But the Lady apprehending the Thief 's Design very prudently neglected the false Attack and apply'd both her Hands to the sâ—curing her Jewel and by that means came off safe And so Gentlemen whenever you make your false Attack upon our Commonwealth we shall for the future take it for the Signal to us that your real Aim is at our Liberties and Properties and shall apply both our Hands and Hearts to the securing those Jewels of inestimable Price But to be serious in our case the Whigs as I said in the beginning of our Discourse have given sufficient Proof how little they design'd a Commonwealth and how hearty they were to the Monarchy in their struggling so zealously to set the Crown on the King's Head Tory. We own you were for giving him the Name of a King But after all speak sincerely Did you design to make him any more than a King of Clouts a Duke of Venice or a Statholder Whig We design'd to make him as great a King as the Laws of England and our Ancient Constitution make any King And if you pretend to make him more take the Honour of it But Sir upon this occasion your Party were for making his present Majesty less than either a Duke of Venice or Statholder of Holland For in proposing to make him a Regent you make him only a Journy-man-King a Subject to King Iames and accountable to him But what the Whigs did to deserve being suspected of a Commonwealth-Design or of any Intention to lessen the King's just Power I am yet ignorant Tory. You are wilfully so then for what could the meaning of the Convention be to settle the Revenue of the Crown from three Years to three Years and to take away the Revenue of the Chymney-Money one of the fairest Flowers of the Crown but lessening the King's Power and making his Government precarious Whig The Chimney-Tax being grown a Grievance more sensible and more odious to the common People than any other and the danger of being enslav'd by giving such great Revenues for Life to the two last Kings by which they were enabled to maintain standing Armies and to subsist without Parliaments was so fresh in the Memories of all thinking English-Men and so apprehended by them that the King's Friends thought it greatly for his Service to take away the Burden of the one and the Apprehension of the other from the People and by using different Methods to those which had been follow'd in the former Reigns To make his present Majesty's Government more acceptable to all good Men and that He might hereby reign in the Hearts of his Subjects and be distinguished by them which Method if pursued would have given us a fairer Prospect of our Affairs than at present I am afraid we have But this is not the Interest of wicked Ministers who when Kings take these Courses lose their Dominion over them their business is therefore to make Princes jealous of Encroachments of Parliaments of Commonwealth-Designs amongst the People to represent the King's Interest separate from the Interest of his Subjects and then to ingratiate themselves with him and raise themselves in his Opinion for their Parts and Abilities they offer him Schemes of Politicks to prevent Designs against him which were never thought on Thus these honest Iago's first work a Prince up to Jealousies and Hatred of his People by false Suggestions and then as a Remedy against the Mischiefs they have suppos'd put him upon Designs ruinous to his Country and himself But in the mean time by appearing thus zealous for what they call the King 's particular Interest and Glory they insinuate themselves into some sort of Princes Favour they become Confidents of all Court-Intrigues and grow great and rich they dispose all Offices and crush all who are not their Creatures and at last come to awe and govern Kings themselves As Waiting-Women who when they have debauched their Mistresses by their Mercenary Sollicitations and are become the Trustees of their Frailty they no longer taste the Busk nor bitter Reproofs for misplacing of a Pin or Patch but from Servants become Mistresses no Faults are then found with them no Liberty denied them even the Purse and the rich Petticoat is absolutely at the Waiting-woman's Service till at last they bring their Mistresses to Infamy and Beggary And so to return to the Ministry again By this kind of Management they make their Masters Kings of Clouts necessitous miserable and despis'd Princes For Example What made the late King Iames a King of Clouts but those Evil Counsellors who put him upon Despotick and Dispensing Power and propagating a Religion against Law Who put him upon preferring Papists and Irish to Protestants and English Who advised his seizing Colleges and Charters setting up High-Commission-Courts and making Parliaments and Laws a Nose of Wax Deny this if you can Mr. Tory. Nay as to your Idol-King Charles the Second who notwithstanding I believe much the worse of the two Brothers as sinning against a better Understanding and greater Obligations was it not by these Counsels and some of these Counsellors that this Gentleman was made a King of Clouts too from having all the Advantages at the time of his Restoration that ever King was blessed with He was belov'd delighted in and courted by his Subjects was respected Abroad in Plenty and Power at Home and could direct the Votes of a Parliament with a Nod more than he could at last with his Exchequer yet after all this in a few Years by the Management of some of our present Evil Counsellors who gave him ill Impressions of his Subjects made him out of Love with Parliaments and poison'd him with Lawless Power and Love of Tricks the worst of Poisons to an English King who for their own filthy Interest perswaded him to sell Dunkirk break the Triple League and enter into Measures with France destructive to the Interest of this Nation and of all Europe By these Measures he at last became distasteful to his Subjects and was forsaken by a Parliament the most attach'd to him and in love with his Person to a Fault so that at last his Necessities drove him to become a Pensioner to France And if you will believe Mr. Dreyden his Poet-Laureat concluded his Reign in these miserable Circumstances of being despis'd Abroad and living on Tricks at Home And how these Gentlemens Father and Grandfather were made Kings of Clouts by the like Measures and the like Ministers by endeavouring at Lawless Power and laying aside Parliaments c. even the Histories of those Times publish'd by their own Authority make it out plainly And now Mr. Tory if you please we will examine a little into the few Examples we have of Princes who have practis'd a contrary Method to the before-mentioned one we will enquire what Effects that sort of Government hath produced and we need go no farther I think than Queen Elizabeth's Reign the immediate Predecessor to the Scotish Race
A DIALOGUE BETWIXT Whig and Tory Aliàs Williamite and Iacobite Wherein the PRINCIPLES and PRACTICES of each Party are fairly and impartially stated that thereby Mistakes and Prejudices may be removed from amongst us and all those who prefer English Liberty and Protestant Religion to French Slavery and Popery may be inform'd how to choose fit and proper Instruments for our Preservation in these Times of Danger Printed in the Year 1693. To the KING SIR THO the Sacred Majesty of Kings I am sensible ought not in common Cases to be approach'd by every little Busy-body or frivolous Remonstrance-maker yet when our Prince's Palace is on Fire and his Sacred Person in the midst of Flames the meanest of his Subjects hath the Privilege then to give him warning of his Danger and to assist to quench the Fire And this I am afraid Sir is at present too near our Case or I would not have assum'd the Boldness to disturb your Repose or have plac'd my self so disadvantagiously before your Majesty as I must expect to appear under the Character of a Publick Censor of the Manners of your Ministers and a petty State-Reformer But it is not I alone that am thus concern'd and busy for the Publick the whole World are at this time mournfully reflecting upon the miserable Estate we are fallen into from that happy and glorious Prospect of things which we had in 1688 and 1689 This hath put all Men upon Enquiry into the Causes of the unhappy Change of our Affairs and I find it agreed on all Hands That the principal occasion of our Misfortunes or rather Mismanagements is from the intrusting those with the Government of all who were the Creatures and Tools of the two last Reigns and are irreconcileable Enemies to your Majesty's Government those who opposed your coming to the Crown those who declar'd to your Face King Iames the only Rightful King Those who sold their Country and betray'd it to the two last Kings and will be always ready to sell it even to the French King if he prove the fairest Chapman I have heard that Thurloe who was Secretary of State to Cromwel being ask'd by King Charles II. how they did support their Government so long when all the Nobility Gentry and Clergy were against it he replied By intrusting those only in the Management of all Affairs who were as heartily against that Nobility Gentry and Clergy I do not apply this literally for God be prais'd your Majesty hath a great part of all these several degrees of Men who are most heartily and zealously in your Interests But I mean by this that you are to oppose your Enemies with their Enemies not with their Friends And that the Design of keeping out King Iames with Jacobites seems to be as impracticable as his Project prov'd of setting up Popery with a Protestant Army Yet there are some about your Majesty who for base and private Ends endeavour to possess you with the destructive Politicks of courting and buying your Enemies into your Service and would perswade you that King Iames's Tories are the only Party truly principled for Monarchy and are fittest for Employment as being long practis'd in Business And that on the contrary your Majesty's best Friends whom they call Whigs are not only ignorant and unacquainted with Publick Business but are Haters of Monarchy of Common wealth-Principles and at best for making their Kings no more than Dukes of Venice and Kings of Clouts Now this is a Notion so false so fatal to the Prosperity of your Affairs and so dangerous to the very Being of your Government that I cannot but think it highly necessary that this Matter should be fairly stated and laid before your Majesty I am sensible how unfit I am for the Task and how open I lie to a Charge of Presumption in attempting it But as the Son of Cyrus who was from his Birth dumb broke Silence when he saw his Father in the Hands of his Murderers so since I saw no other Champion appear in this Cause I resolv'd to break through all Impediments even those of Nature and to endeavour the Rescue of my King out of the Hands of those who have already been the Ruin of two Kings your Majesty's Predecessors and who will undoubtedly bring you and your Affairs into great Difficulties if you be not delivered from their Counsels In order to this I have impartially made a Collection in the following Dialogue of all the Arguments which Whigs employ against the Tories or Tories against the Whigs and submit it to your Majesty's discerning Judgment and most piercing and distinguishing Wisdom upon the whole which of them are most proper for your Majesty to employ those who were in the Interests of Popery and of France or those who oppos'd both to the Death I appeal to you Sir whether a Tory's being for the Divine Right of Succession and consequently for King Iames's Monarchy makes him the fitter in Principle to be employ'd by King William Or whether his boasted Skill in Business will be of any use to your Majesty if he be in Principle and Inclination for K. Iames and believes K. William a King de facto only without a Rightful Title and in plain English an Usurper If these Gentlemen as their Principles will naturally lead them to do use all their Skill in their several Stations to obstruct and make difficult your Affairs to betray your Designs to your Enemies to countenance and protect K. Iames's Friends in all their Plots and Contrivances furnish them with Intelligence help them to Passes Escapes c. all which things it cannot be denied have been and are daily done by some Persons employ'd in this Government Of what Use Sir or Service then is this boasted Skill in Business to your Majesty's Interests Certainly Men less conversant in Publick Affairs who have a Zeal for your Government would be of more Use and Service to you Men who were persecuted by K. C. and K. I. either in their own Persons or in the Persons of their Friends who were fin'd imprison'd and some of their Relations hang'd in those Reigns are more likely to act in earnest against K. I. and in the supporting your Majesty and your Government than those who had their Fortunes and their Families rais'd by K. I. and his Brother K. C. and who hope to be rais'd yet more by his Return or at least to secure in his Government what they have got in this by obliging him and his Friends at the Price of sacrificing you and yours For Example Is it reasonable to believe the E. of N. whose Father and Family was rais'd by K. C. and K. I. for prostituting the Law and his nauseous Rhetorick to the Designs of those two Brothers who himself was a Privy-Counsellor with Father Peters and chosen by K. I. at the time of the Revolution to treat with your Majesty at Hungerford in order to delay your Progress to London and lastly who so
him a King of Clouts a Duke of Venice c. Thus by misrepresenting the King's best Friends he made way to bring in his old Practices and his old working Fools whom he represented to be Men of Business and Friends to Monarchy into this Court too and being assisted afterwards by the E. of N. and some others ye have indeed carried all before you and how much to the Interest of the Nation and the Honour of the King let all the World judg who have seen this poor Kingdom every Year for this last four Years brought to a reasonable Apprehension of being invaded from Abroad betray'd at Home and in a word to subsist only by a Miracle Tory. All this rambling Story you have told is a wild Supposition and straining the Intention of this noble Lord to your own malicious Purpose who design'd nothing more in bringing in these Gentlemen you call the King's Enemies than by reconciling them to the King and his Government to make the Foundation of it broader and deeper And I know not how this comes to be such a Crime and so ill Policy with us I have heard that Henry the Fourth of France who was esteem'd a wise and Politick Prince thought it very good King-Craft to caress his Enemies of the League and to make his Court to the Jesuits Whig And pray what did he get by it Did he ever gain either of them heartily into his Interest Were not those of the League ever ready to plot with the Spaniard c. against him And for his dear Friends of the Church not all his Renunciation of his old Religion and his old Friends not all his Gifts his Caresses and his Courtship could reconcile them to him or so much as save his Life when they had it in their Power to destroy it For those jealous Gentlemen the Iesuits never would believe they had his Heart till it was sent them in a Box to Le Fleche to be buried there Tory. But notwithstanding your Iesuits Tale of a Tub I will undertake that all the Tories as you call them in England both Clergy and Lay-men shall take the Oaths to the King and serve him heartily provided he will do one thing Whig What 's that Tory. Utterly discard you Whigs and give us the Penal Laws again upon the Fanaticks Whig And would that make the Foundation of the Government broader and deeper as you talk'd just now Besides have you not heard a Story of one Sampson Sir who after he had resign'd his Lock of Hair in which his Strength lay was delivered up to his Enemies by those he had trusted But supposing what you propose if granted might win you to be Williamites were King Iames dead yet I am mistaken if whilst he lives and the King of France continues as powerful as at present you will ever be drawn by any Courtship to engage so far in the Interests of this Government as to swear otherwise to the King than as King de facto nor will you make your Reconciliation to King Iames desperate Answer to this Point plainly and truly Tory. Wise Men will always secure a Retreat and Self-preservation is a first Principle with all Men. And as a Gentleman said wittily upon this occasion As long as the Government can maintain it self and will maintain me it is sure of me But I have liv'd too long at Court to die a Martyr for any Monarch and will always behave my self so in one Court as to be well with the next And tho perhaps this is not all that this Government might reasonably wish from us yet I can tell you they do not believe that they shall mend themselves by changing us for you for divers and sundry Reasons Whig Pray let us have some of them Tory. First because you are for a Commonweath-Government and Haters of Monarchy Whig That is that we are mad Men and void of all common Sense and Reason for whoever hath either of these will know a Commonwealth a Chymera impracticable and impossible to be brought about in England If Machiavel be of any Authority he says in his 55 th Chapter upon Government That where there is not an Equality in the Conditions and Estates of a People it is impossible for that People or Nation to erect and settle a Commonweath He gives you Examples to confirm this but I think there are some more to our purpose as being more recent and nearer home Upon the Revolt of the Low-Countries from the Spanish Yoke it was necessary for them to put themselves under some Form of Government and the Form being in their own free Choice seven of the seventeen Provinces who were a Trading sort of People much upon an Equality in their Condition and Fortune and had few Families of Nobility or Gentry among them fell naturally into a Commonwealth-Government But the other ten Provinces having great numbers of Nobility and Gentry tho they were more immediately under the Tyranny of the Spaniard and had been more particularly sensible of D'alva's Cruelty and Oppression notwithstanding chose rather to continue under the hated Government of Spain than to accept of the Invitation the other seven Provinces had made them of coming into the more hated Project of a Commonwealth so impossible it is to reconcile Men distinguished by Titles and Fortunes to mix themselves in a common Level with the People upon any Consideration or Disgust whatsoever And whoever will look over what passed here in England from the Year 1648 to the Year 1660 will be yet more convinc'd of the Truth of this Assertion and of the Nonsense of any Commonwealth-Design in this Nation Perhaps there was never at any time so many Men of strong Inclinations for a Commonwealth-Government as then nor of greater Abilities to effect such a Design And yet they found the Nobility Gentry and Dignified Clergy such a Rub in their way as no Art no Force could remove and at last they were brought into that Confusion and Disorder by attempting it that the very People and Army who were in this Project of a Commonwealth and had overthrown the Monarchy in order to it and could support Cromwell in a single Person yet after his Death saw a necessity of restoring the Monarchy again and assisted towards it But this was the Dust which the two last Courts threw into the Peoples Eyes when they would make them blind to Arbitrary Power and Popery And is now one great Artifice the Iacobites depend upon whereby to separate the Friends of this Government from its Support tho it will always be a Jest to understanding Men. I have heard a Story of a Lady who passing through a Crowd to her Coach and having a rich Jewel on her Breast cover'd the Jewel with one of her Hands which a Pick-pocket in the Crowd observing steps up to her and claps his Hand upon a Place below which he thought would oblige her to remove her Hand from her Breast to defend it
shewed to you Tories in spight of all your apparent Hatred of his Person as well as your profess'd Dislike of his Title and Government and the Aversion he hath shew'd to the Whigs and Contempt of all their Advances and Addresses hath begotten ugly Reasonings in jealous and prying Men as if there were a Biass towards the Principles of former Governments rather than to those this Government declar'd for and set up upon And even the wise and well meaning Tories begin once again to smell a T d when you hold it so near their Noses But come proceed Tory. You are likewise accus'd of being wedded to a Party and by that means will reduce his Majesty to be King of a Faction only of his Subjects Whig This will appear much otherwise if you will please to remember who brought in the E. of N. to be Secretary of State and many others of that Party and how few of your Faction were displac'd by the Whigs when they had Interest with the King But this Charge will appear most foully true upon you who by the basest Ingratitude and Villany fell upon undermining those who brought you into the Government the minute you were possess'd of the King's Ear. And yet you see notwithstanding all your barbarous Treatment of us We have always come in chearfully to all Votes for Money all Loans and all other Measures to support your Credit and the Common Interest till both are fallen so low that the Peoples Clamours were never so loud nor their Dissatisfactions never so great You like Solomon's Harlot are for tearing the Government asunder if you may not have the Possession of it We have shew'd on the other hand true Motherly-Tenderness and consented rather that it should remain in your Possession entirely than be torn in pieces betwixt us till it appear'd to all the World what a vile Step-Mother you have been and how you have starv'd and abus'd a Government worthy your most indulgent Tenderness and Care And yet I am not for refusing any Tory that gives Proof of his sincere Repentance and of a Love to his Country but with all my Heart would give my share of the fatted Calf to make the returning Prodigal welcome tho I cannot but think it reasonable that you should submissively seek the Government and not the Government submissively seek you that you should own your Sin against Heaven and against your Country and give Security of another course of Life for the future and not justify your Faults and persevere in them If I could see amongst any of you the least Consideration for the common Good and Benefit of Mankind and the universal Welfare of your Fellow-Creatures to which you are bound by the Law of God and the Law of Nature and to which all the Heathens who were not barbarous paid a most profound Reverence and Obedience and preferr'd to all private Interest to Wives Children Estate nay to Life it self If I can find any amongst you a Lover of his Country a sincere Supporter of the Laws Liberties and Interest of the English Nation I am as much his Servant tho he be a N a C or a R as if he were a S a R a S or a T But instead of shewing any Regard to the Interest of the Nation any Bowels for your Country any Self-denial in point of private Interest Have you not sold your Country and their Birth-rights upon all occasions like Esau for a Mess of Pottage Have not some of you put off Human Nature Human Reason and all common Honesty so far as to conspire to bring in a French Power to gratify your private and personal Piques To bring in Popery and Slavery to rule over you because you cannot Tyrannically rule over your Fellow-Subjects Remember what the Presbyterians got by being so active in restoring the two late Popish Kings hoping to be reveng'd thereby upon the Independents and other Dissenters Were they not mingled in the same Persecution with the others nay more oppress'd and mark'd out for Wrath as being more numerous and more considerable than any other Sect Just so must the Church and their Proselytes expect to fare from the Hands of their Popish Friends whose Cause they are so zealously propagating they may admit them to the Honour of being the Cat's-foot but not a bit of the Chesnut No Whig no Fanatick but will then have as fair Quarter at least from King Lewis as you for King Iames I take to be only a Cypher and Property to your French Lord and Master who when he hath finished his Work will finish his Life too And do you Iure Divino you truly Loyal Gentlemen think that you will find more Favour then for being more attach'd to King Iames's Interest No be assured the most inveterate Enemies of King Iames will meet with as favourable a Treatment at least as you who have professed your selves so violently enamour'd of King Iames's Person and of the right Line Reflect a little upon the King of France's Conduct at the time of the late Revolution He knew long before the Prince of Orange's design of making a Descent into England and could have prevented it a thousand ways but instead of that he writes to Barillon then his Ambassador in England to know in what Condition King Iames was to oppose the Prince's Forces He being a Foreigner and judging only by outward Appearances represents the Army of King Iames sufficiently powerful to resist what Force the Prince of Orange could bring whereupon the French King believing that the English and Dutch would by this means weaken and destroy one another and leave a fair Game for him the next Year against the Emperor and Flanders and to take away all Apprehension from the Dutch of their needing an Army for their own Defence and to give all Encouragement to their Design upon England he draws all his Troops from the side of Flanders and falls upon Philipsburg which Army if he had marched towards the Spanish Frontiers in Flanders the Dutch durst not have transported a Man and the whole Design of the Descent had been at an end From hence it is plain what Friendship the French King had for his dear Brother King Iames and what you may expect from this Man of Honour and good Nature when you have serv'd his Turn Come grow wise and honest and let us not divide under this or that Ministry under this or that Faction or Party but let us all unite against the common Enemy let us make the Publick Interest and the Support of the Government as it is established by Law our chief and only Aim and for all Projectors and Conspirators whether for a Commonwealth a French Tyranny or any other Tyranny I wish they were all hang'd on the same Tree the first for Fools the others for Miscreants and Villains And thus much and no more am I for being wedded to a Party Tory. I own you have told us a fair Tale but nothing is
proved nothing appears undeniable but your Venom and Enmity against the Church and her Friends Whig If your mean the French Story needs proving the Disgrace of Barillon when he return'd to Versaille upon the account of mistaking and misrepresenting the English Affairs is notorious But besides the Story proves it self more than a thousand Witnesses and for the rest I have related nothing but what every English-man is knowing of And as for what you charge me with in relation to the Church I see little Reason for it unless as St. Paul says you account me your Enemy because I tell you the Truth For my part I reverence the Church of England as much as any Man But I am not for sacrificing the Laws and Liberties of the Publick nay the very Nation it self to a Foreign Conquest for the sound of a Word I have a due Respect for the Priesthood too and am their Servant but never can submit to be their Slave I honour their Coat but cannot be content to strip my self of mine in respect to it A moderate Respect is decent and our Duty more I take to be Superstition at least if not Idolatry and to worship a Wooden Priest appears to me as bad as worshipping a Wooden God Tory. Now you are running into your usual Violence and Heat and let me tell you as a Friend it does you no good neither with the Church nor Court which latter hath a very low Opinion of those Men who express too much Warmth in what they say or do Whig And therefore their Affairs have succeeded accordingly Let the Nation be Judges Whether if Men of Warmth had been put in Office by our Ministers the Taxes would not have been more justly and carefully collected than they have been by those Luke-warm Managers they have employ'd who like the unjust Steward when the King 's Due was an hundred bid their Neighbours write down fifty Or do you think the Deputy-Lieutenants of Surry would have absconded last Year when they were ordered to raise the Militia upon King Iames's coming down to Normandy if they had been Men of Warmth to the Government Or that King Iames's Friends would dare to profess their Opinions and carry on their Designs so publickly That they would presume to insult the Government in every Coffee-house nay in the Mall and Whitehall it self That they would dare to threaten you to your Teeth as they do with Invasions Descents and Rebellions or would venture to correspond with France and go forward and backward every Day to King Iames nay raise Regiments of Horse and Foot under your Noses for a Rebellion if Men of Warmth and Zeal were in the Government But it is from hence that all these Insolencies take their Rise that the Enemies of the Government are come from hating it to despite it that its Friends are discouraged to appear for it and that those Officers and Souldiers who in King Charles's time would have broken the Heads of those whom they heard reflect upon the King's Person or Government will in this Reign hear both treated very odly not that they want an Affection to either but out of a fear to offend by shewing themselves Men of Warmth and Party-men those Characters being so abominable to our Court. Tory. You Whigs have been the occasion of all this too for you were so irreconcileable to some Ministers of State at the Beginning of the Revolution because they had made a few Slips in the last Reigns or perhaps because they had hang'd some of your Friends a Father or Brother or so that you forc'd them to take in some Persons which they themselves thought not very proper for this Government But if you will run a Man down he will support himself at any rate for Men are but Men And withal I believe they hop'd that a Place would buy any Party out of their Principles and that all who they bought into the Government would be obliged by that Means to be for the Government Whig This is very far fetch'd Mr. Tory tho it is not the first time I have heard it But as to the first part of this Paragraph the Matter of Fact is false The Whigs were willing to forget all past Miscarriages and be reconciled to any Minister that could be honest as I shew'd you before But these Gentlemen quickly convinc'd all the World that they were grown so old and stiff in their former Mischiefs that they were capable of no other â—end or Impression but what they had taken in the last Reigns And it was plain to every Man that had Eyes that they were no sooner in the Ministry but they fell into their old Schemes which no honest Man could come into and which I am afraid the Court hath not found the good Effects from which these Evil Counsellors promis'd It 's true by giving Places to all that were supple and complying you have brought in the Knaves of all Parties But since that which brings them into the Service of the Government is their own Interest and not that of the Government it will be reasonable for our Rulers to expect that the whole Design of such Men will be rather how to serve themselves of the Government than how to serve it To conclude Sir notwithstanding all you have said in Excuse of your Ministers and their Methods I cannot but remain in my first Opinion That the Men of easy Phlegme born on the Confines of Indifference as Sir Samuel Tuke in F ch-like Fustian describes our luke-warm Neutrals are not fit Men to be employ'd in our Government as the Case stands at present but will prove as destructive to it as downright Iacobites Tory. All this is taking things for granted which we deny and accusing Men of what you do not prove and if it were so you confess there are Knaves of your Party too Whig The Truth of what I say in relation to your Party is so notorious to all the World that it would be as impertinent to go about proving it as to prove there is a Sun even you your selves have confess'd and pretended to repent of your Principles and Practices in King Iames's time tho you are now return'd to your Vomit And as to what you say of our having Knaves amongst us I must confess it too true and am as much afflicted as you can be that any Whig should invade your undoubted and sole Right of being Knaves and selling and betraying their Fellow-Subjects But yet we hope we may claim a Distinction to be made betwixt our Party who not only profess but have maintain'd to the Death the Religion Rights and Liberties of their Country and yours who in King Charles's and beginning of King Iames's Reign gave up all these things and who though you are employ'd in and sworn to the present Government make publick Rejoicings at the Slaughter of our Armies and Destruction of our Fleets If the Whigs have the Misfortune of some Knaves professing themselves of
their Party Our Saviour himself had a Iudas amongst his Twelve and yet that did not at all discredit the Doctrine and Principles of the Apostles not does our having some Knaves among us make it as reasonable and equal to adhere to your Party that are the professed Enemies of their King and Country as to depend on those who have generally in all Times and on all Occasions declar'd their Affection to their Country Love of its Laws and Religion and have since the Revolution shewed their Zeal for the present Establishment Tory. Just now you seem'd to agree to a Comprehension and were for welcoming the Prodigals as you call'd them now you are for excluding them again Whig No I am for receiving any Tory as I told you that seeks the Government and becomes a true Penitent But I would not have the Government seek them nor would I have them entrusted in this critical time without some Marks of their Repentance and Regeneracy and by our Easiness give them the opportunity of selling us to the French King or King Iames as I fear some of them do at this time Tory. All that 's Malice and Stuff and not reasonably to be apprehended And I tell you once more it is the Opinion of some wise Men that the King cannot follow a more fatal Counsel than to confine himself to any one Party of his Subjects Whig Then your Patrons have been advising him fatally these four Years for they have been perswading the King to throw himself entirely into your Hands Tory. They never refus'd to receive any Whig that would comply and come under their Protection but if the King will choose any one Party I think we of the Church are the most numerous and considerable and are fittest as such to be employ'd by him Whig Now you are retired into your Sanctuary the Church you think you are safe and it is indeed dangerous pursuing you But however I 'll venture it and since you force me I must repeat again some of those Arguments I have given you already why you are not fit to be trusted by this Government First you Tories do not believe your selves King William's Subjects and therefore are very unfit to be employ'd by him as his Servants Secondly It cools the Affections of the People to see those employ'd in Places of highest Trust who they have a Demonstration are not for the Government even when they are in it And by this Method it is plain the King according to the Fable loses his Shoulder of Mutton by catching at the Shadow and by aiming at both Parties he hath neither Tory. I confess I am for the King 's relying on one Party as much as you are tho not yours but however there are great and wise Men as I told you of another Opinion and I have heard it ask'd Why this Method of uniting all Parties should not have as good an Effect here as in Holland for there the Prince of Orange reconcil'd all to the common Interest Whig I 'll tell you why First it appears all Parties there sincerely intended the Good of the Government which it is too plain is not your Case Secondly Neither Party had any other Head to repair to as you Tories have the Prince of Orange had no pretending Rival to the Right of Statholder But the King hath here a Rival a Father-in-Law who pretends a Right to the Crown who is supported by the greatest Power that ever was known in Europe so as to make the Event appear doubtful even to those who are most zealous for this Government And by this means the Friends of King Iames are encouraged to be firm to his Interests and Neutrals nay and even his fearful Enemies are frighted from acting with a Zeal against him Is this a time then to be trying Experiments to put our selves and Affairs into the Hands of Men bred up and principled against the Design of this Government Is this a time to reconcile our selves to our Enemies and to take Men out of Plots and place them in our Cabinet No sure with my Lord N 's leave this is not the time In this time of Danger those who have been the antient and declar'd Enemies of King Iames and who have most reason to expect being hang'd if he return are most fit for the King to rely on But when these Difficulties are master'd as much Comprehension as you please In the mean time your Education in Toryism your Obligations to King Iames and which is more than both your present Hopes from him will make you so averse to this Government that no Favour no Courtship can engage your heartily in its Interests and it is Nonsense to expect you should fight for a Title you have always declar'd to disapprove of Tory. You are always harping upon that String But supposing we do not approve of the making him King yet we know how to obey Kings when they are made But you after you have made a King are using him like your Creature clipping his Power and â— finding Fault with his Conduct For my part if I were a King would sooner forgive a Man that dislik'd my Title than one who dislik'd my Conduct Whig Why then Mr. Tory you would be none of the wisest Princes For he who finds fault with your Conduct may be your Friend but he who finds fault with your Title must be your Enemy or else a Knave and acts against his Conscience But how does this Article appear of the Whigs being dissatisfied with the King's Conduct in any Point but in his employing you and the Consequences of it Is it from giving chearfully whatever Sums were demanded in Parliament Is it being ready to advance Money upon the most remote Funds in offering their Persons to the Publick Service in all times of Danger notwithstanding all Brow-beatings and Discouragements by breaking all Measures with King Iames and his Party that they discover their Dislikes and Dissatisfactions to the King or his Government But if they disapprove that the Friends of King Iames should be King William's Ministers that those should be plac'd in all Offices who hate him and betray him Will he have Reason to take their Dislike of this part of his Conduct so very unkindly from them as to forgive it less than your renouncing his Right and Title to the Crown But your Tories have got a Trick of bringing Kings into your Quarrels as the Priests do God Almighty into theirs and by placing them before you hope to make your selves safe not caring how much you expose them and you impudently place your own Crimes unfairly upon others and whilst you your selves are daily Libelling and Lampooning the King's Person and Conduct most maliciously and triumphing in all his Misfortunes ingratefully witness the publick Insolencies at the Bath and Windsor upon the late Defeat in Flanders you according to your wonted Modesty charge the Whigs with your own Faults and avoid being Criminals by turning Accusers Tory.