have a mind to Imitate such a self-ruining madness the dire Events and many heavy and remediless Calamities which fell upon the over-sparing and cautious Constantinopolitans who denying their Emperor a necessary and fitting Aid to defend them as well as himself made the Turks Master of all Greece so renowned heretofore for Learning and that City and the Riches of it a twentieth or a very small part whereof might have disappointed all the Tyranny Bondage and Slavery which they have ever since been under and are according to Humane Judgement like to continue to the end of the World in no better a Condition And now that Hannibal is ad Portas Dangers on all sides encompassing and crowding in upon us we should neither forsake our selves and good old England which will surely be worth the saving nor so much mistake that which was ever accompted to be Reason Wisdom and Forecast as to undervalue the prospect and the cares of Prevention laugh at them as Pedantick Fopperies or the dotage of a Decrepit World and like Jonas displeasing his God fall asleep in the midst of a Tempest But rather make hast to return to our selves and set before us the Wisdom and Examples of our Ancestors and Predecessors who in the care of themselves and of the Private and Publick not separate but joyned together as well as of their Kings and Soveraigns would not be deterred by any Statemisfortunes or Irregularities or tempted by their Jealousies or Fears to suffer themselves as the Members and smaller parts of the Body to languish and be destroyed by neglecting the Head and the Security and Safety thereof or by not paying their Duty and Reverence to their Kings hate and ruine themselves which in all their Discontents and Murmurings against their Kings and Government the Anxieties or Commotions of their Minds and Passions or the Dispairs which had sometimes seized upon them they did so much seek to avoid as they did not refuse them Aids in all their Wars and Troubles Domestick and Foreign King Henry the Second who after a very great and general Act of resumption of the Aliened Crown Revenue some whereof had been granted by himself had discontented many of his great Nobility when all his Sons had Rebelled Warred and taken Arms against him wanted not a supply by Escuage from his Subjects of England to reduce them to Obedience and make his Wars in France King Richard the First being unfortunately in his Return Incognito from his warlike and glorious Expedition to Jerusalem made Prisoner by an unworthy Surprize of the Duke of Austria and the German Emperor enforced as some of our Historians have reported for his Deliverance to invest the former of them with the Superiority of his Kingdom of England by the delivering of his Hat unto him which the Emperor in the presence of divers of the Nobility of Germany and England returned unto him to hold the Kingdom of him by the Annual Tribute of Fifty thousand pound Sterling and his Brother John Usurping the Crown in his absence and Plotting with the Emperor and the King of France his mortal Enemy to continue him a Prisoner during his Life both Laiety and Clergy notwithstanding that he had by the perswasion of the Clergy more than of the Laiety been ingaged in that very Expensive War did so strain themselves to redeem the Person of their King the Kingdom and People at that time being secure enough from Foreign Invasions as they raised and paid One hundred and fifty thousand Marks in pure Silver of Cologn weight then a very great Sum of Money by Twenty Shillings imposed upon every Knights Fee the fourth part of the Revenue of the Laiety and the like of the Clergy a tenth of their Goods all or most the Chalices and Treasure of the Church being then also not a little sold to make up the Sum So as William Petit or Newbrigensis who wrote his Book in that time saith Ferè exmunita pecuniis Anglia videretur England seemed to be almost emptied of all her Money and the like courses were held for raising that then great Sum of Money in all his Dominions beyond the Seas King John likewise having resum'd much of his Crown-Lands Murdered as was suspected his Nephew Arthur the right Heir to the Crown and thereby forfeited the Dutchy of Normandy to the King of France of whom he held it and in those many Troubles and Distresses which were cast upon him by his unruly Baronage constrained to acknowledge to hold his Kingdoms of England and Dominion of Ireland of the Pope and his Successors in Fee-Farm under the yearly Rent of One thousand Marks per Annum Charged his Earls and Barons with the Losses which he had sustained in France Fined and made them pay a seventh part of all their Goods had Two marks and a half granted unto him by the Parliament out of every Knight's Feé and within a year after a thirteenth part of all the Moveables and other Goods as well of the Clergy as of the Laiety King Henry the Third his Son resum'd all the Lands alien'd from the Crown had so great Troubles entail'd upon him by the Contests of his boisterous Baronage with his Father as Lewis the French King's Son was called in by some of them received their Homage and had London and a great part of the Kingdom delivered up and put into his Possession but upon better Consideration was afterwards sent home again by those that Invited him and the Barons of England having so little accorded with their Native King as several Battels were fought betwixt them in one of which the King himself was taken Prisoner and in another released by the Valour of the Prince his Son the managers of that Rebellion Slain and their multitude of Partizans reduced to Obedience being a great part of the Kingdom by their Compounding with his Commissioners at Kenelworth to give him Seven years Purchase of the yearly value of their Lands which amounted to a very great Sum of Money for a Pardon for their Offences and a Redemption of their Estates the Subjects and People of this Nation did howsoever in order to their own Preservation besides the fifteenth part of all their Goods for his Grants of Magna Charta and Charta Forestae not deny him their Aids of Scutage Fifteenths and Tenths there being scarce a year wherein there was not a Parliament and seldom any Parliament without a Tax King Edward the First notwithstanding his Writs of Quo Warranto brought against all the Nobility Great Men Gentry and others of England Cities and Burroughs Claiming Liberties and Priviledges wherein he did put them strictly to prove them either by Grant or Prescription seized and confiscated the Estates of the Earls of Gloucester Hereford and Norfolk Men of great Might and Power for their refusing to go and serve him in his Wars beyond the Seas the Earl of Hereford being Constable and the Earl of Norfolk Earl Marshal of
England by Inheritance And their mutual Rancors and Displeasures with the grand Contests of them and their Parties to procure the Statutes of Articuli super Chartas de Tallagio non Concedendo were not healed without the Aids and Subsidies of his People The mis-government and mis-leading of King Edward the Second by his several Favorites Peirce Gaveston and the Spencers did not hinder him from the Supplies of his People King Edward the Third after a fifteenth of the Temporalty a twentieth part of the Goods of the Cities and Burroughs and a tenth of the Clergy granted unto him by Parliament in the Eighth year of his Reign having consumed much Treasure in his Wars made for the Kingdom of France which he claimed as his Inheritance wherein the English Nation more than for the Grandeur and Honour of their Prince were not much concerned but were jealous until an Act or Declaration of the King in Parliament was procured to the contrary that the Conquest of France might have caused England to have been afterwards dependant upon that greater Crown and Kingdom was notwithstanding the seizure and taking into his hands the Goods and Estates of three Orders of Monks viz. The Lombards Cluniacks and Cistertians and all the Treasure committed to the Custody of the Churches through England for the Holy War forced to revoke divers Assignations made for Payment of Moneys though he had received Three Millions of Crowns of Gold for the Ransom of John King of France whom his Son the Black Prince had taken Prisoner and was not put to lose any of his Honour Friends Estate or Interest for want of the necessary Assistance of his Subjects who for the maintenance of those and other his Wars were howsoever well content to give him half of the Laieties Wool and a whole of the Clergies and at another time the ninth Sheaf the ninth Fleece and ninth Lamb for two years and after many other Taxes and Aids granted in several Parliaments of his Reign and a Commission sent into every Shire to enquire of the value of every man's Estate The Treasure of the Nation being much exhausted found the People so willing to undergo that and other Burdens which those successful Wars had brought upon them as the Ladies and Gentlewomen did willingly Sacrifice their Jewels to the Payment of his Souldiers That Unfortunate Prince Richard the Second his Grandchild tossed and perplexed with the Greatness Ambition and Factions of his Uncles and the subtil underminings of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster the most powerful of them fatally continued and pursued by Henry of Bullingbrook his Son Duke of Hereford was not in all those his Distresses so unhappy but that although the Commons in Parliament had by their Petitions unto him complained That for want of good Redress about his Person and in his Houshold and Courts the Commons were daily pilled and nothing defended against the Enemy and that it would shortly undo him and the whole Estate yet they were so mindful of their Soveraign and themselves as they not only afforded him very great Aids and Assistances but in the Fourteenth year of his Reign the Lords and Commons in Parliament did Pray That The Prerogative of the King and his Crown might be kept and all things done or attempted to the contrary might be redressed and that he might be as free as any of his Royal Progenitors were And in the Fifteenth year of his Reign did in Parliament require him That He would as largely enjoy his Prerogative as any of his Progenitors notwithstanding any Statute and namely the Statute of Gloucester in the time of King Edward the Third the which Statute they utterly repealed out of their tender affection to the King King Henry the Fourth Fifth and Sixth although well understood to have been Kings de facto not de jure for so not seldom have been the Pleadings at the Law of their Acts of Parliament and although the later of those Kings being Crowned King of France in his Infancy and in Possession of that Kingdom was by his Meek and Pious rather than Prudent Government a great part of the Cause of the Bloody Contests betwixt the Two Houses of York and Lancaster which ruined very many of the Nobility and Gentry by taking their several Parties and were by their Discords the loss of all the Kingdom of France but Calice And that Richard Duke of York had in Parliament so claimed and wrestled for the Crown as he was declared Protector of the Kingdom of England enjoyed notwithstanding the care and good will of their Subjects upon all occasions either at home or abroad in times of Peace or War by their Contributions of Subsidies King Edward the Fourth in the brunt and hottest of the long continued bloody Contentions of the two great Houses and Families of York and Lancaster after nine Battels won by himself attested by his Surcoat of Arms which he wore therein hung up as a Trophy in the Cathedral Church of St. George at Windsor and his many struglings with King Henry the Sixth and his Party in losing and gaining the Crown again War with France and compelling the crafty Lewis the 11 th the King thereof to demand a Peace and consent to pay him 75000 Crowns towards his War Expences and a Tribute of 50000 Crowns yearly during the life of King Edward notwithstanding that he had in the second year of his Reign sate in a Michaelmas Term three days together in his Court of Kings Bench and gathered great Sums of Money of the People of England by his Privy Seal towards his Wars with the Scots and in the Seventh year of his Reign resumed by Act of Parliament all the Grants which he had made since he took Possession of the Realm raised great Sums of Money by Benevolences and Penal Laws had in the Eighth year of his Reign granted him by Act of Parliament two fifteens and a Demy and in the Thirteenth year of his Reign a Subsidy towards his Wars with France when the Actions Courage and Wisdom of Parliaments were so incertain as there was in the space of half a year one Parliament Proclaiming King Edward an Usurper and King Henry a Lawful King and another Proclaiming King Edward a Lawful King and King Henry an Usurper King Henry the Seventh although that he sometimes declared That he held the Crown as won in Battel by Conquest of King Richard the Third and at other times by his better Title from the House of York and his Marriage with the Lady Elizabeth the Daughter of King Edward the Fourth and avaritiously took all the ways possible for the enriching of his Treasury had divers great Aids and Subsidies granted unto him by Parliament King Henry the Eighth notwithstanding that he had after many great Subsidies and Aids both as to the Money and manner of Collecting it granted unto him his Heirs and Successors by several Parliaments and the first Fruits and Tenths of
perswade her or her Learned Successor notwithstanding the Horrid design of the Gunpowder Treason against him and his Posterity and the wiser as they should be and better part of his Subjects Assembled in Parliament to be more than prudentially rigorous to that Party whose Friends in other Countries might retalliate any Severity used to theirs And although she made some fierce and smart Laws to affright those that called themselves Catholicks for principles inconsistent with the Safety of her Soveraignty and its Government which in all these Acts of Parliament appeared to be more against the Emissaries from Rome which came to Seduce and lead them into such dangerous Errors than to forbid any thing that was Innocent in the private Devotions religious and practical part of it that Great Queen and King well understanding that they could not by any Rules of State Justice or Modesty of which Princes when there is not so great Inequality as to give them an absolute Dominion over one another are usually very tender require any Ease or Liberties for Protestants living under other Princes and their Laws when they can neither promise or perform Mutualities or Reciprocations And therefore the Learned King James when the House of Commons in Parliament had Petitioned him to give some stop to the growth of Popery one Cause whereof they assigned to be the Interposition of Foreign Princes Embassadors and Agents in favour of Papists Answered That they might rest secure that he would never be weary to do all he could for the Propagation of the Protestant Religion and Suppression of Popery but the manner and form they were to remit to his Care and Providence who could best consider of times and seasons but his Care of Religion must be such as on the one part he must not by the hot Persecution of our Recusants at home irritate Foreign Princes of a contrary Religion and teach them a way to plague the Protestants in their Dominions with whom he daily interceeded and at that time principally for ease to them of our Profession that live under them And in the 21 th year of his Reign in a Speech which he made in Parliament declared to the Lords and Commons That it was true that at times for Reasons best known to himself he did not so fully put Laws in Execution against Recusants but did wink and connive at some things which might have hindred more weighty Affairs But he did never in all his Treaties agree to any thing to the overthrow and dissolution of those Laws but had in all a chief care of the preservation of that truth which he ever professed for as it was a good Horseman's part not always to use his Spurs and keep strait the Reins but sometime to suffer the Reins to be more remiss So it was the part of a Wise King and his Age and Experience in Government had informed him sometimes to quicken the Laws with Executions and at other times upon just Occasions to be more remiss But as God shall Judge him he never thought or meant nor ever in any word expressed any thing that savoured of it and prayed them to root out Jealousies which were the greatest Weeds in their Garden For certainly to Consiseate two parts of three of a Papist's Lands or disinherit the next Heir if bred up in that Religion can never amount to the avail of Protestants in Transilvania Hungary Bohemia Silesia Moravia Poland Upper or Lower Austria Piedmont Flanders Brabant and the rest of the Belgick Provinces nor under those which were United and Confederate the Hause-Towns Bearne and some other of the Cantons of Switzerland and the bad enough already used Multitudes of Huguenots in France Nor can the Persecution or destroying of the greater part of the Protestants beyond the Seas to gratifie the humerous pretences and causeless fears of the more Imprudent and lesser part of the Protestants of England be by any rule of right reason adjudged to be for the Protestant Interest And upon the like advice and reason may our fears of any Invasion upon our Properties and just Rights disappear and vanish as soon as they shall with any eye of Judgment be but looked upon nor will ever be able to endure the touchstone of Truth when our Liberties are so Impregnable and fortified by very many of our good Laws and Liberties and by our Magna Charta and Charters de Foresta more than Thirty times confirmed by Acts of Parliament for those great Charters were never singly or by themselves so many times confirmed by Acts of Parliament When by that excellent Law and Charter freely granted in the Ninth year of the Reign of King Hen. 3. No Freeman may be taken or Imprisoned or be disseised of his freehold Liberties or free Customs be Outlawed or Exiled or in any manner destroyed but by the lawful Judgment of his Peers or by the Law of the Land no man shall be amerced for a small fault or if for a greater saving to him his Contenement and a Merchant saving to him his Merchandize Earls and Barons shall not be amerced but by their Peers the King will not sell deny or defer any Man either Justice or Right No Man of the Church shall be amerced after the quantity of his Spiritual benefit but after the quantity of his Lay-tenement and the quantity of his Offence and a Villain shall not be amerced but saving his Wainage and that all things done to the contrary shall be void Sureties or Pledges shall not be Charged for any Debts of the King if the Debtor hath Goods and Chattels to pay the Debt and is ready to pay None shall be Distreined for more Service than is due Common Pleas shall not follow the King 's Court. Those that do commit Redisseisin shall be Imprisoned and not delivered without special Commandment of the King and shall make Fine to the King for the Trespass By an Act of Parliament made in the Third year of King Edward the First none shall be attached by any occasion nor fore-judged of life or limb nor his Lands Tenements Goods or Chattels seised into the King's hands against the form of the Great Charter and the Law of the Land No City Burrough or Town nor any Man shall be amerced without reasonable Cause and according to the quantity of his Trespass that is to say every Freeman saving his Free-hold and Merchant saving his Merchandize a Villain saving his Gainure and that by his or their Peers By an Act of Parliament made in the 25th year of his Reign The King will take no Aids or Prizes but by the Common consent of the Realm saving the ancient Aids and Prizes due and accustomed Aids and Taxes granted to the King shall not be taken for a Custom No Officer of the King by themselves or any other shall maintain Pleas Suits or Matters hanging in the King's Court for Lands Tenements or other things to
of any of their Kings and Princes at once with an Addition afterwards of another Pardon or Abolition of a lesser size for Offences and Forfeitures since committed and did not only restore unto all the Cities Boroughs and Corporations of England and Wales their forfeited Charters Privileges and Liberties but enlarged and gave unto many of them more than they had before And was so unwilling to Punish those that had done him and his Royal Father Mother Brothers Sisters those almost impossible to be forgotten or forgiven most execrable Villanies as he not only Pardoned but gave them profitable Employments who to their shame cozened him all they could and moulded themselves into a Faction of Repeating as many Impieties as they had been guilty of before and was so over Clement and forgiving as he imployed and did not Punish one that was proved to have said after His Majestie 's escape from the Battel of Worcester That if he had been taken he ought to have been stripped stark Naked led through the Streets with a Bridle thrust through an hole bored in his Nose Whipped at a Carts tail and afterwards Hanged Are not to be very angry or take it ill if they be charged with Partiality or Injustice or as great a Reproach as our Blessed Saviour bestowed upon the over-quick-sighted fault-finding Pharisee who could espy a mote as he thought in another's eye but not see a beam in his own but rather retire into themselves and upon a more strict Examination of their past evil Actions abhor themselves in dust and ashes cover their heads with shame weep repent and resolve to walk retrograde and persist no more in the gain-saying of Corah Datham and Abiram wherein they perished When they who would make every body as much afraid as they themselves do seem to fear an Inclination in His Majesty to an Arbitrary Power which he never did or is willing to exercise can almost every day joyn with others in Complaints of the no few of the Subordinate Magistrates usurping it against the mind and direction of the King and his Laws over their fellow Subjects by their Irregular courses Condemning and many times Imprisoning without Jury Trial legal Hearing or Proceedings And easily discern an yearly Custom of an illegally over-strained Power in the Lord Maiors of London Electing and Drinking unto many or more than needs in the Choice of two to be Sheriffs of London and Middlesex for the ensuing year and imposing and taking great Fines of the Refusers unto whom he needed not to have Drank whereby to gain some Thousands of Pounds yearly for the Fines of such as were unwilling or unfit to bear the Charge or Expence of those Offices and Imprison and Constrain them to pay them which are seldom less than 4 or 500 l. upon every such Refuser As if some fatal and successive Annual or fit of Thirst or kind Drinking was at a certain Time of every year to fall upon the Lord Maiors of that City to Drink more often and unto more than he should do And they that shall happen to be so imposed upon are sure to be out of hopes of getting themselves discharged of Imprisonment for not paying the Fine by Writs of Habeas Corpus and Bail which if the King should do every year in the Choice of Three presented unto him to serve as Sheriffs in all other Counties and Places of England and Wales no other City or Place therein making use of such a kind and loving Device to raise Moneys the Habeas Corpora Bells would Ring in all the Courts of Justice in Westminster-Hall and His Majesty would be troubled with the noise thereof And no small Arbitrary Power in their Courts of Orphants in London by Imprisoning a young Man in Newgate without Bail or Mainprise that had lawfully Married a City Orphant and his Father in like manner for contriving it And we may often hear and observe in the Guilds Fraternities and Companies of Trade and their Mysteries in the City of London an almost unbounded over absolute Power in their By-Laws which should be perused as it is more than a little probable they are not or but very seldom or cursorily by the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord Treasurer and the two Lord Chief Justices and allowed by them or any three of them to be according to the Law together with their giving of unlawful Oaths imposing of Taxes Quarteridges or Fines and Assessements as they please upon the Poorer sort of the Companies of Trades supernumerating their Livery Men in their Companies in making them to be twice as many as they were wont to be and inforcing them to Pay 20 or 25 l. a Man and be at the Charge of a reverend Gown faced with Furrs of Foynes or Budge and Imprison Men for not obeying them and their grinding superfluous Orders The Exactions and Arbitrary Power of the Church-Officers in the City of London and its overgrown Suburb Parishes in the Renting of Pews and Seats in the Churches making Strangers pay great and double Fees for Tolling the Passing Bell and Ringing of a Peal when there was no such Matters taking great Fees for Burying of the Dead in the Church or Chancel near an Husband Wife Father or Mother Brother or Sister where before they have lain there a quarter of a year or a little time they are sure to be taken up again and flung into a Common Vault to lodge amongst those that were Buried far cheaper conniving at or permitting the Parish Clerks Sextons or Grave-makers to sell the broken and sometimes pillaged Coffins of the Dead to be made fewel for fire or Bake-houses cozening the Living and Dead feasting and fatning themselves upon every small Consultation and Parish meeting for the good as they call it or little Business of the Parish as for the putting out a Bastard or Foundling or poor Parish Child to a Beggar to beg with and trouble the Streets withal at a low weekly rate and take the advantage to themselves of reckoning by a greater which have been the cause of such short Memories in Parish Politicks and Governments as the Accompt of a Legacy of Three hundred Pounds per Annum as they may be now demised in Houses and Tenements in a London Suburb Parish for as many hundred years ago for the Building of the Church yet standing upon its old Ruins is so vanished as it is not at all to be found and a royal Charity of One hundred and Twenty pounds given in the year 1625. by King Charles the Martyr in a Time of Pestilence could never be heard of and the Church wardens or Collectors of a near London Parish have been so over-watched for the good of the Parish and thereby rendred so sleepy or Lethargick as they could not good People as they would be thought to be tell which way One Thousand or Two Thousand pounds have escaped out of the Accompt and the fault
League with the French may as little Prejudice us and our Laws and Liberties as it did those of the Dutch when they were in the strictest Alliance or Confederacy with them For no man can be so transported out of himself as to believe that a Neighborhood or a League for Civil and other Respects can work any Prejudice to the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Subjects of either Prince or State not granted away or Contracted for by such Leagues when every days Experience declares the contrary for otherwise the Poles whose King is Elective and their Laws so very much obliging him as he cannot alter the Freedom and Constitutions of the Peoples Liberties would be in danger of the Mahometan Extravagancies of Power to be brought in upon them when their Kings have made any Leagues with the Turks or Grand Seignior and the Sweedish Nation in fear of their Elective King 's introducing the vast and unruly Power of the Muscovite whose Subjects being under a mighty awe Ignorance and enforced Obedience have no more to answer when any State-Affairs are enquired of them than that God and the Great Duke do only know it Insomuch as the Provocation of the Dutch being so great and the Vindication of the Honour of the King Trade of the Nation Safety of the People and Soveraignty of the Sea so necessary as a War with them could not be avoided There was no other either visible or possible means to manage it with Prudence or Success than by the making of the League with France who had pretences of his own to joyn with ours In regard that Land-Armies and Forces were not able alone to bring them to good Terms without the assistance and aid of a great and mighty Navy at Sea which might be able to overcome and beat them in that which was their greatest Strength without which it would have been impossible for the English or French joyntly or seperately ever to have forced them to reason The King of Spain who would heretofore have been glad of such a Part'ner as the English to help to subdue those his formerly truly accompted Rebels of the United Provinces who by the help of the English and French had in a War of almost Sixty years together done him so very much wrong and many Mischiefs was then become so jealous of the growing greatness of France as he found it to be his Interest to assist those that had so greatly damnified him and were no other than his Hogen Mogen Rebels The Swede and Danes greatly concerned in their Trade and the Profit and Gain which they daily received by them in the Baltick Sea would not joyn in any War against them and if they would have been willing were at too great a distance and the forcing of passage would have been as difficult and dangerous as it would have been Chargeable and the like might have been said of the Elector of Brandenburgh who was in League Amity and Interest with them and the most part of the other German Princes being of small Power far off and inconsiderable who might not make War with any Members of the Empire as the Dutch being part of the lower Circle of Burgundy were without the Approbation of the Emperor and their Diets and the Charge and little Success of hiring the Bishop of Munster to raise Forces whereby to make a Diversion and Incumbrance upon them in our former Wars with them had taught us what little good and at how great an Expence that design effected And it is well known that an Army for the intended Recovery of the Palatinate was in the 21 th year of the Reign of King James by an able and select Council of War and the Approbation of the Parliament then thought not to be sufficient with the Aid of the Dutch in their Provisions and passage under the Number of 25000 Foot and 5000 Horse and the Charge of 30000 l. to furnish them with Necessaries And when afterwards Count Mansfeild a second Hannibal and one of the greatest Captains of his time in Christendom had with 12000 Foot and 200 Horse Levied here and encouraged by K. James and the Parliament some promised Aids from France and some other States and Princes undertook to regain that wasted Countrey of the Palatinate Ship'd his Men and was at Sea with them the King of France's denying their Landing at Calice and promised Passage and the Province or States of Zealand when he attempted to Land his Men upon their Coasts making a like refusal the Pestilence and Flux whilst they were at Sea penn'd up and almost stifled in the Ships killed two parts in three of them and the remaining third part mouldring away that Action and all the Design hopes charges and Endeavours of it miscarried and came to nothing And certainly the English War with the Dutch Petitioned for by the Parliament put and carried on with so much reason of State and by so many very Important Necessities might Claim to be as well allowed to be without any detriment to the Interest of the Protestant Religion as other Wars betwixt Protestants heretofore have been upon Civil Accompts and Controversies The Dutch upon a pretence of their better defending themselves against any Attempts or Increase of Power of the Spaniard their then Enemy did take and keep Wesell and some Towns in the Dutchies of Cleve and Juliers and other Frontier Towns belonging to the Elector of Brandenburgh a Protestant Prince the Justice whereof hath not yet been understood by the Learned in Politicks and Affairs of State were not Incumbred with any Accusation of weakening the Protestant Religion and it must needs remain a Problem never to be determined but put upon the File of Eternity what can be the Reason that Oliver Cromwell and his Party of Regicide Rebels about the year 1654. upon far less Provocations should so chearfully be aided and assisted in his Maritine Wars with the Hollanders until he beat them into a Peace and acknowledgment of the English Soveraignty over the Brittish Seas enforced upon them the Act of Navigation That no Commodities Transported into England from thence or of the growth of those Countries or any other Neighbour Countries should be brought by them but in English Bottoms and made them stink in the Nostrils of all Nations and to be guilty of a most horrid Ingratitude in the renouncing the Prince of Orange and his Illustrious Family and taking from them those Offices and Places which they and their Ancestors had in their Defence so dearly purchased and yet his Cromwellian Power was not at all accused for hurting the Protestant Religion or how our Wars with the Dutch in the years 1664. and 1665. upon far less Provocation should be Petitioned for by our Merchants and both Houses of Parliament and willingly contributed unto and not at all believed to be against the Protestant Religion and why the War now made upon greater Affronts and Injuries should be an undermining of
Pleadings form and frame thereof to be translated and only used in the English Language on purpose and with a design to Abrogate them and make way for a new Fabrick and Engine of Laws for the establishing of his intended absolute manner of Arbitrary Government encouraged and Pensioned Mr. White a profest Papist and Mr. Hobbs Men of great Learning which might have been better Imployed to Write and Publish Books to vindicate and justifie the necessity of an Absolute Power in Supreme Magistracy and others to Write and Publish their unsound Opinions that Copyhold Estates were a Badge of the Norman Slaveries that the eldest Sons or only Daughters in every Family had no right to any more than a double Portion of their Father's real Estate that University-Learning was needless with a purpose to Confiscate their Revenues and Payment of Tythes unlawful permitted Servants to betray and sequester their Masters Tenants their Landlords Wives their Husbands and Children their Parents only because they were unwilling to be Perjured in their new Oaths and Ingagements or wretchedly willing to forsake their Loyalty and the Laws of God and the Kingdom suffered his illiterate Commanders to threaten to pull the Gowns from off the Lawyers Backs and Publickly to declare That it would never be well until their Gowns were like the Colours taken from their Subdued Scots Brethren hung up in Westminster-Hall made his Major Generals Governors in several Provinces who abusing and domineering over the Laws Imprisoned men without Cause and suffered the Nobility of England to stand bare and uncovered before them and to be Arrested and Drag'd in the Streets by Bailiffs and Catchpoles for Debt when they had nothing left to pay them Prohibited ejected Orthodox Ministers to bring Actions at Law for recovery of their Rights and all others to demand or seek to recover at Law their Debts or other Rights by any Actions or Suits in Law or Equity unless they took the aforesaid Engagement against the King and House of Lords tired and almost starved with tricks and delays the poor deprived Ministers Wives and Children of their fifth part of the Profits of their Husbands and Fathers Benefices which they seemed to allow unto them gave a considerable yearly Salary duly paid to Lilly the fooling and cozening Astrologer to foretel in his State as well as weather Almanacks good or bad Events to Lacquy after his accursed Designs and positively assert by his pretended intimacy with the Stars that in such a year before His Majestie 's happy Restauration Prince Rupert who God be thanked is yet living was certainly to be Hanged Constituted a House composed of his Army Commanders and some other of his Nymrods and Deputy-oppressors many whereof had been formerly well instructed in the Arts of Coblers Draymen and Bodies-making c. and instead of an House of Peers called it the Other House And when Mr. Coney a London Merchant being Imprisoned against the Law without a Cause shewn had brought his Habeas Corpus to be Bailed sent Mr. Maynard Mr. Twisden and Mr. Wadham Wyndham his Lawyers Prisoners to the Tower of London for Pleading for him and the Liberties of the People and called our Magna Charta Magna farta Prohibited all Lawyers to Plead for any of the Sequestred Orthodox Ministry that would not crouch under and kiss the Rod of their Persecution Many notwithstanding of those better now than they were before Informed Members of that over long and unhappy Parliament and continued to be Members of Parliament through all the Changes from thence to Oliver and from Oliver to his Son Dick seemed not then to be out of love with those new Authorities or over turning Rota's of Government Laws and Liberties And too many of the gaining and Phanatick Party who might have foreseen the dismal Apprehensions of an approaching Arbitrary Power had in the days of Oliver and his Son Mr. Richard so little a dread or were not so much afraid of it when they had reason to have been a great deal more as they being no small Gainers by it rejoyced in it thought themselves happily placed in the blessed Land of Canaan and Conducted into it by the hand of Heaven and Singing a Magnificat to Oliver and a Requiem to themselves and their chosen Posterity could be at no rest until they had obtained Declarations out of many Counties and Cities subscribed by the most considerable Men of their Rebellious and Sacrilegious Party and caused them to be Printed and delivered unto his Counterfeit Highness with Solemn Addresses upon their Knees and other actions of Veneration by some of their most active Accomplices wherein they stiled Oliver Moses and Joshua made up his Praises with almost Blasphemy and prayed for the continuance of his Care for their Protection and as they called it the Publick Good and were after his Death as busie with the like Adoration several solemn Declarations Addresses and Thanksgivings to his Son Richard's ridiculous parcel of Highness Wherefore they who were then so willing to bow their Necks under the hard galling Iron yoke which a Long Parliament by Colour of a false Authority assistance of a standing Army and a Rebel Brewer had put upon them And to take Arms against their own Happiness and betray their own good Laws Liberties Privileges and Customs to Usurpers which were so unparallel'd as the Devil with a pair of Spectacles cannot upon the most malicious and exactest search find any Nation under Heaven so happy and blessed as England hath been in the security of their Liberties Properties and Privileges since the beginning of the Reign of King Henry the First thorough the Reigns of all our Succeeding Kings who upon the least appearance or complaints of Grievances either as to particulars or generals rarò contingentibus or but feared or likely to happen never denied good Laws and Remedies to their People as all our Law-Books Year-Books Reports of Cases Adjudged Parliament Rolls and Books of Statutes will abundantly testifie may with shame and horror of so foul and grand ingratitude recall to their remembrance that they that were the Disciples of the late Wars and Usurpations and gainers by the Ruin and Misery of this and two other Kingdoms by their Arts and Power of cheating and haring their fellow Subjects out of their Loyalty Religion Estates Laws and Liberties Could be well contented to receive of His Majesty after his Return from his Distresses not only a Pardon unto all but a few excepted of their great and many Offences and Misdeeds after that he had by several Acts of Parliament Unfornicated or Unadulterated the Wives and Husbands and Legitimated the Children of those that were mis-married and taken away the Errors of their Illegal Proceedings and Judgments and Recoveries had at Law in the time of their many years abominable Rebellion but the greatest acquital of Money Arrears and Forfeitures due unto him amounting unto many Millions Sterling that ever any People of England had and received