A LETTER From no far COUNTREY BEING A Judgement upon the present posture of Affairs in ENGLAND c. WRITTEN TO And made publike at the request of a Worthy Person elected to serve in the approching PARLIAMENT As worth the serious consideration of his Fellow Members Printed in the Year 1660. A LETTER From no far COUNTREY SIR I thank you for your news and the news-books you sent me which neither of them by any art of mine are to be reconciled with themselves for you tell me while a Common-wealth seemeth to be declared for Common-wealths-men are as it were kickt out of all imployment civil or military Much hath been said heretofore of a threefold cord but I like not your Statesmen that work like Ropers nor see how a slippery trick should be the cause of a steddy Government But however your Commonwealths-men may do by your news their principles by your books I mean the Votes and Acts of Parliament will shift well enough for themselves It is true that the whip and the bell the scourges of the RUMP with the sound of a lash so fatal unto themselves have influenced this Nation in such manner that the genius as some or the spirit as others call it of the same people who in time of the Court would rather have chosen a Tapster then a Courtier now under the name of a Common-wealth but in the dregs of confusion would rather elect a ballad-singer then a Commonwealth-man Nevertheless while the next Parliament is summoned as it were in the name of the people and without regal authority while the full power and free choise of the Government to succeed is wholly devolved upon the Deputies of the people the present Acts and Votes run in stile and every way else unto a Common-wealth nay pitch and settle to the best of my understanding upon no other principles or foundations then such whence no other superstructures or frame of Government without violence can arise but that of an equal Common-wealth or perfect democracy for what clearer testimony of this can be afforded by Art or nature then is expressed in the present act for the Militia By this Act you have the Earl of Northumberland where he weighes most joyned with Iohn Hudson Esq and some thirty more of the Commons of that County the like respectively for some forty more Earls Viscounts and Barons holding fat less proportion unto the Commons with whom they are indifferently joyned without any advantage in Vote or otherwise Nor should a man add the whole Peerage of this Nation to the whole Comminalty were it to be doubted but they would hold yet less Sir all the rest is but superstructure how it is at the root though perhaps unseen is unavoydably felt The sword is in the people and not without moving propriety to be wrenched out of their hands Whereas the people were antiently arraied by the Nobility the Nobility you see are now arraied by the people whereas a King could not anciently be brought in but by the Lords now the King you will confess cannot be brought in but by the Commons Let them come with you to the next Parliament that may let them go whether they can if Government be not to be preserved by any other means then the same by which it was acquired the King can no more be sustained as heretofore by the Lords but must hereafter whatover in alteration of the forme it may cost be sustained by the Commons Sir I beseech you was this our old Government or if through time as well the innovator as devourer of things it be of it self become a new one must it be still as in the reignes of learned predecessors an Vtopia or Chymera There is much daring of Larks but Sir I am upon good grounds I go you see upon an act of Parliament let them answer to this Are foundations in England altered or not altered for such as the Government is in the root or foundation such of necessity must it be in the branch or superstructure If the sword in the hand of the Lords made an Aristocracy then the sword in the hands of the Commons must make a Democracy or there will be more windfals for where foundations come to be altered or stand one way and superstructures are left hanging another way it can tend to nothing but ruine Hence that which hath fallen hence that if not prevented which is falling upon this Nation And what prevention what remedy If the Militia be not in the Commons what means this Act if the Militia be in the Commons what power have the Lords if the Lords have no power where is the old Government if the old Government be gone what remains but coufusion or to introduce a new one To remove unto a new house though from a worse unto a better is one of the most troublesome one of the impatient affaires a business in which how necessary soever the family to be well ordered must be as it were totally disordered The case of a people necessitated unto change of government is of like nature And as the genius or humor of a family may be one thing in it self and upon this occasion seem another so the humor or genius of a people be it that they were never so weary or impatient of the incurable inconveniencies of their last house or Government yet upon question of removal unto a new one they conceive a kind of abhorrency they bemoan themselves as it were of exile from their native soil Thus it ever was thus it will ever be in like revolutions wherein to set much by the Genious of a people is to comply with them unto their own destruction Leave them in a form under which they know whom to quarrel with or what to quarrel for and this sickly genious this quarrelsome humor of theirs is incurable but bring them under a form in which they can never finde whom to quarrel with nor what to quarrel for which or none is the proper work and this sickly genius this quarrelsome humor of theirs is perfectly cured There is no looking back for a people advanced by so apparent steps by so many years travail upon such a journey as the people of England now are to think by a calme of popular impatience to be at home again is as if a man near the Indies should think to be in England again by a turn upon the toe The foundation of the old government is sunk it is fallen it is fallen when an house is fallen it is not grief not rage not any obstinacy in the owner can make him live there as he did it must bee new built Nor is newness of Government alone in which case our felicity were certain sufficient to make it secure or lasting without such prudence in formation of the same as may exactly shape and sit it unto the subject matter To rise otherwise as hath been abundantly seen and felt unto the greatest heighth is but to fall
lowest With such as are in power and under a necessity to introduce a new form there is no mean between the greatest security and the greatest danger the highest glory and the basest infamy This by pollititians hath been pronounced universally but now in England is more holding then elsewhere it hath ever been for whereas other governments which have suffered like changes for example that of Rome antiently and that of laâ—er times in Holland were such from the very beginning as to become more perfect Common-wealths needed but to remove or change their topstones as a King into Consuls or a Prince for a Stateholder in which case an oath of abjuration was sufficient the ancient Government of England being ruined in the very foundation that is in the Aristocracy requires a renovation or reordering of the whole superstructures in which an oath of abjuration can come but to little for that whether the King be restored or not restored it is equally necessary the building be such as may stand and that the building of a Government now in England be such as may stand engageth unto the greatest prudence in hitting or the vastest danger in missing The greatest prudence in hitting because not a topstone or some part is to be altered but the whole frame to be renewed the vastest danger in missing because to work otherwise is to work against the only foundation which is now the whole people and for the interest of someparty The parties now in England are three the Royalist the Presbiterian and the Sectary Nor appears it by what the Sectary hath done the Presbiterian is doing or the Royalist prepares to do that there is any thought amongst them of union or of a Government but of tyrannizing one over another If the King therefore be restored by some one of these it amounts if unto any Government at all unto one as new as any and cantend neither unto the safety of the King nor of the people but must introduce a Royal a Presbiterian or a Sectarian Oligarchy whereof which ever reigns must keep down the other two by unnatural force in the head of which the King must be perpetually exposed and if any other then the King be advanced unto the head of any one of these parties it must be with the greatest scandal and tend but unto the worse effect the vaster discontent disunion and danger of the people The Salus Populi the safety of the people if ever they attain to it must consist in such a forme of Government as may apparently and effectually take in and hold them and all parties of them united To attain unto such a form in England the Aristocracy being irreparably broken there is no other way whatsoever but by introduction of a well ordered Democracy to which end the game would easily play it self in any hand but for the parties that are still snatching the cards one out of anothers That the Aristocracy is broken the act cited maketh not plain confession but proof That it is not to be repaired as some meditate by the resumption of such estates as since the later war have been demolished is plain in that the war began by the sword in the hand of the people and ended accordingly nor as others by the recruting of the decayed Nobility with some of the richest of the Gentry in that all such as hold above two thousand pound a year in this Nation are not above three hundred persons nor all that which is holden by these three hundred persons above one tenth of the whole territory The other nine parts and so by consequence the whole being holden by the Democracy the Government able to hold the whole people united can be no other then an equal Common-wealth In Democracy or in an equal Common-wealth a Nobility or a Gentry usurping the leading never hold it and not usurping the leading never lose it The reason whereof throughout ancient experience is not clearer then at this present amongst us where no man can imagine but the Lords in a distinct house must follow the Commons and not in a distinct house noâ— otherwise preferred then by election of the people must lead them to give any peculiar priviledges under the name of well affected or the like unto some of the Lords in the Senate were to allow the like claim unto some of the Commons in the popular assembly either of which infects the Common-wealth with inequality and a Common-wealth infected with inequality is so apt to break out into war or discord that it never failed of this effect where the people have not been the sole donors of all Magistracies and honours by their votes or elections Certainly it must be confessed that elections regularly and freely made were as easie and efficatious as confusedly and partially and elections regularly and freely made would amount unto an equal Common-wealth But be it as it will let the annimosities now broken loose elect into the Parliament elect into the Militia of the most averse unto Democracy so much the better it reduceth the whole controversy unto a point for here it lies If they can so patch up the Aristocracy that is the Lords house as to make it sustain the ancient weight the old Government is recovered and they have confuted the Commonwealths-men but let them fail in this one whatever else they hit the old Government is irrecoverable and they have confuted themselves in which case apparently there must be a new form For the introduction of a new form it is not sufficient that Acts or Declarations be exclusive of the old unless they be positive of some new one thet is practicable there being no certain way of barring any one form though such an one as cannot stand but by introduction of another and such an one as can stand If it have been said that a Common-wealth is a Government without a King or Lords it implies two absurdities first that our ancient Government under a King well ballanced by his Lords the assertors and vindicators of ancient Liberty was no Common-wealth and secondly that our later Governments consisting of some two or three hundred of the Commons sitting as long and doing whatsoever they pleased was a Common-wealth whereas in truth the former Government was much more a Common-wealth though an unequal one then the latter From these two absurdities have arisen two like effects one the mistaken genius of the people which under the name of a Monarchy driveth at a Common-wealth the other the destruction of that form which under the name of a Common-wealth being no form of a Common-wealth nor indeed of a Government durst take upon it self such weight as now in England is in no wise to be supported but by the best form of Government even the full and perfect form of an equal Common-wealth To the introducing of the full and perfect form of an equal Common-wealth in England there goes no more but without other qualifications then such as have been
anciently in use to call a free Parliament in the form of an equal Common-wealth For Formis dat esse dat operari the form gives the being and the natural or necessary operation or working to every thing To the calling of a free Parliament in form of an equal Common-wealth there goeth no more of charge or trouble then that the territory to the end the Common-wealth may find no rubs in her bowling or rotation be first more equally divided The territory once equally divided and the people in every division electing annually equally and freely two assemblies or more particularly into each house of Parliament one third part of the Members for three years to act there as they must whether they will or no according to the nature of their form they by this means perpetuate not one assembly in the same men the certain end whereof is dividing and subdividing till it come to nothing but two assemblies changeable in the persons and duly qualified for the whole matter of Government as not consisting of any party but of the wisdome and interest of the whole Nation and cast not themselves upon trust in men nor upon the faction incident to a single assembly but upon the strongest security in nature even that whence the operation of each creature proceeds and which the operation of no creature can exceed I mean of form of such form as transformeth the genius of a people and rightly ordered is that onely which in a popular State can and of necessity must hold all parties united It must be confessed how unseasonably soever that Common-wealths-men such I mean as are principled cannot be with the forwardest where it is arbitrary to advise that in such a form as this there 〈◊〉 be any Prince or single person nevertheless it neither hath been nor can be denyed by them but a like form may regno laconico or veneto admit of a King with royal dignity and revenue Which kind of reign like that of Evander in Livy magis authoritate quam imperio is that which the ancients particularly Aristotle call Heroick and oppose to the Eastern which they call barbarous And indeed if you observe the prayses and pleadings that are now in mens mouths for our old Government they run all upon this that the power of the Kings in that was no more All which practise and pleadings are therefore the Stronger arguments against the old Government in that such being the intention of it the form was not sufficient to secure that intention witness the many bloody wars made formerly by the Nobility and of later times by the Commons for nothing else but to hold Kings to the true intention of that form nor is this were there no other less then good and sufficient reason to change that form which never made good the true intention of the Government for such a Government as must at all points secure unto us for the future the true and full intention of that form And to hold the King in fruition of his royal dignity and revenue from invading the rights and liberties of the people Of the royal dignity there is nothing imbezeld and for the revenue Putting the case that the publike debts amount to three Millions if the excise and custome amount annually to one this with the Regalia yet remaining might in a matter of twelve years pay off the publike debts maintaining the Court in due splendor and raise a royall revenue in new lands Whereas resumption of the old they being for the greater part in the hands of Souldiers and in themselves but small would be obstructive and not effectuall It is not insinuation but an apparent truth that the King thus restored would have these not conveniencies but felicities He would have the whole honour of the Common-wealth without any of the burthen He would bring in his party otherwise in danger to be loft out and by equal participation of such a Government repair them He would have his hands fairly rid for him of the Scotch Presbytery a Fanaticisme neither consistent with a Monarchy nor with a Common-wealth the basest kind of bondage a Pedantisme which they who press most to have imposed by the rod or by power are lest able to defend by reason He would look down upon other Kings as being armed with or followed without Hyperbole by the most potent Militia in Christendome both at land and Sea Had Queen Elizabeth or King Iames been founder of the like Government in England how little had the Crown lost How much had the people saved in blood and Treasure Queen Elizabeth who it is known had good advise surcesed courting of her Lords for God bless you my good people it is true since that different courses with what success I leave to your judgement have been taken But other means of Empire than what have been shewn were they definable are not now attainable in the present state of England where a King henceforth either can have no power at all or must have such power as cannot be limited for all the waies whereby any King can have any power are but two either a potent Nobility or a standing Army Where a King is founded upon a Nobility they are the limits of his power but where he is founded upon an Army his power can have no limit Where the Nobility then are gone wholly to decay there is no limiting the power by which a King shall reign seeing it is without a standing Army impossible to give him any such power whereby a King may reign But England seemeth to have a reach I cannot say beyond but beside all ages and all Nations Whether she have an Army or no Army she is still running upon an invention of her own A Parliament with a Council in the intervals this if she have no King must be the Government this if she have a King unless he get an Army and this Parliament must have both the debate and the result too that is be a single Counsel without any check at all and so be a Government and no Government but a tumult as the faction or humor hits sometimes popular sometimes Oligarchical somtimes a Divan For all the kindes of Government that have been or can be are but three That is a Counsel with a monarch for the check in which the Counsel debates as the Senate of Rome after the Common-wealth or the Turkish Divan and a Monarch resolves as the Roman Emperour or the great Turk Or a counsel with an Aristocracy for the check in which the people debate as anciently in the house of Commons and the Lords resolve or are such without which there can be no result as the ancient house of Peers in which case the Peers will have a King and this comes to the Government of King Lords and Commons Or a councel with a Democracy so the check as the Senate of Rome in time of the Common-wealth debating and the assembly of the people resolving which the