Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A60052
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A Short and true relation of intrigues transacted both at home and abroad to restore the late King James
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1694
(1694)
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Wing S3557; ESTC R10572
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11,578
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16
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Confederates who are sensible of his Designs will accept of no Conditions from him of his own Proposals but intend to bring him to their Conditions they all foresee that he intends to become Emperor of the West which he cannot attain to but in consequence must extirpate the House of Austria in whose Preservation all the Princes think themselves obliged to keep up the War rather than voluntarily suffer themselves to be brought under a Yoke of Tyranny and Usurpation The Emperor is well satisfied that the War made by the Grand Seignior against the Empire was promoted by the French King and since furthered by him which consideration requires the Emperor to decline all his Proposals until the French King first allays that War raised by himself upon the Emperor As for the King of Spain the French King is a Plague to him by ravaging of his Territories seizing his Towns and Forts without any pretence of Justice and compelling his Subjects to swear Allegiance to him by the Law of Conquest which by Divine Law is no Lawful Right but a Homicide and open Robbery for Mankind was free in the beginning but since by the Power of Usurpation subjected under a Yoke which lost the World forty times over more Lives to continue and maintain Man's Ambition over Man than are left living in the World therefore as God's Laws are against destroying and killing of Men certainly that Power which cannot govern nor live but upon the destruction of God's Creation cannot be called Just nor Lawful Jure Divino but an absolute Tyranny though some of our Divines will say that a Conquest is a Lawful Title so it is by the Law of the Sword but against the Law of Natural Right Some perhaps may take occasion to question by what Law did King William and Queen Mary ascend this Throne A Question as soon answered By a better Title than ever Alexander the Great or Julius Cesar had to any Part of their several Conquests K. William and Queen Mary had the Choice and Affection of the People which is the best Foundation and surest Title that ever Prince had to build upon and without which no Prince can be safe on the Throne But that Prince that has it and knows how to keep it and retains it may reign and rule in defiance of all Foreign Enemies if it does not happen to him to have a corrupted Council which is the overthrow of any State Kingdom or Empire We need not go Abroad for Precedents having some of the Council at Home in being that brought us almost to Destruction and are as likely to do it once again as ever they did before if God prevents not It is true enough that where a Prince has not an Army to rule absolutely no King of England can hurt the Privileges of the Subjects if his Ministers and Judges be but faithful to the Prince and People in discharge of their Trust according to Law but otherwise all goes to wrack We exclaim against the late King 's Evil Counsellors and who can say that there was one good amongst them It is commonly said that they that have betray'd the Secrets of one King against the Oaths commonly taken have since betrayed another Or how can this King and Queen believe themselves happy in the Counsel of those whom they themselves know to have been false to the late King Or is it to be thought the Kingdom is asleep when a Clamour is raised against the late King 's Evil Counsellors when at the same time the major Part of them are still in our Councils and Places of Trust which denotes a long Snake in the Grass But I shall do by them as God Almighty did leave them and return to conclude my Discourse only adding that the Court of St. Germains dreads nothing more than such an Alteration of the Lieutenancy and Justices of Peace over all England as it has pleased their Majesties of late to cause in London The Resolution of the Confederates against the Peace has altered the Measures of France abolished the Thoughts of a Restauration and has put a Period to all the Designs of an Invasion from France hither It is of all hands in France believed that thrô the Distraction amongst the Clergy and Gentry about the Taxes the scarcity of Money among the Commonalty with the want of Provision and the excessive Expences of the War to maintain so many Armies the Glory of that Crown without a Peace cannot hold much longer the declination of the Wealth of France having reduced all People to a very low Ebb. And if the late King and the French King did hold a Resolution to land an Army in this Kingdom this Island is so naturally strongly situated that they would find it a difficult Matter to land an Army here having the Elements to fight with and the Sea to conquer before they can touch the Shore and perhaps the Attempt whenever tried may prove as fatal to France as the overthrow of the Spanish Armado was to Spain Which makes me think of Hegesippus who personated King Agrippa in his Discourse to Claudius of the Danger and Difficulty of invading Great Britain which Discourse ended as Florus said of the Ligurians and as I may say and conclude Major labor est invenire quam vincere Mr. Waller 'T is not so hard for greedy Foes to spoil Another Nation as to touch our Soil FINIS
other was or is to be had But wo be to him that takes that Measure for his Redress The late King believes that the same People that betrayed and deserted him may be prevailed with by his Declarations and Protestations to restore him again But God comfort him he is mistaken the Case is since altered and those Religious Weather-cocks upon whose Promises he does at this time depend are as Impotent to do him any Good as they were Potent to ruin him when here last they have not that Virtue that 's said to be in Achilles's Spear they gave the mortal Wound but they cannot heal it now they would being out of their reach And the late King expecting they could to please them hath excluded the Protestant Dissenters and the Roman Catholicks of Ireland both innocent of the Misfortunes that justly overtook him and is so conscientious that he condemns the Innocent and pardons the Nocent when he offers all the Protestant Dissenters and the Roman Catholicks of Ireland the latter having been Sufferers with a Vengeance in his Cause as an Oblation to the Passive-Obedience Men who infused Non-resistance into the late Army And now these are the late King's Creatures and the only Persons that would abdicate the Gospel as they did their Passive-Obedience King rather than the Church-Livings The late King fulfils the true Character of his Family in himself that have been all known to be unconstant and unfaithful to their Friends and liberal and grateful to their Foes But God has accordingly dealt with them he has raised them a multitude of Enemies and left the Succession of this Crown without any Seconds to fight its Battel And if it be remembred how that the late King and his Brother Charles the Second after their return from Exile treated the decayed Cavaliers who lost their All in their Cause it should leave him destitute of Friends And if it be also considered how many Noblemen and Gentlemen that spent their Estates and Fortunes in the Defence of the Succession of this Crown and how they were rewarded by King Charles the Second and by the late King having received for their Comforts in Distress petitioning about White-hall nothing but Sham-References to the Treasury and paid in cold Waiting long Attendance Tricks Disappointments Promises and Delays that betwixt King-Craft and Court-Cheats and Sharpers Persons of unquestionable Families unspotted Loyalty and Sufferers in abundance have famished for Hunger and perished with Cold and their Posterity to this Day left without any Satisfaction and reduced to a very mean and low Condition which should take away the least Encouragement from all Persons to intermeddle in the late King's Cause but look upon his Fall and the overthrow of his Crown a Judgment due to the Family and may say Justus es Deus justum est Judicium tuum It would be a pity indeed that all the Family should depart this World till they or some of them atone for the manifold Abominations wherewithal they stand charged here as well as before the Great Tribunal for what Evils they have committed against their People The Roman Catholicks of Ireland although in Point of Interest and Perswasion different from us yet to do them Right have deserved well from the late King though ill from us and for the late King to leave them and exclude them is such an Instance of mean Ingratitude that Protestants have no reason to stand by a Prince that deserts his own Party and a People that have been faithful to him and his Interest to the very last That they were overcome is not so much to be wondered at as their holding out against the Power and Wealth of England and against all Nations to admiration so long as they did and at last to force such Conditions from us as should render them a People never to be forgotten by the Successors of this Crown but King James is the late unchangeable King James still a King that is not to be found but upon Uncertainty What have the Protestant Dissenters done to him that he has in the Articles of September last excluded them They had no hand in Undermining Betraying nor Deserting of him they have carried themselves obedient to his lawful Commands and because they did so he contrary to all his Pretensions of former Zeal for Liberty of Conscience by his Exceptions in the said Articles exposes them all to Ruin and Destruction that is to say when he returns But when the Dissenters consider how he deserts those of his own Religion they may content themselves with being as they are out of the reach of his Hatred and seeing that his Favours are only reserved to promote his Enemies and that he has lost all Abroad let his Enemies grow potent every where and numerous withal and let him be so lost that he may never be found here at Home Now seeing the late King hath exposed himself by excluding a People that never prejudiced him nor his Interest to gratify the Desires of those that have turned him out of all It is hop'd that as he had the pleasure of Excepting that he will give leave to return him a Quid for his Quo by directing such Measures as may anticipate all his throughout England Scotland and Ireland and by intimating to the Government such a Method as may for the future detect all the Devices on foot in order to his Restauration and so have his Exceptions by his own Exclusion executed The following Relation as had from Gentlemen of very good Note who have seen most of the Transactions at St. Germains for about four Years last past gives a very impartial Account of Affairs and shews the Connexion of Foreign and Domestick Intrigues carried on and managed with restless Industry now for about two Years last past in order to the Restauration of the late King which at last turned to no better Account than to put a Period to his Expectations by leaving him but small or no Hopes to return ever again as will plainly appear the Truth whereof will want no Confirmation for farther enquiry into Foreign Affairs will remove all Doubts and leave no room for Contradiction ABOUT two Years since the late King had great hopes to be restored with Triumph and fed himself with the thoughts of being an absolute Monarch having about that Time received great Encouragement as well from the Pope as from the French King which made him look above the Reach of his late Subjects as he thought and to reject all my Lord Preston's Undertakings and the rest concerned in that Intrigue which was like to have cost my Lord Preston his Life and for which he had no Thanks but on the contrary was despised for meddling the late King protesting then that he had rather never see England than come to treat or capitulate with his Subjects again But he soon altered his Resolution seeing Affairs Abroad thwart his Designs and meeting with such unexpected Disappointments which abated much