tious representation from the Scots presbytery at Belfast in the North of Ireland, no less dishonourable to the state, and much about the same time brought hither: there will be needful as to the same slanderous aspersions but one and the same vindication against them both. Nor can we sever them in our notice and resentment, though one part entitled a presbytery, and would be thought a protestant assembly, since their own unexampled virulence hath wrapt them into the same guilt, made them accomplices and assistants to the abhorred Irish rebels, and with them at present to advance the same interest: if we consider both their calumnies, their hatred, and the pretended reasons of their hatred to be the same; the time also and the place concurring, as that there lacks nothing but a few formal words, which may be easily dissembled, to make the perfectest conjunction; and between them to divide that island.

As for these articles of peace made with those inhuman rebels and papists of Ireland by the late king, as one of his last masterpieces, we may be confidently persuaded, that no true-born Englishman can so much as barely read them without indignation and disdain; that those bloody rebels, and so proclaimed and judged of by the king himself, after the merciless and barbarous massacre of so many thousand English, (who had used their right and title to that country with such tenderness and moderation, and might otherwise have secured themselves with ease against their treachery,) should be now graced and rewarded with such freedoms and enlargements, as none of their ancestors could ever merit by their best obedience, which at best was always treacherous; to be enfranchised with full liberty equal to their conquerors, whom the just revenge of ancient piracies, cruel captivities, and the causeless infestation of our coast, had warrantably called over, and the long prescription of many hundred years; besides what other titles are acknowledged by their own Irish parliament, had fixed and seated in that soil with as good a right as the merest natives.

These, therefore, by their own foregoing demerits and provocations justly made our vassals, are by the first article of this peace advanced to a condition of freedom superior to what any English protestants durst have demanded. For what else can be the meaning to discharge them the common oath of supremacy, especially being papists, (for whom principally that oath was intended,) but either to resign them the more into their own power, or to set a mark of dishonour upon the British loyalty; by trusting Irish rebels for one single oath of allegiance, as much as all his subjects of Britain for the double swearing both of allegiance and supremacy?

The second article puts it into the hands of an Irish parliament to repeal, or to suspend, if they think convenient, the act usually called Poyning's Act, which was the main, and yet the civilest and most moderate, acknowledgment imposed of their dependence on the crown of England; whereby no parliament could be summoned there, no bill be passed, but what was first to be transmitted and allowed under the great seal of England. The recalling of which act tends openly to invest them with a law-giving power of their own, enables them by degrees to throw of all subjection to this realm, and renders them (who by their endless treasons and revolts have deserved to hold no parliament at all, but to be governed by edicts and garrisons) as absolute and supreme in that assembly, as the people of England in their own land. And the twelfth article grants them in express words, that the Irish parliament shall be no more dependent on the parlia ment of England, that the Irish themselves shall declare agreeable to the laws of Ireland.

The two and twentieth article, more ridiculous than dangerous, coming VOL. I. 2 L 2

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especially from such a serious knot of lords and politicians, obtains, that those acts prohibiting to plow with horses by the tail, and burn oats in the straw, be repealed; enough, if nothing else, to declare in them a disposition not only sottish, but indocible, and averse from all civility and amendment: and what hopes they give for the future, who, rejecting the ingenuity of all other nations to improve and wax more civil by a civilizing conquest, though all these many years better shown and taught, prefer their own absurd and savage customs before the most convincing evidence of reason and demonstration: a testimony of their true barbarism and obdurate wilfulness, to be expected no less in other matters of greatest moment.

Yet such as these, and thus affected, the ninth article entrusts with the militia; a trust which the king swore by God at Newmarket he would not commit to his parliament of England, no, not for an hour. And well de clares the confidence he had in Irish rebels, more than in his loyalest subjects. He grants them moreover, till the performance of all these articles, that fifteen thousand foot and two thousand five hundred horse shall remain a standing army of papists at the beck and command of Dillon, Muskerry, and other arch-rebels, with power also of adding to that number as they shall see cause. And by other articles allows them the constituting of magistrates and judges in all causes, whom they think fit: and till a settlement to their own minds, the possession of all those towns and countries within their new quarters, being little less than all the island, besides what their cruelty hath dispeopled and laid waste. And lastly, the whole managing both of peace and war is committed to papists, and the chief leaders of that rebellion.

Now let all men judge what this wants of utter alienating and acquitting the whole province of Ireland from all true fealty and obedience to the commonwealth of England. Which act of any king against the consent of his parliament, though no other crime were laid against him, might of itself strongly conduce to the disenthroning him of all. In France, Henry the Third, demanding leave in greatest exigencies to make sale of some crown-lands only, and that to his subjects, was answered by the parliament then at Blois, that a king in no case, though of extremest necessity, might alienate the patrimony of his crown, whereof he is but only usufructuary, as civilians term it, the propriety remaining ever to the kingdom, not to the king. And in our own nation, King John, for resigning, though unwillingly, his crown to the pope's legate, with little more hazard to his kingdom than the payment of one thousand marks, and the unsightliness of such a ceremony, was deposed by his barons, and Lewis, the French king's son, elected in his room. And to have carried only the jewels, plate, and treasure into Ireland, without consent of the nobility, was one of those impeachments, that condemned Richard the Second to lose his crown.

But how petty a crime this will seem to the alienating of a whole kingdom, which in these articles of peace we see as good as done by the late king, not to friends but to mortal enemies, to the accomplishment of his own interests and ends, wholly separate from the people's good, may without aggravation be easily conceived. Nay, by the covenant itself, since that so cavillously is urged against us, we are enjoined in the fourth article, with all faithfulness to endeavour the bringing all such to public trial and condign punishment, as shall divide one kingdom from another. And what greater dividing than by a pernicious and hostile peace, to disalliege a whole feudary kingdom from the ancient dominion of England? Exception we find there of no person whatsoever; and if the king, who hath actually done this, or any for him, claim a privilege above justice, it is

again demanded by what express law either of God or man, and why he whose office is to execute law and justice upon all others, should set himself like a demigod in lawless and unbounded anarchy; refusing to be ac countable for that authority over men naturally his equals, which God himself without a reason given is not wont to exercise over his creatures? And if God, the nearer to be acquainted with mankind and his frailties, and to become our priest, made himself a man, and subject to the law, we gladly would be instructed, why any mortal man, for the good and welfare of his brethren being made a king, should by a clean contrary motion make himself a god, exalted above law; the readiest way to become utterly unsensible, both of his human condition, and his own duty.

And how securely, how smoothly, with how little touch or sense of any commiseration, either princely or so much as human, he hath sold away that justice so oft demanded, and so oft by himself acknowledged to be due, for the blood of more than two hundred thousand of his subjects, that never hurt him, never disobeyed him, assassinated and cut in pieces by those Irish barbarians, to give the first promoting, as is more than thought, to his own tyrannical designs in England, will appear by the eighteenth article of his peace; wherein, without the least regard of justice to avenge the dead, while he thirsts to be avenged upon the living, to all the murders, massacres, treasons, piracies, from the very fatal day, wherein that rebellion first broke out, he grants an act of oblivion. If this can be justified, or not punished in whomsoever, while there is any faith, any religion, any justice. upon earth, there can no reason be alleged, why all things are not left to confusion. And thus much be observed in brief concerning these articles of peace made by the late king with his Irish rebels.

The letter of Ormond sent to Colonel Jones, governor of Dublin, attempting his fidelity, which the discretion and true worth of that gentleman hath so well answered and repulsed, had passed here without mention, but that the other part of it, not content to do the errand of treason, roves into a long digres sion of evil and reproachful language to the parliament and army of England, which though not worth their notice, as from a crew of rebels whose inhumanities are long since become the horror and execration of all that hear them, yet in the pursuance of a good endeavour, to give the world all due satisfaction of the present doings, no opportunity shall be omitted.

He accuses first, "That we are the subverters of religion, the protectors and inviters not only of all false ones, but of irreligion and atheism." An accusation that no man living could more unjustly use than our accuser himself; and which, without a strange besottedness, he could not expect but to be retorted upon his own head. All men, who are true protestants, of which number he gives out to be one, know not a more immediate and killing subverter of all true religion than Antichrist, whom they generally believe to be the pope and church of Rome; he therefore, who makes peace with this grand enemy and persecutor of the true church, he who joins with him, strengthens him, gives him root to grow up and spread his poison, removing all opposition against him, granting him schools, abbeys, and revenues, garrisons, towns, fortresses, as in so many of those articles may be seen, he of all protestants may be called most justly the subverter of true religion, the protector and inviter of irreligion and atheism, whether it be Ormond or his master. And if it can be no way proved, that the parliament hath countenanced popery or papists, but have every where broken their temporal power, thrown down their public superstitions, and confined them to the bare enjoyment of that which is not in our reach, their consciences; if they have encouraged all true ministers of the gospel, that is

to say, afforded them favour and protection in all places where they preached, and although they think not money or stipend to be the best encouragement of a true pastor, yet therein also have not been wanting nor intend to be, they doubt not then to affirm themselves, not the subverters, but the maintainers and defenders of true religion; which of itself and by consequence is the surest and the strongest subversion, not only of all false ones, but of irreligion and atheism. For "the weapons of that warfare," as the apostle testifies, who best knew, "are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, and all reasonings, and every high thing exalted against the knowledge of God, surprising every thought unto the obedience of Christ, and easily revenging all disobedience," 2 Cor. x. What minister or clergyman, that either understood his high calling, or sought not to erect a secular and carnal tyranny over spiritual things, would neglect this ample and sublime power conferred upon him, and come a begging to the weak hand of magistracy for that kind of aid which the magistrate hath no commission to afford him, and in the way he seeks it hath been always found helpless and unprofitable. Neither is it unknown, or by wisest men unobserved, that the church began then most apparently to degenerate, and go to ruin, when she borrowed of the civil power more than fair encouragement and protection; more than which Christ himself and his apostles never required. To say therefore, that we protect and invite all false religions, with irreligion also and atheism, because we lend not, or rather misapply not, the temporal power to help out, though in vain, the sloth, the spleen, the insufficiency of churchmen, in the execution of spiritual discipline over those within their charge, or those without, is an imputation that may be laid as well upon the best regulated states and governments through the world: who have been so prudent as never to employ the civil sword further than the edge of it could reach, that is, to civil offences only; proving always against objects that were spiritual a ridiculous weapon. Our protection therefore to men in civil matters unoffensive we cannot deny; their consciences we leave, as not within our cognizance, to the proper cure of instruction, praying for them. Nevertheless, if any be found among us declared atheists, malicious enemies of God, and of Christ; the parliament, I think, professes not to tolerate such, but with all befitting endeavours to suppress them. Otherways to protect none that in a larger way may be taxed of irreligion and atheism, may perhaps be the ready way to exclude none sooner out of protection, than those themselves that most accuse it to be so general to others. Lastly, that we invite such as these, or encourage them, is a mere slander without proof.

He tells us next, that they have murdered the king. And they deny not to have justly and undauntedly, as became the parliament of England, for more bloodshed and other heinous crimes than ever king of this land was guilty of, after open trial, punished him with death. A matter, which to men, whose serious consideration thereof hath left no certain precept or example undebated, is so far from giving offence, that we implore and beseech the Divine Majesty so to uphold and support their spirits with like fortitude and magnanimity, that all their ensuing actions may correspond and prove worthy that impartial and noble piece of justice, wherein the hand of God appeared so evidently on our side. We shall not then need to fear, what all the rout and faction of men basely principled can do against us.

The end of our proceedings, which he takes upon him to have discovered, "the changing forsooth of monarchy into anarchy," sounds so like the smattering of some raw politician, and the overworn objection of

every trivial talker, that we leave him in the number. But seeing in that which follows he contains not himself, but, contrary to what a gentleman should know of civility, proceeds to the contemptuous naming of a person, whose valour and high merit many enemies more noble than himself have both honoured and feared; to assert his good name and reputation of whose service the commonwealth receives so ample satisfaction, it is answered in his behalf, that Cromwell, whom he couples with a name of scorn, hath done in few years more eminent and remarkable deeds, whereon to found nobility in his house, though it were wanting, and perpetual renown to posterity, than Ormond and all his ancestors put together can show from any record of their Irish exploits, the widest scene of their glory.

He passes on his groundless objectures, that the aim of this parliament may be perhaps to set up first an elective kingdom, and after that a perfect Turkish tyranny. Of the former we suppose the late act against monarchy will suffice to acquit them. Of the latter certainly there needed no other pattern than that tyranny, which was so long modelling by the late king himself, with Strafford, and that archprelate of Canterbury, his chief instruments; whose designs God hath dissipated. Neither is it any new project of the monarchs, and their courtiers in these days, though Christians they would be thought, to endeavour the introducing of a plain Turkish tyranny. Witness that consultation had in the court of France under Charles the IXth at Blois, wherein Poncet, a certain court-projector, brought in secretly by the chancellor Biragha, after many praises of the Ottoman government, proposes means and ways at large, in presence of the king, the queen regent, and Anjou the king's brother, how with best expedition and least noise the Turkish tyranny might be set up in France. It appears therefore, that the design of bringing in that tyranny, is a monarchical design, and not of those who have dissolved monarchy.

As for parliaments by three estates, we know, that a parliament signifies no more than the supreme and general council of a nation, consisting of whomsoever chosen and assembled for the public good; which was ever practised, and in all sorts of government, before the word parliament or the formality, or the possibility of those three estates, or such a thing as a titular monarchy, had either name or being in the world. The original of all which we could produce to be far newer than those "all ages" which he vaunts of, and by such first invented and contrived, whose authority, though it were Charles Martel, stands not so high in our repute, either for himself, or the age he lived in, but that with as good warrant we may recede from what he ordained, as he ordain what before was not.

But whereas besides he is bold to allege, that of the three estates there remains only a small number, and they the "dregs and scum of the house of commons;" this reproach, and in the mouth of an Irishman, concerns not them only; but redounds to apparent dishonour of the whole English nation. Doubtless there must be thought a great scarcity in England of persons honourable and deserving, or else of judgment, or so much as honesty in the people, if those, whom they esteem worthy to sit in parliament, be no better than scum and dregs in the Irish dialect. But of such like stuff we meet not any where with more excrescence than in his own lavish pen; which feeling itself loose without the reins of discretion, rambles for the most part beyond all soberness and civility. In which torrent he goes on negotiating and cheapening the loyalty of our faithful governor of Dublin, as if the known and tried constancy of that valiant gentleman were to be bought with court fumes.

He lays before him, that "there remains now no other liberty in the