is such as our Ancestors if we may believe our Historians would have thought inconsistent with the Trust reposed in a King of Scots a manifest Reflection upon the Justice and Fidelity of the Nation and a discovery of their Arcana Imperii to those that were quarrelling with them We are not to suppose that his Majesty would give an Answer to an Address of this importance without Counsel If he consulted with our Dutch or English Opposers it was the same as if he had consulted our profess'd Enemies if he consulted with Scots-men and was advis'd to this Answer by any of them they are Traitors to their Country and have betray'd its Soveraignty for they ought to have advis'd him to answer that as King of Scots he was not to give an account to the English for any thing transacted in that Kingdom but if they found themselves any ways aggriev'd or thought their Trade endanger'd by the Scots Act he should be willing to have the matter debated and adjusted by Commissioners of both Nations as became the Common Father of both This could not justly have been look'd upon by the English as a refractory or stubborn Answer but must have been imputed to his braveness of Temper and fidelity to his Trust. But at once to give up the Soveraignty of Scotland without demurring upon it argues that his Majesty was advis'd to this Answer by Enemies to the Scotish Nation Our Parliaments have originally a greater Power than that of England for what the States of Scotland offer'd to the touch of the Scepter their Kings had no power to refuse or if they did the Resolves of the States had the force of a Law notwithstanding Thus our Reformation was established in 1560. by an Act of the States and tho our Queen Mary then in France and her Husband the Dauphin afterwards Francis I. refus'd to give their consent it remain'd a firm Law which Q. Mary when she return'd to Scotland was so far from offering to dispense with tho she was a great Asserter of her Prerogative that she was oblig'd to intreat of the States so far to dispense with it themselves as to suffer her to have Mass in her own Family We might go further back to the Reign of Robert II. who was check'd by the States for making a Truce with the English without their Consent it not being then in the power of our Kings either to make Peace or War without the States But the truth of that Maxim laid down by our Historian That the supreme Power of the Government of Scotland is in the States is so obvious to every one that reads our History that it cannot be denied and hence it is that our old Acts of Parliament are often call'd the Acts of the States and say The three States enact c. for by our original Constitution the King is none of the States but only Dux belli and Minister publicus which was well understood by our Viceroy the E. of Morton and the other Deputies from the States of Scotland when they acquainted Q. Elizabeth in their Memorial That the Scots created their Kings on that condition that they might when they saw cause divest them of that Power which they receiv'd from the People which we have now reasserted in making our Crown forfeitable by the Claim of Right at the last Revolution and perhaps that 's none of the least Causes why our Ruin is now endeavour'd by the Abettors of a growing Prerogative It were easy for us to enlarge on this and to shew from our Histories and Acts of Parliaments that our Kings according to our antient Constitution which those Rapes committed on our Liberties in some of the last Reigns can never overturn were inferior to their Parliaments who inthron'd and dethron'd them as they saw cause made them accountable for their Administration allow'd them no power of proroguing them without their own consent nor of hindering their meeting when the ardua Regni negotia requir'd it They could not make Peace or War without them nor so much as dispose of their Castles but by their consent Their Councils were chosen and sworn in Parliament and punishable by the States Nor had they any Revenue but what their Parliaments allow'd them These and many more were the native Liberties of the People of Scotland as may be seen in our Histories the Acts of all the Iames's the Protestation of the States of Scotland in 1638. and their Representation of their Proceedings against the Mistakes in the King's Declaration in 1640. And therefore his Majesty had no reason to say he was ill serv'd by the passing of an Act offer'd by the States of Scotland The Ignorance of those things hath often occasion'd our being misrepresented by the English Historians and other Writers as Rebels and what not when we really acted according to our own fundamental Laws And not only they but even our own Princes since the Union of the Crowns have either been kept ignorant of our Constitution or so incens'd against it by the Abettors of Tyranny that they have all of 'em his present Majesty excepted endeavour'd our Overthrow as well knowing it to be impossible to bring Arbitrary Government to perfection whilst a People who had always breath'd in a free Air and call'd their Princes to an account when they invaded their Properties were in any condition to defend themselves or assist others against such Princes as design'd an absolute Sway. But the Pill being too bitter to be swallowed by it self there was a necessity of taking Priestcraft into the Composition and to gild it over with the specious pretext of bringing the Scots to an Uniformity in Religion The Court knew that this would arm the Zealots against us and that it could never be effected without the ruin of our Kingdom whose Religion was so interwoven with our Civil Constitution that there was no overturning of the one without subverting the other This will appear plain to those that know that besides the Sanction of Acts of Parliament the Church of Scotland is defended by a full Representative of the Clergy and Laity of the Kingdom call'd a General Assembly which preserves us from being Priest-ridden as our Parliaments do from being Prince-ridden where the King by Law had no negative Voice no more than he formerly had in our Parliaments This in effect is the Representative of the Nation as Christians as the Parliaments are our Representatives as Men and as to the Laity many of them are the same individual persons that sit in Parliament So that those Assemblies being a second Barrier about our Liberties it was thought fit to run down the Constitution of our Church as not suted with Monarchy The Case being thus we dare refer it to the thoughts of our neighbouring Nation who have gallantly from time to time stood up for their own Liberties whether it were not more generous for them to unite with us than to suffer us to be oppress'd and
enslav'd There 's nothing can be objected to this but that all these glorious Privileges were swallow'd up by those Acts of Parliament that exalted the Prerogative to such a height in the Reign of K. Charles II. To which we answer That the Privileges of a Nation cannot be giv'n away without their own consent and we are morally certain that the Constituents even of those pack'd Parliaments did never give any commission to those that represented them to give away those Liberties Slavery is repugnant to human Nature so that it cannot be supposed the Nation exalted the Prerogative on purpose to put themselves in a worse condition than before or that when they find it applied to another use than that which they gave it for they may not reduce it to its antient Boundary The necessity of Affairs did sometimes oblige the Romans to entrust their Dictators with an extraordinary and absolute Power but when the occasion ceas'd they recalled it and kept to their antient and rational Maxim that Salus Populi is suprema Lex In the like manner the Enemies of our old Constitution may know if they please that we have retrieved the main point of making our Crown forfeitable by the Claim of Right and therefore if they push us too far it 's a thousand to one but we may renew our demands to the rest or oblige them to cast them into the bargain But to return from this Digression Tho we had no such peculiar Privileges belonging to us why might not we expect that his Majesty should be as kind to us as to our Brethren in England He hath once and again declared to them in Parliament That he never had nor never will have an Interest distinct from that of his People Then why should not the Interest of the People of Scotland be the same with the Interest of the King of Stots And if the People of Scotland met in Parliament agreed upon it as their Interest to have that Act past for incouraging their Trade how was it possible that the King of Scots could be ill serv'd by the passing that Act in Scotland Our Enemies and H s's Suborners have put a sort of an Answer to this in his mouth viz. That the said Act was obtain'd viis modis but the Falshood and Malice of that Insinuation will appear to the World by the previous Act of 1693. for incouraging of foreign Trade by which it was statuted That Merchants more or fewer may contract and enter into such Societies and Companies for carrying on Trade as to any Subject of Goods or Merchandise to whatsomever Kingdoms Countries or parts of the World not being in War with his Majesty where Trade is in use to be or may be follow'd and particularly besides the Kingdoms and Countries of Europe to the East and West Indies the Straits and to trade in the Mediterranean or upon the Coast of Africa or elsewhere as above Which Societies and Companies being contracted and entred into upon the terms and in the usual manner as such Companies are set up His Majesty with Consent aforesaid did allow and approve giving and granting to them and each of them all Powers Rights and Privileges as to their Persons Rules and Orders that by the Laws are given to Companies allowed to be erected for Manufactories And his Majesty for their greater Incouragement did promise to give to those Companies and each of them his Letters Patent under the Great Seal confirming to them the whole foresaid Powers and Privileges with what other incouragement his Majesty should judg needful These are the very terms of the Act of 1693. and in pursuance of this Act our Nation being willing to form a Company for trading to Africa and the Indies this Act which hath met with so much opposition in the World was past Iune 26. 1695 which was two years after Then with what Effrontery can H s and his Suborners suggest that it was obtain'd viis modis by surprize or in a surreptitious manner But something they must say to justify their unreasonable treatment of us and to blind the Eyes of the World Thus we see then that the Parliament of Scotland went on deliberately to advance their Trade and to make this Act by which it's evident that they who advis'd his Majesty to say that he was ill serv'd in Scotland impos'd upon him have laid a Foundation of division betwixt him and his Parliament which are the two constituent parts of our Government and if they be dash'd against one another the whole frame of it must of necessity be dissolv'd Hence also it is evident that those Counsellors if Scots-men ought by our old Constitution to be call'd to an account by the Parliament according to the 12 th Act of Parl. 2 Iames 4. And if they be Englishmen or Dutchmen we have a right to demand Justice against them as having meddled in our Affairs contrary to the Laws of Nations The Soveraignty of our Nation and the Independency of the K. of Scots upon the Crown of England being tacitely giv'n up by this Answer and the Parliament of England being possess'd by our Enemies with a false Notion of our Design they put a stop to our taking Subscriptions from any Residenters in England tho our offering to take in the English as Sharers was a plain Demonstration of the uprightness of our Intentions towards that Nation This made it apparent that we had no design in the least to supplant them in their Trade but on the contrary to make them Partakers in ours in order to lay a foundation for a closer Union and greater Amity betwixt the two Nations which if it had taken effect our Trade had not been nipp'd in the bud as now it is by the frowns of the Court but might by this time have been improv'd to the advancement of the glory and strength of the Island Whereas by the opposition made to that noble Design the Nations are more alienated from one another than before lessen'd in their Strength and Trade and Scotland for ever lost as to their Friendship usefulness and joining with England on any occasion whatever unless proper Measures be taken to make up the Breach and retrieve our lost Honour and Advantage All that can be said to excuse so false a step in such a wise Nation as England is that they were impos'd upon by those that are Enemies to the true Liberties of both Nations and by some of their Traders and ignorant Pretenders to give advice in matters of Trade who out of a sordid Principle of Self-interest preferr'd their own private Gain to the general advantage of their Country This would have quickly been seen had his Majesty and the Parliament of England instead of that violent opposition which they made to the Scots Act desir'd a Conference betwixt a Committee of the Parliaments of both Nations then it would soon have appear'd what our true Design was and that it was neither our Interest
to his Catholick Majesty and perhaps on purpose to make him digest the other Project with more ease is like to be of as little advantage to England as was the Sacrifice of the great Sir Walter Raleigh formerly tho it may be infinitely more to their damage If our Neighbours have a mind to be fully inform'd of this matter they know who were imploy'd in those Negotiations and how to speak with them We come next to consider the Opposition made to our Subscriptions at Hamburgh by Sir Paul Ricaut the English Resident there in conjunction with his Majesty's Envoy to the Court of Lunenburg who deliver'd in a joint Memorial to the Senate of Hamburgh threatning them with the heighth of his Majesty's Displeasure if they join'd with the Scots in any Treaty of Commerce whatsoever This we shall not need to make any Reflexions upon the Petitions from the Company to his Majesty and his Privy Council in Scotland being sufficient for that end Their first to the King was dated Iune the 28 th 1697. and is as follows To the King 's Most Excellent Majesty The humble Address of the Council General of the Company Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies May it please your Majesty WHEREAS by the 32 d Act of the 4 th Session and by the 8 th Act of the 5 th Session of Your Majesty's current Parliament as well as by Your Majesty's Patent under the Great Seal of this Kingdom this Company is established with such ample Privileges as were thought most proper and encouraging both to Natives and Foreigners to join in the carrying on supporting and advancement of our Trade The most considerable of the Nobility Gentry Merchants and whole Body of the Royal Burrows have upon the Inducement and publick Faith of Your Majesty and Act of Parliament and Letters Patent contributed as Adventurers in raising a far more considerable joint Stock than any was ever before raised in this Kingdom for any publick Undertaking or Project of Trade whatsoever which makes it now of so much the more universal a Concern to the Nation And for the better enabling us to accomplish the ends of Your Majesty's said Act of Parliament and Letters Patent we have pursuant thereunto appointed certain Deputies of our own number to transact and negotiate our necessary Affairs beyond Sea and at the same time to treat with such Foreigners of any Nation in amity with Your Majesty as might be inclinable to join with us for the purpose aforesaid In the prosecution of which Commission to our said Deputies vested with full Power and Authority according to Law We are not a little surprized to find to the great hindrance and obstruction of our Affairs That your Majesty's Envoy to the Courts of Lunenburgh and Resident at Hamburgh have under pretence of special Warrant from Your Majesty given in a joint subscribed Memorial to the Senate of Hamburgh expresly invading the Privileges granted to our Company by Your Majesty's said Acts of Parliament and Letters Patent as by the herewith transmitted Copy may appear By the which Memorial we sustain great and manifold Prejudices since both the Senate and Inhabitants of the said City of Hamburgh are thereby contrary to the Law of Nations expresly threatned with Your Majesty's Displeasure if they or either of them should countenance or join with us in any Treaty of Trade or Commerce whatsoever which deprives us of the assistance which we had reason to expect from several Inhabitants of that City For redress whereof we do in all Duty and Humility apply to Your Majesty not only for the Protection and Maintenance of our Privileges and freedom of Trade but also for reparation of damage conform to Your Majesty's said Acts of Parliament and Letters Patent And we further beg leave humbly to represent to Your Majesty that tho by the said Acts of Parliament and Letters Patent we conceive our selves legally and sufficiently authorized to treat even with any Soveraign Potentate or State in Amity with Your Majesty for the support and advancement of our Trade yet we by our said Deputies have only treated with particular and private Merchants of the said City of Hamburgh without ever making any the least Proposal to the Senate thereof and this we humbly conceive to be the natural Right and Privilege of all Merchants whatsoever even tho we had wanted the Sanction of so solemn Laws and without some speedy redress be had therein not only this Company but all the individual Merchants of this Kingdom must from henceforward conclude that all our Rights and Freedoms of Trade are and may be further by our Neighbours violently wrested out of our hands We therefore to prevent the further evil Consequences of the said Memorial to our Company in particular do make our most humble and earnest Request to Your Majesty That you would be graciously pleased to grant us such Declarations as in your Royal Wisdom you shall think fit to render the Senate and Inhabitants of the said City of Hamburgh and all others that are or may be concerned secure from the Threatnings and other Suggestions contain'd in the said Memorial as well as to render us secure under Your Majesty's Protection in the full Prosecution of our Trade and free Injoyment of our lawful Rights Privileges and Immunities contained in Your Majesty's Acts of Parliament and Letters Patent above-mentioned Signed at Edinburgh the 28th Day of June 1697. in Name Presence and by Order of the said Council General by May it please your Majesty Your Majesty's most Faithful most Dutiful most Humble and most Obedient Subject and Servant Sic subscribitur Yester P. The King's Answer to the above written Address By the Right Honourable the Earl of Tullibardin c. and Sir James Ogilvie Principal Secretaries of State My Lords and Gentlemen WE are impowered by the King to signify unto you that as soon as his Majesty shall return to England he will take into Consideration what you have represented unto him and that in the mean time His Majesty will give orders to his Envoy at the Courts of Lunenburgh and his Resident at Hamburgh not to make use of his Majesty's Name or Authority for obstructing your Company in the prosecution of your Trade with the Inhabitants of that City Signed at Edinburgh the 2d Day of August 1697. Sic subscribitur Tullibardin Ja. Ogilvie The Company finding that the said Resident did notwithstanding this Answer continue his opposition and deny that he had any orders to the contrary petitioned his Majesty's Privy Council afresh as follows To the Right Honourable the Lord High Chancellour and remanent Lords of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council The Humble Representation of the Council General of the Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies May it please your Lordships 'T IS not unknown to your Lordships how that in several successive Sessions of this current Parliament his Majesty's Instructions to his respective High Commissioners and
believe his Majesty will scarcely thank him for his Security and we are satisfied our Nation will as little rely on it But at the same time we must tell this Gentleman and his Suborners that we had as little reason to suspect that K. Charles I. who was a Native of Scotland would have dishonour'd our Crown so far as to order it to be brought to England and therefore it is not impossible for Princes to be over-perswaded by ill Council to do such things as are inconsistent with the Honour of their Crowns And thus some will venture to say that the Crown of Scotland was no ways honour'd when the Dutch Troops took place of the King of Scots's Guards and when the King of England takes upon him to condemn by Proclamations what the King of Scotland has approv'd by Act of Parliament and Letters Patent The Scribler comes next to give us a taste of his Skill in the Brittish History he brags of so much by telling us the Fate of some great Scots Families that swell'd beyond their Proportion His Instances of the Cummins and Gouries sufficiently discover his Ignorance of the Scotish History The former was indeed a very great Family but are an inauspicious instance for him and those of his kidney their ruin not being occasion'd by their Greatness but by joyning with the Enemies of our Nation as this Renegado does As for his Application of his Instances it serves to discover the malicious Designs of himself and Suborners against the two greatest Families that are now left in Scotland The kind treatment this Author met with from one of these great Men upon his arrival after having deserted our Colony would have oblig'd any but a Monster of Ingratitude to have forborn such a causeless and invenom'd Reflection which nothing but ingrain'd Malice can suggest We come in the next place to take a view of the Book it self In the very first Page he owns he is no Friend to the Scots Company and alledges he has more reason for it than those Skeletons that are starved to death This we hope is sufficient to shew what credit is to be given to his Narrative wherein tho he promises to keep close to matter of Fact he abounds with blasphemous and impertinent Digressions One of the first we shall take notice of is his unmannerly Reflection on the City of London pag. 3. as a place where Matter is never wanting to exercise plodding Heads Which is so near a kin to the Language of the Faction that in the late Reigns aim'd at the destruction of that Noble Emporium which deserves to be the Mistress of the Universe that we cannot in the least doubt but it proceeds from the same Spirit Of the same nature is his reflection pag. 7. upon the London Subscribers who came in so fast to the Scots Company that he thought himself the happiest man that could get his Name first down in our Books Which is a plain demonstration that those eager Subscribers thought the Design no way prejudicial to the Interest of their Country for upon enquiry it will be found that most of them were such as had zealously appear'd for its Liberty in former Reigns His malicious Reflection in that same Page as if the Company had promis'd 20000 l. to Paterson Smith and Lodg to engage Subscriptions in England and the Hans-Towns is notoriously false they had not one Farthing promis'd them tho to be sure the Company would have rewarded them for their Pains and Service as it was reasonable they should besides it appears by the eagerness of the English and Hamburgers to subscribe until they were prevented by their respective Governments that there was no occasion for such a Bribe to bring in Subscriptions His Reflection pag. 8. of our printing the Address of the Commons at Edinburgh but not the King's Answer admitting it to be true is so far from being criminal that it rather argues the greatest respect imaginable for his Majesty whom we would not lessen in the esteem of the People of Scotland who knew they had a natural Right to claim and expect his Protection His owning in that same Page that the Company 's Books had not been long open'd in Edinburgh till 400000 l. was sign'd and that all sorts of People whom he is pleas'd to express under the scurrilous denomination of poor blind and lame crouded in with their Subscriptions serves to confute his foregoing and following Reflections That the Company was obliged to promise 20000 l. to procure Subscriptions and to go where the Money lay viz to Holland and the Hans Towns especially since he owns himself p. 10 19. That they were baulk'd of their Subscriptions in England and Holland and had not one Groat of the Hamburgers Money His Reflection upon Mr. Paterson pag. 8. whom he blasphemously calls the Man Paterson alluding to the Apostles calling our Saviour the Man Christ is altogether false he always propos'd the paying half the Subscriptions and most of the Subscribers were resolved to pay the whole as it appears they have already a considerable part of it by their having sent away three Convoys and being busy in preparing a fourth His Irreligious and Atheistical temper appears further by his reflecting upon their expecting good Returns by the old Cant of God's Blessing as if it were possible to look for Success in any thing without the Divine Benediction or ridiculous to express our dependency on it But it seems his Suborners are resolv'd that our Nation shall be huff'd banter'd and blasphem'd out of all their Rights as Men and Christians His next Reflection p. 9. of our sending Persons to build six Ships of fifty Guns a piece at Amsterdam and Hamburgh to prepossess the Dutchmen with a kind opinion of the Company and thereby make it appear how willing we were to extend the warm Rays of our Octroy to people who deserv'd it better than our ungrateful Neighbours is malicious to the highest degree He and his Suborners very well know that we could neither build nor buy in England because of the opposition made to us there and since 't is known that they can build cheaper in Hamburgh and Holland than in England our offering first to lay out our Money with our Neighbours and not going beyond Sea till we were compell'd to it is a proof from his own Mouth that we had no other but friendly Intentions towards the English Nation His Insinuation of the Difference betwixt the Kirk and Church Parties about each of them imploying their own Instruments shews more Malice than Wisdom since admitting People of different Perswasions into Companies is practised in all trading parts of the World and particularly in England where the Dissenters have no small share in all their Funds and Companies but by this they may see what fair Treatment they are to expect if H s and his Suborners could get their wills The old Popish Maxim would soon be brought into practice that no man should
Receptacle and Mart of our Stores whatever they might hope for as to conveying the Merchandize to the Inland Places of Germany they could not but think that we had Shipping of our own to carry our Goods to the Ports on the Baltick and German Sea In that same Page they give us another hint to confirm our Suspicion that it is more from the apprehensions of our lessening the Dutch than the English Trade that the Court have so violently oppos'd us viz. that the Hamburghers by joining with the Scots had a prospect of worming the Hollander out of a good part of the German Trade Which admitting to be true the Hollanders had none but themselves to blame for it since we offer'd to take them in as joint Subscribers before we made any Proposal to the Hamburghers nor is it any ways unreasonable in it self that Germans should have the preference of other Nations in trading with Germany After a great deal of prophane Banter and ridiculing the sacred Text he tells us that the Human Reason of our Disappointment was an unnecessary Paragraph in our Octroy which occasion'd a great many English and Holland Speculations viz. That in case the Company should be interrupted in their Trade c. the King had ingaged to interpose the Royal Authority to do them right and that at the public Charge which says he Paterson and the rest insinuated in all Companies That the King was to assist and defend them with his Ships of War or otherwise if there was occasion and that out of his own Pocket which they did not question to be English Coin There 's no reasonable Man will think it unnecessary that a Prince should protect his Subjects in their Trade either by his Men of War or otherwise and therefore this being a Clause of the Act of Parliament it was no ways unnecessary to be put into the Patent and we will adventure to tell H and his Suborners that they who advis'd his Majesty to refuse our Company the three Men of War built at our own Charge when they offer'd to be at the expence of maintaining them have advis'd him to act contrary to the Trust repos'd in him as King of Scots and to contravene this very Act of Parliament and that which order'd those Ships to be built for defence of Trade than which there cannot be a more false step in Government for when once People perceive that Princes have no regard to the Laws made for the protection and welfare of the Subject they will naturally think themselves absolv'd from such as require their Allegiance and support of the Soveraign That Mr. Paterson and the Scots Company should insinuate from the Octroy that we were to be assisted or defended by English Men of War or Money is nothing but a mixture of Falshood and Malice The Libeller owns that the Words of our Act cannot bear it and the World knows that our Parliaments never pretend to dispose of English Ships or Mony and therefore no man of sense will believe this Renegado when he says the Scots Company put that Gloss on the Text for their own advantage since that had been directly to expose themselves For we are not to suppose they could think the Dutch and Hamburghers so weak as not to peruse the Act it self which would soon have undeceived them Therefore all those Reflections which he pretends the English Traders to India made upon it must vanish of course as having no manner of Foundation Much less can they serve to justify the Memorial given in at Hamburgh by Sir Paul Ricaut against our taking Subscriptions there Which Memorial tho minc'd by our Libeller yet ev'n as he represents it is against the Law of Nations and indeed scarcely reconcileable to good sense in the first place to call our Agents private Men who acted by the Company 's Authority and according to Act of Parliament and in the next place to suppose that the Hamburghers could possibly join with us in hopes of English Protection when the Opposition made to us by the Court of England was known all over Europe nay the Scribler himself owns P. 17. That the more Opposition the English and Dutch offer'd to the Project the more the Hamburghers thought it their Interest to embrace it This is sufficient to convince the Suborners that the next time they hire a Scribler to belie the Scots Company they must be sure to pitch upon one that has a better Memory His next Reflections P. 22 23. That our Ships were neither fit for Trade nor War that our Cargo was not proper that our main Design was the Buccaneer Trade that above 10000 l. was deficient of the first Payments and most of the Subscribers not able to raise their Quota are equally false with the rest The Ships for their Burden and Size are as fit either for Trade or War as any in Europe The Cargo of Cloth Stuffs Shoes Stockins Slippers and Wigs must needs be proper for a Country where the Natives go naked for want of Apparel and fit to be exchanged for other Commodities either in the English Dutch French or Spanish Plantations For Bibles we suppose our Libeller would rather we had carried Mass Books yet others will be of opinion that 1500 of 'em was no unfit Cargo Our own Colony might have dispens'd with that number in a little time nor were they unfit to have been put into the hands of such of the Natives especially of the younger sort that might learn our Language For Hoes Axes Macheet Knives c. they were absolutely necessary for our selves and a Commodity much valued by the Natives Fifteen hundred square Buccaneer Pieces and proportionable Ammunition was no such extraordinary Store for eleven or twelve hundred men and whereas he maliciously insinuates that Buccaneering was our main Design the Event hath prov'd it to be false had that been our intent we might easily have invaded the Spanish Plantations at both ends of the Isthmus Sancta Maria nor Panama it self could never have been able to withstand such a force when a few undisciplin'd Buccaneers did so easily take them It 's well enough known there was a parcel of as brave Men that went with our Fleet as perhaps Great Britain could afford many of 'em inur'd to War and Fatigues and knew how to look an Enemy in the Face without being daunted They had giv'n proofs enough of that in Flanders where no men alive could fight with more Bravery and Zeal than they did for the Common Cause tho some People have since thought fit to starve them That there was above 10000 l. of the 100000 l. not paid in is false there was not above 2000 l. wanting For those great men that thought their Countenance enough and therefore refus'd to pay in their Subscriptions he shall have our leave to name them but perhaps his Suborners will not care to have their Friends so much expos'd That most of the Subscribers were unable to raise