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.

(N^o 17) A Copy of a Letter from Bishop Maloony to Bishop Tyrrel; the Original found amongst Bi∣shop Tyrrel's Papers.

March 8th. 1689.

I Have yours▪ (my D. L.) of the 29th of January last, your Style by Mr. Despont. 'Tis large and plain enough, and another before more Concise and in Merchants Style, both tending to the same end, and of which I made use to the same purpose, notwithstanding all the Discomposure of my Health this Month past, as you shall I hope find by the Effects e'er this comes to your hands; for the King upon your earnest Invitation in both your said Letters, and by other strong Considerations, took of a sudden the Resolution to go unto you, and parted hence this day Sennight being the last of February, and I hope in God is by this time landed somewhere in Ireland, for the Wind serves fair e∣ver since he parted; and he did expect to be on Friday Night (this being Monday following) at Brest, where all things, and most part of the Officers were in a Readi∣ness staying for his Majesty's Arrival, for to part with the first Wind. I wrote unto you in that Conveniency by Sir Neal O Neal, and another by Post at the same time. This will go flower, and by the second Voyage of the same Ships when they come back for more Men and Commodities. It goes by a Friend I dare trust with all the Secrets of it; and so I will be full, plain, and over∣board.

The Bearer is Doctor Butler, a good Gentlemans Son, of a good Estate when People enjoyed their own Birth-right, to which he is become himself Heir, if he can recover it; In which I shall beg your Favour and Protection for him when occasion doth require. He has made all his Studies and took his Degrees here; I have sufficiently instructed

him of all the Contents of this Letter by word of Mouth for fear of any Miscarriage; and although I ought to pre∣sume that all and every of you there (and especially so clear sighted and foreseeing Persons as you, and others like you) need no Advertisement, or Spurr; Yet my Zeal pro Fide, Rege, & Patria, could not dispense with me to be silent from writing, when I am not upon the Place to speak my Sense as others.

Now, my Lord, you have the King so much wished and longed for, of whom we may say without Offence, as of our Saviour, hic positus est in Ruinam & Resurrectionem mul∣torum: If you make good use of him, you may get a Re∣surrection of many by him; but if you make a bad use, you may get their Ruine; so all depends, under God, of the good or bad use you make of his Presence amongst you; it is but a special Providence of God that he is so unex∣pectedly gone thither: But when God's Providence is ei∣ther slighted or neglected by People not helping themselves, and not making use of the Occasions offered them by Providence, God can and does usually with-draw his special Providence; Conantes adjuvat, exauditque deprecantes, says St. Augustin. My Lord, the Game you have now to play is very nice and ticklesome. The Religion, King, and Countries Ruine or Re∣surrection depends on it; If you play it well, you will carry all and save all; but if you play it ill, you will lose all and for ever: All consists in resolving well how to dispose of Ireland, in the present Conjuncture, being the only Coun∣try that appears now for the King; wherein you have two Parties to manage; The one, to wit the Protestant-New∣comers and Usurpers, under the Rebellion of Cromwell are suspected, or rather certain can nor will ever be Loyal or Faith∣ful, whatever Outward Shew or Promises they make: Which is manifest by their several Instances in our Days both in England and Ireland. The other Party, to wit, the Catho∣licks of Ireland proved still faithful and Loyal to the King at Home and Abroad, though very ill recompensed. Now the great question to be decided will be, whether (setting a∣side the manifest and incontestable Injustice of that most

barbarous and inhumane Act, they wrongfully call THE SETTLEMENT OF IRELAND.) Whether I say it is more politick and prudent to trim and temporize now with those Usurpers, promising really or seemingly not to disturb them in their unjust Possessions, than to restore the true ancient Proprietors; turn off, or rather secure the Usur∣per, and make up a strong and potent Army, all of True, Loyal, Faithful and Incorruptible Men, without any mixture of Trimmers or Traytors! I would think the Question thus Stated, is soon resolved by natural Reason, divers Instances and sad Experiences. What Man of Sense or Reason can ima∣gin, that those who by their Rebellion cut off their King's Head like a Scelerate on a Scaffold, banished his Queen and Children into Foreign Countries to beg their Bread for so many Years together; and after the Heir's Restauration to his Crown, not only put so many hard and unjust Conditions upon him; namely that of excluding the Irish Catholicks from the Amnestly General, but also used so many foul Means and Con∣trivances to murther and massacre him and his Brother toge∣ther; and seeing the King Issueless, to use all their Endea∣vours to exclude the Brother from his lawful Birth-right and Succession to the Crown; and when they could not by a Legal and Parliamentary way perform it, at last draw Foreign Power into the Kingdom, with whom by a most horrid Rebellion, and most traiterous Defection, they all join, and turn him from his Throne, and banish him with his Queen and Son, the only lawful Heir of the Crown, into Foreign Countries; again placed a Foreigner upon the Throne in a Month's time, after declaring the Crown vacant, though he and his Son still alive. All these barba∣rous and traiterous Transactions done within Forty Years time in the Face of the World; By all which experiences, the present King in his own Person passed; but how can it be possible (say you) that the King having tried in his own Person all these Instances and Experiences, with several others, he could be thus impos'd upon and de∣luded: I tell you, by the same Reason, that you may be now deceived, if you are not cautious; that is, by

want of Capacity and Sincerity in his Advisers; telling him still, he must do nothing that may irritate or pro∣voke the Anger of the Protestants of England, who are very dangerous; That he must get them by fair means, granting them all they desire; nay preventing their de∣sires by all good Offices and Marks of Kindness, even to the Prejudice of his Crown and Dignity. By this fair Politick, they hindred him from drawing Succour out of Ireland sooner, from making up a Catholick Army that would stick to him, instead of a Protestant one that betrayed him; hindered him also from having any Succour from France offer'd him: Obliged him to declare that he had no Alliance with France; and never to believe that the Dutch had any Design upon him or his Country, till they were in the very Bowels of it. Let any Man of Sense see if such rotten Principles and Politicks, that pro∣duced such Fatal Effects, ought to be insisted upon or em∣braced. If the King of France had not been too generous and too Christian a Prince; were it not a sufficient Mo∣tive for him to reject the King in his Disgrace, that upon those rotten Principles rejected his Alliance; yet those, and only those Principles, will be made use of to perswade you there, that you must not think of your own Restau∣ration and Assurance at Home first, but go into England to restore the Catholicks: And if there be any other Adhe∣rents of the King's there, and that it will be time enough to think of your own Restauration after: Which, is the same as to say, at Dooms-day: For never a Catholick or o∣ther English, will ever think or make a step, nor suffer the King to make a step for your Restauration, but leave you as you were hitherto, and leave your Enemies over your Heads to crush you any time they please, and cut you off Root and Branch, as they now publickly declare: And blame themselves they have not taken away your Lives a∣long with your Estates long ago; nor is there any English∣man, Catholick or other, of what Quality or Degree soever alive, that will stick to sacrifice all Ireland for to save the least Interest of his own in England, and would as willing∣ly

see all Ireland over, inhabited by English, of whatsoever Religion as by the Irish: and yet by their fine Politicks, they would perswade the Irish to come and save their Hou∣ses from burning, whilst they leave their own on fire: Which is no better than to look upon People as so many Fools, when every body knows that Charity begins at Home: that one's Charity for himself, is the Rule and Measure of that he ought to have for his Neighbour; diliges proximum tu∣um sicut teipsum. Is it not a better and more Christian Politick for the King, and all that are faithful unto him, to restore first a whole Kingdom that stands out for him when all the rest failed, to their Birth-right which they have been out of these Thirty Six Years, only for being obstinately Loyal to his Father, Brother and himself, than to displease those who have been and are still Loyal, (and who can get any Condition they please from the Enemy to join with them) by thus pleasing or trimming with those who never were, or ever will be True or Faithful; and when they are thus restored, and no Enemies left in their Bowels that can do his Majesty or them any Harm, then to go in a strong Body together with his Majesty into England, join with all such that will prove Faithful and Loyal, and so re∣store his Majesty to his Throne, and each one to his right. I would fain know from these trimming Politicks, whether it be not securer and more honourable for the King to offer all fair Means, and shew his Clemency to his People when he is in Condition to force them to what he pleases to ex∣act of them, than to be daily undervaluing himself by offering them all the fair Means imaginable, which they slight and scorn, because they seeing he has no Means, to force them or do them Harm, think he does all only out of fear, and not by any sincere or true Affection; And I would fain further know, if it be not better and greater Policy for him to put the Kingdom of Ireland (still so Loyal unto him) up∣on the best and highest Foot both Ecclesiastical and Temporal he can contrive, and yet granting it nothing but its natural Right and Due, that it may be a Check upon the People of England, who are ready every

New-Moon to Rebel, then to keep it still in a con∣tinual Slavery and full dependance on such perfidious and inconstant People, and himself deprived of the support he can still have from thence against their Revolt: I dare averr, if Ireland were put upon such a foot by the King, he shall never fear any Rebel∣lion in England, especially if Scotland be faithful to him, and France a Friend; all which can now be well contrived and concerted. But when all is done, I would fain yet know from those Politick Trimmers, by what Law of God or Man, Ecclesiastical or Poli∣tick, they think Ireland is bound to be the Sacrifice and Victim of the Rebellion of England, either for to hinder those turbulent People from Rebelling, or for to Reconcile them to their Duty, by giving them, forsooth, as Recompence, the Estates of those unfor∣tunate Catholicks, and send themselves a begging; I dare say, no Catholick in England, much less a Pro∣testant, (who would so easily give his consent and advice, that the Estates of the Irish Catholicks may serve as a Recompence for the English Rebels) would willingly give a Plow-Land of his own Estate to Re∣concile all the Rebels of England to their Duty, if he were not afraid to lose his own whole Estate by the Rebellion, and yet would advise to do to others what he would not have to be done to himself, contrary to the great Rule and Maxim of Nature and Christianity, Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris.

I would fain further know from this Politick Trimmer, so large of other Peoples Goods, and so spar∣ing of his own, if one Province in England had revolt∣ed against their King, as the whole Kingdom does now; and that the rest of the Provinces continued faithful, would they think fit or prudent to give their Lands and Estates to those Rebels for laying down their Arms, and go beg themselves? Or would the King expect or desire it from them? No

sure; but rather that they should take up Arms, and joyn with His Majesty to reduce and punish such Rebels in lieu of recompencing them with the Loyal's Estates: And is not that the case of the Irish? Why do you not then judge alike? Or if you do not look upon an Irish man as a Fool, why will you have him do what you say is not fit for your self or other fellow-Subjects to do in like case? And sure you must think him a Fool▪ and after-wit, as you use, to say, if he will be perswaded, by your Trimming Politick, to leave his own Estate to his Enemy, and come to save yours; who would but laugh at him the next day at the best for his folly: If their great and long Vexations have not given the Irish better understanding, and know how little regard all the English whatsoever have for them, they deserve to be dealt with like Fools.

But who would think it were Prudent or Politick for the King to bring a great Body of Men out of Ireland into England or Scotland, leaving behind him in Ireland a considerable strong Party of Phanaticks, all Enemies, whatever outward shew they make to the contrary, to rise in Arms as soon as they see the King turn his Back to them, and they get a supply from their fellow Rebels out of England, which will not be wanting at any time, and so cut the Throats of all His Majesty's true Subjects in Ireland, and shut himself up between two Potent Enemies in England, and Ireland; whereas by setting the Irish on a sure foot, he always hath for a Refuge that Country, which he will find to be far better than no∣thing, and may be with time, a means to come into Eng∣land: But Trimmers will tell him, That it is no matter for His Majesty, if he can gain the English Rebels by sacrificing Ireland to them who will inhabit it, whether English or Irish; nay, I believe rather English, and so make it an English Interest all along; and he will be apt to believe it: but it imports the Irish to look about them▪ and consider if that be their Interest.

Add to all these considerations, with many more and better you can think of, an essential and indispensible one, which is to please this King and Court, of whom his Majesty now, and you all depend solely and whol∣ly, by saving their Interest along with that of his Ma∣jesty and your own, which cannot be done but by settling of Ireland upon the best and most advantageous foot that can be contrived with Reason and Justice, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 it may be a Check upon England, as Scotland formerly, to keep it from Rebellion against their own Prince: From trouble and Invasion upon France, and a Tye upon the Kings of England hereafter to keep good Cor∣respondence with France, and keep Ireland in a flourish∣ing happy condition, and not to be Slaves to all the People, and Scums of England. If 48, or other, were loath to press any such Conditions or Proposals on the King, they may make use of the French Minister Count D'Avaux, who is with him as a good Adviser, and for to manage his Masters Interest. I think it may be well and rationally proposed, if by the King of France's means such an advantageous settlement may be procured for the Nation; and that he would be as a Guarranty or Protection of it, to give him as well for his assurance or Guarranty, as for the payment of what he advances for the King and Country, some Sea-ports in Ireland, as you have hinted in your last.

This is what now comes into my head upon this Sub∣ject, which M. B. does not neglect to insinuate and im∣print as much as he can, (though not well in his health) into the Heads and Hearts of the Ministers and People about Court. Though 27 gave no Power or Credit to any body here to speak of Business, but to his Son-in-Law L. W. (in Cypher 110.) but M. B. does it privately upon his own account and acquaintance with the People, without thwarting him in any of his Ways. But you know what one says, tanquam potestatem habe••s, carries more weight than what he says as a private man; And

therefore I think it were not amiss that 48. from him∣self, or by the said French Ministers means may get order from 27 that 92 may be heard and Credited at Court as to the Concerns of 78, which to prevent and hin∣der some that would not have it put into 27's head (as 'tis thought) to desire 92 to follow him as soon as he were well in his health along with 23, and before he saw himself to tell him so; knowing he was sick, gave orders to 18's fellow traveller (whom I added to the Cypher thus 112) to tell him so, which he has perform'd only by another, Master Barry, belonging to 34, for he never came himself to see him, which I think was not pru∣dently done of him, (setting civility aside) for they may communicate one to another what may be best to do with 86 for the service of 78, and certain∣ly without any vanity 92▪ knew better how to manage that interest with 86 than he or any of his profession there; But I find some do suspect the sincerity of that Man for the Publick Interest. I know not if they wrong him; but one thing I know, he does not like to see any of 64 or 65 have any hand in Business: Of which I think I gave you once already a hint from 87, when he and 98 were there; and I cannot tell but it may be he that might have given 27 that advice of draw∣ing 92 from hence, who desires not to be but where he may be most useful to his Religion, King and Country; and if any necessity may be of his Vote there, he can send you a Procuration in blank if he be thought more useful or necessary here.

'Tis now high time I suppose you should ask me what is this great and solid settlement I would have for Ireland; To which I answer; That you and others there likely know best; But that I may speak my own little sense on the matter: I say, I would have two or three of the Irish Nation to be still of the Kings Council, and one of them Secretary of State for the Affairs of Ireland, as Scotland has. I would have some of their

Nobility to be of the Bedchamber, by reason both of Honour and Interest. I would have all the Employ∣ments, Civil and Military, given to the Natives of the Country: Unless the Country thought ••it to introduce some Strangers for better advantage and improve∣ments.

I would have them restored to their Estates both Spiri∣tual and Temporal, usurped by the Cromwellians, or, under the Title of being Protestants; yet with that Proviso for the Spiritual, that a Competent Pension should be allowed to the Protestant Possessor during his Life: for he can pretend no longer Lease of it; or that he should give the Catholick Bishop or In∣cumben••▪ a competent Pension, if it were thought fitter to let him enjoy his Possession during Life.

I would have the Commerce and Traffick settled, with all the Advantage due to a 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Nation and Sub∣jects, (of which the Merchants 〈◊〉〈◊〉 inform best) without any other dependence on, or relation to England, but what Subjects ought to the King and Crown▪ of which I would not derogate in the least, but nothing to do with the Merchants and People of England, no more than with those of France, Spain and Holland.

But my Politick Trimmer will say, this is of a dangerous consequence for England, and for the King, in relation to it: for they will say the King in∣tends to establish the same Government amongst them, both in Spirituals and Temporals that he has in Ireland▪ To which I answer in the first place; That we are not here to manage or speak for the Interest of England, which would not fail to speak and stand for it self. Secondly, I say, That the Consequence from Ireland's Case to England's does not follow; For in Ireland the Catholick Party is much more nu∣merous and strong than the Protestant: So that it is for the King's Interest there to favour them, or at

least do them Justice: But in England, where the number of Protestants and other Sectaries is by much the greater, he can order things otherwise, without any Contradiction: for ••••om the one to the other the Consequence does not hold, for the Reasons afore∣said. Thirdly, There is no such thing as Restitution of Temporal Estates in England: for they were wiser there than to lose their Estates, though they would be free to consent or advise that others may; so it is very free for the King to make any Settlement of any Spiritual or Temporal Estates there as he shall think fit, notwithstanding any Settlement he makes in Ireland.

Now remains, I think, one Objection to solve, which may give some Obstruction to this intended Settle∣ment, which is that of the Gown-men, or others, who made Purchases of some New Interests, bona fide: Must they lose 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Purchase and Money? To which I answer; That although it may be reply'd, Caveat emptor, especially to the Gown-men, who knew best of all that horrid Act of Settlement, or so called, was most unjust, and could by no true Law hold; yet because they are Persons useful for the Common∣wealth, and acted bona fide (seeing the Estate out of the Ancient Proprietors Hands by so many Publick Acts, as it was not like ever to come to him again) there ought an Expedient to be found for the like, that they be not losers: and that either they or the Ancient Proprietors may be recompensed one way or other, rather than it should be an Obstacle to the com∣mon Good.

And so I have done with this matter, which I leave and recommend to God and you.

This is all the advice I can now give upon this matter: and the Observations I make by my Conversation and Acquaintance with the People this year past: and I am sure I am not deceived in my Opinion of them in relati∣tion

to 78, nor in the reasons they will make use of to per∣swade you to neglect your own Interest to save theirs; and I am no less certain 27 is all inclined that way; So you are to look to your selves, and whilst Sun shines, to make your Hay. Nune tempus acceptabile, Nunc dies Salutis; Dum ergo tempus habemus operemur bonum, maxime ad domesticos fidei. 92, if authoriz'd, will make all this Court go in your way, by shewing them it is their Interest, of which he has laid some Foundations already.

There remains another Observation; which is, That a Benedictine English Monk called Price is gone thither with the King, who pretends to play that we call here premier a••mosnier, in England they call it Clerk of the Closet to the King: which Father Peters had there: And here it is always a Bishop; Now the Bishop of Orleans, whose Office is to assist the King at Mass, and all other Ecclesiastical Functions as Chief, when the Lord High Almoner is not present, gives the orders and spiritual dire∣ctions, cum privilegio exceptionis, in the King's Palace, and Liberties of it: Why should we in our Country have any in that place but one of our selves: Let them take place in England; and so why would not you have this place for your self there, or get it for M. B. and exercise the Functions in his absence, rather than a Stranger should have it before our face and laugh at us.

Now to other business, you are to know, your business in Rome is concluded upon and past all difficulties; only remains the Expedition of the Bulls, which you may ever move as you please: The Expences whereof, by Dr. Sleyn's great care and Sollicitation, with the help of Cardinal Howard, and means of Monsieur Casone, Favo∣rite to his Holiness, are reduced to a hundred Roman Crowns; though it cost Dr. Fuller for worse 170. not∣withstanding all the Favours and Sollicitations, which were many, he could employ. Dr. Sleyn, this Seignior Cousin should be thanked by a Civil Letter, to which I wrote one, of which I here send you a Draught; you

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