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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36748	A letter from Monsieur de Cros (who was an embassador at the Treaty of Nimeguen and a resident in England in K. Ch. the Second's reign) which may serve for an answer to the impostures of Sir. Wm. Temple, heretofore ambassador from England at the Hague and at Nimeguen ... : together with some remarks upon his memoirs, to make appear how grosly he is mistaken in the greatest part of the most important matters he relates concerning what passed from the year 1672 until the year 1679.; Lettre de Monsieur Du Cros à Mylord **** afin de servir de réponse aux impostures de Monsieur le Chevalier Temple. English	Du Cros, Simon, 17th cent.	1693 (1693)	Wing D2436; ESTC R20449	18,902	38

after my Death nay perhaps whilst I am alive if need require and if I be obliged thereto there will appear some Memoirs which will divulge some Matters the truth whereof is still so carefully concealed Sir W. doth ingeniously confess that hither to he was ignorant of them He who hath so much quickness of Penetration and seems to make us believe that he was the King his Master 's Confident You your self my Lord have often urged me to acquaint you with such important Secrets and of such great Consequence and altho' I could not possibly refuse upon the account of that honour you do me to afford me any share in your Favours to let you have a glympse of one part of what pass'd in one of the most important Negotiations of that time yet you had so much Generosity as not to take the advantage of it you might have done to the infallible ruine as was believed of a Minister whom you take for one of your greatest Enemies yet on this occasion one could not well lay any thing to his charge besides his blind obedience to the Will of his Master The Truth of it is I am not obliged to have the same Considerations that with held me at that time but yet I preserve a profound respect for the Memory of the late King and also a great respect for some Persons who are even at this time of the day so much concerned that I should hold my tongue if it were not for that reason it would be a very easie matter for me to make appear without any more adoe how basely Sir W. is mistaken in what he delivers concerning divers Negotiations of England and especially concerning my Journey to Nimeguen My Design is not at all my Lord to write you a Letter full of Invectives against Sir W. I shall not descend to the Particulars of his Behaviour and shall tell you no more of them at present than what is needful to let your self and every body else judge that I have means in my hand to be revenged for the Injury he hath done me They will be without doubt more just Invectives than those that he fills his Book withal He set upon me first He writes out of a Spirit of Revenge with a great deal of Heat and Passion and like a Man that believ'd himself touch'd and wrong'd to the purpose As for my part my Lord I protest I write to you in cold Blood I do so much scorn the Injury that Sir W. affects to do me that I should but laugh at it if my silence was not able to persuade you and those persons whose esteem of me doth do me so much honour that I have but small care of my reputation Sir W. hath shined a long time 't is true but yet he hath borrowed all his Splendour first of all from the protection of a Lord whom he betray'd at last of whom he speaks too insolently in his Memoirs and with abundance of Ingratitude and then again he advanced himself by the protection of certain other persons to whom he was devoted to the prejudice of his bounden Duty He did so well insinuate himself that I may make use of the Terms he makes use of in speaking of me into the Favours and into the Confidence of those near to whom it was necessary for him to have access that he might have been in a capacity to render considerable Services to the King his Master and to his Country if so be he had made better use of this advantage but he kept it just after the same manner as he had got it that is to say that he often came short of exact Faithfulness and Loyalty which a Minister of S tate is obliged to maintain inviolably even in the least Matters that doth plainly appear in his Memoirs The late King of England perceived it and was so far convinced of it that he never made use of him in the last Commissions he committed to his charge to the States-General but only out of Consideration of the Acquaintance he had there who made people conjecture that Sir W. might have some Credit amongst the Spaniards as well as in Holland as he himself assures us he had Neither was he employed but only upon some Occasions wherein one would not employ a Man who was a Favourite of the Prince or for whom he had any value or in whom he might confide 't is a Truth owned and confess'd by Sir W. himself in his Memoirs and a Man may judge of it by the so opposite false steps that he complains they caused him to make and by all the things that were done contrary to the Measures that he had taken just as if the Court had had a mind to expose him Besides the King slighted him after the Peace at Nimeguen and laid him aside making very little use of him it was not what he would make us believe his love for his own ease and his Indispositions of body that made him decline his Employments Never did Man desire more to have an hand in Affairs he was removed by reason of the King 's secret dissatisfaction at his Services by that Conduct and Management which in executing the King's Orders when they were contrary to his Opinion and disliking to his Friends smelt very much like perfidiousness and Treachery as may principally appear in whatsoever he did for to evade and frustrate the King's Orders contained in the dispatch I left with him at the Hague to Nimeguen for the conclusion of the Peace by Order of his Majesty It is concerning this business that has made so great a noise for which Sir W. takes occasion to reproach me that I am going to relate you some Particulars in the Reflections that I am obliged to make upon what he says concerning my self Do not expect my Lord that I should teach you here the true Cause of so extraordinary a Resolution which so much surprized Sir W. with which Pensioner Fagel was so much astonished and which in Sirs W's opinion did entirely change the Fate of Christendom I should please him very much if I should discover so important a Secret in which many persons in the late and present Reigns have been concerned I do not doubt but Sir W. extremely desires it he knows very well the greater knowledge of these Practices would perhaps raise a great deal of trouble in the Parliament to some people whose Ruine he desires at the bottom of his Heart being little concerned for the reputation of the late King and envious of the esteem of those that protected him and who have bestowed so many favours upou him As for my self at this Conjuncture in which K. William endeavours the repose of Christendom and the Happiness of England with so much Zeal and Glory I will not stir up the envy and hatred which has too much appeared in England and which may perhaps be a great Obstacle to that Union which is so necessary to the happy

A LETTER FROM Monsieur de CROS Who was an Embassador at the Treaty of Nimeguen and a Resident in England in K. Ch. the Second's Reign Which may serve for an Answer to the Impostures of Sir W m Temple heretofore Ambassador from England at the Hague and at Nimeguen Till such time as a more ample and particular Relation be made of the Business in hand Together with some REMARKS Upon his MEMOIRS To make appear how grosly he is mistaken in the greatest part of the most important matters he relates concerning what passed from the Year 1672 until the Year 1679. LONDON Printed in the Year 1693. A LETTER from Mons de Cros c. My Lord I Have been informed of the Calumnies that Sir W. T. hath caused to be Printed against me I know very well that Sir W. is of great Worth and deserves well and that he hath been a long time employed and that too upon important occasions but I am as certain that he had but a small share in the Secrecy of the late King Charles's Designs in the greatest part of the Affairs for which he was employed from 72 till 79 which is the main Subject of his Work This Consideration alone might not perhaps have given me the curiosity or at least any great earnestness to read his Memoirs and I might have very well judged that I could draw from them no sufficient light and insight for the discovery of so many Intrigues Nay besides I might have doubted whether or no these Memoirs might not have been his own Panegyrick upon himself and the diminution and undervaluing of the real Worth and Glory of several Persons of Quality and distinguished by their Merit whose Fortune and Reputation Sir W. T. hath so much envied for I am particularly acquainted with Sir W's Pride He looks upon himself to have the greatest Reach to be the wisest and ablest Politician of his Time and a man may perceive abundance of Satyrical Reflexions scattered here and there in his Work against most illustrious Persons and that he hath stuffed his Memoirs with his own Praise and the fond over-weening Opinion he hath of himself Without doubt this is quite different from that Sincerity and Modesty which reigns throughout the Memoirs of Villeroy in the Negotiations and Transactions of Jeanin in the Letters of Card. Dossat those mighty and truly eminent Persons esteemed as such by the greatest Princes of their Age and even still are to this day by the ablest Politicians with much more Justice and Glory than Sir W's Book-Seller stiles him One of the Greatest Men of this Age. It had been Sir W's duty to have regulated himself according to their most excellent Pattern I shall at present only quote one Passage which I accidentally light on at the first opening his Book whereby one may easily guess at the greatness of his presumption in a shorttime My Lord I shall give you occasion to observe many others The Negotiations saith he that I managed and transacted at the Hague at Brussels at Aix la Chapelle which saved Flanders from the French Clutches in 68. made People believe I had some Credit and Reputation amongst the Spaniards as well as in Holland 'T was a Piece of strange Ingratitude of the Hollanders and Spaniards as well as of his own dear Country-men so much concern'd for the preservation of Flanders not to rear him a Statue which he saith some-where else Mr. Godolphin had promised him Could Sir W. T. have done any thing to deserve it more or was there any thing more worthy of Triumph than to have preserved Flanders a Country so important to the Spaniard and the only Bulwark of Holland and England But Sir W. was apt to believe he could not find any one who was better able to hammer out his own Glory than himself and he flattered himself with the Opinion that he should erect himself as many Statues as there are places in his Memoirs crouded with intolerable and ridiculous Vain-glory. It was not the Negotiations my Lord that Sir W. tells us he managed at the Hague Brussels and at Aix la Chappelle which saved Flanders from the hands of the French in 1668. The French published that they were beholding to the most Christian Kings Moderation for that Peace who was willing to put a stop to the progress and course of his victorious Arms. But the truth of it is they most justly ascribed all the Merit and all the Glory of the Peace and of the Triple League to the generous resolution and stedfastness of the States-General They made use upon this occasion of a Minister of State far beyond Sir W. in Prudence Experience and Capacity one who was in the Opinion even of his Enemies the most able Manager of Affairs of his Age. I shall not undertake my Lord in this place strictly to examine Sir W. Temple's Memoirs I will do it shortly if God spare me with Life nay and I promise you a Volume of Remarks at least as large as his Book If like him I had the Vanity to procure the printing of Memoirs during my life-time I could now have a fair pretence so to do and without all question I should publish more just and solid ones than his are Not that I have the presumption to judge my self more capable to do it but in several places he relates some things falsly whereof I am much better informed The only Hero of my piece shall be Truth without Complaisance or Flattery without Passion no not so much as against him So that I shall do him the satisfaction and kindness to instruct him better even touching divers Matters which he performed and executed without knowing so much as the reason why he was made to act so It is not likewise because I have been one of the Council of the King his Master yet I have had the Happiness during some Years to partake in the Confidence of a Minister of State who was in several important weighty Occasions as it were the Primum Mobile of that Conduct and Management that surprized all the World You know my Lord what Credit he had and of what nature his Intelligences were Sir W. may well imagine that I did not ill improve this able Ministers Confidence when Sir W. tells us That I had wholly devoted my self to him Men are not ignorant likewise that oftentimes I have had some access to the King's Ministers of State and even near to the King himself it did more especially appear in the business for which I took my Journey to Nimeguen and it would be a great shame that a Man more cunning and subtil than them all according to the King 's own Testimony as Sir W. relates it should not have had considering so much freedom of access and easiness the address and cunning to dive into the most hidden Springs of Deliberations and Resolutions wherein the Swede and my Master had so great an Interest Be therefore assured my Lord that