servile compliance with an Usurper our Laws our beloved Magna Charta what our Ancestors were a building up hundreds of years with a great deal of Toil and Blood to enable their new Master by excessive Impositions four Millions and 800000 l. Sterl over and above the ordinary Revenue in loss than one years time to raise an Army under pretence of un-necessary and destructive Wars not of English but of Strangers not to conquer others but to enslave our selves so bare faced a violation of our Rights and Liberties was never before attempted by any of our Lawful Kings or their reputed Pensioners But is not this the Summ Total of our Convention nick-named Parliament proceedings What good this immense profusion of our Treasure has produced is but too well known Nor can it but Stomack every true English-Man that 600000 l. of it should be given to the States of Holland for contributing to our Ruine to serve themselves their Manifesto of the 28th of October has told us plainly but falsly That having understood the Kings of France and England had entred into a League to subvert their State they had therefore assisted the P. of O. in his enterprise Had there been any such League our K. would not have refused the French King 's offered Succours which were sufficient to have prevented our Calamities and the loss of his Crown But from a Common-Wealth of Merchants and Hucksters whose Policy and Religion is Interest and Gain we are not to expect Truth or Integrity Conscience or Honour Our Parliament had no sooner perfected the Money Bills and resolved with a true zeal and the wonted courage of their Predecessors to rouse themselves up from their shameful slumbers and enter in good earnest upon methods of redressing the mismanagement of the Revenue the ill conduct of the Fleet non-payment of Seamens wages â—â—â—â—â—ing the Armies in Flanders and Ireland the false Musters in all the Navy Commanders pirating upon our Merchants the Dutch and Danish Insolencies the illegal free-quartering of Soldiers our other many Publick Grievances and the ill state of the Nation than they were kicked out of Doors as impertinent Medlers in what was not their proper business with a surprizing Prorogation and a ridiculous harangue deserving the credit the exact performance of his former Declarations and Speeches have taught us to give That he is sorry the Taxes are so heavy on the People and that he intends to free them from the charge by a speedy reduction of Ireland against his Interest and his Practice pursuant to the excellent advice given him all which plainly prove the spinning out this War is the only certain way to his End a Despotick Arbitrary Power The Demonstrations of this Truth and our Misery are but too many and too evident His now summoning another Convention of Lords and Commons by the Name of Parliament is not to remove or lessen our burden not to satisfie but amuse by Coaxing and Cajoleries the City and Country enraged at their Oppressions and the unexpected dissolution of the former to gain time for bringing in the rest of his Body of Foreigners the intended Instruments of our Slavery and to try whethen the Church of England-Men whom he inwardly hates and fears will be catched with chaff prove kinder greater fools than the Presbyterians grant him more Money more than the already impoverish'd Nation can bear enough to enable him to compass his End an Absolute boundless Power under the plausible pretence of reducing Ireland which reduced his way would indeed put an end to Parliament Taxes but not to his more Grievous Impositions He thinks it mean to cringe and court and ask for Money and longs to throw oft his Vizard to be in a condition to take it as his own when and in what proportion he shall please If his common Cant and empty Wordâ— which he has been always used to give prevail with his new Parliament he will soon despise his equally bâ—bâ—led Conformist and Nonconformist Friends laugh at all our Constitutions and know no Law but his own Will and in the stile of Our by him much envied Neighbor enforce his Edicts to which Acts of Parliament must give place with a For such is our pleasure the only reason he would fain give of all his Actions His Counsels and his Procecedings here and in Holland sufficiently speak his Imperious Humor and that this is his ultimate design If he would give the World the lye and be gloriously just to himself to his Word to his Honour and the good of England which he pretends so much to affect let him send back his Troops of Strangers lay aside his Crown and propose to both Houses at their Meeting in March the rewarding his extraordinary zeal for the Protestant Cause the calling a Legal Free Parliament to compose all our Disorders and so to settle our Government for the future that there may be no possibility of overturning our Laws or our Religion whether the Sovereign happen to be a Protestant or a Papist he must be a stranger to Germany and the Power of Parliaments that thinks such a contrivance impossible or impracticable his desire that what is past may be pardoned and the Succession continued and provided for in the right Line beyond the hazard of any illegal interuption Such a generous proposition would quickly regain and for ever establish our Peace and Trade restore the distracted People to their Wits and to their love of him and prove no small argument to convince the many Gainsayers that the P. of O 's Dominion though short was founded in Grace But if instead of this Heroick God-like temper he should still insist as we have cause to fear upon his no-right of Possession and playing the K. press for more Subsidies or which is tantamount a fond to enable him to raise his projected Army for other ends than that specious one of Ireland I hope the H. of Commons will be so sharp sighted so honest and so wise as to observe the Snake hid under this Grass hold their hands and not do his business before their own and the Nations not part with a Shilling till they have first secur'd us against Conquest and Slavery They who represent the People need not be told the generality of England wait but for the word to shew they are yet able and ready to back them with Lives and Fortunes in the defence of their Liberty Properties and Religion when and however they in Christian Politicks shall prescribe The Armed strangers which we forgetful of Danish cruelties have suffered to Land are yet too few to master our Women but if there be not an immediate stop put to their Inundation they will soon be an unequal Match even for our Men. Upon the whole Matter Instead of a Moses a Deliverer as we were made believe we have found a Pharoah a heavy Task-Master and like true Northern Heroes have caught a Tartar with a Witness and unless we resolve to shew our selves Men English-Men alike zealous for Glory Liberty and Lifâ— and speedily call for Succour a Free Parliament and our old King which alone can make one we shall be devoured by Foreigners at home and become the scorn of all the World abroad Dat. 8. of Feb. 1689. FINIS
A Letter from a Nobleman in London to his Friend in the Country Written some Months ago Now Published for the Common Good I Assure you Sir whatever you have heard to the contrary my having been in and out in the present as well as the two former Reigns proceeds not from any incompatibility or uncertainty of humour but from a true English Temper and Spirit that cannot endure Slavery in it self and abhors to be the Instrument of it in otherss I ever exclaimed against the Court Maxime Live and let others Live and watch'd my fellow Ministers actions as I desired they would mine that our Master might not be defrauded nor his Subjects oppressed and believing nothing could make England unhappy but a change of our King 's limited legal Authority into an unbounded Arbitrary Power I always advised my Prince to a steddy conformity to the Laws to place his security on the affections of his Subjects which this would gain him and not on Guards or Army These principles were not like to make me thrive in any Court The apprehension I had that the late King's Religion would carry him to that extreme made me not only weary of his Service but uneasie under his Government and desirous to change it for a better which my first heat of fancy suggested I could not miss in a Protestant but my cooler thoughts what I have already seen acted and my Knowledge of what is further design'd convince me of my own and the Nations folly The reports of Char. II's Murder the Earl of Essex's Death and a supposititious Prince of Wales all Men of common sense knew to be false and malicious but I confess I looked upon the noise of a League with France to be real yet without the ridiculous and spiteful addition of cutting the Protestants throats because the King's circumstances especially the proceedings in Ireland made it absolutely necessary for his own preservation Yet now 't is plain this also was a pure invention and that the Dutch dull as they are have out-witted the English and by a trick drawn us into a War to defend them against France Nor is it less evident that Monsieur d' Avaux's Memorial of the 9th of September 88 to the States impudently pretended by the Scribler of the Desertion to have been the cause of the long before intended Invasion was though a Gentiler as meer a Stratagem The King his Master not more ascertained of the Confederacy against himself than of the Hollander's Preparations against K. I. hop'd by this flight of Generosity to have wrought into his Interests Him who before had rejected his repeated offers of succour 'T is no wonder each Party should labour to get England on their side the ballance of Europe put into either scale must of necessity have made that out-weigh the other But now too late we find our King was too good a Christian to believe his Son and Nephew could gratifie his Ambition at so barbarous a rate and too much an English Man to engage with France against his Subjects Interests which certainly was to ingross the Trade of the World and safely look on while the French and Dutch destroy'd each other But alas our want of wit and others cunning would not suffer us to be thus happy fear of Slavery artificially spred among the Gentry and of Popery among the Commonalty did not only make way for our ruine but bewitched our selves to be the Instruments of it We dreaded and roar'd against a standing Army of English of Protestants so zealous that they would loose their reputation rather than fight for their Popish King Yet now we can kiss the rod that scourges us tamely suffer an Army of Forreigners of Popish or of no Religion who will execute with joy the Commands of our new K. their General whose will and whose interest it is to enslave us You have long known my Opinion about Religion and the force of it among Men of refined Understandings I laugh at all sorts of bigotry and prefer our own Religion to Popery not as more agreable to Truth but as established by Law Disputes of this Nature ought in my Mind to be banished the Common-Wealth at least confin'd to the Schools nor should I trouble my Head nor would any Man that wanted not Brains what Religion a lawful Parliament put down or set up provided we could but be secured against Slavery and the loss of Abby Lands Nor need I tell you who have as sensibly felt it that Slavery is not a more natural consequence of Popery than of Presbitery or any other Sect. If from what I write you cannot gather why I make not the same Figure in the State I lately did read the inclosed advice to our new K. and communicate it but one by one to our Friends the Earls of K. and of E. the Bp. of and the rest of our knot 't is Word for Word taken from the Original and it is what cleared my Eyes and gave me a full prospect into the bottom of the design which after I had for some time laboured in vain to cross I made a Leg and withdrew concluding it base and ignoble for an English Peer to joyn in Council or act in Concert with a Dutch a French Hugonot and a Scotch Presbyterian under a King without Title whose Religion is Policy and whose No-Title and Policy must be supported by a strong Army the subversion of the State and the Conquest of England The enclosed Paper was in the following Words SIR HItherto it is true your Affairs seem to have succeeded prosperously you have got a Crown and you have got it with ease but it cannot be preserv'd without difficulty Your Interest as P. of O. Statholder of Holland is very different from your Interest as K. of England but since you are the one and yet for some time must be the other your game is the harder and requires double the skill that when you landed was necessary The Prince of Orange as Head of the Protestant League which among our selves we must own this to be notwithstanding that the Spaniards natural aversion to the French and the growing Greatness of their Monarchy have drawn in to it the whole House of Austria and the other Popish Princes of Germany is engaged in an Alliance the K. of England ought in prudence to have avoided Charles V. and Philip II. have sufficiently proved the Universal Monarchy a fantastick Dream impracticable impossible besides the Nature and Scituation of the English Dominion sufficiently secure it against French Incroachments England therefore in this conjuncture should have stood Neuter and enjoyed the great advantages of Commerce whilst her Neighbors especially the Dutch her Rivals for this reason ever to be suspected and kept under were interrupted by War encreased her Naval strength by building new Ships repairing the old and filling her Magazines with all necessary Stores and erected Forts and Block-houses where wanting to secure her against Invasion The Treaty
of Nimeguen if it could at all affect the late K. could not have obliged him to act otherwise The War being on France's side purely defensive their being before-hand in declaring after they were convinced of the Confederacy makes no alteration 't is an effect of the nimbleness natural to that Nation to make the first pass when they see their Enemies ready to fall on But though Neutrality be the true Interest of England and must have been the late King 's supposing him a Stranger to the Invasion and sure of his Subjects yet can it not for the present be yours who have and must carry on an Interest directly contrary to the Peoples till you are better settled in the Throne and have forced the English to be indeed your Subjects This done you may as the Dutch did in the last Confederacy and as it is to be feared they will again when they perceive in your acceptance of the Crown the ill effect of their own Politicks prevent all others by a seperate Peace In the mean time you must mind your own and not the Nation 's Interest and proceed with your Confederates as Prince of Orange they will without doubt desire as the States have already done that you would as K of England renew and confiâ—m the Alliance and declare War against France you will for a while stand in need of their help and find though they think otherwise much greater advantage by their assistance than they can have by yours a Truth they cannot but discover if they reflect upon the three principal Causes of this stupendious Revolution First The temper of the English a beady 〈◊〉 inconsiderate inconstant People Secondly The incompatibility and natural aversion of Protestant Subjects to a Popish Prince the Church of England in vain endeavours to exempt it self from this Character their Publick Actions in the three last Reigns their Acts of Parliament Tests Bill of Exclusion and Rye house Conspiracy make them pâ—st of the same stamp with the rest and they cannot without insufferable impudence but confess that their pretence of peculiar contrary principles is an empty or else that the whole People of England are in Practice become Presbyterians irreconcileable Enemies to a Popish Monarch So gross an artifice must not betray you into a trust and confidence of their Loyalty as it did your Predecessor who seem'd at least to forget the voice of the Nation That the Duke of York had no fault but his being a Papist to make him unfit to Govern and Succeed unless you will be content to run his Fortune and Reputation The Third and chiefest was the King's want of an Army which he could not be properly said to have so long as they were Protestants the few Papists among them deserv'd not to be considered under a Name and taught it was against Conscience to draw in desence of a Popish K. the event has shewn that Religion had padlocked their Swords and bound up their Hands otherwise he could never have picked up and trained such a number of Men all resolved either to fight against him or run away from him These Sir are the Shelves on which he was shipwracked as you likewise must be unless you steer a contrary course Your new Subjects will be still the same and upon second thoughts cannot but repent what inconsideration made them Act hand over head your being a Protestant Will not secure you the odds between a Dutch Presbyterian and an English Papist are in the Church of England Men's Opinion either none at all or so very inconsiderable that they cannot turn the Scales or give you any advantage You are sensible with what difficulty your Party in the two Houses got the better of those who were for calling back K. I. on terms and of those who were for setting up a Common-Wealth These two Parties will always be your Enemies you cannot hope to make them Converts nor that the third will be long either willing or able to support your Cause So that nothing but an Army can do your business an Army to the number of fifty or sixty thousand not of English but Outlandish men who will fight to make you great what a K. ought and what the K. of England needs most to be Master of his Subjects Ireland's standing out which seems a Cross is on the contrary a Blessing an opportunity that well managed and improved will establish your Dominion Till you haue gained this point you must not only keep fair but Court and Flatter the Parliament at least till you have engaged them in a War with France and the reduction of Ireland which you must so contrive that both may be the effect of their own advice Your seeming to share the Soveraignty they have long ambitioned is the most proper bait to catch your Fish it will persuade them to find Money for the expence and hereafter screen you from the Peoples murmurings You have already given orders for modelling the Fleet and Army and wisely resolved to imploy in neither nor in Civil Offices any English but such as are Men of no Fortune or irreconcileable Enemies to your Predecessor Endeavour to keep if possible all the Dutch Troops and to exchange for them as many English the Nimeguen Treaty in which if for no other reason you must pretend the Nation engaged will rid you of 8000 of 'em some you may dispatch towards Chester in order to the Irish Expedition and others you may march towards the borders to be called into Scotland in case Makay should find himself too weak to aw the Convention and reduce Edinburg Castle Scotland is too dangerous a back door to be left open you ought therefore to be well secured of it before you think of carrying your Arms further the Nobility and Presbytery govern there absolutely you have already a list of both with convenient remarks all sorts of Coin will pass among them and 't is very necessary you prevent by good store of Guineas the course of Luid ' or 's in a Kingdom long allied to France and heretosore useful in their Wars with England You cannot better dispose of the Irish in the Isle of Wight than by making them a present to the Emperor for his Wars against the Turk to prevent desertion if imployed neerer home When matters are thus settled you may safely turn your Face towards Ireland where though you could you ought not to make an end of the War in one Summer though of this caution there seems little need considering that the long Parliament was not able with an old Army of 36000. and a treasure of several Millions to Master it in less than four years from Iâ—ne 49 till September 53. when destitute of Forreign Assistance broken into Factions spent and impoverished by a seven years Rebellion and Civil War a condition very different from their present They have enjoyed the fruits of a long Peace are united as one Man thousands of 'em have learn'd the Art of