necessary to make use of both their joint and utmost Credits to prevent the Success of the Parliament's Evil Designs against them both which of his side he promised really to perform Nay which is more do not you remember the Duke tells the French King of a very dangerous Plot against them both My Lord Arlington was incessantly at work to advance the Interest of the Prince of Orange and the Hollanders and to lessen that of the French King and that he and several others were endeavouring to break the good Intelligence between K. Charles the Second the French King and the Duke wherefore his Royal Highness earnestly sollicites the most Christian King to assist with the help of his Purse to prevent such ROGVERIES You see here is a Triple League against a Triple Confederacy The King of England French King and Duke of York against the Parliament of England the States of Holland and his Royal Highness the Pr. of Orange The French is to furnish the Sinews of War Money The Parliament are declared Enemies K. Charles indeed standing only as a Cypher the French King and the Duke put themselves under the most solemn Engagements to perform what was stipulated and strenuously to assist each other against the Designs of both their Enemies and seeing there was a desperate Design to advance the Prince and to lessen the French the Duke puts in his Memorial to that King demanding his Assistance to prevent such Rogueries But to return to our Narrative The House of Commons is no more to sit No nor was it advisable they should they were proclaimed Enemies to France and to the Duke The French King whose Interest was to be secured in England was fully convinced that they were not only unuseful but very dangerous to both their joint Interests may they ever continue so and it much satisfied the Duke to see his most Christian Majesty altogether of his Opinion in the Point Then with what reason could we expect the use of Parliaments would be continued The Protestant Peers as to be destroyed or excluded the House and the Magpy are to be changed for Purple Bishops And who at this day has the effronted Forehead to say that all this was Fiction Did not they embrew their Hands in the Blood of some of our Nobility And were not more threatned to that degree that 8. Years since no true Protestant Lord in England could at any rate have got his Head or his Seat in Parliament ensured to him for one Year Such was the Case of our Bishops We beheld some of their Diocesses visited by those of the Purple Dye and had not Heaven in a miraculous way delivered them we might not at this day have seen a Black and White One in the Nation In order to the Accomplishment of their sanctified Villanies the Jesuits with the Assistance of French and Irish Papists burnt London and Southwark and that they might the more securely carry on that Design without being detected they cunningly draw in a few silly Fifth-Monarchy-Men and fairly leave them in the lurch to be hang'd as they were about April 1666. When any Popish Plot is near the Point of Execution they ever will have the Dissenters at hand to account for their Villanies The burning this Nest of Hereticks had been concerted both at Rome and Paris and the time for putting it in execution approaching in April 1666 a Fanatick Plot is brought upon the Stage and seven or eight were condemned at the Old-Baily for plotting to kill the King and to burn the City on the 3d Day of September following the very Day the Papists afterwards did it For a more full Account of this I refer the Reader to the London-Gazette of April 30 1666. Numb 48. Thus when they were cock-sure of cutting off K. Charles the Second before Christmass 1678. Mr. Claypole Son-in-Law to Oliver was made close Prisoner in the Tower in July 1678. upon an Accusation of conspiring the Death of the King and it is very probable that had not Dr. Oates's Discovery happily interposed he might have died for it the next Term and the King been soon sent after him Then our Counsels are to be betrayed to France that Part is committed to Mr. Coleman the Duke or Dutchess of York 's Secretary and he is to manage it by a Correspondence with Le Chese Confessor to the French King I cannot with-hold my self from remarking here that this Information was given upon Oath on the 27th of September 1678. before Sir Edmond-Bury Godfrey and before the King and Council the 28th and 29th of that Month that hereupon Coleman was taken up on the 29th and his Papers seized which happily furnished the World with irrefragable Evidence had there been no other of that diabolical Intrigue In fine Trade is to be discouraged that so it was I know none will deny Our Coin was to be adulterated I shall not surely be called upon to prove that that was done to purpose and to crown the day King Charles was not to be reprieved beyond Christmas 1678. and then our Popish Successor was to play us such a Game as never was plaid since the Conquest They mistook the time indeed but the Feat was done and then the Gamester came upon the Stage to play his Game but having an unlucky Hand he quickly plaid himself out and therefore I shall not further pursue him I only say to him as the Welshman did to his Horse There 's a Trick for your Trick and a Stone in your Foot still Proceed we now to the further Narrative of this hellish Conspiracy of which it seems requisite to hint these things Dr. Oates after he had endured a long and most cruel Imprisonment upon a Judgment for 100000 l. Damages given against him to the Duke of York for saying the Duke was a Papist now saw that his irreconcilable Enemy upon the Throne and that he with his Jesuits and corrupt Judges were resolved to run upon him with all their Rage as they did in Easter-Term 1685. ordering him to be tried in the Court of King's-Bench upon two several Indictments for two pretended Perjuries in his Evidence concerning the Plot and that upon the Testimony of those very Popish Witnesses who had confronted him in three several Trials of the Conspirators The Case standing thus with him and remembring that his Life had been several times attempted was now under an Apprehension that they were bent upon his Destruction and therefore in the Month of April 1685. he drew up this ensuing Narrative in the Presence of Sir Robert Thomas Baronet John Arnold and John Dutton-Colt Esqs and having signed it with his own Hand deposited it with a Person of Worth and Quality with whom I am well assured it has ever since remained till upon the 21st of January 1695 6. it was put into my Hands Dr. Oates's further NARRATIVE of the Popish Plot 29 April 1685. THE Malice of my Popish Adversaries being so great that I
A TRAGEDY CALLED The Popish Plot REVIV'D Detecting the SECRET LEAGUE Between the Late King James and the French King The POPISH CONSPIRACY to Murder His present Majesty King WILLIAM And the wicked Contrivance for Adulterating the COIN of this Kingdom With many other HELLISH PRACTICES Dedicated to Sir Roger L'Estrange the Fellows of St. John's College in Cambridg Non Jurors and the rest of the Jacobite Crew By a sincere Lover of his Countrey London Printed for the Author 1696. To Sir Roger L'Estrange the Fellows of St. John's College and the rest of the Jacobite Crew Gentlemen THAT your as industriously as maliciously embrace every Occasion of venting your Selves to the Disparagement of our Present happy Settlement is undeniably evident to all Men and hath in no particular been more manifest than in your cherishing and fomenting the loud Clamour under which the Government has of late labour'd upon the account of the diminishing and adulterating our Coin The Consideration hereof led me to reflect upon what I remember I had read in Dr. Oates's Narrative of the Popish Plot and turning to it I there find good Ground to charge to the Account of your Party amongst other the manifold Evils under which the Nation groans that which is now so sensibly felt and highly complained of He there told you what now to our Cost we find fulfilled that one Branch of that Horrid Plot was to adulterate our Money and Plate and that to that end the Conspirators had Bankers Brokers Merchants Goldsmiths and other Traders whom they stock'd and set up with Money of the Jesuits Society The Jesuits then boasted that they were promised to have the Management of the Mint and that thereby they should be made the Judges of good and bad Money and manage the same to the best Advantage for their Cause The Case standing thus Gentlemen why will you be so vile as to criminate the Government for the Mischief which you have brought upon your Countrey Will you persist to out-face the Sun and term that a Sham-Plot which has ever since been cultivated and carried on Consider I beseech you in how many Instances what was laid down in that Narrative has been verified He there told you that King Charles the Second was to be removed by Dagger Pistol or Poison and that that was effected by the last is as little to be doubted as it may now be called into question whether the Coin be adulterated He told you that your Adored Duke was a Papist but your Stupidity or Impudence was such that you denied it to the day that he stept into the Throne Nay not only so but some of you in a Pack'd Jury brought in that Prince Not Guilty and gave him the modest Damages of 100000 l. in an Action against the Doctor for declaring that great Truth then so highly necessary to be known Nay further he not only told but foretold the Misery and inexpressible Calamity which like a Torrent was with that unhappy King breaking in upon these poor Nations and ready to bear down our Religion Laws and Liberties But this also was turn'd into Ridicule by that eminent Guide of the inferiour Clergy you I mean Sir Roger that Beautefeu of an Observator Wherefore I shall upon this Occasion take the Liberty to aggravate the Guilt of the unpardonable Infidelity of your Malignant Faction in the Points before touch'd upon and that not by urging against you that what was then declared has since come to pass but by evincing that at that very day there was laid before you irrefragable Evidence of the Truth of that happy Discovery And this I partly collect from Mr. Coleman's never to be forgotten Letters which were never denied or so much as doubted of which to refresh your Memories take here a few Heads For my part says he I can scarce believe my self awake or the thing real when I think on a Prince in such an Age as we live in converted to such a degree of Zeal and Piety as not to regard any thing in the World in comparison of the Conversion of our Poor Kingdom which hath been a long time oppressed and miserably harassed with Heresy and Schism c. Now as to the Duke's being then link'd with that bloody Tyrant the French King read Coleman again Knowing the Interest of our King Charles the 2d and in a more particular manner of my more immediate Master the Duke and his most Christian Majesty to be so INSEPARABLY UNITED that it was IMPOSSIBLE TO DIVIDE THEM without destroying them all His Majesty the French King was pleased to give order to signify to his R. H. MY MASTER that his Majesty was fully satisfied of his R. H's good Intentions towards him and that HE ESTEEMED BOTH THEIR INTERESTS BUT AS ONE and the same The Rooting out the Northern Heresy and enslaving Mankind That my Lord Arlington and the PARLIAMENT were both to be look'd upon as very unuseful to their Interests Father Ferrier begg'd his R. H. to propose to his most Christian Majesty what he thought necessary for his own Concern and THE ADVANTAGE OF RELIGION and his Majesty would certainly do all he could to advance both or either of them I communicated it to his R. H. says Coleman to which his R. H. commanded me to answer as I did on the 29th of the same Month that his R. H. was very sensible of his most Christian Majesty's Friendship and that he would labour to cultivate it with all the good Offices he was capable of doing his Majesty the French King that he was fully convinced their Interests were both one that my Lord Arlington and the Parliament were not only unuseful but very dangerous both to England and France that therefore it was necessary they should do all they could to dissolve it I did communicate this Design of mine to Monsieur Ravigni who agreed with me that it would be the greatest Advantage imaginable to his Master to have the D's Power and Credit so far advanced IF WE CAN ADVANCE THE DUKE'S INTEREST ONE STEP FORWARD WE SHALL PUT HIM OUT OF THE REACH OF CHANCE FOR EVER Then would Catholicks be at rest and his most Christian Majesty's Interest secured with us in England mark that beyond all Apprehensions whatsoever Our prevaling in these things would give the greatest Blow to the PROTESTANT RELIGION here that ever it received from its Birth If the Duke should once get above them ☞ after the Tricks they have play'd with him they are not sure he will totally forget the Vsage he has had at their Hands We have proceeds Coleman here a MIGHTY WORK upon our Hands no less than THE CONVERSION of three Kingdoms and by that perhaps the utter subduing of a PESTILENT HERESY which hath domineered over great part of the Northern World a long time There were never such Hopes of Success since the Death of our Queen Mary as now in our Days when God has given us a Prince who is
become may I say to a Miracle zealous of being the Author and Instrument of so glorious a Work ☞ That which we rely upon most next to God Almighty's Providence and the Favour of my Master the Duke is THE MIGHTY MIND of his most Christian Majesty I must confess I think his Christian Majesty's TEMPORAL INTEREST is so much attracted to that of his R. H. which can never be considerable but upon the Growth and Advancement of the CATHOLICK RELIGION that his Ministers cannot give him better Advice c. Now Gentlemen might not a Man have concluded that what you then read and find here repeated ought to have weaned your Party at least such of you as pretended to be of the Church of England for I well remember you scoffed at the Name of Protestant from your idolized Popish Successor What I could no King please such Churchmen as you but such AZEALOT as would not regard any thing in the World in comparison of overturning our Religion Could no one content you but a Prince whose Interest was avowed to be inseparably united to that of the Grand Tyrant of the Earth Who declared himself fully convinc'd that PARLIAMENTS were not only VNVSEFVL but very DANGEROVS to the JOINT INTEREST both of England and France None but him by whom the French King's Interest was to be secured in England None but him who undertook to give the greatest Blow to the Protestant Religion here that it ever received from its Birth None but him who should he once get above us after the Tricks we had then plaid him by the way he remembers we have plaid him a worse since WOVLD NOT TOTALLY FORGET the Vsage he has had at our Hands Finally could nothing please you but a King whose MIGHTY WORK as you were forewarned was to be no less than the Destruction of the Nations under the Notion of converting them and who was utterly to subdue our Religion as a PESTILENT HERESY One of whom our inhumane Enemies promised themselves greater Hopes than ever they had since the Death of cruel Queen Mary A Prince whom they boasted was become to a Miracle zealous of being the Author and Instrument of so glorious a Work as that of razing the Foundations of the Church of England Could I now believe that I discourse to rational Creatures and not to Brutes void of all Understanding I should hope to make you blush at your past Frenzies if not perswade you to cease doting on your old Bondage and hankering after the Flesh-Pots of Egypt to give over your Murmuring and no longer to foment Jealousies between the King and his People no longer to be throwing in Sparks of Discontent and endeavouring to blow them up into Flames of Mutinies and Rebellions Allow me to remember you in the Words of a loyal and learned Person that God has given our King a People who tho they may sometimes be practised upon to run into Vproars yet Loyalty is so inlaid in their Tempers and annealed to their Souls that the secret Enemies of our King and Peace could never yet make their Earnings out of them nay that God has converted our Danger into our Security that he has made the People not the Terror of the Government but of its Enemies That some ill Men have an ill and envious Eye upon the Throne but they fear the People Mr. Alsop's Thanksgiving-Sermon at Westminster 8 Sept. 1695. Run not then I caution you headlong to Destruction but be advised to consider what you are doing why will you be helping forward your Countries Ruine by labouring to subject it to that mighty Nimrod the securing whose Interest in England was the wicked Design so long since on foot 'T is evident to all the World that you under the Name of TORIES in which you gloried brought Church and State to the very Door of Destruction gave us the dismal Prospect of Slavery in our Persons Consciences and Estates and by your Procurement we beheld every thing that was dear and valuable to us upon the Brink of Subjection to a foreign Power and all by pleading for and adhering to your darling Popish Successor Nay 't is beyond Contradiction clear that you were blinded deluded and beguiled in that Point by the subtile Jesuits those Firebrands of all Europe Now seeing it has pleased God to bless us with the grateful Surprize of a Deliverance from such great Evils will you be perswaded to become a loyal quiet People disposed to Obedience To inforce this upon you as 't is your Interest as well as Duty I shall recount to you what was in vain laid before you when you first ran a madding after Popery and Slavery A sincere Lover of his Country then argued with you to this Effect You were then truly told that those who were for the Duke of York 's Interest were most certainly for these three Interests viz. 1. For the Popish Interest 2. For the French Interest 3. For Tyranny or Arbitrary Government term it as you will and by Consequence against these other three things 1. Against the Interest of the Church of England and the Protestant Religion 2. Against the Interest of England your native Country 3. Against the Interest of Parliaments and so against your own Freedoms as you were Englishmen You were then exhorted seriously to consider these things your Religion your Lives your Liberties your Estates your All being deeply concerned therein 1. You were rightly admonished that if you stood for the Duke's Interest you did undoubtedly so far stand for that of the Pope and would thereby give the greatest Blow to the Church of England it ever had since it was a Church The Matter was thus expostulated with you Can you once imagine that by bringing in a Popish Successor you will not inevitably set up Popery Will such a King think you have so great a Love for another Religion as his own or for those of another Profession whom he esteems Hereticks as for those of his own Nay then will it not naturally follow that he will advance the one and discountenance and depress the other Will it not be the only way to get into Office or Preferment to turn Papist What will the Effect of this be in a little time think you Will it not be a great weakning to the Church of England to have her Members allured and seduced from her and turn'd and kept out of Places of Trust Profit and Honour whilst her Enemies are placed in them Consider further whether in endeavouring to make a Papist Head of the Church of England you do not labour to make her a Monster for if our Head reckon us his Body rotten Hereticks where 's our Body Where will our Church be What Agreement between the Head and the Body Will it not inevitably run into Confusion Shall we have a Father of our Church who by his own Faith stands obliged to destroy her and is bound by the Romish Principles to deal with her
Beast might be accomplished At the uttering of which words Strange broke out into a great Laughter But said Strange to be short we got 50 or 60 Irish to ply the Work We were also in fee with several Frenchmen who were faithful in the Business Strange told the Deponent that they spent 700 Fire-Balls and when the Fire-Merchants were at work then others were employed to plunder what they could They have communicated what Secrets they can have reveal'd to them of the King which they send over to Le Chese the French King's Confessor This they do by one Smith who daily lurks about Whitehall and in Parliament-time about Westminster-hall and the Lobby And One COLEMAN formerly Secretary to her Royal Highness doth assist this Smith with private Intelligence On the 10th of August the Deponent did meet with Groves who had promised to give him an Account of the Fire of Southwark in 1676 and then told him that he had certain Fireworks made for that purpose and he with three Irishmen his Assistants went to St. Margaret's Hill where they found an Oil-Shop which Groves bragg'd he fir'd He said that Dr. Fogarthy procured the Irishmen for which the Society Richard Strange then Provincial gave them 1000 l. viz. 400. l. to Groves and 200 l. apiece to the three Irishmen and that the Society got at least 2000 l. by that Fire which was also told the Deponent at another time by Richard Strange On the 11th of August the Deponent saw Letters from St. Omers written by Father IRELAND to John Fenwick and Fenwick told the Deponent that if 〈◊〉 lived till Christmass he should see a good Change of Things either that Forty eight the King should be taken from the World or the World especially the little he was concern'd in should be taken from him And ONE THAT WAS A CATHOLICK SHOVLD PLAY SVCH A GAME AS NEVER WAS PLAY'D SINCE THE CONQVEST and Fenwick told the Deponent that this Catholick was the DVKE OF YORK This Plot was to be effected by these Means amongst others By disclosing the King's Counsels to France by Coleman Smith and others By disaffecting his Majesty's Allies Holland Spain the German Emperor and Princes by false Intelligence c. By disturbing Trade By firing and plundering our best Cities and Towns By horrid worse than Jewish Interest Transportation of Trade People Stock and Money ADVLTERATING MONEY AND PLATE To which end they have Bankers Brokers Merchants Goldsmiths and other Traders whom they stock and set up with Money of their Society of which they boast to have 100 thousand Pounds Cash c. I descend now to sum up the whole and descant a little upon some few of the Heads before recounted Great Britain and Ireland were to be reduced by the Sword to the Romish Religion and Obedience In order hereunto the King was to be removed by Dagger Pistol or Poison and they declared 't was high time it were effected And good reason for it He had broke his Word with Madam his Sister in passing the Test-Bill having promised her at the Interview at Dover that nothing should be done to the prejudice of the R. Catholicks And contrary to his Promise to the Papists they remembred his sending the Great E. of Essex into Ireland They well knew also that he had refused to sign Coleman's Declaration for dissolving the Parliament which he had sworn to them to do and that he had been guilty of that never-to-be-forgiven Sin against their Church of receiving the Sacrament in the Church of England and that the same day at Noon on which he had received it in the Morning from Ireland the Jesuit To add no more they knew that they had at hand a more daring Prince who they were assured would stake his Crown for carrying on their Mighty Work The Prince of Orange they had resolved should by no means become Great therefore he must be cut off and in order to effect that mighty and so highly necessary Work Missioners are sent into Holland to stir up that People to mutiny against him upon the wicked Suggestion that he resolved to change their Government and assume a Crown The Emperor is instigated to create a Belief in the States General that that Prince designed to make himself Absolute and they promise themselves that by a Breach between the Prince and States the Protestant Interest would without question fail in Holland Now to reflect a little upon this Matter Why must this Prince be cut off Was he not the Duke of York's Sister's Son 't is yielded What then can we expect that that should avail him No surely for we see his Uncle was converted to such a degree of Zeal as not to regard any thing in the World in comparison of the Conversion of Heretical Kingdoms so his Interests we find were so inseparably united to that of the French King that it was impossible to divide them We are told that by all means the Most Christian King's Interest in England must be secured and that for a weighty Reason viz. Because his and the D. of York 's prevailing would give the greatest Blow to the Protestant Religion here that ever it received from its Birth Then undoubtedly the Prince of Orange who at that time stood within a step or two of the Throne ought in all Policy to be removed You cannot forget that they had a mighty Work upon their hands the Conversion of three Kingdoms and Subduing the Pestilent Northern Heresy They never had such hopes of Success as at that time since the Death of their Queen Mary The Duke was to a Miracle zealous of being the Author and Instrument of so Glorious a Work and they told us they relied upon him and the mighty Mind of the most Christian King and further his Temporal Interest was acknowledged to be highly attracted to that of the Duke 'T is evident they had mighty Work mighty Hopes and mighty Minds employed about it Is it to be admired then that they resolved to pass a Bill of Exclusion upon our Prince who as all the World knew stood ready with all his Might to baffle these mighty Vndertakers Nay further as the French King's Interest was attracted to that of the Duke's so was the Prince's to that of England Holland and the Reformed Churches of Europe or in their words to the Support of that Northern Heresy which these mighty Nimrods were to subdue What signifies a Nephew in such a Case as this But stop a little I pray and take another Reason His most Christian Majesty did most generously offer the Duke the use of his Purse to assist against the Designs of both their Enemies nay he protested that those that opposed the one should be look'd upon as Enemies to the other and withal declared his Opinion that the Parliament of England was not in either of their Interests and the Duke did entirely agree to it and that they were unuseful to both so that in his poor Opinion it was
dangerous Parliaments whatever ever the fawning Addressers pretended to think together with the Parliament threw off the Doctor and the Popish Plot and taking Sir Roger to his aid made another much more grateful to him in which having served the Interest of the French King and his Brother as long as they had occasion for him he himself at length was removed as useless A Copy of Dr. Oates's Letter to King Charles the Second Nov. 10. 1678. May it please Your Majesty I Understand by Mr. Rogers that it hath been reported to Your Majesty that I should in a certain Company declare that your Majesty was a Papist and that your Majesty was resolv'd to order Mr. Attorney-General to proceed against me for those Words that were reported to your Majesty to be spoken by me viz. That Your Majesty had been reconciled to the Church of Rome ever since your escape from Worcester which I hope your Majesty will not do for your own Honours sake For your Majesty knows that to be true that you were reconciled to the Church of Rome by Father Richard Huddliston that was Uncle to John Huddliston who is excepted in all your Majesty's Proclamations that are issued out against Papists and Priests And also it 's not unknown to some that Your Majesty receiv'd the Sacrament according to the Vsage of the Church of Rome in the Dutchess of Portsmouth's Lodgings by the Hands of Father Ireland and I my self served then at Mass which I have not made Publick because I would preserve your Majesty's Reputation And what Care your Majesty took of the Jesuits when St. Omers became subject to the French King by Conquest as Men on whom the Hopes of England did depend in your Letter to the French King's Governour hath not been made so publick as I must make it if your Majesty continue your Resolution to have me prosecuted As also the Gracious Promise you made to your Royal Sister of restoring the Catholick Religion and not only that but the most Gracious Memorial your Majesty put in to the King of Poland by your Envoy there Your Majesty may judg that the Statute made in the Thirteenth Year of your Reign was only made to bridle the Tongues of your People that they should not dare to say you were a Papist but Sir give me leave to tell your Majesty that there was something else designed in that Act than is there expressed for the late Earl of Clarendon then Lord High Chancellor who was afraid of your declaring your self to be of the Church of Rome procured that Act to pass and that not without Difficulty on purpose to prevent you that you might not declare your self to be of that Communion well knowing that if you did it would tend to the breaking all his Measures and Projects then on foot to serve the Duke of York who had married his Daughter So that if I am prosecuted it 's for speaking the Truth supposing that I had spoke the Words But to undeceive your Majesty I did not speak them but it was that Fellow Blood who will confess to your Majesty that it was he that spoke the Words on purpose for me to second him and you know it was by your own Appointment that he was so bold with your Name and Honour in that particular Sir I must say further hat when I communicated his Traiterous Letter he wrote to me to Secretary Coventry he was brought before that Secretary and confessed he wrote the Letter by your Royal Command to lay a Snare for me and that by your Command he did say the Words that you were reconciled to the Church of Rome And when this came to be publickly talked of Blood was children by your Majesty and went off with the sorrowful Present of 500 Guineas given him by your Majesty as a mark of your Royal Displeasure for such unhand some Carriage to your Majesty and for such a Knavish Trick he endeavoured to put upon me I leave it to your Royal Consideration and shall approve my self Sir Your Majesty's Faithful and Dutiful Subject Titus Oates Novemb. 10. 1678. A Copy of Dr. Oates 's Letter to King Charles II. Oct. 14. 1680. May it please Your Majesty BY Your Majesty's Command Sir Philip Floyd was with me and tells me that your Majesty takes great Offence at my keeping Company with Republicans at the first I did not understand who Sir Philip meant by Republicans which he was pleased to explain to me they were a sort of Discontented Men that were Enemies to Monarchy in general and in particular Enemies to Your Majesty's Royal Person and Government I protested to him I did not keep Company with any such Persons and urged it to him that it would be very ingrateful in me if I should keep Company with Men of those Principles For Sir it 's my Judgment that the English Monarchy as established by Law is that which not only my self but all those I converse withal are for and not only so but are ready to defend with their Lives and Fortunes But this is my Misfortune that because I converse and heartily join with those that are for Liberty and Property and for the Old English Government in opposition to Popery and Slavery and assert the Protestant Religion with that Courage that becomes English-men I and my Friends are judged and deemed by your Majesty to be Men aiming at a Common-Wealth in opposition to Monarchy and your Majesty's Government But for my farther Information I begged of Sir Philip to know who they were and what they were that were thus represented to your Majesty who was pleased to tell me it was Mr. Jenks his Club that I did frequent who met at the Angel and Crown in Threadneedle-street and Mr. Bethel's Club that met at the Queen's-Arms in Newgate-street Your Majesty knows that Mr. Seely a Major of the late Protector 's Army hath oft met there by your own Appointment tho for other ends than I met with that Club at the Angel and Crown at which Club I have been several Times for almost these two Years last past and as I expect to see the Face of God I did neither directly nor indirectly hear any one Word spoken against your Majesty's Government and that the Major can tell if he hath the least Grain of Honesty and Truth left in him Your Majesty knows the end of his coming and we found him out at last to be put upon us to abuse us to your Majesty But blessed be God we never gave any just Occasion to merit that Pension your Majesty was pleased to order him for so great a piece of Service as to be a Spy upon a Dozen or Twenty Honest Men that met together to spend one Hour after they had been wearying themselves in their Callings all the Day and their Discourse usually hath been nothing but about Common Things that Major Seely doth indeed lose his Time and spends your Majesty's Bounty to very little purpose For our
as a Harlot Consider now are you willing to send your selves Wives Children Fathers and Mothers to be burnt at the Stake for Hereticks Will you yet persist to endeavour to put your Religion once more into the Hazard of a wicked Queen Mary 's Persecution 2. In being for the Succession of the D. of York you are undoubtedly for the French Interest and so consequently against the Interest of England your native Country That he did ever espouse that Tyrant's Interest is evidently discovered and by a Copy of a Letter which was taken amongst his Secretary Coleman's Papers will be yet further evinced tho indeed it was not made out that it was drawn by the Duke's Direction nor could it be expected that Coleman should accuse his Master who flatter'd him to the last Moment of his Life with the vain Hope of a Pardon That Letter was entituled The Copy of the Letter to Monsieur Le Chese the French King's Confessor which Mr. Coleman confessed he himself wrote and counterfeited in the Duke's Name it runs to this Effect The 2d of June last past his most Christian Majesty offered me most generously his Friendship and the Vse of his Purse to the Assistance against the Designs of MY ENEMIES AND HIS and protested unto me that his Interest and mine were so clearly link'd together that those that opposed the one should be look'd upon as Enemies to the other and told me moreover HIS OPINION of my Lord Arlington and the PARLIAMENT which is that he is of opinion that neither the one nor the other is in his Interest or mine I was much satisfied to see his most Christian Majesty altogether of my Opinion so I made him answer the 29th of June by the same Means he made use of to write to me that is by Coleman and entirely agreed to his most Christian Majesty as well to what had respect to the Vnion of our Interests as THE UNUSEFULNESS of my Lord Arlington and THE PARLIAMENT in order to the Service of the King my Brother and his most Christian Majesty and that it was necessary to make use of our joint and utmost Credits to prevent the Success of those evil Designs resolved on by the Lord Arlington and the Parliament against his most Christian Majesty and my self which of my side I promised really to perform Of which since that time I have given reasonable good Proof Moreover I made some Proposals which I thought necessary to bring to pass what we were obliged to undertake assuring him that nothing could so firmly establish OUR INTEREST with the King my Brother as that very same Offer of the Help of HIS PURSE by which means I had much Reason to hope I should be enabled to perswade to the dissolving of the Parliament and to make void the Designs of my Lord Arlington who works incessantly to advance the Interest of the PRINCE OF ORANGE and the Hollanders and to lessen that of the King your Master Seeing that my Lord Arlington and several others endeavoured by a thousand Deceits to break the good Intelligence which is between the King my Brother his most Christian Majesty and my self to the end they might deceive us all three ☞ I have thought fit to advertise you of all that is past and desire of you your Assistance and Friendship to prevent THE ROGUERIES of those who have no other Design than to betray the Concerns of France and England also Review this I intreat you and deny it if you can that these Kings were early of one Piece The French King wrote himself to the Duke yet we are to believe it if we will that Coleman counterfeited this Answer and his Royal Highness had not the good Breeding to acknowledg the Receipt of the Letter of so generous a Confederate who offered the Vse of his Purse against the Designs of THEIR ENEMIES We here find the Enemies of the one declared Enemies of the other and the Parliament in the Interest of neither Their joint and utmost Credits are to be made use of to prevent the Success of the WICKED DESIGNS of the Parliament against the French King and the Duke which was to exclude them both the one by the Help of the others Purse is to be enabled to perswade to the dissolving the Parliament and to make void the Designs to advance THE INTEREST OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE and the HOLLANDERS and to lessen that of the French King which Designs were only an honest Purpose to set Bounds to that impetuous Torrent which then highly threatned to overwhelm this Part of the World To remark no further the French Aid is here craved to prevent THE ROGUISH DESIGNS of an English Parliament against the then LEAGUE WITH FRANCE ☞ To proceed now to the third Head from which we have digressed 3. It was urged upon you that if you were for a Popish King then by Consequence you were for Arbitrary Government and against Parliaments Is it not notoriously known that the Duke bears an implacable Hatred to Parliaments and that none more than he ever set himself against them If then he should succeed his Brother or as the Case at present stands should ever return adieu to Parliaments You are then at best to expect French Slavery and were you to enjoy it alone I am almost provok'd to wish you were now in the possession of it You were thus told what would be the Manner of the King that you would have reign over you and what reason you would find to cry out in that day because of your King Now instead of following the Text and saying the Lord will not hear you in that day I do here observe that all the good People of these Nations are laid under the highest Obligations to praise the Almighty for having heard their Cry in the day of their Distress because of your King and to give us such a Prince as we groaned for such a Prince as we wanted such a Prince whose Interest leads him to espouse the Cause and Interest of the Land which he saw to be visibly betrayed and which our Enemies would at once have ravished from us had not Providence over-ruled them Finding now that I have insensibly launch'd out into this wide Ocean of the Popish Plot I shall take leave to discourse a little further upon that Subject purposing to present my Reader with a concise Abridgment of the History of that transcendent Villany and shall in this place very briefly touch some Points relating to it and to the first Discoverer because my old Friends the Tories did and do impudently deny the Thing or at least extenuate it and falsly suggest that very few were concern'd in it that it was nothing so bad as the World took it to be and that notwithstanding the Votes of divers Parliaments that there was a Plot to murder the King alter the Government and subvert the Established Religion I have met with Insinuations which at first view seem plausible