The state of the Protestants of Ireland under the late King James's government in which their carriage towards him is justified, and the absolute necessity of their endeavouring to be freed from his government, and of submitting to their present Majesties is demonstrated.

SECT. II. I. King James's Dealing with the Army of Ireland, in order to destroy the Protestants and English Interest.

1. THE Army of Ireland which King James found at his coming to the Crown, consisted of about seven thou∣sand, as Loyal Men, and as Cordial to the King's Service as any could be; both Officers and Soldiers had been inured to it for many years. They looked on him as their Master and Father, intirely depending on him, and expecting nothing from any Body else. When Monmouth's and Argile's Rebellion called for their assistance to suppress them, no People in the World could shew more Chearfulness, or Forwardness, than they did; and it is observable, that no one Man in Ireland was ever found to be conscious or consenting to those Rebellions; the Protestants of all sorts shewed great Horror and Detestation of them, and were discernably melancholy till the Rebels were suppressed. Most of the Officers of this Army had been so zealous to serve the King, that they had by his permission and encouragement bought their Employments; many of them had laid out their whole Fortunes, and contracted Debts to purchase a Com∣mand; yet no sooner was King James settled in his Throne, but he began to turn out some of the Officers, that had been most zealous for his Service, and had deserved best of him, merely because they had been counted firm to the Protestant Religion and English Interest. The first who were made Examples to the rest, were the Lord Shannon, Captain Robert Fitz-Gerald, Captain Richard Coote, and Sir Oliver S. George. The three first were Earls Sons, who either in their own per∣sons, or by their Fathers and Relations, had been signally active in restoring King Charles the Second, and the Royal Family, to their just Rights, 1660; so had Sir Oliver S. George: and they were all of them without any other Exception, but their Zeal for their Religion, and the English Interest in Ireland. But the common Saying was, that King James would regard no Man for any Service done to him, his Father or Brother, but only for

future Service that he expected from them: and since he could fot expect that these Gentlemen should assist him to destroy the Protestant Religion or the Liberties of his Subjects, which was the Service he then expected, he took their Troops from them, and gave them to persons of mean or broken Fortunes, who must do any thing to keep them; some of them unquali∣fied by Law. It is fit their Names should be known, that the Reader may the better observe what kind of Change the King began with, when he substituted Captain Kerney, if I remember right, one of the Ruffians, Captain Anderson, a person of no Fortune, Captain Sheldon, a professed Papist, and Captain Graham, in the places of the Lord Shannon, Captain Fitz-Gerald, Captain Coote, and▪ Sir Oliver S. George.

2. But to convince the World, that no Consideration was to be had, of Loyalty or Merit, except a Man were a Papist: The Duke of Ormond was sent for abruptly, and devested of the Government, with such Circumstances that did no ways correspond with the Service he had rendered the Crown in general, and King James in particular. Imme∣diately the modelling of the Army was put in∣to the Hands of Collonel Richard Talbott, a person more hated than any other Man by the Protestants, and who had been named by Oates in his Narrative for this very Employment. When therefore the Protestants saw him put in∣to it, many who believed nothing of a Plot be∣fore, gave credit now to his▪ Narrative, and the common Saying was, that if Oates was an ill Evidence, he was certainly a good Prophet. Col∣lonel Talbott, afterwards Earl of Tyrconnell, knew the Ne∣cessity of having the Army fitted to his purpose, it being the Engine he depended on for destroying the Religion, Liberty and Laws of the Kingdom; and therefore set about it with all expedition, and prosecuted it in such a manner as might be expected from a Man of his insolent temper. He exercised at the same time▪ so much Falshood and Barbarity, that if the Ar∣my had not been the best principled with Loyalty and Obedi∣ence of any in the World, they would have 〈◊〉〈◊〉, or at least dispatched him. In the Morning he would take an Officer

into his Closet, and with all the Oaths, Curses and Damnations, that were never wanting to him, he would profess Friendship and Kindness to him, and promise him the continuance of his Commission; and yet▪ in the Afternoon cashier him, with all the contempt he could heap on him; nay perhaps, while he was thus caressing him, he had actually given away his Commission. The Officers of Ireland, then cashiered, and their Acquaintance, can vouch the truth of this in many instances. As for the Sol∣diers and Troopers, his way with them was to march them from their usual Quarters, to some distant place where he thought they were least known, where they would be put to greatest Hardships, and there he stripped them; the Foot, of their Cloaths, for which they had payed; and the Troopers of their Horses, Boots, and Furniture, bought with their own Money; and set them to walk barefooted one hundred, or one hundred and fifty Miles to their Homes or Friends, if they had any. Sometimes he would promise them something for their Horses; but then he told them, that they must come to Dublin for it: if any came to demand the small pittance promised them for their Horses or Arrears of Pay, he contrived it so, that they should be obliged to wait till they had spent twice as much as they expected; and most of them after all got nothing. By this means two or three hundred Protestant Gentlemen, who had laid out all, or a good part of their Fortunes, and con∣tracted Debts on Commissions, were not left worth any thing, but were turned out without reason or any consideration, and sive or six thousand Soldiers sent a begging; a hardship perhaps never put on any Army before, without any provocation; a∣gainst whom there was no other Exception, but that they were English Men and Protestants, and King James by substi∣tuting Irish Men and Papists in their places contrary to the Laws, and to the very Design of keeping a standing Army in Ireland, clearly demonstrated, that he had no regard to the Laws, or to the preservation of the Kingdom, and that he designed to ad∣vance the Popish Irish Interest in Ireland; which every Body knows cannot be done without the utter ruin of the English Protestants.

3. Yet all this we patiently endured, and exercised our Cha∣rity in relieving the poor cashiered Soldiers, and in putting the

ruined Gentlemen into a way of Subsisting; which was ge∣nerally by sending them over Seas to Foreign Service, and perhaps their Clamours and Sufferings did contribute to move the Compassion of the Prince of Orange, our present Sovereign, and forward his Designs.

4. In the mean time, the new raised Forces and Officers be∣ing put into Arms and Command, to which they were Stran∣gers, into good Cloaths, and mounted on Horses for which others had paid, behaved themselves with all the insolence common to such sort of Men when unworthily Advanced. They every where insulted over the English, and had their Mouths continually full of Oaths, Curses and Imprecations against them; they railed on them, and gave them all the op∣probrious names they could; and if any Chastized them for their Sauciness, though ever so much provoked, they had the Judges and Juries on their side. They might kill whom they pleased without fear of Law, as appeared from Captain Nangles murthering his disbanded Officer in the Streets of Dublin; but if any killed or hurt them, they were sure to suffer; as Captain Aston found to his cost, who was hanged for killing a Papist upon his▪ abusing the Captains Wife in the Street. They im∣mediately ruined all the Protestant Inns of Ireland, partly by oppressing them with Quarters, partly by paying nothing for what they had in their Quarters, and partly by driving away other Guests by their rudeness.

5. In this insolence they continued and daily increased, till the Prince of Orange came into England. But then new Com∣missions were issued out with all dilligence, of one sort or ano∣ther, sometimes five hundred in a day. All the Scum and Ras∣callity of the Kingdom were made Officers; every where the Papists arm'd and inlisted themselves, and the Priests suffered no Man to come to Mass that did not Arm himself with at least a Skean and half Pike. The new Commissioned Officers were obliged without Pay to subsist their Men, as they termed it, for three months, a thing impossible for them to do, since most of them were not able to maintain themselves. The better sort of their Captains and inferiour Officers had been Footmen or Servants to Protestants: One Gentlemans Cowherd was made a Lieutenant, but he would fain have capitulated with his

Master, to keep his place vacant for him if his Commission did not hold. Most of them were the Sons or Descendents of Re∣bels in 1641, who had murthered so many Protestants. Many were Outlawed and Condemned Persons that had lived by Torying and Robbing. No less than fourteen notorious To∣ries were Officers in Cormuck ô Neals Regiment; and when forty or fifty thousand such were put into Arms, without any Mony to pay them, we must leave the World to judge what apprehensions this must breed in Protestants, and whether they had not Reason to fear the destruction that immediately fell on them; they saw their Enemies in Arms, and their own Lives in their power. They saw their Goods at the mercy of those Thieves and Robbers and Tories, now armed and Au∣thorized, from whom they could scarce keep them when it was in their power to pursue and hang them. And they had all the Reason in the World to believe, that a Government that had armed such Men of desperate Fortunes and Resolu∣tions, was so far from protecting them, which is the only end of all Government, that on the contrary it designed to de∣stroy both their Lives and Fortunes. The latter of which, as will appear by the sequel, they have in a manner intirely lost.

6. I could never hear any thing pretended for these pro∣ceedings, except it were either 1. That the Army were the Kings Servants, and every Man may employ what Servants he pleases; or 2. That Protestants would not concur with the Kings intentions, and therefore there was a necessity of dis∣missing them. And 3. as to the general arming the Papists, and Plundering the Protestants, that it was necessary in order to raise and encourage an Army, otherwise the King had had nothing to trust to.

7. As to the first of these, It is not true that every Man may entertain what Servants he pleases; because one ought not to entertain any that are not qualified as the Law requires. 2. If it were granted that the Case were the same between the King and his Army as between a Master and his Servants, and that a Master might entertain what Servants he pleased (neither of which is true) yet it is to be considered that where another pays the Servants, the Master must be obliged

to keep such Servants as well answer the design of such as af∣ford the Wages. Now it was the Kingdoms Mony that paid the Soldiers; it was given the King by a Protestant Parlia∣ment, to preserve the Protestant English Interest, and sup∣press the conquered Irish Papists, as appears by the Acts them∣selves; it was paid by them out of their proper Fortunes and Estates; and for the King to Employ the Mony so given, and paid him, to Arm those whom it was designed to suppress; and destroy those who gave it, is the greatest breach of Trust and prevarication of which any can be guilty.

8. As to the second Reason, that Protestants would not con∣cur with the Kings intentions; I believe it is true, but the Reason was, because the Kings intentions were to destroy the Laws, Liberty, and Religion Established in his Kingdom: they had, and would have answered every just intention of the King; nay such as were Employed by him, had concurred fur∣ther with him than was perhaps justifiable. And his lay∣ing them aside as unserviceable to his Designs, is a plain Demonstration that those Designs were irreconcilable to the good of the Kingdom, and the Protestant English In∣terest.

9. As to the third Reason that it was necessary, in order to raise an Army for the King, to Arm all the Rascallity of Ire∣land; and to let them destroy the Protestants, to subsist and hearten them. I answer, that this owns a Necessity, if not a Design of destroying us: and considering that the Papists only by their wicked Counsels had brought that necessity on the Kingdom, it can never be imputed to the Protestants by any wise Man as a Crime, that they were unwilling to comply with the King to their own Destruction, or that they rather chose to be delivered by his present Majesty than ruined by King James and his foolish Counsellors. Upon the whole, the ordering the Irish Army as it was by King James, is a plain Demonstration of his Design to destroy us, and a great step towards it; and he had effectually done it, had not the Providence of God raised up his present Majesty to Re∣lieve us.

Notes

• By what Interest and for what Design he came to be em∣ployed, and at last to be made Deputy, will appear from the Copy of a Letter▪ found amongst Bi∣shop Tyrrel's Pa∣pers, his Secretary. 'Tis in the Appen∣dix. N. 3.