A SHORT ACCOUNT OF French Cruelties: In a Letter from Heidelburgh, June 17. 1689.  
Licenced, July the 1st. 1689.  
THey that Arrive here with the hazard of their Lives, coming from the Cities laid in Ashes by the French in the Palatinate, (for no Body is allowed the Liberty to pass the Rhine, towards the Empire) want Tongues to give an Account of the Confusion and Desolations in those Parts, not to be parallelled by any Example of passed Ages. Great Numbers of People are ravished from their Habitations and their Country; whom they chain together two and two, to transplant them into France; where they are to be disposed of in the utmost Confines of that Kingdom toward the Pyrenaeans; like another Captivity of Babylon, where the Woods and Mountains Echo nothing but the moans and sad Lamentations of of the Women, and Innocent Children. Great Numbers of them strew the Path Highways with their dead Carcases; of which the greatest Part not long since, Lived at Ease, and in full Plenty. Some therefore that through despair, lay Violent Hands upon themselves; and others suffer themselves to be overwhelmed with Grief, as having before their Eyes the lively representation of what they are still to suffer; and beg of their Hangmen as well as their Tyrant's, in pity and commiseration, to Ease them of their miserable Lives; either by the points of their Swords, or the kindness of a Musquet-Bullet. And that which deserves to be seriously considered is this, that in the midst of this unheard of Barbarism, the number of the wicked Executioners of the cruel Commands of Sovereign Tyranny is very small; there being hardly a Soldier, notwithstanding the little Esteem or Knowledge they have of what belongs to Honour, that will defile his Hands in those dismal Executions. Insomuch, that the City of worms had not so soon run the hazard of being utterly Ruined, if that infamous Officer (of whom they report a most Execrable piece of Impiety; that he should say, That if the King of France his Master, should Command him to burn G— in Heaven, he would do it, if it lay in his power) had not arrived with his band of Incendiaries to Fire that Imperial City: The French Peasants are come with a great Number of Carts and Wagons to carry away the Spoils of that City; and whatever they cannot carry away, that they destroy and reduce to nothing; so that the poor Inhabitants have nothing left them but their miserable Lives. These French Firebrands, have reduced to Ashes in the Imperial City of Spire, One and Twenty Catholic Churches, where they daily offered the Body of Jesus Christ to the Eternal Father; and Seven Cloisters belonging as well to the One, as to the other Sex. And in Worms, these impious and outrageous Caitiffs have destroyed no less than Eighteen Churches of the same Religion, and several Convents; and thus they have Profaned whatever is accounted most Sacred by their own Religion. In the most Places, they have not scrupled to Exercise their Blasphemous Rage upon the Figures and Statues of the Crucified God, to the great Scandal even of those of the contrary Religion, and amazing Terror of the Catholics; and by a particular Profanation, they melted the Bells, tho' Blessed and Christened, to make Cannon; according to the usual practice of Turks and Insidels. The Nuns and Consecrated Virgins could not escape their being Deflowered. All the Religious Orders have felt the Violences of their Fury, being constrained to quit their Convents, and to retire where they could, by Virtue of Letters of Obedience, with which the French Priests furnished them. All the World is persuaded that these unheard of Outrages will at length constrain our Holy Father the Pope, to put the French King out of the Pale of the Church, to take from him the Title of Most Christian, and to discharge all his Subjects of the Oath of Allegiance, which they own him; which in all probability would soon occasion a total Revolt of France; in regard these horrible Outrages make such an Impression upon the French, whose Hearts as yet are not altogether hardened, like that of Pharaoh; that both Soldiers and Officers Dissert the Service in Troops on every side; Protesting that whole Battalions and Squadrons will render themselves so soon as the Germane Armies shall have passed the Rhine. The French allege, for the only reason of their destroying so many fertile Countries, laden with plentiful Harvests, that it is to hinder the March of the said Armies, and to deprive them of all manner of Subsistance, which they have executed with so much Exactness, that there is nothing left for the People to live upon; so that the French Troops begin to feel the Want themselves which they have occasioned others to suffer; in so much, that they can never subsist upon the Banks of the Rhine, unless they send for Provisions from their own far distant Magazines: And then for their tearing so many innocent People from their Native Habitations, to carry them Captive into France, They think they give a very good Reason, in saying, That they carry away those People to terrify the Germans, by Threats of using them after the same manner as they would do the French, if once they should reduce them under their Obedience. And lastly, That they destroy the Cities, Towns and Villages, to the end, they may find the less Resistance, if afterwards, upon the Retreat of the Germans, they should think fit to return toward the Rhine. This dreadful Desolation of the Palatinate, has made a strong Impression in the Hearts of the Inhabitants of Alsatia, Burgundy, Lorain, Montbeillard, Deuxponts, and other Neighbouring Parts, not only because they are Apprehensive of the same Destruction, but because they see the Country already laid bare of its Fruits, which they have carried already into their Magazines: Before the Doors of which, the poor Country People are daily to be seen with their Famished Children, begging for a small Pittance of their own Corn, to support their languishing Lives.  
To these Fatal Consequences of the War, they add, That the Letters just now arrived from Sturgard, inform them, That Strasburgh; Schlestadt, Hagenau, Landau, and other Cities, are suddenly like to undergo the same Fate as Worms, Spire, and Oppentreimes. His Highness, the Elector of Bavaria, was constrained to behold from his Camp, the City of Spire reduced to Ashes, not a little troubled that the Rhine hindered him From attempting its Relief: And now he wishes he could but approach the Enemy, to gratify his Desire of Revenge. He is Fortifying Stolhove, and his Electoral Highness has invited all the Neighbouring States to concur with him to the utmost of their Power, to perfect the Work: The French having a Design to hinder him, have crossed the Rhine with Eight Thousand Men at Fort Lewis. But the Prince of Savoy is marched with a Considerable Detachment to drive them back again; of which we expect the Success.  

From the Camp of the Allies before Keyserwaert, June, 26. 1689.  
HIS Electoral Highness of Brandenburg being arrived before this Town, they redoubled their On-sets in such a manner, that the Sieur de la Marloniere, found himself constrained in less than three days to capitulate: He has surrendered this Place to the Allies, and is gone out with the French that were there in Garrison, with only Wands in their Hands. But the Soldiers of other Nations have taken Arms again among the Allies.  
☞ There is this Day Published an Account of what the Subduing of the Rebellion of Ireland, begun the 23 d. of October, 1641. hath Cost; and what Damage the Protestants there have sustained thereby, and what Lands have been Forfeited and Disposed of to Adventurers, Soldiers, and other English, and what to the Irish: Abstracted out of the Accounts of Moneys in the Exchequer, during such time as any regular Accounts were made up, and by probable and rational Estimates, for the time in which no Accounts were kept, by reason of the General Rebellion and Confusion, and out of the Surveys, Decrees and Settlements, made by His Majesty's Commissioners, for Executing the Acts of Settlement and Explanation in Ireland.    

LONDON Printed, and are to be Sold by Randal Tailor near Sta●ioners-Hill, 1689.