or have peace in their own Minds But then thirdly admitting the Prince of Orange to be King of England whether de Jure or de Facto I further enquire not I desire to ask the Two Houses of Parliament as well as our Lawyers and Divines of what Signification and Importance in their Judgments and Opinions the Word King is that the People may the better know the Nature Extent and Bounds of their Allegiance that being on their part Reciprocal and Corrolate to Kingship on the Sovereigns And this Question is the more necessary to be resolved in that the Notion and Idea of King is much different in the present Estimate of the Generality of Men as well within the Houses of Parliament as without them from what it is represented and found to be in our Laws and from what it has been always heretofore taken and acknowledged to be That therefore which with reference to my self as well as to many Thousands besides I would earnestly beg to know is Whether by King they mean a Sovereign Prince whose Person by virtue of the Authority lodged in him and by reason that the Peace and Welfare of the whole Society depends upon his Safety is Sacred and Inviolable who cannot legally be resisted opposed or withstood and much less be judged deposed and abdicated by any Power on Earth on any Pretence whatsoever and one without whose Call and Authority all Meetings Assemblies and Consultations about Matters of Government and State are Treason and Rebellion Or whether by King they do intend only a Person that is meerly in the Quality of a Trustee entrusted by and accountable to the People as his Principals and who being only vested with a delegated Power may therefore be resisted arraigned judged abdicated and drove away if he offend those over whom he is advanced to rule and act dissonantly from and contrary to the Laws of all which his Subjects are to be Judges For if King be taken in the first Sense to signify one that is unaccusable irresistable and unabdicable than we of this Nation neither have nor lawfully can have any other King than King James while he liveth and hath not renounced and disclaimed his Right And by consequence the Prince of Orange is no other than an Usurper And we out of our own Mouths and by our own Sentence no better than Rebels in abdicating the former and in submitting unto and owning the later And indeed the Principles upon which the Salisbury Dictator of Measures of Obedience Dr. Burnet who out of disloyal Malice to us endeavoured to subvert our antient Government and to battle all our Laws by his modern and treasonable Politicks striveth to justify the Abdication in a Book he hath lately published called Reflections on a Pamphlet entitled Some Discourses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson occasioned by the Funeral Sermon of the former upon the later plainly shew both how self condemned the Author is and what Rebellion he and the Nation are according to the Laws of God and Men become guilty by that Transaction For whereas he owns That illegal Acts and Acts of Tyranny and the remote Consequences of them do not justify the resisting of Princes and that they can be then only lawfully withstood when their going about to subvert totally the Constitution shall be plainly apparent P. 32 33 34 35 36 37. there is no more needful to be said for the loading of him and for the branding the Nation with the just Imputation of the highest and most detestable Treason committed in the Abdication of the King and in the Choise and Exaltation of the Prince of Orange to his Throne Seeing whatsoever illegal Acts which were not many nor of any menacing Importance to the Kingdom the King might be misled and hurried into by treacherous Councillors yet it is so far from being plainly apparent that he designed to subvert the Constitution that the contrary is demonstratively evident and that no Prince ever bore greater regard to the Laws Liberties and Prosperity of England than he did And as his Majesties sending an Ambassador to Rome his appointing Popish Bishops and his claiming a dispensing Power in reference to penal Laws about Religion are all the Instances which that traiterous Doctor gives of the King 's being embarqued in such an Attempt so they are such weak and impertinent Proofs of such a Design that it is to banter Mankind to raise a Suspition of it upon them and much more to stile them plain and apparent Evidences of it Nor needs there any more to shew that the Constitution was in no danger of being totally subverted by those Means and Overt Acts of Government than that neither the noble Person that went to Rome nor those that were constituted Popish Bishops nor any of them that gave Advice for the dispensing Power have been so much as arraigned and much less capitally punished as they would and deserved to have been if those Things had been of a direct and immediate Tendency to destroy totally the Constitution Nor would any Man have betrayed at once the Weakness and the Impudence as to have assigned those Acts of Administration and no other as convictive Proofs of an apparent Design in King James to subvert totally the Constitution but this noisy treacherous and disloyal Doctor who like to him that fired Diana's Temple to protect himself from Oblivion has been studying to raise himself a Monument upon the Banishment of his Sovereign the Ruin of our Antient Government and the Involving of these Kingdoms in a bloody and destructive War But then on the other had if King be taken in the second Sense for one that may be resisted arraigned deposed and drove away from his Throne and Kingdom then as the Prince of Orange hath but a flippery Seat of it and a thorny Crown so no Man can be lawfully required to take an Oath of Allegiance to him and much less justly punished by double Taxes or otherwise for refusing it Seeing if that be the Signification and Importance of King it may be every Man's Duty to assist in deposing and dethroning him And upon what I have said of his Miscarriages in Government and the Designs he is carrying on to the Ruin as well as Impoverishment of the Kingdom there is nothing remains to be added or adviced But to your Tents O Israel for this Man ought no longer to be suffer'd to pretend to reign over us For as he hath in many Instances apparently attempted the total Subversion of the Constitution which even by our Salisbury Doctor 's Principles of Politicks justifieth the deposing him and particularly both in the commanding a whole Tribe of Men that were under the Protection of the Laws to be massacred without any previous Tryal or Conviction and in his taking the Earl of Bredalbin by meer arbitrary Power not only out of the hands of Justice when he stood impeached by Parliament which whether he was justly or unjustly makes no Change in the Nature of what the Prince of Orange hath therein done but in putting him into the Administration of the Government as a Privy Councellor So he hath likewise in effect destroyed the very Kingdom and hath brought us into those Circumstances of Confusion Misery and Want out of which it is impossible to recover and deliver us while he is permitted to sit at the Helm And which if we be so sortish and so much Enemies to our selves and to our Posterity as to connive at any longer it will be out of the reach and power both of our Rightful King and of a well constituted Parliament ever to redeem us or either to retrieve the Nation from final Ruin or to save us from being Conquered by any potent Neighbour that may have a mind to invade us Nor will I enlarge this Discourse any further save to tell those who out of rebellious Enmity to a Rightful King and Idolatry of an Usurper may complain of the Acrfmony of some Expressions which will be found to occur in the foregoing Leaves That all the Language I have used is either consecrated by the Tongues or Pens of your Williamite Divines in their Pulpit Invectives against King James and the King of France or else it is all authorised by the Licenced Pamphlets published in way of Elogâ—e upon the present Government and Satyr upon the last And whosoever will waste so much time as to peruse a Paper stiled A Dialogue between the King of France and the late King James occasioned by the Death of the Queen will justify me in the Reprisals and Retaliations I have made Only whereas little is to be met with in these Sermons and Pamphlets but ridiculous Fiction and impudent Slander as well as dull Malice there will nothing be found in these Sheets but weighed and measured Truth though sometimes a little piquantly expressed Decemb. 20. 1695. ERRATA Page 2 line 30. before other read of ibid. l. 38. for staâ—e r. state p. 4. l. ult for stuff r. strife p. 5. l. 25. dele same p. 6. l. 36. for Redress r. Readers p. 9. l. 1. r. where we had for a great while been in the quiet and peaceable Possession p. 11. l. 37. r. plead p. 12. l. 15. dele a before Servant p. 13. l. 8. r. Placat's ibid. l. 20. r. Rude ibid. l. ult for their r. these p. 14. l. 8. r. become ibid. l. 20. for th r. to p. 15. l. 7. before it r. as ibid. l. 13. for were r. we p. 16. l. 3 4. r. putting ibid. l. 6. r. Guet p. 20. l. 21. r. executed ibid. l. 27. for yet r. yea p. 22. l. 35. after with r. the p. 23. l. 8. r. Donative p. 25. l. 38. r. Bordacho's p. 32. l. 33. before Mischiefs r. the p. 33. l. 6. before have r. they ibid. l. 12. two Millions p. 34. l. 7. after transported put p. 35. l. 33. for mark r. mask p. 36. l. 12. r. thither ibid. l. 19. for so r. for ibid. l. 20. for more r. were ibid. l. 33. r. they thus p. 37. l. ult dele they p. 38. l. 8. after unto put ibid. l. 21. r. become p. 43. l. 14. r. whereof p. 47. l. 28. r. Villanies p. 48. l. 28. r. become ibid. l. 29. r. Center p. 50. l. 25. r. Officers ibid. l. 30. r. the p. 51. l. 3. r. Plebi ibid. l. 11. dele to ibid. l. 22. before the r. that p. 55. l. 32. r. no.
exposed to be seised by French Privateers But this being so warmly and judiciously represented by the ingenious Author of a Letter to a Gentleman elected a Knight of the Shire to serve in the present Parliament I shall not farther enlarge upon it especially seeing Admiral Russel who is now a Member of the House of Commons is able to give an ample and particular Account of it and who for resenting it as became him when lately Admiral in the Mediterranean has been coldly received by his Master since his return But to advance a step further on the Point and Head whereon I am discoursing Can there be a greater Invasion upon our Trade or any thing committed more to the Diminution and Ruin of it than the Dutch assuming the Boldness and King William countenancing them in it to despise and violate both our Act of Navigation of the 12 Car. 2. and divers other Statutes made during his Reign all which were providently and wisely enacted for the Encouragement of the Encrease of Shipping and Navigation and for the Promotion and Enlargement of our home Manufactures For as few can be ignorant especially of Gentlemen and Merchants both of the Occasion and Design of these several Laws so the whole Nation hath abundantly experienced all along since the making of them what Profit and Advantage have thereby accrued first to Trade and then to the Kingdom â—ut now by the Insolency of the Dutch and the Treachery of King William to this Nation all those Laws have been slighted and violated by them and the Care of having them observed and put in execution to us been neglected by him which both on his part and theirs is in direct subserviency to make them powerful in Shipping and opulent in Wealth and to render us Poor Feeble and Weak And as there is not one Branch of all these Laws the transgression of which has not been practised by them and connived at by their Country man on the English Throne so they are through his Encouragement and Protection grown at last to that Impudence and arose to that Defiance of English Laws and common Justice That Coffee house Tables have been furnished with printed and publick Advertisements of such and such Dutch Productions and Manufactures that were to be vended at Places there named in and about the City of London notwithstanding of their being expresly prohibited by those Laws to be either imported into or sold in this Kingdom But whereas neither of the Two Houses of Parliament upon the present Inspection they are making into the decay of Trade and their calling Merchants before them to instruct them therein can want information from those they examin of the truth of what I have suggested and in what Particulars and Branches all those Laws are violated by the Dutch and suffered to grow obsolete and to remain unexecuted by the Prince of Orange I shall supercede the saying more on this Head because I cannot enlarge upon it as I ought and as it deserves without writing a Volume instead of a few Sheets of Paper And therefore the next Attempt I charge them with is still more hainous and done infinitely more to our disgrace being not only an Invasion upon our Trade but upon the Liberty of our Persons For by an unpresidented and unparalelled Inâ—olency the like whereof no Nation did ever pretend to exercise towards and over the Subjects of this Kingdom they demand and exact a Tenth Man out of every Ship of ours that goes into their Ports for and towards the manning of their Fleet and to justify themselves in the doing hereof they pretend to be authorised by King William's Order This they have practised for these Two Years past only they are grown more rampant tyrannous and oppressive this last than they were the former For whereas in the Year 1694. they were contented with One Man out of Ten or 15 Guilders in lieu thereof and for his Ransom they have in the Year 1695. required and taken a Man out of every Ship of ours that went into their Ports though the Sailors were never so few or else they have exacted 25 Guilders for the excusing and redeeming him from their Service So that if it be but a Hoy which is sailed with a Master one Man and two Boys yet they demand One and upon its being replied that the Vessel cannot be sailed if One be taken out they pretend it a Condescention and Favour to compound at 25 Guilders for his being excused which is Fifty Shillings of English Mony Nor do any Ships escape without doing the one or the other and for which they alledg their having King William's Authority And these Things they are so far from concealing or seeking to extenuate the Injustice and Criminalness of by the necessity of their Condition That they glory in it both in their Trackschuytes and in all Places of Society and Concourse as the Badg of their Exaltation and Triumph over us and of our Subjection to them The Method in which this Force and Hostility over us is practised is this namely before any Ship can be cleared at their Custom-house the Master must go to the Lords of the Admiralty and bring from thence a Certificate to the Custom-house of having given a Man out of the Vessels Crew to their Service or of having compounded at the Value I have mentioned for his Redemption Surely it will not be unseasonable now to ask whether we be in terms of Hostility with the Dutch or of Alliance Seeing we are not treated by them in this as Friends but as Enemies Nay it will be needful tâ—at we consult both our Understandings and Memories whether England be not Tributary to Holland and when and how it came to be so For as much as they deal not with us as with a free and independent Nation but as with a Province which they have subdued and brought into Vassalage And if we be not Slaves but remain yet a free People this Hostility in them ought to be hostily repelled by us And in the Place of accounting them any longer our Confederates we ought to esteem and take them for our Enemies and every where to assault them accordingly And for our Belgick King to authorise the Dutch to do what I have mentioned is to assume a Power over the Liberties and Persons of the People of England which no Rightful King did ever pretend unto For our Persons and Liberties being under the Custody of the Laws no King can claim a larger Jurisdiction over them than what the Laws give him unless he will renounce to govern by Law and take upon him to rule Despotically And the Prince of Orange may with as good Right transplant all the People of England to the Deserts of Arabia or send them to work in the Mines of Peru and Mexico as to authorise the Dutch to seise upon one Man that is either a native Subject here or under the Protection of English Laws to navigate either
more without asking or taking their Advice about it though a matter both of great Importance in it self and of vast Consequence to the Trade of this Kingdom Nor can it be imagined that the said Act for erecting of a Scotch Company was surreptitiously obtained or precipitately passed without his Knowledg and Information of the Tenor of it Seeing the Instructions were formed and digested here and signed by him which upon being sent down thither gave occasion and encouragement there to make and enact such a Statute at this Juncture And it is highly worthy of remark That this Scotch Law containing so many unusual Privileges and beneficial Concessions as were never granted heretofore by any King of Great Britain should be made at a Season when the Trade of England is so loaded and depressed by late grievous Impositions and Taxes laid upon It by several Laws since the Revolution in order to the carrying on of the present War and for the defraying the Charges of it Nor is it conceivable how after so many Discouragements given to the English East India Company not only in refusing them an Establishment by Law but in Delaying for several Years to grant them a Confirmation of their Charter and thereby putting them both to vast Expenses through their being so long in soliciting of it and the leaving them all that while naked and exposed to be undermined and supplanted by Interlopers that this unwonted and exuberant Grace should be exercised to the Kingdom of Scotland were it not done upon the Influence of Dutch Councils and in pursuance of Measures from Holland for the ruining the Trade of England And whosoever considers the little respect and the less affection which King William hath for the Scots Nation and with what disdain and contempt he speaks oâ— that whole Kingdom and treats those of the first Quality of it will easily believe That he did not authorise the Establishment of the forementioned Company out of kindness unto or concern for the Prosperity of that Nation but that it was done upon the Motives and in pursuance of foreign Councils Not that I do envy the Scots any Favour that is shewed them upon whatsoever Inducements it be done or that I blame the Parliament of Scotland for what they have done in this particular towards the raising of the Genius and encouraging the Industry of their People to the pursuit of Trade but what I would say is That as King William's Kindness to the Scots in this matter is to the apparent and visible Damage of the English so it is morally certain that both the first overture of such an Establishment sprung from Belgick Councils and that the Prince of Orange's Instructions which led that Parliament to such a Bill and the Royal Assent given thereunto by his Commissioner upon which it is become a Law and Statute is all in order to encrease the Trade and raise the Grandeur of the Dutch and to depress and lessen the Trade of England and thereby to weaken and impoverish the Kingdom For as the Author of a Paper called Some Considerations upon the late Act of the Parliament of Scotland for constituting an Indian Company has with Candor and Ingenuity told us Pag. 4. That the Original of that Design of settling a Company of Commerce for Strangers as well as for Scotch-men was not from Scotland nor from hence but altogether from foreign Parts which as he there tells us he had from good hands So we have reason upon his Testimony to receive what he says being so avowed a Patron of the Wisdom Justice and Equity of the said Act. However it will not be amiss to unfold a little more distinctly what he hath only obscurely and briefly insinuated In the doing whereof I must crave pardon for revealing a Secret committed to me in a private Conversation and the rather because I have always valued my self upon an inviolable Fidelity toward all that have trusted me and upon a tenacious Retentiveness and steddy Secrecy in reference to such Things as have been privately and under the Notion of friendship conveyed to me But where my Discretion has only been confided in but neither my Honour nor my Conscience have been engaged I do judg that I not only may but that in Duty I ought to disclose what hath been and is contrived and machinated in order to divide and separate these two Kingdoms and thereby to weaken if not ruin both of them namely That the Dutchâ— being afraid that either through the Prince of Orange's Death or through King James's Restauration these Nations may be awakened to consider how they have been first deluded and misled and then wronged and injured by the Hollanders and thereupon may be provoked to demand Reparation and grow enraged to persue Revenge they have therefore studied and concerted how to separate the Kingdoms of England and Scotland the one from the other And have proceeded so far therein as in either of the foregoing Cases to have allowance for it from Willam's Dutch Minions and Confidents which is equivalent to the having it from himself And accordingly they have treated with some of the Scotch Nation about it whom they have not only gratified with Mony to make them pliable but have given them assurance That there shall be Three or Four hundred thousand Pound ready to bribe and gain the chief and most leading Men of that Kingdom to comply with this Design at what time it may be needful for the Dutch to have it put in execution In pursuance whereof they have started the Project of a Scotch East India Company which that Nation had all the reason in the World to take hold of and they will be thought not only kind but just to themselves in gaining this Grant and Concession from the Crown for their coming into the Interest of this Man at a Season when their adhering to their Rightful King as was their Duty to have done would have made this Man's Title very uncertain and precarious and would have rendered his Abode in and Reign over these Kingdoms of a very short Duration and Continuance Nor will it escape the recommending the Wisdom of the Scots Nation to Posterity That whilst the English who have lavished away and wasted near 40 Millions sterl upon their Dutch King have not obtained one Beneficial National Act or Law in recompence of all that they have so foolishly and prodigally bestowed for the support of his Government the Scots by taking the Benefit of his foreign Inclinations and Affections have gained something that may be useful to them and their Off-spring It were high Presumption in me to undertake to declare how far the Scots Act is directly calculated and adapted to the Prejudice of England seeing that were to invade the Province and to break into the Rights of both Houses of the Parliament of England who being extreamly sensible of and having maturely weighed it have not only the Integrity and Fortitude to represent it
by a solemn Address to King William but who in their profound Wisdom are considering both how to obviate the Evils which that Law threatneth to the Traffick of the Kingdom and how to settle the Trade of the Nation upon such a Foot and Bottom as may give Encouragements to it and make it revive and flourish I do know that all which the two Houses are to expect from their Belgick King in answer to their Address is That he was surprised into the passing of the Scotch Act which I hope all Men will believe he as truly was as he pretends to have been into the Massacre of Glenco for the perpetration whereof he gave several positive and reiterated Orders For Fides Belgica and Fides Punica are equivalent and the Word of a Carthagenian Senator or General and that of a Dutch Prince are of the same alloy and stamp But as the Scots are a wiser Nation having obtained the passing of such a Law than upon any Consideration whatsoever to be prevailed upon to repeal or to part with it either to gratify King William or to humour and accommodate this Kingdom so no Man in the present Circumstances in which England is will judge it the Interest of this Nation to quarrel with Scotland or too much to rally and vex the Scots upon this Account Not but that there are many ways and means within the Circle and under the Power of the Parliament of England by which they may not only vent their Anger against those English that have subscribed to the Scots East India Stock but make Scotland it self first uneasy and then enraged But as this were to spend their Resentment and Anger where they ought not seeing all their Indignation ought in Justice and Equity to fall no where but upon Kensington and Holland so it were to make themselves Tools in promoting the Design of separating these two Kingdoms which the Dutch contrived this Act for the Establishment of the forementioned Company as a Foundation of and a Path unto For should they at Westminster as they easily may make all those English that have put in their Shares into the Scots Stock pay quadruple Taxes to the War which they are upon Ways and Means to support this would but make many wealthy and industrious Merchants to forsake England and retreat to Scotland where they will be heartily welcomed and effectually protected against all the Operation of such a stingy Law Or should the Parliament of England enjoyn these English that have subscribed to the Scots Stock to abandon and renounce their Membership in that Company this would not only entitle the Scots to so much Mony as was the Quota of theiâ— first Payment which having already received they are not so silly as to refund but it would also occasion those that have ventured so much in that Bottom rather to carry their whole Capital after it than to be both shut out from the Benefit of such a Proportion of their own Estates and likewise to forfeit so much of their very Principal Nor would the Parliament of England act with less imprudence and in greater inconsistency with their own Interest should they suffer themselves to be provoked to turn the Payment of all the Scots Regiments in Flanders off from the English Establishment and cast it upon the Scots as the equivalent of the Customs which they are excused from by the forementioned Statute but which they would be obliged to pay to the Government were they to trade to Africa and the East Indies upon the like bottom and terms which the English do But as this were to enfeeble the Confederate Army by robbing it of Seventeen thousand as good Men as any it is constituted of or else to necessitate England to hire and pay so many Foreigners in their room which they cannot in that Method of acting avoid doing towards the compleating of the Eighty seven thousand four hundred and forty Men which the House of Commons by their Vote of December the 14th have declared necessary for the Year 1696. So such a Procedure of this Kingdom towards Scotland would enforce the Scots both to call home their Troops and to employ them where England will not find any Advantage in giving them Provocation as well as Occasion to do it So that in a Word all the Anger that boileth in English Breasts upon the Account of this Scots Act ought to vent it self upon the Dutch who gave the Advice and upon our Belgick King who gave it the legislative Stamp and ratified it into an Act by what he calls his Royal Authority And to shew that all his little Excuses and particularly what he gave in answer to the Address of the Two Houses when presented to him Octob. 17. viz. That he had been ill served in Scotland is all Cheat pure Grimace in that he has not in Evidence of his being imposed upon and misled turned out or laid aside one of those Ministers of State whom he would have this credulous Nation believe to have deluded him to it Which were it true as it no wise is it ought not to vindicate him from being accountable for the wrong he hath therein done to the Kingdom of England seeing he who drove away King James by a President of his own making meerly for the Offences of that King's Ministers and which Ministers he has not only taken into his Friendship and Confidence but made some of them the chief Superintendants of all his Affairs must not think to Sham the World off with Pretences that the Ministers are only guilty whilst he is to be looked upon as one as innocent as the Child unborn Yea I will presume to add That whereas K. James was not by any Laws of the Kingdom responsable for the Transgressions of his Councillors and Offâ—cers but his Person and Royal Dignity were in all Cases to remain Sacred and Safe K. W. is justly and legally Arraignable for all the Crimes of his Ministers as well as for his own and that both by his authorising that unjust and barbarous Fact of abdicating his Uncle and Father in Law and also by virtue of the Stipulation Contract and Term upon which he accepted the Crown But if nothing else will serve and content the Parliament of England save the making Reprisals and taking Revenge upon the Scots for their establishing an East India Company with so many ample Privileges and Immunities the way of doing it is open and easy without their committing any thing that the Scots can call unjust or which they themselves may either repent or be ashamed of namely To grant unto their own trading Company especially to those of Africa and the East Indies such an Establishment by Law with ease from Custom and Impositions at least with such an Abatement and Moderation of them as caeteris paribus may be an Equivalent to all the Privileges and Immunities in the Scots Act and thereby discourage and cripple if not stifle and smother their
A brief Account of some of the late Incroachments and Depredations of the Dutch upon the English and of a few of those many Advantages which by Fraud and Violence they have made of the Brittish Nations since the Revolution and of the Means enabling them thereunto IT may justly astonish as well as Surprize those who give themselves liberty to think that a Nation pretending to so much Wit and good Sense and that very rightfully as the English do should suffer themselves both in the view and to the amazement of the world to be Tricked Cheated and Bubbled to the degree they are by the Dutch who were never much esteemed for the Greatness and Transendency of their Understandings tho' they have been so well known for Treachery and Fraud as the peculiar qualities they excell in and which they have never failed to excercise and display themselves by when and where they have had opportunity For tho' now and then a few Individuals may have been found and still are among them who for Probity and Intellectuals have been and are secured against this Imputation and Charge yet these are the characters which they have commonly lain under as a State and to which the generality of that People have been as Meritoriously as Commonly entitled And which tho' most Nations have in some measure Experienced who have either had the misfortune to need or the folly to Confide in them yet none have so often and so sensibly felt the Effects both of their Ingratitude and Deceit as we of Great Brittain have done Whereof it were easâ—e to give Innumerable Instances since the very first Moment that by a friendly and vast if not too lavish and improvident an expence of our Blood and Treasure they became rescued from the Jaws of ruine vindicated into Freedom and established into aâ— Republick But that I intend for reasons which any man may penetrate into to confine the account I am now to give of their fraudulent and rapacious behaviour towards and the Gains they have made of us by tricks and violence only to that circle and period of time which hath elapsed since the Commencement and Consummation of the late Revolution And besides all the other Influence this is as well proper as designed to have upon us if we have not both renounced common Reason and our Native Country It may serve not only to awaken us to a perusal of those many former Relations of their Treacherous Supplanting and their hostile Usurpations but to give a fresh and raised credit to all those antecedent detections of their Villanies which either thro a strange Oscitancy we were willing to forget or thro the Inhumanity of them too much disinclined to believe I suppose it is needless now to tell any man that is not qualified for Bedlam tho he be one that hath renounced all Revealed Religion and moral Honesty and ridiculeth every thing that is superstructed on or which fasteneth obligation and duty upon us in the vertue of the acknowledgment of those Fundamentals That it was not out of any love to these Kingdoms or for any real concern for what we value and challenge a property in either as Protestants or Englishmen that the States of Holland lent their Men and Ships to the Prince of Orange and encouraged his coming with an Army into England Alas both his Conduct and theirs since do so interfere with those pretences that it were as easie to reconcile Contradictions as to resolve that Undertaking into those Motives And tho I cannot deny it to be very natural to all true Hollanders to be furnished with a great deal of assurance and to claim it as a Prerogative entailed upon their Country not to blush as those other Climes retain the modesty to do when they obtrude the most notorious falshhoods upon the faith of Mankind yet the present tottering and precarious state of the Church of England and the little room it hath in their thoughts unless it be how to subvert it as well as the many Invasions made upon our Laws Rights and Civil Liberties besides the Rapines committed upon our Trade and the many guileful Arts that have been practised to enslave and impoverish us since the beginning of 1689. have not only refuted but exposed these State pretences of rescuing us from Popery and Thraldom which had been made use of to wheedle us into those Crimes whereof we became guilty thro their Delusions and to prepare us to entertain and tamely to undergo and suffer the Miseries which they had projected to bring upon us And as the transporting our Coin the having our Seas and Merchant Ships unprotected and the many Sham plots upon our lives as well as the various arts methods and projects of worming us out of our Estates shew what we are to expect from Dutch-Councils in relation to our Persons Property and Wealth So the cold and disdainful Reception commonly reported to have been given lately to those of the Conformable Clergy at Alâ—hrope when they went thither to pay their Complements and make their Addresses and where they were not accounted worthy either of a word or a salute no more than any of those common Decencies which have been customarily vouchsafed to persons of their Order Habit and Communion while the Dissenters were at the same place not only Welcomed with Hat in Hand and entertained with the respect of standing up to them during the whole time they were attending but Caressed with the tenderest expressions declarative of his love unto care of and confidence in them and afterwards treated in an Appartment by themselves with Wine and Tobacco and other civilities of the house with an allotment of some Noblemen to bear them Company and to bubble them into Court-Measures do more than abundantly testifie under what contempt the Established and National Church is thro' the Influence of Belgick Advice and in complacency to the Hogen Mogen Constitution abroad Which tho it be but the beginning of a Just Recompence of Reward upon your Episcopal men for their Apostacy from the Doctrine of their Church in Reference to civil Government and legal Governours yet it both sufficiently proclaims some Peoples Ingratiude and intimates what those deluded credulous missed and revolting Clergy-men are to expect in relation to all those Dignities and Emoluments they have been advanced unto and hitherto kept in possession of by standing Laws in preference unto and contradistinction of all other Protestants And should not that story be so Authentick as it is universally vouched to be yet his behaviour upon all occasions towards those of the Established Church is so scornful as well as unkind as abundantly testifies not only his Distrust and Hatred of them upon the motives of Dutch Counsels but a design to mortifie their persons and to alter and subvert the Establishment which our Laws do at present give them Nor are the late Caballings Animosities and Prosecutions against a certain Person Ornâ—mented with a George and a
discharge the Duties of both to Nations whose Interests are so Irreconcilable as well as Different aâ— ours and theirs are known to be And seeing his first and natural aâ— well as legitimate Tyes are to them and that their Humors are agreeable and their Concernments interwoven It will be the Wisdom as much as it is the Duty of these Nations to Return and Remit him back to them to whom we have found him so partially link'd in his Affections and so intirely swallow'd up in Promoting their separate and particular Designs as in Recompence of the Honour we have bestowed upon him the Services which we have done and the Treasure we have Wasted to Support his Ambition and Gratifie him in the Upholding and Carrying on an unjust and destructive War to Sacrifice and Offer Us up as Victims to their Insolency and Covetousness For it is Apodictically Evident that thro his having so much Power here and so little there we are only Properties and a Prey to the Hollanders and that it lies within their Circle to Encroach upon us as much as they please and to undermine and Baffle us what they will in all our Concerns So it is no less Apparent that by his Countenancing Encouraging and protecting of them in their Treacheries Rapines and Depradations we both are and must be left without Relief Shelter and Defence while we remain so Stupid and Sottish as to continue him on the Throne Nor are they merely accommodated with Means of impoverishing depopulating and ruining us by having thro English Folly and Dutch Wheedle obtained their Belgick Stadtholder to be elected and advanced to Sit upon our Throne but they are farther Impower'd to accomplish all those Ends upon us thro having so many of their Countrymen Received into our Councils Established over our Troops Employed by the Crown of England into foreign Courts and Dignify'd with those Titles and Honours in Virtue whereof they sit in the Supream Court of Parliament and have a Vote both in the Enacting and Repealing our Laws and in Adjudging Causes which arrive before that High Court of Judicature en dernier Resort It would afford too much matter foâ— Satyr as well as for Piquancy to find the chief Honours and Dignities of the Kingdom so ignominiously debased and prostituted as to be lavishly bestowed upon Outlandish Men who have neither Birth nor Merit to Entitle them thereunto but who receive them as the Compensations of their Master's Gratitude for Qualities and Meanesses in them and Services performed to him which it would be offensive to persons either of Religion or of moral Vertue to have them mention'd And the conferring English Grandeurs upon so worthless People and that upon so Vile Motives as these have been granted will in a little time render those Titles and Dignities which used heretofore to be the Rewards of distinguishing Worth and Vertue and the Signatures of the innocent and just Favour of our Princes to those that deserved meritoriously of them and of their Country to be more scorn'd and despis'd than the Order of the Star is now in France where it is become a Disgrace to receive it and is wholy grown obsolete and disus'd since Lewis the XI splitting the Collar which was the Mark of and gave Investiture in it about the Neck of the Captain of the Night-watch or of the Constable who is therefore called Chevalier du Guet Nor can any acquainted either with our own or with foreign Histories be ignorant how unacceptable and disgustful Outlandish Men have been to Natives and what fatal Mischiefs they have brought first upon the People then upon the Prince and at last upon themselves where they have been raised to Superlative Dignities and placed at the head of Affairs Which without travelling Abroad for Examples to Confirm we may find sadly verify'd in the Lives of Henry III. and Edward II. And it would be prudent in Benting if he would Consider the Fate and Destiny of Gaveston and Spencer whereof our Histories can inform him as likewise of the Monopoly which they made of the Ears and Authority of our Princes and of the Mischiefs which they occasioned to the People And then for Dutch and Outlandish Officers as the advancing them over the English Troops is a Disgrace to the Kingdom and the Diminution of the Honour that belongeth to the Crown of England and giveth general Dissatisfaction to the Subjects so it is an Affront put upon the Parliament and a Ridiculing as well as a Despising of the Address made to the Prince of Orange Feb. 18 1692. by the House of Lords wherein they desire That the Chief Commander of the English Forces under His Majesty should be a subject Born in his Majestie 's Dominions to which he gave answer That he would Consider of it but hath all along since done in this as in every thing else Namely treated the Councel of Peers with Neglect and Scorn and left the Brittish Soldiers not only under the Command of Forreigners as their Supream Officers but to be Insolently Insulted over by them But to wave many Reflections which the particulars now mentioned are liable to have made upon them I shall only observe in what Subseâ—viency these things ly to our being Ruined by the Dutch and what Improvement they have already made of them to that Purpose For by having Batavians in our Councils they are not only made acquainted with all the Secrets of the Board relating either to State or Trafick but they have those present there who will Countermine as well as Betray them if they be not Calculated and Adapted to a Dutch Interest and Design And whence was it that our East India Company came to be so long neglected in all the Applications they made to the great Man at Kensington but that the Hollanders were to be Encouâ—aged and Assisted in the supplanting and and worming them them out of that opulent Trade and have Time vouchsafed them for doing of it Yea the late Seisure of so many of their Ships which were the richest that ever were Fraught from thence to England by which both the Nation is so much impoverished as well as depriv'd and pillaged of those Commodities which it stood so greatly in need of and that Society vastly sunk in their Stock as well as Reputation if it were pursu'd to the Original and true Source of it will be found to have proceeded from the Treachery of Dutch Ministers in our Councils and from their hired and brib'd Pensioners who gave Information to Holland whence it became Betrayed and Discovered to the French at what Ports in Ireland the Company had Order'd their Ships to put in till they might be furnished with a Convoy to protect them home And that Passage in the late Speech to both Houses Novemb. 23. That they would have a Regard to the East India Trade least it should be lost to the Nation was only to Cover the Treachery and to prevent its being enquired into And it
to have Satisfactorily answered The first is That they would tell us what the meaning of a King de facto is and how such a One differs from a King de jure For I find that many both of the Lawyers Gentry as well as of the Clergy who do wholy disbelieve and in their Minds disclaim the Prince of Orange's Right to the Sovereignty do yet allow themselves to swear Allegiance to him and do pay him the Duty of Subjects meerly because he is got into Possession of the Throne and Royal Title and de facto hath assumed the exercise of the Kingly Power Nor am I ignorant that the pedant Writers of Politicks do speak of a King de facto as well as of a King de jure but so far as I am capable of understanding Reason or good Sense no Man can be called a King de facto who is not either antecedently or concomitantly a King also de jure Seeiâ—g he that is stiled a King but who is not rightfully so is by all the Laws of God and Man a Robber and an Usurper but a King he is not nor can he be A Thief may as well be called a legal Proprietor of what he hath stolen from his Neighbour and he that Pads upon the Road may have as just a Claim to the Purse he hath forcibly taken from a Traveller though the Law makes both the one and the other obnoxious to be hanged and that very justly too as he can have either Right or Pretence to the Regal Title and Power who attains not to them by the Methods Rules and Measures and in the Virtue Force and Efficacy of the Constitution And as the Names of Intruder Usurper and Robber and not those of Prince Sovereign and King are which such a one ought only to be called by so instead of Allegiance due unto him or of our being under the Obligation eitheâ— of divine or human Laws to render unto that Person the Duties of Subjects we are bound boâ—h in Law and Conscience to raise Hue and Cry after him and to persue him and make him accountable for the Crimes which have entitled him to the Names of Robber of his Neighbours Crown and Intruder into and Usurper of another Man's Throne Things are stubborn and inflexible and will not change their Natures because of the complemental soft Words that are fastned upon them Theft Robbery and Usurpation will not cease to be the same evil and abominable Crimes which God hath denounced Curses against and which Men in all Ages have annexed Punishments unto notwithstanding the smooth Whitehall and Kensington Language with which we varnish them over And whereas the Word and Name King hath been hitherto taken for a fair honest and honourable Word and Name and held no ways reproachful for a vertuous Man to have it ascribed unto him and to be denominated by it I will venture to say that it is one of the worst and most scandalous Words in the World and the most disgraceful and injurious Title that a Person is capable of having given him if it be allowed to express an Usurper by and used of one that has no Right to a Crown but meerly the Possession of it But whereas there are some who through want of Sense and others who through Ignorance of the Law may take the Prince of Orange to be a King de jure and may thereby hope both to save their Consciences and their Credits and think to justify themselves from Treason and Disloyalty in their swearing Allegiance to him and yielding him the Fealty due from Subjects I desire therefore in the second Place to ask our Senators of Wisdom and our Gentlemen of the Gowns how this Right to be King accrues to the Prince of Orange and from what Sources of Law and Justice the Royal Stile and Authority come to be derived unto and vested in him and by what Tenure he bears the Royal Name and exerciseth the Sovereign Power For as there are but Three ways in any Nation of arriving lawfully at the Supream Authority and of coming legitimately and honestly to be a King namely either by the Right of hereditary Succession or by the Right of just and lawful Conquest or by the Right of Election where through the known Laws and the fundamental Provisions of the Constitution there is upon every Vacancy of the Throne a Privilege vested in the People or in their Representatives or in some select Number of the most honourable and qualified Persons to chuse one to fill it And as none can have the Impudence to say either that the Prince of Orange is King of England by the Right of hereditary Succession seeing there are divers Persons who have an hereditary Right of inheriting the Crown antecedently to him Or that he attained to be King by a lawful Conquest in a just War seeing that is not only disclaimed by himself and reprâ—bated by the Parliament but because the offering to establish his Title upon that Foundation and to justify it by that Plea were to put us into the State of Slaves instead of Subjects and to make us enjoy all we are and have by his Pleasure and Will and not to have any Property in them by our antient Laws So in the third Place none who have the least Acquaintance with the Nature of our Constitution the Frame of our Government or the many Laws of the Land relative to the Right and Manner of Succession in the Sovereignty will dare to pretend that upon a Demise of the Crown the People or any certain Number of Persons whatsoever stand legally vested with a Power of chusing who shall succeed And the reason is obvious because our Monarch is and has been always an hereditary Monarch and not an elective Wherefore though there have been sometimes Interruptions in the Rightful Succession and Translations of the Crown from one Family to another yet save in the Cases of direct Usurpation such as Oliver Cromwel's it was never attempted on the Foot and Principle of the Peoples having a Power resident in them by Law to elect their King but it was always on the Motive and Foundation of doubtful and controverted Titles Which Claim though in some it was very weak yet it was always insisted upon and what their Title wanted in legal Goodness they endeavoured to make out by military Power I might add That there was no Demise here neither by Death nor by Resignation and much less were there any vested with a Regal Power of abdicating deposing and driving away King James So that upon the whole the Prince of Orange can upon â—o Foundation whatsoever nor in any Sense received among Men of coming Lawfully to a Crown be King of England de jure and by consequence he must be contented to be held for no other than an Usurper and as such ought all Men to account him who according to the Laws of Revelation and of the Kingdom would either approve themselves to God