Irish their Commission and under his Majesties Authority at other times and sometimes under both It will be fitter at present for me to be silent therein than to attempt the unblending such a mixture and seperate your Acts of Allegiance from those of Opposition to the King which I must always blame you for or to condemn you intirely when some things your Lordship did were by full Authority though very fatal to the English Protestant interest in that Kingdom and no ways advantageous to his Majesty or his Affairs But the First Part of your Story which takes up three Sections of your Memoirs I cannot let pass unanimadverted and corrected without condemning the generation of the just suffering Blemish and Calumny to lie upon his Majesty and Government both in England and Ireland and leaving your Lordship in a mistake of having done well when I hope I shall evince that you did very ill unless the galantry of a Souldier can expiate for all that was amiss For this end I must take notice to your Lordship that all I find you urge to satisfie your own Conscience or to vindicate your Honour and Integrity to the World in this your ingaging your self amongst the Irish is to this effect Your Lordship saith That at the first eruption of the Rebellion which you seem to tye to the North but was universal you acquainted the Lords Justices with your willingness to serve the King against the Rebels as your Ancestors had formerly done in Ireland but they replying that your Religion was an Obstacle there being then a Parliament in that Kingdom sitting you were resolved to see the event sending your Brother to your House at Madingstowne in the County of Kildare to secure and defend it in case there were any rising in those parts Sometime after the Parliament being dissolved but you do not mention that you attended your duty in Parliament when it was sitting and declaring against the Rebels your Lordship desired a Pass from the Justices to go to England but they refusing you acquainted them with the condition of your Estate and desired a supply of Money till you could apply to the Parliament of England for a Pass to bring you over which they denyed You press'd them then to direct you what course you should steer to which they replied Go home and make fair weather You took this advice and being come my Lord of Antrim and my Lady Dutchess of Buckingham both Papists and after that deeply ingaged in the Rebellion soon followed whether by concert with your Lordship is not said and you were very well pleased with so good company But in a short time the Irish came and drove away great part of your Stock which you recovered by a party sent out with your Brother who brought with him two or three of the chiefest Conductors of that Rabble This inraged the Irish so much as you conceived your Brother was not safe there and therefore sent him to Dublin to attend the Justices Orders and assure them of your readiness to return on a call they sending a Convoy which they promised to do as Occasion required But your Lordship hearing that you were indicted of High Treason and hereupon your Brother addressing to the Lords Justices again to let them know that they had not kept their words with him in suffering this clandestine proceeding against you as your Brothers Letter calls it you went to Dublin and addressed your self to my Lord of Ormond as your Brother did in your behalf to the Lords Justices and Council to acquaint them with your coming and upon your appearance before them they ordered you to come the day following at which time without calling you in they committed you to Mr. Woodcock 's House one of the Sheriffs of Dublin Your Brother seeing as he calls it this rigorous usage towards you and being refused a Pass for himself to go for England he got away to the King at York and petitioned him that you might be sent for over to be tryed here by your Peers But his Majesties Answer was That he had left all the Affairs of Ireland to the Parliament upon which he petitioned the Parliament to the same effect their Answer was that they could do nothing without the King After this your Brother saith he was continually serving his Majesty in England Your Lordship once more placeth your self at Madenstowne whither you had at first retired by advice of the Lords Justices and continued there some Five or six moneths after in peace and quietness but your Lordship doth not mention that other neighbouring places possessed by the English did so or what in diligence your Lordship had with or gave to the State But proceed to say That in the mean while Parties were sent out by the Justices from Dublin and the Towns adjacent to kill and destroy the Rebels and the like was done through all parts of the Kingdom But your Lordship adds the Officers and Souldiers did not take care enough to distinguish between the Rebels and Subjects but killed in many places promiscuously on which partly and partly on other provocations that proceeded and some too that followed the whole Nation finding themselves concerned took to Arms for their own defence and particularly the Lords of the Pale did so who yet at the same time desired the Justices to send their Petition to the King which was refused And for their further discouragement Sir John Read his Majesties sworn Servant a stranger to the Countrey uningaged and an Eye-witness of their proceedings then upon his Journey to England prevailed with by them to carry their Remonstrance to his Majesty and to beg his Pardon for what they had done coming to Dublin and not concealing his Message was put to the Rack for his good will The said Lords having tryed this and other ways to acquaint the King with their Grievances and all failing an open War broke forth generally throughout the Kingdom Your Lordship next takes notice of your accidental entertaining my Lord of Ormond at Dinner immediately after the Battle of Killrush which you were a Spectator of being in sight of your House but that some who came with him turned this another way and publishing through the Army that it was a mighty Feast for my Lord Mount Garret and the Rebels this through the English Quarters past for currant And you believe it was much the cause of this under-hand villainous proceedings as you call it against you fore-mentioned Your Lordship proceeds to tells us That after Twenty Weeks that you had remained in Prison you were ordered to be removed to the Castle of Dublin which startled you and brought to your thoughts the proceedings against the Earl of Strafford who confiding in his Innocency lost his Head you concluded then that Innocency was a scurvey plea in an angry time besides your Lordship looked upon the Justices and most of the Council to be of the Parliaments Perswasion wherefore you resolved to attempt
A LETTER From a Person of HONOUR in the COUNTREY Written to the EARL of CASTLEHAVEN BEING Observations and Reflections Upon his Lordships MEMOIRES Concerning the WARS of IRELAND LONDON Printed for Nath. Ponder at the Peacock in the Poultrey 1681. A LETTER Written to the EARL of CASTLEHAVEN My Lord Castlehaven HAving Received your Lordships of the 24th Current with your printed Memoires which you are pleased in some sort to Intitle me to and I will not conceal from your Lordship that I am not yet ashamed now I have read them though I cannot approve all in them that I was the first incentive to your Writing them which was upon this occasion having sat along with your Lordship in Parliament and observing for the most part such a consent between your Lordship and me in proceedings there upon the most abstracted Principles of Honour and Allegiance I could not but account of your Lordship as a true Englishman and a Loyal Subject whatsoever blemish your engagement under the confederate Rebels of Ireland had before fixed on you and having heard you so often pathetically declare your self fully to mine and most honest Mens Minds against the dangers of the growing greatness of the French and the too fast Declension of the Spaniard between which great Powers of the World the Crown of England was so happy and wise in former times as to hold and guide the Ballance and finding by your frequent and as I could not but conceive Cordial Expressions against the Pope of Rome's Usurping Authority in these Dominions over and against his Majesty and Kingdoms to such a degree that you spared not like a right Ancient Peer of this Realm often to say That if the Pope himself should Attack any of his Majesties Dominions you would be one of the first to labour his Destruction I was deservedly much delighted in your Lordships Converse which having been often honoured with both by your Letters when in Foreign parts and your favourable Society here at home I was instrumental as your Lordship well knows to prevail with the Parliament to set a mark of great Honour on your Lordship by a special recommendation and intercession to his Majesty for a regard to and reparation of the Breaches time and misfortune had made upon so Ancient and Honourable a Family And looking upon your Lordship as a Peer of most noble Principles and free of the worst part of Bigotry I could not but lament your leaving the Parliament and still wish your return During our said Converse being ingaged in the History of Ireland to which I was the more inclined by an interest therein for several Generations my Great Grandfather Sir John Perrot having been Deputy thereof governing the same with great Wisdom and Success my Grandfather Annesley having been Commander at Sea in Queen Elizabeths time and one of the Undertakers for Land in Munster after the Earl of Desmond's Rebellion my Father the Lord Baron of Mountnorris and Viscount of Valentia of whom I have very often heard your Lordship speak with great Honour and as your worthy Friend having faithfully served King James and King Charles the First near Forty years in that Kingdom in Offices and Imployments of high Trust and I my self being a Native of the City of Dublin a diligent Observer of the Troubles there wherein I had some share and having both Honours and Lands descended to me in that Realm and knowing that your Lordship had heretofore a great part in the Action there and taking notice that no Memorials I had yet seen did give a full account of your Lordship whom as my own Friend and my Fathers Friend I was willing to do right to in History as far as I could ever highly esteeming the Bravery of your Actions and Wisdom of your Conduct as far as I had Cognizance thereof though I bemoaned the unhappy circumstances of your engaging under a Power usurping over your own Prince and incroaching Royal Power which I find you cannot digest either the Pope or Duke of Lorraine should have done I discoursed with your Lordship many of the most important Designs Actions and Traverses of Fortune in Ireland since the fatal 23 of October 1641 and finding by your full Relations with a perfect memory thereof that you were able to give help to History therein I moved your Lordship to which you friendly consented that at leasure hours you would reduce to writing what you could remember with as exact reference to Time and Order as you could recollect of Passages and Exploits there and that I might by your favour be possessed thereof And I wish things had rested there little expecting a formal Relation in print and much less so introduced before I had the perusal of it for I must now acquaint your Lordship that I did not after what I have above related save now and then to your self inquire after your Memoires promised me till by a Letter of the 16th of this moneth from a hand I respect I had notice he had seen them and my Censure thereon was desired they seeming to him after 28 years silence to cast a Calumny on the Government then and as he suspects with no good intention though he refers that to my Opinion knowing as he is pleased to say none to appeal to but me Your Lordship sees now how you are ingaged for want of commanding my Service before the Printers and I am confident the heat of a Battle would be less formidable to you then the Paper warre you must expect to be assaulted with wherein if I be necessitated to have the least hand your Lordship may be assured it shall be en Gentilhome en amy and chiefly with an aim to convince your Lordship of that which hath obscured the Glory of your Adventures and Exploits or Undertakings in that unfortunate Kingdom and therefore I forbear giving any Opinion to my Friend till I have vented my thoughts to your Lordship which I shall now take the liberty to do Upon serious perusal of your Book I find your Lordships Story of two parts The First till the Cessation of Arms concluded by the Rebels Commissioners at Seginstowne with the Marquess of Ormond Sept. 15 1643 all which time your Lordship was wholly of the Rebels Party and under their Pay and Command which I wish your Lordship had not thought fit for the Press though there were some Acts of Souldierly bravery in it The Second Part From that time till your Lordship finding the ill state of Affairs in Ireland was dispatched by the then Lord Deputy Clanrickord to set out the same to the King in France from whence though your Lordship procured a Letter from his Majesty to the Lord Deputy and sent the same by a safe Messenger yet you returned not again but ingaged in the Service of the Prince of Conde My Lord I am loath now to make my Remarques upon this Second Part because your Lordships acting therein at times under the Confederate
not but the Trumpet was quickly dispatched with some slight Answer which coming to your knowledge you repaired to Kilkenny whither the Council was returned and on information finding what you had heard to be true you sent for Sir Bobert Talbot Sir Richard Barnwall Collonel Walter Bagnal and such others as were in the Town well affected and leading Men of the Assembly though not of the Council Now being in your Lodging you acquainted them with what you had understood and that if they would stick to you you would endeavour to give it a turn You all agreed on the way which was to go to the Council then sitting to take notice of the Kings offer and their return and to mind them that the consideration and resolutions concerning Peace and War the general Assembly referved to themselves only and therefore to require that they would send immediately a Trumpet of their own with a Letter to the Marquess of Ormond giving him to understand they had issued a Summons for a general Assembly in order to acknowledge the Kings gracious Favour in naming him his Commissioner to hear your Aggrievances and redress them This you put in execution and gained your point without much resistance The Marquess of Ormond being thus brought into a Treaty the Confederate Commissioners met at Seginstowne near the Nasse as his Excellency had appointed in order to a Cessation of Arms. At which time all Parties laboured to get into possession of what they could Collonel Monk after made Duke of Albermarle march'd into the County of Wicklow to take in the Harvest and possess some Castles Your Lordship being then commanded by the Council to go against him and having Rendevouz'd your Troops consisting of about 3000 Horse and Foot at Ballynekill in the County of Catherlagh notice was brought you that Collonel Monk was marched away in all haste to the assistance of the Lord Moor then facing Owen Roe Oneal near Portlester You finding your self now to have nothing to do thought it worth the while to endeavour taking in Dullerstown Tully Lacagh and all other Castles in the County of Kildare between the Rivers of the Barrow and Liffe which you did leaving Garrisons in them This done you repast past the Barrow at Monaster-Evan marched into Leix and took three or four small places But as you were going on had Advice from the Commissioners at Seginstowne that they had on the 15th of September 1643 concluded a Cessation of Arms with the Marquess of Ormond to which you submited As your Lordship did also to the two Peaces of 1646 1648 both sutable and of the same strain and though both were of advantage only to the Irish and highly dishonourable to the Crown of England and destructive to the English and Protestants yet both were broken and set at naught by the Irish themselves a just Judgment of God against them whose hands were full of Blood and there being no hopes that such untempered Morter could cement them and the Posterity left alive of murdered Parents Brothers Sisters and other Relations or that ever the English could live out of danger and free of Massacres for the future without exemplary punishment of the Murderers and Rebels and bringing them by forfeitures and otherwise to an absolute subjection to the Laws and keeping them in that state as it is now hoped they are and will be by the watchful Eye of Government I shall now as briefly as I can take the liberty to give your Lordship impartial Remarks upon what your Lordship hath written in justification of the Rebels or tending to caluminate his Majesties Government or English and Pretestant Subjects reserving a fuller account thereof to a fitter occasion In the first place Seeing your Lordships Memoires dedicated to the King I cannot but take notice how dangerous a thing it is and of how bad consequence it may prove especially in this case and juncture to misinform his Majesty not that I do suspect or tax your Lordship of design to abuse the King for I do charitably believe as your Lordship affirms upon your word that they do not contain a lie or mistake to your knowledge yet I must positively aver and it is my part to make it good that the Relation wants the most material and pregnant Truths in the principal part thereof and of most consequence to the Publick as I doubt not your Lordship will believe and confess upon such glances as I shall make upon particulars as I go over them But before I proceed it will import the giving clear light to an affair which contrary interests have so much endeavoured to perplex to observe the state that unhappy Kingdom of Ireland was in at the Eruption of that satal Rebellion A Parliament sitting the year before in Ireland both Houses taking notice of some Grievances growing upon them and the want of some good New Laws for advancing the Prosperity and good Government of that Kingdom did send chosen Agents or Commissioners both Lords and Commons of most esteem amongst them to attend his Majesty in England for redress of such Grievances and procuring such new Grants and Graces as they were directed to move for from a Gracious King His Majesty received them favourably and with good dispatch they returned for Ireland fully satisfied and loaden with all the Graces and Bounties good Subjects could hope to receive upon such an Address to their Prince and what needed Confirmation in Parliament was to be done when the Parliament should meet at the day to which it was Prorogued The People of Ireland were never better pleased then with the gracious Returns his Majesty had made by their Commissioners That Kingdom never enjoyed a more prosound and more like to be lasting Peace and Prosperity Commerce and Trade both at home and abroad never flourished more barbarous Customs were never more entirely subdued and abrogated there never was more Unity Friendship and good Agreement amongst all sorts and degrees except in the standing root of miscnief the difference in Religions then at this time nor more mutual Confidence I can say being that time there the Sheep and the Goats lived quietly together and there was that intire trust in one another as to all Matters Civil and Temporal that I remember very well the Summer before the Rebellion The Titular Bishop of Fernes coming his Visitation into the County of Wexford where I then dwelt at the request of a Popish Priest I lent most of my Silver Plate to entertain the said Bishop with and had it honestly restored In this serene and happy state was that Kingdom every one sitting under his own Vine and Fig-tree in peace and in the abundance of all things when whether surfeiting of Quiet and Plenty or by the just Judgment of God upon a sinful and superstitious Nation or that the said Committees having staid in England till they saw symptoms of a misunderstanding between his Majesty and his two Houses af Parliament in England and
being most of them Papists conceived they had fallen into a fit juncture to set up their darling Idolatry and restore the pretended Jurisdiction of their Idolized Forraign Power of the Pope of Rome or being in at the Intrigues of the Popish Faction all Court and receiving incouragement by what they observed and was infused into them they had here laid the Foundation of the Massacre and Rebellion whereof Ireland was to be the Scene or upon what other grounds I shall not here take upon me determine but I well remember that he 23d of October after their Return broke out upon a formed Combination and Conspiracy wherein almost all the said Popish Committees were leading Men and principal Actors such a horrid and bloody Massacre and Rebellion as is not to be parallell'd in History neither Man Woman nor Infants in the Womb or at the Breast being spared but the generality of that Nation turning barbarous and wild Irish again after so many hundred years Subjection to the Crown of England and Endeavours of their Reformation and Civilizing to so vast an expence of Blood and Treasure as is hardly to be believed But my Lord I may now but touch at things Comme en passant that I may keep within the bounds of a Letter but when what I have meditated and am preparing from Records and authentick unquestionble Relations and Transactions of that bloody Tragedy and matchless Defection from the Crown and very Nation of English Men shall see the light your Lordship will be informed of what it seems hath not yet come to your knowledge and what must make your Lordship blush at your so fatal mistake to have ever been so far as you confess your self in so ill Company and to have partaken in the least in so foul a Guilt Having made this necessary Excursion and Caution I proceed in your Lordships own Method Going first with your Lordship to the Lords Justices acquainting them of your willingness to serve the King against the Rebels to which no doubt by advice of his Majesties Privy Council in that Kingdom they gave a very prudent Answer That your Religion was an obstacle and how could they well say less when it was apparent that it was a Popish Conspiracy and those of that profession universally ingaged in the Defection in so much that though the State there would have distinguished them into Allegiance and for that end more out of desire to win them than any confidence they had in them but to leave them without excuse put Arms and Ammuuition into the hands of the Lord Viscount Gormanston and other Popish Lords and Gentlemen of best Quality and Estates in the English Pale and who by their tenures had formerly and were obliged to assist the Crown in times of danger and they almost all of them went with his Majesties Arms in Aid of the Rebells and they who did best did but restore the Kings Arms and joyned themselves and all the power they could make to the Insurrection forgetting the Grants and bountiful Gifts of Lands their Ancestors had received from the Crown for former and on condition of future Service in which Rank your Lordship placeth your noble Ancestors and I heartily wish you had continued that station Your Lordships next motion was to the Lords Justices for a Pass to go for England which though they could not consent to they gave your Lordship good Advice and which for a time you followed viz. to go home to your House being but 20 miles from Dublin and under the protection or reach of the State as there should be occasion and as your Lordship found afterwards Concerning your Lordships entertaining my Lord of Antrim and the Dutchess of Buckingham at Madinstowne whither they soon followed whither by consent with your Lordship is not said and your delight in their company I have nothing to say but that it was an ill time for Feasting and Jollity when stript and almost starved English came flying by your Gate every day from the Rebels Cruelty And I find that both the Marquess of Antrim and the Dutchess were after that deeply ingaged in the Rebellion and her Grace living and dying in the Irish Quarters chose to be buried at Waterford And though your Lordship had power enough when the Irish came and drove away a great part of your Stock to recover it by a party sent out with your Brother who brought with him two or three of the chiefest Conductors of that Rabble yet you do not so much as pretend that you delivered up any of them to Justice as you ought But you say that this inraged the Irish so much as you conceived your Brother was not safe there where yet you thought fit to continue but sending him to Dublin to attend the Justices Orders and assure them of your readiness to return on a Call they sending a Convoy which they promised to do as occasion required yet your Lordship hearing that you were indicted of high Treason the most publick way of accusing though your Brothers Letter calls it Clandestine you went to Dublin it seems you could go when you pleased without a Convoy but did not it seems think fit to appear and oppose the Indictment but being committed by the Lords Justices and Council the Justification whereof is not the work of this Letter but will have its proper time and place your Lordship after addressing your Case by your Brother to the King and Parliament in England without success whither your Brother being refused a Pass by the Justices was gotten It seems your Lordship meditated your escape into the Irish Quarters and relate the manner how you compassed the same which few will believe your Lordship would have done or held it the way to save your self but that you knew you had deserved it of them and that they had no cause to hurt you as appeared after by their making you General of their Horse and your Lordship chusing the Oath of Association before that of Allegiance Your Lordships having now shifted sides betake your self roundly to a justification of the Rebels cause I must follow you your own way though it be not so methodical as I could wish and is with great confusion of times and affairs which the thred of History will reduce to order when time serves It is true that Parties were sent out by the Justices according to his Majesties Direction to kill and destroy the Rebels throughout all the parts of the Kingdom and if the Officers and Souldiers did not take care enough in your Lordships Opinion to distinguish between the Rebels and the Subjects but killed in many places promiscuously whereof your Lordship gives no instances or of particular complaints to have been made of any such thing I wou'd fain know what distinction could be made of those that were found in Arms or Action against the Kings Authority for there will appear to have been no prosecution of others nor any others killed unless by such
Majesties Pardon if the Acts of Parliaments have not precluded you for it s more than I know if all your Lordships active Services in Ireland be not yet liable to the utmost penalties and Severities of the Law So far are they from being fit to be offered as entertainment to his Majesty by an Epistle Dedicatory as your Lordship hath done I find your Lordship in several places reflects upon those who broke the first Peace and call it unparallell'd breach of Faith punished by heavy Judgments from Heaven and yet this was the Confederates own Act. But as if the breach of the Oath of Allegiance by the Irish and their treacherous and bloody defection from the Crown of England were a Peccadillo your Lordship hardly takes notice of it but repines at the forfeiture of Estates grounded thereupon though God and Man agreed in that Vengeance and Punishment And let this Rebellion be compared to all before it there will not appear since the English Title to Ireland so just and clear grounds of forfeiture and extirpating a Nation as have done upon this but the King hath mingled Mercy with Justice and though by a Providence from Heaven to the English the Marquesses of Ormond and Clanrickard his Majestles chief Governors incouraged the Irish to keep up a War against the English wherein they were so much hardened to their ruin that they were at length intirely subdued without condition to any save for life and left to be as miserable as they had made others in all other respects yet multitudes of them have been restored and must yet own their Lives and Estates to the Clemency of the King and the mildness of the English Government which they had cast off and put themselves under a Forreign Yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear The Wisdom of God thus punishing one sin of theirs with another till they are scarce a People and the English and Protestant interest never more flourishing in that Kingdom Insomuch that it would be now the greatest folly imaginable in the Government of England and Ireland ever to suffer the Papists to grow capable of raising such a Rebellion again which they will certainly do when able Bigottery and sottish Ignorance both of Priests and People in Religion being the growing root of mischief there Upon the whole since the Cobweb excuses your Lordship hath made cannot cover the Blood that hath been shed or bring quiet to the Consciences of any that had hand therein and since your Lordship so well knows the Temper and Constitution of the Irish by your long continuance and interest among them I cannot but yet hope and therefore do with the most friendly adjurations beseech your Lordship herein that the zeal which you yet seem to have for the King his Laws and the English Government will incline you to let him know the truth you cannot be ignorant of that they are a Nation never to be trusted till reformed that so his Majesty and his English Subjects may run no more hazards of suffering by confidence in them or regard to their Crocodile Tears and groundless Complaints by which they have deceived the English in all times And that by your Repentance imitating your Ghostly Father Peter Walsh his Advice to his Countrey Men for Repentance and change of Principles your Lordship may give another instance to the World that Allegiance and the Religion you profess may dwell in the same Breast then which nothing can more conduce to divert the Irish from future Attempts of Rebellion My Lord I find many Queries fit to be made on your Memoires and many other particulars a Redire therein but you will perhaps think I have done too much already I shall therefore reserve these to another opportunity and here close in the wonted manner with the assurance of my being saving in the Irish Confederacy and Matter of Religion My Lord Your Lordships Affectionate Friend and Servant Postscript THis Letter was written as appears in August 1680 presently after the Earl of CASTLE-HAVEN had Published his Memoires with a Dedication only to the King but since his Lordships Receipt of this Letter he was it seems convinced of the necessity of writing the Epistle to the Reader in Condemnation of the Irish Rebellion which his Lordship hath since caused to be Printed with the said Memoires FINIS
taking the contrary part and his Lordship escaping soon after the Rebellion to Dublin only with the Kings Troop which he Commanded and some Servants that attended him The Earl of Leicester Lord Lieutenant as he was upon his Journey for Ireland was discharged that Imployment to make way for the Marquess of Ormond to succeed him who had an unlimitted Commission sent him sole to examine the pretended Grievances of the Irish and for making a Cessation with the Rebels which he did and was after made Lord Lieutenant and concluded the two first Peaces before-mentioned I have heard Sir Philip Percival a very worthy Person and of a fair Estate being asked why he would by his Certificates of Defect of Stores give countenance and furtherance to a Cessation which he knew could only advantage the Rebels and be ruinous to the English Answer The Stores were really wasted upon unprofitable fruitless Marches and then his Certificates being required he durst not as an Officer refuse them though he was aware of the use would be made of them To shew your Lordship how the Cessation operated laying aside at present the question of the warrantableness on necessity thereof and that the two first Peaces were against Law and several Acts of Parliament in both Kingdoms and upon that and other accounts the validity thereof I must take another opportunity when I may discourse things more fully with your Lordship I can now only briefly tell your Lordship that all the Proceedings of the Rebels in Arms and all their Demands were Treason That the English and Protestants had the Laws on their side which the Irish by combination and force did break and designed wholly to subvert That the Irish tollerated no Protestants in their Quarters though that Religion were the only legal Establishment but seized and forfeited all their Estates whilst the Protestants afforded the measure and benefit of the Laws to the Irish and Papists even to those who had been in Rebellion whensoever they came in or submitted It is not then to be wondred at that the chief and most of the English Nobility in Ireland and the generality of English Scotch and Irish Protestants of all qualities and degrees sooner or later opposed both the Cessation and Peaces as destructive to them and derogatory to the Crown in which number we find the Earls of Kildare Thomond Cork Barrimore Drogheda Donnagall Claubrasill Mount Alexander c. The Viscounts of Valentia Conoway Ranelagh Kinnelmeky Shannon c. Barons or Lords Elsmond Juchequin Blaney Broghill c. But it were endless to name all and of no use to your Lordship who know this as well as I. By this it appears how ungratefully the Irish did requite the Marquess of Ormond for his unwillingness that the whole Irish Nation should ruin themselves by their persisting in Rebellion And now whether it was their vain confidence to carry the day or what else occasioned it they lost the opportunity of deliverance which the Marquess of Ormond being related to so many of them by Blood and Alliance had compassionately designed for them though with great hardship and damage to the English And whatever grounds the Marquess of Ormond had for the Cessation and Peaces by which he could have got nothing but would have incurred manifest loss which it chiefly concerns himself to vouch that in the eye of the World he may stand clear as a true English Man and faithful Subject It is apparent that now by the Forfeiture and Punishment of the Irish his Lordship and Family are the greatest gainers of the Kingdom and have added to their Inheritances vast scopes of Land and a Revenue three times greater than what his Paternal Estate was before the Rebellion and most of his increase is out of their Estates who adheared to the Peaces or served under his Majesties Ensigns abroad which shews that whatsoever of Compassion or Natural Affection or otherwise might incline him to make those Peaces he is in Judgment and Conscience against them and so hath since appeared and hath advantage by their laying aside The like may be said of the Duke of York the Earl of Arlington Lord Lanesborough and others who have great Estates of the Irish freely given them upon the same foundation So that 't is to be hoped whether the Bills already come over to confirm the forfeited Rebels Estates to English and Protestants will do the work or no That his Grace or whosoever shall succeed him in the Lieutenancy will in time transmit such Bills as shall do that work effectually and unite and strengthen his Majesties Protestant Subjects to oppose and break the further Designs of that Rebellious Generation which they will never keep free from so long as they acknowledge and obey a Forreign Head I shall make no reflection at this time upon the Peace called Glamorgan's Peace but what your Lordship gives occasion for by mentioning it viz. That it was the most destructive of all to the English and Protestants but suited best with the Confederate Design of establishing the Romish Idolatry which your Lordship in your Oath of Association engaged as deep in as any excepting the first foundation laid in Blood a fit basis for a Faction only supported by Fraud and Cruelty One passage in your Lordships Memoires I cannot but take notice of for your Honour as an English Man That when the Marques of Ormond in his extremity between the Nuncio party and the Parliament of England asked your Lordship with which of his Enemies he should treat You answered That you were confident he had resolved that before there being no question in the case when it was no question with your Lordship I wonder how it came to be one with his Lordship but the success of your Council was happy and founded upon solid grounds of Reason Your Lordship sees I can but glance at particulars in this Letter and being by so noble a Pens ingaging in justification of a Quarrel which casts reflection upon all that took contrary part to the Irish of which number I was one contrary to my first intention upon the matter necessitated in vindication of as just a cause as ever was managed under the Sun to hasten out the last part of the general History of Ireland first Wherein I shall so impartially make relation beyond all possibility of contradiction that I doubt not your Lordship will reflect with remorse upon what you have done and written wherein I differ from you and the World will know exactly the truth of that sad story I shall in the mean time only as in an abstract ser these things before you and upon the whole matter in answer to your Lordships specious justification and for your present mortification let you know that by Judgment of the King and his Privy Councils and Parliaments in both Kingdoms You are involved in the guilt of Treason and under forfeiture of all you have and as a friend yet advise you to get his