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
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.
A REPRESENTATION of the present Affairs and Interests of the most considerable parts of EUROPE more especially of those of the NETHERLANDS As they now stand in the beginning of the year 1677. Laid open in a Letter from Holland By a Lover of Truth and Peace Anno Dom. 1676 7. SR Upon some serious Considerations lately had by us both touching the great Confusion and Calamities of sundry parts of Europe particularly of the Netherlands you were pleased to put such a value upon my judgement beyond it's deserts as to ask my opinion of the source progress of those Evills together with my Advice concerning such Remedies as might restore the Lands to their former rest and the Inhabitants to their ancient foelicity and safety Sr This was not the work of One day nor is it now possible in one Letter to comprehend so ample a Relation or discussion of those things wherein so many so grand and so various circumstances occur Neither have I now the leisure to reduce them into such a distinct Method as you might expect But according to the severall discourses I daily am accosted with the observations I have made of persons and passages I shall give you a generall view of our Maladies the idea whereof may haply somwhat move your compassion though it cannot have so great an influence upon the affections of your Countreymen as upon those on this side the water who have born and are yet likely to bear the heat and burden of a sad and dolefull day And as for an Esculapius to heal these dreadfull wounds somthing we shall assay though rather wish than hope for such an Expedient unless you in England sensible that when your Neighbours houses are on fire apprehending your own cannot long escape shall be moved to add a helping hand ere it be too late Now Sr for the better answering of your expectation ere I give you my own Observations I judge it not amiss to propose to you the severall sentiments of the 2. great Heads of the present contending parties and sith Our ears are daily filled with the noise of their loud boastings high pretences and mutuall calumniations I take the Freedom to exercise your patience with an account of their own Rhodomantado's which I cannot better do than by personating One of each Nation I shall first introduce the Frenchman who would perswade us to a belief that his King is the onely qualified Prince of Christendom to become Emperour not onely of Europe but of the world And thus you may hear him Flourishing over the encomiums of his King Countrey and Cause In the first place saith the Monsieur I say That my Soveraign Lord and Master His most Christian Majestie is every way qualified for the Soveraign Imperial Dignity and Charge I shall begin with his Person which no man can deny to be the most graceful of all the Princes on earth his mind yet more richly adorned with all the graces and transcendent Excellencies and Endowments which may become a Prince Had he lived in some days no doubt he would have been reckoned amongst the Gods He came into the world with a wonder therefore was he named Dieu done Gods gift and being so miraculously given beyond all expectation 't is a sign he came to do some grand work he being prophecied of by many as if he were to begin or set up the Fifth Monarchy and to me this seems evident for when you shall well weigh what great and glorious things he hath don in raising the Monarchy of France to that degree of height as hath never yet hitherto been known adding thereto so many great Conquests and that in very few years to the astonishment of all the Princes in Europe and the admiration of the Great Turk who you find sends an Ambassadour to treat his Christian Majestie with the Title of Emperour which never formerly was given to any King of France since Charle Main's time and when you shall truly consider the great power of my King at Land and Sea certainly you must yield him to be the most potent of all the Princes of Christendom He is able to bring two hundred thousand men to fight and yet not take three men out of a Parish for 't is undeniable that in France alone and it's limits leaving out Lorrain Burgundy French County and Alsatia he hath within the French Monarchy one hundred and thirty three thousand Parishes But before I speak of his Riches and vast Dominions I ought to mention somthing of the vertues of his mind which are so numerous that certainly never have so many met together in any Prince in our modern times he is all bon Air and curteous beyond expression and yet in labours vigilancie and hazards who ever more sedulous And what Prince ever out-did him in distributions of justice and rewards to the meritorious What encouragements doth he give to the Vertuoso's What pensions are given to the widows and orphans of the brave English and other Nations that have serv'd him well Nor can his own Subjects complain of missing their reward when they deserve it And this his glorious Example hath begotten an imitation in his Subjects What numbers of brave Generalls and skilfull Officers is France plentifully furnished with What a disciplined Army is that of the French none in in the world to be compared to them And if you take notice of the Riches of my King in the Number of his Subjects then you will grant he exceeds all Europe Charle Magne was of opinion that France for it's situation was the most convenient and commodious Countrey of all Europe for making the Residential seat for the Emperour and Charle le Magne had made it so had not these two considerations overswayed viz. 1. That the German Princes and their Countreys might so have taken the opportunity of returning back to their Heathenism to which they were very inclining 2 Sith at the time of his disposall of his possessions amongst his Sons France now so called was under severall Princes and Potentates which Charle Magne in justice could not turn out of their lawfull rights as Languedock Provence Britain Normandy and severall other Provinces But now these and divers more as Lorain Alsatia French County Burgundy and a great part of the Netherlands are of later years added and laid to the Monarchy of France I am of opinion that if my King should joyn with his Majestie of Great Britain they Two might divide the world between them the One to be Emperour at Land the Other at Sea and 't is both reasonable and naturall it should be so for We and the English are So mixt in bloud and our consanguinity such that We are One People The English have been severall ages in France as may be seen by the stately Churches and other Fabricks they built whilst in France Then the Normans possessed and governed England as may appear by the Laws written in the French tongue and yet remaining
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.