We are very sensible how heavy an accusation lieth upon the Catholics of Ireland; that some years before King Charles II. was restored, when theirs and the King's forces were entirely reduced, and the kingdom declared by the Rump to be settled; after all His Majesty's generals were forced to fly to France, or other countries, the heads of the said Catholics who remained here in an enslaved condition, joined to send an invitation to the Duke of Lorrain; engaging, upon his appearing here with his forces, to deliver up the whole island to his power, and declare him their sovereign; which, after the Restoration, was proved against them by Dean Boyle, since primate, who produced the very original instrument at the board. The Catholics freely acknowledge the fact to be true; and, at the same time appeal to all the world, whether a wiser, a better, a more honourable, or a more justifiable project could have been thought of. They were then reduced to slavery and beggary by the English rebels, many thousands of them murdered, the rest deprived of their estates, and driven to live on a small pittance in the wilds of Connaught; at a time when either the Rump or Cromwell absolutely governed the three kingdoms. And the question will turn upon this, Whether the Catholics, deprived of all their possessions, governed with a rod of iron, and in utter despair of ever seeing the monarchy restored, for the preservation of which they had suffered so much, were to be blamed for calling in a foreign prince of their own religion, who had a considerable army to support them; rather than submit to so infamous an usurper as Cromwell, or such a bloody and ignominious conventicle as the Rump. And I have often heard, not only our friends the Dissenters, but even our common enemy the Conformists, who are conversant in the history of those times, freely confess, that considering the miserable situation the Irish were then in, they could not have thought of a braver or more virtuous attempt; by which they might have been instruments of restoring the lawful monarch, at least to the recovery of England and Scotland, from those betrayers, and sellers, and murderers of his royal father.