the best of my remembrance 't was in 1680 gave it a due Consideration nay they were so candid as to represent to the King how that important Place came to be in so miserable a Condition after so vast a Treasure consumed to make it useful and that nothing better could be expected of it since it consisted most of Papists and such as were Enemies to the Religion Laws and Liberties of England These Inconveniencies might have been redressed by your Brother had he so pleased and truly the Parliament advised him to it nay Sir you may put on your Spectacles and read the Address of Parliament November 1680 wherein they promised to assist him in the Defence of that Place if they might have a tolerable Security that any Supply for it should not be applied to augment the Strength of our Popish Adversaries and to increase our Dangers at home from that villanous Faction and could you with any reason blame them since they had to their Sorrow seen Money imployed contrary to those Ends for which given by your Band of Pensioners But above all the Popish Party's Insolencies and the Impudence of those that espoused the French Interest threatned the Nation with total Ruine at home and therefore they judged it not prudence to leave the Consideration of England to provide for Tangier it looking like securing one single Cabin whilst the whole Ship was on fire Therefore to conclude this Head let me ask you these plain Questions 1. Whether it could be judged consistent with the Wisdom of a Parliament that had seen the dismal Consequences of the Incouragement your Popish Party had received from your Brother and you to give Money to supply a Garison which was used to augment their Strength and increase the danger of the Nation and whether you would not have laughed as much at them for such a Compliance as you did at your Band of Pensioners for giving 1250000 l. for the King 's extraordinary Occasions in 1673 or for that vast Sum they gave for a War with France in 1678 2. Had you not several Regiments in pay besides the Guards in England which might be transported and maintained as cheap there as here and would it not have been more honourable for them to have been sent to Tangier to have beaten the Moors than to stay at home to beat their Landlords and Landladies in their Quarters 3. Had you not a Company of Popish Gentlemens Sons to be imployed in that Service whose Fathers were undone by the Supply they gave for maintaining Liberty of Conscience and the Dutch War in order to destroy the Protestant Religion all over Europe And could you and your Teagues think on any rational ground that ever a Protestant Parliament would give Money to preserve that Place which was nothing else but a Nursery of Popish Officers and Souldiers I believe your Popish young Gentlemen might want the Charity of those Imployments but the Parliament had a foresight of the fatal Consequences that would attend the placing their Bounty upon such Vermin who would have been ready to return home for those ends designed by you and your Council at St. James's 3. The Parliament would not part with Money for Paiment of the Debt of the Exchequer to the Bankers which your Crew urg'd did put your Brother out of a Possibility of supporting the Government This is the Charge and a heavy one too Now what was this Government that was to be supported but a parcel of nasty Whores Pimps Bawds Informers Suborners of Perjury Murderers and Thieves This was your Government in your Brother's days was it not Nay did he not consume more Money upon such Vermine in one year than would serve the Government of England ten Did the Credit of the Crown both at home and abroad depend upon Portsmouth's having 52000 l. Sterling a Year and Nel Waal for being Bawd in ordinary getting 30 or 40000 l. in Money and other Cattle of the same Profession being maintained in all manner of Luxury for no other merit but having had a hand in the ruin of the Nation No Sir the Credit of the Government did not depend thereupon the Parliaments did not settle Revenues nor give Taxes for such Ends but your Brother and you had advanced the Credit of the Government if you had sent such Vermin to Bridewel to have been set to work for their living as Whores ought to be and to have the Correction of the House all Titles of Honour to the contrary notwithstanding Come Sir to be plain with you the Honours of England are intrusted with the King but were never designed for such Vermin as Portsmouth that was but the Daughter of a poor French Fellow or a Bastard of some Body I name not who nor to have whole Families advanced for providing or pimping another Man's Wife to be a Whore Royal that has had no less to speak modestly than 20 Stallions to attend her besides your dear Brother of blessed Memory Sir it is certain notwithstanding the noise your Party made of your Brother's being thro' the Parliaments refusing to give Money put out of a Possibility to pay his Debts that he never would pay them which was his Resolution and therefore what Faith could be given to his Promises tho he knew the Honour of the Nation would suffer highly in his taking up his Brother of France's Custom of not being a Slave to his Word The truth is had the People always been to pay his Debts there might have been Taxes without end this Sir your Band of Pensioners well knew who therefore as mercenary as they were would never pay the Debt due to the Bankers and the last Westminster Parliament having so fair and fresh an Instance before their Eyes and their Ears filled with the daily Cries of the Widows and Orphans were obliged in duty to give a publick Caution to the People not to run again into the same Error because they judged all Securities of that Nature absolutely void and that no future Parliament could without breach of Trust repay that Money that was at first borrowed to prevent the sitting of a Parliament Thus I have gone through all the Particulars of the second Pretence that is that the Parliament would not supply your Brother with Money to support the Spanish Alliance preserve Tangier and to pay his Debts 3ly You had another Pretence for procuring those three Parliaments to be dissolved viz. two Votes that passed the Commons Jan. 7. 1680. 1. That whosoever should lend or cause to be lent by way of Advance any Money upon the Branches of the King's Revenue arising by way of Customs Excise and Hearth-money shall be adjudged the hinderer of the sitting of Parliaments and be responsible for the same 2. That whosoever should accept or buy any Tally or Anticipation upon any part of the King's Revenue or shall pay such Tally hereafter to be struck shall be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and be responsible
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OR THE PICTURE OF THE Late King James Further drawn to the LIFE In which is made manifest by several ARTICLES That the whole Course of his Life hath been a continued Conspiracy against the Protestant Religion Laws and Liberties of the Three Kingdoms In a Letter to Himself PART The Third By TITVS OATES D. D. LONDON Printed by J. D. to be sold by Richard Baldwin near the Oxford-Arms Inn in Warwick-Lane M. DC XCVII TO His most Excellent Majesty WILLIAM III. By the Grace of God And the Choice of the Good People of England Of Great-Britain France and Ireland Rightful and Lawful KING Defender of the Faith and the Restorer of our LAWS and LIBERTIES As well as the Victorious PROTECTOR of Oppressed Europe TITVS OATES D. D. His Faithful Dutiful and Loyal Subject and Servant most humbly dedicates this ensuing MEMORIAL The Contents of this Third Part. INtroduction on K. James's being deserted by the Pope the Scotish Bishops Pag. 1. c. Article XXII He 's charged with Misapplication of the Taxes c. in his Brother's Time 5. XXIII With suspending the Laws against Priests and Jesuits 9. XXIV With the Loss of the Dominion of the Seas 11. XXV With refusing the Test against Popery 13. XXVI With marrying the Daughter of Modena 14. XXVII With making a French General over the English Army 19. XXVIII With oppressing the Kingdom of Scotland with the several Means he made use of 20. XXIX With attempting to break the Vse of Parliaments which is branch'd out into many Divisions and Subdivisions 30. Conclusion giving some Account of King James's Friends here in England c. 94. ERRATA Pag. 1. and some following Pages for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pag. 30. l. antepenuâ—t for with r. without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or The Third Part of the Picture of the Late King JAMES SIR I Cannot but acquaint you that many of your Friends here in England are much concern'd that the Whore of Rome that is Mystical Babylon laboured no more to support you when you usurped the Imperial Crown of this Realm and that when God gave the Nation Grace to drive you and your Italian Triggrimate and Welch Cub from amongst us he did not move both Heaven and Earth to restore you again And that since you have fought many a bloody Battel for the Honour of the English Nation you would not venture one more as an additional One to save the Crown on your Head Truly Sir Rome's Prelat did not deal well by you nor you by your self You may remember it appeared to your Red-Letter Friends as if the Grandeur of the Popish Religion and Superstition had been your Gracious Aim and Design and that not without Reason for in a most decent manner you lost the Crown and the little Gentleman his Dominion Nay they hold up their Hands lift up their Eyes and curse that old Coxcomb Innocent XI as the worst and basest of Men that betrayed the Interest of the Church in not doing his Duty to which he was obliged viz. in seconding such a Glorious Design and Undertaking But this thing he never did nor do I believe any of his Successors ever will for in my Conscience I believe they have too much Sense to attempt the Support of a falling House notwithstanding the Conduct and Courage they may pretend to in Cases that are of that Weight and Difficulty It 's true Odescalchi pretended he was to act but 't was according to his own Reason not according to your Sense which if he had followed he might have abdicated Rome the very Day you were driven out of England Therefore what a Varlet you had to do withal judg you Truly he saw that you were losing and that you did in time in a comfortable way quit the Kingdom of England and therefore ought to have sacrificed even the Papacy on your behalf But he was so far from that piece of Heroick Justice that I am perswaded the old Priest would scarce have sacrificed a Sop in his Dripping-Pan to your Service Well then what 's next Since the Church left you I pray what hath the French Monarch done for you I must confess he hath done more for you than the Church did for she left you betimes but he allows you a good Pension and hath not as yet taken it away he does not give and take away Pensions at pleasure and say he hath no Money no it is below him But what is the Reason he doth not come over with you and fix your sweet Bum in the Royal Chair and return as you said he would to France again without putting us to the Charge of a Jack of small Beer for his Pains Or since both the Pope and French King have not done their Duties what 's the Reason that you being a Man of Courage ask Tom Jenner else that has fought so many bloody Battels for the Honour to the English Nation and on behalf of the Crown tho Old Hodg and a Conclave of Inferiour Clergy-men consulted all the History of your Life but could not find one Word of it except that which sav'd them from the Gallows did not fight one single Battel to keep the Crown upon your Head You might have done it and your Clothes have sat never the worse upon your Back Well you had the Courage to run and needs must when the Devil drives and so there is the End of an old Song I have thought upon your Case with as much deliberation as ever the Cathedral Logger-head of a Priest did of getting a Bishoprick by threatning us with disputed Titles and an endless War and yet could never make any thing you ever said or did to be of a Piece Therefore I shall ask you a few Questions and hope you will give me the Satisfaction that one Gentleman ought to give another I do not mean thereby to challenge you for I am no Swords-man I assure you and I think you never took any great delight in one unless it was to hang by your Side As for your Enemies I think you scarce ever fought with any unless it were at the Old-Baily Kings-Bench Court or Western-Circuit where the Odds were ten thousand to one on your Side therefore I mean by Satisfaction a plain honest Answer to the following Questions 1. I remember the villanous Bishops of Scotland took it as a great Affront that our Parliament in England could not reconcile the Security of the Protestant Religion with the admitting of you to be King Now these Bishops poor Rogues had clear another Notion of the Business and thought it might be done with as much ease as for an English Man to catch the Itch in a Scotish Laird's House and therefore went roundly to work and procured your Brother to call a Parliament and constitute you High-Commissioner which was no sooner said but done and your Succession settled and truly you appeared very formidable in that
happy in his People and both secured by frequent Parliaments which therefore could never endanger your Brother's Crown Mistake not your self nor think that we could be cheated with that Nonsense for nothing could endanger his Crown but your advancing the Religion of Rome and the Arbitrary Power of France in England It was these things endanger'd your Brother's Government nothing else could but good Gentleman he was engaged with you in these things beyond recovery to the ruin of himself and the endangering of all our Laws and Liberties The Devil's Brokers did not join with you in dissolving the Long Parliament but cried out if that Parliament was dissolved the Church would fall but Sir I will say that for you you had as little regard for the Church as you could considering how the Rogues had espoused your Quarrel and thought that Passive-Obedience Nonresistance and the Divine Right of Succession would have been admirable Orvâ—etans against the Plague of Rebellion But why must this Church fall with the Pensioners Alas alas the poor distressed Church and the poor distressed Band of Pensioners For the latter they were a Parcel of matchless Villains and she Whore enough not to be in the Nation 's Interest but dissolved they were and what escaped the Jail were secured by the Friars those who had stood by the Interest of their Country were sent again and such a Set of Gentlemen as no King would have sent home in so ignominious a manner but your Brother at your procurement and being sent home you and your Party made it your Business to expose them 1. You had them exposed on your Stages in your rascally Play-houses by a Parcel of mercenary Rogues and Whores who you and your villanous Party set up to debauch the Nation and to ridicule the essential Parts of the Government as if the Votes and Debates of that August Assembly were to be ridiculed by such Vermine who were Tools you made use of in some part to do your Drudgery But stay it is not fit the Whores that are Stage-players should be reflected on left there should be a more severe Act made for cutting of Noses for a Parliament-Man you know had his Nose cut for speaking against that sort of Vermine but I will not be afraid to mention their contemptuous reproaching of Parliaments 2. You had Monsieur Barillon who managed the Intrigue of charging the principal leading Members of both Houses of those three Parliaments with being in a Conspiracy against your Brother and your self and this he and your Jesuits Priests and other Vermine contrived by Subornation and Perjury a Proceeding not unusual to some Persons and Courts all the Mischiefs Poisonings and Villanies in all the European Courts were owing chiefly to his and his Master 's most Christian Politicks he was used as a main Agent fit to expose three as great Parliaments as England ever knew to all the Courts of Christendom as a Confederacy of Men in a Plot to destroy the King and your self and as Enemies to Monarchy And what was this but to render Parliaments odious to all the Princes of Europe 3. Notwithstanding those three Parliaments had nothing before them but to secure the Government against the Depredations that Popery and Arbitrary Power would have made upon it and notwithstanding their great Duty to the King yet what a scandalous Declaration was emitted wherein the said Parliaments were most villanously treated as if they had aimed at nothing but the change of the Government This Declaration may be supposed to be drawn by that Villain the French Ambassador in his own Mother-Tongue because tho it was turned into English yet the French way of wording it shews there was a French Counsellor in the case which could be none but he who was the chief Counsellor your Brother and you used in the management of your Conspiracy yet it is but the Copy of your Grandfather's and Father's way of Proceeding which your Brother and you thought fit to use to asperse Parliaments you were all Friends alike to that Constitution of the English Government 4. It is very remarkable that your villanous Judges were instructed in their Circuits to spit their Venom against the Proceedings of the said Parliaments and in their respective Stations they were to let their Grand Juries know what reason the King had to dissolve them and how they recommended the King's most Gracious Declaration to their Consideration and what Converts they made I was never curious to inquire for I could not suppose but the Country knew the Men and their Character and under what necessity they lay to be Villains from the tenour of their illegal Commissions and that they must prostitute themselves to the Will of the Court or be dismissed from their Imployments but they chose rather to be Scandals to the Bench than to appear as so many Reproaches to their Professions at the Bar. Upon all which Considerations I cannot believe they ever made any farther Profelytes against the English Parliaments than a paltry Sheriff of a County or a villanous Grand Jury pack'd on purpose to draw up an Address of Thanks for the Court 's attempting to ruin the Government as established by Law 5. Since Sir the City of London could not be debauched but the eminent Merchants and Traders in it stood firm to their Laws and Liberties and to the Government of England by Parliaments so that you could not influence the Masters you took an unheard-of Course to debauch the Servants and Apprentices in their Morals and procured a Day of Feasting for them whâ—re they were incouraged to huzza it away against Parliaments and to reproach the Senators as a Herd of Men set upon the Destruction of the Government both in Church and State but it pleased God to open the Eyes of several of those young Gentlemen to see that this Feasting and Rioting was carried on by ill Men and that the dissolving of Parliaments was only to screen some publick Offenders from Justice and by degrees quitting themselves of that scandalous Congress in a year or two their Feasting fell to the ground 6. You imployed old Hodg your Buffoon in ordinary to write against the Proceedings of those Parliaments the Rogue by his Lies Equivocations and Prevarications did much Mischief having called in a parcel of little Priests who engaged themselves to rail at Parliaments and admire the Loyalty of old Hodg their Guide whose Observators were the Subjects of their Discourses every Lord's day nay they would scarce look upon a Sacramental Discourse the first Sunday in the Month to be well dish'd up unless some of Roger's Frippery was mingled with it so that the old Villain was not unsuccessful in his traiterous Papers which he published several times a week till God in his Mercy opened the Eyes of some of our Passive-Obedience-Puppies and let them see the Villain was aiming at Popery and destroying the Church of England notwithstanding his specious Pretences to defend it 7. You
the People is very evident Therefore Sir abruptly to dissolve Parliaments when nothing but the Legislative and united Wisdom of the Kingdom could relieve the Protestant Party from their just Fears or secure their Religion from its certain Dangers is very inconsistent with the great Trust reposed in your Brother and seems to express but little of that Love and Tenderness which the People of England might justly have expected from him 5. Would not the Constitution of Parliament as by the Laws and Customs of England established have been equally imperfect and destructive of it self had it been left to the Arbitrary Will of a wicked King whether he would summons a Parliament or had it been put into his Power to dismiss them at his pleasure or at the Pleasure of two rascally French Whores or a little scoundrel French Ambassador And therefore was not your Brother's dissolving the Parliaments at Westminster and Oxford by your procurement a most unreasonable thing 6. Was not the Kingdom so alarm'd at the Wickedness of your Brother in dissolving those Parliaments that Men began to be exceedingly concerned not knowing where it would end insomuch that your Brother was necessitated in a sneaking Declaration to let the Nation see he was conscious to himself that his Dissolution of those Parliaments stood in need of an Apology so that it was but at the best an Appeal from his Parliament to the People of England And if your Brother and you could not justify your Usage of these Parliaments because so destructive to the Liberty of the Subject what assurance did your two French Whores Portsmouth and Mazarine and Barillon give you and the rest of your Party that your Brother's Declaration shewing Reasons for such a Violation to our English Government would make the Nation in love with such Treatments of their Representatives For Sir could you think in your Conscience that the People of England did not see themselves hereby exposed to the restless Malice of their Enemies and resented it highly since they could not but be sensible of the languishing Condition of the three Kingdoms and that nothing but a Parliament could cure the Distempers with which we were infected by you and your Party both as to Religion and Morals And had they not with great Charge and Difficulty chosen three Parliaments on whom they placed their Hopes And those being suddenly dissolved could they believe your Brother or you designed any thing less than a total Subversion of the Government Come Sir sit down put on your Irish considering Cap and judg why since Ned Coleman's Protestant Declaration was so unhappily published before its time the Nation should not be as much alarmed at Barillon's Declaration in April 1681 as they were at Coleman's in 1678. And could you and your Irish Teagues imagine that one French Declaration should so soon succeed another nay could you without being confounded see your Servant Coleman's Original fairly drawn by the Advice of the French King's Confessor to bring in Popery and Slavery so much outdone by Barillon's Copy since you judged it could never be outdone by any Man whatever And since the former exposed you and your Brother as the worst of Men how could you expect the latter should not have the same effect upon the English Nation and put them into such a Ferment as to deal by you and your Party just as we did in 1688 7. Did not your Brother April 20. 1679 not only in Council but Parliament declare how sensible he was of the ill Posture of his Affairs and the great Jealousies and Dissatisfaction of his good Subjects whereby the Crown and Government was become too weak to preserve it self which proceeded from his use of a single Ministry and of private Advices and therefore professed his Resolution to lay them wholly aside for the future and to be advised by those able and worthy Persons whom he had chosen for his Council in all his weighty and important Affairs Now Sir consider was it not most unreasonable in you and your French Vermine to put the King upon such a manifest Violation of his Royal Word and Promise to the Nation But to put the Matter out of dispute Did not your Brother on that Choice of his Council tell the Parliament of his Resolution of meeting his People often in Parliament And who was it that changed his mind and made him alter those Gracious Purposes but you and your wicked Party Would you make us believe that your Brother could so soon forget his Promises or that upon the meeting of these Parliaments there were no weighty Matters to be debated 8. Did not you and your Party in prevailing with the King shew the World that your Cunning kept not pace with your Malice since by this wicked usage of our Representatives in those Parliaments you and your Cutthroats made your selves known tho you had secretly and cautiously given that wicked Advice to your Brother only to be protected from the publick Justice of the Nation But in time you discovered your selves and told your own Names when Case-hardned enough to pull off the Mask and let us see what you would be at But what Offence did you take at those Parliaments Surely it was because the repeated Treasons and traiterous Designs of you and your Conspirators rendred you obnoxious to them And did you not put the King upon dissolving those Parliaments thinking thereby not to have been judged the Authors of that villanous Counsel Alas good Sir you have so exposed your self in that Matter that you left your self and Party not only without Justification but without all pretence hereafter but thanks be to God I lived to see the Justice of the Nation take place upon you and some of your Party There are some yet lurking and basking themselves in good Imployments but I hope our King will rid himself of the Vermine in time I am confident Sir you may reflect upon these Considerations and pronounce your self guilty of this unreasonable Usage of three as great Parliaments as ever England saw Now how can we conclude otherwise than that you then was and still continue an Enemy to Parliaments Fifthly The ill Consequences attending the Dissolution of those three Parliaments are worthy your Consideration and that I may be brief herein take notice 1. What Divisions you and your Party caused amongst the People of England thereby you made such Breaches in Families that I fear are not made up to this day unless Death hath reconciled them this you did by the Advice of your Priests Jesuits and Popish Council at St. James's and the wicked Ministry at White-hall who rather than the People should not be divided took their several Copies by your Original and came in a most comfortable manner to your Assistance hoping to make the People rebel These Differences you nourished with all the Industry imaginable to the great Hazard of the whole Kingdom But Sir this was to betray us into the Hands of our
therefore in Parliament Notwithstanding these Votes you had a Rogue that rose from a Kitchin-boy to possess as some say 14000 l. per annum of which he wronged the Nation having had the Opportunity to cheat three Governments and suck their Blood to whom the City of London ows much of her Misery he I say furnished your Brother with Money in contempt of these Votes but he has wiped his Mouth and hugs himself as if not one of the greatest Villains that ever England bore I leave him he was a Friend of yours and you have reason to remember him I remember the Votes very well and certainly they were justifiable to the whole Kingdom for consider a little did you take the Revenue to be disposed of at your Brother's pleasure Was it for his private use or the publick Good Sir the Revenue the Parliament had fixed was a publick not a private one your Brother was trusted with the disposing of part only and that not without the Advice of some of his great Ministers of State as a Secretary of State and the Lord Privy Seal for smaller Sums and for all great Paiments the Lord Chancellor Lord Keeper or Commissioners of the Great Seal were to have been added the other part of the Revenue was assigned to other Uses the Customs to the maintenance of the Navy The Maintenance of the Household the Tables at Court and Wages of the King's Servants were in our former Kings Reigns so established by Parliament that the Cofferer had his Money paid him out of the Exchequer under great Penalties to be inflicted for the neglect thereof and the House of Lords judged it a great part of their immediate Care It maintained the Dignity and Honour of the Government and contributed much to Love and good Understanding between the King and People no Countrey Farmer had Business at Court but he found those who bad him welcome and so had all Degrees therefore the King's Servants had justly the same Return wherever they came the outward Rooms of the House did not smell of Match nor was the Language of the Court Who goes there there used to be the Smell of better Hospitality this was plain even in your Father's time Besides Sir 't is well known that by the evil Counsel and Course your Brother and you took you made the Bankers of London and elsewhere become the very Bane of the Nation not only to the Gentleman and Farmer but I doubt to the Merchant too they raised and kept up the Interest of Money they drained the Country and bought Warrants so that your Brother paid 25 per Cent. for all his Expences You know the Revenue was in many of its Branches appropriated and provision made that they should not be alienated and if rascally Fellows that had decoyed into their Custody the ready Monies of Merchants Gentlemen and others did by the Strength of their Cash anticipate the Revenues of the Government who could have provided for the Nation Could any but a Parliament do it Now Sir it plainly follows that if your Brother had found out another way to supply his Wants than by Parliament the great hinge on which the Government turn'd was lost therefore what ground you and your Party had to make this a Pretence to put off those Parliaments especially the last Westminster-Parliament I cannot tell and how you could make them Criminals for these two Votes I leave to the Judgment even of your ragged Ministry at St. Germains 4ly A 4th Pretence you had for dissolving the Parliaments aforesaid was a Vote concerning Protestant Dissenters That the Prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the Penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning the Protestant Interest an Incouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom This was the Vote of the Commons in the last Westminster-Parliament Truly Sir they could not but pass the Vote as their Opinion since they judged themselves invited to it by your Brother himself who had often wished whilst his Band of Pensioners sat that he might be able to exercise a Power of Dispensation in reference to Protestants who thro' the tenderness of a misguided Conscience did not conform to the Ceremonies Discipline and Government of the Church and promised he would make it his special Care to incline the Wisdom of the Parliament to concur with him in making an Act to that purpose But Sir I know your Party usually said that these Inclinations of the King lasted no longer than he had a Prospect of giving the Papists an equal Benefit of Toleration also I doubt it was too true and that they had that honourable Notion of the King from your sweet self but whether true or no I will not insist here but shall only mind you that your Brother after he parted with you did on the 6th of March in his Speech to the first Westminster-Parliament after the disbanding your small Officers express his Zeal not only for the Protestant Religion in general but for a Union amongst all sorts of Protestants and did he not command the then Tool of a Chancellor at the very same time to tell them that it was necessary to distinguish between Protestant and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole Flock and those that wander from it I am much dispos'd to believe and that on good ground that your Brother was not sincere in the thing yet whatever his Heart was in the Case the following Parliament might justly incourage that Vote from the aforesaid Declarations You and your wicked Party especially your Church-Bums did attacque that last Westminster-Parliament as if that Vote relating to Protestant Dissenters was to shew that the Commons had in themselves a Power of suspending the Penal Laws established by the three States of the Realm who yet said it was a Power not to be allow'd in the King and caused to be cancelled all that he had done in relation to the ease of Dissenters from the Church of England and if the King had not Power to suspend the execution of the Penal Laws then had not they To this I answer 1. A few Years before that Parliament sat your wicked Ministers did remember that the whole Nation was justly alarm'd upon the King's assuming to himself by their Advice an arbitrary Power of suspending the Penal Laws upon this they thought it very popular to charge the House of Commons with an Usurpation on that Attempt Now Sir if they did by a Vote declare the Inconvenience of prosecuting Protestant Dissenters at that time or at any time hereafter I cannot see where the Crime was or of what Usurpation they stood guilty since they made the Vote for the very same Reason which your Brother had for expressing himself as he did in his foresaid Speech supposing his Heart had kept pace with his Tongue they had with great Trouble of Soul perceived that the Design of the Popish Party was not against any one Sort
who being a free People hated such a standing Force Now why your dissembling Rascals should use this as an Argument I am yet to learn And as for that Objection that it would have destroyed the Monarchy by a Law and taken all sort of Power from the King and made him less than a Duke of Venice this was as false as could be for as I have said before so I must again that it is evident beyond Contradiction that the Bill of Exclusion could not prejudice the legal Monarchy which your Brother did enjoy with all the Rights and Powers that his Ancestors ever claim'd because many Acts of like nature have passed not only in England but in your quondam antient Kingdom of Scotland without danger of diversting the Monarchs of their legal Power The Preservation of a Government consists in and depends upon an exact Adherence to its Principles on which it was founded and the essential Principle of the English Monarchy being that well-proportioned Distribution of Powers whereby the Law at once provides for the Greatness of the Sovereign and the Safety of the People for this Reason our Ancestors have been more careful to preserve inviolable the Government than to favour any personal Pretences And in your Case we followed the Examples of other Nations I meet with none in Story so slavishly addicted to any Person or Family as to admit of a Prince who openly professed a Religion contrary to that established amongst them it would be easy to produce a Multitude of Examples of those who have rejected Princes for Reasons of far less Weight than the Difference of Religion and this without endangering the Monarch's Power or the Subject's Right therefore your Party talked like Fools when they said the Bill of Exclusion would have divested the King of his Power nothing could have made a King of England so much look like a Duke of Venice as one of the lowsy Expedients your Party proposed to the Houses of Parliament 7. Another Argument against the Bill of Exclusion was That it would have led the Parliament to attempt other great and considerable Changes and thereby endangered the whole Government and the Peace of the Nation Now what your Villains would have had the Nation to understand by this Change is worthy of Consideration Therefore first if by a Change they meant a Change of the Constitution of the Government let me tell you that Hell could never have forged a more villanous Lie than those wicked Wretches did that they might in conjunction with you instil such Thoughts into the Mind of the King as might effectually alienate his Soul from the Use of Parliaments It is evident even to these Hell-born Wretches that there was no Vote or Proposition in either of those Parliaments that could give any Ground for such a malicious Reflection and therefore in this Matter we that were Lookers-on might reasonably charge your Brother and you and your whole Party with a malicious Design against all Parliaments in thus arraigning the whole Body of the Nation upon those ill grounded and malicious Suggestions I am sure this did not become the Grandeur and Justice of Princes nor was agreeable to the Measures of Prudence and Wisdom by which you should have governed yourselves And now Sir I will give the true Reason why you thus delighted in these Men viz. your hating Parliaments being afraid they should have called you and them to account for your high Crimes and Misdemeanours by this Means together with the Inclinations of your dear Brother you so swayed him that you could never want Grounds to dissolve not only three such Parliaments but threescore if there had been Occasion In the second Place Sir If you and your Admirers had understood by attempting great and important Changes that the Parliament would have besought the King that you might no longer have the Government in your Hands that your villanous Conspirators should no longer preside in his Councils nor possess all the great Offices of Trust in the Kingdom that our Ports Garisons and Fleet should no longer be governed by those that were at your Devotion that Marks of Favour and Characters of Honour should no more be placed upon such as the Wisdom of the Nation had adjudged Favourers of Popery or Pensioners to the French King these I confess were great and important Changes such as became English Protestants to believe were designed by those Parliaments and would have been by any other Parliament your Brother should have called in his time and such as the People of England would have prayed for and left the Success to Almighty God who governs the Hearts of Kings and Princes Truly without these Changes the Bill of Exclusion would have signified little it might have provoked but not disabled your wicked Party Nay the Money the Nation must have paid for it would have been used to hasten your Return upon us 8. Another Argument used against the Bill of Exclusion was your great Grace and Favour for your Countrey and the Excellency of your Temper and Vertue Surely Sir if you had heard these Men magnify you for your excellent personal Qualifications you would have spit in their Faces and told them they lied for the Violence of your natural Temper was sufficiently known and your Vehemency in exalting the Prerogative in your Brother's Reign beyond its due Bounds and the Principles of your cursed Religion which carried you to all imaginable Excesses of Cruelty convinced all Mankind that there was a Necessity of excluding you rather than to leave you the Name and place the Power in a Protector for in good truth they must have looked upon it as the greatest Folly to have made such a Change in the Government which would have been a Means to destroy and not preserve the Government Sir they saw your Temper that you who was bred up in such Principles of Politicks as made you in love with Arbitrary Power and bigotted to that Religion which always propagates it self by Blood could never bear with such Shackles as would even disgust a Prince of the meekest Disposition this was your Temper and how it is amended since you placed your self at St. Germains I suppose your Followers can tell better than I. But what Regard and Favour you have born to this Nation was well seen from your first Return to England in 1660 to your leaving it in 1688. You engaged it in two wicked Wars with the Dutch and a third with France I would not have your Cattel low too much of your Grace and Favour but truly if you had any for this Nation you was pleased to conceal it except in two things in which you did England the most signal Service that ever Man did the one was destroying your Brother and the other your running away and if you will keep on the other Side of the small River that parts France from us we will forgive you all the Faults of your Life But notwithstanding all the Noise
Kingdom Nay the Government there did in a manner protect you from the Parliament in England that would have excluded you Nay Dr. Nasty-Gusts the then Bishop of Edinburgh found they had done the Business so well that he blest God the Parliament of Scotland had made such a happy Progress in reducing the Laws of Scotland to the Will of the King Now after all this Pother that was made about you pray how came it that you found no more Friends in Scotland Truly at one time I thought the Courtiers there would have pull'd out both their Eyes to have served you yet when you stood in need of them there were but few that appeared for you Truly poor Pilgarlick did stand and wonder at the thing and advising with a parcel of honest Fellows over a Dish of Coffee at a Coffee-house near the Old House out of which the Prince of Orange warned you to be gone without any more to do one of the Company was very frank in the Point and told the Company plainly that Fear and Interest were the two great Hinges on which the Actions of Mankind did turn and thereby insinuated that Fear made them stand for you against the Parliament of England and Interest made them be against you with K. William Well what then Truly I thought with my self that the Princes of this World ought to be vertuous to a very high degree and to have a Magazine of Assurance because their Favours are more acceptable than their Persons are beloved I confess Princes are in a fair way to be beloved when they put themselves in a Posture of doing much good and that Prince is sure of the Affections of his People who will endeavour with all sweetness to gain their Hearts I have therefore this one thing to say that if you had secured your Antient Kingdom of Scotland you might have done mighty things I pray Sir why did you not cultivate your natural Qualities in order to have secured you an Interest in that Kingdom Truly the Reason is plain because you had none about you but mercenary Rascals that ruined you by their Flatteries And did you not find your self in a most forlorn Solitude notwithstanding their Scots Caresses when you really stood in need of their help And should K. William have any of your Rogues about him I can not but think they would serve him as they did you leave him when he has most need of them 2. You having conversed in Scotland and the Bishops there hanging about you and giving you all the Scots Government could afford I pray resolve me what Religion those Rogues were of Certainly if they were Protestants they have shewed themselves to have as little Brains as your Worship for I find by their management of themselves whilst you afforded them your Gracious Presence as well as before and since you left us they neither understood the Interest of their Traiterous Hierarchy nor of Religion In a word one would think by the Current of their Actions they had been a parcel of Irish Teagues trick'd up with the Dress of a true Scots Clergy-man for they must surely be judg'd Sots to the highest Degree if ignorant of the Disgust they had caused in the People of that Kingdom by embracing your Gracious Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in favour of the villanous Popish Crew It may be you will say that to your own knowledg they were Protestants at the Bottom To this I answer That what either your Brother or you ever said weighed no more with me than if you had sworn Mary Queen of Scots had lived and died an honest true English Virgin But what is it to the Point what they were at the Bottom I am sure they and you were a parcel of Sowce-Crowns to think the Scots would long endure Popery and Arbitrary Power always to domineer over them Truly Experience hath taught us tho you and your villanous Scots Bishops were above such Teachings that the poor Scots wanted but a Leader of Resolution and Bravery and they had thrown off your Brother's Yoke and yours long before the Prince of Orange's coming Object You may say because they wrote to you and told you that the Enterprize of the Prince of Orange was a detestable Invasion therefore you judg'd them Protestants they also having been always against such things Answ It seems they were for Passive-Obedience and Non-resistance For I do not find that they or any of their Admirers stirred one step to serve you and you know that Gracious Doctrine has saved the Credit of many a Coward in the World and therefore your Brother and you promoted it with all the Zeal two such Babes of Grace could shew lest the true Protestant Interest should have storm'd Babylon and all the Hellish Crew she has nourished ever since your Restoration till this Day But they were pleased to say that the Glorious Enterprize of the Prince of Orange was a detestable Invasion What! did this bespeak them to be Protestants Well then let me tell you that your Great Ally might as well wear the Name and all the French Court and your villanous Party here at home for I believe they have said so ten thousand times But I do no more believe they were Protestants than I believe Old Hodg an honest Man or R. Ferguson to be without three false Quarters I pray Sir what did they do for the Protestant Interest We had seven Bishops good Lord went to the Tower and all for the sake of the Protestant Religion I was not a bit sorry nor should I have been if all the twenty six had gone upon the same Account tho they had lain by it as long as I and the rest of my fellow Prisoners did in the Kings-Bench for the Testimony of a good Conscience But what your English-Bishops did for the Interest of the Protestant Religion I will leave to better Pens but for your Scots Tools did they not by their Treachery and Lewdness render themselves the Abomination of the People 3. I pray let me ask you a third Question What was the Reason that notwithstanding the Advice of your Devilish Jesuits to the contrary you would not stay and see the joyful Sight the People of England saw and that after so many Divisions occasioned by your Brother's Reign and yours viz. Our King and the Parliament so happily united together You say you ventured your Life on behalf of the Nation and since your Grace and Favour was such as not to strike one Stroke to keep the Crown upon your Head you might have been so good-natur'd as to have staid and seen our King leaving his Interest to the management of his Parliament on purpose to take care of theirs and his and the Welfare of all Europe The King God bless him remitted Chimney-money and entirely threw himself upon the Affections of his People and you threw your self upon the Affection of the French King I pray try his Affection and let me know by
the next how he uses you and why you would not gratify your sweet self with this goodly Sight 4. Your Villains are ever and anon checking me with my being convicted for two pretended Perjuries especially a Friend of yours in a certain Place where your Name is sometimes mentioned but not much to the Advantage of you or your Villanous Crew You being a Man of great Judgment and Conscience I ask you whether or no for such a Villain to be in a Conspiracy against the Life of the King with three Cousin-Germans at once or to have a Hand in or justifying the forging of a Seal to hold an Estate or suborning of Witnesses to swear that that was as false as any thing under the Sun could be true whos 's own dear Relation died upon the Spot with a false Oath in his Mouth ought not rather to have held his Tongue and let me alone and sat down with silence till he had cleared himself and Family in the first place The Fellow had once a Command but wanting Courage Conduct Honour and Honesty he was fairly dismissed If you are willing I suppose he is ready to serve you in a mean Capacity a Footman rather than fail being conscious in himself that his Reputation in the World will not engage him to a much greater Trust Nay Sir he may make a Priest if you please for I think he is too lewd to be a Layman I have more Questions to ask you but I will not give you the trouble now but ask you only how you do and how my Landlady and the little Cub have their Health I suppose you have kept a merry Christmass at St. Germains and I hope you will keep Christmass there or elsewhere abroad till you draw your last Breath I understand the French King takes much pleasure in your Company I do not envy his Happiness in the least and shall no more mourn for it than an old Friend of yours did for his Father's Death after he had cheated the old Gentleman of a fair Estate and left him four hundred Pounds per Annum as a sine Cura the better to enable him to drink Ale in his old Age He now and then bellows for you as loud as some Cattel do when they want Fodder with whom he hath had to do in his Life-time O had the Courage of his Hands kept pace with the Rhodomontades of his villanous Tongue for ought I know he and Sir John Fenwick might have done Wonders towards your changing the Air you live in I have seen him hugging that Traitor as the Devil hugg'd the Witch and being a dutiful obedient Child to his old Sire you would do well to send the Tiler's Son to learn of him But I hasten to your Charge and proceed to the twenty second Article which you will do well to consider Article XXII YOUR Brother and you were very industrious in misapplying of the Taxes and Subsidies given by Parliament When they gave Money for any one or more particular Uses it is well known that for the most part they were not answered to the great hazard of the Kingdom But here I must particularize 1. The Parliament in lieu of several Advantages the Crown made by which publick House-keeping was maintained in your Father's Reign to the Glory of the English Nation gave the Hereditary Excise and took those Advantages away by Act of Parliament who thought of nothing less than that the Publick Tables should have been kept up But you and your Brother having travelled abroad and having not been much troubled with the smell of Victuals when you were come home you began your Show with open House-keeping but it was so offensive to your tender Stomachs that it was laid aside judging your manner of living at Bruxels more sutable to the Constitutions of your Bodies And upon laying down of House-keeping you know what use the Hereditary Excise was put to against the Intent and Meaning of the Act of Parliament that settled it 2. The Customs were given by Parliament in a great measure for the Support of the Navy which is the Bulwark of England But how they were applied to that Use let all the World judg part of the Customs of England having been paid in Pensions and a great part for secret Services I am sure when the King had occasion either to repair or fit out a Fleet or build Ships a particular Tax was made for those Purposes 3. Your Brother was forced to borrow a great Sum of Money of the City nay several in the Year 1664 at which many stood in admiration how he should lie under such a necessity of Money 'T is true there was a great Army to be paid off and disbanded but for that the Convention had made a good Provision had it not been misapplied and he had the Excise settled on him valued at 500000 l. per Annum the Customs then valued at 600000 l. the Chimney-Money 150000 l. the Arrears of twelve Months Assessment commencing the 25th of December 1659 The Post-Office which was valued at 50000 l. per Annum and the Arrears of the Excise and new Imposts And in the second Session of the Long Parliament he had given him 1270000 l. and a Benevolence and 60000 l. to the poor Cavaleers to gratify them in some measure for drinking the King's Health and a farther Relief to the poor maimed Officers who had served your Father in the late Wars he wickedly raised against his People and also four intire Subsidies by the Laity and four by the Clergy besides the forfeited Estates of those that put your Father to death whether in England or Ireland Now seeing after all this your Brother was in Debt so soon after his Restoration can we conclude any otherwise than that you joined together to spend those Revenues Taxes c. in other ways than the Parliament intended Pray how much did you receive out of the Treasury for Secret Service to maintain a whole Regiment of Trapans from one end of the Kingdom to the other If there was such a necessity of trapanning why was not the Parliament moved for an Establishment to keep those Rogues that drew poor Men into Plots and then swore against them nay for hearing the Treason they themselves spake in constant pay But when the Parliament had given Money for the Honour and Safety of the Government you spent it upon these Men that disturbed its Peace and rendred it vile and contemptible And the Money given to fit out a Fleet was expended chiefly in rigging up a Fleet of Land Fire-ships a parcel of nasty Whores that were even the Scandal of their own Profession of Whoring as also the much admired Pimps and Bawds 4. You know the Parliament at Oxford in 1665 gave a mighty Tax of 2500000 l. by which we thought the War against the Dutch would have been carried on with great Vigour and Application the Money being given for that End and truly we did provide a
Romish Priests slept in a whole Skin and Meetings of Protestants used with all the Violence imaginable whilst these Men walked about the Streets going from House to House and exercising their Functions with impunity Whence it is plain the Laws were not let loose against them 10. When the Popish Plot was discovered and several Priests Friars Monks and Jesuits were Indicted Arraigned Tried Convicted and Condemned were they not discharged out of Prison And were not Alderman Pilkington and Mr. Shute when Sheriffs of London commanded to discharge them out of Newgate and upon refusal of such an Arbitrary and Illegal Command committed Prisoners to the Tower And were they not then pardoned as also several Priests in the King's-Bench and divers parts of the Kingdom tho some did at that juncture dance the Rope full sore against your Brother's Will and yours And those who you procured to be pardoned were suffered to come into Prison to insult over us poor Protestants who were committed to Prison for the Truth and Testimony of a good Conscience Article XXIV THE Loss of the Dominion of the Seas was wholly owing to the Treachery of you and your villanous Party 'T is true your Brother did attempt the Security of the Seas in supplying the defect of his Coin by a few Copper Farthings whereby his Sacred Resolution was made publick of claiming and preserving the Dominion of the Seas but finding that sort of Metal would not do he changed them into Lead and so the Business was done to all intents and purposes as if your Minister Ned Petre had contrived the Business himself without the help of his Fellow-labourer of Pensilvania in that mighty Work But I shall be very plain in this Point and shew the Steps you took whilst Lord High Admiral of England to betray the English Nation into the Loss of the Dominion of the Seas which was never attempted till your Brother was called Home by the People of England in company with your self when you were advanced to that great Place of Trust which you held for several Years to the Nation 's great Dishonour and when you quitted the Employment you procured Persons of your own Nomination to succeed you who like Villains pursued the Measures you gave them in executing that Office by which the aforesaid Loss was to your Heart 's content in a great measure compleated I remember shortly after your Brother's Restoration the French King obtained leave of him and you to bring 12 Ships of War thrô the Channel but I do not remember of late Years he ever asked such a Boon of either of you nor indeed do I find that any of his Men of War did willingly observe you so far as to give ours the Honour of the Flag or strike to us in the Channel Now pray observe 1. Did you not instead of able Seamen of known Experience and Courage prefer a parcel of ignorant and cowardly Rascals Footmen Pages Pimps c. to be Captains and Lieutenants to the great discouragement of the Seamen And for a Man to be an able Seaman was enough to incapacitate him for a Commission you judging the Commands of the Royal Navy too great and high for such Men. Did not your Creatures then and since say that the King's Castles were not built to be commanded by Tarpawlins And what Conduct there was since your disposing of the Commands of the Fleet is well remembred as also how ridiculous it was judged both by the Dutch French and other Nations that did and still do advance their Navigation It is true when your Brother came home he found a Noble Navy in good Order and the Fleet in good Hands But as Captains and Lieutenants died or were discharged the Service either by Age or otherwise the aforesaid Rogues were put in their Places who when they came home from any Voyage have many times put themselves under the protection of the Friars that with peace they might spend their Money in Whoring and Drinking and have lived so lewdly as to be a Reproach even to the Friars where they sheltered themselves 2. As you took no Care of good Officers so neither of the Breed of Seamen for all the Fishery of England is sunk to nothing You let the French ravish the New-found-Land Trade by which that Fishery is lost and the Greenland Trade is gone and the Northern Fishery is come to nothing as is also the Iseland Trade The French and Dutch are Masters of these Fisheries and we have nothing now lest but the Yarmouth-Fishery which is fallen above 70 in the Hundred It is most notorious that your Brother and you were Enemies to the Happiness Glory and Strength of the Nation and therefore made it your Business to destroy every thing that might contribute to the Advancement thereof 3. In order to lose the Dominion of the Seas as you took no Care of the Increase of Seamen so how were those that you impressed aboard the Fleet under your Command used by your Land-loping Rascals that could signalize themselves no other ways than by breaking the Seamens Bones Nay their Warrant-Officers it may be did not escape their Hands This Usage made Men chuse rather to lose their Pay and run from their Ships An Instance of which we had in the Success a Fifth-rate Frigot besides other Ships where 50 Seamen together with the Watch that looked to them went away in the Night because of their ill usage by these mean Rascals that knew not the Worth and Value of a Seaman This was the Disease that raged in a great part of the Fleet which made them quit the English Service and go into Foreign Services where they expected better Usage 4. How have our Seamen been destroyed by those wicked Wars you made against the Dutch and base Compliance with the Pirats of Algiers c. in suffering our Seamen to lie in Captivity till they died or were useless unless they could redeem themselves at the Market-price By this means we lost the use of several hundred Seamen The last good Peace that was made was by Sir John Lawson but ever since we have been betrayed by your Villains in that Particular I remember that several times Letters Patents were granted to collect the charitable Benevolence of well-disposed People but that when considerable Sums have been gathered they have been put into the Hands of Cheats who perverted the Money to their own Uses and let the poor Seamen perish in most miserable Slavery 5. How have you taught the French to understand our Coasts and way of fighting and building Ships Your Brother and you furnished them with Timber Builders and Models of our Ships nay you permitted them to rob and plunder us to beat and murder our Seamen and never would seek Redress How could you expect the Dominion of the Seas upon these Terms 6. Was it not your Brother's Design to debauch the Nation And did you not place in the Fleet such Commanders as debauched our Seamen by
which means in a great measure they lost their old brave English Courage When our Seamen grow Effeminate and lose that Courage which with God's Blessing made them victorious England is but in a lamentable Condition 7. You punished or at least discountenanced such Officers as stood for the Honour of the Flag How often did the French refuse it And when some Broad-sides were exchanged and the French came off by the Lee their Ambassador used to complain and the Captain was severely check'd if not turned out For you were converted to such a Degree of Zeal to the French King that we must lose the Dominion of the Seas rather than the Holy Alliance with that Monster should in the least be intrenched and in the Private League your Brother made with that King the Business of the Flag was not mentioned and how indifferent your Brother and you were in the Case when it was in relation to the French is not yet forgotten Article XXV YOU stand charged with refusing the Test that was provided by Parliament and passed tho very unwillingly by your Brother to prevent Popery Truly we could not but laugh in our Sleeves when we saw your self with a sort of Irish Magnanimity quit your great Imployments for a Religion that makes Men Fools and renders them as the Sport of the Age But great Examples go a great way in such Cases When the Popish Party saw your Resolution to quit all rather than your Religion scarce worth the keeping several of them took up the Cross and quitted their Imployments also rather than be false to your Cause and Interest They did not do as your Brother did retain the Popish Religion and yet ever and anon to get a little Money of the Parliament was content to pass a Bill or emit a Proclamation or two to the Prejudice of that Religion his Soul was most affected with if with any Alas good Man he was for securing the main Chance If he had not complied for a little Money the Noble Fleet at Whitehall must have lain by the Walls without rigging to the great Disparagement of the old Trade of Whoring But as for your part you were resolved to give up your self to Rome and the French King which you could not have done if you had swallowed the Test Therefore as a great piece of Self-denial away go all Imployments by which you had ruined the Nation for you question'd not but to carry on your Conspiracy against the Protestant Religion and Interest by the help of your good and loving Brother notwithstanding your acquittal of them And 1. You engaged the French King to a closer Friendship with you by which you were sure not only of his Interest but his Purse to assist you against your Enemies and his even that Parliament that advanced this new State-Purgatory in opposition to you and your cursed Villains by which they had declared themselves the French King 's and your mortal Enemies who both of you drove on so furiously to have that Parliament dissolved in revenge for their laying such a Stumbling-block in the way of your Self and Party For as long as these Purgatory-makers were in being it was scarce possible for you to subdue the Northern Heresy that had so long domineer'd in the World And he and you proposed by that Method to be put into such a Condition as should enable you to give the Protestant Religion such a Blow as it had not received since its first Birth and to give you your due your Design of ruining the Protestant Religion was not ill laid and had you not over-done your Design would not have been so soon undone 2. By your not taking the Test you engaged a Party of Case-hardned Villains to espouse your Cause and Interest and for true proof of their Integrity they entered with you into a strict Conspiracy against our Religion Laws and Liberties For seeing they had met with such a terrible Blow from that Parliament they were resolved to try what they could recover by way of Reprisal from the Dutch and hoped some good would come of continuing the War with them but finding themselves defeated there you and they resolved with the gracious Consent of your Brother that England it self rather than fail should be made a Reprisal Which Design prospered so well upon your Hands that you went on as merrily as might be in your Plous Work and accordingly exposed the Nation to the Fury of the French And had old Clifford had the Grace not to have hang'd himself he would have appeared a very deserving Person and eminent in that Holy Confederacy However you did not fail of your Enterprize in some measure of ruining the Nation because of the Protestant Purgatory that was found out for its Service tho you could not find such a one in all your Romish Library 3. By this Example you engaged a great number of Priests and Jesuits to infest the Kingdom in order to storm the Church of England and would have ravished her poor Gentlewoman had she not held up her Smock to save them the trouble and these Varlots with the Argument of your Stedfastness to the Catholick Religion perverted very many of the lewder sort of People both Male and Female And seeing such a Number brought into your Ark you used to say you doubted not of an Army of Roman Catholicks to establish the Popish Religion 4. You made these Villains thus perverted so bold and daring that they drove on with such Fury as it was scarce possible for a Protestant that was any ways known to be zealous for his Religion and for the Interest of his Country to walk near Whitehall or St. James's without the danger at least of being affronted or beaten Whence it was that even that Purgatory-making Parliament thought they had not done enough to expel that Religion whose Professors in all Kingdoms stuck at nothing to establish their Superstition and to that End have troubled the Peace of the Christian World and had at that time by your espousing their Cause sufficiently strengthned as was feared their villanous Party to the overthrow of the Protestant Interest but resolved to use farther means to prevent the Practices of these Rascals that were so notoriously wicked as not any longer to be born One would have thought this Purgatory-Act should have done the Business yet it was backt with a multitude of Gracious Assurances to the Nation from your Brother a Person of great Integrity and Honour in his Promises to maintain and defend the Protestant Religion for a Testimony whereof observe and remember that the Cliffordian and French Designs were carried on notwithstanding the Test-Act in 1673 74 75 76 77 and part of 78 in as pernicious tho different manner from your first Design whose Method you were forc'd to change by reason of that Act which was so made as to execute it self And the Means of introducing that Religion seeming then at a stand you thought of a new Project
that in all probability might not attract that Envy that the preferring of Papists in several great Places of Trust had done yet that the same Ends might be more certainly and easily tho not so soon obtained Which brings me to Article XXVI IN order to strengthen the Popish and French Interest you were pleased to take to Wife the Daughter of the Duke of Modena whom you have and hold to this Day which was in it self a Scoundrel Match but that it might appear somewhat considerable the French King declared her an adopted Daughter of France and promised to give her a Portion sutable thereunto for her Father could not give her a Groat And whether he gave her a Portion or no at that time I cannot tell if he did not I suppose you will eat it out before you leave St. Germains Your Brother consented to the Match without much difficulty by a good Lord a Friend of yours who consummated the Marriage by the Royal Consent and Authority of your Brother according to the Form used amongst Princes as your good Protestant Brother was pleased to express it Before this precious Bit of Italian Flesh could arrive in England your Conspirators who advised this Marriage perceived that the 20th of October would come and that it might probably receive some Obstruction from the Parliament and that some other things were prepared against their meeting for the curbing your Rogues who were grown as observed to you in the First Part damnably Insolent for the Check the Test-Bill had given was far less than the Incouragement from this wicked Marriage And that a fatal Blow might be given to the Preparations of the then House of Commons in prejudice of your Conspirators you procured a Prorogation to the 27th of October 1673 whereby to put an End to that Session and all the Business unperfected in March 1671 3 should fall to the Ground But pray what was the Matter Why must some good Bills fall to the Ground that were so well prepared in March 1672 3 Why truly your Reasons for the Prorogation if I am not much out were these three 1. To prevent and remove from your Brother all Temptations to break the intended Marriage and the French Alliance the Parliament being like to use their utmost endeavour to hinder the Consummation of that Marriage which might render the Popish Religion and the French Alliance impregnable You know Sir that Cardinal Howard promoted the Match to serve the Catholicks and the Catholick Religion was your end too since you were converted to such a degree of Zeal that Coleman your Secretary knew not his Head from his Heels or whether he was awake or in a Dream and then to strengthen the Interest of the French King must be your design since his Interest and yours were so inseparably united that he that was your Enemy was an Enemy to his Interest and he that was an Enemy to his was to your Interest also Now what a wicked Parliament was it that would have separated such an Interest and oppose such a Religion in endeavouring to prevent so hopeful a Match whereby 1. The Folly 2. The Malice of you and your Party did appear 1. The Folly of your Party did appear for that Parliament did never fail to give Money whenever called for if they were but indifferently well used and the King was generally unwilling to let a Session go off without some Pocket-money for the modest Gentlewomen at Whitehall therefore your Partisans should rather have adjourned the Marriage than prorogued the Parliament who having notice of the Conspiracy which you had managed more like an Irish Teague than an English Statesman were very angry at the King's breach of his Word and Royal Promise made to them in March before Therefore notwithstanding the King's Speech Octob. 20. for a swinging Supply for carrying on the War against the Dutch the Parliament would vote nothing but an Address against this Match of yours with the Daughter of Modena for they considered the Nation was not able always to lie under the dispensation of parting with Money to secure the Popish Religion and French Interest And as a preparation to the Address you know they passed this Vote viz. This House taking into consideration the Condition of the Nation will not take into any further Debate or Consideration any Aid Supply or Charge upon the Subject before the time of the Payment of the eighteen Months Assesment granted by a late Act of Parliament intituled An Act for raising the Sum of 1238750 l. for the Supply of his Majesty's present Occasions be expired unless it shall appear that the obstinacy of the Dutch shall render it necessary nor before this Kingdom be effectually secured from the Danger of Popery and Popish Counsels and Counsellors and other present Grievances be redressed You having by your little Vermine given out with all Folly and Impudence that you stood in no need of a Parliament but to give Money by this Vote they were even with you who with your Crew were so nettled at their Vote that you were resolved to give them a remove from your Councils but that it might not seem altogether upon the account of denying Money you let the Parliament proceed and the Address was prepared with Reasons against this Match of yours which I have laid down in my first Part and therefore wave them now the Parliament being assured that this Marriage at that time was not so far concluded but that for Reasons of State it might be rejected as has been practised in divers Nations and even by the French themselves in several Examples as manifestly appears in the French Histories I having an Opportunity of discoursing about the Match the Jesuits condemned the Conduct of your Friends at St. James's in deferring it till the Session was so nigh and then putting the Parliament off whereas the Marriage ought rather to have been suspended till the Parliament had given Money and one Million well husbanded would have enabled your Brother to set up Arbitrary Power for the French King would have stood by him And further That your Counsellors had been too open in the steps they took in this Match and had too publickly boasted of the Advantage they should have by it both as to France and Religion and had too much undervalued the Parliament since you could not at that Time subsist without one 2. As your Party shewed their Folly so their Malice for as the King was unwilling to part without Money and also to quit the French Interest all the Grievances of the Nation must be postpon'd which were judged by you to be but Trifles if any difference did arise it was their Faults to insist on such small things therefore with Indignation you procured them to be prorogued that they might recollect themselves and basely comply with your wicked Designs of destroying the Dutch and advancing the Fr. Interest in this Match that they might for the future be of no use
basely debar his Countrey-men from speaking with the King otherwise than he pleased for fear they might tell Tales of his exorbitant Power by which he disobliged them in the highest and by reason of his being mostly here at Court the Scots Noblemen and Gentlemen were subjugated to a base and vile dependance upon his Creatures and Favourites nay often-times upon his Servants with whom it 's well known they transacted for obtaining and dispatching Gifts and Sign-manuals and that it was by the said Lauderdale's Servants that Protections to Debtors were so villanously obtained Give me leave Sir to put you in mind how hurtful he was to the Nation as High Commissioner of that Kingdom in order to which we may note that the Office of High Commissioner is altogether extraordinary and for a particular Occasion viz. The holding of a Parliament in the King's Absence therefore scarce known in Scotland till James I. came to the Crown and when the Session of Parliament was upon its determination that Office also determined with it Now when you had made Middleton so great he brought in that Innovation of adjourning Parliaments for a long time that he might tamper with them to betray the Religion Laws and Liberties of the People whereby he most illegally continued his Commission in the Interval of Parliament so that he might fit and prepare that poor People for Destruction Truly he had gone a pretty way in it and that he might finish his Work and serve your Purposes upon that Kingdom he did as I said lengthen the Adjournment of that Parliament for about two Years or so a thing never before known in Scotland for which Sir your old Bandog Lauderdale accused him as a Criminal to the King and you with the reproachful Title of a Subverter of the Government But however the Matter was hush'd up for Middleton having done your Business so well there in time he was rewarded with the Government of Tangier But when Lauderdale got into the same Station he far outwent Middleton in continuing his Commission for he spun it out for four Years and a half for which there was no manner of Necessity if you consider but the State of Affairs then in that Kingdom Nay it was so far from being necessary that it was a notorious Grievance for by it he not only hindred the Proceedings of the Parliament but endeavoured to frustrate all its Meetings which as it was a known Violation of the Antient Constitution of that Government so the unnecessary Continuance and Arbitrary long Adjourments of the Parliament contributed exceedingly to the increase of the Peoples Burdens and Distresses Truly Sir it is plain that the villanous Deportment of that Lauderdale was such in the Trust your Brother and you reposed in him which in time appear'd to be his best Security And why so The Reason Sir is plain for what he had proudly plotted and contrived through his matchless Ambition being conscious to himself that he might be reckoned withal for his devilish Proceedings in that Station he was under some necessity of maintaining by his Power in a most tenacious way that he might perfect the Ruin of that People making good the old Proverb Over Shoes over Boots it would be all one at the Gallows at last So that the Relief of that poor and abandon'd People from the Disorders which you and your wicked Party had made in that Kingdom by those two Men remained only with Almighty God there being no Hopes from your Brother Therefore Sir after the Adjournment of a Parliament which was held if I am not misinformed in 1674. and adjourned in December that Year Duke Hamilton the Earl of Tweddale and some Gentlemen being sensible of the notorious Villanies of old Lauderdale and to prevent his Lies from taking place with the King repair to the Court in England with the Approbation of those to whom they communicated their Intentions being confident they should be delivered from the Oppressions occasioned by Middleton and Lauderdale and hoping the King would receive their faithful Representation of the Affairs of that Nation both as to Religion and Government But Lauderdale who was an Enemy of all Righteousness and Truth omitted no Obstruction he could lay in the way For 1. by a Proclamation he procured that no Scots-man should go out of the Kingdom without Licence from the Council that so the King might not have the Truth of Affairs laid before him whereby to see the State and Condition that poor People were in in order to give them some Legal Redress Again 2. it is well known he imployed a pitiful Rascal at Berwick as a Spy to intercept all free Correspondence who being impowred by him did seize and search Sir William Carnegie a Member of Parliament and detain'd him a Lord of his Name you well remember in his Passage thrô that Town to London 3. Lauderdale having by means of this Rogue got some Packets intercepted he like a base Villain transmitted them to our Court not considering the Violation done to the common Intercourse and good Understanding of the two Nations nor regarding that Tenderness which honest Men have for the Honour of their Country and obtained of the King for this Fellow for such Rogueries instead of a Pillory or Gallows the Reward of 50 l. Sterling to be paid out of the Exchequer in Scotland to the great Satisfaction of the King your Self and wicked Party 4. By the same Means and in the same Place he endeavoured to affront Duke Hamilton and his Company in their Passage by questioning their Retinue and refusing them a Night's lodging which was not known to the Governour of that Town he being absent But at the return of these Noble Persons both Governour and People of the Place testified their Respects to them 5. This Lauderdale incensed the King and you against a Gentleman Duke Hamilton sent before him as one that had been a Sequestrator in the Time of Oliver sometime Lord-Protector of these three Nations and a Person disaffected to the Government But notwithstanding all these Obstacles and many other Discouragements the same Persons arrived at Court and did with all Submission and Sincerity and in all Faithfulness and Truth acquit themselves giving a full Account of the State of Affairs both as to the King 's and Countrey 's Interest What was the Event of all this Truly they were dismissed with fair Words and had positive Promises that the Parliament in Scotland should meet and sit an the Day appointed that Grievances should be redressed and that the Commission Lauderdale held as Commissioner should be revoked Upon which they hasten home the Duke with extraordinary Difficulty both in respect of the rigour of the Season and his weakness of Body that they might attend the Parliament in their respective Places on the 3d of March to which Time the Parliament was adjourned which was the very next Day after their arrival But Sir instead of a Session so much expected by the
People you and this wicked Wretch procured of your Brother another Adjournment tho the Memberâ— waited four Months and were all got together in hopes the King's Word would have been kept and so the Parliament was put off till October the 14th following Upon this I pray remember the Carriages of this notorious State-Villain by which you might see the Nature of the Beast that you your self at last hated 1st Call to mind that to please you and your Villanous Party he did in the most insolent manner undervalue Parliaments which he discovered by that rascally Expression to the King against the Earl of Middleton lessening what he had done as if he had not been serviceable enough to Baal Sir if you had sent down a Dog with your Commission about his Neck to your Scots Parliament he would have done all the Earl of Middleton had done who one would have thought had been Villain enough for doing what he did in the Innovations he brought into Scotland both in Church and State But it seems Sir you found Lauderdale to be a Rogue of a deeper Die and therefore Middleton was laid aside and Covenant-Lauderdale made use of to carry on Designs more wicked than ever Middleton was acquainted withal 2ly Call to mind how he treated some of the Scots Members of Parliament with most unsufferable Insolence for truly had he done as much by me I should upon Consideration of his other Vertues have done his Country and my own that Service that two Parliaments by the Means of your Power could not do But Sir to return to our Scots Parliament-men he sent one to Prison whose Name was Mr. William Moor because he desired after the Order of the English Parliament their Acts might be at least thrice read before they were voted or somewhat to that purpose and using the word We for I said Lauderdale to him What are there any more in your Arse Which base speaking provoked most of the Members as very indecent and unmannerly and not to be used to Gentlemen I will say that for the Earl of Middleton that he understood how to use a Gentleman tho bad enough but this Rascal when in Power understood no body 3ly I suppose Sir you have not forgot his-slighting Duke Hamilton in the most contemptible manner and most of the Antient Nobility of the greatest Interest and Value in that Kingdom whom he did not so much as allow to be named among the Commissioners chosen for the Treaty of Union betwixt the two Kingdoms tho many were named that ought not to have been unless in a dead Warrant which was his desert for many a fair Year and you your self thought so at last 4ly After your Brother and you had made him thus great you may remember how inconstant this Villain was to those with whom he professed the greatest Friendship for in the time of his Greatness he acted according to his Humour and Advantage not according to the Measures and Rules an honest Man should use in Conversation with Mankind witness his dealing with the late Duke of Ormond Earl of Shaftsbury Earl of Rothes Tweddale Sir Robert Murray and others whom as it served his Turn he carest with all open Flattery or rejected when you had given him direction to slight and contemn them 5ly To serve the wicked Designs of you and your Conspirators you may remember how he neglected the Interest of his Country and gratified a parcel or beggarly Rascals that depended on him for Bread by procuring them Gifts upon the Forfeitures of the Penal Statutes then in Force As to Sir John Moncreif a Gift of the Fines upon those who were convicted for Nonconformity in the Shires of Fife and Perth and to one Scot of Ardress and Major Bothwick a Gift upon the Maltmen and Brewers and to the said Bothwick another vexatious Gift commonly called of Peck and Bole. These were known Rogues and Spies for him and were great Persecutors of the People of God in those Parts and to one Carmichel he gave large Sums to accuse Sir Patrick Hume falsly since a Peer of that Kingdom this Carmichel since that died of a languishing Disease in the Kings-Bench Prison where he confessed to me upon his Death-bed his many Villanies against the People of God in that Kingdom 6ly Give me leave to put you in mind of his horrid Prophaneness witness his Compliment to that First-born of all Villany and Falsness the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews that was executed for his many Villanies by a number of injured Men that could not have Justice done otherwise to whom Lauderdale was pleased to say Come in my Lord sit down here at my right Hand and I will make all your Enemies your Footstool This was so prophane that those who heard the Villain utter these words trembled and were so filled with Horror that one of them was sick almost to death Nay Sir you your self was pleased to say that Lauderdale had an odd way of prophaning the Scriptures which was not to be endured by a chaste Ear. 7ly You have heard his rascally insipid and malicious way of jesâ—ing at and against his old Practices and Acquaintance when the Villain was a Professor of Religion One Day at his Table he said He could pray and cant as well as any Nonconformist in the Christian World and to entertain his Company in contempt of the Most High he began a Complaint to God and in derision would confess his Covenant-breaking and other Sins at which many of his Companions left him tho perhaps otherwise lewd enough for fear the House should fall upon them and they perish with him for his abominable Wickedness You may remember how he used his old Acquaintance that kept their Integrity in Religion how he insulted over them when they appeared before him in Council by a reproachful remembrance of former Practices in religious Duties so that some of 'em have used the old Proverb concerning him No Turk like to a Renegado This Sir was a fit Tool for you to use for introducing your base Designs of Slavery into that Kingdom in order to establish Popery Alas Middleton was but an Ass to this Fellow for he had some Grains of a Gentleman but this Villain was the Compound of all Unrighteousness and an Enemy of God and Mankind This was the Man you advanced by Middleton and by him and your sweet self Scotland was bravely bridled and sadled to your Heart 's content Thus I conclude the first step you took to the Ruin of that Antient and your Father 's native Kingdom Concerning these two Men it may be said that Middleton served Baal a little but Lauderdale served him much 2. A second Step you took to ruin that Kingdom and your Brother's Government was the filling the Courts of Judicature there especially their Session which is the Supream Court of Justice with ignorant and insufficient Men. This Sir was the Method you pursued not only in England but in Ireland and therefore
hated Parliaments for your Father of ever-notorious Memory hated them and therefore tried Conclusions with Parliaments for 12 Years together 'T is true he did call that blessed Parliament in 1640 that would have redressed England's Grievances had they not been prevented by the factious Spirits of some whose Zeal was not according to Knowledg Dr. Gauden tells you that your Father call'd that Parliament in Novemb. 3. 1640. Not more by the Advice of others or by the Necessity of his own Affairs than by his own Choice and Inclination I could expect no better from a Baal's Priest than to begin with a Lie For what Man that lived in that Time knew not how the Case stood with Charles the First And besides if I had not Access to a King yet I could discover his Inclinations either by those that were about him and in favour with him or by the Currant of his Actions all which I say testified to the World your Father's strange aversness to a Parliament Those that were near him and most in favour with him were Courtiers and Rascally Prelats Vermin whose chief study was to find out how he stood inclined and to imitate him exactly and that which was his Will was their Doctrine concerning Parliaments and so it was with you But that I may proceed in some Method I shall shew 1. That Parliaments are the Right of the People 2. That they are an essential Part of the Government 3. That you hated them tho such and by consequence was an Enemy to the Government of England 1. That Parliaments are the Right of the People of England which they may claim in order to have their Grievances redressed the common Safety of the Nation provided for and their Religion Laws and Liberties secured For call to mind with delight if you can the wonderful Discovery and undeniable Confirmation of the Popish Plot which designed so much Ruin and Mischief to these Nations in all things both Civil and Sacred and the unanimous Sense and Censure of so many Parliaments upon it together with some Acts of Publick Justice upon many of the Traitors The Nation was not without hopes that since that cursed Design of introducing Popery and Slavery and the Murder of your Brother was discovered for the space of 30 Months at least some effectual Remedies should have been applied to prevent the Attempts of your Cut-throat Party upon us the better to secure the Religion and Government of the Nation and the Person of the King But by sad Experience we found that notwithstanding the vigorous endeavours of three Parliaments â—o provide proper and wholsome Laws to answer both Ends by your influencing a pack of Villains you and your Party were so prevalent as to stifle in the Birth those Righteous Endeavours of our Parliaments by many surprizing Prorogations and Dissolutions whereby the Fears and Dangers of the People daily encreased and the Spirits of you and your Party heightned to renew and multiply fresh Plots against the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Realm I will lay down some known Maxims that relate to a King and Parliament of England 1. You know the Kings of England can do nothing as Kings but what of Right they ought to do 2. The King can neither do wrong nor die 3. The King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined by Law 4. The King has no Power but what the Law gives him and is called King from ruling well Rex à benè Regendo viz. according to Law and is only a King whilst he rules well but a Tyrant when he oppresses 5. That the Kings of England never appear more in their Glory and Majestick Sovereignty than in Parliaments 6. That the Prerogative of the Crown can do no wrong nor can it be a Warrant for so doing Now Sir having laid down some Truths relating to the Kings of England give me leave to lay before you some that relate to the Parliament 1. Then I say that the Parliament of England constitutes and gives a Being to the Government of England 2. A Parliament of England is to the Government what the Soul is to the Body which is only able to apprehend and understand the Symptoms of all Diseases threatning the Body Politick 3. A Parliament is the Bulwark of our Liberty the Boundary which keeps the People of England from the Inundation of Tyrannical Power and Government 4. Parliaments do make new and abrogate old Laws reform Grievances settle the Succession grant Subsidies and in a word may be called the Great Physician of the Kingdom From all which it appears if Parliaments are necessary in our Constitution that they must have their Times of Session and Continuation to provide Laws essentially needful for the being and well-being of the People and for redressing all Publick Grievances arising either for want of Laws or of undue execution of those in being or otherwise And sutable hereunto are those Provisions made by the Wisdom of our Forefathers as recorded by them both in the Common and Statute Law 1. Sir you was an excellent Man at the Common Law and so were your Gang at St. Germains and tho they have little occasion for it there yet I may refresh their Memories for having had so much leasure to study the Excellency of the French Religion and Government our Common Law may be forgotten by them Nay Rhyming Jack Carryl himself since the loss of his Estate may have resolved to forget the Law since he will not have so much occasion for it as he might have had if he had chosen Sussex instead of St. Germains and so may be at a loss to inform you I therefore give you a touch or so not that I pretend to cure the King 's Evil of the Common Law what it saith concerning Parliaments I pray Sir remember what old Coke saith one of your Grand-father's Judges who was a famous Lawyer and persecuted by him for you know what but never had the Courage to run away he tells us in one of his Law Books which your old Friend Jenner swears he never understood That the Common Law is founded in the immutable Law and Light of Nature agreeable to the Law of God requiring Order Government Subjection and Protection containing certain antient Vsages warranted by the Holy Scriptures and because given to all is therefore called Common Sir if you will send for your old Drudg Frank Withens I dare aver he cannot give you a better for his Life But you will say What is this to Parliaments Well Sir since this may pass the Understanding of your Dispensing Rogues I will tell you what he saith in his 9th Book in the Preface they are his own Words in the Book called the Mirror of Justice in which appears the whole Frame of the Antient Common Laws of this Realm from the Time of K. Arthur An. 516 till near the Conquest which treats also of the Officers as well as the Diversity and Distinction of the Courts of
their Pleasures before Grievances were redressed and publick Bills of Common-Safety passed because to dissolve and prorogue at Pleasure is a Privilege which belongs to the Crown Answ This word Prorogue is but a new-fangled Business a thing brought up in latter Days but as for dissolving Parliaments at Pleasure that has been the Practice of our former wicked Kings by the Advice of their Roguish Ministers and Judges who laid aside all Law Honour Honesty and Conscience to prostitute themselves to the abominable Lust of a filthy Prince who designed nothing less than the Ruin of the Kingdom What your Father did I will not here concern my self but what your Brother did by your Procurement is my Province at this Time Your Brother when he held his French Parliament at New-Market in 1677 where most of the Rogues and Whores of the Court were present and your gracious Self waiting on him did much aggrandize himself by that Glorious Assembly Upon April 16. the Parliament at Westminster was adjourned till May 21. following Immediately upon the Recess the Duke of Crequi aâ—d that modest sober chaste Man of God the A. Bp of Rheims and Monsâ—eur Barillon and a Train of 3 or 400 Persons of all Qualities appear'd there so that the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of France with so many of their Commons made it look like an old-fashioned French Parliament And the Parliament at Westminster had been adjourned for their better Reception But what Address they made to the King or what Acts passed at that Noble Parliament I cannot tell they having not been yet published But I suppose they were these that follow 1. An Act for continuing his Majesty's Subjects in the Service of France 2. An Act for enabling the Dutchess of Cleveland to use the Arch-Bishop of Paris for her Father-Confessor c. 3. An Act to discharge her Grace from farther Attendance upon the King 4. An Act to constitute the French Gentlewoman to be Whore in her room and a Spy for the French King 5. An Act to enable Nell Waal to be Woman and Bawd in ordinary to the said French Gentlewoman and his Sacred Majesty 6. An Act to supply the Extraordinary Occasions of that Whore Portsmouth and her Woman Nell Waal 7. An Act to enable the Dutchess of Portsmouth in order to her Health to possess and enjoy a certain Apartment in a House-Royal called the Lock situate at the end of Kent-street and Nell to have the Reversion after her decease in case of Necessity 8. An Act for the further Supply of French-Money in order to enslave the Kingdom of 3000000 Livres per Annum 9. An Act for enabling James Duke of York to go on with his Conspirators in the Conspiracy against the Laws Liberties and Religion of the People of England and to demand the French King's Purse Credit and Interest for his Help and Assistance 10. An Act to invest Edward Coleman with the Sum of 20000 l. and a good Pension from the French King for his great Services done and to be done for the Catholick Religion and French Interest 11. An Act of Abolition of all Claims and Demands from the Subjects of France on Account of all Prizes made of the English at Sea since the Year 1674 till that Day and for the future 12. Act to supply the extraordinary Needs of the Pensioners at Westminster 13. An Act to continue the Sham-Alliance with the States-General of the Vnited-Provinces There were I suppose several Private Bills in favour of the Pimps Bawds and Whores that were not sworn in Ordinary but passed the Royal Assent as I may suppose because at that time all things between England and France moved with that punctual Regularity that it was like the Harmony of the Spheres so consonant with themselves tho I could not hear the Musick I pray Sir let us know in your next Declaration what other Secret Bills were passed in that August Assembly wherein the Affairs of Peace and War were transacted with the greatest Confidence and when good Boys they had done their Master's Business with your Brother's Aid and Help they were adjourned from New-Market to London where they dissolâ—ed themselves without your Brother's Prerogative to make way for the Westminster Parliament and so rubb'd off with all Demonstration of mutual Affection and Friendship Alas Sir these were Matters of that Import that they required all imaginable Expedition and Secresy and it would have been the highest Presumption for the poor Pensioners in the Westminster Parliament to have intermedled with them Alas if they had been admitted to end the Work it might have ended in their own Dissolution in order to a couragious running away You say by way of Objection Your Partisans made that which your Brother and other Kings did by their Prerogative Royal dissolve Parliaments before Grievances were redressed and necessary Bills past because things did not move with that punctual Regularity between your Brother and them that was between him and the French King I pray what was the Reason Had they not had Gratuities at the Charge of the Nation Or had the Dutchess of Portsmouth jilted them out of the French King's Blessing which the Duke of Crequi and the Arch-Bishop of Rheims brought them of 200000 Lewis d' Ores Who can tell what to say to these things It is no wonder then that Crew of Voters were grown resty and did not move regularly Well what then the Parliament must not sit till some State-Clockmaker had mended their Motions and made them go true the House then had some good Bills over which they roared only and then were sent Home by a blast of Prerogative-Breath Had your Brother any other Prerogative but what the Law gave him and what he was invested with at his Coronation If he had let us know it but for once I will grant he prorogued and dissolved Parliaments at his Pleasure to serve you and your Cut-throat Crew It doth not therefore follow that he had a Right so to do according to a Maxim I learned almost 30 Years since A facto ad jus non valet consequentia especially when such Prorogations and Dissolutions are against so many express and positive Laws such Principles of Common Right and Justice and so many particular Ties and Obligations to the contrary Your Brother might by the Advice of wicked Statesmen and villanous Judges pretend to a Prerogative the Law had given him of which nothing ever was known unless revealed by some French Maxims learned abroad in his Travels Yet such a Prerogative could not justify such Practices for if he had been invested with such Prerogatives by the Law yet the Law could give none to destroy it self and those it protects But Old Hodg and his Inferior Clergy may interpose and say Had not King Charles his Prerogative founded upon Law Who questions Sir but the Kings of England had their Prerogatives Yet observe what Old Bracton saith Pag. 487. That tho the Common Law allows many
Prerogatives to the King yet it allows none by which to hurt or prejudice any Therefore with the Learned in the Law I will assert That whatever Power or Prerogative your Brother had ought to have been used according to the true Intent of the Government that is to preserve the People and their Interest and not to hinder a Parliament in reforming Grievances and providing for the future Execution of the Laws and whenever he applied his Prerogative to frustrate these Ends by the Advice of you or any wicked Person it was a Violation of Right and the Breach of his Coronation Oath since he stood oblig'd to Pass or Confirm those Laws his People should chuse in the Time of his Reign 6. Your Brother and you had little or no regard to the Laws All the Cry of your Villains was Prerogative and nothing was indured that was according to Law Therefore Sir I will give you a Proof by Dr. Gauden's leave from the Words of your own Father who when in Prison began to recollect himseâ—f a little and gave your Brother this Advice when he should come to the Crown That Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting rather than exacting the Rigour of the Laws there being nothing worse than Legal Tyranny nor would he have him entertain any Aversion or Dislike of Parliaments which in their Right Constitution with Freedom and Honour will never injure or diminish his Greatness but will rather be as interchangings of Love Loyalty and Confidence between a Prince and his People Surely Sir if the Reports and Opinions of the best Lawyers could not yet the Counsel of his Father the King or his Father in God might have wrought upon him and you But the Truth is in the Time of Richard II there were some Flaterers and Traitors that presumed in defiance of their Countries Rights to assert such a boundless Prerogative in the Kings of England as Chief Justice Tresillian and others advising him that he might dissolve Parliaments at Pleasure and that no Member should be called to Parliament nor any Act past in either House without his Approbation in the first place and that whoever did advise otherwise were Traitors But this Advice was no less fatal to himself than pernicious to his Prince To which let me add a Saying of your Grandfather in his Speech to his Parliament in 1609 in which he gives them Assurance That he never meant to govern by any other Law than the Law of the Land And tho it be disputed among them as if he intended to alter the Law and govern by the absolute Power of a King yet to put them out of doubt he tells them that all Kings who are not Tyrants or Perjured will bind themselves within the Limits of their Laws and they that perswade the contrary are Vipers and Pests both against them and the Commonwealth Thus Sir I have plainly proved that Parliaments are the Right of the People of England and that no King without the Breach of his Coronation-Oath can govern without them I come now to shew II. That they are the Essential Part of the Government Truly Sir I have had occasion to prove that as a necessary Consequence of the foresaid Right but something may be offered to prove this Point which will aggravate your Crime and the Villany of your Party in attempting to render this Essential Part of the Government useless Therefore Sir when you are at leisure consider with your self the Constitution of the Government which your Brother did wound and you attempted utterly to destroy but therein lost your self and this Government which would have been worth your keeping Take a View therefore of the Constitution of the English Government where the King is the Head from whom the Government it self receiveth its Life as he from the Law receiveth his Power He has the Care of the whole and it is his Interest to seek its Welfare The Strength of the Nation is his Strength and the Riches of the Nation his Riches The Glory and Honour of the Nation is his Glory and Honour So on the contrary when the Nation is weak he is weak if it be impoverished he is impoverished if it lose itss Honour and Glory he loses his likewise But lest Passion Mistakes Flatteries or the ill Designs of some about him should make him forsake his Zeal and follow a destructive imaginary Interest there is an Estate of Hereditary Nobility who are by Birthright the Kingdom 's Counsellors whose main Interest and Concern it is to keep the Ballance of the Government steady that the Favourites and great Officers exceed not their Bounds and oppress the People that Justice be duly administred and that all Parts of the Government be preserved intire yet even these may grow insolent a Disease to which great Men are liable or may by Offices Hopes of Preferment or other Accidents become as to the Majority of them rather the obsequious Flatterers of the Court than true Supporters of the Publick and English Interest Therefore the Excellency of our Government affords us another Estate of Men which are the Representatives of the Freeholders Cities Boroughs and Corporations of England who by the old Law were to be chosen yearly if not oftner whereby they perfectly gave the Sense of those that chose them and did the same as if the Electors were present coming so newly from them and so quickly returning to give account of their Fidelity under the Penalty of Shame and no further Trust Therefore Sir consider 1. If the Constitution of the House of Commons had been destroyed 't would have been impossible the Sense of the Nation and their Complaints and the Grievances of the People should have beer represented To what Estate of Men must we have had Recourse Must it have been to the Nobility It may be they might not have understood our Grievances being in a Sphere above the Rank of Common People And the House of Commons being the Constitution how could Money be raised to support the Government without them unless by a total Subversion of the whole Frame of our Constitution for by the Law the sole Power of giving Money remains in the House of Commons none being concerned in that but the Commons of England 2. Those that would overthrow the Constitution of the House of Commons will not stick to subvert that of the House of Lords who are so essential a Part of the Government that to part with them was to part with the second State which is the Wisdom and Counsel of the Nation to which their Birth Education and constant Imployment in every Parliament being the same fits and prepares them I have read of a House of Commons in the 2d Parliament of Mary I. that was brib'd to consent to the receiving and owning of the Pope's Power but I never yet heard of a House of Lords that were so bribed and the House of Lords in 1649 being voted useless the Commons run into so many
Factions that put General Cromwell to the Necessity of taking upon him the Government of the Nation by a single Person by the Name and Title of Lord Protector Those who would destroy the Constitution of the House of Lords do endeavour the Destruction of the Ballance of the English Government 3. Consider the King gives Life and Vigour to all the Proceedings in Parliament the Wills and Desires of the People tho approved by the Lords and Commons in Parliament without the King signify nothing unless he bids them be an Act they are abortive Therefore he that shall attempt the Subversion of any of the other two Estates is no more a King but a Tyrant and useless to God and Man You see that your Father undid himself to all Intents and Purposes by following such Measures as subverted his own Government and so have you and if you will not believe it you may ask the French King and he will soon satisfy you of the Matter But from hence Sir you may see that you cannot destroy any one Estate in this Government but the whole is subverted and therefore I may lay down this Proposition that Parliaments are the Essential Part of the Government In a word then to conclude this Head let me ask you or any of your Plotters these two Questions 1. If this be so that by so great Authority viz. so many Statutes then and now in Force the Fundamentals of the Common Law the Essentials of the Government it self Magna Charta your Brother's Coronation-Oath and so many Laws of God and Man the Parliament ought to meet and sit to redress Grievances provide for Common Safety especially in times of Common Danger and that this was so in a most eminent manner none can doubt that did believe the King so many Parliaments the Cloud of Witnesses the publick Judicatures their own Sense and Experience of the manifold Mischiefs acted and the apparent Ruin and Confusion that threatned the Nation by the restless Attempts of you and your bloody Party Then Sir I ask you Whether after the People of England had the Point of the Dagger thus set to their Breasts and the Knife at their Throats Cities and Habitations fired Invasions and Insurrections threatned to destroy the King and Government your villanous Popish Party did not design to destroy the only Remedy hoped for under God to give us Relief that is our Parliaments who with so much Cost and Pains were elected sent up and intrusted for our Help and to turn them off without answering the Ends for which chosen by those frequent Prorogations and Dissolutions Consider Sir the Point in hand Were not the People of England justified in their important Cries humble Petitions to the King your Brother fervent Addresses to their Members and earnest Claims for this their Birthright pleaded with all the Modesty imaginable which the Laws of the Kingdom consonant to the Laws of God and Nature had given them How impudent then were your Abhorrers of such Petitions and Claims What can Withens who was expelled the House for the same say for himself What can the Rascal plead in behalf of himself and a rascally Crew that joined with him in signing an Address of Abhorrence and that Villain Jefferies who did that in London which Wythens had done in Westminster Which brings me to a second Question 2. If it be fo that by so great Authority Parliaments ought to meet and sit to redress Grievances c. what shall we say to those who advised your Brother to this high Violation of their Countries Rights to the infringing so many just Laws and to the exposing the Publick to those desperate Hazards even almost a total Ruine which was done with all the Impudence and Barefacedness imaginable the Advisers not having the least Remorse upon them If K. Alfred as Andrew Horne in his Mirror of Justice tells us hanged Darling Segnor Cadwine Cole and forty Judges more for judging contrary to Law and yet all those faise Judgments were but in particular and private Cases what Death did those deserve who offer'd Violence to the Law it self and all the sacred Rights of their Country If the Lord Chief Justice Thorpe iâ— Edward Ill 's time for receiving the Bribery of 100 l. was adjudged to be hanged as having made the King break his Oath to the People how much more guilty were they that made your Brother break his Coronation-Oath and perswaded him to act against all Laws for holding of Parliaments and passiâ—g 〈◊〉 therein which â—e was so solemnly sworn to do And if the Lord Chief Justice Tresillian was drawn hang'd and quartered for advising the King to act contrary to some Statutes only what did those deserve that advised your Brother to act not only against some but all the antient Laws and Statutes of the Realm Moreover Sir I would say this further to you if you will have a little Patience If Blake the King's Counsel only for assisting in the Matter and drawing up Indictments by the King's Command against Law tho it's like he might plead the King's Order and Command for so doing was drawn hang'd and quartered what was due to them that assisted your Brother in the total Destruction of all the Laws of the Kingdom and as much as in them lay their King and Country too And if Vske the Under-Sheriff whose Office it is to execute the Laws for but endeavouring to aid Tresillian Blake and their Accomplices against some of the Laws was also with five more drawn hang'd and quarter'd what Punishment did they deserve that not only aided your Brother but endeavour'd to subvert all the Laws of the Kingdom And if Empson and Dudley in the time of Henry VIII tho of the King 's Privy Council were hanged for procuring and executing an Act of Parliament contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and to the great Vexation of the People when yet they had an Act of Parliament on their Side what ought to have been done to those who had no such Act to shelter themselves and who not only acted contrary to but to the Destruction of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom I can expect Sir no Answer from you but this The Men that did these things should surely have died if they had been discovered they should have perished without Mercy Is it so then I come to the last Particular to be debated and that is III. You are the Man and your Party was the Party that did endeavour to break the Use of Parliaments by inveighing against that way of Government In a word therefore I shall descend unto Particulars and shew you 1st That your Inclinations were not for Parliaments or that Way of Governing 2ly What those Parliaments were that you and your Party procured to be dissolved 3ly What Arts and Methods you used to expose the three last Parliaments your Brother held in 1679 1680 and 1681. 4ly Your Unreasonableness in so doing 5ly The ill Consequences
and had it not met with a mighty Blast you might by your supposed Prudence have ruined three mighty Kingdoms Now Sir if we grant you were endued with these mighty Vertues of Fortitude Temperance and Prudence yet we must say they were the absolute Hinges that open'd the Gates to Rome and France where Superstition ruled the Day Your moral Vertues were but lesser Lights that took their Light from that greater Orb above but how these moral Vertues did shine in you your old Friend Tom Jones if alive could plainly tell for he knew your Vertues very well even to his dying Day I must mind you of one thing more viz. your Oath of Alleâ—iance that you took to your Brother as your Sovereign Lord. Did you keep that Oath to him If you did surely the only Motive that prompted you was some Obligation you believed was in the Oath But pray tell me did not you Apostacy to the Church of Rome not only require a Renunciation of that Oath but also absolve you from the Ties of it Therefore I ask you again Could your Conspiracy with the French King against our Laws and Liberties consist with that Oath Or if you look'd upon your self released from it pray what Security could the Government have when you should come to the Crown that you would keep your Faith with an Heretical People that would not keep Faith and true Allegiance to your Brother who was of the same Religion with your self This Sir was your Morality of which your Party so much boasted And how the Exercise of these Vertues that were so used in the Drudgery of France and Rome could be consistent with an English Parliamentary Government I cannot tell Thus Sir the Consideration of your Nature and Temper in all these Respects shews you were a Person in whom it was impossible there could be any love for Parliaments Let your Party say what they will and boast of your Vertues till doomsday yet I must say that your Nature and Temper shewed you a Man of no good Morals your Conscience being ready at all times to transmigrate as you found occasion Those near you that understood the Pulse of your Opinion did not in the least doubt your Heart which whilst you profest to be a Protestant conveyed Symptoms of Inflammation against the Reformed Religion because it was not so ready to consume a Party of Men you hated according to a Maxim of your dearest Great Grandmother of notorious Memory Mary Queen of Scots to which purpose you zealously promoted about the time of your Brother's Restoration abundance of Church-Caterpillars that with the fiercest Wrath might devour those of the Reformed Religion nay how often did you fall upon these Vermin as not zealous enough in persecuting those that differed from them only in a few rascally Ceremonies not worthy of wiping a Porter's Breech by which means those base Creatures ruined several thousands of Families in the space of twenty odd Years and brought them to great want And for all the Pretences you ever made for Liberty of Conscience you used to discover to your Brother the Ardency of your Zeal against poor dissenting Protestants and the Moderate Church-men that they were the greatest Enemies against his Government and for no other Reason but because they would not part with their Religion as Christians nor their Liberties as English-Men but preserve both chast and inviolable that they might approve themselves Men of Uprightness before God and Man 2. Your Inclinations published you an Enemy of all Parliaments from your Usage of that very Parliament in which you had such a Band of Pensioners One would think you should never have parted with such a Parliament where you and your Villains had purchased such an Interest truly some of them were so fond to aid and abet the Destruction of the Nation that the Charges in their Elections were defrayed whatever they amounted to any some of them were so profligate that as they had no Estates so they had neither Conscience nor Honour but were such as you pick'd out as necessary Men whose Votes you most relied upon You procured Tables for many of them at Whitehall and Westminster and had them for their great Loyalty in their Votes received into Pension What vast Sums did they give a great part of which was by you obtained to carry on your wicked Designs and Purposes And what Sums did you obtain to carry on your first wicked War against the Dutch and to supply your extraordinary Occasions in the second How well they supplied the Necessities of the Court-Whores Pimps and Bawds is well known You no sooner demanded but they complied so that your Brother and you once thought your selves exceeding happy in a House of Commons notwithstanding the Exchequer was shut up and by a Proclamation that you procured the Crown was published a Baâ—krupt in the midst of so many Aids and Revenues given by them Yet what humble Slaves were these to you and your Interest that when you ought to have shared in the Publick Justice of the Nation due to Traitors they not only passed by all your Miscarriages but stood by you as far as they durst and tho your Sins cried aloud yet nothing moved them to call you to an account for them If your Brother asked they gave till even they themselves were near the point of becoming useless and their Pensions too in danger In recompence of this you aimed at their Dissolution and how you branded them in a certain Declaration drawn up by Coleman by your Privity which your Brother had promised to sign but not being a Slave to his Word did not is yet remembred In that Declaration you charge the House of Commons that had given your Brother such Testimonies of their Loyalty and Bounty with misconstruing all his Endeavours to preserve the Nation in Ease and Prosperity and against all Reason and Evidence represented them to the Nation as Arguments of Fear and Disquiet and that under pretence of securing Property and Religion they had demanded unreasonable things from the Crown to bring those Men that had so well served your Brother and you out of all Esteem with the Protestant Dissenters You declared them Enemies to Liberty of Conscience and to the Proceedings of the Government and that they made seditious Constructions of the same and many other Charges of a very high Nature especially for opposing your Match with Mrs. Modena your Italian Comrade Nay you charg'd them for being Enemies to the Church of England and therefore you laboured to the utmost to have them dissolved tho you well knew that if these poor Dogs were not in a Parliament they must be in a Prison If this were your usage of a Parliament in which you were so happy if we may believe the King's Message to the Commons Feb. 28. 1663. what can any Man judg from hence but this that if this Parliament could not please you none could This I think sufficiently demonstrates what
had your spiritual Myrmidons throughout the Kingdom roaring from their Pulpits against the Proceedings of those Parliaments by the Instruction of some of their Superiours this by the help of new Matter the Court instructed them in lasted several years so that they were rather Court-Agents to carry on some design than Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God But alas when the Tithe-pig began to squeak they turned their Discourses another way Truly Sir to give the pious Herd of your Ecclesiastical Swine their due they will do any thing to serve you if they can but enjoy their Swill and Grains poor Wretches I never met with any of them that would lose a Meal to save either King or Kingdom 8. You had your Rascals in the most publick Coffee-houses who spent their time chiefly in railing at Parliaments that they were unuseful and were bringing 40 and 41 again upon the Stage that they had a Design to ruin the King by giving no Money and starving his Servants nay Sir they were so insolent as to offer all Indignity to those Gentlemen that had served in any of those Parliaments for doing of which they were not only incouraged by your Grace and Favour in your Smiles but were also well rewarded The Particulars might be set down but I leave them to reply upon those that shall pretend to answer this or any part of it provided they put their Names to their Answer as I have done to this my Memorial otherwise I shall not take notice of any Scribler in your Party You have your Friend Sherridan one of your Devil's Brokers in Ireland and honest Togra Smith another excellent Partisan of yours nay you have a Set of Case-hardned Villains that would if they durst be barking at the Government the Rogues stand still for want of Business I pray give them orders to disprove any part of the truth of what I now write if you do you have a notorious Rogue the Quondam Bp. of Kilmore that walks in your Quondam Park of St. James's he is still a Malignant and hates our English Government you would do well to send for him for he would be a main Champion with you in the Case of governing by Parliaments The Sum of all which is this You may reflect upon the various ways you and your Party took to expose three Parliaments by which you shewed your self an Enemy of all English Parliaments and therefore we could not but judg who were the Men that would poison the People and change the Government even the Enemies of the Constitution and of those who endeavoured to preserve the old English Government Fourthly The unreasonableness of the ill usage of those Parliaments shews you an Enemy to Parliaments in general You cannot but remember what amaâ—â—ment seized every good Man to see two of the greatest Parliaments England ever knew dissolved within the space of three Months I confess the Kings of England have in a great measure been intrusted by the Kingdom with appointing the times of the Sitting and Dissolving of Parliaments but lest thro' defect of Age Experience or Understanding they should forget or mistake our Constitution or by Passion private Interest or the Influence of evil Counsellors be so far misled as not to assemble Parliaments when the publick Affairs require it or should declare them dissolved before the Ends of their Meeting were accomplished the Wisdom of our Forefathers has provided divers Laws both for holding Parliaments annually and oftner if need be and that they should not be put off till all the Bills were passed all Petitions answered and Grievances â—edressed But to be more particular with you I will ask you a few Questions which if any of your Teagues can answer me on your behalf they shall be my Counsellors I assure you if ever I come to be Duke of Modena 1. What Precedent can be produced for such a Dissolution amongst our antient Records in Parliament held in the times of our antient English Kings We are taught by the Writ of Summons that Parliaments are never called without the Advice of the Council and the usage of all Ages has never been to send them away without the same Advice Now if these Methods of calling and dismissing Parliaments were safe then not to pursue them was to expose the King to the Censures and Reflections of the whole Nation for an Action not only illegal and uncustomary but also very ungrateful to the People 2. Have not the Laws of the Land taken great care to make the King always dear to the People and to preserve his Person sacred in their Esteem by wisely preventing his appearing in any Action that may be unacceptable to them Now was the Dissolution of three Parliaments nay four in the compass of 26 Months acceptable to the People Ought you not then to have used your Interest with him to have acted according to the Laws and Customs of Parliaments which would have rendred you both acceptable to the People And had he given himself leasure to have had this debated in Council because then his Counsellors must have answered for their Advice you and your Brother had remained Honourable in the Eyes of the Nation and not have been judged guilty of such Orders as were not only irregular but also very illegal 3. Suppose you should say the King commanded it to be done and his Ministers were bound to obey and therefore are justified yet Sir let me tell you that the Ministers that advised and assisted in the Administration of Affairs could not justify an unlawful Action under Colour of the King's Commands since all his Commands contrary to Law were in themselves void which is the true reason of that old Maxim in the Law That the King can do no wrong a Maxim not only true in self but safe for a Prince and Subject too for certainly it was Nonsense in your Brother's Favourites to think of excusing their many Enormities under pretence of their Master's Command The truth is it was so unreasonable that the Privy Council was ignorant of the thing and surprised at it not being worthy to be trusted with it but the French Whore near St. James's House had the News of the Parliament's being to be dissolved two days before we knew of it at Oxford so that it was a Work of darkness concerted between Barillon and Portsmouth and the King resolved upon it by their Advice 4. Would it not have been unreasonable in your Brother and you to have dismissed the 12 Judges from sitting in Term-time and from going the several Circuits that Justice and Judgment might not be done Now that Parliaments should meet and sit for Redress of Grievances and making good and wholesome Laws by the same Sacred Tie whereby at his Coronation he obliged himself to let his Judges sit to distribute Justice every Term and in both the Seasons of the Year in their Circuits and to preserve inviolably all the Rights and Liberties of
of Protestants but against all they were sensible what Advantages your Popish Crew had made of our Divisions and observed with what Subtlety they had escaped Prosecution by the Laws in force against them by fomenting our Jealousies they saw the Strength and Greatness of the French King and how his Interest had been advanced by your Brother and you and judged of his Inclinations by his bloody Usage of his own Protestant Subjects they considered the Number of the Irish Papists and their bloody Principles and Practices and what Conspiracies were formed in that Kingdom and were ripe for Execution and that Scotland was in the Hands of you and your Villains and that you was the Head of the Popish and Popishly affected Party in the three Kingdoms they had with Grief observed that all the Places of Trust both Civil and Military were in the Hands of the avowed Enemies of the Laws and Liberties of England and notwithstanding all the humble Addresses made to the King and all his Proclamations for a strict Execution of the Penal Laws against Papists yet your villanous Faction evaded those Laws and went scotfree and only the poor Protestant Dissenters smarted under their Severity The Case being thus certainly that House of Commons had as much Reason to think of an Union amongst Protestants in 1680 as your Brother had if ever he spake Truth in 1679. And can you think they had any just Ground to believe that the Protestant Dissenters whilst under such Pressures and Provocations should chearfully and couragiously undertake the Defence of their Countrey since by it they had been and then were so ill treated Experience taught them it was in vain to force us to be of one Opinion and therefore the Commons took a very probable way to unite us in Affection 2. It is true they made this Vote not to arrogate to themselves a suspending Power but to shew they had a repealing Power They well knew that your busy Rascals would be striking whilst there were Weapons at hand and therefore that the Land might be in Peace they designed to take away all Occasions of Provocation from each other and resolved to take away those Penal Laws that occasioned them and accordingly began with a Vote declaring the Necessity of it to which if I am not much mistaken there was not one Negative in the House and a Vote of this nature did but precede the bringing in a Bill for the Repeal of that or those Laws they had voted grievous and inconvenient With what Face could you or your Party revile a Parliament for so regular a Proceeding according to the Custom and Usage of Parliaments How could you call the voting of a Law or Laws grievous and inconvenient a suspending of Acts of Parliament and charge them with Contempt of the Law established 3. We will suppose the Commons did not intend to bring in a Bill to repeal the Laws then in force against Dissenters for the Vote was not made to assume a Power of suspending Acts of Parliament neither did they require the Judges to forbear the Execution of them who were bound to see them performed but they only delivered their Opinion as a Matter of great Concern in that Juncture and notwithstanding the Noise your Cattel made it was wise and pious Counsel and tho it could neither command nor secure the Judges or Justices from doing their Duties if required yet we might have justly expected those that had the Management of Affairs to have hearkened in so plain a Case to the Voice of the Nation or given them or other Parliaments a Measure how to confide in them and the Judges and Justices had they not received Direction from your Brother and you were in Discretion and Conscience as much obliged to omit the Execution of those Laws as that of Bows and Arrows and several other Statutes then if not still in force but out of Use If our Ceremony-mongers had but given themselves leave to think and their Romish Zeal would have let them remembred they were obliged to put on Bowels of Compassion they would have found their Proceedings against their Protestant Brethren could not be justified either by Scripture or the Practice of the Primitive Church where nothing was so common as different Rites and Ceremonies nay Doctrines amongst them and yet the Band of Charity and Love maintained and Christians never learnt to persecute till Wealth and Secular Power did attend Religion and the Prince and Church made use of each other to enslave the World 4. Had not the Parliament reason to make that Vote charge them with what Usurpation you please since it was your constant Practice to inflame the Differences you had made thereby to betray us into the Religion of Rome and the Government of the French King therefore the united Strength of all Protestants was little enough to withstand you I pray let me ask you one Question why might not a Parliament attempt to make Abatements in the Terms of Conformity or dispense with the Ceremonies of the Church when those Ceremonies the Form of Worship and the very Hierarchy it self could plead no other Authority by which they are enjoined than some Acts of Parliament Nay Sir the Commons saw there was a Necessity of passing this Vote for your Popish Crew had poxt a Number of Men that pretended to be so zealous for the Protestant Religion that nothing could serve the turn for its Preservation but a Popish Head and tho the sorry Rogues were a Disgrace to any Religion yet they were so dangerously infected that they thought the Dissenters were equally if not more dangerous than the Papists to the Government tho they well knew the Dissenters had never sworn to any foreign Jurisdiction or Power The Parliament therefore seeing such a Division made in order to weaken our Hands and make us a Prey to your Teeth made this Vote in order to strengthen the Protestant Interest by which they manifested a Resolution of repealing those Laws that were used as Scorpions by our Clergy-men and scoundrel Justices to destroy their quiet and peaceable Neighbours 5. A fifth Pretence starts up in your Vindication and pricks up its Ears one would have thought some Countrey Vicar in his Study over the Oven had contrived and sent it up to you sweetly drest and it struts so daintily that I must not let it go without its due Consideration What is it then truly the House of Commons issued out Arbitrary Orders for taking Persons into Custody for Matters that related not to Privileges of Parliament Truly this is a pretty sort of Pretence surely the Parson's Wife or Daughter had a Hand in finding this Business out but it shall have its due Weight and therefore I shall say these three things 1. We will suppose they did issue forth Orders for taking Men into Custody for Matters that had no relation to Privileges of Parliament yet that House of Commons might have had this to say for
lawful because of the uncircumscribed Power of Parliaments in judging what is lawful and what is necessary for the Safety of the People by whom they are sent to Parliament for redress of Grievances which no written Law could provide against in an universal way So then it being lawful in it self to propose a Bill to exclude you from the Crown the doing it after your Brother had signified his Pleasure against the Bill could not make it against Law for I remember no Law written or unwritten that ever constituted him Lord of the Articles upon the Parliament which they were to debate and propose or not But what was his Will and Pleasure or the Pleasure of two or three Villains and Whores that joined with him in usurping such a Power altogether strange to our English Constitution of Parliament And I must tell you your Brother 's intolerable Stiffness in that Particular I cannot think was out of Kindness to you or from any suspicion he had of the Danger of the English Monarchy by such a Law but from the Influence of some ill Men engaged in the Conspiracy with you to destroy that Constitution who knowing your Brother's Inclination in that Particular as well as yours made it their Business to nourish in your Absence a Misunderstanding between him and the People whom you and he mortally hated justly fearing if he should ever have come to the due Temper of an English Monarch and to have a Sense of the Peoples Affection to him as the Father of the Kingdom he would have delivered up you and your Rogues who had infected him with that deadly Notion that the Interest of an English Parliament was not only distinct from but opposite to his Interest and Designs 2. Your Conspirators used to urge another Argument against the Bill of Exclusion no doubt your own first or they would never have presumed to use it so long till it was become thredbare viz. that the King could not comply with the House of Commons in it tho the Interest as well as the Desire of the People of England because it so nearly concerned him in point of Honour Justice and Conscience Your Brother and you were both Men of Honour Conscience and Justice of which you both made this Nation sensible Well since it was so let me argue upon the Topicks of Honour Justice and Conscience with you Had it not been honourable in your Brother to be true and faithful to his Word and Oath to keep and maintain the Religion and Laws established Nay Sir could any Man have thought it dishonourable in him to have loved the Safety and Welfare of his People and the true Religion established amongst them above the temporal Greatness of his Relations Was it not just in conjunction with his Parliament for his Peoples Safety to make use of a Power warranted by our English Laws and the Examples of former Ages Or where was his Justice that was the Father of his Country to expose his Children to ruin out of Fondness to a perverse Brother and to abandon the Religion Laws and Liberties of these Kingdoms which he was sworn to maintain and expose them to the Rage of you and your traiterous Jesuits who thought your selves in Conscience bound to subvert them Your Brother by his own might have remembered your Religion and what your Brother's Conscience was in relation to your Succession a cunning Man could scarce find out but if he had been a Protestant I might have asked what Conscience obliged him to ascend the Throne to overthrow the Protestant and set up the Popish Religion â—ir since your Brother insisted so much upon Honour Justice and Conscience I 'll say of him as I ought that he was a Papist yet I am sure he was bound in Honour Justice and Conscience to have preserved to the People of England their Religion Laws and Liberties and in conjunction with this Parliament to have secured them from being subverted by you and your Followers since withâ—â— much Duty and Affection they recalled him from a miserable Banishment attended with Poverty and Dishonour and chearfully placed him upon the Throne and enlarged his Revenue above what any of his Predecessors had enjoyed and gave him vaster Sums in 20 Years than had been given to all the Kings since William the Norman Where then was his Honour Conscience and Justice in leaving them to be destroyed by you It cannot be said he had therein more regard to the Government than to the Person that succeeded him seeing if he had passed the Bill of Exclusion he had no ways prejudiced the legal Monarchy which he did enjoy with all those Rights Prerogatives and Powers which his Ancestors did ever claim besides what he usurped against Law which yet the People quietly submitted to 3. A third Argument your Party used was That it was a hard Case that a Man should lose his Inheritance because of this or that Perswasion in Matters of Religion Truly Sir had your Case been only so I should have thought your Argument pretty strong but alas Popery was not in you and your Conspirators an innocent Perswasion of Men differing from others in religious Matters but a real Conspiracy against Christianity it self nor was this Inheritance your Cattel used to mention a bare Inheritance of a private Person without the Consideration of an Oâ—â—â—ce annexed to it which required you to be Par Officio I pray what did your Logger-heads mean when they made such a Noise about an Inheritance nothing less than a Government of three Kingdoms the Protection of several Nations the making of War and Peace for them the Preservation of their Religion the disposal of all publick Places and Revenues the Execution of all Laws with many other things of the greatest Importance Truly Sir these inconsiderate Persons were mightily out in their Claim for the three Parliaments had reason to look about them when they had reflected upon the Bloody Tenets of the Church of Rome and more particularly upon the hellish Conspiracy then discovered and at that Time carrying on with Vigour by your Popish and Popishly affected Traitors and finding you to be the avowed Head of this devillish Party could you with any Justice think they should not prevent as much as in them lay your being a Shepherd since you had declared your self a Wolf And since you were a Papist how could they believe you would ever appear in the Defence of the Protestant Religion I think this may suffice for this Argument 4. A fourth Argument against the Bill of Exclusion was the Oath of Allegiance taken to your Brother by the Parliament of England Truly I never heard the Argument from any but an Irish Man not but we had then Fools enow to invent such an Argument as we have at this Day to attempt your Restoration But their Arguments were as silly as their Plots and this is one of the most foolish Arguments could be used against such great and wise Assemblies as
those Parliaments were composed of Give me leave Sir to put this Question to you Suppose you had been found guilty of Treason by your Peers in Parliament or in any Court of Peers and the Case so plain that you had been condemned and executed for that Treason whether or no that Parliament or Court of Peers that had condemned you had been guilty of a Breach of their Allegiance and Murder This you cannot say then I must tell you that since whilst you were Duke of York you had made your self obnoxious to the Government in a lower degree why might not the same Authority proportion the Punishment and leave you your Life and debar you of the Succession This is to shew the Absurdity your Crew were guilty of in this Argument Now I will speak one Word by way of Answer Whereas your Conspirators did say the Bill of Exclusion was diametrically opposite to the Oath of Allegiance taken to your Brother and his Heirs no Man could bear Allegiance to two Persons at once nor could Allegiance be due to a Subject the Word Heirs obliges no Man till the Heir is in Possession of the Crown then the Obligation is fixed by virtue of the Oath made to his Predecessor Now Sir do but consider what Mischief your Party did to the Succession it self for the next Heir by their way of prating for by it they let loose your self from all the Restrictions and Penalties of human Laws so that you had no other Ties upon you not to snatch the Crown from off your Brother's Head than purely those of your own Conscience and what they were the Nation quickly saw 5. A fifth Argument you and your Conspirators used against the Bill of Exclusion was That it argued a Distrust of the Providence of God Now Sir was our Care to preserve the Protestant Religion a Mistrust of God's Providence and must those that were thus zealous be judged Men of little Faith God forbid 'T is true I cannot allow the least Evil to be done that Good may come of it but the Bill against you was justifiable by the Laws of God and the Constitution of the Government for Sir look back and consider how the Protestant Religion was first established here in England it was indeed by the mighty Hand of God influencing the publick Counsels of the Nation so that all imaginable Care was taken both by Prince and People to rescue themselves from the Romish Yoke and accordingly most excellent Laws were made against the Usurpation and Tyranny of the Bishop of Rome our noble Ancestors in those Days did not manifest a want of Zeal for their Religion with a lazy Pretence of trusting God's Providence but together with their Prayers to and Affiance in the great Jehovah joined the Acts of their own Duty without which they well knew they had no reason to expect a Blessing And a young Whipper-snapper a Friend of yours in a certain Coffee-house had prated at this rate till he was plentifully kickt for his Pains which was the best Way of answering such a Coxcomb that was not to be answered any other way 6. Another Argument against the Bill of Exclusion was this A standing Force would have been absolutely necessary to place and keep the Administration of the Government in Protestant Hands and the Monarchy it self would have been destroyed by a Law which was to have taken all sort of Power from the King and made him not so much as a Duke of Venice This I have heard your Brother talk but it was when he was drunk and this was the Talk of your Party drunk or sober truly they had little in their Discourses but Absurdity and Incoherence Sometimes they would say the Government and Succession to the Crown was of such Divine Right that nothing could lessen your Right nay some of them were so fulsome and nauseous as to talk of Acts of Parliament to banish you out of your own Dominions and to deprive you of your whole Power of Kingship after your being actually King but truly this nasty Cheat appeared so plain to the Parliament that one of your professed Vassals who had more Honour than the rest of your nonsensical Parasites was ashamed of it and openly renounced that self-contradicting Project which they had been so long contriving and thought they had so artificially disguised but tho it was so well-favouredly exposed in the House yet your Coxcombs thought the Nation might be deceived and therefore blusht not to offer it in their common Discourses in all Places and Companies but who they converted to the Cause I never was curious to inquire But Sir was a standing Force so necessary in case of your being excluded suppose it was nay I will go farther suppose a War had been necessary yet would it not have been a War justified by the Authority of Law and against a banished excluded Pretender There would have been no fear of its Consequence no true English Men could have joined with you or countenanced your Usurpation after such an Act and as for your Popish and French Adherents they would neither have been more angry nor more strong by the passing that Bill Truly Sir I must be plain and tell you that your being excluded when Duke of York would by no Means have necessitated a standing Army for the Preservation of the Government and Peace of the Kingdom the whole People of England would have been an Army for that Purpose and every Heart and Hand would have been prepared to maintain that so necessary and much desired Law for which those three Parliaments were so earnest with your Brother not only in pursuance of their own Judgments but by the Directions of those that sent them to remove so great a Grievance from the Nation as you then was and continued to be till you were graciously pleased to let us know that one pair of Heels was worth two pair of Hands Your notorious great Grand-mother was excluded by Act of Parliament yet Queen Elizabeth enjoyed the Crown with much Comfort and Peace for 44 Years and needed no standing Force to secure her from that pretty conditioned Gentlewoman's pretended Right Again a Word more to this standing Army I wonder that you and your Party should be so afraid of what you so eagerly desired nay some of them almost ventured a hanging to get one established If I am not much mistaken I have seen two Armies raised for no other Design than to bring in Popery and Slavery as was proved to the Shame of him that raised them and the first was as shamefully disbanded as it was impudently and against Law raised but the last Army you procured to be raised you and your Party were so unwilling to part with that two Acts were passed before we could get them disbanded And after your Brother had thrown off the use of Parliaments at your Instance he so increased the Number of his Guards that they became formidable to the People of England
I know he never deserved so great a Favour at her Hands for I remember when he was ashamed both of Father and Mother But let him go as he is I could wish you had him with you as also that logger-headed Priest who for his Learning Parts and Honesty might have been Fenwick's Chaplain in Extremis he having been so deeply engaged with him in that glorious Design for which he hath justly suffered Death as an abominable Traitor to God his King and Country This Priest lives and wipes his Lockrum-jaws as the Whore in the Proverbs and like an impudent Rogue saith he has done no Wickedness I do not question Sir as infirm as I am through your Grace and Favour but to live to see an end of his supposed endless War and a happy Determination of his dispâ—â—ed Titles for the Villain notwithstanding his black mouth'd Sermon may be made to know that the Election of the People of England is the best Title most of our Kings ever had if he cannot be convinced with rational Arguments a Halter may chance to be his Portion which is oftener the Reward of a Traitor than a Lawrel I am of opinion that his Plotting against the Government hath been more his Master-piece than any Sermon he ever preached I conceive him so well fixed here that I doubt you will not have his Company tho I do not find him a Fellow of any great use to his Party unless to lead a Mob to disturb an Election of Parliament Men in Westminster but notwithstanding the Bustle he made in the last he could do you no great Service But to return to the Matter of Fact with which you and your Brother and villanous Party stand charged to the end of the 29th Article I ask you What you think of all these things and how could your Party behold the Face of the English Nation or your Scots Villains their Country which they have so basely abused and betrayed Come Sir what say you to all this Was not the Prince of Orange right in those few Passages of his Declaration that more particularly related to your Personal Vertues Truly had he said nothing yet these Articles are sufficient which are so fully proved that I defy your old Observator to confute any one thing mentioned or your Scotish Scribler that is become a hearty Rogue in your Cause he hath ventured hanging for you and I hope will in due time meet with his long-deserved Reward for all his Villanies Dr. Wilkinson's Lady notwithstanding his great Care of her Husband's Library will not put in a Petition against it If you are not satisfied we hold four Campagns in a Year at Westminster-Hall and six or eight at the Old Baily Hixes-Hall and Guildhall where are very notable Combatants who use to be too many for those they engaged in former times I pray come and try your Skill and Fortune it may turn to some account to you in time Poor Pilgarlick fought two Days together at one of the Campagns that you opened and came off by the lee tho he had a good Sword and fenc'd as well as any Man in Christendom but you may fare better than many an honest Man and I conceive my old Landlady will be content that you should rather retain your old Name than be guilty of such a Piece of Rashness she may come and act your part for you unless the Virago Part in her Ladyship be decayed for want of its due Exercise and may win more Credit than ever you had But do what you will it 's all one to me I am ad arma paratus I dare try a touch with you and your Party at any time I would have you know I do not tell you this now you are at such a distance for you and your Villains have had several Trials of Skill with me and in seven or eight Fights I never lost the day but twice notwithstanding all the Efforts you and your Rogues by their Perjuries and Subornations of Perjury made against me and let me tell you that as ill as you have used me I may live to see a day wherein our King and his Government will do me right tho I confess I have waited a long time for the Benefit of the Justice of the Nation due to those Men that have served and saved their Country It may be you will knock under board and grant that you have been guilty so far as you have been charged hitherto truly it 's well you are so honest then I pray be not offended if I have another fling at your â—â—cket as soon as possible that I may do you Right and when that is done I pray let me desire you that if you leave another Letter at St. Germains as you did at Rochester not to say that the Prince of Orange endeavoured to make you as black as Hell but confess the Truth and say that it was you your self instigated by the Devil himself and all his wicked Angels and Instruments that had done it to his Hand many Years before more effectually than he could have done it had he had the Advice even of those honest Gentlemen that drew up the third Declaration in his Name which was dated from Sherborn Castle that was a Tickler I 'll assure you and did your Business as effectually as Cromwel did your Brother 's at Worcester Fight it sent you packing in the Devil's Name and half such a one in France would send you over the Alps without the Help of a strong Guard unless it were to keep you from being torn in pieces by the French Mob who if they were not three quarters starv'd would have as much a Mind to it as ever the English Nation had and I am sure you deserved it many a Year before you wore the Crown I cannot yeâ— take my leave of you for you are sensible that my hearty Affection to you and your Cause intitles me to do you all the Service I can therefore I will give you the best Information I can how your Party stand affected Your Friend Robin was no sooner out of Pound but he made an Elopement to the loyal Club at the Pope's Head in Cornbil and it 's supposed did give but a melancholy Account of his Confinement but a far better than he gave of the Lady Wilkinson's Books or of the Widow's Bond of a hundred Pounds which in a most Christian manner he forsware hoping to have paid her with a false Oath the whole Sum he was intrusted with The Villain once set up for a Saint and then your Villains hated him to the same Degree that God and all good Men do at this time I suppose he hopes that if you should make your Abode in Partibus Transmarinis you may procure him to be made a Popish Bishop or so which is the least you can do for him for I assure you he is Rogue enough to wear the Title of an Arch-Bishop tho it be of Bell-Isle Vshant
upon the matter and if you cannot be satisfied but you must have a Cross I have told you the way you may do what you please and if all I have said will not do then I pray write to honest Robin who may find you out some Scots Trick or another that may do your Business more effectually but if the Villain should not be as good at stealing as he has been at lying cheating and plotting then he that broke up your Brother's Closet and yours may have a good Hand at breaking up a Church or so for your Service I pray Sir do not let him lie here for certainly his Hand will be out of use the Rogue has got a good Estate by these Courses therefore I advise you to send for him over that he may be an absolute Master of his Trade there may be many a Peny got and were it not for hanging I believe the Villain could like the Trade better than if he were to continue in his Secretary's Place he knows where well enough and where he meets with many a hearty Curse If my old Landlady wants a female Servant I can more easily help her than I can you to your Crucifix she is a worthy Person I assure you and a Woman of an excellent Reputation she knows how to plant behind the Hangings as well as you can for your Heart's Blood and has given as good Proof of her Dexterity in that Piece of Service upon a Relation of hers as she has of her Reputation for many Years last past notwithstanding the wicked Aspersions thrown upon her good Woman I pray be pleased to admit her into my Gammar Sweetapple's Service I believe you are all so much alike in Vertue Honour and Truth that it is pity she should be a Minute from you tho her quondam Gallant should cry his Eyes out Your old Eves-dropper shall attend her and you may take him as Paper and Packthred into the Bargain and the rather because he is a French Man and stood behind the Hangings to serve you and your Brother 's wicked Designs upon an honest French Protestant that applied himself to him and you not knowing you to be a Papist for the Security of the Protestant Interest in France Now I rather propose this because you your self were planted behind the Hangings or Wainscot with old Coventry and your old Chymist to hear what passed between your Brother and my self when there was some Discourse to be in relation to your sweet self and old Kate of Lisbon What Advantage you got by your Evesdropping I know not if you got any much good may it do you but upon the whole Matter I think I have made you a pretty Proposal and should be glad if it takes for I would fain have you easy and comfortable in your Company for you know the old Proverb like to like as the Devil said to the Collier Now for all this Piece of Good Will I desire nothing of you but a Coat the Virgin Mary made for her Son which is at present in the Church of St. Martinellus for my Coat is very thredbare and I have been told it is as fresh as when it was first made now such a Coat that will never be old would do my Business for I cannot tell when I shall have a new one When you come to Rome you will be ambling from Church to Church I pray call in there and beg it for me since I have been such a Friend to Rome's Chair and your self they will not deny me that Favour being sensible of the great Value I have for you for the many gracious Obligations you have laid upon me in particular as well as upon this Nation in general for whose Honour you have fought many a bloody Battel but old Hodg swears and damns too by his Treble and Base Viols that he cannot tell the Time when or the Place where you entered upon these noble Adventures except it were between a Pair of Sheets with Jenny Roberts or some of those noble Fireships that were rigg'd at White-Hall or St. James's and if by any of those noble Adventures you did the Nation any Honour you have met with a competent Return of our Gratitude especially since you were so great a Sufferer by one of them for whose sake you wear a Meâ—â—â—andum to this day you know what I mean and a Word to the Wise is enough Now Sir I have but one thing more to say and then you may go and dry the Clouts whilst my Landlady gets the Welsh Tiler to Bed and that is this Doth it not appear as plain as the Sun at noon-day how you have not only in conjunction with your Brother sham'd the Nation but been also sham'd by your Priests and Rogues and by your Pope and French King and your Passive-Obedience and Non-resistance-Rogues here in England For the former that is your Popish Priests and Jesuits how were you fooled with their lying Fables And had you not been blest with an Irish Understanding you might have seen they were Forgeries and meer Fopperies they told you of their Houses being the Houses of Cloe and their Housholds the Housholds of Onesiphorus but alas they were but the Sons of Sodom and villanous Offspring of cursed Gomorrah and take them from their Uncleanness what they study is nothing but imposture and Legerdemain These were the Men you countenanced Beddingfield your Jesuit was a Pimp a Drunkard a Whoremonger and a Sodomite yet you used to say he was a holy humble Man What say you to your Sabran that was a Reproach to Sodom and the Scandal of Gomorrah or to your trusty Ned Petre and his Brother Charles two notorious Villains one famous for his Ignorance and the other for his Impudence Drunkenness and Blasphemy against God and his Word What say you to your four ignorant Popish Bishops you procured to be made these were your Counsellours As to your Religion I pray what have your Popish Crew done for you in your Distress Nay how did your old Odescalchi leave you in the lurch 't is true he told Porter you should have his Prayers but if they had been worth a Groat or half the Money you must have gone without them half the Money would have perswaded him to have given you a Maâ—nday Curse What Subsidies have you had from St. Oâ—â—irs and Liege and from your Popish Party Alas like Rats they forsake a falling-House or a sinking Ship But I pray in the next place what 's become of your mighty Ally Lewis the Great How stands his Friendship with you What use have you of his Purse and Assistance against your Enemies how fares it with your inseparable Interests Come come tell me plainly how is the Pension paid that you and my good Landlady may chew the Cud comfortably together If it be no better paid than mine you may â—ang your self for ought I know and no body be the wiser or better for it â—â—ray how do the
often demanded in vain was according to the Law of Nations and the Rules of Justice nay Sir we might have been engaged in his Quarrel with old Kate's native Country which we ought to have had special regard of for the Blessing they sent us in 1662. And pray what was the Quarrel Truly nothing but a treacherous seizing the Island of St. Gabriel which the Portuguese had peaceably enjoyed several Years upon which you know Jack the Portuguese invaded some part of the Spanish Country Also by virtue of this Alliance we were even obliged to assist the Spaniard in case of any disturbance in his own Dominions You and your Brother were admirable good at secret Articles and in one of those it is plainly expressed we were to furnish him 8000 Men for 3 Months so that if he inclin'd to make his Subjects as great Slaves to the Crown as they are to the Church our good King was to assist him in so good a Work Truly Sir when I reflect on Philip the Second's Barbarity to the People of the Low Countries whom our Ancestors thought fit to succour I could not but think this Alliance now under debate was for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Good of the Nation because my Lord Hallifax and old Lauderdale told me so and therefore as the Stars would have it it was not fit the League should be laid before the Parliament lest they should think so too and find a blind side or two in it and think it would contribute but little to the Good of the Nation or securing the Peace of poor Flanders Well Sir your Cake proved Dough that bout for there was Death in the Pot a standing Army aimed at in England that would not down with us at that time of which you were to have been General that would have done more good Business upon Hounslow-Heath than in Flanders for they were not to help the Spaniard till the French had invaded them three Months and it 's well known he could then have been Master of a considerable part of that Country But yet no Money came nor can I help it if I should cry my Eyes out let me therefore be a little more particular with you and ask two or three Questions it may be we may find some Expedient they might have used to allay the matter on your side Now supposing this League the best that ever could be made yet 1. Had not the Parliament just Cause to be very jealous of your Brother's Sincerity in this Alliance and the more because he would not declare what it was nor suffer it to be laid before them Therefore had it been the best in Christendom nay as good as that between him and Cleveland and Mother Knight the Bawd which he had broken for several years or that that was then in being between Mrs. Portsmouth and her Woman Nell Waall yet what could they say to such a League or what Security could they have that it should be kept more than the Triple League or that with the Prince of Orange or that with the States General which were all broken almost as soon as made 2. The Parliaments of England had been ill used by you and your Banditti and therefore you must allow this not to meet with that Temper you desir'd who after they had heard of this Alliance were not suffered so much as to have it laid before them to consider of tho it had been before your Council at St. James's and Barillon the French Ambassadour had perused it and was privy to the secret Article in it and had not like a Man of Truth given a Copy of it to one that let some have a sight of it Surely Sir you and your Party could not but provoke a Parliament by these Carriages and how then could you expect Money to support this new Alliance 3. I pray Sir how was it possible any good could come to Christendom in general or to these Nations in particular by this new Alliance It is plain that all Christendom after the separate Peace with the Dutch could not preserve Spain and the Spanish Netherlands from falling under the Dominion of the French King how then could your Brother by this new Alliance be in a Condition to support them without the Dutch since by the help of you and your Traitors he brought this Nation into a distracted and deplorable Condition Nay Sir one word more What good could these Kingdoms expect by this Alliance since thereby all the Hardships imaginable were put upon our Traders both to Spain and the West-Indies and had that King been as able as willing he would have let you known it ' ere this time 4. Was it not unreasonable to ask Money for the support of this League tho we suppose it the best that ever was made Your Brother was the first King that ever asked Money to support Alliances I have read of Kings when by the Advice of Parliament they have made War upon any of their Neighbours they have called for Money to carry it on with Vigour but I never find any of our Kings that ever called for Money to support Alliances especially when they were justly ashamed to declare what they were 5. Again Your Crew I confess at that time made a horrid noise about the Spanish Alliance and wondered the Parliament would give no Money to maintain it Alas Sir there was never yet an Alliance made with any State in Christendom if a good one but would earn its own living and therefore needed no Money to support it if it were a bad one I am sure it deserved none 6. Once more and I 'll conclude this Point since your Party made such a noise about the Spanish Alliance pray Sir how was it kept If my Memory fails not it was not over-well observed for I think in 1682. your Ally the French King blocked up Luxemburgh and in the year my Lord Russel was murdered took Courtray one of the six Towns delivered up by the French to the Spaniard and keeps it to this Day as he doth Luxemburgh which he took by force in 1684. Now I do not find your Brother ever assisted this Confederate of his according to the tenour of the Alliance or as he was Guarantee in the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle which in his excellent Declaration of War against the Dutch he declared he would maintain Upon the whole I see no reason why the Parliament should have given any Money to support this Alliance 2. As the Parliament would give no Money for the support of this Alliance so neither for the support of Tangier this stuck mightily in your Stomach and in the Maws of all your Party Now Sir Tangier being most valiantly deserted it deserves not to be mentioned but because it so highly offended your Friends who to this day mention it with reluctancy I will say a word or two to it It is some years since that the Commons of England to