Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A37444
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The two great questions further considered with some reply to the remarks / by the author.
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Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.
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1700
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Wing D851; ESTC R20633
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11,615
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with him abroad and kept England from being the Field of Blood and this England got by a Confederacy abroad And I 'll give another Instance which no Man can have the Face to deny when the Spanish Fleet lay at Anchor and had yet received no such considerable Damage from our Ships as to prevent their Landing the Dutch lay with their Fleet on the Flemish Coast at the procurement of the Queen and thereby prevented the Duke of Parma bringing over 30000 Spaniards into England which if they had done the Fate of England must have been tryed by the Sword and on her own Ground Behold the Benefit of Allies If I have Panegyrick'd on the Reputation of the King at the Head of a War-like Nation I have done nothing but what all the World own his Due and what we have the Authority of Parliaments for who have own'd him for the Saviour of these Nations from Popery and Arbitrary Power at the Expence of his own Personal Hazard I need not Quote the many Addresses of Parliament as the Voice of the whole Nation for my Authority As for places at Court or Pensions the Author never had nor desired any but hopes a Man may be allowed to speak what Truth and Honour obliges every Man to do of a King that has deserv'd so much of the English Nation without the Reproach of a railing Scribler I must further Explain my self in Defence of what I thought no Man wou'd have had Baseness enough to Suggest But when I speak of a sort of a People who have appear'd such Champions of our English Liberties as to damn all kind of Force as useless burthensome to the Kingdom Badges of Slavery and all Arguments to be only pretences for supporting Arbitrary Designs I should mean by these the Parliament of England Far be it from the Thoughts of any honest Man to imagine such a thing nor is it rational that I cou'd Suggest such a thing of the Parliament for as his own Words confutes him The Parliament says he never did damn all Force as useless Very true Sir how then can you imagine any Man cou'd mean the Parliament who never did any such thing Nothing can be so absurd and there I leave it But since I am charged with intending those whom I really never thought of nor no Rational Man cou'd suppose give me leave to tell the World who it is I do mean when I say There are a sort of People who have appear'd such Champions of our English Liberty as to damn all kind of Force as useless I mean the Pamphleteering Club who have set themselves to Blaspheme God and Ruin their Native Country and in Print to sow to the Seeds of Misunderstanding and Distrust between the King and his People The Club where the Blessed Trinity is openly derided in Print lampoon'd and shamefully in the Face of a Protestant Government abus'd and ridicul'd That Club of Men who pretend to guide Parliaments and prescribe to them what they are to do who are so openly against Force that they leave us naked for a Prey even to the most Contemptible Treasons That Club that sent out a blasphemous Poem lately under the borrow'd Name of Clito where the Deity of our Saviour is denied and then the very Being of the English Monarchy undermin'd That Club that denies Englishmen the use of their Reason and will not allow that even the Parliament of England can appoint such Powers as are necessary to our Defence These are the Champions of our Liberty that I directly mean who damn all kind of Force as useless These are they who have sent out this Pamphlet into the World and have brought the Author of the Two Questions to the Bar of the House right or wrong these are the Men who tell us Confederacies and Alliances are useless and all Forces oppressive that say they are not yet rid of Slavery because the King has his Guards left as if Forces in England by Consent of Parliament cou'd be a Grievance Who tho' they cry up Parliaments as those by whom Kings reign yet will not allow them to be Judges of what is or what is no Convenience but will have the Lord Treasurer Lord Chancellor and Lord Admiral be nam'd by the Parliament because the Word England is added to their Titles These and none but these are the Persons who I mean all along when I say They have deluded the People of England by their specious Pretences and nothing can be plainer than that they have carried on a Pen and Ink War against the Reputation of the King obliquely and sometimes directly reproaching him with Designs to enslave the Nation whom he came to set free and to rob us of those Liberties which he ventur'd his Life to save These are the Men who I mean when I say they have weakned his Hands and his Interest at home which they have certainly done by endeavouring to lessen his Reputation and to suggest to his Subjects that he will invade their Liberties These are the Men who think they cannot be answered without concerning the Parliament in their Quarrel who to bring the King into Contempt with his Subjects for whom he has done so much and from whom he has received so many Thanks and Acknowledgments represent him attempting to destroy our Liberties by standing Armies and if they are answered pretend to fright their Adversaries with the Parliament as if nothing cou'd be said to the Point without reflecting on the Parliament To these People let me take the Liberty to say tho' the Matter of Armies was no way the Case in this Affair that this Author does affirm and will answer it any where That a standing Army in England in time of Peace is not against Law nor inconsistent with the Constitution of England Provided it be by Consent of Parliament To avoid all manner of Disputes in this Point my Authority is unquestionable being the Parliament of England themselves or Convention which is equivolent in the Sixth Article of the Declaration of the Rights of the People declar'd by the Commons of England These are the Words That the raising and keeping a standing within the Kingdom in time of Peace unless it be by Consent of Parliament is unlawful This was once urged to these Gentlemen before but as a thing they cou'd never answer they took no notice of it and here I leave it with this Remark That I do and every English Protestant will always consent to have such and so many Forces rais'd maintain'd and kept up in England and no more as the King Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament shall think needful for our common Perservation and the Safety of the Nation 's Interests This is the middle way between both Extrâ—ams and nothing in the Book this Remarker treats so scurvily can give any rational Ground to charge me with proposing farther Nor has the King himself attempted to keep up any Forces but with Consent of Parliament and has
assâ—r'd us he never will I have done with this railing Author and indeed had not meddled with him at all only to explain my self in the Persons I mean thro'out the Book he reflects on and methinks no Man cou'd imagin any Author wou'd be such a Fool to treat the Parliament of England in such a manner as I have done the People I speak of while he knows the Power of the Parliament to crush such a one with the Breath of their Mouth Without troubling the Reader any more with my Remarker or but by the by where I am oblig'd to come athwart him I shall take this Opportunity to say what I wou'd ha' said before had it been known that the King of France wou'd have declar'd his Grandson King of Spain And I shall lay it down as a further Answer to the grand Question What Measures England ought to take The League for the Partition of the Spanish Monarchy being not made publick and propos'd to the English Parliament says some is no League at all and therefore England has nothing at all to do with it If what such say be true which yet I do not believe then whenever His Majesty please to call a Parliament and acquaint them of it it becomes an English League for no Man ever yet disputed but that the Power of making Leagues and Treaties either for Peace or War was committed to the Kings of England nor can he tell us of a League ever made in England which was first discuss'd in Parliament when we had a King to be treated with All that I have yet said we ought to do amounts to no more than this that England ought to put her self into such a Posture with the rest of her Neighbours as that she may be able to preserve the Peace lately purchased at so dear a Rate and to preserve her Trade upon which the whole Nation so much depends If People will have me to mean a standing Army whether I will or no I cannot help it but I say again it may be done without a standing Army and where is your Argument then Of which I cou'd say more but I have not room for it here I did affirm it was a weak thing of the King of Spain to pretend to give his Kingdom by Will and I am of the Opinion we shall hear that he really did not do so that is that there was some Practices made use of to procure such a Will as in the true Sence of a late Will and Testament makes it void in its own Nature But be it which way it will it is an odd way of devolving the Succession of Crowns and here I cannot help meeting our Remarker again That notwithstanding all Deeds of Gift or other Titles whatever if the good People of Spain own him as their King and allow him the Soveraignty he has the most undoubted Title to the Kingdom of any in the World Though our Author is not worth answering having a right Notion in his Head but not the Sence to put it into English I shall tell him That in the main his Argument is true and yet the Consequence is false For The good People of Spain as he calls them whose Country is their own have all along agreed that their Crown shall descend by the direct Line to the lawful Issue of the House of Austria Successors to Ferdinand and Isabella in whom the contending Crowns of Arragon and Castile were united this our Author may find stipulated in the Contract between those two Families and sign'd to by the Council call'd by them the great Council of Spain which is the same thing with them as a Parliament Thus the good People of Spain acquiesc'd and have all along submitted to the Successors of that Family as their undoubted rightful Kings Now if it be the Peoplâ—'s Act and Deed that the Succession of the House of Arragon or Austria shall possess the Crown of Spain then the Duke d' Anjou has no more Title to the Crown of Spain than the Czar of Muscovy as I said before while the Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy are alive unlâ—ss the People of Spain legally Convocated had Declar'd the Throne vacant And to go on with the Argument in the same Notion of the People's Right to make Kings which is what these Gentlemen are so fond of When the People of a Nation have by any publick Act Legally made entail'd their Crown or committed the Government of themselves or what he pleases to call it to such or such a Family and such and such Heirs I hope they will allow then that such and such Heirs have a Right till the same which gave them their Right in the same legal Manner do publickly rescind alter or repeal the former Settlement on which that Right was founded If this be true then where is this Publick act of the People of Spain to rescind the Former Title of the House of Arragon To say they have not disclaim'd the Duke d'Anjou what a ridiculous Argument is that the Settlement they have agreed to is not Repeal'd nor the Great Council of the State been call'd to Debate it nor is their any need of it for the Heirs are in Being the Throne is not Vacant Now if you will form a Legal Title for the Duke d'Anjou on this Gentleman's Notion of the Peoples Right it must be thus The Dauphin is the Immediate Heir but he refuses to accept of the Crown for himself and his Eldest Son then the Great Council of the State which is the People of Spain ought in this Emergency to have been call'd to Consider to whom they wou'd dispose of the Crown or to whom they wou'd Submit and if this be true as I am sure by this Doctrine it cannot be otherwise they may as well bestow their Crown on the Emperor of Morocco saving his being a Mahometan as on the Duke d'Anjou Also if all Titles be deriv'd thus from the People and any one that they will Accept is Lawful King Why shou'd I be blam'd for saying 't was a weak thing for the King of Spain to give away his Kingdom by his Will which he had no Power do It had been much wiser to have call'd the Great Council of the Nation together and ha' caus'd them to settle the Succession as they thought fit as the only Persons who had a Right to do it Another Consequence I must draw from this Doctrine of the People's Right which the Gentlemen are not Historians enough it seems to know If it be the Peoples Right to dispose of the Government as they see fit as in the Case of a Vacancy of the Throne No body doubts then let the Title to the Crown Spain be whose it will 't is none of the Duke d'Anjou's for in the famous Treaty of the Pyrenees where the Match was made from whence this Title does proceed the Reconciliation made by the French to the Crown of Spain was Sign'd on