a conclusion of a strict Union gives us just ground so to understand them and we wish that the serious reflects on what their carriage hath been to other States in this particular mentioned in the later end of this discourse at large besides our own experience to say no more gave us not fair warning how we trust those who when they speak of Peace have War in their hearts If their former ill Offices to this State had been reflected on as they did deserve there would have been occasion enough wherefore this State should have refused any treaty with them til satisfaction had been first given and security But notwithstanding all the Parliament hoping that their own former actions had reproved them and being willing to take all opportunities to continue friendship between them and us as they had alwayes done heretofore past over all other considerations and having given their Ambassadors honorable and friendly Entertainment ordered the Councel of State to treat with them in which there was an uninterrupted proceeding till by the late hostile assault of our Navy by Van Trump themselves cut the Cords thereof and gave us to understand what dealing we were to expect at their hands Notwithstanding when a little after the said assault the Lord Pauw came over to England as an extraordinary Ambassador pretending that he had full power to accommodate all things The Parliament gave his Lordship honorable Entertainment and the Councell of State notwithstanding their other great occasions were rather before hand then otherwise in the management of the Treaty desiring if it might have been rather an accommodation then a warre Yet during the space of almost three weeks the time that he was here he neither agreed with the Parliament in the matter of Fact of the late Assault nor proposed any thing in way of satisfaction nor in compliance with that one Demand of the Parliament viz. To have satisfaction for their extraordinary charge they had been put to by their late Preparations and Assault Nor produced full power to conclude what should be agreed upon But desired that the matter of the Assault might be past over or put into examination And that there might be a cessation of Arms whilst those things were treated on though when the Spanish Plenipotentiaries at Munster did earnestly desire a cessation of acts of Hostility both by Sea and Land whilst the late Treaty was at Munster The States Plenipotentiaries particularly the Lord Pauw himselfe answered That it was not usuall for States to make any Cessation of Arms during a Treaty and was utterly against it Though that cessation was desired by the King of Spain whose Government the States had shaken off and the war was on that Foot And the cessation which the Lord Pauw desired of us was in the name of that State whose Navy in the time of Amity and Treaty had endeavoured to have surprized our Fleet at our doors And when he heard that our Fleet was set sail June 26. It staying in the Downs all that time he had been here expecting what conclusion should be made the next day he desired a Passe and safe convoy for himselfe and the rest of the Lords States Ambassadors because as he said a cessation of Armes was not granted though the Parliament put the cessation onely upon the paying or giving them security for the extraordinary charge they had been put to by them as aforesaid as the Parliament Declaration mentions at large And having taken their leave of the Parliament on the Wednesday after they departed towards Gravesend and so for Holland Now let all Europe judge between us and the Neatherlanders what could we have done more for them then we have done or hath any Nation done so much for a Forraign people The Loan of hundreds of thousand pounds the Blood of thousands of English men Love Tenderness Bowels Affections the Espousing their Quarrels undertaking their Protection when they were at the lowest and like to be swallowed up quick even then when our outward condition was seemingly weak being newly come out of Papacy torne with intestine tumults engaged in War with other Nations govern'd chiefly by a Woman and all this when no tye of League or Friendship required any such thing or former Civilities This hath been the dealing of England towards them not for a year but for a score of years not with the affections of Friends only but with the love of Brethren not for our advantage to give Law to them possess their Towns and Riches or to add them to the Territories of England but to enable them to give Law in their own Borders to possess their Habitations and Estates in safety and to make them not only distinct from their Enemie but entire strong and absolute in their own Jurisdiction we picked no Quarrels or made pretences to keep their Cautionary Towns no we delivered them though all our money is not paid to this very day We made not our selves a third party to serve our selves upon them or have we joyned with their Enemie We envied not their Prosperity or Riches but rejoyced in their good condition We wished not them broken that we might be replenished nor hath so much as a thought to destroy them come into our hearts we have not beat the Drum or sounded first the Alarm of War to them or made the first preparations thereunto though we have been thus ill requited by them for all our Love Money our powring forth of our Blood for them and hazarding thereby our own beeing though we have been thus maligned and hated even beyond the measure of the Cavaliers hatred Envy and Malignity Thus endeavoured with the exercise of our Religion Lives Liberties Wives Children Estates and all that 's pretious and dear to us in the world to be delivered into the bloudy power of that Tyrannicall King who had wanted not a will to betray even themselves to the Spaniard as he did those Nobles of Flanders who had sent to him for protection and whose heads the King of Spain cut off Thus affronted in Parliament by their Ambassadors in the year 1645. who to their faces gave the Justice on the Kings side Thus shut out of dores when our Agent Strickland could not have audience with the States General though he waited for it a year and a half Thus murthered barbarously when our Resident Dorislaus was assassinated in their Territories Thus scorned abused and assaulted by the uncommanded Rabble cursed by Prince Edward to our Ambassadors faces and designed to be strangled by that vile Apsley when our Ambassadors were last there And this notwithstanding all our former Injuries we were treating with them for a more strict Union Thus slighted in that slow Treaty to no purpose and the plain Declaration of their looking for a Scotch line to measure our Ruins before they would measure our Peace Thus tortur'd and barbariz'd in those of Amboyna kick'd out of dores in being dispossest of those Islands
THE Case Stated BETWEEN ENGLAND And the United Provinces In this present Juncture Together with a short view of those Netherlanders in their late Practises As to Religion Liberty Leagues Treaties Amities Publish'd for the Information of and a warning to England By a Friend to this Commonwealth They rewarded me Evill for Good Psalm 35. 12. And Joab said unto Amasa Art thou in health my brother and Joab took Amasa by the beard with the right hand to Kiss him but Amasa took no heed to the Sword that was in Joabs hand so he smote him therewith in the Fift Ribb 2 Sam. 22. 9 10. Who knowing the Judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of Death not only do the same but have pleasure in them that doe them Rom. 1. 32. For thus saith the Lord of Hosts After the Glory hath he sent me to the Nations that spoiled you for he that toucheth you toucheth the Apple of his Eye Zach. 2. 8. London Printed by Tho. Newcomb and are to be sold by Anthony Williamson at the Queens-arms in Pauls church-yard near the West-end M. DC LII The Case stated between ENGLAND and the UNITED Provinces in this present Juncture HAd it pleas'd the supream disposer of all things who changeth times and seasons and doth with the Nations of the World as he pleaseth to have continued the ancient Amity and friendship that hath been between the Commonwealth of England and the Vnited Provinces which on our parts hath always been endeavoured It would have been matter of great content unto us to have wanted the opportunity of discourses of this nature the English Nation having given for almost a century of years together the most unparalel'd Testimonies of their affections and love unto those Countreys but since they seem to chuse War rather then Peace in bringing their armed Fleets to our borders and there in a hostile manner assaulting and endeavouring to destroy part of our Navy whilst the Amity between them and us continued yea even when their Ambassadors were treating with us for a strict League and Vnion and notwithstanding the great tenderness of this State to avoid every thing that might lead to a Rupture saving the undoubted Rights and Dominion of this Nation and the Justice they ought to administer to their People thereby enforcing us to some engagement and seeing how necessary it is in such times as these that the People be rightly informed in the state of things I have briefly placed a few things together as the state of the Case whereby the People of England may know how much it concerneth them to look about in this present Juncture When the Spaniard was likely to have swallowed up the People of the Vnited Provinces their Libertie and Exercise of the Protestant Religion in the days of Queen Elizabeth and the sad groans of those then distressed States were by their Publick Ministers breathed forth to the State of England though the constitution then of this Nation was under Monarchy Though the Nation had but then abandoned the practise of the Popish Religion professed therein for many hundreds of years before which greatly dissetled the Peace thereof and caused many Rebellions Though this Nation was then engaged in War with Ireland and the Countreys about Though the chief Government thereof was by a Woman matter of encouragement to Enemies both abroad and at home to designe upon England Though all these were very great grounds wherefore England should have looked to her self and not empty her Treasures and weaken her Force for the preservation of others especially when that thereby she was likely to provoke the Spanish Powers against her self as it afterwards fell out in 1588 yet so open was the heart of the People of England to receive the cries of the Vnited Provinces so tenderly did they resent their Condition that as if it were not now the Dutch but the condition of England they willingly espoused their Quarrel undertook their Protection the Parliament of England advanced Queen Elizabeth several subsidies for this work and England enabled her to lend the Dutch eleven hundred thousand Pound Sterling which was a great sum of mony in those days and to them especially who could then hardly raise any considerable sum for the management of so great an affair in all their Provinces ship'd them over many thousands of English men when their own Countrey afforded very few Souldiers and all this when neither League Amity or Reciprocall kindness required them thereunto and which through the goodness of God put a present stop to the Spaniard who was breaking in upon them like the breach of the sea and in time helped them into that condition which hath occasioned them to give themselves the title of High and Mighty States and assisted their Nation so not for a year but for above four score years not in the beginning of their Wars only but till the last year that by Peace there was an end of War not when their condition had a probable dress of advantage upon it but when it was under the greatest improbabilities and this not with a thousand mens lives onely but with the lives of many thousands whose blood was shed in their Wars Nor did the necessity of our Engagements with Rebels within and the neighbour Nations round about cause us to withdraw our help from them but so dear were their Liberties and the profession of the Protestant Religion with them to us that it seem'd to be but one Nation one Cause and quarrel being entertained by us with the affections of Brethren the love of Friends and the respects of Neighbours and Allyes nor have we envyed at but rejoyced in their welfare and prosperity In process of time when the late King of England thought fit to put in execution what had been before contrived in his Father's days to wit the enslaving of England and to that end advanced his prerogative above the Law by which he ought to have ruled both by his oath and the constitution of this Nation and his power upon the consciences of his Subjects in the Injunction of superstitious Innovations in Religious Services which with his tolleration of Popery permitting of many Jesuits and the Popes Nuntio in England himself being sometimes seen at Mass were black symptomes of the Antichristian darkness coming upon us and to advance this end levied Arms against the Scots who then both saw and opposed those growing mischiefs when these things answered not his expectation but rather turned both Nations into union to withstand such proceedings he countenanced if not commissionated that horrid and not to be parallel'd Rebellion in Ireland the blood whereof is not stopt to this very day and yet when he saw the Parliament more resolved to oppose his wicked and Tyrannicall proceedings and that nothing would serve them but Justice on his evil Councellors and security for their Laws and Liberties being grieved that he had condiscended to any thing though it
contrary to League and Agreement Plundred and robb'd in the taking of our ships and goods that traded that way and to other places to great values Trod underfoot in their disgracefull dragging our English Colours after their Sterns when they had robb'd our ships Thus dared by the Commonaltie beyond measure in their belching out of Oaths Curses Slanders and by their Masters in preparing Fleets to infest our Coasts beating up of Drums for Voluntiers and endeavoured to be destroyed in Trump's late assaulting our Fleet in the time of Treaty and whilst there was Amity between us Greater Love and Assistance then by the English to them hath not been shown to a People Never was love so ill requited and abused never was patience so much provoked nor ever had people a juster ground to look them in the face in case of Engagement which they have now forced the righteous God will judge between them and us The People and Cause of God in this Nation is Holynesse to the Lord All that devour it shall offend Evill shall come upon them Scotland hath found it so with a witness Even the People of God amongst them who endeavoured its destruction Ireland is yet paying dear for it and upon France are the Vials powring out those of our own Nation that assisted this Cause in the beginning and were eminent therein in Godliness and honesty falling upon this stone afterwards have been broken in pieces so tender hath it been in the sight of God Even as the apple of his Eye Oh thou Belgia what will become of thee in the day when thy rage thy cruelty they malice thy scorne thy ingratitude thy opposition to this hallowed thing shall come into remembrance and is not that day already begun When every crying a aha every b clapping of thy hands every stamping with thy feet Every rejoycing in thy heart with despight every of thy taking c vengeance and revenge for the old hatred every of thy saying she is d broken she is turned unto me I shall be replenished she is laid waste Every of thy taking them up on the e Lips of talkers and making them the infamy of the People Every of thy f Blasphemies in saying they are laid waste they are given us to consume g when as the Lord was there Every of their h Reproaches and Revilings shall be remembred and carry with it a weight of vengeance for Recompence Every i evil neighbour will be visited in the day that God doth k avenge the Controversie of his Cause what then will become of you that have done more against it then all the ill Neighbours He hath begun it already the Kings and great ones of England Scotland and Ireland have drunk deeply of the l Cup they are become a desolation and their Cities shall not return The People have wallowed in their blood have m cursed their God and their King and looked upwards Even Godly men that have walked in this n craoked Path God hath led them forth with the workers of Iniquity God hath been o jealous for it with a great jealousie and out of the p mouth of the Lyon and the jaw of the mighty hath he pluck'd it and set it up on q high He hath lift up his r Banner upon it and advanced it as a Å¿ signe to the Kingdoms of the Earth whoever will not bow down unto it we may rationally expect according to the precedent series of divine Providence must be broken in pieces And who are you oh yeNeatherlanders that dare to set your selves against the Lord against what he hath done and is doing in these Nations to endeavour to strike out all the glorious Characters of his footsteps and presence what his Arm hath brought to pass for him and his mighty Power establish'd in these Dominions Who are you that dare to think that you can root out this Cause and give the lye to all the appearances of God the Prayer the Faith the Prayses of his Saints in these Nations Who are you that say their t Gods are Gods of the Hills therefore we will fight with them in the Valleys They stood against their own Forces but they shall not against ours The Land is given them in possession but the deep is ours and we will swallow them up as in the belly of Hell Our God is the same and so is our Cause on the Sea as well as the Land Spain found it so in the year 1588. and All others have since our late Wars and Troubles Take heed least Divine Power work revengeingly there as it hath begun upon you already and burie your Carcasses in the mighty waters and take heed least that though we would pass by yet God will not pardon what you have done against his Cause and us What is it that hath turned your hearts against your friends and set you to so ill requite their Love their bloud their hardships for you What is it that hath made you to affect and assist that cursed thing of Monarchy in these Nations which you before us saw to be a Plague and adventured your All to be rid of it and which hath confounded all its supporters and which God hath made to appear to be an accursed thing as clear as the Sun at noon day What is it that makes you retrograde to your Principles of a Free State that having known the benefit of Freedom through the Bloud of England you should endeavour the slavery of England Why should you be angry that we stand upon our Legs and honestly proceed to serve the advantage of our impoverish'd Countery and to improve what God in nature Providence and by the dreadfulness of War hath handed to us Why should you covet our Trade and Riches and not rather be contented with what God gives you though it were with a sparing hand Why should you rather delight to see us in our Blood our Cities and Habitations laid waste Our Bodies Wives Virgins prostituted to the mercy of the Bloody Enemies of God and us and rather then fail endeavour it with your own hands then that you should be disappointed of the sweetness of that gain you got by our Losses and Ruines Why should you be grieved at the heart that you did not fully assert the King of Scots interest when as you see God is against him and against his bloudy House And the Lord knows how much you are under vengeance for what you have done for him already Would you be thus measured to your selves Doe you think that the Cause here which hath in its weakest condition born down all before it like a mighty Torrent will not quit it self against your unrighteous Attempts Think you that this State who to do their People Right have not spared King nor Constitution Friend or Brother but have travelled through ten years bloudy Wars waiting upon God for such a day as this Even
France And that they have protested against the Authors of such an Act so contrary to all Publick Faith and all manner of Reason and Decency And what ill consequences should follow that business are to be imputed to the Contrivers and Abettors of that unworthy action of concluding a peace without the consent of both parties according to the Articles of agreement and this the Plenipotentiaries of France have been fain to do to prevent a Rupture in the Union between France and the States of the United Provinces and to clear their Consciences and Duties towards his Majesties of France who could never perswade themselves if the present Opposition and Protestation had not been made that in a business in which there is only treated to keep to an Enemy some secret promises or to accomplish several Treaties so solemnly made with an ancient friend the Spaniards should have had more power over the Plenipotentiaries of the said Lords States of the United Provinces to ingage them to a breach then those of France have had to perswade them to observe the agreements and treaties made between France and the Low Countries But this Proposition having taken no effect the next day Monsieur de la Thuillerie put in another Paper into the assembly That they would be pleased to send thus much to their Plenipotentiaries that they should not sign their Treaty of peace with Spain till France had likewise made an end of their Treaty of peace with Spain This the assembly would not do because it was to the prejudice of their affairs Thus all along till the treaty at Munster was concluded and ratified the French Ambassadors at the Hague and the French Plenipotentiaries at Munster never gave over propounding to the States what wrongs the States of the United Provinces had done and the Crown of France had sustained by their breach of Contracts solemn Leagues and Treaties but none of them prevailed though France at their desire had begun and prosecuted the Warre against Spain whereby Spain was brought low which contrary to their many solemn Contracts to Ingenuity and Gratitude was taken up by the States and made use of to serve their advantage leaving France alone to contend with Spain to this day refusing to lend the King of France supplies of money whereof he had occasion according to the treaty of Campeigne 1624. when the French King supplyed them and having tyed up their hands from assisting the French against the Spaniard by their League de non offendendo The Plenipotentaries of the States of the United Provinces that transacted this affair were Bartolt Van Gent. John of Matenesse Adrian Pauw I. Knuyt G. Van Reed J. V. Donia William Ripperda Adr. Claut Notwithstanding these proceedings with the Spaniard the King of Spains Ambassador Le Brun complains that the States have broken 17 Articles of the late treaty at Munster I have been the larger in this because it is so full necessary and pregnant an Instance whereby at once the States inside is turned outside exactly and a rare President and Caution given to this Nation and all Princes to discern these serpents under all their green and smooth expressions of friendship and their most solemn stipulations for that purpose of which in my judgment I could omit nothing I shall therefore be more brief in the following Instances and forbear the quoting as many as I intended least by too much prolixity I might offend The next that I shall produce is Portugal who whilst under the Command of the Spaniard were understood and Prosecuted as Enemies by the Dutch because one with Spain But in the year 1640. the Kingdom of Portugal making themselves free and distinct from Spain all good Patriots in the united Provinces did look upon it as a business of great good and welfare and an order was made for a cessation of Arms at Sea against the Portugal But those of the East and West Indie Companies true Lucriones shewed their regret at this publick joy foreseeing by this that their Piracies exercised against the Portugals there must come to an end and the conquests also that they had promised themselves over the Portugal in the East-Indie and Brazil This beginning of friendship in the cessation of Arms pleased the Portugal extremely who sent an Ambassador to the Hague where there was a truce concluded on between the Portugal and the United Provinces for twelve years But the craftiness and cunning of the Dutch is worthy observation for because the East Indie and Brazil were so far off the Hollanders caused this clause to be inserted That the Truce should not begin in the East Indies till within a year and in Brazil till within half a year after the ratification thereof In the mean time the Hollander before and in the time gave order and express advice to their men at Brazil and elsewhere to do their best to take all they could get from the Portugals as indeed they did for they took Angola St Tomce and Marinsan and in the East Indies they took Mallacca also in Brazil they took and confiscated divers Portugal ships coming to honest and Cordial friends as the Dutch The Truce being made and both Parties as well the Portugals as the Hollanders having ful notice of it the Portugals at Angola relying upon the Truce admitted the Hollanders as friends with a great deal of joy and alacrity into the Castle but the Dutch being no sooner entred they took and turned out the Portugals and having boarded them in an ugly rotten Bark unprovided of provisions sent them to traverse the sea in a thousand dangers with the same deceit they entred into the Islands of Marinsan and St. Tomce Ambassadors were sent from Portugal to demand these places the Hollanders produced the said clause of the Truce which was all the Portugal could get from the Hollander for said they There is no wrong done in regard that in that clause is said That each side shall hold and keep what he can take and in such a time Whereupon the Portugal Ambassador said to them very well That that must be understoodBona fide viz That which should be taken without having any knowledge of the Truce But those of the West Indie Company and those that were in their service had full knowledge of the Peace or Truce and nevertheless had treacherously faln upon the Portugals and taken from them those places who no waies suspected any such cheat but admitted the Dutch as friends The Dutch having made the business less suspected in regard they expressed great love to the Portugal and ordered a cessation of Arms before the Portugal had desired them but for what end the world may judg which action was the more cruel and treacherous in regard that the King of Portugal had but then torn himself from the Spaniard into his own rights and in this Infancy of his Government was thus dealt withal Besides all this the Government of the Dutch in Brazil hath been so