their own snares as this King was by his mistake in this person This King having by turning and changing got Judges and Counsellors to his purpose corrupting by Pensions c. a Majority in the Parliament carried all things as he pleased till at last he lost his Credit by the odiousness of the Popish Plot and his Compliance with France to the advancing that King to what he is now come to teaching him compared to what he knew before to build Ships man victual and sail them nay even to fight and sound our Coasts and Rivers which was done in the time of his unhappy Administration especially in the year 1672. in joyning with him against Holland when none of his Ships were suffered to fight but stand by and learn that one French Commander that did ingage being as it s said at his return clapped in the Bastile for it which we never heard was complained of by us nor excused by them Nay not to be wanting in any thing towards the advancement of the French King we gave him Canada that necessary place for our Newfound-land Fishery our chief Nursery for Seamen for an insignificant part compared to Canada of the Island of St. Christophers which had belonged to us under pretence that he had taken it from us in our former War with the Dutch when he sided with them against us and served them as he did us never appearing with them making use only of his Declaration of War for them to the end to set us together by the Ears that so he might have the better opportunity to set up himself and worm us as in a great measure he hath done out of our New-found Land Fishery and hath taken it to himself whereas formerly they used to pay us a kind of Tribute for Liberty of Fishing there but now through our favour and carelesness they are arrived to that height of Fishing that they are said to imploy so many Men in it as produceth them five thousand new Seamen yearly so that by the Conduct of our Counsellors this King is since 1662. when he had hardly 20 Men of War great and small come now to be Master of 150 at least But tho by his wise management of Affairs and our bad he hath rid this Summer in our Channel without controle I hope he will never do so more nor ever be encouraged to intitle himself to the Dominion of the Narrow Seas except God for our Sins gives us over to be again betrayed by our Counsellors as formerly for tho Kings themselves may be ill Men yet without the like Counsellors they cannot perpetrate their evil Designs This Government of ours hath been by our late Kings carried on by tricks which our Statists valued themselves upon as the effect of their great Wisdom whereas it is truly nothing more than the transendency of Immorality in which honester Men have not a latitude To enumerate their deceitful Artifices is hard they are so many This King at his Restauration in 1660 made a League with the States General in design to prepare for a War with them having then found his Naval Forces very low In 1664. he began to quarrel with them without the least cause and against their real endeavours for preventing it But Downing being Envoy Extraordinary at the Hague to remove their Jealousie of us which was great gave them according to the Policy of those Times all assurance of Friendship telling them that if their East-India Ships then expected were above London-Bridge they would be as safe as in their own Harbours yet their Merchants Ships to about the number as it is said of 120. were upon frivolous pretences first stopped as they came into our Channel till at last some Months after without Declaration of War or any causes shewn they were confiscated and at the same time their Smirna Fleet was fallen upon before Cadiz whereupon Downing thought fit to make a hasty Retreat by Mazeland-Sluce and this Action was as little to our honour as profit for tho we sunk one or two of their Ships to their great dammage we took none and for those seized at home our management was so commendable that upon the sale of them as I have heard the King was made Debtor And thus this War began which prospered in our hands according to the Justice of it The first year of this War the Dutch East-India Fleet coming home by the North of Scotland upon the King of Denmark's promise of Security or at least relying upon their League with him put into Bergen in Norway where they were presently blocked up by our Fleet under the Command of the Earl of Sandwich who sent in some Ships to seize them and had had them delivered had not the Currier with Orders from Copenhagen come too late to the Governour Sandwich's Ships being beaten off and retired with loss before the Orders came for our Agent in Denmark had agreed with that King concerning them but Sandwich not having notice of the Treaty the design was lost by falling too soon upon these Ships This War lasted near three years reckoning from our first seizing of Their Ships The third year the King had giveâ— him 1250000 l. for that Summers War but it was the Wisdom and Honesty of our Counsellors out of good Husbandry to save the Mony by not setting forth a Fleet which gave opportunity to our Enemies to burn our Ships in Harbour for which we made an horrid Outcry against them as treacherous in doing it in the time of our Treaty with them for Peace at Breda falsely adding That it was contrary to a Cessation agreed upon whereas when a Cessation was desired by us they positively denyed it which is sufficient to vindicate the Integrity of their Proceedings in answer to ignorant popular Clamour And indeed tho our Counsellors might be willing for their Defence to have the People understand this disgraceful Affront to proceed from Falseness in the Dutch I never heard that they at any time did publickly accuse them of breach of Faith in this matter or Action Being thus worsted it was pretended that want of Mony was the Cause tho upon examination of the Accounts by the Commissioners appointed by Act of Parliament to that end there was not much above half spent of what was given expresly for that War which evinces our Miscarriage to proceed from Corrupt Counsels want of Conduct and not Mony A Peace being concluded to be revenged on the Dutch for what was our own Fault we invited them and the Crown of Sweeden to a Triple League with us against France for restraining that King in his aspiring Designs wherein the Dutch were real when our Design was only to render them odious to the French King and enrage him against them that by our then joyning with him we might both together destroy them and in them the Protestant Chief Bulwark Accordingly in 1671. at the Interview at Dovâ—â— betwixt Charles II. and his Sister the
was the beginning of his Troubles wherein he was as much out in his Politicks as in any of his other Actions for it could not be well expected that they who had swept their Church as clean from all the Rubbish of Rome as Geneva it self and more zealous and refined in their Doctrin than they would be easily imposed upon in Matters of Religion But it was the Pride of Bishop Laud who was ambitious of being the Founder of a new Popery and of seeing it accomplished in his days by driving too furiously that prevented the designed Mischief and so we find it confessed by our Queen Mother in Monsieur Siries Mercury the French Kings History Writer for the Affairs of Italy who tells us among many other things concerning England That when the Parliament in 1640. met the Pope had three Agents in England negotiating the reconciling our King to Rome viz. the Count of Roset Seignior Câ—â— and Seignior Pausaâ—iâ— reciting Roset's Remonstrance delivered the King to prove it his Interest to turn Papist whereupon the King asking if the Pope would dispense with his Subjects taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy she was told that if â—e would be a Catholick iâ— must be without Conditions But the Parliament getting a Sent hereof◠〈…〉 cloâ—e that Roset was forced to be confessed whilst disguising himself and then fled for Ireland a little before the 〈◊〉 where it 's said he died And it may be observed that at this time this King 's Chief Counsellors 〈…〉 Strafford and Laud were such as whilst living were suspected and at Death declared themselves Papists viz. Thomas Earl of Arrundle Lord Cottington and Sir Francis Windibanck Secretary of State and Laud's Kinsman and not long before Treasurer Weston died of the same Communion And the same Author where he writes of the Affairs of England tells us further that Bishop L. and Bishop N. by which must be meant the two Archbishops Laud and Neal profered the Pope to leave England and go to Rome and for the Credit of that See declare themselves Papists provided the Pope would allow them at Rome the value of their English Bishopricks which they computed each at 16000 Crowns per annum but received for answer from the Pope's Nephew Chief Minister of State who at that time was as I remember Cardinal Francisco Barbarino reputed a great Statesman that if their Conversion were real they might at Rome live comfortably of so many hundred Crowns per annum For the Cardinal was jealous that the bottom of Laud's design was a Patriarchal Popedom for England which would have been a bad Example for France and other Popish Countries If any are curious to know further concerning the Affairs of England at that time I refer them to the aforesaid Mercury which is writ in Italian In the succeeding eighteen years interval this Nation received not the least dishonour save what happened at Hispaniola in War with Spain during Cromwel's Usurpation For the greatest part of the rest of that time our Neighbours trembled when we frowned tho since that the Catastrophy hath been such that we have trembled at their Frowns occasioned by the misgovernment of Charles the 2d who yet came to the Administration of the Crown most advantageously not an Enemy daring to shew his Teeth excepting that mad freak of the 29 Fifth Monarchy Men he seeming to be the universal Delight of the People At Breda he promised Liberty of Conscience to those dissenting Ministers that were with others sent by Parliament to invite him into England and at his arrival made shew of being true to his Word by appointing at the Savoy in order thereunto a Conference betwixt the two Parties the Conformists and Dissenters but the latter being under hand discountenanced by him who was a great Minister of King James the First 's Art in King-Craft it came to nothing more than making their Burthens the heavier so that in a short time the Presbyterians who had been the chief Authors of his Restauration his own Party being then so inconsiderable that they cannot be said to have contributed more to it than as Servants to the other were most ungratefully used their Ministers turned out of their Livings their Families exposed to live in a great measure upon Charity and that by him whom they had brought from that Condition himself to the injoyment of three Crowns His first Parliament acted regularly with an eye to publick good and quiet passing an Act of Indempnity for all save some few excepted which he seemed to approve so much of that in his cunning and cajoling way he gave them the name of the healing Parliament and then dissolved it calling another more to his purpose after which how he kept his Indempnity appears by his usage of the great and incomparable Sir Henry Vane Alderman Ireton Mr. Samuel Moyer Major Gladman c. taking away contrary to Faith the Life of the first imprisoning others without cause till they redeemed their Liberty by great Sums like Slaves in Algiers others standing it out till the Habeas Corpus Bill came in use after the withdrawing of Chancellor Hide which for seven or eight years had been denied or from the Iniquity of the Times durst not be moved for were freed by Law without Fines He pretended great zeal for the Reformed Religion with an Abhorrence of Poperty yet in favour of the latter endeavoured to set the Conformists at the greatest difference with the Dissenters by several Acts against the latter and severe Prosecution thereupon And this whilst at the same time all proceedings against the Papists in the Exchequer upon Conviction were stopped to the preserving of them when Protestant Dissenters were many of them ruined by close Imprisonments where they died he designing all a long no less than Popery and Slavery even when he pretended the contrary His two unjust costly and causeless Wars with Holland being in order thereunto as was the burning of London and the Popish Plot discovered by Dr. Oats yet rather than be thought to have any hand in the latter he suffered about twenty persons which he is strongly suspected to have imployed in it to dye for it When the burning of London the frequent subsequent Fires in Southwark St. Katharines and several parts of the City c. would not serve his ends he contrived a Protestant Plot for murthering of himself and as he untruly suggested introducing a Commonwealth and as the most probable Instrument as he thought tho therein mistaken Mr. Clapol a Son-in-law of Cromwel must be charged with it and without the least ground clapped up in Prison in the closest way and had not the real Popish Plot broke out he had surely been sacrificed to give Credit to the Forgery but Mr. Capol's unsuitable Principles to such a Design was enough to detect the Fraud and Villany he having been in the Civil Wars reckoned all a long a Royalist and Anti-Republican And thus ill Men are sometimes caught in
Dutchess of Orleance 〈…〉 agreed to break the Triple League to joyn with France against the Dutch and to satisfie the Swede for this Breach Mr. Henry Coventry was sent Ambassador to that Crown who procured from them the Dissolution of the League When this was done and we had recovered Breath after the Disgrace we received in the former War to have a Pretence for a second One of our Yachts was ordered in her coming from Holland to steer out of her Course and through the States Naval Fleet then riding at Sea that in case the whole Fleet did not strike to our Boat we might make that the ground of a Quarrel That great Commander de Ruyter then Admiral not thinking their Articles of Peace could be understood to reach such a little Circumstance did not answer our Demands or Expectation and for not doing it together with some Trivial Medals and Pictures which that People are much addicted to was made the Cause of a Quarrel-without Remedy and Dr. Stubbs as a fit Man for the Work was sent for out of the Country to maintain by Writing the Justice of our Cause which for 400 l. he performed the best he could by two large Pamphlets in the latter of which having been too free in his magnifying the wise and excellent Management of the War against the Dutch in that time called a Commonwealth when we first made known unto the World our Greatness at Sea in beating them when in their Zenith which cost with the Ships in that time Built 210000 l. this Pamphlet was for some time stopped till there being a necessity for it that it passed and when Stubbs was by a Friend of mine questioned how he could in Conscience write so falsly and injuriously against the Dutch He confessed He could write much more for them than he had done against them if he would After a Pretence for War was agreed on the next thing requisite was to find a Fund for the Charge which was very difficult for the Parliament having by woful Experience felt from ill Conduct the Burthen of the first War was unwilling to engage in a second but at last the new made Lord Clifford with the help of his Friends projected the stopping of all private Payments in the Exchequer for which as a Reward he had the Treasurers White Staff given him the Fund gained hereby being about 13 or 1400000 l. which was a loss to particular Creditors many of them 〈◊〉 ruined by it so that from the Immorality of the Project the Author of it deserved rather another Reward than that he received The War was commenced without any previous Declaration by falling upon their Smirna Fleet in the Chanel as we had done in the first War before Cadiz as they were upon their Voyage home wherein we miscarried as well to our Dishonour in being worsted as in beginning the War by Surprize In this War we should have had the Assistance of France and had a Squadron of that Kings Ships joyned us but in design only to teach them to fight sound our Coasts and not help us for as it is before mentioned that one Ship which from ignorance of the Intreague did fight the Captain of her at his return home was as is reported clapped up in the Bastile for hazarding his Masters Ship The Parliament perceiving the drift of the French to be the weakning of both Parties that at long run he might become Superior to either or both pressed the King to a Peace betwixt us and the Dutch which he tho unwillingly consented to for not knowing how to deny so just a request a Peace was concluded Now new measures were taken and a new Minister of State made choice of one intirely devoted to the Kings Will without reserve To gain the Kings ends a Majority of the Members of Parliament was corrupted by Pensions which were liberally bestowed upon such as were of depraved Principles fit for any mischief by which means every thing during some time brought barefaced into the House of Commons and afterwards by side-winds for the Kings particular Designs passed currently until the Court going too high for a standing Revenue the Pensioners suspecting that when that was gained their Pensions would cease they turned readily against the Court which caused them for gaining Mony from the Parliament to pretend a quarrel to France and in all haste to raise an Army to that end and to procure belief of their real Intentions a Book under the Title of Christianissimus Christianandus writ by Dr. Marchemond Needham was published rendring the French King so scandalous in all his Ways Actions and Designs as cannot be thought would have been writ without having first that King 's Leave for writing it The Parliament to take away from the King all Pretences of Complaint gave him a Supply by which he raised an Army but finding in the Issue that he was not real in his Pretensions for a War by refusing to declare War they pressed him to disband his new-rais'd Army and to effect the same gave him Money to do it with appointing Sir Gilbert Gerrard Sir Thomas Player Col. Whitley and Col. Birch to see it done who discharged the Trust reposed in them with all Fidelity and Honesty These Arts or Tricks used for the Service of the French King by which our Parliament was disobliged our King had no Cause to doubt but that that King would hold himself obliged to assist him and therefore he was applied to and probably he had gained from him a stipend of 300000 l. per Annum for some Years had not the Duke of Buckingham prevented it and upon what other Account than of being a Friend to his native Country is unknown However he did not only thereby irrecoverably lose the Favour of the Court but also drew so much the Hatred of it upon himself that he was prosecuted for a Crime which tho the Authors of the Prosecution made little Conscience of the thing themselves they hoped by it to have taken away his Life for being instrumental in preserving the Life of the Nation The Discovery of these and other pernicious Designs begot not without cause a great Jealousie in the Parliament of the Court and their Party which carried them on to the Addressing the King against some considerable Persons as evil Counsellors which was for some time avoided by Adjournments and Prorogations of Parliament till the horrid Popish Plot breaking out those Tricks could not longer hinder the impeaching several of them in Parliament for the highest of Crimes bringing one of them to the Block as had not Dissolution of Parliaments prevented it the rest in all likelihood had had the same Fate all of them having been arraigned at the Bar of the Lord's House where some pleaded Guilty in pleading the King's Pardon by which Time being got for arguing the Point till by the Dissolution of several Parliaments which was on purpose to prevent Justice they were unduly preserved for no
against the Pope and his Adherents the Designs of our late Governors have been for him and his Friends All the little tricks serviceable therein having been made use of as the imposing Consuls upon our Merchants abroad in places where they had never been before meerly at their charge to gratifie and oblige to them the worst of Men giving them Patents to levy Mony under pretence of their Office upon the Subjects without their consent contrary to the fundamental Liberties of England as was done at Amsterdam c. And the like vigorously endeavoured in behalf of a professed Papist at Roterdam but by the suddenness of our Revolution they failed in that And also another approach to Arbitrary Government was the passing by the Rules directed by the Law for chusing Sheriffs for the Counties and taking them at large as might be most serviceable to unlimited Will and Lust c. And such Practices as these were so many as are hardly to be enumerated and now having remembred these they with what goes before and our League with France for exalting him in order to his humbling and bringing us low one may think are enough to render those times and the Actors in them odious and unfit for future Trust nothing that comes from such tho never so plausibly delivered but the Integrity of it ought to be suspected For as formerly they cryed out of 41 as a Scarecrow that Notion being now worn thread-bare they have taken up that of a Commonwealth and the care of the Church to cousen the good People of this Nation into a jealousie of their best Friends whilst their Enemies work their ruin but it is hoped that experience hath made them wiser than to be so imposed upon by misapplying of Names The Word Commonwealth tho the Language of the Law was endeavoured to be made an obnoxious Character of all such as should speak of Law or expect the benefit of it and it is to be feared that the same Projectors do aim at the same Design in adding to the word Commonwealth the Care of the Church because a plausible Notion when it is in no danger except of reducing them to a more sober and vertuous Life and Conversation otherwise they would think it for the honour of the Church to have Men of Sobriety and Morality accounted Members of it and yet they will not allow any to be of the Church of England tho such as were never at a separate Congregation in their Lives and as ready and perfect in their Responses as any Cathedral Man whatever if free from Immorality and for ruling according to Law But it is no wonder that our Bigotted Churchmen who are the only Men I mean should be willing to forget Forty one and in place thereof to take up an outcry for Care of the Church because about that time the Committee for scandalous Ministers appointed by Parliament discovered great Lewdness and Ignorance in many of the Clergy and had not the War prevented their Proceedings they had at that time purged the whole Kingdom of insufficient Popishly affected superstitious and debauched Ministers but having no Command over any by reason of the War save such as were near hand they could not receive Information from above six or seven Counties which afforded them according to my Information not above three Centries the first of which having escaped the Flames of London is to be bought at Mr. Millers Bookseller near Paul's Church by which it appears they were so horridly scandalous that the Parliament could not have exposed the Church and therein the Bishops of those times for want of care in their Visitations had not Complaints from Oxford for having unjustly deprived them forced the Parliament for their own Vindication to make the Names of the particular Ministers with their Crimes known by publishing them in Print And if by the outcry of having a Care of the Church is meant the having such another Inquisition all sober Men will readily agree to it and if in the time of Charles the First of so celebrated a memory for Piety there was need of such an Inquiry into the Lives Conversations Popishly affected and Sufficiency of the Clergy it may well be thought much more needful after the several Reigns of his two Sons besides if they be not prevented they may as they have already begun go on in taking upon them the Legislative Power by farther Impositions in the Worship of God For though the Act for injoyning the Book of Common Prayer forbids both affirmatively and negatively any other Method or Form of Service Rights or Ceremonies than is there directed they are great Non-Conformists in disobeying that rule in several additions in approach to Popery as in their second Service c. as also in being superabundant to Popery in endeavouring to make a superstitious fashion to sit bare during Sermon which is but a new thing in England and not known in any other Christian Church for tho the Papists are bare in their Church out of Service time whom we indeavour to imitate in that circumstance yet they are covered during Sermon wherein we outgo them the reason for which I leave to themselves confessing I never understood any for the one more than for th' other and if it be objected that our Church doth not command being bare during Sermon yet they do it in making it uncivil to do otherwise And the Minister of Finchly not long since caused one for being covered whilst he was in his Sermon to be committed who bringing his Action against the Justice for false Imprisonment recovered good damages of him which tho sufficient to prove the Churches Usurpation in this matter they do notwithstanding go on in it as a part of that new Popery formerly intended by Laud in his time This may perhaps be thought Severity upon the Church but there is no general Rule without an Exception and I believe there are many good Men to be herein excepted tho the Generality are guilty and so bigotted that there is no obliging them or Quarter to to be had with them by any but such as themselves which is the unhappy Cause of our great Divisions at this time especially in the City of London and that which is worst of all without Remedy so long as nothing less than the Denial of Sense Reason and Morality will be allowed by our Bigots the Persons I only complain of as the Conditions of Union and Conversation and these following Instances may well be thought in some measure a proof hereof As The Lieutenancy refusing a Captain because it was objected against him that he had sixteen Years before heard that eminent Minister of the Gospel Mr. Jenkins now with God preach a Sermon As another was refused by one of their Captains being his Lieutenant for answering to the Question of What Minister he heard That he heard such an one a moderate Church-man Upon which he was told by the Captain that Moderation would not
were best to be all of a Mind Sworn before Sir George Treby Recorder of London Sept. 1681. The Information of Captain Henry Wilkinson Imprimis I the said Henry Wilkinson do declare and am ready to swear That on Saturday October the 8th 1681 about Five of the Clock in the Evening one Mr. Walter Baines came to Mr. Adams's Seller in the King's Bemch Prison and sent for me out of the Garden in the King's Bench who upon sight told me he was sorry to see me in that place and afterwards engaged me to accept of a Pot of Beer or Ale In the time of its drinking Mr. Baines shewed and expressed the greatest Kindness that could be expected from a Brother which made me believe he had some Design Then he desired to know what sort of Wine I would drink I told him not any besides the Cellar had none But he then called for Brandy which we had Then he told me Mr. Brownrig was sent Prisoner to York-Castle for Treason and for appearing for my Lord Shaftsbury And also the said Baines said he had sent a Note to my Lord Shaftsbury to demand fifty Shillings for Service and Charges that was due to him done for the Lord Shaftsbury at my Request as he pretends and that my Lord sent him word it was a Sham and a Cheat put upon him and therefore he would pay him no such Bill At the same he told me I could not but know much of the Lord Shaftsbury's Designs against the King and that I might do well to discover it to him who was ready to do me any Kindness and desired an Opportunity Also that he had been lately with Mr. Graham and that he had a great Interest with my Lord Hyde All this time I understood what was designing for my Kindness I constantly and truly told him I knew nothing of my Lord Shaftsbury's Designs against His Majesty Only this I did know formerly from Mr. Baines about three Months ago That he was then of an Opinion that Mr. Brownrig could discover some unlawful Practices against the Lord Shaftsbury which I confess I did wish might be discovered for although I have served His Majesty in England and beyond Sea and no other Interest and was as instrumental in His Majesty's Restoration as any Person of my Fortune could be so I am for his Continuance by all lawful Means and never to study the Destruction of his Friends or Enemies by unjust Designs I have cause to believe my Lord Shaftsbury loves His Majesty for he always was pleased to shew me Respect for that I had served His Majesty Now Night drew on for Mr. Bains to be gone all the time he stayed was spent with a great deal of Zeal upon me on the same Subject He told me I should have a Pardon and need not to fear it I would not deny his profer But he farther told me I should be considerably rewarded Neither did I deny that but told him When I was requited for my former Service I would serve his Majesty in what I could I saw here was a design laid and although I had reason to take it unkindly to have any thing fixed upon me or to make me an Instrument beyond my Knowledge yet I was resolved to humour the Business Upon which Mr. Baines took his Leave this Night and told me at parting he would in a few Days see me again but left me with such Promises as at present I cannot express not much questioning my Knowledge Item That on Tuesday October the 11th 1681. I was sent for to Mr. Weaver's House near the King's Bench to Mr. Booth who told me he was glad to see me but sorry to see us both in that Condition for he was a Prisoner as I was He told me he had removed himself last Night from one of the Compters I required of him how he came to be at a Waiter's House He told me it was not denied him although I could not be admitted one Night I understood he was engaged in the Design I considered he had been a Man of bad Principles therefore I was resolved to stand upon my Guard Presently he told me he was to tell me I had an Opportunity to be a better Man in my Fortune than ever I was before and that now I had an Opportunity to make my Fortune and that I might have Five Hundred Pounds per Annum setled upon me and my Heirs or Ten Thousand Pounds in Money which I pleased if I would discover what I knew of my Lord Shaftsbury and his Design in changing the Government to a Commonwealth and witness against him I replied and told him No Body would believe I should be made privy to such a Design if such a thing was being I had served His Majesty in England and beyond Sea He answered I was the likeliest Man to know for he knew I had served the King and had been slighted and neglected I told him That was true I answered him again I never desired any thing of His Majesty for my Service but that which would cost him nothing but only to have the Preference of others that never had been concerned in His Majesty's Service by way of Farm on part of His Majesty's Revenues He told me His Majesty knew me and that he was sensible of my Service and Sufferings and desired to gratifie me for he often told me Now was the time to do something which would advance me for it must now be a King or a Common-wealth for the Earl of Shaftsbury's Party would but only make use of me to slight me when their Business was done I told him I was with my Lord Shaftsbury the Night before he was apprehended and that Sir Thomas Armstrong was there a Person I knew out of Favour on purpose that he might speak out his full Mind but still told him I knew nothing of any Design I also told him I would say nothing nor appear at Court until I was considered for my Sufferings a thing I never expected and as for going to Court I never intended it But the more I told him I knew nothing of a Design the more he put me in mind of what Reward I might have in such Words that I ought to swear to it whether I knew any thing or nothing of the Business Now I fully saw the Design and though I stayed late at my Return I began to consider who I should make this Business and Design known to being a Stranger in the King 's Bench. I observed one who appeared to me to be a sober and sensible Person that Night I repaired to him and lest I should be tempted with what Offers were made I told him that I had a Design to commit a Secret to him whereupon I told him and desired him to put the same in Writing and that if I ever declared more than what I did then to him that was That I knew nothing of any Plot or Design against His Majesty intended by
he failed of his Design his tossing of Parliaments by Prorogations and Adjournments for bringing them to his bow not doing his work he projected for raising of Mony to supply the want of Parliaments the Dignity of Hereditary Baronets and to induce Gentlemen of the best Quality to give Credit to this pernicious Invention by accepting of it he gave them Precedence of all meerly Knights of the Bath and singly Knights Batchelors not being the younger Sons of Barons of whom they have no place but to make the Title more valuable and desirable he ingaged that the number should not exceed two hundred And all this under the Romantick pretence that every person accepting hereof should be obliged to maintain a certain number of Souldiers in Ireland to defend the Protestants against the Papists in that Kingdom and as a badge of their Duty adds a bloody Hand to their Coat of Arms yet with this Condition that each paying 1000 l. into the Exchequer they should be excused from that Service for notwithstanding the pretence in the Patent it was meerly a trick to get Mony without Parliaments As was the conferring Titles upon Women Scotch and Irish Titles upon Persons not having any Lands in either Country a thing not practised before And as to the Title of Baronet it may be observed that tho it is pretended against Papists those of that Religion were as forward to buy this Honour as others and thus he defrauded the People of the benefit of Parliaments by exposing for raising of Mony this and all other Honours to sale which hath been ever reckoned a mark of a depraved and corrupt Government And thus begun our governing by tricks hardly known before which continued till our present happy Change but this according to the Maxim of our Law That the King can do no wrong must refer to his evil Council and not to him This new Honour of Baronets was struck at by several succeeding Parliaments as illegal in the Institution as well as the end the first in being hereditary without annexing it to some place and the latter in depriving the Nation of their Security in the use of Parliaments But in a little time the Interest increased so much in the increase of their Number that nothing could be done to disannul this Project for notwithstanding the cajoling promise of not exceeding two hundred no limitation was observed the Number by falling the price to less than half tho obliged to have a Receipt out of the Exechequer for the whole 1000 l. being increased to near if not 1000. And in these and such like waies this celebrated Solomon spent a Reign of two and twenty years without bringing any Honour to the Nation but on the contrary through evil Counsel a Diminution of it to a great degree and when he had finished his Course left his Presidents to his Son Charles the 1st This King as no Man can deny followed his Fathers steps and in an higher degree affected absolute Monarchy wherein being obstinate it was fatal to him he was free from that open dissoluteness his two Successors have been since guilty of for the Nation not being then arrived at that impudent Profaness it is now come to the People were then modest in their Vices compared with these times yet Lewdness then as it hath ever since increased more and more helped forward by Bishop Laud's Advice in discouraging Piety and giving incouragement to Debauchery by aspersing sober Men with Nicknames as Puritans and Precisians c. promoting Arminianism the Doctrin of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance and then seconding this King's Father in publishing another Book of Sports giving Liberty on the Lords Day for all manner of Games as Foot-ball Cudgels c. injoyning the reading it in the Churches to the great grief of all serious Christians fearing God His Carriage in the State was as offensive as in the Church he called Parliaments meerly to serve his own turn without any eye to the Publick and when they did but enquire into any grievances as the Death of his Father who was violently suspected to be poisoned c. they were readily dissolved And in Ann. 1628. he forbid by Proclamation the speaking of Parliaments a high Arbitrary Act he passed indeed the Petition of Right asserting the Peoples Liberties but had no sooner given his Consent than he broke through all the Bonds of it illegally forcing the Payment of Tunnage and Poundage Ship-Mony Coat and Conduct Mony Knighthood Mony imprisoning Members for speaking in Parliaments To increase his Revenue monopolized contrary to Law most Commodities made an extrajudicial use of the Star Chamber to the fining and otherwise punishing of Gentlemen without cause removing them for their greater vexation out of their own Counties to Prisons in other Countries and to prevent Complaints had no Parliaments in twelve years nor then till compelled by the Troubles in Scotland to call one For though that Book falsly intituled this Kings for which his Admirers Saint him begins with his spontaneous calling of the Parliament in 1640. that Chapter made one of his own Party upon the reading of it throw the Book away saying If it begun with so known a Lie nothing less could be expected in it and therefore would not read it This Expression ought to be pardoned the King not being concerned in it both his Sons the two last Kings having confessed to the late Earl of Anglesea that their Father did not write the Book but that it was writ by Dr. Gaudin afterwards Bishop of Exeter He wrested the Statute for Forests to the Ruin of many by the inlarging them his Court was filled with Priests and Jesuits He caressed the Heads of that horrid and odious Rebellion in Ireland clapped up a Peace with them in order to bring those Cut-throats into England His Son Charles the 2d confessed that the Marquess of Antrim reckoned one of the massacring Rebels acted by his Fathers Commission and upon that account he had his Estate restored him by the Court of Claims he solicited the Duke of Lorain to bring his more than ordinary rude and wicked Army into England and all this besides his deserting Rochel after he had stirred them up to stand upon their defence promising them Relief to the ruin of the whole Protestant Cause as appears by the History of the Siege of Rochel These are but hints of some few of the Practices in his time which if not sufficient to suspend according to the Romish Rule the Sainting him till after an hundred years that his Vertues may be forgot Those that read Rushworth's Collections will find enough there for deferring the Solemnization thereof His Reign was so Arbitrary that I remember it was commonly said that the studying Proclamations which made a Volume as big as a Church-Bible was more necessary for Lawyers than their Books His endeavouring to impose a more superstitious and approaching Liturgy to Popery upon the Church of Scotland than ours in England
was by Oath obliged which causing him to abdicate the Government in running away and applying himself to the great Tyrant of the Earth for Help gave the People the Opportunity of asserting their natural Right in providing for their own Security by chusing King William and Queen Mary for their rightful and legal Sovereigns whom the Lord in Mercy bless with a long and prosperous Reign over us and whilst we give due Honour to the Instruments let us not forget ascribing the Praise and Glory due to Almighty God as the Author and Principal of our Deliverance and have always in a thankful Remembrance this and all other his saving Providences towards this poor Nation through several Reigns and Ages Whilst the Church of England was under Persecution in the Persons of the Bishops the President of Magdalen-College in Cambridge and the President and Fellows of Magdalen-College in Oxford they were full of Compassion and Brotherly Kindness towards Dissenters and ready to joyn with them for Redress of Grievances by the help of the Prince of Orange now King of England c. but were no sooner freed from their Fears of being superceded by Priests and Jesuits than headed by some who stood in need of a Party to render them considerable that thereby they might blot out the Remembrance of former Crimes than they forgot former Professions of Moderation and the Afflictions of their Brethren and to that degree that they caballed for increasing their Burthens and monopolizing all Employments to themselves by continuing the Sacramental Test though to the fatal detriment of the Kingdom for had not that Bar for trusting Dissenters been in the way Ireland in the Opinion of those that best know that Country might e'er this have been reduced to the saving most of the Blood and Treasure that hath been spent upon it and I fear the Blood so needlesly spilt will lie at their Doors that were the Authors of it It was the Dissenters that saved London-Derry and in that preserved Ireland for tho by the Artifice of some eminent Conformists the Honour was ascribed to Mr. Walker and his Party for which he got a Reward he did not deserve it appears by the Narrative of that Siege writ by Mr. Mackenzy Chaplain to a Regiment during the Siege and writ with that Candour and Faithfulness as carries its Testimony with it the Applause and Reward belonged to the Dissenters for even the Answer to this Book in behalf of Mr. Walker doth no way detect but rather gives it Credit But Mr. Walker being dead I shall forbear all farther Reflections upon him he having been a good-natured Man and what he did amiss being from the influence of others He confessed there were four Nonconformists in the Town for one Conformist and some say eight for one but the Authority being in the Church-men who were timerous if not worse you will find by Mr. Mackenzey's Relation that it was the Mobile who were Dissenters that saved the Place against the Will of the rest Now I suppose I may be censured as being discontented for want of Employment as not being able to qualifie my self To which I answer That those that know me know I never sought any Employment and if I had I have a Latitude to qualifie my self So that I may truly affirm that what I here write proceeds purely from Affection to my Country and the Cause of God The Town of London-Derry was at last relieved and as is said might have been six Weeks sooner with less difficulty and the saving of four or five thousand Lives which in that time died of Famine After the Relief of it Collonel Murrey and thirteen Troops of Horse who had done the greatest Service in defending of the Town were reduced and greatly suspected for no other Reason than because Dissenters and free from Debauchery tho we may observe that after Relief of the Town little of moment was done till His Majesty's happy Arrival save what was done by those called Inniskilling-men who tho not all Dissenters are much of their Judgment Friends to them and joyned with them which one would think might have recommended the rest of that sort to Employment in these difficult Times I do not aim herein at reflecting upon the Conformists in general for it must be confessed that there are many sober vertuous and religious Persons of that Judgment as London hath experienced in being contrary to what was designed by others providentially preserved by them as appears by the Opposition the present worthy and most deserving Lord Mayor hath met with from those that were Hectors for delivering up of Charters and joyning with Jeffreys c. in all Arbitrary and Tyrannical Ways and for no other Reason that we know than for his being next under God and Her Majesty by his wise Conduct in the Absence of the King the Preserver of this City and Nation in Peace and Safety for his Opposers were no sooner delivered by the Act of Grace from fear of Punishment for former Crimes than they returned with the Dog to his Vomit and with the Swine to the wallowing in the Mire of their corrupt Principles insomuch that I think one may without breach of Charity say That there is none who are not guilty of great ignorance that is for turning out the present Lord Mayor but such as would if they could turn out the King But I would not be understood in this to complain of any save the Bigots of the Church such as will not allow of any to be of their number who have Charity for those that are not of their Communion and have not the same Latitude in all Immorality as they have even to the taking away the Lives and Estates of innocent Men that are not of their minds by false Verdicts when it shall be in their power and that they may reach their own Members that exceed them in Vertue and Sobriety they nickname them with the Name of Common-wealths Men for since they cannot call them Drunkards Swearers nor Whoremasters they will call them something to render them as they think odious to the People and tho they have reason to know that from the experience the People have had of their Integrity and Uprightness they are not be cozened by injurious Names yet from Machivel's Rule That by calumniating boldly something will stick they continue their Reproach tho contrary to sense or reason Every Englishman that is not Knave or Fool being as much a Common-wealths Man as those they mean who are no more for a Republick than Magna Charta makes them But it hath had this effect to hinder the most useful Men from serving their King and Country to the great damage of both if it prove not their destruction in keeping up the way for advancing Folly Ignorance and Knavery by a bare restraining the choice of Officers to one Party which if continued must undo this Kingdom And for preventing the same it were to be wished that as in