AN ANSWER TO THE Late King IAMES's DECLARATION AN ANSWER TO THE Late King IAMES's Declaration TO ALL HIS Pretended SUBJECTS IN THE Kingdom of England Dated at Dublin-Castle May 8. 1689. Ordered by a Vote of the Right Honourable the House of Commons to be burnt by the Common-Hangman Published according to Order LONDON Printed for Dorman Newman at the Kings Arms in the Poultry MDCLXXXIX AN ANSWER TO THE Late King IAMES's Declaration TO ALL HIS Pretended SUBJECTS c. WHEN one reflects upon the continued Conduct of the Late King Iames both before and after his Accession to the Crown and the dismal Consequences thereof to these Three Kingdoms and at last to himself I cannot but regret the Fate of those Princes that abandon their true Interest Reason Conscience and Honour to Iesuitick Councils and enslave themselves to a Party justly abominated by the better part of the Romish Church it self for their gross Encroachments upon Religion Morality and all that 's Sacred among men When I look back to the many Tragedies acted by that Fraternity both in this and the last Age scarce a Kingdom or State in Europe where their Villanies have not come up to the utmost reach of depraved Nature When I call to mind the Horrid Desolations Murders and Wars they have been instrumental of in the most remote parts of the World witness some Millions of Souls in Iapan and other parts of Asia sacrific'd not many Years ago to their Ambition and Intrigues under the Notion of propagating the Catholick Faith I say when I consider all these things I am the less surprized with the dismal Effects of their Councils in England since the same Fate attends them every where But I must confess That among all the Martyrs to Loyola's Principles there is none more justly claims our Compassion than the Late King Iames. To see a Prince naturally of no bad Temper imposed upon by these zealous Bigots to trample upon the Religion and Liberties of His People contrary to Fundamental Laws and the most solemn Promises and Oaths under the false Mask of Piety and Zeal to the Catholick Faith and at length to find him seduc'd to abandon His Kingdoms and thereby an absolute necessity put upon the Representatives of the People to fill up His Throne vacated by His own Fault is a Subject that naturally displays the vanity of human Greatness And I may add That the unaccountable Doctrine of Passive Obedience as it was the Source of a great many Mischiefs among our selves so what has befallen that King may be partly imputed to it for the believing That without controul he might do what he pleas'd encourag'd him to take such measures as have brought upon him all his Misfortunes I cannot but at the same time represent to my self with that emotion of mind the affrighted Passenger looks back upon the devouring Billows he has lately escap'd the dismal Scene of Ruin that so lately threatned us and that Abyss of Misery we had certainly been plung'd into e're now if his present Majesty had not opportunely delivered us from the very Jaws of Death and Ruin. That any of the Protestant Perswasion at home should be sound Repiners at this mighty Deliverance is in my humble opinion an unaccountable piece of Ingratitude and Weakness at once When all the Reformed States abroad look upon this great Revolution in Brittain as the most happy Providence that has appear'd on the Theatre of Europe this Century of Years The late mighty Enterprize of His Majesty was the Result of the united Consultations of all the Foreign Protestant States and Princes in this part of Christendom who setled upon it as the last Cast of the Dye for their Religion and Liberty and with a trembling Expectation made Vows to Almighty God for the Success of an Attempt they wisely soresaw carried in its Womb the Fate not only of these Three Kingdoms but of all the Reformed Churches of Europe When Heaven had smil'd upon this stupendious Attempt and had beyond the usual Tract of Providence vouchsafed us a Deliverance scarce equal'd in the Records of Time Who would have imagin'd that England should produce such a sort of Monsters as seem to be in love with Slavery and Ruin the necessary Consequences of their Folly And that there are such a sort of Men we have a plain Demonstration in these unhappy Wretches that have so industriously dispers'd through this great City that Paper called King James His Declaration to all His Loving Subjects in the Kingdom of England A Paper I could have wish'd for King Iames's own Honour had been buried in Eternal Oblivion since it contains a heap of Falsities that was below a Prince to affirm and which are known to be so by no fewer than the people of Three Kingdoms In giving my Reflections upon this Declaration the Respect due to one that was lately a Crowned Head with some other just motives obliges me to do it with more reservedness than perhaps such a Paper deserves and instead of a needless exposing a Prince that has His Honour too much sunk already in the eyes of all Europe I shall with all the Calmness and Candor possible examine the Declaration it self without Reflections upon the Prince whose it is and shall not omit one single Sentence in it that can be interpreted even by Himself of any Consequence Thus His Declaration begins Altho the many Calumnies and dismal Stories by which Our Enemies have endeavoured to render Us and Our Government odious to the World do now appear to have been advanc'd by them not only without any ground but against their own certain Knowledg as is evident by their not daring to attempt the proving these Charges to the World which we cannot but hope hath open'd the eyes of Our good Subjects to see how they have been imposed upon by designing men who to promote their own Ambitious Ends care not what Slavery they reduce Our Kingdoms to It seems King IAMES continues in His wonted road of taking wrong measures both of Persons and Actions which has been the occasion of all His Misfortunes When he talks of his Enemies that have rendred him and his Government odious to the World He mistakes himself if he means those Worthy Patriots that being weary of his insupportable Incroachments upon the Religious and Civil Liberties of these Nations did lend a hand to deliver themselves and Fellow-subjects from a Ruine that seem'd almost inevitable But if He had been at the pains to make an impartial Survey of his own Actings and the pernicious Counsels of a sort of Men about him He might easily come to know That His only and real Enemies were those Popish Emissaries that valued not how much His Honour suffer'd nor His Crown were indanger'd if so be they might bring about their own hidden Designs and were willing to sacrifice both Him and His Interests to their own by-ends Never Prince was so unhappy in His Cabinet-Councel as He and that
false light which led Him to imploy none about Him with any intimacy of confidence but those of His own Persuasion prov'd an Ignis fatuus that cheated Him into Paths never trod by any of His Predecessors but to their destruction If He had been so happy as to have continued in His most Secret Councels a great many Persons of the Reform'd Religion whom He kept at a distance though to amuse the Nation He allowed them the empty Names of Privy Councellors He had not brought three Kingdoms to the brink of Ruine nor upon Himself so hard a fate Yet I must acknowledge some part of the obligation we have to these Gentlemen that of late had the sole conduct of King IAMES His Affairs For in giving Him such Counsels as His greatest Enemies could have wish'd Him they prov'd the occasion of our being at this day happy under the Auspicious Reign of Their Majesties being Princes of the same Religion and Interests with Their People And we may justly say as Themistocles of old We had undoubtedly perish'd if we had not perish'd How little is King Iames oblig'd to His Secretary that penn'd this Declaration since he so foolishly rakes up the Remembrance of those things that made Him and His Government odious to the World by the names of Calumnies and Stories which it was so much his Master's Interest to bury in silence Good God! Were the late palpable and baresac'd Incroachments upon the Fundamental Laws of the Nation but Calumnies Were the open Violations of Solemn Oaths Promises and Ingagements but Stories Does King IAMES or His French and Irish Councellors imagine that we have so soon forgot His Promises made in Council not many hours after His Brother's Death and his conspicuous Breaches of them not many months thereafter Can we allow our selves to forget that all the Trusts both in Court Bench and the Army were fill'd up with these very Men whom Reiterated Laws had rendred incapable of them Was a Person 's sitting at the Council-board whose very being found in England was death by the Law but a mere Calumny Can a few months be able to obliterate the Memory of that Affair of Magdalen Colledge one of the most open Invasions of Property that could be Have we lost the Remembrance of that Illegal Ecclesiastical Court and the Tyrannick Judgments past therein Have we not seen a Reverend Prelate suspended from his Function merely because he would not do what he could not that is for not condemning a man unheard Have not we seen Seven of the Spiritual Peers of England sent Prisoners to the Tower and brought as Criminals to the Bar for barely representing the Reasons why they could not obey an Arbitrary Command contrary to their Conscience Both England and our Neighbouring Nation have too many Reasons to remember the Late King Iames's assuming to himself an Arbitrary and Despotick Power not only to dispence with Laws and the firmest Constitutions but to act diametrically opposite to them Can King Iames's Oratory persuade us That the continuing to Levy the Customs and additional Excise which had been only granted during the Late King Charles's Life before the Parliament could meet to renew this Grant was but a Calumny Was the strange Essay of Mahometan Government acted at Taunton and Lyme and the no less strange Proceedings of that Bloody Chief Justice in his Western Circuit justly term'd his Campaign for it was an open Hostility to all Law for which and the like Services he had the reward of the Great Seal were they all but Stories We have too good Reason not to forget the many Violences committed by the Soldiers of a standing Army in most Parts of England and Scotland which are the most severe and insupportable Invasions of Property These and such like with a great many more were the things that render'd King Iames's Government justly Odious to the Brittish World and made these three Kingdoms groan after Liberty If so grave and Tragick a Subject could allow it I could be almost tempted to laugh at that Expression in the Declaration of his Enemies not daring to attempt the proving these Charges to the World which is all one as if a Man in the severest fit of the Gout should be desir'd to prove that he is so when the Sense of the Pain proves too sad a remembrancer of his Distemper And indeed this part of King Iames's Declaration merits no other answer than that of the Philosopher to him who deni'd motion When making a step up and down the Room he vouchsafed him no other Refutation of his Ridiculous Assertion than these two words hicne Motus In fine It will be equally impossible to persuade the World that these Actions that render'd King Iames's Government Odious to the World were but Calumnies and Stories as to persuade a Man upon the Rack that he feels no pain How unluckily have the Penners of this Declaration stumbled upon that Expression of his Enemies not caring what Slavery they reduce the Kingdoms to Quis tulerit Gracchos That King Iames had in a great measure enslav'd these Nations and was upon the Ripening his designs in Conjunction with Lewis the 4th to teach us a French kind of Subjection has appear'd in legible Characters by the whole Scheme of his Actings But since his present Majesties Accession to the Throne there is not the least footstep of Slavery left us we are blest with a King that takes the Advice of his Parliament and owns no distinct Interest from that of his People a Prince who to deliver us from Popery and Slavery has ventur'd his All and who by his Conduct at home and his Allies abroad is capable to render us happy if our own Divisions and Folly do not precipitate us into an inevitable and unpitied Ruin. In the next place King Iames tells us That since his Arrival in Ireland the Defence of his Protestant Subjects as he calls them their Religion Priviledges and Properties is especially his Care with the Recovery of his own Rights And to this end he has preferr'd such of them of whose Loyalty and Affection he is satisfied to places both of the highest Honour and Trust about his Peson as well as in his Army The reading of those Lines puts me in mind of the Parallel so exactly observ'd betwixt the French King and King Iames in all their Conduct and particularly in both their way of asserting the calm Methods us'd by them towards their Protestant Subjects When that Common Enemy of the Christian Part of Europe as the present Pope was pleased to call him had out-done all the Nero's and Iulian's of old in the art of Persecution and had render'd himself abominated to the World by the Cruelties committed by his Dragoon Missioners upon those very People that had done him the best Offices and preserved the Crown upon his Head in his Minority yet at the very same time Lewis the 14th and his Ministers have had the Impudence to affirm
That no other Methods were us'd to convert these poor Victims but those of fair Persuasion and Calmness Just so King Iames that he may follow as near his Copy as possible having since his Arrival in Ireland abandoned the Protestants of that Country to the merciless Rage of an Enemy irreconcilable from both a Principle of Religion and Civil Interest who within his View have laid desolate whole Counties and acted Barbarities proper only to themselves and their French Confederates and by which they have forc'd away a great many Thousands from their Country at the point of Starving having sav'd nothing of their Fortunes from so universal a Calamity Yet notwithstanding all this appears in the Face of the Sun King Iames that he may not come short of his Patron boldly affirms That the Religion Priviledges and Properties of his Protestant Subjects as he names them are his chiefest Care over and above What a gross Contradiction is it to common Sense and Reason that a Prince bigotted to the Romish Religion and enslav'd to Jesuitick Councils should make that Religion which in his Opinion is an execrable Heresy become his equal Care with what he calls the Recovery of his Right Sure I am in this Expression he has mightily overacted his part and nothing but a belief capable to receive Transubstantiation can be persuaded of the fair meaning of it If the Proposition could possibly admit of a favourable Construction then it must necessarily follow That King Iames is of another Communion than that of Rome which were a great injury done him to suppose seeing he has given us such convincing Proofs to the contrary For every Roman Catholick is obliged to look upon the Protestants as Hereticks and their Religion as Heresy and we have once every year the imaginary Successor of Saint Peter formally Cursing us in Person and from his plenary Power declaring us to be fallen from all our Civil Rights If King Iames had said The Protestants are his Care meaning the Conversion of them to his Religion by the calm methods of a Dragoon Mission he would have found no great difficulty to have been believ'd But to affirm that That pestilent Northern Heresie the Protestant Religion was his care is indeed a stretch beyond the ordinary pitch of Jesuitick Equivocation it self We have had occasion enough to be acquainted with the Charity of the Church of Rome towards those of our Religion It has been both fervent and burning And lest we should forget what has been done in former Ages France and Savoy have of late set before us new instances of the Charity of that Church No doubt King Iames's sincerity in this assertion is the same with that of all his Promises And albeit when he was upon the Throne we were told in some of his Proclamations That we were bound to obey without reserve it 's hardship upon hardship to be oblig'd now when he is justly Abdicated to believe without reserve But that we may the easier be persuaded of King Iames's care of the Protestants of Ireland and their Properties let us take a short glance of the great favours he has bestowed on them since his Arrival there One would think that a Man's Estate his House Furniture his Arms Money Chattels and the like were included under the word Property King Iames his care has been so transcendently great of this sort of Property that there are at this day in England and the Neighbouring Nations Noblemen Gentlemen Clergy Merchants and Tradesmen whose Estates seiz'd upon by King Iames's Order amounts to more than Four Millions of Pounds Sterling If any doubt the Truth of this I refer them to the List and Account taken of the Irish Protestants by the Commissioners appointed by the King for that effect Neither is there at present one single Protestant within that Kingdom that can rationally assure himself of one moments possession of what the Barbarous Irish has left them yet undestroyed Who knows not That upon-weighty Reasons the Wisdom of the Kings of England thought it very dangerous to trust the Natives of Ireland with Arms knowing from many funest Experiences they were a People impatient of the English Yoake and ready to accept all occasions to throw it off But King Iames treads quite another Path instead of dis-arming these his darling Wild Irish they are the only People he can trust as knowing their surious Zeal to His Religion and their Hereditary hatred to the English Nation renders them fit Instruments to execute the Designs concerted betwixt Him and his Intimate Allie the French King And which to capacitate them the better to effectuate he has wisely dis-armed before-hand the whole Protestants of that Kingdom and prepared them ready Victims for their Bloody Enemies when ever it shall be time to give the Blow I confess it requires the greatest stock of patience to hear one boldly affirm his Care of my Life and at the same time to see him give me up bound and defenceless into the Hands of my cruel and mortal Enemies There is another transcendent Instance of King IAMES's Care of the Protestants in Ireland their Religion and Property which merits to be engraven in Corinthian Brass to Posterity All that are in the least acquainted with the Laws and Affairs of that Kingdom know That the Act of Settlement is the great Security of the Protestants their Religion and Properties and the Fundamental Right they have to their Estates conquer'd from the Rebellious Irish at the expence of their Blood and Treasure By this Act the lasting Landmarks are sixt among the Protestants themselves and between them and the Natives This is indeed the Magna Charta of the Protestants of Ireland and the true Basis of their Liberties and Properties upon the taking away of which the Superstructure must tumble to the ground Now King IAMES's Care of the Protestants is of so high a nature that in His first Speech to His Mock-Parliament consisting all of Papists except about Five or Six May 7. he assures them He would consent to the enacting such Laws as might relieve them of the Act of Settlement And May 10. we find it moved in the House That nothing could be more advantageous to the King and Countrey than to destroy the horrid barbarous Act of Settlement and whosoever shall alledg the contrary shall be deem'd an Enemy to both Thereafter we find it mov'd by one of the Worthy Members of that Parliament That the Act of Settlement should be publickly burnt by the Common Hangman Behold the transcendent Care of King IAMES for the Priviledges and Properties of the Protestants of Ireland His accustomed Zeal obliges him at the first meeting of His Packt-up Popish Parliament to put them in mind of the best methods to Repeal the Great Security of the Protestants Estates His impatience to have this done could not stay till it had been propos'd by any of the Members themselves He must needs demonstrate his tenderness to his belov'd
capacity conform to the Holy Dictates of that Church and the laudable Example of Lewis XIV to put an end to all Divisions in point of Religion by forcing them to return to the Mother-Church by the calm Methods of late so happily used in France And this I am very inclinable to believe he may with a safe Conscience take God to Witness was always his Design I am something surprized to hear King Iames his Secretaries pop out their Master 's secret Designs that were so much his Interest to conceal but the Truth is we knew them before to our Cost and we hope are on the way to be sufficiently secured against any further Effects of them In the end of this Paragraph we are told That several Protestants are now returned to their Country and Habitarious and that more would follow if the Ports were open But the Usurpers as he pleases to call their present Majesties know too well the Sincerity of his intentions to permit a free Passage for them This indeed is all of a piece with the rest We are Witnesses every Day of hundreds of poor Protestants of that Country grasping every Opportunity they can at any rate purchase to abandon their Homes and all that 's dear to them that they may but escape with their Lives And I defie any of King Iames his Friends to instance me one single Person of any Condition that have dared to return Home since his Arrival in Ireland none of them being so far in love with Destruction as to venture on his Protection In this Epithet King Iames is pleased to bestow on their Majesties he imitates his Patron Louis le Grand who I confess has the greatest Reason of Hatred against his Majesty as being the great Supporter of the Liberty of Europe and who in conjunction with his Allies is best able to bring to Reason that insupportable Enemy of Christendom yea of Mankind it self It were an impertinent piece of Boldness or rather unpardonable Impudence to offer to vindicate their Majesties from that injurious Designation since the Wisdom and Power of the Parliament is paramount to all private assertions of their Majesties just Right And that the most if not all the Crowned Heads and Soveraign Princes and States of Europe not only rank our present King among the best and greatest Kings of England but promise to themselves from his Assistance to bridle Louis le Grand within his proper Boundaries It was ever looked upon as a Principle of common Law That an Heir in Remainder has just Cause to sue him that is in Possession if he makes Wastes on the Inheritance that belongs to him in Reversion That the Heir of a Crown should interpose when he sees him that is in Possession hurried on by bad Counsels to subject an independant Kingdom to a Foreign Jurisdiction is much more reasonable since the thing is of much more Importance and that this was King Iames his Case is apparent by the Transactions of the Earl of Castlemain at the Court of Rome and the rather that by a great many Statutes it was Treason to have Correspondence with that See This joined to the setting up of a pretended Heir in such a manner as the whole Kingdom believed him supposititious was a just and lawful Ground for one Sovereign Prince such as his Majesty was when Prince of Orange to make War against another that had so abused his Power and 't is an unquestionable Maxim among Lawyers That the Success of a just War gives a lawful Title to that which is acquired in the Progress of it Therefore King Iames having so far sunk in the War that he both abandoned his People and deserted the Government all his Right and Title to the Crown did thereupon accrue to his present Majesty in the Right of Conquest So that he might have lawfully then assumed the Crown But his present Majesty chose rather to leave the Matter to the determination of the Peers and Representatives of the People assembled with all Freedom in the Convention who did thereupon declare him King so that tho' he was vested with a just Title of Conquest he chose rather to receive the Crown by their Declaration than to hold it in the Right of his Sword. This I thought fit to say not so much for Confutation of the injury done their Majesties in the above-mentioned Designation which needs not my Pen but to state their Right to the Crown in such a Light as may remove needless scruples of swearing Allegiance to them In the beginning of the third and last Paragraph King Iames tells us That nothing but his own Inclinations to justice could prevail with him to such a Proceeding as that of his Care of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland and hopes his Protestant Subjects in England as he calls them will make a Iudgment of what they may expect from him Indeed it is no difficult Matter to make a Judgment of what we may justly expect from him if ever Divine Judgment as the Reward of our Ingratitude for so great a Deliverance should permit us to fall again under the heavy Yoke of a Popish Prince whom we have so justly and happily thrown off King Iames is of a Religion that has in a famous Council decreed That no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks much less with Subjects that he looks upon as so many Rebels and will not miss to treat them as such whenever they give him the Opportunity of doing it For his greatest Admirers do not run to that heighth of Idolatry to imagine him so much Angel as not to take all Methods to revenge such an Affront and secure himself at our Cost from such Treatment for the future The Apprehensions of which Resentment would strike such Terror in Men's Minds that nothing would be capable to divert them from offering up All for an Atonement and Popery and Slavery will be thought a good Bargain if they can but save their Lives Then we might lament our Miseries when it should be out of our Power to help them for a Prince of Orange is not always ready to rescue us with so vast expence and hazard of his Person And I must say if ever our Madness should hurry us thus far we should become rather the Objects of Laughter than of Pity Therefore King Iames promises and declares That nothing shall ever alter his Resolutions to pursue such and no other methods as by his said Subjects in Parliament shall be found proper for their common Security peace and happiness Such silly bates as these will not now take and here is a great deal of Pains lost to perswade us to relie upon Promises so often made already and as often broken What Adjournments Prorogations and Dissolutions of Parliament we have had of late is not easie to be forgotten We have found to our sad Experience that the Interest of the Court and that of the People were two incompatible things and to endeavour a Redress of