and infamous a Person of such a lewd wicked and debauched life and conversation that no faith or credit is or ought to be given to his sayings and Depositions in this Cause Et aliter nescit deponere super reliquis non examinatur ex directione partis producentis Idem ad Interrogatoria ex adversa parte ministrata Ad primum secundum respondet that about Christmas last as near as he remembers the time the Lord North and Grey met this Respondent in Whitehall and ask'd this Respondent whether he knew one Elliot that was a Priest or to that purpose and at first this Respondent could not recollect whether he did or not but upon further discourse and enquiry finding that he had been of Cajus Colledge in Cambridge this Respondent did remember him and told his Lordship that he knew the said Elliot to be a very Rogue and a lewd debauched liver and that he had been Circumcis'd and had received Orders from the See of Rome or to that purpose Et aliter nescit respondere saving that just after the former discourse between this Respondent and his said Lordship which he hath predeposed his Lordship askt this Respondent whether he thought it not fit that the said Elliot should be taken up or apprehended and asked this Respondent how it might best be done and as near as he can remember this Respondent advised him to get a Warrant from Sir William Waller for him and saving the said Lord North then asked this Respondent whether he could justify the said Elliot was a Romish Priest to which this Respondent replied that he believed he could or to that purpose Ad tertium Respondet that the next day after the Sunday whereon the said â—ord North and this Respondent had the discourse predeposed of the said Elliot was taken and brought before Sir William Waller Et aliter nescit respondere Ad quartum respondet that he did seo the said Elliot before Sir William Waller but did not hear him examined Ad quintum interrogatorium Respondet that being advis'd and told by the Lord Chancellor that since the said Elliot had taken Orders in the Church of England that his so doing had swallowed up all other Orders and therefore there could be no proceedings against him for being a Romish Priest or to that effect as he remembers this Respondent did tell the said Sir William Waller that he had nothing to alleadge or say against the said Elliot Et aliter nescit respondere Ad sextum nescit saving the Interrogatory Sir William Waller did at this Respondents instance clear or dismiss the said Elliot Ad septimum respondet that the time when the Lord North and Crey had discourse with this Respondent about the said Elliot as he hath predeposed he told this Deponent that the said Elliot had bely'd him and his Lady and had injured him and as he thinks told this Respondent that the said Elliot had been a Witness against him concerning a Will in a suit depending at Doctors Commons between his Lordship and the Lady Dowager Grey Aliter non meminit Ad octavum respondet that he is well acquainted with the Character of Sir William Waller and believes the Schedule or Certificate now shewn unto him is totally wrote and subscribed by the proper hand-writing of Sir William Waller Ad nonum refert se ad praedeposita quae dicit esse vera Ad decimum dat causas sciend ut supra These are the Depositions of Titus Oates against me which did not flow from a precipitate rashness or inconsiderate passion but were the advised result of six months deliberation subscribed by his own hand and grounded upon the same motives of Credibility with his discovery of the Popish Plot even his Oath and most solemn Invocation of the dreadful God to avenge himself upon him who beareth false witness against his Neighbour The charge against me in these his Depositions is intollerably grievous even abstracting from the sacredness of my Function and considering me barely as I am a member of a Christian and Protestant community and truly the conclusion of his Depositions in these words that I am so vile and infamous a person of such a wicked lewd and debauch'd life and conversation that no faith is or ought to be given to my sayings and Depositions in that Cause as it plainly shews the design of Oates's appearing against me viz. to oblige the Lord North and to invalidate my testimony in behalf of the Lady Dowager Grey so it is a very rational consequence which the Doctor is seldom guilty of for indeed if I am truly and justly charged by him I confess my self not only unworthy of credit in that cause but in all others but if he has sworn falsly against me then I hope the conclusion will be equally applicable to himself and that the Doctor ought not to be believ'd either in his Depositions against me or any other person Now I do in the presence of the almighty and all-seing God declare that what Titus Oates has sworn against me is meer calumny and malicious wilful detraction and slander and absolutely false and that whosoever might excite or encourage the Villain to this base and unworthy undertaking yet certainly the Enemy of Mankind must have been mainly concern'd in the wicked contrivance and the Doctor by his shameless impudent lying and false swearing has plainly evidenc'd himself to be the Son of a Devil by manifest characters and features lineally extracted from the Father of Lies and accuser of the Brethren But here I expect some Readers may probably cut me short and tell me that by asserting Doctor Oates to be forsworn I insinuate as if the Popish Plot were but a feignment and a meer whim of the Doctor 's invention at least I reflect most severely upon his Discoveries for if he can be found but once to have sworn falsly the credit of his Depositions immediately sinks and every man for the future will think himself oblig'd to disbelieve his Narrative To this I answer that his Majeâ—â—… and Council have declar'd that there is a Popish Plot and therefore I have reason to believe one for the King is as an Angel of God and has means of Intelligence that far transcend my little sphere or any Subjects so that in despight of these objections Oates has laid in the way I do really believe the existence of a Popish Plot but withall I do declare I do not believe one syllable thereof from beginning to ending upon account of the Doctors Depositions and if it be criminal to deny it or call it in question the truth and being of which is ascertain'd by his Majesties Declaration in Council and by the Votes of the House of Lords and Commons in Parliament then certainly there is abundant matter of Information against one Titus Oates a Salamanea-Doctor who for these three years past has industriously endeavour'd to discredit it and by contradicting
A MODEST VINDICATION OF TITUS OATES THE Salamanca-Doctor FROM PERJURY OR AN ESSAY TO Demonstrate Him only Forsworn in several Instances BY ADAM ELLIOT Master of Arts and a Priest of the Church of England Deliver my soul O Lord from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue What reward shall be given or done unto thee thou false tongue even mighty and sharp arrows with hot burning Coals Psal 120. Hic putat esse Deos pejerat aspice quanta Voce neget quae sit ficti constantia vultus Tam facile pronum est superos contemnere testes Aut nullo credit mundum rectore moveri At que ideo intrepidus quaecunque Altaria tangit Juv. Sat. 13. LONDON Printed for the Author and are to be sold by Joseph Hindmarsh at the Black-Bull in Cornhill 1682. THE INTRODUCTION THE most Notorious Salamanca-Doctor Titus Oates after having signaliz'd his prodigious Parts by the Destruction of several eminent Persons and hazarding the lives of God knows how many more after having miraculously sav'd his Majesties Person from Poyson screw'd Guâ—… and Consecrated Dagger and freed three Nations from imminent ruine after having defeated the designs of Rome and the plots of the greatest Politicians in the world though they had been hatching these 100 years past and all this by meer Buke-blawing and to the astonishment of the whole Christian world by the breath of his mouth was at last put upon it to try an expeririment or two to fix Property which by Wise heads that is by Needy or Covetous persons who wanted Bishops or Crown-Lands was thought to be in equal danger with our Religion For if for example he could swear a friend to the cause into the right of forty or fifty thousand Pounds which the Law it seems was so scrupulous in as not to understand then true Protestants might have a compendious and infallible way to secure their Property against the encroachments of whatsoever Arbitrary that is Legal power In order to effect this wonderful project he was pleased unhappily both for himself and me at the instigation of what Lord or Devil the Lord knows to bestow a cast of his office on a friend who shall be nameless and to stoop an oath or two at his service against so mean a person as my self not only engaging his Verbum Sacerdotis in several Companies yea even where men ought to be very furious before the King but also Swearing invocating the sacred Majesty of God who will one day call him to account for it to witness to the truth when he asserted that I was a Mahumetin and had been thereupon Circumoised and that also I was a Popish Priest having received Orders from the See of Rome by the former charge making me unworthy of credit or reputation uncapable of the advantages of converse amongst Christians and by the later the milder indeed of the two aiming only at my life which as being a Popish Priest is forfeited to the Law I must indeed confess of all kinds of Deaths I have the least fondness to be hanged and I hate mortally that the butcherly Executioner should be rummaging amongst my Entrailes neither can I apprehend any pleasure in being drawn up Halborn hill upon a Hurdle therefore it was that I had no mind to appear either a Renegado or a Popish Priest and I thought my self oblig'd both by the Laws of God and Man to preserve my life as long as I could and to vindicate my reputation from infamy and assert my just and honest title to the comforts of humane society and that I have no ways deserved to be proscrib'd the Communication of Christians To this purpose I made my application to the Law for satisfaction and had the Doctor arrested in an Action of the Case for Defamation The Cause was tryed before the Right Honourable Sir Francis North L. C. J. of his Majesties Court of Common Pleas June the 30th last past where the issue went upon my side and the Jury brought the Doctor in guilty allowing me 20 l. Damages which small summ though by many it was lookt upon as very inconsiderable and disproportionate to the dammages wherewith the Doctor had affected both my Reputation and my Purse yet by another party it was lookt upon with a sore eye to see their Goliah who had for some time past hector'd and swore for the cause foil'd if not knock'd down by so mean a person as my self They admired my insolence in offering to defend my life when the Doctor was pleased to swear it from me they inveighed against me as a narrow selfish soul far from a publick spirit who would not rather be hang'd than the Doctor 's veracity should be liable to any suspicion a man who had laid himself out and ventur'd all for the good of the Nation yea who is the Saviour of the Nation said prudent Sh. Pilk Notwithstanding all which I cannot but be of this faith that it is more convenient for me that the Doctor should swing than I as for his all that he has ventur'd I never heard of any thing he had to venture unless his all i. e. his Soul which to my knowledge is deeply engag'd And as for his being stil'd the Saviour of the Nation it is Scandalum Magnatum in the highest degree the Title is most arrogant and intimates a Blasphemous relation to the Saviour of the world a most odious Comparison 'twixt the Merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ and those of Titus Oates for which there cannot be the least reason or foundation of Analogy unless that as it was judg'd necessary notwithstanding Oates preach'd to the contrary that our Saviour should be crucified that the world might be sav'd so it should be thought convenient that Oates might be hang'd that so our Nation perish not Then indeed he might sustain some Relation even the same that the Blasphemous Thief had to our Saviour when he was on the Cross and in some sense he might be call'd the Saviour of our Nation but otherwise the Title is intolerable and he must first be hang'd before by any propriety of speech it can agree to him There are a Party of men I say who finding what an intractable morose uncomplaisant humour I am of and that by refusing to be accounted a Popish Priest or a Circumcis'd Mahumetan the Doctor has fallen under a shrewd suspition of Perjury and may in time put in his claim to the Pillory though with the forfeit of his Ears Therefore it is that they have us'd all base unworthy arts to blacken my reputation and seeing it was manifestly prov'd in Court that the Doctor had frequently uttered those scandalous words which tended to my Defamation they give out now that I was the first Author of them my self and what the Doctor said or swore concerning me was only what he heard me say of my self thus endeavouring to affix as notorious a mark of Folly to my name as before he would of Villany Therefore
be endur'd by any True Protestant says the Captain speak your pleasure of me says he but do not blaspheme the venerable Doctor the Doctor continued I if he depos'd with no more truth against the Jesuits than he did against me they died Martyrs At this the Captain rises and runs away to Sir Robert Booth a True-Protestant L. C. J. of the Kings Bench and makes affidavit that I said that Titus Oates was a Rogue and the five Jesuits Martyrs To be short I was sent for by a Tipstaff bound over to answer at the Kings-Bench the near approaching term when I was indicted for these very words found guilty and fin'd 200 l. and imprisonment until I paid it At the same time comes over from England a pretended character of Adam Elliot directed to a Gentleman of Quality in Dublin who was desired to disperse Copies of it it was subscribed North and Grey and was a base malicious Libel stufft with lies and impudence it is Scandalum Magnatum any person professing Honour and Honesty as the Author of it He asserts upon his honour that I was expell'd the University of Cambridge that I was a Jesuit that I was a Renegado and a Mahumetan that I was a Felon that I was a Murderer that I was guilty of Forgery and particularly that I combin'd with Ralph Lord Grey of Werk and with him forg'd the last Will of his Father William Lord Grey to the prejudice of the Lord North of above 30000 l. This infamous character howsoever most abominably and from the beginning to the end false yet coming under the specious recommendation of a Person of Honour did much prejudice me especially with the concurrence of my other misfortunes so that I was rendered very odious and vile insomuch that my confinement was my best security for if I had walkt the Streets I had been in danger of being ston'd At length after this violent ferment of the Peoples hatred by a little time as is usual had begun to abate the Privy Council upon my Petition were pleas'd to consider my condition as thinking that I had met with very hard measure for speaking a few words which were by the severest construction the result only of passion and inadvertency and being pretty well satisfied of my good inclinations to the Church of England and Ireland as by Law established as also to the Government and my aversion to Popery and withall considering how I labour'd under the calumnies and slanders of a scandalous Libel apparently false and design'd out of malice to ruin my reputation and that I had no way to do my self right so long as I was under confinement they were pleas'd to order my releasement upon Bail until the next Term and then I satisfied the Law and was discharg'd After my departure from London for Ireland the Lord North perceiving how much a propô it would be to invalidate my testimony viz. that excellent invention of Circumcision for though a Papists Oath may be taken yet no man sure will believe one who has renounc't the Christian Faith he renews his sollicitations to the Doctor to swear against me in the Court of Delegates the Doctor who us'd not to swear lightly and in vain i. e. for nothing seem'd shy at first but having heard that I call'd him a Rogue and the Jesuits Martyrs he comply'd with the desire of his good Friend the Lord North who at that time the Reader must take notice was a Petitioning Lord that is one of those Lords who subscrib'd and presented a Petition to his Majesty for the sitting of the Parliament and therefore was by all obliging offices to be caress'd and retain'd The Reader is likewise desir'd to take notice that at the Lord Stafford's Tryal Oates swore that a certain Lord sent him a 100 l. but he neither tells us who nor for what so that whether this remark be to the purpose or not I cannot as yet tell Oates's Depositions against me upon Oath are as followeth 4 to Maii 1680. Super Allegatione articulata ex parte Domini North and Grey ejus Uxoris quarto Martii 1679 juxta c. data 18 o ejusdem mensis admissa Titus Oates Sacrae Theologiae Professor Vicarius Vicariae de Bibbin in Com. Cantii aetatis suae 32 o aut eo circiter natus apud Okeham in Com. Rutlandiae Testis productus juratus examinatus deponit prout sequitur viz. AD. 11 12 Articulos dictae Allegationis deponit That he knew Mr. Elliot now a Minister whose name he thinks Adam in the year 1667 in the Colledge of Cajus in Cambridge and as near as he can remember he was then Pupil to Mr. Simon Bagg or Mr. John Ellis one of which as the said Elliot confessed he the said Elliot did beat at which time and during the time of this Deponents knowledge of him in the said Colledge which was for about the space of a year he the said Elliot was a poor Schollar maintained by some of the Doctors of the Vniversity as he confest to the Deponent but for his rude riotous whoreing and debauch'd living they withdrew his maintenance as he complained to this Deponent And the said Adam Elliot hath confessed that he went a Deer-stealing and the said Elliot rob'd a Study in Cajus Colledge and would have sold this Deponent some of the Books he took from thence He further saith that after the said Elliot was gone from the said Vniversity and in the year 1670 or thereabouts the said Elliot did write to the Rector of St. Omers and gave him an account that he had received Orders and was a Priest and had sung high Mass at the English Colledge at Rome which Letter this Deponent saw in the year 1677 juxta c. and afterwards the said Elliot was carried a Slave into Barbary and there as it was reported generally and credibly was Circumcis'd and as he confessed did give poyson to his Master or Patron After which returning to Rome he made his Recantation which this Deponent hath seen under his own hand as this Deponent believes having been well acquainted with his Character He further saith that in the year 1673 the said Elliot living in Kent did lead a very dissolute debauched life and was much given to Drinking Whoreing Lying and Swearing that to be true which was not so And he saith that he hath seen a Letter subscribed as from the Bishop of Meath in Ireland the purport of which was that Elliot was indicted in Dublin before the Lord Chief Justice Booth for saying that this Deponent was a perjured Rogue and that the Jesuits that were hanged for high Treason died Martyrs and that there was no such thing as a Popish Plot or to that effect upon which the said Elliot was convicted and fined 200 lb. and was to be imprisoned till the said Fine was paid or to that purpose And this Deponent doth verily believe that the said Elliot was and is so vile