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.
lies so much under every ones Prospect that it needs only be pointed at and not insisted upon how much the Dutch stand advantag'd to Endamage us by their having the same Benting qualify'd to sit in the House of Lords under the Character of an English Peer In which Capacity abstracting from the Influence he has over his Master to Sway and Determine him to put a Negative upon such Bills as may be prepared there and in the House of Commons to Skreen us from Belgick Encroachments and Rapines he is Capable sometimes by his own single Vote and often so by the many Proxies which some â—hro Fear others thro Flattery and many in order to Court a place and Preferment do lodg with him to get those Bills thrown out which were either Introduced there by some generous Peer that loves his Country or framed and sent up thither by the House of Commons for their Lordships Concurrence in order to protect our Trade preserve our Constitution and to prevent the Slavery as well as the Poverty which the Dutch seek to have Overthrown and wish and endeavour to have us reduced unto Nor was there ever a good Bill formed upon the Design of being a Fence about our Lives Liberties and Estates whether it began in the Upper House or came conveyed thither from the Lower since the Revolution which this Gentleman raised to the Honour of Peerage by a Merit singular and peculiar to himself hath not both given his own Vote and if Occasion was applied all the Right Authority and Power vested in him by Proxies for the casting it out and the rejecting of it To which under this Head I shall only briefly add That it is no less than an avowed and visible Betraying both of the Honour and Interest of England to the Dutch to employ a Batavian under a Character derived from the Crown of England to any Foreign King or State about Brittish Affairs and Concerns And for any one stiling himself King of England to appoint a Dutch Man Amhassador or Envoy to any Court in Europe can be upon no other Motive than of Sarificing the Concernments of England in that Court and Country to the Pleasure and Profit of the Hollanders seeing we want not Men of Quality Sense and Merit of our own to be sent Abroad under those Characters And yet this Belgick Prince now set over us and whom our wise Senators have accustomed themselves to call their and our most Gracious King Values himself upon Treating us after this rate as appears by his Interposing in the Vindicating Justifying and Protecting of Myn Heer Schonenberg at Madrid whom in his Letters to the King and Court of Spain he calls his Ambassador And according Resents the Driving him out of that City as a Violation of the Rights and Laws of Nations tho it was for Crimes that any other Prince besides ours would have Chastised and not have Defended him Nor does the Privelege belonging to the Character he bears give him Security by any Laws in reference to the Cause for which he was Insulted from being as justly as he was ignominiously Dealt with Nevertheless this Belgick Prince hath espoused and pushed the Vindication and Defence of this Dutch Heer so far as to have Forbid the Spanish Ambassador to present any Memorial or to Appear at Court till he havâ— Satisfaction given him in Reference to that Batavian whom he hath the Indiscretion and Confidence in the View and Face of the World to stile an Ambassador from the Crown of England And were the Wheedle of Rescuing Nations from Popery and Slavery as proper to Influence the Subjects of his Catholick Majesty and to Pervert them from the Allegience to their Monarch as they did the weak and credulous People of these Kingdoms This Prince Errant who not only Fancieth himself another Hercules born and raised up to tame Monsters but one Divinely Commissioned to give Laws to all Nations and to Trample on Crowned Heads and wrest Scâ—ptres out of the Hands of Kings he would Embark speedily with his Dutch Janizaries for Cadiz to Drive his Catholick Majesty out of Spain as he did the King of Great Brittain from his Dominions In the mean time the Fraud to which this Schonenberg was accessary and the Insolence he was guilty of towards the King of Spain shews the Prince of Orange's Skill in the choice of his Ministers to be Employed Abroad under publick Characters and how well Qualified this Dutch Man was for being Constituted the Ambassador of the King of England Seeing it is most certain that as Dutch Stadtholder he could not give that Title nor the Powers belonging to it But is not England in the mean time in a safe and fine Condition to have all the Affairs of the Kingdom that are to be Transacted by a Person vested with that Character in the only Nation and Court of Europe where we have now most to do and are most embarkt in Commerce and Traffick and where our Concernments do chiefly lie to be not only Trusted in the Hands and put under the Care and Conduct of a Dutch Man but of one whom the Hollanders themselves have given the same Stile and appendant Powers unto for the Management of what appertains to them both in the way of State and Trade To whom we may be not only sure that he will be Truer than to Us but that it was intended by the Prince of Orange he should be so And should any be so foolishly Favourable as to Entertain a better Construction of his Highness's Intentions Yet it is Demonstrable that Nature and Interest will be prevalent in most Men especially in a Hollander above Duty and Obligation Accordingly Mr. Stanhop who is both an English Man and sent from hence to Reside there in the quality of William's Envoy is not only sensible of the Affront done to himself thro a Dutch Man's being Authorised under a higher Cha racter to meddle at that Court in Brittish Concerns but of the Injury done to the Kingdom by reason of that Hollander's Sacrificing them to a Belgick Interest So that by this Conduct of the Gentleman at Kensington the Sheep are committed to the Wolves to keep and the Guards allotted for our Defence are Placed upon us in Order to Assassinate Us. Nay at other Courts and particularly at the Hague where he pretends to Employ English Men under the Character of Envoys and Ambassadors from this Kingdom He Trusts none of them in the great Affairs and Concerns of State which are Transacted in that Court but Useth them only in Complements Trifles and Baggatells or at most in receiving and delivering such Letters as are of no Importance Witness among others my Lord Dursly whom I do therefore name because he is both a Person who for Honour Prudence and good Sense is qualified to discharge the Duties of a Publick Minister in any Court whatsoever and is one who preserves that Regard to his Country and to his own Dignity
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