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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
B26947 The monsieur: or, A letter from a French Catholick at London to his friend at Paris, concerning the present state of the English nation. French Catholick. 1681 (1681) Wing M2460; Interim Tract Supplement Guide T.100*[149]; ESTC R1242 3,950 2

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The Monsieur OR A LETTER from a French Catholick at London to his Friend at Paris concerning the present State of the English Nation SIR I Know you expect to hear how I find the State of Affairs in this Country which I will assure you are in no point so benign and promising as we were made to believe and as I hoped to find them before I came over by which I see that flattering our condition and rendring things better than they are is the common-disease of all Nations and that therefore there is no such effectual cure of false reports as being on the spot You know Sir we were both told of three Parties in this Kingdom but I can find but two the Protestants and the Catholicks the latter hath many of the Gentry for its favourers but the greatest part of the Nobility the body of the Gentry and the generality of the people are all on the other side Which had we known in time I should never have advised the English Catholicks to this Attack which whatever may be told you if it be not very tenderly and dexterously managed to bring them off I doubt it will prove their utter ruin for to attempt the restoring a Religion against the universal temper of a Nation where Principle in many and Interest in almost all have possessed the people with an inveterate and invincible prejudice against it though it may well enough become the foolish zeal of a few devout Priests and Bigots yet that other persons of wisdom and fortune should be drawn in to engage themselves in such an unaccountable piece of indiscretion is to me one of the greatest wonders in nature For if I am not abused in my information I do believe to make Spain Protestant is as easie an undertaking as to make England Catholick and then how near this attempt is to an impossibility I leave you and all men to judg And now to think of engaging Authority on our side is I doubt a notion as wild and idle as the undertaking it self for it is but to request Authority that it would please to play the fool for our sakes and how we have deserved such a kindness from it I fear will be too hard a difficulty to demonstrate Besides natural defects that carry an impossibility in them cannot be cured by Authority it self no more than Authority can cure a man that is born blind or lame and make him to see or go so that if we could bubble Authority to our side which I totally despair of ever doing yet would not that effect our business it is true it might hurt it self but cannot at all help us because there is such a natural defect in our present undertaking that no cure can reach or help it For the English compute their men at Twelve hundred thousand at the least and of these the Catholicks and their Interest make scarce Fifty thousand now what a brow must that man have that would go about to perswade Authority that it is its true interest to stick by the four and twentieth part of its people against no less than the whole three and twenty parts thereof would not Authority think you judg such a man fitter for Bedlam than to be conversed with especially an Authority that hath so oft and publickly professed it self Protestant as the Authority of England hath done Again what arguments can we lay before Authority admit it would hear us to attain our end For there are but two ways to effect it either legally or forcibly if by Law then it must be done by Parliament which is the greatest thing we dread for there can be no Laws made but by Parliament nor no Parliaments but by the Peoples choice and the Votes of the Protestants being above twenty to one to ours there is an utter impossibility that ever we can have a Parliament for our turn and so cannot bring about our point by Law and if by force we should attempt it the impossibility is as great every way because the odds still bears the same proportion and we may as rationally hope that one man can beat three and twenty as that the English Catholicks can subdue the Protestants by force Now if you please to add to all this that the Authority of the Nation is already engaged and by their many publick Manifesto's have declared That there hath been and still is a horrid Hellish Popish Plot carrying on against the Life of the King and the Protestant Religion and can we ever think that the Government will cast that reflection on their own reputation as to suffer themselves to be wheedled to unsay this and say the contrary and all this for so inconsiderable a minor part of the Nation against so vast a majority thereof I confess for one I must totally lay aside the understanding of a man before I can ever incline to this opinion I know Sir you expected a fairer face of things from hence than I have sent you but if I am valuable for any thing in the world it is for fidelity and the faithful discharge of what I am intrusted with I believe you have more pleasing accounts given you by some that ou● Interest here is on the increasing hand and that both the Gentry and Clergy of the Church of England in Court and Country do come off apace to us with a many grateful things of that nature but if you will please to credit me somewhat nigh this account I have sent you is the very truth I do not deny but that some of the Clergy and Gentry may have come over to us but must also tell you that they are such a some as are none but such as meer Indigents or so debaucht that they are a very scandal to any profession they are of and that Churches reputation must needs run exceeding low that glories in such Converts and to compensate this accession too I do assure you that the Dissenters and sober Church of England men have a far greater kindness for each other than formerly and for ought I can learn are very hearty in their union against us as the common enemy to both and to tell you one sad truth for all both the riches and industry the landed-men and the trading part of the Nation are against us as one man and consider if the number riches and trade of the Kingdom are against us what small Cards must be left for us to shew for our game 'T is true for sometime we did make good earnings in perswading the Church of England men that the Dissenters would pull them down again and at the same time perswading the Fanaticks that the Church of England would extirpate them But that day is done for now both the one and the other see that all those sentiments were nothing else but our arts and shams upon them and therefore as the lo●sest of the Church of England men are friendly to us so the more solid have now such a