Decius his seeing his good nature in his relation of the misery of the Protestants in Ireland forbore to name the authors of it which if he had done I suppose you Civilis had not run into that error now to prevent the like hereafter my desire is that Decius if while he speaks of the Earle of Ormond the occasion shall draw him upon others that he would not be sparing of their names that we may know and mark such as have walkt disorderedly and not according to a streight and just rule This I suppose is but equall which if Decius assent unto he will oblige us both if he observe it in his following relation Civilis casting the cause upon Marcus his side notwithstanding all that Decius could bring to exempt himselfe from so envious a work he having tyed himselfe to submit to what Civilis should detormine proceeded on as followes You may judge by my readinesse to obey you what power your commands have over me Decius seeing they unavoidably put me upon the remembrance of what I cannot think of without the greatest anger and indignation that is possible with this encouragement however that therein I doubt not but before I have done you will both bear your shares with me and that I may observe some kind of order in what I shall say I will begin with the confidence the Rebels from the beginning reposed in the Earle of Ormond which were argument sufficient to prove him false and then I shall shew you how faithfully if I may misuse that good word he answered that trust of theirs in every particular To prove both which I shall not need to squeeze conclusions out of conjectures or probabilities but shall give you the naked fact which sufficiently discovers it selfe and his own speeches and the results of his owne made Counsell from the mouths of those of his owne party who were not ashamed to publish what they had done in the chamber upon the house top Civilis and Marcus approving of the Division be had made and the way he promised to take in handling of the parts he went on in this manner The first thing that I propounded to cleer to you is the great trust and confidence the Rebels from the beginning reposed in him To make good which though there be many more then probabilities to induce a reasonable man to beleeve he was acquainted with the first designe and plot of the Rebellion and there be some that when time serves can tell what advice and conncell he gave for the execution of it having resolved with my selfe to bring nothing before you but what carries the light of the Sun along with it I shall give you as pregnant a proofe as can be desired In the beginning of November next after the Rebellion brake out the Parliament according to the prorogation met againe at Dublin whither many who were chief plotters and contrivers of that bloody Treason though at that time the Castle of Dublis by Gods great mercy being secured they had not declared thēselves boldly resorted the Lords of the Pale and some others who were all it is well known the first in that transgression in whose heads the businesse was carried long before it came into the others hands had the faces to come and sit in the upper House to advise forsooth for the safety of the English whom before they had voted to destruction Amongst many other good motions it was thought fit by the aforesaid House of Lords the Earle of Ormond concurring that the Lord Costelogh Dillon should be sent to his Majesty into England with such propositions as they thought expedient for the setling of peace againe in that Kingdome and accordingly he was dispatched away with private Instructions how he should carry himselfe and what chiefly he was to insist on and though the honest party at Counsell-board being at that time in power had in their Letters to Court given a large character of the man and his errand and expressed their dislike of both in order to his Majesties honour and the good of the Protestants being taken prisoner here after his escape you may perhaps have heard how he was entertained at Oxford but it being out of our way I passe it by The maine of his Instructions was to work with the King that the quieting of the Rebellion might be left wholly to the Parliament there and that no forces might be sent over out of England to make the breach wider instead of closing of it and to compleat all he was to procure the Earle of Ormond to be made Lord Licutenant of Ireland Behold Sirs the same men that would have no assistance from hence without which the English in all humain probability would have perished as the next thing they thought could worke to the Rebels advantage sue that the Earle of Ormond might be made Governour And least the name of a Parliament held at Dublin may stumble you and make you beleeve these Lords were honest at that time and at the drawing of those Instructions had not engaged themselves to the Rebels party You must know after their going into Rebellion they still owned the Lord Dillon as their Agent and it was ordered at a full Counsell of the Rebels at Kilkenny that the profits of the said Lord Dillons Lands should be secured to him forasmuch as he was employed to his Majesty by them for the good of the Catholick Cause Truly Decius Civilis I think you have put your best strength in the Van for I cannot see what could prove your first poynt more cleerly and in the last place you have fully answered an objection I was then going to propound to you that order of the Counsell of Kilkenny cuts on both sides and like Janus his face looks two severall wayes But I wrong my friend Marcus I pray you therefore say on In January 1642. Decius when the Rebels were now a formed body and licked into a State upon a Petition of the chiefe Lords and Gentlemen of the Rebels sent to the Earle of Ormond and by him kindly transmitted to his Majesty his Majesty did by his Letters sent by Master Thomas Bourke an arch-papist and a chiefe Rebell require the Lords Justices to give power to the said Earle to give a meeting to the chiefest of the Rebels and to send to his Majesty such grievances and desires as they should think fit to present to him by his Lordships hands Amongst many other grievances and other goodly demands which no doubt you have seen in print though they were kept dose from the Justices and Counsell by the Earle of Ormond for many moneths after they were published by the Rebels in forraigne Kingdomes and when the Book was commonly sold amongst us it was not suffered to be answered but all motions made to that purpose in Parliament slighted by Sir Morice Eustace Speaker of the House of Commons there an Irish man to say no worse of him and one of
the Earle of Ormonds Cabinet counsell Amongst many other I say strange desires at that time transmitted by the Earle of Ormond to his Majesty one was this c The Rebels Remonstrance at Trym That his Majesty would be pleased to grant that they might be governed by one of their owne Nation a man of estate and repute amongst them This you may easily perceive was the same with the former contained in the Lord Dillons Instructiions though his Majesty being sufficiently already acquainted with their meaning and perhaps the Earle of Ormond himselfe the English being now more formidable was not willing to be named as before but his name was left to be understood Upon these desires of the Rebels no doubt the Earle of Ormond from the very beginning had strong assurances of being made Lord Lieutenant and that the Earle of Leicester should not stand in his way who was purposely long detained at Court and having at length obtained his dispatch and being as farre as Chester on his way was unexpectedly recalled and the carriage of the Earle of Ormond towards the Earle of Leceister and those that belonged to him is argument enough to prove that he well knew he should never come to any super-intendency over him to overlook or check his proceedings I doe make haste from this first poynt because the next is that that will hold me longer and by this that you have already heard you may easily judge of the truth of what I promised in the first place to prove to you namely the considence the Rebels had in him which I may boldly sweare they never intended should prove for the good of the English It remaines that I declare to you how he has not failed in poynt of gratitude to the Irish that relyed so much upon him This generall head will fall into sundry particular Treasons and misdemeanours altogether tending to this onely end namely to save and protect his beloved Country-men from the just revengefull armes of the English and that he might compasse that to bring the English into that condition that they might not be able to prosecute a war but he glad to accept of such termes of cessation or peace as he and the Rebels I am forced for distinction sake to sever them should be pleased to afford them and when there should be now no more use of the Army in Ireland to bring them with the Rebels who from the beginning still boasted they would come over into England to turne their swords against the Parliament here that had imployed payed and entrusted them And here Sirs I doubt not but to make it appeare to you that the necessity we here so much talk of was so farre from being a cause of that bloody cessation that the Earle of Ormonds designe to secure his Country-men by that cessation was the onely cause of that necessity which notwithstanding all his pernicious endeavours to bring it upon us was not by Gods mercy so great but that the Army might very well have subsisted and that the world might see through it that the safety of the Protestants was onely pretended by him when nothing but utter ruine was really intended There was nothing had that power over me Marcus to perswade me to a charitable opinion of that cessation as the word Necessity and to confeste ingeniously to you I could not tell what to say when in the Kings Declaration touching that businesse I found necessity so much complained of in the Letters from your owne Counsell which I thought they would not have done if it had been onely fictitious and not reall Truly Marcus you have prevented me Civilis for I was just then thinking of the same thing those Letters having in many mens apprehensions done that work to the full for which they were inserted in that Declaration which was the justification of the proceedings in that cessation I shall anon acquaint you at lage with the occasion of those Letters Decius onely for the present to remove them somewhat out of our way in generall I shall tell you that part of them which expressed the dispairing condition of the state was written alwayes as you shall plainly see by and by by reason of the Earle of Ormonds violent stickling for it and by the over-ruling vote of his complices at the Board and contrary to the opinion and advice of the honest Party who knew the contary and that the Army might very well have subsisted by the meanes even of those small supplies sent from hence yea though they had been lesse had not the Earle of Ormond used all the art and power he could to prevent and hinder it This Sirs since I am first fallen upon it I shall labour to cleere unto you Civilis and Marcus expressing their desire to be informed by him be continued his speech as followes The first and best meanes that could be used to bring the Army to necessity and want was to keep it idle at home in our own quarters The Earle of Ormond had heard of that maxime nihil difficilius est quam exercitum otiosum alere and therefore having the sole command of the Army he alwayes kept it in and about the City of Dublin a place thirty or forty miles most wayes from any considerable enemy so that there was at all times five or six thousand men fed upon the publick stores of that place who might have been sent abroad and lived in the enemies Country and there were sometimes eight or nine thousand men maintained out of the Magazine at Dublin and most commonly there was victuals delivered out for more men by one third part then were really to be found in the Towne and notwithstanding all that the honest party at Counsell-board could doe his Lordship would never be brought to take a view of the Army to discover the true strength of it but when upon the importunity of the honest Privy Counsellours the men were once carried into the Field to take the right number of them he found out an occasion to dismisse them and also the businesse was disappointed though which is observable when upon the cessation he saw the English would expect that the Army should be supplied by the contribution of the Rebels which the Earle of Ormond had talkt much of to induce the English to consent to that cessation he of himself could then give strict order therein that the Rebels might not be burdened above what was necessary in the least measure This particular of keeping so many men continually in Dublin Civilis I conceive is that which cannot be answered if there were any possibility of maintaining them abroad to doe service against the Rebels I desire therefore to be satisfied in that poynt which is all that can be thought of to justifie that action Your desire is indeed very materiall Decius but I shall easily satisfie you in it for you must know the Earle of Ormond did this not
I meane since the command of this Party I could never learne that ever any true hearted protestant was relieved or had even ordinary justice done him if the case lay between him and an Irish man or a Papist The affliction of my brethren being so great and the tyranny under which they lived being so insupportable I chose rather then be a daily witnesse of it and in some measure a sufferer there being none though never so poore that could escape free to quit all for the present and bid adiew to that Kingdome till it should please God to look upon it in mercy and settle justice and truth in the midst of it and this I am sure was the thoughts and desires of many thousands English more whose want of accommodation elswhere keeps them in that place and enforces them to live in that intolerable slavery And thus with what brevity I could fearing to be troublesome I have satisfied you concerning the occasion of my comming into this Kingdome where I have been these three moneths most of which time I have spent in this City We must acknowledge our selves much bound to you for the favour you have done us Civilis and I hope since your comming to this place you are lightned of a good part of your burden finding us in a condition I presume farre beyond what you could imagine when you were in that Kingdome and in a good way to a happy end which will be under God the onely meanes to set you streight againe in that Kingdme whereof you are yet in capability the Earle of Ormond having notwithstanding his Majesties Letters commanding him to conclude a peace there with the Rebels on any conditions wisely to this day held off his hand as it is thought from the very beginning with an intention to give it to the Parliament MARCUS observing some confusion in DECIUS his face upon this speech told his friend that he feared he had spoken something distatefull and therefore that it concerned him before be proceeded any further to give DECIUS satisfaction who he saw was suddenly moved with something that fell from him CIVILIS thanking his friend and desiring DECIUS to be free with him and to set him straight if he had failed as he confessed he might very easily doe being not so well acquainted with the particulars of that Kingdome DECIUS expressing some unwillingnesse and a kind of anger against himselfe that his countenance had betrayed him spake to this purpose I should be very 10th CIVILIS to discent from you in any thing but on necessary grounds Decius especially in such a businesse as this that we are now fallen upon which concernes a particular person having as you might have observed from the beginning of this Conference baulkt the mentioning of any person as the actors in a misery more then in the generall knowing how subject it is if we speak sharply though accordin gto truth in every particular to the judgment and doome of passion rancor and invectivenesse yet fince a speciall providence has brought the Earle of Ormond and laid him crosse my way I cannot passe him by without labouring to undeceive you in the opinion you have conceived of him and so farre am I from any private spleen or interest to draw me aside to an obliquity in what I shall lay before you that I protest I heartily with I could with truth give my selfe the lye in what I shall say concerning him I perceive by that little you have said of him how much you will wonder when I shall tell you he has been the chiefe instrument of all the misery that at this day the Protestants of that Kingdome groane under and the most faithfull servant to the Irish that ever they had wherein I must say he has done but what his blood and nature required of him his Family having long since degenerated into Irish and for himselfe in his owne inclination one as much addicted to their wayes having all his kinred and friends amongst them as he that knowes the least either of Religion or humanity And for that particular of keeping back the peace I can assure you they deceive themselves very much that the Earle of Ormond would leave any thing undone that might tend to the perfecting of that work he has alwayes so vigorously pursued Beleeve it Sir that the peace there was not long since concluded though I cannot positively say it is not at this day was not because the Earle of Ormond was unwilling to consent to whatever the Rebels could demand of him the contrary plainly appearing by those Articles formerly consented unto by him which I doubt not you have seen in print wherein the Rebels have all they can desire both toleration of Religion suspention of Poynings Act and all other Lawes made for the good of the Protestants But in truth the obstruction was still on the Rebels side they being unwilling however they pretended otherwise to accept of or adventure on a peace knowing how little in the condition the King was it could availe them but also how thereby they should be engaged to maintaine an Army here in England whereby their owne Country might be left to the power of the Protestants being considerable in divers parts of the Kingdome and besides I doe verily beleeve they were conscious to themelves of their owne inability to afford the King such considerable assistance as after such large conditions afforded to them they would have been strictly tyed unto and his Majesty might expect from them However the Earle of Ormond and their other friends have represented them unto him as able to doe great matters I cannot but much wonder indeed at what you tell us concerning the Earle of Ormond Civilis I doe remember him here in England under the care of Abbot Archbishop of Canterbury and for what I could discerne in his younger yeers there appeared in him the hopes of better performances and truly sir I will not dissemble with you I have heard from many that are come from Dublin and are still in this City and on whom the Parliament has bestowed some other marks of of their favour besides admitting of them to reside here that he has carried himselfe from the beginning with all respect and good conscience to the English and as one firmly rooted and resolved in the protestant Religion I doe not doubt but that you have met with many Decius who for severall ends are engaged to speak the best of him Since my comming to this place I happened more then once to be a witnesse of some high expressions in his behalfe but I le assure you Sir they came only from such as upon good grounds I was assured were imployed over hither by the Earle of Ormond to work the people into a moderate good opinion of him that so he might continue his wicked practises against the English and that if at length the Protestant party should prevaile in both