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A66539
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The legacy of John Wilmer, citizen, and late merchant of London humbly offered to the lords and commons of England.
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Wilmer, John.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing W2884; ESTC R9494
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27,537
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38
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of York to inherit the Imperial Crown of England and Ireland which Bill was upon the 15th of November carried up to the Lords by the Great Lord Russel attended by almost all the Commons My then Station as a Grand-Jury-Man my Duty and my Oath obliging me thereunto and I imagining that the just Prosecution of the Duke in the Court of King's-Bench might facilitate the passing that Exclusion-Bill which was then set on soot and carrying on by the great Council of the Kingdom as the only humane Security for our Religion and Liberties I brought in a Bill of Indictment which the present Mr. Serjeant Rotherham drew up against the Duke as a Popish Recusant This Indictment was found by that Grand Jury and presented to the Court. That the defeating of that highly necessary Bill of Exclusion laid the Foundation of all the Calamities which the three Kingdoms do to this day so sensibly feel and groan under will not be now controverted and 't is as certain that hence sprung my future Sufferings It may not therefore be impertinent to remember the World in this place how it fared with that Bill in the House of Lords and I shall do it in the very Words of an Author who in his Preface asserts that the Nation is not a little obliged to Sir Roger L'Estrange a Person who says he might be compared to some Pictures that are placed too near the Sight to discover their true Value and that he is consident that the next Age who will behold him at a more advantageous and impartial Distance will have a truer and far greater Esteem of his Merits This very Author obligingly tells us that on the second reading of the Exclusion-Bill in the Lords House it was debated till 11 a Clock at Night the King being present all the while and then thrown out by a Majority of about 30 Votes in which Majority were all the Bishops then present which were 14. The foregoing Account may be found by the Reader in a very villanous Book wrote by James Wright Esq entituled A compendious View of the Tumults and Troubles of this Kingdom from the beginning of the 30th to the End of the 36th Year of his late Majesty King Charles the second of blessed Memory page 90. printed 1685. Much good may do my Lords the fourteen Bishops with the Honour here done them by this their Admirer But I cannot with-hold my self from observing that the before-mentioned Bill was read once in the House of Lords and being ordered a second reading Blessed Memory above-mentioned that never-failing Defender of the Protestant Faith did in Person sollicite the Popish Cause and by his Influence and by the helping Hand of the fourteen Fathers we were fairly kidnapp'd to Rome and are yet to seek in what Court to bring our Writ de homine replegiando in order to the obtaining a Capias in Withernam against them But 't is out of doubt that the Prosecution of our Deliverance hath already besides a Sea of precious Blood cost the Nation more Treasure than the said Bishops Lands are worth a hundred times over Some modest Reflections on the first Section THE two great Points that Mankind ought in this Life to be most careful in and concerned for are first his Duty to and Worship of his God and the second is like unto it his Duty to his Neighbour which is not only in particular to his Country and Country-men but to all Mankind in general Now the Laws of England bind every Man in his Station to maintain defend and preserve the Civil Government and the Protestant Religion and to let and hinder what in him lieth that may endanger either of the same In the Year 1678 was a discovery of a dangerous and hellish Plot of the Papists that threatned the Ruine of the Government with all our Civil and Religious Rights this wrought in most Men great Thoughtfulness which way to secure themselves and the Nation from this threatned Ruine some were for this and others were for that but in fine the Parliament saw no other way to secure the Nation but a Bill of Exclusion against the Duke of York he standing next in Succession to the Crown upon which the Papists built great Hopes and were mightily emboldned and encouraged by him and their Priests to carry on their Designs for the rooting out the Northern Heresy as they called the Protestant Religion And as the Parliament was herein busied so every honest Man looked upon himself in Duty bound to assist them in so necessary and good a Work I being then on the Grand Jury attending the Term and all Men do or should know a Grand Jury is a Jury of Enquiry I taking notice how illegally the Chief Justice the Term before prevented the Indictment against the Duke of York and perceiving what Heats and Quarrels it begat in City and Country about drinking his Health some affirming he was a Protestant and others refusing it As he was a Papist I thought it my Duty being then on the Jury and being satisfied in my Conscience of his being a Papist I did upon a Political Account bring in a Bill against him which was proved by Witness and found by the Jury The Reasons that moved me to bring in this Bill were as followeth 1. As he was next Heir to the Crown which if he came to would endanger the Overthrow of the Protestant Religion both at home and abroad in regard of his Jesuitical Bigotry and fast Friendship with the French King 2. As he was Brother to the then present King Charles the Second on whom he had a mighty Influence and who himself also had as good a Mind to the Work but acted more craftily and was not willing to go his Brother's pace but take slow and sure Steps for I then could as well and by substantial and credible Witness have proved him as much a Papist as his Brother but that was none of our Work nor lay before us for that a Law was made in the 13th Year of his Reign making it a high Misdemeanour for any to say the King was a Papist or Popishly affected 3. The finding this Bill and the farther Prosecution of it would animate and put Life into the Protestants and be a Check to the Romish Zeal in their Designs and would also put the King upon considering of not venturing all upon the Cast of a Dye especially the Parliament's being then awakened to encourage it and to back it with a Bill of Exclusion And I declare to all the World had the Duke of York been a private Person he might have lived and died a Papist without the least disturbance from me it being always my Judgment not to disturb or prosecute any Man barely for his private Opinion so he were not prompted thereby to Designs for disturbance of the Government and publick Peace But by my doing this I knew the War was begun and my Name in the black Book and I had hereby
THE LEGACY OF John Wilmer Citizen and late Merchant of LONDON Humbly offered to the LORDS and COMMONS of England Felix quem faciunt aliena Pericula cantum LONDON Printed for the Author MDCXCII TO THE Nobility and Commons OF ENGLAND ALthough my Lords and Gentlemen I have read many Men yet few Books so that it is not my Talent to write in an eloquent Rhetorical Stile and therefore hope you will pardon my blunt and plain way of writing The substantial Matter of these following Papers I drew presently after my Return from Holland in January last was three Years but did by the Advice of Friends forbear publishing them at that time The Excuse for my Boldness in dedicating these Papers to you is because they do of right to you belong You are the right Heirs at Law to them for though in the Matter of them I am wounded yet it was for warding the Blow from you at you was the Blow aimed The Reasons for my publishing them now are First to discover some Particulars which it may be might be unknown to you that for the sake of Posterity I would not bury And secondly because of my Intentions in some short time for Jamaica from whence it is very probable I may never return having here no way to employ my self and there I hope with God's Blessing I may make some Provision for my poor Children How little soever for your sakes I am made or whatsoever coarse Usage I meet with it will be a Comfort to me if you make good use of it for your selves and Posterity that you may not be lessened and made little I am sure you were not abroad so accounted nor can be made so at home without you bring it on your selves by your own Act and Deed by your Clemency to the Traitors and Betrayers of your Liberties The choice of three things lies now before you to be great or to be little or to be nothing Vtrum horum mavultis accipite These Papers are not to stir up your Anger or Revenge at what is past but rather to look forward to prevent the like Mischiefs for time coming and I hope your profound Wisdom and Prudence will take care to build up the old waste Places and make good the Fences and Bulwarks that neither the wild Boars of the Forest nor Wolves in Sheeps Clothing may be able to break over and stop up the Holes that the Foxes the little Foxes may not creep through and hurt the Sheep and Lambs of the Flocks that all your Fortifications may be so artificially strong that no Confederacies of Jesuitical Priestcraft with their battering Rams may hurt annoy or indanger them Many great and weighty things are before you and one thing I humbly recommend to you Let not the black Infamy and horrid Imputation of Self-Murder lie on the Memory of my Lord of Essex nor on the Family of so great a Man who was to all that knew him a Man great for Wisdom and Parts and for Love to the Liberties of Mankind valued neither Life nor Honour nor any thing else in this World in comparison to them That which prompts me to say this is Though I cannot point out the individual Murderers yet I can give that circumstantial Proof that shall satisfy all Mankind that the cutting his Throat was designedly premeditated both for Time and Place and perpetrated by bloody Men. It may be some Men for supposed Reasons of State may oppose doing of Justice to the Dead or making Reparation to the Living as being ill Precedents and which may be of dangerous Consequence to encourage others to withstand the like black Attempts if they should design to begin where the late Reigns left off I will hope that amongst others of your weighty Affairs you will carefully maintain and defend the Right of Juries which are the Shields and Bucklers under a Civil Government to defend you in the quiet possession of your Lives Honours and Estates If Corruption be amongst them no Punishment can be great enough but if no such thing it may be of bad Consequence to have them punished ruined and undone meerly for giving in Verdicts according to their Consciences guided by right Reason Bear with me I beseech you my Lords and Gentlemen in declaring that I am fully satisfied that before the Sword of the Lord that is drawn be put up he will convince the World of Sin of Righteousness and Judgment he will open the Eyes of this blind World and make them see their mad Wickedness and Folly That the great God of his infinite Mercy would give you true Wisdom to be Healers of our Breaches and Restorers of our Paths to dwell in is the Prayer of My Lords and Gentlemen Your humbly devoted Servant J. Wilmer THE PREFACE WHAT Pains did evil Men take in the late Reigns to ruine these poor Nations What Mischief what Ruine was then brought upon us The old Tyranny of Nero Caligula and Domitian seemed to revive again in our late Kings Certainly there was never such a villanous Attempt or Contrivance as then appeared to forge a Plot upon all the Community at once a Conspiracy to destroy both Lords and Commons by a Company of Miscreants and Varlots How were they kick'd up and down all over the City and Country as if none else had Sense but those Kings their Courtiers and Clergy and as if the Nobles of the Land with the Representative Heads of the People instead of being a Fence and Bulwark to the Nation and for redressing their Grievances in punishing Offenders and relieving the Oppressed and making good and wholsom Laws for the Weal-Publick were only summoned together to be like Pharaoh's Egyptian Task-Masters over the People and only to raise Money to be laid out and expended to gratify the ambitious Lust and arbitrary Will of the Tyrant and thereby to enable him to oppress depress and destroy the People I remember an old Story and 't is this In the beginning of the Reformation here in England the Romish Priests in foreign Countries told their People that since English Men were turned Hereticks God as a just Judgment upon them had miraculously caused long Tails to grow on their hinder Parts like those of Monkeys And we were treated in the late Reigns as if our free-born People bore only the Shape of Men but were a sort of Animals much resembling Baboons and Monkeys only dressed up in Mens Apparel but were to be treated as Children do Hobby-horses or used only in places of Asses to carry Burdens Indeed in all Ages Kings have found Evil Counsellers and Priests for their Turn to help to befool and lead by the Nose the rest of Mankind In the late Reigns how did it look like a Design and perfect Agreement between the Kings and some hot-headed Clergymen for the latter out of their Pulpits by their Doctrines of Non-Resistance and Implicite Obedience to preach up the former to be as Gods and in requital the