now pretty sensible Being warned by this experience they grew more cautious than ever and therefore that the Treason which they were to set on Foot might look as unlike a Popish Design as was possible they fram'd a Libel full of the most bitter invectives against Popery and the Duke of York It carried as much seeming zeal for the Protestant Religion as Coleman's Declaration and as much care and concern for our Laws as the Penners of this Declaration would seem to have But it was also filled with the most subtile insinuations and the sharpest expressions against His Majesty that could be invented and with direct and passionate incitements to Rebellion This Paper was to be conveyed by unknown Messengers to their hands who were to be betray'd and then they were to be seized upon and those Libels found about them were to be a confirmation of the Truth of a Rebellion which they had provided Witnesses to swear was designed by the Protestants and had before prepared men to believe by private whispers And the credit of this Plot should no doubt have been soon confirmed by speedy Justice done upon the pretended Criminals But as well laid as this contrivance seems to be yet it spoke it self to be of a Popish extraction 'T is a policy the Jesuites have often used to divert a storm which was falling upon themselves Accordingly heretofore they had prepared both Papers and Witnesses to have made the Puritans guilty of the Gunpowder Treason had it succeeded as they hoped for The hainous nature of the Crime and the greatness of the Persons supposed to be concern'd deserved an extraordinary examination which a Jury who were only to enquire whether Fitz-Harris was guilty of framing that Libel could never make and the Commons believed none but the Parliament was big enough to go through with They took notice that the zeal or courage of inferiour Courts was abated and that the Judges at the Trial of Wakeman and Gascoign however it came to pass behaved themselves very unlike the same men they were when others of the Plotters had been Tryed They had not forgot another Plot of this nature discovered by Dangerfield which though plainly proved to the Council yet was quite stifled by the great deligence of the Kings Bench which rendred him as an incompetent Witness Nor did they only fear the perversion of Justice but the misapplication of Mercy too For they had seen that the Mouths of Gadbury and others as soon as they began to confess were suddainly stopt by a gracious Pardon And they were more jealous than ordinary in this case because when Fitz-Harris was inclined to Repentance and had begun a Confession to the surprize of the whole Kingdom without any visible cause he was taken out of the lawful Custody of the Sheriffs and shut up a close Prisoner in the Tower The Communs therefore had no other way to be secure that the Prosecution should be effectual the judgment indifferent and the Criminal out of all hopes of a Pardon unless by an ingenuous Confession he could engage both Houses in a powerful Mediation to His Majesty in his behalf but by impeaching of him They were sure no Pardon could stop their suit though the King might release his own Prosecution by his Pardon Hitherto the Proceedings of the Commons in this business could not be lyable to exception for that they might lawfully Impeach any Commoner before the Lords was yet never doubted The Lords themselves had agreed that point when the day before they had sent down the Plea of Sir William Scroggs to an Impeachment of Treason then depending before them And they are men of strange confidence who at this time of day take upon them to deny a Jurisdiction of the Lords which hath been practised in all times without controul and such a fundamental of the Government that there could be no security without it Were it otherwise it would be in the power of the King by making Commoners Ministers of State to subvert the Government by their contrivances when he pleased Their greatness would keep them out of the reach of ordinary Courts of Justice and their Treasons might not perhaps be within the Statutes but such as fall under the cognisance of no other Court than the Parliament and if the People might not of Right demand Justice there they might without fear of punishment act the most destructive villanies against the Kingdom As a remedy against this evil the Mirrour of Justice tells us that Parliaments were ordained to hear and determine all Complaints of wrongful Acts done by the King Queen or their Children and such others against whom common Right cannot be had elsewhere Which as to the King is no otherwise to be understood than that if he erre by illegal personal Commands or Orders he is to be admonished by Parliament and Addressed unto for remedy but all others being but Subjects are to be punished by Parliaments according to the Laws of Parliaments If the ends were well considered for which Parliaments were ordained as they are declared in the Statute Item for maintenance of the said Articles and Statues viz. Magna Charta c. a Parliament shall be holden every year by them as well as by the forgoing ancient Authority none could be deceived by the Parliament Rol. of 4 Ed. 3. Where it is mentioned as accorded between the King and his Grands that is his Lords that Judgement of death given by the Peers against Sir Simon de Beresford Matrever and others upon the Murder of King Ed. 2. and his Uncle should not be drawn into example whereby the Peers might be charged to judge others than their Peers contrary to the Law of the Land if such a case should happen For whereas from this Record some would perswade us that the Lords are discharged from judging Commoners and that our ancient Government is alter'd in this case by that Record which they say is an Act of Parliament The stile and form of it is so different from that which is used in Acts of Parliament that many are inclined to beleive it to be no other thing than an agreement between the King and the Lords But to remove all future scruples in the case let it be admitted to be an Act of Parliament and if there be nothing accorded in it to acquit the Lords from trying Commoners Impeached before them by the Commons in Parliament then we hope that shame will stop their mouths who have made such a noise against the Commons with this Record First it is evident from the Roll it self with other Records that the Lords did judge those Commoners contrary to the Law of the Land that is at the instance of the King and the Prosecution of their Enemies without the due course of the Law or calling them to make their defence and for ought appears without legal Testimony Secondly It is evident that they were driven upon this illegal proceeding by the Power
and Authority of the King and some Prosecutors who earnestly pressed the Lords thereunto upon pretence of speedily avenging the blood of the former King and his Uncle So that the judgement was given at the Kings suit in a way not warranted by the Law and Custom of Parliament or any other Law of the Kingdom Surely when the Lords blood was suffered to cool they had reason to desire something might be left upon Record to preserve them for the future from being put upon such shameful work though such a case as the Murder of a King should again happen as it seems they did not fear to be pressed in any other so to violate the Laws But Thirdly There is not a word in the Record that imports a restriction of that lawful Jurisdiction which our Constitution placeth in the Lords to try Commoners when their cases should come before them lawfully at the suit of the Commons by Impeachment There is no mark of an intention to change any part of the ancient Government but to provide against the violation of it and that the Law might stand as before notwithstanding the unlawful Judgment they had lately given So that the question is still the same whether by the Law of the Land that is the Law and Custom of Parliament or any other Law the Lords ought to try Commoners Impeached by the Commons in Parliament as if that Record had never been And we cannot think that any man of sence will from that Record make an argument in this point since it could be no better than to infer that because the Lords are no more to be pressed by the the King or at his suit to give Judgement against Commoners contrary to the Law of the Land when they are not Impeached in Parliament therefore they must give no Judgment against them at the suit of the Commons in Parliament when they are by them Impeached according to the Laws and Customs of Parliament But if such as delight in these cavils had searched into all the Records relating unto that of the 4 Edw. 3. They might have found in the 19 of the same King a Writ issued out to suspend the Execution of the Judgment against Matrevers because it had been illegally passed And the chief reason therein given is that he had not been Impeached and suffered to make his defence But it was never suggested nor imagined that the Lords who judged him had no Jurisdiction over him because he was a Commoner or ought not to have exercised it if he had been Impeached Nor was it pretended that by Magna Charta he ought to have been tryed only by his Peers the Laws of the Land therein mentioned and the Laws and Customs of Parliaments being better known and more reverenced in those dayes than to give way to such a mistake They might also have found by another Record of the 26. of the same King that by undoubted Act of Parliament Matravers was pardon'd and the Judgment is therein agreed by the Lords and Commons to have been illegal and unjustly passed by the violent Prosecution of his Enemies but it is not alledged that it was coram non judice as if the Lords might not have judged him if the proceedings before them had been legal But as the sence and proceedings of all Parliaments have ever been best known by their practice The objectors might have found by all the Records since the 4 Edw. 3. that Commoners as well as Lords might be and have been Impeached before Lords and judged by them to Capital or other punishments as appears undenyably to every man that hath read our Histories or Records And verily the concurrent sence and practice of Parliaments for so many Ages will be admitted to be a better interpretation of their own Acts than the sense that these men have lately put upon them to encrease our Disorders But to silence the most malicious in this point let the famous Act of the 25 of Edw. 3. be considered which hath ever since limited all inferior Courts in their Jurisdiction unto the Tryal of such Treasons only as are therein particularly specified and reserved all other Treasons to the tryal and judgment of Parliament So that if any such be committed by Commoners they must be so Tryed or not at all And if the last should be allowed it will follow that the same fact which in a Peer is Treason and punishable with death in a Commoner is no Crime and Subject to no punishment Nor doth Magna Charta confine all Trials to common Juries for it ordains that they shall be Tryed by the Judgement of Peers or by the Law of the Land And will any man say the Law of Parliament is not the Law of the Land Nor are these words in Magna Charta superfluous or insignificant for then there would be no Tryal before the Constable or Marshal where is no Jury at all There could be no Tryal of a Peer of the Realm upon an Appeal of Murder who according to the Law ought in such cases to be tried by a common Jury and not by his Peers And since the Records of Parliaments are full of Impeachment of Commons and no instance can be given of the rejection of any such Impeachment it is the Commons who have reason to cite Magna Charta upon this occasion which provides expresly against the denyal of Justice And indeed it looks like a denyal of Justice when a Court that hath undoubted Cognisance of a Cause regularly brought before them shall refuse to hear it But most especially when as in this case the Prosecutors could not be so in any other Court so as a final stop was put to their suit though the Lords could not judicially know whether any body else would prosecute else-where This proceeding of the Lords looks the more odly because they rejected the Cause before they knew as Judges what it was and referred it to the ordinary Course of Law without staying to hear whether it were a matter whereof an inferior Court could take Cognisance There are Treasons which can only be adjudged in Parliament and if we may collect the sense of the House of Commons from their debates they thought there was a mixture of those kind of Treasons in Fitz-Harris's case And therefore there was little reason for that severe suggestion that the Impeachment was only designed to delay a Trial since a compleat examination of his Crime could be had no where buâ— in Parliament But it seems somewhat strange that the delaying of a Tryal and that against a professed Papist charged with Treason should be a matter so extreamly sensible For might it not be well retorted by the People that it had been long a matter extreamly sensible to them that so many Prorogations so many Dissolutions so many other Arts had been used to delay the Trials which His majesty had often desired and the Parliament prepared for against five professed Popish Lords charged
singly ordered when he sate in Council and came forth without the stamp of the great Seal gave them a sufficient warrant to read it publickly Clergy-men seldom make Reflections of this kind least they should be thought to dispute the commands of their Superiors It hath been observed that they who allow unto themselves the liberty of doubting advance their fortunes very slowly whilst such who obey without scruple go on with a success equal to their ambition And this carries them on without fear or shame and as little thought of a Parliament as the Court Favorites who took care to Dissolve that at Oxford before they durst tell us the faults of that at Westminster We have already answer'd the miscarriages objected to the first and may now take a view of those imputed to the other which they say was Assembled as soon as that was Dissolved and might have added Dissolved as soon as Assembled The Ministers having employ'd the People forty days in chusing Knights and Burgesses to be sent home in eight with a Declaration after them as if they had been called together only to be affronted The Declaration doth not tell us of any gracious expressions used at the opening of that Parliament perhaps because the store was exhausted by the abundance which His Majesty was pleased to bestow on them in his former Speeches But we ought to believe that His Majesties Heart was as full of them as ever and if he did not express them it is to be imputed unto the Ministers who diverted him from his own inclinations and brought him to use a language until that day unknown unto Parliaments The Gracious Speech then made the Gracious Declaration that followed are so much of a piece that we may justly conclude the same Persons to have been Authors of both How ever His Majesty failed not to give good advice unto them who were called together to advice him The Parliament had so much respect of their K. as not particularly to complain of the great invasion that was made upon their liberty of proposing debating Laws by his telling them before hand what things they should meddle with and what things no reasons they could offer should perswade him to consent unto But every man must be moved to hear it charged upon them as an unpardonable disobedience that they did not obsequiosly submit to that irregular Command of not touching on the busines of the succesion Shall two or three unknown Minions take upon them like the Lords of the Articles of Scotland to prescribe unto an English Parliament what things they shall treat off Do they intend to have Parliaments inter instrumenta servitutis as the Romans had Kings in our Country This would quickly be if what was then attempted had succeeded and should be so pursued hereafter that Parliaments should be directed what they were to meddle with and threatned if they do any other thing For the loss of Liberty of Freedom of debate in Parliament will soon and certainly be followed by a general loss of Liberty Without failing in the respect which all good Subjects owe unto the King it may be said that His Majesty ought to divest himself of all private inclinations and force his own Affections to yeild unto the publick concernments And therefore His Parliaments ought to inform him impartially of that which tends to the good of those they represent without regard of personal passions and might worthily be blam'd if they did not believe that he would forgo them all for the safety of his people Therefore if in it self it was lawful to propose a Bill for excluding the Duke of York from the Crown the doing it after such an unwarrantable signification of his pleasure would not make it otherwise And the unusual stifnes which the King hath shown upon this occasion begins to be suspected not to proceed from any fondnes to the Person of his Brother much less from any thought of danger to the English Monarchy by such a Law but from the influence of some few ill men upon his Royal Mind who being Creatures to the Duke or Pensioners to France are restless to prevent a good understanding betwen the King and his people justly fearing that if ever he comes to have a true sence of their affections to him he would deliver up to justice these wicked wretches who have infected him with the fatal notion that the interests of his people are not only distinct but opposite to his His Majesty does not seem to doubt of his power in conjunction with his Parliament to exclude his Brother He very well know's this power hath been often exerted in the time of his Predecessors But the reason given for his refusal to comply with the interests and desires of his Subjects is because it was a point which concerned him so near in Honour Justice and Conscience Is it not honourable for a Prince to be True and Faithful to his Word and Oath To keep and maintain the Religion and Laws established Nay can it be thought dishonourable unto him to love the safety wel-fare of his People and the true Religion established among them above the Temporal Glory and Greatness of his personal Relations Is it not just in conjunction with his Parliament for his Peoples safety to make use of a power warranted by our English Laws the examples of former Ages Or is it just for the Father of his Countrey to expose all his Children to ruine out of fondness unto a Brother May it not rather be thought unjust to abandon the Religion Laws and Liberties of his People which he is sworn to maintain and defend and expose them to the Ambition and Rage of one that thinks himself bound in Conscience to subvert them If His Majesty is pleased to remember what Religion the Duke professeth can he think himself obliged in Conscience to suffer him to ascend the Throne who will certainly endeavor to overthrow it and set up the worst of Superstitions and Idolatry in the room of it Or if it be true that all obligations of Honor Justice and Conscience are comprehended in a grateful return of such benefits as have been received can His Majesty believe that he doth duly repay unto his Protestant Subjects the kindness they shewed him when they recalled him from a miserable helpless banishment and with so much dutiful affection placed him in the Throne enlarged his Revenue above what any of his Predecessors had enjoyed and gave him vaster sums of Money in twenty years than had been bestowed upon all the Ks. since William the first should he after all this deliver them up to be ruin'd by his Brother It cannot be said that he had therein more regard unto the Government than to the Person seeing it is evident the Bill of exclusion had no ways prejudiced the legal Monarchy w ch his Majesty doth now enjoy with all the Rights and Powers which his wise and brave Ancestors did ever claim
with Treasons of an extraordinary nature But above all that it was a matter extreamly sensible to the whole Kingdom to see such Un-Parliamentary mean Solicitations used to promote this pretended Rejection of the Commons Accusation as are not fit to be remembred 'T is there that the delay of the Tryal is to be laid for had the impeachment been proceeded upon and the Parliament suffered to Sit Fâ—tz-Harris had been long since executed or deserved Mercy by a full Discovery of the secret Authors of these malicious designs against the King People For though the Declaration says a Tryal was directed yet we are sure nothing was done in order to it till above a month after the Dissolution And it hath since raised such questions as we may venture to say were never talk't of before in Westminster Hall Questions which touch the judicature of the Lords the Priviledges of the Commons in such a degree that they will never be determined by the decision of any inferior Court but will assuredly at one time or other have a farther Examination We have seen now that the Commons did it not without some ground when they Voted the Refusal of the Lords to proceed upon an Impeachment to be a denial â—f Iustice and a violation of the Constitution of Parliaments and the second Vote was but an application of this Opinion to the present case The third Vote made upon that occasion was no more than what the King himself had allowed and all the Judges of England had agreed to be Law in the case of the five impeached Lords who were only generally impeached the Parliament Dissolved before any Articles were sent up against them Yet they had been first indicted in an Inferior Court and preparations made for their tryal but the Judges thought at that time that a prosecution of all the Commons was enough to stop all prosecutions of an Inferior Nature The Commons had not Impeached Fitz Harris but that they judged his case required so publick an Examinaon and for any other Court to go about to try condemn him tho it should be granted to be for another Crime is as far as in them lies to stifle that Examination By this time every man will begin to question whether the Lords did themselves or the commons Right in the refusing to countenance such a proceeding But one of the penmen of this Declaration has done himself and the Nation Right and has discovered himself by using his ordinary phrase upon this occasion The Person is well known without naming him who always tells men they have done themselves no Right when he is resolved to do them none As for the Commons nothing was carried on to extremity by them nothing done but what was Parliamentary They could not desire a conference till they had first stated their own case and asserted by Votes the matter which they were to maintain at a conference And so far were those Votes from putting the Two Houses beyond a possibility of Reconciliation that they were made in order to it and there was no other way to attain it And so far was the House of Commons from thinking themselves to be out of a capacity of transacting with the Lords any farther that they were preparing to send a Message for a conference to accommodate this difference at the very instant that the Black Rod called them to their Dissolution If every difference in Opinion or Vote should be said to put the two Houses out of capacity of transacting business together every Parliament almost must be dissolved as soon as called However our Ministers might know well enough that there was no possibilty of Reconciling the Two Houses because they had before resolved to put them out of a capacity of transacting together by a suddain Dissolution But that very thing justifies the Commons to the world who cannot but perceive that there was solemn and good ground for them to desire an inquiry into Fitz Harris's Treason since they who influence our affairs were so startled at it that in order to prevent it they first promoted this difference between the two Houses and then broke the Parliament lest it should be composed There is another thing which must not be past over without observation that the Ministers in this Paper take upon them to decide this great dispute between the two Houses and to give iudgment on the side of the Lords We may well demand what Person is by our Law Constituted a Judge of their Priviledges or hath authority to censure the Votes of one House made with reference to matters wherein they were contesting with the other House as the greatest violation oâ— the Constitution of Parliaments They ought certainly to have excepted the power which is here assumed of giving such a judgment and publishing such a Charge as being not only the highest violation of the Constitution but directly tending to the destruction of it This was the Case and a few days continuance being like to produce a good understanding between the Two Houses to the advancing all those great and publick ends for which the Nation hop'd they were called the Ministers found it necessary to put an end to that Parliament likewise We have followed the Writers of the Declaration through the several parts of it wherein the House of Commons are Reproached with any particular Miscarriages and now they come to speak more at large and to give caution against two sorts of ill Men. One sort they say are men fond of their old beloved Common-wealth Principles and others are angry at being disappointed in designs they had for accomplâ—shing their own Ambition and Greatness Surely if they know any such Persons the only way to have prevented the mischiefs which they pretend to fear from them had been to have discovered them and suffered the Parliament to Sit to provide against the evils they would bring upon the Nation by prosecuting of them But if they mean by these lovers of Common-wealth Principles men passionately devoted to the Publick good and to the common service of their Country who believe that Kings were instituted for the good of the People and Government ordained for the sake of those that are to be governed and therefore complain or grieve when it is used to contrary ends every Wise Honest man will be proud to be ranked in that number And if Common-wealth signifies the Common Good in which sence it hath in all Ages been used by all good Authors and which Bodin puts upon it when he speaks of the Government of France which he calls a Republick no good man will be asham'd of it Our own Authors The Mirror of Justice Bracton Fleta Fortescue and others in former times And of latter years Sir Thomas Smith Secretary of State in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in his Discourses of the Common-wealth of England Sir Francis Bacon Cook and others take it in the same sence And not only divers of our
last mentioned we should find they signified as little therefore we will only remember the last made the 20th of April 1679. And Declared in Council and in Parliament after published to the whole Nation Wherein His Majesty owns that he is sensible of the ill posture of his affairs and the great Jealousies and Dissatisfaction of his good Subjects whereby the Crown and Government was become too weak to preserve it self which proceeded from his use of a single Ministry and of private Advices and therefore professes his Resolution to lay them wholly aside for the future and to be Advised by those Able and Worthy Persons whom he had then chosen for his Council in all his Weighty and Important Affairs But every man must Acknowledge that either His Majesty has utterly forgotten this Publick and solemn Promise or else that nothing Weighty and Important has happened from that time to this very Day As for the Declaration read in our Churches the other day there needs no other Argument to make us dâ—ubt of the reality of the promises which it makes then to consider how partially with how little sincerity the things which it pretends to relate are therein represented It begins with telling us in His Majesties name That it was with exceeding great trouble that he was brought to Dissolve the Two last Parliaments without more benefit to the People by the calling of them We should question His Majesties Wisdom did we not belive him to have understood that never Parliament had greater Opportunities of doing good to himself and to his People He could not but be sensible of the Dangers and of the Necessities of His Kingdom therefore could not without exceding great Trouble be prevailed upon for the sake of a few desperate men whom he thought himself concern'd to love now only becaus he had loved them too well Trusted them too much before not only to disappoint the Hopes and Expectations of his own People but of all most Europe His Majesty did indeed do His Part so far in giving Opportunities of providing for our good as the calling of Parliaments does amount to and it is to be Imputed to the Ministers only that the success of them did not answer His and Our Expectations 'T is certain it cannot be imputed to any of the Proceedings of either of those Parliaments which were composed of Men of as good Sence and Quality as any in the Nation and proceeded with as great moderation and managed their Debates with as much temper as was ever known in any Parliament If they seem'd to go too far in any thing His Majesties Speeches or Declarations had misled them by some of which they had been invited to enter into every one of those Debates to which so much exception had been since taken Did he not frequently recommend the prosecution of the Plot to them with a strict and impartial inquiry Did he not tell them That he neither thought himself nor them safe till that matter was gone through with Did he not in his Speech of the 30th of April 1679. Assure them that it was his constant care to secure our Religion for the future in all Events and that in all things which concern'd the Publick security he would not follow their Zeal but lead it Has he not often wish'd that he might be enabled to exercise a Power of Dispensation in Reference to those Protestants who through tenderness of misguided Conscience did not Conform to the Ceremonies Discipline and Government of the Church And promised that he would make it his special Care to encline the wisdom of the Parliament to concur with him in making an Act to that Purpose And least the malice of ill men might Object that these Gracious inclinations of His continued no longer then while there was a possibility of giving the Papists equal benefit of a Toleration Has not His Majesty since the Discovery of the Plot since there was no hopes of getting so much as a connivence for them in His Speech of the 6th of March 1679. Exprest His Zeal not only for the Protestant Religion in general but for an Vnion amongst all sorts of Protestants And did he not Command My Lord Chancellor at the same time to tell them that it was necessary to distinguish between Popish and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole Flock and them that onely wander from it These things considered we should not think the Parliament went too far but rather that they did not follow His Majesties Zeal with an equal pace The Truth is if we observe The daily provocations of the Popish Faction whose Rage and Insolence were only increased by the Discovery of the Plot so that they seemed to defy Parliaments as well as inferior Courts of Justice under the Protection of the Duke their publickly avowed head who still carryed on their designs by new and more detestable methods than ever and were continually busie by Perjuries and Subornations to charge the best and most considerable Protestants in the Kingdom with Treasons as black as those of which themselves were Guilty If we observe what vile Arts were used to hinder the further discovery what Liberty was given to Reproach the Discoverers what means used to destroy or to Corrupt them how the very Criminals were encouraged and allowed to be good Witnesses against their Accusers We should easily excuse an English Parliament thus beset if they had been carried to some little excesses But yet all this could not provoke them to do any thing not justifiable by the Laws of Parliament or unbecoming the Wisdom and Gravity of an English Senate But we are told that His Majesty Opened the last Parliament which was held at Westminster with as Graciom Expressions of His readiness to satisfie the desires of his Subjects and to secure them against all their just Fears as the weighty consideration either of preserving the Established Religion and Property of His Subjects at Home or of supporting His Neighbors and Allies abroad could fill His Heart with We must own that His Majesty has Opened all His Parliaments at Westminister with very Gracious Expressions nor have we wanted that Evidence of His readiness to satisfie the desires of His Subjects but that sort of Evidence will soon lose it's force if it be never followed by Actions correspondent by which only the World can judge of the sincerity of Expressions or Intentions And therefore the Favourites did little Consult His Maiesties Honor when they bring him in solemnly dâ—claring to His Subjects that His Intentions were as far as would have consisted with the very being of the Government to have Complyed with any thing that could have been proposed to him to Accomplish those Ends when they are not able to produce an instance wherein they suffered him to comply in any One thing Whatsoever the House of Commons Address'd for was certainly denied though it was only for that
Reason and there was no surer way of intituling ones self to the favor of the Court then to receive a Censure from the Representative Body of the People Let it for the present be admitted that some of the things desired by that Parliament were exorbitant and because we will put the Objection as strong as is possible inconsistent with the very being of the Government yet at least some of their Petitions were more reasonable The Government might have subsisted though the Gentlemen put out of the Commission of the Peace for their Zealous acting against the Papists had been restor'd nor would a final Dissolution of all things have ensued tho Sir G. Jefferies had been removed out of publick Office or my Lord Hallifax himself from His Majesties Presence and Councils Had the Statute of the 35th of Queen Elizabeth which had justly slept for 80 years and of late unseasonably revived been repealed surely the Government might still have been safe And though the Fanaticks perhaps had not deserved so well as that in favor to them His Majesty should have passed that Bill yet since the Repeal might hereafter be of so great use to those of the Church of England in case of a Popish Successor which blessing His Majesty seems resolved to bequeath to His People one would have thought he might have Complyed with the Parliament in that proposal At least we should have had less Reason to complain of the refusal if the King would have been but Graciously pleased to have done it in the Ordinary way But the Ministers thought they had not sufficiently triumphed over the Parliament by getting the Bill rejected unless it were done in such a manner as that the Precedent might be more pernicious to posterity by introducing a new Negative in the making of Laws then the losing of any Bill how useful soever could be to the present Age. This we may affirm that if the success of this Parliament did not answer expectation whoever was guilty of it the House of Commons did not fail of doing their Part. Never did men Husband their time to more advantage They opened the eyes of the Nation they shewed them their danger with a freedom becoming Englishmen They asserted the Peoples Right of Petitioning they proceeded vigorously against the Conspirators discovered and heartily endeavored to take away the very Root of the Conspiracy They had before them as many great and useful Bills as had been seen in any Parliament and it is not to be laid at their doors that they proved Abortive This Age will never fail to give them their grateful acknowledgments and posterity will remember that House of Commons with Honor. We come now to the particular enumeration of those Gracious things which were said to the Parliament at Westminster His Majesty askt of them the supporting the Allyances he had made for the preservation of the General Peace in Christendom 'T is to be wish'd His Majesty had added to this Gracious asking of Money a gracious Communication of those Alliances and that such blind obedience had not been exacted from them as to contribute to the support of they knew not what themselves nor before they had considered whether those Alliances which were made were truly design'd for that end which was pretended or any way likely to prove effectual to it Since no precedent can be shown that ever a Parliament not even the late long Parliament tho filled with Danby his Pensioners did give Money for Maintaining of any Leagues till they were first made acquainted with the particulars of them But besides this the Parliament had reason to consider well of the General Peace it self and the Influence it might have and had upon our Affairs before they came to any Resolution or so much as to a Debate about preserving it since so wise a Minister as my L. Chancellor had so lately told us that it was fitter for Meditation than Discourse He informed us in the same Speech that the peace then was but the effect of Despair in the Confederates and we have since learn't by whose means they were reduced to that despair and what price was demanded of the French King for so great a service And we cannot but be sadly sensible how by this Peace that Monarch has not only quite Dissolv'd the Confederacy form'd against him enlarged his Dominions gain'd time to Refresh his Soldiers harrassed with long service setled and composed his Subjects at Home increased his Fleet and replenished his Exchequer for new and greater designs but his Pensioners at our Court have grown insolent upon it and presuming that now he may be at leasure to assist them in Ruining England and the Protestant Religion together have shaken off all dread of Parliaments and have prevail'd with His Majesty to use them with as little respect and to disperse them with as great Contempt as if they had been a Conventicle and not the great Representative of the Nation whose Power and Wisdom only could save Him and Us in our present exigencies But whatever the design of them was or the effect of them is like to be yet Alliances have a very good sound and a Nation so encompassed with Enemies abroad and Traitors and Pensioners to those Enemies at home must needs be glad to hear of any new Friends But alas if we look into the Speech made at the opening of that Parliament we shall find no mention of any new Ally except the Spaniard whose Affairs at that time through the defects of his own Government and the Treachery of our Ministers were reduced to so desperate a state that he might well be a Burden to us but there was little to be hoped from a Friendship with him unless by the name of a League to recommend our Ministers to a new Parliament couzen Country Gentlemen out of their Money But upon perusal of that League it appears by the third fourth and fifth Articles that it was like to create us Troubles enough for it engages us indefinitely to enter into all the Quarrels of the Spaniards tho they happened in the West-Indies or the Philippine Islands or were drawn upon himself by his own injustice or causeless provocations By this we shall be obliged to espouse his difference with the Duke of Brandenburg tho all that Duke did was according to the Law of Nations to Reprize Spanish Ships for a just Debt frequently demanded in vain By this we shall be obliged to engage in his present War with the Portuguese tho he by his violent seizing of the Island of St. Gabriel which had been long in their peaceable possession without once demanding it of them has most justly provoked the Portuguese to invade Spain Nor are we bound only to assist him in case of an Invasion but in case of any disturbance whatsoever which must be intended of intestine Troubles and it is so directly explained in the secret Article which all Europe says was signed at the same
time So that if the present King of Spain should imitate his great Grand-father Philip the second oppress any of his Subjects as cruelly as he did those of the Low Countries and so force them to a necessary self defence we have renounced the policy of our Ancestors who thought it their interest as well as their Duty to succor the distressed and must not only aid him with 8000 Men for three Months to make those People slaves but if the matter cannot be composed in that time make War upon them with our whole force both by Land and Sea But that which concerns us yet nearer in this League is that this obligation of assistance was mutual so that if a disturbance should happen hereafter in England upon any attempt to change our Religion or our Government though it was in the time of his Majesty Successors the most Catholick King is obliged by this League which we are still to believe was entred into for the security of the Protestant Religion and the good of the Nation to give aid to so Pious a Design and to make War upon the people with all his Forces both by Land and Sea And therefore it was no wonder that the Ministers were not forward in shewing this League to the Parliament who would have soon observed all these inconveniencies and have seen how little such a League could contribute to the preserving the general Peace or to the securing of Flanders since the French King may within one months time possess himself of it and we by the League are not obliged to send our Succors till 3 Months after the Invasion So that they would upon the whole matter have been inclined to suspect that the main end of this League was only to serve for a handsom pretence to raise an Army in England and if the people here should grow discontented at it and any little disorders should ensue the Spaniard is thereby obliged to send over Forces to suppress them The next thing recommended to them was the farther examination of the Plot and every one who has observed what has passed for more than two years together cannot doubt that this was sincerely desired by such as are most in credit with his Majesty and then surely the Parliament deserv'd not to be censured upon this account since the examination of so many new Witnesses the Trial of the Lord Stafford the great preparations for the Trial of the rest of the Lords and their diligent inquiry into the Horrid Irish Treasons shew that the Parliament wanted no diligence to pursue his Majesties good intentions in that affair And when His Majesty desired from the Parliament their Advice and Assistance concerning the preservation of Tangier the Commons did not neglect to give its due consideration They truly represented to him how that important place came to be brought into such exigencies after so vast a Treasure expended to make it useful and that nothing better could be expected of a Town for the most part put under Popish Governours and always fill'd with a Popish Garrison These were evils in His Majesties own power to redress and they advised him to it nor did they rest there but promise to assist him in defence of it as soon as ever they could be reasonably secured that any Supply which they gave for that purpose should not be used to Augment the strength of our Popish Adversaries and to encrease our Dangers at home They had more than once seen Money imployed directly contrary to the end for which it was given by Parliament they had too good cause of fear it might be so again and they knew that such a misimployment would have been fatal at that time But above all they considered the eminent dangers which threatned them with certain Ruine at home and therefore justly thought that to leave the consideration of England to provide for Tangier would be to Act like a Man that should send his Servants to mend a gap in his hedge when he saw his House on Fire and his Family like to be consumed in it We are next told that His Majesty Offered to concur in any Remedies that could be proposed for the security of the Protestant Religion and we must own that he did indeed make such an Offer but he was pleased to go no further for those Remedies which the Commons tendred were rejected and those which they were preparing were prevented by a Dissolution We have seen the great things which the King did on his part let us now reflect on those instances which are singled out as so many unsuitable returns of the Commons They are complained of for presenting Addresses in the nature of Remonstrances rather then Answers Under what unhappy circumstances do we find our selves when our Representatives can never behave themselves with that caution but they will be misinterpreted at Court If the Commons had return'd Answer to His Majesties Messages without shewing upon what grounds they proceedded they had then been accused as men acting peremptorily without reason if they modestly express the reasons of their Resolutions they are then said to Remonstrate But what the Ministers would have this word Remonstrance signifie what Crime it is they mean thereby to charge the Commons with is unknown to an English Reader Perhaps they who are better Critics and more French-men know some pernicious thing which it imports If they mean by a Remonstrance a declaring the Causes and Reasons of what they do it will not surely be imputed as a fault in them since 't is a way of proceeding which His Majesties Ministers have justified by their own Example having in His Majesties name vouchsafed to declare the Causes and Reasons of his Actions to his People But the Commons made Arbitrary Orders for taking Persons into Custody for matters that had no Relation to Priviledges of Parliament The Contrivers of this Declaration who are so particular in other things would have done well to have given some instances of these Orders If they intend by these general words to reflect on the Orders made to take those degenerate wretches into Custody who published under their hands their Abhorrence of Parliaments and of those who in an humble and Lawful manner Petitioned for their Setting in a time of such extream necessity Surely they are not in good earnest they cannot believe themselves when they say that these matters had no Relation to Priviledges of Parliament if the Priviledg of Parliament be concern'd when an injury is done to any particular Member how much more is it touched when men strike at Parliaments themselves endeavour to wound the very Constitution if this be said with Relation to Sheridon who has since troubled the World with so many idle impudent Pamphlets upon that account 't is plain that his Commitment was only in order to examine him about the Popish Plot and his indeavors to stifle it though his contemptuous behaviour to the House deservd a much