Reasons of a King to have the less weight because he graciously offers them to the Judgment of his People Sure I am sometimes God Almighty is pleased to do it who only hath a right to command our absolute submission upon the account of his infinite both Wisdom and Soveraignty So that to suspect the want of of an Apology on no other grounds than a mans willingness to satisfie the World of the justice of a mans Cause and the reasonableness of his Actions is a perverseness to which common Knaves do seldom arrive the Heroes of Villany do not often rise to that pitch of Brutality without the help of Malmsbury Philosophy And I am persuaded that our Author would have spared this Cavil against his Majesties Declaration if he had before-hand considered that in natural consequence he charges not only the King but also the Three Estates with so many deliberate Acts of folly and injustice as there are Acts of Parliament containing the reasons of Enacting so or so If a Princes Actions are indeed unjustifiable if they are opposite to the Inclinations and apparently destructive of the Interests of his Subjects it will be very difficult for the most eloquent or insinuating Declaration to make them in love with such things And if they be none of all these if a Crafty man may but comment upon them and by Ifs and An ds insinuate into the heads of the Common People that he takes them for such it is possible all the Eloquence in the World may not be powerful enough to bring them into their right wits again but yet this may fail too sometimes And therefore they did certainly undertake no easie task in pretending to persuade men who see themselves exposed to the restless malice of their Enemies who observe the languishing condition of the Nation and that nothing but a Parliament can provide remedies for the great Evils which they feel and fear that two several Parliaments upon whom they had placed all their hopes were so suddenly broken out of kindness to them or with any regard to their advantage No I suppose no body was so silly as to undertake such an impossible task but there was another sort of men who had looked better into things and care was to be taken of them to confirm them and a third sort that were not yet well resolved what to think of things and they were to be directed and assisted and it was not impossible the Declaration might have a good effect upon them as indeed it had as for those that had placed all their hopes upon the two last Parliaments and were pleased with all they did there was neither hopes nor design of working that Miracle upon them but they were to be left to time to be cured And in the interim I would advise them to study Colemans Declaration of which my Author saith fine things which I care not to transcribe But should this Declaration be suffered to go abroad any longer under the Royal Name yet it will never be thought to have proceeded from his Majesties Inclination or Judgment but to be gained from him by the Artifices of the same ill men who not being content to have prevailed with him to dissolve two Paliaments only to protect them from Publick Justice do now hope to excuse themselves from being thought the Authors of that Counsel by making him openly to avow it But they have discovered themselves to the Kingdom and have told their Names when they number amongst the great Crimes of the House of Commons their having declared divers Eminent Persons to be Ememies to the King and Kingdom So his Majesties Inclination and Judgment being kindly absolved from the guilt of this Declaration of purpose to abate the Esteem it ought to have And seeing it is not possible to keep it within doors and that some may think the worse of it because there was a sham Declaration found among Colemans Papers as you know there was a sham Plot in the Meal-Tub and yet there may be others that are real The next Inquiry or rather Hue and Cry is after the Authors and those he thinks he hath found by the passage he cites out of the Declaration those Eminent Persons or some of them must needs out of Revenge and Fear be the Authors of this Pestilent Declaration His Reason is this None could be offended at the Proceedings of the Parliaments but they who were obnoxious none could be concerned to vindicate the Dissolution but they who advised it But is my Author sure of that that never a man in the Nation was offended at their proceedings but such as were obnoxious to them I am of another mind and so is all the world now Is it impossible for any man to be concerned to vindicate the Actions of a Prince but they that advise him What pitiful Sophistry this is But were no men obnoxious to the proceedings of these Parliaments but these eminent men May not it be some of those Subjects who were by Arbitrary Orders taken into Custody for matters that had no relation to Priviledges of Parliament They are mentioned before the Eminent Persons tho of a Meaner degree If I be not mistaken some Members too were very disgracefully Expelled the House Might not some of them have a hand in it We are assured a little lower that the Writer was of another Nation from this Gallicism It was a matter extremely sensible to us So that this Gentleman is suspitious it is but a Translation of a French Copy and the rather because Monsieur Barillon the French Embassadour read it to a Gentleman three days before it was communicated to the Privy Council if his intelligence did not deceive him So here is fair Scope left to find or suspect at least other Authors besides the Eminent Persons other Advisers besides those that were obnoxious For I suppose Monsieur Barillon doth not fear a House of Commons And as for this and other Gallicisms that may occur they are not to be wondred at in an Age that generally understands the French Tongue in a Court where almost all the Great men speak it in a Prince who hath lived in France and is descended of a French Mother And the wonder is not so prodigious neither that the French Embassadour should get a transcript of a Paper intended to be published to the whole Nation two or three days before it was read in Council These things make a great noise to ignorant people whilst I am persuaded this Gentleman smiled to think how finely he was deluding them But be these things as they will the Eminent Persons must expect to answer it And our Author thinks they cannot blame him or his Party for hoping one day to see justice done upon such Counsellours And that the Commons had reason for their Vote when they declared those Eminent Persons who manage things at this rate Enemies to the King and Kingdom and Promoters
relating to the Commons respect either the King or the Lords or the rest of the Subjects which are not Members of their House or the Members of their own House Our Enquiry is only in this point concerning those that relate to those Subjects that are not Members of either House whether they may be imprisoned by Vote of the Commons for matters that have no relation to Priviledge of Parliament In the latter end of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth it was a question whether the Commons could imprison those that were not Members of their own House for matters that had a certain and apparent relation to the known Priviledges of Parliament as for Arresting them or their Servants in time of Parliament which hath been since gained and is no longer Contested by any body but is a strong Argument that they had not then that power the Author claims and for which he brings the Precedents which are indeed of a later date except one and that was in the Minority of Edward the Sixth Anciently if any man were impeached in Parliament there was a Writ directed to the Sheriff to summon him to appear and Answer as my Lord Coke acquaints us and sets down the form of the Writ and upon the return of this Writ the Attachment it is likely went out of the House of Lords but of this Power of the Commons that great man speaks not one word which is a good Argument they had it not and indeed the latter instances are all after his time It is not consonant to reason that any Subject of England should be imprisoned upon a bare suggestion without the Oath of the Accuser Now the Commons have no power to give an Oath in this case and therefore it seems reasonable that they should not imprison any man who is not a Member of their House much less whomsoever they please The House of Commons is not a Court of Judicature except in matters of Priviledge and Elections but all persons accused in Parliament must be tried by the Lords therefore it is contrary to the Law of England that any man should be imprisoned by the Commons who * as the Grand Jury of the Nation are his Accusers It is said that a man taken into Custody by Order of the Commons is taken in Execution but it is contrary to the eternal Laws of Nature and all Nations that a man should be taken in Execution before he have made his Defence and a legal Sentence be passed upon him by Legal Process and proof It is destructive of the Liberty of the Subject that any man should be so taken by them into Custody because he is without all remedy and if the thing happen to prove iujurious and oppressive as it did in the Case of John Wilson and Roger Beckwith Esquires two Torkshire Justices of the Peace who were notoriously injured by it For these reasons which I submit to wiser men than my self I am humbly of opinion that no man ought to be taken into Custody by the Order or Vote of the Commons that is not a Member of their House except it be for matters relating to the Priviledges of Parliament and that such Priviledges as are commonly known for if they may call what they please a Priviledge of a Parliament it will in the Event be the same thing as an unlimited power As to all his Instances they do not deserve any consideration except the first and that no man as he relates it can tell by whom the Commitment was made without the Record which I cannot come at and the latter were the Acts of Popular Parliaments which laid the foundations of our late troubles by such proceedings My Author in the next place comes to justifie the Votes against the Ministers and lays down this as his foundation The Commons in Parliament have used two ways of delivering their Country from pernicious and powerful Favourites The one is in a Parliamentary Course of Justice by impeaching them which is used when they judge it needful to make them publick examples by Capital or other high punishments for the terror of others The other is by immediate Address to the King to remove them as unfaithful or unprofitable Servants Their Lives their Liberties or Estates are never endangered but when they are proceeded against in the former of these ways Then legal evidence of their guilt is necessary then there must be a proper time allowed for their defence In the other way the Parliament act as the Kings great Council and when either House observes that affairs are ill administred that the Advice of Parliaments is rejected or slighted the Course of Justice perverted our Councils betrayed Grievances multiplied and the Government weakly and disorderly managed of all which our Laws have made it impossible for the King to be guilty they necessarily must and always have charged those who had the Administration of affairs and the Kings Ears as the Authors of these mischiefs and have from time to time applied themselves to him by Addresses for their removal from his presence and Councils So here are all the Ministers of State that are or ever shall be exposed to the mercy of the House of Commons if proof can be brought against them then have at all Life Liberty and Estate must go for it but if none can be had then it is but voting them Enemies to the King and Kingdom and Addressing to have them removed from his Majesties Presence and Councils for ever and the work is done without allowing the liberty to answer for themselves And the reason that he gives for it is a pleasant one because the King cannot be guilty therefore they must But may not a House of Commons be mistaken and punish a man for what he never did may not one man give the Advice and another suffer for it at this rate of proceedings But this is an old Custom What then it is an unjust one There may be many things plain and evident beyond the testimony of any Witness which yet can never be proved in a legal way This is true but I hope he will not infer from hence that any man shall be punished for those things without testimony I always thought all these cases were reserved to the Tribunal of God Almighty And I believe this Gentleman would be loth to be tried by his own rule The Parliament may be busied in such great Affairs as will not suffer them to parsue every Offender through a long process Then they may let him alone or leave him to the Common Law but to condemn him unheard for want of leisure is such a piece of justice as no man would be willing to submit to in his own Case There may be many reasons why a man should be turned out of Service which perhaps would not extend to subject him to punishment That there may be reasons why a man should be turned out of Service
sending away his Royal Highness the Duke of York to discern whether Protestant Religion and the peace of the Kingdom be as truly aimed at by others as they are really intended by me c. By which it appears the Union his Majesty here meant was not that Union that was afterwards set on foot in Parliament and I cannot but suspect these words were misrecited of purpose And did not he comand my Lord Chancellour to tell them That it was necessary to distinguish between Popish and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole flock and them that only wander from it These words are indeed in the Lord Chancellors Speech but with this Preface Neither is there nor hath been these fifteen hundred years a purer Church than ours so 't is for the sake of this poor Church alone that the State hath been so much disturbed It is her Truth and Peace her Decency and Order which they the Plotters and Papists labour to undermine and pursue with so restless a malice and since they do so it will be necessary for us to distinguish between Popish and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole Flock and them that only wander from it So that whatever distinction his Majesty intended to allow between the Popish and Protestant Recusants it must be such as was consistent with the Truth Peace Decency and Order of the Religion by Law established which I suspect the Project of Union set on foot was not much less the Vote of the tenth of January for the suspending the execution of all Penal Laws made against them as a weakening of the Protestant Interest an encouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom These things considered we should not think the Parliament went too far but rather that they did not follow his Majesties Zeal with an equal pace At this rate of concluding a man may draw any Conclusion from any premises if he hath a mind to it His Majesty would joyn with them in any course that might tend to the security of the Protestant Religion for the future so as the same extend not to the diminution of his own Prerogative nor to alter the descent of the Crown in the right Line nor to defeat the Succession Therefore when they brought in a Bill to disinherit his Majesties Brother against his expresly declared resolution they did not go too far but rather they did not follow his Majesties Zeal with an equal pace When his Majesty thought it necessary to distinguish betwixt Popish Recusants and Protestant Dissenters that is to favour the latter more than the former they were for taking away all those Laws at once that have distinguished betwixt the Dissenters and the Religion established and giving up this Pure Church into the hands of her bitter Enemies that had but just before bid fair for her ruine as if the only care had been that the Papists might not have had the honour of destroying her and yet we are not to believe they went too far in this neither The truth is if we observe the daily provocations of the Popish Faction whose rage and insolence were only increased by the discovery of the Plot so that they seemed to defie Parliaments as well as inferiour Courts of Justice under the Protection of the Duke their Publickly Avowed Head who still carried on their designs by new and more detestable methods than ever and were continually busie by Perjuries and Subornations to charge the best and most considerable Protestants in the Kingdom with Treasons as black as those of which themselves were guilty If we observe what vile Arts were used to hinder the further discovery what liberty was given to reproach the Discoverers what means used to destroy or corrupt them how the very Criminals were incouraged and allowed to be good Witnesses against their Accusers We should easily excuse an English Parliament thus beset if they had been carried to some little Excesses not justifiable by the Laws of Parliament or unbecoming the wisdom and gravity of an English Senate Now other men may possibly be of another mind and think that if the state of things had been but half so deplorable as they are here described the least Excess had been then inexcusable for there is never more need of gravity than in great and eminent dangers but what I shall say will it is like not be much regarded hear then what the Chancellour of England said The Considerations which are now to be laid before you are as Vrgent and as Weighty as were ever yet offered to any Parliament or indeed ever can be so great and so surprizing have been our Dangers at home so formidable are the appearances of danger from abroad that the most Vnited Counsels the most Sedate and the calmest Temper together with the most dutiful and zealous affections that a Parliament can shew are all become absolutely and indispensably necessary for our preservation So that little excesses are great crimes when men are beset with dangers tho they may be excused in times of Peace and Security if I rightly understand this wise and honourable person But if we come to search into the particulars here enumerated there may possibly arise better Arguments to excuse their Excesses The Popish Faction about that time having tried all other ways to clear themselves of the Plot without any good success fell at last upon another Project which was to start a New Plot. They knew there were in London some Clubbs and Coffee-house-Sets of Presbyterians Old Army Officers discontented Gentlemen and Republicans which had close Cabals and private Meetings and that the Court had a jealous eye upon them as indeed there was good cause for it and out of these materials they thought they might easily raise the structure of a Presbyterian Plot against the State but all the chief men of the Popish Faction being fled imprisoned or executed this grand Design fell into the hands of people of no great either parts or reputation to carry on so difficult an Undertaking and it was not likely neither to be easily believed if it had no other Witnesses but Papists to attest it And it was not possible for them to bring over any other of any reputation in the low estate their affairs then were so that the Contrivance miscarried and only tended to make the Papists more hated than they were before and this is called the Meal-Tub Plot which I should rather have ascribed to the rage and desperation of the Papists than to their Insolence which was then very well abated by the Execution of Coleman Staley the Murtherers of Sir Edmundbury Godfry and the Jesuits which had reduced them to too low a condition to defie the meanest Courts of Justice in the Nation and put them upon those mean and base thoughts of Perjuries and Subornations to avoid that ruine which they saw ready to overwhelm and destroy them But that which
that you would not let your Conscience in this passage give your Passion in all the rest the lie Now if I might interpret your meaning I should guess it to be this They that on the one hand pretend to maintain the Legal Monarchy but do really intend to advance it into an absolute form without any dependence upon Parliaments and they who pretend the same thing but design to throw off the Monarchy and put the whole Power into the hands of the People i. e. the Commonwealth Party are the men that have brought things into the disorder they are now in Whilst they who love the Legal Monarchy both out of Choice and Conscience amongst which persons I will subscribe my name when occasion requires are they who desire the frequent and successful meetings of the Great Coucil Now Sir here seems to be a little Justice in this for as it were a high and flagrant piece of injustice to say that all that made up the House of Commons in the two last Parliaments designed to ruine the Monarchy and set up another Parliamentary Commonwealth of England So it is the same notorious and base injustice in you to traduce the Ministers in general as you do throughout the whole Pamphlet when as it is apparent enough first That his Majesty never did intend to set up one Dram of Arbitrary Government Secondly That it is not possible for the Ministers to do it without his consent Thirdly That it is scarce possible for him and them to do it if they had designed to do it till there hath been another War Fourthly That never any considerable person or number of persons amongst the Ministers did ever yet make one step towards it For all those Acts that have been so basely traduced are fairly defensible Those that look worst the Transactions about 1671. and 72. not excepted one of which you your self have excused viz. the Postponing of all Payments to the Bankers out of the Exchequer And the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience though you stile it an Arbitrary Power assumed to suspend Penal Laws and say the whole Nation was justly alarmed upon it yet I believe should his Majesty do the same thing over again those that now make the greatest noise against Arbitrary Power without cause would willingly enough accept of it And yet there is no reason that the present Ministers should bear the blame of these things when they that promoted them are now Sir in your Interests And Sir that the meetings of the Great Council may be successful as well as frequent one of these things must be that either the People change the Members of the Lower House or that those Members change their Methods of Proceeding and till this be done these meetings how frequent soever can never be successful For if things be carried in the next Convention as they were in the late Parliaments neither can the King neither will the Nation endure it and for all our Threats you will find when you come to bring it into Act such difficulties as I car not to foretel tho I can foresee them As for the other sort of Peevish men of whom the Declaration gives us warning who are angry at the disappointment of their Ambitious Designs If these words are intended to reflect on those men of Honour and Conscience who being qualified for the highest imployments of State have either left or refused or be removed from them because they would not accept ro retain them at the Price of selling their Country and inslaving Posterity and who are content to sacrifice their Safety as well as their Interest for the Publick and expose themselves to the malice of the men in power and to the daily Plots Perjuries and Subornations of the Papists I say if these are the Ambitious Men spoken of the People will have consideration for what they say and therefore it will be wisdom to give such men as these no occasion to say they intend to lay aside the use of Parliaments This your Appeal to the People hath spoiled all the fine things you had said before for supposing all the rest had been true as it is notoriously false yet this making the People the Judges is a kind of attempt to separate them from their Governours and exasperate them against the Government from whence must spring as great inconveniences as those you pretend to avoid and therefore had I been one of these men I would never have appealed to them but to God and my own Conscience and have sate still till he had pronounced the Sentence in this World or that which is to come You know Sir the People are not able to examine any thing but being once put into a rage by such specious Harangues as these are rush into disorder and confusion and take all that endeavour to quiet them for Enemies and Papists and so the guilty escape and then innocent are cut in pieces And besides all this never was any disorder in a Government rectified by the People but by a greater and more fatal disorder as we had experience in the late times and very often before But let the Event be what it will you are resolved to stir up the People to the utmost to revenge your case upon the Government and to that purpose insinuate there is a design to lay aside the use of Parliaments as if you should have said Stand to your Arms Gentlemen against these Ministers for as they have laid us aside men of Honour and Conscience because we would not sell our Country and enslave Posterity so the next thing to be done is the laying aside Parliaments and you are the men that must by your consideration of us prevent this great mischief This was pretty well but the next is excellent In good earnest the behaviour of the Ministers of late gives but too just occasions to say that the use of Parliaments is already laid aside for tho the King has own'd in so many of his Speeches and Declarations the great Danger of the Kingdom and the necessity of the aid and counsel of Parliaments he hath nevertheless been prevailed upon to dissolve four in the space of twenty six months without making provision by their Advice suitable to our dangers or wants My Author was sensible that the People might think that the former hint proceeded from Passion or was not serious or at least the danger was not eminent and he comes now nearer to them and tells them in good earnest they had but too just occasions to say that Parliaments were already laid aside as to any use of them and he proved it too Four had been dissolved in twenty six months but three of them were called in that time And this is an odd sort of laying them aside to call as many in twenty six months as heretofore have been called in so many years Well but there was no provision made by their Advice suitable to our Dangers