IT was yesterday my chance to meet a Letter newly printed, though pretended by the Title to have been given your Grace about the end of October 1660. [desiring a just and merciful re­gard of the Roman Catholiques of Ireland] wherein though I confesse much is spoken and little said, yet because the Author of it seems to have [Page 2] been both a bold man in setting your Graces name to it, and a wise man in not setting his own, I thought it fit to be taken notice of, and shall follow his example in both, though (I fear) neither that nor his precepts in any thing else.

The contention lying (as it ever has done, and I fear ever will,) between His Majesties British Prote­stant Subjects, and His Irish Roman Catholique in the Kingdome of Ireland, I imagin'd it would be­come us ill, who never refus'd to fight them in the Field upon the extremest disadvantage, if we should now avoid to do it in the Presse upon the greatest ad­vantages, that the justice of our Case, the mercy of our King, your Graces patronage, and the favour of Heaven express'd in all these circumstances can allow us; and therefore since they have drawn so much of our blood, I shall never grudge them a little of our ink, being I confess well enough pleas'd to see us both now at length putting on the same colour, whereas for so long together the Black has been ours, and the Crimson theirs.

The matter of this Pamplet is indeed so difficult to find, and so easie to answer, that I am a little loath to begin the search, being much of the same nature with that of a Brass penny in a heap of Rubbish, that before you find it almost puts out your eyes, and after you have it, 'tis hardly felt in your hand; and therefore before I quest after that little game it affords me, I shall give your Grace some account of a word or a fear, which just now fell from me, that the conten­tion between the two Parties in Ireland will never have an end, which may both startle your Grace with the dif­ficulty of your Charge, whose chief end and task is to disprove this opinion; and shock many others as an uncharitable thought, who are apt to believe the quiet of that Countrey; may be wrought out by tempe­ring of Interests, extinguishing Feuds, by inducing a [Page 3] general Oblivion of the past and security of future Times; and in a word, that a Golden Age may arise in that Kingdome, out of one of Iron that has lasted some hundreds of years, just as a fair and gentle mor­ning does sometimes at Sea after a long furious storm, without any reason for one or for t'other, but onely, that a general composure of minds happens at times like a calm sett of weather; and no man the wiser though all men the happier for it.

My Lord, I wish I could be of this Belief, I con­fess I am not, though I may justly say my temper and fortune both dispose me to it, the one giving me fear of losing a little, and the other despair of gaining the least by tumults and wars. I have long accounted the Peace of my Countrey to be like the Health of my Body; without which all that men call pleasures turn sowre, or lose all their rellish at least. I will not say to make good my opinion, that Saturn, Mars, and Mercury are the onely Planets that influence that Climate, though the sullen and angry genius, as well as the cunning, busie, chaffering vein of the inhabitants might help me out, nor that the kindly rays of Venus and Iupiter are too gentle to pierce a thick air that is ac­cus'd so often to obscure the Sun, and fully the Moon among them; but I must needs say, when I consider the rise of these two parties in that Kingdome, which was the descent of our victorious Ancestors among them, who at first held their Lands from their Swords, though our Kings title to the whole was afterwards strengthned by Alliances, by submissions as well as (if they please to take notice of it) by an absolute grant of that whole Island from Pope Adrian the fourth to Henry the second.

When I consider that upon this original quarrel the Natives of the Countrey have ever since lock'd upon the English name, as that of Usurpers and Intruders upon their lands and inheritance, and the English plan­ted [Page 4] there, upon the Irish; as enemies, for so they were styl'd in all publique Acts for a long course of time.

When I consider that these two parties have for above foure hundred years, been bred up, as I may say in mutual slaughters, and rapines, and wars, every age, begun by the Irish, upon pretences of recovering their Liberty and Countrey, and return'd by the English, in defence of their King, their Kindred, and the Lands they had purchas'd by their Ancestors blood, or by their own Treasure.

When I consider that these bloody animosities were constant and hereditary to them, so long before any division between them in matters of Religion, and withal how much they have been sharpned by that accident, which has been so powerful as most unhap­pily to engrafft such numbers of old English families into the Irish stock and interest upon this last Rebellion (for to that we must needs attribute it rather than to their long habitudes among them.)

When I consider how much of the Irish lands have been given in a lump into the hands of British Planters upon forfeitures in King Iames his time, what quan­tities must now be disposed of, though the greatest ten­dernesse imaginable should be us'd in the adjudging their new forfeitures now in question, besides how perpetuall a memory the Irish retain of these esteemed injurys, as I could give instances to amazement, and as severall of their Articles in forty eight in some measure discover by their returning so far back and resolutions even in cold blood to unravel the settlements of ages past.

When I consider that similitude of customes and manners is the common sodder of all Friendships and good Intelligences among men, and withall how strange a difference in both these as well as habit and language is between these two Nations, unlesse it be where by long abode of few among many, either the civility of [Page 5] the English has corrected theirs, or the barbarousnesse of the Irish has infected ours.

When I consider among many others of the kind, that one old custome of theirs, in celebrating their funeralls after their savage manner, where the praises of the dead use to be rais'd and rehearsed, from no other vertue or prowess then the number of English slain or murtherd by him or his Ancestors, either as Souldiers in War, or as Woodkernes or Tories in Peace, which is elegantly de­scribed by Spencer in his short discourse of Ireland, and I have been assur'd is still us'd in many of the wilder parts in the North, where upon such occasions they have no witnesses but themselves.

When I consider the common conversation of the Vulgar of both parties upon all the least occasions breaking out into terms of malice, suspition, revenge, and contempt, besides the strange ignorance of the com­mon Irish that subjects the whole conduct of their lives to the guidance of their Priests and Friers, which makes them all Spanish Papists, as the common tearm goes, and as I think indeed all Roman Catholiques living in Prote­stant Dominions throughout Europe are in great degree; and to this onely I can attribute that senselesse opinion among the Vulgar Irish, that the Kingdome of Ireland lawfully belongs to the Crown of Spain, and that his Majesties Title to it is like that of the English to their Lands by usurpation and force.

When I consider that, upon this present conjuncture, though his Majesty has been pleased to exempt many of the Roman Catholique Nobles and Gentlemen from the stain and punishment of their common original guilt in the last bloody Rebellion, by restoring them fully to their honours and estates, upon the amends they seem to have made by their personall services to his Majestie abroad, yet not a man of them is content to save his own stake to break from the herd, or leave stickling in the patronage and defence of the common party, as if [Page 6] they valu'd not their estates without their dependances, and had something more in aime then what they pretend to in their ordinary clamors and complaints; This I confesse is the onely thing which lessens many of them in my value, whom otherwise I should esteem very much as persons of good breeding, good meene, good wits, and good humour, and fit for the eye and for the service of their Prince.

And lastly, when I consider that all this cannot be attributed to the force of any constellation above, or conjunction here below, but rather to the common course of humane nature, and the passions incident thereunto, and that this implacable enmity of the Irish to the English, springs from the same root with that of all other subjected people to their Conquerors, till by time and prevailing number, wearinesse of mutuall fears, policy of Laws and Governours both come at length to be blended into one Masse. That consequently the late unparallel'd Massacres, though far greater in number then any upon record of Story, yet had no newer cause or occasion then that of the Roman Citizens in the lesser Asia, that of the French in Scicily, that of the Danes in England, and the frequent ones of Europaean Colonies in the Indies; till time and experience taught them to provide for their safety and so they have done, My Lord, all wiser Nations to secure their conquests, though it has ever yet been the reproach of the English Govern­ment, that in so long a tract of time they have never been able to free themselves from a vast expence of Blood and Treasure upon an Island which seems by nature to have been intended so much for the greatness of His Majesties Imperiall Crown, by the mighty accesse of those two great strengths, Money and able bodies of men, arising from the incredible fertility of the soil in all rich native Comodities, aswel as the in­crease of people; When all these thoughts I say run thorough my head, I cannot hope to live so long as to [Page 7] hear [Iam cuncti gens una sumus] plaid by the Irish Harp, though I know it was sung by some English in their discourses about the beginning of the late Kings Reign, but never I think by any Irish, and with how sad Notes it then ended in the Close some men I hope may still have leave to remember.

Now My Lord, if all this be but vision and false ima­gery, rais'd up only by my own spleen or passions, I may possibly passe for a Fanatique, or some malicious en­vious person, none of which I thank God I have yet ever done nor I hope ever shall upon any other score. For I have often deplor'd that my birth or my fotunes should cast me into an Age or a Countrey, where men cannot live together more like the Sons of one Father, the Subjects of one Prince, the Servants of one God, then I see we are like to do. But if it be a true repre­sentation of the Quarrel in that Kingdome, of the disposition of the parties, and complexion of the Cli­mate; then I think it will concern his Majesty to secure his Crown and his Subjects peace in that Kingdome, by the same arts of Government that have been us'd in the same cases, with respect to such differences as cir­cumstances may make, and whatever become of lands never trust our lives again in the power of a genera­tion whose game and prey they have been, and whose design they must ever be unlesse my Almanack fails, Tis but a carelesse and will be but an unfortunate Shep­herd that quits his guard and suspicion, and neglects his flock because the old wolf has broke his teeth, though he can never lose his nature nor yet break the Law of [Similis in prole resurgo.]

What those arts of Government are, I shall not in the least presume to discourse of, all Stories and all Times are full of them, and the Observations upon them very instructing, and no person able to make bet­ter use of them, and to improve them more than your Grace under His Majesties favourable influence, [Page 8] and in concurrence with so great, so wise, and so renown­ed a Councellor to his Majesty and friend to your Grace as My Lord High Chancellour of England, whose justice and favour to us we must ever own, and shall endevour to acknowledge, with that devotion becomes us as true servants both of his virtues and fortunes.

Besides, my opinions in this point I confesse may be a little out of the common way, and I am so too in not being the least fond of giving them light without a direct occasion, and therefore shall make no inquiry here into the usuall wayes of securing acquisitions either by out numbring the Natives, by introducing conformity of Lawes, Language, Habit, Custome, Religion, by in­terchangeable removall of their seats, as in Charlemain's time, of Saxons into Flanders, and of Flemish into Saxony, by assuming their lands and giving them a new dependancy, by entertaining feuds between them­selves, by Forts and standing Armies according to the modern policy, or by distinct Colony's according to that of the old Graecian and Roman States, I should only beg if my prayers were of any regard, that his Majesty might but esteem this a matter worthy His care and thought, and then I should no way doubt of the successe; and that you may judge it so the more, I shall onely be your remembrancer that as the onely good effect of such infinite slaughters and Murthers as have hitherto infam'd that Kingdome, and discouraged the plantation, has been the producing of this conjuncture wherein His Majesty hath gain'd an occasion of setling it upon lasting foundations which has been so much desired by his An­cestors, but the like never attain'd either in respect of power, justice, or honour. So whatever mischeifs or miscarriages shall ever happen in that Kingdome in times to come, will by posterity be laid to the charge of this generation, but how to be answer'd I believe the next must tell.

[Page 9] Now My Lord, how great a part of this care and conduct must needs fall to your Graces share, I shall not need put you in mind, finding one among your Titles that sufficiently does it, but in case you fall into the same opinion I professe to be of, that the peace and safety of that Kingdome cannot be provided for by balancing interests between English and Irish, but by boying up one or other of them out of danger of sinking again, I shall then offer to your thoughts, whether as Duke of Ormond as well as His Majesties Lieutenant of Ireland, both your duty and your interest does not evidently lead you to the support, protection, and encouragement of the English who in that Kingdom will come under your charge.

And here I must begin to take notice of our Secretary and his Letter, the Scribling of which gave me the occa­sion of mine, the greatest design of the whole draught seems by cogging and clawing, by professions of kind­nesse and confidence, by terms of relation and good intelligence, to endear their cause and persons to your Grace, and to work upon your affections where they despair to do it upon your judgement. He sayes they have been [your constant beleivers, your passionate Stick­lers, their hopes of delivery have been by you, begs a demonstration of that justice and favour you intended them in forty eight, threatens your failing will lessen your esteem and dependencies among them, and at last compares you to Joseph, and calls you the Saviour of your brethren] on purpose sure to put you in mind how your brethren sold and betray'd you, for how the Irish came to be your brethren upon any other kindred I cannot ima­gine.

On the other side, My Lord, we are bold to claim and challenge you for ours, and upon many good tokens, by the birth of your Ancestors and your own, by their and your unshaken loyalty to the Crown of England, by your constancy to the old Protestant Religion, by your [Page 10] personal commands against the Irish, and glorious vi­ctories over them the first two years of the Rebellion, and which no question had continued had not your Roy­all Masters affairs at that time received a change there, by the fatall necessity of his others in England, and forc't you to a conjunction, where you had ever before been at defiance. If I may descend to lighter circumstances, we challenge you for ours by your breeding, by your person by your speech, by your disposition, by your Lady and your Children, in the mid'st of all which who ever should see you, let him be never so much a stranger to all our disputes, I durst trust him to judge whether you are English or Irish, and dur'st dye for it, if one man in a hundred that was not stark blind would ever give you from us.

As for our affections to you, our confidence in you, our dependence upon you in this occasion and upon all to come, we cannot give place to our adversaries, as knowing our own hearts, and that 'tis well if any else knows theirs. If our hopes or our trusts have ever been estranged from your Grace, it has been owing to those unhappy revolutions that have forc't you to a seeming good aspect upon them, but now that the occasion and necessity of that is all blown over, we return and throw our selves into your armes, with the same kindnesse and confidence that Lovers would do into those of a Mistress whose forced or feigned smiles to a rival, had for a while entertained them in sullen aking jealousies, which serve to make way for a kinder reconcilement, And now My Lord, deceive us if you can, no, we know you are too wise, too loyal, and too generous.

Besides as to your personall interest, (for as for that of your Masters it's too evident which way it must in­cline you) you are arriv'd in command, in dependence, in estate to the heighth of what you can aim at in Ireland without being too much envied and something fear'd, so that all the game that lies before you ought in prudence [Page 11] to be pursued in England, by preserving His Majesties favour, gaining his Subjects affections, preferring your Children and increasing your fortunes, in a place where they may lye for a record of your honour and merit, and be both a testimony and a pawn of your Families Loy­alty, if in ages to come your posterity should grow too great, or meet with a more suspicious Master then now you have the happinesse to serve. And My Lord, I need not tell you how much your countenance to the English in Ireland would endear you to the Nation here, nor how much that might be estranged from you, by your favour to the Irish. For beleive me, My Lord, we have here in England bled and paid too deep, and too often upon their occasion to be presently friends, and the horridnesse of this last Rebellion, has too far reach't Heaven with it's cry, and stain'd the earth with it's colour to be suddenly either forgiven in Heaven or forgotten upon Earth.

The next thing I can observe in the letter I begun with, is a comparison it insists upon, between the Roman Catholique Irish, and His Majesties Protestant Subjects in the three Kingdomes, [many thousand of whom were he sayes far more hainously criminall, who have as little contributed or intended towards His Maje­sties Restauration as they.]

If any comparisons are odious they are those of mens vices and guilt, rather then of their vertues and inno­cency, which makes me unwilling to pursue this any further, yet I cannot but observe the offences of the Irish sprung from a more generall quarrell, which was without comparison more generally infus'd through the hearts of the people, pursu'd by far more bloody courses, and which is remarkable began where other quarrells use to end, that is with slaughter and fury, whereas all others swell first in expostulations and manifestoes, ripen in threats, warning, and preparations, break at length in fair and open arms. But this Irish Rebellion [Page 12] clasht out like a sudden storm of lightning and thunder, defacing houses and fields, wasting Countries, destroying man and beast, and giving an essay of what it meant in the end by the cold and treacherous murthers of so many thousand innocent souls in the first two moneths, before men were enough themselves to know almost from whence their danger came; which number encreasing to that of above Two hundred Thousand in the first two years, makes the Massacre unparallel'd, and excuses all cruelties may have been return'd by the English in the heat of the War. Whoever imagins a Troop of Souldiers, among whom is hardly a man, but has lately lost a Wife, a Brother, a Parent or a Child by the butcherly hands of inveterate enemies, will not wonder to see them fierce in their assaults or furious in their executions.

For the horrid Murther of his late Majesty of blessed memory, which this Writer would throw into the ballance as a crime diffused thorough many Thousands of the Protestant Subjects in the three Kingdomes, I look upon it as a bold slander, and which is no more to be imputed to the Protestants here, then the assassin of Henry the fourth of France, to the Roman Catholiques there, this having been contriv'd by Ravilliack, and perhaps half a dozen Jesuites his complices, and that by Cromwell, Ireton, and perhaps half a dozen more, whose power, and name, and artifices, had at that time stun'd the Nation into a sufferance of that impious fact, and inchanted the Army into an outward complyance with what I am confident not one man in Ten Thousand throughout the three Kingdomes but abhorr'd in his Soule.

For what he sayes of [their having as little contri­buted or intended towards the Kings restoration as the Irish did] because 'tis modestly spoken he shall e'en go away with it, though no man I am sure, no not the Birds nor the Flies contributed lesse to it then the Roman Ca­tholique [Page 13] Irish, whereas there seem'd an universal con­spiration towards it in the Protestants of the three King­domes, which past for some amends of their faults, and earnest of their pardons so graciously allowed them. And for their bare intentions they may best judge themselves, for by their former actions we should be apt to judge ill, and besides I have heard an unlucky Pro­verb, that hell is full of good intentions.

But we plead not our innocence neither here nor in Ireland, we stand not upon Articles, we claim His Majesties Grace held forth in the Act of Indempnity, and question not but the same reasons which then induc'd His Majesty both to grant it us and deny it them, con­tinue still, and will do so to both our Posterities, unless we lose our memories, and change our Religions, we grow to own dependence upon the Pope, and they upon the King in all Ecclesiastical matters, which, say what men will, draw Civil after them.

The next thing pleaded in this Letter is that [they fought for His Majesty till over-power'd by Multitudes, through Gods unsearchable judgements, desertion by friends abroad, and home divisions, they lost both them­selves and their Country.] That they fought so long for the King, or were overpower'd by Multitudes, I can­not allow, for the Quarrel persu'd by the Long-Parlia­ment, and by the following Tyrannous power, against the Irish, was not for their Show of adherence to the King, which was known to be the next Covert they shrunk under for shelter, but it was for being Murthe­rers and Rebels against the English Nation and Go­vernment, and what advantages accrued to the Rebel­lious Arms in England, from the pretence of this Na­tional War and revenge upon the Rebells of Ireland, I need not enlarge; I may safely say, that as the mise­ries of these Nations began to break out with violence and blood, first in that Kingdome, so they were fomen­ted and heightned all along by the ill effects and ill co­lours of that Irish Rebellion.

[Page 14] Those who indeed so long and so bravely fought for His Majesty in Ireland, and were so violently pursued by the Usurpers and their powers, we know well were those gallant and Loyal Troops of English, assembled under your Graces command, and made up either of the first English Army, or such constant Subjects to his Majesties interest in England, who after the Ruine of their hopes here, went over into Ireland, preferring the hazard of their lives once more before the Servitude of their Country: These are commonly comprehended under the name of such as serv'd His Majesty in the War of Ireland, before 49. and are a noble vital part of that body, I mean by the English interest in Ireland; and how well these were assisted and treated by the Ro­man Irish Catholicks, I may safely leave to your Gra­ces Remembrance.

[The over-powering them with Multitudes,] I before never heard, nor can any believe, who knows their numbers in proportion to ours much to the contrary; I have heard and could tell, but that I love not to re­proch men who have lost their Arms, though cruelty and valour have been ever esteem'd, and are indeed by na­ture so little a kinne, that whoever knows much of the one cannot believe much of the other. For the rest of that Paragraph it is so ingenuous, I must needs joyn with him in the acknowledgement [that through the unsearchable Wisdome of God, desertion by friends a­broad, and home divisions, they have lost both themselves and their Country.]

For matter of their Articles in forty Eight, which the Writer of this Letter presses to be observ'd that of Trasplantation, Corporations, and the disposal of the Irish Lands according to His Majesties declared Will, and the present pursuit of His English Protestant Sub­jects, they are particulars I shall not meddle with, as having heard that they all have, or will fall in debate before His Majesty at Council, where your Lordship [Page 15] must needs be acquainted with all that can be argued upon those Subjects, though in case I find need of more publick Satisfaction, I shall not refuse to come once more into the Presse upon that occasion, and question not to satisfie all unbias'd persons, concerning His Ma­jesties Resolutions of setling the Kingdome of Ireland, upon the foundation of a Protestant Strength and Inte­rest, and make it evident he has taken them up upon grounds of Piety, Justice, Prudence, and Honour, not out of any [fear from the power of the English Ar­my there as this Letter would insinuate.] Whereas I am confident never any Prince was better serv'd and obey'd then His Majesty will be by His Protestant Subjects in Ireland, whom I look upon all as one body.

Another shred of this Work I am taking in pieces, consists of some well couch'd threatnings, [how much the hearts of the Roman Catholiques in Ireland, will be estrang'd both from His Majesty and your Grace] if they are defeated of their hopes. I must agree with him again and acknowledge he tells you a great truth, and that he might have told you another in saying they are so already, past all means of firm reconciling, since they who aim at the whole, will never be contented with a part. I shall only desire your Grace to take the warning they give you; to trust and favour those who take themselves to be oblig'd by you, never those who think themselves offended. Nor for ought I know will any man blame them so much for seeking their re­venge, as us for not providing our defence, since in all like cases the same nature uses to imprint both the one and the other.

All the rest of this Pamphlet consists in quotations of Scripture, from which its Author [exhorts to imi­tation of God in not destroying the righteous with the just, and denounces judgements against Breakers of Articles, from the Example of Saul and the Gib [...]onites.] I shall not pursue the Parallel in those cases between the Sins [Page 16] of Sodome and those of the Irish, nor between the Scarcity of the Innocent in the one, and the other of these Nations; nor shall I observe that the judgements of God were not sent down upon Israel, for making the Gibeonites Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water, but as the Text runs for Saul and his bloody House, be­cause he slew the Gibeonites; in which case we desire no Paralell, but should as earnestly intercede for the lives of the Irish, though yet in that Case unpardon'd, as we must always sollicite for the safety of our own, in such a Settlement as we hope to see atchiev'd by His Majesties Gracious care, and your Lordships diligence in the execution of it. For the rest I will not go about to answer him at this weapon (though it might easily be done) as having I confesse an aversion from the late custome of our Age, for every private hand as it serves its one occasion, to draw all Stories and expressions of Scripture into consequence, for the conduct of our lives and the framing our opinions; I have observ'd this use to be of mischievous effect, and destructive in a great measure to the respect and obedience we owe Civil Authority. I revere the Scriptures, but esteem them given us for other use then to fortifie disputes con­cerning State Affairs out of every part of them, I know how apt we are to be deceiv'd with the likenesse of Examples or Precepts, in the unlikenesse of times and persons, and Lawes and Mannors, and Constitutions and other Circumstances, therefore I shall here leave him to his devotions, and betake my self to mine, a part of which are my hearty wishes and prayers, that all His Majesties Councells may be guided with that Wisdome which will end in his own Glory, and the Prosperity as well as Peace of all His Kingdomes, and that your Graces conduct in this great Employment, may be as eminent as the rest of your fortunes, and en­lightned with a clear Sight of what is the true interest both of His Majesty at present, the Crown of England [Page 17] in all Ages, and your own too in the present Settlement and future Government of that unhappy Kingdome; and because I both am, and desire to appear in Chari­ty with all men, I shall end my discourse as the Roman Catholique does his, with hearty wishes that you may be in your Station [the Saviour of your Brethren and your Country.]

For my self, what I am as to my temper and opini­ons, must be referr'd to this Paper, who I am is no matter, if that speaks either sense or truth, or successe­fully to the ends I intend it, which I am sure are fair and honest, as well as the Professions sincere of my being