A LETTER TO MR. SECRETARY CECIL,

AFTER THE * DEFEATING OF THE SPANISH FORCES IN IRELAND; INCITING HIM TO EMBRACE THE CARE OF

REDUCING THAT KINGDOM TO CIVILITY,

WITH SOME REASONS SENT INCLOSED.

It may please your honour,

As one that wisheth you all increase of honour; and as one that cannot leave to love the state, what interest soever I have, or may come to have in it; and as one that now this dead vacation time hath some leisure" ad aliud agendum;" I will presume to propound unto you that which though you cannot but see, yet I know not whether you apprehend and esteem it in so high a degree; that is, for the best action of importation to yourself, of sound honour and merit to her majesty and this crown, without ventosity and popularity, that the riches of any occasion, or the tide of any opportunity, can possibly minister or offer: and that is the causes of Ireland, if they be taken by the right handle. For if the wound be not ripped up again, and come to a recrudency by new foreign succours, I think that no physician will go on much with letting of blood, " in declinatione morbi ;" but will intend to purge and corroborate. To which purpose I send you mine opinion, without labour of words, in the inclosed; and sure I am, that if you shall enter into the matter according to the vivacity of your own spirit, nothing can make unto you a more gainful

*Therefore this was wrote in 1601.-Rawley's Resuscitatio, 58.

return. For you shall make the queen's felicity complete, which now, as it is, is incomparable: and for yourself, you shall shew yourself as good a patriot as you are thought a politic, and make the world perceive you have not less generous ends, than dextrous delivery of yourself towards your ends; and that you have as well true arts and grounds of government, as the facility and felicity of practice and negociation; and that you are as well seen in the periods and tides of estates, as in your own circle and way than the which, I suppose, nothing can be a better addition and accumulation of honour unto you. This, I hope, I may in privateness write, either as a kinsman, that may be bold: or as a scholar, that hath liberty of discourse, without committing any absurdity. But if it seem any error in me thus to intromit myself, I pray your honour to believe, I ever loved her majesty and the state, and now love yourself; and there is never any vehement love without some absurdity, as the Spaniard well says: "desuario con la calentura." So desiring your

honour's pardon, I ever continue.

CONSIDERATIONS TOUCHINg the queeN'S SERVICE IN

IRELAND.

*

THE reduction of that country, as well to civility and justice, as to obedience and peace, which things, as affairs now stand, I hold to be inseparable, consisteth in four points:

1. The extinguishing of the relicks of the war.

* Resuscitatio, 264.

2. The recovery of the hearts of the people.

3. The removing of the root and occasions of new troubles.

4. Plantations and buildings.

For the first; concerning the places and times, and particularities of farther prosecution, in fact, I leave it to the opinion of men of war; only the difficulty is, to distinguish and discern the propositions, which shall be according to the ends of the state here, that is, final and summary towards the extirpation of the troubles, from those, which though they pretend public ends, yet may refer indeed to the more private and compendious ends of the council there: or of the particular governors or captains. But still, as I touched in my letter, I do think much letting blood," in declinatione morbi," is against method of cure: and that it will but induce necessity, and exasperate despair: and percase discover the hollowness of that which is done already, which now blazeth to the best shew. For Iaglia's and proscriptions of two or three of the principal rebels, they are no doubt, " jure gentium," lawful: in Italy usually practised upon the banditti; best in season when a side goeth down: and may do good in two kinds; the one, if they take effect: the other, in the distrust which may follow amongst the rebels themselves. But of all other points, to my understanding, the most effectual is, the well expressing or impressing the design of this state, upon that miserable and desolate kingdom; containing the same between these two lists or boundaries; the one, that the queen seeketh not an extirpation of that people,

but a reduction; and that, now she hath chastised them by her royal power and arms, according to the necessity of the occasion, her majesty taketh no pleasure in effusion of blood, or displanting of ancient generations. The other, that her majesty's princely care is principally and intentionally bent upon the action of Ireland; and that she seeketh not so much the ease of charge, as the royal performance of the office of protection, and reclaim of those her subjects: and in a word, that the case is altered so far as may stand with the honour of the time past which it is easy to reconcile, as in my last note I shewed. And again, I do repeat, that if her majesty's design be "ex professo" to reduce wild and barbarous people to civility and justice, as well as to reduce rebels to obedience, it makes weakness turn Christianity, and conditions graces; and so hath a fineness in turning utility upon point of honour, which is agreeable to the humour of these times. And besides, if her majesty shall suddenly abate the lists of her forces, and shall do nothing to countervail it in point of reputation, of a politic proceeding, I doubt things may too soon fall back into the state they were in. Next to this; adding reputation to the cause, by imprinting an opinion of her majesty's care and intention upon this action, is the taking away of reputation from the contrary side, by cutting off the opinion and expectation of foreign succours; to which purpose this enterprise of Algiers, if it hold according to the advertisement, and if it be not wrapped up in the period of this summer,

seemeth to be an opportunity "cœlitus demissa." And to the same purpose nothing can be more fit than a treaty, or a shadow of a treaty of a peace with Spain, which methinks should be in our power to fasten at least "rumore tenus," to the deluding of as wise people as the Irish. Lastly, for this point; that which the ancients called " potestas facta rede"undi ad sanitatem;" and which is but a mockery when the enemy is strong, or proud, but effectual in his declination; that is, a liberal proclamation of grace and pardon to such as shall submit, and come in within a time prefixed, and of some farther reward to such as shall bring others in; that one's sword may be sharpened by another's, is a matter of good experience, and now, I think, will come in time. And percase, though I wish the exclusions of such a pardon exceeding few, yet it will not be safe to continue some of them in their strength, but to translate them and their generations into England; and give them recompence and satisfaction here for their possessions there, as the king of Spain did, by divers families of Portugal. To the effecting of all the points aforesaid, and likewise those which fall within the divisions following, nothing can be in priority, either time or matter, better than the sending of some commission of countenance, " ad res inspicien"das et componendas;" for it will be a very significant demonstration of her majesty's care of that kingdom; a credence to any that shall come in and submit; a bridle to any that shall have their fortunes there, and shall apply their propositions to private