FULL Satisfaction concerning the Affairs of IRELAND;  
As they Relate to the marquis of ORMONDS' Transactions, with the Lord of INCHIqUIN.  
Together, with a clear Demonstration how advantageous the Lord of Inchiquins' actings have been to the Protestant Religion, and Interest of England.  
Impartially delivered from an able hand there, and accordingly faithfully published.   person standing beneath tree 
〈…〉  
Printed for the General Satisfaction of such as desire to be truly Informed of the Proceed there. 1648.   

SIR,  
THough yours to me sound somewhat a tedious passage, yet it had the unusual fortune to come sealed unto my hands. I must confess, it did yield me much contentment to see your desires and mine meet so happily upon the point of giving and receiving satisfaction. And howbeit, I cannot believe you declined this Service for any other cause but a mere compliance with your friends on that side the water; yet I did often design, giving you an account of our Proceed here, to the end, that you might as well possess others as yourself, with a right understanding thereof; which I had e'er this attempted, but that in some things, whereto I had not the happiness to be privy, I was myself until of late a little to seek.  
I shall now very briefly sum up our Proceed, since the time the Lord Precedent found it fit to declare his Resolutions of not adhering unto that Power in the hands of the Independants, under which we discerned the Parliament to be in subjection, whose obedience thereunto would have been as inconsistent with his duty to God and man, as it was against the sense and conscience of most honest men upon the place: The Subordination to which extorted Power, speciously only in the Parliament, but effectually in the Independants and Grandees of the Army, was to tread the paths of violating all manner of public engagements, & especially that of the Covenant, for maintenance of the King's Person and Rights, and of involving ourselves in the most horrid and detestable perjury that any people could be guilty of, as the process of Affaires hath since made manifest.  
When therefore it was seen, that the Votes of no more Addresses to the King were to be obtruded on us, contrary to our Nationall Oath, and that there was a necessity of refusing a compliance therewith, or embracing perjury; the first thing which fell (and that most properly) under consideration, was, by what expedient we might subsist in the justification of ourselves in our first Principles, and engagement for our King, and the genuine Parliament of the Kingdom: At which time, being shut from all intercourse with the Presbyterian Partee in England, the Lord Precedent, after several other dispatches, employed a Gentleman expressly to the Estates of Parliament in Scotland, advertising his and the Army's Resolution to adhere to the Obligations upon them by the Covenant, and desiring the advice and assistance of the Kingdom, and the Presbyterian Party in England, on sundry particulars, before any Cessation or terms, other then bare and conjectural discourses were on foot. By which Gentleman, the Lord Precedent did not only receive an approbation from the Estates of concluding a Cessation with the Irish, in order to our own subsistence for opposing the Independent Faction, but also advice for the receiving of the marquis of Ormond as Lord Lieutenant of this Kingdom; whose resort hither could be understood to tend to no other design, then by his power and interest to draw the most considerable part of the Kingdom (though not for numbers) to a clear submission unto his Majesty's Authority, and to return from their present engagements to an obedience under the Crown & interest of England; what other thing any man could propose to himself to be expected, I cannot imagine: and undeniably, his coming must be either to settle an accommodation in the Kingdom, or prosecute a War; and how little of sense their apprehension carries with it, who will pretend they supposed he came to assist us against the Irish, will appear from the consideration of an impossibility for us to support a general War against the Natives here without assistance from England, which it was well known we could not expect to have, but upon the forfeiture of our Faith; and by the access of the marquis, our hopes that way were never heightened with more than a promise of 10000 li. (which was taken afterwards from his Excellency to answer the Prince's affairs) wherewith to put this Army into a condition that might render them not so contemptible. But if we might with much reason insist upon saving conditions for the English Nation and interest, and that his Excellency might have the better ground to lay the foundation of his designs upon, the Lord Precedent had managed the business of dividing the Nation, with so good judgement and success, that upon the Lord Lieutenants arrival, the two Factions, for and against an obedience to the Crown of England, were grown to an irreconcilable distance, testified by the frequent exercise of hostile actions and bloodshed, especially of late at Ca●rig Dromrusk, where Rory mac Guire, on the part of Owen O Neil, stormed that Castle, and put all in it to the Sword receiving himself his death's wound, and leaving most of his Regiment dead upon the place, wherein his Lop held the Ballamud: with so much equality, supporting the weaker Party against the more numerous and pernicious, as by receiving either Party under protection, he was able to give the Law to the other, & yet to secure himself against both, wherein his Lo. hath comported himself with so much prudence & providence, as that it easily & evidently appears, that his Lo, in the conduct & management of that business, hath without any assistance from the Kingdom of England done that Nation, and the interest of it more Service in one years' space then all their Armies, when in the most powerful condition, were ever able to do in seve●; for besides that, his Lo. hath made the Nation instrumental one against the other, he hath marched through all quarters of the Kingdom (Ulster only excepted) hath taken in several considerable places, done much execution upon the common Enemy, and forced him to most dishonourable evasions; sometimes by slight, by fastnesses, & by quartering his Army in places formerly altogether unacquainted with the sight of an English Troop or Regiment; hath so impoverished the Country, and anticipated the means of providing for any new or old Forces of their own, as that if any fresh irruption do happen, it will be by many degrees more difficult (if not wholly impossible) for the Irish to support an Army against us, than it was at the beginning of the Cessation; whi● also hath been effected without any hazard or exposing the English Interest to any probable danger, until Owen mac Art O Neil, resolving to subdue that party of the Irish, who were for a return to his Majesty's obedience, was marched with a numerous Army unto the confines of this Province; wherein most of those that were averse from his principles did reside, which did necessitate my Lord to draw forth his Army, & to face O Neil on the Frontiers of Lynster, which was done with so much dexterity & advantage, that upon our approach within any convenient distance of him▪ he still dislodged his Camp & flew from us, still giving ground, & losing sundry of his men, whensoever they lay so open that we could possibly come at them; & indeed, so intent my Lord was upon the pursuit of him, & reducing his Interest, as that finding he would not be drawn to give him Battle in any open ground, his Lo. sat down before Fort Falkland, a principal Hold of his, which he had lately surprised, expecting that if he would do any thing that savoured of a Soldier, with so numerous an Army, he would come to the relief of that place, & accordingly O Neil did draw towards us; and by reason of my Lords want of knowledge of the ground in that Country, did possess himself of a very strong Pass between us and Munster, & confined us within a nook of Land, so as probably he might have greatly distressed us; But the Lord Precedent supposing that by the access of some late forces he had come to him, was more confident then to stick to the security of a Fastness, being drawn up several days to give him Battle; found at length, his design to be the streitning of us for provisions in that corner: which design carried much probability of taking effect; but was utterly frustrated by means of constant supplies which we had out of Connaught from the marquis of Clanrickard over the Shannon, and by the activity and diligence of a party of five hundred Horse and Foot, which lay in an outward Garrison, betwixt Owen Roe and Munster, who falling on sometimes on his rear and flank, & we Skirmishing daily on the head of his Army, wherein he lost many Soldiers, and divers prime Officers; his own design being at length turned upon his own head, and his Army so necessitated and discouraged, that upon some apprehension, that we were resolved in the morning, having taken in that Fort, to force our passage through their Camp and Fastness, (though we could have gone orderly over the Shannon; for which we had a competency of Boats) they risen over night in great disorder, and marched, or rather fled away with so much affright and speed, as of a rabble of near ten thousand men, whereof his Army did consist, he had not two thousand left the night ensuing: by which dissipation equal to any defeat, Owen O Neiles designs of marching into this Province, and of drawing or enforcing the Country to rise with him, and of suppressing all such of the conformable party, who were willing to submit to authority, contrary to his resolution of alienating the English into a Foreign Interest, were disappointed, & this Army preserved & maintained in an indifferent plentiful condition, chief out of their own quarters, which will be very evidently made appear to be an act of the greatest advantage to the English Interest that was possible to be effected.  
The Cessation being in this kind of transaction well nigh effluxed, it did necessarily fall under consideration what further correspondency was to be held with this people, and the impossibility of our subsisting by our former quarters, appearing by the experience we made thereof in the former Cessation, and of the poverty of the Country, there could not a more solid expedient be proposed, for preservation of the English interest, then entering upon a Treaty or Capitulation for a Peace with those persons which had manifested their real inclinations thereunto, in order to His Majesty's restauration, and to render this Kingdom of use to that end; who though the more considerable party for subsistence and interest, are yet by much the weaker in respect of number; so as the scandal of our agreement with the whole Irish, will manifest by a secluding of Owen O Neile and his adherents, in case a pacification be agreed upon; against which, though I find sundry persons do greatly except; yet I do not find any material reason whereon such exception is grounded, unless this may be allowed for one; that hereby we arm ourselves against being brought under subjection to the Independants; whom by experience and profession, we find to be more inveterately embittered against us, then against the very Irish, that now persist in Rebellion, by the more vigorous prosecution of us, then of them; for as it is most evident, that by an accommodation we shall settle a more competent and satisfactory provision for the Army; so we shall acquire a more important interest in the power of the Kingdom. We know our adversaries, when malice will suffer them to be ingenious, do acknowledge that we have been justly necessitated to what we have done hitherto by their neglect of us, and for our own preservation: and that for these reasons, the Cessation was excusable, and for the same reasons being still under the same neglect and necessity, we are constrained to embrace an accommodation: against which it may be objected, that hereby instead of gaining ground upon the Irish, we pull the English Interest into their hands; which truly, I that am upon the place, am so unable to apprehend, that I cannot hardly allow the exception to be sensibly framed: we know already the poverty of the Country in general, and that if a new war or design should be undertaken, it must be chief supported by the Towns, (which being put into our hands, as that without which, no pacification can succeed) certainly the power of the Kingdom, at least so much as is in the hands of those we Treat with, devolves fully and clearly to us: It may be also alleged, that probably the Irish will not accept lower conditions than those the marquis of Ormond last concluded, wherein the Irish had but one particular advantageous Article upon the English which was for a coordination in power with him: whereunto there will now no way be given, nor any accord pitched upon, unless the Irish do utterly relinquish, insisting upon that particular, and leave all Authority & Power incommunicable in his Excellency; so as the agreement now, (if any) will be of much less avail to the Irish, than the former. Our Churches, besides a full restitution to the English of all their remaining Interests, must b● put clearly into our hands, and the very hope of enjoying any thing of that kind, utterly taken away; whereunto may be added, that the conditions now are such and so slenderly grounded, as that it is very evident the Irish (I mean the submitting party) are content to accept even of the shadow of a Peace, to attract the more considerable party to a conformity with them; for it cannot be unobserved by the intelligent part of them, That for the last agreement the marquis made with them, he had for his warrant His Majesty's Commission under the broad Seal of this Kingdom: That His Majesty was at that time in a condition hopeful enough to have been able to justify the Concessions which were made unto them: Whereas now it must needs be understood, that his Authority being derivatory only from the Prince, whatsoever he shall conclude must be Arbitrary at His Majesty's pleasure.  
And therefore, though we are for the encouragement of those that are capable of advancing our endeavours for His Majesty's service, we are content to give this transaction the name of a Peace; yet it is essentially, and in effect, no more than a bare submission of the Power and Interest of the Kingdom into our hands; which we hope we shall not be  for receiving, nor that the Tenants of some Independants will be so strictly held, that it were better in the hands of the Irish then in ours.  
Some Factors for the Independants have strangely laboured to beget a high Odium and distaste of the proceed upon this affair, and had contrived several ways for the betraying of the Lord Lieutenant, & the Lo. Precedent into their hands; to prevent whose practices▪ the Lord Precedent hath been forced to bestir himself with a great deal of active resolution, and reclaimed most of the Faction (who were seduced) by reason; he hath assured the rest of indemnity, upon their promise to acquiesse; some whereof are so violently engaged, that it is discerned they only recend a little now to attend a fit opportunity, and with these people his Lo. will be obliged to deal in a more particular manner.  
At the present there is only a renovation of the Cessation, nothing being either concluded, or any progress made so fare towards it, as to answer the Proposition of the Irish; nay, I dare confidently aver, that their first Proposition being absolutely rejected, and they advised to draw up more moderate and hopeful ones; those Propositions are not yet put in: what the result will be of these negotiations, I know not; But shall advertise what I understand or observe, with all convenient speed.  
Cork, the 30. of November, 1648.  
FINIS.