A LETTER FROM A PROTESTANT IN IRELAND, TO A MEMBER OF The House of COMMONS in ENGLAND. Upon occasion of the TREATY in that Kingdom.  
Printed, 1643.   

SIR,  
THat you have no sooner received an answer to yours of the fourth of the last Month, you must impute to the length thereof and weight of the Argument, which I was resolved to communicate to those upon whose Affections and Judgements you principally rely of any in this place; and of their Approbation and consent to your Proposition and your Reasons, I cannot give you such an account as I presume you expect, for I must tell you, as you of London grow more elate in your stile and mention of us here, as a poor people totally at your devotion, and to be preserved or ruined as you please to vouchsafe your consideration of us; so our sufferings and our wants have given us so much Courage and Pride, that we look upon you as our equals, too negligent and unmindful of your fellow Subjects: And Sir john Clottworthyes own special friend said passionately at the reading your Letter, that he plainly saw, the intention of the House of Commons in England was, only that we should change our Masters not improve our conditions, and that all the compassions you seem to have of the miseries of Ireland. was but to get credit enough to work mischief in England. Truly Sir, the face of things, and dispositions of Persons are much altered since you left us, and what I now write to you, is the sense of all those (one only excepted) with whom you directed me to confer.  
Your other correspondent showed us the copy of the Petition you sent hither to be subscribed by the Protestants of this Kingdom, against making or consenting to any Peace with the Rebels, and desired us to distribute ourselves to several Quarters for the getting of hands to it, telling us that his Neighbour (the Lecturer whom you used to frequent on Frydaies) had already gotten near 200. hands to it, & that you expected it again in England by the twentieth of this Month, because you deferred the publishing your last Declaration concerning Ireland till then; upon perusal of it, we all wished it were in your hands again, or at least, that that Gentleman's zeal, to whom you committed it, had vouchsafed to have taken our advice before he made it so public, for we are confident it will not only be disappointed of that consent and approbation you expect, but we fear it may make a contrary impression in many, (and those of the greatest power, interest, and Reputation) who have only borne the uneasiness and calamity of a War, in hope of a speedy, safe, and honourable Peace, and what must these men think when they see a Protestation entered against Peace in general without any consideration of the justice, Honour or security of it? Pardon me if I tell you in what Language the grief and sorrow of some very good men (even in your own Calendar) hath vented itself upon the view of this Petition: They say, you sit like a proud wanton People, upon a secure, fruitful Hill, and barbarously inhumanely delight yourselves with the prospect of Battles, Contentions, Desolation and Famine in the Valleys: that you are gotten upon a safe and pleasant Rock, and recreate yourselves with the miseries and destruction other men endure by Tempests, and Shipwrecks about you. I beseech you (Sir) consider what it is you advice us to.  
That all the Protestants in Ireland join in a Petition to His Majesty, or to both Houses of Parliament in England (for you say you have not yet determined to whom the Petition shall be directed, that may be done when it comes to London) against making a Peace with the Rebels in Ireland. An excellent evidence and testimony of our Religion: have the protestants with so much acrimony and bitterness differed amongst themselves so long about Forms and Circumstances, and can there be no expediment found out to unite and reconcile us, but a peremptory dislike of Peace? Good Sir, let such Petitions be framed and preferred by Turks & Jnsidels which have no reverence of the pretions' image of their Maker, but with the same temper behold the slaughter of a man and of a Horse, who have no principles of charity and brotherly compassion, or apprehension of future punishment for the want of them. Let those whose Religion you say is Rebellion, and whose doctrine you excuse to be inconsistent with Peace▪ prefer Petitions against Peace, God forbidden the Protestants of any Kingdom should consent to such a Petition. If your Reformation of Religion must be made by blood and desolation, and your propagation of the Gospel by the extirpation of Nations, call it a progress to any Religion, rather than of the Protestants, whose glory and custom hath always been to give up their own, not the Lives of other men a sacrifice to the Truth they profess. What are the Arguments in Religion or Policy which you can give us, or that we can give His Majesty to persuade Him, that a speedy Peace and Accommodation is not good for this miserable and distracted Kingdom.  
You say they are Papists, and ought not to be suffered to live amongst us. I hope I may with more freedom speak in this Argument than other men; for you know I have been always passionately inclined against the growth of that Religion, and concurred with you in any proposition for the suppression thereof, I would to God you had virtuously used the advantages have been offered you to that purpose at least that you had not so much played with Religion in your Votes and Declarations, and totally excluded it in your Actions: believe it (Sir) Good works, which comprehend Loyalty and Obedience will be never so much disgraced under the Imputation of Popery, as not to be thought an essential part of Christian Religion, into what Opinions soever distinguished. I may, without ostentation, tell you, no man hath spent more hours in Prayer, that it will please God to strike the hearts of this Nation with the true knowledge of his worship that we may be all of one mind both in the substance and circumstance of Religion; but you must pardon me if I do not believe the way to remove the Errors, is to destroy the men, that the way to People Ireland with Protestants, is to cut the throats of all the Papists. Religion can never be fruitful in that soil which is tainted and over flowed with Rivers and streams of blood. Admit there were no consideration of Justice, of Christianity in the Case, no motion of those bowels which must yarn at the murdering and massacring of Mankind: do you think it were a most prudent, a most politic position for His Majesty to publish. That He is resolved to have no Papist to live in any of His Dominions, if He were in a condition to execute such a sentence, and all men ready to give obedience to it; would he not rob himself of an unvaluable Treasure & strength in the loss of so many Subjects. You seemed to take great care at the beginning of this Rebellion, that it should not be thought a War for Religion, you would not provoke all of that profession to think themselves concerned in it: and you did wisely: the Earl of Clenrickard hath as much reason to expect that Religion should be magnified in his Loyalty, as to find it suffer in the defection of my Lord Magu●yre; but you must take an equal care, that as you will not have it thought in them a War for Religion, so they must not think it a war in you against Religion, that will produce the same danger. We that have enjoyed that full measure of prosperity and plenty in this Kingdom cannot doubt of enjoying the same in the same Company. Let the Laws of the Land be judge of their Actions, and God in his good time will rectify or pardon their Opinions.  
Why then must we have no Peace? because they are Rebels: Is this your Proposition? No Rebellion must be extinguished but with the blood & extirpation of the Rebels: put it to the Question. No man looks upon this Rebellion with more horror than I do, few men have felt sadder effects of it, either in the exercise of the sword or fire my Houses burned and my two Sons killed in cold blood; yet I do believe very many honest men have been cozened into this Action, by the power and persuasion of their Leaders, or frighted into it by the ill managery of affairs here, who never entertained disloyal thought towards their Sovereign, or seditious thought towards their Country; And there are good men who imagine that there hath not been less skill and industry used by some of your friends in England and some of my friends in Ireland, to improve and continue this Rebellion, than were in the most active Contrivers to begin it, otherwise why were the first Proclamations of Pardon sent out of England, with so much care concealed here, and unpublished but in two Counties, and such who within the time prefixed rendered themselves according to that Proclamation, imprisoned, and used with that severity, as if they had been taken in the Act of Rebellion: believe it (Sir) when all miscarriages of that kind shall be scanned, unpardonable faults will be found in those who have cried out most upon this Rebellion; but I am fare from excusing even those who have been in truth miss, if there hath not been an absence of Loyalty, then hath been of Conscience, Courage, and Discretion, without which the other is but a dream; and no doubt the Contrivers of these distempers had in their purpose as much Confusion, Cruelty, and Inhumanity, as much Malice to the English Government, and the English Nation as can be imagined, and yet they make specious pretences, and arguments for all that they do. There was a Friar taken in the last expedition into Conaight, about whom was found a Collection of all your Votes, Ordinances, and Declarations in England, very carefully perused and marked with short Marginal Notes by him, and out of them a large Manuscript; framed by himself, and entitled An Apology of the Catholics of Jreland: or a justification, of their defensive Arms for the preservation of their Religion, the maintenance of his Majesty's Rights and Prerogatives, the natural and just defence of their Lives and Estates, and the Liberty of their Country, by the practice of the State of England, and the judgement and authority of both Houses of Parliament in England, in truth so unhappily penned, with so little variation of Language, that but for the alteration of Ireland for England, and some great Persons of this Kingdom in the places of some named by you, your own Clerk would hardly know it from one of your own Declarations. All that they do is for the good of the King and Kingdom. The King is trusted with the Forts, Magazines, Treasure and Offices for the good and safety of the People; if he doth not discharge this Trust, but is advised by Evil Counsellors, and Persons they cannot confide in, 'tis their duty to see this trust discharged, according to the Condition and true intent thereof; That they saw their Religion and Liberty in danger of extripation, and therefore they had reason to put themselves into a posture of defence; That they are ready to lay down these defensive Arms, as soon as the great Offices of the Kingdom are put into such hands as they can confide in; with all those other common places which are so much insisted on by you in your several Declarations. But admit this Rebellion were an entire Act of the whole Irish. Nation, that it was designed by an unanimous consent to free themselves from the yoke of England, If they repent now of that Design & having felt the smart of that Folly and Madness, desired to return to their Allegiance: can there be no door open to Mercy and Oblivion? I believe you would Vote him an Evil Counsellor that should give the King that Council in England: I am glad your Letter from the two Houses to our justices and Council (the Copy of which I received enclosed in yours) hath miscarried, for I am sure 'tis not yet come to their hands. You will find you are mistaken in the temper of Our Board, and that they will not bear those reproaches from Persons they are in no degree subject to. They think themselves as competent judges of their expressions in their own Acts of State, as you are of yours in your Votes and Ordinances and being immediately trusted by His Majesty with the Government of this Kingdom, understand better what is in order to the preservation and destruction of it than you do. You tell them, they must not conceive the charge of the War is only referred to you, as if your part were to be our Bankers only to provide Money, and were not to advise and direct the managing of the War, which power you say was granted you by Act of Parliament, and you will assume it as the means to save this Kingdom. We know no such Act of Parliament, and we hope there is none, nay, the King must pardon us if we say there can be none. He is our Sovereign, and we are his Subjects, he can no more give us away, and exclude us from His Protection, which if He excludes Himself from managing this War, or redeeming us from this War by Peace, He doth absolutely do, than we can put off our subjection, & say He shall be Our King no longer. Pray consider the condition you would have us understand ourselves to be in, you seem to apprehend us in great straits, in great necessities, reduced into narrow circuits without Money, Victual, or Munition, in that proportion to contend with our Adversaries. You do not pretend to have Authority to make a Peace for us be the terms never so honourable, and if He hath not power to do it neither, our portion must be an eternal War, which is no comfortable thing to believe. You say you will bring those to condign punishment who advised the late Commission, to hear what the Rebels can say or propound for their own advantage: If you can charge them with no other crime, but that Advice they will never fear the bar of Justice. Why are you offended? do you conceive the case of the Rebels to be such, as by any skill or managery in a free and public debate may get credit: It were an austere reservedness in the King, for which God Almighty would require a strict account of Him, when those He trusts here, present the misery of their condition to him, and implore his care and protection, and when those from whom all the mischiefs seem to proceed, pretend to do all those mischiefs in their own defence, and desire to be heard for themselves, if he should refuse to hear them because they are Rebels. We have seen a Declaration of yours, in which you seem with great vehemency to accuse the King, that He refused to receive a Petition from you, to hear what you could say for yourselves; and it was a charge of so great weight, that we find the King taking much pains to free Himself from, by absolutely denying it, as conceiving it an unkingly thing not to hear what the worst Subject can allege in his own defence. How comes His Office to be so inverted? must the King of England receive all Petitions, and the King of Ireland refuse all? Indeed if the King were guided by such sinister Rules of Policy and Craft, as govern your Actions, he would not now subject himself to the difficulties and hazard of recovering what you have with so much Industry and Cunning made desperate, and would content himself that the blood of this poor People should be cast upon your Account, and that Posterity might see that the loss of such a Kingdom was the fruit of a perpetual Parliament. But His Majesty is too much acquainted with the Royal duty of a King, to think he can depute His Office of protecting to other hands, and be excused, if by their ill managery, a Nation (committed to his care) be lost. I assure you all sober men here are so fare from repining at this Commission, which you are so scandalised with, that we look upon it as the dawning of that power, which for so many months hath been eclipsed by the interposition of a monstrous, and unnatural jurisdiction, and which we hope will every day break out with that brightness, that will dispel those Mists and Clouds of confusion, which hath so fatally covered us, and that instead of the punishment you threaten, we shall have cause to erect Trophies to that Counsel, which advised this blessed overture of Accommodation.  
You will expect, I know, my Opinion of your New Covenant, which you have prepared for the three Kingdoms, and which you say will unite all your Party, and distinguish you from your Adversaries, I wish it would: I would there were so much sense of Religion left, that for piety and conscience sake, men would refuse the taking of any Oaths; your experience tells you the contrary, and you see yourselves every day left by those of whom you thought you were very sure under that bond, they looking upon themselves as awed, and compelled to take it, and so absolved from the obligation at the instant they are forced to swear; and in truth you might consider, that if they have heretofore sworn any thing that is contrary to this, you have no reason to expect that they should observe this Oath, who have broken the former; and I must tell you 'tis a shrewd evidence, that what you propose, is not the desire and solicitation of the Kingdom, when you are put to these shifts, by Force and Fraud, by Threats and Promises to crowd the freeborn Subjects into a Faction: you see the King does not countermine you with these Arts and Preparatives, He applies no Anti-Covenants to His followers, not so much as reinforces the known lawful Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy; He is contented to depend upon the natural fruits of Loyalty, Honour, and Generosity, under which Obligation, His handful of men have swollen into thousands, and spread themselves almost over all the Kingdom, whilst the Proselytes under your Oaths, Covenants, and Protestations, waste daily and fall off, and are well near shrunk from the four quarters of the Realm which they possessed, within the verge of one City. And if you consider how many of those who have taken this new Covenant you have sent me, even at the time of taking it desire in their hearts, That Episcopacy should still continue, and how many more, who hate Bishops, and think them Antichristian, would yet rather live under them, then under a Presbytery, which is the case of the Independents, and both these and many more (who are so fare from caring what Government of the Church is established, that they would be content all the Churches in England were pulled down, and both Preaching and Praying put down for seven years) are directly bound to set up the Presbytery. I lay, when you consider, that men of these several and distinct tempers, with the same zeal take this Covenant, 'tis no wonder, that in stead of Union, you find nothing but jealousy and Confusion amongst yourselves, and instead of advancing the Religion you pretend to, you draw upon you a general suspicion, of having no Conscience or sense of Religion at all.  
For the coming in of the Scots, which you say is your greatest and last hope, I confess I think you will be deceived. But by the way, you are wonderful kind to us, to advise us to Petition against Peace, whilst you are labouring to draw so great a part of our Army as the Scots in Vister from assisting Us, to serve you in England, 'tis too great a business for me to deliver an opinion in, but me thinks it should lessen very much your reputation with the People, to see that after your charging the King so long with the purpose of bringing in Foreign Forces, which you have pressed as the most odious charge, and as a colour and ground for most of your Actions, you yourselves at last call in Foreign Aid to help you to do that, which you had, or can have no pretence of doing, but that all the people of England desire it, and do not think, that saying they are your Brethren of Scotland, and your fellow Subjects, will make them be thought less Foreign power, you will not be content that the King shall call in the Irish under the same consideration: and can you think it possible, if the Scots shall obey your desires herein (which after all their Vows and Covenants of Loyalty, Duty, and Affection to their native KING, I cannot think they will ever do) that the KING will not pour in all the Forces He can procure from all the parts of the World, both into that and the other Kingdom. No doubt he looks upon that Remedy, as the most grievous and most hazardous, and therefore with great mercy to His people, hath not suffered Himself to be tempted by all His wants, all His weakness, and your example of entertaining so many Dutch, Walloons, and all Nations against him, to suffer such a supply; which infallibly he might long since have had, but if you ●●●ll be contented to give away your Country to strangers (for do not think they will be as easily got out as they are brought in) and that you may be revenged of those you have injured, involve the whole Kingdom in such a lasting confusion; you 〈◊〉 not wonder if strangers be brought in to beat out strangers, though all the mischief is to be done at the charge of your poor Country. I say, I cannot believe (though some particular Persons may be concerned to keep up this distraction) that the Scotch Nation will engage themselves in a quarrel against their Native KING (to whom they have such general and particular Obligations, and against the whole Nobility and Gentry of England, for matters in no degree Relative to their own affairs and venture that blessed calm and Peace they now enjoy, only to kindle a fire amongst their Neighbours, which probably will not be quenched, till it hath burned to their own habitations. They know well the inveterate, mortal hatred this Nation of Ireland bears to them, and how glad they would be to be let lose to their revenge, and they are too wise to think the two Houses (whose public Faith stands so deeply engaged) will be as liberal and bountiful a Master to them, as their Royal Sovereign. Be not deceived. One of their principal Commanders (upon whose personal assistance you much depend) asked me, whether I thought them so sottish to declare themselves against their King, whilst the two Houses were governed by my Lord Say, who hated their Religion, and the Army by the Earl of Essex, who hated both their Religion and Nation; and then told me the bitter invectives made by the first against a Presbytery, and the sharp and scornful mention by the other of the Scots and Scotland. And intruth if ever they enter into your Kingdom, the mischief and confusion they will bring, in not submitting to your Government (for what discipline soever they affect in the Church, they are assuredly for independency in the State) will be greater than the advantage and Aid you will receive by their supplies. In a word (besides the perfect hatred you will find from all the Northern parts which you have thrown away to them, and which must be inhabited by them) you will find yourselves deserted by all men who have any desire of Peace, and are not willing to entail this War from Generation to Generation.  
DUBLIN this third of October. 1643.