to the better and the Late King's Party sufficiently humbled It 's from the consideration of this change of Affairs in England and Scotland the Late King has been induc'd to change his Stile And to this alone instead of the Threats of the former we are beholding for this last Whining Declaration But to come to the Declaration it self to let the World see how little we fear its being capable to influence any body of common sense to their Party we shall give the express words of it Paragraph by Paragraph with some short Reflections on ev'ry one of them His Majesties most Gracious Declaration to all his Loving Subjects JAMES R. WHereas We are most sensible that nothing has contributed so much to our Misfortunes and our Peoples Miseries as the false and malicious Calumnies of our Enemies Strange Might not one have reasonably expected that in four years retirement the Late King should have been able to attain the knowledge of the real Causes of his own Misfortunes and his Peoples Miseries And is he yet to learn what all Europe is long since sufficiently persuaded of If he has We have not yet forgot the breach of reiterated Promises and a Coronation Oath the setting up a Dispensing Power above and contrary to Law the bringing over an Army of Irish Papists amongst us the employing those and almost only those that by Acts of Parliament were incapable the turning men out of their Freeholds for not obeying Commands directly contrary to an Oath they had taken before the endeavours made and methods us'd for overturning the Religion establish'd by Law and bringing in another by the same Law abolish'd with a thousand other bare fac'd Violations of our Rights and Constitution All these were not the Calumnies of his Enemies No! It was under those real and felt Evils we groan'd in the last Reign And to a wilful and formed Design of bringing all these and more upon us King Iames is only to ascribe the loss of Three Crowns Therefore we have always been and still are most willing to condescend to such things as after mature deliberation We have thought most proper for removing thereof and most likely to give the fullest satisfaction and clearest Prospect of the greatest Security to all ranks and degrees of our People What a wonderful Stock of Confidence was there required to pen this one single Period A Period which though consisting but of two Lines yet contains no less than five Superlatives to make up an Assertion that all England knows to be false Has the Late King been always most willing to condescend to such things as were thought most proper and most likely to give the fullest Satisfaction and clearest Security to his People What then meant his stiff Denial to comply with a Parliament that had exprest the firmest Loyalty to him in his greatest Exigence when they came only to address him with all Expressions of humility not to break in upon the Law by employing those whom the Law incapacitated Why sent he that Loyal Parliament a packing immediatly upon the back of this Address And told them plainly he would do the quite contrary to what they advised him Was this to be most willing to give the fullest satisfaction to his People When he would needs invade the uncontroverted Rights of Magdalen Colledge there was not wanting some even then to advise him of the danger and Illegality of that Design How willing he was to hear any Terms of Moderation in that Affair all the World knows And the thrusting out the Master and Fellows of that House merely because they would not comply with an illegal Command is not yet quite lost in the memory of man The sending the Bishops to the Tower was another convincing Evidence of his being always most willing to give the clearest prospect of the greatest Security to all Ranks and Degrees of People And to add one Instance more to a great many others that might be nam'd His refusal afterwards to call a Parliament upon the Address of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in his greatest Exigence and when his own Affairs most requir'd it did scarce bespeak him a Prince most willing to give his People Satisfaction So that if one had been to advise the Contrivers of this Declaration which way to make the whole look more ridiculous it had been to put in this Period That he still is most willing to satisfy all Ranks and Degrees of People in the same sense he has always been so which we are very inclinable to believe And so in that point we are agreed And because we desire rather to be beholding to our Subjects Love to us than to any other expedient whatever for our Restoration We have thought fit to let them know before-hand our Royal and sincere Intentions and that whenever our Peoples United Desires and our Circumstances give us the opportunity to come and assert our Right We will come with the Declaration that follows JAMES R. The Writer has stumbled here upon two unlucky Expressions Our Sincere Intentions and our Peoples United Desires When he fell upon the first it seems he had in his thoughts how naturally the people of England would be inclin'd to doubt the Sincerity of those Promises he makes them in the late King's name and even the very moment the Words were dropping from his Pen he himself was thinking how little credit they would obtain By this he can scarcely be judg'd a fit Amanuensis for a King It is infinitely below the Majesty and Honour of a Monarch to use the word sincere in speaking of his Intentions Among Gentlemen 〈◊〉 interlarding their Discourse with such an expression As what I say is true is not fashionable for the very saying so derogates from that just sense every virtuous man has of his own Honour and Veracity which puts him beyond the suspicion of telling an untruth But for a Minister to tell the people in his Prince's Name That his Master's Intentions towards them are Sincere is yet more ridiculous by how much more the Word of a Prince ought to be more Sacred and less liable to be suspected than that of private men The other Expression The united Desires of his People is as unluckily chose If the late King come not to assert his Right till his People's United Desires give him an opportunity we are in no great danger of seeing him in England or of making a trial how far he has a mind to keep his Word United Desires is a very comprehensive Word and it must be some Ages hence that such a thing can happen For it will be hard enough for the Teeth of one Age at least to eat out the Remembrance of the late Reign and while that is not forgot there is no great probability of the People of England's Uniting in their Desires to bring back King Iames. All that we have hitherto given of the Declaration being it seems intended only for a Preface
to another within the Belly of it the other follows thus JAMES R. WHEN We reflect upon the Calamities of our Kingdoms We are not willing to leave any thing unattempted whereby We may reconcile our Subjects to their Duty And tho' we cannot enter into all the particulars of Grace and Goodness which We shall be willing to grant yet we do hereby assure all our Loving Subjects that they may depend upon every thing that their own Representatives shall offer to make our Kingdoms happy For We have set it before our Eyes as our Noblest Aim to do yet more for their Constitution than the most Renowned of our Ancestors And as our chiefest Interest to leave no umbrage for Iealousy in relation to Religion Liberty and Property King Iames has all the reason in the world to reflect upon the Calamities of these Kingdoms since He was so very careful to bring them upon us The Calamities we groan'd under in his Reign have been hinted at before Where to lay the causes of the Calamities of this Reign which we believe is principally if not only here meant is worthy of our Enquiry and we need not go far to find them out It must be acknowledged that War in it self deserves well the name of a Calamity and a great one too But this we are at present engaged in is a War of Necessity and to save us from Calamities vastly greater than it self It 's a War for Defence of our Countrey our Religion our Liberties and all that can be dear to us in the world all which must stand or fall by the Success of it If the exorbitant Greatness and Power of France should happen to prove fatal to us in the upshot which Heaven forbid We know whom to thank for it And all Europe even those of the late King's Religion lay both it and all the direful effects of it with heaviest Execrations at his door It 's a truth as conspicuous as a Ray of the Sun That the two great Designs which took up the thoughts of a certain Prince both before and after his Accession to the Throne were How to make France formidable abroad and these Three Nations Slaves at home It 's only in these two Noble Designs he can yet be call'd a Successful Prince and for the first instead of a Sanctuary in France he deserves well the best Province of that Kingdom He tells us He is not willing to leave anything unattempted whereby he may reconcile his Subjects to their Duty So we find neither foul nor fair means have been neglected that 's certain Sometimes we have been tryed with Threats and now there 's another tryal how far Promises may work upon us Sometimes the Late King has a mind to reconcile us to our Duty by an Army of French and Irish even those generous Gentlemen that have Signaliz'd themselves in their own Country for their singular kindness to those of our Religion And sometimes when the other fails he designs to be beholding only to his peoples Love for his Restoration and to come over it seems with only a few that shall be thought necessary to attend his Person But we are fairly told We have been and are still out of our Duty otherwise there were no need of Reconciling us to it That is in plain English We are in his sense a pack of Villains and Traytors That would not timely submit our Religion Laws and Liberties to be overturn'd at his caprice nor yield up our selves Slaves at discretion But quite contrary either concurr'd with or accepted of our Deliverance when Heaven was pleased to bring it home to our door By this we may clearly judge of the Late King's Opinion of us and be better able to make a shrewd conjecture of the sincerity of his intentions towards us In this word of Reconciling us to our Duty is still the old Passive-Obedience Principle trump'd up upon us which was once within an ace of ruining us all And King Iames being still of Opinion that we fail'd in our Duty when we left that Principle It was not only altogether needless for him to make all those Promises but we are Knaves if we receive him not again without them since according to that Doctrine we are oblig'd to submit to him to day though we were sure he would sell us all for Slaves to morrow We are told We may depend upon every thing that our Representatives shall offer to make us happy How willing the Late King was to Grant what our Representatives did offer to him for our necessary security only I have mention'd before He kick'd them out of doors merely because they presum'd humbly to Advise him to Govern according to Law that is To Employ only those the Law capacitated for Employments With what sort of Representatives he aim'd afterwards during the whole course of his Reign to fill St. Stephen's Chappel The Regulations of Corporations the Closettings of Members the Questions put to almost every man in England that had a Voice in Elections and all the rest of the means us'd to get a pack'd House of Commons were too publick witnesses So that indeed King Iames may safely enough promise to grant what our Representatives shall offer if he means such Representatives as those he was once minded to palm upon the Nation But he tells us He has set before his eyes as his noblest aim to do yet more for our Constitution than the most Renown'd of his Ancestors This is not the first time we have been told so And indeed these words appear to come of course For in a Speech he made to the Parliament in May 1685. he thought fit to tell them That he pleas'd himself with the hopes that by God's Blessing and their Assiistance he might carry the Reputation of this Nation higher in the world than ever it had been in the time of any of his Ancestors The truth is it was a severe proof enough of our Faith even then to believe the days of King Iames the 2d should come to eclipse those of Edward the 3d. or Henry the 5th and it will be yet much more so now Every body was at that time upon the enquiry How his Late Majesty's hopes were then grounded and what were the wonderful steps by which he expected to arrive at so high a pitch of Glory We have been sufficiently enabled since to unriddle the Mystery For instead of Conquests abroad which has render'd the Reigns of some of his Ancestors so illustrious to Posterity he had hopes to perpetuate the Memory of his by much more remarkable and in his opinion much more glorious Conquests at home even those he had a mind to obtain over our Laws Religion and Liberties Neither in this design was he altogether inexcusable since upon his Principles to subdue the Northern Heresy carry'd more of true Glory along with it than the Conquest of any one side of the Globe If then he unluckily fail'd at that time to
pay a part and we have a right to call the rest our own but if our Enemies had their Wills of us instead of a Part they would make themselves Masters of our All. Herein we make a Composition that a great many of our Neighbours envy us for who would be heartity willing to part with the Quota of their Estates we retain provided they might be suffer'd to enjoy the Proportion but of what we pay And whereas our Enemies endeavour to assright our Subjects with the apprehensions of great Sums which must he repaid to France We positively assure them That our Dearest Brother the Most Christian King expects no other Compensation for what he has done for us than meerly the Glory of having Succor'd an Injur'd Prince To tell us at this time of day of the Generosity of his dearest Brother the Most Christian King is news indeed All Europe and his own Subjects are sufficiently sensible how well that Name becomes him Tho he had mortally hated the late King he did no more but what his own proper Interest obliged him to in protecting him And never had a Prince a larger prospect of Advantage than the French King has at present from King Iames since it 's by his means he intends if possible to make these three Kingdoms slaves to France But how comes the Late King to make us so large Promises for his dearest Brother Is it because he supposes no body will be prevail'd with to believe the French King upon his own word and if so he is much in the right on 't Or is it that he expects we will rely more upon his word when he promises for another than for himself If so he is mistaken for we believe 'em both alike The King of Spain has more reason on many Accounts to call the French King his dearest Brother being indeed so in more senses than one And yet he has found to his sad experience that no Oath nor Treaty could tie him up from Pretentions less plausible then those he has against England upon the Account of King Iames. He renounc'd again and again by his solemn Oath and upon the Sacrament all Pretences to Flanders in right of his Mother or Wife and yet every time he swore so he broke it as soon as he was in a Condition so to do Shall King Iames or we expect better Treatment from the French King than the King of Spain his Cousin-German and Brother-in-law that never wrong'd him has met with We to whom he imputes his having been put to the Charges of a long War and King Iames who has been upon the matter the Original Cause of it We only add That We come to vindicate our own Right and to establish the Liberties of our People And may GOD give us Success in the prosecution of the one as We sincerely intend the Confirmation of the other IAMES R. Given at St. Germaines en Laye April 17th S. N. 1693. And in the Ninth Year of our Reign God Save the King The Contrivers of this Declaration have made pretty bold with the Late King in palming upon him a kind of Oath or Execration that it 's probable he knows nothing of Methinks they deserve but little thanks that put thus upon their Master what they themselves believe he would not approve of unless they think after the breach of a Coronation-Oath all other Promises may be broken of course and so they may coyn as many Oaths and Promises in his Name as they please if it serve their turn Well! for our part we are once willing to say Amen to the late King's Prayers and so perswaded are we of his real Intentions towards England That in his own words We wish him Success in the Prosecution of his pretended Right as he sincerely intends the Confirmation of our Liberty Thus have I fought with a Phantosm appearing in the likeness of a Declaration from K. Iames but for ought I know A Paper contriv'd writ and printed here without his direction and perhaps his knowledg I pretend to no Honour in so inglorious a Cause tho I must acknowledge the decency that 's due to a Prince whose Name is affixt to it has hinder'd me from treating the Party that contriv'd it so ill as they deserve FINIS Declarat 〈◊〉 Declarat Declarat Declarat Declarat Declarat Declarat Declarat Declarat Declarat Declarat Declarat Declarat Declarat