to a greater degree of Confidence then any that went before them The best of our Princes have with thanks acknowledged the Care and Duty of their Parliaments in telling them of the Corruption and Folly of their Favourites Ed. I. Ed. III. Hen. V. and Q. El. never fail'd to do it and no Names are remembred with greater Honour in the English Annals Whilst the disorderly the Troublesome and Unfortunate Reigns of H. III. Ed. II. R. II. and H. the VI. ought to serve as Land-marks to warn succeeding Kings from preferring secret Councels to the Wisdom of their Parliaments But none of the Proceedings of the House of Commons have been more censured at Court and with less Justice than their Vote about the Anticipation of several Branches of the Revenue An objection which could proceed from nothing but a total ignorance of the Nature of Publick Treasure in our own and all other Nations which was ever esteem'd Sacred Un-alienable All the Acts of resumption in the times of H. IV. H. VI. and other of our Kings were founded upon this Maxim otherwise there could not be conceived any grosser injustice than to declare Alienations to be void which Kings had lawful power to make It was upon this Maxim that the Parliament declar'd the Grant to the Pope of the yearly sum of 1000 marks wherewith K. John had charg'd the Inheritance of the Crown to be Null It was for this cause that in the year 1670. His Majesty procured an Act of Parliament to enable him to sell the Fee Farm Rents and it is the best excuse that can be made for those Ministers who in the year 1672. advised the postponing of all payments to the Bankers out of the Exchequer that they judged all securities by way of Anticipation of the Revenue illegal and void in themselves Resumptions have been frequent in every Kingdom the King of Sweden within these few Months has by the Advice of the States resumed all the Lands which His Predecessors had in many years before granted from the Crown No Country did ever believe the Prince how absolute soever in other things had power to sell or give away the Revenue of the Kingdom and leave his Successor a Beggar All those Acts of the Roman Emperors whereby they wasted the Treasure of the Empire were rescinded by their Successors and Tacitus observes that the first of them that look't upon the publick Treasure as his own was Claudius the weakest and most sottish of them all The present King of France did within these twelve years by the consent of his several Parliaments resume all the Demesness of the Crown which had been Granted away by himself or his Predecessors That haughty Monarch as much power as he pretends to not being asham'd to own that he wanted power to make such Alienations and that Kings had that happy inability that they could do nothing contrary to the Laws of their Countrey This notion seems founded in the reason of mankind since Barbarism it self cannot efface it The Ottoman Emperors dispose Arbitrarily of the Lives and Estates of their Subjects but yet they esteem it the most detestable wickedness to employ the Tributes and Growing Revenues of the Provinces which they call the Sacred blood of the People upon any other than publick occasions And our Kings H. IV. and H. VII understood so well the different power they had in using their private Inheritances and those of the Crown that they took care by Authority of Parliament to separate the Dutchy of Lancaster from the Crown and to keep the descent of it distinct But our present Courtiers are quite of another Opinion who speak of the Revenue of the Crown as if it were a private Patrimony and design'd only for domestick uses and for the Pleasures of the Prince The Revenues of the Crown of England are their own nature approriated to Publick Service therefore cannot without injustice be diverted or Anticipated For either the Publick Revenue is sufficient to answer the necessary Occasions of the Government and then there is no colour for Anticipations or else by some extraordinary accident the K. is reduced to want an extraordinary supply and then he ought to resort to his Parliament Thus wisely did our Ancestors provide that the K. and His People should have frequent need of one another and by having frequent opportunities of mutually relieving one anothers wants be sure ever to preserve a dutiful affection in the Subject and a fartherly tenderness in the Prince When the King had occasion for the Liberality of his People he would be well inclin'd to hear and redress their Grievances and when they wanted ease from Oppressions they would not fail with alacrity to supply the occasions of the Crown And therefore it has ever been esteem'd a crime in Counsellors who perswaded the King to Anticipate his Revenue and a Crime in those who furnisht Money upon such Anticipations in an Extraordinary way however extraordinary the Occasion might be For this cause it was that the Parliament in the 35th of H. 8. did not only discharge all those debts which the K. had contracted but enacted that those Lenders who had been before paid again by the King should refund all those sums into the Exchequer as Judging it a reasonable punishment to make them forfeit the Money they lent since they had gone about to introduce so dangerous a Precedent The true way to put the King out of a possibility of supporting the Government is to let him wast in one year that Money which ought to bear the charge of the Government for seven This is the direct method to destroy the Credit of the Crown both Abroad and at Home If the King resolve never to pay the Money which he Borrows what Faith will be given to Royal Promises and the Honour of the Nation will suffer in that of the Prince if it must be put upon the People to repay it this would be a way to impose a necessity of giving Taxes without end whether they would or no. And therefore as Mercenary as they were the Pensioners would never discharge the Revenue of the Anticipations to the Bankers Now the Commons having the inconvenience of this before their Eyes in so fresh an instance and having their Ears fill'd with the daily cries of so many Widows and Orphans were obliged in duty to give a Public Caution to the People that they should not run agan into the same Error Not only because they judged all Securities of that kind absolutely void but because they knew no future Parliament could without breach of Trust repay that Money which was at first borrowed only to prevent the Sitting of a Parliament and which could never be paid without Countenancing a Method so destructive to our Constitution Nor have former Parliaments been less careful and nice in giving the least allowance to any unusual ways of taking up Money without common Consent having so very often declar'd
Priviledges of Parliament If the Priviledge of Parliament be concern'd when an injury is done to any particular Member how much more is it touched when Men strike at Parliaments themselves and endeavour to wound the very Constitution If this be said with Relation to Sheridon who has since troubled the World with so many idle impudent Pamphlets upon that account 't is plain that his Commitment was only in order to examine him about the Popish Plot and his Endeavors to stifle it though his contemptuous Behaviour to the House deserved a much longer Confinement and 't was Insolence in him to Arraign their Justice because they did not instantly leave all their great Debates to dispatch the business relating to him Thompson of Bristol was Guilty of divers great Breaches of Priviledge but yet his Commitment was only in order to an Impeachment and as soon as they had gone through with his Examination they ordered him to be set at Liberty giving Security to answer the Impeachment which they had voted against him But is it a thing so strange and new to the Authors of the Declaration that the House of Commons should Order Men to be taken into Custody for matters not relating to Priviledg Have they not heard that in the 4 Edw. 6. Cricketost was Committed for Confedertaing in an Escape that 18 Jac. Sir Francis Mitchel was Comitted for Misdemeanors in procuring a Patent for the Forfeitures of Recognizances together with Fowles Gerrard and divers others none of which were Members of Parliament that 20 Jac. Dr. Harris was taken into Custody for misbehaving himself in Preaching and that 3 Car. Burgesse was Committed for Faults in Catechizing and Levet for presuming to exercise a Patent which had been adjudged a Grievance by a Committee of the Commons in a former Parliament There would be no end of giving Instances of those Commitments which may be observed in almost every Parliament so that the House of Commons did but tread in the Steps of their Predecessors and these sorts of Orders were not new though the Declaration takes the Liberty to call them Arbitrary The Commons had betrayed their Trust if they had not asserted the Right of Petitioning which had been just before shaken by such a strange Illegal and Arbitrary Proclamation But now we come to the Transcendent monstrous Crimes which can never be forgiven by the Ministers the giving them their due Character which every Man of Understanding had fix'd upon them long before the whole Current of their Counsels being a full Proof of the Truth of the Charge But what colour is there for calling these Votes illegal Is it illegal for the Commons to impeach persons whom they have good reason to judg Enemies to the King and Kingdom Is it Illegal to determin by a Vote which is the only way of finding the Sence of the House who are Wicked Counsellors and deserve to be impeach'd Could the Commons have called the Parties accused to make their Answer before themselves Had they not a proper time for their Defence when they came to their Tryals and might they not have cleared their Innocence much better if they durst have put that in Issue by a Tryal than a Dissolution of the Parliament But should we grant that these Votes were not made in Order to an Impeachment yet still there is nothing Illegal nothing extraordinary in them For the Commons in Parliament have ever used two ways in delivering their Country from pernicious and powerful Favorites the one is in a Parliamentary Course of Justice by Impeaching them which is used when they judg it needful to make them publick Examples by Capital or other high Punishments for the terror of others The other is by immediate Address to the King to remove them as unfaithful or unprofitable Servants Their Lives their Liberties or Estates are never endangered but when they are proceeded against in the former of these ways Then legal evidence of their Guilt is necessary then there must be a proper time allowed for their defence In the other way the Parliament act as the Kings great Council and when either House observe that Affairs are ill administred that the advice of Parliaments is rejected or slighted the Course of Justice perverted our Councels betray'd Grievances multiplyed and the Government weakly and disorderly managed of all which our Laws have made it impossible for the King to be guilty They necessarily must and always have charg'd those who had the Administration of Affairs and the Kings Ear as the Authors of these mischiefs and have from time to time applyed themselves to him by Addresses for their Removal from his Presence and Councils There be many things plain and evident beyond the Testimony of any Witnesses which yet can never be proved in a legal way If the King will hearken to none but two or three of his Minions must we not conclude that every thing that is done comes from their Advice And yet if this way of representing things to the King were not allowed they might easily frustrate the enquiries of a Parliament It is but to whisper their Counsels and they are safe The Parliament may be busied in such great Affairs as will not suffer them to pursue every Offender through a long Process and besides there may be many reasons why a man should be turn'd out of a service which perhaps would not extend to subject him to punishment The People themselves are highly concern'd in the great Officers and Ministers of State who are Servants to the Kingdom as well as to the King. And the Representatives of the People the Commons whose business it is to present all Grievances as they are most likely to observe soonest the Folly and Treachery of those publick Servants the greatest of all Grievances so this Representation ought to have no little weight with the Prince This was understood so well by H. 4. a wise and brave Prince that when the Commons complain'd against four of his Servants and Councellors desiring they might be removed he came into Parliament and there declared openly that though he knew nothing against them in particular yet he was assured that what the Lords and Commons desired of him was for the good of himself and his Kingdom and therefore he did comply with them and banish'd those four Persons from his Presence and Councils declaring at the same time that he would do so by any others who should be near His Royal Person if they were so unhappy to fall under the Hatred and Indignation of his People The Records and Histories of the Reigns of Edward the first Edw. II. Edw. III. and indeed of all other succeeding Kings are full of such Addresses as these but no History or Record can shew that ever they were called illegal or Un-Parliamentary till now Then the Ministers durst not appeal to the People against their own Representatives but ours at present have either got some new Law in the point or have attained
that the King cannot supply his most pressing Necessities either by Loans or by the Benevolence of his Subjects which by the express words of the Statute are damned and annulled for ever But the House of Commons were so cautious of giving any just occasion of Cavil that they restrain'd their Votes much more than they needed to have done For they extended them only to three Branches of the Revenue all which were by several Acts of Parliament given to his present Majesty And surely every one will agree that when the King receives a Gift from his People he takes it under such Conditions and ought to imploy it in such a manner and for such purposes as they direct We must therefore consult the several Acts by which those Branches were setled if we would judge rightly whether the Commons had not particular Reasons for what they did The Statute 12 Car. 2. c. 4. says That the Commons reposing Trust in his Majesty for guarding the Seas against all Persons intending the Disturbance of Trade and the invading of the Realm to that intent do give him the Tonnage and Poundage c. This is as direct an Appropriation as Words can make and therefore as it is manifest wrong to the Subject to divert any part of this Branch to other uses so for the King to anticipate it is plainly to disable himself to perform the Trust reposed in Him. And the late long Parliament thought this matter so clear that about two years before their Dissolution they passed a Vote with Relation to the Customs in almost the same Words The Parliament which gave the Excise were so far from thinking that the King had power to charge or dispose of it as his own that by a special Clause in the Act whereby they give it they were careful to impower him to dispose of it or any part of it by way of Farm and to Enact that such Contracts shall be effectual in Law so as they be not for a longer time than three years The Act whereby the Hearth-money was given declares that it was done to the end that the publick Revenue might be proportioned to the publick Charge and 't is impossible that should ever be whilst it is liable to be pre-ingaged and anticipated And the Parliament were so careful to preserve this Tax always clear and uncharg'd that they made it penal for any one so much as to accept of any Pension or Grant for years or any other Estate or any Summ of Money out of the Revenue arising by vertue of that Act from the King his Heirs or Successors Surely if the Penners of this Declaration had not been altogether ignorant of our own Laws and of the Policy of all other Countries and Ages they would never have printed those Votes in hopes thereby to have exposed the Commons to the World. They would not have had the face to say that thereby the King was exposed to Danger deprived of a possibility of supporting the Government and reduc'd to a more helpless Condition than the meanest of His Subjects This we are sure of that the inviolable observing of these Statutes will be so far from reducing His Majesty to a more helpless Condition than the meanest of his Subjects that it will still leave him in a better condition than the richest and greatest of his Ancestors none of which were ever Masters of such a Revenue The H. of Commons are in the next place accused of a very high Crime the assuming to themselves a power of suspending Acts of Parliament because they declared that it was their opinion That the Prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the Penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning of the Protestant Interest an Incouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom The Ministers remembred that not many years ago the whole Nation was justly alarm'd upon the assuming an Arbitrary Power of suspending Penal Laws and therefore they thought it would be very popular to accuse the Commons of such an attempt But how they could possible misinterpret a Vote at that rate how they could say the Commons pretended to a Power of repealing Laws when they only declare their Opinion of the inconveniency of them will never be understood till the Authors of this are pleased to shew their Causes and Reasons for it in a second Declaration Every impartial man will own that the Commons had reason for this Opinion of theirs They had with great anxiety observed that the present design of the Papists was not against any one sort of Protestants but universal and for extirpating the Reform'd Religion They saw what advantages these Enemies made of our Divisions and how cunningly they diverted us from prosecuting them by fomenting our jealousies of one another They saw the strength and nearness of the King of France and judged of his Inclinations by his usage of his own Protestant Subjects They consider'd the number and the bloody Principles of the Irish and what Conspiracies were form'd there and even ripe for Execution and that Scotland was already delivered into the hands of a Prince the known head of the Papists in these Kingdoms and the occasion of all their Plots and Insolencies as more than one Parliament had declared They could not but take notice into what hands the most considerable Trusts both Civil and Military were put and that notwithstanding all Addresses and all Proclamations for a strict Execution of the Penal Laws against Papists yet their Faction so far prevailed that they were eluded and only the dissenting Protestants smarted under the edge of them In the midst of such Circumstances was there not cause to think an Union of all Protestants necessary and could they have any just ground to believe that the Dissenters whilst they lay under the Pressures of severe Laws should with such Alacrity and Courage as was requisite undertake the defence of a Country where they were so ill treated A long and sad Experience had shew'd how vain the Endeavours of former Parliaments had been to force us to be all of one Opinion and therefore the House of Commons resolv'd to take a sure way to make us of one Affection They knew that some busie men would be striking whilst there were Weapons at hand and therefore to make us live at peace they meant to take away all occasions of provoking or being provoked In order to a general Repeal of these Laws they first came to a Vote declaring the necessity of it to which there was not one Negative in the House A Vote of this nature does for the most part precede the bringing in of a Bill for the Repeal of any General Law. And it had been a great presumption in a particular Member to have asked leave to have brought in a Bill for repealing so many Laws together till the House had first declar'd that in their opinion they were grievous and inconvenient No English man
known Irish Papist appear'd by the Informations given in the House to be made use of by some very great Persons to set up a counterfeit Protestant Conspiracy and thereby not only to drown the noise of the Popish Plot but to take off the Heads of the most eminent of those who still refused to bow their Knees to Baal There had been divers such honest Contrivances before which had unluckily fail'd but the principal Contrivers avoided the Discovery as the others did the Punishment in what manner and by what helps the whole Nation is now pretty sensible Being warned by this experience they grew more Cautious than ever and therefore that the Treason which they were to set on Foot might look as unlike a Popish design as was possible they fram'd a Libel full of the most bitter Invictives against Popery and the Duke of York It carried as much seeming zeal for the Protestant Religion as Coleman's Declaration and as much care and concern for our Laws as the Penners of this Declaration would seem to have But it was also filled with the most subtil Insinuations and the sharpest Expressions against His Majesty that could be invented and with direct and passionate Incitements to Rebellion This Paper was to be conveyed by unknown Messengers to their hands who were to be betray'd and then they were to be seized upon and those Libels found about tham were to be a Confirmation of the Truth of a Rebellion which they had provided Witnesses to Swear was designed by the Protestants and had before prepared Men to believe by private Whispers And the credit of this Plot should no doubt have been soon confirmed by speedy Justice done upon the pretended Criminals But as well laid as this Contrivance seem to be yet it spoke it self to be of a Popish Extraction 'T is a policy the Jesuits have often used to divert a storm which was falling upon themselves Accordingly heretofore they had prepared both Papers and Witnesses to have made the Puritans guilty of the Gunpowder Treason had it succeeded as they hoped for The hainous Nature of the Crime and the greatness of the Persons supposed to be concern'd deserved an extraordinary Examination with a Jury who were only to enquire whether Fitz-Harris was guilty of framing that Libel he could never make and the Commons believed none but the Parliament was big enough to go through with They took notice that the Zeal and Courage of inferior Courts was abated and that the Judges at the Tryal of Wakeman and Gascoign however it came to pass behaved themselves very unlike the same Men they were when others of the Plotters had been Tryed They had not forgot another Plot of this Nature discovered by Dangerfield which tho plainly proved to the Council yet was quite stifled by the great Diligence of the Kings Bench which rendred him as an incompetent Witness Nor did they only fear the perversion of Justice but the Misapplication of Mercy too For they had seen that the Mouths of Gadbury and others as soon as they began to confess were suddenly stopt by a gracious Pardon And they were more Jealous than ordinary in this case because when Fitz-Harris was inclined to Repentance and had begun a Confession to the surprize of the whole Kingdom without any visible cause he was taken out of the lawful Custody of the Sheriffs and shut up a close Prisoner in the Tower. The Commons therefore had no other way to be secure that the Prosecution should be effectual the Judgment indifferent and the Criminal out of all hopes of a Pardon unless by an ingenuous Confession he could engage both Houses in a powerful Mediation to His Majesty in his behalf but by impeaching of him They were sure no Pardon could stop their Suit tho the King might release his own Prosecution by his Pardon Hitherto the Proceedings of the Commons in this Business could not be liable to Exception for that they might lawfully Impeach any Commoner before the Lords was yet never doubted The Lords themselves had agreed that point when the day before they had sent down the Plea of Sir William Scroggs to an Impeachment of Treason then depending before them And they are men of strange confidence who at this time of day take upon them to deny a Jurisdiction of the Lords which hath been practised in all times without controul and such a fundamental of the Government that there could be no security without it Were it otherwise it would be in the power of the King by making Commoners Ministers of State to subvert the Government by their Contrivances when he pleased Their Greatness would keep them out of the reach of ordinary Courts of Justice and their Treasons might not perhaps be within the Statutes but such as fall under the cognizance of no other Court than the Parliament and if the People might not of Right demand Justice there they might without fear of punishment act the most destructive Villanies against the Kingdom As a Remedy against this Evil the Mirrour of justice tell us that Parliaments were ordained to hear and determine all Complaints of wrongful Acts done by the King Queen or their Children and such others against whom common Right cannot be had elsewhere Which as to the King is no otherwise to be understood than that it he err by Illegal Personal Commands or Orders he is to be admonished by Parliament and addressed unto for Remedy but all others being but Subjects are to be punished by Parliaments according to the Laws of Parliaments If the ends were well considered for which Parliaments were ordained as they are declared in the Statute Item for maintenance of the said Articles and Statutes viz. Magna Charta c. a Parliament shall be holden every year by them as well as by the foregoing ancient Authority none could be deceived by the Parliament Rol. of 4 Ed. 3. where it is mentioned as accorded between the King and his Grands that is his Lords that Judgment of Death given by the Peers against Sir Simon de Beresford Matrever and others upon the Murther of King Ed. 2. and his Uncle should not be drawn into Example whereby the Peers might be charged to judge others than their Peers contrary to the Law of the Land if such a Case should happen For whereas from this Record some would perswade us that the Lords are discharged from judging Commoners and that our ancient Government is alter'd in this Case by that Record which they say is act of Parliament The stile and form of it is so different from that which is used in Acts of Parliament that many are inclined to believe it to be no other thing than an agreement between the King and the Lords But to remove all future scruples in the Case let it be admitted to be an Act of Parliament and if there be nothing accorded in it to acquit the Lords from trying Commoners Impeached before them by the Commons in
Parliament then we hope that shame will stop their mouths who have made such a noise against the Commons with this Record First It is evident from the Roll it self with other Records that the Lords did judg those Commoners contrary to the Law of the Land that is at the instance of the King and the Prosecution of their Enemies without the due course of the Law or calling them to make their Defence and for ought appears without legal Testimony Secondly It is evident that they were driven upon this illegal Proceeding by the Power and Authority of the King and some Prosecutors who earnestly pressed the Lords thereunto upon pretence of speedily avenging the Blood of the former King and his Uncle So that the Judgment was given at the Kings Suit in a way not warranted by the Law and Custom of Parliament or any other Law of the Kingdom Surely when the Lords blood was suffered to cool they had reason to desire something might be left upon Record to preserve them for the future from being put upon such shameful Work tho such a case as the Murder of a King should again happen as it seems they did not fear to be pressed in any other so to violate the Laws But Thirdly There is not a word in the Record that imports a restriction of that lawful Jurisdiction which our Constitution placeth in the Lords to try Commoners when their Cases should come before them lawfully at the Suit of the Commons by Impeachment There is no mark of an Intention to change any part of the Ancient Government but to provide against the Violation of it and that the Law might stand as before notwithstanding the unlawful Judgment they had lately given So that the question is still the same Whether by the Law of the Land that is the Law and Custom of Parliament or any other Law the Lords ought to try Commoners Impeached by the Commons in Parliament as if that Record had never been And we cannot think that any man of Sence will from that Record make an argument in this point since it could be no better than to infer that because the Lords are no more to be pressed by the King or at his Suit to give Judgment against Commoners contrary to the Law of the Land when they are not Impeached in Parliament therefore they must give no Judgment against them at the Suit of the Commons in Parliament when they are by them Impeached according to the Laws and Customs of Parliament But if such as delight in these Cavils had searched into all the Records relating unto that of the 4 Ed. 3. they might have found in the 19th of the same King a Writ issued out to suspend the Execution of the Judgment against Matrevers because it had been illegally passed And the chief reason therein given is that he had not been Impeached and suffered to make his Defence But it was never suggested nor imagined that the Lords that judged him had no Jurisdiction over him because he was a Commoner or ought not to have exercised it if he had been Impeached nor was it pretended that by Magna Charta he ought to have been tried only by his Peers the Laws of the Land therein mentioned and the Laws and Customs of Parliaments being better known and more reverenced in these days than to give way to such a mistake They might also have found by another Record of the 26th of the same King that by undoubted Act of Parliament Matrevers was pardon'd and the Judgment is therein agreed by the Lords and Commons to have been illegal and unjustly passed by the violent Prosecution of his Enemies but it is not alledged that it was coram non judice as if the Lords might not have judged him if the proceedings before them had been legal But as the sense and proceedings of all Parliaments have ever been best known by their practice the Objectors might have found by all the Records since the 4 Ed. 3. that Commoners as well as Lords might be and have been Impeached before Lords and judged by them to Capital or other Punishments as appears undeniably to every man that hath read our Histories or Records And verily the concurrent sense and practice of Parliaments for so many Ages will be admitted to be a better interpretation of their own Acts than the sense that these men have lately put upon them to increase our Disorders But to silence the most malicious in this point let the famous Act of the 25 of Ed. 3. be considered which hath ever since limited all inferior Courts in their Jurisdiction unto the Trial of such Treasons only as are therein particularly specified and reserved all other Treasons to the Trial and Judgment of Parliament So that if any such be committed by Commoners they must be so Tried or not at all And if the last should be allowed it will follow that the same fact which in a Peer is Treason and punishable with Death in a Commoner is no Crime and subject to no punishment Nor doth Magna Charta confine all Trials to common Juries for it ordains that they should be tried by the Judgment of Peers or by the Law of the Land. And will any man say the Law of Parliament is not the Law of the Land Nor are these words in Magna Charta superfluous or insignificant for then there would be no Trial before the Constable or Marshal where there is no Jury at all there could be no Trial of a Peer of the Realm upon an Appeal of Murther who according to the Law ought in such cases to be try'd by a common Jury and not by his Peers And since the Records of Parliaments are full of Impeachment of Commons and no instance can be given of the rejection of any such Impeachment it is the Commons who have reason to cite Magna Charta upon this occasion which provides expresly against the denial of Justice And indeed it looks like a denial of Justice when a Court that hath undoubted cognizance of a Cause regularly brought before them shall refuse to hear it but most especially when as in this case the Prosecutors could not be so in any other Court so as a final stop was put to their Suit though the Lords could not judicially know whether any body else would prosecute elsewhere This Proceeding of the Lords looks the more odly because they rejected the Cause before they knew as Judges what it was and referred it to the ordinary course of Law without staying to hear whether it were a matter whereof an inferior Court could take cognizance There are Treasons which can only be adjudged in Parliament and if we may collect the sense of the House of Commons from their Debates they thought there was a mixture of those kind of Treasons in Fitz-Harris's Case And therefore there was little reason for that severe suggestion that the Impeachment was only designed to delay a Trial since a
THE Design of Enslaving ENGLAND DISCOVERED Licensed and Entred according to Order THE Design of Enslaving ENGLAND DISCOVERED In the Incroachments upon the Powers and Privileges of Parliament by K. Charles II. BEING A New corrected Impression of that Excellent Piece INTITULED A Just and Modest VINDICATION of the PROCEEDINGS OF THE Two Last Parliaments OF King CHARLES the Second LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwin near the Black Bull in the Old-Baily MDCLXXXIX A Just and Modest Vindication of the Proceedings of the two last PARLIAMENTS of K. CHARLES the Second THE Amazement which seiz'd every good Man upon the unlook'd-for Dissolution of two Parliaments within three Months was not greater than at the sight of a Declaration pretending to justify and give Reasons for such extraordinary Proceedings It is not to be denied but that our Kings have in a great measure been intrusted by the Kingdom with the appointment of the Times of Parliaments Sitting and declaring their Dissolutions But lest through defect of Age Experience or Understanding they should at any time forget or mistake our Constitution or by Passion private Interest or the Influence of ill Counsellors be so far misled as not to Assemble Parliaments when the Publick Affairs require it or to declare them Dissolved before the Ends of their Meeting were accomplished The Wisdom of our Ancestors has provided by divers Statutes both for the holding Parliaments annually and oftner if need be and that they should not be Prorogued or Dissolved till all the Petitions and Bills before them were answered and redressed The Constitution had been equally imperfect and destructive of it self had it been left to the Will and Choice of the Prince whether he would ever summon a Parliament or put into his Power to dismiss them Arbitrarily at his pleasure That Parliaments should be called and sit according to the Laws is secured to us by the same Sacred Tie by which the King at his Coronation obliges himself to let his Judges sit to distribute Justice every Term and to preserve inviolably all other Rights and Liberties of his Subjects Therefore abruptly to Dissolve Parliaments at such a Time when nothing but the Legislative Power and the united Wisdom of the Kingdom could relieve us from our Just Fears or secure us from our certain Dangers is very unsuitable to the great Trust reposed in the Prince and seems to express but little of tha tffection which we will always hope his Majesty bears towards his People and the Protestant Religion But 't is not only of the Disolution it self that we complain the manner of doing it is unwarranted by the Precedents of former Times and full of dangerous Consequents We are taught by the Writ of Summons that Parliaments are never called without the Advice of the Council and the Usage of all Ages has been never to send them away without the same Advice To forsake this safe Method is to expose the King personally to the Reflections and Censures of the whole Nation for so ungrateful an Action Our Laws have taken care to make the King always dear to his People and to preserve his Person Sacred in their Esteem by wisely preventing him from appearing as Author of any thing which may be unacceptable to them 'T is therefore that he doth not Execute any considerable Act of Regal Power till it be first debated and resolved in Council because then 't is the Counsellors must answer for the Advice they give and are punishable for such Orders as are Irregular and Illegal Nor can his Ministers justify any unlawful Action under the colour of the King's Commands since all his Commands that are contrary to Law are void which is the true Reason of that well-known Maxim That the King can do no Wrong A Maxim just in it self and alike safe for the Prince and for the Subject there being nothing more absurd than that a Favourite should excuse his enormous Actings by a pretended Command which we may reasonably suppose he first procured to be laid upon himself But we know not whom to charge with Advising this last Dissolution It was a Work of Darkness and if we are not misinform'd the Privy Council was as much surpriz'd at it as the Nation Nor will a future Parliament be able to charge any Body as the Author or Adviser of the late printed Paper which bears the Title of His Majesty's Declaration though every good Subject ought to be careful how he calls it so For his Majesty never speaks to his People as a King but either personally in his Parliament or at other times under his Seal for which the Chancellor or other Officers are responsible if what passes them be not warranted by Law. Nor can the Direction of the Privy Council enforce any thing upon the People unless that Royal and Legal Stamp gives it an Authority But this Declaration comes abroad without any such Sanction and there is no other Ground to ascribe it to his Majesty than the uncertain Credit of the Printer whom we will easily suspect of an Imposture rather than think the King would deviate from the approved course of his Illustrious Ancestors to pursue a New and Unsuccesful Method The first Declaration of this sort which I ever met with being that which was published in the Year 1628 which was so far from answering the Ends of its coming out that it filled the whole Kingdom with Jealousies and was one of the first sad Causes of the ensuing unhappy War. The Truth is Declarations to justify what Princes do must always be either needless or ineffectual Their Actions ought to be such as may recommend themselves to the World and carry their own Evidence along with them of their usefulness to the Publick and then no Arts to justify them will be necessary When a Prince descends so low as to give his Subjects Reasons for what he has done he not only makes them Judges whether there be any weight in those Reasons but by so unusual a submission gives cause to suspect that he is conscious to himself that his Actions want an Apology And if they are indeed unjustifiable if they are opposite to the Inclinations and apparently destructive of the Interest of his Subjects it will be very difficult for the most Eloquent or Insinuating Declaration to make them in love with such things And therefore they did certainly undertake no easy Task in pretending to perswade Men who see themselves exposed to the restless Malice of their Enemies who observe the languishing Condition of the Nation and that nothing but a Parliament can provide Remedies for the great Evils which they Feel and Fear that two several Parliaments upon whom they had placed all their hopes were so suddenly broken out of kindness to them or with any regared to their Advantage It was generally believed that this Age would not have seen another Declaration since Coleman's was so unluckily published before its time Not only because thereby the World was
could be so ignorant of our Laws none but a French-man could have confidence to declaim against a proceeding so regular and Parliamentary as this Where was the disregard to the Laws Established for the Commons to attempt the abrogating of a Law that is grievous to the Subject and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom Is it a suspending Acts of Parliament if they declare a Law to be grievous and dangerous in their Opinion before they set about the Repeal of it And is there any ground to doubt but that a Bill would have pass'd that House pursuant to this Vote had it not been prevented by a Dissolution Nor was there the least direction or signification to the Judges which might give any occasion for the Reflection which follows in the Declaration The due and impartial Execution of the Laws is the unquestionable Duty of the Judges and we hope they will always remember that duty so well as not to necessitate a H. of Commons to do theirs by calling them to account for making private Instructions the Rule of their Judgments and acting as men who have more regard to their Places than their Oaths 'T is too well known who it is that sollicites and manages in favour of Judges when a H. of Commons does demand Justice against them for breaking their Oaths And therefore the Publishers of this Declaration had said something well if when they tell us the Judges ought not to break their Oaths in Reverence to the Votes of either H. they had been pleased to add not in respect of any Command from the K. or Favorites Then we should have no more Letters from Secretaries of State to Judges sitting upon the Bench. Then we should have no more Proclamations like that of the 14th Oct. 1662. forbidding the Execution of the Laws concerning High-ways Nor that of the 10th of May 1672. dispensing with divers Clauses in the Acts of Parliament for increase of Shipping Nor any more Declarations like that of the 15. of March 1672. suspending the Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical But the Judges are sworn to execute all Laws yet there is no obligation upon any man to inform against another And therefore though the Ministers prevented the Repeal of those Laws 't is to be hop'd that this Vote will restrain every Englishman from prosecuting Protestants when so wise and great a body have declared the pernicious effects of such a Prosecution 'T is most true that in England no Law is abrogated by desuetude but it is no less true that there are many Laws still unrepeal'd which are never Executed nor can be without publick detriment The Judges know of many such dormant Laws and yet they do not quicken the People to put them in Execution nor think themselves Guilty of Perjury that they do not such are the Laws for wearing Caps for keeping Lent those concerning Bowes and Arrows about killing Calves and Lambs and many others And those who vex men by Information on such antiquated Laws have been ever lookt upon as Infamous and Disturbers of the publick quiet Hence it is that there are no Names remembred with greater detestation than those of Empson and Dudley the whole Kingdom abhorr'd them as Monsters in the time of H. VII and they were punish'd as Traitors in the Reign of his Son. The alteration of the circumstances whereupon a Law was made or if it be against the genius of the People or have effects contrary to the intent of the Makers will soon cause any Law to be disused and after a little disuse the reviving of it will be thought Oppression Especially if experience has shewn that by the non-execution the quiet the safety and Trade of the Nation have been promoted of all which the Commons who are sent from every part of the Kingdom are able to make the clearest Judgment Therefore after they have declared their Opinions of the Inconvenience of reviving the Execution of these Laws which have lain asleep for divers years tho' the Judges must proceed if any forward Informers should give them the trouble yet they would not act wisely or honestly if they should Encourage Informers or quicken Juries by strict and severe charges Especially if it be considered that the Lords also were preparing Bills in favor of Dissenters and that the King has wish'd often it was in his power to ease them So that tho' there be no Act of Repeal formerly passed we have the consent and desire of all who have any share in making Acts. But let this Vote have what consequence it will yet sure the Ministers had forgot that the Black Rod was at the door of the House to require them to attend His Majesty at the very time when it was made otherwise they would not have numbred it amongst the causes which occasioned the King to part with that Parliament And those that knew His Majesty was putting on his Robes before that Vote passed might imagine a Dissolution thus foreseen might occasion it but cannot be brought to believe that the Vote which was not in being could occasion the Dissolution These are the proceedings which the Ministers judg unwarrantable in the Parliament at Westminster and for which they prevailed with His Majesty to part with it But since it is evident upon Examination that the principles of our Constitution the method of Parliaments and the precedents of every Age were their Guide and Warrant in all those things surely the K. must needs be alike offended with the Men about him for perswading him to Dissolve that Parliament without any cause and for setting forth in his Name a Declaration of such pretended cause as every man almost sees through and contrived only to cover those Reasons which they durst not own But with what face can they object to the House of Commons their strange Illegal Votes declaring divers Eminent Persons to be Enemies to the King and Kingdom when at the same time they arrogate to themselves an unheard of Authority to Arraign one of the three Estates in the face of the World for usurping power over the Laws Imprisoning their fellow Subjects Arbitrarily exposing the Kingdom to the greatest dangers and endeavouring to deprive the King of all possibility of supporting the Government and all this without any order or process of Law without hearing of their defence and as much without any reason as Precedent We have had Ministers heretofore so bold yet ever with ill success as to accuse a pretended Factious party in the House but never did any go so high as openly to Represent the whole H. of Commons as a Faction much less to cause them to be denounced in all the Churches of the Kingdom that so the People might look upon it as a kind of Excommunication But if they erred in the things they judged rightly in the choice of the Persons who were to publish it Blind Obedience was requisite where such unjustifiable things were imposed and that could be no where so