King James himself, if he understood the whole case, would not wish his Irish friends to engage at that moment in an enterprise which must be fatal to them and useless to him.

He would permit them, he would command them, to submit to necessity, and to reserve themselves for better times.

If any man of weight, loyal, able, and well informed, would repair to Saint Germains and explain the state of things, his Majesty would easily be convinced.

Would Mountjoy undertake this most honourable and important mission?
Mountjoy hesitated, and suggested that some person more likely to be acceptable to the King should be the messenger.

Tyrconnel swore, ranted, declared that, unless King James were well advised, Ireland would sink to the pit of hell, and insisted that Mountjoy should go as the representative of the loyal members of the Established Church, and should be accompanied by Chief Baron Rice, a Roman Catholic high in the royal favour.