men of all sorts that know him, do and will confess to be both learned, grave, and discreet, free from all touch and imputation, and whom those of the lower house, to whom no exceptions could be taken, had chosen to be their speaker, we leave, for avoiding tedionsness to your highness, to their own further declaration. And forasmuch as, most renowned and dread sovereign, we cannot in any due proportion of reason expect redress in these our distressed calamities, where many of those who represent the body of your estate were the chief authors of them, upon the knees of our royal and submissive hearts, we humbly pray, that it would please your majesty to admit some of us to the access of your royal presence; where, if we fail in the least point of these our assertions, and declarations of other evils, which do multiply in this estate, we willingly submit ourselves to any punishment, as deserved, which it shall please your highness to lay and inflict upon us. For we are those, by the effusion of whose ancestors blood, the foundation of that empire, which we acknowledge your highness by the laws of God and man to have over this kingdom and people, was first laid, and in many succeeding ages preserved. To us it properly appertaineth, both in the obligation of public duty and private interest, to heed the good thereof, who never laid the foundation of our hopes upon the disturbance of it, garboils and dissentions being the downfal of our estate, as some of us now living can witness; and therefore, we cannot, but out of the consideration of our bounden duty and allegiance,

make known unto your highness the general discontent which those strange, unlooked for, and never heard of courses particularly have bred; whereof, if the rebellous and discontented of this nation abroad do take advantage, and procure the evil-affected at home, which are numbers, by reason of that already settled, and intended plantation, in any hostile fashion to set disorders at foot, and labour some underhand relief from any prince or estate abroad, who peradventure might be inveigled, and drawn to commisserate their pretended distresses and oppressions; however, we are assured the prowess and power of your majesty in the end will bring the authors thereof to ruin and confusion; yet it may be attended with the effusion of much blood, exhausting of masses of treasure, the exposing of us, and others your highness's well-affected subjects, to the hazard of poverty, whereof the memory is very lively and fresh among us; and finally, to the laying open of the whole commonalty to the inundation of all miseries and calamities, which garboils, civil war, and dissentions do breed and draw with them, in a rent and torn estate. For preventing whereof, we nothing doubt but your majesty will give redress, by the equal balance of your highness's justice, which we beseech the Almighty, with your royal person, ever to maintain and preserve, your majesty's most faithful subjects, David Buttevant, Gormanston. D. Roche, Fermoy. Montgarret. Killine. Delvin. C. Slane. R. Trymbleston. J. Dunboyne. Matthew Louth. Thomas Cahyr.

The commons, in the following petition, stated their grievances, by Sir James Gough, William Talbot, P. Hussie, and T. Lutterell, four of the most considerable of their body. These were accompanied from the house of lords, by D. Roche, viscount Fermoy; Christopher Plunket, lord baron of Killeen, afterwards earl of Fingall; the lord baron of Delvin, afterwards earl of Westmeath; together with Sir Patrick Barnwell and four lawyers.

"To the right hon. the lords of his majesty's most honorable privy council, the humble petition of the knights, citizens and burgesses of the counties, cities, and ancient boroughs of Ireland,

"Most humbly declaring to your lordships, that the assurance of his majesty's most princely inviolable justice, whereof your lordships, in matters of state and government, are the high and supreme distributors, doth embolden us, in our oppressions, to address these our submissive lines to your honours; wherein our purpose is, not to be pleaders, the strangeness of our extremities finding no fit words to express them; and therefore, in declaration of the naked truth, your lordships shall understand that we, the knights, citizens, and burgesses of the counties, cities, and ancient boroughs of this realm, coming, according to our bounden duties, into the parliament house, we find there fourteen counsellors of state, three of the judges, having before received writs to appear in the higher house, all his majesty's council at law; and the rest of the number, for the most past, consisting of

attornies, clerks in courts, of the lord deputy's retinue, and others his houshold-servants, with some lately come out of England, having no abiding here; and all these, save very few, were returned from the new corporations erected, to the number of forty or thereabouts, not only in places of the new plantation, but also in other provinces, where there be corporations of antiquity; few or none of them having been ever resident, and most of them having never seen these places: the rest, who possessed the rooms of knights of shires, save four or six, came in by practice, and dishonest devises, whereunto themselves were not strangers; and some there were from antient boroughs, who intruded themselves into their places, by as undue and unlawful means: as the knights and burgesses duly elected were ready at the parliament door to prove and avouch. For redress whereof, we of the ancient shires, cities, and towns, to whom no exceptions could be taken, being desirous to take the usual and accustomed course, what outrageous violence ensued, by the fury of some there, we humbly leave to your lordships to be informed by our declarations; whereunto a schedule, by direction of my lord deputy, subscribed with our hands, is annexed. And forasmuch, right honourable, as the strangeness of these proceedings in a christian commonwealth is such as we think his majesty and your lordships will hardly be induced to believe; they being in the likelihood of impossibility, equal to that of Messalino, unto the emperor Claudius in ancient Rome; or to any

other accident, how rare soever, transmitted to posterity in modern or ancient shires, we humbly pray that your lordships, in ccmmisseration of our distress, will be a mean to his highness that some of us, with some of our nobility, may be licenced to present ourselves there, for the proof of our assertions; wherein if we fail in any one point, we utterly renounce all favour; and that in the mean time his majesty will be pleased to suspend his gracious judgment, in the apprehension of what to our. prejudice may be informed here; those from whom his highness doth usually receive information, being the authors of the carriage of what is done amiss.

To counteract their measures, the deputy sent the earl of Thomond, Sir John Denham, chief justice of the king's bench, and Sir Oliver St. John, master of the ordnance. The Catholic agents were received most ungraciously; two of them, Talbot and Lutterell, imprisoned, one in the Tower, the other in the Fleet. Still they persevered, and laid before the king nineteen additional articles of grievance, in the military and civil administration of Ireland, which they humbly besought his royal grace and equity to redress, intreating indifferent commissioners to be sent to enquire into them. This was complied with. Commissioners, accompanied by some of the catholic agents, repaired to Ireland. They were followed by Sir James Gough; who, landing at Waterford," spread the joyful news, that the king commanded him to assure the Irish subjects, that they should be free in the exercise of