Selected quad for the lemma: prince_n
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A40459
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The French intrigues discovered with the methods and arts to retrench the potency of France by land and sea and to confine that monarch within his antient dominions and territories : humbly submitted to the consideration of the princes and states of Europe, especially of England / written in a letter from a person of quality abroad to his corrsepondent here.
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Person of quality abroad.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing F2185; ESTC R9404
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35,025
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34
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hath taken notice of it They are in continual acquests of Dominion by force or fraud and what they get by fraud they keep by force for the Sword with them is ever better than half the Title to any Dominion They do not onely pursue but commonly wound their Adversary before they declare him such or give him leisure to draw They first invade a Princes Territories and after set up their Title and Cause of War They are not concerned that all the world observe their pretence to be false and trifling vain and unjust warranted by no other reason than that of absolute and unbounded Will which are the foundation and conclusion of all the Actions of the Most Christian King and Wars abroad as well as of his Laws and Edicts at home expressed in these imperious words Tel est Nostre Plaiser It 's a prime Maxime of the French Cabal That that Prince which wars for his Glory and avows Power to be the Rule and Strength the Law of Justice may without Right enter upon any Princes Dominions and may in Honour and Justice detain them so they be of conveniency to him to keep them The Dukes of Lorrain Deux-ponts and Mewthelward and the ten free Towns in Alsatia sufficiently prove the truth thereof They have erected at Metz a Court where his Most Christian Majesty as Judge and Party cites the most August and Illustrious Houses of the Empire which he hath nothing to do withal to make their appearance and to give him an account by what Right they possess that which their Predecessors have for three or four hundred years peaceably enjoyed His pretentions are to the greatest part of Lorrain the whole Dukedom of Deux-ponts and the best part of Alsatia as far as Lauterburg These as ancient Dependencies of the Bishopricks of Metz Toul and Verdun and Thersow must be reunited to that Crown because they are of conveniency for him By this all Kings Princes and States may see what they are to expect if they come within the despotical power of France All Princes and States which may give them any jealousie they keep employed and designe to depress all Powers which are capable of obstructing the Torrent of their Ambition All Europe is sensible thereof to their grief They have engaged the Swedes to embroil the Empire which they did to the loss of all their Territories and Dominions in Germany And they brought the Turks upon the Muscovites whereby the Swedish Army in Livonia was let loose upon the Confederate Princes They worked the Messinesses to form a Rebellion against his Catholick Majesty their Soveraign Prince in Sicily and had gotten Messina into their power where they had a potent Fleet of Men of War thereby to give Law to all which should pass upon the Mediterranean But afterwards because they could not keep it did most perfidiously desert them whereby those poor people were exposed to the displeasure of an inraged Prince and to the greatest miseries and calamities imaginable A fair warning to all ambitious and discontented persons who shall quit their Allegiance which they owe to their natural Prince They are continually brooding of Mischief and labouring to enlarge their Empire herein imitating the Grand Seignior of Asia who first subdued Asia Minor then he passed over into Europe and conquered all Greece next he falls upon Syria Egypt and Armenia till at last he came as far as Moldavia and Hungary And doth not the French Cabal observe the same method conquering or surprizing one Dominion after another by Arms endeavouring to reduce the Seventeen Provinces under his Obedience and also Germany labouring some of the Princes thereof to stand Neutral working others to their Party by proposals of Matches and other Artifices and will in short time if not prevented shake hands with the other Grand Seignior of Asia They have now in designe by the power of their Arms to procure the Dauphin to be elected King of the Romans Are not the persons and Estates of the three Ecclesiastical Electors and of the Prince Palatine of the Rhine every hour exposed to the Violences and Irruptions of the Arms of the French It may easily be foreseen without the help of Galileas Prospective whether by force or promises which will never be kept they may not give their Suffrages for that ambitious Crown and how far the Marquess of Brandenburg may be prevailed with by reason of that dishonourable Peace patched up at the Congress at Nimmeguen a little time will discover But if the Dauphin shall be advanced to the Imperial Dignity will not Germany become a Province to the French Monarchy the fatal consequences whereof let Europe soberly consider Can the Princes thereof expect better terms than they have given to the Duke of Lorrain For certain the Protestants will be sure of the same usage and infelicities which the poor Hugonots are now under in France For Fire and Fagot must be prooemial to his Universal Monarchy Dissimulation is the best support of the French Interest and the first step to their Grandeur And to deal plainly with you that Prince which will lay the foundation of Empire by Cruelty must build the Superstructures by dissimulation The whole Globe of Miseries Calamities and Infelicities which Europe hath suffered for many years we must own to the unlucky contrivance and ambitious designes of the French Cabal If there be not a Retrenchment of the Grandeur and Potency of that aspiring Monarch I have so much of an Astrologer in me that I can foretel what will be the fate of Europe France like a perpetual Aetna will fling Fire and Flames Bloud and Confusion into the Dominions of the Kings and Princes of Europe and will be more dreadful to his Neighbours than the Indian Hurricanes are to the Natives there The common Inscription of his Cannon Ratio ultima Regum is by him inverted to a contrary sence and made a publick Warning to mankind That he designes as God did of old to give Law to the world in Thunder and Lightning To scatter by the flames of his Artillery all those Clouds of Confederate Forces that shall eclipse the Majesty of his Glory He makes the power of his Arms his first and last reason His Device the Sun in its Meridian with this Motto Non pluribus impar sufficiently shews his intentions for the Universal Monarchy and the haughty opinion he conceives of his being the onely person qualified for the government of more Worlds than one declares his resolutions of admitting no Rivals in Soveraignty looking upon all other Princes but as so many smaller Stars or wandring Planets compared with him the Sun from whom they are to receive their borrowed light or power as it shall please his Mightiness to dispence So that crowned heads Princes and Republicks as well as their Subjects are to expect the same meat of Slavery and though that be not sweat yet the Sawce will be four Poinant to all though perhaps a little differenced