Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A80507
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The coppy of a letter written to the lower house of Parliament touching divers grievances and inconveniences of the state &c.
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1641
(1641)
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Wing C6176A; Thomason E167_9; ESTC R318
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12,938
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26
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was so contrary to the first information and so displeasing to the Informer and his designes that hee caused the Physitians remoove from his highnesse presence who yet remaines in kind of a banished man The truth of this two reports is easily determined by the Clarkes of the bands of each Company and is worthy to be discovered for truths sake truth being so noble of it selfe as it will make him honourable that pronounceth it lyes may shadow it but not darken it they may blame but never shame it by this small precedent his Majesty shall see himselfe abused and it may bee a meanes for him to reflect both upon men and matter The men slaine are no lesse injured by concealing their names whose lives were lost for King and Countrey The Romans would have held it the highest honour for their friends and posterity so to doe and the Parliament may feare that those that stick not so palpably to wrong a King may as unjustly cast aspersions upon the house and other his loving Subjects There is no remedy left for thse mis-reports but a freedome of speech in Parliament for there is no wise man but knowes what and when to speake and how to hold his peace whilest Subjects tongues are tied for feare they may reach him a rap whose conscience cries guilty The King and his people are kept from understanding one another the enemy is hartened abroad and the malignant humour of discontent nourished at home and all for one who is like a Dragon that bites the eares of the Elephant because he knowes the Elephant cannot reach him with his Trunke And Princes are abused by false reports whispered in their eares by Sicophants and Flatterers Diogines being asked what Beast bite soarest answered of wild Beasts the Backbiter of tame the Flatterer Now to discend to grievances which are of two kinds First Some concerning the Kingdome in generall Secondly Some in particular which have relation to the generall The grievances in generall are so many as will serve for every member of your House to present two a peece to your viewes and because I cannot bee admitted amongst you my selfe yet in regard I have beene a member of you I will presume so farre as to ranke my selfe with you and to tender the number of two to your consideration 1. My first complaint is of titles of honour and that in two kinds First In respect of the parties themselves their estates and parentage Secondly In respect of the manner of their attaining therunto which is mercenary ease and corrupt which in reason should not hold for by Law the consideration is unlawfull Trajan commended Plutarch for his precepts in Schoole when hee taught that men should labour to deserve honour but avoid the getting of it basely for if it were reputation to have it by desert it was infamie to buy it for money in that age where rich men were honoured good men were despised Honour is not to bee valued according to the vulgar opinion of men but prized and esteemed as the surname of vertue ingendred in the mind and such honour no King can or men can purchase Hee that will strive to bee more honourable then others ought to abandon passion pride and arrogancy that so his vertue may shine above others for honour consists not in the title of a Lord but in the opinion people have of his vertue for it is much more honour to deserve and not to have it then to have it and not deserve it There is one of three things that commonly causeth a mans advancement desert favour and power 1. The first makes a man worthy of it the other two are but abuses for favour is but a blind fortune an ounce of which at Court is better then a pound of wisdome fortune never favoreth but flattereth shee never promiseth but in the end shee deceiveth shee never raiseth but shee casteth downe againe and this advancement is meeter to bee called luck then merit That honour that is compassed by power takes unto it selfe liberty and desires not to bee governed by wisedome but force It knowes not what it desires nor hath a feeling of any injury it is neither mooved with sweet words nor pittifull teares such men leave not to doe evill because they have a desire to it but when their power faileth to doe it The true honour amongst the honorablest is where fortune casteth downe where there is no fault but it is infamy where fortune raiseth where there is no merit Examine the state and condition of men raised to honour these five and twenty yeares past and whether it be desert favour or power that hath preferred them Enter into the mischiefe the Kingdome hath suffered and doth suffer by it and the cause of his Majesties great wants will soone appeare Collect with your selves how many poore and needy companions have beene raised to the highest top of honour then will it appeare whether desert favour or power advanced them After this examine their Princely expences in these five and twenty yeares their estates in present and what is requisite to maintaine their future degrees of honour to themselves and their posterity and you shall find his Majesties annuall revenewes consumed and spent upon those unworthy persons besides the impayring and impoverishing of the state it bringing with it the contempt of greatnesse and authority It breeds an inward malice in Gentlemen better deserving of their Country better able to maintain the degree of honour without charge to King or Kingdome and whose houses and alliance may better challenge then the best of them It breeds discontent in the meaner sort of Subjects to see his Majesties wealth and revenewes of the Kingdome thus wasted and consumed whereby his Majesty is enforced to exact from them who would otherwise bee able to helpe himselfe The ancient and great Nobility of the land cannot choose but inwardly fret to see themselves ranked yea overtopped by these men that once would have thought it an honour to bee a follower of theirs The second abuse of honour is the base and mercenary buying of it observe commonly what these people are by birth and mark the manner of their and their Fathers getting of wealth to compasse this title and you shall find them people most odious to the Common-wealth by their extortion usury and other ungodly kind of getting Can there bee a greater grievance to a noble mind then to see these upstart families by their unsufferable misery penury and extortion growne to wealth to preceede the best of you in ranke degree and calling whose Ancestors have lost their lives for King and Country and your selves in many respects more able and capable of serving your Prince and Common-wealth then they and every way better deserving The character of a covetous man is that hee getteth his goods with care and envy of his Neighbours with sorrow to his enemies with travell to his body with griefe to his Spirit with scruple to his
conscience with danger to his soule with suite to his children and curse to his heires his desire is to live poore to die rich But as these vices are made vertues even so is hee honoured for them with title of Nobility It is a strange ambition of some of them to purchase the degrees of Earles Viscounts and Barons of other Countries as of Scotland and Ireland onely for the name of a Lord for no other priviledge they can challenge in England if they commit any criminall offences they shall bee tried by an ordinary jury and hanged if they stood in danger of arrest as I thinke they are not much inriched by their title they are subject to catch-pooles and a Dungion in the Counter may be their Sanctuary And seeing their pride makes them covet to divide themselves from you and to become Scots and Irish you can doe no lesse in requitall but make an Act that so long as they hold the titles of Forrainers they be made uncapable to sit in the House of Parliament or to enjoy any freedome more then his Majesties Subjects of Scotland or Ireland Few of you are there that have not seene Nobility highly praised in England and much esteemed abroad and none of you now liveth but to see it abused and liberty with too great familiarity in use the State of the Court and reputation of Lords are much decayed and boldnesse with contempt crept in and no way to bee redressed but by argentle speech in Parliament that so his Majesty may see the mischiefe of it and reforme it for it rests onely in his power who onely hath power to create honour When Philip the second King of Spaine entred with Armes upon his Kingdome of Portugall and that with his sword hee might have any fitting lawes yet were there foure priviledges which the Portugals besought they might enjoy One whereof was that the King would make no unworthy person noble without their approbation which was granted them And to this day they hold that freedome which keepes that Kingdome in the ancient state honour and dignity That is to say two Dukes one Marquesse and eighteen Earles and thus much for the point of honour The second grievance I will recommend to your viewes is the carriage of our Warres the excessive charges vainely spent therein the unworthinesse of the people imployed the grave experience neglected the designes not warranted by reason and discretion and the executions worse performed with many other circumstances that depend upon it But before I proceede herein I must crave leave to speake to two points The one to declare the property and condition of Impostures and Deceavers of Princes In the other I must cleare the House of Parliament of an imputation cast upon it Abusers of Princes are they that perswade them to Warre to become poore when they may live in peace and become rich when they may be loved causeth them to bee hated when they may enjoy their lives securely put them in hazard of crosse fortune rashly And lastly having necessity to use their Subjects puts them into that necessity as they refuse to doe for him all this is pride of the perswader as Socrates saith In the second I will cleare the Parliament in which I was a member of an ingratefull aspersion cast upon it that is to say that the Parliament was a cause to draw his Majesty into Warre and failed on their part to contribute towards it These have beene often repeated and the Parliament accused the contrary hath beene as often reiterated and the truth expressed how farre the Parliament proceeded therein but to stop the mouths of such false reports and to free the Parliament of such a calumniation I must use this Argument At the assembly at Oxford the Parliament being prorogued thither money was required of us towards the furnishing of his Majesties Fleet then preparing upon many reasons alledged too tedious now to repeat with one consent it was refused whereupon there was offer made by him that next the King seemed to have best authority that if they would but contribute 40000. l. they should choose their enemy Whereupon I enferre that before that proposition there was no enemy and therefore no Warres The motion of money being denied the Parliament instantly brake up and seeing no enemy was nominated nor money consented to by us I see not how the house can bee taxed for peace breakers but rather the name cast upon some young men for youth by nature is prone to pride especially where experience wants they are credulous what they heare that pleaseth them and incredulous with what is told them by wise men they are despisers of others Councels and very poore in their owne they are dangerous for Princes to relie on for selfe-will is of greater force then precepts Now to proceede in October following the Fleete put to Sea and what they did is apparant by relation written by their Generall at his returne The voyage being ended another followed the next Summer under the command of that noble Lord the Earle of Linsey which through the weakenesse and dissability of the Ships was not able to performe what he had in charge and what he desired The last and most lamentable was that to the Isle of Rhee which I likewise referre to a man I have seene and to the Bookes printed and extant These with that to Algiers to make up a messe of Island voyages I wish might be referred to examination of choyce and experienced souldiers by land and by Sea to report their opinions of it that so their errours their wastfull expences their negligences their weake designes and want of experience may appeare with the successe that might have proved if advice and councell had had preheminence above will and arrogancy for hee that is ignorant of truth and knowledge and led away with pride of his owne opinions must needs erre After it hath past your approbation it is worth his Majesties view who then shall see the difference of actions well managed and rash and heady enterprises undertaken by ignorance and performed with folly Busines of so great a consequence ought to be considered of Councell and not onely of the necessity profit and honour but of the possibility that was like to follow for an action well begun is halfe ended My experience in Discipline of Warres by Land and Sea can say no more then to referre it to others for it is a course I never was bred to in my youth and now to late in my age to practise onely one thing I observe that in the two vogayes of Cadeze and Rhee in the first a Land souldier commanded at Sea who knew not what belonged thereunto And the other was carried by him that was no souldier neither by Land nor by Sea and the successe proved accordingly in both yet their errours were never questioned but they both highly advanced In my opinion the charge they tooke upon them was as improper as