Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	chief_a	john_n	lord_n	9,427	5	4.1934	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41187	A letter to the Right Honourable Sir John Holt, Kt. Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench; occasioned by the noise of a plot; Letter to the Right Honourable, my Lord Chief Justice Holt, occasioned by the noise of a plot.	Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1694 (1694)	Wing F754A; ESTC R217367	28,048	20

A LETTER TO THE Right Honourable Sir JOHN HOLT Kt. Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench OCCASIONED By the Noise of a PLOT The Second Edition Corrected LONDON Printed in the Year MDCXCIV A LETTER to the Right Honourable My Lord Chief Justice HOLT occasioned by the Noise of a PLOT MY LORD THE Character which you bear and the Office which you have several Years discharged with so much Credit to the Government Reputation to your Self and Justice to the Nation have render'd You both the Object of all Honest Men's Esteem and the Sanctuary to which they fly and retreat when either through the P●que and Revenge or the Jealousy and Credulity of Ministers of State and their Subordinate Officers they find themselves assaulted ●n their Lives persued as to their Estates or deprived of their Liberties upon the Depositions of a few Necessitous Brib'd and Suborn'd Fellows And seeing it is not possible that any can be illegally Prosecuted unduly Convicted or unjustly Condemned without your coming to suffer both in your Honour which you so sensibly value and to forfeit that Integrity which is accounted natural unto You Pray suffer one who is your most real though unknown Servant to lay such Things with all Humility and Deference before you as may serve to prevent your being surpriz'd and circumvented to do any Thing unworthy of your Self or injurious and destructive to Innocent Men. With what Blushing and Grief do those imbu'd with any degrees of Wisdom and Vertue reflect●on the Ignominy and Guilt brought upon the Nation by Oates and his Complices who ●s they were the first Pack of Witnesses the Kingdom was ever acquainted with that were establish'd under the Encouragement of Salaries Pensions to be Standing Evidence in Capital and Criminal Cases so the dismal Effects of that method of administring Government and executing Laws were soon felt not only by the Advantage which other Miscreants endeavour'd to make of that mischievous Preceden● in setting up to imitate them upon prospect and hope of the like Profit and Reward but through their own growing emboldened to invade the Reputations and attaque the Lives of High and Low in order to merit the encrease as well as the continuance of the Price of Blood upon which they projected to subsist and which one of them hath the Fortune still to enjoy But whether it proceed from the Generosity of the Government or be owing to the Wisdom of it as reckoning it to be serviceable to its Interest I shall not presume to determine Nor will I deny but that those State-Witnesses of the first Muster and Enrollment may be allowed to have sworn truly in some Particulars but it must withal be acknowledged that they perjur'd themselves in many others So that my Lord Chief Justice Scr●ggs who had raised them to the Reputation of being held Credible Persons by giving Faith Himself to their Testimony in some Trials and thereby gaining and reconciling others to do the like was upon observing the impossible as well as improbable Things they grew up into a Confidence of deposing and how they could not only Perjure themselves without Shame or Remorse but with an Air of Assurance and Sincerity forced to detract from and lessen their Credibility in future Trials as much as he had raised it in former Though he could not be unsensible that the best Returns he would meet with from many for this After-Game of Candor Probity and Justice was to have his Discretion and Righteousness reflected upon for the Sentences he had pronounced before upon no other or better Testimony than that of those whom he found it needful at last to render Infamous Nor can it escape your Lordship's Remembrance what Convulsions the Kingdom was thrown into by a Sett of Mercenary Rascab Anno 1681 who wanted nothing but the obtaining Belief to their Testimony against the Earl of Shas●●b●ry to the involving vast numbers of Protestants of all Qualities and Degrees under the Guilt of a Horrid Conspiracy against His t●en M●jesty's Person and Government For the Villains having been Trained up ●o swear Men out of their Lives wi●hout the least regard to their being Guilty or Guil●less all that they minded was whom the influencing Ministers were ready to Start being ready to Halloo and persue them to Scaffolds and Gibbets if they might be but plen●ifully paid and rewarded for it And having Breakfasted on those of one Party they wer● prepared to Sup on them of another For being habituated to Blood it was indifferent to them whom they murderously destroyed and all that obtained a Room in their Thoughts was the being assured before-hand in whose Slaughter they should make the better Meal Yea it was but for any to out-bid those that train'd them up and the Cannibals were ready to fly upon them that bred them to devour upon the first Prospect they had of doing it with Impunity and of finding their Interest in 't Which upon observing what had befallen others I wish some at this Time may take warning by Only permit me to tell you that the Interposition and Influence which some of King Charles's Ministers had both in forging and forming that pretended PLOT in 81 and in Suborning Miscreants to support the belief of it by Falshood and Perjury was that which gave Provocation and Encouragement to the design'd Insurrection in 1682. For when Men can't find Safety in their Innocency they will seek to obtain it by their Swords And if the Laws be not sufficient to cover and protect them they will be tempted to try what Back and Breast can do Nor is it unworthy of your Lordship's Reflection that though several Persons of Quality and Vertue had the Misfortune to suffer for what they had then contrived and were ready to execute yet the Justice of their Endeavours hath been abundantly vindicated ●y the R●peal of their A●tainders since this Revolution And the Combination in which they were embarqued upon the Motive and Necessity o● being through the Subornation of Wit●ess●s against them deprived of all other mean● of Safe●y ha●h had the Comm●ndation of this Government in the many H●nours and 〈◊〉 bestowed not only upon the Friends and Relati●●● but on the Surviving Complices of those that perish'd Nor is your Lordship's Memory so weak and unfaithful but that it will furnish you with Memoirs of the Barbarous Infamy which a certain Zealous and Credulous Gen●leman endeavoured upon weak and trivial Suggestions to have fastned upon the late King Charles the Duke of York and diver● other Persons of the First Figure and Quality by charging and accusing them of being conscious and accessory to the murder of the Earl of Essex And 't is not without Shame and Detestation that Men of Discretion and Probity reflect upon and call over the groundless and malicious Rumours upon which the whole Court especially his then Royal Highness were impudently slander'd the Nation strangely alarm'd and the Peace of the City and Kingdom attempted to have

Pattern of Moderation and Good-nature which the very honourable Person in the same Post with himself doth daily set and yield unto him and not to out-run and exceed it with so much fiery and undiscreet Heat For as that truly Great Man contributed more to the Revolution and the Establishment of this Government than he had either In●erest or Courage to do so that Noble Peer wants not Integrity Z●al and Fortitude to support it by all honourable righteous and proper Means though he cannot meanly and indecently stoop to the unrighteous Methods or doings which God will certainly blast which others seem so fond of and to practise wi●h so much Valuation of themselves upon them My Lord that which remaineth to be laid before you e're I put an end to the Trouble that I have assumed the liberty to give you is to aff●rd some little account of those Witnesses whose Names I have been able to attain af●er the best and most diligent enquiry I can make But this may seem altogether superfluous after the Representation given of those that have procured and continue to manage them seeing none but the most despicable and most infamous of Men as well as the most indigent and necessitous can put themselves under the Power and Conduct of the Blades I have taken the pains to unmask No● indeed is it easy to learn who all the Witnesses are there being so much Art and Industry used to hide and conceal them which I am sure casts no very honourable Aspect upon the Government though it looks extream unfavourably upon those that are accused For the making it so great a Secret who they are that inform intimateth that they are sensible they are of no good Reputation and therefore dare not venture the having their Credibility ●i●ted and inquired into Nor was it ever found but that labour'd Concealments of this kind argued the weakness of Legal Proof not the strength of the Nature of the Government against those that were to be prosecuted Some talk as if many of them were Scotchmen and as if those of that Nation in the Administration of Affairs about this Court were desirous that their Kingdom should have a share in the Glory of yielding a Pack of standing Evidence for the State as well as England and Ireland have done And if the Character of Cunning which is too justly as well as commonly given to the Scotch holds true in those that are to be hired at this time to be Witnesses for the Government it looks a● if there were a formed Design of doing a great deal of Mischief and that they have chosen their Tools accordingly But then if we add to this the Character of False which the English too commonly fasten upon many of that Kingdom there is the less danger because it is hoped none will believe them And therefore as to all the present Evidences of the Scotch Nation I will leave it upon that issue For not knowing who they are but upon uncertainty and at random I will detract from the Honesty and Faith of none though it were easy to overthrow the Credibility of all that are suspected But let this or that Man's Reputation be never so bad yet I will not expose them unless there be a very great necessity for it and then there is when the leaving them in the possession of a Credit which they have justly forfeited gives them the encouragement as well as opportunity of murdering innocent People by coming in falsly as Evidence against them But that your Lordship may have some knowledge of the whole Herd of Briars by giving you a view and survey of some that are stiled the best of them I shall both attempt and speedily dispatch it without importuning your Patience much longer And to begin with your Dandys your Omballs and your Lunts c. which swore first against the Lancashire Gentlemen to deprive them of their Estates and have done the like since to destroy their Lives it is but your being acquainted with their Quality and Course of Living and you will not only think it a Weakness but criminal to believe their Testimonies For Dand● he is a Converted Priest or if you consider the Motives upon which he abandoned the Popish Religion to embrace the Protestant which were to have ●●ope for his Lusts of all kind as the whole Series of his Life ever since hath abundantly testified you will rather call him an Apostate one And it would have been for the Credit of our Church for my Lord I am a Protestant and will never sacrifice my Religion and Countrey to any Man if he had never entred into the Communion of i● and more for the In●amy of Theirs if with allowance he had continued where he was For since he became a Member of the Church of England he hath wallowed in all the most scandalous Immoralities and to defray the Expence of his Debaucheries hath pil●ered and stole where he could till he fell upon the more safe and easy as well as more gainful Trade of Informing And I can better compare him to no Man than to the ancient Evidence Smith alias Barry who having by Perjury fleshed himself upon the Papists turned at last a perjur'd and false Witness against Protestants which undoubtedly this Fellow will be ready to do when he finds his Profit and Interest in it against all Williamit●s Whiggs and Phanaticks who now cocker and cherish him as he doth at present against the Jacobites of all Religions that he is hounded at and ●ed with Bread for As to Omball he is a broken Carrier who by Sloth Riot and Neglect having brought himself to Poverty hath set up to repair his Fortune out of Gentlemen's Estates by forged and forsworn Depositions against them And as for Lunt he was first Coach-man to my Lord Carington where he either Married or Contracted himself and then becoming a Granadier in the Guards he married another Woman or 〈◊〉 her as his Who●e but 〈…〉 the Life of this Second he went and demanded his First Wife And this profligate Wretch going afterwards into Ireland while K. James was there he would have imposed upon that Prince that he had been a Trooper in the Guards but a Gentleman that knew him informing the King what he had been he was thereupon refused the being admitted into the Troop which K. James was then re-establishing And most surely he who has the Impudence and dare be so criminal as to lye to his Prince will never scruple doing the like to your Lordship and to a Court of Justice At last the Rake-Hell came from Ireland into Lancashire where being so necessitous as to be ready to starve he received Relief from several charitable Families whom he so ungratefully requires as perjuriously to swear them out of their Lives and Estates Pray now my Lord do but vouchsafe to reflect upon the Civil and Moral Conditions of these Fellows and judge whether it be possible and much less likely that