Purchasing of it than She is believed to have done And therefore not being Contented with Lands of Theobalds which were bestowed upon him soon after the Prince of Orange was Advanced into a Condition and Capacity of making Grants and Alienations of that Kind and of which he has made large Improvements and Raised vast Summes from thence by Sales and otherwise to the wonderful Wrong and Damage of all those that had Leases of and Tenant Right in them from and under the late Duke of Albemarle to whose Father they were Judged a very Royal and Valuable Recompence for the Noble Service He did in Retrieving and Re-establishing the Government upon its Ancient Legal Bottom the Restoring the late King Charles to his Rightful and Hereditary Soveraignity and for Re-estating these Kingdoms in the peaceable Possession of their Laws and Liberties I say that not being Satisfied with this ample Donative and Gift He hath lately Begged of King William the other Lands I have Mentioned and hath had them Granted unto Him without the least Regard to the Right of the Crown the Property of the Prince of Wales the Laws of this Kingdom or to the Interest which some Hundreds of Persons have more or less in them Of which Acquisition on Benting's part and Alienation on William's it will not be amiss to inlarge a little that we may the better Discern and come the more Sensibly under the Impression both of the Despotical and Unlimimited Absoluteness which the Usurper and his Minions Challenge over us and of the Slavish State and Tenure we are Reduced unto of having our Estates wrested from us and given away to what Degree Measure and Proportion one Dutch Man shall have the Impudence to Demand and the other the Insolency and Tyranny to Grant For if we look into the Extent and Largeness of this Grant it is the Giving away no less than the Dominion and Property of Five Parts of Six of one Entire County which as it is too great a Power and Inheritance for any Foreign Subject to Possess and Inherit So it may hereafter prove Unsafe for the Government to have so Numerous a People made Subject unto and Dependant on Him Seeing it is of that vast Dimension and ample Jurisdiction that near Fifty Mean Lordships Hold of those Mannors and above Fifteen Hundred Freeholders are Tenants there to the King and thereby Obliged unto Him under a particular Allegiance besides that which they ow him in the Quality and on the Foot of their being his Subjects And it is so particular a Revenue Anciently Vested in the Prince of Wales that it cannot Legally and according to the Customs Constitution and Laws of England be Alienated from him And therefore upon the Creation of a Prince of Wales there are upon the Right of Tenure under him and of Tenancy unto him Mises of Eight Hundred Pounds payable to the said Prince Nor is it unworthy of Remark that in the Preamble of the Statute of the 21. Jac. Cap. 29 it was brought into Doubt and questioned whether Charles the First that was then Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwal whom the Statute Declares to have an Inheritance in both tho under special Limitation could Let or Rent Leases for Three Lives or any longer than his Own And it is there Declared that he could not unless such Leases were Confirmed in Parliament And the Reason is Because upon want of a Prince of Wales that Inheritance becomes immediatly Vested in the Crown So that if the Prince of Wales himself who has an Inheritance in that Revenue cannot Grant Estates out of it for any longer than his own Life without the Consent and Authority of Parliament it demonstratively Follows that the Prince of Orange who by the very Title that he possesseth the Crown hath at most only an Estate in it for his own Life cannot Grant away and Alienate it without the Consent of both Houses of Parliament Declared in and by a formal and express Statute To which I will presume to add that in Case of a Failure of a Prince of Wales it doth not settle in the Crown as a Propriety but as an Usufructuary till a Prince of Wales be Created to whose Creation that Revenue is Annexed by those words in our Law To him and his Heires who shall be Kings of England Nor was there ever a Disposal or Alienation of that Estate from the Crown save when Queen Elizabeth who was as much the Idol as she was called the Protectoress of her People ventured to grant it unto and bestow it upon the Earle of Leicester but that both occasioned such an Insurrection and Rebellion and was likely to raise and continue such a Civil War in the Kingdom that Leicester was glad both to depart from all Pretence of Claim that was made unto him by that Grant and quietly to Resign it and the Queen who wanted neither Spirit to Assert her legal Rights and Prerogatives nor Interest in the Affections of her Subjects for Support and Justification of them was joyful to put an End to those Intestine Divisions and Troubles bâ— Reassuming those Lands to the Crown where they have ever since continued Nor can a rightful and hereditaâ—y King of England even in the Case and on the Sâ—pposal that there were no Prince of Wales legally Alienate and Give away those Lands from the Crown seeing they are no otherwise Vested in it than in Trust to be Preserved forth coming to the Use Profit and Honour of such a Prince when there comes to be One and at what time he is Created and Declared And therefore in and by the very Statute of Charles II. which gave Power as well as Liberty for the Sale and Disposal of the Fee Farm Rents there is a particular and express Exception of the forementioned Welch Rents tho there was then no Prince of Wales nor any Prospect that there would be one of that King's Body which plainly Imported that the Parliament took the Welch Revenue nor to be Alienable Much less then can the Prince of Orange that hath no hereditary Right to the Crown but hath only Obtained it by the illegal and merely pretended Choice of the People which is in other Terms to have Usurped it and who by the very Act of Settlement has but an Estate for Life in the Possession of it Grant away the Inheritance and absolute Fee of the Principality of Wales For it is no less an Absurdity in Law to say that a Tenant for Life can Grant a Fee than to say that a Tenant in Fee can Grant no more than for a Life But it appears that that tho the Power of a lawful King and of a legitimate Prince of Wales be Limited and Restrained within the Precincts of Law yet that the Power of an Usurper is boundless and unconfined However it is no way incongruous that he who has violently Snatched his Father in Law and Uncle's Crown from his Head and Drove him from his
Majesty's Envoys and by the Deputies and Agents of the Company Nor will I so far Reflect upon the Memory of that Prince as to assign the Reasons why they came to Treat him with so much Superciliousness and Neglect in that and other Concerns as they did Seeing besides the too great Encouragement they had to it from somthing in his own Constitution and Temper they were Embold'ned thereunto by the mutinous Humour that was then Predominant in many of his Subjects and by the great and unaccountable Divisions which were arisen between those who were Stiled the Court and Country Factions But finding that his Royal Brother King James who on his Decease Rightfully Ascended the Throne was not a Prince that bore that careless respect to his own Honour to the Reputation of his Kingdoms and to the Prosperity of his Subjects as to digest the aforementioned Affront Injustice and Injury with the Tameness that King Charles had done and that he Carried not that Indifferency to his Peoples Welfare and to the Traffick of the Nation as for a private Gratuity either to Connive at or to Forgive a Wrong done to the Meanest of those under his Protection and Government And much less an Oâ—fence of so heinous a Nature Committed not only against the Chief Trading Society of the Kingdom but to the Obstruction and Loss of a Commerce by which all his People received considerable Profit and Advantage They thereupon by a Violation and Contempt of the Obligatoriness and Sacredness of Leagues both Encouraged all the Seditious and Disloyal here aswel to Rebel against and Revolâ— from the King as by Clamouâ—s and Ryots to Disturb the Tranquillity of his Reign And they took Hold of and Encouraged the Prince of Orange's Ambition whom Pride had disposed and prepared to despise and transgress all the Laws of God and to Trample upon all the Constitutions of Nations for the Gaining of a Crown whose aspiring Haughtiness they resolved in that Matter to Gratifie in order to the Supporting themselves in the quiet Enjoyment of what they had Treacherously Unjustly and Rapaciously Seised And accordingly they Lent unto and Furnished him with a great part of their Army and Navy to Enable him in Conjunction with the Traitors that were here at Home to drive the King both from his Throne and Dominions And had not the People of England been at that Time strangely Infatuated by Bigottry and made Uncapable by their Disloyalty of all just and rational Thinking and Arguing they might from the forementioned Depradation of the Dutch upon Us in the Business of Bantam have very easily Foreseen and have naturally Concluded how far they would Usurp upon Cheat and Rob us afterwards when they should come to obtain one of their own Complexion and Mould as well as of Belgick Birth Education Authority and Inheritance to be chosen and Advanced to Reign over us Nor is it unworthy of Remark how far in this very matter his being a Dutchman hath made him for these Seven Years last past live in a continual forgetfulness of the Justice he oweth to the Nation upon the Foot and Foundation of being Stiled our King For whereas both the Belgick East-Endia Companies and the States General had before the Revolution made and sent Overtures of giving Satisfaction and had offered a Vast Summ of Money in Expiation of that Crime and for repairation of the Injury they had done us in the Case so often mentioned we have not dared since to Pretend unto or Claim the least Compensation for that Wrong and much less to be so Presumptuous as to Require to be Re-established there again Tho according to the Modern Methods of Merit and the ways and means which recommended People most Distinctively to the New Monarch This Kingdom hath deserved as much of his Highness for Perjuring themselves in order to Serve and Oblige him as the Dutch have done by the Violation of their Treaties Nay whereas they broke their Alliances upon the Motives of Inâ—erest and have found their Advantage in their Perjurious Treacheries We by rendering our selves Forsworn in departing from our Allegiâ—â—â—â— have only gained the being wholy shut out from that which we had both so good a Right unto and were in so near and assured Prospect of recovering So that all which by Co-operating unto and Concurring in the Revolution falls to Our Share is the acquiring the Preheminence of a Double Character Namely that of Fools as much as that of Knaves whilst our Belgick Neighbours are content to acquiesce in the single one of being Villains and that chosen and submitted unto for their Gain and not for their Loss But the English being esteemed naturally a generous sort of People may possibly think it but Congruous to that Opinion which Men have commonly had of them that when they have so wilfully done all they can by their late Practices to forfeit Heaven to Part with Resign and Contemn the World also and not to be like the Avaritious Covetous Dutch who are indeed willing enough to Renounce and Disclaim their Portion in the former but then it is with a Proviso of Bartering it away for the later which they take to be a Cunning and Wise Exchange And all Men must Grant that more is to be said in their Favour and for the Extenuation of their Folly who would not choose Damnation but for the Obtaining of Wealth than can be reasonably said of those that not only give themselves over to Eternal Wrath gratis but who choose to Pay Dear for it and to be Robbed of their Liberties and Estates that they may Superarrogate for Hell and be the better Entitled and have the more deserving Right to future Vengeance Yet I ought not to omit mentioning one thing which falls to our Lot even in this World as the Reward of having Purchased the Name Guilt and Infamy of Rebells at the Expence of our Wealth and Traffick and of all we were happy for at Home and Reputable for Abroad namely That the Cap and Coat which were heretofore only the Enclosure and Peculiar of a few ought now and henceforward to be the common Badges Habit and Dress of most of the Kingdom and especially of our Westminster Senators To what I have already said I will add in the next Place that our Electing the Prince of Orange King hath not only Emboldned the Dutch both to Detain from us what they formerly Usurped and to make fresh Encroachments upon us in all parts of the World as well as in all things but they pleadâ—â— it as a ground Authorising them so to do and Improve it as a Mean to Facilitate Countenance and Promote the Depradations which they do since Commit upon us For not to look nearer home Asia and Africa can witness how they Triumph over and Insult us in those Remote parts of the Universe Representing us a Poor Feeble and Dastardly People over whom they have Constituted their Servant a Monarch and thereby reduced us unto
lies so much under every ones Prospect that it needs only be pointed at and not insisted upon how much the Dutch stand advantag'd to Endamage us by their having the same Benting qualify'd to sit in the House of Lords under the Character of an English Peer In which Capacity abstracting from the Influence he has over his Master to Sway and Determine him to put a Negative upon such Bills as may be prepared there and in the House of Commons to Skreen us from Belgick Encroachments and Rapines he is Capable sometimes by his own single Vote and often so by the many Proxies which some â—hro Fear others thro Flattery and many in order to Court a place and Preferment do lodg with him to get those Bills thrown out which were either Introduced there by some generous Peer that loves his Country or framed and sent up thither by the House of Commons for their Lordships Concurrence in order to protect our Trade preserve our Constitution and to prevent the Slavery as well as the Poverty which the Dutch seek to have Overthrown and wish and endeavour to have us reduced unto Nor was there ever a good Bill formed upon the Design of being a Fence about our Lives Liberties and Estates whether it began in the Upper House or came conveyed thither from the Lower since the Revolution which this Gentleman raised to the Honour of Peerage by a Merit singular and peculiar to himself hath not both given his own Vote and if Occasion was applied all the Right Authority and Power vested in him by Proxies for the casting it out and the rejecting of it To which under this Head I shall only briefly add That it is no less than an avowed and visible Betraying both of the Honour and Interest of England to the Dutch to employ a Batavian under a Character derived from the Crown of England to any Foreign King or State about Brittish Affairs and Concerns And for any one stiling himself King of England to appoint a Dutch Man Amhassador or Envoy to any Court in Europe can be upon no other Motive than of Sarificing the Concernments of England in that Court and Country to the Pleasure and Profit of the Hollanders seeing we want not Men of Quality Sense and Merit of our own to be sent Abroad under those Characters And yet this Belgick Prince now set over us and whom our wise Senators have accustomed themselves to call their and our most Gracious King Values himself upon Treating us after this rate as appears by his Interposing in the Vindicating Justifying and Protecting of Myn Heer Schonenberg at Madrid whom in his Letters to the King and Court of Spain he calls his Ambassador And according Resents the Driving him out of that City as a Violation of the Rights and Laws of Nations tho it was for Crimes that any other Prince besides ours would have Chastised and not have Defended him Nor does the Privelege belonging to the Character he bears give him Security by any Laws in reference to the Cause for which he was Insulted from being as justly as he was ignominiously Dealt with Nevertheless this Belgick Prince hath espoused and pushed the Vindication and Defence of this Dutch Heer so far as to have Forbid the Spanish Ambassador to present any Memorial or to Appear at Court till he havâ— Satisfaction given him in Reference to that Batavian whom he hath the Indiscretion and Confidence in the View and Face of the World to stile an Ambassador from the Crown of England And were the Wheedle of Rescuing Nations from Popery and Slavery as proper to Influence the Subjects of his Catholick Majesty and to Pervert them from the Allegience to their Monarch as they did the weak and credulous People of these Kingdoms This Prince Errant who not only Fancieth himself another Hercules born and raised up to tame Monsters but one Divinely Commissioned to give Laws to all Nations and to Trample on Crowned Heads and wrest Scâ—ptres out of the Hands of Kings he would Embark speedily with his Dutch Janizaries for Cadiz to Drive his Catholick Majesty out of Spain as he did the King of Great Brittain from his Dominions In the mean time the Fraud to which this Schonenberg was accessary and the Insolence he was guilty of towards the King of Spain shews the Prince of Orange's Skill in the choice of his Ministers to be Employed Abroad under publick Characters and how well Qualified this Dutch Man was for being Constituted the Ambassador of the King of England Seeing it is most certain that as Dutch Stadtholder he could not give that Title nor the Powers belonging to it But is not England in the mean time in a safe and fine Condition to have all the Affairs of the Kingdom that are to be Transacted by a Person vested with that Character in the only Nation and Court of Europe where we have now most to do and are most embarkt in Commerce and Traffick and where our Concernments do chiefly lie to be not only Trusted in the Hands and put under the Care and Conduct of a Dutch Man but of one whom the Hollanders themselves have given the same Stile and appendant Powers unto for the Management of what appertains to them both in the way of State and Trade To whom we may be not only sure that he will be Truer than to Us but that it was intended by the Prince of Orange he should be so And should any be so foolishly Favourable as to Entertain a better Construction of his Highness's Intentions Yet it is Demonstrable that Nature and Interest will be prevalent in most Men especially in a Hollander above Duty and Obligation Accordingly Mr. Stanhop who is both an English Man and sent from hence to Reside there in the quality of William's Envoy is not only sensible of the Affront done to himself thro a Dutch Man's being Authorised under a higher Cha racter to meddle at that Court in Brittish Concerns but of the Injury done to the Kingdom by reason of that Hollander's Sacrificing them to a Belgick Interest So that by this Conduct of the Gentleman at Kensington the Sheep are committed to the Wolves to keep and the Guards allotted for our Defence are Placed upon us in Order to Assassinate Us. Nay at other Courts and particularly at the Hague where he pretends to Employ English Men under the Character of Envoys and Ambassadors from this Kingdom He Trusts none of them in the great Affairs and Concerns of State which are Transacted in that Court but Useth them only in Complements Trifles and Baggatells or at most in receiving and delivering such Letters as are of no Importance Witness among others my Lord Dursly whom I do therefore name because he is both a Person who for Honour Prudence and good Sense is qualified to discharge the Duties of a Publick Minister in any Court whatsoever and is one who preserves that Regard to his Country and to his own Dignity
Dominions should also take upon himself to Grant away and Alienate the Inheritance of his Cousin and to Disinherit him of it But why doth he not as well make Benting Prince of Wales as to give him the Revenue of that Principality Seeing he may as lawfully and by the same Measures of Justice do the First as he has done the Last And no doubt but that as he hath Inclination to it we may also live to see it done if he can but once Emerge out of the present War and thereupon bring over from the Continent a numerous and triumphant Outlandish Army to support and protect him in his Usurpation and Tyranny and make us with Tameness and Decency wear our Chains In the mean time considering the Depopulaation and Poverty which thro a long and costly War the Nation is already reduced unto we may make this Reflection upon and this Inference from the Prodigality of our Belgick King to his Dutch Minion and to his Outlandish Janizaries viz. that it can be done upon upon no other Design than to gratifie the Commo-nwealth of Holland and to raise them to an Ascendency of Wealth and Power over us For had he the least Regaâ—d to the Welfare of England he would blush to ask such immense Summs of the Parliament when he is alienating and disposing away the standing Revenues of the Crown to his Whores and Burdaâ—â—â—â— For how can we imagin that any thing should be held needful to be Levied of the People if it were not in Subseâ—viency to an Outlandish Interest when we see not only those Lands that are pretended to be forfeited but those Ancient Inheritances that the Sovereign and Royal Family should Subsist upon squander'd away upon little Foreigners which were bred and heretofore accustomed to live upon the Fragments of their Master's Table Surely we may expect from the Justice and Wisdom of this Parliament That before they Empty the Purses of those they Represent they will enquire how the Revenues vested in the Crown are bestowed and applyed For whatsoever Usurpers may dare to do in wasting the Treasure and Inheritance of the Throne by Buildng Palaces and furnishing them splendidly at Loo and for making Indorsements on the posteriour Parchments of those I have mentioned Our Natural and Lawful Kings never used to demand Succours of their Subjects till they had Exhausted themselves and Disbursed their whole Revenue in the Service and for the Protection of their People Nor is there any thing more frequently met with and better known in our Law than that there have been Acts of Resumption of former Grants and Donations from the Crown whensoever the Nation has been Engaged in an expensive War and the People have Groaned under large Taxes And as this is the first Original of the Kind that ever we had Experience of in this Kingdom and for which we are indebted to Holland so I hope that after our Deliverance from a Belgick Prince we shall have no Copy of it or that any King hereafter will make Alienations of Lands from the Crown when he is under Necessities of demanding Aids of his People for his Support and Assistance in Wars wherein he may come to be engaged To which I will only add that under all those lavish and squandring Wasts and Consumptions of our Prince upon Dutch for Closet and Chamber Services he hath not only been Narrow and Parcimonious enough but Niggardly and highly Ungrateful to the English because it could not benefit Holland Whereof among others Talmash that is Dead and old Danby who is Alive are known Instances tho they Served him both in Policy and War and Contributed farther to his Exaltation to the Throne and to the keeping him in it than Thousands of his Country-men were capable of doing and especially beyond what the Chocolate and Carpet Gentleman I have been speaking of had either Courage or Brain to Attempt In recompence whereof instead of any Lands and much less those of the Crown the one was sent and abandoned to be Killed by the French but Murthered by the English abroad and the other is Forsaken Given up and Sacrificed at â—â—me to the old Envy and bigotted Rage of his Enemies But whereas what I have now Represented may seem to Issue only in the Enriching a few Hollanders at our Loss and Expence and not to amount to the Benefit and Advantage either of the Community of that People or of those States unless Secondarily and after several Removes I shall therefore advance to the laying open and displaying wherein to our Vast and infinite Damage we are Bubbled out of our Money and Treasure and made a Prey to that Republick thro the large Sums daily Allotted and Paid them out of our Exchequer Nor is the way wherein it is done such a Mistery as needs Accuracy of Parts and great Penetration to Comprehend it seeing it cannot escape Proving Demonstratively Obvious to every One who will give himselfe leave to Consider how many of the Dutch Troops and of those that Constitute their Particular Quota are upon the English Establishment and Paid with English Mony For as if it had not been enough to have been Guilty both of that Prodigal Folly and that Treasonable Crime of giving them at one time Six Hundred Thousand Pounds as a pretended Re-imbursment of the Charge and Expence they Alleadged they had been at in sending their Fleet and Army hither upon the Motives as they had the Hypocrisy and Impudence to say and We the Simplicity and Lunatism to believe of Rescuing Us from Popery and Slavery but as appears by the Event for Introducing Atheism Thraldom and Poverty We did not only over and above that Maintain and Pay their Whole Army here for a Considerable time but have had ever since Six or Seven Holland Regiments upon English Establishment and both Maintained with good English Mony and at the Proportion of our Pay which is larger then they allow to those Troops which remain under their own Establishment Sure it might have been thought sufficient and would be so by any Prince save this Dutch one who inwardly hates Us and by all the Methods of his Administration seeketh and Pursueth our Ruine that besides the Raising and Maintaining the largest Body of Brittish Troops that has for many Ages been Imployed upon the Continent and over and above the Charges we are at in Assisting and Relieving the Duke of Savoy and on those particular Forces which are on English Pay in Piedmont We should be at the Expence of Purchasing Subsisting and Paying all the Danes most of the Hess many of the Lunenburgh and divers of the Swiss and some of the Brandenburgh Forces that are now in the Confederate Army in Flanders but that after all this Prodigal Expence which tho it may possibly give us the Reputation of a Rich yet will not even with our Allies themselves acquire us the Credit of a Wise Nation We should be so Ridiculously silly as to Beare and
Defray the whole charge of so many Regiments belonging directly to the Dutch and who being entirely under the Authority and Command of the States General and of the Belgick Provinces will in Reward of our Indiscreet and Wastful Liberality to them be ready to Invade Us and to Cut our Throats whensoever their Masters the High and Mighty Lords and their Dutch Stadtholder shall require them to do it And tho it may seem a Paradox to Soft-headed Unthinking People yet it is a Measured and Certain Truth that as all the Confederates give not one Moyety of what is both necessary and applyed to the upholding and carrying on of this War so scarcely a Moyety of that which is granted and raised as the Share and Quota of England is disbursed and laid out upon our Troops But it is either bestowed in the Hireing Foreign Princes to continue in this united and conjunct Alliance or in the paying Outlandish Forces who being ready to Starve in their own Countries will serve the Devil or the Mogull for Mony or it is lavished away in reproachful Gratuities upon Minions under the Notion of being expended for private Service as indeed it is tho for a Criminal and Villainous one or it is disposed in the bribing Members of Parliament to betray the Trust reposed in them by those that have Chosen them and to Sell their Country or it is consumed in the making and keeping up of Sham Plots and upon Scoundrels and Varleâ—s to Swear peaceable Men falsly out of their Lives and Estates And least it should remain any longer a Mistery why William is so fond of Foreign Soldiers as to receive them in those vast Numbers he doth into English Pay when the Natives of these three Kingdoms do not only equal those of all Nations in Valour and Bravery and without being thought a Disparagement to those of other Countries are acknowledged to excel those of most and who have at all times been forward and ready to take Arms when the Cause has been just and honourable and where their Treatment has been humane compassionate and good I shall therefore resolve this Riddle and detect both upon what Motives and Prospects he doth so which accordingly in brief are these namely That having formed Designs both of Enslaving us to Himself and of making us Vassals and Tributaries to his beloved Dutch whensoever he can Emerge out of the War And being apprehensive that Native and Brittish Subjects will be so far from being his Tooles to Enthrall themselves and their Off spring as well as their Country-men and their Posterity That they will both abandon and withstand Him in the Attempt and be provoked to revenge the Affront and Injustice which shall be offered of this Kind to these Kingdoms and the People of them And theâ—eupon that he may be in a Condition to Execute hereafter without hazard what his Soul thro Pride and Malice is now in Travail with he both secretly Lists and Armeth the French Hugonots here and draws what Outlandish Troops he can into his immediate Pay and Service from Abroad Nay in subserviency to this Projection he not only puts Foreigners into the supream Command over all the English and Scotch Forces tho contrary to an Address of Parliament but there is not one Brittish Regiment in the whole Army in the Low Countries into which he hath not by his despotick Power and absolute Authority introduced Aliens both as Commission Officers and Subalterns Which being done in Contempt as well as Neglect of an Address of the House of Peers that I have formerly mentioned their Lordships do now seem sensible of the Affront put upon themselves as they are not only the Consiliarii nati of our Princes but as they are the chiefest and noblest part of the Great Council of the Kingdom And therefore like unto what the Peers of England used to be and as becomes the Patriots of their Country they have demanded a List of all the Officers that Command our Brittish Troops and of what Country they individually are Which if King William cause to be Presented to them with that Truth and Sincerity which ought to be the inseparable Qualities of a Prince both their Lordships and all the World will have Reason to be Astonished at the Wrong and Dishonour done to these Nations in the setting so many Foreigners over our Forces to Command them Whereof we have already seen and felt the fatal Effects in the late Count Solme's Abandoning so many of our Men to be Butcher'd at the Battle of Steinkerk when instead of supporting them as he ought and as they expected he lay at distance Covered and never Advanced towards their Relief And where our Men behaving themselves with that wonderful Bravour that is natural to them it is Commonly believed even by our Enemies as well as by others that a Defeat might have been given the French if those Brittish Troops which were so shamefully Deserted and treacherously Sacrificed had been reinforced and succoured as they should have been But as to the List which the House of Peers have demanded it is too probable that King William will with the same Regardlesness both to Truth and to his Honour endeavour to Sham them off with a false and imperfect Account of those Officers as he hath ventured to do the House of Commons in the State of the War he hath caused lay before them of the Quota's of the several Confederates for the Year 1696. if their Lordships will have the Tameness to sit down with and acquiesce in it without farther Examination and Enquiry But to proceed It may not be amiss to observe how that in order that none of those whom he hath already Mustered in order to this future Design or of whose Service he thinks himself sure when the time arrives of Accomplishing it may in the Interim languish and decay in their Zeal towards the Enterprize he loseth no opportuniâ—y of placing Marks of his Favour and Kindness upon them tho it be sometimes to the Forfeiture of his Discretion and prove the giving too early an Alarm to England of the lurking and malicious Intentions which he entertains for us So that when he Addressed his Parliament on Nov. 23. last he could not omit Recommending his Muster'd and Regimented Hugonots to their Care and Supply tho he did not think those many Thousands of Starving Widows and Orphans whose Husbands and Fathers perished in his Service worth the being mentioned to them for Relief And much less had he the Justice and Goodness to desire their Aids and Supplies in behalf of those many once Wealthy and Trading Families that are since the Revolution reduced to extream Poverty by his pursuing his concerted Measures with Holland for the ruining of our Trade and thro the Treachery as well as Neglect of the Commissioners of the Admiralty who Act by his Order and Instructions and rather choose to Sacrifice the Kingdom than in any thing to Controul his pleasure
in Specie from hence and all to come either first or last into the hands of the Dutch and Annually to encrease their Treasure in that proportion To which let this be subjoyned That besides the Mony remitted to Pay our Army there has been a great deal of Silver carried over Year after Year in the King's Yatchts as well as in other Vessels Partly to be distributed among several Princes of Europe to keep them in the Confederacy and to gain Men from them for the Upholding the War and partly to be squander'd away among the Ministers in those Courts to Counsel and Advise their Masters suitably to the Instructions which King William should give them and partly for the Bribing of the Burgher-masters and Pensioners of the most considerable Cities of the Seven Provincs to be Zealous in Moulding and Influencing their respective Towns to to persevere in the Interest of their Stadtholder and to support him in all the Designs in which his Ambition should engage him as being contrived and adapted to their Advantage But that which is more to be adverted under this head is that all or much the greatest part of this Silver thus Transported whether in order to the paying our Army or for other Ends and Designs has been theâ—e melted down and Coyned into Skillings that are not worth half the Intâ—insick Value of what they are either Current for there or paid to our Soldiers for their Salaries and to Subsist upon or made passable in the procuration of the whole Equivalent in Bills of what they go at in Holland to be Conveyed and made Solvable elsewhere By which means alone the Dutch have since the Revolution made an Advantage to themselves of many Millions And therefore when the Society stiled the Bank of England which was Establisted by the late Parliament and to whom upon their Undertaking for the Remission of Mony for the payment of our Army or to any other in order thereunto there was Liberty granted by a particular Statute for Conveying over so much as is there limited either in Bullion or in Specie Coyned I say when the fore-named Company would have Erected a Mint on the other Side in order to have Melted down and Re-coyned what they had Transported in such embased Mony as was there current and passable the Dutch not only refused the suffering it to be done in their own Provinces but by the Interest they have among and Authority they bear over their bordering Neighbours in Flanders did obstruct our obtaining of that Freedom and Privilege and thereby did wholy frustrate and defeat that Project and Design so that by this single fraudulent and avaritious Trick and Artifice they do to this day make Cent. per Cent. of all the Mony that is remitted to Holland either for the payment of our Army or for other uses and ends Nor is it unworthy of Remark that whereas whilst they were drawing our Bullion and Coyn from us and in order to get most of the Treasure and Silver of England into their possession and have it lodged in their Country they willingly paid and allowed Three and Forty of their Skillings as the Equivalent of one Pound Sterling of ours and gave our Soldiers so much readily in Exchange for it that now having gained and engrossed the greatest part of our Mony and finding that what we continue to remit in Specie at present is not out of Choice but upon Necessity they have sunk the value of our Mony to Eight and Twenty of their base Skillings which is the most they have given of late and will give no more at present for One Round Sterling of ours Which being less by near a third part than what they gave in exchange for it before is an incredible Damage to us and a vast Gain to them at our Loss and Expence And which villainous Depradation of theirs upon us cannot without our utter Impoverishment and Ruin be much longer suffered or connived at To which may be added that since the Diminishing and Clipping of our Silver Coyn which we are indebted to the Revolution for and which had never befaln us in the degree it hath but thro the ill Administration of our Dutch Prince who is glad of and encourageth all the Methods that may render us poor and make us despicable The Hollanders will either receive none of our clipt Mony tho it is in a manner all that is left current in the Kingdom or if they do receive any of it it is only in proportion to the intrinsick Value and not according to the Rate that it doth pass for here and hath done for a great while So that if any of that Mony be sent over either in payment to our Soldiers or come to be carried abroad upon other occasions the Dutch will take it but for a Moyety of what it commonly and universally goes for here And yet in this very Interim while they either wholy refuse the taking our clipt Mony or depress the Value of it to half what it now passeth for in England our poor Soldiers beyond Sea are forced to take their base Skillings and other of their debased Mony at what Rates they are pleased to make them current tho not worth half of it with respect to their intrinsick Value And all these things are some of the Felicities which we enjoy duâ—ing this Reign of Restoration to our Liberties and of Exaltation to greater Wealth Prosperity and Happiness than our Belgick Prince will by his Outlandish Logick allow us to have known heretofore Yea besides the fore ment ioned Spoyles and Rapines which they have Committed upon us in the Methods that I have Detected to the enriching themselves and the imyoverishing us in our Silver Coyn. I might also upon very good Authorities Charge them with the fraudulent Importation both of light and false Mony bearing the Stamp and Impression of our own but Minted in Holland and then Vended among us at the Rates which our best and weightiest Silver Pieces of such and such Denominations have used to go Nor will any Man who knows the Morals of the Dutch and the Practices of the same kind whereof they have been Guilty in most parts of the World to which they have had Access or who hath observed in what other ways of Cozenage and Deceit they have bubbled and injured us in the matter of our Silver judg it unlikely that they should first Mint abroad and then palm upon us both false and light Mony seeing the much counterfeit Metal and the great quantites of true Mony only with aâ—atements of Weight which have been Coyn'd and Stampt by Villains among our selves do afford the Dutch so plausible a Cover and obvious a Maâ—k and Disguise for Cheating us in this way and manner that I have suggeffed and whereof the Nation hath been and still is so full of Clamour against them But which being so agreeable to the Inclinations and Designs which our Belgick Prince entertains towards
and them could not have been much to the Prejudice either of the Kingdom or of Trade farther than as it involved us in an unnecessary and unjust War meerly to gratify the Ambition of our Dutch King and to hinder the Return of our Legal and Rightful Sovereign Because otherwise as it would have been agreeable to our Interest both as we are an Island and a Trading Nation so it would not only have proved a means of keeping all our Mony at home and of the having had it to circulate among our selves but we should thereby had Treasure enough to have rigged out a Royal Navy superior to the marine Power of France and to have equipped and maintained more than a sufficient Number of Men of War as Cruisers and Convoys to have protected our Trade But to be first at the vast Expence we have been in raising and maintaining so great an Army on the Continent meerly for the Benefit of others and not our own and then to equip and set out double the Quota that the Dutch have towards the câ—nstituting the Confederate Fleet of both Nations was plainly to disable our selves from having that Number of Cruisers and Convoys as is necessary to be kept at Sea during the present War against so potent an Enemy as the King of France and his Subjects are upon that Element Nor was this concerted between our Belgick Prince and his beloved Dutch upon any other Motives or to other Ends but that we might be put out of Capacity of safe-guarding our Coasts and protecting our trading Vessels whilst the Dutch through furnishing a small Quota to the the General Fleet are left in a Condition to employ the rest of their marine and naval Strength in securing and protecting their Traffick And the Event hath fully answered the Design in that while we by furnishing so many Ships of War to the Royal Navy did leave our selves destitute of such a Number of Ships of War as might in the Quality of Cruisers and Convoys in all Seas as well as in the Chanel have covered and defended our trafficking Vessels and as we have in consequence thereof lost above 4000 trading Ships to the empoverishing of the Kingdom as well as of many Families that were before the Revolution opulent and rich while the Dutch in the mean time through their furnishing so small a Proportion of Men of War to the General Fleet and being thereby provided of the larger number of Men of War as well to defend their Merchant Ships as to guard their Coasts have not sâ—stained the Third nay nor the Fourth part of the Loss of Vessels and Cargoes that we have done Not but that our Chanels might have been better guarded and our trading Ships more protected than they have been by those Convoys and Cruisers that were appointed and ordained by Parliament had not our Commissioners of the Admiralty been treacherous and slothful as well as blockish and ignorant in the Service Duty and Province which they undertook So that if the Parliament as I have formerly hinted do not make those Persons accountable for the Losses at Sea which Merchants and in and through them the Kingdom hath sustained all thinking Men will have reason to believe That those they have chosen to be their Representatives do take pleasure in theâ—r Empoverishment Misery and Ruin and will be provoked to judge them in a Conspiracy with those Gentlemen to promote all those Desolations and Mischiefs Seeing the Parliaments over looking the Crimes of those Commissioners or their conniving at their Conduct will more than intimate that they are so And indeed by the whole Management of publick Affairs for near these Seven Years both in Parliament and out of it those called to sit in the Senate as well as those employed in civil Offices have been doing to the Nation as the Daughters of Peleus did by the Advice of Medea to their aged Father whom they hackt in pieces in hopes that by her Magick they should have restored him both to Life and Youth again For through the Influence of Dutch Councils and the Administration of a Belgick King and by this wheedle and under pretence of rescuing us from Popery and Slavery of banishing Tyranny securing Liberty and of making us an opulent and glorious Nation they have empoverished us beyond Remedy and Retrieve and have brought us so near to the brink of Vassalage and Thraldom that it will require more Vertue and Courage to prevent it than we have much ground of hoping to find the generality of this debauched rebellious and disloyal Generation endowed with And if some of those that have been principally Accessory to our Misery and Ruin be not speedily made Examples of Parliamentary Justice who knows but upon the late President of making a King accountable for the Offences of his Ministers whether the Body of the People from Wapping to Westminster may not assault Kensington and Whitehall as well as the Admiralty Office if not instead of it For as Plebâ— non Judicium so furiosis nulla voluntas as the Populace and Mob is commonly void both of Judgment and Equity so they do not act when provoked under the Guidance of Reason but under the Agitations of intemperate Rage Nor will your Dutch Ingineers brought lately over if we may believe the Paper called the Post man from December the 10th to December the 12th St. vet who tells That by Letters from Brussels of December the 14th St. N. there were divers Ingineers ordered from Maestricht to London to deter an injured and thereupon an enraged People from attempting more than I will say and 〈◊〉 call it the doing themselves Right and the Nation Justice And having mentioned those outlandish Ingineers I crave leave to recommend it to the Parliament to enquire into their Business and what they come hither to be employed about seeing there are no French Garisons in England to be besieged and bombed But if it be in order to King William's erecting a Citadel for enslaving London and Westminster it is to be hoped that the terrour of Bombs and Carcasses will not frighten English-men quietly to surrender their Liberties and Properties and tamely to put on and wear Chains To all which might be further added the very small Quota which they furnish the Confederate Fleet are not only many times subsisted upon our Provisions and Stores instead of their own and supplied with our naval Preparations but in the Place of attending constantly upon the Flag as they ought many of those Ships of War are detached from the Fleet and employed as Convoys to their trading Vessels Which as it may at some time or other prove of fatal consequence to the Royal Fleet of England and the whole Kingdom so in the mean time they make their Profit by it through the enlarging and securing their Traffick while ours is narrowed and crippled for want of Cruisers and Convoys and while such Merchant Ships as will venture upon Voyages are left
exposed to be seised by French Privateers But this being so warmly and judiciously represented by the ingenious Author of a Letter to a Gentleman elected a Knight of the Shire to serve in the present Parliament I shall not farther enlarge upon it especially seeing Admiral Russel who is now a Member of the House of Commons is able to give an ample and particular Account of it and who for resenting it as became him when lately Admiral in the Mediterranean has been coldly received by his Master since his return But to advance a step further on the Point and Head whereon I am discoursing Can there be a greater Invasion upon our Trade or any thing committed more to the Diminution and Ruin of it than the Dutch assuming the Boldness and King William countenancing them in it to despise and violate both our Act of Navigation of the 12 Car. 2. and divers other Statutes made during his Reign all which were providently and wisely enacted for the Encouragement of the Encrease of Shipping and Navigation and for the Promotion and Enlargement of our home Manufactures For as few can be ignorant especially of Gentlemen and Merchants both of the Occasion and Design of these several Laws so the whole Nation hath abundantly experienced all along since the making of them what Profit and Advantage have thereby accrued first to Trade and then to the Kingdom â—ut now by the Insolency of the Dutch and the Treachery of King William to this Nation all those Laws have been slighted and violated by them and the Care of having them observed and put in execution to us been neglected by him which both on his part and theirs is in direct subserviency to make them powerful in Shipping and opulent in Wealth and to render us Poor Feeble and Weak And as there is not one Branch of all these Laws the transgression of which has not been practised by them and connived at by their Country man on the English Throne so they are through his Encouragement and Protection grown at last to that Impudence and arose to that Defiance of English Laws and common Justice That Coffee house Tables have been furnished with printed and publick Advertisements of such and such Dutch Productions and Manufactures that were to be vended at Places there named in and about the City of London notwithstanding of their being expresly prohibited by those Laws to be either imported into or sold in this Kingdom But whereas neither of the Two Houses of Parliament upon the present Inspection they are making into the decay of Trade and their calling Merchants before them to instruct them therein can want information from those they examin of the truth of what I have suggested and in what Particulars and Branches all those Laws are violated by the Dutch and suffered to grow obsolete and to remain unexecuted by the Prince of Orange I shall supercede the saying more on this Head because I cannot enlarge upon it as I ought and as it deserves without writing a Volume instead of a few Sheets of Paper And therefore the next Attempt I charge them with is still more hainous and done infinitely more to our disgrace being not only an Invasion upon our Trade but upon the Liberty of our Persons For by an unpresidented and unparalelled Inâ—olency the like whereof no Nation did ever pretend to exercise towards and over the Subjects of this Kingdom they demand and exact a Tenth Man out of every Ship of ours that goes into their Ports for and towards the manning of their Fleet and to justify themselves in the doing hereof they pretend to be authorised by King William's Order This they have practised for these Two Years past only they are grown more rampant tyrannous and oppressive this last than they were the former For whereas in the Year 1694. they were contented with One Man out of Ten or 15 Guilders in lieu thereof and for his Ransom they have in the Year 1695. required and taken a Man out of every Ship of ours that went into their Ports though the Sailors were never so few or else they have exacted 25 Guilders for the excusing and redeeming him from their Service So that if it be but a Hoy which is sailed with a Master one Man and two Boys yet they demand One and upon its being replied that the Vessel cannot be sailed if One be taken out they pretend it a Condescention and Favour to compound at 25 Guilders for his being excused which is Fifty Shillings of English Mony Nor do any Ships escape without doing the one or the other and for which they alledg their having King William's Authority And these Things they are so far from concealing or seeking to extenuate the Injustice and Criminalness of by the necessity of their Condition That they glory in it both in their Trackschuytes and in all Places of Society and Concourse as the Badg of their Exaltation and Triumph over us and of our Subjection to them The Method in which this Force and Hostility over us is practised is this namely before any Ship can be cleared at their Custom-house the Master must go to the Lords of the Admiralty and bring from thence a Certificate to the Custom-house of having given a Man out of the Vessels Crew to their Service or of having compounded at the Value I have mentioned for his Redemption Surely it will not be unseasonable now to ask whether we be in terms of Hostility with the Dutch or of Alliance Seeing we are not treated by them in this as Friends but as Enemies Nay it will be needful tâ—at we consult both our Understandings and Memories whether England be not Tributary to Holland and when and how it came to be so For as much as they deal not with us as with a free and independent Nation but as with a Province which they have subdued and brought into Vassalage And if we be not Slaves but remain yet a free People this Hostility in them ought to be hostily repelled by us And in the Place of accounting them any longer our Confederates we ought to esteem and take them for our Enemies and every where to assault them accordingly And for our Belgick King to authorise the Dutch to do what I have mentioned is to assume a Power over the Liberties and Persons of the People of England which no Rightful King did ever pretend unto For our Persons and Liberties being under the Custody of the Laws no King can claim a larger Jurisdiction over them than what the Laws give him unless he will renounce to govern by Law and take upon him to rule Despotically And the Prince of Orange may with as good Right transplant all the People of England to the Deserts of Arabia or send them to work in the Mines of Peru and Mexico as to authorise the Dutch to seise upon one Man that is either a native Subject here or under the Protection of English Laws to navigate either
more without asking or taking their Advice about it though a matter both of great Importance in it self and of vast Consequence to the Trade of this Kingdom Nor can it be imagined that the said Act for erecting of a Scotch Company was surreptitiously obtained or precipitately passed without his Knowledg and Information of the Tenor of it Seeing the Instructions were formed and digested here and signed by him which upon being sent down thither gave occasion and encouragement there to make and enact such a Statute at this Juncture And it is highly worthy of remark That this Scotch Law containing so many unusual Privileges and beneficial Concessions as were never granted heretofore by any King of Great Britain should be made at a Season when the Trade of England is so loaded and depressed by late grievous Impositions and Taxes laid upon It by several Laws since the Revolution in order to the carrying on of the present War and for the defraying the Charges of it Nor is it conceivable how after so many Discouragements given to the English East India Company not only in refusing them an Establishment by Law but in Delaying for several Years to grant them a Confirmation of their Charter and thereby putting them both to vast Expenses through their being so long in soliciting of it and the leaving them all that while naked and exposed to be undermined and supplanted by Interlopers that this unwonted and exuberant Grace should be exercised to the Kingdom of Scotland were it not done upon the Influence of Dutch Councils and in pursuance of Measures from Holland for the ruining the Trade of England And whosoever considers the little respect and the less affection which King William hath for the Scots Nation and with what disdain and contempt he speaks oâ— that whole Kingdom and treats those of the first Quality of it will easily believe That he did not authorise the Establishment of the forementioned Company out of kindness unto or concern for the Prosperity of that Nation but that it was done upon the Motives and in pursuance of foreign Councils Not that I do envy the Scots any Favour that is shewed them upon whatsoever Inducements it be done or that I blame the Parliament of Scotland for what they have done in this particular towards the raising of the Genius and encouraging the Industry of their People to the pursuit of Trade but what I would say is That as King William's Kindness to the Scots in this matter is to the apparent and visible Damage of the English so it is morally certain that both the first overture of such an Establishment sprung from Belgick Councils and that the Prince of Orange's Instructions which led that Parliament to such a Bill and the Royal Assent given thereunto by his Commissioner upon which it is become a Law and Statute is all in order to encrease the Trade and raise the Grandeur of the Dutch and to depress and lessen the Trade of England and thereby to weaken and impoverish the Kingdom For as the Author of a Paper called Some Considerations upon the late Act of the Parliament of Scotland for constituting an Indian Company has with Candor and Ingenuity told us Pag. 4. That the Original of that Design of settling a Company of Commerce for Strangers as well as for Scotch-men was not from Scotland nor from hence but altogether from foreign Parts which as he there tells us he had from good hands So we have reason upon his Testimony to receive what he says being so avowed a Patron of the Wisdom Justice and Equity of the said Act. However it will not be amiss to unfold a little more distinctly what he hath only obscurely and briefly insinuated In the doing whereof I must crave pardon for revealing a Secret committed to me in a private Conversation and the rather because I have always valued my self upon an inviolable Fidelity toward all that have trusted me and upon a tenacious Retentiveness and steddy Secrecy in reference to such Things as have been privately and under the Notion of friendship conveyed to me But where my Discretion has only been confided in but neither my Honour nor my Conscience have been engaged I do judg that I not only may but that in Duty I ought to disclose what hath been and is contrived and machinated in order to divide and separate these two Kingdoms and thereby to weaken if not ruin both of them namely That the Dutchâ— being afraid that either through the Prince of Orange's Death or through King James's Restauration these Nations may be awakened to consider how they have been first deluded and misled and then wronged and injured by the Hollanders and thereupon may be provoked to demand Reparation and grow enraged to persue Revenge they have therefore studied and concerted how to separate the Kingdoms of England and Scotland the one from the other And have proceeded so far therein as in either of the foregoing Cases to have allowance for it from Willam's Dutch Minions and Confidents which is equivalent to the having it from himself And accordingly they have treated with some of the Scotch Nation about it whom they have not only gratified with Mony to make them pliable but have given them assurance That there shall be Three or Four hundred thousand Pound ready to bribe and gain the chief and most leading Men of that Kingdom to comply with this Design at what time it may be needful for the Dutch to have it put in execution In pursuance whereof they have started the Project of a Scotch East India Company which that Nation had all the reason in the World to take hold of and they will be thought not only kind but just to themselves in gaining this Grant and Concession from the Crown for their coming into the Interest of this Man at a Season when their adhering to their Rightful King as was their Duty to have done would have made this Man's Title very uncertain and precarious and would have rendered his Abode in and Reign over these Kingdoms of a very short Duration and Continuance Nor will it escape the recommending the Wisdom of the Scots Nation to Posterity That whilst the English who have lavished away and wasted near 40 Millions sterl upon their Dutch King have not obtained one Beneficial National Act or Law in recompence of all that they have so foolishly and prodigally bestowed for the support of his Government the Scots by taking the Benefit of his foreign Inclinations and Affections have gained something that may be useful to them and their Off-spring It were high Presumption in me to undertake to declare how far the Scots Act is directly calculated and adapted to the Prejudice of England seeing that were to invade the Province and to break into the Rights of both Houses of the Parliament of England who being extreamly sensible of and having maturely weighed it have not only the Integrity and Fortitude to represent it
to have Satisfactorily answered The first is That they would tell us what the meaning of a King de facto is and how such a One differs from a King de jure For I find that many both of the Lawyers Gentry as well as of the Clergy who do wholy disbelieve and in their Minds disclaim the Prince of Orange's Right to the Sovereignty do yet allow themselves to swear Allegiance to him and do pay him the Duty of Subjects meerly because he is got into Possession of the Throne and Royal Title and de facto hath assumed the exercise of the Kingly Power Nor am I ignorant that the pedant Writers of Politicks do speak of a King de facto as well as of a King de jure but so far as I am capable of understanding Reason or good Sense no Man can be called a King de facto who is not either antecedently or concomitantly a King also de jure Seeiâ—g he that is stiled a King but who is not rightfully so is by all the Laws of God and Man a Robber and an Usurper but a King he is not nor can he be A Thief may as well be called a legal Proprietor of what he hath stolen from his Neighbour and he that Pads upon the Road may have as just a Claim to the Purse he hath forcibly taken from a Traveller though the Law makes both the one and the other obnoxious to be hanged and that very justly too as he can have either Right or Pretence to the Regal Title and Power who attains not to them by the Methods Rules and Measures and in the Virtue Force and Efficacy of the Constitution And as the Names of Intruder Usurper and Robber and not those of Prince Sovereign and King are which such a one ought only to be called by so instead of Allegiance due unto him or of our being under the Obligation eitheâ— of divine or human Laws to render unto that Person the Duties of Subjects we are bound boâ—h in Law and Conscience to raise Hue and Cry after him and to persue him and make him accountable for the Crimes which have entitled him to the Names of Robber of his Neighbours Crown and Intruder into and Usurper of another Man's Throne Things are stubborn and inflexible and will not change their Natures because of the complemental soft Words that are fastned upon them Theft Robbery and Usurpation will not cease to be the same evil and abominable Crimes which God hath denounced Curses against and which Men in all Ages have annexed Punishments unto notwithstanding the smooth Whitehall and Kensington Language with which we varnish them over And whereas the Word and Name King hath been hitherto taken for a fair honest and honourable Word and Name and held no ways reproachful for a vertuous Man to have it ascribed unto him and to be denominated by it I will venture to say that it is one of the worst and most scandalous Words in the World and the most disgraceful and injurious Title that a Person is capable of having given him if it be allowed to express an Usurper by and used of one that has no Right to a Crown but meerly the Possession of it But whereas there are some who through want of Sense and others who through Ignorance of the Law may take the Prince of Orange to be a King de jure and may thereby hope both to save their Consciences and their Credits and think to justify themselves from Treason and Disloyalty in their swearing Allegiance to him and yielding him the Fealty due from Subjects I desire therefore in the second Place to ask our Senators of Wisdom and our Gentlemen of the Gowns how this Right to be King accrues to the Prince of Orange and from what Sources of Law and Justice the Royal Stile and Authority come to be derived unto and vested in him and by what Tenure he bears the Royal Name and exerciseth the Sovereign Power For as there are but Three ways in any Nation of arriving lawfully at the Supream Authority and of coming legitimately and honestly to be a King namely either by the Right of hereditary Succession or by the Right of just and lawful Conquest or by the Right of Election where through the known Laws and the fundamental Provisions of the Constitution there is upon every Vacancy of the Throne a Privilege vested in the People or in their Representatives or in some select Number of the most honourable and qualified Persons to chuse one to fill it And as none can have the Impudence to say either that the Prince of Orange is King of England by the Right of hereditary Succession seeing there are divers Persons who have an hereditary Right of inheriting the Crown antecedently to him Or that he attained to be King by a lawful Conquest in a just War seeing that is not only disclaimed by himself and reprâ—bated by the Parliament but because the offering to establish his Title upon that Foundation and to justify it by that Plea were to put us into the State of Slaves instead of Subjects and to make us enjoy all we are and have by his Pleasure and Will and not to have any Property in them by our antient Laws So in the third Place none who have the least Acquaintance with the Nature of our Constitution the Frame of our Government or the many Laws of the Land relative to the Right and Manner of Succession in the Sovereignty will dare to pretend that upon a Demise of the Crown the People or any certain Number of Persons whatsoever stand legally vested with a Power of chusing who shall succeed And the reason is obvious because our Monarch is and has been always an hereditary Monarch and not an elective Wherefore though there have been sometimes Interruptions in the Rightful Succession and Translations of the Crown from one Family to another yet save in the Cases of direct Usurpation such as Oliver Cromwel's it was never attempted on the Foot and Principle of the Peoples having a Power resident in them by Law to elect their King but it was always on the Motive and Foundation of doubtful and controverted Titles Which Claim though in some it was very weak yet it was always insisted upon and what their Title wanted in legal Goodness they endeavoured to make out by military Power I might add That there was no Demise here neither by Death nor by Resignation and much less were there any vested with a Regal Power of abdicating deposing and driving away King James So that upon the whole the Prince of Orange can upon â—o Foundation whatsoever nor in any Sense received among Men of coming Lawfully to a Crown be King of England de jure and by consequence he must be contented to be held for no other than an Usurper and as such ought all Men to account him who according to the Laws of Revelation and of the Kingdom would either approve themselves to God
or have peace in their own Minds But then thirdly admitting the Prince of Orange to be King of England whether de Jure or de Facto I further enquire not I desire to ask the Two Houses of Parliament as well as our Lawyers and Divines of what Signification and Importance in their Judgments and Opinions the Word King is that the People may the better know the Nature Extent and Bounds of their Allegiance that being on their part Reciprocal and Corrolate to Kingship on the Sovereigns And this Question is the more necessary to be resolved in that the Notion and Idea of King is much different in the present Estimate of the Generality of Men as well within the Houses of Parliament as without them from what it is represented and found to be in our Laws and from what it has been always heretofore taken and acknowledged to be That therefore which with reference to my self as well as to many Thousands besides I would earnestly beg to know is Whether by King they mean a Sovereign Prince whose Person by virtue of the Authority lodged in him and by reason that the Peace and Welfare of the whole Society depends upon his Safety is Sacred and Inviolable who cannot legally be resisted opposed or withstood and much less be judged deposed and abdicated by any Power on Earth on any Pretence whatsoever and one without whose Call and Authority all Meetings Assemblies and Consultations about Matters of Government and State are Treason and Rebellion Or whether by King they do intend only a Person that is meerly in the Quality of a Trustee entrusted by and accountable to the People as his Principals and who being only vested with a delegated Power may therefore be resisted arraigned judged abdicated and drove away if he offend those over whom he is advanced to rule and act dissonantly from and contrary to the Laws of all which his Subjects are to be Judges For if King be taken in the first Sense to signify one that is unaccusable irresistable and unabdicable than we of this Nation neither have nor lawfully can have any other King than King James while he liveth and hath not renounced and disclaimed his Right And by consequence the Prince of Orange is no other than an Usurper And we out of our own Mouths and by our own Sentence no better than Rebels in abdicating the former and in submitting unto and owning the later And indeed the Principles upon which the Salisbury Dictator of Measures of Obedience Dr. Burnet who out of disloyal Malice to us endeavoured to subvert our antient Government and to battle all our Laws by his modern and treasonable Politicks striveth to justify the Abdication in a Book he hath lately published called Reflections on a Pamphlet entitled Some Discourses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson occasioned by the Funeral Sermon of the former upon the later plainly shew both how self condemned the Author is and what Rebellion he and the Nation are according to the Laws of God and Men become guilty by that Transaction For whereas he owns That illegal Acts and Acts of Tyranny and the remote Consequences of them do not justify the resisting of Princes and that they can be then only lawfully withstood when their going about to subvert totally the Constitution shall be plainly apparent P. 32 33 34 35 36 37. there is no more needful to be said for the loading of him and for the branding the Nation with the just Imputation of the highest and most detestable Treason committed in the Abdication of the King and in the Choise and Exaltation of the Prince of Orange to his Throne Seeing whatsoever illegal Acts which were not many nor of any menacing Importance to the Kingdom the King might be misled and hurried into by treacherous Councillors yet it is so far from being plainly apparent that he designed to subvert the Constitution that the contrary is demonstratively evident and that no Prince ever bore greater regard to the Laws Liberties and Prosperity of England than he did And as his Majesties sending an Ambassador to Rome his appointing Popish Bishops and his claiming a dispensing Power in reference to penal Laws about Religion are all the Instances which that traiterous Doctor gives of the King 's being embarqued in such an Attempt so they are such weak and impertinent Proofs of such a Design that it is to banter Mankind to raise a Suspition of it upon them and much more to stile them plain and apparent Evidences of it Nor needs there any more to shew that the Constitution was in no danger of being totally subverted by those Means and Overt Acts of Government than that neither the noble Person that went to Rome nor those that were constituted Popish Bishops nor any of them that gave Advice for the dispensing Power have been so much as arraigned and much less capitally punished as they would and deserved to have been if those Things had been of a direct and immediate Tendency to destroy totally the Constitution Nor would any Man have betrayed at once the Weakness and the Impudence as to have assigned those Acts of Administration and no other as convictive Proofs of an apparent Design in King James to subvert totally the Constitution but this noisy treacherous and disloyal Doctor who like to him that fired Diana's Temple to protect himself from Oblivion has been studying to raise himself a Monument upon the Banishment of his Sovereign the Ruin of our Antient Government and the Involving of these Kingdoms in a bloody and destructive War But then on the other had if King be taken in the second Sense for one that may be resisted arraigned deposed and drove away from his Throne and Kingdom then as the Prince of Orange hath but a flippery Seat of it and a thorny Crown so no Man can be lawfully required to take an Oath of Allegiance to him and much less justly punished by double Taxes or otherwise for refusing it Seeing if that be the Signification and Importance of King it may be every Man's Duty to assist in deposing and dethroning him And upon what I have said of his Miscarriages in Government and the Designs he is carrying on to the Ruin as well as Impoverishment of the Kingdom there is nothing remains to be added or adviced But to your Tents O Israel for this Man ought no longer to be suffer'd to pretend to reign over us For as he hath in many Instances apparently attempted the total Subversion of the Constitution which even by our Salisbury Doctor 's Principles of Politicks justifieth the deposing him and particularly both in the commanding a whole Tribe of Men that were under the Protection of the Laws to be massacred without any previous Tryal or Conviction and in his taking the Earl of Bredalbin by meer arbitrary Power not only out of the hands of Justice when he stood impeached by Parliament which whether he was justly or unjustly makes no Change in the Nature of what the Prince of Orange hath therein done but in putting him into the Administration of the Government as a Privy Councellor So he hath likewise in effect destroyed the very Kingdom and hath brought us into those Circumstances of Confusion Misery and Want out of which it is impossible to recover and deliver us while he is permitted to sit at the Helm And which if we be so sortish and so much Enemies to our selves and to our Posterity as to connive at any longer it will be out of the reach and power both of our Rightful King and of a well constituted Parliament ever to redeem us or either to retrieve the Nation from final Ruin or to save us from being Conquered by any potent Neighbour that may have a mind to invade us Nor will I enlarge this Discourse any further save to tell those who out of rebellious Enmity to a Rightful King and Idolatry of an Usurper may complain of the Acrfmony of some Expressions which will be found to occur in the foregoing Leaves That all the Language I have used is either consecrated by the Tongues or Pens of your Williamite Divines in their Pulpit Invectives against King James and the King of France or else it is all authorised by the Licenced Pamphlets published in way of Elogâ—e upon the present Government and Satyr upon the last And whosoever will waste so much time as to peruse a Paper stiled A Dialogue between the King of France and the late King James occasioned by the Death of the Queen will justify me in the Reprisals and Retaliations I have made Only whereas little is to be met with in these Sermons and Pamphlets but ridiculous Fiction and impudent Slander as well as dull Malice there will nothing be found in these Sheets but weighed and measured Truth though sometimes a little piquantly expressed Decemb. 20. 1695. ERRATA Page 2 line 30. before other read of ibid. l. 38. for staâ—e r. state p. 4. l. ult for stuff r. strife p. 5. l. 25. dele same p. 6. l. 36. for Redress r. Readers p. 9. l. 1. r. where we had for a great while been in the quiet and peaceable Possession p. 11. l. 37. r. plead p. 12. l. 15. dele a before Servant p. 13. l. 8. r. Placat's ibid. l. 20. r. Rude ibid. l. ult for their r. these p. 14. l. 8. r. become ibid. l. 20. for th r. to p. 15. l. 7. before it r. as ibid. l. 13. for were r. we p. 16. l. 3 4. r. putting ibid. l. 6. r. Guet p. 20. l. 21. r. executed ibid. l. 27. for yet r. yea p. 22. l. 35. after with r. the p. 23. l. 8. r. Donative p. 25. l. 38. r. Bordacho's p. 32. l. 33. before Mischiefs r. the p. 33. l. 6. before have r. they ibid. l. 12. two Millions p. 34. l. 7. after transported put p. 35. l. 33. for mark r. mask p. 36. l. 12. r. thither ibid. l. 19. for so r. for ibid. l. 20. for more r. were ibid. l. 33. r. they thus p. 37. l. ult dele they p. 38. l. 8. after unto put ibid. l. 21. r. become p. 43. l. 14. r. whereof p. 47. l. 28. r. Villanies p. 48. l. 28. r. become ibid. l. 29. r. Center p. 50. l. 25. r. Officers ibid. l. 30. r. the p. 51. l. 3. r. Plebi ibid. l. 11. dele to ibid. l. 22. before the r. that p. 55. l. 32. r. no.