to his Catholick Majesty and perhaps on purpose to make him digest the other Project with more ease is like to be of as little advantage to England as was the Sacrifice of the great Sir Walter Raleigh formerly tho it may be infinitely more to their damage If our Neighbours have a mind to be fully inform'd of this matter they know who were imploy'd in those Negotiations and how to speak with them We come next to consider the Opposition made to our Subscriptions at Hamburgh by Sir Paul Ricaut the English Resident there in conjunction with his Majesty's Envoy to the Court of Lunenburg who deliver'd in a joint Memorial to the Senate of Hamburgh threatning them with the heighth of his Majesty's Displeasure if they join'd with the Scots in any Treaty of Commerce whatsoever This we shall not need to make any Reflexions upon the Petitions from the Company to his Majesty and his Privy Council in Scotland being sufficient for that end Their first to the King was dated Iune the 28 th 1697. and is as follows To the King 's Most Excellent Majesty The humble Address of the Council General of the Company Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies May it please your Majesty WHEREAS by the 32 d Act of the 4 th Session and by the 8 th Act of the 5 th Session of Your Majesty's current Parliament as well as by Your Majesty's Patent under the Great Seal of this Kingdom this Company is established with such ample Privileges as were thought most proper and encouraging both to Natives and Foreigners to join in the carrying on supporting and advancement of our Trade The most considerable of the Nobility Gentry Merchants and whole Body of the Royal Burrows have upon the Inducement and publick Faith of Your Majesty and Act of Parliament and Letters Patent contributed as Adventurers in raising a far more considerable joint Stock than any was ever before raised in this Kingdom for any publick Undertaking or Project of Trade whatsoever which makes it now of so much the more universal a Concern to the Nation And for the better enabling us to accomplish the ends of Your Majesty's said Act of Parliament and Letters Patent we have pursuant thereunto appointed certain Deputies of our own number to transact and negotiate our necessary Affairs beyond Sea and at the same time to treat with such Foreigners of any Nation in amity with Your Majesty as might be inclinable to join with us for the purpose aforesaid In the prosecution of which Commission to our said Deputies vested with full Power and Authority according to Law We are not a little surprized to find to the great hindrance and obstruction of our Affairs That your Majesty's Envoy to the Courts of Lunenburgh and Resident at Hamburgh have under pretence of special Warrant from Your Majesty given in a joint subscribed Memorial to the Senate of Hamburgh expresly invading the Privileges granted to our Company by Your Majesty's said Acts of Parliament and Letters Patent as by the herewith transmitted Copy may appear By the which Memorial we sustain great and manifold Prejudices since both the Senate and Inhabitants of the said City of Hamburgh are thereby contrary to the Law of Nations expresly threatned with Your Majesty's Displeasure if they or either of them should countenance or join with us in any Treaty of Trade or Commerce whatsoever which deprives us of the assistance which we had reason to expect from several Inhabitants of that City For redress whereof we do in all Duty and Humility apply to Your Majesty not only for the Protection and Maintenance of our Privileges and freedom of Trade but also for reparation of damage conform to Your Majesty's said Acts of Parliament and Letters Patent And we further beg leave humbly to represent to Your Majesty that tho by the said Acts of Parliament and Letters Patent we conceive our selves legally and sufficiently authorized to treat even with any Soveraign Potentate or State in Amity with Your Majesty for the support and advancement of our Trade yet we by our said Deputies have only treated with particular and private Merchants of the said City of Hamburgh without ever making any the least Proposal to the Senate thereof and this we humbly conceive to be the natural Right and Privilege of all Merchants whatsoever even tho we had wanted the Sanction of so solemn Laws and without some speedy redress be had therein not only this Company but all the individual Merchants of this Kingdom must from henceforward conclude that all our Rights and Freedoms of Trade are and may be further by our Neighbours violently wrested out of our hands We therefore to prevent the further evil Consequences of the said Memorial to our Company in particular do make our most humble and earnest Request to Your Majesty That you would be graciously pleased to grant us such Declarations as in your Royal Wisdom you shall think fit to render the Senate and Inhabitants of the said City of Hamburgh and all others that are or may be concerned secure from the Threatnings and other Suggestions contain'd in the said Memorial as well as to render us secure under Your Majesty's Protection in the full Prosecution of our Trade and free Injoyment of our lawful Rights Privileges and Immunities contained in Your Majesty's Acts of Parliament and Letters Patent above-mentioned Signed at Edinburgh the 28th Day of June 1697. in Name Presence and by Order of the said Council General by May it please your Majesty Your Majesty's most Faithful most Dutiful most Humble and most Obedient Subject and Servant Sic subscribitur Yester P. The King's Answer to the above written Address By the Right Honourable the Earl of Tullibardin c. and Sir James Ogilvie Principal Secretaries of State My Lords and Gentlemen WE are impowered by the King to signify unto you that as soon as his Majesty shall return to England he will take into Consideration what you have represented unto him and that in the mean time His Majesty will give orders to his Envoy at the Courts of Lunenburgh and his Resident at Hamburgh not to make use of his Majesty's Name or Authority for obstructing your Company in the prosecution of your Trade with the Inhabitants of that City Signed at Edinburgh the 2d Day of August 1697. Sic subscribitur Tullibardin Ja. Ogilvie The Company finding that the said Resident did notwithstanding this Answer continue his opposition and deny that he had any orders to the contrary petitioned his Majesty's Privy Council afresh as follows To the Right Honourable the Lord High Chancellour and remanent Lords of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council The Humble Representation of the Council General of the Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies May it please your Lordships 'T IS not unknown to your Lordships how that in several successive Sessions of this current Parliament his Majesty's Instructions to his respective High Commissioners and
Succession may be The impending differences betwixt the Northern Crowns may perhaps in a little time imbroil them with one or other of them and affect their Trade also on that side All which being consider'd it would seem to be the Interest of England to assure themselves of the Friendship of the Scots by treating them in a kind and neighbourly manner 4. It will appear in particular not to be the Interest of the Dissenters and sober Churchmen that the Scots should be thus run down because their own Ruin will be the unavoidable Consequence of it This they may soon be convinc'd of if they will give themselves leave to consider how they were treated in K. Charles the First 's time when the Court did swell with so much Rage against the Kingdom of Scotland for asserting their Liberties then as they do now All those Church of England-men that could not conform to the Innovations brought into the Church by Laud and his Party were treated as Puritans and Schismaticks and those that appear'd for the Liberties of the Nation against the Ship-money and other Arbitrary Impositions of the Court were treated as Rebels and Traitors If they look into the two last Reigns it will appear as plain as the Sun that when Scotland was oppress'd and their Liberties wrested from them the Dissenters and moderate Church-men in England were brought under the lash the former were depriv'd of their Religion and Liberties and the latter expos'd to destruction by Sham-plots c. because of their appearing for the Laws of their Country We need mention no more Instances to put this out of Controversy than those deplorable ones of the Earl of Essex and Lord Russel to which we may add the shameful and barbarous Treatment of the worthy Mr. Iohnson Chaplain to the latter because he so excellently defended with his Pen the Birth-right and Freedom of all true Englishmen From all this it will appear that England in general must suffer by the Ruin of Scotland and that those who have all along stood up for the English Liberties must lay their Account to come under the lash if once our Necks come under the Yoke therefore we dare appeal to the sober Men of the Church of England Whether it be their Interest that a Nation which agrees with them in all the Articles of their Church those about Discipline excepted should be destin'd to ruin because we believe with most of the Reformed Churches that there is no Office superiour to that of a Presbyter of divine Institution Must we be denied the Privileges of Men and Christians because we think that the Discipline of the Church may be more safely intrusted and more faithfully administred by the joint Indeavors of the Minister and the Heads of his Congregation by an Association of neighbouring Ministers and the Heads of their Parishes and by Delegates both of the Clergy and Laity of those Associations in a general Convocation than by another Model But enough of this Subject Let any Man peruse the learned Archbishop Vsher's Treatise of Presbytery and Episcopacy reconcil'd and there they will find that the difference is not so great as some People have made it their business to make the World believe But if nothing less than our destruction will serve those Gentlemen because our Church is of a different Constitution from that of England and that our political Principles and original Constitution are diametrically opposite to arbitrary Power let the Dissenters of England and all those Church-men that concurr'd in the late Revolution look to it When their Neighbour's House is on fire it's time for them to prepare their Bucket's If this Digression be thought impertinent H s and the Answerer of the Scots Defence must bear the blame of it They would insinuate to the World that the Affair of our Trade and Colony is a Presbyterian Project on purpose to render it odious and suspected to the Church of England therefore it was necessary to obviate that false and malicious Suggestion and to acquaint our Neighbours that the Company make no difference as to the matter of Perswasion and let it be put to the Test when they please it will be found that those of the Episcopal Opinion are as zealous for the thriving of our Trade and the Honour of our Nation both of which are concern'd in this Affair as any of the other To wind up this matter if any Party in England entertain suspicions of us the better way to prevent us is to treat us kindly and enter into an Union with us on such Terms as his Majesty and the Parliament of both Kingdoms shall agree and so as the Civil and Religious Liberties of both People may be preserved That will be easier and safer than to relie on the Hopes of an uncertain Conquest or if they don't think fit to do so it 's but reasonable they should leave us in the undisturb'd possession of our own Liberties But if they will do neither let them no more accuse those that complain of this Treatment as Incendiaries but seriously examine whether they themselves mayn't with more Justice be accounted Oppressors PART II. Being a more particular Answer to H s's Libel WE come in the next place to take a Survey of H s Libel intituled The Defence of the Scots abdicating Darien and shall speedily shew to how little purpose his Suborners have spent their Pains and Mony on him The first Line of his Performance is a Banter upon his Majesty whom he charges with investing our Company with immense Privileges and Immunities by his Octroy of 1695. There 's no Man can be answerable for more sense than God has given him but tho H s understood no better his Masters at White-hall of whom he brags so much ought to have taken care that he should not run into Nonsense and an Invective against his Majesty at first dash To talk of granting us immense Privileges is to impeach his Majesty's Wisdom as if he had done a thing without parallel which is directly to incense the Kingdom of England against him as some bad People indeavour'd to do when by a Misrepresentation of our Design they stir'd up the House of Commons against it But had the Surgeon or his Suborners look'd into the Privileges of 21 Years freedom from all manner of Taxes granted to the Dutch East-India Company by the States of Holland and the vast Immunities granted by the French King the Danes and Brandenburghers to their Companies for trading to the East-Indies or even to those granted to the English East-India Company at first they would have found there was no reason to charge his Majesty with granting us such immense or unparallel'd Privileges or ascribing it to his not well knowing what he did for the noise of the Guns at Namur as this petulant Scribler does Dedication pag. 9. But if H s and his Suborners exclaim against our Privileges as immense they are resolv'd to diminish the Authority by which
Monarchs in their Grants and leave them no other Troops but their Garisons and Guards It was the Observation of the Earl of Shaftsbury whom his Enemies will own to have been a great Statesman that Scotland is a Door to let in Good or Evil upon England which is verified in the latter at least by the whole Course of our History since the Union for when K. Iames I. succeeded in trampling upon us he quickly began to huff his Parliaments in England and notwithstanding all the Remonstrances of Church and State would needs have a Popish Match for his Son tho he should sacrifice the Great Sir Walter Rawleigh his own Daughter the Queen of Bohemia and her Children together with the Protestant Interest in Germany to make way for it When Charles I. obtain'd footing for his Impositions on the Church and State of Scotland it 's well enough known what Methods he took with England and how he sacrific'd the Protestant Interest in France whilst he eagerly pursued an Arbitrary Sway at home When Charles II. got his Prerogative exalted and an Army at his Call allow'd him in Scotland it 's too late to be forgotten how he trod under foot the Liberties of England seiz'd the Charters of their Cities cut off whom he would by Sham-Plots and pav'd the way for Popery and Arbitrary Power When K. Iames II. did by his absolute Power and unaccountable Authority cass and annul all the Laws establishing the Reformation in Scotland it was not long e're he suspended the Laws imprison'd the Bishops and fill'd with Papists his Council Army and Universities in England From all which it is evident that our Neighbours have reason to look to themselves when we are oppress'd for in all probability their Acts of Parliament will not be long regarded when ours are annull'd and made void by the Intrigues of the Courtiers and West-India Proclamations The very Advocats of Tyranny make use of this as their Herculean Argument That the People having once resign'd their Privileges to the Crown have no more right to demand them which tho we will not allow to be any ways concluding yet we may very well make use of it ad hominem that a pari ratione when once a Prince has touch'd with his Scepter a Law for the benefit of his Subjects it is not in his power to revoke or counteract it or if he do by the same Power that he absolves himself from his Obligation to protect and defend his Subjects he absolves them from all obligation to pay him any Revenue or Allegiance This is the Birth-right of all Scots-men and if our Neighbours in England have a mind to sit still and see us bereft of it all the benefit they can expect from it is to have the Privilege of being devour'd last The rest of his Banter upon his native Country serves only to lessen his own credit and to make even those that set him at work curse him in thought not only as a Monster in nature but as dishonest to them by depriving them thus of the benefit of his Evidence for which they have paid him so well since no body in the world can think a man will have any regard to Truth that in such an impudent manner breaks thro all the Ties of Nature and as a just Judgment for so enormous a Crime is so far depriv'd of his reasoning Faculty that he is not fensible of his cutting his own Throat by contradicting himself almost in every Paragraph He upbraids us in one Page with not having dar'd to descend into the Plains and that those gallant Men our Ancestors durst not assemble for Worship before the Union except in a House whose Wall was twelve or 14 foot thick or to whisper their Prayers or Carrols thro the Cliffs of the Mountains In the next Page he tells us he has no Inclination to offer any thing in opposition to the Gallantry of our Ancestors and in some Pages following he impertinently ridicules the Valour of our Country in the Story of Baliol which he perverts in such a manner as no man but himself is capable of We don't think it worth while to answer him according to his Folly but shall once for all let him know that the most invective of the English Historians that wrote in the heat of the War do us more Justice than this unnatural Renegado There 's no Nation in Europe where we have not given proofs of our Valour nor is there a Court in Christendom where Scots-men are not valued on that account Sam. Daniel one of the best of the English Historians owns that never any People of the World did more gallantly defend their Liberties than we did in that very instance of Baliol when we were without a Head and from thence infers what was it we could not have done had we been then under the conduct of such a Leader as K. Robert Bruce Speed one of the gravest of the English Historians does generously own that few great Actions have been perform'd in Europe where the Scots have not been with the first and last in the Field We could easily give a proper Reply to the impertinent Romance which he brings about Baliol that would tend as much or more to the dishonour of Edward I. II. and III. than any thing that he and his Suborners have suggested can tend to the dishonour of our Nation but we forbear it having no design to reflect upon our Neighbours notwithstanding the rude Treatment and Provocation that we have had from H s and others on this occasion We can without thinking our selves injur'd own that the English are as brave Men as any in the World and are satisfied that such of our Neighbours as are Men of Honour and Reading will allow us the same Character We perceive it is the design of this Libeller and others to represent the English Nation as Enemies to us in this matter on purpose to set us together by the Ears but we are satisfied of the contrary as well knowing that not a few of our good Neighbours are much surpriz'd and displeas'd with our Treatment and look upon the same to be the effect of such Councils as are destructive to the Interest of both Nations We shall conclude this point with one Observation more upon H s's Ignorance and Malice in denying that the Scots expell'd Baliol from the Crown when such a noble Monument of the truth of it as the original Letter of the States of Scotland is still to be seen in the University of Oxford and exemplify'd by Dr. Burnet now Bishop of Sarum in his History of the Reformation and since it is also plain that our Ancestors chose Robert Bruce King during Baliol's Life-time and that Baliol at last resign'd all his Pretensions confess'd his Fault in subjecting the Crown of Scotland to that of England own'd that he was deservedly thrust from the Throne for it congratulated his Kinsman Robert Bruce's Advancement and that he had restor'd