Orphans Money seiz'd that our Treasure and Men were interred at Tangier or buried in the bottom of the Sea by fighting against our Protestant Neighbours the Dutch that we were look'd upon as Effeminate Poltrons abroad and made Slaves at home by the Violation of our Magna Charta and the Seising of all the Charters of Corporations that Protestants were made Tools to destroy one another while the Interest of Rome prevail'd over both that Standing Armies were levied in time of Peace and encamp'd on Hounslow-Heath to shoot Butterflies and their Victuals nor Clothes not yet paid for that our Nobility and Gentry were cut off by Sham-Plots to make way for the stifling of the Plots of the Papists that our Navy rotted in our Havens while the French King increas'd his Strength at Sea had Directions from our Monarch how to build Men of War and was supplied with English Mariners and Stores that Idolatry was maintain'd by the King on the Throne our Colleges in the Hands of Papists and our Bishops in the Tower that a Sham Prince was fobb'd upon the Nation to exclude a Protestant Successor and maintain Popery that Catholick Officers commanded our Armies in Chief and Irish Cut-throats were our Life-Guards Now all this and ten times more being uncontrovertibly true let our Author show us if he can how England was then Happy at home and Glorious and Renown'd abroad and though it 's true that England was Richer then than at present yet those were the Causes that she is now become Poorer and brought on the War which does so much Exhaust her But to make our Author sensible that we can do more than Recriminate let him be pleas'd to tell us if ever England was bless'd before with a Protestant King and Queen or free of suspicion from Q. Elizabeth's time till now that Popery was favoured by the Court When was it that ever England's Monarch was Generalissimo of Europe and not only Arbitrator of her Differences but in a manner her Law-giver We us'd to value our selves mightily that we could turn the ballance and is it nothing now that we are the Champions of Christendom and our King the Head of the Greatest League that ever was made in the Western World Was England's Banner ever so much reverenc'd abroad and not only her Terrour but her Armies spread beyond the Aples Was it ever known till now that the Emperour King of Spain and Electors of the Empire would submit to the Arms and Conduct of an English King and command their Generals to obey his Orders Was there ever such a Congress of Princes and Ambassadors in Europe as assembled to Consult His Majesty at the Hague Was ever the Roaring of our English Lions heard with so much Majesty not only in Ireland and Flanders but in the Bowels of Italy Was there ever a more Glorious Victory obtain'd at Sea than that over the French under King William's Banner which laid Lewis XIV th's Glory in the bottom of the Depths Had we ever a King of England who signaliz'd himself personally in so many Battels though there be more Danger in one now than there was in twenty in former Ages Or had we ever any who undertook so many perillous Voyages by Sea for the Honour of the Nation as he has done Had we ever a Prince who did so gloriously rescue our own Religion and Liberty and not only ours but those of Europe and who is not meerly a Nominal but real Defender of the Faith does not send counterfeit Assistance to Foreign Protestants as K. Charles I. did to those of Rochel and at the same time ruin them by his Men of War but hath actually restored the Antient Church of the Waldenses who under his auspicious Protection have regained their Country and reestablished their desolate Churches Had we ever a Prince before who made it his Business to hinder one Party of our British Protestants to destroy the other and evidences a truly paternal Care over all his Subjects Had we ever a Prince who by an unparallel'd Clemency to his Enemies was almost cruel to himself and his Friends Or had we ever a King before who could command both England and Holland two of the most formidable Powers in Europe Or could boast of an Universal Kindred or Alliance with almost all the Sovereign Princes in Christendom So that for the Point of Glory he hath made England higher than ever and that she is not Richer is none of his Fault but justly chargeable on those of our Author's Principles who betray his Counsels obstruct his Measures prevent his having the united Service of his Protestant Subjects and study more under a Notion of humouring the Church Faction to ruin the Church her self by keeping up of Divisions amongst Protestants and to overturn the Church of Scotland and the Liberty of Old and New-England than either to promote their Countries Good or their Soveraign's Honour by a Cordial Opposition to the French King who is the Common Enemy of Christendom himself and in League with those who have always owned themselves to be such And this I hope is sufficient to demonstrate whether the Choice of B l ought to be a Pattern to the Nation and to enable the Country to distinguish betwixt such as are really Pensioners to the French King and those who are falsly esteemed such to King William because perhaps his Servants or Officers and willing rather to grant him their early Assistance against the Common Enemy than tenaciously to contradict him in such things as some of our Author's Kidney have labour'd to perswade him are his incommunicable Prerogative which he ought not to part with on purpose to make a Rupture betwixt him and his Parliaments that so they may take advantage from our mutual Confusions and like this venomous Libeller endeavour to procure Tumults and betray their Country and Posterity to Popery and Slavery But now Gentlemen Si vobis placet audire fabulam here 's one for you with a couple of Lies in it's Belly spick and span new from the Jacobite Mint Mr. Speaker says my Author I have heard of a Ship in a violent Strom in danger of perishing every Momem It was not such a sham Sterm we were lately entertain'd with in the Gazette which deceives the People that many Ships going for France laden with Corn and several sorts of Provisions for the use of our Dutch Allies to enable them to live Cheap by making the same Dear at Home perhaps some was for the suppert of our half starv'd and unpaid English Souldiers now in Flanders when perish'd likewise more than 700 Sailors who have left thousands of Widows Children and poor Relations to curse our Conduct at Sea the Cause of this Calamity in such a dreadful Storm it was that the foresaid Ship was in when the good Commander seeing the Danger and apprehending Death desir'd his Crew to assist with Resolution and preserve themselves and the Ship which the Sailors refusing to
us from being swallow'd up by Popery and Slavery should be denied some Troops of his own Countrymen for his Guards in whom he may confide upon all Emergents This Reflection is so very Malicious that nothing but Jacobite Impudence could have publish'd it but if our Author had been a Man of Thoughts he would have forborn this Cavil merely out of respect to the French King the God of his Party who has always Swiss Guards about his Person when natural Frenchmen are sent abroad to sight and it was his Custom formerly to have Scotish Guards too Then as to our Englishmens want of Pay while Foreigners have it it 's more than I dare say our Author is able to instruct but if he can any ways make the King odious to the Nation he cares not by what means so it be but accomplish'd But as to our Troops not being paid in Flanders it 's strange how they come to gain Credit in that Popish Foreign Country without Money and that the Natives of the Country should not complain of it which to be sure if it were true they quickly would and Gazettes and Letters would as quickly mention it which seeing they do not we must let it pass for a Jacobite Forgery Then as to the Naturalizing part The number of the Foreign Souldiers which we have here is so very inconsiderable that the Naturalizing of them if they should require it would do us no damage and it's what in Gratitude we could scarcely deny that of those who hazarded their Lives to save our Liberties a small number at least should partake of 'em with us But it is not to be supposed that many of the common Souldiers will trouble themselves about it and for their Officers if they do it adds to our Strength and obliges them to spend what they save amongst us whereas otherwise they might carry it elsewhere but there are not many Souldiers who are hoarders of Money so that we need not be over-solicitous who shall be Heirs to their Estates And in short as to the Matter of Naturalization we need never be afraid that any other but those of Estates will be at the Expence of coming from beyond Sea to reap the benefit of it and if any such come they will be worth their room But notwithstanding all this Noise against Foreign Protestants I believe there 's few of the Party who would refuse their Sons for Apprentices provided they may have 'em on their own terms and then they must be Enfranchis'd whether they will or not so that it 's plain that this Spite against Foreign Protestants flows not from any Damage that their Naturalization can do us but merely because they are firm to the Government Then as to the sending of Men to Flanders that is a mighty Grievance to our Author The Netherlands have been formerly thought our Barrier the securing of them was the securing of our Selves so that it 's no wonder he should be angry that we send Men thither because it gives the French King such a Diversion that he has no leisure to restore the late King and could Monsieur but once secure some good Harbours in that Country for his Men of War he would very quickly make us a Visit and as speedily ruine our Protestant Allies the Dutch which would mightily rejoice our Author's Heart For it 's easie to perceive that he cares not though the War were in our own Bowels when he is not willing that we should meet the Enemy beyond Sea and keep him at Home And that we may be further-convinc'd of his Good Will to the Nation he presses hard for the Abatement of our Taxes If the Case would admit it I believe that every body would be glad of it as well as himself but if the Taxes be abated how shall the War be maintain'd and not only our Honour but our Religion and Liberties be secur'd If England should fall off the League would quickly dissolve the French King would speedily gain his Point and make us pay more in one Year by his Military Contributions than we have done yet during the War he would take care to put us out of a Condition to trouble him any more beyond Sea to cast the ballance of Europe or maintain the Protestant Religion abroad and as he hath had no Mercy on his own Country we have no reason to expect he should have any on ours and yet our Author must set up for a Grand Patriot to his Country because of his Noble Speech advising us to withdraw our hand from that which we had better never have begun than to leave unfinish'd for the Case is come now to this Point that either we must render the French King uncapable of troubling his Neighbours any more which blessed be God his Majesty is in a fair way of effecting or else we must follow his Triumphal Chariot and instead of our Liberties hug our Chains Our Author's next Advice is To pay our own Seamen and Souldiers at Home and send the Foreigners back Then will the Money circulate at Home in such English-mens Hands who may buy the Lands that are to be sold c. Here 's somewhat to do about paying our Souldiers but he would do well to acquaint us by what way it may be effected without the Taxes which he is for abating And whether it be the King's Fault that they are not paid Had the Arrears of his Army been as long unpaid as the Victuals and Clothes of K. Ch. II Had he spent his Money as he did upon Ladies of Pleasure and maintaining B ds Had he shut up the Exchequer or defrauded his Creditors or had he refused to give the Nation an Account of their Money there had been some ground for this Clamour But if any of our Author's Party or of the high-Church-Faction have misapply'd the Money which was design'd for that End why do not our Murmurers concur to bring them to punishment I am confident they may have the King's Leave As for the sending of the few Foreign Troops which we have back I have touch'd upon the Ingratitude of that already And as to the paying of our Sea-men and Souldiers at Home the former are never paid any where else and for the latter we had better pay them in Flanders to keep the French at a Distance than expose our selves to a French Invasion by withdrawing them for in that Case we must pay them and the French both And for the few Foreign-Souldiers which we have among us I 'm sure they have neither their Clothes nor their Victuals from Holland and therefore their Pay must needs circulate in England Our Author goes on thus Secondly It 's said we want more Merchants Whom may we thank for bringing so many to Poverty But I shall forbear grating and desire the Liberty to consider in short how the Trade of England hath hitherto been carried on Gentlemen have placed their younger Children to Merchants Their Masters observing their
circulating at Home in such Englishmens hands who may buy the Lands that are to be sold without naturalizing Strangers To our Author's Question what it is that hath brought us to this Condition That Landed Men are necessitated to sell and that none are left able to buy except Foreigners be naturaliz'd It may be answered in short That the base Surrender or rather betraying of our Civil and Religious Liberties in the late Reigns by those of his Party brought us to a necessity of inviting over our present Soveraign and joining him with our Arms to recover what we had so lost and the Treachery of those of his Party whom His Majesty has been forc'd to imploy or the Curse of Heav'n upon such Instruments hath many times broken his Measures prolong'd the War increas'd our Taxes and ruin'd our Trade but that none are left able to buy except Foreigners be naturaliz'd is I suppose what no body ever said There may be and are many who are able to buy that are not willing so long as they see the Government liable to the Treachery of such Men as himself who would inhance the whole Administration of Affairs into their own hands and not only exclude Foreigners but their own Native Brethren and a hundred times better Englishmen than themselves because their Consciences will not suffer them to take the Sacrament for the obtaining of a Place or Commission which they think contrary to our Saviour's Design and Institution or are not so superlatively Proud as to pretend to a posture of greater Humility in receiving the same than was practis'd by the Holy Apostles and not only for this reason but also because the Faction represent the honest and moderate Churchmen as not fit to be imployed putting them almost in the same Category with Dissenters And therefore I would very fain know of our Author what encouragement either of those sorts of Men have to lay out their Money in buying Land when they must bear equal Burden with others to support the Government while their Enemies enjoy all the profitable Imployments under it and only watch for an opportunity not only to deprive them of their Estates as in the days of Yore but of their Lives and all the Comforts of 'em For we see so little of the effects of the Faction's Repentance for their having formerly persecuted their Brethren that on the contrary in is evident that they are ready to burst with their Venom which is now kept in by the Restraint of Law And as to the Naturalizing of Foreigners though we don't say that none are left able to buy except that be granted yet such a Law would very much conduce to procure Chapman For there are not only some French Protestants who are able to purchase but many rich Merchants and others in Holland and Germany who would be thereby incourag'd to come and plant themselves here where they might have all Necessaries in Plenty and the Freedom of their Religion under a Government which they love and in a Country where they might live without any fear either from the French King or any other Oppressor and if this should be the Case as it probably would considering the horrible Devastations of the Palatinat the continual Danger of other Protestants upon the Rhine and elsewhere and the little Ground that there is to be purchas'd in Holland where I pray would be England's Disadvantage by an Act of Naturalization And would it not rather be infinitely to her Advantage to have their Estates spent here upon her own Product and her Strength increas'd by such a considerable accession of Zealous Protestants who know the Principles and Practices of the Papists so well that they would be in no hazard according to the practice of too too many of our English Protestants either of espousing the Interest of Lewis XIV the late King and his pretended Son or of undermining the Government of Their present Majesties but this our Author and his Party know too well and that makes 'em redouble their Clamour against the Act of Naturalization though under the specious pretences of an Exuberant Zeal for our English Liberties In the next part of the Paragraph the Gentleman charges the House with ruining themselves and their Posterity by Taxes as if no other of the Members had either Estates to be tax'd or Posterity to be ruin'd but himself Our Author 's Good Book for that 's the highest Epithet which he can vouchsafe to the Holy Scriptures says He that provides not for his Family is worse than an Infidel an Epithet which the Moderns appropriate to the Turk but certainly he that ruins his Family must be worse and I can't tell how to explain that better than by saying that he must be as bad as the French King and so the Commons are obliged to this Gentleman for his Complement Then he tells us That our Forefathers would not expend the Money of the Kingdom upon such Allies as ours who are not in our Interest and will spare us none of their Men for our Pay without great Pensions likewise for themselves Here our Author runs high indeed and brings in Privy-Counsellors to accuse the King as if he had made an Alliance with those who are not in our Interest which must be a very strange kind of Allies indeed I think by the Gentleman's leave that in such a cafe as this He that is not against us is for us and it 's much better to have a Defensive Alliance with the Northern Crowns than none at all that keeps them from doing us hurt if they can do us no good and as for their not letting us have their Men for Pay without Pensions to themselves if they furnish their Quota's for their Concerns in the Empire we have the less reason to be angry I don't known that any Prince or State have reason to part with their Men which are their Strength for bare Pay without any other Consideration and if His Majesty think fit to grant it I know no reason why this Gentleman should cast such an Unmannerly Reflection upon it a Provocation as small as this brought Charles I. with an Armed Force to demand five Members from the House of Commons but let the King do what he can our Author will never be pleas'd if he sends Englishmen abroad to fight then he cries out that they are sent to be knock's on the head without their Pay and if he hire Foreigners then he expends his Money upon such Allies as our Forefathers would not have done though at the same time His Majesty has very few or no Allies but what at some time or other have been in Alliance with our Forefathers and had of their Money too when they had not so much to spare As to the bringing of Foreign Souldiers into England and Naturalizing them while at the same time he sends English Souldiers abroad c. it 's very hard that a Foreign Prince who riskt his All to save
my Author is a want of Husbandmen to till the Ground I shall say little on this Head but request the Honourable Person below me to tell me of the 40000 French which he confesseth are come into England How many does he know that at this time follow the Plough-tail for it is my firm Opinion that not only the French but any other nation this Bill shall let in upon us will never transplant themselves for the benefit of going to Plough they will contentedly leave the English the sole Monopoly of that Slavery This worthy Knight may please to consider that abundance of those French would be glad to follow the Plough-tail in England if their Languge and other circumstances would but admit it rather than be in the starving Condition that many of 'em labour under Such of them as have been Farmers are neither acquainted with our way of Manuring nor have they Stock or Credit to procure Farms most of them have been brought up in another way of living for it 's sufficiently known that the Protestants in France had the greatest part of the Trade and Manufactures in the Nation Many of them are Gentlemen Officers and Scholars and consequently unfit for such an Imployment and our Farmers have not commonly so much respect for the meaner sort of them as to make use of their Service either for Plough or Cart and for such as would come hither to reap the benefit of being naturaliz'd it 's probable that they may be Persons of better condition than ordinary Farmers and their Stocks might be more advantageously imployed in the Kingdom while at the same time the increase of People will require an increase of Provisions and by consequence make Farming and Plowing both more frequent and profitable than it is at present Our Author's next Paragraph is thus Vpon the whole Sir it 's my Judgment that should this bill pass it will bring as great Afflictions on this Nation as ever fell upon the Egyptians and one of their Plagues we have at this time very severe upon us I mean that of their Land bringing forth Frogs in abundance even in the Chambers of their Kings for there is no entring the Courts of St. James's and Whitehall the Palaces of our Hereditary Kings for the great Noise and Croaking of the Frog-landers The truth is so long as we have so many hard-hearted Pharaohs as our Author and his Party who do so much oppress their Native and so maliciously revile their Foreign Protestant Brethren we have reason enough to dread the Plagues of Egypt for our Author and his Faction who did so violently persecute dissenting Protestants in the late Reigns especially at B l are still very unwilling to let them go and all that our Moses hath hitherto been able to procure for his oppressed Brethren at the hand of these Pharaohs is that they may go and serve God as they please but they must leave all the Places of Power and Profit to them just like the Liberty that Pharaoh gave to the Israelites that they might go and sacrifice to God in the Wilderness but they must leave their Flocks and Stocks behind ' em And now that the Presbyterians of Scotland are quite escap'd and the Dissenters in Old and New England enjoy their Liberty our Author and his Party are so eager to be up and after them that nothing will be able to put a stop to their Career but some such remarkable Judgment as the drowing of the Egyptians in the Red Sea As to our Author's Scurrilities upon the Dutch they are but the poor efforts of an unmanly impotent and unbridled Passion and such as bring more disgrace on himself than the worst he intends to them For if we consider them either as part of the antient Belgae they have been famous in all History or if we consider them as the old Batavi they are no less Renowned if we take them as a Colony of the Germans as undoubtedly they are then they are of the same Original with our selves and therefore ought not to contemn them Whatever difference the situation of their Country and way of Living may produce in the Lineaments of their Bodies or whatever difference their form of Government makes betwixt their Customs and ours yet that the predominant part of our Language is from the same Radix with theirs there 's no Man who knows the one and the other that can doubt and that this is one of the best Arguments to prove a People to be of the same Original the greatest of Antiquaries will allow but if we consider the Dutch as having gallantly struggled with and as gloriously overcome the Power and Pride of the Spaniards who were Predecessors to the French in their Enmity to the Protestant Religion and Common Liberties of Europe there 's no Encomium high enough for them and if we will give our selves leave to consider to what a prodigious height of Power and Greatness they have rais'd their Country in so short a time under the fortunate Auspices of the Illustrious House of Nassaw since the Reformation began to dawn amongst them and how they have hitherto been as a Bush burning and not consumed though several times set on fire by French Papists and our Author's sort of Protestants under the Conduct of Lewis XIV and Charles II. we can look upon them as no less than the Darlings of Heaven and a People over whom Providence hath had a peculiar Care thereby to make them the Instruments of doing great things in the World such as the effecting of our stupendous Revolution by which they gratefully repaid us for the Assistance which they received from our glorious Q. Elizabeth and for which we owe to them and our Gracious Soveraign their Stadtholder and General the Preservation under God of all that is dear to us as Englishmen and Protestants but I know that all these Topicks of Commendation is a sacrificing the Abomination of our Author and the rest of his Egyptian Faction in their own sight and therefore shall come nearer him thus I wonder how they who pretend to adore the Memory of the two Charles's dare thus treat a People to whose Stadtholder and General the First married his eldest Daughter and the Second his Neece and also the eldest Daughter of the late King Matches which the Emperour himself would have been proud of Or how those who pretend to be Men of Honour can speak so despicably of a People who have been honoured with a Race of the greatest Hero's for Princes that the latter Ages have seen But let the Faction treat this People as they please and esteem them as Frogs or what else their Malice can invent for my own part if it be so I will declare my self a Protestant Ranelite on their account as thinking my self under as great an Obligation to reverence and esteem these Dutch Frogs since they must be so call'd for plaguing our Author's beloved Kings and infesting the Chambers and