IT is now, I think, more than a year since I first saw a little BOOK written by way of Letter, called, Observations and Reflections on my Lord of Castle-Haven's Me­moires: Wherein, though there are some things that might lead the Reader to believe that your Lordship was the AUTHOR; yet there were many more. I thought impossible should come from you: For it affirms many Matters of Fact positively, which are easily and authentically to be disproved: And from those Matters of Fact, grosly mistaken, it deduces Consequences, raises Inferences, and scatters Glances injurious to the memory of the Dead, and the Honour of some Living: Among those that by the Blessing of God are yet living, I find my self worst Treated; Twenty years after the Kings Restauration, and Forty after the beginning of the Irish Rebellion, as if it had been all that while reserved for me, and for such Times as these we are fallen into, when Calumny, (though the Matter of it be never so groundless and improbable,) meets with Credulity; and when Liberty is taken to asperse Men, and Repre­sent them to the World under the monstrous and odious Figures of Papists, or Popishly affected: Not because they are so thought by those that employ the Representers, but, because they are known to be too good Protestants, and too Loyal Subjects, to joyn in the Destruction of the Crown and Church: Besides, the Treatise came forth, and must have been written, when I had but newly received Repeated Assurances of the continuance of your Friendship to me, wherein, as in one of your Letters, you are pleased to say, you had never made a false step; for these Reasons I was not willing to believe that Book to be of your Lordships Composing, and hoped some of the Suborned Libellers of the Age had endeavoured to Imitate your Lord­ship, and not you them; but I was in a while after, first by my Son [Page 4] Arran, and afterwards by the Bearer, Sir Robert Reading, assured your Lordship had owned to them that the Piece was yours, but profest the Publication to be without your Order, and that you did not intend to do, or think that you had done me any injury or prejudice: If your Lord­ship really thought so, the Publication might have been owned as well as what was Published: But then let the World Judge, whether Pen, Ink, and Paper are not dangerous Tools in your Hands? When I was thus assured your Lordship was the Author, it cost me some thoughts how to vindicate Truth, my Master the late King, my self, my Actions and Family, all Reflected on, and traduced by that Pamphlet; I found my self ingaged in the Service of our present King, and that in a Time of difficulty and danger, and in such Times for the most part it has been my lot to be Employed in Publick Affairs; and though I had not been so taken up, yet I well knew that Writing upon such Occasions is no more my Talent, than it is my Delight: And to say truth, my in­disposition to the exercise might help to perswade me, that the Book, though honoured with your Lordships Name, would, after it had per­formed its Office in Coffee-Houses, and served your Lordships Design in that Conjuncture, expire; as Writings of that nature and force usually do: And herein I rested, without troubling my self, or any body else, with Animadversions upon your Lordships mistakes, which are so many, and so obvious, that I wonder how you could fall into them. I will add to this, that I have been in expectation that by this time your Compleat History would have come forth, wherein, if I may judge by the Pattern, I have just cause to suspect that neither the Subject or my self will be more justly dealt with, than in that occasional Essay, and I would have been glad to have seen all my Work before me, in case I should think fit to make a Work of it. The delay of your Publishing that History, and the consideration of your Lordships Age and mine, are the occasions of this Letter, whereby I inform you, that as no man now alive is better able than I am to give an account of the Principal Transactions during the Rebellion in Ireland; so no man is possessed of more Authentick Commissions, Instruments, and Papers; all which, or Transcripts of them, you might have Commanded, before you set forth your Reflections: But possibly to have stayed for them, might have lost you a seasonable opportunity of Publishing your abhorrence of the Irish Rebellion, and your Zeal against Popery: What your Lord­ship might then have had, you may yet have, because I had rather help to prevent than detect Errours, but then I must first know to what particular part of your History you desire Information, and how you deliver those parts to the World and to Posterity. If after this Of­fer your Lordship shall proceed to the Conclusion and Publication of your History, and not accept of it, I must before-hand Appeal from you, as from an Incompetent Judge of my Actions, and a partially en­gaged and an unfaithful Historian.