Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	enact_v	english_a	great_a	41	3	2.1025	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39785	A short and impartial view of the manner and occasion of the Scots colony's coming away from Darien in a letter to a person of quality.	Fletcher, Andrew, 1655-1716.	1699 (1699)	Wing F1297; ESTC R6209	27,049	42

must not the Consideration of all these together have distracted and confounded the Thoughts Resolutions and Measures of any Sett of Men that could have been in the Colony unless they had unanimously resolved to have turn'd Pyrates indeed and to have cast off all manner of Loyalty and Obedience to his Majesty And in that same case they must have resolved to have been dis-own'd by Scotland as well as by England And if so pray from whom then must they have expected Protection And here I cannot suffer my self to pass by without taking notice of some Persons who would pretend to palliat or skin over any thing that may relate to those Proclamations upon a Suggestion as if they had been forsooth necessarly emitted in compliance with and in prosecution of an alledged English Act of Parliament and that therefore any particular Person or Persons cannot well be quarrelled for the same Which being a Suggestion that cannot well be obviated without having recourse to the English Acts of Parliament and but few People here having occasion to be acquainted with them I reckon it may not be thought much amiss to touch such of them as can any ways relate to the Matter in hand and shall therefore do it as succinctly as I can Every Body knows that by the English Act of Navigation 12. Car. 2. Cap. 18. It is Enacted that no Goods shall be imported into or exported out of any of the English Plantations in America in other Vessels than such as belong only to the People of England or Ireland or Wales or Town of Berwick or any of the said Plantations and whereof the Master and three Fourths of the Mariners shall be English under the Pains and Penalties mention'd in the said Act. Since which time neither we nor the People of any other Nation can pretend to any Right or Freedom of Trade and Commerce with the said Plantations except in Ships qualified as above So that the having of any such Freedom is what the Company never contended for By the very same Act It is likewise specially Enacted that no Sugars Tobacco Cotton-Wool Indicoes Ginger Fustick or any other Dying Wood of the Growth of any English Plantations in America shall be transported to any Place other than to some English Plantation or to England Ireland Wales or Town of Berwick on pain to forfeit both Ship and Cargo And this being a particular Enumeration of the several Commodities which are prohibited by the said Act to be transported into any Place or Plantation belonging to Forreigners it follows of Consequence That all manner of Provisions and other Necessaries whatsoever which were not prohibited by the said Act might be transported from the English Plantations in Ships qualified as aforesaid whethersoever the Master should think fitt And that it has been all along the constant Practice of such Masters as Sail commonly from New-England New-York and the other Northernmost Plantations of America to do so is what I suppose none that knows any thing of that Trade will deny And tho' upon Complaints made in the Year 1695 to the Parliament of England of some Frauds and Abuses committed in the Plantation-Trade contrary to the Act above-recited they thought fit to superinduce some new Act with very strict Clauses to inforce and put in Practice the true Intent and Meaning of the said first Act yet I dare adventure to say that no Man can let me see an Act of the Parliament of England laying any such Restraint on the Inhabitants of the English Plantations in America as that they cannot carry or sell Provisions to any Forreign Place or Plantation whatsoever Which makes the Hardships of these Proclamations still the greater in this that we who are His Majesty's own Subjects should be denyed the common Benefit of having our Colony supplied with Provisions from the English Plantations by English Vessels in the ordinary way of Commerce while at the same time it is most certain that neither the Dutch at Curacao the Danes at St. Thomas the French at St. Christophers Martinico Petitguavis or Hispaniola nor the Portuguise at the Maderas or Tessera-Islands were ever to this Hour denyed the Benefit thereof except in the Case of declared War And even then too the selling them Provisions and perhaps some other Merchandise likewise is often wink 't at as is at this time the carrying of Provisions Negro's and other Commodities from the English Plantations to several parts of the Spanish Dominions in the West-Indies So that to our Comfort we are the only Nation under Heaven that I could ever yet hear of against whom any such Proclamations have been published by the English in their American Plantations Nor was it thought enough that upon the first Orders sent from England dated as I am informed the second Day of January 1698 9 the said Proclamations against our Colony were published in Barbados and Jamaica in the Month of April and in all the other English Plantations in some short time thereafter But that upon second Orders a second Fleece of Proclamations should be likewise published by the same Persons and in the same Places to let the World see that the first were not grounded upon Mistake but that they were resolved to make their Putt good For upon the 5th day of September last a second Proclamation pretty near in Substance with the former was published in Barbados and some of those lately come from New-York in the Company 's Ship the Caledonia do Report That three or four Days before they set sail from thence there were fresh Orders arriv'd at New-England for emitting and publishing second Proclamations in those parts against our Colony which gives us sufficient ground to believe that like Orders were sent to all the other Plantations Yet such as have a Mind to be Talking will always find something to Amuse the Multitude withal be it never so little to the purpose And thus we find some People still urging that notwithstanding of those Proclamations some Inhabitants in the English Plantations who are Zealous Well-Wishers to this Undertaking have since the Publication of those Proclamations sent some Sloops and Brigantines to the Colony and that therefore the Proclamations were not the Occasion of the Colony's coming away from Darien but that the same proceeded from other Causes and that if the Colony had staid still and maintain'd their Settlement more Sloops and Brigantines would beyond all peradventure be sent to them from time to time till the Company 's own Ships should arrive there Well! All this is very plausible and I think our Nation as well as the Company is very much beholden to the Generous and Kind Inclinations of those Gentlemen who ventured any part of their own Interest so frankly to support that of the Company or Colony But as it happen'd Pray what was the Colony the better for it Did any of those Sloops or Brigantins arrive at Darien before the Colony's Departure thence Or had the Colony so much

setting up Packet-Boats as a Remedy against the Effects of Proclamations which I may say would have been undutiful in them to have dreaded But yet to let you see the Effects of those Proclamations even in point of bare Correspondence I do assure you that several of the Company 's Packets directed to the Council of their Colony under cover to particular Friends in the English Plantations of America are to this Hour lying in the Hands of those Friends who wrote back hither That by Reason of the Strictness and Severity of those Proclamations they durst not venture to foreward the said Packets to the Colony because if they should happen to be discovered in holding any such Correspondence as Ten to One but they would the least that they could expect was Confinement and to be afterwards sined at the next Grand Session by the Discretion of a Jury and that the Discretion of that Jury would be directed by the degree of Love they bear our Country and the Wishes they have to the Prosperity of an Undertaking of this Nature By which it is plain That the Proclamations have put a stop to the Colony's getting Intelligence from hence and that if no such Proclamations had been issued forth there had been no such indispensible Necessity for Packet-Boats to have been sent directly from hence to the Colony at least before the Directors had an account of their Settlement as some mighty Pretenders will tell us now there was And yet nevertheless it 's evident by what has been already said that the Directors did positively intend to have dispatched a Vessel with Advice and Provisions to the Colony very soon after their Departure from Leith and for that end used all other endeavours by Petition and otherwise to have procured one or two of the small Friggots which are still lying useless in Bruntisland-Harbour as being the fittest they could think of for that Purpose and in regard that the Parliament was pleas'd to order the building of those Friggots for the Security and Advantage of the Trade of the Kingdom and that the Conclusion of the General Peace took away all manner of Occasion for them in the narrow Seas it was thought they could not be otherwise so well imploy'd as in carrying on and supporting the Designs and Interest of this Company especially since the Estates of Parliament by their Address formerly recited were pleased to express a singular Concern for it's Prosperity and Welfare And if the Directors said Petition had been seconded as well as was expected and that they had got the Use of all or any of the said Friggots there had been in all probability no such occasion of Clamour against them as now there is for not having sent any Ships directly from hence to the Colony soon enough with Provisions and Intelligence But nevertheless 't is likewise evident by what has been already narrated that upon the Directors losing Hopes of procuring any of the said Friggots they came to a positive Resolution of dispatching a small Vessel directly from hence to the Colony with Advice and Provisions in the Month of January at furthest tho' as cross Fate would have it she happen'd to be such a Ship as could not well be fitted out for such a Voyage in some Months time thereafter Upon discovery whereof they fitted another small Vessel which sail'd from Clyde in the Month of February but was unluckily Shipwrack'd by a violent Storm on the West-Coast of Scotland as I have formerly narrated Yet still there are some who right or wrong will have the Management bear the sole Blame of all the Mis-fortunes that have happen'd to the Company and Colony and stick not to say too that the Colony's coming away in the manner they did was not occasion'd so much by the Effects of those Proclamations as by the Treachery and Villainy of some of their own Number Well let us for once suppose there was Treachery in the Case does that lessen the Effects of those Proclamations No certainly but rather aggravates For if there was any Treachery in the case these Proclamations gave the Traitors a better Handle to work by than any other Pretence they could have made use of I would gladly know further whether we can suppose there could be Treachery without supposing at the same time that some Person or other must have brib'd the Traitor And if so it seems natural to believe that none would be so ready to do that as some of those who were concerned in issuing forth those Proclamations So that still we are cloven to pieces with a Wedge of the same Timber Nay further what if notwithstanding of those Proclamations the Colony had never budged but remained still in their Settlement in a flourishing Condition and that they had been in such Circumstances that the Proclamations could have done them no Harm Shall any Man therefore mantain that the issuing forth of those Proclamations was a good and harmless Thing Sure no Man has Face enough to say so For their having or not having the design'd Effect could not at all alter the Nature or Intention of them But really for my part I cannot conceive how it could be possible for a Colony consisting of the King of Britain's Subjects to have been in any such good circumstances but that those Proclamations must necessarly have done them a vast prejudice if not ruin'd them For suppose that in the Month of May last when they got the first Copy of the Jamaica-Proclamation they had been all in perfect Health and Vigour and had had plenty of fresh Provisions strong Liquors and all other Necessaries whatsoever lying by them in store What then Must they not have seen at first view and considered that by the said Proclamation they were declared to have actually broken the Peace entred into with his Majesty's Allies by settling at Darien and that therefore they must expect to have been treated as Pyrates Must they not have considered that tho' the said Proclamation was emitted against them in the King of England's Name only that yet the same person was King of Scotland also and that the Matter being so they could have but small Hopes of being vigorously protected by the King of Scotland against the King of England's Proclamations Must they not have considered that their then declared Enemies the Spaniards would undoubtedly be thereby encouraged to pursue their Ends against them with greater Assurance and much more Vigor than perhaps otherways they durst have done Must they not have considered that upon every the least Discontent or capricious Humor of any of their own People this Proclamation would be made use of as a Handle to be very troublesome and uneasy to the rest of the Colony as indeed it has been to their sad Experience Must they not think that since the said Proclamation was published in his Majesty's Name that undoubtedly it must needs have been legally founded upon some positive Law tho' they knew nothing of it And