this Book abounds with and which so many Thousands of People yet alive know to be so And yet the Author is a person of a passing good Character in France and the Book is dedicated to no less a man than the Learned Bishop of Meaux and passes among the most of the Nations abroad for a True History I am of opinion there is not in this whole pretended History one single Page without some one or two gross mistakes if not wilful Errors and to name them all were to Copy over the whole Book Only to give a hint of the rest from these few the Author will needs have Cromwell to have been a Prebendary and of Bishop William's Faction against Laud which Faction he says arose on the debate betwixt the two Archbishops for Precedence an affair some Ages older than Cromwell In short there is not one single Syncronisme right in the whole Book from the beginning to the end witness one for all He makes Duke Hamilton's Expedition into England to have fallen out in the Year 1644. and King Charles the First to have rendred himself to the Scots Three Years after I would not have mentioned this Book if I thought it not conducing to the Common-wealth of Letters but especially to Strangers to know this late practice of the French Writers that thereby they may not swallow all they write upon Trust Being upon this subject of Counterfeiting Dispatches and Papers I could instance a great many Remarkable Events that have been owing to that kind of Artifice both in Ancient and Modern Times from the knowledg of which it seems the French are the more imboldened to try the Experiment But there hapned one of the signallest effects in Britain of an Artifice of this nature some Fifty years ago that tho it be quite foreign to the purpose yet the Strangeness of it the mighty Consequences that attended it and it 's lying hitherto among the Secrets of our History will obtain me the Reader 's Fardon to give the Story of it in short Every body I believe is acquainted with the Rise of those unhappy Commotions that shook this Island during the Reign of King Charles the First and knows where to lodg them Both Nations were discontented and the Flame rose in Scotland which propagated it self at last to England and our Historians have taken care to give us all the Publick Steps of those unhappy Transactions but not without Partiality on some one side or another But there was one Secret Hindge on which the Scotch Second Invasion moved that has never to this day been committed to Print and which is a notable demonstration upon how small and unseen Springs the greatest Revolutions in the Affairs of the World do oftentimes turn When King Charles was induced to enter into Terms of Treaty with the Scots at RÃppon some of the English Nobility that had been very Instrumental to bring the King to an Accommodation and thereby deserved well of the Scots found a great Coolness and Uneasiness in the Scotch Commissioners towards them notwithstanding they had deserved so well of that Countrey The Treaty being at last concluded and the Scots fully pleased with the Terms one of the English Noblemen being very desirous to know the Reason of that Coolness that had during the whole Course of the Treaty appeared in the Scots was resolved if possible to find it out To this end having invited the Earl of Rothes and the rest of the Scotch Noblemen that had managed the Treaty to Dinner he fell upon the matter of Their coming into England and how happily the Differences betwixt the King and Them had been made up and withal how happy he thought himself in promoting so good an Agreement At length he concluded with the uneasiness he was in on the account of the Coolness he had always found in the Scotch Noblemen towards him notwithstanding of his great Zeal and Success in serving them with the King and in the whole course of the Treaty The Earl of Rothes answered He thank'd his Lordship for the good Offices he and the rest of the English Commissioners had done his Countreymen both with the King and in the Treaty But he was astonished to hear his Lordship inquire the ground of his and his Collegues Coolness towards him and some of the English Peers there present For says he it was your Lordship and They that Invited us at first into England and promised to join with us as soon as we were on English Ground and yet notwithstanding your Lordship and They were so far from making good your promise that you appear'd in Arms against us The English Noblemen being surprised at this answer at length the Earl of Rothes pull'd out of his pocket a Letter signed by Seven or Eight of the chief of the English Nobility directed to him the Earl of Rothes in name of the rest of his Countreymen Inviting them into England and promising to come in to them upon their entring this Kingdom Which Letter was yet a matter of greater astonishment when it was found a Counterfeit one and that a certain English Nobleman then present who is dead and his Family extinct long ago confess'd himself to have done it This Letter has had the luck to be oftner than once printed in several Histories of that time for a true one and I believe I am the first that have publickly advanc'd it to have been false Being safe in what I have said about it from the knowledge of two or three Noblemen yet alive whose Hands are at it and who are much better acquainted with the whole Story than I possibly can To leave so long a digression and put an end to this Appendix I shall only add a few words concerning two Passages in the foregoing Observators that has made a great noise in the World and which both Honour and Justice obliges me to clear The first is about what I wrote of a Book printed in French some fourteen Months ago if I mistake not the time Intituled Avis aux Refugès sur leur prochain Retour en France An Advice to the French Refugees upon their expected return to France This Book has occasion'd a great many others by way of Answers and Replies betwixt two of the Learnedst Men of the French Nation Monsieur Jurieu and Monsieur Bale And therein the Consistory of the French Church at Rotterdam has been oblig'd to concern themselves Monsieur Jurieu has positively accus'd Monsieur Bale of being the Author of this Book and to have written it of concert with a Cabal of other French Pensioners set a work by the Court of France I shall not meddle in the Debate betwixt those two Great Men any further than concerns my self In one of my Observators I mention'd this Book which has occasion'd so much heat and said It was concerted by the French Court and that I knew the Author This was long before there was the least word of Contest betwixt Monsieur
AN APPENDIX TO Mercurius Reformatus OR THE NEW OBSERVATOR By the same AUTHOR LONDON Printed for RICHARD BALDWIN near the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-Lane MDCXCII AN APPENDIX TO MERCURIUS REFORMATUS OR The New Observator WHO the Author of the NEW OBSERVATOR is the World comes to know with a witness A Paper I always blush'd to own and which hitherto has past only under a bare suspicion of being mine an unexpected Accident has now oblig'd me to acknowledg before one of the most August Assemblies upon earth I find it 's expected I should continue to Write this Paper both upon the account it has not wanted Friends at Home and Abroad that have thought it has done some Service to the Government and that the Honourable Speaker of the House of Commons was pleased to lay no Commands upon me to discontinue it when I was before Them But upon second thoughts and mature deliberation I hope I may be forgiven to lay it down for once lest some one time or another in tracing Truth too near I may come to have my Teeth struck out Yet even the fear of this should not deter me if by all that can occur to me from the present Juncture of Affairs of Europe I did not think Their Majesties Throne was setled beyond a possibility of being shaken and therefore they come to stand in need of no man's Pen far less mine to assert their Right Tho I do not repent me to have written the New Observator yet I have found too late that I have done it under a hateful and invidious Title The Gentleman that began both the Thing and the Name in the Two last Reigns has justly entail'd upon the very word Observator an indelible stain that must needs stick to the softest and justest Pen that shall ever attempt to write again under that Name The Outrages done by him to whole Bodies and Professions of Men and to Parliaments themselves could never have been past over in any Reign but that of Two Princes that shew the World every day They scorn to establish Their Throne upon any other Basis but that of an unimitable Mercy It 's no wonder then that I 'm asham'd to have borrowed from a Paper so justly abominated by all Men of Temper a Title to any thing I wrote Tho at the same time I must say It was rather the Fault of the Bookseller I first employed than mine There is one thing more that puts me to the blush about this Manner of Writing The Gentleman that first begun it was set a-work by the late Instruments of our design'd Slavery as a Tool to lash or turn into Ridicule every Person and Thing that then stood or was afterwards like to stand in opposition to the Arbitrary Designs then on foot Here was another Misfortune like to overtake any body that should Write for a Government in time coming And they who were not acquainted with the Author of the New Observator might be I am afraid inclinable to believe him a Tool in this Government as he that wrote the Old one was in the last Which is so far a mistake that I here declare to all the world Neither any of the King's Ministers nor any about Him did put me at first upon Writing neither did they nor any body else give me Instructions Advice or Assistance in the continuing of it far less did I write for Place or Pension but out of Zeal to a Settlement that only could make these Three Nations happy I have the honour to serve a Prince that neither uses nor needs such kind of Tools All his Actions carry along with them such Impressions of Honour as his very Enemies are not proof against And there is one thing remarkable in Him that perhaps cannot be trac'd in History Never Prince has attain'd to be more Popular and never Prince has used less Art to be so I leave these Papers to take their fate and shall make no other Apology for the Faults and Imperfections that may be found in them than that most of them were written in a hurry of Business and very seldom had I time to read them over after I wrote them If any Party of Men think themselves therein hardly treated impute it to something in my Nature that 's diametrically opposite to Bigotism for if the extent of my Charity in point of Religion were known perhaps somr of the Bigots of the Age would be ready to stone me And I had rather err in the Excess than in the Want of so necessary a Cement of Human Society I am afraid I have said too much of those Papers with relation to the Author And being I am to take my leave of this kind of Writing I beg leave to subjoin a few things with reference to the Papers themselves and to the subject-matter of them The present Circumstances of Affairs in Christendom We are now in the Third Year of a War in which most Nations of Europe are some one way or another concerned but none more than these Three Kingdoms It is now that the Quarrel betwixt France and Us is not the Re-inthroning of the late King James for every body knows that that Prince's Interest is quite out of doors with the French Court But it 's a Quarrel of a far other nature that takes in all that a Nation can wish to regain or preserve In one word either we must bring France to a condition not to be able to hurt us or we must resolve to see our selves despoyled of our Glory our Strength at Sea our Trade and our Plantations in America if not to be reduced to the worst of Fates even that of receiving Laws from a severe Conqueror The last Summer the French play'd the Defensive part both at Sea and Land But there 's reason to believe this Winter will not pass without some Remarkable Attempt in War upon their side and whether that be so or not we may assure our selves it will not pass without the mightiest efforts that Crown ever made to pave a way for a Peace with some of our Allies Spain probably will be the last that ever will give ear to an Accommodation with France but if the French can but gain any one of the Confederates be sure England will be the last they will make Peace with It 's England that the French King has his eye upon if not to make it a Conquest at least to render it insignificant He only wishes a Peace with the Confederates that he may turn his whole Force against this Island And his Emissaries give it out already in some Foreign Courts That they may assure themselves of a Peace with France on what terms they please all that he requires of them being but to ask and have The French stick at nothing that can any-wise favour their Design upon England They spare no Cost to get Intelligence of our Affairs and they have fallen upon such unerring Methods to obtain it that they make
Thurlo's Clerks sitting in a sleeping posture at a Writing-Desk in a little Closet off the end of the Room who indeed Thurlo had forgot was there Cromwell fearing this Young-man might have heard what had past betwixt him and Thurlo and thereby have come to know the name of his Spy at Brussels instantly pulls out a Dagger which he wore for the most part under his Doublet with a design to kill him dead on the spot had not Thurlo with great importunity dissuaded him from it by assuring him It was next to an impossibility That the young man could hear what he had spoke by reason of the lowness of his Voice and withal That having sate up some four days before all of them together without rest it was to be supposed he was then fast asleep all the time of their Discourse Thus did that Person escape and lives in England to this day who confesses he heard all that pass'd betwixt Cromwell and Thurlo at that time but used that artifice to deceive so jealous a Master and save his own life How far the French Court gets Intelligence of our Affairs and how far they gain by our follies I shall not determine But this must be confest We could never have imagined that Crown should have made so mighty a figure in such a complicated Juncture against it if we had not seen it with our eyes It 's true their Money has done more than their Arms but the last they have made use of in Flanders to good purpose And if we consider what mighty disadvantages the Confederates lye under from the Weakness of the Spanish Frontier and their want of Magazines in the Winter both which the French possess on their part we will not think the Taking of Mons the beginning of the year or what else the French shall do now before the Confederates can be in the Field to be things of any extraordinary nature Tho it should fall out that all the Struggles for the Liberty of Europe should end in Slavery tho it should happen that the French Monarchy in the Period of the present War should gain the vertical point it has aimed at under the Reigns of its two last Kings and in one word Tho the Confederates should be forced to stoop in this mighty Quarrel to the Genius of France none of all which I hope there is any great reason to fear Yet the Character of the present King of England will be handed down to Posterity among the most Illustrious that ever was To Conquer in the Posture and Circumstances the French King is in Is but the effect of Fortune But to have struggled so magnanimously and under so many seemingly irresistible Difficulties as this King has done all along since he first entred the Stage Is the effect alone of a sublime and extraordinary Virtue It 's a pretty Passage a late Author gives us of what past betwixt the King when Prince of Orange and Him much to this purpose and by which we may perceive the Kings own Thoughts about the Difficulties he was at that time engaged with After he had given our Author a short Detail of the unlucky Circumstances the Affairs of Europe were then in and what was his share in them he was pleased to express himself thus That notwithstanding of all the unpromising Aspects that threatned him in that War yet for his part he must go on and take his Fortune That he had seen that morning a poor old man tugging alone in a little Boat with his Oars against the Eddy of a Sluce upon a Canal That when with the last Endeavours he had got up to the Place intended the force of the Eddy carried him quite back again but he turned his Boat as soon as he could and fell to his Oars again and thus three or four times while the Prince saw him And concluded he The old mans business and mine are too like one another and I ought however to do just as the old man did without knowing what would succed any more than what did in the poor man s case Tho never Prince has had greater difficulties to encounter never Prince has surmounted them with a greater Firmness of Mind And all the Strength of the French and Weakness of the other Princes of Christendom serve but the better to set off his Character This I take for certain That either Providence has rais'd him up to break the Fetters of Europe at this Conjuncture or that it will be said of him when gone with far more reason than of the Noble Roman of old Hic sub mole immensae stragis jacet obrutus Ultimus Romanorum Here lies oveowhelm'd under the weight of an Vniversal Ruin the last of those that deserved the name of a Roman They are little acquainted with the Transactions of the Age that know not how greatly this Prince has been courted into the French Interest and what tempting baits has been employed to catch him long before he came to make the Figure he now does His two Vncles thought it not below them to be employed by the French King to turn him about at a time when it could scarce have been expected he could be proof against such charming Offers as were then made him considering the lowness of his Fortune What Methods was afterwards used to remove off the Stage a Prince they found inexorable to their Insinuations I shall not here relate having a horror at the bare thoughts of them Whatever is in it it 's certain The French King has in all his Conduct exprest a more than ordinary concern with relation to this King and such a hatred as is scarce to be found among those of so elevated a Rank Ambition and Glory uses to be the grounds that animate Princes against one another But the French King has in many Instances shewed his Designs to be chiefly levelled against the Kings Person and to terminate no shorter than his life All Europe saw and laught at the mighty Rejoicings were made in France upon the False News last year of his Death And tho I am of Opinion the French Court were not so long under that Deception as they pretended to be for Reasons I hinted at in one of those foregoing Papers yet there is one thing concurred to make the French Ministers believe the reality of his Majesty's Death which we come to know but of late and that was the expected Success of that damnable Desi n of one JONES to Assassinate the King about that precise time By whom this Villain was chiefly set on to perpetrate so fatal a Blow is not as yet for any thing I know come to light but that he was to do it and that Tyrconnel kept Correspondence about it with France is but too well known by Letters under his own hand Our Plotters in England did again and again assure the late Queen First That the King 's Assa rs would not leave him at liberty to take a Journey to Ireland and
thereafter when they saw he was going in earnest they assured her That before he could be well landed there there would be a formidable Insurrection here which the few Forces the King was to leave behind him would not be able to make head against Queen Mary upon those Assurances and that of the Weakness of our Fleet prevail'd with the French King to send out his Fleet to Sea to countenance and back this imaginary Insurrection In all which our Murmurers trick'd the late Queen and she again trick'd the French King for neither had they the Courage to rise nor had she so little reason as to hope it But the Letter intercepted about that time to her from Tyrconnel shews that she and he was upon a shorter Project and one Assassine was to do what all her Friends in England durst not Here it is I must beg leave to give my own Opinion about one of the true Reasons that I believe prevailed with the French to be at the Charge of so mighty a Fleet just upon the certain News they had received of the King 's being ready to embark for Ireland For it was then that Monsieur de Tourville their Admiral had first Orders to be ready to Sail. There has been probable-enough Reasons given for this Attempt both in some of the foregoing Papers and in another that has made a great Noise in the World under the Name of the Modest Enquiry about the late Disasters in England c. Which I am so far from contradicting that I believe they concurred greatly to turn the French Counsels that way But that accursed Project of JONES being on foot at that time and the concurring of so great probabilities of a change of Affairs in case of its taking effect there is no question to be made but that it help'd to cast the Balance for setting out their Fleet at that precise Juncture The truth is our Enemies at home could scarce be brought to believe that the King could go for Ireland in the Circumstances his Affairs then stood And indeed it was a bold tho necessary stroke for the King to attempt it King James's Friends in England had assured him so positively of the impossibility of it that the first sure Intelligence he had of His Majesty's Landing was full eight days after he was actually there for some of our Men being taken Prisoners in a Skirmish at Lâ—ghbricklane the Commander was brought before the late King and the first Question that was put to him was If the Prince of Orange was landed It 's hard to say whethet Jones went over to Ireland with the King in order to perpetrate the Villany there he had miss'd of here But this is certain Tyrconnel and the French Generals plac'd their last hopes in that Rogue 's undertaking after they heard the King was safe Landed In a Letter about that time intercepted from Tyrconnel at Ardee to the Late Queen Mary he gave her a very melancholy account of their Affairs tells her The Enemy was 40000 strong and furnish d with all things necessary That the King meaning King James was for fighting but he himself was against it and he concluded That notwithstanding of all her care of their Affairs he had now no hopes but in Jones 's Negotiation Thus a Villain was appointed to put a stop to the Fortune of the Confederates by one single Blow against him on whom the Confederacy chiesly depended And thus Heaven warded off a Stroke that carried with it the Fate of Europe This War with France notwithstanding of all the Taxes we are at to maintain it is the only true Measure but one that the English Crown has fallen into as to Foreign Affairs for the space of more than half a Century of Years It is true we have entred into it when our Enemies may be said to be in the best Posture they ever were in to deal with us But whose fault it is that they are so there is scarce any man of common sense in Christendom but knows and over and above The greater and stronger our Enemies are the greater is the necessity of the War on our part The other measure that was taken for the true Interest of England was the Triple Alliance betwixt Vs Sweden and Holland tho one of the Princes that entred into it was never hearty in it The breaking that Alliance as it was the work of those Five call'd the Cabal in concert with the French Court so it was turn'd into another Alliance the most unhappy and worst design'd that ever the English Nation made Good God! Who could imagine that England could have ever been wheedled into a League with France against a State which our Interest it was to preserve and upon whose standing or falling the Fortune of our King 's only Nephew depended All the Glory we got by that Holland War was that we began it with two of the most infamous Actions that ever was viz. The attempt upon the Dutch Smyrna Fleet and the shutting up of the Exchequer and in the sequel we were roughly treated in the only Element was our part to deal with them in at last after a great Treasure spent only to agrandize France and weaken our selves We were glad of a Peace Upon the ending of this Vnlucky War the whole Nation groaned for One with France The Parliament the People and most Princes and States about us courted King Charles to enter into it And indeed if King Charles had yielded to them this Point the French King had in all human probability been inevitably brought back to the Treaty of the Pyrenees which was all the Hollanders and their Confederates aim'd at and which is that alone that both then and now can secure the Peace and Safety of Europe But alas King Charles was too much in the snares of France to hear any such Proposal All he could be brought to was to make an Offer of a bare Mediation and even in this he was both jealous'd and slighted by the Parties engaged in the War and at last had the Mortisication to see first The Peace betwixt France and Holland made I may almost say without his knowledg and thereafter That betwixt France and the House of Austria sign'd by the Plenipotentiaries of those Crowns at Nimeguen in such a manner that the English Ambassadors could not sign it with them for a Punctilio of Honour refus d them by the Emperor The comparing of the condition France was in then and what it 's now obliges me to a Thought that I am afraid few will agree to it looks so like a Paradox I am of opinion that at that time when both we at home and most people abroad were so earnest for our declaring War with France both the French and We were in a mistake in our Apprehensions of it It is not necessary I should tell the mighty Successes we promised to our selves against them For how far we were to imitate if not to out do
no scruple now to brag openly of it It is no wonder they should for they have had time to bring the Art of Bribing among us to Perfection having practised it upon us to our eternal Reproach for the space of near Three whole successive Reigns The French Court has it self taken notice of the great difference in matter of Intelligence of the Affairs of England betwixt what it was at the time of Cromwel's Government and in the Reigns which have hapned since And I remember a late Author when treating of this subject gives a Reason that I leave to the Reader to judge of without adding my own Opinion about it In Cromwel 's time says he men served their Countrey and the Government out of a Principle of Religion which Principle tho in it self mixed with a Thousand Enthusiasms and false Lights had yet this natural good effect attending it That to discover the least Secret of the Government they lookt upon as a Crime God would never pardon And thence it was continues he That Cardinal Mazarine was pleased often to confess he had more difficulty to get Intelligence of Cromwel 's Designs than of all the other Princes and States in Europe together The Notions of Religion tho never so mistaken are the surest Tyes which possibly can bind men to the Interest of their Countrey And thence it is that the wisest people among the Ancients endeavoured always to make the Rules of the Civil Government depend on their Principles of Religion To this purpose I have often reflected in my mind on the great Cunning and Politick in the frame of the Mahometan Religion which was so contrived as it could scarce have failed of extending it self to that prodigious Growth that it has now attained in the world Mahomet in his System of Divinity tho in a great many other things strangely ridiculous yet in the Methods to propagate both it and his Empire together fell upon the Luckiest Principle that ever was invented viz. That it was the chiefest and most meritorious part of Religion to extend the Mahometan Law by Force of Arms and that whoever had the hap to dye either in the Propagation or Defence thereof was sure of Paradise It was this Notion alone that gave Wings to the Follies of Mahomet which has since overspread so considerable a part of the three great Cantons of the habitable world And while this Political Maxim of Religion continues in its full force it 's next to an impossibility that ever the Princes of the Mahometan Religion can be brought to any irrecoverable ebb of Fortune by those of a contrary Persuasion The Secresy that visibly attends the Measures of France may be partly owing to a Principle of Religion as well as of Honour As they abhor the Baseness of betraying their Master's Secrets so they fear the Sin of it And thus both Honour and Religion takes place with them But how far both of these are wanting with some who pretend to a more Refined System of Theology I leave it as a melancholly Subject I love not to rip up at this time Tho France during the late Usurpation of Cromwell was greatly to seek in point of Intelligence of the English Affairs as I have said yet Cromwell was not so as to theirs And I remember to have seen an Account of no less Sum than Ten Thousand Pounds expended for meer Intelligence from France for the space but of Fifteen Months audited and allowed by Cromwell himself with this very Remark at the foot of it All well bestowed written with his own hand I am the less astonish'd at the success of the French Emissaries and Pensioners in England when I consider how far a dexterous Spy can insinuate himself into the Secrets of a Court. Of this I could give several remarkable Instances from both Ancient and Modern History But I shall only mention one in the time of King Charles's Exile There was a Gentleman employed by Cromwell as a Spy about the King who had the Wit and Dexterity to get into his most Secret Transactions and as he was wont afterwards to say himself into his very heart In this unsuspected and unlimited Intimacy did he continue for some years about the King and might have done it longer if an unexpected Accident joined to a piece of Inadvertency in Cromwell had not occasioned the Period of his Intriegue and Life together Which was thus The late Duke of Richmond having for a considerable time preserved himself in the good opinion of the Protector begg'd leave at length to make a step over Sea for his Health and Diversion as he pretended Cromwell agreed to his Request but with this condition That he should not see his Cousin Charles Stuart as he was pleased to call the King The Duke coming to Brussels and being resolved to wait on his Prince and withal to to save his Credit with Cromwell was introduced in the most secret manner several times to the King in the dark At his return Cromwell pretended to ask the Duke only in jest If he had been with Charles Stuart who answering him That he had never seen him the other replied in a Passion It was no wonder for the Candles were put out This unexpected answer put the Duke of Riehmond to write to the King That he must needs be betrayed by some in the greatest Intimacy about him and at last the Traytor was accidentally discovered in the very moment he was writing to Cromwell an account of the Duke of Richmond's Letter to the King and was thereupon shot to death upon the place It 's more than time to shut up this Subject and yet I know not but the Reader may forgive me to mention further a remarkable Passage that hapned upon this Reply of Cromwell's to the Duke of Richmond which as it was never yet committed to Print for any thing I know so it carries with it one of the truest Idea's we can ever attain of that Great Man's Character Scarce was the Discourse I mentioned betwixt Cromwell and the Duke of Richmond ended but the first found he had committed a dangerous mistake in letting the Duke know how much he was acquainted with King Charles's Secrets and thereby exposing his Spy to the narrowest Enquiry could be made upon it The fear of this obliged him to go strait to Secretary Thurlo's Chamber tho then very late where with the greatest concern of mind he told him what a wrong step he had made in his Discourse with Richmond and how much he fear'd the Person he employed as his Spy about the King naming him at the same time might run the hazard of being discovered through so unlucky a piece of Inadvertence When Cromwell came first in he had both enquired and was told by Thurlo there was no body but them two in the room But while Cromwell was walking up and down in the Chamber in the restlessness of mind this affair had put him in he espies one of
persuade themselves and others from what happen'd in the last War when the Hollanders made up a separate Peace with France But though it were a just standard of Reasoning to judge of what will be for what has been as it is not yet even as to this former Conduct of the Hollanders These Gentlemen are mightily out And their hopes are laid not only upon the weakest but upon the falsest Foundation Which will appear if they be at the pains to consider the Circumstances that oblig'd the States to enter into that Separate Peace The joint Declaration of War against them by the English and French in the year 1672. was a Thunderclap they least of all suspected and were least of all provided against The House of Orange which had for some Generations together been the Tutelary Genius of their State was now under an Eclipse And through the unlucky Conduct of a contrary Faction the Corner-stone of the Belgick Government I mean the Office of Statholder was abolish'd This paramount-Error brought in a thousand more And their Military Assairs at Land were never in so miserable a condition for want of both Officers and Soldiers that knew any thing in War It was no wonder then that People under this circumstance should rather incline to run the Ship ashore at any rate than to venture to keep her out at Sea in so ill hands But upon their returning back to their true Basis in Restoring the young Prince of Orange to the place his Ancestors had possessed with so much glory and upon their committing to him the shatter'd Relicks of ther Armies they bore up the War with heart enough especially being steel'd with the Prince's admirable Conduct and was so far from patching up a Peace with France though they had wisely done it both for them and Us with England that they continued it without interruption from the year 1672 inclusive till the year 1679. being near seven years Even then the Hollanders had notwithstanding continued the War longer if three unhappy things had not interven'd 1st They were fain to lose their Trade and the rather that the English their Rivals in it was at peace with all the Nations about them And when once Trade quits its wonted Channel for another they consider'd how hard a difficulty it is to bring it back again 2dly The Authority of the Prince of Orange was but in its Infancy and the Seeds of Jealousie that had been sowing by the Emissaries of France for the tract of several years were not yet quite rooted out Thence it was the Peace betwixt them and France was rather from the hot instances of the Populace set a work by the Prince's secret Enemies than the effect of a sedate inclination in the Members that compos'd the States-General But there was a 3d Reason that I believe prevail'd more with the Hollanders to make up that Separate Peace than all the rest and that was The unsteady and suspected measures of England during the whole course of that Affair King Charles they knew too well to believe he would ever heartily espouse the Common Interest against that of France And yet they again and again declared to his Ambassador at the Hague That if he would give them such assurances as they could rely on of his Declaring immediately against France as his Parliament would have had him to do they would continue the War cost what it would It was then King Charles's fault rather than that of the Hollanders that they made up that separate Peace And yet at their making it they made such provisions for Spain and the other Confederates that naturally made way for a general one which followed upon it If we take a view of the circumstances that the Hollanders are in at present especially with an eye to these three Motives which induced them to put an end to the last War by a separate Peace we shall find there is not the least imaginable ground to fear they will fall upon such Measures in this War as they did in the former For First Though by the continuance of this War their Trade must needs be impair'd yet they are in no hazard as they were during the last War of losing it after a general Peace comes once to be concluded Considering that the English who are the only Rivals they have reason to suspect on that head are in the same Circumstances with themselves 2dly The King of England's Interest in Holland as their Statholder was never so great as it is at this very moment The contrary Faction that oppos'd him in the progress of the last War is either now changed for him or become so insignificant as not to be able to counterballance the hundredth part of the other Scale And 3dly That fatal discouragement which attended all the former steps made for the Liberty of Europe from the temper and management of King Charles the 2d is now out of doors And the jealousies the Hollanders entertain'd of that Prince notwithstanding of all his Protestations to the contrary are now buried with him in his Grave By all that I have said and by a great many other things I have not time to say It may appear to any body of common sence that the Hollanders are in no hazard of wearying in this War so soon as some Ill-affected Persons would imagine And no People have given greater proofs of their zeal to the common Safety of Christendom nor taken truer and juster methods to that end than they have done all along But there is one demonstration that shews the hearty Affection and Zeal of the Hollanders to carry on this War and which ought perhaps to put some other People that are as much concern'd as they to the Blush They do at this very moment give to the maintenance of this VVar three times more in proportion to what we do in England as to Imposts on their Trade and Chattels And as to Taxes on their Lands and Houses they pay willingly in some Provinces above the real value and in most about three parts of four Notwithstanding of all which there is no uneasiness to be seen or felt among them upon that score and which is the more wonderful that they depend on Trade for their necessary sustentation which we do not in England But I am afraid to have said too much on this subject of the carriage of King Charles and the Hollanders in the last War Considering how lately that Excellent Person Sir William Temple has given us an Account thereof in his Memoirs A Book upon which we can never place a sufficient Value whether we consider the Matter or the Stile And wherein together with the many secret Hindges on which Affairs of that time did move VVe have the exactest and justest Idea of the present King set forth to the life and such an Idea as agrees with the whole matters of fact and that renders him a Prince of the greatest Justice Honour and Foresight that can be