred Majesty was restored to the peaceable and free possessession of his Crown and Kingdoms seeing
is rendred impossible and the satisfaction of Adventurers and Souldiers already disposed by the Decrees of the last Court of Claims is much obstructed so many fresh Grants exhausting the stock of Reprisals My Lord I have hitherto set down in brief the hard usage extended to the Irish since his Majesties Re-establishment and examined the Title of the several Interests obstructing their Restoration Now it remains to say somewhat of the undoubted right and indisputable Claim of the Natives to those Estates which by Cromwels Decree and his Majesties confirmation are kept from them I will not take upon me to justifie their first rising although I have seen a Treatise in Latin proving the lawfulness or rather the necessity of that War on their side having begun it in their own defence to prevent the general ruin and destruction designed against the Kindom and themselves by the Presbyterian party both in England and Scotlana I shall not excuse any Subjects presuming to take Arms upon any account or pretence whatsoever without the Authority of their Prince I will only say that by their Insurrection how bloody and barbarous soever some are pleased to print and paint it four hundred English could not be found murdered in Ireland as appeareth by the proceedings and Records yet extant in Dublin of the Usurped Powers severe inquiry and their Court of Justice that for want of Men did hang Women not only without legal proof but without probability that they could or would be guilty of killing Souldiers or Innocent English The Irish insurrection I say hath not been accompanied with that Insolence and Malice in the beginning nor with those sad and dismal effects in the end which other Rebellions have been guilty of and some Pamphlets have charged the Irish with They were scarce 22 Months in Arms when they yielded to a Cessation upon the first notice given of his Majesties pleasure although they had then the upper hand of their Enemies and it was known the Protestant party could not be well preserved without it This Cessation was enlarged from time to time until a final Peace was solemnly concluded in the City of Kilkenny in the year of our Lord 1648 by and between the Lord Duke of Ormond his Majesties Commissioner in the behalf of his Majesty and the General Assembly of the Confederate Catholâ—cks of Ireland in the behalf of the said Confederate Catholicks This peace was no sooner published than all the Garrisons Forts Citadels Strong-holds and Magazines of the Irish were put under the Command of the Kings Lieutenant all the Nobility Gentry and Magistrates both in Cities and Country submitted to his Government And though the English Rebels have been ever since very succesful in all their attempts yet the Irish notwithstanding they were offered any conditions by the Usurper held out with an undaunted Courage until the last Town and the last Fortress was lost and until they received express Orders from his Majesty to yield to the times and to make the best conditions they could for their own preservation It is remarkable that this peace was concluded in a time when the Irish Nation was in a most flourishing condition having Armies in the Field and most of the Cities and great Towns in their possessions and more than three parts of the Kingdom under their command when they were courted by the Parliament of England and solicited by some Neighbouring Potentates and when by espousing his Majesties quarrel who was then destitute of all humane support they were to draw on their Country all their united Force and Power of the Victorious Rebels in England and Scotland and consequently expose themselves and their Posterity to the danger of an unevitable ruin and destruction I know their Adversaries have practised all the artifice that Malice could invent to perswade the World that his Majesty is no way obliged to make good that peace which was concluded by the Authority of his Royal Father And Solemnly confirmed by himself Those Articles they say were forced from His Majesty by the Irish Confederates who ought to loose the benefit of all his Majesties gracious concessions having banished the Lord Duke Ormond His Majesties Lieutenant out of Ireland It is easily proved that the King was forced to take the Solemn League and Covenant when he was environed by the Presbyteriam Army in Scotland But I do not understand how it can be made out that the Confederates of Ireland were able to exort that peace from his Majesty who was then in France It will seem very ridiculous to say that the Lord Marquess of Antrim and the Lord Muskry imploy'd by the Consederate Catholicks to solicit in a most humble manner for those Articles which only contain a pardon for the past and the liberty of Free-born Subjects for the future should come to Paris with a train sufficient to force a Sovereign Prince lodged in the Louvre who was Cousin German to his most Christian Majesty The other Assertion that the Lord Duke of Ormond was banished out of Ireland by the Confederates is very false His Lordship being driven out of the provinces of Leinster and Munster by the power of Cromwels Army and forced to retire to the province of Connaught from whence he took Shipping for France to inform the Queens Majesty of the sad condiâ—ion of that Kingdom and to implore some succour from abroad which if timely obtained might probably give a stop to Cromwels conquest and render him unable to bring his Victorious Forces out of Ireland and defeat his Majesty at Worcester His Lordship having appointed the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard to Command in his absence as the Kings Deputy to whom the Nation shewed all due obedience and submission is a manifest argument that his Lordship was not banished out of the Kingdom by the Confederate Catholiks for whom he named a Commander in his own absence neither can it reflect upon the generality of the Nation what was decreed by some prelates convened in Jamestown whose unseasonable zeal was soon after condemned and protested against by a general Assembly held in Loghreagh of the Clergy Nobility and Gentry of the whole Kingdom And the advantagious proposals then made by Cromwels Agents were generously rejected by that Assembly the Nation having unanimously resolved to rise or fall with the Kings Interest But what need we any other Evidence to prove that the Irish did not generally violate the Articles of that peace then His Majesties own words in the preamble of his Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland And therefore we could not but hold our self obliged to perform what we owe by that peace to those who had honestly and faithfully performed what they had promised to us c. The Irish being at the last over-power'd at home though they lost their Countrey they did not fail in their Loyalty most of their young Nobility and Gentry having followed his Majesty into Forreign Countries and resorted from all parts to side with those