The English Rogue: Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant — John Shaqi
The English Rogue: Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty ExtravagantHead, Richard
General
The English Rogue: Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant
Head, Richard
Rogues and vagabonds -- England -- Fiction
Here were we received with much pitty of all, and entertain’d, and
cloth’d and fed, by some charitable minded Persons; to gratifie their
souls for what they had done for my mothers body, and those that
belong’d to her, my Father frequently preacht, which gave general
satisfaction, and continued thus in instructing his hearers, till the
_Sark_ or _Surplice_, was adjudged by a Scotish Faction, to be the
absolute Smock of the Whore of _Babylon_. Then was he constrain’d to
flee again to _Linsegarvy_ taking his charge with him.
Before I proceed, give me leave to digress a little in giving you a
brief account of the _Irish_ Rebellion. Not two years before it broke
out, all those ancient Animosities, Grudges, and Hatred, which the
_Irish_ had ever been observed to bare unto the English, seemed to be
deposited and buried in a firm Conglutination of their Affections, and
National Obligations, which passed between them, for these two had lived
together forty Years in peace, with such great security and comfort,
that it had in a manner consolidated them into one body, knit and
compacted together with all those Ligatures, of Friendship, Alliance,
and Consanguinity, as might make up a constant and everlasting Union
betwixt them there. Their Inter-marriages were near upon as frequent as
their Gossippings and Fosterings, (relations of much dearness among the
_Irish_) together with all Tenancies, Neighborhoods and Services
interchangeably passed among them. Nay, they had made as it were a
mutual Transmigration into each others manners, many English being
strongly degenerated into Irish Affections and Customes, and many of the
better sort of Irish studying as well the Language of the English as
delighting to be Apparrel’d like them. Nay, so great an advantage did
they find by the English Commerce and Cohabitation, in the profits and
high improvements of their Lands, as Sir _Phelim O Neal_, that
Rebellious Ringleader, with divers others eminent in that bloody
Insurrection, had not long before turn’d off their Lands, their Irish
Tenants, admitting English in their rooms; who are able to give far
greater Rents, and more certainly pay the same. So as all those
circumstances duly weighted & considered with the great increase of
Trade, and many other evident Symptoms of a flourishing Commonwealth; it
was believed even by the wisest and most experienced in the affairs of
_Ireland_, that the Peace and Tranquility of that Kingdom was fully
settled, and most likely in all humane probability to continue,
especially under the Government of such a King as _Charles_ the First,
whom after-ages may admire, but never match. Such was the serenity and
security of this Kingdom, as that there appeared not any where any
Martial preparations, nor reliques of any kind of disorders, no nor so
much as the least noise of War whisperingly carried to any ear in all
this Lands.
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