Church I shall only desire him and the dissenting Party to make the use they ought of the King Gracious Disposition to them in not yet proceeding with all the violence which the penal Laws require against them But this calm of my Author was too happy to last long You find him immediately transported into a storm about the business of Fitz-Harris which occasion'd the Dissolution of the Parliament at Oxford and accusing according to his sawcy Custom both his Majesty and the House of Lords concerning it As for the House of Lords they have already vindicated their own right by throwing out the Impeachment and sure the People of England ought to own them as the Assertors of the publick Liberty in so doing for Process being before ordered against him at Common Law and no particular Crime being laid to his Charge by the House of Commons if they had admitted his Cause to be tryed before their Lordships this would have grown a President in time that they must have been forc'd to judge all those whom the House of Commons would thrust upon them till at last the number of Impeachments would be so increas'd that the Peers would have no time for any other business of the Publick and the Highest Court of Judicature would have been reduc'd to be the Ministers of Revenge to the Commons What then would become of our ancient Privilege to be tryed per pares Which in process of time would be lost to us and our posterity except a proviso were made on purpose that this judgment might not be drawn into farther President and that is never done but when there is a manifest necessity of breaking rules which here there was not Otherwise the Commons may make Spaniels of the Lords throw them a man and bid them go judge as we command a Dog to fetch and carry But neither the Lords Reasons nor the King first having possession of the Prisoner signifie any thing with our Author He will tell you the reason of the Impeachment was to bring out the Popish Plot. If Fitz-Harris really know any thing but what relates to his own Treason he chuses a fine time of day to discover it now when 't is manifestly to save his Neck that he is forc'd to make himself a greater Villain and to charge himself with new Crimes to avoid the punishment of the old Had he not the benefit of so many Proclamations to have come in before if he then knew any thing worth discovery And was not his fortune necessitous enough at all times to catch at an impunity which was baited with Rewards to bribe him 't is not for nothing that Party has been all along so favourable to him they are conscious to themselves of some other matters than a Popish Plot. Let him first be tryed for what he was first accus'd if he be acquitted his Party will be satisfied and their strength increas'd by the known honesty of another Evidence but if he be condemn'd let us see what truth will come out of him when he has Tyburn and another World before his Eyes Then if he confess any thing which makes against the Cause their Excuse is ready he died a Papist and had a dispensation from the Pope to lie But if they can bring him silent to the Gallows all their favour will be to wish him dispatch'd out of his pain as soon as possibly he may And in that Case they have already promis'd they will be good to his Wife and provide for her which would be a strong encouragement for many a woman to perswade her Husband to digest the Halter This remembers me of a certain Spanish Duke who commanding a Sea-Port-Town set an Officer of his underhand to rob the Merchants His Grace you may be confident was to have the Booty and the Fellow was assur'd if he were taken to be protected It fell out after some time that he was apprehended His Master according to Articles brought him off The Rogue went again to his vocation was the second time taken delivered again and so the third At last the matter grew so notorious that the Duke found it would be both scandalous and difficult to protect him any longer But the poor Malefactor sending his Wife to tell him that if he did not save him he must be hanged to morrow and that he must confess who set him on His Master very civilly sent him this Message Prithee suffer thy self to be hanged this once to do me a Courtesie and it shall be the better for thy Wife and Children But that which makes amends for all says our Author is the Kings resolution to have frequent Parliaments Yet this it seems is no amends neither for he says Parliaments are like Terms if there be Ten in a Year and all so short to hear no Causes they do no good I say on the other hand If the Courts will resolve beforehand to have no Causes brought before them but one which they know they cannot dispatch let the Terms be never so long they make them as insignificant as a Vacation The King 's Prerogative when and where they should be call'd and how long they should sit is but subservient as our Friend tells us to the great design of Government and must be accommodated to it or we are either denyed or deluded of that Protection and Iustice we are born to My Author is the happiest in one faculty I ever knew He is still advancing some new Position which without proving he slurs upon us for an Argument though he knows that Doctrines without proofs will edifie but little That the Kings Prerogative is subservient or in order to the ends of Government is granted him But what strange kind of Argument is this to prove that we are cheated of that Protection to which we are born Our Kings have always been indued with the power of calling Parliaments nominating the time appointing of the Place and Dissolving them when they thought it for the publick good And the People have wisely consulted their own welfare in it Suppose for example that there be a Jarring between the three Estates which renders their sitting at that time Impracticable since none of them can pretend to Judge the proceedings of the other two the Judgment of the whole must either reside in a Superiour power or the discord must terminate in the ruine of them all For if one of the three incroach too far there is so much lost in the Balance of the Estates and so much more Arbitrary power in one 'T is as certain in Politiques as in Nature That where the Sea prevails the Land loses If no such discord should arise my Authors Argument is of no farther use for where the Soveraign and Parliament agree there can be no deluding of the People So that in short his quarrel is to the constitution of the Government And we see what nettles him That the King has learnt from the unhappy example of his Father not
His Majesties DECLARATION DEFENDED In a LETTER to a Friend BEING AN ANSWER TO A Seditious Pamphlet CALLED A LETTER from a Person of Quality to his Friend CONCERNING The Kings late Declaration touching the Reasons which moved him to Dissolve THE TWO LAST PARLIAMENTS AT WESTMINSTER and OXFORD LONDON Printed for T. Davies 1681. THE Kings Declaration DEFENDED SIR SINCE you are pleas'd to require my Opinion of the Kings Declaration and the Answer to it which you write me word was sent you lately I shall obey you the more willingly because I know you are a lover of the Peace and Quietness of your Country which the Author of this seditious Pamphlet is endeavouring to disturb Be pleas'd to understand then that before the Declaration was yet published and while it was only the common news that such an one there was intended to justifie the Dissolution of the two last Parliaments it was generally agreed by the heads of the discontented Party that this Declaration must be answer'd and that with all the ingredients of malice which the ablest amongst them could squeeze into it Accordingly upon the first appearance of it in Print five several Pens of their Cabal were set to work and the product of each having been examin'd a certain person of Quality appears to have carried the majority of Votes and to be chosen like a new Matthias to succeed in the place of their deceas'd Iudas He seems to be a man cut out to carry on vigorously the designs of the Phanatique Party which are manifestly in this Paper to hinder the King from making any good impression on his Subjects by giving them all possible satisfaction And the reason of this undertaking is manifest for if once the goodness and equity of the Prince comes to be truly understood by the People the Authority of the Faction is extinguish'd and the well meaning crowd who are misled will no longer gape after the specious names of Religion and Liberty much like the folly of the Iews expecting a Messiah still to come whose History has been written sixteen hundred years ago Thus much in general I will now consider the Cavils of my Author against the Declaration He tells us in the first place That the Declaration seems to him as afore-runner of another Parliament to be speedily call'd And indeed to any man in his right sences it can seem no other for 't is the business of its three last Paragraphs to inform the People that no irregularities in Parliament can make the King out of love with them but that he looks upon them as the best means for healing the distempers of the publick and for preservation of the Monarchy Now if this seems clearly to be the Kings intention I would ask what need there was of the late Petition from the City for another Parliament unless they had rather seem to extort it from his Majesty than to have it pass for his own gracious action The truth is there were many of the Loyal Party absent at that Common Council and the whole strength of the other Faction was united for it is the common failing of honest men to trust too much in the goodness of their cause and to manage it too negligently But there is a necessity incumbent on such as oppose the establish'd Government to make up with diligence what they want in the justice of their undertaking This was the true and only reason why the majority of Votes was for the Petition but if the business had not been carried by this surprise My Lord Mayor might have only been troubled to have carried the Addresses of Southwark c. of another nature without his offering them with one hand and the City Petition with the other like the Childrens play of This Mill grinds Pepper and Spice that Mill grinds Ratts and Mice In the next place he informs us That it has been long the practice of the Popish and Arbitrary Party that the King should call frequent short and useless Parliaments till the Gentry grown weary of the great expences of Elections should sit at home and trouble themselves no more but leave the People expos'd to the practices of them and of their Party who if they carry one House of Commons for their turn will make us Slaves and Papists by a Law Popish and Arbitrary are words that sound high amongst the multitude and all men are branded by those names who are not for setting up Fanaticism and a Common-wealth To call short and useless Parliaments can be no intention of the Government because from such means the great end of Settlement cannot be expected But no Physitian can command his Physick to perform the effects for which he has prescrib'd it yet if it fail the first or second time he will not in prudence lay aside his Art and despair of his Patient but reiterate his Medicines till he effect the cure For the King as he declares himself is not willing to have too hard an Opinion of the Representatives of the Commons but hopes that time may open their eyes and that their next meeting may perfect the Settlement of Church and State With what impudence can our Author say That an House of Commons can possibly be so pack'd as to make us Slaves and Papists by a Law for my part I should as soon suspect they would make themselves Arbitrary which God forbid that any Englishman in his right sences should believe But this supposition of our Author is to lay a most scandalous imputation upon the Gentry of England besides what it tacitly insinuates that the House of Peers and his Majesty without whom it could not pass into a Law would suffer it Yet without such Artifices as I said before the Fanatique cause could not possibly subsist fear of Popery and Arbitrary power must be kept up or the St. Georges of their side would have no Dragon to encounter yet they will never persuade a reasonable man that a King who in his younger years when he had all the Temptations of power to pursue such a Design yet attempted it not should now in the maturity of his Judgment and when he sees the manifest aversion of his Subjects to admit of such a change undertake a work of so much difficulty destructive to the Monarchy and ruinous to Himself if it succeeded not and if it succeeded not capable of making him so truly Great as he is by Law already If we add to this his Majesties natural love to Peace and Quiet which increases in every man with his years this ridiculous supposition will vanish of it self which is sufficiently exploded by daily experiments to the contrary For let the Reign of any of our Kings be impartially examin'd and there will be found in none of them so many examples of Moderation and keeping close to the Government by Law as in his And instead of swelling the Regal power to a greater height we shall here find many gracious priviledges accorded to the
Subjects without any one advancement of Prerogative The next thing material in the Letter is the questioning the legality of the Declaration which the Author sayes by the new style of his Majesty in Council is order'd to be read in all Churches and Chappels throughout England And which no doubt the blind obedience of our Clergy will see carefully perform'd yet if it be true that there is no Seal nor Order of Council but only the Clerks hand to it they may be call'd in question as publishers of false news and invectives against a third Estate of the Kingdom Since he writes this only upon a supposition it will be time enough to answer it when the supposition is made manifest in all its parts In the mean time let him give me leave to suppose too that in case it be true that there be no Seal yet since it is no Proclamation but only a bare Declaration of his Majesty to inform and satisfie his Subjects of the reasons which induc'd him to dissolve the two last Parliaments a Seal in this case is not of absolute necessity for the King speaks not here as commanding any thing but the Printing publishing and reading And 't is not denyed the meanest Englishman to vindicate himself in Print when he has any aspersion cast upon him This is manifestly the case that the Enemies of the Government had endeavour'd to insinuate into the People such Principles as this Answerer now publishes and therefore his Majesty who is always tender to preserve the affections of his Subjects desir'd to lay before them the necessary reasons which induc'd him to so unpleasant a thing as the parting with two successive Parliaments And if the Clergy obey him in so just a Design is this to be nam'd a blind Obedience But I wonder why our Author is so eager for the calling them to account as Accessaries to an Invective against a third Estate of the Kingdom while he himself is guilty in almost every sentence of his discourse of aspersing the King even in his own Person with all the Virulency and Gall imaginable It appears plainly that an House of Commons is that Leviathan which he Adores that is his Sovereign in effect and a third Estate is not only greater than the other two but than him who is presiding over the three But though our Author cannot get his own Seditious Pamphlet to be read in Churches and in Chappels I dare secure you he introduces it into Conventicles and Coffee-houses of his Faction besides his sending it in Post Letters to infect the Populace of every County 'T is enough that this Declaration is evidently the Kings and the only true exception which our Answerer has to it is that he would deny his Majesty the power of clearing his intentions to the People and finds himself aggriev'd that his King should satisfie them in spight of himself and of his party The next Paragraph is wholly spent in giving us to understand that a King of England is no other thing than a Duke of Venice take the Parallell all along and you will find it true by only changing of the names A Duke of Venice can do no wrong in Senate he can make no ill Laws in Council no ill Orders in the Treasury can dispose of no Money but wisely and for the interest of the Government and according to such proportions as are every way requisite if otherwise all Officers are answerable c. Which is in effect to say he can neither do wrong nor right nor indeed any thing quatenus a King This puts me in mind of Sancho Panca in his Government of the Island of Barataria when he was dispos'd to eat or drink his Physitian stood up for the People and snatch'd the dish from him in their right because he was a publick person and therefore the Nation must be Judges to a dram and scruple what was necessary for the sustenance of the Head of the Body politique Oh but there is a wicked thing call'd the Militia in their way and they shew'd they had a moneths mind to it at the first breaking out of the Popish Plot. If they could once persuade his Majesty to part graciously with that trifle and with his power of making War and Peace and farther to resign all Offices of Trust to be dispos'd by their nomination their Argument would be an hundred times more clear for then it would be evident to all the World that he could do nothing But if they can work him to part with none of these then they must content themselves to carry on their new Design beyond Seas either of ingaging the French King to fall upon Flanders or encouraging the States General to lay aside or privately to cut off the Prince of Orange or getting a War declared against England and France conjoyntly for by that means either the King can be but a weak Enemy and as they will manage matters he shall be kept so bare of Money that Twelve Holland Ships shall block up the River or he shall be forc'd to cast himself upon a House of Commons and to take Money upon their Terms which will sure be as easie as those of an Usurer to an Heir in want These are part of the projects now afoot and how Loyal and conscionable they are let all indifferent persons judge In the close of this Paragraph he falls upon the King for appealing to the People against their own Representatives But I would ask him in the first place if an Appeal be to be made to whom can the King Appeal but to his People And if he must justifie his own proceedings to their whole Body how can he do it but by blaming their Representatives I believe every honest man is sorry that any such Divisions have been betwixt the King and his House of Commons But since there have been how could the King complain more modestly or in terms more expressing Grief than Indignation or what way is left him to obviate the causes of such complaints for the future but this gentle admonishment for what is past 'T is easily agreed he says and here I joyn issue with him That there were never more occasions for a Parliament than were at the opening of the last which was held at Westminster But where he maliciously adds never were our Liberties and Properties more in danger nor the Protestant Religion more expos'd to an utter extirpation both at home and abroad he shuffles together Truth and Falshood for from the greatness of France the danger of the Protestant Religion is evident But that our Liberty Religion and Property were in danger from the Government let him produce the instances of it that they may be answer'd what dangers there were and are from the Antimonarchical Party is not my present business to enquire As for the growing terrour of the French Monarchy the greater it is the more need of a supply to provide against it The Ministers tell us in
deserves like an ill Bouffoon He defends the sharpness of the Addresses of which his Majesty complains but I suppose it would be better for him and me to let our Principals engage and to stand by our selves I confess I have heard some members of that House wish that all Proceedings had been carried with less vehemence But my Author goes further on the other hand He affirms that many wise and good men thought they had gone too far in assuring nay in mentioning of money before our safety was fully provided for So you see he is still for laying his hand upon the penny In the mean time I have him in a Praemunire for arraigning the House of Commons for he has tacitely confessed that the wise and good men were the fewer because the House carryed it for mentioning money in their Address But it seems they went too far in speaking of a Supply before they had consulted this Gentleman how far the safety of the Nation would admit it I find plainly by his temper that if matters had come to an accommodation and a bargain had been a bargain the Knights of the Shire must have been the Protestant Knights no longer As for Arbitrary Power of taking men into custody for matters that had no relation to Privileges of Parliament he says they have erred with their Fathers If he confess that they have erred let it be with all their Generation still they have erred and an error of the first digestion is seldom mended in the second But I find him modest in this point and knowing too well they are not a Court of Judicature he does not defend them from Arbitrary Proceedings but only excuses and palliates the matter by saying that it concern'd the Rights of the People in suppressing their Petitions to the Fountain of Justice So when it makes for him he can allow the King to be the Fountain of Iustice but at other times he is only a Cistern of the People But he knows sufficiently however he dissembles it that there were some taken into custody to whom that crime was not objected Yet since in a manner he yields up the Cause I will not press him too far where he is so manifestly weak Tho I must tell him by the way that he is as justly to be proceeded against for calling the Kings Proclamation illegal which concerned the matter of Petitioning as some of those who had pronounced against them by the House of Commons that terrible sentence of Take him Topham The strange illegal Votes declaring several eminent persons to be Enemies to the King and Kingdom are not so strange he says but very justifiable I hope he does not mean that illegal Votes are now not strange in the House of Commons But observe the reason which he gives for the House of Commons had before address'd for their removal from about the King It was his business to have prov'd that an Address of the House of Commons without Process order of Law hearing any Defence or offering any proof against them is sufficient ground to remove any person from the King But instead of this he only proves that former Addresses have been made Which no body can deny When he has throughly settled this important point that Addresses have certainly been made instead of an Argument to back it he only thinks that one may affirm by Law That the King ought to have no person about him who has the misfortune of such a Vote But this is too ridiculous to require an Answer They who will have a thing done and give no reason for it assume to themselves a manifest Arbitrary Power Now this Power cannot be in the Representatives if it be not in the People or if it be in them the People is absolute But since he wholly thinks it let him injoy the privilege of every Free Born Subject to have the Bell clinck to him what he imagines Well all this while he has been in pain about laying his Egg at the last we shall have him cackle If the House of Commons declare they have just Reasons to fear that such a person puts the King upon Arbitrary Councils or betrays His and the Nations Interest in such a Case Order and Process of Law is not necessary to remove him but the Opinion and Advice of the Nation is enough because bare removing neither fines him nor deprives him of Life Liberty or Offices wherein State Affairs are not concern'd Hitherto he has only prov'd according to his usual Logick that bare removing is but bare removing and that to deprive a man of a Publick Office is not so much as it would be to hang him all that possibly can be infer'd from this Argument is only that a Vote may do a less wrong but not a greater Let us see how he proceeds If he be not remov'd upon such Address you allow him time to act his Villany and the Nation runs the hazard I answer if the House have just Reasons on their side 't is but equitable they should declare them for an Address in this Case is an Appeal to the King against such a man and no Appeal is supposed to be without the Causes which induc'd it But when they ask a Removal and give no reason for it they make themselves Judges of the Matter and consequently they appeal not but command If they please to give their Reasons they justifie their Complaint for then their Address is almost in the nature of an Impeachment and in that Case they may procure a hearing when they please But barely to declare that they suspect any man without charging him with particular Articles is almost to confess they can find none against him To suppose a man has time to act his Villanies must suppose him first to be a Villain and if they suspect him to be such nothing more easie than to name his Crimes and to take from him all opportunities of future mischief But at this rate of bare addressing any one who has a publick profitable Employment might be remov'd for upon the private Picque of a Member he may have a party rais'd for an Address against him And if his Majesty can no sooner reward the Services of any one who is not of their party but they can vote him out of his Employment it must at last follow that none but their own party must be employ'd and then a Vote of the House of Commons is in effect the Government Neither can that be call'd the Advice and Opinion of the whole Nation by my Author's favour where the other two Estates and the Soveraign are not consenting 'T is no matter says this Gentleman there are some things so reasonable that they are above any written Law and will in despite of any Power on Earth have their effect whereof this is one I love a man who deals plainly he explicitly owns this is not Law and yet it is reasonable and will have its effect as if it were
to perpetuate a Parliament But he will tell you that they desire only a lasting Parliament which may dispatch all causes necessary and proper for the publick And I Answer him that it lyes in themselves to make it so But who shall Judge when it shall be proper to put an end to such a Parliament there is no farther Answer left him but only that the Reason of things is the only Rule for when all necessary causes are dispatch'd then is the proper time of Dissolution But if you mark it this Argumentation is still running in a Circle For the Parliament that is the House of Commons would constitute themselves Judges of this reason of things and of what causes were necessary to be dispatch'd So that my Author had as good have laid down this Position bare-fac'd that a Parliament ought never to be Dissolved till an House of Commons would fit no longer My Author goes on scoffingly That he has nothing to say for those angry men he means of his own Party whose particular Designs are disappointed only that they might have kept their places and that he can find no difference betwixt them who are out and those who are put in but that the former could have ruin'd us and would not and these cannot if they would I am willing to let them pass as lightly as he pleases Angry they are and they know the Proverb I hope I may have leave to observe transiently that none but angry men that is such as hold themselves disobliged at Court are the Pillars of his Party And where are then the principles of Vertue Honour and Religion which they would persuade the World have animated their endeavours for the publick What were they before they were thus Angry or what would they be could they make so firm an Interest in Court that they might venture themselves in that bottom This the whole Party cannot choose but know for Knaves can easily smell out one another My Author an experienced man makes but very little difference betwixt those who are out and those who are put in But the Nation begins to be awake his party is mouldring away and as it falls out in all dishonest Combinations are suspecting each other so very fast that every man is shifting for himself by a separate Treaty and looking out for a Plank in the common Shipwrack so that the point is turn'd upon him those who are out would have ruin'd us and cou'd not and those who are in are endeavouring to save us if they can My Adversary himself now drawing to a conclusion seems to be inclining to good opinions and as dying men are much given to repentance so finding his cause at the last gasp he unburthens his Conscience and disclaims the principles of a Common-wealth both for himself and for both Houses of Parliament which is indeed to be over-officious for one of the Houses will not think they have need of such a Compurgator But he wisely fears no change of Government from any but the Papists Now I am of a better heart for I fear it neither from Papists nor Presbyterians Whether Democracy will agree with Jesuitical principles in England I am not certain but I can easily prove to him that no Government but a Common-wealth is accommodated to the Systeme of Church-worship invented by Iohn Calvin The Declaration concludes that the King is resolv'd to govern in all things by the Laws And here the Author of the Answer is for frisking out into a fit of Joy which looks as aukward with his gravity as ever was King David's dancing before the Ark. This similitude I hope has pleas'd hin if it does not Esop's Ass stands ready Sadled at the door But a melancholick consideration has already pour'd cold water in his Porredge for all promises he says are either kept or broken well-fare a good old Proverb I could find in my heart to cap it with another that the old Woman had never look'd for her Daughter in the Oven if she had not been there her self before But if the King should keep his word as all but his Enemies conclude he will then we shall see Annual Parliaments sit longer I hope when they meddle only with their proper business They will lose their time no more in cutting off the Succession altering the course of Nature and directing the providence of God before they know it We shall have no uniting of Sects against the Church of England nor of Counties against the next Heir of the Crown The King shall then be advis'd by his Parliament when both Houses concur in their advice There shall be no more need of Declarations about the dissolving of Parliaments and no more need of factious Fools to answer them But the People shall be happy the King shall be supply'd the Alliances shall be supported and my suppos'd Author be made a Bishop and renounce the Covenant That many of these things may happen is the wish of every loyal Subject and particularly of Sir Your most humble Servant