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A44054
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A Defence of the Scots abdicating Darien including an answer to the defence of the Scots settlement there / authore Brittano sed Dunensi.
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Hodges, James.; Harris, Walter, 17th/18th cent.; Foyer, Archibald.
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1700
(1700)
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Wing H2298; ESTC R29058
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118,774
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233
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it themselves as to suffer her to have Mass in her own Family We might go farther 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 an 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 have often occafion'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 aflected 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 sit 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 besore 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 Scots And if the People of Scotland met in Parliament agreed upon it as their Interest to have that Act past for incouraging Kieir 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
Paymasters to deal with It were well for England if all those that have been imployed in the Royal Navy could say as much by his Suborners and their Friends As for our discharging Mr. Stratford to be any longer our Cashier there 's no need of assigning any other Cause for it but that Sr. Paul Ricaut's Memorial render'd it needless and to that same account we must charge the two Ships that were left there to rot in their Ouse But at the same time we will tell him we had no great reason to be satisfied with Mr. Stratford's Conduct and believe we have less now than ever since this Libeller defends him His Story p. 26 of Mr Henderson's arresting another of our Ships for 3000 l is sufficiently answer'd by himself when he tells us that he and his Partners fail'd in their Subscriptions which was a just debt due to the Company and therefore they had reason to demand and expect it especially he being a Scots-man yet the Company dealt very kindly with him on that account and so much the more that they consider'd his being a Residenter in Holland where he was liable both to the English and Dutch Court to whose account the Libeller must also charge this Affront and the Loss we sustain'd at Amsterdam What he says of our Seamen p. 27 28. is a manifest untruth They were immediately paid extreamly well satisfied and we had such choice of able Seamen who were willing to go in the Expedition that we turn'd feveral ashoar after they had embarqu'd as having no occasion for them As to his Reflection on Mr. Robert Blackwood for pinching them of their Wages and p. 46. for cheating them as to their Provisions that Gentleman is now at London where we leave H s and him to account for it We doubt not but Mr. Blackwood may have Justice done him in Westminster-hall if he thinks sit to sue for it but so much we think our selves oblig'd to say in his Vindication during his absence that he was never charg'd with any such thing by the Company His next Reflections on the Transfer p. 29. by which he would impose on the World as if it had been a Trick of the Company to cheat the seamen of their Wages are so much the less to be credited that he himself is a Party and commenc'd the Suit he talks of in Doctors Commons which tho that Court may perhaps have determin'd in his favour because the Bargain was made with him in London and those that made it were on the Spot and for other Causes best known to themselves it is nothing at all to the matter in hand our Courts have no reason to take them for a Precedent and our Company has as little to allow the Libeller any Wages But to come to the Transfer which he so foully misrepresents It was so far from being a clandestine practice that it was agreed on in publick Council and but highly reasonable that the Colony should be accountable to the Company for the Stock they intrusted them with The Libeller only betrays his own Folly and Malice and imposes upon his Suborners when he says the Gentlemen who gave their joint Bond to the Company for 70000 l were not worth so many English Pence for admitting they had not been worth one penny of personal Estate they were intrusted by the Company with 19000 l Cargo and Ships Provisions c. to make it up 70000 l which was not charg'd upon them as their personal Debt but upon the Colony as a Corporation till the same was paid What he says as to the Seamen is a malicious Untruth It was indeed agreed that the Colony should pay them but if they did not the Company was to do it and besides the two months advance which the Libeller owns was paid them the Company was to pay to them or to those that had their Powers or Letters of Attorny a Month in six and have accordingly paid them As to the Seamens being made believe that assoon as they had set the Landmen on shoar they were to proceed on a trading Voyage and return to Scotland to be paid it is equally false they being to stay out whilst the Company pleas'd Then as to the Transfer in general it was so far from being clandestine or a Trick that the Company was impower'd to make it by the Act of Parliament which gave them their Original as any Person may see by turning to the Act it self which authorizes them to transfer their joint Stock or Capital Fund or any Estate real or personal Ships Goods c. belonging to the Company under such Restrictions Rules Conditions c. as the said Company shall by writing in and upon their Books c. appoint As to the Landmen whom he will also have to be impos'd upon they knew what they had to relic on and were very well satisfied with it and as to the Companys levying Souldiers under the Notion of Planters without asking leave of the Privy Council admitting it to be true they are not at all to be blam'd for it since they had no reason to think that the Faction at Court which had contraven'd Acts of Parliament by opposing their Subscriptions and denying them the men of War built for the protection of our Trade would allow them to levy Souldiers under that Name But the truth of the matter is this they were really design'd for ' Planters and not at all for Military Business tho it was highly necessary the Colony should have as many Officers and disciplin'd Men as they could that they might be the more able to defend themselves in case of Attaque and therefore his railing against the Colony for offering to punish Deserters and other Criminals pag. 31. only discovers his own ignorance and malice for by the Act of Parliament they had the whole Power Civil and Military conferr'd upon them and accordingly might exercise their Power upon all Persons belonging to the Company as they saw cause so that this is again a libelling of the Act of Parliament thro the Company 's sides His Representation of the seven Men chosen for Counsellors page 34. is false and malicious to the highest degree The liberty given to add other six to those seven was not as he spitefully insinuates for English or French men of Substance that should join them from the West-India Plantations but for such of their own number as they might think fit to assume afterwards It cannot once enter into the thoughts of any man of sense that the Colony should at first entrust Foreigners and especially French Papists in their Government or that the Company had any design they should do so but he and his Suborners think it their Interest to make us odious to the English and French by accusing us of a design to drain their Colonies As to Mr. Paterson whom he hath all along abus'd he happens now thro Inadvertency to vindicate him from his own Calumnies he formerly charg'd