Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A66539
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The legacy of John Wilmer, citizen, and late merchant of London humbly offered to the lords and commons of England.
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Wilmer, John.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing W2884; ESTC R9494
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27,537
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38
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latter were promoted to the best Dignities in the Church that by the mutual assistance of each other the Kings might enslave the Bodies and drain the Purses and the Priests enslave the Souls and ride the Consciences of all Men But after our late State-Mountebanks had thus for a time tried their Tricks at length they felt the Weight of the Nation to fall like a Mill-stone upon them and found that the People of England would be the People of England still and be govern'd as reasonable Men and free-born Subjects Nevertheless in every bad Reign Evil Counsellors will be at the old Game and better is not to be expected unless in a good one we find Justice to be executed in Terrorem and it be made the Interest as well as 't is the Duty of every Man to serve the Publick The Politick States of Holland do make it so and thereby is it that they not only stand but prosper and are well served for every private Man there finds his Account of Interest and Profit in serving the Common Good whereas here in the late Reigns every Judas to his Country that most betrayed the fundamental Rights and debauched his Country had Honours and Profits for so doing and on the contrary where any stood in their way to oppose them they were certainly taken off or ruined Which shews how precarious the Lives Liberties and Properties as also the Religion of the People of England were made What Rapines barbarous Murders and Outrages were in the late Reigns such as no Chronicle can parallel Ahab and Jezabel's Murder of Naboth and taking possession of his Vineyard so blackned in holy Writ and so revenged by God seems to be far out-done by the cruel and barbarous Murder of the Brave and Noble Earl of Essex the first was done in the face of the World and owned but the latter in Hugger-mugger when he was under the Custody of the Law in Confinement and which highly aggravates the Heinousness of the Fact it was perpetrated at that moment when it was made to serve the wicked Design of destroying another of our greatest Men the Noble Lord Russel And lastly to throw the Odium of it on himself which if England take not off I am sure will cost them dear and they must feel the Vengeance of Heaven until Justice be in some kind satisfied When we took God's Way he blessed us and when we return to him he will return to us and bless us again I cannot but admire the Fineness of God's Providence how he called forth the Vertuous Puissant and Illustrious Family of Nassan to rescue his People out of the Jaws of Spanish Tyranny under Charles the Fifth and broke that Hellish Yoke made by Popish Priests and now to call the same Family in his present Majesty to break the French Yoke This is a stupendous Providence an amazing Work which will give him a glorious Name more lasting than that of Sons and Daughters God is shaking the Earth he hath begun with us in Jamaica in a terrible manner and since hath come to our own Doors and given us a Warning of his Power to shew us what he can do Let us labour to understand the meaning of the Voice of God in the Earthquake Shall we say the People of Jamaica were more wicked than we because they perished I tell you God seems to call to us in this still Voice and say Repent or ye shall all likewise perish Let us away with our dastardly Cowardliness and sordid Covetousness and Self-seeking which is the Root of all Evil and seek more the things of God and things of good Report amonst good Men in our Generation Let us reform and amend our Manners our Ways and Doings or else leave those Names of Protestants and Christians for our Immorality is a Shame to them all and the old Heathens and Turks will condemn and rise up in Judgment against us and it will be more tolerable for them in the Day of Judgment than for us The CASE of JOHN WILMER Citizen and late Merchant of London With Reflections thereupon SECTION I. THAT there was a damnable Conspiracy to introduce Popery and Arbitrary Government carried on long before the great Alarm thereof was given to the three Kingdoms about the Month of September 1678 was well known to all thinking Men and is now put out of question as it is that the late unhappy King James gave Life to it The House of Commons in the first Westminster Parliament after the Dissolution of the Long Parliament in January 1678 declared That the Duke of York being a Papist and his Hopes of coming such to the Crown gave Countenance and Encouragement to the Popish Conspiracies It appeared at that time to both Houses of Parliament by Letters from several Cardinals and others at Rome that the Duke held great Correspondences with the Pope and that his pretended Holiness could not but weep for Joy at the reading some of the Duke's Letters Whereupon a Bill was brought into the House of Commons to disable the Duke to inherit the Crown which upon a second reading in a Committee of the whole House being carried by the Majority of near two to one that Parliament was dissolved and never sat more The honest and most necessary Resolution then taken being thus defeated to the Grief and Astonishment of the greatest part of the Nation the undernamed Lords and Gentlemen viz. the Earl of Shafesbury Earl of Huntingdon Lord Grey of Werk Lord Russel Lord Cavendish Lord Brandon Thomas Wharton Esq Sir William Cowper Sir Gilbert Gerrard Sir Edward Hungerford Sir Henry Calverly Sir Scroop How Thomas Thynne Esq William Forrester Esq and John Trenchund Esq went in Person upon the 26th of June 1680 and presented Reasons to the Grand Jury which served in the Court of King's-Bench for the County of Middlesex for the indicting the Duke of York as a Popish Recusant whereupon that Jury took the Indictment into Consideration But the Judges of that Court getting Information thereof sent for the Jury and in an unheard-of manner hastily dismissed them at a time when many other Indictments were depending before them The former Lords and Gentlemen no way discouraged by the aforesaid denial of Justice upon the 30th of July following together with the Earl of Clare Sir John Cope Sir Rowland Gwynn and Mr. Wandsford did personally prosecute the same Accusation against the Duke before a second Grand Jury but they were in the same arbitrary manner dismissed by the Court to the obstruction of that Prosecution In the ensuing Michaelmas Term 1680 I John Wilmer was returned and sworn upon the Grand Jury which served in the Court of King's-Bench for the County of Middlesex at that time began the Parliament commonly called the second Westminster Parliament from the Dissolution of the late Long Parliament and upon the 11th of November the House of Commons passed a Bill entituled An Act for securing the Protestant Religion by disabling James Duke
my Measures God's Fish I will have his Blood or ruine him although it cost me ten thousand Pounds Reflections on the seventh Section NO Age can parallel the Wickedness of such Magistrates to contrive such horrid things against a brave and honest People to bring such alparcel of Varlets and Irish Cut-throats to swear against innocent Men that no honest Man in the Kingdom in Life or Estate could escape them if they could have had Jury-Tools as well as Judges and others It is a difficult Task to keep within bounds and to bridle in Passion under Oppression to have our Spirits in a Christian cool Frame when we are injured it requires great Measures of Grace You see I was here in a fine Case having such thundring Threatnings that nothing but Death or Ruine must follow For what is mentioned is Matter of Fact in the foregoing Section and I believe I can prove it at this Day if need require SECT VIII THE Conspirators unwilling thus to lose their hopeful Plot and the Cost which they had been at in suborning and instructing their Irish Witnesses they cast about how and where to employ them to better purpose than in the City of London and at length they resolve to make an Experiment at Oxford thither they send Colledg to be tried upon a special Commission of Oyer and Terminer issued into that County Hereupon it being evident that I might be a most material Witness to shew the Inconsistency and Falshood of the Irish Evidence Inquiry was made of me whether I would go to Oxford to testify my knowledg in the Matter on the behalf of Colledg I declared that if I were Subpena'd I would go but upon the very Day when a Subpena was brought to my House Atterbury the Messenger came thither with Stephens Messenger of the Press and seizing me said You are my Prisoner Hereupon I demanded a light of his Warrant and finding it to be from Secretary Jenkins for High-Treason I told Atterbury as Counsel had before advised me that it was an illegal Warrant and would not run in London I being within the Freedom and a Freeman of the City but if any Warrant came from my Lord-Mayor or from an Alderman of the City who was a Justice I would readily obey it but Atterbury with his Assistants laid hold of me and forced me into a Coach carrying me to Atterbury's House where I was kept two Days from thence I was carried before the King and Council at Hampton-Court and being very sick with an Ague and flayer the Lord Chancellor said to me at my coming in You come in like an Ignoramus upon which the King pulled him by the Sleeve and wink'd on him which seemed to intimate that though my giving the Ignoramus Verdict upon the Indictment against Colledg was in truth the Crime which brought me thither yet it should not be published wherefore the same Lord turning it said You come here as one not only guilty of High-Treason but have begun a Rebellion in resisting his Majesty's Warrant for your Apprehension Whereupon I replied May it please your Majesty I have not not will I resist any legal Warrant of your Majesty's but I humbly conceive the Warrant by which I am apprehended is an illegal Warrant being from the Secretary of State and will not run in London for the Justices of London are not Justices by Commission but by Prescription and Charter Said the King Will not my Warrant run in London Yes may it please your Majesty I answered a Warrant from my Lord Chief Justice of your Majesty's Bench will run in London to apprehend any Citizen but it is to be executed by its proper Officer a City-Constable and he to carry his Prisoner so apprehended before the Lord-Mayor or any other Alderman that is a Justice of the said City To which the King said Who told you this Law I replied One Mr. Smith an able Lawyer Whereupon I was ordered to withdraw and within an hour after without any other Accusation or Examination a Warrant was sent out of the Council-Chamber to commit me to the Tower for High-Treason Reflections on the eighth Section IT is thought by many that one Reason of my being taken up at this time was to prevent my going to Oxford to Colledg's Trial to confront the Irish Evidence and declare my knowledg of them By this Warrant against me and by a like Warrant against Mr. Whitaker the Customs and Privileges of the City of London granted by Charter and confirmed by Act of Parliament were broken through for it was granted by the Charter of King Edward the Third as may be seen in the printed Charters of the City p. 45. and which hath been very often confirmed by many Acts of Parliament That no Summons Attachments or Executions be made by any the King's Officers whatsoever by Writ or without Writ within the Liberty of the City but only by the Ministers of the City The famous Lawyer Bracton expresses himself to this purpose Bracton lib. 1. cap. 8. fol. 5. lib. 2. cap. 16. fol. 34. Mirrour of Justice p. 8 15. The Law is not only the King's Maker but his Master and whatever he doth against it he is as liable to answer as the Subject save in Life and Member therefore does nothing in Person but all in his Political State and Capacity by Ministers And therefore if any Minister by the King's Command breaks the Law or acts against Law he is punishable for the Crime whether Privy-Counsellor Chancellor Judg or other inserior Minister Every Citizen of London with the same Breath he swears Allegiance to the King he also swears to maintain the Charters Grants Rights and Privileges of the City and I take each Oath to be binding alike and no ways contradictory the one to the other and as I take it I was bound by the latter to have resisted Atterbury even to the hazard of my Life he coming with his illegal Warrant to seize me contrary to the Grants Charters and Customs of the City Now to evince the truth of what I assert and to remember my Fellow-Citizens of their Duty I shall here subjoin the Oath which we all took as Freemen of the City and also the Oath which is taken by every Member of the Common Council by both which Oaths I then stood obliged The Oath of every Freeman of the City of London I here insert word for word as follows YE shall swear that ye shall be good and true to our Sovereign Lord and Lady King William and Queen Mary Obeysant and obedient ye shall be to the Mayor and Ministers of the City The Franchises and Customs thereof ye shall maintain and this City keep harmless in that that in you is Ye shall be contributary to all manner of Charges within this City as Summons Watches Contributions Taxes Tallages Lot and Scot and to all other Charges bearing your part as a Freeman ought to do Ye shall colour no foreign Goods