Governors will always abuse their Trust in favor of that Interest and party to which they belong and they will think themselves bound to contravene and disappoint this Provision of King Edward even for Conscience sake to propagate and encourage that which they esteem the only true Profession of the Gospel and to discourage that Formality and Superstition of ours which they so loudly and so passionately and in their own Thoughts so deservedly complain of nay if we add Experience to Reason and conjecture we know by long Experience that they have always acted according to these measures Fourthly They dispense with the qualifying Act of the 25 Car. 2. as I have proved sufficiently in the following Papers it is Sir Edward Hales his Case the Bishop of Oxford's Case the Charter House Case and the whole Magdalen College Case as exactly as any thing can be only with this Aggravation which makes it so much the worse that it is a Power exercised by Subjects not by Kings by Subjects in contempt of the just Power and Prerogative of their Prince by Subjects in derogation to the standing Laws of the Realm and in defiance both of King and Parliament together Fifthly and lastly They dispense with the late Act for reversing the Judgment in a quo Warranto c. for by that Act or I am much mistaken after having very seriously considered it the present Lord Mayor commonly so call'd and several of his Collegues and Assessors upon the Bench are declared not to be and never to have been legal and rightful Lord Mayor and Aldermen of this City so that the Governors and Officers pretending to be restored holding by no other Authority but theirs and there not being a Majority in that Court without them There is nothing more certain than that they hold by nothing which is hardly so good as a drowning Man by a Reed and yet he must drown for all that For my part I must be frank and clear with your Lordship and the World that it seems to me a great Scandal to the Government it casts a Blemish of Dishonor and Reproach of Weakness and Infirmity upon the Supreme Power◠when its Enemies such as are at least virtually and consequentally if not actually so shall be suffered to swagger and domineer with the blustring Title of Governors to which they have no Title though they behave themselves of all Men the most imperiously and proudly under the lofty Imaginations that it puts into their weak Heads in a place where the King hath a legal and rightful Visitation and it is a further dishonor in this Case where they can make out no Title to so proud a Word that his Friends and Servants shall be affronted and curb'd after having had the Improvements of a polite and liberal Education by every little thing that hath neither Parts nor Breeding merely because it presumes to call it self a Governor though it knows not how to govern it self and is hardly qualified to be Governor of Jack Strawe's Castle but yet is 〈◊〉 as full and as big swell'd with the title as if it were indeed the Governor of some mighty Fortress that had a powerful Garison at its Devotion and the Country for twenty or thirty Miles round under Military Contribution and if the King of the Country by whose only Power and Authority he acts should pretend to visit or call him to an account he could immediately set him and his Army under Water and so farewell to Pharaoh and his Host for all are Aegyptians to the Dissenters and Commonwealths-men but themselves they are the only true Israelites when all is done and they make no bones of stealing this Crown Jewel of a Prerogative to visit from an Aegyptian King or indeed any King whatsoever for no King comes amiss they love them all and their Prerogative so well My Lord I do humbly propose it to your Lordship's Consideration that it is not only a dishonor to their Majesties that any of their Charities should be wholly managed by Men of a Republican Principle and Party but that the Peace of this Housecan never be secured unless we be all of a Mind as well the Governors as the Officers and Servants true and hearty Communicants of the Establish'd Church and such as have given such proofs of Conformity and Steadiness to the Government both in Church and State as the Law requires then and not before it is that we may expect to see happy Days if it be possible in a miserable Place and in the midst of Sickness and Diseases not till then it is that the Affairs of this House disturbed by mutual Animosities and intestine Broils will go on with an even and successful Pace to the Credit of the Government and to the utmost Advantage of the Sick and Wounded My Lord I humbly beg your Lordship's Pardon for this very long this unexpectedly long preliminary Address I shall add but two things more and that very briefly and so conclude My Lord What are these Gentlemen that will needs make themselves Parties and will needs be Defendants in this Cause against us The Plaintiffs certainly know best who it is by whom they are aggrieved and they complain of none but of Sir T. P. the pretended Lord Mayor and those of his Brethren that have concurred with him for the displacing of those whom K. Charles II. by an undoubted Prerogative inherent in the Crown sent hither and for the restoring of those whom he by the same Right hath ejected I have nothing to say to Hughes as to the Money that hath been paid him but I must expect my Satisfaction from those by whose Order it was done and they if any are the Defendants in this Cause And here there are two Points to be insisted upon first Whether the Court of Aldermen at the passing of those Orders were a legal Court or Whether it be so or no to this very day till it be purged of those that have nothing to do to sit there and till the Number be filled up by those that are better qualified to take the Stile and Dignity of Aldermen upon them Secondly The King's Power of Visitation being acknowledged as we are ready to prove it undeniably if it be disputed whether even a legal Court of Aldermen can rescind the legal Act of the King in an Affair that lies so plainly and so properly within his Royal Cognizance and Visitation But as for these Gentlemen that call themselves Governors and will by all means be Parties under that Name and Notion who are they Are they not all or the much greatest part of them the very same Men that were ejected by K. Charles II. so that their Title to the Stile and Office of Governors of this House is a thing every whit as much disputed and for the same Reason as that of any of the Officers pretending to be restored How then comes it to pass that they so confidently presume to act as the Delegates or
ought to be commissionated by a new Order before they act as Governors If then the Governors which were ejected could not be restored without a new Order of the Court of Aldermen the same must be granted likewise of the Officers too because they both acted by the same Authority they were both ejected by the same and it is the same that must restore them both and accordingly it must be confessed my Lord that they were both of them restored by the Court of Aldermen commonly so called but the question is whether that were a legal Court of Aldermen or no and to this I answer that it was not then in the express Judgment of the Act of Parliament it self neither is it to this very day and I am so well persuaded that this is effectually proved in a Paper lately published and Entituled Considerations upon the Act of Parliament for reversing the Judgment in a quo Warranto against the City of London that when I see that Paper substantially answered which I do particularly challenge the Defendant's Council to do I will be content not only to lose my Place and my Arrears but to suffer any other Punishment or Disgrace and I hope the Parliament when they meet will not only excuse but justifie the Author of it as well for the clearness and convincingness of the thing it self as that it tends to vindicate and assert the Honor and Reputation of that August Assembly and to the Publick Good of the Nation But let that be as it will there are several worthy Gentlemen that have put in their Claims as well to the Chair it self as to their respective Seats in the Court of Aldermen which during the avoidance of the Charter they relinquish'd Now if there were nothing else but this to be considered it is impossible to determine in favor of the Defendants till it be first determin'd in a judicial way as it now lies before your Lordship in the King's-Bench or by the Parliament it self who are the best Expositors of their own Sense and Meaning whether this be a legal Court of Aldermen or no for I suppose it will be confess'd on all sides that without the legality of the Court of Aldermen be first of all admitted there can be no legal Governors or Officers by their appointment though we say they would have been illegal though the Court of Aldermen had been never so legal because they cannot by an inferior and delegated Power reverse the legal Act of the Supreme and the Act of Parliament Confirms none of their Acts but such as would have been legal had the Authority been so and not otherwise and such as could not without iniquity and inconvenience be repealed as will appear to any Man who shall peruse it so that I think upon the whole matter there never was a more weak and shamefully defenceless Cause from the Creation of the World to this very moment in which I am speaking nor will be again from this very moment till the last Trumpet shall Sound a Resurrection at the Consummation of all things The second thing which I intend to speak to and with which I shall conclude shall be their Majesties gracious Declaration of the Twenty Third of May in the Year 1689 and in the First Year of their most glorious and happy Reign for Encouragement of Officers Seamen and Mariners employ'd in the present Service In the last Clause of which it is provided in these Words That the Moyety of our Hospitals in England employed for the Cure of wounded and sick People be reserved during the time of War at Sea for such as shall be wounded in the Service of the Navy as they shall become void from and after the First Day of June next 1689. Where we see not only that their Majesties claim a Propriety in the said Hospitals by calling them our Hospitals but as such by virtue of their Proprietary Power it being of the liberty of Proprietors to do what they will with their own they appoint that one Moyety thereof should be reserved for the Sick Maim'd and Wounded in their particular Service which without a legal Propriety they could no more do than by Law they could quarter Soldiers upon private Houses without the consent of the owners If these Houses be the City's and not the King 's then the King cannot quarter Soldiers upon them and much less Maintain and Cure them out of their Revenues without the consent of the City but this Order asks no leave of the Lord Mayor or Court of Aldermen or of the Citizens and Commonalty of the City but relies wholly upon its own Authority and appoints a Moyety to be reserved as their Majesties due whenever they please to claim it and they might have claimed more if they had so pleased and may do it as often as occasion shall require so that all the question is whether this Order be legal or no for upon Supposition that it is then the Hospital is the King 's and not the City's otherwise than by way of Trust and Delegation but yet so as that the King may at all times command to be done therein so the Intention of the Charity which was for sick and wounded People be not infringed whatsoever he thinks for his Service that the Lords of the Council were of Opinion it was legal is plain because they caused it to be Printed by an Order of the same date which is Printed together with it and I dare say it will be granted to be a much greater Exercise of Regal and Visitatorial Power to exhaust and spend the whole Revenue of the same upon Persons of their Majesties particular appointment than to appoint a few Officers and Tenders to look after them which is all that we pretend to the Gross and Substance of those great Charities being consumed upon the Patients whose Servants and the King 's we are Thus my Lord I have undertook to defend the Rights and Prerogatives of this Imperial Crown so far as this Caâ—e is concerned against those that at the Hospital Charge and out of the King 's proper Revenue are come hither to defeat and overthrow it an Attempt so Loyal that it may deserve to be considered even though in your Lordship's Judgment I should not have proved all that I pretend to do which yet I humbly hope I have done I have made it a part of my Business to evince as well as I could upon what very just and reasonable Grounds the Regulations in the time of the late King Charles II. were made and that it was not only the Monarchy and the Prerogative but the Honor and Interest of the Church of England that was concerned in them My Lord Unity is necessary in all Places for the due Administration and Management of Affairs but no where more than in such an House as this where not only the credit of so Magnificent and Princely a Bequest but even the Lives of the Patients and the
Abuses and Misgovernments from time to time that shall or may arise or shall be by them deemed or adjudged to arise in the Administration or Superintendency of the same As to the Clause produced and cited out of the Grant of King Edward whereby he reserves a Power of Visitation to himself and Successors for ever in the Hospital of St. Thomas Southwark which is the Scene of the Controversie now depending before your Lordship it hath two several Foundations to rely upon First The Clause that hath been alledged out of the Act of H. 8. by which he was intrusted with a Power of Visitation in all Religious Houses and Places exempt as this is and Parliamentary Trusts ratified and accepted by the Royal Sanction can no more be violated than Coronation Oaths for every Law is a part of the matter of that Oath which obligeth the King equally to observe and maintain all the Laws and in every Trust lodged in the King by Act of Parliament the Performance of it is supposed to be exacted and called for by the same Authority which is always sitting always in being until that fiduciary Constitution be repealed So that King Edward though he had not reserved to himself a Power of Visitation in this and other such Places yet the Act it self would have obliged him and his Successors to visit as often as occasion should require neither could he so entirely devolve such a Trust as this upon the Mayor Commonalty and Citizens of London or upon any other Person or Persons whatsoever as totally to neglect and abandon it himself which implies not only a Power of visiting at all times but a necessity of doing it in some particular Cases to consent that another shall betray that Trust which is committed to me or to put it wholly out of my power to call him to account for his Violation or Male-Adminstration of it being the same thing in the issue and Conclusion though it go somewhat further about as if I had actually and willfully betrayed it in my own Person If the words had been never so express never so absolute without the least shadow of any reserve or exception by which this Hospital was consigned over to the Commonalty and Corporation of London Yet still the King's Power of Visitation had been supposed because he could not give away the Act of Parliament nor any Prerogative inherent in the Crown to the diminution of his own rightful Power or that of his Heirs and Successors in after times and especially in such a Case as this where not only a Power was lodged but a Trust for the good of others was reposed in him by the Representative Body of the Nation which includes and draws after it the diffusive and all this with his own Royal Assent which though he may give or not give before the Sanction yet after it he cannot withdraw it as he pleaseth which would be to give him a Dispensing Power in the utmost Latitude and Comprehension of it against the true Meaning and Intention of all Laws which always design to be observed and obeyed as well by himself as others so far as he hath put himself under the Force and Obligation of them This is the first Ground upon which the Reservation in the Grant of King Edward VI. to the Mayor and Commonalty of the City of London relies it is an Act of Parliament made in his Father's time by which he was not only impowered to visit all exempt Places but it was left with him and his Successors in Trust and is a Charge which he was bound to look after as often as any real or to him so seeming Necessity should require The second Ground that justifies and warrants the Reservation is taken from the nature of the Gift it self every Man that gives or bequeaths any thing to a publick Use must be allowed to do it upon his own Conditions and with his own Reservations supposing them to be reasonable or possible in themselves Without an Act of Parliament any private Donor may appoint if he so pleaseth certain extraordinary Visitors to inspect and examine as occasion shall require the Administration of the ordinary Trustees and much more then may a King do the same when he hath an Act of Parliament to authorize and defend him in it in a publick Charity of his own Foundation In virtue of this double Authority and this double Trust derived to him from the Act of Parliament and from the Grant of King Edward his late Majesty King Charles II. did visit the Royal Hospitals belonging to this City by his Commissioners under the Broad Seal as the Act of Parliament required he should do and in this Visitation he displaced several Officers and several Governors too and placed others in their stead Which things being premised in order to the more clear and faithful Representation of our Case We presume with all humble Submission to your Lordship that as to the Visitation in the general considered there can be no question as to the Legality of it it being done in pursuance of a very reasonable and just Proviso in King Edward's Grant and by Commissioners under the Broad-Seal of England as the Act of Parliament required all the question is whether there were at that time any just Ground any reasonable or sufficient Cause of Visitation or no and this my Lord is a Question capable of a two-fold Answer First The King is not bound to give an Account of the Reasons why he visits And Secondly If he were bound the Reasons were notorious and such as in the Judgment of any indifferent Person might abundantly justifie a Royal Visitation First The King is not bound to give an Account of the Reasons why he visits or for the Regulations which he makes as to Officers and Servants belonging to the House in any such Visitation Indeed if the King should go about to alter the Constitution to imbezzle the Charity or to convert it to a quite different Use this would be so plain an Abuse of his Power and Violation of his Trust as would sufficiently warrant the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of London or any others in whom the ordinary Trust and Management was lodged to stand it out against him and to vindicate their Title by a course of Law by which the true Meaning and Intention of the Donor would appear from the express words of the Grant which it would always be easie to produce and the King who by the said Grant was made and constituted the Supreme Guardian and Visitor of the Charity bestowed therein could not possibly with any color or pretence of Right either imbezzle squander and abuse it to no good Use at all or convert it to any other Use than what the Founder himself had allotted But for the Officers and Servants it is another Case if the King be bound to give a particular Account why he turns out such and puts others in their room then he shall not