with the private Intreigues of this sort Yet I can tell him of one Tucker that had not only his Estate granted from him but his Wife also perswaded to leave him and marry another Man and the poor Man after a miserable languishing in Gaol without that small support he was promised by those that perswaded him to plead Guilty to his Indictment of Treason has a Petition now lying before the House to be relieved in both and to have his Estate restored without the incumbrance of his Wife which is no extravagant request if It be true that she forsook him in his misery Though the Parliament were pleased to mention no other Grievances yet I would not have our Author too confident there were no other for certainly the displacing of the Judges so frequently and upon all occasions was a great one in it self and occasioned many more This made some of them stick closer to their directions from Court than to the Law in many Cases but for fear of this Judgment had never passed so quickly in Sir Edward Hale's Case I should be glad to know what our Author thinks of prosecuting the Subject with great rigour upon pretended Crimes As the Bishop of London for not Suspending Dr. Sharp the Seven Bishops for Petitioning him in the most humble manner Dr. Burnet for the slip of his Pen in a private Letter or for a less offence as we may judge by their quitting the first as soon as they had the other to lay hold on Mr. Baxter for his Notes on the New Testament these and many such like that might be instanced shewed as if the Government lay at catch and were glad of an opportunity no matter how just or honourable to be rid or revenged of any person they had no fancy to This kept all persons under jealousies and apprehensions Has our Author read the Statute of Charles the Second repealing the Act for Triennial Parliaments If he has let him tell me whether it was well observed if it had it might have prevented many of our other Grievances for the King would not have gotten Ministers so fool-hardy as to have executed his Orders if they had thought that a Parliament was likely soon to over-take them Lastly I should be glad to know what our Author thinks of those many Grievances relating to Ireland I shall only instance in my Lord Tyrconnel's Government that being the foundation and support of most of the rest The Sword was no sooner put into his hands but he displaces our Protestant Lord Chancellor Attorney-General and prime Serjeant and Lord Chief Baron before Term and the Judges who were always appointed in Hillary-Term for the Lent-Circuit waited beyond that for his Approbation the consequence whereof was That the two Protestant Serjeants were put by and Paplsts their Juniors sent in their stead His next blessing to the Nation was such a sett of Sheriffs the like whereof that or no other Nation ever saw and his Majesty was so eager for these Tools that Lord Clarendon was ordered not to name them and though usually the Sheriffs are named in November this Year waiting for his coming we had them not until the middle of February and then many of them were Men of no Estates To reprise the Country in case they injured them little understanding and less honesty to direct them in the due execution of their Offices which discouraged many so much that they chose rather to venture the loss of their Debts by not Suing than by Suing venture it in the Sheriff's hands and in that Vacation he attacked all the Corporations in the Kingdom with Quo Warranto's and soon afterwards disseised several persons of their Offices wherein they had Free-holds by putting others in their places as Bruno Talbot was made Chancellor of the Exchequer in the place of Sir Charles Meridith and Captain Giles Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance in the place of Sir Albert Coningham though they both had Patents of their Imployments for their Lives I might go on with the mention of other Injuries heaped by him on the Protestants to the length of a just Volume But in hopes that we shall not be any more troubled with him I will forbear Having so long followed our Author close to his own method without omitting any thing that he can judge material For the future I will only consider the principal of his Assertions and Insinuations having already been so much longer than I at first intended I have spoken to the late King's Concessions before the Prince's Landing To which I shall now add because our Author lays so great stress thereon That if his Intentions had been so Candid and Princely as the Author phrases it why did he not suffer the Parliament to meet in January as he promised Why was he so angry at the Peers that desired it the 17th of November Why did he so long resist its Sitting until he should be in a condition to keep his Word or not as he pleased This he denied to those Bishops our Author says he granted so much to Lastly It must be noted that though the King redressed some of our Grievances yet he did not take away the great Cause of our jealousie and complaint As for instance he cancelled the Ecclesiastical Commission but did not disclaim the Power of setting up another when he should think fit nay did not so much as promise not to do it And for any assurance that we had he might by another Court have punished these Bishops for their present presumption and medling with State-affairs neither did he ever disclaim his absolute Power over us nor lay aside his Dispensing Power by which alone he could have rendred all our relief in Parliament useless therefore so long as he kept that all that he could do for us could not satisfie because without it we could not be secure for any longer time than the Jesuit's fears kept them in order Next our Author would insinuate a strange Proposition That the States contributed to the Invasion with a design to ruin our Trade In answer to which I say That it cannot be supposed that they have forgotten what helped well if not laid the first foundation of their Trade and Greatness and why they should not expect as much profit from the struggles about Religion in King James's time as from those in Queen Mary's time I cannot tell Surely Popery is not less terrible to us now than it was then that we should more tamely submit to it than we did then We have seen in France some late effects of prevailing Popery that does not more surprize than instruct us to be on our Guards to which the danger of our Civil Rights being joyned all undermined by the Dispensing Power and Obedience without reserve Surely the same or worse effects as to us might have been expected now than followed in those days that only contended about Religion Where that Persecution forced an Hundred abroad in all probability King James
Council and put them upon some difficulty and that there was no expedient to be found but either to acquit or commit them This seems strange and is not only a reflection on the Lawyers of the Board but on those learned Gentlemen that were attending for surely none of the four were so ignorant they could have told the King you may and ought to dismiss them for this time with a Reprimand and acquaint them that as soon as the Term comes which was not far off an Information should be exhibited against them for their Seditious Libel and that if they did not appear to answer the same Process would issue against them those that had been Chief Justices of that Court and the King's Council knew this very well but that did not answer their ends they were in hast and by this method the Term might have been spent without any Tryal And what is more they would not have known how to have avoided the Archbishop's Presence to the affair they were to have in hand soon this looks so like their Politicks that it finds greater belief than any positive proof we have for it deserves The next Assertion is That the Bishop's Tryal was managed favourably and that over-sights were committed in the want of proof and suffering the dispencing Power to be so fully argued These were certainly over sights but they were such as were not to be remedied by any diligence and should have been considered before the Prosecution was resolved on for it was obvious to the meanest capacity that the Bishops would make that defence but their rage blinded them in more particulars than our Author mentions else they had never forgotten that the Archbishop was not at White hall or that he had not done any Act in the County where they laid their Venue I formerly mentioned their want of proof of the publishing and I might here add those other ingredients of a Libel Falsity and Malice had they not been transported with Rage or something more extravagant could they hope that twelve English-men would believe it unlawful to Petition the King had not their former success with Juries been great they would never have attempted so extravagant a thing With what patience the late King endured the rejoycing at the Bishop's acquittal I know not but it would seem by the Proceedings of his Ecclesiastical Commissioners and their Order of the 12th of July to all the Chancellors of the Kingdom to return them the Names of all such of our Clergy as did not Read the King's Declaration on the 16th day of August following that he was not resolved to let the matter end so and though the Jury had acquit them he had a Sett of Commissioners that knew better the sin of disobeying his Majesty's Commands and if destruction had not come suddenly upon them it is not to be imagined what Examples we should have had of his fury if we compute according to the Durham pattern we should have had at least Five thousand suspended Ministers in the Kingdom which does many times exceed the Numbers that were deprived either on King Edward or Queen Elizabeth's Reformation And then as to the King's Justice in the matter of which our Author says none have reason to complain it was making a Petition a Libel and the delivery of it to himself in his Bed-chamber or Closet a Publishing of it and surely there was as little Justice or Clemency in the last part of the Tragedy to displace the Judges for discharging their Consciences and declaring the Law to be as really it was was so arbitrary that the Great Lewis could have done no more if his Commands had been contradicted and to do that so suddenly after the Tryal and to supersede them before they had finished the Circults to which they had been appointed did so much proclaim his rage that few people will be perswaded that he would patiently have endured the Huzza's our Author speaks of if he had known how to help it He supposes we will lay no great stress upon the King 's placing some Roman Catholicks in Colledges it being known that the Kings of England have in all Ages dispenced with Qualifications required by the Vniversity-Statutes especially since the Judgment for the Dispencing Power How this Judgment comes to be urged here I do not see unless it be because the word Dispence is used in both for that Judgment as extravagant as it was had no influence on our Universities for that great reason That nothing ought to hinder the King of the Use and Service of his Subjects has no force here unless we allow that the corrupting the Youth of the Nation was the service the King had for those Popish Emissaries and then that other reason That the Laws of England are the King's Laws does not come up to the present case because the Magdalen-Statutes are also the Founder's Laws and therefore not to be changed without his or his Successor's consent but supposing the King had such a Power by the Law was that the way he swore to support the Church of England was not that trusting our Sheep and Lambs to the Wolf to keep In this particular as in all others of Honour or Profit the Papist had the better much of the Dissenter in whose favour we do not find one Mandate to the University These are the particulars our Author says gave the greatest cause of clamour and the reason was because they shaked the Foundations of our security and vested the whole Legislature in the King in the support of which Usurpation he was resolved to ruin all that thwarted him on the meanest pretence this made his Rule odious and terrible to the Subject How could we account any thing either of Religion or Property our own when the doors were opened and we were only beholden to the Jesuit's modesty for not entring and stripping us of as much of either of them as they thought fit Before I have done with this Head I must desire you to take notice of our Author'â— modesty in reckoning the late King's injuries to the Church of â—ngland if he had pleased he might have instanced more as the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge's Case who for refusing to admit Alban Francis a Benedictine Monk on the King's Mandate to the degree of Master of Arts without taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy appointed to be taken by several Acts of Parliament was deprived of that Office and also suspended ab officio beneficio of his Mastership of Magdaten-Colledge during his Majesty's pleasure This sentence was pronounced the 7 th of May 87 and never relaxed until the General Jubilee on the Bishop's Address October 88. His four new Bishops and keeping Bishopricks vacant all that fell in his time in Ireland and making worse use of some in England entertaining a Nuntio publickly at Court setting a Jesuit at Council-Table were no great Complements to the Church of England nor their publick Schools and Mass-houses the
regulation of Corporations shewed them but little respect with many other things of this sort that might be mentioned I am sorry the Author's indiscretion should have forced me to give so many instances of that Man's failings he fancied had all that could be wished and do now leave it to you and all indifferent persons to judge whether the Author has made out his first Proposition of King James's good intentions The second Proposition laid down by our Author is That the late King's designs were totally frustrated but whether by ignorance or treachery or both is not worth while to examine In his discourse on this Head he mentions several over fights in the then Ministers of State but instead of four he should have given us many more wherewith I will not trouble my self at present my design being to Answer his Book not to Mend it I will therefore hasten to the third Proposition which is That our condition in respect of our Laws Liberties and Properties is now worse than it was or was like to have been under King James In the handling whereof our Author pretends to consider the several Grievances we laboured under in King James his time as they are summed up in the Declaration of the 12th of February last which filled up our vacant Throne and that he will draw the Parallel between the late and present Times impartially This I must confess is a very proper method for his design which is all the good I can say of the undertaking I will follow him through the several Articles as laid down and hope plainly to demonstrate the malice and false glosses of all he says and if that be well done I think little more need be said in Confutation of the rest of the Book The first Article is That King James did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom the other Articles are only the means which he used to this end In answer to which he says The late King aimed at nothing but Liberty to all sorts of Dissenters and that Roman Catholicks might have their share of ease 2. That few Converts were made in his time 3. And that having armed his Roman Catholicks in his last extremity they did not amount to the fortieth part of his Army nor to the 300 fighting Men in his Kingdom therefore they could afford him small assistance 4. That the Church flourished in his time many Dissenters being then brought into its Communion 5. That now the Church of England and Episcopacy is in danger if Protestancy be not as appears by the late Act of Toleration wherein Turcism is not excepted though Popery be 6. That Episcopacy is abolished in Scotland and they have a Party in the Convention here endeavouring the same thing 7. That we have lost the Doctrine of our Church-Loyalty and Non-resistance 8. That we have seen a total Abolition of the Laws for we have changed the Hereditary Monarchy into an Elective one and destroyed all Government by declaring an Original Power in the People This with some scandalous and unjust Reflections on his present Majesty to which I will not give so much countenance as an Answer is the substance of what he says on the first Article which for Method's sake I have sub-divided into eight Particulars to each of which I will propose some Considerations except to the first of which I have said so much already that it is needless to say more But that if the late King had been as our Author says Master of the Wisdom we could have wished him he would never have done so many mean harsh and superstitious things for no purpose whatsoever unless it were to hinder what our Author says he only designed From hence I think we may strongly conclude that he designed more than Ease for Roman Dissenters To the second no body would have said that few Converts were made in his time that did not wish them more Was there any Order of Men amongst us free Some of the Nobility in all the three Kingdoms some of our Clergy Lawyers Souldiers and of all other ranks had actually declared and it is too much to be feared that many waited only for the Repeal of the Penal Laws though they cared not for their Souls nor stood in awe of Damnation yet they dreaded the Statute against being reconciled But then if their Numbers were but small the fault was not the King 's for he made the full use of the Arguments in his Power discountenancing the stedfast and rewarding those that came over to him the Great Seals of two of the Three Kingdoms were in such hands and surely England will not brag much of their Protestant Chancellor to go to Mass was the certain way to Preferment as might be instanced in many particulars and we cannot forget what took the Treasurer's Staff from the Earl of Rochester To the third That the Papists of Fngland are not the 300th fighting Man I will not dispute but that they were not the 40th Man of the late Army is certainly false if he had told us in plain English that there was but one or two of them in a Company all persons that had been conversant in the places where they were Quarter'd would have known the contrary therefore he chose other words and yet says the same thing which is plain when we consider that our Companies consisted of about 50 Men but for easiness of computation we will allow them to be 60 which by our Author's proportion is only three Papists to two Companies I might here mind our Author that the Irish Army was Papist which multiplied by 40 had made an Army big enough for the Great Mogull But I will yield that our Author did not include the Irish Army when he made the 40th Man the proportion of Papist and yet they ought not to be forgotten when we are speaking of King James's Popish Forces But his Expression being That the Papists armed in his last extremity were not the 40th part of his Army The Party that came from Ireland in October 88 must be included or he was not then or afterwards in extremity Now supposing no Papists in his Army before and that Party being at least 3000 by the Author's Rule of proportion his Army ought to have consisted of 120000 Men but his Army was not so great and the Papists of it more so that another estimate of them must be taken if we throw away the cypher and read a 4th instead of a 40th part I believe we shall be nearer the matter But since that and a much greater force was not sufficient to enslave this Nation we must conclude he had other Tools Forreign or Domestick to carry on the Cause To the fourth That the Church flourished in the late King's time if our Author means that we had many good and learned Men then in it I must grant it but then it must be granted to me that he
their Proceedings against him for Alimony although this was one of the Articles their Commission authorizes them to hear and determine Here the Court looked on their Authority to be from the Statute not the Commission This is a full Judgment and many more might be instanced against those that assert That the King by his Supremacy or the Common Law could Erect such a Court though the Statute were repealed for in this Case he gave Authority to decree Alimony in Cases of severity but because the Statute gave none such their Proceedings were stopped by a Prohibition It is wonderful to me and seems something like an infatuation That the Projectors of that Court did not to gain some credit to it and in return for all the mischiefs they intended find out some real Criminals to make Examples of so that the Nation might sometimes be satisfied with their Judgments though they could not be with their Jurisdiction When we see vengeance over-take notorious Offendors it is but rarely that we inquire whence the blow comes and if we do we are seldom over-strickt in the matter But since they omitted this common piece of Policy after-times will rather suspect that they had not Power by the Commission to punish such Offendors then either that so populous a Nation should want fit Objects for their wrath or that so famed Politicians should contemn so prudent a course All the account I can give of this matter is that Quos Jupiter vult perdere prius dimentat The fifth Article is Levying Money for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by Parliament this he confesses ought not to have been done by the Petition of Right and some older Statutes he mentions which is a Confession of the justness of the Complaint But then what he did of this kind he says was by vertue of a Lease King Charles the Second was impowred to grant for three years This is another instance how small a matter was sufficient lately for Appearance of Law good enough to wrest the Legislative Power out of its proper course For this Lease our Author here speaks of was pretended but to be made by the Commissary of the Treasury the Fifth of February the day before King Charles dyed and when he was lying void of all reason and sence if not of life This looks so like a trick that it supersedes all necessity of enquiry Whether King Charles had power to make a Lease of that part of his Revenue granted him for Life only for any longer time than his Life But to shew the illegality of that Proceeding and the insincerity of the Author I will give the full account of this matter And first it is to be observed that the late King upon his first coming to the Crown levied Money on several Branches of the Revenue setled on King Charles for Life The Subsidies of Tonnage and Poundage and other sums of Money payable on Merchandises Exported and Imported were granted expresly by the Statute to King Charles during life yet the late King by his Proclamation of the 9th of February directs that the same shall be Collected as in the time of his Brother Herein he pretends to no other Law for this but that it is his Will and Pleasure the necessity â—f the Government requiring the same there is no three years Lease in this Case nor any pretence that King Charles did or could make any such so that as to this our Author's assertion is false But indeed as to the Excise the late King made use of that pretence and by his Proclamation of the 16th of February tells us That the late King's Commissioners of the Treasury did on the fifth of February contract and agree with Sir Peter Apsly Sir Benjamin Bathurst and James Grahme that they should receive the Duty of Excise for three years from the date thereof at the Rent of 550000 Pounds per annum And being certified by the Opinion of the Judges that the said Contract is good and valid in Law to the intent that the said persons may have no pretence of with-holding their Rent and that the Subjects may not incur the Penalties inflicted by the Laws of Excise for not making due Entries or Non-payment or concealing any part of the said Duty during the said three years He does publish to all his Subjects that the Judges have certified him their Opinions that the said Contract hath continuance notwithstanding the decease of his Brother His Will and Pleasure therefore is and he thereby Commands the Commissioners of the Excise and other Officers that they be Aiding and Assisting to the said persons in Collecting and Levying the said Duties and that all persons chargeable with the payment thereof do make due Entries and pay the same upon the pains and penalties to be inflicted thereupon according to the Laws of Excise Though these Proclamations were equally illegal yet the first was certainly the more generous it goes roundly to work and tells us in plain terms he wanted the Money and therefore would take it whereas the other pretends to be countenanced by the Law but instead thereof has only that of the Lawyers the Moiety of the Rent therein mentioned is a fair sum to be gained for three years by the private Opinion of the Judges which is sufficiently confuted by a bare stating of the Case The Excise was granted by two Acts of Parliament the one Moiety by one Act the other Moiety thereof by another The first is called a Grant of certain Impositions for the increase of his Majesty's Revenue during his life And Enacts That the Duties therein mentioned shall be paid to the King during his life ' the other Act lays the same Imposition on the several Liquors therein mentioned and Enacts expresly That the same shall be paid to the King his Heirs and Successors for ever Which being the Statutes of one Parliament shews plainly that it was intended that the one half of the Duty should dye with the King otherwise there was no need of two Acts and the reason of the difference is obvious for the last Moiety of this Duty was granted to the Crown in satisfaction of the Profits of the Court of Wards and for the Abolishing of the King 's Pre-emption and Purveyance in which the Crown had an Inheritance In both these Acts there is a Clause for making Leases not exceeding three years which was laid hold on to continue this Tax on us for three years longer than the express time we granted Had this Lease been made bona fide and in King Charles's health it would have been but a frivolous pretence but considering the time it was made it was the smallest way ever was laid hold of by a sinking Cause Our Author comes next to represent our present Condition to us and though he make a fearful Picture of it it is not so dreadful as Popery and Arbitrary Power in their best Dress He says we must pay great
Taxes and reckons up some Millions I am not so conversant in the Affairs of the Treasury as to tell whether his Computation be right but be it so we had rather pay that and much more than fall into our former misery it is some satisfaction to our minds that when our Taxes are paid the rest is our own But to set this matter right and to discover the Author's disingenuity we must take notice that the Statute taking away the Hearth-money one of the most grievous burthens this Nation ever groaned under Peter-pence and Danegeld not excepted passed the Royal Assent the 24th of April 89. And that our Author in several places of his Book takes notice of Statutes passed and other matters happening afterwards as the Pole-bill the first of May the Declaration of War against France the 7th of May the Ease to Dissenters the 24th of May and the Act for satisfying the States-General the 20th of August 89. But yet he speaks not one word of the other and his reason is because if he had done that the great Taxes he speaks of would dwindle into nothing for if that Duty amounted to 200000 Pound per annum we have not yet given the King Twenty years Purchase for it which is the rate most of his Subjects sell at He tells us next The War cannot be carried on without Money and that at the end of it it must cost in a great Sum to Disband the Army which he would perswade us to save by restoring King James This is a declaring War against the Army and will lessen the number of his Friends if he have any there and then if the Nation by restoring that King will avoid paying their own Army they must pay his which is as numerous and to whom there is as great an Arrear due besides all that is due to the French King So that if any be so sordid as to wish a change in the Government it must be on other Motives than to save his Money the restitution of the Hearth-money being all he is like to get by that bargain He tells us next That we who feared the coming of the French in King James 's time have taken a way by declaring War against them to bring them upon us with a vengeance But I would have him know this Nation would rather see the French here open and professed Enemies than pretended Friends and that we fear them less in the one capacity than the other and surely we never had less reason to fear them than at present though it were too great presumption to guess at the Divine Councils or to say that God now designs to be avenged on him for his Blasphemy and many Oppressions or that he has at last heard the Groans of the Fatherless and Widows though doubtless he will in his own due time inquire and visit for these things yet if we consider how he stands with the Kings of the Earth we may rationally hope that his Glory is near an end for the Emperour and Princes of the Empire are exasperated against him not only by his seizing and barbarously destroying their Territories but by his stopping their Victories over the Turks and by assisting them by so great a diversion But it hath pleased God to bless their just Cause with success both against the one and the other with the King of Spain and the States of Holland he has actual War the Cantons of Switzerland at best but Neutral and some think they are almost over-come by the late Pope's advice to quit it who not only styled him the Common Enemy of the Christian part of Europe but with his last Breath advised the Cardinals to oppose his unjust designs Had England ever a better time to humble his Pride or to force him to do justice to themselves and Allies for the many injuries and provocations he has from time to time heaped upon them If we cannot deal with him now that he has no Allies to support but the Turks Irish and Algerines we must despair of ever seeing an end to the Miseries of Europe The sixth is Keeping a standing Army in time of Peace without consent of Parliament He wisely omits Quartering Souldiers contrary to Law being neither able to say any thing in defence of it nor to retort it on the present Government All that he says to this Article is That his Officers were enriched by his Pay and that they were his delight but he does not tell us they were so because he hoped to over-throw our Religion and Laws by their assistance and to throw off Parliaments those Shakells on his designs He tells us next King James used no Forreign force but contented himself with his Natural-born Subjects But was not there some of them as ill as either Dutch or Brandenburger The Irish are more opposite to our Religion and Civll Interest than either of the other But our Author is angry we have an Army in being not designed to enslave the Nation as the last was but ready to oppose all that shall endeavour to bring us under our old Bondage and some to spare to oppose the French design on Flanders by whose Courage he has already received one defeat and durst his General have stayed and not retreated so very fast he might have had another Our Author in his last Leaf gives us so true a representation of the inconveniencies and burthens the Nation groaned under from the Army that I cannot better express them than in the Author's words Some Rake-hells of the Army took liberty to disgrace the Service who to supply their extravagant Expences put the Souldier's Pay into their own Pockets for which they allowed them under-hand to sharp upon the Country and too often leave their Quarters unpaid to the dishonour of the King and ruin of many an honest Man And to add to that Infamy they forced the Constables by threats to give them Certificates that they had paid their Quarters and behaved themselves well in them when in truth they had done neither But to heal the matter he says further That those that were averse to the King's interest with a design to ruin him in the affections of the People either quite concealed this from him or at least so minced the matter that the difficulty the poor Country-man lay under of being heard or relieved made the remedy often prove worse than the disease Doubtless if there had not been too many instances of the fruitless Complaints of the Nation upon the abuses of the Army we should not have had so full a confession as this from our Author The seventh Article is Causing several good Subjects being Protestants to be disarmed But our Author omits the other half That Papists at the same time were both armed and employed contrary to Law What is said to this is so little to the purpose that I scarce know how to Answer it He cannot tell when this was done nor whether those disarmed Protestants were not