Selected quad for the lemma: prince_n
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A61038
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The speech of an honest Common-council man Mr. Chairman, the discent from France, I confess finds more credit with me than I was willing at first to give it; and from the just apprehension I have of the consequences of it, I now rise to speak; ...
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Honest Council-man.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing S4862BA; ESTC R215447
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5,889
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2
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hitherto refus'd to hear that they are like to be ruined by the War and what the Gentleman does will sway most with them Lastly The Mob who are almost starving every-where for want of Peace always loved Changes and Novelty expecting still that there is something to be got by them So that upon the whole Matter there seems no sort of Men but those who are actually in Office likely to venture for the present Government in an extremity and when they cannot find their Names in the King's Declaration among the excepted I dare say they 'll not be to be found by the Government when it wants their Support Not to say that some of them would perhaps be willingly thought by King James's Party to intend his Service by being in it They can the better conduct it to his ends and recommend themselves by making the Change easier when the time comes Shall we then of this City add to our former Reckonings Or by our wise management blot them out It is not a time of day for us to be Tools London that has most to loose has most to take care of and for that reason should run the least hazard for it is certain if We resist whoever has the best of it Poor England will have the worst and of all England to be sure London I think that is enough to men in business that have something to loose and desire to get by honester ways than Sacking and Plundering But though these considerations seem moving enough upon a prudent account yet there is something I must leave with you that sticks much with me in point of Judgment and Conscience and which I beseech you to hear with patience and interpret with Candor First I do profess to you I am not satisfied with the power of changing Governments that we have lately exercised It is plain our Laws have never allow'd it and in the end have ever punished it Observe the conclusion of those four or five Interruptions of the right Line that have been since the Conquest which is now more than Six hundred years and you will find things have ever returned to their own Channel with unhappy marks upon the Families that have been the Authors of them Of which Sir Walter Raleigh in his excellent Preface to his History of the World is very particular and instructing And we are sure that the Law was so understood and given by all the learned Judges and Council of the Kingdom Anno 1660. at the Trial of the Kings Judges A Gentleman of my Intimacy obliged me lately with the reading of it and truly I could not but lament the unhappiness of us Englishmen that Loyalty and Rebellion should have such uncertain significations with us and that in less than half an Age what was then called Loyalty is now accounted Treason and that which is Loyalty now was then adjudged Rebellion For it was the sense of that great presence great both in Quality and Law when the P. Council Judges Lawyers and many of both Houses of Parliament were there but particularly of Sir Orlando Bridgman and Sir Heneage Finch one Keeper the other Chancellor since that the Kings of England are Soveraign Princes and not accountable to the People either Collectively or Representatively and they urged that old maxime The King cannot err because the King acts by other Persons And indeed no man would be a King to answer for every fault in the Administration which he either cannot always understand or must be omnipresent to hinder But here the Case was quite contrary and this antient Doctrine of Law turn'd upside down For no body was punish'd but the King. And it is whispered by some that should know that the most offensive acts of his Government were the advices of those that are in the favour of this as if they had been concerted and laid elsewhere for his ruine I think we should be more constant to our selves and have one fixt Rule of Duty and that our Obedience to it should be our safety And if that pernitious Principle or Practice at least of doing evil that good may come of it was out of the World we might be quiet if not prosperous that were a great part of happiness I cannot think but they who to mend the matter step out of Gods way as well as that of the Law in the end miss the mark and loose by the Attempt they seem to disengage Providence from taking care of their Prosperity or Protection that seek it by indirect means Another thing is this that as the supposition of the Kings Imposing a false Child upon the Kingdoms to the prejudice of the undoubted Heirs was the best excuse as well as the pretence for the Dutch Invasion so besides what the King did before to prove the Legitimacy of the Prince of Wales He has put his Queens Childableness or capacity of having Children out of all question by sending above 30 Letters to Lords Ladies and Gentlemen of the Protestant Religion amongst us viz. Some of his old Privy Council and others in this Government to be Witnesses of the Birth of the Child she now goes with A Condescention in a King and Queen that would overcome any obstinacy but ours and I hope we are not so senslesly and malicâ—ously tenacious as to reject the conviction and satisfaction the King offers us especially when we made the pretence of wanting it before an Argument to reject him For then we proclaim our dissatisfaction but a pretence and therein our own Immorality to the World. And truly Gentlemen when I remember that other Folks have forgotten to examine in Parliament that point of the Pr. of Ws it is beyond all scruple with me the doing it was never meant and it is a question to be free with you if they made any of the truth of his Birth that have got so much by pretending the Imposture Else they would not have sent Monsieur Zulesteine to Complement the K. and Qu. upon it as they did and to my own knowledge this Government has been challenged upon this point that if People might have leave the truth of the Birth of the Pr. should be made out in Parliament beyond all manner of exception but no Answer was ever yet obtained And if the Kings of Engl. were deposable as they are not for if the Crown takes away the defects in a lawful Successor as saith our Law it receives and admits of none in the Regnant person yet the next Heir always Inherits But here the next Heir is excluded and excluded as an Imposture and yet the Imposture is not at all mâ—de appear The K. and Qu. own him and 17. or 18. People of Quality that are Protestants and some of them in this Government are Witnesses of his Birth and more offâ—r to prove it This sticks with me I have Children of my own and all of them had not so many Witnesses of the truth of their Birth and yet I should take it very ill if any should question it and before I end this particular I must say that for a King so far to humour this base Jealousie and to stoop to our prejudice as well as our ignorance to let our Eyes convince us and justifie him shows to me Gentlemen I don't know what it does to you that he dâ—sires not to cut his way to his Crâ—wn through Blood nor to appease his displeasure with the Lives and Estates of his mislead or misleading Subjects but to be reconciled to his offending People or else he would certainly not seâ—k to inform them but to destroy them My last poiâ—â— iâ— that he does not appear to me to be that Arbitrary Man any more than the Insincere Man we have had him represented to us For if he intended an absolute Rule He would come as a Conqueror and not as a Legal King with no Declaration but his Sword and that should be the Tenour of his Crown and the Condition of our Obedience This is our fear or pretence if this were his aim or hope he would never come while we were able to resist He would stay till the War had not left us the power as well as the heart to do it But his coming now tells us plainly he had rather be a King than a Tributary and the King of a Free and a Rich People then of Beggars and Slaves For he knows as well as we the many Millions we have paid the Lives that are lost the Ships that are taken and the decay also of Trade And that all this Treasure Blood and Loss have only humbled England and that France is not a jot the weaker for it but that the War at home to get and keep his Crown has only devoured it and that now we are beginning the War with France That he knows is Wise Rich and Strong after three years Consumption within our selves upon private ends A fearful and costly Ambition What we were told was never intended but what we see and feel has been the effect of the change God help us and help us to understand our selves that we may help our selves while we can in the evening of our time or we are a lost People I have done Gentlemen when I have told you I am for meeting the King in the Ways of Peace and Duty and beseech you by the love you bear to your Wives your Children your Selvâ—â— and your Country that you embrace my Motion for Honest Men and English Men can have no Pleasure or Interest in seeing the Royal Family torn in pieces and these Kingdoms destroyed in the Fray. FINIS