Selected quad for the lemma: peace_n
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A64051
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Two presentments of the grand jury in Bristol at the general quarter-sessions of the peace, holden there in October, 1681.
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England and Wales. Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace (Bristol). Grand Jury.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing T3529; ESTC R29039
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6,107
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8
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TWO PRESENTMENTS OF THE GRAND JURY IN BRISTOL AT THE General Quarter-Sessions OF THE PEACE Holden there in October 1681. LONDON Printed in the Year MDCLXXXI To the Right Worshipful Thomas Earle Esq MAJOR and to the Worshipful Court of Aldermen His Majesties Justices of the Peace for this Ctiy of Bristol and County of the same City now Assembled in the General quarter-Quarter-Sessions of the Peace begun the 4th day of October in the three and thirtieth year of His Majesties Reign An. Dom. 1681. and by Adjournments continued to this present 19th day of the same The Humble Presentment of the Grand Inquest WE the Grand Jurors for the Body of this City and County of the same City being by the Sacred Obligation of an Oath Administred to us at our first entrance into this Service and Trust and also by that Suitable and most Excellent Charge given Us pursuant thereunto Engaged to Enquire for Our Soveraign Lord the King for the Body of the said County in Discharge of the said Obligation do Present as followeth The Excellency and Necessity of Laws and Government are more then insinuated unto Us by the Early Provision made for them even in the Infancy of the World and first Original of things and also by the special Care and Constant Endeavours that have been ever since used for keeping the same Sacred and Inviolable and for delivering of it so down to Posterity through all Generations unto these days The unspeakable Miseries Mischiefs and Dangers which inevitably follow on the want hereof we need not have recourse to former times to relate the Present Age having felt effectually the smart thereof and many of our selves cannot but remember On the other hand the great Benefit Satisfaction and Comfort which are restored when the Government is returned to its Antient Constitution as it was by the miraculous Restoration of his Sacred Majesty to his Throne and Dignity and the Blessed Effects thereof which we have enjoyed for above twenty years last past cannot be of less weight than to perswade all whom their own Wills and Interests have not hardned into Obstinacy to the Highest and best Esteem of our present Governments and to exert their utmost endeavour towards the Countenance and Support thereof It is heartily to be wished that all men would be of such Good Principles and Ingenuous Dispositions as to live contentedly and Obediently under the best Government of the best of Princes and in the enjoyment of the best of Priviledges the Protestant Religion Liberty Property and Peace can afford us But Experience teaches us that thô it may be desired yet it can never be expected whilst Interest leads men the contrary way whilst Disobedience is so interwoven with some mens Creeds and whilst Rebellion doth pass for a Profitable Sin This Year hath been a Year wherein the face of Publick Affairs have appeared in great variety it hath been a year of Great Expectation of Great Discoveries Great Endeavours and Great Disappointments Providence hath seemed to be involved in a Cloud and to discover it self only by its Chequer Workings notwithstanding all which being now Happily arrived at the End thereof and having this Opportunity put into our hands we cannot but with all Humility and Thankfulness of Heart acknowledge the Infinite Goodness and Mercy of Almighty God exercised towards us in the manifold mercies we still enjoy in the Gracious Continuation of Health in our Dwellings and Peace within our borders when most part of our Neighbour Nations are imbroiled in Wars and the dismal consequences thereof For preserving the Kings Majesty in his happy Reign over us notwithstanding all the wicked Machinations of the sons of Violence whereby they have Diligently sought to Murder or Depose him and those whether our Open and Declared Enemies of the Religion of the Church of Rome or other Seditious and Ungrateful men who under pretence of Zeal Religion and Loyalty put themselves in a Better Condition to perpetrate their Wicked Designs who thô from Differing Interests and unto Differing Ends yet concur with the former in this Third thing The Ruin of Monarchy and the Subversion of the Government But the hand of Justice hath Begun to find them out and hath Distrbuted to some of them the Just Reward of their Treasonable and Wicked Enterprizes So that there is Good Hopes that Vengeance will not suffer such Murderers to escape and that such Blood-thirsty and Deceitful men shall not live out half their Days Also we return our True and Unfeigned Thanks to our Soveraign Lord the King for all those Unspeakable Benefits which from the Throne of his Majesty are Freely dispensed for the Advantage of his People for his great Wisdom in Foreseeing approaching Dangers and taking timely care to Prevent them from falling on his Subjects And for all those frequent instances of his Grace and Goodness towards this City and more especially for his Gracious Condescention in his last most Gracious Declaration to give the meanest of his Subjects an account of some of the Greatest of his Actions wherein amongst many other things of his Royal Bounty promised he is pleased to insert his Special Care of the Protestant Religion as by Law established his Intentions of Governing by Frequent Parliaments and his Resolutions that he will never suffer his People to be Ruin'd by Arbitrary Power either of Himself or their Fellow-Subjects In the next place we Present our Hearty Thanks to the Worshipful Sir Richard Hart late Mayor of this City for the Several and Singular instances of his Extraordinary Readiness and Care in Serving this City in those Emergent Occasions which happened in the year of his Majoralty In the beginning whereof things appeared with a Sad and Dismal Aspect for that the Factious Party in this City being grown to a Head knew no Bounds to their own Mischievous Designs First they Branded the Magistrates and Ministers and other his Majesties best Subjects with the Odious Name of Papists then they procured several Aldermen to be Seized on and Imprisoned The the◠late Sheriffs to be taken into Custody our Ministers to be several of them severely Threatned and one with whom they began to be severely Handled to be under a long Confinement and exposed to their Malitious Slanders by Libellers and Pamphleteers even of their own Procuring and all this at great Distance from their Own Homes to the vast Expence of their Estates and manifest Hazard of their Lives For Accomplifhing whereof they got themselves admitted Members of such Clubs in London as made them fitter for Acting this and what they had farther Projected And then they proceeded publickly to Threaten utter Ruin to several other Aldermen many Members of Common-Council and other substantial Inhabitants of this City to the number of several Scores at once under the Notion of Pulling down the Artillery and no less then utter Undoing to a whole Grand Jury for Declaring their Opinion in the matter of Petitioning They go on by their
Old refuge of Lyes to render the Interest of this City very Contemptible in the Face of the Nation openly Declaring at Westminster before the Members of the Honourable House of Commons that our Mayor was there a Factor for the Abhorrers of Bristol and that Himself was one of them and did publickly Declare before the Commons of England that it was a Crime in Bristol in the year 1679 to Acknowledge that there was any Popish Plot. All things seeming to lye at the mercy of their false Tongues and to be Obnoxious to the Prosecution of their unreasonable Anger It was now Crime enough to be declared Loyal and almost Capital to â—â—nâ—radiâ—t Fnaticism for to that Confidence were they grown That these Words You shall answer this before the House of Commons were as confidently spoken by the most Inconsiderable of them to those that were not of their Judgment on very Trivial Occasions as a Man in Authority may say to a Thief You shall be sent to Prison or to a Drunkard You shall be set by the Heels Thus intending to carry all before them to what further Heights they would have proceeded neither themselves nor any other could know had not Deliverance arisen in such a way as they never thought of except it was to to damn it as Impossible This was the time wherein our said then Mr. Mayor was pleas'd to the manifest hazard of Himself his Credit and Estate to interpose and assert the Right and Interest of this City and with great Care and Industry did bring off the Cause thereof very much to its Reputation and Advantage for which and for his Readiness to do the like on all other Occasions and for the whole Management of Publick Affairs during his year of Mayoralty we present him with our Hearty Thanks We likewise present our Hearty Thanks to the Worshipful Court of Aldermen for their readiness to Stand by and Encourage and Assist our said May or in all those things that tended to the Publick Good For that by your Joynt Endeavours herein the Credit and Reputation of this City is publickly retrieved so that his Sacred Majesty hath been graciously pleased to conceive Better and more Friendly thoughts of us and we hope for the future will find no cause to esteem us otherwise than as one of his Loyal Cities The little Experience which we have had within the space of one year last past hath let the World see That when men of ill Principles set their Ambitious eyes upon the Government Their restless Endeavours will stick at nothing which they think may conduce to the bringing it into their Hands and that those who think themselves too good to be Governed by Law think all others but good enough to Receive Law from them But Blessed be God we now see the Crest of the Faction fairly fallen the Countenance of its Abetters Dejected and their Actions receive publick Discouragement so that the great Expectation they had of fingering once more the Management of the Government being wholly for this time Disappointed We do heartily wish they would now sit down contentedly under the Government as it is already Established as it becomes Good Christians and Dutiful Subjects but if not if they will still persist to trouble the Waters for their own more profitable Fishing We all know the Law is made for the Lawless and Disobedient and the Sword of Justice is intrusted in the hands of the Ministers of Justice for the Chastising of evil Manners and for the punishment of evil Doers as well as for the encouragement of them that do well and therefore if the Laws Enacted are in force and if Laws in force were intended for the Good of the People by whom and for whom they were made we hope and expect that we shall never have cause to complain of our Magistrates for denying to us the Benefit of those Laws in not applying them to the ends of our Advantage for which they were at first so designed and afterwards committed to their Administration We should not have said so much on this particular had it been the Condition of this Place alone but the true Vox Patriae in all the Loyal Addresses lately presented to the Kings Majesty agree that the cause of all the troubles we have been sensible of or may now fear hath been occasioned by those amongst us who by Dissenting from declare themselves Enemies to the Government as it is now Established and that the only way to preserve Peace is to bring the Actions of all men to be conformable to those wholsom Laws by which all good men endeavour to regulate their Lives and against the Severities and Execution whereof none but the Guilty and Self-condemned Criminals Storm and Revile We do therefore Recommend it to your Worships as a matter most worthy your utmost care The Observation and Preservation of the good Laws of this Kingdom in Reference both to Ecclesiastical and Civil Concernments That you by all means Discourage all manner of Prophaness and Debauchery That you continue to be Constant and Vigorous Asserters of the Protestant Religion according to the Laws of this Kingdom now established the true Profession whereof is an Antidote against the numerous evils we lye under and the Causes of what we farther fear and a Thorough United Conformity whereunto would be an Invincible Bulwark against the wicked Machinations of all our Enemies And that you would be pleased always to endeavour the Preservation of the Peace of this City by all those means the Law hath prescribed and Experience hath taught are necessary to be used Many things have been presented to this Court and now lye before your Worships by former Grand-Juries particularly those of Easter and midsomer-Midsomer-Sessions last which we Recommend to your Worships care as worthy to be considered of in order to their Amendment Many things also have been Presented by the Constables of the several Wards in this Quarter-Sessions And what other things have further come to our Knowledge we have Ennumerated in a Paper hereunto annexed To which we humbly refer the Court and conclude with Our Hearty Prayers that God would Bless all your Worships Endeavours for the rendring of this City an United and a Flourishing City That God will bless this Kingdom with the great Blessings of Prosperity and Peace and all his Majesties Subjects with the Blessed Effects thereof And chiefly that God would bless the Kings most Excellent Majesty with Health Length of Days Victory Riches and Honour That he may live to see the Fruit of all his extraordinary Care and Wonderful Wisdom in Swaying the Scepter of these Kingdoms returned to him in Love and Loyalty from all his Subjects That those that Rise up against Him may be as the Dust before the Wind That all his Enemies may be cloathed with Perpetual Confusion and that upon his Sacred Head and the Head of his Royal Posterity the Crown may for ever Flourish ANOTHER PRESENTMENT OF THE Same