right Heir and here he sets up his Bristles and hectors his Adversary the Convention and the Prince of Orange for not proving the Prince of Wales Supposititious Now he neither proves it a real Birth himself nor answers half the Arguments have been urged against it yet is very angry that others will not prove a Negative The Convention had seen the Depositions Pag. 20. knew the Credit of the Witnesses and all the Circumstances of the Delivery yet after all did not believe it a real Birth they had examined it as far as was necessary to their own Satisfaction and after all declared the Princess of Orange to be the right Heir The Papists whose Religion was to be brought in by the Father and established by this pretended Son and all their Well-wishers should have brought better Proof of their New Heir than a few depending partial interested People it was their Business to have produced their Evidence The Convention judged according to all the Proofs they had and unanimously declared for the Princess's Right who being the next Heir in their Judgment and in the Opinion of the whole Nation some few excepted they sufficiently shewed they did not intend to make this Monarchy Elective in that they declared the true Heir as they verily believed to be Queen But suppose they had spent Months or Years in the Inquiry and left the Nation to sink in the mean while what would all this have signified to Jesuits and Nose-led Protestants Unless they had pronounced for the Prince of Wales right or wrong this sort of People would not have acquiesced in their Determination and therefore they did wisely after they and almost the whole Body of English Protestants were satisfied not to trouble themselves any further Besides Pag. 21. if King James did believe it why did he not put it upon a Trial in Parliament in his own Time He understood the People of England generally suspected there was Artifice used to exclude a Protestant Heir and therefore why did he not call a Parliament long before the Prince of Orange came over and submit it to their Inquiry Yea when the Prince was come He the Bishops Nobility and Officers yea all England desired King James to call a Parliament to settle this and other Matters yet he would not call one but fled from this way of Trial. If it be said King James had proved it by the Depositions 't is answered These were Witnesses all of one side chosen by a Party sworn before partial Men and in too private a Place for an Hereditary Monarchy The People doubting about the true Heir ought to have Satisfaction given to their Representatives in Parliament which was not done yea King James did not call these Witnesses till fourteen Days before the Prince landed viz. October 22. thereby shewing he did not intend to give the Nation any sort of Satisfaction but Fear and the serving a Turn extorted this Condescension from him Wherefore when King James would not try this Matter by his Parliament when he might have done it why should the Convention do his Business for him and neglect the Nation 's Safety But he urges that none were denied Satisfaction who desired it I reply the Princess of Denmark formerly complained she had not the Satisfaction given her which was fit and it is generally believed she was sent out of the way on purpose The Dutch Embassador who ought to have satisfied Princess Mary was not called the Bishops by design were sent to the Tower the good Protestants were all at Church and this lucky Juncture with a Place suddenly resolved on seem plainly designed for Privacy And indeed none were at the Birth it self but interested Friends and Well-wishers to a Popish Heir whose Design and Hopes made some of them willing to affirm and others easy to believe any thing Nor is the late Daughter's Birth among Foreigners and such as would top this Prince of Wales upon us a sufficient Evidence that a Son was born before the Reckoners there were as often shifted as they had been here and as few Witnesses were called and after all the Letters that were writ hither and after all the Promises of a Birth that should be so well attested as to confirm the former the one was managed as much in the dark as the other had been nor have we yet heard of any of those Attestations with which we were so much threatned Having therefore not proved a Prince of Wales Page 22. the Argument from his Innocency and the Injury done him falls Non entis nulla sunt Accidentia Had the Convention believed there was such a Son they would have owned him as Heir but believing there was no such Person they cannot properly be said to intend or do him any Injury Queen Mary's Resolution to have the Prince joined with her is known to many The Injury done to Princess Ann and her Children is none at all but a Benefit for what was her Title or theirs worth if the Prince of Orange had permitted the Papists to set up a Prince of Wales and perhaps Dukes of York and Glocester to exclude them all for ever Is not her Succession and her Issues both nearer and surer than it was under King James King William it 's true is made King for his Life but if he die before the Queen which the Hazards he runs in defending both Sisters Titles makes too probable then the Princess Ann and her Children have no Injury at all and if he should survive Queen Mary I appeal to any impartial Man whether this King who rescued the Princess's Title from being extinguished do not merit to keep the Soveraignty for the rest of his Life especially since she and her Heirs precede his by any other Wife From Aggravations he falls to History and while he blames his Adversaries Ignorance therein he evidently shews his own in affirming that no such Breach was ever made in our English Succession before Whereas we have had but 27 Reigns from the Conquest to this Revolution and in that time there have been several Breaches in the Succession most of them greater than this viz. William the Conqueror William Rufus Henry the First King Stephen King John Henry the Fourth and Seventh to which some who deny Henry the 8th's Marriage with his Brother's Widow to be lawful add Queen Mary and the Papists put in Queen Elizabeth Now upon such Breaches the Sentence of the People was had to confirm the Pretender's Title yet this Kingdom still remained Hereditary in common Account and never was reckoned as by his Argument it would have been an Elective Monarchy But to keep to his Instances there was a greater Breach than is now by King Henry the Seventh's coming to the Crown for though Richard the Third was slain and left no Child yet he left an Heiress Elizabeth Daughter of King Edward the Fourth and some of her Sisters were then alive as was also a Son and a Daughter
rather not Reign than be hampered and unabled to restore Popery join'd with the Republicans to throw out those Offers As the Pagans of old were wont to put all the Curses due to a City upon some hated Person Pag. 5. and then make him a Sufferer for them all so this spiteful Railer uses this most Heroick Prince loading him with all the ill Things that were done here in hopes to expose him to the Peoples Rage Even the Quo-Warranto's designed to usher in Arbitrary Power and crush his Friends if he had any and Monmouth's Invasion the Success of which had cast out his Title are laid at his Door The first of these hath no Proof but his Conjecture and the latter is promised none knows when to be proved by some Dispatches not safe to be published now But we may be sure there are no such Dispatches otherwise he that dares publish this Libel hates the Prince mortally and wants Evidence for every thing would not have been restrained by either Fear or Modesty to print such useful Testimonies as those would have been to his Design His Appeal to Sir William Temple's Memoirs we admit who gives the Prince so just and yet so high a Character that it manifests no little Share of Confidence in this Author to cite so unlikely a Book in justification of those odious Slanders He begins K. James his Reign where it ended at the Abdication yet his Method is as good as his Chronology for he makes an old Latin word found in Festus Livy c. to be first used at Naples in the last Century hoping to fright us from the Word by the terrible Exit of that War but he conceals that Ferdinand King of Naples to whom this Word was applied when he saw a Conqueror break in upon him and that he could not stay without bringing Ruin upon his Subjects before his private Flight and Desertion generously absolved all his People from their Oaths of Allegiance and never returned till they unanimously recalled him * Guiccardini Histor l. 1. p. 130. And if the late King had imitated that Prince in his Care of us when he went away unconcerned for any but himself his peaceable Return had been more likely than now it is But he will prove K. Pag. 6. James did not desert because he was driven from us and here he conceals that the late King was the Aggressor and had generally disgusted the Nation by his Attempts on their Religion and Liberties and despising their Petitions for Redress yet these were the true Causes of the Prince's mighty Success who had no other and needed no better Agents than King James his Bigotry and his Popish Counsellors Fury These prepared England to receive a Deliverer and one who would see these Evils remedied very kindly and made as many as could fly to him for Protection And if this true apparent Cause had been mentioned the Scene would not appear so strange as his Oratory paints it out these destructive and dangerous Counsels and Practices of the Prince's Foes did without a Miracle force Protestant-Children to forsake a misled Father This drove his Servants the Clergy and other Subjects to fly for shelter to him who came to their Rescue But 't is evident they sought only their own Safety not the King 's Hurt since when he was in their Power none offered any Harm to his Person Well but he made fair Promises to some Officers of his Army and they made as fair Promises to him but they saw no Inclination in him to redress any thing unless he were compelled to it and this obliged some of them to leave him The Treaty he speaks of was not moved till he had quitted the Field and saw he could not fight Yet even then it was accepted by the Victorious Prince with all imaginable sincerity as the Articles he sent shew †Histor of Desert p. 91. To which King James promised by Advice of his Council in the main to agree the very Night before his first departure in Disguise As to the Danger he was informed of there was nothing real in it and the Prince knew nothing of it as appear'd afterwards when the King was in his Power and they who knew the Intrigue say it was a Sham invented by a Commissioner of his own who knew his Temper feared his Obstinacy and devised this to terrify him into an Agreement But suppose he were in Danger that will not prove his Desertion could not be voluntary otherwise the Mariners in St. Paul's Ship Acts 27. might pretend their going off in the Boat was no voluntary Desertion since they apprehended Danger to their Lives by staying Or thus A General might excuse leaving his Souldiers because they Mutinied and threatned him Ferdinand of Naples did not freely Abdicate if nothing can be free which is our Choice in a Prospect of Danger It is not necessary to a voluntary Act that there be no Pressures to incline the Will to one Side for he who chuses a lesser Evil to avoid what he counts a greater acts voluntarily Wherefore if the late King chose rather to desert and save himself than to stay for his Peoples Safety it was a voluntary Desertion This Author saith very gently Upon this the King thought fit to withdraw But impartial Judges must call it a Desertion for the King in the midst of a Treaty to quit the Kingdom in Disguise leaving neither any Deputy or Directions and this after he had disbanded his Army dismissed his Chancellor and other great Ministers thrown away the Great-Seal into the River of Thames and left his abandoned People to shift for themselves exposed to the Insolence of the Rabble on the one hand and the worse Rabble of a disbanded Army on the other hand this the Parliament called Abdication The Treaty being thus broke off by King's James's Desertion Pag. 8. and the Administration before he was heard of put into the Prince's Hands he was at liberty whether he would renew the Treaty or no. Yet still he hindred not the King 's Return to London where instead of going to call a Parliament he burnt all the remaining Writs and endeavoured to make a Faction in the City by drawing off a Party there from the Prince Upon which it was necessary to desire him to retire to Ham or some other Place near London in order to reassume the Treaty and to keep him from doing or receiving any harm But King James who still resolved to fly rather than treat refused to go to Ham and chose Rochester to retire to secretly designing for France to raise Forces there to expel the Prince by Force so that his Messages were only to amuse till he could escape as accordingly he did shipping himself a second time for France whither he came safe And now what Occasion is there for all our Author 's tragical Outcries Pag. 9. of the imprisoning and ill-treating a Monarch who was at Liberty to go
them to expect any thing or rely on any Promises I shall therefore only beg of the worthy Gentlemen concerned to read the Paper cited and compare those solid Reasons with this Man 's smooth Sophistry and then shall leave the obstinate that Cardinal's Benediction Si vult Populus decipi decipiatur The next Caution is as prudent as the former was charitable Pag. 53. viz. That we must beware least another Revolution should set up the Prerogative higher than is consistent with the Subject's Liberties For 't is natural for all Men especially the English to run from one extream to another and K. James's Inclination and Intetest will lead him to it The Papists will work upon his Fears and plead it is necessary and many Protestants will joyn with them either to make their Peace or to curry favour And if Monmouth's Invasion which was so easily quashed and soon over gave colour to raise so great a standing Army this last Revolution may be easily improved into keeping up a greater Force and lodging more power in the King He proceeds to answr some Questions which that Author asks and first owns he thinks not himself bound in Conscience to fight for Popery against the Protestant Faith but will not allow fighting for the Restauration of K. James can be called by that name I answer by an old Logical Maxim Causa Causae est Causa causati He that fights to put a Prince into Power that will certainly use that Power to promote Popery and suppress the Protestant Religion and fights to eject another Prince who hath rescued us from extream Danger Popery and establish the Protestant Faith He fights for the former and against the latter Religion As to his repeated Phrase of King James his desire to return upon a Protestant Foot I have reason to believe he doth not wish to be so restored for then he must leave most of his Priests behind him and deliver up his Son to be brought up a Protestant and give Securities for it and that he will by no means like Yet if he can find a Popish Nation so tame as to have let in a Protestant Head without such Conditions upon a Popish Foot we may promise him to follow the Example We can shew him a Country that obliged a Popish Head to quit her Crown and march off upon a Protestant Foot viz. Sweden And can instance in France where Hen. IV. King James's Grandfather so long as he was a Protestant was kept out by Papists with Force and Arms and could not be admitted quietly till he declared himself of the Roman Church And no People of any Religion if they can help it will set a King up over them who is an Enemy to their established Faith Wherefore till K. James sincerely becomes of the English Religion tho' it should be his Interest and Inclination to return it will not be ours He is also very free to declare he will not fight for his Prince against the Laws Page 54. but these are only words He will fight for a King who endeavoured to alter the whole Frame of our Government who challenged and exercised a Power to vacate and suspend what Laws he pleased that resolves to be above and without Law and will endure no Judge who shall not force the Laws already made to bow to his Will No Parliament that will not promise before-hand to Make and Repeal what Laws he pleases Now if this be not fighting for a Prince against the Laws I know not what is As to his Insinuation That King William hath broken and intends to destroy our Laws It is as groundless as 't is malitious he hath done nothing but by Advice of his Convention Parliaments and Judges and hath very sparingly exercised his Prerogative even in this time of War when Necessity sometimes required it so that to fight against him is really to fight against the Maintainer and Defender of our Liberties and Laws and consequently of our Religion whereof these Laws are the best Fence And therefore as he well hints the French King who resolv'd to change his Subjects Faith first made them Slaves that so he might make them Papists and he who copied out that Pattern in England began with our Laws and pulled up all the Fences and his next Work would have been to suppress our Religion which if it be dear to us we must never expose it again to one that used such Methods but stick to him who can never design to make us Papists and therefore can never desire or need to make us Slaves But our Author thinks Pag. 55. whatever Cause Protestants have they are the only People of the World who must not enter into a Religious War no not to defend themselves from Popish Aggressors As if their Religion alone stripped them of that universal natural Right of Self-Defence and let loose all Mankind upon them He hath no Remarks upon the Holy Guisian League none upon his dear Monsieur's League with Infidells 'T is only Wicked in the Germans of old and us now to resolve to defend our Countries from Popish Aggressors I am sure the Germans League was so necessary and so just that a Popish French King assisted them in it and the Protestants were not all over-run by it but are still very numerous and potent there And when Denmark was in Danger King Charles the first thought it pious and lawfull to assist them and Archbishop Laud drew up a Declaration to justifie and promote it as our Author may see in the Answer to Mr. Ashton's Papers pag. 17. We grant it is no Chimera that the Jesuites have in all times solicited the Catholick Princes to unite for the Extirpation of Protestants and therefore we cannot be safe under a King conducted by their Councils But the Protestants never did combine to extirminate Popery in general and we do not fear that all Catholick Princes most of them disobliged by K. James should unite to be reveng'd upon us for not stopping our late King when he resolved to leave us But withall we observe how this deceitful Writer blows both hot and cold pag. 50th He would fright us with the Pope's being in Confederacy with King William and with some solemn and sacred Engagements made to the Holy Chair And now he threatens us with an Army of Catholick Princes and the Pope in the Head of them to destroy us and all the Protestants of Europe He may well call us Fools and Madmen in the next Column For if he did not think us so he would not hope to work on us with such incoherent improbabilities He proceeds to deny that the Liberties of Europe are concern'd in the Issue of this War with France because divers Princes of Europe are in perfect Peace with that Crown I reply first they are all far distant from this Tyrant and so do not yet feel the Effects of his Cruelty and Injustice and secondly they only stand Neuter there being not