I believe if the King of France should promise to protect the Protestant Church of God and the Rectors of the same to govern the universal People subject to him justly to establish equal Laws and to see them duly executed we should not take his Word nor would his own Subjects be well pleased It is King William only that is allowed to have a Religion for his several Dominions that may be a Synod-of-Dort-Presbyterian in Holland an Episcopalian in England of the Kirk in Scotland and a downright Favourer of Popery in Ireland as is apparent by the Limerick Treaty and the Pamphlet put out by the Irish Gentlemen concerning the Proceedings of their late Parliament and the Depositiâ—â—â— that are before the House of Lords I have told over our former Conquests somewhat tediously and will add very little about them however I desire the Reader will reflect That the Neighboring Princes because they did not animadvert how much Greatness consisted in Naval Preparations and Trade and because we had not begun to make a Figure in either never thought themselves so much concerned as all the Potentates of Europe will now what becomes of us None of our Neighbors ever help'd Us formerly some of 'em did our Invaders Let the Reader farther reflect that it was not necessary for any of our former Invaders to make such a total Subversion of all our Laws as it will now be for the French King and consequently Composition and Treaties more easily succeeded Battles The former Alterations rather meliorated than overthrew our Constitution They bundled up and refin'd our By-Laws into National Statutes and introduced Forms where the Methods of Justice seemed less articulate And lastly Let it be considered though there are great Divisions amongst us some few for keeping the Prince of Orange others for restoring the King and several for something that they have not yet licked into Form yet all Persons that make the respective Parties of these Divisions will all of 'em joyn together to obstruct a French Conquest There will be such Divisions whenever Men will commit Violence upon the natural and ancient Constitution and I must confess these Divisions are the most fatal Symtom that attends our distemper'd State and may and will certainly subject us though not to a French Conquest to great Calamities and Devastations unless we restore the King I suppose I have sufficiently prov'd a French Conquest to be neither Desirable nor Practicable yet God knows what infinite Mischiefs we may have brought upon our selves by reviving a sort of Quarrel which by the Mercy of God has been so long extinguished A Dispute for Title which has in the days of our Forefathers had so fatal an Effect which has so dismally wounded our State and is left bleeding in the Histories of so many Reigns Because you shall not think I aggravate the Calamities that were occasioned by the Contention of the Two Roses I will only transribe some Passages out of Trussel who is a chast and cautelous Writer and it cannot be supposed his History was written to serve a Jacobite-Turn Page 257. he says There were in the Quarrel of the Two Roses Fourscore Princes of the Blood destroyed and twice as many Natives slain as were lost in the Two Conquests of France Pag. 260. he says In the Battle of Townton there were killed Thirty five thousand ninety and one English-men and of Strangers One thousand seven hundred forty five beside Two hundred and thirty slain the Day before at Ferry-bridge In his last Page his Words are these The total of private Soldiers that perished in these Civil Wars and suffered Punishment of immature Death for taking part of the one side or the other was Fourscore thousand nine hundred ninety and eight Persons besides Kings 2. Prince 1. Dukes 10. Marquesses 2. Earls 21. Viscounts 2. Lords 27. Lord Prior 1. Judge 1. Knights 139. Esquires 441. The Number of the Gentry is uncertainly reported and therefore Trussel omits them but says That for the most part they are included in the Number of private Soldiers set down to be slain to which he says you must add the Number of Six hundred and thirty and eight the total of all the Persons not therein accounted and then there appeareth in all to be slain Fourscore five thousand six hundred twenty eight Christians and most of this Nation not to be repeated says the Historian without grief nor remembred without Deprecation that the like may never happen more He concludes his History with this Saying Pan una Triumphis innumeris potior The whole History of that Quarrel sets before us such apposite Lessons for our Times that I wish all who love England would seriously read and ponder it It is time to draw to a Conclusion I am not willing to prophecy the Destruction of my Countrey and I beseech God Almighty to incline our Hearts to the Things that belong unto our Peace to our Peace in this World and to our everlasting Peace in the World to come I beseech God to incline the Prince of Orange not to forfeit an eternal weight of Glory for a momentary Crown which has nothing of good in it if it is not got by the Acts of Goodness God grant that he may consider it as a more valuable Character to be a Virtuous and a Christian Prince than a Romantick Heroe and God grant that he may be so Wise that his Days may not end in Tragedy I wish he would review his own Declaration and the Memorial of the States and that he would pursue those excellent Ends for which he came for which the States said they lent their Ships and which King James would have comply'd with and is ready to comply with still The King is willing to secure the Liberties of England and the Protestant Religion and had not the Confederates made their Quarrel â—â—â—ult by giving way to an unnatural Ambition in the Prince of Orange and dispossessing King James whilst they pretended they formed this Confederacy to repair the Injuries done to them by the French K. JAMES the injured King JAMES would have checked the Growth of France and kept Namur and Mons. He was far from a French League and would have perform'd the part of a true Guarrantee for either the King would have prevented France coming before them by reminding their King of the Treaty of Nâ—miguen or our Arms would have had doubtless success when we had Justice on our side and the Wishes and Prayers of all English-men joyned with the undertaking of our rightful indisputed King How far he was from a French League how unwilling to think ill of the Pr. of Orange and how unwilling to be too much beholding to France his disbelief of all the Advices of d'Avaux and of many of his Friends his Answer to Bonrepos and his refusal to the last of any French Assistance sufficiently witness and as much as he has been beholding to France during his Troubles I am satisfied that
Universal Monarchies at this day and tho' whole Kingdoms heretofore would not join in a Common Defence whole Europe would now However Ambitious the King of France may be he can never think of so unweildy a Project in which he must not only encounter all England all this Island all these Three Kingdoms but all Europe too I come in the last place to shew That it is not the Interest of the K. of France to attempt to make us a Conquest either for Himself or K. James I would ask but two things to be granted me which I think will be granted by most Men The one is That the King of France tolerably understands his own Interest The other is That he will follow it where he finds it And now I shall proceed to prove That it is not the Interest of France to attempt to make us a Conquest The Unweildiness of the Project is one very good Reason against it Less than One hundred thousand of his best Men cannot make us a Conquest and keep us so and he must only take Possession of the Land and not expect to be Master of the People by reason of our Religion and whoever he sends to be his Lieutenant here will be under great Temptation to revolt from him and set up for himself or become the First Subject of these Kingdoms which we shall be willing to make him and a greater Subject than France has rather than not get rid of the Miseries of a Provincial and be restored to our own Government Consider how much danger the Absolute Power of France will run by a too free intercourse with the few surviving Britains who will acquaint so many of his Soldiers what were the Freedoms of our Land Consider whether France can bear such an Evacuation as is necessary to Make and People us a Province We believe that the Expulsion of the Hugonots let out too much of his People too much of the Vital Blood of France It did so doubtless and a Plantation of our Island would endanger all he has upon the Continent What Neighbor that envies him would not be glad to see him make such an Experiment would not nick the lucky Opportunity and pull back all those Towns and Provinces which he may now much more easily keep than he can gain us Would any Peace any Leagues they can have with him be Proof against such a promising Temptation To attempt the Conquest of these Kingdoms would indeed be grasping at a prodigious Shadow but he would not fail to lose a great deal of real Substance The King of France is not such a Knight-Errant he does not love to venture over much He like Julius Caesar when he had attain'd the Empire loves to make good what he gets and is not like the Macedonian Rambler greedy of difficult and bloody Travels Let the Designs of France be as vast as they will their King is no Madman Augustus and Tiberius who were both skilful in Government are thought by very sensible Men to have neglected Britain out of this wholsom State-Maxim That it was necessary to bound and moderate the Roman Empire It is certain those two Emperors often thought of bounding the Roman Empire and of bringing it into a tenable Compass and it is plain that mighty Empire was at last overthrown by its own Weight and Largeness The Jurisdiction of France is of a prodigious growth for this Age and if the King of France thinks of subduing such a brave and populous Countrey as we are so united as we shall be when we find only the French King's Interest at the bottom of the Plot and so assisted as we shall be by all the Potentates of Europe for their own sakes he will miscarry in the Enterprize and France it self will tumble from its Highth It is a bolder Undertaking than what is recorded of Alexander the Great and thô the King of France should overrun us he would like that Alexander never be able to settle a Government amongst us but his very Victories would shake his own Let it be farther considered That though the French have been successful in Wars near home yet they have been unsuccessful in remote Undertakings where either the transporting by Sea or the uneasiness of the passage by Land have rendred Succours hard and difficult to be sent What rendred all their Attempts upon the Kingdom of Naples and Dutchy of Milan ineffectual but the difficulties they found in sending Supplies to Naples by Sea and to Milan over the rough Alpes In our King John's time Lewis the then Dauphine of France was invited over and sworn to by many of the Barons But did not the difficulty of getting Supplies to maintain his footing at last utterly defeat all his Hopes Would not our present Sailers carry their Ships to any part of the World rather than let them be carried into France Is there not think you one Great Man left whose Fidelity to our own right Line and whose Courage and Vigilance is equal to Hubert de Burgh's Think you there is no Gallant Man who would by a Sea-fight hinder the pouring in of fresh French Succours when we saw they aimed at the Distruction of the Right of our Royal Family and our own Rights I am not over fond of the present Age yet there are many Brave and Loyal Men in it that would defeat any French Design that were injurious to our own legal Monarchy But to come to our own Days What enabled Spain to recover Catalonia in a great measure and to pluck Messina in Sicily out of the present King of France's hands when they were losing Ground in the confining Provinces but the difficulty of sending Supplies to the one over the Pyrenean Mountains and to the other by Sea And it is remarkable That the uncertainties alone of Wind and Weather rendred the suppling of Messina impracticable even when the French were Masters of the Seas and had routed the Spanish and Dutch Fleets and killed the famous de Ruyter How much more will the same uncertainties of Wind and Weather joyn'd with our brave Ships and braver Sea-men render us safe and all such Designs as a French Conquest impracticable Did not also this present King of France in our own Memories over-run like a violent Torrent the United Provinces and possess himself of a great part of their Country and yet was obliged to throw up all his Conquests And for what Reason Because there was the interposition of fifty or sixty Miles that was not his own which might have hinder'd the sending Supplies and will not the interposition of more Miles of a tempestuous and uncertain Sea joyned with the Rebuffs which will be given him by our Fleet lay greater Rubs in his way and oblige him at last to disgorge tho' he should by surprize gain Ground upon us What was it induced the Romans to maintain Fourscore thousand Men in Britain and to secure their Frontiers in this Island by the famous Walls of
rot But Mr. Pepys has prov'd the contrary with a witness and appeals to the Books and Men that are now in the Admiralty and Navy Offices By this you may guess at the Sincerity of Dr. King in other particulars King JAMES without Taxes repair'd and added to our Navy and augmented its Stores but the Vote which declares the Sense of the House of Commons to be That the Commission of the Admiralty should not be filled with Men experienc'd in Sea-Affairs tho' it look like a Jest was well enough calculated for the Humour of this Prince who is willing to put the Nation under an absolute Necessity of maintaining a vast standing Army though a Pamphlet written and dispers'd at the beginning of the last Sessions by the wiser Williamites themselves called The Interest or State of Parties had so evidently made it out That the Natural and only Defence of England depended upon its Wooden Walls and spake broadly of the Insufficiency of the present Lords of the Admiralty I suppose too that they who occasion'd our not making use last Summer of our Victory at Sea which even those who would fright us with the French Power say was gain'd by a part only of our Fleet inferior in Number and Quality to the French who attack'd them and since have got Russel discharg'd from being Admiral instead of being rewarded with an Earldom and Garter for that Victory which did indeed destroy many of the French Ships tho' it was not the greatest Victory that ever the Sun saw as Dr. Tillotson phrased it and yet it is the only time that we have not by reason of our preposterous Management come off with loss and shame I say These Men know how much better King William is pleased with Land-Forces than Tarpawlins but how little Care soever has been taken of our Ships whatever Dangers the Prince of Orange would expose us to hereafter that he may rule us more arbitrarily during his own Time yet the Nation will find out his Designs feel their own Strength know whereon their own Safety depends time enough to hinder his or a French Conquest tho' they will at the same time perceive it necessary to call home that Prince whose Claim is indisputed and whose coming home upon such Concessions as we want and He is ready to grant will swallow up all Fâ—ctions They will e'er long percâ—ive it necessary to call him home â—pon such Securities even to secure their own Interests All Remains of 〈◊〉 pâ—â—tâ— Governments are at an 〈◊〉 and since Printing has been in the World the French and all Nations so well know how vindicative of their Liberties the English have always been that they will have but little mind to make us a Province I have already intimated how unsafe it would be for the Absolute Power of France at home to let their Soldiers hear from the surviving Britains what were our Freedoms and it would be yet much more unsafe for the French Lieutenants to agree to the Observation of our Laws But I will hasten to the Norman Conquest Before any body takes it for granted that William the First was a Conqueror I wish they would read the First Part of the Historical Discourse of the Vniformity of the Government of England written by Mr. Nathanael Bacon and the latter-end of the third Part of Mr. Will. Prynne's Historical Vindication of the Fundamental Liberties of English Freemen together with all those Authors these two Writers refer to But I resolved at first to wave examining whether we have ever in a proper and strict sense been conquered or no and therefore must fall directly upon comparing those and our Times and the Pretences of the Duke of Normandy and what the French can have upon us I can find but one thing that has any shew of likeness with our present Circumstances and that is Harold was an Vsurper and had broke the Protestation he had formerly made to Duke William as much as the P. of Orange has his Declaration to the People of England and truly if any thing can facilitate a French Conquest and if the Times did not exceedingly differ in other respects the Breaches we have made upon the Lineal Succession and the Impotencies Irregularities and Exactions of the present Government might make way for it But those things that made a Conquest feasible then and are not in our present Case are very many The Normans came from Norway and Denmark which Places were surchaged with People and there was no Project so improbable in which their Leaders could not easily engage them The Religion of the Normans and the Inhabitants of Britain was the same The Conqueror had many Pretences of Title Edward the Confessor's Will the Donation of the Pope who also gave him a Consecrated Banner an Agnus of Gold and one of the Hairs of St. Peter Besides his Titles here were several Normans within this Land who helped him he had been here himself to view our Land and make a Party as his own Speech intimates the then King of France helped him in his Acquest So did the Emperour Henry the Fourth he likewise came and lived among us and stipulated at his own Coronation to defend the Holy Church of God and the Rectors of the same to govern the universal People subject to him justly to establish equal Laws and see them duly executed Nor did be as the Judicious Samuel Daniel well observes ever claim any Power by Conquest but as a regular Prince submitted himself to the Orders of the Kingdom desirous rather to have his Testamentary Title however weak to make good his Succession than his Sword and tho' the Stile of Conqueror by the flattery of the Times was after given him he shewed by all the Course of his Government he assumed it not introducing none of those Alterations which followed by Violence but by a mild gathering upon the disposition of the State and the Occasions offer'd and that by way of Reformation These are the words of Daniel page 36. Now I come to compare I must once more repeat That France has no occasion to send forth Droves of People and the Religion of France will make the People of England resist a French Conquest to all Extremity And if King James would sell his Kingdoms as some ridiculously have suggested the People of England would hardly be brought to make good the Bargain and the Pope's Gift would as little influence our Minds tho' he should send with the Arms of France all the Reliques of Rome We have indeed many French amongst us but I think no one Man fears they will assist their own King in such an Adventure They are so far from that that they have not been which I am sorry to say GRATEFUL to King James who gave them Protection and Relief when they came hither in Distress And I have already proved That it is not the Interest of any Prince abroad to joyn our Three Kingdoms to the French Territories And