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A52767
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A second pacquet of advices and animadversions sent to the men of Shaftsbury, occasioned by several seditious pamphlets spread abroad to pervert the people since the publication of the former pacquet.
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Nedham, Marchamont, 1620-1678.
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1677
(1677)
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Wing N403; ESTC R25503
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46,011
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78
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nowhere in our Chronicle can finde a Rebelling against payment of Taxes but it always ended in Hanging the Jack Cades the Wat Tylers and Captain Mendals with all the like Predecessors of this Leading Dissolver But not a word of the Pudding He is so tender of the People that he will not fright 'em his Business being to draw in as many and as fast as he can Mutiny mutiny my dear Country-men said a Rebel in a Stage-play or else I shall be hang'd c. So there is an End of the DISSOLVER and his Threatnings The next Seditious Pamphlet that came abroad appeared with the Title of A Seasonable Question and an Vseful Answer c. I have view'd this Author very well but after a strict impartial Search of him all over I finde that as to matter of Law he writes little yea nothing at all but what hath been said in other words by the two foregoing Writers yet because he hath interwoven many subtil insinuations under pretence of Law and many Scandalous Additions I am constrained to take him also in pieces and more effectually dissolve him than he can the Parliament the designe of this Pamphleter being the same with his fellows And I am the more willing to tire my self out at this Work that His Majesties good Subjects may be throughly informed of all that the Faction is able to alledge against the Legal existence and duration of this present Parliament and then the better judge of the unreasonableness of these mens Suggestions which they scatter all over the Land to impoison the mindes of men and prepare them for the old pious work of Rebelling after the mode of FORTY ONE For as it was in the days of Solomon so all the Designes they are now upon do well agree with the Text There is nothing new under the sun You shall see the old Game of Covenanting Sequestring Slaughtering Plundering Committees increase of Taxes with all the shapes of Metamorphosis in Governments and miseries Acted over again if these men may prevail They are likely to give us nothing New but a New Parliament and that shall be a Swinger as the DISSOLVER hath promised us and told us he hath taken care for the New Elections so that the House shall appear New in its Out-side but in its In-side as like the Old one as one Nut is like another Here perhaps some captious man of malice may be willing to mistake me as if I did declaim against New Parliaments But that I may prevent those that lie at Catch let them know I plead not against them but the having of any other Parliament brought on by Factious Clamours and Outcries in Print or otherwise till this Parliament hath finish'd the Work now in their hands for Setling the Nation with sure Laws and Provisions against Renting and Tearing of it by manifold Factions But to proceed This Book which I am now to Dissect is grounded upon mere Fiction It supposeth a Letter from a person newly chosen to sit a Member of this Parliament one that before he would make so great a Journey to London desires a Friend of his a Bencher of the Temple because there hath been a great noise in the Country that by Law Parliaments are to be held once a yeer and that whereas this Parliament was Prorogued to three months above the term of a year the Prorogation being thereby illegal the Parliament must needs be null and in Law Dissolved And therefore he would be loth to come up two hundred miles to put his neck in a Noose by sitting here as a Member unless his friend the Bencher would satisfie him of the truth of the matter and advise him to come This is the sum of the Question and the Fable is so laid forsooth that the pretended Bencher undertakes to give him his Resolution upon the Point BENCHER This is a Question of the greatest moment that ever was moved in England viz. Whether this Parliament be actually Dissolved by the last Prorogation for fifteen months He that will answer it ought first to consider whether a Prorogation ordered and continued beyond a year can be made to agree with our Laws and the Statutes of the Realm particularly those two Statutes of Edward the third which were re-inforced by that Act of the sixteenth Caroli primi which was repealed by the Act of the sixteenth Caroli secundi wherein this Parliament acknowledged those Statutes of Edw. 3. to be still the Laws and Statutes of the Realm and they in this Act enacted no Clause that abates their force ANIMADVERSION It is indeed a Question of the greatest and withal of the slightest moment that ever was in England slight in the nature of it but greatest in the Consequence and I will shew you how That in its nature 't is but slight and idle appears most abundantly by what I have already given you in the former part of these Animadversions To which give me leave to adde also that it had never been brought under Question if one man in a corner had not failed in all other Tricks to bring about an untimely Dissolution of the Parliament For as soon as ever he was lifted out of the Court the former PACQVET shew'd how bravely he plaid his Game in Parliament by imbarquing both Houses in Disputes about Priviledges which raised so many Broils to hinder them from dispatch of Business that all good endeavours were made vain the Parliament it self became a while useless to the King and unable to do any thing to relieve the pressing Necessities of the Kingdom that so by tiring out the patience and expectations of Prince and people there might have follow'd a willingness on all sides to admit of an Argument for this Parliaments Dissolution and the calling of his Plotted New one But the effect of these his Artificial Contrivances having been prevented by the Wisdom of His Majestie and His Two Houses then he had recourse to this last Device of picking a Hole if possible in this point of the Prorogation which with the assistance of a few Disaffected Lawyers and others was presently done by false Expositions and Glosses upon old Statutes and from hence sprang the Original of this frivolous Question about the legality of this Parliament's longer Sitting which they with more Impudence than Conscience determine in the Negative as hath been manifested unto you so that whoever shall concur with them must obstinately offer violence to his own Reason and all the known Rules of Argument if after due Consideration he shall adhere to their Opinion Moreover though the Question in it self be but slight yet as to the Consequence I agree it may be of exceeding moment as the Devisers thereof intended it For they meant to delude the people into a misunderstanding of the Laws a Jealousie of their Liberties and a disposition to Tumults to the hazard of their Peace their Lives and Fortunes by new Commotions Their Designe is by raising the dust about this
the Citie may have an Account of the Gains of their Predecessors take it as follows it having been drawn up by one that was in those days a Member of Parliament Some concern the Citie alone and some were charged upon both Citie and Country 1. A Tax called the Royal Subsidie of Three hundred thousand pounds I think it was the Tax they got the King to pass to pay the Scotch Presbyterian Army which themselves had brought a little before into this Kingdom to compass their Ends. 2. Poll-money 3. The Free Loans and Contributions upon the Publike Faith of Money Plate Thimbles Bodkins Horse Arms c. amounting to a vast incredible sum I remember and mine eyes saw at Guild-hall Plate brought in out of the Citizens houses and heaped up like huge Wood-piles 4. The Irish Adventure money most out of this Citie for purchase of lands in Ireland which the King's Father called a dividing of the Bears skin before they had conquered him 5. The Weekly Meal-money that is to say the Citizens spared a Meal out of their own bellies converting the value of it into Cash to be presented after their Plate 6. The Citie loan after the rate of fifty Subsidies 7. The Assesment of Money to bring on a Presbyterian Army of Scots a second time 8. The Fifth and Twentieth part of men's estates 9. The Weekly Assesment for the Lord General Essex his Army 10. The Weekly or Monthly Assesment for Sir Thomas Fairfax 's Army 11. The Weekly Assesment for the second Scotch Presbyterian Army after it had entered England 12. The Weekly Assesment for the British Army in Ireland 13. The Weekly Assesment for my Lord of Manchester 's Army 14. Free Quarter connived at by the Rulers 15. Sequestrations of the King 's Queen's and Prince's Revenue 16. Sequestrations and Plunders by Committees 17. Excise upon all things Whereupon the Gentleman who drew up this Account wrote thus By these several Ways and Taxes about Forty Millions in Money and Money 's worth were milked out of the Nation the most part out of this Citie and that Parliament as the Pope did once might well have called England Puteum inexhaustum A vast Treasure it was such a one as nothing but a long Peace could have imported and nothing but pious Frauds many Follies and a Mad War could dissipate And yet all this prodigious Sum was drained away and spent before the yeer 1647. in but six years so that we do not reckon the vast Sums fetcht out of the Citie and Kingdom to carry on the succeeding Wars which sprang out of this in England Scotland and Ireland betwixt 1647 and 1654. amounting to another vast Sum of Moneys of which I am not able to give any Account I might reckon also the many Tuns of Tears and Blood that were drawn out of the eyes and sides of these three Nations which the Presbyterian Faction can never wash off without Tears of Repentance But let it not be the Repentance of Judas such a one as they made in 1648. when they saw the Ball of Empire caught out of their hands into the hands of Cromwel and mourned for that not for the completed Ruine of the King and his Family which themselves first began and carried on as far as they could And they must look to have it mention'd till they leave off reviving their old Tricks of undermining the Government and embroiling the Nation But this may serve at present to let the Young men as well as the old see what the Citie and Kingdom got by being led by the Nose to Westminster for a Crying down and shifting of Governours and State-Ministers under the King of whose Faults they knew nothing but what they took up upon the Credit of pretended Patriots but really crafty designing publike Enemies as they afterwards appeared to be And you perceive also how false this Narrator is when he tells you that in the memory of man there never was before February last such a flocking of people to Westminster at the opening of a Session of Parliament But what went the people out to see They went to see a Reed shaken with the wind But the Wind brought on a Storm upon those that would have shaken the Foundation of both Houses which seeing they could not do a Resolution is resolved on in mere spight that 't is now no Parliament but a Convention which certainly deserves a severe Animadversion of State upon such as would turn up the Foundation upon which we stand NARRATIVE When the King was come the Commons were sent for up to the Lords House where I made a shift to croud in and hear The King and Lord Chancellor each of them made a Speech worthy your consideration Copies whereof I have here sent you ANIMADVERSION But he is as false here also as he was before in the other for I finde neither of those Speeches inclosed in this Print He will be wary enough of printing them because they are worthy to be often read and consider'd by all the people in order to their satisfaction touching the justice prudence and candour of his Majestie 's Government therefore I must needs give you short Heads of the Kings Speech that the sinister intents and boisterous invective discourses of some men may be the better understood The King in his Speech of the 15 of February told his Lords and the Gentlemen of the House of Commons That he had called them together again after a long Prorogation that they might have an opportunity to repair the Misfortunes of the foregoing Session and to recover and restore the right use and end of Parliaments That he was resolved to let the World see that it should not be his fault if they be not made happie by their Consultations in Parliament That he plainly declared he came prepared to give them all satisfaction and security in the great concerns of the Protestant Religion as it is established in the Church of England that can consist with reason and Christian prudence And that he declared as freely that he is ready to grant a further securing of our Liberties and Properties by as many good Laws as they shall propose and can consist with the Government without which there will be neither Liberty nor Property left to any man That he would have all men judge who is most for Arbitrary Government they that foment such differences as tend to dissolve all Parliaments or He that would preserve this and all Parliaments from being made useless by such Dissentions That if these good Ends should happen to be disappointed He calls God and men to witness that the misfortune of that disappointment shall not lie at his dore What can be more desired from a gracious King But 't is not the mode nor agreeable to the temper and business of some men in the world to rest as men satisfied with Reason though perhaps they be These are they at whose dore the guilt of Parliamentary Constitutions must