worse use they made of all that was or could be given them So all jealousies could not long be supprest for in time some of our Lords and Commons saw cause to conceale some things concerning this State from them and this was extreamly ill taken and indeed no otherwise then if it had been a reall piece of injustice to the Kingdom of Scotland but moderation as yet kept both within reasonable bounds Mr. A. Henderson was then living and conversant in those businesses and surely he was a man of an Apostolicall spirit and though a great lover of his Countrey yet He knowingly durst not interpose in an ill action for his Countreys advantage and I am perswaded He did very good offices and kept us from further jars during his life and if He had lived longer would have prevented much of what has hapned since Besides Presbytery the Scotch Clergies darling seemd plausible at first to the English and soon grew indeared to our Synod and for a good space it got such footing in England that the Scots had no cause of dissatisfaction in that behalf The King also the other darling of the Scotch Nation till about the latter end of Summer 1645. prosperd so that He more slighted the Scots then He did us and so about him there was no great cause of animosities and if any did appear they were more easily to be digested But when the English Army under the Lord Gen. Fairfax had in one Summer defeated and utterly broken two very great Armies of the Kings and taken in divers other considerable Cities and strengths without any help at all from the Scots many emulous considerations began to breed strange alienations in the hearts of our brethren The easie warfare of the Scots all this while had afforded them besides good store of pay and plunder an absolute signiory over the Northerne Counties our Northerne men tell us wofull stories till this day and now they saw that rich service or rather absolute dominion was likely to come to an end they thought sit to strengthen themselves in Berwick and Newcastle and they got Carlile also by very foul play in spight of our Commissioners as if they were resolved and certain to have a dispute with us Likewise in 1646. when Oxford grew straitned and unsafe to the King and when it was visible also that Presbytery after so many years experience did not altogether rellish with the English the Scots presently resolved as was related before to expound the Covenant in favour of the King at least for setling and securing their arrears and making a commodious retreat out of England Accordingly that Article which provided for the Kings interest served their interest wel enough and war so well commented upon by them that it held us at a bay till their contract was perfected and then after a long dispute very chargeable to our Nation at the instance of an Army and 200000 li. they delivered up Newcastle Barwick and Carlile and took time to study the Kings Article a little longer In the year 1647. there was no notable businesse for the Souldier England took a little breath having nothing to do but to squench the few remainders of war and Scotland kept at home to share the late gotten spoiles of England yet this year there past some new cajoleries betwixt the Scots and the King and some contests betwixt the Scots and us about the King and no doubt the next years action was now in forging and all preparatory hammers were on working And now enters the memorable year of 1648. a year never to be forgotten by the English in regard of the unparralleld dangers that then overspread it and the unspeakable mercies of God that then protected it All the enemies of this poore Common-wealth were now in a solemn conjuration against it In Ireland all was held past recovery Ormond the Parliaments revolted servitor was complying with the bloody Irish and betraying his own Religion into the bargain to get some of their forces into England in Wales in Kent in Essex in Surrey great bodies of men rose up some upon the old Royall account some upon a new whilst many also of the Navy fell away from the Parliament to make the case the more desperate No lesse then 40000 English did their endeavours this Summer to make way for Hamilton from whom by good intelligence doubtles they expected 20000 Scots Great was the goodness of God that all these confederates could not be in a readiness at one and the same time and that all the Forreign Princes round about us which favoured them could not be assistent to them that yeer God had so ordained it that the Welsh should be reduced before the Scots entred or else our condition had been altogether hopelesse in the eye of reason But to the Scoch businesse The Solemn League and Covenant was now brought under a new debate in the Parliament of Scotland and the main matter in question was how they could be absolved of that holy stipulation if they did not imploy all their power to reform Religion and to restore the King in England and for the fuller agitation and ventilation of this matter severall grave harangues by persons affected severally were drest and we may well imagine to what effect Agent of the Kirks party seeing the Parliament filled with so great a party of the Hamiltonians is supposed to begin My Lords and Gentlemen The Covenant presses us all to endeavour the reformation of Religion and the restauration of the King in England by a brotherly way of Assistance in our severall places and callings and so as that these ends of the Covenant may stand and agree with all the rest But withall it behoves us to use a great deal of caution and circumspection in a matter of so high importance wherein the honour of God and good of the Nations is so religiously involved not to be mistaken either in the mark we all shoot at or in the arrows we are to shoot As for the point of Religion I am perswaded it wants reformation in England and I beleeve I dissent not therein from any here but this scruple sticks by me I doubt whether I am so properly a Judge in England of Religion as I am in Scotland and if I am not then I fear I step out of my place and calling whilest I take upon me there to reform by force which sure the Covenant requires not but excludes in expresse terms The account of my scruples I give thus first if we are now judges of matters Ecclesiasticall in England we are so constituted by the Covenant for before the Covenant we pretended to no uch thing and in the Covenanâ— it self I finde no such constituting words 2ly if the Covenant creates us Judges in cases Eccles it creates us the same in all other things civil military and judiciall for all the interests of the King and Subjects in Parliament and out of Parliament are inclosed within the
last to the Kings cause Hitherto the King keeps from open defiance with the Parliament of England but now Gods flaming Minister of warre begins to brandish his sword against this Nation now the King is returned from Scotland and now begins the year 1642. wherein Arms are openly taken up and avowed on both sides Scotland for two or three years before had seen war but without slaughter Ireland had been miserably the yeer before imbrued with slaughter yet saw no war but England must now prepare her self both for war and slaughter At the first harnessing and making ready for the field both sides pretended to be on the defence and both pretended to stand for the defence of the same persons and rights the Parliament declares for the Kings rights aswell as the subjects Liberties and the King for the Subjects Liberties as well as his own rights the matter of the Protestation is the cause they both â—ight for insomuch that by their professions it might be thought the Protestation were equally favoured by both Neither were their successes much unanswerable to their professions for after a bloodie battell fought neer Keinton in Octob and another hot encounter at Brainford and after divers other conflicts in severall other places of the Northern Western and middle Counties of England either side got blows but neither side carried away any great advantage or conquest only the Kings secret correspondence with the Irish began now to grow more evident as well by their declaring for the Kings pretences as by his diverâ—ing the preparations made here against them At this time the threed of the Kings Councels was exceeding finely spun the more zealous He seemed against the Iâ—â—sh openly the more zeal He attested to them privately and they themselves could not but see by the Kings seizing our Irish provisions here and assuring himself of our Forces sent thither that the more we exhausted our selves in sending supplies against them the more unable we should be in the end either to resist the King here or to reduce them there Howsoever as was noted before though the most subtill threeds of the King were strong enough sometimes to fabricate toils and nets for his subjects yet they never could be twisted into ladders for the mounting of him to his aspired grandour About the beginning of the year 1643. another black desperate designe against the City of London was discovered scarce inferior to any of those former impregnations of the Kings inraged brain whereupon the Parliament again had recourse to this new religious guard of Vowing and Covenanting And herein after the Covenanters had humbled themselves before God for the Nations sins and judgements and promised by Gods grace to endeavour for the future an amendment of their wayes they the second time ingaged themselves by Vow and Covenant in the presence of Almighty God to be adhering faithfully to the Forces raised by the Parliament for defence of Religion and liberty c. But notwithstanding the vertue of both these holy remedies against the Kings uncessant stratagems about the latter end of the same Summer the Parliaments affairs came to a great declination and till they obtained aid from the Scotch Nation their condition was thought very tottering In August the English Commissioners began to treat at Edinburgh and about the depth of Winter the Scots advanced with a compleat well appointed Army Yet this may not be wholly preâ—ermitted that the Scots were long deliberating about their march and though they saw their ruin involved in ours and their faith no lesse pre-ingaged to us for mutuall assistance then ours was to them yet they advanced not at last but upon these strict conditions 1. That we being then but a wasted part of England yet should presently imburse them out of our afflicted affairs with a great summe of ready money 2ly That they should be payed as mercenaries and yet have a share in government here as if they were our joyntenants And 3ly that we should enter with them into a new solemn League and Covenant upon Oath as it was by them composed and conceived So disproportionable and unsuitable is their amity to their enmity for when they had a pretence of a quarrell contrary to former Treaties with England in 1648. t was in their power to invade England readily without assurance of present Advance-money or establisht pay afterwards and such able Enemies we found them in all ages but when they were to be ayding to part of England in observance of former Treaties in 1643. there is no moving in such a work without ample Covenants so much more difficult amongst them is the enterprise of helping then is the enterprise of undoing It is manifest now by that which has been hitherto premised that the first occasion of flying to such conscientious tyes and expedients as these was that the late Kings plots and conspiracies might be thereby the better disappointed and that the people might be thereby the better confirmed in their opposition against Him And this makes it now seem the more strange to us that the Scots at present should make their Covenant so main an engine for the King against us which at first was certainly excogitated as a main engine for us against the King 2ly it is hereby as manifest that the Scotch Covenant which is now insisted on by that Nation and was pressed on us at first with so much rigor did add no new obligation at all to the English Religion Liberty Monarchy and the peace of the Nations were as much secured before and as sanctimoniously by the Protestation in 1641. and by the vow and Covenant in 1643. as they were afterwards by the solemn League and Covenant when the Scotch Army was to enter England 3ly We cannot observe by any remarkable blessing from Heaven that the hand of God did ever give any gratious testimony in behalf of these new sacramentall obligations The protestation was thought ineffectuall till the vow and Covenant came in with a greater supply of religion the vow and Covenant was not able to break the Kings Armies till the solemn League of Scotland had superinduced its further sanctity and when that was superinduced and came accompanied with 20000 armed men from Scotland the King subsisted yea and thrived a long time after and without doubt those Oaths which he imposed within his quarters did asmuch service against us as ours did for us in our quarters We all know that t was not a new Oath but a new modeld Army that by Gods most gratious hand first gave check to the Kings prosperity and t is not so visible that ever we trampled on the Royalists formerly by observance of the Covenant as that we are now miserably ingaged in blood against the Scots by misprisions and false glosses of the same The Lord of his boundles mercy grant at last that we may return to our old wayes of humiliation seek to appease that Majesty by fasting and praying which is to be
to Him in England till their Parliament at home were further satisfied In the mean time after a long consuming war ended England was constrained still to pay and maintain two Armies the Scotch to prevent a new war if that were possible the English to sustain a new war if prevention proved unpossible so that every moment was irksome to us whilst the Kings pretentions was an occasion to draw so much treasure from our coffers and it was as irksome to the King to see the Scotch arrears or any thing else besides his pretentions brought into debate but at last the Scotch arrears took place and justled out the Kings matters for after a great sum agreed upon the Scots quite contrary to the high expostulations of some of their Papers thought it honorable to leave the King in England and the English thought it as profitable to buy the Scots out of England This probably might prepare the King for new Pacificatory addresses partly by damping his hopes in the Scots and partly by defeating the next privy applications of the Scots to Him and partly by giving a better rellish of the English whose prisoner then He was yet had been treated very honorably but this would not do new Propofitions were once and again sent and denyed and new assurances from the Scots were admitted which procured thosy denyalls Nay after that Hamilton in 1648. Commission'd by the Parliament and Presbyterians in Scotland had invaded us with 20000 men and was beaten and a new party of Kirkmen of a contrary party to Hamilton had gotten the sway of the State into their hands by the help of our forces who pursued the Hamiltonians beyond the Tweed the English still received further repulses So vowedly inflexible was the King against all that could be tenderd by the English though even when his condition was grown lowest and the Parliaments Propositions not at all raysd higher and so vowedly obstinate were the Scots and all parties and factions among them upon all changes of affairs whatsoever to make all agreements of the English with the King disadvantageous to their fellow Covenanters Their voluminous Papers yet shew what they pretended to in disposing of the Kings person in England what a negative voice in the Parliament of England they would assign to Him what revenues and signiorys out of the Court of Wards and elsewhere they would secure to Him what power military and judiciall they would intrust him with in England and how all should be managed by the joynt advice and consent of Scotland In summe the King must again be more humbly sought to then ever He must be discharged of imprisonment received in pomp at London to treat about what we had to propose and his freedome must be such that He must sent for and advice with what Delinquents He pleasde if we granted the Scots this we left our selves nothing if we denyed All Ireland was at the Kings devotion all Ormonds all Oneals adherents all the old Irish all the English Irish all the Protestants all the Papists were against us we had then scarce three considerable Towns left in that Countrey In Scotland all that Montrosse all that Huntly all that Hamilton all that Arguile the Kirks Champion had any power in even Jo Cheesly himself to get a dubbing at the last hand was for the royall Cause In England the Clergie had imbitterd the City and the City had sharpned the Countrey against the Army and against all that had not forgotten the first quarrel with the King The Parliament it self had some leading men in it that had secretly capitulated with the King and those false Leaders had many other ignorant followers that would beleeve no such matter At such a time as this when all forrein States desired and contributed something to our ruin besides and the King had as free scope to sollicite and treat them as ever and did make use of his time especially to conclude with the Irish what should the Army do to execute the King and eradicate Monarchy was to expose themselves to a thousand hazards and extremities to spare the King and Monarchy and submit to the Scoch Presbyterian faction was to perish inevitably to treat with the King brought them upon this perplexity either they must propose things safe for the State and then they had no hopes of prevailing or they must propose things unsafe which would be sinfull dishonorable and ruinous to them as well as others in the end I am confident England never travail'd with such sharp throes or strugled through such gasping agonies since She was first a mother and none but God could have given her such a deliverance When the King was retrograde to his Trust and with the swinge of his Train had swept all the chief luminaries out of our firmament when the Clergie was generally disaffected and with their doctrines had almost poysoned all the City and almost half the Countrey when the remaining part of the Parliament that had stoodout the brunt so long and wetherd so many gusts became recreant at last then did an Army inspirde with strange courage but stranger counsell from above step in to save their sinking Countrey over-powring all the windes and waves that raged against them The wonderfull dispensations of God bringing great matters to passe by such crosse meanes must be observed and adored by all that are not aliens from Religion and I doubt not but future Parliaments in future ages will be amazedly affected with them but of all men we that now live and see the effects of that critical time and what a prospering posture we are now in within so short a space in England Scotland Ireland and round about by the seconding mercies of God since must needs most gratfully recent these things except we have sold our selves to Atheism rebellion against Heaven The Chiliasts from hence and from the race ordering of all our commotions since 1640. something before may assure themselves that Christ is to reign upon Earth and that he ha's already taken the Scepter out of the greater Warriors and Counsellors hands of the earth into his own For the hills are now plained and the vallies are raised and yet there is no humane hand appearing in it Some men thinke all successe unworthy of all regard as if there were no difference between the administrations of God in his Church in times of distresse and his disposing of other mens ordinary affaires at other times or as if Alexander Hector Caesar had foyled their enemy by the same inward promptings as Joshua David and Judas Machabeus did but this certainly is an irreligious error for as there is a generall providence of God by which the course of all naturall things is steered so there uses to be a speciall interposition of God in some things and is to be acknowledged when his owne honour and interest is specially concerned and this speciall interposition is sometimes of the finger of God when
vertue in it why do they brandish it so ludicrously onely to dazle our weak eyes The next Objection of the Scots is that we have not onely sequestred a great part of Christs spirituall power and detained it in Lay hands but have also abused the same power tolerating thereby and countenancing all manner of heresies which is directly contrary to our covenanted Reformation Our Answer is that we are neither intensively nor extensively lyable indeed to this objection For 1. all sects and scandals are not permitted by us nothing is more distant from truth then this suggestion All grosse sins and seducers are supprest with as quick severity as ever nay since the Norman Conquest there have not been so many sharp Laws made against Adultery Swearing blaspheming Sabbath-breaking and open prophanation as have been made within these few yeers All the remission and relaxation that our Parliament has indulged of late is only towards tender Consciences where men comport themselves civilly and inoffensively towards their neighbours and attempt to innovate nothing in the Church for perturbing of Religion and even in this also we havenot extended our indulgence so far as the united States of the Netherlands have and divers other Protestant Princes in Germany The truth is we do not finde such danger in Erastianisme Independentisme Anabaptisme Round-headisme c. as our rigid Presbyterians suspect and this would not dislike the Presbyterians themselves if they were men willing to do to others as they are willing others should do to them for they themselves are sensible that we can never desire more gentlenesse from them to us then is now shewed by us to them 2ly That toleration which we are accused of is but a non persecution in its most intensive degree for we use all Christian means besides force to reduce such as wander and divide from us and we are far from cherishing schismes and broyls either in Church or State Our Saviours own parable allows us where weeds have gotten head and are as numerous as the standing corn rather to spare the weeds for the corns sake then to indanger the corn for the weeds sake Howsoever it would be some charity in our traducers if they would advisedly consider how the growth of our weeds came at first to be so rank amongst us and thereupon joyn with us in humiliation for it not exult over us in scorn and derision Upon the first defiance given by the King to the Parliament half the Clergie at least fell away from this cause and before that rent could be sowde up there happened a second distance betwixt us and the Scots partly upon a royal and partly an Ecclesiasticall account and that distance drew on as great a revolt of the Clergie as the former And how can any man imagine but that strange disorders must needs follow and abound in a Church so deserted When the dressers of the Vineyard do not onely quit their charge but throw down the mounds how can it be expected but that Bores and Foxes should break in And indeed the Parliament is still ill beset for either they must deny preaching to the people to three parts of foure or else they must yeeld the Pulpits to their seditious Enemies and to such as shall seek to wound the Magistrate through the souls of the people This being the Parliaments hard case it may better become the Scots to whom may be attributed a great part of these disturbances to afford some pitie and help then to adde miserie to our miserie This is sufficient to plead for our indulgence let us onely advise the Presbyterians not to take unjust offence thereat or to stumble into the contrary extreme T is wofull to see how rigidly the Ministers carrie themselves towards the poore people in many places and what an absolute discretionarie power they challenge in many places over the ordinances of God There are many Parishes in England where the people have not been admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper nor some Infants to the Sacrament of Baptisme for a long time This deserves much bewailing for certainly God gave these rich Legacies to the diffusive body of his Church for the spirituall comfort of the meanest servants of his and not to that which cals it self his representative body to be a trade and monopolie for their advantage in this world But I have done if the world now finde cause to condemne us of dealing treacherously with the Covenant and our fellow-Covenanters in that we have not submitted to the Scots and for their sakes disclaimed our own judgements and interests to gratifie the King and the Presbyterian Clergie with our perpetuall servility let us fall under their condemnation Or if the world can justifie the Scots as pursuers of that union freedome and fidelity which was aimed at in the Covenant when they made themselves our Lords to give us Laws in our own Dominions and when they did not onely raise sedition here in our own bowels but came in with an Army of 20000. men to devour us let them stand upright here and injoy their wished Triumph Our finall assurance and comfort is there sits a Judge in heaven who can neither deceive nor be deceived a Judge that hears all appeals made above and does right at last to all that groane under oppression and injustice belowe Of the Scoch Warre VVEe have seen how the Covenants waxen nose has been turned and moulded into many forms wee see now cause to suspect that 't was made so large at first and compacted of such materials that like the Grecian wooden Horse it might tear our walls the wider upon its entrance and discharge the more discords and dissentions amongst us after its entrance was procured We see it was intended by the honest party in England for cement to unite the Nations in a more arct faithfull confederation then ever our Ancestors knew but the couching of it was obscure and left liable to so many false glosses that it soon became {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Our brotherly offices of Assistance soon degenerated into harsh expostulations harsh expostulations begat secreet feudes and secreet feudes heightned themselves into open hostilities The question is only when open war commenced betwixt these Nations Whether the Scots first invaded us by their Duke Hamilton above two years since or whether the English first invaded Scotland this last summer under the command of the Lord Gen. Cromwell For a year or two after reception of the Covenant in England a good correspondence was kept betwixt us the Scotch Commissioners sat in our Committee of Lords and Commons at Darby house whereby they were admitted into the knowledge of our highest and secretest affaires and had opportunity to frame parties amongst us for promoting of their own Interests Out of these kindnesses sprung our first unkindnesses for the more honour was given to the Scots the more still they thought was due and the more they thought was due the
any credit to be given to Hamilton who affirm'd it religiously at the time of his arraignment in England the Kirkes party refused to comply with Him and his party more out of emulations and particular State-animosities then out of any dislike of the cause or condemnation of the undertaking And time ha's since made this more manifest for even the Commissioners of the Kirke in their Declarations since and by their ingaging against us with their yong declared King have even by the Covenant and the same constructions of it owned every part of the quarrell against us which they condemned in Hamilton setting only aside his entring upon us without three moneths previous warning well The Scotch Parliament having sufficiently Commission'd Hamilton for his March into England rose without any audience or intercourse granted to our Commissioners Hamilton being so Commission'd makes present use of Langdale and his Train speeds away with 20000. men for England seizes Barwick and Carlile commits infinite barbarous cruelties and destructions in the foure Northerne Counties before previous warning given according to our Treaties but within some few weeks fights with the Lievtenant-Generall Cromwell in Lancashire is taken prisoner seâ—s his Army defeated and the remainders of it chased back into Scotland Out of this matter of fact so stated a dispute now arises whether this hostile action of Hamilton that was then chargeable upon the Parliament of Scotland be still justly to be answerd and accounted for to the State of England by the present State of Scotland The Scots deny it upon these grounds For their first evasion they say the good party that now governs is not the same as the party was that then governed Whereby they would have us understand that the State of Scotland is changed since 1648. and does not remaine the same as it was at that time and therefore ought not to be responsal for what was then done After the Committee of Estates and the Kirk-Commissioners have condemned Hamiltons invasion without antecedent warning and his other miscarriages in taking Barwick and Carlile c. and confest that nothing can be offerd in excuse thereof they yet adde that never any people in the world in a time of defection did more evidence their freedome from guilt then They they meane the party now governing did Here is a defection confest in a Parliament lawfully chosen and in the major part of the people adhaering to that Parliament but there was a remnant of good people which at that time evidenced their freedome from that guilt and that remnant since by force and assistance of the English Army ha's gotten power into their hands and therefore the Magistrate that is now is not guilty of that defection nor consequently the State of Scotland liable to make any reparation This evasion must be thus stopt up 1. In all States where there is a Representative the publick act of that Representative or of its major part bindes all and every person And though the next Representative may repeale Laws formerly made and recede at pleasure from what its predecessâ—rs acted erroneously or temporarily and these new repeals and recessions shall be binding to all persons therein represented yet even these alterations also must be without fraud Salvâ— semper jure Tertij they must be without any prejudice to â—orrein States and persons there not represented Nay if the State of England passe an Interest in Land to a Subject of England upon a good consideration and contract that act shal be binding perpetually and may not under favour be avoyded by a New Representative because that avoydance will appeare fraudulent in the State and because such avoydance is to the damage of one that is as it were a third person and contracts with the State upon equall terms and it seemes that a speciall consent is necessary in such a case of his disinherison and that his generall consent given by his Representatiues ought not to divest him And if it be here objected that the constitution of the State of Scotland is different from other States inasmuch as it consists of two Representatives one civil and the other ecclesiasticall and in this ingagement of Hamilton the ecclesiasticall Representative did not act nor concurre but dissent and protest against it and so made the civil act the lesse authoritative We answer First the ecclesiasticall Representative of Scotland ha's no power but in cases meerly ecclesiasticall such as this was in 1648. was not Secondly if the Scots will tell us that Hamiltons action and case was in ordine ad spiritualia wee must not suffer such collusion to be turnd to our prejudice The State of Scotland must not thinke it sufficient to stroke us in their spirituall capacity whilst they strike us in their temporal capacity the duplicity of their Powers must not justifie or excuse duplicity in their dealings when wee sustaine publick injuries whether it be from a jurisdiction Parliamentary or Synodical the whole State of Scotland must be answerable for satisfaction Thirdly if the Ingagement of Hamilton was the lesse valid in Law if we did grant this as we doe not because all that feared the Lord in the Land did petition and pray against it and expose themselves to some persecution for not complying with it yet this does not render the same ingagement the lesse mischievous to us There was not one drop of English bloud the lesse shed then nor is there one drop the lesse to be accounted for now Fourthly wee are not without some strong presumptions that the small number of the religious party in Scotland which were enemies to the Ingagement then were not so much enemies to it as it was mischievous to us or unjust in it selfe as because it promoted Hamiltonsâ—action too high and had an ill aspect upon their owne particular interest in Scotland Else what makes them so zealous against our receiving of right now which pretend they were so zealous against our receiving of wrong then It seemes strange to us that the English which had never a Friend in Scotland two yeares since to warde one blow from their throats or to do any real act of resistance to Hamilton should now finde never an Enemy in Scotland obnoxious to their challenge of satisfaction and that the same men should be the most forward to debarre us of reparation now which were then most forward to protest against our suffrings Secondly where two Representatives have been legally chosen if it be not honorable for the later to anull the formers act in prejudice of a third person that ha's right much lesse honorable is it for a Representative brought in by the sword to derogate from the acts of a former Representative that had a faire and free election from the people Wherefore let the present power in Scotland apply this to themselves and the rather for that they complain of forcible alterations amongst us onely upon pretended discommodities to our selves whilst they themselves make use