Selected quad for the lemma: state_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	general_n	majesty_n	treaty_n	1,126	5	9.2755	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36497	A discourse written by Sir George Downing, the King of Great Britain's envoy extraordinary to the states of the United Provinces vindicating his royal master from the insolencies of a scandalous libel, printed under the title of (An extract out of the register of the States General of the United Provinces, upon the memorial of Sir George Downing, envoy, &c.), and delivered by the agent De Hyde for such to several publick ministers : whereas no such resolution was ever communicated to the said envoy, nor any answer returned at all by their lordships to the said memorial : whereunto is added a relation of some former and later proceedings of the Hollanders / by a meaner hand.	Downing, George, Sir, 1623?-1684.	1672 (1672)	Wing D2108; ESTC R34994	50,712	177

time they have omitted no days even those appropriated for holy duties to drive on their Preparations for Warr How have they stood in defence of their violent and unjust proceedings and instead of redressing their Injuries they have encreased them About the year 1662 they concluded a Treaty with the English and having engaged That better order should for the future be observed they have since heaped new Injuries endeavouring the utter overthrow of all the Trade of his Majesty's subjects in the East and West Indies witness our ships the Hopewell Leopard and some others in the East-Indies and the Charles the James the Mary the Sampson the Hopeful Adventurer and the Speedwell on the Coast of Africa And after all these Acts of the highest Injustice and their utmost endeavours for driving on a War they have done and would still make the world believe That His Majesty is the first Vndertaker of it who from his own mouth to their Ambassador in England and by his Injunctions to Sir George Downing his Minister in Holland hath given so many and such remarkable Demonstrations to the contrary What can they say to the Memorial of the Complaints which Sir George Downing exhibited to the States General importing That in the space of a very few years almost twenty English with their whole Lading to a very great value have been seized upon in a very horrible manner and the men in them most barbarously and most inhumanly treated being put into stinking and most nasty Dungeons and Holes at Casteldelmina where they did lye bedded and bathed in their own excrements having nothing but bread and water given them and not enough of that neither to sustain Nature their bodies being under the fury of exquisite and horrid torments and when any of them dyed the living and the dead were left together and such as outliv'd that Cruelty were exposed in the Woods to Famine or to the mercy of wild beasts in those desolate Countries or to be carried into captivity by the Natives by which means several hundreds of his Majesties good Subjects have perished and been destroyed And to this hour notwithstanding all sollicitations and endeavours of his Majesties Envoy not one penny of satisfaction can be had either for the loss of the ships or the persons concerned in any of them but to the contrary they have ever since hindred and shot at the English ships that have anchored by them How inhumanly and treacherously was one Captain Jordan butcher'd by them who sailing from Bantam with two ships the one called the Sampson and the other the Hound to the great Islands of Burnew he discovered three or four Dutch ships standing in for the same Port and being confident that they intended no good to him he gave order to prepare for the Encounter fully resolving to fight it out to the last man rather than to yeild himself to the unmerciful hands of his insulting and approaching Enemies The Dutch summoned to deliver the ships upon fair Quarter but Captain Jordan who had a great heart in a little body absolutely refused to yeild upon any condition whatever The Dutch pretending to be unwilling to shed blood called out to the English and told them That they knew well enough that little Captain Jordan was there and desired them to perswade him to parley with them The Captain being informed of it refused to have any conference with them whereupon they desired that he would but shew himself on the Quarter-Deck that by a fair compliance they might stop the effusion of blood which otherwise must follow Whereupon Capt. Jordan thinking that to speak with them could not much prejudice him did shew himself on the Quarter-deck and after the exchange of some few words told them That he knew the Justice of his Cause and the Injustice of theirs and was resolved to fight it out The Hollander alledging That their strength was far greater than his and it was rather Desperateness than true Valour to fight upon such a disadvantage This prevailed nothing with Capt. Jordan who told them He was resolved to fight it out and leave the success to God The Dutch finding him untractable to their demands held him still in discourse until a Musquet-bullet from one of their ships laid him dead on the Quarter-deck as he was in parley with them At that very instant of time whether by Treachery or by Accident it is uncertain a part of the other English Ship called the Hound was blown up and many of her men mortally hurt The amazement was so great that the English were enforced to yeild who having taken them did instantly lade them with bolts and did not allow them so much favour as they showed to the Heathen Thus may we observe what Injury and Wrong we have all along sustained by the Dutch who have got many of those Islands where now they have seated themselves by Cruelty and Bloodshed and by murthering the English and their Friends These indeed are sad Relations and though dismal in themselves they are but the Prologues to their more bloody Tragedies But to give further proof of their Confidence and Ambition they have published a Declaration wherein they assume and challenge to themselves a Right to that whole Coast to the exclusion of all other Nations although by Order from his Majesty Sir George Downing both in publick conferences with the Deputies of the Lords General as also with those of Holland in particular hath at large remonstrated his Majesties Right and Interest in some part therein having by his Subjects bought the ground of the King of that Countrey for a valuable Consideration and built a Factory thereon and yet for all this some of the Dutch West-India Company by fraud and treachery have got into the place and no hopes of the restitution of it for they are resolved to keep that by Violence which they have obtained by Deceit Moreover What can they say for themselves concerning their stirring up the King of Fantin by rewards and sums of money and supplying him with all manner of Arms and Ammunition for the surprizing of his Majesties Castle at Cormantin in the West-Indies so that an absolute necessity is imposed upon his Majesty and his Subjects either of losing all that have been actually taken from them and abandoning for ever that Trade it self or of betaking themselves to some other way for relief The Island of Polleroon hath been surrendring back to the English ever since the year 1622 at which time by a solemn and particular Treaty it was promised to be done and again by another Treaty in the year 1654 and by an Order of the States General and the East-Indie-Company of that Nation in the year 1661 and again by another Treaty in the year following and yet to this day there is not the least mention of any thing Restored And should any man then think it strange that his Majesty after so long an experience of the Perversness and Deceitfulness

and Ammunition which have ever been prohibited the Indians by the English all their Musquets were charged with Powder and Ball which with some of the principal Indians were carried to Boston who upon examination confessed the Dutch had set them a work all that we could then doe was but to put our selves in our best Posture of Defence Having thus given you a summary account of some of their cruelties I cannot omit one particular passage Chronicled by themselves wherein you may see in the cruel disposition of one the bloody inclination of the whole Flemish Nation At the Siedg of Leyden a Fort being held by the Spanish Party was after taken by the Dutch by assault or storm The Defendants according to the Law of Arms were put to the sword where one of the Dutch in the fury of the slaughter ript up the Captains body and with a barbarous hand tore out the yet living heart panting among the reeking bowels then with his teeth rent it still warm with blood into gobbets which he did spit over the Battlements in defiance to the rest of the Army Now as we have with brevity displayed the cruelty and treachery of the Nature and Actions of the Hollander both at home and abroad so we must not forget what hath been by them committed since the year 1660. At which time it was his Majesties particular care to conclude a strict League with the States General of the United Provinces upon such equal Terms as would certainly not have been broken if any Obligations could have kept them within the bounds of Justice or Friendship this League was inviolably kept and maintained on his But in the year 1664. such and so many were the complaints of his Majesties Subjects abused and wronged by the ungrateful Hollander that the King with the Unanimous vote of both Houses of Parliament was provoked to war finding it a vain attempt to indeavour the prosperity of the three Kingdoms by peaceable wayes at home whilst the People thereof were still exposed to the injuries and oppressions of the States abroad His Majesty spent a whole Summer in negotiations and indeavours to bring them to reasonable terms which notwithstanding all He could do proved at length ineffectual for the more his Majesty pursued them with friendly Propositions the more obstinately and unworthily they kept off from agreeing thereunto upon this ensued the War in the year 1665. and continued to the year 1667. in all which time our Victories and their Losses were memorable enough to put them in mind of being more faithful to their Leagues for the future Which Victories they endeavoured to stifle by misreporting them conquests to their People over the their gallantly equipt English Navy and particularly that of the third of June 1665. under the conduct of his Royal Highness the Duke of York Narrative whereof was Printed for general satisfaction and to preven● misreports which are commonly through ignorance or malice begotten upon occasions of that Nature and lest that signal Victory should be forgotten in short it was this the Dutch Fleet was brought on our Coasts in all probability rather in expectation of finding Ours in disorder upon the proceeding foul weather or by the Reports of our unreadiness then from their own innate Valour but they were much mistaken for it cost his Royal Highness but little time to make ready his fore-going care and the cheerfulness of our men having prevented all hazard of disorder and the happy arrival of the Colliers haveing supplyed us with what we only wanted Men but not Courage the Dutch perceiving this stood off to Sea the number of their Ships being one Hundred and ten Sail besides ten Fire Ships we followed them till that Evening and the next day forced them to fight upon the whole matter it pleased God to give his Majesty a great and signal Victory the Enemy being driven into the Texe●… as far as the draught of water and the condition of our Ships would permit the day being also very far spent the summe of all is the Enemie●… whole Fleet was defeated Thirty of them burnt or taken Opdam with his Ship blown up as is supposed by a lucky shot in the Powder-room most of their Admirals killed with many more of their Principal Officers and according to their general computation eight Thousand Seamen and Soldiers on our side only one Ship lost with some other slight damage The God of Heaven be praised for preserving his Royal Highness to be the great instrument of so signal a success and continuing him to the perfecting this great work in hand to the honour of his Majesty and the welfare of his People And that you may trace them farther in their unworthiness and ingratitude this Victory with the fear of being made no People had no sooner brought them on their knees and his Majesty out of his accustomed Clemency and Commiseration had received them into favour by making Peace with them but they returned to their usual custom of breaking Articles and supplanting our Trade For instance the States were particularly ingaged in an Article of the Treaty at Breda to send Commissioners to his Majesty at London about the Regulation of our Trade in the East Indies but they were so far from doing it on that obligation that when an Ambassador was sent over to put them in mind of it He could not in three years time get from them any satisfaction in the material points nor a forbearance of the wrongs his Majesties Subjects received in those parts To give you an account of every particular wrong and injury the English suffered by the Dutch in their East India factory would be a Task as difficult to do as to tell the spokes of a running Coach-wheele let it suffice his Majestie is throughly sensible of them from the just and miserable complaints of the Sufferers and will now with Gods Assistance now call them to a severe account for all their insufferable wrongs and abuses which the East could not contain and therefore they went a little farther in the West Indies For by an Article in the same Treaty his Majesty was to restore Surinam into their hands and by Articles upon the Place confirmed by that Treaty they were to give liberty to all the King of Englands subjects in that Colony to transport themselves and their Estates into any other of his Majesties Plantations In pursuance of this agreement the place was delivered up and yet they detained all our men in it only one emiminent Person they sent away prisoner for but desiring to remove according to the Articles To what a height will this insolence and perfidiousness of theirs arrive to if not timely check't and prevented How arrogant and presumptious will they be if the bladder of their pride blown up with violence and oppression be not suddenly prick't and so let out the airy opinion of their supposed strength and greatness I know not what their arrogance and ambition may

years an ordinary practice which we have endeavoured in vain to reform by the ways of Justice and Treaties the World I think will now be satisfied that we have reason to look about us And no wise man will doubt that it is high time to put our selves in this Equipage on the Seas and not to suffer the Stage of Action to be taken from Us for want of Our appearance So you see the general ground upon which our Counsels stand In particular you may take notice and publish as cause requires That His Majesty by this Fleet intendeth not a rupture with any Prince or State nor to infringe any point of His Treaties but resolveth to continue and maintain that happy Peace wherewith God hath blessed His Kingdom and to which all His Actions and Negotiations have hitherto tended as by your own Instructions you may fully understand But withal considering that Peace must be maintained by the Arm of Power which only keeps down Warr by keeping up Dominion His Majesty thus provoked finds it necessary even for His own defence and safety to reassume and keep his ancient and undoubted Right in the Dominion of these Seas and to suffer no other Prince or State to encroach upon Him thereby assuming to themselves or their Admirals any Soveraign Command but to force them to perform due homage to His Admirals and Ships and to pay them acknowledgments as in former times they did He will also set open and protect the free Trade of his Subjects and Allies and give them such safe Conduct and Convoy as they shall reasonably require He will suffer no other Fleets or Men of Warr to keep any Guard upon these Seas or there to offer violence or take Prizes or Booties or to give interruption to any lawful intercourse In a word His Majesty is resolved as to do no wrong so to do Justice both to His Subjects and Friends within the limits of His Seas And this is the Real and Royal Design of this Fleet. Whitehall April 16. 1635. Your assured Friend and Servant JOHN COOK Nay farthermore you may see the Dominion of His Majesty in His Brittish Seas clearly represented asserted and fully proved by that Propriety of Title and Soveraignty of Power which the Duke of Venice exerciseth on the Adriatick Sea if you will consult Mr. Howel in his Commonwealth of Venice which by the manner of Prescription the Consent of Histories and even by the Confession of their Adversaries themselves is almost the same with his Majesties of Great Britain But his Majesty hath one Title more above all theirs which is the Title of Successive Inheritance confirmed as well by the Law of Nature as of Nations and is so much the more considerable in regard of the infinite advantages of the Profits of it as the Brittish Ocean in its latitude and circumference exceedeth the small boundaries of the Gulph of Venice Yet so it is that the Indulgence of the Kings of England to their Neighbouring-Nations especially to the Hollanders by giving them too much liberty hath encouraged them to assume a liberty to themselves and what at the first was but a License they improve into a Custom and make that Custom their Authority insomuch that some of the most busie of them have openly declar'd against the King's Propriety on the Brittish Seas Amongst these is one Hugo Grotius a Gentleman of great Ingenuity but in this particular so inclined to obey the importunities and serve the interests of his Countrey-men that he disobliged himself of the Dutch and moreover to speak the truth of his Conscience it self for if you look into his Sylvae upon the first Inauguration of King James he is pleased to express himself in these words Tria Sceptra Profundi in Magnum cojere Ducem which is that the Rights of the English Scottish and Irish Seas are united under one Scepter neither is he satisfied with this bare profession Sume animos a Rege tuo quis det jura Mari Take courage from the King who giveth Laws unto the Seas In the same Book in the contemplation of so great a Power he concludeth Finis hic est qui fine caret c. This is an End beyond an End a bound that knoweth no bound which even the Winds and the Waves must submit unto But with what Ingratitude have the Dutch answered the many Royal Favours which the Kings of England have almost perpetually conferred on them If there be no Monster greater than Ingratitude what Monsters are these men who of late are so far from acknowledging their thankfulness that like Vipers they would feed upon and consume those bowels which did afford them life and spirit We may observe that in their lowest condition which is most suitable to the name of their abode called the Low-Countreys they petitioned to the Majesty of the Queen of England whose Royal Heart and Hand being always open to those that were Distressed especially those that were her Neighbours upon the account of Religion she sent them Threescore thousand pound in the year 1572 and presently after there followed Four Regiments of Foot and after them the Warr encreasing there were sent over Col. North Col. Cotton Col. Candish and Col. Norris with other Persons of Quality who for the Honour of the English Nation made in that Warr excellent Demonstrations of their Valour and redeem'd the Dutch from the Power of those who otherwise would have brought them to a better understanding of their duties At the last the Prince of Orange being slain presently after the death of the Duke of Alanson Brother to Henry the Third of France the Queen of England sent over to them Robert Duke of Leicester with great provision both of Men and Money accompanied with divers of the Nobility and Gentry of good account and although the said Earl not long afterwards returned into England and the affairs of the Hollander were doubtful till the fatal battel at Newport yet Queen Elizabeth of ever blessed memory out of her unspeakable goodness to the Distressed and to those that suffered for Religion did as long as she lived assist the Hollanders both with Men and Moneys she gave them hope in despair gave them strength when weak and with the charity of Her Princely Hand did support them when fallen And although the Hollanders do ungratefully alledg That it was a benefit great enough for the English to assist them in Reason of State because by so doing they kept out a War from their own Countrey It is most certain that at that time the English had no cause to fear a War at all but only for their Cause and for the taking their parts for it was for their Cause that the English in the year 1571 had seized upon the sum of Six hundred thousand Ducats on the West of England being the Money designed from Spain to the Duke d'Alva for the advancement of the Spanish Interests in the Netherlands And although the Hollanders do