Selected quad for the lemma: prince_n
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B21136
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The advantages of the present settlement, and the great danger of a relapse
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Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing D827B
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28,552
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40
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he hath no Children to enjoy the Crown after his own Death so that it plainly appears his Zeal for Religion his great concern for the bleeding state of these Nations his love to Justice did much more prevail with him to this Heroick and Glorious Undertaking than any concern of his own in the Case Now upon the whole if we despise so wonderful a Mercy and become so bereft of Reason as to be weary of Happiness and court perpetual Slavery and abandon our present Security and Tranquillity for those Miseries we have reason to look for upon such an unwise change What can we then expect but to be treated by God as the despisers of his greatest Goodness and to perish without so much as the pity of Men since we knew not how to prize a lasting Security when we had it in our Hands and consequently that our Relapse must be very miserable to us But if at last we propose to our Selves the Miseries that must unavoidably fall upon us if the Sins of this Nation so provoke God as to bereave us of that Happiness we now enjoy and if we be wise may entail it upon our Posterity by another Revolution some Men so eagerly desire we cannot but be convinced that a Relapse is highly dangerous I do profess that the Calamities that fatally attend such a Revolution are so tremendous and horrible that the very apprehension of them cannot but strike considerate Men into the greatest Confusion and Amazement we can expect nothing else but that our Miseries should occasion our being a Proverb and a By-word a hissing and reproach of Popish Nations who gape for our Ruine and greedily thirst after our Destruction and on the other Hand that we should be followed with Execrations and Curses from the Protestant World for so treacherously betraying that Truth we had so great a Zeal for that a Nation that glorified so justly in being accounted the Bulwark of the Protestant Religion should so fatally occasion the total overthrow of it I will but briefly recount some of those Mischiefs that any reasonable Man cannot but apprehend must overtake us upon such a Relapse if we consider with what Rage and Fury with what thirst of Revenge not only the late King whose natural Temper doth not much dispose him to a forgetting of Injuries but all of the Popish Party must return amongst us what are we to expect Is the late King ever the less a Papist than before Hath he abated any thing of his Zeal for that Superstition Have the Jesuits c. any other Sentiments of us and our Religion than they had ask the Protestants of Ireland and they will inform you who fly as fast out of that Kingdom as ever the French Refuges forsook France If we were so unjustly used when we had given no Offence what are we to look for when the worst of Crimes shall be laid to our Charge If our Religion 〈◊〉 â—ear lost our Laws and Liberties invaded when all the Obligations of the Earth were upon the Prince to protect them how utterly must all be lost when the Resentments of so late Affronts shall expose us to all the direful Effects of an ungoverned Zeal and enraged Revenge But besides How are we to expect that such a Revolution should be brought about I am very confident England and Scotland will never be willing to afford so great a Strength as is sufficient for such an Enterprize some hot-headed Men may assist a stronger Party from Abroad but they will never undertake to do it alone No no we plainly see it's an Irish and French Power must do this thence Men Money and Arms must come this is so certain that I do not believe any Man in the Nation so bereft of Sense as to expect it any other way And now what a Train of Miseries this Dragons-Tail draws after it is not easy either to be thought or exprest if ever such a dismal Calamity should befal us we shall want another Jeremiah to write the Lamentations of our Judah and Jerusalem I do not think that ever any Nation under Heaven was exposed to a more barbarous Desolation than this poor Nation must be upon such an unhappy Change. How hath the French King used his own Subjects to whom by the Oaths of God upon his Soul he owed all Protection and if so cruel at Home what are we Strangers to expect from his Armies but all the Outrages that attend an insulting Conquest of an Enemy who hath resolved our Ruine and sworn the Extirpation of our Religion If the cutting us off from being a People should be the price of it what are we to expect whose unhappy Connivance hath occasioned all his Greatness and whose Strength and Riches are the Shears that now clips his Wings from soaring to that height of Universal Empire he so vainly and proudly grasps at And the Truth is this is a great Misery that upon such a Change the Crown of England is most likely to devolve not from King William to King James but from King William to King Lewis of France which the great God of Heaven avert We have heard of Princes sposled of their Dominions by that King but never could hear yet of any Prince restored by him Can it possibly enter into the Thoughts of any reasonable Man that the King of France will employ his Forces by Sea and Land and spend his Treasures in conquering of these Kingdoms and then quietly deliver them up to another to possess who himself labours so deeply of the Dropsy of enlarging his Dominions that neither Faith of Treaties Laws of Nations Oath of God nor the sence of common Equity and Justice could ever yet bind him from making the most unjust Encroachments upon his Neighbours wherever he could And this is the more to be considered because it 's very easy to believe that the Popish Clergy of England would be willing enough it should be so King Lewis being more able to maintain his Conquest than King James can ever be supposed to be to maintain his Possession and their Security and if the Popish Clergy may justly be supposed to become so indifferent in this case it 's easy to foresee how the Laity of that Persuasion might be induced to a Satisfaction since these so slavishly and indeed so brutishly hang their Consciences at those Mens Girdles so that upon the whole King Lewis is like to be the only Gainer altho I am far from thinking that they who make this noise amongst us aim at any such thing yet it is worth their while seriously to consider whether it will lye in their Power to prevent or help it As for the Irish their Carriage to Protestants in King Charles the First 's Time and now to the Protestants at this very instant is more than sufficient to satisfy us what Measures we are to expect from them their natural Barbarity their constant Aversion to the English Nation their thirst after a Reprisal
that Point that it were presumption in me further to undertake the Defence of it Let me only add That the late King shewed the most fixed Resolution in the World by his going to France for what was this but rather than suffer any Redress of the insupportable Grievances of his People he would rather forsake and abandon them and apply himself to the sworn Enemy of his Kingdoms both in their Religion and Civil Rights King James sent to the Prince of Orange some Noblemen to treat with him but had not the patience to stay long after the Answer but rather than listen to the calling of a Free Parliament withdrew himself voluntarily when no Enemy was near him His coming back again to Whitehall was a meer force put upon him for at Feversham when Persons of Quality in those parts tendred him their best Service his constant Answer was The most acceptable service you can do me is to facilitate my departure and procure means for my going beyond Sea And whatever noise is made about his leaving Whitehall the second time yet it 's plain his resolution was still to depart as a thing he was before most solemnly engaged to do and so to leave his People rather than enter upon fair and legal ways of giving them satisfaction and this the Lords and Commons in Convention as freely chosen as ever Representatives were to any Parliament in England have avowed to be an Abdication of his Government and Vacating of his Throne And I would know but these two things in this particular Whether in the condition we were left by the King's departure any better juster or speedier course could be taken to save the Nation from those Miseries and Confusions it must necessarily have fallen into in that state of Anarchy the King left us than that of calling such a Convention And then Whether such a Convention so freely called and chosen when met doth not conclude the Nation by their Resolutions since all knew their Election was for this very purpose to restore us the Happiness of a settled State and by electing of them included Themselves and their Consents to their Resolves as much as ever they did in other Elections to Parliament As for those Redresses that were made just upon the News of the Prince's Intention for England they were done at such a time as too plainly shewed it to be the product of Fear and Necessity not of Choice and it 's well known that what Kings in straits are forced to do when free they voluntarily and readily undo and the worst wish I wish King James is That what he did then he had done a twelve-month before tho even then the greatest matters continued as they were viz. Persons in all Offices of Trust without legal qualifications by virtue of the Dispensing Power then not in the least disowned By what I have said it plainly appears that our Condition when their Majesties arrived here was most deplorable without any hope of a redress our Miseries daily growing upon us and it 's not uneasie for any man to divine what our Case must certainly have been had not God raised up this mighty Deliverer our present King to put a stop to those unhappy Proceedings and if we be so insensible of this great Deliverance and so soon have forgot our former Thraldom and our just fears of worse I can say no more but that we are as bad as the Israeliets desiring Egypt again when their faces were towards Canaan and lusting for the Flesh-pots there when they were feeding on Angels Food And so I come to shew the danger of our Relapse by considering the happy Estate and Condition we are in by this blessed Revolution We may take up in these Nations that Song of David When the Lord turned again the Captivity of Sion then were we like unto them that dream The Deliverance was so strange and wonderful that it appeared plainly the Lord's doing and therefore marvelous in our eyes We may look upon the Providence that gave the Prince of Orange our now most Gracious King so just a right to succour us as wonderful even that happy day wherein the Auspicious Marriage of that Royal Pair was consummated to the great joy and lasting security of the Peace and Happiness of these Nations This was I am sure a great earnest of the Divine Goodness and a happy Omen of this blessed Fruit of it I know not what to admire most at in this prodigious Deliverance That a matter of so great importance that must of necessity be communicated to several persons both at home and abroad should take no air all the while till just it was ready to be executed so that the Deliverance was sudden and unexpected no-ways looked for at that time or in that manner is scarce to be exemplified the means used to effect this Design being so unproportionate to this great end designed makes the success a Prodigy The extent of this Blessing is not the least thing considerable in it it is general to the whole Nation every one shares in the Deliverance those only excepted that would fain have made us miserable For as the Religion and Civil Interests of all were equally in danger so the Security of both is extensive to all Nay this Revolution secures Truth and the Profession of it to other Nations for it 's well known what hazard the Protestant Religion every-where had been in had it been subverted in this famous Island And therefore however ungrateful we may be who yet have the more immediate advantage of it yet I am sure all Protestant Europe are liâ—ting up their Hearts Hands and Tongues in the Praises of the God of Truth who hath so signally appeared for our Deliverance and in that for their security Let us look upon our present Condition Would we be content to be happy and compare it to what we were a Twelve-Month ago then we were almost in Despair sadly thinking with our selves to what strange Countries we should repair to avoid the impending Storm our Bishops were thrown into Prisons our Clergy threatned with Deprivations and Suspensions our Universities pursued with Quo Warranto's our Colledges invaded by the Locusts of Egypt the Abomination of the Mass and Idolatry and Superstition of Popery set up in all the Corners of City and Countrey our Judges carrying about Shavelings to preach before them in their Circuits and they themselves in their Charges at Assizes preaching Sermons of Transubstantiation and Submission to the See of Rome Protestants discountenanced discarded disgraced Papists every where in City in Countrey in Court in Armies in Forts in Navies in Corporations in Counties lording it over us Parliaments intended us worse than none the Complement of our Miseries being expected from them as Elections were then ordered which made all good Men wish from their Souls That whatever our Condition was or might be yet we might never see a Parliament sit in England during King James the Second's Reign