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A66539
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The legacy of John Wilmer, citizen, and late merchant of London humbly offered to the lords and commons of England.
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Wilmer, John.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing W2884; ESTC R9494
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27,537
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38
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THE LEGACY OF John Wilmer Citizen and late Merchant of LONDON Humbly offered to the LORDS and COMMONS of England Felix quem faciunt aliena Pericula cantum LONDON Printed for the Author MDCXCII TO THE Nobility and Commons OF ENGLAND ALthough my Lords and Gentlemen I have read many Men yet few Books so that it is not my Talent to write in an eloquent Rhetorical Stile and therefore hope you will pardon my blunt and plain way of writing The substantial Matter of these following Papers I drew presently after my Return from Holland in January last was three Years but did by the Advice of Friends forbear publishing them at that time The Excuse for my Boldness in dedicating these Papers to you is because they do of right to you belong You are the right Heirs at Law to them for though in the Matter of them I am wounded yet it was for warding the Blow from you at you was the Blow aimed The Reasons for my publishing them now are First to discover some Particulars which it may be might be unknown to you that for the sake of Posterity I would not bury And secondly because of my Intentions in some short time for Jamaica from whence it is very probable I may never return having here no way to employ my self and there I hope with God's Blessing I may make some Provision for my poor Children How little soever for your sakes I am made or whatsoever coarse Usage I meet with it will be a Comfort to me if you make good use of it for your selves and Posterity that you may not be lessened and made little I am sure you were not abroad so accounted nor can be made so at home without you bring it on your selves by your own Act and Deed by your Clemency to the Traitors and Betrayers of your Liberties The choice of three things lies now before you to be great or to be little or to be nothing Vtrum horum mavultis accipite These Papers are not to stir up your Anger or Revenge at what is past but rather to look forward to prevent the like Mischiefs for time coming and I hope your profound Wisdom and Prudence will take care to build up the old waste Places and make good the Fences and Bulwarks that neither the wild Boars of the Forest nor Wolves in Sheeps Clothing may be able to break over and stop up the Holes that the Foxes the little Foxes may not creep through and hurt the Sheep and Lambs of the Flocks that all your Fortifications may be so artificially strong that no Confederacies of Jesuitical Priestcraft with their battering Rams may hurt annoy or indanger them Many great and weighty things are before you and one thing I humbly recommend to you Let not the black Infamy and horrid Imputation of Self-Murder lie on the Memory of my Lord of Essex nor on the Family of so great a Man who was to all that knew him a Man great for Wisdom and Parts and for Love to the Liberties of Mankind valued neither Life nor Honour nor any thing else in this World in comparison to them That which prompts me to say this is Though I cannot point out the individual Murderers yet I can give that circumstantial Proof that shall satisfy all Mankind that the cutting his Throat was designedly premeditated both for Time and Place and perpetrated by bloody Men. It may be some Men for supposed Reasons of State may oppose doing of Justice to the Dead or making Reparation to the Living as being ill Precedents and which may be of dangerous Consequence to encourage others to withstand the like black Attempts if they should design to begin where the late Reigns left off I will hope that amongst others of your weighty Affairs you will carefully maintain and defend the Right of Juries which are the Shields and Bucklers under a Civil Government to defend you in the quiet possession of your Lives Honours and Estates If Corruption be amongst them no Punishment can be great enough but if no such thing it may be of bad Consequence to have them punished ruined and undone meerly for giving in Verdicts according to their Consciences guided by right Reason Bear with me I beseech you my Lords and Gentlemen in declaring that I am fully satisfied that before the Sword of the Lord that is drawn be put up he will convince the World of Sin of Righteousness and Judgment he will open the Eyes of this blind World and make them see their mad Wickedness and Folly That the great God of his infinite Mercy would give you true Wisdom to be Healers of our Breaches and Restorers of our Paths to dwell in is the Prayer of My Lords and Gentlemen Your humbly devoted Servant J. Wilmer THE PREFACE WHAT Pains did evil Men take in the late Reigns to ruine these poor Nations What Mischief what Ruine was then brought upon us The old Tyranny of Nero Caligula and Domitian seemed to revive again in our late Kings Certainly there was never such a villanous Attempt or Contrivance as then appeared to forge a Plot upon all the Community at once a Conspiracy to destroy both Lords and Commons by a Company of Miscreants and Varlots How were they kick'd up and down all over the City and Country as if none else had Sense but those Kings their Courtiers and Clergy and as if the Nobles of the Land with the Representative Heads of the People instead of being a Fence and Bulwark to the Nation and for redressing their Grievances in punishing Offenders and relieving the Oppressed and making good and wholsom Laws for the Weal-Publick were only summoned together to be like Pharaoh's Egyptian Task-Masters over the People and only to raise Money to be laid out and expended to gratify the ambitious Lust and arbitrary Will of the Tyrant and thereby to enable him to oppress depress and destroy the People I remember an old Story and 't is this In the beginning of the Reformation here in England the Romish Priests in foreign Countries told their People that since English Men were turned Hereticks God as a just Judgment upon them had miraculously caused long Tails to grow on their hinder Parts like those of Monkeys And we were treated in the late Reigns as if our free-born People bore only the Shape of Men but were a sort of Animals much resembling Baboons and Monkeys only dressed up in Mens Apparel but were to be treated as Children do Hobby-horses or used only in places of Asses to carry Burdens Indeed in all Ages Kings have found Evil Counsellers and Priests for their Turn to help to befool and lead by the Nose the rest of Mankind In the late Reigns how did it look like a Design and perfect Agreement between the Kings and some hot-headed Clergymen for the latter out of their Pulpits by their Doctrines of Non-Resistance and Implicite Obedience to preach up the former to be as Gods and in requital the
taking away my Life failing now I must be ruined in my Estate At that time I owed almost 10000 l. no Servant nor any Friend was suffered to speak to me my People were forced to follow the best ways they could to pay running Bills of Exchange and in order to it to sell Goods at any Rates every one calling for every Penny I owed and no one giving me Credit for a Penny I being then in so strong a Hold and under so black a Charge whereas before I thank God I had a fair Credit upon the Exchange and was in great business The Wisdom therefore of our Forefathers to obtain the Privilege that no Citizen should be committed to any Prison but the City's where he is sure quickly to come to Trial deserves to be remembred with Honour for it 's not with a Merchant in Trade as it is with a Country-Gentleman though he be falsly imprisoned he is not damnified as is the Merchant for his Estate being in Lands his Rents are going on which he will receive at his being restored to Liberty but a Merchant in great Trade and Credit and doing much as a Factor as well as upon his own account and his Business lying in many Countries as was my Case I say let him be sent to the Tower four or five Months and denied Pen Ink and Paper or Friend or any to come to him I will engage it shall spoil him and lose all his Commissions especially those in the Territories of the Monarch who lays his Hand on him besides the Damage in his own particular Concerns all Persons will be afraid to have to do in Trade with him against whom the Government hath a Pique But before I could be hence released the Popish Party would take t'other Blow or two to try if they could hit the Nail o'th'Head but here also as God would have it they also missed for now a second Jury is Ignoramus and afterwards a third returned by the next Sheriffs brave Pilkington and Shute is Ignoramus also SECT XI SHortly after my fast Friends at Court resolving to follow their Blow upon me imploy two wicked and infamous Persons Vavasor and Beaumont to give me a new Vexation these Varlots bring an Indictment against me in the City of London charging me with the stealing of a Boy but in this they were also disappointed by an Ignoramus returned upon the Bill which so enraged the little Engines Vavasor and Beaumont that they told me to my Face that they would never leave me till they had Colledg'd me In a few days afterwards they came upon me with a Writ de homine Replegiando pretending that I had kidnapp'd a Boy and also with an Information in the King's-Bench at the same time and for the same Matter To the Writ de homine Replegiando the Sheriffs Pilkington and Shute by the Advice of able Counsel made a special Return setting forth that the Boy before and in the presence of two Justices had bound himself Apprentice to me and was by me sent in my Service to Jamaica so that they could not replevy him But the Court of King's-Bench not liking this Return sent an Attachment against the Sheriffs who appearing in Court were threatned if they would not return Elongavit upon the Writ they should be committed The Sheriffs seeing this told me that the Quo Warranto being brought against the City if they should go to Prison for standing by me it might tend to the great Prejudice of the City in taking them off from attending the Desence of the Charter and asked me what I would have them to do Whereupon seeing Matters at this pass I was content that the Sheriffs should give me up by returning Elongavit as the Court required Which being done a Writ called A Capias in Withernam is immediately issued against me to take me into custody and detain me until I produced the Boy Upon the Writ I was instantly and most industriously searched after and had fallen into their hands but that going just before to retain Mr. Pollexfen lately Lord-Chief-Justice of the Common-Pleas as my Counsel He very honestly and worthily like himself said to me I am loth to take your Money for I can do you no good I see the Court is set against you and resolved to ruin you therefore my Advice is fell what you can and put it into Money and go your ways Within a few days after they brought on a Trial against me in the King's-Bench by a well-prepared Kentish Jury upon the Information for the pretended Kidnapping To this Trial the villanous Prosecutors brought a pack of suborned Witnesses who had all imaginable Countenance and Encouragement from the Court when on the other side the Lord-Chief-Justice Pemberton did brow-beat the Witnesses brought by me and committed one of them who confronted and in a Point most undoubtedly true falsified a Witness brought against me and also denied to hear many of my Witnesses By this Management was a Verdict obtained against me for which Service the Jury were well payed having been allowed a great Sum of Money upon pretence of their Travelling besides upwards of 40 l. spent at a Dinner upon them And thus did King Charles the Second carry in great measure his Point and execute his Threat to ruin me Reflections on the eleventh Section THE Prosecution of me upon this pretence of Kidnapping was committed to two vile Wretches as all who knew them will declare Vavasor speaking of me declared his Expectation of great Preferment if he could rout the Dog Wilmer that Ignoramus Dog as he expressed himself and not long after as a very useful Man he was preferred and made one of the Witnesses against the pretended Rioters at Guildhall in the Election of Sheriffs at Midsummer 1682 when Sir John Moore made a Riot there in order to the making North and Rich Sheriffs And Beaumont was a Miscreant who had been guilty of razing a Record and of Perjury Such Men as these were most proper Instruments for such a Work A certain knowledg of the Expence in this malicious Prosecution of me which was found in the Accompts of Graham and Burton reported in the House of Commons and which Major Wildman can produce would convince the World how far the State was concerned in this Matter and that it was esteemed more than a private Quarrel SECT XII FRom the time of this Verdict I was advised by Counsel and perswaded by Friends to keep out of the Reach of those who were bent upon my Ruin and thirsted after my Blood and I secreted my self in England for about a Year's space in which time Messengers with Constables would come at all Hours of the Night to search my House for me I then retired into Holland whither about a Year after my Wife and Children followed me My implacable Enemies now finding that they could not have their Will on my Person cast about how to starve me and my Family in Holland to which End