A TRUE COPY OF A second letter, sent from the Lord of Inchiquine to the Honourable Colonel Michael jones, Commander in chief of the Parliaments Forces in Leinster, AND Governor of the City of Dublin, With Colonel jones his Answer, To the Lord of Inchiquines said Letter.  
DUBLIN Printed by William Bladen 1649,   

Sir  
I Have received yours of the 21th of june, wherein you refer me for answer to part of mine of june 20th to what hath passed between you and his Excellency the Marquis of Ormonde, when I perused those papers of yours; I observed how you put of the main objections against the chief actors in England as not concerning you at all, can the horrid and treasonable Parricide of a lawful Sovereign, by rebellious Subjects, contrary to all laws of God and man, contrary to so many oaths and obligations, detested by all Europe, the abrogation of the ancient liberties, and privileges of Parliament, the total subvertion of the fundamental constitutions of their native country the extremest violation of the rights and properties of their fellow subjects, and the assuming, of an absolute arbitrary power, over their lives and fortunes by the Sword, be crimes of the highest nature in the Actors: and yet the maintainers and abbetters of them, in their Tyrannical usurpations remain innocent, and unconcerned.  
I observed further how you plead his Majesty's limitation of his Regal power and his committing of the managery of the Irish war, to his two houses of Parliament in England, and upon that foundation, you ground the justice of your Proceed, suppose the laws of England did tie our common Sovereign's hands from doing acts of grace in Ireland, suppose they did oblige the subjects of this Kingdom in their lives and Estates, without their own consents, yea before they be heard, suppose this do not render the subjects of Ireland, the veriest slaves in the world, nor make void our free charters as ancient and as large as those of England itself, suppose that solemn Act to introduce the English statutes into Ireland, to have been needless & superfluous, supposing all you will have to be supposed, yet now there is not the least shadow of the two houses remaining, the upper house being quite taken away, and the house of Commons, become a suppositions changeling, certainly they are none of his Majesties two houses, which have taken away both Majesty & Monarchy, Lastly that war hath no affinity with this, That was to suppress Rebellion, this to maintain Rebellion, That was to defend the Protestant Religion, the liberties of Parliament, the rights of the subject, this is merely for the subvertion of all these p●●der those things seriously, without prejudice, and you will quickly find what tottering grounds you have laid to support the weight of so much Christian blood and the devastation of the whole Kingdom, and how little you have answered to his Excellency's reasons.  
I proposed a conference and you reject it, as not consisting with Prudence in matters of this consequence, and subject in these times to construstions and misconstructions, Certainly if advice and deliberation be necessary it is in matters of moment and Consequence.  
If you be yourself, that is free to follow, reason and Conscience and not engaged to the dictates of other men, nor wilfully wedded to an implicit faith, but ready to embrace the truth whensoever it shall be revealed (which every good Christian ought to be) a conference had been the likeliest means, to take away misconstructions, and beget better constructions. This made the office of Ambassadors so sacred, that quarrels might not become immortal, for want of conference, & right understanding There is a blessing promised to Peacemakers, but a judgement hangs over their heads who nourish contentions, This rejecting of a conference seems to me to argue strongly either a diffidence in your cause, or a resolution, to hold the conclusion without any regard of the premises, or a distrust of my ingenuity. We both profess the same ends, why should we differ so much in the means, I thought a conference would take away the veil, and either discover our difference in the first, or have happily reconciled us in the later, to which I was resolved to come without prejudice or obstinacy, contending more for truth then, for victory, as willing to have condescended to you had you been in the right, as I am unwilling to departed from you ●●w, because I am assured that you are in the wrong, It is indifferent to me what cause is right, so I be in the right cause, And though I have left your party, because you have left your principles, it is but as a man leaves his brother's house, whilst it is infected with some contagious disease, with a mind to pray for you, and a desire of reunion with you, so soon as I may with safety, This is not to forsake you, but to provide for myself, you say you are satisfied in the justice of your cause admit you be so, yet take heed this be not for want of due discussion, or out of an implicit trust, and adherence to others, or a prejudice in your affections, which robs and betrays reason of its due succours, and like a false glass makes things appear otherwise then in truth they are, Be it spoken without the beast disparagdment to your person or parts, which I honour and desire to love, you cannot be more resolute than Saul was in his pharisaical opinions, or then many thousand heretics and Shismatickes of all sorts in the world are at this day, who might be cured, if they did not stop their cares, against the voice of the Charmer, Principles may be erroneous, and nothing is more ordinary then to mistake a party for a principle, The only reason which you give for your resolution, is that God's blessing hath dwelled visibly upon your cause, as still it doth, when God blesseth men in evil courses, it is the greatest judgement, his ways are always just, but often secret, The evening commends the day, and the conclusion often differs from the first Acts of the Tragily howsoever, ascribe not that to the merits of your cause, which may be due to the sins of the advers party.  
My sword you say hath been prosperous, but you advise me to consider the cause wherein I then appeared, If over my cause were just (which you confess) it is so still and therefore I may still hope for the same blessings, yet the prosperous●●es of it, did not assure me that it was good, but the goodness of it did, and still doth give me hopes that it will be prosperous.  
But you tax me now for joineing with the bloody Rebels, and setting myself against those of the Protestant Religion contrary to my former engagements, how ill do these words become you, who adhere to and maintain the bloodiest Rebels in the world, that is those in England, who are so strictly joined and united with Colonel Monk, who if I be not misinformed, hath made a Cessation with the bloodest of those that you intent and recommended them to the Parliament for far better conditions, than we give to those who submit to his Majesty, This is evident that h●●e maintains, a strict league and correspondance with them, then with his Majesty's loyal English Subjects, witness his own letter to Colonel Collom Brien mac Mahon, the original whereof is in my hands, excusing the taking of a prey upon mac Mahons lands, and promising his own endeavour, and major Caddugans for restitution thereof, in these words, It seems this misfortune happened to you, upon an Information that you were removing with your Creaghts, and that you kept the horse you have to join with Ormondes' being of that faction. those whom you call in public bloody Rebels, you hug and protect in private, but his Majesty's friends are those you most malign.  
Is that an horrid Crime in us which is a virtue in yourselves, observe how partiality doth blind your eyes, is this our Crime that you prosecute with such outcries that we have not rooted out a nation, and those whose ancestors with their bloods, did propagate the English interest in this Kingdom, but as becometh Christians, have received the penitent to mercy, after they have thrust from them their misleaders, That we acknowledge them for fellow subjects to whom his Majesty hath extended his grace, that we refuse not their assistance in the defence of our Common King and Country, now that they have left their unlawful courses, to concur with us in our just and pious ends, whom we prosecuted as Rebels formerly, If there were any blemish in this as there is none, it reflects principally on those whose Religion infusing better principles into them, have been to the scandal thereof, contrivers and fomenters, of all our mischiefs, first necessitating us, to make use of the joint concurrenc of those of the Roman cumunion, for our common defence & then blaming us for joining rather with them then to have both our bodies and souls enslaved by a pack of insulting Rebels, No, no, sir we have seen to our cost, how much our divisions have conduced and would conduce to their greedy and ambitious ends.  
As for that charge you lay to me I smile at it, and advise you seriously to look into yourself, I have changed the party but not the cause, you have changed the cause but not the party, make all things the same they were pretended to me and the world, and I am the same I ever was, but when time hath discovered the hidden mysteries and juggling tricks of cheating mountebanks and impostors, for more to persist in their fellowship, were not constancy but self willed obstinacy, I have as you desire seriously considered my former engagements and the more I ponder the more I find myself obliged in honour and conscience to desert that party, I engaged myself by oath to defend the King's person prerogative and posterity and therefore I cannot consent to that execrable murder, of his Majesty, and the utter disinheritance of my now gracious Sovereign, I engaged to preserve the laws, and therefore I cannot without wilful perjury, see the laws subverted by a factious Army I engaged to maintain Religion, and therefore cannot endure to see the resurrection of all schimes, herecies blasphemies, out of the grave of oblivion, wherein they have been long buried, I engaged for the just liberties of the Parliament, and people, and therefore am bound to oppose the annihilating or exunaniting the power of Parliament by an handful of upstarts and the transferring the people from the service of their lawful Sovereign to the vassalladge of domineering Rebels give me leave with the same freedom to put you in mind, of your oaths and engagements, both as a subject, and a professor of the laws and those not obtruded upon you, by fear or force not disallowed by a lawful superior nor repugnant to law or precedent obligations.  
Lastly for the Protestant Religion if you intent that of the Church of England wherein you were baptised and breed wherein your father was, your uncles are and your brother professeth to be an eminent pastor, I am ready to join hands and heart with you in the defence and propagation thereof if you desire a general Synod of all the Protestants in Europe, to beget either a nearer uniformity, or a righter understanding among us, I shall endeavour the same alsoe, within the bounds of my calling, But if by the Protestant Religion you intent a confusion or inundation of all those monstrous and heterogeneous errors, which have over spread the face of the English Church, or if you think it lawful for private persons or subordinate, Magistrates, without the consent, against the will, of their lawful Sovereign, to introduce novelties into the Church, according to their particular fancies, I must crave leave to descent from you.  
And now sir to conclude all whether you or I do intend or endeavour more Really the advancement of the Protestant Religion, and the English interest in this Kingdom, that is the defence of the English Subject in his just propriety the monarch of England in his just Sovereignty, I appeal to God the searcher of all hearts, and to the tribunal of Christ before which we must one day give an account of our actions much more might be said in our defence but this is satisfactory if not to you yet to him who desireth is be  
From the Camp of his Majesty's Army at Finglas the 23th of june 1649. Sir Your friend and Servant Inchiquine  
For Colonel Michael jones. Th●se.   

My Lord.  
YOur Lordships of this date I relieved, it being in pursuance of your former of the 20th instant, Therein I find a large recollection of what had been once and again formerly offered and urged by the Lord of Ormonde, endeavouring the diverting me from my course by laying before me the late proceed in England.  
The cunto and to your Lordship is the Answer the same summarily, which was formerly given on the like occasion. That in all that, the service here is no way concerned: only as to a Christian fellow feeling of each others suffering, And in what this service hath suffered by those unhappy differences obstructing those supplies, whereby the work here had been before now finished, otherwise I see not how from those distractions in England is to be concluded (either in Honour or Reason) what you intent my giving up to the Rebels and their adherents this place and Charge committed me: which by God's grace I shall never do.  
Your Lordship now again presseth that Conference defined in your former. And particularly, you except to my saying, That is prudence it was not to be admitted in matters of this consequence, you tell me; that if advice and deliberation be necessary it is in matters of moment and consequence.  
(But my Lord) it is not understood of advising with Enemies whose Counsels, although never so specious, are to be suspected. Nor was it said that advice was not necessary in matters of consequence: but that discourses and a verbal Conference (which was that spoken of,) and that at the distance we are with each other, was not in prudence to be admitted especially in causes of this consequence. The Lord of Oxmonde so apprehended it, whole transactions first with the Irish and after with the Parliament Commissioners passed not in discourses but in writing, and that as to very circumstances. writing (surely) not conference is the prudent and clear way for such proceed. let not therefore my declining that your way be apprehended as proceeding either out of diffidence of my cause; or from a Resolution to bold the conclusion without respect had to the premises; or out of any distrust of your ingenuity: but as not being a way secure and fatisfactory. Neither am I enabled by the Parliament to dispute and debate their interests otherwise then in the way we now are, by the Sword: wherein I doubt not of a good conclusion the Lord assisting me.  
It troubles you much that I mention the Lords blessing this his own cause with us; you say, that God blesseth men in evil courses. A good cause (I know) may some time suffer. Yet is it not incongruous (Circumstances considered) to conclude the justice of a cause from God's blessing it: seeing his blessing is expected and assured to his work by special promise, the sins of those therein instrumental not interposing. But it seems very strange what you say, (and the Stranger, if it be the sense of those Divines with you) that God blesseth men in evil courses. God's suffering them for a time to proceed in evil successfully, is not a blessing of them in evil courses, there being to evil none of God's blessings appropriated. But for us, it is our comfort that we can and do thus boast of the Lords blessing this his work in our hands, wherein hath been mightily, & visibly magnified the Glory of his power and truth and goodness even in the lowest of our Condition, to us an Evidence of his own cause with us. And in so concluding I but assume the same freedom, which your Lordship hath done: you having (in effect) so concluded from the succesfullnes of your Sword: And this our cause is the same with that which your Lordship seemed then to hold.  
Your Lordship justifieth your joining with the Rebels by way of Recrimination; objecting the same to others. If to me you intent it, I speak it plainly, it is a Charge very unjust, (to say no more)  
But as to yourself, you stick not openly to profess and justify your proceed in that kind, asserting it a Christian act: for therein (you say) you Received penitents; strange Penitents are they, who after so much blood, and spoil of Innocents' are now so fare from satisfying their wrong do, that they profess themselves not guilty: and whose Penitence is only in that they failed in accomplishing their evil in fullness; which in the now settling them in that power given in your Christian union with them, they may have hereafter fitting opportunity to accomplish to the uttermost, so, as they may not need further Penitence in that Particular.  
You smile (you say) at that Charged to you of your Changing. At it (my Lord) do your Enemy's smile: but grief it is to your friends, and all well affected. who your friend, can smile at your falling away and (to speak plainly) at your betraying that trust reposed in you? can you smile at you turning that sword put into your hands by the Parliament, against those who have so trusted and maintained you? were you called out against these bloody Rebels, and for the Protestants, and can you smile to see yourself now in the head of those very Rebels or with them, and for them, and that, against even English and Protestants? can you smile (my Lord) in your betraying those poor English (your Care and trust,) and in offering them up (in time) a sacrifice to the malice of their mortal Enemies, having first removed (and by their hands alsoe, which is intended) those here, who pity them, and by whom they might be from those evils rescued. You tell me, that you have not changed your Cause but your Party, and what was your Cause then (I beseech you) and what is it now? was not the prosecution of this War against the Rebels then your Cause? this was surely your Trust and (for any thing appearing) was it that only or principally in your trust? and are you not now taken of from this? is this your Cause now? are you not now changed to the quite contrary? your Cause (you say) is the maintenance of the King, of Laws, of Religion, and of the Liberties of Parliament. so indeed in your Covenant. But your sticking unto these (if unto them you stick) excuseth you nothing, as to your failing in that principally Committed to you in that Province, the employing those Arms and powers given you against the Rebels our common Enemies. There is not the meanest Covenanter who pretends not equal interest with you in these common engagements; but you were, besides all these, eminently called above others to that high trust, from which you have so fallen as your Honour is no way salved no● vindicated by a pretended adheiring to other your profession. your doing somethings, excuseth not your failing in that principally expected from you.  
You object to us new raised Heresies etc. we detest them as much as you or any; neither account we them any part of our Doctrine, and of the Religion now professed in the Church of England I wish some of your Lordship's Divines now with you (whose pens are parhapps in this Charge to us) were not chargeable with corruption in that kind, making way for Heresies, and even for Popery itself alsoe, being thereby, with others of like strain, authors of those evils this day covering the face of Church and State, whereof they may be in due time sensible.  
Much more (you say) might be said in your defence I beseech your Lordship to re●erve it for some time of better leisure, and for some other person fit for such debateings. Wha● I have now done, was for showing myself nothing satisfied with any thing yet by your Lordship delivered, and that others might not be abused in suffering yours to pass me unanswered. But for the future, I desire, your Lordship would be pleased not to trouble yourself not me in thi● kind any further. I am otherwise emploved then to spend time in answering some there, whose penns are at better leisure then either yours or mine at present. So I remain  
My Lord Your Lordship's humble Servant Mic: jones. Dublin june 23th 1649.  
For the Lord Baron of Inchiquine These.