a part in the whole Course of that Story In his other Works this Author I am sure makes little mention enough of himself and it were to be wisht that Persons so much employ'd in publick Business would tell all their own Parts as well others Mens and as nakedly as he seems to do in these Memoirs But the reason de Cros gives us why he would have the World believe him in all he says against Sir W. T. is Because he is first attackt and thereupon in great Passion and Rage which will pass for an admirable Argument that he designs to speak nothing but truth and for a very cunning way of being believed tho some men perhaps may think that whatever is said in Passion is but just so much of nothing to the purpose and that it commonly makes a man in what he says or does not only as peevish as a Wasp but as blind as a Beetle But if he will believe right or wrong why will not he believe in his turn And why is not he contented to Give as well as to Take He will not allow that Sir W. T. might several times have been Secretary of State when Mr. Montague and Mr. Sydney who are named in Memoirs p. _… to have been set on him by the Lord Arlington at that time to persuade him to accept it are still alive as well as my Lord Treasurer who is mentioned Mem. p. 273. to have written to him by His Majesty's Command to come over and enter on the Secretaries Office And p. 385. 't is further added That Sir W. T. received the King 's own Orders to come immediately over and enter upon that Office and to acquaint the Prince and States with that Resolution which must of course have come to him through my Lord Sunderland's hand who Mem. p. 387. is said to have been brought into Sir Joseph Williamson's place and his Lordship being likewise still alive can easily tell whether this be true or no. Therefore why does not de Cros himself or some Friend for him if he has any enquire into the truth of these Passages which are told so positively and wherein so many parties concern'd are still alive tho most of them with other Titles And indeed tho it may be ill for Sir W. T 's private Satisfaction that these Memoirs were printed against his Consent and during his Life which it appears was never intended yet nothing could defend the Truth of them so much as that so many Persons are yet alive who had so great a part in all those Affairs there related who are the best and most competent Judges of the Truth and I never heard that any of them have yet contradicted the least part But however since the Monk has got into the Infallible Chair he must be believed there is no help and we must like the Welsh-man Take her own word for it And so let him go away with all those apposite and choice Epithets he has given of this most worthy and well-deserving person without where or when or why or wherefore For I am sure there is no way of replying to them and he that would set about it might as well resolve to write an Answer to a Leaf in Textor's Epithets And thus I have with much ado rid my hands of a great part of De Cros's Rubbish as far as it endeavours to bespatter Sir W. T. in his Morals and Intellectuals It remains now I should observe a little what he says concerning his Fortunes which seems to turn upon these two rusty Hinges that make as ill a noise as all the rest the obscurity from whence he was raised to all those great Employments and his disgrace upon leaving them which De Cros says was immediately after his Return from Nimeguen For my own part I must confess I am neither did enough nor have had Conversation in Courts and with Publick Affairs to give an account how Sir W. T. came into Business or how he went out any further than I could gather from Writings and Transactions which are publick and known to every body or by particular enquiries from some Friends and Acquaintance of my own and it has happened that some of them have long known so much of that Family as to assure me it is a very Ancient one That Sir W. T. was born of a very Honourable Father who was for many years of the Privy Council in Ireland to King Charles the First and King Charles the Second and was long possessed of one of the best Offices in that Kingdom both for Honour and Profit as likewise in his time a Member of several Parliaments in England That his two younger Brothers are known to have lived always with plentiful Fortunes and in much esteem So that this Gentleman alone seems to have been born under the unluckiest Planet in the world tho Heir to his Father's Fortune and Successor to his Office which was so considerable yet he only of all his Family was in Obscurity and lay in the Dust for so the French Letter has it till my Lord Arlington raised him out of both whose beams it seems were so refulgent as to make him shine at that distance his Foreign Employments carried him to My Friends have likewise assured me from their own remembrance and knowledge that Sir W. T. shined as much in a Parliament of Ireland soon after the King's Restoration as De Cros says he shined long in his Employments abroad and this was several years before he came into any Foreign Employments They told me likewise that he was very easy in his Fortune not only by what he had from his Father but from his Lady to whom God be thanked and it is very happy for her Ladyship that De Cros says he has no Quarrel By all which and the many Employments he since passed through and of which in one of his Essays he says he never sought any in my weak conception I should think he was a person that by the Circumstances of his Humour and his Fortune needed the Court less than the Court needed him As to his going out from Publick Employments which De Cros tells us was upon the King 's being so ill satisfied with his Conduct and Management of Affairs abroad particularly those at Nimeguen that he slighted him upon his return from thence and made very little use of him I can give no other Account besides what I find of the Time and the manner in the Epistle before the Memoirs only I find by comparing the Date of his Return from Nimeguen with that of King Charles's Declaration upon his dissolution of the old Council and selecting a new one that Sir W. T. was a Member of that new and select Council and it was the Common Town-talk at that time that this Declaration was writ by him and that he was in his Majesty's Chief Confidence upon that surprising Resolution which was received with such Applauses Bonfires and other expressions of Joy
this of the Memoirs And finding Common Fame wherever I had met it agrees so well with the Picture these Pieces had given me of him I will own to have had a very great Honour for the Author as well as for his Books and could not but esteem both a great deal the more for this Letter of de Cros when I found that the triple-corded Malice of the Writer the Translator and the Advertiser had not given one lash either to the Honour of the Person or the truth of his Books And all this put together has in very truth given me so much Spight and Indignation that I could not refrain entring on the Pamphletiers Trade which I never did before nor ever thought I should have done at all And but for this Provocation could have been very well satisfied to have lived on without the itch of seeing how I look in Print so that I may truly say for this as the Poet does for his Verses Facit Indignatio Versus Before I enter upon observing what de Cros says concerning Sir W. T. which takes up the greatest part of his Letter and leaves him either no Room or no Memory for the Memoirs he pretends to Answer I shall first examine what he speaks of himself and in his own defence against what he takes himself to be charged with He begins p. 10. There arrived says he quoting the Memoirs at that time from England one whose Name was de Cros. Upon this he falls immediately into a Scurrilous Chafe Now one would wonder what should make the Man so offended to be called by his own Name or what would have become of Sir W. T. if he had call'd him out of his Name which is indeed commonly thought an injury but not the other as ever I heard of before yet he reckons it a terrible one to himself and his Family which he tells us is a good one I know not whether he means the de Cros's or the Monks The first I must confess I never heard of in France but the other is indeed a great one abroad and a good one at home But whatever he would have us think of the Goodness of his Family I will never believe by what little understanding I have of Heraldry that any Gentleman would either write such a Letter or Translate it tho it were only out of the common Respect that is due to the Memory of a Great King whose Person Sir W. T. has so often represented and in so high a Character But to proceed That he was formerly a French Monk as the Memoirs call him he confesses and owns besides tho with a great deal of ill-will that He changed his Frock for a Petticoat For tho he denies it positively p. 11. yet five Lines after he has these words There was too great advantage to throw off my Frock for the Petticoat I have taken not to do it it is a Petticoat of a Scotch Stuff c. I am glad it is of one so good as he mentions and wish it were large enough to cover all his Shame But whatever he says in the same Page too malicious to be taken notice of here of Princesses who have quitted the Veil for the Breeches tho in that it self I believe he is mistaken yet all this will never serve to wipe off the Ignominy of Un Moin Defroquè Upon which I shall only add That the Marriage of a Monk when stripp'd of his Frock is not thought likely to mend the matter And I believe men of all Religions will agree in the Opinion That if a Monk leaves his Frock he ought to do it for a Gown rather than for a Petticoat and if he leaves the Orders of one Church should in decency continue in the Orders of that Church to which he professes himself converted As to his being a Swedish Agent tho he is very angry the Memoirs should call him so one cannot well discover by his Letter whether he has a mind to grant it of no however he confesses p. 13 14. That being Envoy from the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp the Interests of his Master being inseperable from those of Sueden he found himself engaged to be very much concerned in the Interests of that Crown and that Monsieur Van Beuninguen believed He was intrusted with some Affairs from thence Which amounts to the very same with what the Memoirs say p. 335. That he de Cros had a Commission from the Court of Sueden or Credence at least for a certain petty Agency in England This he says Is very Dirty Alas for the cleanly Gentleman one would think he was afraid of fouling his Fingers but he had a great deal more need have taken care of his mouth By the way I cannot but admire at the insufferable Impudence of the English Printer or Translator who hath in the Title Page named this man An Ambassador at the Treaty of Nimeguen since in the several Accounts I have seen printed of that Treaty there is not the least mention of such a Name any other way than in those Memoirs he pretends to Answer And 't is doubt less very agreeable to think that a man who gives himself so good a Character in his own Letter should make so great a one in so August an Assembly as that is recorded to have been And he himself in his whole Letter arrogates no other besides that of Envoy Extraordinary from the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp into England who was a Prince at that time wholly dispossess'd of His Dominions Another Passage in the Memoirs which he takes sadly to heart is in the same Pag. 335. as follows At London he had devoted himself wholly to Monsieur Barillon the French Ambassador though pretending to pursue the Interests of Sweden Against which he thus defends himself First Letter pag. 14. He absolutely denies it and says in the next He fell out with Monsieur Barillon for three Months because he diverted the King of England from taking into his consideration the Interests of Sweden And pag. 16. He says further That Monsieur Barillon put all in practice to sift him to the bottom concerning the Swedish Affairs nevertheless all the Offers of this Ambassador proved ineffectual and wrought nothing upon this man meaning himself who if a man would give credit to Sir W. T. was entirely devoted to Monsieur Barillon and yet Monsieur Barillon found him not to be corrupted or bribed All this would be an Account good enough of his Innocence in that point if it had not the misfortune to be so ill plac'd 'T is indeed a good way back to the fifth Page of his Letter And therefore what he says there one may by the help of a little Charity impute to the shortness of his Memory These are his Words I have had the happiness during some years to partake in the confidence of a Minister of State c. And a little after Sir W. T. may well imagine that I did not ill improve this
able Minister's Confidence when he tells us that I had wholly devoted my self to him But then how comes it that in the same 15 th page where he twice endeavours to defend himself against this Imputation he should make such a Blunder as to say But yet I must confess that at such time as he Monsieur Barillon stickled for my Master's Interest and that of Sweden I was entirely devoted to him c. After this let the Reader judge whether de Cros does not confess at least as much if not more in this Point than the Memoirs charge him with And it is to be observed from the same Book that at the very time de Cros speaks of France had taken into its Protection the Interests of Sweden which it seem'd for some Months before to have very little regarded But nothing touches him so nearly as the following Passage in the same 335 th page of the Memoirs This man brought me a Pacquet from Court commanding me to go immediately away to Nimeguen Upon which says he Pag. 16. Sir W. T. has a mind to make men believe that I was only sent into Holland to carry him a Dispatch from the Court This passage has so fiercely gall'd him that he is set a railing for six pages together and the affront is that he should be taken for an ordinary Courier or Messenger Had a dozen Wasps setled on his Tongue they could not have swell'd or infus'd more Poison in it he frets and foams at the mouth and spatters so much Dirt on all sides that it is not safe following him In short he takes it so heinously to be reckoned a Common Courier that one could not have netled him more had one call'd him a Post or a Post-horse I cannot imagine why any such words in the Memoirs should put a man into so much passion And for my part both in this and all the rest I see but one reason why he is angry and that is Because he is angry However against this grievous Imputation he defends himself by this strong Argument That he was not sent over on purpose to deliver the Dispatch to Sir W. T. but for something of greater importance which he knows himself and will not tell any body Wherein I think he acts very discreetly and I do not doubt but the best way to give any Reputation to his mighty Secrets is to hinder them from taking Air Tho had he done us the favour to discover but one of all those he boasts so much of it would perhaps have been the most effectual way to raise our expectation of the rest He would indeed make us believe that in five Hours time he stay'd at the Hague he had made some mighty Turn of State by his Negotiations there which if there be any truth in it we will grant him to have been not only an Agent but a Conjurer and from the strange Effect of his Conduct in that strange Adventure of five hours we may hope one day to see a Tragedy of that Name as there has been a Comedy already But till he thinks fit to make more important Discoveries he will pardon our suspense in that modest Opinion he had of himself That doubtless he should publish more just and solid Memoirs than Sir W. T. if he would set about it But I observe he desires My Lord to take notice that Sir W. T. confesses it was De Cros procured this Dispatch I find when men are very angry that Truth is the least thing they regard For this is more than ever I could observe after reading those Memoirs with more care and application than I am sure his good humour would ever permit him and in pag. 336. find these Words How this Dispatch by De Cros was gain'd or by whom I will not pretend to determine Which De Cros has very politickly thus altered Letter pag. 18. I will not pretend to determine by what means and how De Cros obtained this Dispatch But pag. 19. he forgets himself again and says As for me tho I had the dispatch given me yet he Sir W. T. does not accuse me openly in this place of bearing any other part in this affair that only as a Messenger intrusted with the Conveyance But I suppose he never looked farther than his malice would give him leave which is usually very short-sighted But after all 't is not easily thought why he should lay it so much to heart to be called a Courier when the whole account he gives of his great Negotiations besides his being Envoy of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp is that he was sent by King Charles the Second into Sweden and Denmark to hasten the Passports for the Congress at Nimeguen Which is all he tells us of his great Employments and must be thought to have brought him into that intimacy and confidence he pretends with that great King and for which he is pleased to make his Majesty such grateful Returns and to form such a Character of him as he does in his Letter For in the first place he tells us p. 5. That Mons Barillon was the Primum Mobile of that King's conduct which surprized all the World Which is to affirm more of him than any of his discontented Subjects the pretended Patriots of that Age. For it is to assert openly and positively what they only pretended to suspect Again Soon after the King had made the Peace with Holland De Cros brings his Majesty in p. 23. speaking to him in these Words Tell the King my Brother meaning the French King that it is much against my mind that I have made peace with these Coquins the Hollanders And then a little before the conclusion of the Peace at Nimeguen he delivers the King speaking thus to Mons Shrenburn concerning the Hollanders In a little time Monsieur I will bring these Coquins to Reason And in the same page he makes that Prince use the same Name to two great Ministers Mons Barillon and Mons De Avaux The former whereof he pretends to have been the first Mover of all His Majesty's Councils All which if they be not absolute Untruths as from his plentiful Gift that way I am very much inclined to believe yet are so far from shewing the profound Respect the Writer pretends to for the Memory of that Prince that being put together they make up this malicious Character That a King of England was guided in his Conduct by a French Embassador That he made and observed his Treaties with ill-meaning or with ill-intentions and that he treated his chiefest Confident whom he makes to be Mons Barillon and another Embassador with the greatest scorn and contempt Besides he brings this noble Prince upon the Stage acting a mean piece of Dissimulation to cover his Confidence with so worthy a Person as Mons de Cros 't is concerning his Dispatch so often mentioned into Holland for being forc't to confess that the King was angry with him at his return from
thence He plaisters it up with saying p. 25. If the late King of England did not approve of my Conduct in the Affairs of Nimeguen which in effect he declared in publick not to be pleased with in which he plaid his part to admiration c. But since we have seen the Character he gives of him as a King let us observe how he Treats His Majesty as a Mediator and how he Represents him ballancing the Affairs of Christendom then in his hands First de Cros tells us This Dispatch of his was concerted with Monsieur Barillon For tho he says That that Ambassadour had no had in the beginning of it yet he owns him in the same place to have part of it when it was concluding and that Monsieur de Ruvigny was dispatcht by the King with an Account of it to the French Court the very same day that de Cros was sent away for Nimeguen And p. 25. He tells us further That Prince Rupert askt him upon his Return with a stern Countenance If the Peace was concluded and he answering in the Affirmative the Prince cried out O Dissimulation And p. 28. he tells us That the Prince of Orange the Kings Nephew writ thundring Letters against him and all the Ministers of the Confederates called for Vengeance c. Yet after all these Marks of something so very injurious to the Allies and confidence to France The King says he in the page last mentioned laughs in his Sleeve at the Surprize at the Sorrow and Complaints of the Confederates Which is to give us just such a Character of a Mediator as he did before of a King I leave it to all mens Judgment whether more villanous Slanders could have been broached abroad by the worst of this Prince's Enemies and whether it be not a Scandal to our Country that they should be translated and published in English But since Monsieur de Cros is so bold with the Sacred Memory of a Great King for which he is yet so Impudent as to profess a most profound Respect What can a Subject expect for whom he owns such a virulent Malice and to whom he threatens such open Revenge The same vein of truth and sincerity shines through the whole Letter and the Author's Ingenuity is at the old pitch in what he pretends to rake out of the Memoirs concerning several Persons in great Employments as the D. of Lauder dale the present E. of Rochester Sir Joseph Williamson Sir Lionel Jenkins and Mons Beverning This Conjurer in all he says of them seems resolved to raise up the Spirits of the Dead to joyn with those of the Living in the Quarrel with these Memoirs and by such distorted Consequences draws Characters of them whereof there is no Apparition but what he himself raises So that the Characters he gives of these Persons by such false Deductions for Sir W. T 's may justly be said to be his own But from all I have observed in this Letter I have wonder'd at nothing so much as that impudent Vanity in the Writer who endeavours to make himself and the World believe that these Memoirs were intended chiefly against him whose very name is hardly twice mentioned after these two Pages in the whole Book which does not pretend to give Characters of Persons but only to relate things that were done or words that were said And the way to have made an answer with any Justice had been to have laid Exceptions either against the one or the other whereof there is not one word in all this Answer without any Answer However so ridiculous is this mans Insolence that he begins his Letter thus I have been informed of the Calumnies that Sir W. T. hath caused to be printed against me And p. 7. He set upon me first he writes out of a Spirit of Revenge c. The sensless Arrogance of which I cannot think of but it remembers me of the Fly on the Chariot-wheel For he would fain make it to have been a piece of Revenge against him for having brought that Dispatch to the Hague and yet he lays it much to heart that in that Affair he should only take him for a Messenger And this indeed is to make him a very reasonable person and like a man that when he receives a blow grows angry with the Stone by which it is given But by all I can observe in these Memoirs I do not find any thing which bears the least resemblance of Anger or Spleen much less of Revenge against Mons de Cros but so far from it that in the very Passage he lays most to heart of the Kings calling him Rogue the Memoirs mention particularly that His Majesty said it pleasantly which he himself cannot forbear observing in his Letter Having thus long been considering how far he is provok'd and how well he defends himself 't is time now to see how he attacks the Person whom he fancies his capital Enemy and how the Play begins 'T is then in these words p. 1. I know very well that Sir W. T. is of great worth and deserves well and that he hath been a long time imployed and that too upon important Occasions This is a piece indeed very much of a piece with all the rest Now in the name of wonder what can be the meaning I wot well enough what he would be at in all the rest of his Letter but the Sense the Wit or the Design of these sweet Lines is not easy to devise I confess I see a good many Plays and I believe I have read more but never met before so fair a Prologue to so foul a Farce I have read somewhere of a Monster among the Ancients with a Virgins face and all beside a Serpent which holds exact Resemblance here unless de Cros should object against it because Serpents have stings and his Letter has none However if we will not grant him a Conjurer as he would fain be thought yet we cannot in Conscience deny him to be a Jugler since the first thing he presents us with is meer slight of hand For he lays down a piece of Gold upon the Table and immediately Presto 't is gone and all we can see is only half a dozen Pellets of Dirt. In short I am not able to reach what he means by so whimsical a beginning and of so different a piece from every word that follows unless that being resolved to say nothing afterwards which any body would believe he thought fit to entertain us at first with three Lines he is sure no body doubts But to be serious If Sir W. T. be of great worth If de Cros either believes it himself or would have any body else to do so why is every word that follows so contradictory to these If he deserves well why is he used so very ill Does de Cros understand what a man of great worth means I doubt he does not either by himself or by such Company as so much