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ΑΝ HUMBLE

REMONSTRANCE

TO THE

SCOTCH AND ENGLISH INQUISITORS,

BY WAY OF

AN A POSTROPH E.

GENTLEMEN,

As a colour to your disorderly and unwarrantable proceedings, you impofe on the ignorant by your cant words of violation of faith with heretics. Like Boileau's heroes, you are ranfacking old books, canvaffing legends of exaggerated maffacres*, and like scholars, who,

after

* In their Appeal they relate that a hundred thousand Proteftants were maffacred in 1641: at that time there were thirty Catholics for every Proteftant, and a hundred Proteftants escaped for every fingle Proteftant that perished. ·

Let

after repeating their leffon, fling about the bones and skulls piled up in charnal houses, you haunt the living with the images of the dead. Modern philofophy proves the existence of colours in the eye, but not in exterior objects; what is true in the physical world, is more fo in your fyftem of ethics :-the purple hue and black die, in which you would feign mif-reprefent us to our king and the public, are the refult of your organs; and the abortives you lay at our doors, derive their existence from

Let now a balance be ftruck, and the numbers of inhabitants calculated, and Ireland must have been but one large city, as crowded as the streets of Rome in the times of Marius and Sylla. This maffacre, which fhould be effaced from the records of the nation, as well as from the memory of man, was begun by a fanatical foldiery, who intended to extirpate Papists and malignants. Whoever has a mind to be informed about this maffacre, may read Doctor Warner, Mr. Brooke's Tryal of the Roman Catholics, and Doctor Curry's Hiftorical Memoirs, and his Hiftory of the Civil Wars of Ireland. But whoever has a mind to be led aftray, let him read Sir John Temple's (fecretary to Ireton) ftupid legend, The Appeal of the Proteftant Associations,

and Hume's Theatrical Defcription, who nevertheless reduces greatly the number, which could never amount to five or fix thousand. He relates, that in hatred to the English, the Irish used to wound their cows, and in this torturing fituation turn them into the woods to prolong their fufferings. In my opinion, under fuch a government as was then, they wanted more to eat them. And I am forry that the gravity of the Hiftorian has permitted Mr. Hume to rank cows amongst the martyrs of religion.

yourselves.

yourselves. You would fain deprive us of the rights of mankind, for crimes we never committed; for thoughts which we disclaim, and whereof the fcrutineer and fearcher of hearts is the only competent judge. Thus you imitate the tyrant, who put an inoffensive citizen to death, because in his uneasy flumbers, disturbed by the guilt of injuries offered to others, he dreamt that he was cutting his throat. Our actions are the best exponents of our fentiments. Our conduct is peaceable. But, as for you, your actions and conduct betray you, as the roaring, and impreffion of his claws, betray the lion. And woe to the game that is unprotected by the keeper! In an enlightened age, when the cheerful eyes of philosophy and religion cannot bear the fight of frantic fanaticifm, banished from all quarters of Europe, it found fhelter among you, with its distorted features, and numerous train of calamities and evils. Generous hofts! and worthy of fuch a gueft, you sheltered, you warmed, you gave new life, to a refugee entitled to your patronage. And as a prodigal child, thriving ill in foreign countries, you received him with the arms of a tender parent, you clad him in his firft robes, you killed a fat calf, which the burning rafters of your neighbours houfes have roafted, and at his recep

tion

tion the fymphony of pious raptures was heard in your streets.

Whilft in Ireland, the minifters of religion, in conformity to the gofpel rule, were preaching love and benevolence; whilst in Ireland fixty thousand armed Proteftants without any controul, but the great principles of honour and valour, enemy to degenerate cruelty, were protecting the peaceable citizen and defencelefs cottager, without any diftinction of fects or parties; whilft the Irish Volunteers were fetting to the world the rare example of armed legions, without the fevere fubordination of military difcipline, behaving with that noble decorum which precludes complaints, and attracts admiration, your pulpits refounded with the harsh language of the Savage leader haranguing his warriors, and throwing down the hatchet as a signal of destruction to the neighbouring tribes. Some of your women, divefted of tenderness and pity, fo peculiar to the fair and delicate fex, reviving in their perfons the favage fternness of the Spartan matrons urging on their fons to battle, rejoiced in the open day on feeing their neighbours houses in a blaze; and bleffed God that they lived to fee the day, when Popish abominations were purified with fire. One should imagine, that fuch of you as petitioned the king and parliament against granting

granting a free trade to Ireland, fhould reft fatisfied, without petitioning against your inoffenfive neighbours. If you glory in the purity of your religion, and in treading in the steps of its author, treat us as Christ himself would treat us, if he were on earth. He deprived no man of his property, nor of the indulgence and protection of the laws. If you glory in the purity of the Chriftian religion, call to mind that it fuggefts humility, and deference to people of fuperior power and judgment. Your king, your peers, and your commons, are deemed the first in dignity and wisdom: but I forget that you are well versed in the Bible, which fays, "He "that is first amongst you, let him be the laft." The fcripture must be fulfilled. Take then the lead, and force them to trample on their own laws, and to banish their subjects.

Mention no longer "violation of faith with "heretics." You violate all the laws of civil fociety. In diffolving the ties of friendship, and pointing out your fellow fubjects as the victims of legal severity, you fplit and rend the nation. You weaken its power, and trefpafs upon the respect due to your rulers, whom, instead of being the fathers of their people, you would fain force to become the heads of a faction.

You violate the facred rights of nature. Her bountiful author declares, that he makes his • fun

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