IRELAND'S LAMENTATION For the late Destructive Cessation, OR, A Trap to catch Protestants.  
Written by Lieutenant Colonel Chidly Coote.  
Published according to Order.  
LONDON, Printed by R. C. for H. S. 1644. 1643   

Ireland's Lamentation, For the Destructive Cessation.  
ALthough the sad face of Ireland hath appeared often in sable colours to the public view of the true hearted Protestants of England, whose doleful story by pathetical expressions by men of eminence and others, hath been already most amply and lively described: Yet I presume (though no Mercurialist) being a spectator of the prodigious Tragedies acted on the bloody Theatre of that Kingdom, to present unto your serious thoughts the deplorable condition, and present state of the languishing Protestants there, which I conceive, I am many ways bound to discover, as both in duty to Almighty God, so in zeal and faithfulness to my Country.  
And because I neither desire nor dare to adventure the enlarging my present Relation with the flourishes of Rhetoric, having been bred a Soldier, and not versed that way, I shall make the most plain, speedy, and true Demonstration that I may, and shall enter into the particulars.  
And first, I shall give a touch of one circumstance, that hath been a great occasion of the Protestants misery in that Kingdom; and that hath happened through the false, and treacherous government of those, who have lately been set as Rulers and Governors over them. And in relation of this, it will not be necessary for me, to use over much prolixity, for even since my repair to this City, I well perceive my Lord marquis of Ormond, and most of his Complices, have been truly Characterised unto this whole Kingdom. Only I shall offer this unto the consideration of all men, whether or no it can be justly conceived, that the Protestants have been, or can be justly dealt withal, as long as my Lord of Ormond, my Lord Chancellor Boulton, my Lord of Roscomon, my Lord Lambert, 
Taaffe and Barry, obstinate Papists, the two Poors kinsmen to my Lord marquis, and Papists likewise, and those by whom he is most led & unled.  my Lord Brabazon, my Lord Taaffe, Sir Morris Eustance, Colonel Barrey, and the two Poors have had, and still have, the sway of that Kingdom, and I doubt not but that the true consideration of this, cannot but induce you to believe, that the greatest Justice the Protestants can expect is injustice in the very abstract, and the greatest mercy, most sudden, and inevitable cruelty, and destruction, if not through God's infinite mercy and care of the Honourable Houses of Parliament, timely prevented.  
For truly, this I will confidently affirm upon my own knowledge, and shall by God's gracious assistance never be afraid, 
Witness the choosing these above named Papists for Rulers of the kingdom, and imprisoning Sir William Parson's Sir Adam Loftus, Sir john Temple, and Sir Robert Merideth, Doctor Harding, and divers others that were imprisoned and have been enforced to fly.  to seal the Truth of my affirmation with my blood, that if countenancing the Papists, discountenancing the Protestants, be justice, the Protestants have an administration of justice, in this kind, to the very full. If countenancing Jesuits, and setting up in the Pulpits, prattling Ministers, discountenancing and imprisoning honest and zealous Preachers of the sacred Word of God, be Justice, the Protestants of that Kingdom have no cause of complaint.  
If looking with a gracious aspect on those who are rotten, and lukewarm, in the service against the Rebels, and beholding those who were honest in the service, with a threatening and malignant b●ow, be a sign of Justice, the Protestants need not complain of the want of Justice. In a word, to end this circumstance, I do hereby declare before God, and the whole world, that the best justice distributed amongst the Protestants of Ireland, hath been most destructive, both to Church and Commonwealth, and shall hearty wish, that the unjust Rulers of that Kingdom may be removed from among the poor languishing souls, that lie groaning under their cruelty.  
Now I must turn my discourse from the many miseries the Protestants of Ireland have sustained, by those who should have been their best friends, and will make as brief a Relation as I may, of the sudden destruction, our too too well known enemies would fain bring upon us, and what ways they have prepared to effect the same. The first way they fell upon, is by this time notified to all Nations, which was to cut off man, woman, and child at one blow, without distinction of either descent, age, or sex, and not only to kill their bodies, but their souls also, as fare as in them lay, forcing many weak Christians to deny their Redeemer, and then telling them, they were in the state of Grace, and that they could never die in a better time, and so hanged them up; and their raging malice was not sufficiently showed, as they supposed, by killing the Souls of the Protestants, and murdering their bodies, 
This kind of death the Relator can the better testify, because one Master Watson a Divine and Chaplain unto his Father suffered in this kind.  but they must aggravate the malignity of their malice, by inflicting not only death, but strange kinds of death upon them, as stabbing, hanging, drowning, which is known unto all men, starving the English, until they forced them to eat pieces of their own flesh, cut off and broiled on the coals, and many such like horrid deaths as these. And because they did not abound enough in malice, as yet, to the English Protestants, the Papists in Ireland must be enforced to kill their own wives, 
The Relater is ready to affirm this upon oath.  that they had married of the English, great with child, because they had English blood in them, as they said, and all those English allied unto them by their wives.  
Neither did their rage extend only to the living, but most inhumanely conveyed itself to the dead; for it is a maxim in their diabolical Divinity, that it is unlawful to say Mass, where Heretics have been buried: upon which ground they have dis-interred the bodies of the innocent Protestants sleeping in their graves, and have exposed them to be a prey either to beasts or birds: witness their practice in this kind at Galway, Limerick, and in divers other places. 
As Doctor Webbe Bishop of Limerick, Master Lee, etc.   
Again, their barbarous immanity ends not with the reasonable creature, but diffuseth itself to the sensitive and vegetable, for they revenge themselves on the very English Beasts, 
To wit because they had English blood in sheep.  commonly called by the name of English breed, for the same reason before mentioned, and would not when they were designed for slaughter, kill them, as they did the Irish breed, but the beasts being alive, cut off great pieces of flesh out of them, skin and flesh together, and so broiling that flesh upon the coals, eat the same; and if the beasts chanced either to roar or groan for misery and pain, they would in detestation and mockery of the English, cry out that they understood not their English language. But hitherto they have not lanced out fare enough into the Sea of their malice, and cruelty, but they must proceed further yet. They must be revenged of all manner of things, that either pleased or belonged unto the English. Trees that the English planted must be cut up, root and branch, there was too much of an English man in them; All herbs, plants, odoriferous flowers, set and planted by the English, and pleasing to them, must therefore no longer grow but be plucked up. All stately houses, and all manner of costly Ornaments and furniture belonging to the English, must be (out of the raging heat of their malice) consumed by the fire.  
So that it may clearly appear, by the cruelty of these devouring Wolveses, that their malice was so inveterate to the English, that they fully intended to make such a destruction of them, as there should not appear so much as one Monument of an English man in the whole kingdom of Ireland, nor any one thing that should ever be a sign unto the succeeding Posterity of the Rebels there, that ever there was an English man in that Kingdom: and this likely had come to pass, had their hellish Plot taken effect, & had not God in his infinite mercy & goodness prevented the same.  

The Treachery of the Governors & Officers.  And although they have by their more than heathenish Cruelty, (with other unexpected and unlawful helps which they had) very much advanced their devilish defignes, yet it hath pleased the All-powerfull God, in some measure to frustrate their long expected hopes, and to show them they neither can nor shall so fare prevail over us by force, but that we shall be able to enjoy the Inheritance which God Almighty hath been pleased to bestow upon us in that Kingdom, mangre all their power and malice.  
And therefore now, what they see they are not able to do by force, they will strive to do by devilish subtlety and craft: An inherent quality of that Nation.  
The means to effect this, is by a stratagem called by the name of a Cessation, which some selfe-ended Counsellors have obtained by their insinuation into his Majesty, and by these false Informations that the only way to save the Kingdom of Ireland, was by making a Cessation with the Rebels there, which indeed may easily appear unto every wise man, is, and shall prove, if not timely prevented, the very high way to lose it.  
For how can it otherwise be? for before the Cessation was made, what food had the English to subsist on, but what they forced from the Rebels? Now the Cessation being concluded, and the Rebels having all the estates and livelihood of the Protestants, and all the food of the Kingdom in their own hands, and suffering none of the food to be sold, for any rates whatsoever, to the English, of purpose to starve them out of the Kingdom, and so to get possession of it themselves; how can it be thought, but that this cessation was brought to pass by evil Counsellors to the end the Papists should get possession of the whole kingdom, as they have already the greatest part thereof?  
From all these places following, the Rebels have for the most part starved out the English since this Cessation, and that merely by stopping provisions, and suffering none to be sold unto them. The names of the places are these, and all these places in the chiefest province of the kingdom, the province of Lemster, viz. Carloe, Athy, the Fort of Lease, Nease, Trymm, and Dundalk, with many more Castles and Garrisons. And the certainty of this plot they have in hand, will prove the more apparent, by a Declaration of grievances, signed and attested by all the Protestant Officers of the whole province of Conought, sent unto my Lord marquis of Ormond, some five weeks since. Wherein amongst sundry grievances, they expressed, that there was an absolute plot amongst the Rebels to starve them out of that province, for that the Papists would have no manner of commerce, or buying, or selling with them, either victuals or any thing else. And moreover the Protestants complained in that Declaration, that they found that the County Counsels (which were the head rebels of those Counties) had issued out Warrants to seize on all men's goods and estates of their own devilish Confederacy, that should offer to have any manner of buying or selling with the English.  
And therefore what other term can rightly be given to this Cessation, than a trap for Protestants? which indeed all the Protestants of Ireland are most sensible of, and how great a yoke of tyranny they are enforced to lie under. And in that part of the kingdom (as in Ulster) where they were so powerful, as not to fear the showing their true sense of what swift destruction was plotted to be brought upon them; they have to the number of 30000. men united themselves to resolutions of falling upon the Irish again, as soon as ever supplies of victuals cometh unto them, which I doubt not through the mercies of God will redound much to the service of that kingdom and of this, for I hope the united forces will be stronger ere long, and will give the Rebels so much to do in Ireland, as they shall have either little time or mind of imbruing their wicked hands in the innocent blood of the Inhabitants of England, which truly otherwise they will be most eager to do, and I shall ever wish that this kingdom in general may truly discern how pleasing it will be to Almighty God, that there may be assistance by them given unto the Protestants of Ireland to prosecute the war in that kingdom, and to take a just revenge of the heathenish Cannibals there, for the many thousands of Innocents' they have murdered. And likewise how advantageous it will be for the service of this kingdom, since I dare confidently affirm, that the malice of the Irish Rebels pointeth at all the Protestants, nay at all the English in this kingdom likewise.  
And that doth appear by the great preparations there made both by Sea and Land for the sending over a rebellious Army into this Kingdom, upon hopes and conjectures that the Protestants here are in no condition of any ways enabling the Protestants of that Kingdom to withstand them.  
For I beseech you judge, if the Protestants there should for indigence and want be enforced to desert that Kingdom, and that the Irish should swarm here, what mercy could the English here expect from them, who have been so bloody upon us, that had so many ties of friendship and gratitude upon them? truly I know not how people may flatter themselves, but I am persuaded murdering and massacres without mercy, rapes, and rapines, burn, devastations, and all manner of spoils will be the greatest mercy received from them.  
And by sufficient testimonies I am persuaded that if the Papists may once have a concourse into this Kingdom, the very person of his Majesty would not be free from the danger of being murdered by them, if their fuccesses here should not meet with their hopes, or if his Majesty should any way decline at any time, (which I hope in Gods due time he will) from an eager pursuit of the mischievous designs they shall at all times seek to bring his Majesty unto.  
And indeed, I have a strong argument to enforce me to this belief; for not long before my departure from Dublin, certain news came to the City of my Lord Duke Hammiltons flying out of Scotland to his Majesty, which news did not a little deject some there, for that they did conjecture that there was no party to be raifed in Scotland for the hindering the advance of the Scotch Army into this Kingdom; many whispers and constructions were concerning his coming away at that time and in that manner, among many others this was the construction my Lord Taaffe made of it, who freely ripped up his mind to those of so unblemished reputations (whom although for some causes I will not name at this time, yet in due time I shall both name them, and prove by them, that he expressed himself) in these words.  
My Lord Duke Hamilton is reported to be fled out of Scotland to the King, and pretends he fled from thence, because he could not raise a party for his Majesty; But truly for my part, I take him to be as notorious a Traitor as ever he was, and that he is fled to the King merely to try, whether or no, with his great power, he can persuade the King to a peace, and by that means destroy the good cause his Majesty hath in hand. But for my part, I ingenuously declare myself, that if the King be so weak as to be prevailed upon by him, I think it is pity he should be suffered to live.  
So that by this you may well perceive, what a high esteem such traitorous Papists as these have of the cause disputed for by the King's evil Counsellors: And by consequence, how little reason the Protestants have to conjecture, that this good cause the Papists so much adore is the Protestant Religion, though 6. or 700. of those who joining with the Protestants that came over to serve the King, made oath in my hearing to maintain the Protestant Religion with their lives and estates. As likewise, how much reason all honest men have to grieve and mourn at the great danger his Majesty is in, when such threatners of his life as these shall so nearly approach unto him; The truth of all which I do hereby engage myself to prove, whensoever called upon, and no sufferance or death whatsoever, by God's powerful assistance, shall ever make me deny any one tittle of what I have here declared and subscribed unto.  
Chidly Coote.  
FINIS.