oalamità delle quali si può dire che per diversi accidenti habbia dipoi participato una gran parte del mondo par les prodiges qui presageoient cette guerre d'incredibile timore si riempivano i popoli spaventati gia per la Fama della potentia de Francesi c. And indeed King Charles the VIII made himself Master of the Kingdom of Naples in few days by the terrour of his Arms doing it by assault burning the Mount Sr. Iohn passing with his sword through all that was to be found an unheard of Case in those times and he soon lost it again afterwards by his negligence and too little care he had to preserve it But We must not now so flatter ourselvs Their present Monarch know's no less how to conserve than to conquer Provinces If we do but observe the marches of this Imperious Nation on the borders of Germany there we shall see Alsatia turned out of the hands of the Almains and joyned to their Crown a Duke of Lorrain driven out of his own Land 3. Bishops viz. Thoul Metz and Verdun dismember'd from the Empire which He Keeps in continuall divisions and agitations by his Emissaries by his intrigues and by his corruptions Lastly Descending to the Netherlands the Principall Subject of our Discourse It is to be considered in what manner the French have en deavoured to bring them into that miserable Condition wherein we see them at this day and to discover the true cause of their maladies to this end We must have recourse to the reign of Louis the XI King of France who by his subtilty and deceits ruined Charles the Stout Duke of Burgondy and Lord of all the Netherlands stirring him up new Enemies from time to time who at last gathered together before Nancy where he lost his life and his people all their welfare which since that time they never could recover Some years before this Prince who possed Bourgondy all the Netherlands and the Citie Paris being then a Frontier of the Kingdom of France almost whole Picardy did bridle by his intelligence and courage the ambition of this King so full of artifices but because for easing of his people he was not provided with a good and well ordered Militia he came to be surprized by the Other who by his horrible exactions of taxes and laying impositions upon his people was always accompanied and encompassed with a great quantity of armed men the which gave him means and therewith desire to extend his limits in despite of his Neighbours but the matter was well enough ballanced untill the death of Charles the Stout whose death caused to his people an abyss of calamities and miseries seeing Louis the XI at that time kept to himself Bourgondia whole Piccardy Arras and many other considerable places He likewise always amused the English after the death of the said Duke to the end they should not hinder him in the conquests of those Lands Yet by the marriage of Mary of Bourgondy Heyress of the Netherlands with Maximilian of Austria Philip. de Comines Chapit second du 6. Livre as also by the loss of the battel of Guinegate the French could not execute their design to bring under their power the Seventeen Provinces which yet they might very easily have joyned to their Crown The same Author 12. Chap. of the 5. Book by a marriage of their Dauphine with the said Damsel Mary of Bourgondy if the good God had not blinded Louis de XI and taken away his senses and hereby was the way to the Universal Monarchy wonderfully made plain clear for Philip the Fair Son of Maximilian and for Charles the Fifth Then again the Netherlanders took a little breath howbeit They were often incommodated by the invasions of the French who nevertheless found themselvs not in posture to undertake any thing against their Neighbours because of the Parties and leagues which soon after were formed in the bosom of that Kingdom And yet however hindred by so many cruel civil warrs the French quickly recovered again and retook very much vigour by the courage and wise conduct of Henry the Great The Netherlands having been in that intervall always rent by a perpetuall warr in the bowells of their Provinces but all that was not capable of ruining them there was need of the engins of a Cardinal de Richelieu for an absolute abasing of them and reestablishing the French in their ancient splendour and making them after the reduction of Rochel and suppressing those of the Refored Religion to follow on in the footsteps of their glorious Ancestours taking the way of Charlemagne unto the Monarchy to which end they must throw down or debase the greatness of the House of Austria now prodigiously encreased more by Marriages than by Arms which fell out exceeding well He leaving behind him a worthy Successour the Cardinal Mazarin for to atchieve the prosecution of his Designs who would not have missed to emport the Netherlands in case it had not then been prevented by the Queen of France Anna d' Austria who did oblige him to make a marriage between the King Louis XIV and the Infanta of Spain and at the same time to conclude the peace of the Pirenées by which means the rest of the then staggering Netherlands was preserved then were affairs in a tolerable state whereof the good Subjects wished a long continuance and confirmation having begun to tast the sweetness of the Peace When yet in the year 1667 without any denunciation or reasonable cause of war upon a weak cause and pretext of a Custom of Devolution of Fief upon the Children of the First Marriage practised in Brabant and other places in particular houses which had never been confirmed by the Soveraign nor used in Families of Princes the French as an effect of their enterprizing humour invested the best Cities of those Lands the rest whereof cannot maintain themselvs otherwise than by miracles But this deservs a more particular Examination The King Louis XIV having conceived an unchangeable design of reaching hard for the Monarchy of the greatest part of Europe or at lest to limit his Kingdom by the Alpes the Pirenées the Mediterranean Sea the Ocean and the Rhine judging that the Netherlands now in a state of welfare and comliness might serve for a wall of planks for the further propagating of his Conquests Did in the Moneth of May in the year 1667. in time of a full peace without any subject of rupture with Spain and notwithstanding good and positive assuranees of good correspondence and friendship given by his Ambassadour at Madrid march with an Army of 50000 men for to take possession so as they could and not make war of the Netherlands devolved by the death of Philip the IV. King of Spain upon the Queen his Wife and therewith He approached Charleroy which the Spanjards had abandoned because it was not in a State of defence But the
strong whereas on the contrary the Prince of Orange was necessitated to weaken his Army and to send or leave more than ten thousand men in the greatest Cities for fear they should render themselvs then must he have an artillerie well furnished regulated and governed for to open the Campaign to some conquests the Germans being still constrained to stay in their winter-quarters uncapable to act or cause any diversion through defect of forrage in the Netherlands Then after an enterprize don upon any place as is ordinary His Majestie rereturns back re benè gestâ and without any hazard of a battel then makes detachements from Flanders to Germany and so illudeth the great designs of the Allies We conclude then by all this that the irregular ambition of the French their unsatiable avarice their old pretences upon quasi all the Provinces of Europe their will and inclination to robbery their vain inconstant and unquiet humour not permitting their Neighbours to live in rest are the true causes of all the calamities and miseries of Christendom and especially of the Netherlands whom it seems God had placed as in his anger in the midst of Europe to the end they might be the beam of the Ballance Now in this case It is necessary to have recourse to other Remedies under God than those which to this time have been used for the healing us of this French Disease that cometh now to the Noble parts of the Body of the Seventeen Provinces making them rotten and fall off by pieces being in danger of a total destruction Better means know we not than the application of English Mercury to make the Enemies salivate and evacuate what they have with so great greediness swallowed in For whither else shall we betake ourselvs for refuge but to the English for reestablishing the counterpois so necessary for the publick rest and felicity of Christendom and especially of the Netherlands for whose Conservation England is so greatly in it's interest concerned having also received of God the advantage of a situation so excellent as to be fit to keep the ballance of Europe and be an Arbiter of all things therein shewing in effect that it hath reason on all occasions to say Cui adhaerco ille praeest Whom I incline to shall prevail And truly it is a glory for the King of England that whilst Other people are very unable to help or are menaced and so in an appreehension of the terrible forces of the King of France or are overcome by his presents against their own interest or elsely still in a deep lethargy He alone can praescribe limits to the almost endless ambition of the French to bring them to reason and put them in mind that they with their Monarchy now so idolized the designs whereof they believe to be infallible are yet no other than men and subject to change of fortune which would ensue in case the English should take the party of the Allies And what help can there be expected if we cast our eyes on other places for relief Let 's begin with the Alpes there we have an object of astonishment in observing the Low-spiritedness of the Switsers that mercenary people obliged by reason of State and formal Treaties to the guarrantie of the Dukedom of Milain and the French County which yet they suffered not long since to be taken in their sight If we come to Turin there we shall find a Duke de Savoy under the government of a French Mother and depending on intelligences from the French Court and in some sort bridled by the Fort of Pignarol which is the Key of his Land Not far from thence shall we find those of Geneva irresolved trembling for fear prepared to suffer insultings and to make all sorts of curteous addresses for preserving their quiet the conquest of whom would but be as the fruit of one Campagne or it may be of three months time If we enter further into Italie there we shall find Princes weak and timid who will not oppose themselvs against the progresses of the victorious arms of France unless in the greatest extremitie The Republick of Venice in former times called the Buckler of Italie being newly delivered from a grievous war against the Turks shall not engage or but very slowly and putting off so long as they can in a new war against France which might be worse to them than the former I shall not here mention the Pope nor the Great Duke of Tuscany who shall never undertake any thing of themselvs unless what properly relates to the reading of their Breviarie or at best they may be good to contrive a Treaty or to fortifie one that is already made by Others If we pass into Poland and Portugal we shall stand admiring as we might not long since have don in Savoy and Bavaria to see the Mistresses to be French Wives who possess and govern their Husbands kept by the French and driven by the same spirit of ambition to endeavour that Kings greatness and who perswade themselvs that they have don a singular favour to the Allies that they have till this timeforborn to give them some notable diversion which we have reason to apprehend for the future In so much that there is none but his Majestie of Great Britain that is capable and worthy to sustain the quality and heavy though glorious burden of Arbiter and Peacemaker of the troubled world for we shall here leave out as unworthy to be Mediatours the Swedes those mercenary Souls and boutefeus of Germany those infortunate Braves who in stead of procuring the peace and rest of the Empire where of they were Considerable Members have disturbed the tranquility thereof by their unjust invasion into the Lands of an Elector then employed on the Frontiers for the common defence of his Countrey having sold themselvs to France for finishing the combustion of the rest of Christendom There is therefore no other that can sustain the rank and do the function of a true Esculapius to heal our sicknesses by Others incurable but the King of England and that by prescribing to the French such conditions of peace as shall reduce them from beyond the River the Somme to keep within their old limits as in the time of Louis XI in the beginning of his Reign And in case they refuse it there is none but the King of England that can make them swallow Ellebore to purge their brains of those ill humours and fumeswhich corrupt them and blot out of their corrupted imaginations the vast idea's and Chimaera's of their Charlemagne and so to calm all the troubles and tempests of Europe whereof they are the Cause His Majesty shall but follow therein the footsteps of his glorious Ancestors who passed beyond the Seas with numerous Armies to reliev the Netherlands and not suffer them to fall into the hands of the French believing that whole England should be in great danger of destruction Phil. de Comines chap. 1. l. 4.
8. chap. of l. 3. of his memorialls in case so many Soveraignties were joyned with that Crown This matter should be wonderfully taken to heart Witness Philip de Comines And there is no doubt but the English people would liberally contribute to that undertaking after their old custom yea were it to carry an Army into France as King Edward did requiring King Louis XI to render him the Kingdom of France that was his own that he might redress the State of the Religion and the Nobles and restore to the people their old Liberties and take off the great charge and vexation under which they groaned Comines chap. 5. of lib. 4. I wonder very much that the like design was not formed two years ago when the Inhabitants of Ghienne and Bretagne stretched out their arms to England for to tast under the conduct of the Duke of York or Monmouth the sweetness of an English Government which they wish for unto this day Do the English want Motives to excite them hereunto I beseech you what shall after such French Conquests become of the English Commerce is not that sufficiently ruined or lamentably decayed already The Hamburgh-trade is upon the matter quite lost as to the English manufactures which in times of peace were sold into Germany Pomerania and other adjacent Countreys and so also is the Dort-trade lost by which the Spanish Netherlands and the parts of Germany which ly that way were wont to be supplyed with English Cloath by reason whereof those English Manufactures as Cloath Serges Bayes c. which formerly gave 50. per piece are now sold for 35. or 37. at the highest which proves so great an evil to England that those Cloathiers which formerly employed 400 persons at work have not now work for 20 persons which hath caused the price of Wool to fall 40. per Cent cheaper than heretofore and the people are forced to steal it out of England and sell it to the French who with the same make Serges and other Stuffs to the dammage and utter loss of the English trade The complaints of this kind are every where heard as also of that palpable cause of this decay in Commerce from the taking roving plundering confiscating of so many English ships by the French within a short time the Value whereof with their Loadings is inaestimable and thereupon the provocations and grievances unsufferable But above all the English ought to cast their eyes upon and provide a remedy for the great strength and encrease of the French Ships which trouble all Navigation at present and what shall they do when they shall come to dispose Deus avertat omen God forbid it of the Navall Forces of Holland and of their riches in the Indies And more particularly is to be considered what shall become of the English Traffick in the Mediterranean Sea There is no Merchant that know's not how absolutely necessary the English Trade is with Spain as also with Smyrna and all those parts to which we must pass through those Mid-land Seas but how can that be maintaind if the French should make a Conquest of Cicilia Naples and Sardinia Let but in spection be made into their proceedings at Messina where besides what they have gained at Land they have now at Sea 25. Galleys and 50. great vessels menof war and a great number of others less but very commodious for transport of Soldiers and provisions they being absolute Masters and Dominators in those Seas whereto gives no small advantage the Commodity of their Ports of Marseilles and Toulon which are not far distant from whence succours and provisions may be sent to refresh them in Messina in less than eight days time and by consequence they may soon be Masters of those Islands and afterwards of the Kingdom of Napels for the Faction of Anjou that is of France is not all extinguished there and then can the French when they will ruin the navigation of the Northern Inhabitants who have there neither Ports nor Galleys which are two things very necessary in those Seas because of the great Calms which in Summer time are often met with there These Considerations with many more call aloud to the English Nation to awaken and help themselvs and us For a Conclusion I propose two particular ways for the further engaging of England to come into our help First that a true and firm Union may be cemented between England and Holland the Expedient of the so much discoursed of Marriage between Our Prince of Orange and Madam Maria daughter of the Duke of York ought to be endeavoured that it may speedily be effected His Highness ought to sollicite it with ardour and passion after the Example of Charles the Stout Duke of Bourgondy and Lord of the Netherlands who married the Sister of King Edward of the House of York for to fortifie himself against King Louis XI who had got advantage against him so much by surprizes and deceits in time of peace Phil. de Comines Chap. XI lib. 3. of his Memor like as our Frenchmen did in the year 1667. for otherwise he would never have don it for the great love he bore to the House of Lancaster whereof he was a near Relation by his Mothers side If therefore so great a Prince that followed rather the incitements of his anger than of reason sacrificed the interest of his House to the publick welfare what shall not Our Illustrious Prince who is so wise and Politique do to attain that design or end so necessarie for the saving of the Netherlands unto the preservation whereof that of England is in separably annexed For in case the French should now become Masters of the Spanish Netherlands will it not follow then that Holland and the other United Provinces shall be constrained at last to take upon them the same yoke and suppose the Hollanders could maintain themselvs with some assistance from England and Germany yet would they not be always the continual Theater and seat of war but rather at last submit themselvs to the great and mighty King of France in hopes to enjoy without fear of any Enemy a perfect tranquility and long continuing Rest A present hearty Conjunction between England and Us therefore is the present needfull to which the foresaid Marriage seems to be a proper medium for the accomplishing whereof the blessing of the Almighty is earnestly implored that he who straitneth and enlargeth Kings Kingsdoms and Common-wealths that limits the Grandees of the Earth putting a hook in their nostrils that maketh warrs to cease on the earth and setteth up the oppressed and the lowly will if it may stand with his good pleasure make this marriage of our great Prince with that Illustrious Princess Mary to become successfull for those righteous and happy ends that not onely by this great knot the hearts of those two Grand personages may be more united but also that the Two Nations may concur and conspire with more harmonie courage and activitie to procure a good peace for the rest and tranquilitie of Christendom and particularly of England and the Netherlands a peace I mean not coloured over nor plaistered and such as the French when the Allies shall be disarmed and separated shall presently break and so again surprize the Netherlands who indeed ought to be always in posture of defence and who when the ballance shall be kept equall in Europe ought to serve for a bank and barr against the inundations and attempts of this unquiet and imperious Nation Secondly As to a sure Asylum under our Almighty Protector We would address to the Renowned Parliament of England now beginning their Session Upon them are at present the eyes of all the Considerable and Considering Parties of Europe Ill men are jealous and conceive fears concerning them Good men hope for great advantages from their grave and wise Councels The loud clamours of the innumerable injuries don by the French to the honest Subjects of England in their Commerce more ways than one to their inestimable dammage we know have reached their ears and the sad state of these Lands with all the present evils and future dangers I have mention'd in this Letter cannot be unknown to them the Sympathy of their affections with our miseries and the identity of their Cause with Ours will we hope effect so much that Their Wisdoms will propose vote direct order and conclude of such ways and means whereby the sober Inhabitants and particularly the Trading Party of England may with Us be extricated out of this Labyrinth in which we are bewilder'd that at last we may arrive at such a state of just freedom and safety as may excite us with them to render to the God of wonders hearty praise and thanksgiving for his wonderfull deliverances and preservations for which you have the concurrent Vote of Sr Yours c.
in practice to this very day so that we are an English-French and they a French-English But if the King of Great Britain will not joyn with nor assist my King yet he must notwithstanding that be Emperour all things tend to it Is not Paris now become like Rome in old time who gave Laws and taught Manners to the whole world As in those days all Nations learned Latin that thereby they might understand the Civilities Laws and Education of the Romans So now Do not all Nations learn French Do not you send all your choice and Noblest-born Princes Gentry and richest Merchants Sons to our Academies in Paris Do not We impose on you all the Modes of France Take but a view of all Christendom and you will find That there 's not so much as a little German Prince but he must have a Frenchman for his Barber Valet de chambre or Lackey and one of these often makes a Governour for the young Prince and a most Excellent Privy Councellour Somtimes I have known a Prince that hath kept himself undrest six days expecting with great impatience his perwiggs and feathers and other gallantries out of France Travel into what parts you please where there is a Court as in Rome and even in Madrid itself there you shall find every Prince and Gentilman hath a Frenchman to teach him how to dress himself yea and how to eat with a bon mein Go no farther than to Amsterdam or more especially to the Hagh where you may observe all to be turn'd perfect Monsieurs and in Amsterdam the old Hollander is so changed that there is scarce such a Creature to be found there is not a rich Merchants daughter there that will admit of a Bezuca much less go to Church to be married untill she hath her Modes Curls for her head her Tower c. from France or at lest buy the same of a French Madam who with the help of a French Dancing-Master set's Mrs. Brides Locks teacheth her the Courant and Coupé and then perswades her She is the most compleat Madam a la mode in the Town giving as an advise that nothing but a French Feile de Chambre can preserve the Dress and bon meyn they have left her in Thus are We French the Fashion-mongers and School of Manners and good breeding for the Universe Besides all this All Europe and Other parts of the world are beholden to us for Invention Our King hath established in Paris 2 Colledges One for a Royal Society of Virtuoso's the Other called Bon Esprit In a word France furnisheth the world with more numbers of Good Writers Fighters and Men Onet bein a juste than all Christendom besides Gentilmen I suppose you know I am a Son of the Church of Rome yet I wish from my very heart that the Dolphine were crowned King of the Romans For my part I wish that old Holy man and all the Fops about him were removed to some other place and so make room for a Brave Emperour such as my King or the Dolphine would make but if he must needs live in Rome let him be content to live in St. Iohn de Lateran as in old time Five hundred pistols a year is more than any honest Bishop in the world ought to spend if he live like a true Shepherd and useth onely his Crosiers Staff Murblew Since the Bishops traversed the sword over the Crosiers Staff in their Arms the Churchmen become Fighters and Executioners of Civil Justice which to my judgement is quite contrary to Sr. Pauls words Let not a Bishop be a striker My Opinion is That if the thirty five Millions of Livres which the Pope and his Idle-pack or lazy Drones devour were employed in the maintaining of a brave army against the Turk it might be better spent You shall see in some few years if my Master be not Emperour that the Turk will make bold to give his Holiness a Visit from Candia And on the contrary if my King be Emperour you will see the Flower-de Luces placed in the room of the 3. Half-Moons If Any think I have been too satyrical touching the Pope and his Cardinals and spoken too irreverently of them sith Some of those Bishops of Rome have been good men as Sixtus Quintus a Gentleman eminent both for learning and Religion the like whereof may be said of that devout man Cardinal Bona lately dead yet living in his highly esteemed works as also that Pope Alexander the VII was a Gentleman c. Yet for all that Know that I handle that sort of men very modestly I could blacken the See of Rome in this Discourse at another rate if I were not a Child of that Church I could tell of severall Popes who lived and died Heathens Some of their bodies having been taken up and burned as is for truth received after their tenents were found in their Closets neither have I painted out the Lives of Some Cardinals in my days those are things so well known by them who live among them that 't is needless here to repeat what 's in every vulgar mouth In short Let me say over again If the Pope and his Crew who possess Rome do continue so to rule and that Italy be thus governed most by the Church then say I the Turk or any Other Neighbour may take the Countrey from them Let it be remembred what my King did at Avignion for their Countrey is half depopulated which is occasioned by 3. things First by making such vast numbers of Eunuchs Secondly by practising the sin of Sodom so much as they do for it is most certainly true that many thousands of Italians perfectly hate the Female Sex Lastly by the innumerable Company of Monasteries and Nunneries in which may be modestly accounted two hundred thousand Nuns the which if lawfully employed in generation-work might produce great numbers of usefull Creatures whereas now on the contrary both Monks Friers and Nuns are forced to make use of all their skil and arts to destroy Gods image by them made in secret and all to hide the scandal of being accounted breakers of the unwarrantable oaths and vows they make to observe their Founders Maximes or Rules of their Order To conclude my Discourse I will onely say this One thing more touching the qualification of My Master to become Emperour rather than any Other King and that is His most Christian Toleration of Liberty of Conscience in all his Dominions and Territories In France you find severall Protestant-Universities and great numbers of Temples and Churches for the Protestant-Worship Consider but what abundance of French-Ministers are sent thence to serve the Protestant-Churches abroad as under that one Government of the States of the United Provinees where may be reckoned about Fiftie French Ministers besides what are in England Germany and other Countreys Our Doctors of the Sorbon are not such Fools as to maintain or nourish an Inquisition No Nor will Our King refuse the good service
of the Protestants On the contrary He makes them Presidents of Parliaments and Secretaries of State in severall Provinces also Generals and other Officers in his Armies according to their merit Whereas on the other hand the House of Austria will permit no man to have preferment in the Emperours or King of Spains Courts unless he first become a Papist And if you well weigh the horrid hellish and absolutely unwarrantable practices of the Spanish Inquisition then will you with me confess that most of the Evils that have befallen Christendom have had their Rise from that Diabolical Court of Inquisition it makes more Iews in Spain Portugal and Italy than would be occasioned from the worse than Barbarous cruelty practised by the Lords of that Inquisition for say the Iews as you pretend your Iesus was filled with bowels of Love and compassion yet to the contrary you practise worse cruelties than ever did any Pagan I pray also what was the Cause of the Netherlanders Revolt And what were the designs of the Spanjards against Queen Elizabeth in 88 and from whom came that wicked Plot or Gun-powder-Treason in King Iames his days you will answer me these were hatch'd in Spain by the Spanish Inquisition if you cast your eye upon our present Age you will find Messina revolting from the same Cause at lest from the ill Government of the House of Austria which if a man take a view of either in the Kingdom of Naples Milain Sicily or in Spain itself he will behold such disorder in the civil Government that it is a miracle how that Monarchy hath so long continued I thought to have said somthing touching my King his being lineally descended from Charlemagne But that I shall refer to another opportunity and so put a Period to what I have to say upon this high and eminent and just Design Thus have you the Frenchmans Pretences with the Rhetorick used to beget a belief and approbation of the righteous and necessary grounds of their high Undertakings Now please to admit the Spanjard to be heard in his sober Replication and permit me to bring him also upon the Stage making answer to what with patience hath been born out of the Discourse of the vapouring Frenchman And thus the Don begins I acknowledge that the Monsieur like a true-born Frenchman hath made a large Bravado and yet if all were true he hath asserted I doubt not but to give you greater Arguments and Demonstrations to prove that No one Familie in Europe or in the whole world is of that consideration as is my Kings Familie yea I do affirm that No two Kings in Christendom have half the strength in numbers of Subjects and quantities of Countreys and Provinces as are under the Command of my Masters Familie 'T were but time vainly spent to entertain you with answering the Monsieur to that wherein he would impose upon us a belief that his King is lineally descended from Charlemagne For your Conviction 't is but onely casting your eye upon that piece of Treason practised by a Iacobin-Frier on the House of Valois for the bringing in this House of Bourbon of which this Lewis the 14th is the Third But most apparent it is that the House of Austria is a true branch of the Charlovinyans as is evident from severall Historians Touching therefore the Right or Title that either the House of Bourbon or Austria hath to the Imperial Crown I shall not proceed to discourse because 't is so well known where the Right is that this is the first time I ever heard it brought in quaestion But I shall go on to show you why the Imperial Crown ought to remain in the House of Austria First Do but consider what vast numbers of Kingdoms Dukedoms and Segniories the House of Austria doth possess and by that you may judge how much they exceed in Subjects Riches and quantity of Land I will name some of their Possessions viz. the Kingdoms of Leon Aragon Catalonia Navarre Naples Granada Myrcia Valentia Castilia Biscaia Galicia Algarle Cicilia Hungary Bohemia the Dukedoms of Burgondy Milain Austria part of the Netherlands and besides all these many Isles in Europe and Africa as Tenerif the Canary Islands c. Beyond all which if a view could be taken of the large extent of those grand Kingdoms and Provinces Isles and various Territories they have in the East and West-Indies as their Patrimony left them by St. Peter then might you truly grant that to be a reality which hath so long been asserted viz. That the Sun always shines on their Dominions But further if you shall make a comparison between the Riches Traffick and Merchandise of the House of Austria with that of France 't will be evident to you the One is but a Pedlers Shop the Other a Rich Magazin of gold silver pearls silks and spiceries For a Demonstration hereof Do but ask the Englishman what Kind of Merchandizes the French bring over into England and what sort of Trumperie and Pedling-Merchants the French there be The best Merchandise the French furnish other parts of the world with except some salt and wine is little better than Bables and Toys when at the same time We Spanjards send great quantities of Bullion and rich Silks fine Wool c. And as for the French Traders in England Do but observe them and you will find them for the most part Barbers Taylors Perwigg-makers John Potages and a sort of Vermin that onely live so long in England untill they have swell'd themselvs full with the riches of that Land and then they fly to France again and disgorge that Riches on some few acres of Land by which means after a year or two starts up mushrom-like Monsr. Marqués de Chandellé de bel Gantelet or Marq. de peigne Marq. de Valet c. and this great grievance bring the French to all Nations where e're they come that they marry some Fille de Chambre and they two dwelling in Chambers paying no custom or duties make children together and most commonly the Wives and Brats are left to the Parish to maintain nay yet further how is every Prison yea and Hospital fill'd with them in England yea and the gallows too somtimes witness the Frenchman that set London on fire and the Monsieur that kill'd his Master When to the contrary of this I dare be bold to affirm it that there are in all London scarce two Spanish Barbers Taylors or Mechanick Handicrafts-Tradesmen all being great and able Merchants or Bankers Now whereas the Frenchman makes a semblance of Religion and giving freedom to Religious people Let All men judge of this who do but lend their ears to the most deplorable stories of their cruelties in destroying so many hundred Towns and thousands of poor People in the Palatinate in Alsatia Twee-brugge and the circumjacent parts such dreadfull burnings rovings plunderings and tyranny exercised on an innocent people hath not been paralelled in a whole age as