nothing to deprive the Lords and the Prime Officers of State of their respective Places of Trust because they refused to give their consent to the thing Is this any thing else but to shed the Blood of the whole Kingdom by Apostate Judges and Slaves to the Court as the Prince complains in his Declaration Is it nothing to have obstructed the free Elections of Members to serve in Parliament by depriving them of all manner of Liberty and making them to depend on the Court by so many Cabals so many Violences and Injustices All these Articles deserve to be considered somewhat more than that of the Invalidity of Judgments given by Popish Judges It must needs be that in all these Points this great Advocate who is so profuse of Words and Reflections found nothing to say in favour of his Hero and against the Prince For he that speaks so much elsewhere would not otherwise have been silent in this matter After this take his word for it and believe him when he tells you that if any thing deserves reprehension in the King's Conduct it was so inconsiderable that Posterity will be astonished that there are Christians found in these Ages who are so barbarous as upon that occasion to give so ill treatment to so good a King whom all Histories will own to have possessed very Royal Qualities And in the sequel he attributes a Great Heart and a Great Soul to him This Author differs very much from himself or from one of his Friends who writ the Letter of M. to M. upon the Affairs of the Times for instead of ascribing to him Royal Qualities therein whil'st they manifest their discontent and murmuring they treat him as a Man who in his conduct was destitute both of Sense and Prudence and as one who has done just so much as was necessary to destroy himself That Great Prince seemed to have neither Heart nor Head in all that Affair We know well enough what is believed of him and what has been said of him in Paris since they have enjoyed his presence It is certain that so many as have known him whether Friends or Enemies do all agree that instead of Royal Qualities he was endowed with an Extreme Fierceness with a very little Spirit and a Heart in a degree below mediocrity But if he were the most considerable Person in the World it is very certain that he abused his power and this is enough to justifie the English Nation If he had had no other Quality but that of a declared Papist it were enough to make him incapable to Reign in England For it is unspeakable folly to alledge that a Popish Prince can be King of England a Kingdom that is altogether Protestant and in which according to the most impartial calculation those Papists who live there are nothing in comparison The English Nation have abdicated this Error as well as the powerful Cause of it It was not possible for her to be kept in it for any long time There were in France a Million of Protestants and that party was in a condition of making head against the other when it was declared to Henry IV. that the King of France must of necessity be a Catholick From the same infected Source do spring two great Articles to prove that the Free Parliament about which the Prince made so great a Noise in his Declaration and which was the great Hinge of the Motions of the Kingdom is as great a Chimera as a Mountain without a Valley considering the condition into which the Prince had reduced the Nation by his Invasion All this effusion of Words may be reduced to two Arguments The first That to make a Parliament free the King must of necessity have at least as great Liberty as the Members of Parliament that he may be in a capacity to propose to and demand of them whatever he pleases This Article may be very well questioned for the Definition of a Parliament does not consist in a liberty that the King has to demand and to propose He has always enough and oftentimes he loses a great deal The nature of a free Parliament lies in this that the Members thereof have been freely elected by the Counties Cities and Burroughs and where the said Members may speak their Opinions even in opposition to the King's pleasure without danger It was a long time since there were such Parliaments in England For it is known in what manner those were treated who durst oppose the King's Will But let us suppose what he says that the nature of a free Parliament does require that the King have a perfect Liberty as aforesaid Who hindred this Liberty If James II. upon the Prince's arrival in Exeter had of his own accord given his consent to the calling of a free Parliament there might have been sufficient assurance given as of a thing most certain that he might have had all manner of freedom to propose to speak and to demand of the Parliament whatever he pleased Who would have barr'd him from this He had his Guards he had his Army consisting of about 40000 Men against ten or twelve thousand whom the Prince had taken with him It is certain that the Army would have proved faithful to him and not one person would have joyned with the Prince against him if at that instant the King had called a free Parliament But God who intended to Ruine him did leave him to be blinded and made obstinate by Popish Counsels so as not to consent to the sitting of a free Parliament The Papists had reason to give him such Counsel but the King was very much in the wrong to take it The Papists had reason for a free Parliament had ruined them as it did the King in the issue and reduced them to a worse condition than they were then in but the King had no reason to follow that counsel for it is not to be doubted but that it was better for him to Reign under the Restraint of the Laws which hindred the Establishment of his Religion than not to Reign at all That which we alledge viz. That the King had nothing to fear as to his Person and Dignity if he had called a free Parliament at the first is not a bare conjecture There is no English Man but says it and is ready to depose it upon Oath And in my opinion every one of them ought to know what he thinks but that which perverted the Army and provoked the People is that fierceness with which the King rejected the Request which was presented to him at London at that time by Fifteen or Twenty Lords as well Spiritual as Temporal and which was afterwards back'd with a more considerable number Then it was seen that the Religion Laws and Liberty of the Kingdom lay at stake and that if the King should get the better of the Prince they were to expect the last extremity of Rigour And this made the face of things to change in
well informed of the Affair for requiring that the business should be examined in Parliament He does not at all affirm that the Prince of Wales was supposititious he only demands an assurance of his Birth There is nothing more just and natural At that time his Majesty had not as yet seen the depositions which James II. caused to be taken thereupon but if he had seen them they were not capable of affording him any assurance for first there were none almost found amongst the Witnesses but such as were suspected Persons Officers Pensioners and the Kings Domestic Servants Secondly all that the Queen Dowager the most part of the Lords and Ladies said may be true and yet the Child that was Born not be Born of the Queen for the Assistants who are at the Beds Feet and in a Corner of the Chamber know not what is laid in the Bed nor whence it came which is taken out of it In the last place the depositions that were taken in the Kings presence are for that very reason altogether invalid and insufficient This is a ground good enough for what the Prince says in his Declaration which is the most plain and the most modest imaginable That there are great Presumptions that oblige us to believe that these Evil Counsellors for promoting their own pernicious designs and for gaining of time to execute them spread a report that the Queen was delivered of a Son that during this pretended bigness of the Queen as well as in the circumstance of the Birth and the methods that were used for the management of it there appeared so many just and visible suspitions that the pretended Prince of Wales was not brought into the World by the Queen There could no less be said upon so important a subject King James ought to justify himself from this in the face of the World are not Princes to take care of their Reputation Is it not this that secures them How could King James think to be free from being insulted over by a Nation which looked upon him as a Master of Intrigue and Audacity and as an unnatural Father and Prince And there is no Prince in the World against whom we can more reasonably conceive this suspition he who runs a risque of losing three Crowns and at last did really lose them for his Religion does in effect shew that he had it and that he was not like his Predecessor who had none but likewise the same thing gives us to understand that he could venture all other things for the sake of his Religion for Men of the World who dare run a risque of losing their Crowns to compass their ends may very well venture their Reputation the Blood of their Subjects and all things else to satisfy their own humour Indeed the rest of his Conduct made it appear that he was capable of sacrificing all even to his conscience for the sake of his Religion His Majesties moderation having sufficiently appeared in his Conduct in the forementioned Passages there follows some instances of His Majesties Justice in his late expedition who as has been said Acted first as the Presumptive Heir of the Crown at least under the Title of his Royal Consort and that in this quality he justly proviâ—ed for the security of the Kingdom which was to descend to him one day He hindered the subversion of the Laws and Religion and justly though it had been in opposition to his own Father if James II. had been such I have proved that a Son and Heir of a Kingdom is obliged by his own interest by that of the People and by what he owes to God to oppose a Father who brings the Realm to imminent ruin and reduces the Religion to a State of Desolation Secondly his present Majesty did bear the Character of an Enemy not to King James not to the Nation but to the Tools his Father-in-Law made use of for the overthrow of Religion and the Laws He passed not into the Kingdom forcibly as the General of the Dutch Army He entered in his own Name to Declare War against the Enemies of the Kingdom and of the Protestant Religion who had raised an Army for the subversion of the Laws and of the Church Thus by the Laws of a just War if ever there was one such he could summon his Enemies to lay down their Arms to yield themselves for avoiding the Effusion of Blood he could demand assistance and Military Aid from all those who loved their Liberty and Religion When a King is become the Enemy of the State of the Laws and of God there is nothing then owing to him and James II. was such a one We come to another thing viz. That which King William III. did at his first Arrival in England His design being lawful and just viz. for setting up a Standard for Liberty and Declaring War against the Enemies of Religion and of the Laws he was obliged to do whatever tended to that end It was no Usurpation of the Royal Authority It is a circumstance the nature of which does depend on the ground on which the Expedition was founded and therefore upon the plainest reason we may see who is in the right and who is in the wrong in this matter As to the Refusal of the Mayor and the Clergy of Exeter to execute the Prince's Orders for acknowledging him and opening their Churches this is of no advantage to the contrary Party nor does contribute any wise either to the Honour or Disgrace of the Magistrates and Clergy of that City but this reflects on James II. for that Reservedness was an effect of the dreadful consternation that they were in and which was occasioned by the Calamities that King James had brought upon that and other Countries in the West after the Duke of Monmouth's defeat The Trees and the Ways were as yet generally covered with the dead Bodies of those poor Creatures who were made Sacrifices to the most cruel Rage that ever was exercised It was judged sufficient that the Magistrates and the Canons of Exeter were held under that Fear for so soon as they saw themselves secure by the Arrival of the Princes Forces they expressed their joy by such transcendent marks that evidenced the transport they were in yet they did not cease too pray to God for King James till the Convention gave order concerning it The Prince of Orange did not Act as a King at his first Arrival We have not heard that he seized any part of the Royal Revenue and it is not but that he had just cause enough so to do For those who managed the King and tyranized over the Kingdom did convert the same to pernicious Uses for the oppression of Liberty and Religion he might very well without Injustice take it out of their hands There follows now a Narrative of what the Lords Hallifax Nottingham and Godolphin said to the Prince in Pursuance of the Commission that they had from James II. and of the
Walls with the ground to Plunder the Town several times to quarter an Army at discretion in a small subjected Country and which never made any Resistance to Imprison the principal Inhabitants of that small State and to commit against them the utmost Violences It is not to Orange only that his Majesty has found Pretenders In Burgundy in the Franch county and every where else where King William had Possessions and Lands there were not wanting Houses of Longueville in favour of which the Lands of a Prince were seised with which the Usurpers had nothing to do and by such base Artifices as have begot the hearty Concern of all Princes they opposed William of Nassau on all occasions when he could not defend himself without ever declaring War against him These are Instances of a base and unworthy Revenge for two Kings to take For the English King was in League with Lewis to Abandon his Son-in-Law to Rapin and Desolation This is one of the Obligations that the Son-in-Law has to his Father-in Law and for which public Fame bears him upon her Wings for a stupendous Example of Ingratitude The Prince has already sustained damage enough in his Principality of Orange and Lands of Burgundy by his Father-in-Law's good Offices But I cannot say but he will demand new Costs and Charges at the Hands of the most Christian King We shall see if he can hold out to be as easily Victorious over William III. King of England as he laid desolate the Possessions of William of Nassau BURGER of the Hague for so the Prince was called at Paris This Burger of the Hague begins now to strike Terror in the Grand Seignior of Versailles who has been so terrible to many and I am very apt to think that his fear will not prove to be in vain and that the mighty Mounsieur shall not escape so The same Author tells us that we must shew standing Laws that allow a Son as the next Heir to the Crown to make himself his Father-in-Laws Judge to invade his Kingdom with a Fleet of five hundred Ships Indeed this Orator would not have done amiss to have spared his Breath to have reserved his Rhetoric and his Eloquence to Answer the Demands that William of Nassau in all likelihood will make ' ere it be long to Lewis XIV for if it should so happen that he prove the stronger one day he has very good reason to call him to an account and ask him by what Laws he invaded and retained Lorain and possessed himself of Strasburg in the time of Peace by what Laws he laid the principality of Orange Desolate and treated the same as a place subjected to him by an absolute Conquest why he reduced the Palatinate and the Towns and Villages on the Rhine to Ashes treating it as a Country destined by the most Savage Proscription to perpetual Desolation and why he seizes the Possessions of every one and keeps Faith with none This insolent Author repeats the Case of the De Wits and imputes the Misfortunes that befel them and others to King William whom he alledges to have managed the Multitude for the accomplishment of his Designs But was it during the Years of his Minority or after they were past that he gained the Multitude Did he Court that small People Did he require any thing of them Did he complain to them of the wrongs that had been done to him Was there one Man of that People to whom he was personally known or with whom he had the least Conversation imaginable As for the then deposed Magistrates if they were Established by Law they were laid aside by Law This is done by the order of the States of Holland who are the Sovereign Governours of the Province This was to put a stop to the Rage of the People who being reduced to the brink of Destruction seized on the Magistrates right or wrong There were no other means left of dispelling that Mist but by changing the Governours And to be short this business was not carried on by a suddain Enterprise but was managed with a great deal of Prudence All the Magistrates who were rejected were Enemies to the Prince who being invested with the Office of General Stadtholder and placed at the Helm of the Government was obliged to put in such Magistrates as were on his own side otherwise they had torn the Commonwealth by their contrary Methods and the State would have been thereby infested with such Divisions that would have exposed it to unavoidable Ruine As for the Elections in their Cities The Prince in managing them used no force made no use of the settled Army he Besieg'd no Town Imprison'd no Person by his own Authority When there was a design of puting into Offices such Persons as could not have that Correspondence with him that was necessary amongst the Governours of a Common-wealth He only made use of the Authority of the States and of the Court of Judicatory according to the Laws and Rights by which he held his Office and his Character great were The Cries and Lamentations saith the same Author for the Ships that were destroyed which he had disposed of without the Consent of the City of Amsterdam to which they did belong He means the Fleet that was cast away returning from the Sound in the Month of November Anno. 1683. this Man has impudence enough to impute to the Prince the Shipwrack of all the Vessels that have been lost by Stormy Weather since the Year 1672. and to think him answerable for all the Works of Heaven If the City of Amsterdam had not advised the sending out of that Fleet his Consent could not have been necessary When the charge of a Naval Force is computed and agreed upon by the States it may be disposed of by the Admirals and the Admiralities according to their own Prudence with the Suffrages of the major part of the Counsel for the good of the Common-wealth provided they do not engage in a War without their consent If there was no good understanding at that time betwixt the City of Amsterdam and the Prince that was the result of the Intrigues of France which by a Diabolical Artifice sowed Divisions in the Cities and Members of the States The violent Suspitions he goes on though he frequently gave of making himself the Master of those whose Minister he only was He never gave cause to such violent Suspitions but it was the Instruments of the French King who raised them for they were continually imployed to diffuse Jealousies through the State against the Prince There was none of his most innocent Actions that they did not misrepresent In their Judgment it was Criminal for him to maintain his own Rights against those who had a design to Invade them They had made so great a Progress before the Year 1672. by this Conduct and by the Jealousies they had kindled in Men's Minds against the House of Orange that there was no Defence left against their
design of Establishing his own Religion He had therefore a design to destroy all others and consequently to ruin the English Church the Presbyterians and the Independants for it is known by the whole World that the Popish Religion never looks upon her self to be Established till once she has made her Way through the Ruins of all other Religions Secondly This Author endeavours to prove that the Prince only fought a pretence against his Father-in-Law Because saith he he reproaches him for having suspended then Penal Laws in Favour of the Roman Catholics and has not considered him as having also suspended them in behalf of the Presbyterians and other Sectaries as if it were possible for him to have transgressed the Limits of his Power with respect to the one and not to the other He calls this an unreasonable distinction c. All this is nothing else but a piece of affected malice and ignorance This mighty Lawyer ought to know that the Penal Laws were only enacted against the Papists The Oaths if there were nothing else do sufficiently attest this They were made against those who believe the Pope to be the Head of the Church that there is another Jurisdiction within the Realm then that of the King that there is such a thing as Transubstantiation and that the Invocation of Saints is no Idolatry There are no Protestants who believe there things It is not against them that the Penal Laws and the Oaths were made but if the Penal Laws some few Years ago were extended to the Presbyterians that was done by evil designs of James Duke of York who did sow Divisions betwixt the two Parties and therefore the Prince ought to have taken it in good part that he did relax then as to the Presbyterians because that is consonant to the purport and true meaning of the Penal Laws and he ought to have taken it in ill part that the same Favour was allowed to the Roman Catholics because that is contrary to the express Decisions of the Law All the Penal Laws were made to serve as a Bulwark not only for the English Church but for all Protestants in general and therefore all Protestants of all sides set themselves against the Declaration of Liberty of Conscience in general because they saw very well whither that did tend Besides the Addresses by which this Author would prove that the Presbyterians â—â—ok'd upon the suspension of the Penal Laws as an obligation that they owed to the King were nothing else but cunning Artifices and Suppositions for the most part or made by three or four Quakers Independants or Papists who presented those Addresses without the consent of their Respective Bodies in whose name they yet pretended to speak This we know by good hands and we have derived the Account we have had hereof from the very Fountain and it appeared sufficiently by the Unanimous concurrence of those Communities on whom the said Addresses were Fathered with the Prince of Orange The Author concludes this Reflection with two confiderations The first is a mighty Elogy on the Roman Religion which he commends by reason of its Antiquity and Extent by it's Sanctity and the Saints it has given to England The other consideration is of the Power that the Church of England allows the King in Spiritual Causes whence he concludes that the Church of England would be very unreasonable if it were of the Opinion that that Power could be restrained without Cause in respect of that which is of all things most grateful to the World which is to Allow the Free Exercise of their Religion to those of his Subjects who with himself are of the most Antient Religion of all that maintain the Adoration of Jesus Christ. That is to say in a Word that if the King has Power to dispense with the Penal Laws with respect to New Sects he ought in all reason to have the same Power with respect to the Antient Religion that is professed by himself This Consequence is denied If the King of England has Power in Spiritual Causes it iâ— not an Arbitrary Power is bounded by the Laws but the Laws do not forbid a Toleration of the Presbyterians but they forbid a Toleration of the Popish Religion because that so Antient a Religion and which is so far spread through the World and is so holy is a common Enemy of all other Religions whether true or false Those other Religions which give may also receive Toleration but who is obliged to grant a Toleration to the Popish Religion which Tolerates none which destines all those to the Fire and Sword who do not submit themselves to it The Author puts an end to this part of his Defence of King James touching his Religion by taking a review of the Church of England he turns it on every side and finds it safe and sound without so much as Spot or Wrinkle She was the same under the Catholick King that she was under the Protestant Kings She had her Bishops her Cathedral Churches her Parochial Churches her Ecclesiastical Revenues The King built very near twenty Chappels at his own Charge And this is that for which he makes all this Cry Thus our Gentleman concludes that it is an imposition upon the World and a manifest token of want of sense to call that a Subversion of the Religion that was established by Law Certainly the People of England were very far in the wrong that they had not patience till King James brought their Religion to the same Issue as Lewis did the reformed in France It is true that King James established the Popish Service in all the Cities and Burroughs within the Realm where there were Papists It is true that the Jesuits were so bold as to open Schools up and down It is true that by this time London was provided with Monks of all Orders It is true that the Jesuits remained in the Court and that Father Peters was the Head of the English Church by vertue of the entire Influence that he had on the King and the precedency that he had at the Council Board It is true that the principal Offices of State were taken out of the Hands of Protestants and given either to Papists or to those who had no Religion at all It is true that the Earls of Clarenden and Rochester the King's Brothers-in-Law lost their Places of Trust for refusing to change their Religion It is true that the most part of the Judges of the King's Bench were Papists It is true that the Justices of the Peace in the Country were not a few of them Roman Catholicks It is true that the Papists were possessed of Magdalen Colledge in Oxford It is true that the Archbishoprick of York being vacant was designed for a Jesuit or some Priest It is true that the Offices in the Militia the Government of Counties and the Lieutenant ship of Ireland the Town and Fort of Portsmouth and all the places of strength on the Sea-coasts were
in the hands of Papists It is true that when any one presumed to speak publickly of Religion he was put from his Pulpit if not from his Benefice It is true that when the Bishops refused to read the King's Declaration of Liberty of Conscience to Roman Catholicks under the Name of Dissenters they were sent to the Tower But to what purpose is all this they were alive still they Preached they had Pulpits and Churches whereas in France there was no such thing to be seen I but there was always reason to believe that King James who was so true a Friend to Lewis XIV and zealously bent on the same courses in agreement with him would in time push on things to such an issue to take effect in his own or his Successours days whom he was setting up as has already fallen out in France They were afraid of it I say and they had reason for the Popish Religion is a most insatiable Monster an implacable Enemy If it be allowed but room for one foot it will quickly usurp an entire Possession of all It makes profession of admitting no Partnership and of suffering no Rivals The English had forgot this Truth I know not how and suffered a Popish Prince to ascend the Throne The Cause of James II. his Misfortunes is to be looked for in the conduct of the French King It is he and he only that was the Cause thereof The English must of necessity have been very fast asleep not to awaken at the Cries of the infinite Numbers of miserable Creatures who went to carry their Afflictions and their Complaints to the Ears of the English Nation and who without speaking did pathetically express the meaning and weight of this important Advice Learn to have a care of Tyrants and Kings that are possessed by Jesuits The defence for King James is destined against King William Prince of Orange The Religion established by Law was entire and therefore his present Majesty as the Man reasons could have no just cause for passing into England Besides the Author endeavours to strengthen his Argument by the measures His Majesty took in Holland a Country where he had signalized himself more frequently than in England where he made it be blown about as this man says that his Father in Law was about to suspend the Penal Laws There are certainly Penal Laws in Holland against the Roman Catholicks but it is as certain saith he that the wisest Magistrates did judge that it was the Interest of the Republick to suspend their execution especially in the Province of Holland which is the most considerable amongst them God be praised for it You may now at last take notice of a publick confession that is express and in print That the Roman Catholicks are not persecuted in Holland Thus both Mr. Arnauld and all the Apologists for the French Persecution who were so bold as to complain of the Persecutions that their Church suffered in the Low Countries are declared to be Slanderers Note this well for these Gentlemen will say the contrary the very next day because they always speak according to their Interest but here it is their Interest to confess the truth that they may be in a capacity to conclude that the City of Amsterdam that of Rotterdam and that of Harlem had Power to suspend the Penal Laws that a King who is a Sovereign Prince can do as much as a particular City That if the Dutch without betraying their Religion might do this we have no reason to complain of a Catholick who was willing to shew the same gentleness to those of his own Religion as a Protestant Common-wealth does It is necessary that King William himself be concerned in the Proof He had a very great Number of Catholicks in his Guards and likewise amongst his Domestick Servants It is not then an Argument of Religion saith he that he does charge it as a Crime upon his Father-in-Law that being himself a Catholick he did suffer the Catholick Religion to be exercised within his Dominions Our Author is not ill to please his Premises are false throughout and his Conclusion is very bad He supposes that the Prince of Orange would answer thus that his Father-in-Law permitted the Exercise of the Roman Religion in England as it is in Holland this is false Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter was Penned to shew the contrary to King James The Prince does agree that such Penal Laws should be repealed which might endanger the Lives of the Priests and might ensnare the Conscience He does allow that the Papists be tolerated in England as they are in Holland He does again suppose falsly that King James had granted nothing to the English Papists but what the Dutch had granted to the Romish Religion in their Countries It is Impudence without Example to affirm this It is notoriously known that the toleration of Papists in Holland is not established by any Law nor by any Decree suspending the Laws It is well known that the Papists have not entred into any Office of Justice and of the Government of the State they are only admitted into Military Employs but King James was for receiving them into all the Offices of the Kingdom and not only for suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws by a tacite Toleration of Religion as it is in Holland but by an express Cessation of the Laws themselves In the third Place he does falsly suppose that the King of England has the same Power with respect to Religion that the States of Holland have in their Country This is not so the States of Holland are Sovereign and Absolute in their Provinces without limitation for it is they who make Laws but the King of England makes no Laws but with the joynt Assent and Authority of Parliament and can change nothing in such as concern Religion any more than he can do in other Laws without the Parliament Lastly He is infinitely mistaken when he compares the Quality of the Toleration of the Popish Religion that is admitted in Holland to that which he would have established in England because in Holland the Sovereign Authority is Protestant and in England the Sovereign Authority was Popish There is a very great difference betwixt having Popish Subjects and Servants and having Popish Masters The States of Holland are very well content to have Popish Subjects and the Prince will admit Popish Servants but they would not have Masters of that Religion This was designed to be done in England Their Great Master was a Papist and that Master endeavoured that all others should become so And so it does not follow from the Prince's Goodness in admitting of Papists amongst his Servants that he ought to suffer that his Father-in-Law should commit the Offices and Places of Trust within the Kingdom into the hands of Papists The words also of Popery and Papists used in his present Majesty's Declaration are not pleasing to our Opponent That Man ought to have known that those Words