subvert their Laws and Liberties to undermine and impoverish their Estates and Fortunes and to reduce a Plump Wealthy and Well-nourish'd Nation into a Skeleton of a Kingdom what could be more infernally ingrateful Yet that this was the Study and Practice of his whole Reign the following Passages will make Geometrically demonstrable The King was not ignorant that he was furnish'd already with a stock of Gentlemen who being forc'd to share the Misfortunes of his Exile and consequently no less imbitter'd against those whom they lookt upon as their Oppressors he had moulded them to his own Popish Religion and Interests by corrupting them in their Banishment with him to renounce the Protestant Doctrine and Worship and secretly reconcile themselves to the Church of Rome Insomuch that Mr. R. offer'd to prove one day in the Pensionary House of Commons that of all the Persons yet Persons all of Rank and Quality who sojourn'd with the King abroad there were but three then alive viz. P. Rupert the Lord M. and Mr. H. Coventry who had not been prevail'd upon by his Majesty to go to Mass. Nor could their being restor'd to their Estates at his return separate them from their Masters Interests for that besides the future Expectations with which the King continually fed them and the Obligations that the Principles of the Religion to which they had revolted layd them under they had bound themselves by all the Oaths and Promises that could be exacted from them to assist and cooperate with him in all his Designs for the Extirpation of the Protestant Religion and introducing of Popery though they were dispenced with from appearing bare-fac'd So soon therefore as the Parliament that gave him admittance into the Kingdom was Dissolv'd the King call'd another the first of his own Calling and so ordered the Matter that the greatest part of the Mask'd Revolters got in amongst the Real Protestants By which means all things went trim and trixy on the King's side They restor'd him the Militia which the Long Parliament had wrested out of his Fathers hands they sacrific'd the Treasure of the Nation to his Profuseness and Prodigality the only Vertue in him that sav'd us from utter Ruin for had he been more sparing he had done us more mischief They offer'd up the Rights and Liberties of the People by advancing his Prerogative and what was most conducing to the King 's Popish Designs they made him by private Instructions those Penal Statutes which divided the two prevailing Protestant Parties and set them together by the Ears by arming one Party of the Protestants against all the rest such a darling advantage to the Papists and upon the obtaining of which he set so high a value that neither the necessity of his Affairs at any time afterwards nor the Application and Interposure of several Parliaments for removing the grounds of our Differences and Animosities by an Indulgence to be past into a Law could prevail upon him to forego the advantages he had got of keeping the Protestants at mutual Enmity one with another and making them useful to their own Designs of supplanting the Protestant Religion and re-establishing the Idolatry of Rome Nor was this all but that he might carry on his Popish Designs the more safely and covertly under the cursed Mask of Hypocrisie he procur'd the passing of an Act in his Pensionary Parliament 1662. whereby it was made forfeiture of Estate and Imprisonment for any to say the King was a Papist or an Introducer of Popery Nevertheless notwithstanding he was thus become a Protestant by the Law of the Land to repeat how he exerted the Power given him by the P2rliament how he persecuted and prosecuted the Protestant Nonconformists from one end of the Kingdom to the other how he caus'd them to be Excommunicated imprison'd and harrass'd when nto a Papist in the Three Kingdoms was so much as troubled or molested is a thing that would be altogether needless as being so well known to the World and still too sadly remembred by Thousands of Families that to this day too deeply wear the Scars of his Cruel Dilaniations However it shew'd sufficiently the aim of our dear Defender of the Protestant Faith which was to weaken and enervate the Protestant Party that so they might be come the more easie Prey to Popish Rage and Cruelty when the blessed Hour should arrive for the putting in Execution those bloody designs with which he had been so long travailing which because he could not carry on without assistance therefore although he were sometimes oblig'd by the necessity of his Affairs and in complyance with the Times to palliate his Contrivances to make use of sincere and real Protestants yet they who were admitted into his secrets and in whom he placed his chiefest Trust and Confidence were always Papists He who would needs have himself enacted the best Protestant in his Dominions took no notice that whosoever was reconciled to Rome stood debarr'd from all Offices and obnoxious to several kinds of punishment but still out of the number of Papists or else such as were of no Religion at all which was the same thing for his purposes chose his Embassadors Generals Ministers of State and many of his greatest Bishops too What else recommended Sir W. Godolphin to be Embassador in Spain or Sir Lionel I. to be his Plenipotentiary at Nimeguen and afterwards his drudging Sham-plot Secretary It was his being a zealous Roman Catholick that preferr'd the Lord Clifford to the Treasurers Staff with several others of the same stamp to other high Preferments more Eminent for their Dignities than for their Parts and lastly what was it but this Indulgence and finding ways to dismiss the Papists without any harm or damage when Indicted or Presented at the Sessions that advanced so many Beneplacito Judges and continued them in their Places I had almost forgot another very great kindness which the same Parliament did him which was at the Private Instance of the King to abrogate the Triennial Act by which the sitting of Parliaments once in three years was infallibly secur'd to the Kingdom So well did his Majesty know where the Shoe pinch'd him and so crafty was he to take his Advantage from the Delirium and Frenzy the Nation was in upon his Restoration to obtain the repealing of the Principal Laws by which his wriggling into Arbitrary Government would have been curb'd and restrain'd But whether it were that the Prodigal Zeal of those Members began to cool conscious perhaps that they had already open'd too large a Gap to Tyrannous Invasion upon the Liberties of the People which they had so treacherously laid at the Kings Mercy or whether it were that the King resolv'd to quicken his pace to Arbitrary Rule to the end he might see Popery flourish in his own Days certain it is that his next Attempt was to make the Parliaments themselves the Ministers and Instruments of his own Popish Ambition and our Slavery In order
hereunto he falls a buying and purchasing at certain and annual Rates the Votes of the Members at what time the greatness of the number of those who stood ready for Sale as well as their Indigencies and Lusts made the Price at which they were to be bought so much the easier Now being thus hir'd by his Majesty with their own free Offerings of the Nations Money How many Bills did they pass into Acts for enslaving and ruining a third part of the Kingdom under the Notion of Phanaticks and Dissenters and all this in gratitude for their Sallaries and to accomplish the Will and Pleasure of their Lord and Master the King whose bought and purchas'd Vassals and Slaves they were All this while what can we say or think other but that the Purchaser as well as the Sellers were equally guilty of betraying the People who had entrusted them And then to make a President by Law for Tyranny those Hirelings empower'd the Iustices of the Peace to disseize Men of their Estates without being convicted and found guilty by Legal Juries of the Transgressions whereof they stood accus'd By which they not only overthrew all the Common and Statute Law of the Land but they subverted and altered the Fundamental Constitution in making English Men liable to be ruin'd at the Arbitrary Pleasure of the King And as an addition to this those Mercinary Members by the Orders and Directions of their most Pious and Protestant Paymaster the King past another Law which was stiled the Act for Corporations by which Men of Principles and Integrity were debarred all Offices of Magistracy in Cities and Corporate Towns The woful Effects of which the Kingdom not long after both saw and felt in the Surrenders of Charters and betraying of Franchises by Persons upon whom the Government of the Corporations came to be devolv'd by Vertue of that Act. For that had it not been for that Act which excluded so many honest able and vertuous Men the Persons whom the King for his by-ends nominated for fit and loyal Men would never have risen above the Office of Scavengers or Headboroughs or Constables at the highest To this as a thing that mainly contributed to the King's design of enslaving us we may subjoyn their passing an Act whereby they did both limit and confine the number of those that were to present Petitions to the King not to exceed Ten Persons Let the Matter to be represented be ne're so important or the Grievance to be redress'd never so illegal and oppressive yet it was made no less then a Riot if above Ten Persons address'd themselves to the King to crave the Benefit of the Law A Trouble which the King carefully provided against knowing how many Laws he had to break and how burthensom and oppressive he must be to the People before he could compleat the Fabrick of Slavery and Popery which he was erecting Nor was this all for the King strenuously pursuing his Design of being sincere and cordial to the destruction of his People had so bephilter'd them with his Potions of Aurum Potabile that they pass'd another Act to his Hearts desire whereby they plac'd the whole and sole Power of the Militia in the King not only encouraging him to use Force in compassing his Arbitrary Designs but binding up the Hands of the People from defending themselves against armed Violence upon their Religigion Liberties and Lives Add to this the vast sums which they gave him beyond what the Support of the Government or the Defence of the Nation requir'd Which might have produc'd fatal Consequences but that the King knew as little a Measure in spending as that unhappy Parliament did in giving The King therefore conscious of his own Failing and finding that through his own Wastfulness and the Importunities of his consuming Misses he could not depend upon any limited and definite Sum for accomplishing his Promises to his Holy Father the Pope and his trusty Confederate the French King got Two Bills prepar'd and carry'd into the House the Passing of which had compleated the Nations Misery and made him Absolute The one was to empower his Majesty upon Extraordinary Occasions of which he would not have fail'd to have been the Judge as often as he pleas'd to raise Money without a Parliament And the other was for setling a Universal Excise upon the Crown The Passing either of which the King well knew would have soon â—nabl'd him to have govern'd by Basha's and Ianizaries and redeem'd him from having any further need of Parliaments or any apprehension of having the Instruments of his Tyranny impeach'd by Them But what the King had so finely projected to enslave the Nation and obtain whatever he had a mind to prov'd the Ground of their Disappointment and the Occasion of the Nations Escape from the Snare that was laid for it For the Mercenary Members foreseeing that the passing these Bills would have put an end to their Pensions by rendring them useless for the time to come consulted their Gain and preferring it above what the Court styl'd their Loyalty fell in with the Honest Party and so became assistant in throwing out the Bills However the very bringing the Bills into the House was as clear an Evidence of the King's Intention to alter the Government and enslave the Nation as if they had pass'd into Laws And some of his Minions that knew the King's Drift and the inside of his Heart were so zealous for him to have gain'd this Arbitrary Power that they would have it argu'd and spoken to in the House of Lords And who but the Popish Lord Clifford should be the Man that ventur'd to undertake the Business And accordingly he made a long Harrangue in praise of Absolute Monarchy and how much it would be for the Interest of the Kingdom to have his Majesty entrusted with a more unlimited Authority Which some of the Lords resenting with a Warmth and Indignation becoming Persons who by the Constitutions of the Governmeut were design'd for a Bulwark against the Encroachments of Regal Power and as a Fence about the Liberties of the People the Motion not only dy'd without being seconded but Clifford even by him who had encourag'd him in his Attempt was call'd a rash Fool for his pains However Pious AEneas finding the Nation grew sensible of his covert Intentions and Encroachments upon their Laws and Liberties and despairing to get any more Acts pass'd in Parliament toward the promoting his Designs resolv'd to husband the Laws he had already obtain'd as much as he could to the Ruine of the Nation and where they fail'd of being serviceable to his Ends to betake himself to other Methods and Means And therefore besides the daily impoverishing confining and destroying of infinite numbers of honest and peaceable People under pretence of executing the Laws he made it his Business to invent new Projects to tear up the Rights and Liberties of the People by ways and means which had not the least
him to say with his Grandfather of the same Name Let me make what Iudges I please and I will easily have what I please to be Law No wonder then these Judges having Instruments drawn up by Brent which pass'd the Great Seal to Indemnifie them for whatever they did or said Illegally affirm'd it to the King for Law That the King was an Independent Prince That the Laws of the Kingdom were the Kings Laws That the Kings of England might Dispence with all Laws that regarded Penalties and Punishments as oft as necessity required That they were Iudges and Arbitrators who have Power to Iudge of the Necessity which may induce them to make use of these Dispensations And Lastly That the King of England could not Renounce a Prerogative annexed to the Crown By Vertue of which Concessions and Opinions of the Judges all the Laws in England made in the Reigns of four several Princes for the security of the Nation against Popery and Arbitrary Government were rendred of no Effect By Vertue of these Concessions Arundel of Warder was made Lord Privy Seal Alibone a Judge and Castlemain was sent with great Pomp an Embassador to Rome to be there contemn'd and despis'd by his Holiness for the bad name which his Master had among all the Princes of Europe and the ill Opinion the Pope himself had of him By Vertue of these Concessions it was that the greatest part of the Kingdom 's Military Safety and Defence was put into the hands of persons incapable to be intrusted with them by the Express Laws of the Kingdom and that the Execution of the Ancient Laws and Statutes of the Realm against divers sorts of Treasons and other hainous Crimes was stopt By Vertue of these Concessions Sir E. Hales was made Lieutenant of the Tower to Terrifie the City with his Mortar-pieces and level his Great Guns to the Destruction of the Metropolis of the Kingdom when the Word should be given him By Vertue of these Concessions it was that Peters was made a Privy Councellor to outbrave the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London that he had his four Provincial Bishops and that the Priests and Jesuites swarm'd in all parts of the Kingdom Built themselves Convents hired Mass Houses made open Profession of their Foppish Religion in the Chief City of the Nation and in several of the Great Cities and Towns of the Kingdom and publickly Ridicul'd the Scripture in their Pulpits All which Transgressions of all the Laws of the Land both Civil and Ecclesiaâ—tick are so fully Represented in the Memorial of the Protestants to their Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Orange That they cannot be more fully noâ— more sensibly repeated But the Inundation stopt not here it was to be a general Deluge or nothing at all To which purpose all Obstructions that oppos'd the â—orrent were to be levell'd or remov'd out of the way for effecting of which there could be no Engine thought sufficient but that of the Ecclesiastical Commission so arbitrary in its Origâ—nal that it had nothing but the Pillars of the Prerogative to support it and manag'd with that Arbitrary Fury by Iefferies That he look'd like a Monstrous Titan Warring against the Heaven of Law and Justice For he had no way to carry Illegality with a high hand but by arrogant Domineering and surly Incivility while he had nothing to offer to any Person that offer'd Law to him but Sic Volo Sic Iubeo To tell a Peer of England and the Bishop of London so much his Superiour only that he Sate upon the Throne of his Commission he that was not to be mentioned with the Bishop in the same day was such a foul piece of Exeuberance of his Guildhall Eloquence which only could have dropt from the lips of Insulting Barbarism All that can be said for him is this That as many men commit Absurdities when loden with Wine this was one of his Extravagancies in his Drink of Honour And indeed after he had tasted of that potent Charm the whole Course of his Behaviour seem'd to be a meer Intoxication which made him afterwards make use of the same Receipt to drown both his Life and his Dishonour together However the Suspending this Noble Peer and Bishop contrary to all pretence of Law for refusing to obey the Kings unjust and illegal Command was no such Advantage to the King's Cause that he had so much reason to thank the Chancellor or Peters either for putting him upon committing a greater Act of Injustice to justify a less The Bishop was too well and too generally belov'd among all the professors of Protestantism for the Papists to put such an Affront upon so Eminent a Father of the Protestant Church for them not to resent it even the more prudent Papists thought it a Proceeding too harsh and unreasonable and the more moderate look'd upon it as too base and unworthy so that the Hot-spurs of the King's Council were losers on every side And besides it was such a stabbing contradiction to the King's Speech in Council upon his Brother's Death That since it had pleased God he should succeed so good and gracious a Prince as his dear Brother he was resolv'd to follow his Example more especially in that of Clemency and Tenderness to his People That the barbarous suspending this Bishop was one of the main things which destroyed the solemn verity of Royal Word Which though he had falsified already in his severity to Otes and Dangerfield yet the Person of a Peer and Bishop and a Star of the first Magnitude in the Church of England render'd much more conspicuous But the King was under a necessity he had declar'd one thing to the Protestants but he had bound himself to do another for the Papists If he falsified with the Protestants the Papists could absolve him If he prov'd unfaithful to the Papists they would never forgive him And in this Dilemma he resolv'd to follow the Maxim of his Profession Not to keep Faith with Hereticks Neither were the steps he made the steps of State-convenience now and then upon an exigency but all in a huddle out of his Zeal to make large steps for fear he should dye and leave the Papists worse than he found them These severe Proceedings against the Bishop of London were the Violation of that part of his Declaration wherein he promis'd the Preservation of the Ecclesiastical Government as Established by Law But the Barbarous usage of the Gentlemen of both Maudlin Colledges was an unsanctified breach of another part of his Declaration wherein he no less solemnly engaged to maintain the Protestants in all their Properties and Possessions as well of Church as Abby-Lands as of all other their Properties whatsoever Notwithstand all which how he turn'd those Gentlemen out of their Legal Freeholds by the Arbitrary Power of his High Commission how he violated the Constitutions of the deceased Founders and with what an embitter'd rage and fury he rated
them like Dogs when they lay prostrate at his feet more like a Pagan Tyrant than a Christian King is notoriously known and all this to make a Popish Seminary of one of the most noble and best endowed Colledges in the University And this Peters look'd upon as one of his great Master-pieces as appears by a Letter of his written to the French King's Confessor Father La Chese wherein he had this vaunting expression I have gain'd a great point in perswading the King to place our Fathers in Magdalen-Colledge in Oxford where they will be able to tutor the young Scholars in the Catholick Religion Nor was it thought sufficient to turn the Proprietors out of their Freeholds but under pretence of disobedience to the King's Commands they were also made uncapable of any Ecclesiastical Preferment or of the Exercise of Holy Orders and depriv'd of all those other ways and means of Livelihood for which their Education had qualified them Which as it was a piece of Inhumanity without parallel so it was a plain demonstration of the main drift and design of the King and his Popish Furies first to draw the Protestant Clergy into the snare of Disobedience and then under the pretence of Obstinacy and Stubborness totally to suppress and silence them And yet after all this for the King so publickly to give himself the Lye by proclaiming to all the World as he did such a notorious untruth as That he had never invaded the Property of any Man since his coming to the Crown was such a piece of Dissimulation that Oliver Cromwell himself with all the Irreligion laid to his Charge was never guilty of Unless his Father Confessor design'd it for a Miracle to be Recorded among Popish Wonders That he who had done nothing else from the beginning of his Reign but invaded the Liberties and Propâ—rties of his Subjects should be so confident as to deny it But whatever through the frailty of his memory he had till then forgot he was resolv'd it seems for the future to make amends for his omission To which purpose he was now provided with such a Gunpowder-Plot that had it taken effect would ere a few Months had gone about have blown up all the Properties of the whole Clergy of England without exception of any person that had either Honour or Conscience and the greatest part of the Bishopricks and Livings of England would have been pronounc'd void to make way for Sandals and shaved Crowns This was that cunning Declaration for Liberty of Conscience whereby he undertook to dispense with the Laws by the sole vertue of his Prerogative An attempt wherein his Brother had miscarried being forc'd to surrender up and Cancel the Illegal Contrivance he had prepar'd for a Tryal But King Iames puffed up with the great Exploits he had in person perform'd upon Honslow-Heath and the Glorious shew his Army made there Rendezvouz'd at the same time in the same place to add terror to his Commands resolv'd to make all Opposition bow the Knee to Baal In pursuance of those Resolutions he Orders his Declaration to be printed requires the Bishops to cause it to be distributed through all their Diocesses and to take care that it should be read in all the Churches and Chappels throughout the Nation Upon this the Bishops Petition the King setting forth the Illegality and the ill Consequences of it to the whole Nation both in Church and State and beg the King not to insist upon the Reading it This so incens'd Peters and the rest of the furious Hotspurs and consequently provok'd the King to that degree That the Court-Lawyers are presently consulted who adjudge the Petition Tumultuary and Libellous and thereupon the Archbishop of Canterbury together with the Bishops of Asaph Ely Chichester Bath and Wells Peterborough and Bristol are first sent to the Tower and then Arraign'd and Tried for Mutineers against the King's Popish Government being Charg'd with an Information for Publishing a Seditious Pernicious and Scandalous Libel But notwithstanding all that the King's Council and the C. J. Wright and Alibone the Papist could do Judge Hâ—lloway and Judge Powel to their Eternal praise stuck so close to their Protestant Principles and so strongly oppos'd the King's Dispensing Power for which they were turn'd out the next day that the Bishops were acquitted to the general Joy and Satisfaction of the whole Nation and particularly of the Soldiers upon Honslow-Heath whose Shouts and Acclamations upon the News of their Acquittal were so harsh and unpleasant in the King's ear that from thence forward he began to wish he had more Irish and fewer English in his Army But notwithstanding this Fatal Blow the most undaunted High Commissioners drove on furiously sending forth their Mandates to the Chancellors Archdeacons c. of the several Diocesses to send them an exact account of all such Ministers as had refus'd to Read the Declaration And there is no question to be made but that the severity of that Imperious Court would in a short time have swept the Kingdom clear of all the Protestant Clergy had not indulgent Heaven put a stop to their impetuous Career That which follows is so Romantick that it looks more like a Novel than a Story fit to gain Credit hardly carrying so much Probability with it as the Fable of Bacchus cut out of Iupiter's Thigh and which looks more Romantick than all the rest That the King himself should believe and urge it for an Argument to delude the World That he who had suffer'd so much for Conscience sake could not be capable of so great a Villany to the prejudice of his Children and inforcing the same Argument yet further by saying That it was his Principle to do as he would be done by and therefore would rather dye a thousand Deaths than do the least Wrong to his Children When the World was convinced that he could not have suffered such an Affront to have been put upon him but for the very Reason he alledged and that as for his doing as he would be done by it was apparent by all his Actions that he could not speak those Words from his Heart without some Mental Expositions reserved to himself Certainly therefore since it was for the Preservation of the Roman Catholick Religion that the Contrivance was set on foot it argues that his Conscience was under the most dreadful Subjection to his Popish Confessors or that his Zeal was no less strangely govern'd by an imperious Woman that for the sake of Popery he should consent to a Conspiracy against his own Flesh and Blood He would not endure to be Excluded from the Succession but he would Exclude his own Daughters from the Succession and yet tell us 't is his Principle To do as he would be done by as if he thought the way to make us credit a Story of his Son were to tell an untruth of himself The World that grows Wiser every day than other will never be made believe that
the Scandal of being a Whore that after he had made her a Dutchess he made her also his Wife that is to say he marry'd her by vertue of his Royal Prerogative at the Lord A's House by the Common Prayer-Book according to the Ceremonies of the Church of England A thing in some measure justifiable in a Prince since the Law allows all Men one Wife and therefore a King who is above Law may surely have two And upon this ground perhaps it was that upon a Lord Mayor's Day being at Mr. Eaton's in Cheapside where the King usually stood upon some Discourse that brought it out she cry'd Me no Whore if me thought me were a Whore me would cut mine own Throat And by the same Dispensing Power he provided also for her Children And therefore having no less adulterously begotten a Daughter upon the Lady Wood he join'd her in holy Wedlock to one of his Sons whom he had begot after the same Legitimate manner upon the Body of the Dutchess of Cleveland according to the Answer of Tamar to Ammon of which he wanted not Sycophant Priests enow to put him in mind But these were Peccadillo's readily forgiven by the Religion which he inwardly embrac'd which could readily dispense with such Trifles as these provided he went thorough-stitch with the Work which his Ghostly Fathers had cut out for him Which was the reason perhaps that he made choice of a Devotion so conformable to his lustful Inclinations For certainly what was said of Harry the Eighth might much more properly he said of him That he spar'd no Woman whether Virgin Marry'd or Widow in his Venereal Heats Which fill'd his Court so full of Pimps and Panders that there was hardly any Preferment about his Person for any other This was that which render'd the D. of L. one of the most ill-favour'd of Men so amiable in our Caesar's Eyes And this was that which advanced several others to their gilded Coaches and Places of the greatest Honour and Profit about the Court. Tho nothing was more mournful then to see those vast Sums of Money which the Parliament so profusely gave him for the Honour and Security of the Nation so extravagantly and prodigally wasted upon his Strumpets of which two were Common Harlots of Actresses taken from the Bawdy Stage to his Royal Bed A thousand Pounds every Munday-morning for the Smiles of a Gilt when his necessary Servants pin'd and starv'd for want of their weekly Board-wages and the strength of the Kingdom his Seamen were forc'd to serve his Enemies for Bread Thus from the first hour of his Arrival into these Kingdoms for I dare not call them His he set himself by his own perswasion and influence to withdraw both Men and Women from the Laws of Nature and Morality and to pollute and infect the People with all manner of Debauchery and Wickedness He that ought to have shone like the North Star in the Firmament of Royalty to direct his Subjects in the Paths of Vertue and Honesty was the Sovereign Ignis fatuus to misguide them into all the snares of Ruin and Perdition Execrable Oaths were the Chief Court-Acknowledgements of a Deity Fornications and Adulteries the Principal Tests of the Peoples Loyalty and Obedience And whether it were to affront God who had preserved and restored him to his Throne or to be reveng'd upon the Nation for inviting him so unanimously to weild the Scepter of his Ancestors certain it is that he made it his business to live in defiance of the Fear and Authority of God and to poyson and corrupt the Minds and deprave the Manners of the English People as might easily be observed through the whole Course of his Reign But the King had been well instructed in his Exile and had sufficiently learnt in his banishment that undoubted Maxim of Tyranny that the only way to alter the settl'd Government of a Nation and to introduce Slavery and Popery the support of Thraldom was to weaken and make soft the Military Temper of the People by Debauchery and Effeminacy which generally go hand in hand together Knowing therefore that Regis ad Exemplum totus componitur Orbis he gave these lewd Examples himself on purpose that after he had thus Enervated the Minds and Resolutions of his Subjects he might the more easily trample upon their Necks and reduce them under the perpetual Yoke of Antichrist in expectation of his Mothers Blessing and to fulfil the Agreement between himself the Pope and the French King Certain it is that the Kingdom was never in a better Posture for the King to work upon it then at the time of his return into England For such were the Contests for Superiority among those who had taken upon them the Government after the death of Oliver such the Confusions and Disorders that from thence arose that no body could probably see where would be the End of the general Distraction unless it were by reducing all things to their Primitive Condition under a Prince whose Title was so fair to the Crown Though a great Blunder in Politicks which the necessity of Affairs at that time made to pass for an Act of Prudence But such an Act it was to which all Parties were the more inflam'd by the Kings reiterated Oaths Promises and Declarations to those of the Church of England to maintain the Protestant Religion to the Dissenters that he would indulge their tender Consciences with all the Liberty they could rationally desire and to All in general that he was a most really zealous and unalterable Protestant And so infatuated they were with these ingratiating Wheedles that should all that knew him beyond Sea both at Colen and in Flanders have spoken their discoveries with the Voices of Angels nay should the Letter which he wrote with his own hand in the year Sixty two to the Pope have been shewn them in Capital Letters they would have been all lookt upon but as Fictions and Inventions to obstruct the Happiness of the Nation The People therefore ador'd him as the end of all their Miseries the Dissenters upon the Relations of their Ministers return'd thought themselves happy in the reports of his Mercy and Piety and the Parliament doated upon his Oaths and Promises so that no Prince in the World could ascend a Throne with more Love and Affection or with a greater Reputation in the Opinion of the whole Nation What could be more inhuman more immoral more barbarous then by all the Violations of Royal Faith and the Word of a King to disappoint the Hopes and Expectations of a People that had such a Confidence of his Religion and Vertue Though perhaps such a failure might have been attributed to his Weakness and want of Conduct But to set himself after so high a Veneration of his Vertues such a prostrating of their Lives and Fortunes at his Feet in Combination with a Forreign Prince the only professed and mortal Enemy of their Welfare to destroy their Religion
Nation that had so little respect for Kings and that the occasion was never more favourable seeing many of the Princes of Germany were already entered into the League and that the King of France was powerful enough to be able to promise to his Allies in the Issue of that War satisfaction both as to their Honour and Interests whereby he prevailed with that Prince to enter into secret Alliance with France And for his greater Assurance and the more to confirm him Henrietta Dutchess of Orleans went for England and proposed to her Brother in the Name of the Most Christian King that he would assure him an Absolute Authority over his Parliament and full Power to establish the Catholick Religion in his Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland But withal she told him that to compass this before all things else it would be necessary to abate the Pride and Power of the Dutch and to reduce them to the sole Province of Holland and that by this means the King of England should have Zealand for a Retreat in case of necessity and that the rest of the Low-Countries should remain to the King of France if he could render himself Master of it This is the Sum of that famous League concluded at Dover fram'd and enter'd into on purpose for the Subjugation of these three Nations to Popery and Slavery However as at first this Treaty was kept so close that it was no way to be discover'd so before the Effects appear'd it was necessary that the Parliament after the old wont should be gull'd to the giving of Money for the carrying on this grand and deep Conspiracy The Parliament met Octob. 24. 1670. where the Lord Keeper Bridgeman guided more by his Instructions than by any knowledge he had of the devilish Design omitted nothing to make Both Houses sensible of the great Service done to England and in a manner to all Mankind by chaining up the devouring Lyon that was never satiated with Prey and the more to incite their Liberality he told them of several other Leagues which the King for the good of his People and the Advancement of the Trade of the Nation had made with other Princes as the D. of Savoy the King of Denmark and the King of Spain by which as his Lordship was pleased to say it was evident that all the Princes of Europe sought his Majesties Friendship as acknowledging they could not secure much less improve their present Condition without it concluding that for the Support of these Alliances the annual Charge of His Majesties Navy came to no less than Five hundred thousand Pounds nor could be maintain'd with less Upon the telling of which Story notwithstanding the immense Sums lavish'd to no purpose or rather to our Loss in the former War with Holland notwithstanding they had given the Additional Duty upon Wines for Eight years amounting to Five hundred and sixty thousand Pounds and confirmed the Sale of the Fee farm Rents no less their Gift being a part of the Publick Revenue to the value of one Million and Eight hundred thousand Pounds they could not hold but gave with both hands again a Subsidy of Twelve Pence in the Pound to the real value of all Lands and other Estates proportionably with several more beneficial Clauses in the Bargain to which they joyned the Additional Excise upon Beer Ale c. And lastly the Law Bill which being summ'd up together could not be estimated at less than two Millions and half So that for the Tripple League here was a Tripple Supply and the Subject had now all the reason to believe that this Alliance which had been fix'd at first by the Publick Interest Safety and Honour was by these three Grants as with three Golden Nails sufficiently clinched and rivetted But now therefore was the most proper Time and Occasion for the King and his chosen Ministers to give Demonstrations of their Fidelity to the French Monarch and for his Sacred Majesty by the Forfeiture of all these Obligations to his Subjects and the Princes abroad and at the Expence of all this Treasure given for quite contrary Uses to recommend himself the more meritoriously to his Patronage The Parliament therefore after they had given all this Money were presently Prorogued and sat no more till the latter end of February 1672. that there might be a competent time allowed for so great a work as was designed and that the Architects of our Ruine might be so long free from the busie and odious Inspection of the Parliament till the work were finish'd And now all Applications made by his Majesty of Great Britain to induce Foreign Princes into the Garranty of the Peace of Aix la Chapelle ceased while on the other side those who desired to be admitted into it were here rejected The Duke of Lorrain who had always been a true Friend to the King and for his Affection to the Tripple League had incurred the French King's Displeasure with the loss of his Country Seizd upon in the year 1669. against all the Laws not only of Peace but Hostility yet by vertue of the Dover Treaty was refused the favour to which others had been so earnestly invited and though his Envoy was sent back with Complements and many Expressions of Kindness yet he was told withal that the French Invasion was a torrent not to be stopp'd at that time which was as much as to say the Case was alter'd and the Tripple League must signifie nothing At the same time also the Emperour by a Letter invited himself into the same Garranty in conformity to one of the Articles of the said Treaty of Aix Upon receipt of which Letter the King assured the Spanish Embassador that he was glad his Imperial Majesty was so ready to come into the League and told him he would cause an Instrument to be prepared in order to his Admission But when the Resolution was taken and orders given for preparing the said Instrument it was moved that Mr. Secretary Trevor who was not initiated in their holy Mysteries might not have the drawing of it though it was his proper Province By which means the Popish Cabal having made themselves sole Masters of the thing at first a reasonable honest Draught was brought in but before it was perfected Monsieur Colbert being consulted the King was possessed with an opinion that the admitting the Emperor would be attended with dangerous Consequences and that in case he came into the League his Majesty would be engaged in all his Quarrels and bound to make his Forces March into the farthest parts of Germany as often as it should happen to be Invaded by the Great Turk which Secretary Trevor oppos'd as much as he was able and endeavoured to satisfie the King that the Garranty of the Tripple League as well as of the Treaty of Aix related only to Hostilities either from France or Spain yet the wary Men of the Cabal being on the King's side carry'd it and so the
Emperor was put off with a Flamm Nay so soon as the Two Confederate Monarchs had thus made a shift to cut the Gordian Knot the now pitiful but formerly vaunted Tripple League was trampled under foot turn'd into Ridicule and less valued than a Ballad Insomuch that to talk of admitting others into the Tripple League was reprehended in print as a kind of Figure of Speech commonly called a Bull. And farther to shew how much he hated the thoughts of the Triple League which he had made for the good of Christendom his most Sacred Majesty suffered an Agent of his one Marsilly whom he had sent to invite the Switzers into the Garranty who was Surprized and taken Prisoner by the French in the execution of the Commands he had not many Months before received from Whitehall to be broken upon the Wheel at Paris tho one single Word from the King would have sav'd his Life Neither did he take it ill that upon the Scaffold Twenty Questions were put to him relating to his own Person or that in such a publick and infamous Place a strict inquiry should be made as to what had pass'd between him and the King of England for that was the best Title they could afford him for all his late Favours And thus it is plain that the Tripple League was broken for no other ends than to be subservient to the ends of the French King to ruin the Dutch and to bring the Three Kindoms of England Ireland and Scotland under the Yoaks of Arbitrary Power and Roman Catholick Idolatry after a total Abolition of the name of Parliaments and subversion of the Fundamental Laws Gratias tibi piissime atque invictissime Rex Carole Secunde And thaâ— he might not as much as in him lay meet with after-rubs Mr. H. C. dispatch'd into Sweden to dissolve the Tripple League in that Kingdom which he did so effectually by co-operating with the French Ministers in that Court that the Swede after it came to Rupture never assisted to any purpose or prosecuted the Ends of the said Alliance only by arming himself at the expence of the League first under a disguised Mediation acted the French Interest and at last threw off his Vizard and drew his Sword on the French side in the Quarrel And at home when the Project ripen'd and grew hopeful the Lord Keeper was discharged from his Office and both he the D. of Ormond Prince Rupert and Secretary Trevor were discarded out of the Committee for Forreign Affairs as being too honest to comply with the Intreagues then on foot Mr. Trevor being the first Secretary of State that was ever left out of a Commission of that Importance All things being so well thus far disposed toward a War with Holland there wanted only a Quarrel and to pick one required much invention The East-India Company was summon'd to know whether they had any thing to object against them but the Dutch had so punctually complyed with all the Conditions of the Peace at Breda that nothing could there be found out And as to the Tripple League they were out at the same time in pursuance of it and to be ready upon occasion to relieve the the Spanish Netherlands which were then threatned by the French But at length a way was found out that never hapned because it was never so much as imagin'd before by sending the Fanfan a sorry inconsiderable Yatcht but bearing the English Flag with Orders to sail into the middle of the Dutch Fleet single out the Admiral and to fire two Guns at him a thing as ridiculous as for a Lark to dare a Hobby However the Commander in Chief in respect to his Majesties Colours and in consideration of the Amity between both Nations paid the Admiral of the Yatcht a Visit to know the reason of his Anger and understanding it was because the whole Fleet had fail'd to strike to his Oyster-boat the Dutch Commander excus'd it as a thing that never hapned before and therefore could have no Instructions in it and so they parted But the Captain of the Yatcht having thus acquitted himself return'd full freighted with the Quarrel he was sent for Which yet for several Months was pass'd over here in silence but to be afterwards improv'd as the design ripen'd For there was yet one jolly prank more to be plaid at home to make the King more capable of what was shortly after to be executed upon his Neighbours The Exchequer for some years before by the Bait of more than ordinary Gain had decoy'd in the greatest part of the most wealthy Goldsmiths and they the rest of the Money'd People of the Nation by the due payment of Interest till the King was run in Debt upon what account no body knew above Two Millions Which served for one of the Pretences in the Lord Keeper's Speech at the Opening of the Parliament to demand and obtain a Grant of the forementioned Supplies and might plentifully have suffic'd to disengage the King with Peace and any tolerable Good Husbandry But as if it had been perfidious to have apply'd them to any of the Purposes declar'd instead of Payment it was privately resolv'd to shut up the Exchequer lest any part of the Money should have been legally expended but that all might be appropriated to the Holy War in prospect and those far more pious Uses to which the King had dedicated it This Affair was carried on with all the secresie imaginable lest the unseasonable venting of it should have spoil'd the Wit and Malice of the Design So that all on a sudden upon the First of Ianuary 1671. to the great astonishment ruine and despair of so many interested Persons and to the Terror of the whole Nation by so Arbitrary a Fact the Proclamation issu'd forth in the midst of the Confluence of such vast Aids and so great a Revenue whereby the Crown publish'd it self Bankrupt made Prize of the Subject and broke all Faith and Contract at home in order to the breaking of both abroad with more advantage What was this but a Robbery committed upon the People under the Bond and Security of the Royal Faith by which many hundreds were as really impoverish'd and undone as if he had violently broken into their Houses and taken their Money out of their Coffers Nay that would have look'd Generous and Great whereas the other was base and sneaking Only it seem'd more agreeable to his Majesties Temper to rob his Subjects by a Trick than to plunder them by direct and open Force Of alliance to this only with some more Gâ—ains if more could be of Vileness and Unworthiness in it was that Action also of seizing part of the Money collected for the Redemption of Slaves out of Argiers and fetching it from the Chamber of London where it lay deposited to that end into the Treasury from whence it was to be dispos'd and made use of for the Enslaving the Nation Could there be an Action of greater barbarity
than to take the Charity and Benevolence of good People which had been given toward the Releasing of poor Christian Captives from Mahometan Thraldom and to turn it either into Wages for his Myrmidons or into Pensions to reward suborn'd Witnesses for swearing the Innocent out of their Lives There remain'd nothing now but that the King after this famous Exploit upon his own Subjects should manifest his Impartiality to Forreigners and assert the Justice of his intended Quarrel with the Hollanders Thereupon the Dispute about the Flag upon occasion of the Fanfan Yacht was started afresh and a great noise was made of infamous Libels horrid Pictures Pillars set up and Medals coin'd to the infinite dishonour of his Majesties Person his Crown and Dignity tho' not one of those Libels or Pictures could be produced and as for the Pillars they never had any Being but in the Imaginations of those that made it their Business to raise Jealousies between the two Nations 'T is true there was a Medal coin'd which might have been spar'd but so soon as it was known in Holland that Exceptions were taken at it the Stamp was broken to pieces Then the Difficulties which arose about the Surrender of Surinam were improv'd to the height and this after Secretary Trevor had adjusted the Matter with the States Though these things were handl'd so nicely as if they had been afraid of being prevented in their design by receiving all the satisfaction they could have desired from the Dutch The Dutch therefore being not conscious of any Provocation which they had given the English but of their readiness if there had been any to repair it and relying upon the Faith of the Kings Treaties and Alliances pursu'd their Traffick and Navigation through the English Seas without the least suspicion And accordingly a numerous and rich Fleet of Merchant-men from Smyrna and Spain were on their Voyage homeward near the Isle of Wight under a small Convoy of five or six Men of War This was the Fleet in expectation of which the King had so long deferr'd the War to plunder them in Peace The Wealth of this was that which by its ponderous weight turn'd the Ballance of all his Publick Justice and Honour With this Treasure he imagined he should be in stock for all the Wickdness he was capable to act and that he should never after this Addition stand himself in need nor his Instruments in fear of a Parliament To this purpose Sir R. H. being pitch'd upon for the Exploit according to his Instructions fell in among them with the Squadron under his Command But the Dutch Merchant-men themselves and their small Convoy so bestir'd themselves that Sir Robert finding himself not strong enough was forced to give over the Enterprize So that all the Booty that was gotten hardly sufficed to pay the Surgeons and Carpenters And so hotly did the King pursue his Chase of the Protestant Religion that while he was so piously and justly Violating his Royal Contracts upon the Sea in order to his mastering the Protestant Religion abroad he at the same time was undermining and sapping it at home For while he was trying his Fortune in Battel with the Smyrna Fleet a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was Printing off at the Press as a more proper means than Fasting and Prayer to propitiate for Success to his Enterprize and to the War that must second it By this Declaration all the Penal Laws against Papists for which former Parliaments had given so many vast Sums were in one Instant suspended in order to defraud the Nation of all that Religion which they had so dearly purchas'd and for which they ought at least the Bargain being broken to have been reimburs'd By all which it was plain that the King did all that lay in his power toward the advancement of Popery and Slavery but that still his luck was nought For having been thus true to his great Design and made so considerable a Progress though with an inauspicious beginning at length he thought it high time to declare the War after he had begun it And though in subservience to France and his Dover Tâ—eaty he undertook to be formost to discompose the State of all Châ—istendom and though he made himself Principal to all the horrid Destructions Devastations Ravage and Slaughter which after that ensued yet had he the Confidence in the winding up of his Manifesto to expose the following Words to the World And whereas we are engaged by a Treaty to support the Peace made at Aix la Chapelle We do finally declare That notwithstanding the Prosecution of this War we will maintain the true intent and Scope of the said Treaty and that in all Alliances which We have or shall make in the Progress of this War We have and will take care to preserve the ends thereof inviolable unless provoked to the contrary And yet it was as clear as the Sun that the French had by the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle agreed to acquiesce in their former Conquests of Flanders and that the English Swedes and Hollanders were reciprocally bound to be aiding against whomsoever should disturb that Regulation Besides the League Offensive and Defensive which the King had made with the States General all which by this Conjunction with France was dash'd in pieces So that what is here declared were it reconsilable to Truth yet could not consist with possibility unless by one only Exception that the English who by their new league with France were to be the Breakers of the Peace of Aix and by the Tripple League were to fulfil their Obligations to both Parties should have sheath'd the Sword in our own Bowels But such was the Zeal of the King and his select Instrument for the Promotion of Slavery and Popery that it easily transported them to say what was untrue or to undertake what was impossible for the Service of the French And now the French King seeing the English engaged past all retreat comes in with his Fleet not to fight but only to sound our Seas to spy our Ports to learn our Building to learn our way of Fighting and to consume ours and preserve his own Navy For no sooner had the D. of York as the design was laid suffered himself to be shamefully surprized but the Vice-Admiral the Earl of Sandwich was sacrificed and the rest of the English Fleet so torn and mangled that the English Honour was laid not in the Dust but in the Mud while his Royal Highness did all that was expected from him and M. d'Estrees who commanded the French did all that he was sent for There were three other several Engagements of ours with the Dutch the next Summer But while nothing was tenable at Land against the French so it seemed that to the English every thing was impregnable at Sea which was not to be attributed to the want of Courage or Conduct of the then Commanders but rather to the unlucky Conjunction of the
English with the French like the Disasters that happen to Men by being in ill Company In the mean time the hopes of the Spanish and Smirna Fleet being vanished the slender Allowance from the French not sufficing to defray farther Charges and the ordinary Revenue of His Majesty with all the former Aids being in less than one years time exhausted the Parliament with the King 's most gracious leave was permitted to sit again at the time appointed At what time at the King 's and the Lord Keeper's usual daubing way the War was first communicated to them and the Causes the Necessity the Danger so well painted out that upon the King 's earnest Suit the Commons though in a War begun without their Advice readily Voted the Royal Mumper no less than One million two hundred and fifty thousand Pounds though they would not say it was for the War but for the King 's extraordinary Occasions Nevertheless it was but yet a Vote to Embryo and therefore now beginning in grow more sensible of the true Causes of the Quarrel they prepared an Act before they let the Money-Bill slip out of their Hands by which the Papists were obliged to pass through a new State Purgatory if they intended to be capable of any Publick Employment The Declaration also of Indulgence was questioned which tho His Majesty had out of his Princely and Gracious Inclinations to Popery and the Memory of some former Obligations granted for the sake of the Papists yet greedy after the Coin he was pleased to cancel at the humble request as he pretended of the Parliament and declared it should be no President for the future After which compelled by his want of a fresh Supply he passed the Bill concerning the Papists in exchange for the Money and then the Parliament growing uneasie they were again sent a Grazing for a good while The King hoping when he had the management of the Cash to frustrate the Effect of the Act which he had passed against his good Friends the Roman Catholicks And now the King having got the Money in his Hands a new Project was set on foot to set up an Army in England for the introducing of Slavery and Popery under pretence of Landing in Holland Which was raised with all the Expedition imaginable over which as Colonel Fitzgerald an Irish Papist was made Major General so were the greatest number of the Captains and other Officers of the same Stamp And because that pretence was soon blown over it was afterward still continued on foot under the more plausible Colour of a War with France But after all these cunning Contrivances to alter the Religion and Government of the Nation the King being disappointed in all his Projects and finding that the Parliament grown more sensible of his abstruse designs and alarum'd at his extraordinary new Militia both Burthensom and unnecessary for any other Employment but the support of Arbitrary Power would give him no more Money but began to call his Ministers in question was forc'd to make a Peace with the Dutch and disband the Army to his great regret However what he could not do at hope he resolved to do abroad and therefore the English Scotch and Irish Regiments that were already in the French Service were not only kept up in their full Complement but new numbers of Soldiers were daily transported thither to make up in all a constant Body of Ten thousand Men. Which was done on purpose that he might have an Army train'd up under the French Discipline and Principles ready seasoned to be call'd back into England for the Execution of any opportune Enterprize upon his Protestant Subjects Thus far we have seen the King's inveterate Malice to his Neighbours and Allies the Dutch meerly upon the account of their being Protestants and Protectors of the Protestant Religion and his pernicious Conjunction with the French King to their utter Destruction and Desolation A continued Series of Treachery and Faith-breaking which only that Romish Principle That there is no Faith to be kept with Hereticks could have infused into his Breast Now let us take a short view of his Carriage from the beginning of his Restoration to the French King the Mortal Enemy of his Subjects and the Religion which they profess It is well known in general how much the Extraordinary Kindness of Charles the Second to Lewis the Fourteenth has contributed to that vast increase of Shipping and Experience in the Art of Navigation to which they are now arrived which no Prince in the World that might have been so strong at Sea as his Majesty might have been with half the Expence which he squander'd away to ruin the nation had he been sensible in the least of his own Grandure the welfare of his ow Subjects and the danger of having so potent a Rival for the Dominion of the Sea which God and Nature seemed to have appropriated to himself We have been told of brisk Messenger sent to the French Kings so soon as they did but lay the Carkass of a pitiful Flyboat upon the Stocks But such was the Complaisance of our Supine Monarch that he not only connived at the industrious Preparations of the French King but lent him his helping Hand to make him Master of his own Rights When they had none of their own he sent Vice-Admirals and other considerable Sea-Officers to encourage and promote the setting out of their Fleets He pitied their want of Experience in Sea Affairs and out of Compassion and Brotherly Love lead their rare Sea-men by the Hand train'd them up in his Fleets and among the best of his Sea-men taught them the Skill which they had been forcod to toyl for by the Experience of many Ages and to crown all even to fight for them and to interpose between them and Danger with so good Success that the French Squadron as if the Engagement had been only designed for a Diversion and Entertainment to them came off as fresh and as whole as when they first sailed out of their own Ports was such an unparallell'd Kindness that nothing but the extraordinary hopes the King had placed in him of being his great Assistant for the compassing of his pernicious designs upon his own Subjects could have made him condescend to But to come to Particulars It was a strange Demonstration of the King of England's kindness to the French Interest though to the unspeakable Detriment of his own People that after all those Expressions in the Lord Keeper Bridgman's Speech of the Treaty between France and the King of England concerning Commerce wherein the King would have as he said such a singular regard to the Honour and Trade of this Nation notwithstanding the intolerable Oppression upon the English Traffick in France ever since the King's Restoration he had not in all that time made one step toward a Treaty of Commerce or Navigation with him no not even at that time when the English were so necessary to him that he
Nation he tells the Parliament That he had been obliged to kâ—ep up his Troops to keep his Neighbâ—urs from absolute Despair and that he had been solicited from abroad not to disband them Now was ever such a Story told by a Prince and vouched in the face of the Nation by a Bred Lawyer viz. his Chancellor to justifie the Breach of a Law of the Three Estates of the Kingdom as soon as made and then to flâ—m the Parliament off with Christendom and the Worlds commending us for breaking our own Laws to patch up a Peace which tended to nothing but the Ruine of those for whom it was made The sum of which was in short That the King to serve his own Arbitrary Ends had run hâ—mself 〈…〉 〈…〉 that many Papers of great Importance had with a more than ordinary Industry been convey'd away yet by those that were found so much appeared that the House Voted it to be a damable Plot to root up and destroy the Religion and Government of the Kingdom and privately got the Lord Chief-Justice Sâ—broggs to sign Warrants for the Apprehending the Popish Lords which was done accordingly And for their further Security they prepared a Bill for putting the Nation into a posture of Defence and for raising the Militia throughout the Kingdom to be in Arms for so many days Which passed Both Houses without any difficulty but the King out of his Zeal to the Protestant Religion refused to pass it And then it was that the Parliament found too late the Compliment which they had pass'd upon him in returning him the Power of the Militia which he made use of to keep up Standing Armies for their Destruction but refused for the Security of the Nation This therefore not prevailing they began to provide against Papists sitting in either House and fram'd a Bill with a Test to be taken by every Member of both Houses or else to lose their Seats This though his Protestant Majesty durst not openly oppose himself yet after a close Consultation held at St. Iames's he ordered all his Instruments in the Lords House to withstand the passing of it there which though they could not effect yet they prevail'd so far that they got a Proviso in it for the D. of York whereby they did him the kindness as to declare him a Papist to all the World After this the Parliament proceeded to the impeaching of such Persons as they had found to be deepest in the Contrivance of all our Mischiefs but That His Majesty lookt upon as a Business that so nearly concerned his own Honour that like his Father when the D. of Buckingham was accus'd of poysoning his Father he would not endure the Parliament in such a Iehu-like Chace after the Popish Conspirators but foot-ball'd them again with a Prorogation for several Months So careful was his Protestant Majesty to stifle as much as in him lay and to prevent the Prosecution of an Infernal Plot which he knew was so deeply laid like the Axe of Popery to the root of all his Protestant Dominions Nor was this all for so soon as he had dismiss'd the Parliament and had secur'd his Accomplices he took all the care imaginable to discredit Oates and Bedlow's Evidence Forty One was again inculcated into all the Ignorant Pates about the Town and Merry-Andrew Roger had his Pension out of the Gazetts continued to ridicule the Plot which he did in a most leud and shameless manner and Money given to set up a new Divinity Academy in a Publick Coffee House to act the Protestant Whore of Babylon and give about his Revelation-Cup to the Raw Inferior Clergy and instruct them in better Doctrine than ever they learnt in the University Nor did he stop at the endeavouring to discredit the Testimonies of those Witnesses but sent his Head-Emissaries to corrupt them to a denial and retracting what they had discovered and when that would not do Knox and Lane were suborn'd to accused Otes of Buggery thereby to bave taken him Acts of the foulest ignominy which whether a Protestant King would have encouraged to the ruine of the Religion which he professed in partial postcrity will determine with a clearer and more unclouded sight For we God knows are so dazled with those Illustrious Beams of feigned Protestant Majesty that we are not able to stare upon those Rays without blinding our Eyes out of a false Devotion to the Sun of our vain Imagination Add to this his endeavouring to corrupt the yet untainted Members of the House and buy their Votes to the utter exhausting of his Treasure for that which was then call'd Secret Service And which was more than all the rest his Dissolution of this Enquiring Parliament at the Sollicitation of the Duke and the rest of his guilty Minions by the Advice of a certain Lady who to save her Husband from the Impeachment he lay under persuaded them to get the King totally to Dissolve the Parliament using this Argument That in regard the Nation were so dissatisfied in this it would be a means to gain him the favour of the people and baffle the Impeachment by getting it Dissolv'd especially when it should be known that it was done by his procurement So that the Lady's Advice being followed the Parliament was as easily Dissolv'd as it had been a little before lasciviously Prorogued after a continuance of Seventeen Years to the great Admiration of all men tho indeed it proved in some measure a happy day for England For the Dissolution so enraged the Band of Pensioners finding their Service so slighted and their livelihood lost that they began to talk loud and discovered those things which were no way for the disadvantage of the Nation But here we are t observe the extraordinary Diligence of his Protestant Majesty to get the next Parliament fit for his Turn which was suddenly to be called to stop the mouths of the People To which purpose all the Money that could possibly be spared out of the Chequer was issued out to C. B. to manage the Elections all over the Kingdom under the old Notion of secret Service in one Article 1500 l. in another 2000. and the Guinea's stew about the Countrey far and near to the Corporations to hire places and get fit men the Heads of the Counties and Corporations were sent for and told what men would be serviceable and acceptable to the King and particularly the Gentlemen of Essex were sent to by the Ch. Just. Schroggs and cautiones that they should not chuse Mildmay whatever they did And new Charters were obtained foâ— some Corporations with new Privileges and 〈◊〉 them down to be hung out at the Windows to animate the People to chuse such men as they were directed What could more have been done by a Protestant Prince to destroy his Protestant Subjects and advance the Roman-Catholick Cause But when the Conspiraters saw that nothing would but that they perceived that they were deceived in their Expectations by
been acquitted All which severities were palpable demonstrations of that Innocent Man's being determined to Destruction right or wrong on purpose to lay the foundation of farther Butcheries So that being fleshed by this Success the next attempt of the King's Justice was upon the Earl of Shaftsbury for the same pretended Treason for which Colledge had suffered And here posterity will make the same Observations and Conclusions in general as in Colledge's Case But more particularly will after Ages easily conclude from hence that it was not for any Contrivance of his Lordship but by a project of Court and Popish Revenge to destroy a person who by his Courage Wisdom and Good Intelligence had Opposed and Defeated so many of their Designs against the Religion and Welfare of the Nation For that this Plot upon his Lordship was so early Communicated to Rome and other Foreign parts That it was talked of at Paris and in Flanders some time before his Lordship was Imprisoned in England They will observe the Injustice done his Lordship in refusing to let him see or know the persons that deposed against him which was not denied either to Coleman or the Iesuites and which being so contrary to Law was a plain Demonstration that either the Witnesses were not thought of credit sufficient to support the Confinement of so great a Peer or else that it was not convenient to trust the general course of their Lives to be scrutinied too soon They will admire at the horrid Injustice done his Lordship in refusing to give an Oath to those that offered to have sworn two Indictments of Subornation against the False Testimonies produced against his Lordship The first president of such an Illegal Obstruction of Justice They will observe the Treachery that was used to have betrayed his Lordship into the Snare For what greater piece of Treachery could there be than after they had intercepted a Letter directed to his Lordship out of France from a Gentleman that had commanded a Regiment of Horse in the Service of C. the I. which Letter was only to desire his Lordship to befriend him with a Receipt of the Gout they added to it a Postscript wherein the Gentleman is made to tell his Lordship That he was able to furnish him with Forty Thousand Men from France to oppose the D. of York and so sent it back again into France to have been returned into England and intercepted a second time but that by a strange providence the Letter happened into the Gentleman's own hands who was not a little consternated at the alteration The Motives that induced the Court to begin with this Great and Eminent Peer will be easily discernible to succeeding Ages For to what man of Sense and Reason is it not apparent that it was the Policy of the Court That their Revenge against this Earl should not be adjourned till they had tried the Credit of their Witnesses upon other considerable Persons for fear lest by his Lordship's Industry and Abilities he should not only have detected and exposed the whole Intreague but have broken the Engine by which the two Brothers thought to have made themselves Absolute Lords of the Laws and Religion of the Kingdom For which reason it was thought best to assault him by way of surprise and to hurry him to prison upon a pretended Conspiracy which People would be astonished at but not have time to unravel For the King and his Brother were assured That the convicting of the E. of Shafâ—sbury upon a Charge of Levying War and Conspiring to seize his Person would be a kind of moral proof against every other Person whom they had a mind to accuse of the same Crime Since people would be easily persuaded That a Person of his prudence and conduct would not easily embark himself in such a dangerous Enterprise without a proportionable number of persons who by their Power Quality and Interest might be supposed to be able to carry it on So that all the Noblemen and Gentlemen of England that ever had any Converse or Acquaintance with the Earl supposing them to be persons obnoxious to the Court were involved in his Ruine But it will remain an Eternal Monument of Reproach upon Royal Subornation That after all the Industry of the Court and their obsequious Instruments after all their laying their heads together to form cohering and probable Proofs of the charge intended to be laid against him after an Illegal Trick devised to have Tryed him within their own Jurisdiction of the Verge which was so contrary to Law that it was exploded by their own Bene placito Lambskin men that at length he was acquitted by a Grand Jury the most Substantial for Estates Integrity and Soundness of Judgment that had been returned for many years in the City to the never dying praise of the two Sheriffs Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Shute A Disappointment which so incensed the King and his Dear Brother That they resolved to make an Islington Village of the Chief Metropolis of the whole Nation and what they could not do by Fire to effect by wresting from them their Franchises and Privileges far more Ancient than the descent of those that wrested them for a time out of their hands For this Reason the Attorney General was ordered to bring a Quo Warranto against the City Charter under the pretence of their Petitioning for the Sitting of the Parliament a thing so far from being a Crime that it was the undoubted Right of the Nation And yet such was the awe which the Antiquity and Legality of the Charter had upon the Judges that the Fountain of Justice was forcâ—d to shift his Chief Justice till he could fix upon one that durst adventure to pronounce Sentence against it Which as it was the greatest Invasion that could be against the Ancient and Fundamental Constitutions of the Kingdom so it plainly laid open the King 's Pious intentions of Governing by Law which according to the new Interpretation of the Court was the downright Subverting all that was most Sacred and Valuable in the Nation For what was all this Bustle for But as Charters of all other Cities and Corporations were chopt and changed throughout the Nation to the end the King might have it in his power to violate the electing of a Parliament and nominate and obtrude upon all Persons of the Kingdom his own Slaves and Creatures Papists and Traytors to their Countrey so by reducing one of the most Ancient Corporations and levelling it with one of the meanest Villages in the Kingdom that he might command the Mayor and Sheriffs and by their means the Juries of the City on purpose to have the Lives of all his Protestant Subjects at his mercy And that this was his end was apparent by the Consequences for when once the King by the overthrow of the Charter had made sure of his own Sheriffs and Juries Heavens how were the Laws of God and the Kingdom wrested by misinterpretation how were
the Precepts even of Morality it self transvers'd the Witnesses for the King caressed and countenanced in their known Subornations the Testimonies for the pretended Criminals brow-beaten and run down and all the Arguments of Law and Reason urged by the most Learned Council of the Nation over-ruled by Hectoring and Swaggering Judges to take away the Lives of the Lord Russel Coll. Sidney Armstrong Cornish and several others merely to gratify the Rage of Popish Revenge Such were the Violences of the Court at that time in the defiance of Justice as if all fear of giving account to future Parliaments had been thrown off or that they never intended to be troubled with them more till they had framed the Nation into such a posture as to chuse such Members as would not only forgive such Villanies but go sharers with them in the Spoil of the Kingdom And indeed the eager Thirst of all the Great Men at White-hall was so apparent that nothing could be more by the violent Contests for Sheriffs fit for their Turns before they were Masters of the Charter insomuch that they laboured it with that Zeal as if they had been contending pro Aris Focis and some of them were heard to say That upon that hung all their hopes and without it they were undone For by the Verdicts of such Juries that such Sheriffs should return they were in hopes to cut off all that in their Stations had appeared for the Exclusion of the Duke or had shewed their constant Zeal for the Protestant Religion and the Laws of the Land which is easily demonstrable from the Catalogues of those that suffered or were forced to shelter themselves in Foreign Countries from the Malice of their Revengeful Prosecutors Nor was it less remarkable that as all along they embarked themselves in Designs pernicious and destructive to the King and Kingdom So that the structure of this was built upon as wicked a foundation was evident from the Instruments selected and encouraged by the favour of the King and his Brother to promote it For as they made use of the Scum of the World to perjure men out of their lives so they made use of the Scum of the City such as Dodson Masters Cradock Mern and others of the same stamp to give them the command of Juries proper to complete the Tragedies A most ready and clever way to extirpate by degrees the Patriots of our Religion and Liberties But that this was the Design of getting Court-Sheriffs Sir G. Iefferies who well knew the minds of his Superiors at White-hall was neither afraid nor ashamed to own For having after the Tryal of Sir Patience Ward desir'd him to give his Worship a Meeting at Sir Robert Claytons he there told him after an insulting manner That he had satisfied his Revenge for the Loss of the Recordership and besides that having such Sheriffs as they desir'd they had now the Law in their hands and could have the Life of whomsoever they pleas'd Otherwise it had been impossible but for the Treachery of the Judges that encouraged the Injustice of a packed Iury to have found the Lord Russel guilty of death when the whole of what was villanously sworn against him was in the opinion of far more honest and equally Learned Lawyers but Misprision of Treason or to have convicted Collonel Sydney upon Innuendo's made out of old Papers found in his Study and never published But then follow'd the barbarous and horrid Murther of the Earl of Essex which how far it could be laid to the King's Charge is somewhat as yet in the dark However that the King could find no other Morning to accompany his Brother to the Tower but that very Morning that the Earl was murther'd will no doubt very much augment the Suspicion of future Ages and it will be as odly look'd upon that when Letters and Proposals were sent to some Great Persons near the King That if His Majesty would but grant a Pardon to two or three Men that should be nam'd when the Favour was granted the whole Mystery of the Contrivance should be discovered and the Contrivers and Actors be particularly detected such a Proposal should be slghted and neglected There was also another Letter containing the same Offers addressed to the Countess of Essex and sent open to one Cademan a Bookseller in the New-Exchange which was also carried to one of the Secretary's notwithstanding all which there was not the least syllable published to encourage any Inquisition after that Nobleman's Blood which as it amazed all rational people at that time so it will reflect upon the King himself and his memory to all succeeding Ages Now after all these Tricks and Stratagems of the King to introduce Tyranny and Slavery to stifle the Popish-Plot by throwing it upon his Protestant Subjects after such an obstinate and stedfast Conjunction with the sworn Enemy of the Nation the French King for the Subversion of our Laws Liberties and Religion after so many Slights and Contempts to put upon the Grand Council of the Kingdom which he never Assembled but to empty and drain the Purses of the Nation so that there was not a Law which he consented to for the publick Good not a gracious Speech or Declaration to protect and preserve the Protestant Religion which the people did not purchase at a dear rate while the Dissenters among the rest paid for the very Thorns and Briars that tore their own Backs all this designed on purpose to render the Name of Parliaments odious and lastly a League concluded with the French King for their total Subversion After so many Bloody Executions of the chiefest Patriots and constant Assertors of the Protestant Faith to believe the King by whose Authority and by whose Countenance and Permission all this was done to be that sincere Protestant which he profest himself to be is for a Man to shut the Windows of his Understanding against the Light of common Reason But to shut the Door against all Objections that can be made in his behalf there is one proof yet remaining behind which must be an undeniable Convincement to all the World of the truth of what has been hitherto said as standing still recorded under his own Hand if the Original of the Instructions be Exant and that is the following Memorial of his Ambassador to the King of Poland in the year 1667. Most Illustrious Prince THE King my Master has Commanded me to let Your Majesty know the Resolution he has taken in all Points to concur with the Most Christian King in giving Your Majesty all possible Assâ—stance for the Establishing Your Majesties Title in such ways as Your Majesty shall think most effectual for the securing Your Crown and Dignity and the further Honour of Your Queen and Royal Issue The King my Master being truly sensible of the Great Misfortunes of those Princes whose Power must be bounded and Reason regulated by the fantastick Humours of their Subjects Till Princes can be freed
occasion from the privacy of the Nuptials to deny her being his Wife and to disavow all Contracts and Ceremonies of Marriage between them But the King detesting so much baseness as being himself a witness of the Marriage would not suffer the Lady to be so heinously abused but constrain'd him after great reluctancy to declare it publickly to all the World A happy Providence for England which by that Conjunction blest us with two Protestant Princesses matchless in Virtue and Piety and all those other Graces that adorn their Sex to the eldest of which we are beholden for our Deliverance from an Inundation of Slavery and Popery under the Auspicious Conduct of a Soveraign truly meriting the Noble and Ancient Titles of King of Men and Shepherd of the People and the yet more dignified Addition of Defender of the Faith And from the youngest of which we have already the earnest of a hopeful Issue to guard us from the like Invasions Such is the provision of Providence that many times it happens the most venomous Creatures carry about them the particular Antidote against their own Poysons Certain it is that the D. of York would never have pull'd off his Protestant Vizour nor have declar'd himself of the Roman Communion so soon had he not been thereto necessitated by a Stratagem of the King his Brother for the Papists having a long time waited for the Accomplishment of the King's Oaths and Promises for restoring their Religion and having annually contributed large Sums of Money towards the effecting of it at length grew impatiently sullen and would advance no more unless the King or the Duke would openly declare themselves for Popery Which the King thinking no way seasonable for him to do and not being able by all his Arguments and Importunities to prevail with his Brother to do it he at length bethought himself of this Project which was To get the Queen to write a Letter intimating her Intention to withdraw into a Monastry which Letter was to be left upon her Closet Table that her Priests as it was concerted before-hand might there seize it and seeing the Contents of it carry it forthwith to the Duke Upon which the Duke being jealous lest the King upon the Queen's relinquishing her Husband might be induced to marry again and thereby deprive him of the hopes of succeeding than which there was nothing which he thirsted after more upon obtaining a previous Assurance that in case he declared himself a Papist she should not withdraw immediately pull'd off his Mask and renounced Communion with the Church of England Being thus quit of his fears from the King his next work was to rid himself of all his Jealousies of the D. of Monmouth To which purpose he lay day and night at the King to require him to turn Roman Catholick Which the King out of his Tenderness to the Romish Cause as well as to gratifie his Brother undertook to do and accordingly sent him into France with an express Command to reconcile himself to the Church of Rome however the Duke of Monmouth out of an aversion to the Fopperies of that Religion fail'd in his performance Which so incens'd the D. of Y. that from that time forward he studied all the ways imaginable to bring him to Destruction In the mean time having by his publickly declaring himself a Papist engag'd all those of the same Religion to his Person and Interest he resolved to drive on Iehu-like and to promote the Catholick Cause with all the vigour and swiftness he was able and to make the utmost use of his Brothers good Intentions And such was his Bigottry to the Romish Church That according to the Principles of that Religion he stuck at nothing per fas nefas to bring about his Popish Designs I shall not here dilate upon his secret Negotiations at Rome his Correspondencies with Foreign Priests and Jesuites or his Private Intrigues with the French King which have been all sufficiently exposed already in Print as for that whatever has been already said of the King is also to be said of him in general while he was Duke in regard they both drew in the same Yoak for the Ruine of the Nation For this is as certain as the rest that he had a most eager desire to Rule and Rule Despotically which was the Reason he was frequently heard to say He had rather Reign one Month as the King of France than Twenty Years as his Brother the King of England did And besides it was as plain That he had a mortal Antipathy against the Protestant Religion and more particularly against the Professors of it in England but more especially the Dissenters upon the score of Revenging his Father's Death An Imbitter'd Hatred which he deriv'd from his Mother who mortally malic'd England upon the same Account and which he acknowledg'd in his Bedchamber at St. Iames's where he openly declar'd That he was resolv'd to be reveng'd upon the English Nation for his Father's Death Which if those unthinking People who are so eager to have him again would but consider they would not be so forward for his return For it is in vain for the Church of England-Men of what degree soever to think that their refusing to Swear Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary would excuse them from that universal Revenge which he would take upon the Nation were it ever again in his Power Only here was the Difference between the two Brothers That the King thought to Ruin his Enemy by main Force and the fair hand of Victory but the Duke hoping to kill two Birds with one Stone made it his Business at the same time to Ruin the Enemy by Force and his own Country by Treachery Thus when he had engag'd his Brother in the First Holy Dutch War of the Extirpation of Hereticks he permits the English at first to exercise all the Bravery of their Skill and Courage to a great Probability of Success but then falls asleep in the height of his Conduct to the end the Dutch for want of Orders might have an Opportunity to wrest the Victory out of the Hands of the English on purpose to keep the Ballance of Destruction on both sides even Thus he permitted himself to be surpris'd at Soul-Bay knowing there were enough to Maul the Enemy but not enough to preserve those that Fought on our side So that the Dutch may be said to be well Thrash'd and the English to be well Sacrific'd And as a farther Demonstration of his Perfidious Soul when he found the Contest would be too tedious between two Nations so well match'd it was the Duke's Contrivance to Suborn and Bribe two Indigent and Desperate Villains to go over and Fire the Dutch Ships as they lay in their Harbours and when he had done that it was the same Treachery that with a sham Story lull'd his Brother asleep and procur'd the Firing of our Ships at Chatham The Burning of London was such a
Liberties of Scotland as himself Such Exorbitancies of Injustice and Arbitrary Power that his Brother could never have endur'd in a Subject had they not been acted all along with his knowledg and consent Otherwise had not the King been strangely infatuated to believe that whatever his Brother did was for the advancement of that Cause to which he was so well affected himself he could never have been so unapprehensive of the Danger he was in from a Brother so actually in a Conspiracy against his Life For which Reason he was by the E. of Shaftsbury said to be a Prince not to be parallel'd in History For certainly besides the early tryal which the King had of his Ambition beyond-sea he had a fair warning of the hasty Advances which he made to his Throne in a short time after his Marriage to the Queen For no sooner was it discover'd the Queen was unlikely to have any Issue by the King but he and his Party make Proclamation of it to the World and that he was the certain Heir He takes his Seat in Parliament as Prince of Wales with his Guards about him He assumes the Princes Lodgings at White-hall his Guards upon the same place without any interposition between him and the King so that the King was in his Hands and Power every night All Offices and Preferments are bestowed upon him and at his disposition Not a Bishop made without him After this he changes his Religion to make a Party and such a Party that his Brother must be sure to Dye and be made away to make room for him And for the undeniable proof of all this at length the Plot breaks out headed by the Duke his Interest and Design Plain it was that where ever he came he endeavour'd to remove all Obstacles to his intended Designs out of the Way And therefore some there are who attribute the extremity of the Duke's rigour toward the E. of Argyle to the great Authority which the Earl had in the High-lands and the Awe which he had over the Papists as being Lord Justiciary in those Parts and his being able upon any Occasion to check and bridle the Marq. of Huntly from attempting the Disturbance of the Publick Peace or the Prejudice of the Protestants However this is observable That notwithstanding the height of Severity which was extended to him there was as much Favour shewn the Lord Macdonald whose invading the Shire of Argyle with an Armed Force merely because he was required by the said Earl as being a Papist to deliver up his Arms was never so much as questioned nor so much as a Reprimand given him for what he did tho when the Council sent an Herauld to him to require him to disband his Forces he caus'd his Coat to be torn from his Back and sent him back to Edinburgh with all the Marks both of Contempt of themselves and Disgrace to the Publick Officer But his Religion was sufficient to atone at that time for his Treason And now the Duke having a standing-Army of Five Thousand Foot and Five Hundred Horse in Scotland at his Devotion as well as in England and the Parliament the main Object of his Hatred and his Fear being dissov'd back he returns into England where under the Shelter of his Brother's Authority he began in a short time to exert his tyrannous Disposition and play the same Unjust and Arbitrary Pranks as he had done in Scotland and because it was not seasonable yet to make use of armed Forces he set his Westminster-Hall Redcoats like Pioneers before a marching Army to level the way for Popery and Arbitrary Controul to march in over the ruin'd Estates and murder'd Bodies of their Opposers The Judges were his Slaves the Juries at his Beck nothing could withstand him the Law it self grows Lawless and Iefferies-ridden plays the Debaushee like himself Justice or something in her likeness Swaggers Hectors Whips Imprisons Fines Hangs Draws and Quarters and Beheads all that come near her under the Duke's displeasure Alderman Pilkington for standing up for the Rights and Liberties of the City and for refusing to pack a Jury to take away the Earl of Shaftsbury's Life is prosecuted upon a Scandalum Magnatum at the Suit of the Duke Convicted and Condemn'd in a Verdict of an Hundred Thousand Pounds And Sir Patience Ward for offering to confront the suborn'd Witnesses is Indicted of Perjury for which he was forced to fly to avoid the Infamy of the Pillory though in all his Dealings so well known to be a Person of that Justice and Integrity that for all the hopes of the Duke he would not have told an untruth Sir Samuel Barnardiston for two or three treacherously intercepted Letters to his Friends in the Country fin'd Ten thousand Pounds which he was not suffer'd to discharge by Quarterly Paiments but the Estate seiz'd by the Duke's Sollicitors to the End they might have an Opportunity to be more prodigal in the waste of it But his hunting after the Lives as well as the Estates of other was more intolerable and that by the prostituted Testimony of Suborn'd Irish Rogues and Vagabonds and when that would not take the desir'd Effect by the forc'd Evidence of persons ensnar'd and shackl'd under the Terrors of Death till their drudgery of Swearing was over Men so fond of Life that they bought the uncertain Prolongation of a wicked Mortality at the unhallow'd price of certain and Immortal Infamy And therefore not knowing how to Die when they knew not how to Live accounted it a more gainful Happiness to quit the Pardon of Heaven's Tribunal for the Broad Seal of England By this means fell the Virtuous Lord Russel a Sacrifice to the Bill of Exclusion and the Duke's Revenge and yet of that integrity to his Country and untainted course of Life of whom never any spoke evil but those that knew no Evil in him only because he was one of those that sought to exclude the Duke from the hopes of Tyranny and Oppression the Duke was resolv'd to exclude him from the Earth But then comes the Murther of the Earl of Essex for that it was a most Barbarous and inhuman Murther committed by Bravo's and Bloody Ruffians set on hir'd and encourag'd by Potent Malice and Cruelty the pregnant Circumstances no less corroborated by Testimonies wanting only the confirmation of Legal Judicature has been already so clearly made out that there is no place left for a hesitating belief A Truth so conspicuous as stands in defiance of the Ridiculing Pen of R. L'Estrange to sham it over with the Buffoonry of his Bantring Acquirements It cannot be imagin'd but that so black a Deed of Darkness was carried on by the Contrivers with all the secrecy that could be studied by humane Wit But never yet was humane Wit so circumspective but that the most conceal'd of Villanies have been detected by strange and little Accidents which all the Foresight of humane Sagacity could never prevent More