Bustle Noise Blood Treasure and Pretence for publick Good and Liberty we have been destroying what we have built up grasping unsuccessfully at that amidst the dangers Cruelties and Expences of a War and with the Breach of so many sacred Tyes and Engagements which we might have Insured to our selves and Posterity with much ease and innocence and wreathing a Yoke about our Nâ—cks which will gaul and pinch us more severely than what we endeavoured to throw off The Male-Administrations charged upon King James by those Pamphletteers are shortly summ'd up by them in the Western Severities the High Commission the turning out of Office all good Protestants the attempting to reverse all the Penal Laws the putting unqualified Men into Places of Trust Profit and Power the exercise of the Dispensing Power the excluding the Fellows of Magdalen Colledge and putting in Papists with the Imprisonment and Tryal of the Bishops It seems these Authors are of opinion that any Reason how weak and unconclusive soever it be should pass as good Coin upon us since they come from such Magisterial and Florid Pens But if they designed that their Authority alone should pass for Reason amongst us they ought to have subjoyned their Names to add thereby some Value and Weight to Arguments and Grounds by far too weak in themselves to support so lofty a Building as is founded upon them Some of the Misgovernments here enumerated which I have exactly Copied from p. 6. l. 8. and downwards of The Pretences of the French Invasion examined are false others maliciously aggravated and the rest the King was forced upon by the Importunity of Ministers who were gained by the Prince and offered such Advices only with a design to render him odious to the People and thereby to dispose them for this happy Revolution which hath since fallen out But to examine them severally As to the Western Severities I believe it will not be deny'd even by this Government that the Duke of Monmouth his Invasion was a Rebellion and that the Lives and Fortunes of all ingaged in it were by the Laws of the Land forfeited to Justice I am heartily sorry that so much Blood was shed by the Hands of the common Executioner but it is very well known to many Persons of Honour and Quality that those great Severities were only to be ascribed to the insolent and cruel Temper of Jâ—ssâ—ries Pâ—llexsen and Kirk that the King himself was extreamly offended at it and immediately put a stop to their Proceedings so soon as he was acquainted with them And it is strange enough how this comes to be charged so â—ome upon King James by the Champions of th s Government since King William by his a â—â—arcing and employing of Kirk and Pâ—llâ—xsen 〈◊〉 plainly discovered to the World That either he did not look upon â—hose Sâ—verities to be unseasonable or 〈◊〉 or also that he loved them the 〈◊〉 for th ir 〈◊〉 and bloody Disâ—â—â—â—tioâ— as 〈◊〉 for his Service and Designs otherwiâ—e such Butchers would not have 〈◊〉 countenanced by a Reforming 〈◊〉 The High Commission Court I will 〈…〉 But we know very well Who â—dvised it and we see one of the most active Members of it in a fair Way of Preferment now and certainly our present King would not honour such a Man or trust his Affairs into his hands if he lookt upon that Commission to have been a good ground for Abâ—iâ—atiâ—n The turning out of Office all good Protestants and the putting of unqualified Men into all Places of Trust Profit and Povver is a large Strain of Eloquence which though like the usual Flights of the supposed Author is too light and false for so grave and weighty a Subject For many Places of Profit Trust and Povver were kept filled with good and zealous Protestants and vve knovv to whose Councils and Advice and at whose door we must charge the filling of so many Places of Trust vvith unqualified Persons If an E. of Sunderland and Lord Churchil had not been Ministers of State and Favourites then perhaps the Leo had not yet been exchanged for Kensington It is to their faithful Counsels and Influence we owe the Advancement of Father Peters to the Council Board the new modelling of the Irish Army and Government the Magdalen College Reformation the Regulation of Corporations the Closâ—tâ—ing and the Imprisonment and Tryal of the Bishops And if so there is a certain Prince who is really more guilty of those Miscarriag s than the Abdicated Monarch sinc he was the main Engine who set those noble Lords to work and I am afraid his Conduct since vvhen examined will in a great measure make good the Charge It 's natural enough for a Prince to carry some little savour to those of his own Religion and easier for a treachâ—rous Minister to trapan him into more Indulgence for them than the Laws câ—n wâ—ll allow and those two Lords being intirely Devoted to the Advancement of the Prince's Designs did imploy their utmost Interest with the King to bring him into all those Measures which did so much favour and precipitate this Revolution There were some faithful Servants who quickly discovered the Roguery of this and stoutly made head against it but a blind zeal having betray'd the new Converts into those Measures and the time serving Courtier being joyned with the Pack Roguery became too hard for true Honesty and yet it was with great difficulty and matchless Importunities the King was wrought upon to do several of those Things which were the only important Errors It is well known that it was with no small trouble he was prevailed upon to admit Peters to the Council-board And as to the Regulating of Corporations the King gave his Opinion against it to the very last and I dare appeal to the Earl of Bathe whose Testimony is not to be suspected by this Government if in his access to the King about the Regulations in those Countries were he was Lieutenant he did not discover the Truth of what I here assert from the King 's own Complaints to his Lordship How greatly he was importuned to give way to those Measures from which in his own Judgment he was so averse We might have continued Ignorant in a great measure of the particulars of all this fine Christian Policy if upon the Revolution these honest Agents in so good a work had not by boasting of their several Merits Diligence and Activity in betraying an honest hearted Prince and so the more Credulous to his own ruin discovered all the Steps of this Intreigue but in the Opinion of some every thing is lawful for the obtaining of a Crown If it be alleged that most certainly the Prince never dreamt of the Crown of Britain until it was presented to him as a reward from a grateful People for their Deliverance his promises of Places at Court and Governments of Forts before he came from Holland which were only in the disposal of the King of Great Britain
but these Fundamental Privileges which are the Birth-right of Nations and derived Originally from the Laws of Nature it self such as the Freedom of our Persons and Dominion over our Properties fall only under the Cognizance of Parliaments for their better Establishment against such Breaches as the depraved Nature of Princes and their Ministers will be making upon them The Nature and Design of Societies hath occasioned a partial Submission of these two great native Privileges to the safety of that Body Politick by punishing of Crimes and to the support of it by Taxes which we grant our selves but in no Construction of Reason Sense or Justice can Delegates be understood to be impowered to make an intire surrender of those Rights into the Hands of any Prince were it but for a moment It may be alledged That the safety and necessity of the Government put our Rulers upon such extraordinary Measures If reasons and pretences of State the Secrets of which are always locked up in the Prince his Brâ—ast can apoligize for such bold Strok s against our most Fundamental Priviâ—eges and Laws Where is there any Right or Immunity which we can call our own or be â—ssured off Since such pretences shall never be wanting to entitle the Prince to an absolute Dominion over 〈◊〉 Property as well as over our Liberty since the last is more valuable than the first Why may not Reasons of State as justly render him Master of the one as of the other If it was to preserve our Liberties from the insults of King James we placed the Prince upon the Throne we have certainly either mistaken the Disease or the Cure since he cannot be preserved upon it at a cheaper rate than a Sacrifice of what we intended to preserve we are to learn nothing from this Revolution but a surer and more infallible way of enslaving the Subject King James never dreamt of such a Method An English Parliament was hitherto esteemed a Court inseparable from the true Interest of Englishmen but a little more Training under so good a Master may make them change Principles and become in time as complacent and good natur'd as ever the French and Swedish States were Nothing it seems in Gratitude can be refused to our Deliverer But thô Gratitude be a Virtue it ought to have its Bounds lest it run us farther than designed or intended at first even to the destruction of those Rights for the Preservation of which we desire to appear so grateful The King of Denmark in our time by the Merit of some Actions performed for his People and during their first Raptures of gratitude for it sound the way to Enslave them by changing an Elective and Limited into an Hereditary and Despotick Monarchy The admitting of unqualified Persons into Places of Employment and the erecting the High-Commission-Court were thought great Crimes in King James and mighty Errors in Government and yet the first is as frequently practised in the Army as ever and how much further the Prince's dependance upon Popish Confederates may lead him in favour of Catholicks must be owing to their Moderation for we lie at their Mercy upon that head and may come to be made sensible that our Foreign Allyances may prove as troublesome and uneasie to us in favour of Papists as King James's Religion was And as to the last the Prince must either look upon that Court to be no Crime or by favouring the most active Members in it he must destroy and invert that old English Maxim That our Kings can neither Err nor be Punished but that evil Counsellors are liable to both The turning out the Fellows of Magdalen College from their Freeholds contrary to that Provision in Magna Charta That no Man should lose his Life or Goods but by the Law of the Land is not to be justified and yet falls much short of the putting People to death under this Government by Martial Law before it was Enacted Few Men will ever scruple to secure their Lives with the loss of their Places The Quo Warranto and Regulation Projects were much to be complained of but we may very easily imagine to whose Practises they were owing by the Countenance and Preferments the Authors and Promoters of those Councils received from this Government neither can the Quo Warrantoing of Charters be so illegal as the Declaration would make us believe since King William himself treads in the same Path by imposing a Governor upon New England upon the Quo Warranto Foot contrary to the Opinion of his Privy-Council Whereas by the Declaration the slighting and rejecting of Petitions delivered by Subjects with Submission and Respect is considered as a high Strain of absolute Power yet when the People of Scotland had secured to themselves the Privilege of Petitioning by their claim of Rights and in pursuance and by virtue of that Privilege the greatest part of that Parliament which placed the Crown upon his Head had humbly addressed unto the present King for his assent to some Votes which they had passed for Establishing of Religion and Liberty and which were agreeable to their antient Laws and Privileges they were scornfully and disdainfully refused and rejected If by the Declaration it was a fault to treat a Peer of England as a Criminal for asserting that the Subjects were not bound to obey a Popish Justice of Peace it cannot be a piece of Justice in King William to pass a Sentence of Banishment upon the Earl of Feversham who is a Peer of England within these few Weeks without so much as alleging a Crime against him Since by the Declaration the obliging People to deliver their Opinion before hand as to the repealing the Test and Penal Laws and the turning out of Employments such as would not promise lustily is represented as so fowl a piece of Collusion The Closetting of Members of Parliament now to pre-engage their Votes in Affairs depending before them and the Disgraces which some obstinate Persons fell under upon it should have been forborn unless King William be dissatisfied with the Prince of Orange's Declaration and the Rules and Maxims therein Established According to the Scottish Declaration the appointing of Judges in an unusual manner and giving 'em Commissions which were not to continue during Life or good Behaviour was highly illegal yet K. William after he got the Crown found he was mistaken in that Paragraph and nominated the whole Bench without subjecting them to a Tryal and Approbation of Parliament according as Law and Custom required did not think fit to continue their Commissions during Life or good Behaviour and appointed them a Lord President thô by express Statute he was to be elected by the Bench. By the Declaration the imposing of Bonds upon whole Counties without Act of Parliament and the permitting of free Quarters to the Soldiers are declared to be high and intollerable Stretches of Government The same hath been practised in this Government with greater Confidence less Compassion and
GREAT BRITAIN's JUST COMPLAINT FOR HER Late Measures Present Sufferings And the Future Miseries She is exposed to With the Best Safest and most Effectual WAY of Securing and Establishing Her Religion Government Liberty Property Upon Good and Lasting Foundations Fully and Clearly Discovered In ANSWER To Two Late Pamphlets concerning the Pretended French Invasion Printed in the Year MDCXCII Great Britain's Just Complaint FOR Her Late Measures Present Sufferings and the Future Miseries She is Exposed to THE last great Revolution in Britain which doth so much exercise the Heads Hands Purses and Pens of the Inhabitants of this Island is not to be paralel'd by any Instance from ancient or modern History When we have ransackt the Annals of all the Nations of Europe and travell'd as far as the Indies to find an Example we shall at last be forced to acknowledge after all Circumstances are exactly weighed That we have been blindly following the Dictates of our own personal Prejudices and intoxicated Judgments rather than tracing the Footsteps of our Predecessors or of the most zealous Assertors of publick Liberties in other Nations I do not deny that in every Province and Kingdom of the Universe we may find Instances where Subjects have been at last necessitated by force of Arms to secure themselves their Religion and Liberties against such violent and repeated Acts of Tyranny in their Princes as did visibly endanger the Frame of the Government it self as well as the Safety of every Individual And many Princes have lost their Crowns by a tract of Cruelties and Exorbitances in Government and an incorrigible Obstinacy and Deafness to all the humble Petitions and repeated Complaints of their Subjects But we scorned to be confined within such ancient Rules to be regulated by the Practices of our Forefathers or to be taught at the Expence or by the Experience of others We have walked without Guides amidst dark and dangerous Precipices Our Fears have overrun our Reason we have taken things upon Trust without searching them to the bottom and we have been imposed upon by the cunning and artificial Disguises of self-designing and ambitious Men to overlook a most infallible way of securing Liberty and Property to all future Ages which the Ambition of the Prince of Orange and the hard Circumstances of our own King had put into our hands We have vacated a Throne for the pretended Disertion of a Prince violently forced away by a surprizing Defection of his Children Servants Subjects and Soldiers and under the terror of dangers threatning his Life and Liberty We have justified this Severity by enumerating Miscarriages in Government which though Errors and Mistakes were very far from overturning Foundations and which the King was put upon by the artifice and cunning of his Son in-law who was grasping at his Crown And we have obstinately refused all Treaties when offered whereby Grievances might have been redressed and provided against for the future and we have ventured upon such Steps as have no Precedent and furnished an Example for History which will be found too desperate and expensive for imitation Yet so far hath this Poyson spread and diffused it self that though the pretended Reasons of our Proceedings appear at last to be empty false and forged though the principal Actors are ashamed of their former grounds and love the sound of Conquest better than that of a Deliverance and are countenanced in it by the Practises as well as Inclination and Maxims of our present Monarch there are some People who would gladly continue the Cheat and amuse us still with a Hodge-podge of Right of Succession Election and Conquest and the lofty and agreeable sound of Religion Liberty and Property which appears to be as little the care as it was the design of our principal Reformers Hence it is That we have of late been entertained with two famous Pamphlets the one entituled The pretentions of the French Invasion examined Licensed or rather written by the E. of Nottingham The other is A Letter to a Friend concerning the French Invasion which must be the Offspring of a Person of equal Quality with the former since his Character stamps it legitimate without a License These two Pieces do not in the least answer the Figure which the Authors who are assign'd them make in the World For all along they falsifie disguise or absolutely conceal Matter of fact they labour to impose Falshoods for Truths and their base Alloy as good Coin upon us They advance Positions for undoubted Maxims which have been controverted all the World over and upon this Sandy Foundation they raise their Building and their Reasonings are either false sophisticated or most conclusive on the other side To make good this Charge and acquit my self of the Duty I owe my Country and fellow Subjects in contributing my Mite towards the rectifying their Judgments in such a nice and important Affair wherein our own Peace and Happiness as well as that of our Posterity is so much wrapt up I shall endeavour to make a full and distinct Answer to these Two Pamphlets by a true unbyassed and impartial Deduction of Matter of fact by seting out the publick Councils Designs and Conduct of particular Persons in their true Light without those Disguises which were Art-fully thrown over them and by their own Reasons and Maxims concluding a great deal more forcibly against themselves And to deal fairly by them I shall confine my self to those very Arguments which are assigned by the Author of The French Invasion examined as the Motives upon which the Restauration of King James is desired and endeavoured viz. The repairing the Injury done to the King the setling the Government upon its old Basis the delivering us from the Oppressions we suffer under the present King and the securing the Protestant Religion for the future There is no English-man but must allow these Considerations to be Grave Weighty and Important and if as True as Considerable sufficiently conclusive and persuasive for a speedy Restauration I will then enter upon a particular Enquiry and I do not dispair before I have done to establish the Truth as well as the Importance of those Reasons against the Cavils of those Authors I joyn them together because their Reasonings are much the same equally levelled against the aforesaid Motives and must stand or fall together As to the first Motive Of the repairing the Injury done to King James If it can be made appear That he was unjustly upon false Pretences deprived of his Birth-right by his Subjects who by Nature and Oaths were bound to defend him in it then must it be acknowleged a Duty by all as well as those Authors to repair that Injury done him by restoring his Right again I shall apply my self particularly to the clearing of the Injustice done him since upon that a great part of the Controversie depends and most of the Reasons assigned by these Authors against his Restauration will fall to the ground In
after such an Advice sent by Persons whom he had trusted with the most important Concerns of his Crown and Kingdom after such an open Breach of the publick Faith and after such visible and open discoveries of the Prince's secret Designs and unlimited Ambition a Passion which never scruples to sacrafice every Remora to its Establishment where it Predominates Is there any cool and rational Man will censure the King's Conduct in disbanding that Army which had for the most part made a Defection from him and in taking care of his Person by a speedy Retreat from amongst such wavering Subjects dangerous and disingenuous Enemies But in farther Evidence of the King's unwillingness to part from his People and of the Prince's fix d and determinate Resolutions to force him to as great a distance as he could being always jealous of a Reconcilement which would have quite buried his ambitious Thoughts and Designs I shall give the World a particular account of the most important Steps taken by either Relative to their several Designs The King when he came to London sent a Message to Sir Thomas Stamp now Mayor and to Sir Simon Lewis two eminent Aldermen of that City desiring them to acquaint their Brethren and others of the Common Council That he was resolved to put himself into the hands of the City there to remain until by a free Parliament he had given all Satisfaction to his People by securing their Religion Liberties and Properties to the full hoping that in the mean time they would take care to guard and secure his Person The foresaid Persons communicated this Message as they were desired but by the influence and interest of Sir Robert Clayton the offer was refused and the security of his Person would not be assured to him Here is plain demonstration both of the King's Willingness to piece up with his People and of the Danger which threatned his Person When the King came from Feversham to Whitehall Monsieur Zuylestein delivered him at Somerset house a Letter from the Prince which was designed to have reached him before he came from Feversham wherein he was desired but in the Style of a Command not to come any nearer London than Rochester To which the King very meekly returned an Answer That he would have complied with the Letter had it come sooner to his hands Can there be any more doubt after this of the Prince's unjust and ambitious Designs to put such a Restraint upon a Monarch in his own Dominions whose undoubted Title he had acknowleged both by his Declaration and a Treaty This was a piece of Haughtiness and Insolence above all Example except what his own future Practices hath furnished us with As soon as the King came to Whitehall he wrote to the Prince inviting him to St. James's allowing him his own Dutch Guards to secure his Person and assuring him That upon their Interview he would fully satisfie the intent of his Declaration But this was no satisfaction to the Prince He had a secret and concealed aim at the Crown and provided he could gain that point he liked it the better that it were Vested with all the Power he so much complained of in his Declaration His Conduct since hath sufficiently cleared this to these Nations An Interview which was so much desired by the King did not suit with this darling Project he could neither well ask it nor expect to have it granted Besides he found the Torrent of the Peoples Affections which had run so swiftly towards himself was then at a Stand and in danger to be turned into another Channel if the King remained at Whitehall and at liberty to apply himself to the regaining of his Subjects Hearts which he was sincerely resolved to court and acquire at any rate being free from the bad Influences and Advices of those Ministers which were in Confederacy with the Prince Upon all which it was resolved that Count Solmes should possess the several Posts at Whitehall with Dutch Guards and make the King a Prisoner And about two a Clock in the Morning he received Orders from the Prince by the Mouths of three noble Lords to be gone immediately from his own Palace and accordingly he was sent Prisoner to Rochester attended by Dutch Guards and all this performed with unspeakable Rudeness and Indignities done to his Person He was disturbed at an unseasonable hour with a Sentence of Banishment from his own Palace passed upon him by his Son-in-law who pretended only to settle and fix his Crown by redressing of Grievances and that Sentence pronounced unto him by three of his own Subjects who accompanied it with some unmannerly Severities which their fears of a courser Treatment if he staid put them upon He was refused his own Guards to attend him and his own Coach to carry him to Rochester though he declared That he could not travel by Water in so cold a Season against Wind and Tide without greatly endangering his Health Good God! that such Barbarities should be practised and afterwards justified by Christians which Pagans and Infidels would be ashamed of Whilst the King staid at Rochester and during the Sessions of those Lords and Commons who first put the Administration of Affairs into the Prince's Hand and moved for calling of the Convention he sent a Message to the present B of Winchester which he desired might be communicated to the rest of the Bishops acquainting him with his Resolutions to come either publickly or privately and put himself into the Hands of my Lords the Bishops to be under their Protectionâ— until at their Sight and by their Advice he had fully settled and secured every thing in a free Parliament This Message the Bishop of Winchester did impart to the rest and their return to it was That they could not receive him either publickly or privately under their Protection for in that case they would be responsible for his Safety and they were not in a Condition to secure him against the Ambition of the Prince who was resolved to accomplish his Designs and surrounded with so many Troops after so many Advertisements given him of the danger his Person was in by People who might know it and whose Testimony was not to be suspected and those Advertisements fortified and confirmed by the Prince's strange and unaccountable Carriage in breaking the publick Treaty in imprisoning my Lord Feversham contrary to the publick Faith thereby to elude the Effects of his Message in refusing a personal Treaty depriving him of his Liberty putting him under Guards and in banishing him imperiously and unmannerly from his own Houses After so many fruitless Applications to the Prince to the City and to the Bishops only to be secured as to his Person until by a free Parliament he had given full Satisfaction to his People Can there be any Person who is not become Bankrupt as to common Sense and Reason who will blame the King for withdrawing and thereby endeavouring to put himself in
his imprisonment of the E. of Feversham who was a publick Messenger and Peer of England and under the Cognizance of none but the King his imprisoning and banishing King James from his own Pallace though acknowleged as the just Monarch by his own Declaration his banishing the French Embassador out of England as soon as he came to London and before the Administration was put into his Hands by which these Kingdoms were ingaged without their own Consent in a War with France without so much as any pretence of Entertainment given to their Abdicated Monarch being a considerable time before K. James's retreat thither were direct possitive and most Solemn Acts of Sovereignty before ever the Crown was confer'd upon him and are so many plain and evident Indications of that early Ambition I have charged upon him And in farther Evidence that all his Designs from the very first were aimed at the Crown and the Crown Vested too with the most towring Prerogatives When the Convention was Deliberating upon some future Provisions against Arbitrary Power the Prince sent my Lord Wharton to several Lords and Mr. Coulin to Sir Edward Seymor and Mr. Hambden and other Commoners to let them known That if the House insisted so much upon Limitations that he would return again and leave them in the lurch to the Mercy of King James So generously Tender was this great Deliverer of our Religion and Liberty As to the Dispencing Power assumed by King James I do not pretend to justifie it I am heartily sorry that so bad a Measure was taken to carry on and establish so desirable and necessary a Good and Birth right of Mankind as Liberty of Conscience which carries its own native Beauty and Usefulness so visibly stampt upon it as could never have failed to obtain an Establishment from the Reason and Judgement of an English Parliament But this would have so much united the Hearts and Affections of English Subjects with their King and laid such an invincible rub in the Way of the Prince's ambitious Designs that it became one of the nicest and most sicklish Points to manage the hardest to ward off and the most dextrous and artful part of their Game there was no downright opposing of so general and desirable a Good 〈◊〉 was easier to poyson and divert 〈◊〉 The King was first put upon Establishing this Liberty by a Proclamation that so the Parliament might be prejudiced against a Thing which otherwise they would have granted upon the account of the first Measure taken about it but finding that the general Good and Benefit which was to be reaped from this Liberty would have digested and sweetned this Pill from a pretence of saving the King's Honor from a Foyl and making all sure though really with a design to ruin Him and baffle the Thing they put him upon the Regulating and Closetting Projects and upon obliging the Clergy to read his Proclamation for Liberty of Conscience from their Pulpits This did alarm the Bishops as was designed and obliged them to think upon Petitioning against it upon which those Beautefeux being afraid lest the KING should call in his Proclamation having always found it hard enough to bring Him to such Methods they ordered the business so that the Bishops were so long in presenting of their Petition to the King that though their Reasons had convinced and satisfied Him there was not time enough to countermand his former Orders though never so willing Upon which they took occasion to incense the King against them as if they had delay'd their Petition so long with design to embroyl Him with his People and so they run the Bishops into the Tower and from thence to the Barr. This is the true History of the Dispencing Power and of the Bishops Persecution which was so warmly and bitterly urged against the King as undeniable Proofs that his Inclination to Catholicks was too strong for the Laws But to speak plain English I hope those Stretches in favour of Catholicks which were Criminal in King James are not become more Legal and Meritorious in King William the exercise of the Dispencing Power in their favours I hope is as much a fault now as ever The Charge will be denied but I shall make it good when I come to discourse upon the Third Motive to the King's Restauration Are not Catholicks employ'd now in the Army thô not qualified by Law It will be alleg'd they are Foreigners so much the worse for an English Catholick will still have some regard for the Laws and Liberties of his Countrymen whereas a mercenary Foreigner is absolutely at the disposal of his Master Are not the Catholicks as much Countenanced and in the exercise of as much Liberty for their Religion as ever The necessity of humouring a Confederacy which must support us the great Strength of which are Catholicks may be urged as a very good Reason for this but if we examine it to the bottom this threatens our Religion more than any Indulgence was granted them by King James When the Catholicks of England hold their Liberty merely from the favour of the Protestants of England they must be thankful for it and humble under it but when they come to derive their Favours Immunities and Liberty from the necessity of our Circumstances and humble Regard and Deference we must pay to Catholick Princes without whose Assistance and Friendship we cannot Subsist their Spirits Hopes and Haughtiness will be enlarged by it They must make grateful acknowlegements to those Catholick Princes by whose kind Influences they injoy their Liberty This begets a Correspondence with and Dependance upon Foreign Princes and we do not know how far by the Instigation of Catholicks here those Princes may be prevailed upon to improve the necessity we have of their Allyance to the advantage of those of their own Religion amongst us The House of Austria within our remembrance was the most zealous Champions for the Roman Religion and the dependance of the Catholicks of England upon that House hath been always terrible and troublesom to this State And though their Losses and the growth of France hath humbled and levelled all the towring Thoughts and Ambition of that Family which did so much exercise both the Councils and Forces of their Neighbours yet since by our Assistance that House is to recover its Losses and France to be reduced within its ancient bounds with their lost Provinces the House of Austria may resume their old Designs They were but covered up not extinguished concealed through Weakness to be discovered upon a greater Encrease of Strength and Vigour in which case we may come to be whipt for our present Politicks May the great God avert those dangers and difficulties which inviron us and visibly threaten the Religious and Civil Concerns of these Kingdoms We have been pulling Destruction with both our hands upon our selves and desperately risking our Religion and Civil Rights without any necessity and unless we repent and repair
these Errors the Punishments we deserve will certainly overtake us We have turned away our King whose Right and Title was certain and unquestioned nay we have chased him from us with unspeakable Indignities upon the Pretence of Errors in Government which he was put upon by the Artifice of his Enemies and which he was willing to have repair'd at our own Sight He courted us by repeated Applications to carve out our own Securities for our Religion and Civil Rights but we have obstinately refused any Treaty with him We have set our selves up for a Mark of Reproach to future Ages by our foolish and invincible Malice and matchless Impudence in Vacating a Throne by a pretended Abdication which imports a Voluntary Resignation and yet the Abdicated M narch never made any but asserts his â—itle to this day We have ground d this Abdication upon a wilful Desertion in our Prince when we forced him away for the Preservation of his Life and upon Mistakes in Government which he was trapan'd into and which he was willing to have repaired but we would not as if every Error in Government had been a Sin against the Holy Ghost which neither can be attoned for nor forgotten The Injury done to our Sovereign is very visible from what I have written and so Reparation ought to be speedily made notwithstanding all the Reasons given by these two Pamphleteers against it But before I enter upon answering their Objections I shall discourse upon the other three Motives assigned for the King's Restauration and make them equally plain with the first I have already handled which will in a great measure prevent or take off all Objections can be made The second Motive was the Setling the Government upon its old Basis which is visibly interrupted and quite unhinged by this Abdication We have turned our Hereditary Monarchy into an Elective We have cut the Royal Line interrupted the Succession and destroyed the just Rights of innocent Persons upon a pretended Abdication which thô well founded is but personal and cannot be extend d any farther To this it is answered by the Author of The Pretences of the French Invasion examined p 10. l. 1. and downwards That the Breach as to the Person of the Reigning King was made by himself having deserted That the Convention did not make but found the Throne vacant That in Regard there were so many clear Indications of the Imposture of the Prince of Wales the Conventiâ—n applied to the present Queen who was the next and undoubted Heir and at her Request a Title was given to her Husband and that 〈◊〉 for Life though he was much nearer in Blood than Henry IV. and Henry VII successively made Kings of England That much greater Breaches have been made since the Conquest in the Lineal Succession by deposing the Reigning King and setting up his Son or a remoter Person which he acknowlegeth an Injury to the King so deposed and that the saving the Succession to the Princess of Denmark and her Heirs shews how far the Convention was from any such thing as is alledged By such Reasonings the Author of this Pamphlet discovers but small Knowlege in History and the Affairs of his own Country little Judgment and Veracity joyned with a great deal of Disingenuity and Impudence How truly the Breach made in our Monarchy by the Abdicating Vote is to be laid at King James's door upon the Account of his Desertion may appear from what I have already said And though this Author doth very confidently assert That the Throne was void by Desertion it seems the Convention were not of that Opinion but found it necessary to declare it so by a Vote before there was Access to fill it again and the Eâ—rl of Nottingham was then quite another Man and of other Principles than we find him now as an Author or Licenser only A Regency was not in the least akin to a Vacancy But to humour the Author suppose there was a Vacancy either before or after the Vote which he pleaseth a Vacancy in a Monarchy is a certain infallible Mark of its being elective For in a Hereditary Monarchy such as this of England upon the Natural or Civil Death too if the Author pleaseth of the Regnant Monarch the Right of the next Successour doth immediately take place and the People whether by their Representatives in Parliament or otherwise do humbly submit to and acknowledge not declare and authorize his Native Title Our Law-books teach us That the Kings of England can never dye The meaning is That in an Hereditary Monarchy the Throne cannot be without a Possessor were it but for a Moment so that where either there is the least Vacancy or where the next Possessor wants a Sentence of the People to give him a Title that very Sentence however disguised is an Election and together with the preceeding Vacancy doth certainly and indispensably stamp the Monarchy Elective Is it not highly impudent in this Author to tell us that there are many clear Indications of the Prince of Wales being an Imposture and at the same time not to let us know what they are and upon what Grounds they are so clear and evident Can this Author be so vain as to think we must take his Word for a Thing upon which so much depends no less than the justice or injustice of a Sentence which must stand the Nation in so much Blood and Treasure so many Perjuries and repeated Acts of Violence and Oppression to support and maintain Or doth he therein follow the Example of the Prince of Orange in his Declaration Which tells us of many just and visible Grounds of Suspicion that the Prince of Wales was not Born of the Queen and refers the Inquiry of that Truth to a free Parliament King James also hath made the same reference in a Letter from St. Germains nay desired the last Parliament to look narrowly into that Affair and yet the Prince hath never to this day desired the Parliament to fall about this important Search nor acquainted us with any of those just and visible Grounds of Suspicion Is it not very strange That the only plausible Pretence in all the Declaration for his undertaking should be so much over-look'd whâ—n a clear and plain discovery of such an infamous Cheat and Imposture would have fully justified the Proceedings of the Convention of Estates the present Settlement of the Crown given us all peace of Conscience and Satisfaction under it and would really and truly have Abd cated King James for ever in the Hâ—arts and Affections of every honest Englishman The Prince in Honor was concerned to have press'd it and the suprâ—am Senate was oblig'd in 〈◊〉 and Ju tice to have made a fuâ—â— Discovery of the Truth or Fals hood oâ—â—t espâ—cially when they have 〈◊〉 so much press'd and challeng'd 〈◊〉 it were in the face of the World 〈…〉 about it by King James and 〈◊〉 Petitioned so to do by seveâ—â—â— rioâ—s of Honor