deplorably deprived by the Re-establishment of Prelacy so it is evident not only to impartial Persons but to professed Enemies with what unparalell'd Patience and Constancy the People of God have endured all the Cruelty Injustice and Oppression that the Will and Malice of Prelacy and Malignants could invent and exercise And being most unwilling to act any thing which might import Opposition to lawful Authority or engage the Kingdoms in War although we have been all along groaning under the Over-turning the Work of Reformation Corruptions of Doctrine Slighting of Worship Despising of Ordinances the Changing the Ancient Church-Discipline and Government Thrusting out so many of our Faithful Ministers from their Charges Confining straightly Imprisoning Exileing yea and putting to Death many of them and Intruding upon their Flocks a Company of Insufficient Scandalous Persons Confining Imprisoning Torturing Tormenting Scourging and Stigmatizing Poor People Plundering their Goods Quartering upon them Rude Soldiers Selling their Persons to Foreign Plantations Horning and Intercommuning many of both Sexes whereby great Numbers in every corner of the Land were forced to leave their Dwellings Wives Children and Relations and made to wander as Pilgrims still in Hazard of their Lives none daring to Recet Harbour or Supply though Starving or so much as to speak to them though upon Death-bed without making themselves obnoxious to the same Punishments And these things acted under colour of Law in effect tending to banish not only all Sense of Religion but also to extinguish all natural Affection even amongst Persons of nearest Relations and likewise groaning under the intolerable Yoak of Oppression in our Civil Interest our Bodies Liberties and Estates so that all manner of Outrages have been most arbitrarily exercised upon us for a Tract of several Years past particularly in the Year 1678. by sending us an armed Host of Barbarous Savages contrary to all Law and Humanity and by laying on us several Impositions and Taxes as formerly so of late by a Meeting of Prelimited and Over-awed Members in the Convention of Estates in July 1678. for keeping up of an armed Force intrusted as to a great part of it into the Hands of avowed Papists or Favourers of them by whom sundry Invasions have been made upon us and most exorbitant Abuses and incredible Insolencies committed against us and we being continually sought after while meeting in Houses for Divine Worship Ministers and People frequently apprehended and most rigorously used and so being necessitated to attend the Lord's Ordinances in the Fields in the most desert Places and there also often hunted out and assaulted to the effusion of our Blood and killing of some whereby we were inveitably constrain'd either to defend our selves by Arms at those Meetings or be altogether deprived of the Gospel preached by Faithful Ministers and made absolute Slaves At one of which Meetings upon the First Day of June instant being the Lord's Day Captain Graham of Claverhouse being warranted by a late Proclamation to kill whomsoever he found in Arms at Field-Conventicles making Resistance did furiously assault the People assembled and further to provoke did cruelly bind like Beasts a Minister with some others whom he had found that same Morning in Houses and several being killed on both sides they knowing certainly that by Law they behoved if apprehended to dye they did stand to their own defence and continue together and there after many of our Friends and Countrymen being under the same Oppression expecting the same measure did freely offer their Assistance We therefore thus inevitably and of absolute Necessity forced to take this last Remedy tho Magistrates having shut the Door by a Law against Application that whatever our Grievances be either in things Civil or Sacred we have not the Privilege of a Supplicant do judge our selves bound to dcelare That these with many other horrid Grievances in Church and State which we purpose to manifest more fully hereafter are the true Causes of this our Lawful and Innocent Self-defence And we most solemnly and in the presence of Almighty God the Searcher of all Hearts declare that the true Reasons of our continuing in Arms candidly and sincerely are these First The defending and securing of the true Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Government founded upon the Word of God and summarily comprehended in our Confessions of Faith and Catechism and established by the Laws of this Land to which King Nobles and People are solemnly sworn and engaged in our National Solemn League and Covenant and more particularly the Defending and Maintaining the Kingly Authority of our Lord Jesus Christ over his Church against all sinful Supremacy derogatory thereto and incroaching thereupon Second The preserving and defending the King's Majesty his Person and Authority in the Preservation and Defence of that true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom that the World may bear Witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no Thoughts nor Intention to diminish his just Power and Greatness Third The Obtaining of a Free and United Parliament and a Free and General Assembly in Order to the Redressing of our foresaid Grievances for the preventing the eminent Danger of Popery and extirpating Prelacy from amongst us This therefore being the Cause we appear for and resolve in God's Name to own hereby homologating all the Testimonies of faithful Sufferers for the Truth in Scotland these eighteen Years by gone We humbly request the King's Majesty to restore all things as he found them when God brought him home to his Crown and Kingdoms and if that cannot be obtained then we heartily and humbly invite and intreat beseech and obtest by the Bowels of Jesus Christ all who are under the same Bonds with us to occur in this Common Cause and Interest and that they will not stand still and see not only us oppressed but this foresaid Cause ruined Adversaries proudly and highly insult against God and all good Men Friends of the Truth discouraged yea the Protestant Cause in Britain and Ireland and even your selves within a little time made a Prey of or else forced when we are broken which the good Lord prevent dreadfully to wrong your Consciences Finally because we desire no Man's hurt or blood we request our Country-men now the standing Forces of this Kingdom some of them being our Friends and Kinsmen not to fight against us least in so doing they be found fighting against the Lord whose Cause and Quarrel we are sure he will own and signally countenance seeing we fight under his Banner who is the Lord of Hosts This Sir you know was the Declaration of these Blessed Servants of God but you had not filled up the measure of your Sins and therefore God was pleased to deliver these miserably enslaved wretches into your hands and they were made a prey to your never to be forgotten Cut-throats and some of them sealed their Testimony of Jesus with their Blood You may remember what Havock your Popish Crew made of them
notwithstanding their Quality and the signal Services performed for their pretended King Many Instances might be given of this nature and a reasonable Man might have judged that the many Instances of those Slights and Contempts that have been put upon them should have convinced them of the Folly and Madness of any of those that pretend to the Protestant Religion and Church of England who should Espouse the Cause of a Man that hates their Religion and Liberties Can they think that the present Misfortunes that the late King James lies under would if he should be re-invested with Power frighten him to alter his Measures and Resolutions of invading our Laws and Liberties for time to come seeing that neither the abandoning of Wives Children and Estates nor the hazarding nay loss of Life in his Service can render him just and favourable to those Protestants who have made a Sacrifice of all these things to follow him and yet that these Men should be found in so Villanous a Conspiracy to Murder him that delivered the Nation What Tongue can speak for such brutish and sensless Wretches I must leave to the Judgments of wiser Men than my self And what can they expect from a Man whose Father's Misfortunes his Brothers Exile wherein he himself was a sharer have not wrought a Reformation in him Can we expect that ever he will be more cautious of violating our Laws intrenching upon our Liberties or subverting our Religion or that ever he will be made more pliable For if he denies Men that have followed him into France the Exercise of their Religion what hopes have they of obtaining and enjoying it whenever he shall return Nay what then must your Majesties Protestant Subjects expect who have renounced him and associated to defend your Majesty as our Lawful and Rightful King against this pretended King and all his Wicked and Trayterous Adherents But Sir give me leave a little further to plead with your Majesty concerning these People that certainly never give themselves leisure to think I am sure no Man in his right Wits but must judge it the highest degree of Stupidity and Folly that these very Men should expect good Terms from a Person who doth not only treat his Protestant Adherents very ill who have followed him in his Misfortunes but also whose Religion lays him under the necessity of using them thus What Obligations did our Church lay upon him when he was a Subject Did she not like a Prostitute save him from being Prosecuted for the Popish Plot and from being Excluded from the Succession to the Crown Who were so Hot in that point on his behalf as the then Prelates in the House of Peers and afterwards from being driven out of the Kingdom by the late Duke of Monmouth yet all those Obligations were of no more value with him than his Coronation-Oath which he violated without the least regret and spared not to invade the Protestant Religion in general but the Liberties of the Church of England in particular What wicked Traytors are these wretched Men that shall assist the Popish Party in their attempts to pervert the Church and to bring that about in effect which even to mention makes every Loyal Subject of your Majesties to tremble For certainly had these Conspirators been all of them avowed Papists your Majesties Person and Government had not been in that danger but some of them that have undertaken this Horrid Design are such as lye under no Temptations of Religion Men thought to be secure that these now the Mystery of Iniquity is revealed are found Men obliged by all the Sacred Ties of Malice and Ambition to assist in the advancing your Majesties Ruin and the Ruin of the three Kingdoms and much better qualified than others under the Name of Good Church of England Men nay Preachers of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance will not be shut out of this Hellish Conspiracy for Wranglers but will have a hand against your Majesty's Person rather than so Eminent a piece of Service shall go unperfected Give me leave therefore Sir with the greatest Duty and Submission to observe to your most Excellent Majesty the Excellency of that Religion they would subvert by shewing the Vileness of that they would introduce and the happy Government they would destroy in the attempt they have made upon your Majesty's Person These Conspirators that say they are Protestants cannot but own that we are exceeding happy in relation to our Religion since by your Majesty's happy Accession to the Throne that we are once more freed from the Romish Yoke which so great a part of Europe do yet draw and labour under that Popery is such a thing as cannot but for want of a Word to express it be called Religion nor is it to be mentioned with that Civility which is otherwise decent to be used in speaking of Differences of Humane Opinion about Divine Matters were it open Judaism or plain Turcism or honest Paganism there is yet a certain Bonafides in the most extravagant Belief and the Sincerity of an Erroneous Profession may render it more pardonable But this Popery is a Compound of all the three an Extract of whatsoever is most Ridiculous and Impious in them incorporated with more peculiar Absurdities of its own in which those were deficient and all this deliberately contrived and knowingly carried on by the Rascally and Villainous Clergy under the Name of Christianity The Wisdom of this fifth Religion in this last and most Insolent Attempt upon the Credulity and Conspiracy against the Liberty of Mankind seems to all Understanding Men principally to have consisted in their owning the Scriptures to be the Word of God and the Rule of Faith and Manners but wickedly prohibiting at the same time their common Use or the Reading of them by those of their Communion there being no better or more rational way to frustrate the very design of our Lord Jesus Christ who first planted by the miraculous Power and extraordinary Gifts of the Holy-Ghost than to forbid the use of them in such a Language as the People could understand for having the Scripture which by all Christians are avowed to be of Divine Authority but appointing it to remain in such hands as were intrusted to undertake and carry on their holy Cheat they had the Opportunity to vitiate suppress or interpret to their own advantage for the support of their Villainous Priestcraft those admirable Evidences by which the common People hold their Salvation and they having by this Fraud gained their Point there was from that time nothing so monstrous to Reason and so abhorring from Morality or so contrary to Scripture which they might not in prudence venture on The Idolatry of Adoring and praying to Saints and Angels and worshipping Pictures Images and incredible Miracles and palpable Fables to promote that Veneration The whole Liturgy and Worship of the blessed Virgin the saying of Pater Nosters and Creeds the Honour of Saints and Ave-Maries too not to her
a Field as any of external Felicity wherein to exercise their own Virtue and to reward and encourage it in others In a word your Majesty hath enlarged our Liberties in consenting to the Bill to Regulate Tryals in Cases of High-Treason in which there are large Immunities granted to any that fall under that black Circumstance that their Lives may not be at the mercy of a Mercenary Judge or Judges if God should in his Judgment leave poor England to such Men But your Majesty hath begun and I question not but your Royal inclination will carry you on to compleat our security from such Vermin Therefore to conclude what a Government is this we enjoy than which nothing can come nearer the Divine Perfection The Monarch enjoys a capacity of doing all the good imaginable to Mankind but under a disability of doing any thing that is Evil. This Scheme of the Civil Government the Late King did well know and therefore in Council on the day of his Accession to the Crown he was pleased to say That the Laws of England were sufficient to make the King of England as great a Monarch as he could wish or desire so that your Majesty may see that he could own that the Greatness of the English Monarchy had its Birth and rise from the Laws Who then would have lessened himself as he did by breaking in upon those very Laws that had made him Great And who would have broken so excellent a Government as made him Secure and Happy And what Subject of England Papist or Protestant that would lose such Immunities and Privileges by joyning in with that unhappy Man to destroy themselves Were they so in love with King James that they were not satisfied till they had him Nay he and they waded through King Charles's Blood that he might Reign Why then did they not keep the terms of the Government which would have been the most effectual way of continuing him on the Throne Besides all this we cannot forget that the Parliaments under Queen Elizabeth King James King Charles the First and King Charles the Second made it Treason in whosoever that should attempt to Seduce any one of the meanest of your Majesty's Subjects to the Church of Rome And the Long Parliament held in the time of Charles the Second to all Penalties of the Statute Law added an incapacity for any Man to say that that King was a Papist or an introducer of Popery What Lawless and incapable Miscreants were these What wicked Traytors were those Men who did indeavour to pervert the whole Body of Protestants and to bring that about in effect which even to mention was penal at one Italian stroke attempting to subvert the Government and Religion to kill the Body and damn the Soul of the Nation Your Majesty finds to this day there are such a Set of Men in this Nation who have undertaken and have made it their business under your Majesties happy legal and perfect Government by the intended destruction of your Royal Person to introduce a French Slavery and instead of so pure a Religion that your Majesty ventured hard to preserve to establish the Roman Idolatry either of which Crimes are of the highest nature for if we look upon the Government if the Murther of your Royal Person be a fact so horrid as no Man can find words enough to declare his detestation and abhorrence of it how much more then is the Murther of your Royal Person with an intent to Assassinate the Kingdom And Sir none will deny but that to alter the Monarchy of these Kingdoms into a Republick is High Treason So by the same fundamental Rule the Crime is no less to Murther your Royal Person in order to make the Monarchy Absolute Sir I beg your Majesty's leave to tell you that my Heart is much enlarged to your Majesty I beseech your Majesty that your Royal Heart may be for this one time enlarged to me in your Grace and Pardon for this trouble I now give your most excellent Majesty Let me undertake upon serious inquiry to give your Majesty some satisfaction who these Men are that have from the Year 1660 to this day attempted to Subvert our Government and our Religion Had these Men been the old honest Cavaleers that fought for Charles the I. or suffered much in the time of Charles II. it would have been allowable in them as oft as their Wound did break out at Spring or Fall to think of a more Arbitrary Government as a sovereign Balsom for their Aches or to imagin that no Weapon-Salve but that of the Moss that Grows on an Enemies Skull could cure them or could they to have kept their Hands in ure have fought their Cause over again since they saw they were neglected and left to Starve yet their Age and times they lived in and their unjust usage they met with from two Kings might have pleaded something on their behalf in mitigation of Damages But Sir give me leave to make this Remark to your Majesty concerning those Gentlemen that they were and are still if any of them remain too Generous too good Christians and Subjects too affectionate to the English legal Government to be capable of such an Impression whereas these Conspirators that carried on the design of subverting our Religion into Popery and changing the Government into downright Slavery are such as have not one drop of Cavaleer Blood or no Bowels at least of a Cavaleer in them but such as starved the Cavaleers to revel and surfeit upon their Calamities making their Persons and the very Cause by pretending to it themselves almost Ridiculous Or had these Villains been all of the Popish communion and avowed so to be give me leave to say it over again to your Majesty your danger would have been the less their Religion would in some measure have been answerable for the Errors and Extravgancies they might have been guilty of to promote it but these render their intended Villany more black they were Protestants and of the Church of England too that joyned with Papists to Assassinate your Royal Person What can any Man say for them Your Majesty knows what to do with them These Villains because I perceive they lye under a great difficulty to find Accomplices enough at home to Mutiny and Rebel and Murther your Majesties true and loyal Subjects therefore they put themselves under the Banner and Pay of the French King to compleat their wicked designs and purposes to bring a foreign Enemy to Invade us that King being endowed with all those which in a French Prince or in an Abdicated King may pass for Vertues but in any private Man they would be Capital and moreover so abounding in Zeal for Popery and Slavery above all other Princes that none else could engage both Body and Soul in such a Villanous Undertaking to which Consideration adding that their Interests are both one and the one is and the other would be the Master of
your self in a different stile In some of your Papers you write your Heart and Soul in words at length and not in figures then it 's your pleasure that we are to know to what we are to trust when ever you shall return to your Native Countrey and enjoy your pretended Right Sometimes you intimate as if England were to be the Field of Blood and that Man Woman and Child should be a Sacrifice to your Revenge which made your little scoundrel Party here to prick up their Ears and look as if a Leg or an Arm were not sufficient to appease your Wrath or a Carts Arse or a Pillory could not make satisfaction to your self and Party for the wrong you and your Friends have suffered from us nothing less than death and damnation of the Honest Nobility Gentry and Commons of England can attone for the delivering themselves from your Tyranny and the Oppression they suffered from you and you Insolent Party Nay the poor Fishermen men of Feversham must not escape your Fury and Vengeance But in your latter Papers you are pleased to express your self in softer terms and the Vengeance threatned in one Year's Papers is hushed up and fairly laid to sleep and I remember in the last you are pleased to give us a French Grimass and smile upon us as if you were made up of nothing but Grace Mercy and Peace and unparallell'd Humility in order to create in us a good thought of the bitterness of death being past notwithstanding you have in some of your former Papers given us to understand That in regard you have sustained such Affronts from the People of England you might justly have proceeded severely with us yet in your younger Papers you think fit by a more gentle Method to use means to regain us to your self which is the first Born of all the Cunning you and your Friends at St. Germains have been pleased to bless this Nation withal But Sir it hath been your will and pleasure not to give your self the trouble of emitting any more Declarations of your good Intentions towards us for these two or three Years last past therefore I do think fit to acquaint you and your Trusty Friends and Councellors at your Court at St. Germains that are now with you for I understand some of your old Partisans have sometime since left you that you must have but a very mean and low opinion of the English Nation if you think ever to return hither again upon the strength of your last Bantering Paper called A Gracious Declaration to all your loving Subjects For the People of England have not forgot but very well remember That for divers Years in the Reign of King Charles the Second your dear Brother that there was a horrid Design carried on by him your self and your Party to change the Lawful Government of England into an Absolute Tyranny and to convert the Established Protestant Religion into down-right Popery than both which there can be nothing more destructive and contrary to the Law and well-being of this Nation And whilst you your self was pleased to usurp the Throne these Three Kingdoms were highly sensible with what violence you and your wicked Party overthrew our Laws Liberties and Religion and what Ruin and Vengeance attended these poor Nations notwithstanding all your Oaths and Promises made to the contrary in Council and in a Packt Parliament that met in May 1685. which as bad as it was it could not keep pace with you and your Popish Cut-throats in your Intentions of enslaving the People of these Kingdoms and of totally overturning our Laws Liberties and Religion Before I begin my designed Method of laying before you yours and the Practices of your Accomplices to put you in mind of some Passages in your Brother's Reign of which the Parliaments of England had just cause to complain as worthy of your Consideration and when they did address they found it was to very little or no purpose for no redress could be obtained from him And by whose Advice and Counsel such Misdemeanors were committed your self can best tell that it was your self King Charles the Second was no sooner restored but contrary to the Expectation of all those good men that were the Instruments of his Restauration they found to their sorrow 1. That Justice was corruptly administred and Offices appertaining to Justice dearly bought and sold 2. Benefices and Ecclesiastical Dignities unworthily collated upon Men that deserved no other Titles than of common Rogues and Cheats Men that were many of them unskilful in the Word of Righteousness and others that were Persons of unsound Principles and of worse Morals their Doctrines tending highly to enslave the Nation and their Morals to debauch it This was the Advice of an old Friend of yours and a great-Prop of the Church of Rome Cardinal Mazarine whose Counsel and Advice it was To debauch the Kingdom of England and make them Atheists and then they would be soon good Papists This was in the Year 1654. at which time you and your Party were but at a low ebb but how much you pursued the Counsel of the old Cardinal I leave all reasonable and unbyassed Men to judge and how your sneaking Eccleastical Parasites contributed towards it It is plain enough to any man that will look back into those Times There was one Jones your Chaplain who you ruined because he would have contributed to the advancing the Protestant Religion in your Family according to his Office and Calling of a Minister in the Church of God You may remember by whom Bishopricks and other Ecclesiastical Dignities were thus procured truly by your Popish self and Popish Whores Popish Pimps and Popish Bowds and not without Money or some Promise to favour your Catholick Designs and how they suffered your quondam Consort to apostatize to the Church of Rome it is well known But they poor Prelates are gone to their Places and there let them remain till God shall reckon with them and others of that Oorder for betraying of God's Cause which they pretended to espouse tho in truth they were Enemies to him and his Gospel 3. In the third place They saw new Impositions daily invented and levied and the Publick Treasure of the Nation and the Revenues prodigally consum'd Sir you know how 200000 l. was spent and in order to what and the Parties that receiv'd the same were in a Conspiracy against our Laws Liberties and Religion And did not you your self join in the wasting of the King's Treasure and procured great Summs of Money to be issued out of His Majesty's Exchequer to keep your Priests Jesuits Monks and to find your Irish Officers with Subsistence-money till that you should have occasion to make use of them for those Ends and Purposes that might advance your Cause and wicked Purposes against the English Interest and the Protestant Religion Well therefore might you in your Speech to the Council Feb. 6. 1684. call Charles the Second your
Corporate and other Market Port Towns of that Kingdom to the great Terrour of the English Protestants and the Disturbance of their Trade To redress which how many Petitions were presented setting forth the Calamity the Protestant Interest was exposed to and what Danger they were in of losing their Trade both at home and abroad and how they returned without any manner of Redress but were ridiculed by Leyton and abused by your Tool the Lord Lieutenant It is well known that the Irish Papists some few only excepted did not understand Trade and therefore the End for which they were let in to live in Towns Corporate and into other Market-Towns within that Kingdom was that they might over-power the Protestant Party and seize their Effects as they did in the Rebellion They began in the Year 1641 and that they might get into Offices in those Towns Corporate to keep the Protestants so much under as would incapacitate them to stand upon their defence the Irish being well armed and the English being disarmed by a private Order from your self to the then Lord Lieutenant which was discovered in the Papers found at Jolliff's house in Weldstreet in Feb. or Jan. 1678 9 amongst Papers belonging to Sir Ellys Leyton And for two or three Years together great Inquiry was made by some of your Conspirators for News out of Ireland so big they were with the Expectation of a Rebellion there which certainly had been if it had not been for fear of the Scotch who were well planted in the North of Ireland who with all the Bravery and Resolution that became honest Men and good Protestants to stand by the English in opposition to the Irish for which Cause you did use your utmost Efforts to have those Scotch that were so planted in the North of Ireland to be disarmed but whether at that time your Design took effect I cannot well remember 6. Furthermore you to carry on your wicked designs and purposes in that Kingdom for the better establishing of Popery and Arbitrary Power and discouraging of the Protestant Religion and English Interest You procured Letters of the King your Brother bearing date Septemb. 28th 1672. and upon that Letter so procured there was an Order of Council of that Kingdom in which Letter and by which Order the English Protestants were strictly charged and commanded upon pain of his high Displeasure not to prosecute the Irish Papists in any Actions whatsoever for any Wrongs or Injuries committed by them during the late Rebellion Nay Sir you would not have it called a Rebellion but you desired it might be called rather the late Troubles which you could not obtain and rather than your Teagues should lose the Benefit of the said Letter you were content to have it called a Rebellion and the Reason was you and your Brother too were well satisfied who had a hand in it and first stirred it up witness the Parchments that were found in the Red Trunk in Jolliff's House in Weld-street and the Letter written in the behalf of the Marquis of Antrim to your Devilish Court of Claims in which the principal Author of that Rebellion was made manifest but that by the Way only In that Rebellion what Murders Rapines Thefts and barbarous Outrages were for some time daily committed by the Irish Papists upon the poor Protestants some yet alive in both Kingdoms to testifie And yet of your tender Care of those Barbarous Cut-throats you would not have them answer at Law for any of the aforesaid Villanies and why Because what they did was in Zeal for the Catholick Cause to which you by a Miracle was converted insomuch that for the promoting of it you had regard neither to Law or Justice Sence or Reason Nay some that did sue those Murderers before that damnable Court was set up were much discountenanced by your Party there and by your self here in England if they had occasion to make any Application to your self for any Favour or Kindness 7. You constituted Richard Talbot Agent from your self to the Roman-Catholicks and they constituted him their Agent to you from them for which Talbot had a sufficient Pension to whore and game withal and give the Devil his due he answered his Trust with all the Care Fidelity and Diligence both to you and the Popish Party Not only so but you procured for him the said Talbot a Command in Ireland as a Reward for his great Services done Of this Agency of the said Talbot Dr. Tongue and Mr. Thomas Jones your quondam Chaplain having some clear Proof they made Application to the King your Brother and he ridiculed the Business and said That Talbot was not only a Blockhead but was in no manner fit for an Agent for any party he being also a Man too much addicted to his pleasures and you met with Jones and asked him whether he was turned from a Preacher to an Informer and told him he had pitched upon a very unlikely man for an Agent Thus was any Truth that was against Poperty or Papists brought by any honest Man hissed of the Stage by your Brother and your self Sir I confess you would have used me so when I charged him with a Commission from some body to be General Governour and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the King then told me how Tongue and Jones had been to inform him that Talbot was an Agent from the Popish Party in Ireland to the Duke and an Agent from the Duke to the Popish Party which he rejected as an improbable thing but the Story I told him was more improbable I discovered his Agency and made out that by Letters under the hand of the said Talbot so that Tongue and Jones were justified and you did in a few Years so justifie that part and so many particulars of my Testimony in that Affair that your very Passive Obedience Rogues began when it was almost too late to look about them For in time he was General of the Army in Ireland in the time of the Earl of Clarendon's Regency and after him to the sorrow of many Unbelievers he was by you made Lord Lieutenant 8. Your Conspirators received a Letter from Talbot the pretended-Archbishop of Dublin wherein it was expressly said That your Jesuits in Ireland and others were preparing the Irish Papists to Rise in defence of their Liberties and Religion and to recover their Estates and that if the Parliament that was to sit in England did engage heartily with the King and the King with them in a War against the French King that a place or places should be opened to receive the French King's Army in Ireland whenever his most Christian Majesty should think fit to send one And by Order from Coleman and the Jesuits in London the Fathers at the English College at S. Omers were to advertise the Father Confessor to the French King of the same and other Jesuits that had an Interest in the French King and the Fathers of S. Omers were assured
Parliament you used great Endeavours for a standing Army under the notion of securing the Peace against those Dissenters and Field Meeters but tho' you had labour'd hard in that point yet the Success did not answer your expectation so fully as to give you content Well Sir what becomes of old Lauderdale your faithful Servant and dearly beloved Favorite for I do not find him in this Parliament No he 's forced to stay in England not daring to appear in Scotland for his Hell hounds were not able to weather the Point because the Stream run so strong against him not that you had made any change of his Measures in the Conspiracy against the Protestant Interest and Religion unless it were for the worse and very desirous you were of getting him into Scotland and no doubt you would have served him a Scotch Maiden Trick Why so Because that Old Dog had been heard to say that all you had done in Scotland was nothing in regard the Oaths were omitted and that the Parliament was but a Convention and what you had done was in it self void and of no effect These were bloody words and highly resented by you and afterwards you had an Eye upon Argyle who began to snort at the Test and though he had been a Dog in a String to your Brother and your self some Qualm came cross his Conscience He therefore began to make his Interpretations upon it which were such as cut the Throat of the thing it self And altho' the Interpretation he gave could be no other than the genuine sence of the thing and plain to be understood that it could mean no other than what he intended to take it in yet it was so much disliked that he was then to have been made a Sacrifice under the notion of being guilty of High Treason only for explaining the Test he was accordingly seized and libelled against and found guilty of the Fact and he was then in a fair way to have lost his Life for his Ingenuity but he with a great deal of dexterity made his escape and so saved himself for that time from being murder'd by you and your Cut-throats there Scotland Sir you bridled and saddled and brought the Government there to be something like the French Mode differing nothing but that you had made the Scots the greater Vassals of the two And the People of that Kingdom caressed you highly for the grace and favour of their Vassalage notwithstanding which you were not willing to stay any longer there your Friends advising you by all means to return to England to secure your Interest in England you having setled Scotland to your content And this remember Sweet Sir that the Whore Portsmouth with her Bastard Son was by your Royal Brother sent to France to renew the Dover Treaty in which she was more successful than your Sister of blessed memory for she was caressed by the French King and her Bastard honour'd as a Prince of the Blood and she setled a firm Correspondency between Lewis of France and Charles of Great Britain pursuant to the Treaty at Dover This you heard of and you judged the Strumpet was undermining you and obtaining the Succession for her son which made you after your arrival at Whitehall more unwilling to return again for Scotland than before and you pressed the then King your Brother for your stay here but you were told that you must return to Scotland where your stay should be but short you obeyed and went by Sea with your chief Favourite Mumper who with you was like to have been lost but you saved your self and the Curr and lost some Treasure with a great part of your Retinue who drank your Health and went to the bottom But you arrive in Scotland and the Mony being lost your Intentions of having a standing Army there were sunk also Your stay was to be short in Scotland and so shall mine therefore since I have put you in mind of your bridling and saddling that poor Kingdom as a Subject and a High Commissioner for King Charles give me leave to remember you of your Carriage when you pretended to and usurped that Crown as King of Sâ—otland for by the Laws of that Kingdom all Popish Princes were uncapable of that Crown And because of your Omission of the Oaths that were to be by you taken all that you did in repealing them was null and void and to no effect so that those Laws were still in force against you notwithstanding the aforesaid pretended Repeal for without those Oaths the meeting together of Lords and Commons was no Parliament but a Convention which cannot repeal any Statute there Upon your taking that Crown the Earl of Argyle upon the 20th of May 1685 well knowing how the Protestant Religion must suffer in Scotland lands in Scotland near a place called Kentire and on the 21st sent forth his Declaration wherein he tells the Scots That the End of his coming was the defence of the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of the Protestants of Scotland against Popery and Arbitrary Government and therefore he required all persons from sixteen to sixty to come and joyn with him with Arms and Provisions necessary One of his sons sent Letters to several Gentlemen upon the same account so that in few days his Army was encreased to 2500 Men. But Sir your Trappan that betray'd the poor Protestants at Bothwâ—ll bridge 1679 escaping the Gallows lived to betray this poor Gentleman in the year 1685. for instead of shewing him the true way wherein he should have marched provided Rogues who led him into a bogg from whence he returning towards Glyde was fallen upon by some Scots and taken and Sir by your Arbitrary Order he was basely murder'd at Edinburgh on the 30th of June following This man had all along fought in your Brother's Cause and Quarrel and was an Instrument to betray his Father to your Brother and was murder'd in the beginning of his Reign after his Return This man had served your Cause and Interest in Scotland many years and had run in the same excess of Riot with your Conspirators but God opened his Eyes to see your base Designs against the Religion and Liberties of his Country and therefore nothing would satisfie you but his Blood and the ruine of his whole Family Well he is dead but I must say of him he deserved better Fortune in the World and more Favour from your Hands and his that is gone to his place Scotland did another time become a Field of Blood and till it was you were not contented But the Scots being weary of these perpetual disappointments they submitted to your Government and you then declared by the Advice of your Villanous Conspirators especially the damn'd Bishops that you were clothed with an Absolute Power and that all your Subjects of that Kingdom were bound to obey you without reserve upon which you did assume an Arbitrary Power both over the Religion and Laws of that
long and large Attestations therein made against the Merchants of the several Factories concerning the Matter of Fact before mentioned and other Letters were dispatch'd to Daniel Armstrong at Valladolyd and John Cross then at Madrid in which they were order'd to confirm this Attestation made or to be made by the Fathers in England and of the English Seminary at St. Omer's and of the said Stapleton together with that of the said Fonseca the abovenamed Spanish Agent who then lived at Bruges in Flanders Therefore 1. In this Villanous Contrivance to disturb the Nation in the Spanish Trade your Servant Coleman was very active in your Name and on your behalf and engaged that your Letter to Villa Hermosa should be procured 2. It is well known that your Brother and your self were so engag'd with the French King that it was all one to you what became of the King of Spain's Concerns in Flanders but you were both grieved to see the English Nation enrich'd with the Trade it had with Spain for during the time of the Riches and Plenty of England it would be very difficult for you and your Conspirators to bring in Popery and Slavery upon us 3. What Agents you make use of to carry on this Wicked Design to ruine Trade Even Fonseca that hated the English Nation and much envied her Greatness and that she might be in a condition to be brought under the French Yoke you tamper with him that tho' a Spaniard by Nation yet he was wholly in the French Interest 3. A third Instance that I shall remember you of by which you intended to ruine our Trade and that was in the adulterating debasing and clipping the Coin of this Kingdom It may be said by you and your Partisans That it is very hard you should be charged with this vile Act but Sir it can be prov'd that the Merchants Goldsmiths Brokers Bankers and the other Traders that the Jesuites dealt with all was by your Advice and Direction and that your Servant Coleman had in your Name promised them the management of the Mint So that your Conspirators were to be the Judges of good and bad Mony and were to manage the same to the best advantage for your Cause and several Materials for Coining was provided by Smith your Agent and lodged at Mr. Longhorn's Chambers in the Temple And this Sir I must observe to you for publick Good that there hath been few or none that ever hath been executed but hath been of your Religion or Interest That our Mony hath been abused is notorious And all this you did in order to impoverish the Kingdom and destroy its Trade 4. A fourth Instance of you and your Traytors to disturb the Trade of the Kingdom was the Fire of London I have treated of that already As it was the Habitation for several Thousands of good Protestants that stood in opposition to Popery and Slavery and as by the destroying this City you endeavoured to weaken the Protestant Interest so now give me leave to tell you it was with this design to ruine the Trade of the Nation for you know that London was the Metropolis and Fountain of Trade and when she was destroy'd you could not but conclude that the Trade must be disturbed with which the other parts of the Kingdom were made happy through the great devastation that the Fire that was carried on by your Wicked Instruments had made IV. A fourth Project that you had to accomplish your Wicked Designs was the Attempt of maintaining of a standing Army contrary to the Laws and Liberties of England in the times of Peace and labour'd that point much with the King your Brother to lay down the legal Force of this Kingdom viz. the Militia as useless to the Government and therefore you and your Party advis'd him to lay them down and to have Forces in every County under Pay and they were to be your Conservators of the Peace And Sir had the Revenue of the Crown been able to have born the Charge you your self projected a standing Army to keep the People in due Obedience Now what that due Obedience was I shall not need to explain to you for it was a standing Army alamode de France nay they were to have the Power of the Civil Watch in the Night which you said would excuse many ancient useless Men from that Service And for the accomplishment of your wicked Enterprize you advis'd that the greater part of the Army should consist of French and Irish and that the Officers of this Army should consist of as many Roman Catholicks as could well be gotten to serve in that Army and you had several of that sort of Cattel that you kept in half-pay in readiness whenever your Brother should have agreed to your Advice It was not for want of Good will but for want of Mony that your Design did not then take 5. A fifth Project that you had on foot to enslave the Nation and that was the advising and contriving with your damnable Conspirators the seizure of the Charters Franchises and Liberties of the Cities Towns and ancient Corporations of the Kingdom It was Sir your self and your Conspirators that invaded the Privileges and seized on the Charters of most of the Towns that had a Right to be represented by their Burgesses in Parliament and by over awing some of them you procur'd Surrenders of them to be made to the King your Brother by which the Magistrates deliver'd up all their Rights and Privileges to be dispos'd of at his pleasure and the pleasure of your self and Conspirators Upon this you procur'd new Magistrates to be placed in those Places as would carry on your wicked designs and purposes of advancing Popery and Slavery 6. It was your Advice together with your Conspirators that put the late King your Brother to turn out of the Commission of the Peace and the Lieutenancy of the Counties all such who had been zealous for the defence of the Protestant Religion and Liberty and had appear'd vigorously against Popery and Arbitrary Power as persons disaffected to the Government both in Church and State and represented them as Fanaticks and Favourers of such by which means you got in Men of Villanous Morals and such heartily joyned in with your Conspirators to ruine the Protestant Interest and to overthrow the Laws and Liberties of England This was done in the year 1679. 7. Notwithstanding some of your Conspirators represented you as a person whose Judgment was for Liberty of Conscience yet because the Protestant Dissenters appear'd earnestly in the asserting the Laws and Liberties of England and gave Countenance to the Discovery of the Popish Plot to King Charles your Brother who was in it in every part and particular thereof excepting that of his own Murther you and your Conspirators stirred up that King to raise a terrible Persecution against those men by which means you were the ruine of some Thousands of Families who by the severity of
you to be a man for Arbitrary Power to invade the Properties of a great part of the Subjects of England by your Proclamation what Value you had for the Rights of the Nation for whom you had ventur'd your Life in a Coiled Cable and what Regard you had to its Laws that at your first step in your pretended Government you bring in a Proclamation equivalent to those Laws that expir'd as aforesaid by which the Excise and Customs in the time of the Reign of your kind and loving Brother had been setled and paid 2. You said That you would follow the Example of your Brother in his Clemency and Tenderness to the People of England What your Brother's Clemency and Tenderness to the people of England was I am yet to learn What was his Clemency to his old Cavaliers that had serv'd both his Father and him in the Wars to the ruine of themselves and Families spending their Substance in both their Services and not so much as looked upon when you were restor'd After that Sir John Webster a Merchant had lent him 150000 l. Sterling did not he after much Importunity reward the said Sir John with the refusal of a Land-waiter's Place and graciously suffer'd the poor man to starve as a Reward of his Loyalty Was not his Clemency such that within the compass of a very few years all his whole Interest was melted down into a small Regiment of Pimps Whores and Bawds on whom he lavishly confer'd great Honours and on them he profusely spent the Treasure of the Nation Remember Sir how his Clemency was extended to those Ministers that brought him home and to that Party of Men that restor'd him to his Crown and Dignity Mr. Jenkins is a notable Instance of his Clemency who ventur'd his Life for his Restoration in that Cause that Mr. Love lost his What a Tenderness he had for Mr. Jenkins was seen in his murdering him in Prison notwithstanding all the humble application made to your tender Brother for his release in order to preserve his Life His Clemency to Sir Henry Vane was admirable for rather than Vane should not be sent to Heaven he broke through an Act of Parliament lest the Martyr should find delay in his passage thither What can you say of his Clemency to Great Essex and Noble Russel whom he basely and barbarously murder'd I think that Sir Thomas Armstrong is another Instance of his Clemency And so you were as good as your word in following the Example of his Clemency and Tenderness to the People of England For upon your entering into the Regal State you let England have a taste of your Clemency I must begin with my own Case I sufficiently tasted of your Grace and Favour after that with the hazard of my Life I had discover'd a Damnable Conspiracy carried on by the Popish Party for the destruction of the King your Brother and the Protestant Religion and the Government of the Nation how you used me let all the World judge notwithstanding the Credit the Parliament had given me as you may rememember in the Vote of March 15. 1679. Resolved Nemine Contradicente by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled That they do declare that they are fully satisfied by the Proofs they have heard that there now is and for divers years last past hath been an Horrid and Treasonable Plot and Conspiracy continued and carried on by those of the Popish Religion for the murdering of His Majesty's Sacred Person and for subverting the Protestant Religion and the Ancient Establish'd Government of this Kingdom Notwithstanding all your Clemency and Tenderness to the English Nation produce such a Vote for the Justifying your Reputation in the Nation and for ought I know you may perswade your self that the Nation may be enclin'd to receive you into favour again and admit your tender Government of them once more But to return to the Point Notwithstanding the Power of Truth and the Credit of this Vote with what implacable Malice did you and your Banditti pursue me How often did you attempt to take away my Life by the Testimony of False Witnesses With what Importunity did you prevail upon the King your Brother to withdraw that Protection and Subsistance that the said King allow'd me at the request of several Parliaments so that I might starve for want of Bread Nay to express your Clemency and Tenderness how warmly did you prosecute me in an Action of Scandalum Magnatum for speaking this Notorious Truth of you That you were reconciled to the Church of Rome and that it was High Treason to be so reconcil'd And what a noble Verdict a pack'd Jury of your Conspirators upon the prosecution brought in against me of One hundred thousand Pound Damages And thereupon you generously Charged me in Execution in the Kings-Bench Prison And was you afraid that I was Able to have paid the Debt and Charges and as Willing as Able Well to prevent it you resolv'd that I should not want your Clemency and Tenderness you therefore to justifie those Vertues to be inherent in you you prevail'd with King Charles the Second to give you and your Conspirators Leave to prefer two several Indictments of two pretended Perjuries in my Evidence concerning the Popish Plot but your Villains would not let the King your Brother live to see those Indictments try'd therefore they were brought to tryal in your tender Reign What sort of Witnesses did you produce against me but those very men that had been in no less than three Tryals prov'd and judg'd to be False Witnesses the Religion they professed no ways admitting them to be Credible and therefore as they were not believ'd when they gave their Testimony without an Oath so they were not to be believ'd when they were upon their Oaths for you know tender Sir they were of a Religion that could dispense with Oaths tho' false for the sake of your Catholick Cause These Sir were your Witnesses and you had two Juries of Men that had as large a Faith to believe as the Rogues had Consciences to swear and so I must averr Juries and Witnesses to be alike for he is as criminal and is as much damn'd that believes a Lye as he is that makes one and swears it too for the Rogues your mercenary wicked Judges and the Villains that were Witnesses and your pack'd Hell-born Jury-men were all in as it were a Confederacy to be reveng'd on me for the discovery of the Popish Plot and to cast a Reproach upon the Wisdom and Honour of four successive Parliaments and upon the publick Justice of the Nation Well Sir I was convicted notwithstanding the Witnesses I brought in who were brow-beaten abused by that Villain Jefferies who had neither Law nor Sence nor Manners but had the Impudence of Ten Carted Whores therefore nothing now remained for me but Judgment which was your own appointing with the Advice of your twelve Villains that were
of England's Affairs should publickly abjure the Protestant Religion by which means he was not only very unfit but also uncapable of holding any publick Employment And did not the Banditti give you such proof of their submission to your Popish Directions you gave them that they had continued in their Places to this day had not God of his Infinite Mercy deliver'd us from them and your self For they were men of an agreeable disposition to have furthered your designs of Popery notwithstanding all your Promises to maintain the Church of England for they took care that none should be prefer'd that had any zeal for the Protestant Religion for if you will be serious in considering who they were that you prefer'd to the Dignities in the Church and upon what terms you must own that they were men of such Morals and Principles as render'd them a very scandal to that villanous Design that you and your Conspirators were carrying on against the Church of England 3. I pray Sir was the suspension of the Bishop of London another demonstration of your Purpose and Resolution to maintain the Church of England Let any of your trayterous Crew stand forth and answer for you Was not that Prelate suspended for refusing to obey an Arbitrary Order sent to him by your Banditti Commissioners for the suspending of Dr. Sharp now Archbishop of York for preaching against Popery according to his Office and Calling without so much as citing the said Dr. Sharp before him to make his defence or observing any common forms of Process commonly us'd in such cases The Bishop comply'd with your Suspension and what damage it was to him he can tell better than I but it did work for our Good and hasten'd our Deliverance but it shew'd that you had but little regard to your Oath and Promise to maintain the Church of England 4. Another Specimen you gave us of your pious Resolution of maintaining the Ch. of England as by Law establish'd was the dealing with Magdalen Colledge in Oxford In the first place you turn'd out the President who was legally chosen by the Fellows of the Colledge who if I mistake not are sworn to chuse one from among themselves to bear that Office then you turn'd out all the Fellows for refusing to chuse one of your recommendation without so much as citing them to appear before any Court that could take legal cognizance in that affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a competent Judge and the only reason you gave for the turning them out was because they had refus'd a person that was a Papist who was not only uncapable by the Laws of the Land but also by the Statutes of that Colledge of bearing the Office of a President or Fellow of that Community And having expel'd both President and Fellows you put the said Colledge into the hands of Papists that you might the better maintain the Rights and Liberties of the Ch. of England as by Law establish'd But I hope it may be a warning to that Community and to all others of that University how they advance the Prerogative of the Crown so high and nourish those two pestilent Doctrins of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance and the Divine Right of Succession lesâ— those Doctrins do expose them to a greater Danger than the last 5. Another demonstration that was given by you of your stedfast Purposes of standing by and maintaining of the Ch. of England was your proceeding against the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge 1687. You had a great Favour for one Francis a Benedictine Monk a Rogue that was fit for any Villany that you could put him upon to act him you sent to Cambridge to corrupt the Youth there and no doubt but for his time he did the business for which you sent him You planted him in Sidney Colledge where you had placed one Basset a Papist in that House as Master but your Monk had an Apartment wherein he perform'd the Office of a Priest according to the Ch. of Rome but being a Fellow that had taken no Degrees in any University either at home or abroad you were resolv'd that he should be a Master of Arts in the University of Cambridge and in order to this you sent a Letter to the said Vice-Chancellor to admit the said Father Francis to be a Master of Arts without taking the Oaths which the Vice-Chancellor refus'd as contrary to the Law of the Land and the Statutes of the University Upon this you caus'd the Vice-Chancellor and the Delegates of the University to be summoned before your Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Affairs where that Villain Jefferies contrary to all Law or Reason pronounced Sentence that the Vice-Chancellor being guilty of great Disobedience to the King's Commands and other Crimes and Contempts should be depriv'd of the Office of Vice-Chancellor and suspended of his headship of Magdalen Colledge in the said University of Cambridge Thus Sir you were pleas'd to maintain the Ch. of England by suffering the Learning and Gravity of that University to be trampl'd upon and by letting in a parcel of silly impudent and illiterate Popish Priests and Fryers who were to joyn with you in supporting the Protestant Religion as it was then by Law establish'd Unless your Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Affairs judg'd that to destroy the two Universities as to Learning and to break in upon their Laws made to preserve their Communities would be a means to preserve the Church of England I cannot but wonder at those extravagant Proceedings in the last years of your Tyranny against them since they had so highly espoused your Cause when you were Duke of York against the Sence of the whole Nation 6. Another Reason you give us to believe that you did design to stand by and support and maintain the Ch. of England was your proceeding and causing to be summoned before your Ecclesiastical Commissioners all the Chancellors and Archdeacons of England and requiring them to certifie the Names of those Clergymen who had read the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience as well as the Names of those who had refused the same without considering that the reading of it was not enjoyn'd the Clergy by the Bishops who are their Ordinaries So that this was another way you intended even by these extrajudicial Proceedings in your Court of Commissioners Ecclesiastical to maintain the Liberties of the Ch. of England This was one great cause why several Persons of Quality both in Church and State refused to be concern'd in this Commission for they at last clearly saw that this damnable Commission tended to nothing less than the total Subversion of the Protestant Religion for you us'd it to no other end and purpose than to oppress such persons as were eminent for Learning and Virtue that should at any time or season preach against Popery Superstition And it was God's great Mercy to the Protestant Interest that they did at last see for sure I am that in the latter part