Page:PettyWilliam1899EconomicWritingsVol2.djvu/286

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Causes of Decays.
591

16 of the said Summ. All which in Time may more sensibly appear, altho' the greater Losses of the other Party does for the present Ecclypse this.

We add hereunto a Conjecture of the Causes of these Decays and Diminutions.

The Causes in General are Frights, Fears, and Jealousies: For the English and Protestants are frighted.

1. To see that for the Sake of Religion (which upon this Account signify'd nothing before the Reformation) that England's Conquest of Ireland is given back to the Irish, as they are apt to imagine.

2. That after Laws are made in England and Ireland, Enacting, That the Insurrection in 1641; The Change of the English Monarchy into an Irish Democracy in 1642; And the Placing Supremacy in the Roman Catholicks; should be Cause of Forfeiture: That those who bear the visible marks thereof should be now trusted with all Civil and Military Power, and probably from Forfeitors be made Legislators.

3. That a Design was Published for making the Roman Catholicks of Ireland as considerable for their Estates as for their Numbers[1]: Which in Effect is to take away 11 or 12 Millions of Wealth from the other Party.

4. That the most Zealous Promoters of the Roman Catholic Religion (which, they say, is the onely Means of Eternal Weal or Woe) should make such an Esteem of an Oath (sacred in all Ages and amongst all Nations) as appears in the Lord Dunsany's Trial hereafter inserted[2].

On the other Hand the English and Protestants have done amiss, to be frighted from their habitations and Business

1. When the King had publickly and solemnly, by his Lord Lievtenant, declared to maintain the Acts of Settlement and Explanation[3].

  1. See p. 578, note.
  2. See p. 602.
  3. In his speech to the Council when he was sworn into the office of Lord Lieutenant, 9 January, 1686, Clarendon had said, "I have the King's commands to declare upon all occasions that whatever imaginary (for they can be called no