so it gives too much ground for a Suspicion that either you or your Clerks find your Interest and Advantage in this Pillage But to wave the giving this Practice any further the Character which it justly deserves I shall only say that as it is highly illegal so it is extreamly inhumane and barbarous A Second Contempt of the Law as well as neglect of and deviation from it in the Execution of your Place is That tho you insert the Names of those in your Warrants whom you would have seiz'd yet you do not always express and specify the Crimes for which you require them to be apprehended Nor is this Method of your Administration less arbitrary and criminal than the former was For as no Title you bear or Character you are cloathed with empowers you to deseize any Man of his Liberty but whom the Law deseizeth nor for any Offence how much soever it may provoke and enrage Mr. Secretary Trenchard but that which the Law has made thereunto obnoxious so the Commanding to apprehend Men without mentioning their Crimes is the acting despotically and the advancing your Will and Passions into the place and room of Laws It is an Axiom in our Constitution That Corpus and Causa must go together and where there is not that which the Law accounts the last no man be his Title what it will is legally empowered to lay hands upon the other The Monarchy of England is not Seignioral but Royal being a Government under which we are Freemen having Rights and Properties not Villains and Slaves who have neither Right nor Property in any thing And therefore whatsoever the Subject has a Right in he must both be entituled peaceably and securely to enjoy it and have a Remedy for the recovering it if disseized and dispossessed And without these it 's in vain to talk of being governed by Laws all we are and have being subjected to Will and Pleasure But so provident is the Law in this matter that the King 's Writ under his Great Seal cannot imprison a Subject unless it shews a Cause And were a Writ of that nature sent to a Sheriff to be executed he may return it without doing what is required and he is no ways punishable for his Disobedience or Neglect the Writ having been void in Law And can we imagine that the King's Warrants issued out by a Secretary ought to have more power and efficacy by the Law than his Writ under his Brood Seal hath Surely we must renounce Sense and Understanding ere we sink into such a Belief And if the Law doth not give you a Power over our Lands and Goods nor any Prerogative wherewith the Kings of England are vested allows you to meddle with any Man's Estate or Chattels much less can you in their Name and by their Authority imprison our Persons seeing Scripture as well as Reason do assure us That the Body is more worth than Raiment where by Raiment according to all Expositors as well as the Canonists every thing that is outward is meant to distinguish it from Corporal For the Common Law hath so adjusted and circumscribed the King's Prerogative as that he cannot prejudice any Man in his Inheritance and the greatest Inheritance a man has is the Liberty of his Person all other things being subordinate and subservient to that Yea so tender is the Law of our Liberty that if a Wrong be done to a Man's Person it does not oblige him to sustain it and afterwards accept a Remedy This being a Rule in Law That Corporalis Injuria non receipt Estimationeme futuro that no Damages recovered by the Injured Person are a sufficient Recompence for a Wrong that is Corporal And therefore where the Law doth not deseize a Man of his Liberty and render him imprisonable it makes many things lawful in Defence of it which otherwise would in some particulars be Trespasses and in others very heinous Offences Accordingly it is a Maxim in the Law Quod quis obâ—tutelam Corporis sui fecerit id jure fecisse existimatur That whatsoever a Man does in the necessary Defence of his Person he is to be esteemed to have done it rightfully Nor can any man be innocent that you from Pique Revenge or Avarice have a mind to make guilty if your bare voting and pronouncing him so in a Paper with your Hand and Seal to it shall subject him to be treated as if he really were How often does it come to pass that a Matter which the Law makes no Offence may give more Provocation to a Minister of State than that which it declares and publishes a heinous Crime Must he therefore be allowed to wreck his Spleen in punishing the former more than he does imploy his Justice in chastising the latter For example Should any one write a Satyr on the present Government with the Wit and Acrimony that Petronius Arbiter writ one upon Nero's Court there are few Punishments so severe but the Law would adjudge the Author to them Whereas should the History of the last five or six Years Transactions be writ with the Truth that becomes an honest Man and with that seasoning which may make it palatable to the Age the Law would render this no Crime nor subject the Writer to any Penalty and yet some think that such a History would more provoke and enrage the Government as well as render it more ridiculous and contemptible than all the Satyrs in the World would So that when your Ministers are most angry there is not always the most legal cause for it And therefore if the reasons of every Apprehension and Commitment be not declared in the Warrant a Man may be treated as a Traytor against K. William and a Conspirator to overthrow the Government when at the bottom all that the Gentleman is taken up and thrown into Prison for may be only a piece of Banter upon the Green-Ribbon Secretary or a Lampoon upon the mighty States-man perfected in the Politicks by the Degrees he took at the Rose-Club For it is not your knowing my Name and the inserting it into a Warrant that gives you a Right over my Person and Freedom but my being chatged with some Offence for which the Law has made me forfeit my Freedom and rendered me imprisonable And if my Offence were not to be expressed in the Warrant I might come to lose my Liberty tho' innocent of any Crime against the State merely for being thought to know too much of the Treachery and Bribery of certain Ministers which an observing Person must shut his Eyes and stop his Ears as well as avoid all Conversation to remain long a stranger unto In a Word we hold not our Liberties by Law but precariously and at the Discretion of our Enemies and are no more Freemen but Slaves if we were not to be told why we were stript and divested of them A Third Thing whereof you are accusable as departing from and transgressing the Law In the execution
of your Office iâ— That tho you both specify Persons and Crimes in your Warrants yet you order the apprehending Men for those Crimes upon bare and naked Suspicion without any Proof or Deposition upon Oath before you of their being guilty of them The common Tenour of the Warrants for a long time used to be The empowerâ—ng the taking up such and such upon Suspicion of Treason and High Misdemeanour against the Government till this Form of Commitment coming to be argued at the King's Bench Bar Anno 1690. such Persons were declared to be taken into Durance contra Legem Terr 〈…〉 For tho' according to Law a Person may be taken up upon Suspicion yet he cannot be legally detained and imprisoned upon Suspicion but where there appears no more against him he is to be discharged or at least admitted to Bail There being this Difference between Discharging and Bailing that the last is a kind of Imprisonment whereâ—s the fiâ—st is a total Delivery In the one Case the Man walks abroad dragging his Chains after him and as a Prisoner upon Parole to his Sureties In the other he is a perfect Freeman and may dispose of himself so as it is without Injury to any as he will But neither the Illegality of the thing in it self nor the Declaration of the Judges that it is so has been sufficient to deter you from proceeding sometimes in the same Method and Course Nor will it sail sooner or later to rise in Judgment against you that having committed Col. Parker to the Tower for High-Treason as you pretended yet you told my L. Lucas that you had not Witnesses against him but were resolved to keep him in hold till you could procure some Which that noble Lord imparting to the Collonel either out of Friendship or thâ—o Indiscretion he thereupon contrived and made his Escape For what less was this than to tell him that how innocent soever he might be yet he was to be destroyed and made a Sacrifice to Malice and Revenge when he could not be to Justice and that tho' he was not guilty yet it was designed and concluded he should be made so Nor can any Thing be more arbitrary and illegal than without Information upon Oath to apprehend and commit Men and because you are pleased to suspect them to be guilty to treat them therefore as if they were Surely If Suspicion be sufficient to render Persons guilty and subject them to be proceeded against as if they were very few will be long safe or accounted innocent And as your most timourous Creatures are always the most suspicious which makes the Ape and Babooâ— to fear and flee from the Snail so of all Persons that ever exercised the Office which you are now honoured to do you are the best qualified through constitutional Cowardice and Fear to entertain treasonable Suspicions of all such whom you hate and do therefore dread But pray Sir How would you have stiled such a Proceeding heretofore against your self Seeing your Memory cannot be so weak and treacherous as that you should have forgotten how during the several Years that you were really guilâ—y of plotting and conspiring against King Charles the Second you were nevertheless permitted to live at Ease and Peace because the Ministers of that Government had not positive Evidence against you tho' they had all the while both Suspicion enough and too much Ground for it And is this the best Return you make the Nation for having been released and discharged out of the Tower after a short and gentle Confinement An. 1683. when Hundreds as well as your self knew you were guilty to the highest Degree and yet discharged because there did not appear sufficient and credible Evidence against you Is this the blessed Advantage we have attained unto by the laying aside those whom we stil'd Toriâ—s to introduce and imploy such who gloried in the Name of Whigs And are these the Felicities we are to reap by a Government under which all the Grievances of former Reigns were both promised and expected to be redressed to find the Fingers of the Ministers of this heavier than the Loins of the worst of those that were imployed under the two last Tho the Woman that had been in the Oven might be excus'd for looking for her Daughter there yet it would have been unkind as well as unnâ—tural and unjust when she did not find her to have accounted her guilty and to have treated her accordingly merely upon the remembrance of her own Crime However it is from this illegal and villainous Practice of apprehending and imprisoning Persons upon naked Suspicions that you are forced to hawk after bribe and suborn Witnesses against them after you have taken them into Custody For this is that which you become in a manner necessitated unto for the Vindication of your Wisdom and Justice in having committed them And they had need have a great deal of Vertue as well as Honour to enable them to escape the Temptation to such Villainies who have run themselves into Circumstances that they must either get those destroyed or be disgraced and punished themselves Is it not enough that your imprisoning any one for Treason is equivalent to a Si quis against him to invite and allure all that can to come in and depose but that you must send through the 3 Kingdoms as well as the several Counâ—ies of England to enroll and muster Witnesses and to allow more for levying one qualified for Villany and Impudence to do you Service at the Old-Baily and Westminster-Hall than for listing a whole Foot-Company to fight in Flanders And by setting a Price upon the Lives of innocent Men but whom you are pleased to suspect as criminal you draw in the necessitous and mercenary to drag them by Perjuries to Scaffolds and Gibbets But to conclude this Head Festus the Heathen Roman was better instructed in this Matter than some of our Christian Secretaries are under all their Advantages of Revelation seeing he could say as we have it recorded in the most infallible History namely Acts the 25. ver the last That it was without Reason to send a Man to Prison without Cause But I proceed to a Fourth Instance of your violation of the Laws in the Administration of your Office which is That when you humble your self to assign the Offences for which you order Men to be apprehended you frequently alledge and insert in your Warrants those Matters for Crimes which the Law does no way account sufficient either for the seizing or detaining any Actions are stubborn and unpliable Things which it is in the Power of none to alter or raise the value of beyond what the Law has set them at and stampt them for So that tho you may make Dutch Skillings which are not intrinsically worth Two Pence to pass for an English Six Pence yet you must not think of doing so by Actions tho really offensive and render that Treasonable which is but an Undecency or
what is this but to make your Messengers such 〈◊〉 Creatures as that we cannot â—ell of what Species they are Surely it is needful that you should define 〈◊〉 that we may know 〈◊〉 they are G 〈…〉 or Messâ—â—gers for ac 〈…〉 ing to L 〈…〉 they cannot be 〈◊〉 For tho our Laâ—â—â—â—â—not prevent N 〈…〉 ral yet they do 〈◊〉 no Court 〈◊〉 Nâ—â— are two Sâ—xes twisted into oâ—e individ 〈…〉 so om 〈…〉 in the Elementary World 〈◊〉 sâ—c◠〈◊〉 in Nations as Messenger and Goaler brought to c 〈…〉 r in one Person are in Civil and Political States-For besides other Mischiefs that may attend this common practice there at Three that are inseparable from it and all of them inconsistent with and destructive of the Subjects right unto his Liberty One is that by this Method of confining Men the Judges who by their Places Employs and Characters are the Guardians of every Man's Freedom and the Guarantees between King and People are precluded from all regular ways of knowing who are taken into and kept under Custody Whereas were all Prisoners committed to Legal Goals they could not miss having cognizance of them at the respective Sessions here in Town and at the 〈◊〉 in the Countrey For the Goalers being obliged at those Times to give in a K 〈…〉 dar or Liâ—t of all they have under their Custody it cannot then escape arriving at their Knowledg who they are And as many are kept in Captivity for Months and Years without the Judges receiving any Intelligence of them so if at any time they come to attain it by the Reports of those that visit them and as a part of the Common News as I do not know they can judicially take notice of it so I believe they are not by their Duty obliged to it And for them to meddle beyond that would be to have their Sallaries paid worse than they are which they are already ill enough For tho they hold their Places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bene sâ— gâ—ssâ—â—int yet as to the time of being paid their Sallaries they are under a 〈◊〉 Nor could an Act be obtained to rectify this and relieve them from a precarious Dependance tho a Bill had past both Houses and was offered to King W. in order to the obtaining the Royal Asâ—ent for it But he preferred his own Interest to that of his People and refused it For among the many other Blessings which we have attained by the late Revolution that of having more Negatives given to publick â—ills in five years than had been given in thirty eight before may be reck 〈…〉 for one and that not of the smallest Size Another Mischief accompanying this Practice of committing Prisoners to Messengers Hou 〈…〉 s is the robbing them of the Priviledg and Benefit of being delivered out of their Thraldom and restored to their Liberty with that Conveniency and Speed as otherwise they might For those Houses being out of the Circle of a Commission of Oyer and Terminer at the Old Baily such as are coopt up in them do sue in vain for Remedy at the Sessions Of this we have had the Misfortune to see many doleful Instances and some very lately And Applications of this nature being usually made the last Day of the Sessions and after the Dispatch of all the Tryals when the Judges are seldom on the Bench Honest Salathiel whose Learning Wisdom and Justice are all of a Size does not only reject them with Scorn and Contempt but treats those who make the Motions with the Pride and Insolence which supply the room of other Qualifications requisite for his Place Nor can any give the Dimensions of this Grievance but they who having been thrown into the Dens of Lyons at the beginning of a long Vacation have been forced to continue under their Paws and Teeth as well as remain deprived of their Liberties withheld from their Familles and shut out from all their Business till the last Day of Michaelmas Term. To which I subjoin a Third Plague that inseparably cleaves to this way of Commitment namely That it tempts the Messengers to suborn Rascally Fellows in Town and Country to inform and depose against Honest and Quiet Men that they may have an Opportunity administred of preying upon and fleecing of them And considering the Morals of most of them it is more than probable in reference to many and proof can be made of it in relation to some how they employ Setters to entangle Persons into their Clutches and have their Spaniels to start Game for them to worry Nor is it much to be wondered at that having purchased their Places at dear Rates they should sell the Devil as well as they had bought him And their customary Salaries being but ill paid the Government being usually a Year or two in Arrear to them while German Troops Abroad and Dutch Projectors under the Notion of Incompatable Artifis and Ingeniers at Home swallow up our Money even to the starving almost King IV's Houshold few People will think it strange if those Blades who have neither Honour nor Conscience to restrain them should purvey for a Subsistence in all the ways they possibly can without regard to the Justice of them And I will further add upon this Head That if those who are forcibly detained in such Hands and Places shall make their Escapes the Law neither doth nor can make any Crime of it For whatsoever Cognizance it takes of Escapes out of Legal Prisons and whatsoever Punishment it makes the Officer in that Case obnoxious unto yet it can annex no Penalties where it hath made no Establishments nor inflict Chastisement for not remaining where it is so far from requiring that it doth not allow that any Man should be And if the Law of 1 Ed. 2. de frangentibus Prisonam doth neither make 〈◊〉 Person that breaks Prison nor the Goaler that consents to it tho he whom he had in Custody were guilty of High Treason corporally punishable and much less with death unless the Warrant by which the said Person was committed express and declare the Cause of his Commitment By parity of Reason an Escape out of an illegal Prison is as little punishable Seeing the Law that hath ordered it to be always specified and declared for what Cause Men are taken into Custody hath taken no less care in providing whither they are to be sent and in what Places they are to be detained But I hasten to a Tenth Grievance under which the Subject groans thro your illegal execution of your Office towards those you apprehend and commit and that is in the suffering if not encouraging and authorizing those called Prisoners of State to be treated both in Goals and in Messengers Houses with the utmost Barbarity Rudeness and Insolency For whatsoever you do not either prevent or remedy when you both ought and may you must be thought to justify and allow and ought accordingly to be made responsible for it Prisons are not by the Law intended for
Treasonable Causes and to keep Prosecutions of that nature under his own Conduct doth therefore whatsoever lies in his Power to confine Aaron to a shorter Teâ—der than he is willing to be staked down unto for which he talks of Mr. Attorney with the utmost Contempt detracting both from his Knowlege and Integrity in all Companies Which Misunderstanding I leave to be arbitrated between themselves as being best acquainted with each others Intellectual and Moral Qualifications But why do I insist so much upon the unpresidented Illegalities of Aaron Smith when the very Secretaries of State themselves without regard to Law Honour Justice or Humanity cause seize and apprehend both Men and Women for no other Offence alleged against them but that they discâ—ver what they know of the Infamy of the Witnesses and take the Methods which the Laws have provided and chalk'd forth for bringing them to an accountableness for their Crimes And as the like was never practised under any of those Reigns of which we did most complain and as it appears since very unjustly so it is worthy of our Observation that when a Pack of Scandalous Rascals had combined in the Year 1681 to involve a great many Protestants in a Conspiracy of seizing King Charles and for altering the Government yet no one was molested either for detecting the Forgery of that Plot or for laying open and exposing the Crimes Villainies and Perjuries of those who were then stiled the King's Evidences Yea when three several Discourses all of them bearing the Title of No Protestant Plot were printed and published in Vindication of the Innocency of those that were suspected as well as of those that were apprehended and imprisoned and for detecting the Scandalousness and Legal Improbity of the Evidences and withal the Picquancy which the Author of those Discourses had either Spirit or Language to season them with yet they were not only read by every Man with Safety but openly sold by most Stationers about London without Animadversion or Controul Nor can any Age parallel such a Commitment or furnish us with a Warrant of the Tenor of that issued out by the present Secretaries upon this occasion whereof I shall subjoin a Copy that this Generation may see their Misery and the next laugh at our Folly Namely afterwards of course in all Warrants That they should apprehend and bring before them the Persons of together with their Papers for conspiring and endeavouring to suborn Witnesses against the Lives and Credit of several witnesses for their Majesties against Persons charged with High Treason c. Which looks like a summoning all the Malefactors in the several Goals of the Kingdom to come in and list themselves Witnesses for the Government with assurance not only of Protections and Rewards but that they shall have the Satisfaction and Pleasure to see those imprisoned and punished that shall dare to prosecute them for their Crimes tho they should be Murders and Burglaries as well as Felonies Were not the matter before me too open to be exposed as well as it is tempting to render me severe beyond my Temper and Inclinations I would add more upon this Theam But tho nothing can be rude and much less picquant enough against those that have had the Indiscretion if not the Malice to issue out a Warrant of this Nature yet I will so far both retain my Passions and regulate my Heat as only calmly to expostulate the matter in one Word Is the rescuing our Laws and the vindicating our Liberties which were the Pretences for the Prince of Orange's Descent into England and the great Motives to the late Revolution issued in this That we have neither Laws nor Liberties left us but that we must stand with our Mouths shut and our Hands bound till our Lives be destroyed and our Estates forfeited upon the Perjuries of the most Notorious as well as Hainous Villains that that ever the Earth bare And let me tell you That we think it much more eligible that you should command your Dutch Dragoons to cut our Throats if they can than that a Design should be carried on and thus countenanced by Authority of murthering us by Forms of Law For as in the one Case we should be sure to sell our Lives e're we lost them and should we miscarry in our own defence would hope to dye not only pitied but expect to have our Death 's revenged whereas in the other we fall with Disgrace and there are few have the Honour Zeal and Generosity to resent the Wrong and Injustice that are done us Yet it may be â—hat when proximus ardet Utalegon every Man will be allarm'd and that the Methods which render quilibet homo reus may in a little time make omnis homo miles And as I am very well assured That by the Course you take to destroy some all Men are threatned so I do not know but that the common hazard may run the Nation upon a Defence as universal as the Danger is But I return to a Representation of some more of your Witnesses and he whom I shall next unmask is Wilson who was formerly a Chamberlain at the Bear Inn in Smithfield but who I do suppose is by this time commenced Gentleman thro the Grace and Favour of Aaron Smith who takes upon him to be the Fountain of Honours But this Fellow Wilson having within these Two years been tryed and convicted of Felony before Mr. Baron Turton for stealing Four Bullocks and having thereupon been sentenced to be burnt in the hand which was accordingly executed I shall need to say no more to render him Infamous to all the sober and impartial part of Mankind Only I am sorry Sir that that you and the rest of the Powis-house Cabal should make it your Business so effectually to disgrace the Government whereof you are Ministers as you apparently do in using encouraging and maintaining such a Rascal for a Witness to destroy those whose Persons you hate and whose Estates you covet And as you cannot be ignorant of what I have now related concerning him so you might easily inform your selves if you preserved any respect to Justice that at those Seasons which Wilson swears he was in Lancashire and upon the treasonable Secrets of those Gentlemen against whom he hath deposed that he was at those times in Lo 〈…〉 on In a very mean and servile Employ But I will say no more of him seeing if what I have reported doth not render him infamous nothing will I shall therefore proceed to the Representation of a young Sprig of an Evideace but who being placed for a few years under the Cultivation of Harry Baker may grow up into an unquestionable Witness for the State if Treachery and Forgery can make him so His Name that it may not be forgotten when you and Ministers of your Complexion have occasion to make use of him is Stephen Chazall who having been formerly Servant to Mr. Berionde and dismissed by him about Two