found this following Paper which immediately either by himself or a Relation of his was delivered to Sir William Morrice one of his Majesties Principal Secretaries of State The Contents of the Paper are as follows A Warning to Protestants I Who have been a Papist from my Infancy till of late and in Zeal for their horrid Principles had too great a share in the Firing of the City and did intend to do further Mischief to the Protestants of which I am now and ever shall be a Member do upon Abhorrence of that Villany and Religion that hath moved me to it declare to all Protestants the Approach of their sudden Ruine that it may be prevented if it be not too late When I together with other Papists both French Irish and English fired the City others were imployed to Massacre the Protestants we thinking thereby to destroy the Heads of your Religion but the Massacre was disappointed by the Fear of him who was the chief Agent in this Villany And the Fire not having done all its Work they have often endeavoured to fire the remaining part They intend likewise to land the French upon you to whose Assistance they all intend to come and for that purpose are stored with Arms and have so far deceived the King that they have the Command of most part of the Army and the Sea-Ports The French intend to land at Dover that Garison being most Papists And the Papists in England have express Command from Rome to hasten their Business before the next Parliament and to dispatch Therefore as you love your Lives and Fortunes prevent your Ruine by disarming all the Papists in England especially C. L. from the Tower and the L. D. and all his Adherents and Souldiers from Dover and by disarming all Papists I have such an Abhorrence that I would willingly undergo any Punishment for it and declare my self openly were I not assured that I could do you more good in concealing my Name for the present Delay not from following these Directions as you love your Lives and be not deceived by any Pretences whatsoever An Impartial Account of some Informations taken before several Justices of the Peace concerning the several Fires happening of late in and near the City of London ABout the latter end of June and in July one Joseph Harrison came several times to the Greyhound-Inn in Holborn pretending to enquire for Letters for himself and about the beginning of July comes into the said Inn and meeting Mr. Atkins the Master of the said Inn He the said Harrison asked him for a Can of Beer whereupon Mr. Atkins ordered his Man to draw two Cans drinking one himself and giving the other to Harrison After which the said Harrison took Mr. Atkins by the Hand and lead him out of his own Yard into Holborn and by the Rails in the Street the said Harrison advised the said Atkins to put off his House and dispose of his Goods as soon as he could for within Three Weeks or a Month there would be great and dreadful Fires in and about London Mr. Atkins asked him How he knew so The said Harrison replied If you will not believe me you may chose and so left him One Monday July the 25th Mr. Atkins his Wife hearing of the Fire at the George-Inn in Southwark went to her Mother at the Talbot-Inn in Southwark the back-part of which said Inn is adjoyning to the George-Inn and was likewise on Fire and being there she espied the aforesaid Joseph Harrison in the Yard and remembring the aforesaid Advice to her Husband desired some Persons that were next her to lay hold on him which being done he was conveyed to a Foot-Company that stood in Arms near the said Inn judging that the nearest place to secure him After which Sir John Smith one of the Sheriffs of London was acquainted with the whole matter Upon which he with the L. C. went to the said Company and in the hearing of several gave Charge to the Captain of the said Company to keep him safe until they had time to examine him After the Fire was put out some went to enquire after the Prisoner and the Captain told them The L. C. had dicharged him The next Day being Tuesday a Person was informed that the said Harrison taught School in Thread-Needle Street and that he boasted of his Deliverance and said That the L. C. was pleased to honour him so far as to take him in his Barge with him to White-hall and bad him but be patient a while and he should have Satisfaction from the Persons that had troubled him But hearing where to find him Endeavours were used to retake him and accordingly was accomplished on Wednesday July 27. and had before the Worshipful Sir John Frederick who sent him to Bishopsgate and ordered him to be brought before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen the next day to be examined Before whom were these following things proved against him upon Oath 1. THat he hath had frequent Correspondency with Jesuits and Papists 2. That he hath spoken to several of his Acquaintance to go with him to Popist Meetings declaring that he knew of many 3. That he hath been perswaded to turn Mendicant Fryer and hath been offered a Stipend to turn to the Romish Religion 4. That he knew there would be divers great and dreadful Fires in and about London within a Month. 5. That he advised Friends to rid their Hauds of all their Concerns in and about London for there would be a great Consumption of houses there 6. That when he was in the Custody of the Foot-Company aforesaid Mr. Atkins aforesaid affirming to swear the former Article he threatned him if he did it should cost him the best House he had 7. That he said there were forty thousand French Papists lately come over to his Knowledge besides many that were amongst us already 8. The Lord Mayor asking him Who perswaded him to turn Catholick He answered The King's Under-Barber Phillips After which he told the Court That when he was apprehended for these things my L. C. discharged him and took him with him in his Barge to White-hall He further told the Court That he was some time an Assistant to Mr. Lovejoy Schoolmaster at Canterbury and that he had Letters Testimonial of his good Behaviour from the Dean of Canterbury Upon which my Lord Mayor remembring that he had seen him with Mr. Lovejoy and said that Mr. Lovejoy told him That he was an idle Rogue And so he was committed to Newgate On Saturday the 30th of July it was further deposed upon Oath by Thomas Roe before Sir John Frederick as follows The Information of Thomas Roe of Bernard-Inn Gent. taken the 3th of July 1670. by Sir John Frederick Alderman one of His Majesties Justices of Peace in the City of London upon Oath as followeth THomas Roe saith that he hath for at least twelve or thirteen Years last past been acquainted with one Joseph Harrison who was
or two Months and then they assure the Court since they can get no good by them they shall take no harm and therefore to stop them from some worthy Undertaking they by their feigned Zeal against Court Corruptions put them upon Impeaching some Treasurer Councellor or Minister of State and having spent half our time about this the rest is spent for the Clergy upon Church-Work which we have been so often put upon and tired with these many Sessions Though Partiality unbecomes a Parliament who ought to lay the whole Body that we represent alike easie Nonconformists as well as Conformists for we were chosen by both and with that Intention that we should oppress neither To lay one part therefore of the Body on a Pillow and the other on a Rack sorts our Wisdom little but our Justice worse You now see all our Shapes save only the Indigents concerning whom I need say but little for their Votes are publickly saleable for a Guinea and a Dinner every Day in the Week unless the House be upon Money or a Minister of State For that is their Harvest and then they make their Earnings suit the Work they are about which inclines them most constantly as sure Cliants to the Court. For what with gaining the one and saving the other they now and then adventure a Vote on the Country side but the dread of Dissolution makes them strait tack about The only thing we are obliged to them for is that they do nothin Gratis but make every Tax as well Chargeable to the Court as burthensom to the Countrey and save no Mans Neck but they break his Purse And yet when all is said did but the Countrey Gentry rightly understand the Interest of Liberty Let the Courtiers and Indigents do what they could they might yet at last deserve the Name of a worthy English Parliament which that we may do is not more passionately your Desire then it also is of SIR Your most Humble Servant T. E. A SPEECH MADE BY Sir William Scrogg ONE OF HIS Majesties Sergeants at Law To the Right Honourable the Lord High Chancellor Of ENGLAND AT HIS Admission to the Place of One of His Majesties Justices of the Court of Common-Pleas My Lord THAT the King's Favour is the Effect of the Duty I have paid him which your Lordship is pleas'd to call Service is the most welcome and pleasing part of his Kindness and I trust we shall still see such Times that no Man shall hope to have it or keep it on any other Account The right Application of Rewards and Punishments is the steady Justice of a Nation where though the Rewards of Kings exceed what a Subject can merit they should never reach him that demerits To return Good for Evil may be an Obligation of Charity It is never of Bounty And the taking off as they call it of an Ambitious and therefore a Factious Man by Favours is the worst way to stop or open his Mouth for he will whisper one way louder then he will speak the other And when you think you gain one Enemy you make many On such an Occasion as this I think it very proper to give your Lordship some Account what Considerations I have had in order to the Discharge of my Duty in this Place since the King 's first Intimations of his Pleasure And that respects Matters either as they stand betwixt the King and his People or betwixt Man and Man As for the First I know that the Law gives such Prerogatives to the King that to endeavour more were to desire worse and it gives to the People such Liberties that more would be Licentious What then hath a Man to do that hath Courage enough to be Honest but to Apply his Understanding to the Ministration of those Laws justly to both wherein I may say that the Cases will be rare that will be difficult in themselves They may be made so from sinister Causes when Men thinking to serve a Turn or like Pilate to please the People deliver up that which is Right to be Crucified Then they are fain to rack their Fancies to make good their Faults This makes such nice Distinctions and such strained Constructions till they leave nothing plain in the World Whereas in truth the Duty we owe to the King and his People is like the Duty we owe to God not hard to understand whatever it is to Practise This Court My Lord 't is true is properly a Court of Meum and Tuum where Prerogative and Liberty are seldom Plaintiffs or Defendants but yet 't is certain that even in private Causes Matter of Government many times intervenes and the Publick is concern'd by Consequence And therefore I think it fair and like English Honesty and Plainness something to unveil one's self in that particular that Men may know before-hand what they may expect And herein I do declare I would no more wrong or lessen the People's Liberties then I would sacrifice up my Son But then I will no more derogate from the King's Prerogative then I would betray my Father My Lord In time when Faction is so bold as to be bare-fac'd and false and seditious News is openly talk'd and greedily embrac'd when the King 's reasonable Demands are disputed and turned into Cavils and those that oppose 'em talk confidently and those that should maintain 'em speak fearfully and tenderly when the Reverence we owe to the King is paid to the People the Government is beset the King is in Danger and there is nothing wanting but Opportunity But when to prevent that Opportunity Men are afraid and hold it dangerous to avoid the Danger when we dare not call a Crime by its right name and for some find none and a Mischief must be effected before we will think it one When dangerous Attempts are minc'd and by some trivial difference Treason is distinguish'd into a Trespass when Men are forward and ventrous enough in what thwarts the Government but in supporting it seem grave and cautious nice and timorous and so fill'd with Prudentials till they are as wise as fear can make 'em The Law is enervated and becomes useless to its greatest end which is the Preservation of the whole 'T is true in Publick Causes the same Integrity is necessary as in Private But that is but part of a Judge's Duty He must be Magnanimous as well as Virtuous And I acknowledge it to be a main and principal part of my Duty as it relates to the King and his People with hearty Resolution to suppress all open Force and private Confederacies not thinking any thing little that attempts the Publick Safety for when the Motives are small the Danger is greater when Discontents exceed their Causes And for the Discharge of my Duty betwixt Party and Party it is impossible to be performed without these two Cardinal Virtues Temper and Cleanness of Hands Temper comprehends Patience Humility and Candor It seems to me that Saying Be quick
committed and also their Issues being any way assenting or privy to the same and all their Aiders Comforters and Abettors in that behalf And to the end that the intention of this Law may be effectually Executed if Her Majesties Life shall be taken away by any violent or unnatural means which God defend Be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That the Lords and others which shall be of Her Majesties Privy Council at the time of such Her Decease or the more part of the same Council joyning unto them for their better Assistance five other Earls and seven other Lords of Parliament at the least foreseeing that none of the said Earls Lords or Council be known to be persons that may make any Title to the Crown those persons which were Chief Justices of either Bench Master of the Rolls and Chief Baron of the Exchequer at the time of Her Majesties Death or in Default of the said Justices Master of the Rolls and Chief Baron some other of those which were Justices of some of the Courts of Records at Westminster at the time of Her Highness Decease to supply their Places or any Four and twenty or more of them whereof Eight to be Lords of the Parliament not being of the Privy Council shall to the uttermost of their Power and Skill examine the cause and manner of such Her Majesties Death and what persons shall be any way Guilty thereof and all Circumstances concerning the same according to the true meaning of this Act and thereupon shall by open Proclamation publish the same and without any delay by all forcible and possible means prosecute to Death all their Aiders and Abettors And for the doing thertof and for the withstanding and suppressing of all such Power and Force as shall any way be levied or stirred in Disturbance of the due Execution of this Law shall by virtue of this Act have Power and Authority not only to raise and use such Forces as shall in that behalf be needful and convenient but also to use all other means and things possible and necessary for the maintenance of the same Forces and prosecution of the said Offenders And if any such Power and Force shall be levied or stirred in Disturbance of the due Execution of this Law by any person that shall or may pretend any Title to the Crown of this Realm whereby this Law may not in all things be fully Executed according to the effect and true meaning of the same That then every such person shall by virtue of this Act be therefore excluded and disabled for ever to have or claim or to pretend to have or claim the Crown of this Realm or of any other Her Highness Dominions any former Law or Statute whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid and all and every the Subjects of all Her Majesties Realms and Dominions shall to the uttermost of their Power aid and assist the said Councel and all other the Lords and other Persons to be adjoyned to them for Assistance as is aforesaid in all things to be done and executed according to the effect and intention of this Law And that no Subject of this Realm shall in any wise be impeached in Body Lands or Goods at any time hereafter for any thing to be done or executed according to the Tenour of the Law any Law or Statute heretofore made to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding And whereas of late many of Her Majesties good and faithful Subjects have in the Name of God and with the Testimonies of good Consciences by one Uniform manner of Writing under their Hands land Seals and by their several Oaths voluntarily taken joyned themselves together in one Bond and Association to withstand and revenge to the uttermost all such malicious Actions and Attempts against Her Majesties most Royal Person Now for the full Explaining of all such Ambiguities and Questions as otherwise might happen to grow by reason of any sinister or wrong Construction or Interpretation to be made or inferred of or upon the words or meaning thereof Be it Declared and Enacted by the Authority of this present Parliament That the same Association and every Article and Sentence therein contained as well concerning the Disallowing Excluding or Disabling any Person that may or shall pretend any Title to come to the Crown of this Realm as also for the pursuing and taking Revenge of any person for any such wicked Act or Attempt as is mentioned in the same Association shall and ought to be in all things expounded and adjudged according to the true intent and meaning of this Act and not otherwise nor against any other person or persons A Word without Doors concerning the BILL for SUCCESSION SIR I AM very sensible of the great Honour you were pleas'd to do me in your last which I received immediately after our late unhappy Dissolution but could have wished you would have laid your Commands on some more able Person to have given you Satisfaction in the matter you there propose relating to the Duke who you seem to insinuate was like if the Parliament had continued to have received hard measure I must ingeniously confess to you I was not long since perfectly of your Opinion and thought it the highest Injustice imaginable for any Prince to be debar'd of his Native Right of Succession upon any pretence whatsoever But upon a more mature Deliberation and Enquiry I found my Error proceeded principally from the falso Notions I had took up of Government it self and from my Ignorance of the Practiâ—â—â— of all Communities of Men in all Ages whenever Self-preservation and Necessity of their Affairs obliged them to declare their Opinion in Cases of the like Nature To the knowledge of all which the following Accident I shall relate to you did very much contribute My Occasions obliging me one day to attend the coming of a Friend in a Coffee-house near Charing-Cross there happened to sit at the same Table with me Two Ingenious Gentlemen who according to the Frankness of Conversation now used in the Town began a Discourse on the same Subject you desire to be more particularly informed in and having Extolled the late House of Commons as the best number of Men that had ever sate within those Walls and that no House had ever more vigorously maintained and asserted English Liberty and Protestant Religion than they had done as far as the nature of the things that came before them and the Circumstances of time would admit to all which I very readily and heartily assented they then added That the great Wisdom and Zeal of that House had appeared in nothing more than in Ordering a Bill to be brought in for debarring the Duke of Y. from inheriting the Crown A Law they affirmed to be the most just and reasonable in the World and the only proper Remedy to establish this Nation on a true and solid Interest both Relation to the present
of Justitiary before pronouncing sentence but without any answer or effect It was then commonly said that by the old Law and Custom the Court of Justitiary could no more in the case of Treason than of any other Crime proceed further against a Person not compearing and absent than to declare him Out-Law and Fugitive And that albeit it be singular in the case of Treason that the Trial may go on even to a final Sentence though the Party be absent yet such Trials were only proper to and always reserved for Parliaments And that so it had been constantly observed until after the Rebellion in the Year 1666 But there being several Persons notourly engaged in that Rebellion who had escaped and thereby withdrawn themselves from Justice it was thought that the want of a Parliament for the time ought not to afford them any immunity and therefore it was resolved by the Council with advice of the Lords of Session that the Court of Justitiary should summon and proceed to trial and sentence against these Absents whether they compeared or not and so it was done Only because the thing was new and indeed an innovation of the old Custom to make all sure in the first Parliament held thereafter in the Year 1669. it was thought fit to confirm these Proceedings of the Justitiary in that point and also to make a perpetual Statute that in case of open Rebellion and Rising in Arms against the King and Government the Treason in all time coming might by an Order from His Majesty's Council be tried and the Actors proceeded against by the Lords of Justitiary even to final sentence whether the Traytors compeared or not This being then the present Law and custom it is apparent in the first place that the Earl's Case not being that of an open Rebellion and Rising in Arms is not at all comprehended in the Act of Parliament So that it is without question that if in the beginning he had not entered himself Prisoner but absented himself the Lords of Justiciary could not have gone further than upon a citation to have declared him Fugitive But others said that the Earl having both entered himself Prisoner and compeared and after debate having been found guilty before he made his escape the case was much altered And whether the Court could notwithstanding of the Earl's intervening escape yet go on to sentence was still debatable for it was alledged for the affirmative that seeing the Earl had twice compeared and that after debate the Court had given judgment and the Assize returned their Verdict so that had nothing remained but the pronouncing of Sentence it was absurd to think that it should be in the power of the Party thus accused and found guilty by his escape to frustrate Justice and withdraw himself from the punishment he deserved But on the other hand it was pleaded for the Earl That first It was a fundamental Rule That until once the Cause were concluded no Sentence could be pronounced Next that it was a sure Maxim in Law that in Criminal Actions there neither is or can be any other conclusion of the cause than the Parties presence and silence So that after all that had past the Earl had still freedom to add what he thought fit in his own defence before pronouncing sentence and therefore the Lords of Justiciary could no more proceed to sentence against him being escaped than if he had been absent from the beginning the Cause being in both cases equally not concluded and the principle of Law uniformly the same viz. That in Criminals except in cases excepted no final sentence can be given in absence For as the Law in case of absence from the beginning doth hold that just temper as neither to suffer the Contumacious to go altogether unpunished nor on the other hand finally to condemn a party unheard And therefore doth only declare him Fugitive and there stops So in the case of an Escape before Sentence where it cannot be said the Party was fully heard and the Cause concluded the Law doth not distinguish nor can the parity of Reason be refused Admitting then that the Cause was so far advanced against the Earl that he was found guilty Yet 1. This is but a declaring of what the Law doth as plainly presume against the Party absent from the beginning and consequently of it self can operate no further 2dly The finding of a Party guilty is no conclusion of the Cause And 3dly As it was never seen nor heard that a Party was condemned in absence except in excepted Cases whereof the Earl's is none so he having escaped and the Cause remaining thereby unconcluded the general rule did still hold and no sentence could be given against him It was also remembred that the Dyets and days of the Justice Court are peremptour and that in that case even in Civil far more in Criminal Courts and Causes a Citation to hear Sentence is constantly required which induced some to think that at least the Earl should have been lawfully cited to hear Sentence before it could be pronounced But it is like this course as confessing a difficulty and occasioning too long a delay was therefore not made use of However upon the whole it was the general Opinion That seeing the denouncing the Earl Fugitive would have wrought much more in Law than all that was commonly said at first to be designed against him And that his Case did appear every way so favourable that impartial men still wondered how it came to be at all questioned It had been better to have sisted the Process with his Escape and taken the ordinary course of Law without making any more stretches But as I have told you when the Friday came the Lords of Justiciary without any respect or answer given to the Petition above-mentioned given in by the Countess of Argyle to the Court for a stop pronounced Sentence first in the Court and then caused publish the same with all solemnity at the Mercat-Cross at Edinburgh FOrasmuch as it is found by an Assize That Archibald Earl of Argyle is guilty and culpable of the Crimes of Treason Leasing-making and Leasing-telling for which he was detained within the Castle of Edinburgh out of which he has now since the said Verdict made his Escape Therefore the Lords Commissioners of Justiciary decern and adjudge the said Archibald Earl of Argyle to be execute to the death demained as a Traytor and to underly the pains of Treason and other punishments appointed by the Laws of this Kingdom when he shall be apprehended at such a time and place and in such manner as his Majesty in his Royal pleasure shall think fit to declare and appoint And his Name Memory and Honours to be extinct And his Arms to be riven forth and delete out of the Books of Arms swa that his Posterity may never have place nor be able hereafter to bruick or joyse any Honour Offices Titles or Dignities within this Realm in
43. A Brief Account of particulars occurring at the happy death of our late Soveraign Lord K. Ch. 2d in regard to Religion faithfully related by his then Assistant Mr. Jo. Huddleston 280 44. Some Reflections on His Majesty's Proclamation of the Twelfth of Feb. 1686 7. for a Toleration in Scotland together with the said Proclamation 281 45. His Majesty's Gracious Declaration to all his Loving Subjects for Liberty of Conscience 287 46. A Letter containing some Reflections on His Majesty's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience Dated April 4. 1687. 289 47. A Letter to a Dissenter upon Occasion of His Majesty's Late Gracious Declaration of Indulgence 294 48. The Anatomy of an Equivalent 300 49. A Letter from a Gentleman in the City to his Friend in the Countrey containing his Reasons for not reading the Declaration 309 50. An Answer to the City Minister's Letter from his Countrey Friend 314 51. A Letter from a Gentleman in Ireland to his Friend in London upon ocasion of a Pamphlet entituled A Vindication of the Present Government of Ireland under his Excellency Richard Earl of Tyrconnel 316 52. A Plain Account of the Persecution laid to the Charge of the Church of England 322 53. Abby and other Church Lands not yet assured to such possessors as are Roman-Catholicks dedicated to the Nobility and Gentry of that Religion 326 54. The King's Power in Ecclesiastical matters truly stated 331 55. A Letter writ by Mijn Heer Fagel Pensioner of Holland to Mr. James Stewart Advocate giving an Account of the Prince and Princess of Orange's thoughts concerning the Repeal of the Test and the Penal Laws 334 56. Reflections on Monsieur Fagel's Letter 338 57. Animadversions upon a pretended Answer to Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter 343 58. Some Reflections on a Discourse called Good Advice to the Church of England c. 363 59. The ill effects of Animosities 371 60. A Representation of the Threatning Dangers impending over Protestants in Great-Britain With an Account of the Arbitrary and Popish ends unto which the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland are designed 380 61. The Declaration of his Highness William Henry by the Grace of God Prince of Orange c. of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England for preserving of the Protestant Religion and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England Scotland and Ireland 420 62. His Highnesses Additional Declaration 426 63. The then supposed Third Declaration of his Royal Highness pretended to be signed at his head Quarters at Sherborn-Castle November 28. 1688. but was written by another Person tho yet unknown 427 64. The Reverend Mr. Samuel Johnson's Paper in the year 1686. for which he was sentenc'd by the Court of Kings-Bench Sir Edward Herbert being Lord Chief Justice and Sir Francis Wythens pronouncing the Sentence to stand Three times on the Pillory and to be whipp'd from Newgate to Tyburn which barbarous Sentence was Executed 428 65. Several Reasons for the establishment of a standing Army and Dissolving the Militia by the said Mr. Johnson 429 66. To the King 's Most Excellent Majesty the Humble Petition of William Archbishop of Canterbury and divers of the suffragan Bishops of that Province then present with him in behalf of themselves and others of their absent Brethren and of the Clergy of their respective Diocesses with His Majesty's Answer 430 67. The Petition of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for the calling of a free Parliament together with His Majesty's Gracious Answer to their Lordships Ib. 68. The Prince of Orange's Letter to the English Army 431 69. Prince George his Letter to the King 432 70. The Lord Churchill's Letter to the King 432 71. The Princess Ann of Denmark's Letter to the Queen 433 72. A Memorial of the Protestants of the Church of England presented to their Royal Hignesses the Prince and Princess of Orange 433 73. Admiral Herbert's Letter to all Commanders of Ships and Seamen in His Majesty's Fleet. 434 74. The Lord Delamere's Speech 434 75. An Engagement of the Noblemen Knights and Gentlemen at Exeter to assist the Prince of Orange in the defence of the Protestant Religion Laws and Liberties of the People of England Scotland and Ireland 435 76. The Declaration of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty at the Rendezvouz at Nottingham November 22. 1688. 436 77. His Grace the Duke of Norfolk's Speech to the Mayor of Norwich on the 1st of December in the Market-place of Norwich 437 78. The Speech of the Prince of Orange to some principal Gentlemen of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire on their coming to join his Highness at Exeter Novemb. 15. 1688. 437 79. The True Copy of a Paper delivered by the Lord Devonshire to the Mayor of Darby where he Quartered Novemb. 21. 1688. 438 80. A Letter from a Gentleman at Kings-Lynn Decemb. 7. 1688. to his Friend in London With an Address to his Grace the most Noble Henry Duke of Norfolk Lord Marshall of England Ibid. 81. His Grace's Answer with another Letter from Lynn-Regis giving the D. of Norfolk's 2d Speech there Decemb. 10. 1688. 439 82. The Declaration of the Lord 's Spiritual and Temporal in and about the Cities of London and Westminster Assembled at Guild-Hall Decemb. 11. 1688. Ibid. 83. A Paper delivered to his Highness the Prince of Orange by the Commissioners sent by His Majesty to treat with him and his Highness's Answer 1688. 440 84. The Recorder of Bristoll's Speech to his Highness the Prince of Orange Monday Jan. 7. 1688. 441. 85. The Humble Address of the Lieutenancy of the City of London to his Highness the Prince of Orange Decemb. 12. 1688. 442 86. The Humble Address of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common-Council Assembled to his Highness the Prince of Orange 443 87. The Speech of Sir Geo. Treby Knight Recorder of the Honourable City of London to his Highness the Prince of Orange Decemb. 20. 1688. Ibid. 88. His Highness the Prince of Orange's Speech to the Scotch Lords and Gentlemen with their Advice and his Highness's Answer with a true Account of what past at their meeting in the Council Chamber at White-Hall Jan. 7. 1688 9. 444 89. The Emperor of Germany's Account of K. James's Misgovernment in joining with the K. of France the Common Enemy of Christendom in his Letter to K. James 446 90. The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons Assembled at Westminster concerning the Misgovernment of K. James and filling up the Throne Presented to K. William and Q. Mary by the Right Honourable the Marquess of Hallifax Speaker to the House of Lords with His Majesty's Most Gracious Answer thereunto 447 91. A Proclamation Declaring William and Mary Prince and Princess of Orange to be King and Queen of England France and Ireland c. 449 92. The Declaration of the Estates of Scotland concerning the Misgovernment of K. James the 7th
is a vast Liberality indeed but still of other folks Goods It would become them far better to restore back Dunkirk to England which they cheated us of by Surprize or the Town of Callis which they have dismembred from our ancient Dominion They take from us what is our own already and present us with nothing but what is not in their power to give because they cannot bestow either the Title or the Possession of what they do offer in this Kind upon us which if we will have we must gain it by the Point of the Sword And this Train which they do shew us is of the same nature with that sort of Temptations with which the Devil tempted our Saviour from the top of the Pinnacle But do not you discover that this is a subtil Artifice to imbroil us again in a now War with the States of the United Provinces who have the Interest to defend these two Places as much as if either Amsterdam or Flushing were so designed upon And without an absolute Naval Victory we can never hope to conquer them and such a Conquest at Sea too as shall put the Hollanders out of all manner of possibility to afford any Succours in this Case This is a very hard bone which France doth cast in for us to gnaw whil'st they eat all the Marrow of it In fine when the Arms of France joyned to our Forces shall have put us possession of these two Places yet they 'll be totally unuseful to England when France is possessed of all the rest Because thus the French will shut us quite out of the whole Traffick of the Low Countreys and will be always in a Condition to drive the English away from thence unless we do resolve continually to keep a Fleet at Sea for the conserving of them If this Design be hollow and visionary it is not less shameful then airy and full of Injustice We have no manner of Pretention on the Monarchy of Spain nor is it our Genius to whet our Spirits to form Castles in the Clouds of Chimerical Rights What Glory can it be to our Arms to help to oppress a King in Minority of six years old by surprize only because we find him now to be rudely attacqued and unprovided on a frivolous Pretext immediately after the French had given the Queen his Mother and his principal Ministers of State at Madrid such solemn assurances to the contrary as well as at Paris touching the inviolable continuation of a good Peace and a sincere Friendship The manner which Spain hath held and acted with us newly in relation to England when we were assaulted by three powerful Enemies at one time ought to oblige us at least to be deaf to the artificial Allurements of France For although the French have tried by all the ways imaginable and with Offers incomparably more advantagious than those which they do make to us at present to the end that so they might have gained the Forces of Spain to unite with them to our inevitable Oppression yet was it never in their Power to shake the unalterable Amity which the Spanish Nation have for us by a kind of natural Sympathy which one knows not how better to express than by the Immutability of it whether we do oblige or disoblige them Would it not then be an Ingratitude totally inconsistent with the Honour and the Hospitality of the English Temper so soon to forget this Kindness since at the same instant that Spain was the deepliest engaged against Portugal they did notwithstanding openly oppose the Designs of France which seemed to the prejudice of England by refusing them in contemplation of us firmly and with great Resolution Passage for those Troops of theirs which they sent to ruine the Bishop of Munster our Ally and Confederate then We cannot complain of any Injury or Attempt wherein the Spaniards have tampered against England No League nor ancient Treaty doth oblige us to second the Designs of France and we cannot conclude new Aliances with the French to this purpose without directly contravening that Treaty which we have lately ratified with Spain Let us see then what the Herald is to say to the Spaniards that shall be sent to denounce War unto them on this Occasion from England or with what Reasons we shall be able to fill a Manifesto which we would offer to the Publick whereby to justifie the Causes of this Rupture Wherefore I leave the Care my Lord to you being that you seem to be the Author of this Counsel to found it well in the point of Justice But pray see that you perform it better and with more grace than the Writer of the Queen of France's Prepensions hath done I say farther yet That this Design is both prejudicial and destructive and that it carries along with it most pernicious Consequences as well in the present time as the time to come For from the very moment that we do break with Spain our Commerce will cease with the Effects of all those great Advantages which the Spaniards have * By the Treaty last ratified at Madrid by the Earl of Sandwich His Majesty's Embassadour there newly granted unto us and the Merchants of this Realm who trade there will justly be confiscated since all the Profit that we draw from thence must on these terms infallibly redound in favour of the Hollanders whilest our Arms do busie the Spaniards in the Low Countries and the French as they do their utmost against Spain at the same instant will seize their principal Ports into their Power and thus become absolute Masters of the Commerce by putting themselves into a Posture to ereâ—â—â— Doâ—â—â—nion over th◠〈◊〉 which we can never afterwards be able to resist Not above three Years agâ— France was hardly able to set forth twenty Ships that is to say Men of War 〈◊〉 â—ow they have sixty large Vessels ready furnished and well armed and do apply all their Industry and Pains in every part to augment the number Could the Ghost of Queen Elizabeth return back into the World again she would justly reproach us who are the Ministers of State here in England for having abandoned her good Maxims by tamely suffering before our Eyes a Maâ—itim Power to increase which she so diligently kept down throughout the whole Course of her Reign Whereas you are so far from opposing the Growth of this Power that you rather seem to desire England should facilitate the ways to make it grow the faster and render it yet more formidable than it is by the Acquisition of the Sea Ports which in conclusion must infallibly bring France to be Mistress of the Commerce of the Indies All the World knows the vast quantity of Money and Arms which the French have accumulated to that end alone out of the richest Purses of that Kingdom I agree to what hath been said before very prudently in this Conference that our Power and Greatness doth principally consist in the matter of
inferiour Condition being but an Off-spring of this Root be interpreted or brought in Plea against this primary and radical Constitution without Guilt of the highest Treason and destructive Enmity to the Publick-weal and Polity because by the very Constitution of this Kingdom all Laws or interpretation of Laws tending to Confusion or Dissolution are ipso facto void In this case we may allude and say That the Covenant which was 400 Years before the Law an after-Act cannot disanul it Ob. It may be objected That this Discourse seems to make our Government to be founded in Equity not in Law or upon that common rule of Salus Populi which is alike common to all Nations as well as any And so what Difference Ans The Fundamental Laws of England are nothing but the Common Laws of Equity and Nature reduced into a particular way of Policy which Policy is the ground of our Title to them and interest in them For though it is true that Nature hath invested all Nations in an equal right to the Laws of Nature and Equity by a common Bounty without respect of Persons yet the several Models of external Government and Policy renders them more or less capable of this their common Right For though they have an equal Right in Nature to all the Laws of Nature and Equity yet having fundamentally subjected themselves by their Politick Constitutions unto a Regal Servitude by Barbarism or the like they have thereby much disabled and disvested themselves of that common Benefit But on the contrary where the outward Constitution or Polity of a Republick is purposely framed for the consirming and better conserving this common Right of Nature and Equity as in ours there is not only a common Right but also a particular and lawful Power joyned with this Right for its Maintenance and Supportation For whereas other People are without all supreme Power either of making Laws or raising Monies both these Bodies of Supremacy being in the arbitrary hands only of the Sovereign Magistrate amongst many Nations these with us are in the hands of the supreme Government not Governour or Court of Judicature to wit the King and Parliament here the People like Free-men give Money to the King he doth not take it and offers Laws to be enacted doth not receive them so Now in such a constituted Kingdom where the very Constitution its self is the fundamental Law of its own Preservation as is this mixt Regiment of ours consisting of King and Parliament as Head and Body comprehending Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy there the fundamental Laws are like fundamental Truths in these two Properties First they are comprehended in a very little room to wit Honour and Safety and Secondly they have their influence into all other inferiour Laws which are to be subjected to them and correspondent with them as lawful Children and natural Branches Ob. But in Process of time there are many written Laws which seem at least to contradict this fundamental Constitution and are not they binding notwithstanding it Ans The Constitution of this Kingdom which gave its being and which is the radical and fundamental Law thereof ought therefore to command in chief for that it never yields up its Authority to those inferiour Laws which have their being from it nor ought they which spring from it tend to the Destruction of it but on the contrary it is to derive its radical Virtue and Influence into all succeeding Laws and they like Branches are to make the root flourish from whence they spring with exhibiting the lively and fructifying Virtue thereof according to the Nature and Seasons of succeeding times things incident in after-ages not being able to be foreseen and particularly provided for at the beginning saving in the fundamental Law of Salus Populi politickly established nor can any Laws growing out of that root bear any other Fruit then such as the nature thereof dictates for for a particular branch to ruine the whole Foundation by a seeming sense contrary to it or differing from it is very absurd for then how can it be said Thou bearest not the root but the root thee Laws must always relish of and drink in the Constitution or Polity where they are made and therefore with us the Laws wherein the King is nominated and so seems to put an absolute Authority into his hands must never so be construed for that were with a breath to blow down all the Building at once but the King is there comprehended and meant under a two-sold Notion First as trusted being the Head with that Power the Law confer'd upon him for a Legal and not an Absolute Purpose tending to an honourable Preservation not an unnatural Dissolution Secondly as meaning him juridically not abstractly or personally for so only the Law takes notice of the King as a juridical Person for till the Legislative Power be absolutely in the King so that Laws come down from him to his People and go not up from them to him they must never be so interpreted for as they have a juridical being and beginning to wit in Parliament so must they have a suitable Execution and Administration to wit by the Courts and legal Ministers under the Kings Authority which according to the Constitution of this Kingdom he can no more suspend for the good of his People than the Courts can theirs or if he do to the publick hazard then have the Courts this Advantage that for publick Preservation they may and must provide upon that Principle The King can do no Wrong neither in witholding Justice nor Protection from his People So that then Salus Populi being so principally respected and provided for according to the nature of our Constitution and Polity and so being Lex legum or the Rule of all Laws branching thence then if any Law do by Variation of Times Violence of Tyranny or Misprision of Interpreters vary there-from it is a Bastard and not a Son and is by the lawful Parents either to be reduced or cast out as gendring unto Bondage and ruine of the Inheritance by attempting to erect an absolute and arbitrary Government Nor can this equitable Exposition of particular Statutes taken from the Scope of the politick Constitution be denyed without overthrow of just and legal Monarchy which ever tends to publick Good and Preservation and the setting up of an unjust and illegal Tyranny ruling if not without Law yet by abused Laws turning them as conquered Ordnance upon the People The very Scripture it self must borrow from its Scope and Principles for Explanation of particular Places else it will be abused and as it is through that Default unto Heresies See we not how falsly Satan quoted true Scripture to Christ when he tempted him only by urging the Letter without the Equity or true Intention and Meaning We are to know and do things Verum vere justum juste else we neither judge with righteous Judgment nor obey with just Obedience Ob. But is not the
Window and staid till he saw the House in a Flame He confessed that there were Three and twenty Complices whereof Piedloe was the Chief Mr. Graves a French Merchant living in St. Mary Axe informed this Committee that he had known Hubert ever since he was four Years old and hath ever observed him to be a Person of a mischievous Inclination and therefore fit for any villanous Enterprize and because of his Knowledge he had of him he went to visit him in Prison where when he saw him he could not but commiserate the Condition whereinto he had brought himself And for his better Discovery of the Fact he told him the said Hubert that he did not believe he had done that of which he confessed himself guilty So which Hubert replyed Yes Sir I am guilty of it and have been brought to it by the instigation of Monsieur Peidloe but not out of any malice to the English Nation but from a desire of Reward which he promised me upon my Return into France It is observable That this miserable Creature who confessed himself to the Committee to be a Protestant was a Papist and died so And as for the aforesaid Peidloe the said Mr. Graves informed that he had had a full knowledge of him and knew him to a very Deboist Person and apt to any wicked Design Moreover for a clear Conviction of the Guilt of the aforesaid Hubert Mr. Lowman the Keeper of the White-Lion Prison was appointed to set him upon a Horse and to go with him and see if he could find out the place where he threw the Fire-Ball Upon which Hubert with more readiness than they that were well acquainted with the place went to Pudding-Lane unto the very place where the House that was first fired stood saying Here stood the House The Jaylor endeavoured to draw him from that belief and putting him upon seeking another place but he positively persisted in what he had first said and affirmed that to have been the said House It being intimated to the Committee That notwithstanding the Confession of the said Hubert it was confidently reported the Fire in the forementioned Farryners House began by Accident The Committee therefore sent for him the said Farryner before them who being examined said That it was impossible any Fire should happen in his House by Accident For he had after Twelve of the Clock that Night gone through every Room thereof and found no Fire but in one Chimney where the Room was paved with Bricks which Fire he diligently raked up in Embers He was then asked Whether no Window or Door might let in Wind to disturb those Coals He affirmed there was no possibility for any Wind to disturb them and that it was absolutely set on fire of Purpose Dawes Weymansel Esquire one of His Majesties Justices of the Peace Informed That he saw a Man apprehended in the Time of the Fire near the Temple with his Pockets stufit with Combustible Matter made of Flax Tow and such like Materials Doctor John Packer informs That he saw a Person in the time of the Fire throw some Combustible Matter into a Shop in the Old Bailey which he thinks was the Shop of an Apothecary and that immediately thereupon he saw a great smoak and smelt a smell of Brimstone The Person that did this immediately run away but upon the out-cry of the People he was taken by the Guards Mr. Randal Mr. Haslam Mr. Humphrey Bowyer do all agree That they saw a Person flinging something into a House near St. Antholins Church and that thereupon the House was on fire and the smoak thereof infested the adjacent Houses And when this was done there was No fire near the place Mr. Michael March an Officer in the Trained Bands in a Company of Sir Richard Browns's apprehended a Walloon in the time of the Fire at the Nags-head in Leaden-hall Street with an Instrument like a Dark-Lanthorn made as is conceived to lay a Train of Powder and it was filled with Gun-powder There were two more of the same Nation in his Company They being asked to what use they employed the same Instrument would give no Account thereof Newton Killingworth Esq informed That he apprehended a Person during the Fire about whom he found much Combustible Matter and certain black things of a long figure which he could not indure to hold in his hand by reason of their extream heat This Person was so surprized at first that he would not answer to any Question but being on his way to White-hall he acted the part of a Mad-man and so continued while he was with him Sir John Maynard a Member of this House affirms That he had some of that Combustible Matter in his hands and though it were in its natural Substance and unfired yet the heat of it was scarcely to be endured by the touch Mr. Freeman of Southwark Brewer whose House was lately fired informs That on the Day his House was fired about a quarter of an hour before that happened a Paper with a Ball of Wild-fire containing near a pound weight wrapt in it was found in the Nave of a Wheel in a Wheelers Yard where lay a great quantity of Timber How his House was fired he knoweth not but this he affirmed to the Committee that it could not be by Accident because there had not been any Candle or Fire in the House where the Hay lay that whole day and that the Hay being laid in very dry and before Midsummer could not possibly be set on Fire within it self Moreover he said that the Hay-lost was on Fire on the top of the House and that the Fire spread from the one end of the Roof to another in an instant Mr. Richard Harwood informs That being near the Feathers Tavern by St. Pauls upon the Fourth of September he saw something through a grate in a Cellar like Wild-fire by the sparkling and spitting of it he could judge it to be no other whereupon he gave notice of it to some Souldiers that were near the place who caused it to be quenched I had order from the Committee to acquaint you that we traced several Persons upon strong Suspicion during the Fire to the Guards but could not make further Discovery of them Thus far was the Report What follows was given into the Committee but not by them reported to the House at that time IN Obedience to an Order directed to me from the Honourable Committee of the House of Commons then sitting in the Speaker's Chamber on the Second of October 1666. I did carry Robert Hubert to St. Katherines Tower by Water to let me know the place where the Swedish Ship lay that brought him and other French-men from Stockholm and he brought me to the Dock over against Mr. Corsellis his Brew-house and did then verifie to me and Mr. Corsellis that the Ship lay there until such time as he with Mr. Peidloe and others did go and set Fire to a House And this Hubert
House and Goods so that I was forced with my Family to â—â—ee into the Country and what became of the Fellow I know not old Bridewel being burnt also And understanding that the Parliament hath appointed a Committee to enquire after the Actors in and Fomentors of that terrible Fire I thought good to inform the Honourable Committee thereof that they may send for the Keeper of the said Bridewel to know what became of the Fellow that he might receive Justice according to his Demerit Thus much I thought my self obliged to do as in Duty bound to God and my Country all which I am ready to affirm upon Oath when I shall be thereunto called Tho. Middleton IN the time of the Fire near Bridewell there was a Man sadly bemoaning the great loss he was like to sustain the Fire then being within Five or six Houses of him did beseech the People for God's sake they having no Goods of their own in danger to come in and help him to throw out Trunks Chests Beds c. out at a Window having procured two Carts or Waggons to carry them away Whereupon I ran into his House with several others broke down his Windows threw out his Goods and loaded the Carts and there being some Interval of time before the return of the Carts and seeing a Room wherein were many Books and loose Papers which seemed to be a Library I went in and took down a Book which proved to be Ovid's Metamorphosis and while I was looking upon it there came into the same Room an old Man of low stature with a white Frock who looked also on the Book as it was in my Hand I took him in my mind to be some Groom come out of a Stable and thought him to be presumptuously foolish supposing such a mean-like old Man ignorant of that Language in which the Book was written it being Latin but I spoke not to him In the mean time there brake forth a Fire amongst the Papers which were behind us there being none in the Room but he and I. Whereupon the rest of the People coming in cri'd out We had set the Room on Fire And rushing in upon us put out the Fire with their Feet Whereupon I took hold of the old Man by the Buttons under the Throat and said How now Father it must either be you or I that must fire these Papers There was a small thing of a black matter which looked like a piece of Link burning which questionless set fire on the Papers but it was immediately trod out A Tumult of People thronged in and when I said How now Father and took hold on him Parce mihi Domini The People which did not understand it cried out He is a French-man kill him and with pulling of him his Peruke fell off then appeared a bald Skull and under his Frock he had black Cloaths I think of Bishop-Sattin whereupon he seemed to be a grave Ecclesiastick Person I had much ado to save him from the People but at last bronght him before the D. of Y. We found it his Pockets a Bundle of Papers closed up with Wax like a Packet which was delivered to the D. of Y. I know not what was written in them neither do I know what Country-man he was but methoughts he looked something Jesuit-like This I am certain of that when I went into the Room there was no Fire in it and it was fired when there was none but he and I in it yet I cannot say I saw him do it though I cannot but suspect he did it and the rather because there were several Houses untouched betwixt this House and where the Fire was coming on where the Papers in the Library were thus on Fire as I have related What became of this Fellow after we had delivered him to his R. H. I have not heard John Stewart Thus far concerning the Report and Informations about the Fire Now follows a true Account of what was represented to another Committee of Parliament touching the Insolency of Popish Priests and Jesuites and the Increase of Popery c. At the Committee appointed to Certifie Informations touching the Insolency of Popish Priests and Jesuites and the Increase of Popery Ordered That these several Informations proceeded on in Pursuance of the said Power of the Committee be reported to the House in reference to the Insolency of the Popish Priests and Jesuites and the Increase of Popery AS to the Increase of Popery Mr. Hancock Minister of Chilmoth in Wilts Informs That meeting with one Mr. Thomson about a Month since coming from Mass out of Somerset-house Chappel and discoursing to him about his Religion asked him if there were many lately turned to it Thomson answered Thousands And being demanded what Encouragement there was to it Replied There would be a Change suddenly Report his Carriage to the Commitee Mr. Thomson being summoned before the Committee did hehave himself very insolently They have commanded me to report it Being asked Whether he had not a Shop in Somerset-house where Popish Books and Popish Knacks were sold He said he had and that his Man sold such Books and Beads and other things And said There was one Crucifix no Relicks but wished he had some good ones He said that he was a Roman Catholick and thanks God for it He said he was no Priest but wished he were in a Capacity to be one He said he had not taken the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy nor would do it He said he would take any Oath that any Christian Prince should require but not the Oath of Allegiance intimating some mixture in it He said he had taken the Oath of Allegiance to the King of Spain and was a Subject to the King of Spain One Mr. Ash a Minister late of Capel in Surrey Informed That being at Caufield in Lancashire this last Summer he saw great Resort on Sundays to Caufield House the House of a Papist and asking some that were going thither what the Occasion was of their Resort thither they told him they were going to Mass and that one Mr. Robinson a Priest did say Mass Mr. Ash did likewise Inform that he thought the number of those that went to Mass to that House on Sundays was as great as the Protestants that went to the Parish-Church One Mr. Welden Deputy-Ordinary for Middlesex did Inform That in his accustomed attendance on the Prisoners at Newgate about the time of Execution Romish Priests and particularly one Mr. Harvy a Jesuit hath constantly used to resort to the Prison at those times and doth perswade the Prisoners to become Papists and that divers have been altered in their Religion by them and turned to Popery Mr. Wootten Informeth That on October 16. he went to Newgate and meeting with one Howard an Under-Keeper at the Door desired to speak with Mr. Hubert the French-man who was then condemned Howard told him that he could not speak with him yet for Mr. Harvey the Queen Mothers
examined lately at the Guild-hall London before the Honourable the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen upon Suspicion of his being a Conspirator in the firing the City and Suburbs in several parts thereof Thomas Roe and Joseph Harrison having been School-fellows at Eaten Colledge and being thereby acquainted Joseph Harrison hath several times lately been with him and advised him to with-draw his Concerns and remove above twenty miles out of the City for that the City and twenty miles round would be suddenly destroyed and laid wast or to that purpose Whereupon Thomas Roe asked him Whether he were privy to any such Conspiracy or concern'd in its Agitation pressing him with divers Arguments to discover what he was acquainted with of that kind Harrison replied That he had no personal and positive Knowledge thereof Thomas Roe demanded upon what ground then he did thus advise him Joseph Harrison replied That he was sometimes conversant among some Papists and perceived a Plot or Design was carrying on by them against the City of London and the Protestant Religion which Plot or Design said he the Papists call The Game of Trap or do you understand Trap ad Crucem which is the Watch-word amongst them Further Joshua Harrison said that he was informed of those things by some German Protestants and that he had Offers of Fifty Pounds per annum made him by some Jesuits and Papists to turn to their Religion but he had refused it and would not embrace the Romish Religion Thomas Roe further saith That about five Weeks since he walked through New-Cheap-side and from thence into Mark-Lane with Joseph Harrison in company with Mr. Mosely a Gentleman belonging to Bernards-Inn likewise and one of his Acquaintance together with another Man a Stranger to Thomas Roe Upon their first associating Harrison said unto him That he would not discover himself to be an Englishman but pretend himself to be a German or Italian whether of the two he doth not well remember and that he might not detect himself spake in the Company as Occasion offered in Latin But leaving the place where they tarried in Mark-lane going towards Bishopsgate-street Mr. Harrison told Mr. Roe secretly That he believed that Mr. Mosely understood the Game of Trap by some Signs he had observed from him and that he would try him Then going altogether into a house about the end of Thrâ—adneedle-street Mr. Harrison having by this time discovered himself to be an English-man said Trap and made a Cross over his Face with his Finger directing himself to Mr. Mosely Whereupon Mr. Mosely did also say Trap crossing his Forehead and Face two or three times and with a quick motion drew his Finger over his own Throat Upon which Mr. Roe asked Mr. Mosely what was the meaning of Trap But he refused to tell Mr. Roe urging him again He replied He would not saying You are not of my Religion Then Mr. Mosely asked Mr. Harrison what his Name was for he knew him not by Name he answered Harrisons Mr. Mosely replied I never saw your Name Mr. Harrison made answer It is Don Olanso del Harrisonio if so saith Mr. Mosely I have seen your Name After this Mr. Mosely and the other stranger being parted and Mr. Roe and Mr. Harrison being-alone said Harison I told you Mr. Mosely did understand Trap you may see there is a List of the Trap-Gamesters Now whether Mr. Mosely's Imitation of Mr. Harrison was feigned or real Mr. Roe could not distinguish But as they two were passing through Cheape-side homewards Mr Harrison looking upon the New Buildings said To what purpose do they build this poor city it will be again destroyed at the same time he pointed at two several Persons saying That is a Trap-Gamester and there goes another Trap-Gamester Mr. Roe further Informs That since the last Term Mr. Harrison told him he would write all the Rogueries of the Trap-Game and Gamesters in a Play and that he would undertake to shew him Twenty six Papists Meetings in and about the City and Suburbs of London but said he some of them are very private and if you be discovered not to be a Papist you will peradventure be poisoned or stabb'd Mr. Roe doth further say That when the said Harrison advised him to remove with all his Concerns about twenty Miles from London that the said Roe asked him if Windsor were not far enough it being both their native place and about the distance The said Harrison answered Not reflecting upon the Castle And further Harrison told Mr. Roe That the Jesuits could by a Composition of Ingredients make such a Matter the fume of which would corrupt any Man's Intellects and that he the said Harrison could do it A Faithful Account of the Apprehending of a Scothman some time since by William Colburne at the Cross-keys in Fleet-street as followeth A Scotch-man pretending great Respect he had for William Colburne aforesaid came to him and advised him That by all means he should remove his Goods out of London and dispose of his House William Colburne asked him For what reason The Scotch-man replied Because that he with many others were employed to set the remainder of London on Fire and that they would set it on Fire in several places at one time And Chancery-lane-end which is near the aforesaid Colburne's house they intended to set first on fire Upon which William Colburne apprehended him and being brought to his Trial he was sentenced to stand in the Pillory and did accordingly three times once at the End of Chancery-lane and twice in or about the Old Exchange Much more might be said but that our aim is to be as brief as is consistent with the truth of the Matter of Fact in our Narrative Therefore we refer any that desire further Satisfaction in every particular to William Colburne aforesaid who will fully inform them An Account of the Firing of Mr. Delanoy 's House near Pepper-Alley in Southwark January 1679 â—0 by John Satterthwait a Papist as appears by the Oath of Margaret Clarke then Servant to Mr. Delanoy who was in by the said Satterthwait to assist him in the Burning of her Masters House and suffered Death for the same I Margaret Clark being shortly to suffer Death for that which I have deserved and am much humbled for and desire to lie low before God under the sense of my own Guilt do give the World an Account of the truth of my Case for I would not be guilty 〈◊〉 a Lye now I am to appear before my Judge within a few Minutes Therefore I do say and shall declare the truth of the Matter as I shall answer it before my Lord and Judge Upon the 26th of January 1679 80. John Satterthwait came to me as I was going out of my Master's Gate and did desire me to tell him whether my Master and Mistress were at home And I answered him No. And he told me That he hoped he should have an Opportunity to speak with
out of the Hands of the Possessor than purely those of his own Conscience which is worthy Mr. Considerer's highest Consideration I shall only take notice of one Objection more and then conclude fearing I have too much trespass'd on your Patience already It 's very hard says he that a man should lose his Inheritance because he is of this or that Perswasion in Matters of Religion And truly Gentlemen were the Case only so I should be intirely of his mind But alass Popery whatever Mr. Considerer is pleas'd to insinuate in not an harmless innocent Perswasion of a Number of Men differing from others in matters relating to Christian Religion but is really and truly a different Religion from Christianity it self Nor is the Inheritance he there mentions an Inheritance only of Black-Acre and White Acre without any Office annexed which requires him to be par Officio But the Government and Protection of several Nations the Making War and Peace for them the Preservation of their Religion the Disposal of Publick Places and Revenues the Execution of all Laws together with many other things of the greatest Importance are in this Case claimed by the Word Inheritance which if you consider and at the same time reflect upon the Enslaving and Bloody Tenents of the Church of Rome more particularly the Hellish and Damnable Conspiracy those of that Communion are now carrying on against our Lives our Religion and our Government I am confident you will think it as proper for a Wolf to be a Shepherd as it is for a Papist to be the Defender of our Faith c. The Old Gentleman had no sooner ended his Discourse but I returned him my hearty Thanks for the Trouble he had been pleased to give himself on this Occasion and I could not but acknowledge he had given me great Satisfaction in that Affair what it will give thee Charles I know not I am sure I parted from him very Melancholy for having been a Fool so long Adieu I am thy Affectionate I. D. A Collection of Speeches IN THE House of Commons In the Year 1680. The Lord L. Speech My Lords MAny have been the Designs of the Papists to subvert this poor Nation from the Protestant Religion to that of the See of Rome and that by all the undermining Policies possibly could be invented during the Recess of Parliament even to the casting the Odium of their most Damnable Designs on the Innocency of his Majesties most Loyal Subjects We have already had a taste of their Plottings in Ireland and find how many unaccountable Irish Papists dally arrive which we have now under Consideration My Lord Dunbarton a great Romanist has Petitioned for his stay here alledging several Reasons therein which in my Opinion make all for his speedy Departure for I can never think his Majesty and this Kingdom sufficiently secure till we are rid of those Irish Cattel and all others besides for I durst be bold to say that whatsoever they may pretend there is not one of them but have a destructive Tenet only they want Power not Will to put it in force I would not have so much as a Popish Man nor a Popish Woman to remain here nor so much as a Popish Dog or a Popish Bitch no not so much as a Popish Cat that should pur or mew about the King We are in a Labyrinth of Evils and must carefully endeavour to get out of them and the greatest danger of all amongst us are our conniving Protestants who notwithstanding the many Evidences of the Plot have been industrious to revile the Kings Witnesses and such an one is R L'E who now disappears being one of the greatest Villains upon the Earth a Rogue beyond my Skill to delineate has been the Bugbear to the Protestant Religion and traduced the King and Kingdoms Evidences by his notorious scribling Writings and hath endeavoured as much as in him lay to eclipse the Glory of the English Nation he is a dangerous rank Papist proved by good and substantial Evidence for which since he has walked under another disguise he deserves of all Men to be hanged and I believe I shall live to see that to be his State He has scandalized several of the Nobility and detracted from the Rights of his Majesty's great Council the Parliament and is now fled from Justice by which he confesses the Charge against him and that shows him to be guilty My humble Motion is that this House Address to his Majesty to put him out of the Commission of Peace and all other Publick Employments for ever Speeches in the Honourable House of Commons Mr. Speaker IN the Front of Magna Charta it is said Nulli negabimus nulli differimus Justitiam we will defer or deny Justice to no Man to this the King is Sworn and with this the Judges are intrusted by their Oaths I admire what they can say for themselves if they have not read this Law they are not fit to sit upon the Bench and if they have I had almost said they deserve to lose their Heads Mr. Speaker The State of the poor Nation is to be deplored that in almost all ages the Judges who ought to be Preservers of the Laws have endeavoured to destroy them and that to please a Court-Faction they have by Treachery attempted to break the Bonds asunder of Magna Charta the great Treasury of our Peace it was no sooner passed but a Chief Justice in that day perswades the King he was not bound by it because he was under Age when it was passed But this sort of Insolence the next Parliament resented to the ruine of the pernicious Chief Justice In the time of Richard the Second an unthinking dissolute Prince there were Judges that did insinuate into the King that the Parliament were only his Creatures and depended on his Will and not on the Fundamental Constitutions of the Land which Treacherous Advice proved the Ruine of the King and for which all those evil Instruments were brought to Justice In his late Majesties Time his Misfortunes were occasioned chiesly by the Corruptions of the Long Robe his Judges by an Extrajudicial Opinion give the King Power to raise Money upon an extraordinary Occasion without Parliament and made the King Judge of such Occasions Charity prompts me to think they thought this a Service to the King but the sad Consequences of it may convince all Mankind that every illegal Act weakens the Royal Interest and to endeavour to introduce Absolute Dominion in these Realms is the worst of Treasons because whilst it bears the Face of Friendship to the King and Designs to be for his Service it never fails of the contrary effect The two great Pillars of the Government are Parliaments and Juries it is this gives us the Title of Free-born English-men for my Notion of Free-English-men is this that they are ruled by Laws of their own making and tried by Men of the same Condition with themselves The Two great
and does hereby Dissolve it and from this time excuses your farther attendance here but with his repeated Thanks for your Service hitherto and with the assurance of his Satisfaction in you so far that he should not have parted with you but to make way for this new Constitution which he takes to be as to the Number and Choice the most proper and necessary for the uses he intends them And as most of you have Offices in his Service and all of you particular Shares in his Favour and good Opinion so he desires you will continue to exercise and deserve them with the same Diligence and good Affections that you have hitherto done and with confidence of his Majesty's Kindness to you and of those Testimonies you shall receive of it upon other occasions Therefore upon the present Dissolution of this Council his Majesty appoints and commands all those Officers he hath named to attend him here to morrow at Nine in the Morning as his Privy-Council together with those other Persons he designs to make up the number and to each of whom he has already signed particular Letters to that purpose and commands the Lord Chancellor to see them issued out accordingly which is the Form he intends to use and that hereafter they shall be signed in Council so that nothing may be done unadvisedly in the Choice of any Person to a Charge of so great Dignity and Importance to the Kingdom Names of the Lords of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council HIS Highness Prince Rupert William Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Heneage Lord Finch Lord Chancellor of England Anthony Earl of Shaftsbury Lord President of the Council Arthur Earl of Anglesey Lord Privy-Seal Christopher Duke of Albemarle James Duke of Monmouth Master of the Horse Henry Duke of Newcastle John Duke of Lauderdale Secretary of State for Scotland James Duke of Ormond Lord Steward of the Houshold Charles Lord Marquess of Winchester Henry Lord Marquess of Worcester Henry Earl of Arlington Lord Chamberlain of the Houshold James Earl of Salisbury John Earl of Bridgewater Robert Earl of Sunderland one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State Arthur Earl of Essex first Lord Commissioner of the Treasury John Earl of Bath Groom of the Stole Thomas Lord Viscount Falconberg George Lord Viscount Hallifax Henry Lord Bishop of London John Lord Roberts Denzil Lord Holles William Lord Russel William Lord Cavendish Henry Coventry Esq one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State Sir Francis North Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Sir Henry Capell Knight of the Bath first Commissioner of the Admiralty Sir John Ernle Knight Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Thomas Chicheley Knight Master of the Ordnance Sir William Temple Baronet Edward Seymour Esquire Henry Powle Esquire Whitehall April 11. 1679. HIS Majesty being this day in Council did cause such of the aforementioned Lords and others who were then present to be Sworn Privy-Counsellors which being done they took their places accordingly His Majesty was also pleased to declare that he intended to make Sir Henry Capell Knight of the Bath Daniel Finch Esquire Baronets Sir Thomas Lee Sir Humphrey Winch Sir Thomas Meers Edward Vaughan and Edward Hales Esquires Commmissioners for the Execution of the Office of Lord High Admiral of England And his Majesty being afterwards come into the House of Peers in his Royal Robes and the House of Commons attending his Majesty was pleased to make this Speech My Lords and Gentlemen I Thought it requisite to acquaint you with what I have done now this day which is That I have Established a new Privy-Council the Constant number of which shall never exceed Thirty I have made choice of such Persons as are Worthy and able to Advise Me and am Resolved in all My Weighty and Important Affairs next to the Advice of my Great Council in Parliament which I shall very often Consult with to be Advised by this Privy-Council I could not make so great a Change without acquainting both Houses of Parliament And I desire you all to apply your selves heartily as I shall do to those things which are necessary for the good and safety of the Kingdom and that no time may be lost in it The Message from the King by Mr. Secretary Jenkins to the Commons on the 9th of November 1680. CHARLES R. HIs Majesty desires this House as well for the satisfaction of His People as of Himself to expedite such Matters as are depending before them relating to Popery and the Plot and would have them rest assured That all Remedies they can tender to his Majesty conducing to those Ends shall be very acceptable to him Provided they be such as may consist with preserving the Succession of the Crown in its due and legal course of Descent The Address to his Majesty from the Commons Saturday November 13. 1680. May it please your most Excellent Majesty WE Your Majesty's most Loyal and Obedient Subjects the Commons in this Present Parliament assembled having taken into our most serious Consideration Your Majesty's Gracious Message brought unto us the ninth day of this instant November by Mr. Secretary Jenkins do with all thankfulness acknowledge Your Majesty's Care and Goodness in inviting us to expedite such Matters as are depending before us relating to Popery and the Plot. And we do in all Humility represent to Your Majesty that we are fully convinced that it is highly incumbent upon us in discharge both of our Duty to Your Majesty and of that great Trust reposed in us by those whom we represent to endeavour by the most speedy and effectual ways the Suppression of Popery within this Your Kingdom and the bringing to publick Justice all such as shall be found Guilty of the Horrid and Damnable Popish Plot. And though the Time of our Sitting abating what must necessarily be spent in the choosing and presenting a Speaker appointing Grand Committees and in taking the Oaths and Tests enjoyned by Act of Parliament hath not much exceeded a Fortnight yet we have in this Time not only made a considerable Progress in some things which to us seem and when presented to Your Majesty in a Parliamentary way will we trust appear to Your Majesty to be absolutely necessary for the Safety of Your Majesties Person the effectual Suppression of Popery and the Security of the Religion Lives and Estates of Your Majesties Protestant Subjects But even in relation to the Tryals of the Five Lords impeached in Parliament for the Execrable Popish Plot we have so far proceeded as we doubt not but in a short time we shall be ready for the same But we cannot without being unfaithful to Your Majesty and to our Country by whom we are entrusted omit upon this occasion humbly to inform Your Majesty that our Difficulties even as to these Tryals are much encreased by the evil and destructive Councels of those Persons who advised Your Majesty first to the Prorogation and then to the Dissolution of the last
Chief Justice Scrogs raised many Scruples and on pretence that they were not all in Court tho' twenty of the Jury had subscrib'd the Petition sent for them saying he would dispatch them presently The Jury being come and their Names called over they renewed their Desire that the Court would present their Petition But the Chief Justice ask'd if they had any Bills they Answered They had but the Clerks were drawing them into Form Upon which the Chief Justice said They would not make two Works of one Business and the Petition being Read he said This was no Article of their Charge nor was there any Act of Parliament that required the Court to deliver the Grand Jury's Petitions That there was a Proclamation about them And that it was not reasonable the Court should be obliged to run on their Errands And he thought it much that they should come with a Petition to alter the Kings Mind declared in the News Books The Jury said They did it not to Impose on the Court but as other Juries had done with all Submission they desired it But the Court refused bidding the Cryer return them their Petition And Mr. Justice Jones told them They had medled with Matters of State not given them in Charge but presented no Bills of the Matters given in Charge They answered as before They had many before them that would be ready in due time Notwithstanding which the said Justice Jones told them They were Discharged from further Service But Philip Ward the Clerk that attended the said Jury cryed out No No they have many Bills before them for which the Court understanding as it seems to this Committe a secret Reason which the Clerk did not reproved him Asking if he or they were to give the Rule there The Cryer then told the Court They would not receive their Petition the Chief Justice bid him let it alone so it was left there and the Jury return'd to the Court-House and there found several Constables with Presentments of Papists and other Offenders as the Jury had directed them on the 21st before but could not now receive the said Presentments being discharged Whereby much business was obstructed tho' none of the said Informants ever knew the said Jury discharged before the last day of the Term which was not till Four days after And it further appeareth to the Committee by the Evidences of Samuel Astrey Jasper Waterhouse and Philip Ward Clerks that have long served in the said Court That they were much surprised at the said discharging of the Jury in that it was never done in their Memory before and the rather because the said Waterhouse as Secondary constantly enters on that Grand Jury's Paper that the last day of the Term is given them to return their Verdict on as the last day but one is given to the other Two Grand Juries of that County which Entry is as followeth Trinit Middlesex Ossulston Hundred 32. Car. 2. Juratores habent diem ad Veredictum suum reddendum usque diem Mercurii proxime post tres Septimanas sancte Trinitatis Being the last day of the Term and so in all the other Terms the last day is given which makes it appear to this Committee That they were not in truth Discharged for not having their Presentments ready since the Court had given them a longer day but only to obstruct their further Proceedings And it appeareth by the Evidence aforesaid to this Committee that the four Judges of that Court were present at the Discharging of the said Jury and it did not appear that any of them did Dissent therein upon Consideration whereof the Committee came to this Resolution Resolved That it is the Opinion of this Committee That the Discharging of the Grand Jury of the Hundred of Ossulston in the County of Middlesex by the Court of Kings-Bench in Trinity-Term last before the last day of the Term and before they had finisht their Presentments was Illegal Arbitrary and an High Misdemeanour This Committee proceeded also to inquire into a Rule of the Court of Kings-Bench lately made against the publishing a Book called The weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome or The History of Popery and Samuel Astrey Gent. examined thereupon inform'd this Committee that the Author of the said Book Henry Carr had been informed against for the same and had pleaded to the Information But before it was Tryed a Rule was made on a Motion as he supposeth against the said book All the Judges of that Court as he remembers being present and none dissenting The Copy of which Rule he gave into this Committee and is as followeth Dies Mercurij proxime post tres Septimanas sancte Trinitatis Anno 32 Car. 2. Regis Ordinatum est quod liber intitulat The Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome or The History of Popery non ulterius Imprimatur vel publicetur per aliquam Personam quamcunque Per Cur. And this Committe admiring that Protestant Judges should take offence against a Book whose chief design was to expose the Cheats and Foppery of Popery enquired further into it and found by the Evidence of Jane Curtis that the said Book had been Licens'd for several Months that her Husband paid for the Copy and enter'd it in the Hall-Book of the Company But for all this she could not prevail by these Reasons with the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs to permit it any longer who said 'T was a Scandalous Libel and against the King's Proclamation and he would ruine her if ever she printed it any more And soon after she was served with the said Rule as the Author and other Printers were and by the Author's Evidence it appears That he was taken and brought before the said Chief Justice by his Warrant above a year since and upon his owning he writ part of that Book the Chief Justice called him Rogue and other ill names saying he would fill all the Goals in England with such Rogues and pile them up as men do Faggots and so committed him to prison refusing sufficient Bayl and saying he would Goal him to put him to charges and his Lordship observed his word punctually therein forcing him to his Habeas Corpus and then taking the same Bayl he refused before upon which this Committee came to this Resolution Resolved That it is the opinion of the Committee that the Rule made by the Court of Kings-Bench in Trinity Term last against printing a Book called The Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome is Illegal and Arbitrary And the Committee proceeded further and upon Information that a very great latitude had been taken of late by the Judges in imposing Fines on the persons found Guilty before them caused a Transcript of all the Fines imposed by the Kings-Bench since Easter Term in the 28th of His Majesty's Reign to be brought before them from the said Court by Samuel Astrey Gent. by perusal of which it appear'd to this Committee That the quality of the Offence and
said Report Resolved Nemine contradicente THat Richard Thompson Clerk hath publickly defamed his Sacred Majesty preached Sedition vilified the Reformation promoted Popery by asserting Popish Principles decrying the Popish Plot and turning the same upon the Protestants and endeavoured to subvert the Liberty and Property of the Subject and the Rights and Privileges of Parliament and that he is a Scandal and Reproach to his Function And that the said Richard Thompson be impeached upon the said Report and Resolution of the House And a Committee is appointed to prepare the said Impeachment and to receive further Instructions against him and to send for Persons Papers and Records Articles of Impeachment of Sir William Scroggs Chief Justice of the Court of King ' s-Bench by the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled in their own Name and in the Name of all the Commons of England of High-Treason and other great Crimes and Misdemeanors I. THat he the said Sir William Scroggs then being Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench hath traiterously and wickedly endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws and the Establisht Religion and Government of this Kingdom of England and instead thereof to introduce Popery and an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government against Law which he has declared by divers Traiterous and Wicked Words Opinions Judgments Practices and Actions II. That he the said Sir William Scroggs in Trinity Term last being then Chief Justice of the said Court and having taken an Oath duly to Administer Justice according to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm in pursuance of his said Traiterous Purposes did together with the rest of the said Justices of the same Court several days before the end of the said Term in an Arbitrary manner discharge the Grand Jury which then served for the Hundred of Oswaldston in the County of Middlesex before they had made their Presentments or had found several Bills of Indictment which were then before them whereof the said Sir William Scroggs was then fully informed and that the same would be tendered to the Court upon the last day of the said Term which day then was and by the known Course of the said Court hath always heretofore been given unto the said Jury for the delivering in of their Bills and Presentments by which sudden and illegal Discharge of the said Jury the Course of Justice was stopt maliciously and designedly the Presentments of many Papists and other Offenders were obstructed and in particular a Bill of Indictment against James Duke of York for absenting himself from Church which was then before them was prevented from being proceeded upon III. That whereas one Henry Carr had for some time before Publish'd every week a certain Book Intituled The weekly Packet of advice from Rome Or the History of Popery wherein the Superstitions and Cheats of the Church of Rome were from time to time exposed he the said Sir William Scroggs then Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench together with the other Judges of the said Court before any Legal Conviction of the said Carr of any Crime did in the same Trinity Term in a most Illegal and Arbitrary manner make and cause to be entred a certain Rule of that Court against the Printing of the said Book in Haec Verba Dies Mercurii proxime post tres Septimanas Sanctae Trinitatis Anno 32 Car. II. Regis ORdinatum est quod Liber intitulat ' The weekly Packet of Advice from Rome Or The History of Popery Non ulterius imprimatur vel publicetur per aliquam personam quamcunque Per Cur ' And did cause the said Carr and divers Printers and other Persons to be served with the same which said Rule and other Proceedings were most apparently contrary to all Justice in Condemning not only what had been written without hearing the Parties but also all that might for the future be written on that Subject A manifest countenancing of Popery and discouragement of Protestants an open Invasion upon the Right of the Subject and an encroaching and assuming to themselves a Legislative Power and Authority IV. That he the said Sir William Scroggs since he was made Chief Justice of the King 's Bench hath together with the other Judges of the said Court most notoriously departed from all Rules of Justice and Equality in the Imposition of Fines upon Persons convicted of Misdemeanours in the said Court and particularly in the Term of Easter last past did openly declare in the said Court in the Case of one Jessop who was convicted of Publishing False News and was then to be sined That he would have regard to Persons and their Principles in imposing of Fines and would set a Fine of 500 l. on one Person for the same Offence for the which he would not Fine another 100 l. And according to his said Unjust and Arbitrary Declaration he the said Sir Will. Scroggs together with the said other Justices did then impose a Fine of 100 l. upon the said Jessop although the said Jessop had before that time proved one Hewit to be convicted as Author of the said false News and afterwards in the same Term did fine the said Hewit upon his said Conviction only five Marks Nor hath the said Sir Will. Scroggs together with the other Judges of the said Court had any regard to the Nature of the Offences or the Ability of the Persons in the imposing of Fines but have been manifestly partial and favourable to Papists and Persons affected to and promoting the Popish Interest in this time of imminent Danger from them And at the same time have most severely and grievously oppressed his Majesty's Protestant Subjects as will appear upon view of the several Records of Fines set in the said Court By which arbitrary unjust and partial Proceedings many of his Majesty's Liege People have been ruined and Popery countenanced under colour of Justice and all the Mischiefs and Excesses of the Court of Star-Chamber by Act of Parliament suppressed have been again in direct opposition to the said Law introduced V. That he the said Sir Will. Scroggs for the further accomplishing of his said traiterous and wicked Purposes and designing to subject the Persons as well as the Estates of his Majesty's Liege People to his lawless Will and Pleasure hath frequently refused to accept of Bail though the same were sufficient and legally tendered unto him by many Persons accused before him only of such Crimes for which by Law Bail ought to have been taken and divers of the said Persons being only accused of Offences against himself declaring at the same time That he refused Bail and committed them to Gaol only to put them to Charges and using such furious Threats as were to the terrour of his Majesty's Subjects and such scandalous Expressions as were a dishonour to the Government and to the Dignity of his Office And particularly That he the said Sir Will. Scroggs did in the Year 1679 commit and detain in Prison in such
sworn to only as far as every Man pleases to interpret and as far as may be consistent with any new principles of State But the Parliament certainly I do not speak Ironically did intend by this Test to swear and assert the True Protestant Religion and the said Confession of Faith whatever may be now pretended The Earl could not also but very well remember what his Highness had said to himself about the inserting of the Confession and no doubt the Advocate if ingenuous knows all this For the thing was at that time matter of common talk and indeed till Papers objecting contradictions and inconsistencies betwixt the Confession and the rest of the Test began to be so numerous which was about the end of October that there was no possibility left to answer them but by alledging That in the Test men do not swear to every article and proposition of the Confession but only to the Protestant Religion therein contained this point was never doubted And whether this answer be true and a solid Vindication consonant to the words of the Test or a circulating evasion enervating all its force let others judge But the Advocate says When it was moved in Parliament to read the Confession it was waved Most true and the reason given by the Bishops for it was That it was notour they knew it and it was already insert in the Acts of Parliament And the truth was the reading of it would have spent more time than was allowed on examining the whole Test It was likâ— wise late after a long Sederunt and it was resolved to have the Act passed that night and so it went on But it was likewise moved to read the Covenant seeing it was to be disclaimed and this was flatly refused And will the Advocate thence infer That by the Test the Covenant is not abjured albeit it be most certain that many in the Parliament at that time had never read the one or the other But to follow the Advocate 's excursions and answer them more particularly The motion for reading the Confession being made on this very occasion Because it was to be insert in the Test and sworn to concludes enough against him For no body can be so effronted as to say it was used in Parliament as an argument not to read it because it was not to be sworn to but though it cost a debate it was plainly agreed to be sworn to and therefore insert 2dly Can any man doubt the Confession was to be sworn to when it is notour that severals who were members of Parliament and by reason of offices they enjoyed were called to swear the Test pretending with reason tenderness of an Oath did before swearing make a fashion at least of reading and studying the Confession to satisfy themselves how far they might swear it And that this was done by an Hundred I can attest themselves Lastly It is certain that when in the end of October the Bishop of Edenburgh did quarrel Sir George Lockhart for causing the Confession to be insert in the Test and he answered that without it a Turk might sign the Test it was not then pretended by the Bishop that the Confession was not to be sworn to and therefore he at that time had no reply But this is a debate I confess not altogether necessary for my present task only thereby you may see ground enough for the Earl to believe the Confession was sworn to And all that did swear before the Councils Explanation having sworn in that sense and for ought I know all except the Clergy being by the Councils Act still bound to do so It was not strange the Earl might be of this Opinion And seeing that many of the Contradictions were alledged to arise hence and the Earl being a Dissenter it was yet less strange that the Earl did scruple nor is it unreasonable that his modest Explanation should have a most benign acceptance This second pretence of aggravation is That His Majesty did not only bestow on the Earl his Lands and Jurisdictions fallen into His Majesty's hands by the forfaulture of his Father but also pardon him the crimes of Leasing-making and Misconstruing whereof he was found guilty by the Parliament 1662. And raised him to the title and dignity of an Earl and to be a member of all His Majesty's Judicatories All which the Earl as he hath ever doth still most thankfully acknowledg But seeing the Advocate hath no warrand to upbraid him with His Majesty's favours and that these things are now remembred with a manifest design to raise dust and blind strangers and to add a very ill thing Ingratitude to the heap of groundless calumnies cast upon him I must crave leave to answer a little more particularly and refute this new Tout as the Scots Proverb is in an old Horn. This old Leasing making is then now brought in seriously after it hath been treated in ridicule for Eighteen years by the very Actors who did never pretend to defend it in cold blood And were it not to digress too much I could name the persons and make them if capable think shame of their falshood and prevarications in that point and of their abusing His Majesty and prostrating Justice but I forbear The Advocate in his Book of Pleadings makes this a Stretch and says His Majesty rescinded it And His Majesty himself hath several times exprest his sense of the stretches made by some against the Earl at that time It is well known the Family of Argyle is both Ancient and Honourable and hath been Loyal and Serviceable to the Crown for several Hundreds of years but they must now be destroyed for having done and being able as they say to do too much which others neither can nor will do Neither is the Advocate ignorant that the only failing that Family hath been charged with in all that long tract of time was a compliance of the late Marquess of Argyle the Earl's Father in the time of the late Usurpation by sitting in the then Parliament of England some years after all the standing Forces of the Kingdom were broken His Majesty beyond Sea the whole Countrey over-run the Usurpers universally acknowledged and neither probability of resistance nor possibility of shelter left to any that were most willing to serve His Majesty as the Advocate himself hath published in his Printed Pleadings in which he likewise lays out the special and extraordinary Circumstances whereby the Marquess was necessitate to do what he did And the compliance charged on him was so epidemick that all others were pardoned for the same except he alone though none had such favourable Arguments to plead and though he pleaded the same Indemnity that saved others And seeing he submitted and delivered up himself and lost his Life and seeing at the same time of the Compliance that he suffered for the Earl his Son was actually serving and suffering for His Majesty as you find in the former part of this Letter
another making a Speech that no Man understood a third all the time of the reading repeating Lord have mercy upon me miserable sinner Nay even an Advocate after being debarred a few days because albeit no Clerk yet he would not take it without the benefit of his Clergy viz. the Councils Explanation was yet thereafter admitted without the Warrant of the Councils Act but all this in the Case of so many other was right and good Further the Council expresly declare the Earl to be Guilty before he had ever said one word in his own defence Thereafter some of them become his Assizers and others of them witness against him and after all they do of new concern themselves by a Second Letter to His Majesty wherein they assert That after full debate and clear probation he was found guilty of Treason c. to have a sentence past against him and that of so high a nature and so dreadful a consequence as suffers no person to be unconcerned far less their Lordships his Judges who upon grounds equally just and which is more already predetermined by themselves may soon meet with the same measure not only as Concealers of Treason but upon the least pretended disobedience or non-compliance with any Act of Parliament and after all must infallably render an account to God Almighty He bids them therefore lay their hands to their bearts and whatever they shall judge he is assured that God knows and he hopes all unblassed men in the World will or may know he is neither guilty of Treason nor any of the Crimes libelled He says he is glad how many out-do him in asserting the true Protestant Religion and their Loyalty to His Majesty only he hadds If he could justify himself to God as he can to His Majesty he is sure he might account himself the happiest man alive But yet seeing he hath a better hope in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ he thereupon rests whether he finds Justice here on Earth or not He says he will add nothing to move them either to tenderness or pity he knows that not to be the place and pretends to neither from them He pleads his Innocence and craves Justice leaving it to their Lordships to consider not so much his particular Case as what a Preparative it may be made and what may be its Consequences And if all he hath said do neither convince nor persuade them to alter their judgment yet he desires them to consider whether the Case do not at least deserve to be more fully represented and left to His Majecty's wisdom and justice seeing that if once the matter pass upon record for Treason it is undoubted that hundreds of the best and who think themselves most innocent may by the same methods fall under the like Condemnation whenever the King's Advocate shall be thereto prompted And thus you have a part of what the Earl intended to have said before pronouncing Sentence if he had not made his Escape before the day Yet some things I perceive by his Notes are still in his own breast as only proper to be said to His Majesty I find several Quotations out of the Advocate 's printed Books that it seems he was to make some use of but seeing it would have been too great an interruption to have applied them to the places designed I have subjoined them together leaving them to the Advocate 's own and all mens consideration It was by some remarked That when the Lords of Justitiary after the ending of the first days debate resolved that same night to give judgment upon it they sent for the Lord Nairn one of their number an old and infirm man who being also a Lord of the Session is so decayed through age that he hath not for a considerable time been allowed to take his turn in the Outer-house as they call it where they judge lesser Causes alone But notwithstanding both his age and infirmity and that he was gone to bed he was raised and brought to the Court to consider a Debate a great deal whereof he had not heard in full Court and withal as is informed while the Clerk was reading some of it fell of new asleep It was also remarked that the Lords of Justitiary being in all five viz. the Lord Nairn above-mentioned with the Lords Collintoun Newtoun Hirkhouse and Forret the Libel was found relevant only by the odds of three to two viz. the Lord Nairn aforesaid the Lord Newtoun since made President of the Session and the Lord Forret both well enough known against the Lord Collintoun a very ingenious Gentleman and a true old Cavalier and the Lord Hirkhouse a learned and upright Judge As for the Lord Justice General who was also present and presided his vote according to the constitution of the Court was not asked But to return to my Narrative the Earl as I have already told you did not think fit for reasons that you shall hear to stay till His Majesty's return came to the Council's last Letter but taking his opportunity made his escape out of the Castle of Edinburgh upon Tuesday the Twentieth of December about eight at night and in a day or two after came His Majesty's Answer here subjoined The King's Answer to the Council's Letter December 18. 1681. C. R. MOST dearly c. having this day received your Letter of the 14th instant giving an account that our Advocate having been ordered by you to insist in that Process raised at our instance against the Earl of Argyle he was after full debate and clear probation found guilty of Treason and Leasing-making betwixt us our Parliament and our People and the reproaching our Laws and Acts of Parliament We have now thought fit notwithstanding of what was ordered by us in our Letter to you of the 15th of November last hereby to authorize you to grant a Warrand to our Justice General and the remanent Judges of our Justice Court for proceeding to pronounce a Sentence upon the Verdict of the Jury against the said Earl nevertheless it is our express pleasure and we do hereby require you to take care that all execution of the Sentence be stopped until we shall think fit to declare our further pleasure in this Affair For doing whereof c. Which Answer being read in Council on the Thursday and the Court of Justiciary according to its last Adjournment as shall be told you being to meet upon the Friday after a little hesitation in Council whether the Court of Justiciary could proceed to the Sentence of Forfaulture against the Earl he being absent it was resolved in the affirmative And what were the grounds urged either of hesitation or resolution I cannot precisely say there being nothing on record that I can learn But that you may have a full and satisfying account I shall briefly tell you what was ordinarily discoursed a part whereof I also find in a Petition given in by the Countess of Argyle to the Lords
but not at all by the Main-guard and then after the great Gate was opened and the lower Guard drawn out double to make a Lane for his Company one of the Guard who opened the Gate took him by the Arm and viewed him but it pleased God he was not discerned When he was out he was not fully resolved whither to go Home he had judged safest but he thought it might breed Mistakes and Trouble that he designed not So he resolved to go for England and to take the Road That by Post he might be His Majesty's first informer of his escape But being disappointed of Horses that he expected he found that the notice of his escape was got before him and soon after as he came the length of Newcastle heard that His Majesty had given way to pronounce Sentence against him according as he had apprehended from the circumstances and other grounds I have told you which made him judge it would be an undiscreet presumption in that state to offer himself to his Majesty while he knew none durst address him and so he rather chused to shift in the wide World till His Majesty might be at some greater freedom both to understand his Case and apply suitable Remedies His Majesty's clear and excellent understanding and gracious and benign disposition do fully assure him that His Majesty doth not in His thoughts charge him with the least Disloyalty and that he hath no Complacence in his ruine But if His Majesty do at present lye under the pressure of some unlucky influences not so easie to his Royal inclinations the Earl it seems thinks it reasonable to wait patiently for a better opportunity It may indeed appear strange that Innocence and Honour oppressed in his Person almost beyond a parallel should not ere now have constrained him to some publick Vindication especially when to the horrid Sentence given against him his Adversaries have further prevailed to cause His Majesty dispose not only of his Heritable Offices and Jurisdictions the pretended eye-sore but also upon his whole Estate and Fortune with as little consideration of the Earl's personal Interest as if he had fallen for the blackest Treason and most atrocious Perduellion But besides that some things are of themselves so absurdly wicked that all palliating pretences do only render them the more hateful and the very simple hearing doth strike with an horrour not to be heightned by any representation Next that the Earl being so astonishingly overtaken for words as fairly and honestly uttered as he could possibly devise doth with reason apprehend that there is nothing he can say in this matter though with the serenest mind and in the greatest truth and fobriety that may not be construed to flow from a design to lay blame where hitherto he hath been tender to give any ground of offence I say besides these things he is withal I know most firmly persuaded That if ever he shall have the happiness to be once heard by His Majesty and in his presence allowed to explain a few Particulars in Duty here omitted His Majesty's Justice and Goodness will quickly dispel all the Clouds that now hang over him and restore him to that favour wherein he hath sometime reckoned himself very happy and which he will ever be most ready to acknowledg And therefore all that in the mean time he judged necessary or would give way to was that for preserving the remembrance of so odd a Transaction until a more seasonable juncture some Memorials should be drawn and deposited in sure keeping which being grown under my hand unto this Narrative I thought I could not better observe his Order than by transmitting it to your faithful custody I have carefully therein observed the Truth in point of fact avouching nothing but upon the best and clearest evidence can possibly be expected nor have I as to the manner licenced or indulged my self in any severity of expression which I thought could be justly in such a case omitted without betraying the Cause Yet if you now or any other hereafter shall judge that I do sometime exceed let it not be imputed to him for as he did indeed charge me to guard against any more warm or vehement expression than the merit and exigence of the subject do indispensibly require so I am assured that he silently and patiently waits on the Lord committing his way to him and trusting in him that he may bring it to pass and that He shall bring forth his righteousness as the light and his judgment as the noon-day POSTSCRIPT SIR HAving in this Narrative sometimes adduced as you have seen the Advocate 's own Authority ad hominem I shall here as I promised subjoin such passages out of his Printed Book as though they deserved not a place above may yet make a pertinent Postscript And omitting what in that Book called The Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal he frequently repeats from the known grounds of Law of the nature of Crimes and the design of Criminal Laws viz. That as there can be no Crime without a fraudulent purpose either apparent or proven So it was the design of Lawgivers only to punish such Acts as are designedly malicious I desire you only to consider the particulars following And 1. Pag. 11. l. 7. of his Book of Criminals having made the question Whether what tends to a Crime not perfected doth fall under the Statue or Law by which that Crime to which it approaches is punished He instances in the Crime of Misconstruing His Majesty's Government and Proceedings or depraving his Laws which as he says is punishable by death Ja. 6. Par. 10. Act 10. And then further moves Whether Papers as tending to misconstrue His Majesty's Proceedings and Government or bearing insinuations which may raise in the people jealousy against the Government be punished by that Law Which being one of the great Crimes pretended and libelled against the Earl I shall here omitting his Reasons in the affirmative which have not the least ground in the Earl's Case as you have heard represent to you how exactly he himself and others have acted for the Earl's overthrow all these dangerous and pernicious things from which he argues in the Negative His words then are these And that such insinuations and tendencies are not punished criminally He says 1. It is the interest of mankind to know expresly what they are to obey especially where such great Certifications are annexed as in Crimes 2. The Law having taken under its consideration this guilt has punished the actual misconstruing or depraving but has not declared such insinuations or tendencies punishable Et in statutis casus omissus habetur pro omisso 3. This would infallibly tend to render all Judges Arbitrary for tendencies and insinuations are in effect the product of conjecture and Papers may seem innocent or criminal according to the zeal or humour as well as malice of Judges Men being naturally prone to differ in such consequential inferences
of the Traytors it was comfortably hoped before thirty Months should have past over after the detection thereof some effectual Remedies might have been applied to prevent the further Attempts of the Papists upon us and better to have secured the Protestants in their Religion Lives and Properties But by sad experience we have found that notwithstanding the vigorous Endeavours of three of our Parliaments to provide proper and wholsome Laws to answer both ends Yet so prevalent has this Interest been under so potent a Head the D. of Y. as to stifle in the birth all those hopeful Parliament-Endeavours by those many surprizing and astonishing Prorogations and Dissolutions which they have procured whereby our Fears and Dangers have manifestly increased and their Spirits heightned and incouraged to renew and multiply fresh Plottings and Designs upon us But that our approaching Parliament may be more successful for our Relief before it be too late by being permitted to sit to Redress our Grievances and to perfect those Good Bills which have been prepared by the former Parliaments to this purpose these following Common-Law Maxims respecting King and Parliament and the Common and Statute-Laws themselves to prevent such unnatural Disappointments and Mischiefs providing for the fitting of Parliaments till Grievances be redress'd and publick Safety secured and provided for are tendered to consideration Some known Maxims taken out of the Law-Books 1. Respecting the King That the Kings of England can do nothing as Kings but what of right they ought to do That the King can do no wrong nor can he dye That the King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined by Law That the King hath no Power but what the Law gives him That the King is so called from Ruling well Rex à bene Regendo viz. according to Law Because be is a King whilst be Rules well but a Tyrant when he Oppresses That Kings of England never appear more in their glory splendor and Majestick Sovereignty than in Parliaments That the Prerogative of the King cannot do wrong nor be a Warrant to do wrong to any Plowd Comment fol. 246. 2. Respecting the Parliament That Parliaments constitute and are laid in the Essence of the Government That a Parliament is that to the Common-Wealth which the Soul is to the Body which is only able 〈…〉 and understand the symptoms of all Diseafes which threaten the Body-politick That a Parliament is the Bulwark of our Liberty the boundary which keeps us from the Inundation of Tyrannical Power Arbitrary and unbounded Will-Government That Parliaments do make new and abrogate old Laws Reform Grievances in the Commonwealth settle the Succession grant Subsidies And in sum may be called the great Physician of the Kingdom From whence it appears and is self-evident if Parliaments are so absolutely necessary in this our Constitution That they must then have their certain stationary times of Session and continuance for providing Laws essentially necessary for the being as well as the well-being of the People and redressing all publick Grievances either by the want of Laws or of the undue Execution of them in being or otherwise And suitable hereunto are those Provisions made by the Wisdom of our Ancestors as recorded by them both in the Common and Statute-Law First Coke lib. 7. Rep. p. 12 13. What we find hereof in the Common-Law The Common-Law saith my Lord Coke is that which is founded in the immutable Law and light of Nature agreeable to the Law of God requiring Order Government Subjection and Protection c. Containing ancient Vsages warranted by Holy Scripture and because it is generally given to all it is therefore called Common Lib. 9. Preface And further saith That in the book called The Mirror of Justice appeareth the whole frame of the ancient Common-Laws of this Realm from the time of K. Arthur 5 6. till near the Conquest which treats also of the Officers as well as the diversity and dictinction of the Courts of Justice which are Officinae Legis and particularly of the High Court of Parliament by the name of Council-General or Parliament so called from Parler-la-ment speaking judicially his mind And amongst others gives us the following Law of King Alfred who reigned about 880. Le Roy Alfred Ordeigna pur usage perpetuel que a deux foits per lan ou plus sovene pur mistier in temps de peace so Assembler a Londres Mirror of Justice Ch. 1. Sect. 3. pur Parliamenter surle guidement del people de dieu corneâ—t gents soy garderent de pechers viverent in quiet receiverent droit per certain usages saints Judgments King Alfred ordaineth for a usage perpetual That twice a year or oftner if need be in time of peace they shall assemble themselves at London to treat in Parliament of the Government of the People of God how they should keep themselves from Offences should live in quiet and should receive right by certain Laws and holy Judgments And thus saith my Lord Coke you have a Statute of K. Alfred Lord Coke's Comment upon it as well concerning the holding of this Court of Parliament twice every year at the City of London as to manifest the threefold end of this great and honourable Assembly of Estates As First That the Subject might be kept from offending that is that Offences might be prevented both by good and provident Laws and by the due Execution thereof Secondly That men might live safely and in quiet Thirdly That all men might receive Justice by certain Laws and holy Judgments that is to the end that Justice might be the better administred that Questions and Defects in Laws might be by the High Court of Parliament planed reduced to certainty and adjudged And further tells us That this Court being the most Supream Court of this Realm is a part of the frame of the Common-Laws and in some cases doth proceed Legally according to the ordinary course of the Common-Law as it appeareth 39 E. 3. f. Coke Inst ch 29. fol. 5. To be short of this Court it is truly said Si vetestatem specter est antiquissima si dignitatem est honoratissima si jurisdictionem est capacissima If you regard Antiquity it is the most Ancient if Dignity the most Honourable if Jurisdiction the most Sovereign And where question hath been made whether this Court continued during the Heptarchy let the Records themselves make answer of which he gives divers Instances in the times of King Ine Offa Ethelbert After the Heptarchy King Edward Son of Alfred King Ethelston Edgar Ethelred Edmond Canutus All which he saith and many more are extant and publickly known proving by divers Arguments that there were Parliaments unto which the Knights and Burgesses were summoned both before in and after the Reign of the Conqueror till Hen. 3d's time and for your further satisfaction herein see 4 E. 3.25 49 Ed. 3.22 23. 11 H. 4.2 Littl. lib. 2. cap. 20. Whereby we may understand 1.
him and it can give none to destroy its self and those it protects but the contrary Bracton in his Comments pag. 487. tells us Bracton p. 487. That although the Common Law doth allow many Prerogatives to the King yet it doth not allow any that He shall wrong or hurt any by His Prerogative Therefore 't is well said by a late Worthy Author upon this point That what Power or Prerogative the Kings have in Them ought to be used according to the true and genuine intent of the Government that is for the Preservation and Interest of the People And not for the disappointing the Councils of a Parliament towards reforming Grievances and making provision for the future Execution of the Laws and whenever it is applied to frustrate those ends it is a Violation of Right and Infringement of the King's Coronation Oath who is obliged to Pass or Confirm those Laws His People shall cluse And tho he had such a Prerogative by Law yet it should not be so used especially in time of Eminent danger and distress The late King in His Advice to His Majesty that now is in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 239. Tells him That his Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in Remitting rather than exacting the Rigor of the Laws there being nothing worse than Legal Tyranny Nor would he have him entertain any Aversion or Dislike of Parliaments The Late King's advice to His Majesty which in their right Constitution with freedom and Honour will never Injure or Diminish His Greatness but will rather be as interchangings of Love Loyalty and Confidence between a Prince and His people It is true some Flatterers and Traytors have presumed in defiance to their Countries Rights to assert that such a boundless Prerogative belongs to Kings As did Chief Justice Trisilian c. in R. 2â—s time Advising him that he might Dissolve Parliaments at pleasure and that no Member should be called to Parliament nor any Act past in either House without His Approbation in the first place and that whoever advis'd otherwise were Traytors But this Advice you read was no less fatal to himself than pernicious to his Prince Bakers Chron. p. 147 148 and 159. King James in His Speech to the Parliament 1609. Gives them assurance That he never meant to Govern by any Law but the Law of the Land tho it be disputed among them as if he had an intention to alter the Law and Govern by the absolute power of a King but to put them out of doubt in that matter tells them That all Kings who are not Tyrants or Perjured will bound themselves within the limits of their Laws And they that persuade the contrary are Vipers and Pests both against them and the Commonwealth Wilson K. J. p. 46. The Conclusion 1. IF this be so That by so great Authority viz. so many Statutes in force The sundamental of the Common Law the Essentials of the Government it self Magna Charta The King's Coronation Oath so many Laws of God and Man The Parliament ought ro sit to Redress Grievances and provide for Common Safety especially in times of Common Danger And that this is eminently so who can doubt that will believe the King so many Parliaments The Cloud of Witnesses the Publick Judicatures their own sense and experience of the manifold Mischiefs which have been acted and the apparent Ruine and Confusion that impends the Nation by the restless Attempts of a bloody Interest if speedy Remedy is not applied Then let it be Queried Whether the People having thus the Knife at the Throat Cities and Habitations Fired and therein their Persons fried Invasions and Insurrections threatned to Destroy the King and Subjects Church and State and as so lately told us upon Mr. Fitz Harris's Commitment the present Design on Foot was to Depose and Kill the King and their only remedy hoped for under God to give them relief Relief thus from time time cut off viz. Their Parliaments who with so much care cost and pains are Elected sent up and Intrusted for their help turned off ré infecta and rendred so insiguificant by those frequent Prorogations and Dissolutions Are they not therefore justified in their important Cries in their many Humble Petitions to their King Fervent Addresses to their Members earnest Claims for this their Birth-right here Pleaded which the Laws of the Kingdom consonant to the Laws of God and Nature has given them 2. If so what then shall be said to those who advise to this high Violation of their Countries Rights to the infringing so many just Laws and exposing the Publick to those desperate hazards if not a total Ruine If King Alfred as Andrew Horne in his Mirror of Justice tells us hanged Darling Segnor Cadwine Cole and Forty Judges more for Judging contrary to Law and yet all those false Judgments were but in particular and private Cases What death do those Men deserve who offer this violence to the Law it self and all the Sacred Rights of their Country If the Lord Chief Justice Thorp in Ed. 3d's time for receiving the Bribery of One hundred pounds was adjudged to be Hanged as one that had made the King break his Oath to the People How much more guilty are they of making the King break His Coronation Oath that persuade him to Act against all the Laws for holding Parliaments and passing Laws therein which he is so solemnly sworn to do And if the Lord Chief Justice Tresilian was Hanged Drawn and Quartered for Advising the King to Act contrary to some Statutes only What do those deserve that advise the King to Act not only against some but against all these Ancient Laws and Statutes of the Realm And if Blake the King's Council but for assisting in the matter and drawing up Indictments by the King's Command contrary to Law tho it is likely he might Plead the King's Order for it yet if he was Hang'd Drawn and Quartered for that What Justice is due to them that assist in the Total Destruction of all the Laws of the Nation and as much in them lies their King and Country too And if Vsk the under-Sheriff whose Office is to Execute the Laws for but endeavouring to aid Tresilian Blake and their Accomplices against some of the Laws was also with Five more Hang'd Drawn and Quartered What punishment may they deserve that Aid and endeavour the Subversion of all the Laws of the Kingdom And if Empson and Dudley in Henry the Eighth's time tho two of the King 's Privy Council were Hanged for Procuring and Executing an Act of Parliament contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and to the great vexation of the People so that tho they had an Act of Parliament of their side yet that Act being against the known Laws of the Land were Hang'd as Traytors for putting that Statute in Execution Then what shall become of those who have no such Act to shelter themselves under and who
as a Quare impedit Quare incumbravit a Writ of Attaint of Debt Detinue of Ward Escheat Scire fac pur repealer patent c. Unto which every Man must answer But no Man can be brought to answer for Publick Crimes at the King's Suit otherwise than by Indictment of a Grand Jury The whole Course of doing Justice upon Criminals from the beginning of the Process unto the Execution of the Sentence is and ever was esteemed to be the Kingdoms concernment as is evidenced by the frequent Complaints made in Parliament that Capital Offenders were pardon'd to the Peoples damage and wrong In the 13 Rich. 2. it is said that the King hearing the grievous complaints of his Commons in Parliament of the outragious mischiefs which happened unto the Realm for that Treasons Murders and Rapes of Women be commonly done and committed and the more because Charters of Pardon had been easily granted in such Cases And thereupon it was enacted That no Pardon for such Crimes should be granted unless the same were particularly specified therein and if a Pardon were otherwise granted for the Death of a Man the Judges should notwithstanding enquire by a Grand Jury of the Neighbourhood concerning the Death of every such Person and if he were found to have been wilfully Murthered such Charter of Pardon to be disallowed and provisions were made by imposing grievous Fines upon every person according to his Degree and Quality or Imprisonment who should presume to sue to the King for any Pardons of the aforesaid Crimes and that such persons might be known to the whole Kingdom their Names were to be upon several Records The like had been done in many Statutes made by several Parliaments as in the 6 Ed. 1.9 the 2 Ed. 3.2 the 10 Ed. 3.2 and the 14 Ed. 3.15 where it was acknowledged by the King in Parliament That the Oath of the Crown had not been kept by reason of the Grant of Pardons contrary to the aforesaid Statutes and Enacted that any such Charter of Pardon from thenceforth granted against the Oath of his Crown and the said Statutes the same should be holden for none In the 27 Edw. 3.2 It is further provided for preventing the Peoples damage by such Pardons That from thenceforth in every Charter of Pardon of Felony which shall be granted at any mans suggestion the said suggestion and the name of him that maketh the suggestion shall be comprised in the same Charter and if after the same suggestion be found untrue the Charter shall be disallowed and holden for none And the Justices before whom such Charter shall be alledged shall enquire of the same suggestion and that as well of Charters granted before this time as of Charters which shall be granted in time to come and if they find them untrue then they shall disallow the Charter so alledged and shall moreover do as the Law demandeth Thus have Parliaments from time to time declared that the Offences against the Crown are against the publick welfare and that Kings are obliged by their Oath and Office to cause Justice to be done upon Traytors and Felons for the Kingdom 's sake according to the ancient Common-Law 9 Hen 3.29 declared by Magna Charta in these words Nulli negabimus nulli vendemus nulli differemeus Justitiam VVe will sell to no Man we will not deny or defer to any Man either Justice or Right And as the publick is concerned that the due and legal Methods be observed in the Prosecution of Offenders so likewise doth the security of every single Man in the Nation depend upon it No Man can assure himself he shall not be accused of the highest crimes Let a Man's Innocence and Prudence be what it will yet his most inoffensive VVords and Actions are liable to be misconstrued and he may by Subornation and Conspiracy have things laid to his charge of which he is no ways guilty VVho can speak or carry himself with that circumspection as not to have his harmless VVords or Actions wrested to another sense than he intended VVho can be secure from having a Paper put into his Pockets or laid in his House of which he shall know nothing till his Accusation History affords many Examples of the detestable Practices in this kind of wicked Court-Paraâ—tes among which one may suffice for Instance Polib lib. 5. out of Polibius an approved Author Hermes a powerful Favourite under Antiochus the younger but a Man noted to be a favourer of Lâ—ars was made use of against the innocent and brave Epigenes He had long watch'd to kill him for that he found him a Man of great Eloquence and Valour having also Favour and Authority with the King He had unjustly but unsuccessfully accused him of Treason by false glosses put upon his faithful Advice given to the King in open Council this not prevailing he by artifice got him put out of his Command and to retire from Court which done he laid a Plot against him with the help and Council of one of his Complices Alexis and writing Letters as if they had been sent from Molon who was then in open Rebellion against his Prince for fear amongst other Reasons of the Cruelty and Treachery of Hâ—â—mes and corrupted one of Alexis's Servants with great Promises who went to Epigenes to thrust the Letters secretly among his other Writings which when he had done Alexis came suddenly to Epigenes demanding of him if he had received any Letter from Molon and when he said he had none the other said he was confident he should â—nd some wherefore entring the House to search he found the Letters and taking this occasion slew him lest if the Fact had been duly examined the Conspiracy had been discovered These things happening thus the King thought that he was justly slain in this manner the worthy Epigenes ended his days But this great Man's designs did not rest here for within a while heightned with success he so arrogantly abused His Master's Authority as he grew dangerous to the King himself as well as to those about him insomuch as Antiochus was forced for that he hated and feared Hermes to take away his Life by Stratagem thereby to secure himself By these and a Thousand other ways the most unblemish'd Innocence may be brought into the greatest danger Since then every Man is thus easily subject to question and what is one Man's Case this day may be another Man 's to morrow it is undoubtedly every Man's concern to see as far as in him lies in every case that the accused Person may have the benefit of all such provisions as the Law hath made for the defence of Innocence and Reputation Now to this end there is nothing so necessary as the secret and separate examination of Witnesses for though perhaps as hath been already observed it may be no very difficult thing for several persons who are permitted to discourse with each other freely and to hear or be told what each
for Instances of his guilt If then all his private Papers and Notes to help his Memory in his Plea and Defence shall be taken from him by the Gaoler or the Court and given to his Prosecutors And all Advice and Assistance from Councils or Friends and his nearest Relations shall be denied him and none suffered by word or writing to inform him of the indifferency or honesty or the partiality or malice of the Pannels returned whom the Law allows him to challenge or refuse either peremptorily or for good Reasons offered should he be thus deprived of all the good provisions of the Law for his safety To what Frauds Perjuries and Subornations is not he and every man Exposed who may be accused What Deceits may there not be put upon Juries and what Probability is there of finding Security in Innocence What an admirable Execution would this be of their Commission To make diligent Inquisition after all manner of Falshoods Deceipts Wrongs and Frauds and thereupon to do Justice according to Law When at the same Time if so Managed a Method would be introduced of ruining and destroying any Man in the form of Justice Such practices would be the highest dishonour to the King imaginable whose name is used and so far Misrepresent the Kingly Office as to make that appear to have been Erected to vex and destroy the People which was intended and ordained to help and preserve them The Law so far abhors such proceedings that it intends that every Man should be strictly bound to be exactly just in their several Imployments relating to the Execution of Justice The Serjeant of the King's Council Sir George Jefferys among the rest who prosecute in the King's name and are consulted in the forming Bills of Indictment and advise about the Witnesses and their Testimonies against the Accused These if they would remember it when they are made Serjeants take an Oath Cokes 2d Institutes Pag. 214. as well and truly to serve the People whereof the party accused is one as the King himself and to minister the King's matters duely and truly after the course of the Law to their Cunning Not to use their Cunning and Craft to hide the Truth and destroy the accused if they can They are also obliged by the Statute of Westm 1. Cap. 29. To put no manner of Deceit or Collusion upon the King's Court nor secretly to consent to any such Tricks as may abuse or beguile the Court or the party be it in Causes Civil or Criminal And it is ordained that if any of them be convicted of such practices he shall be imprisoned for a year and never be heard to plead again in any Court and if the Mischievous consequence of their Treacheries be great they are Subject to further and greater punishments Our Antient Law Book called the Miror of Justice Cap. 2. Sect. 4. says That every Serjeant Pleader is chargeable by his Oath not to maintain or defend any Wrong or Falshood to his Knowledge but shall leave his Client when he shall perceive the wrong intended by him Also that he shall not move or proffer any false Testimony nor consent to any Lyes Deceits or Corruptions whatsoever in his pleadings As a further Security unto the People against all Attempts upon their Laws Exemplary Justice hath been done in several Ages upon such Judges and Justiciaries as through Corruption Submission unto unjust Commands or any other Sinister consideration have dared to swerve from them The punishments of these wicked Men remain upon Record as Monuments of their Infamy to be a Terror unto all that shall succeed them In the Reign of the Saxons the most notable Example was given by King Alfred who caus'd above forty Judges to be hanged in a Short Space for several wrongs done to the People as is related in the Mirror of Justice Some of them suffered for imposing on Juries and forcing them to give Verdicts according to their will And one as it seems had taken the Confidence to examine a Jury that he might find which of them would Submit to his Will and setting aside him who would not condemned a Man upon the Verdict of Eleven Since the Coming of the Normans our Parliaments have not been less severe against such Judges as have suffered the course of Justice to be perverted or the Rights and Liberties of the People to be invaded In the time of Edward the 1st Anno 1289. The Parliament finding That all the Judges except Two had swerv'd from their duty condemned them to several punishments according unto their Crimes Ex Chron. Anno 10. Ed. 1. ad finem As Banishment Perpetual Imprisonment or the loss of all their Estates c. Their Particular Offences are specified in a Speech made by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in Parliament They had broken Magna Charta Incited the King against his People Violated the Laws under pretence of expounding them and impudently presumed to prefer their own Councils to the King before the Advices of Parliament as appears by the speech c. Hereunto annext The like was done in Ed. the 2d Time when Hugh De Spencer was charged for having prevailed with the King to break his Oath to the People in doing Things against the Law by his own Authority In Edward the 3d. Time Judge Thorpe was hang'd for having in the like manner brought the King to break his Oath Dan. History p. 260 261. And the happy Reign of that great King affords many Instances of the like nature amongst which the punishment of Sir Henry Green and Sir William Skipwith deserve to be observed and put into an Equal Rank with those of his brave and victorious Grand-father In Richard the Second's Time Eleven of the Judges See all the English Histories of Walsingham Fabian Speed c. in the 11 and 12 years of Richard II. forgetting the dreadful Punishments of their Predecessors subscrib'd malicious Indictments against Law and gave false Interpretations of our Ancient Laws to the King thereby to bring many of his most Eminent and worthiest Subjects to suffer as Traytors at his Will Subjected the Authority and very Being of Parliaments to his absolute pleasure And made him believe that all the Laws lay in his own breast Hereupon sentence of death passed upon them and tho upon their repentance and confessing they had been swayed by fear and threatnings from the King Two only were Executed all the others were for ever banished as unworthy to enjoy the benefit of that Law which they had so perfidiously and basely betrayed It were an Endless work to recite all the Examples of this kind that are found in our Histories and Records but that of Empson and Dudley must not be omitted They had craftily contriv'd to abolish Grand Juries and to draw the Lives and Estates of the People into question without Indictments by them and by surprise and other wicked practices they gained an Act of Parliament for their countenance Hereupon
false Accusations followed without number Oppression and Injustice broke forth like a Flood And to gain the King's Favour they fill'd his Coffers The Indictments against them mentioned in Anderson's Reports Pa. 156 157 are worth reading whereby they are charged with Treason for Subverting the Laws and Customs of the Land in their proceedings without Grand Juries and procuring the murmuring and hatred of the People against the King to the great danger of him and the Kingdom Nothing could satisfy the Kingdom tho ' the King was dead whom they had flattered and served but such Justice done upon them and many of their Instruments and Officers as may for ever make the Ears of Judges to tingle And it is not to be forgotten that the Judges in Queen Eliz. time in the Case of R. Cavendish in Anderson's Reports P. 152 and 155. were as they told the Queen and her Councellors by the punishment of former Judges especially of Empson and Dudley deterred from obeying her illegal Commands The Queen had sent several Letters under her Signet Great Men pressed them to obey her Patent under the Great Seal and the Reasons of their disobedience being required they answered That the Queen her self and the Judges also had taken an Oath to keep the Laws And if they should obey her Commands the Laws would not warrant them and they should therein break their Oath to the Offence of God and their Country and the Common-wealth wherein they were born And say they if we had no fear of God yet the Examples and Punishments of others before us who did offend the Laws do remember and recall us from the like Offences Whosoever being in the like places may design or be put upon the like practices will do well to consider these Examples and not to think that he who obliquely Endeavours to render Grand Juries useless is less Criminal than he that would absolutely abolish them That which doth not act according to its Institution is as if it were not in being And whoever doth without prejudice consider this matter will see that it is not less pernicious to deny Juries the use of those Methods of discovering Truth which the Law hath appointed and so by degrees turn them into a meer matter of form than openly and avowedly to destroy them Surely such a gradual Method of destroying our Native Right is the most dangerous in its consequence The safety which our Fore-fathers for many hundred of years enjoyed under this part of the Law especially and have transmitted to us is so apparent to the meanest Capacity that whoever shall go about to take it away or give it up is like to meet with the fate of Ishmael to have every man's hand against him because he is against every Man Artifices of this Kind will ruine us more silently and so with less opposition and yet as certainly as the other more moved oppression This only is the difference that one way we should be slaves immediately and the other insensibly But with this further disadvantage too that our slavery should be the more unavoydable and the faster rivited upon us because it would be under colour of Law which Practice in Time would obtain Few men at first see the danger of little changes in Fundamentals and those who design them usually act with so much craft as besides the giving specious Reasons they take great Care that the true Reason shall not appear Every design therefore of changing the Constitution ought to be most warily observed and timely opposed Nor is it only the Interest of the People that such Fundamentals should be duly guarded for whose benefit they were at first so carefully layed and whom the Judges are sworn to serve but of the King too for whose sake those pretend to act who would subvert them Our Kings as well as Judges are sworn to maintain the Laws They have themselves in several Statutes required the Judges at their peril to administer Equal Justice to every Man notwithstanding any Letters or Commauds c. even from themselves to the contrary And when any failure hath been the greatest and most powerful of them have ever been the readiest to give Redress It appears by the Preface to the Statutes of 20th Ed. 3. that the Judicial proceedings had been perverted That Letters Writs and Commands had been sent from the King and great Men to the Justices and that Persons belonging to the Court of the King the Queen the Prince of Wales had maintained and abetted Quarrels c. whereby the Laws had been violated and many wrongs done But the King was so far from justifying his own Letters or those illegal practices That the preamble of those Statutes saith they were made for the relief of the People in their sufferings by them That brave King in the height of his glory and vigor of his Age chose rather to confess his Error than to continue in it as is evident by his own words Edward by the Grace of God c. Because by divers Complaints made unto us we have perceived that the Law of the Land which we by our Oath are bound to maintain is the less well kept and Execution of the same disturbed many times by maintenances and procurements as well in the Court as the Country We greatly moved of Conscience in this matter and for this Cause desiring as much for the pleasure of God and ease and quietness of our Subjects as to save our Conscience and for to save and keep our said Oath by the Assent c. Enact That Judges shall do Justice notwithstanding Writs Letters or Commands from himself c. and that none of the King's House or belonging to the King Queen or Prince of Wales do maintain Quarrels c. King James in his Speech to the Judges in the Starchamber Anno. 1616. told them That he had after many years resolved to renew his Oath made at his Coronation concerning Justice and the promise therein contained for maintaining the Law of the Land And in the next page save one says I was sworn to maintain the Law of the Land and therefore had been perjured if I had broken it God is my Judge I never intended it And His Majesty that now is hath made frequent Declarations and Protestations of his being far from all thoughts of designing an Arbitrary Government and that the Nation might be confident he would rule by Law Now if after all this any Officer of the Kings should pretend Instructions from his Master to demand so material an alteration of proceedings in the highest Cases against Law as are above mentioned And the Court who are required to slight and reject the most solemn Commands under the Great Seal if contrary to Law should upon a verbal Intimation allow of such a Demand and so break in upon this Bulwark of our Liberties which the Law has erected Might it not give too just an occasion to suspect that all the legal securities of our Lives
and Properties are unable to protect us And may not such fears rob the King of his greatest Treasure and Strength the Peoples hearts when they dare not rely upon him in his Kingly Office and trust for safety and protection by the Laws Our English History affords many instances of those that have pretended to serve our King in this manner by undermining the Peoples Right and Liberties whose practices have sometimes proved of fatal consequence to the Kings themselves but more frequently ended in their own destruction But after all imagining it could be made out that this Method of private Examinations by a Grand Jury which from what has been said before hath appeared to be so extremely necessary for the publick good and to every private man's security were inconvenient or mischievous and therefore fit to be changed yet being so Essential a part of the Common Law it is no otherwise alterable than by Parliament We find by Presidents that the bare forms of Indictments could not be reformed by the Judges The words Depopulatores agrorum Insidiator es viarum Vi Armis Baculis Cultellis Arcubus sagittis could not be left out but by advice of the Kingdom in Parliament A Writ issued in the time of K. Ed. 3. giving power to hear and determine Offences and all the Justices resolved Cok. 4. Inst Pag. 164. That they could not lawfully act having their Authority by Writ where they ought to have had it by Commission Tho' it was in the form and words that the Legal Commission ought to be John Knivett Chief Justice by Advice of all the Judges resolved that the said Writ was Contra Legem And where divers Indictments were before them found against T.S. the same and all that was done by colour of that Writ was Damned If in such seeming little Things as these and many others that may be instanced the Wisdom of the Nation hath not thought fit to intrust the Judges but reserved the Consideration of them to the Legislative Power It cannot be imagined that they should subject to the discretion and pleasure of the Judges those important Points in the Established course of the administring Justice whereupon depends the safety of all the Subjects Lives and Fortunes If Judges will take upon themselves to alter the constant practice they must either alter the Oath of the Grand Jury or continue it If they should alter it so as to make it sail with any such new Method and thus in appearance charitably provide that the Grand Jury should not take a mock Oath or forswear themselves they then make an incroachment upon the Authority of Parliaments who only can make new or change old Legal Oaths and all the proceedings thereupon would be void If they should continue constantly to impose the same Oath as well when they have notice from the King that the Jury shall not be bound to keep his Secrets and their own as when they have none they must assume to make the same form of Law to be of force and no force and the same words to bind the Conscience as they will have them whereby they would prophane the Natural Religion of an Oath and bring a foul scandal upon Christianity by trifling worse than Heathens in that sacred matter and whilst the Judges find themselves under the necessity of administring the Oath unto Grand Juries and not suffer them to observe it according unto their Consciences they would confess the illegality of their own Proceedings and can never be able to repair the Breaches by pretending a tacite Implication if the King will but must unavoidably fall under that approved Maxim of our Law Maledicta est Interpretatio quae corrumpit Textum It is a Cursed Interpretation that dissolves the Text. There are Two Vulgar Errours concerning the duty of Grand Juries which if not removed will in time destroy all the benefit we can expect from that Constitution by turning them into a meer matter of form which were designed for so great Ends. Many have of late thought and affirmed it for Law that the Grand Jury is neither to make so strict inquiry into matters before them nor to look for so clear Evidence of the Crime as the Petit Jury but that of their Presentments being to pass a second Examination they ought to Indict upon a superficial Inquiry and bare probabilities Whereas should either of these Opinions be admitted the prejudice to the Subject would be equal to the total laying aside Grand Juries there being in truth no difference between arraigning without any Presentment from them at all and their Presenting upon slight grounds For the first that Grand Juries ought not to make so strict Inquiry it were to be wisht that we might know how it comes to pass that an Oath should be obligatory unto a Petit Jury and not unto the Grand Or in what Points they may lawfully and with good Conscience omit that Exactness whether in relation to the Witnesses and their credibility Or the fact and all its circumstances Or the Testimony and its weight Or lastly in reference to the Prisoner and Probability of his guilt And withal upon what grounds of Law or Reason their Opinion is founded On the contrary he that will consider either the Oath they take or the Commission where their duty is described will find in all Points that there lies an equal Obligation upon them and the Petit Juries They swear diligently to inquire and true Presentment make c. and to Present the Truth the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth c. And in the Commission of Oyer and Terminer their duty with that of the Commissioners is thus described Ad Inquirendum per Sacramentum Proborum legalium hominum c. per quos rei veritas melius sciri poterit de quibuscunque proditionibus c. confoederationibus Falsis allegantiis nec non Accessoriis Eorundem c. per quoscunque qualitercunque habit fact perpetrat sive Commiss Et per quos Et per quem cui vel quibus quando qualiter vel quomodo de aliis articulis Circumstantiis praemis eorum aliquod vel aliqua qualitercunque concernen To inquire by the Oath of honest and lawful Men c. By whom the Truth of the matter may be best known of all manner of Treasons c. Confederacies false Testimonies c. As also the Accessories c. by whomsoever or howsoever done perpetrated or committed by whom or to whom how in what way or in what manner And of other Articles and Circumstances premised and of any other Thing or Things howsoever concerning the same Now for any Man after this to maintain that Grand Juries are not to inquire or not carefully is as much as in plain terms to say they are bound to act contrary to the Commission and their Oath And to affirm that they can discharge their duty according to the Obligations of Law and Conscience which they
they have Strength and Power to supply the want of Arguments and according to practice in these Cases the weaker are never thought to have an ill Bargain if they have any thing left them So that the first Qualification of an Equivalent must be that the Appraisers be indifferent else it is only a Sound there can be nothing real in it For where the same party that proposeth a Bargain claimeth a Right to set the Value or which is worse hath power too to make it good the other may be forced to submit to the Conditions but he can by no means ever be perswaded to treat upon them IV. The next thing to be considered is that to make an Equivalent in reality an equal thing in the Proposer it must be a better thing than that which is required by him just as good is subject to the Hazard of not being quite so good It is not easie to have such an even Hand as to make the Value exactly equal besides according to the Maxim in Law Melior conditio possidentis the Offer is not fair except the thing offered is better in Value than the Thing demanded There must be Allowance for removing what is fixed and there must be something that may be a Justification for Changing The Value of things very often dependeâ—h more upon other Circumstances than upon what is meerly intrinsick to them therefore the Calculation must be made upon that Foot perhaps in most Cases and particularly the Want which one of the Parties may have of the Thing he requireth maketh it more valuable to him than it is in it self If the Party proposing doth not want the Thing he would have in Exchange his requiring it is importinent If he doth his want of it mâ—st go into the Appraisement and by consequence every Proposer of an Equivalent must offer a better Thing or else he must not take it unkindly to be refused except the other Party hath an equal Want of the same Thing which is very improbible since naturally he that wanteth most will speak first V. Another thing necessary to the making a fair Bargain is that let the Parties who treat be they never so unequal in themselves yet as to the particular thing proposed there must be an exact Equality as far as it relateth to the full Liberty of Taking or Refusing Concurring or Objecting without any consequence of Revenge or so much as Dissatisfaction for it is impossible to treat where it is an Affront to differ in that Case there is no mean between the two Extreams either an open Quarrel or an intire Submission the Way of Bargaining must be equal else the Bargain it self cannot be so For Example the Proposer is not only to use equal Terms as to the Matter but fair ones in the Manner too There must be no Intimations of Anger in case of Refusal much less any open Threatning Such a Stile is so ill suited to the usual way of Treating that it looketh more like a Breach of the Peace than the making a Bargain It would be yet more improper and less agreeing with the Nature of an Equivalent if whilst two Men are a chaffering about the Price one of them should actually take the thing in question at his own Rate and afterwards desire to have his Possession confirmed by a formal Agreement such a Proceeding would not only destroy that Particular Contract but make it impossible to have any other with the Party that could be guilty of such a Practice VI. Violence preceding destroyeth all Contracts and even though the Party that offereth it should have a right to the thing he so taketh yet it is to be obtained by legal Means else it may be forfeited by his Irregularity in the Pursuit of it The Law is such an Enemy to Violence and so little to be reconciled to it that in the Case of a Rape the Punishment is not taken off tho the Party injured afterward consenteth The Justice of the Law hath its Eye upon the first Act and the Maxim of Volenti non fit injuria doth not in this Case help the Offender it being a Plea subsequent to the Crime which maketh it to be rejected as a thing wrong dated and out of time In taking away Goods or Money it is the same thing The Party Robbed by giving them afterwards to the Taker does not exempt him from the Punishment of the Violence Quite contrary the Man from whom they were taken is punishable if he doth not Prosecute If the Case should be that a Man thus taking away a thing without Price claimeth a Right to take it then whether it is well or ill founded is not the Question but sure the Party from whom it is so taken whilst he is treating to Sell or Exchange it can never make a Bargain with so arbitrary a Chapman there being no Room left after that to talk of the Value VII To make an equal Bargain there must be a Liberty of differing not only in every thing that is really Essential but in every thing that is thought so by either Party and most especially by him who is in Possession of the thing demanded His Opinion must be a Rule to him and even his Mistake in the Value though it may not convince the Man he hath to deal with yet he will be justified for not accepting what is offered till that Mistake is fairly rectified and over-ruled When a Security is desired to be changed that Side which desireth it must not pretend to impose upon the other so as to dictate to them and tell them without debate that they are safe in what is proposed since of that the Counsel on the other Side must certainly be the most competent Judges The Hand it cometh from is a great Circumstance either to invite or discourage in all Matters of Contract the Qualifications of the Party offering must suit with the Proposition it self else let it be never so fair there is Ground for Suspition VIII What Men are of a Temper that they think they have Wrongâ— done them if they have not always the better side of a Bargain If they happen to be such as by Experience have been found to have an ill Memory for their Word If the Character they bear doth not recommend their Justice where-ever their Interest is concern'd In these Cases thinking Men will avoid Dealing not only to prevent Surprize but to cut off the Occasions of Difficulty or Dispute It is yet more discouraging when there are either a precedent Practice or standing Maxims of gross Partiality in assuming a Priviledge of Exemption from the usual Methods of equal Dealing To illustrate this by an Instance Suppose that in any Case the Church of Rome should have an Interest to promote a Bargain let her way of Dealing be a little examin'd which will direct those with whom she treateth how far they are to rely upon what she proposeth to them We may begin with the Quality in the
Popish Soveraigns not only account it their glory to break all Laws Oaths and Edicts by which Protestants had their Religion together with many other Rights and Priviledges established and confirmed unto them but who with a salvageness and barbarity which scarce any Age can parallel seek to extirpate their Religion and destroy them And all this attempted and pursued against them not only without their being guilty of any crime by which they might have deserved to lose the favour of their Princes and to forfeit protection in the free exercise of their Religion and their safety as to their Persons and Estates which had been sworn unto them and secured by Authentick Laws But when one of the chiefest motives unto it was their Loyalty and the Merit that they had laid upon their respective Soveraigns which by a new way of gratitude was thought fit to be thus recompensed and rewarded And if we be not as I have formerly said strangely deceived in the Person and Character of our Author this charge upon the States of these Provinces is the effect of a most prodigious folly as well as of inveterate malice in that his Master contrary both to the Laws of the Realms his often repeated Promises and his Coronation Oath assumes a power of introducing those into Offices who by the Statutes of the Land stand precluded from them and of thrusting them out who alone are the Person that are legally capable of them Which manner of proceeding in his Majesty hath besides the injustice that attends it towards all that are laid aside a signal piece of ingratitude accompanying it to many of them as having been the Persons whose Zeal for his Person brought him to the Throne and whose courage maintained him in it But I shall not think it enough meerly to have exposed his imprudence and indiscretion in the forementioned accusation against the whole Governing Body of this Country but I shall likewise shew it to be false slanderous and unjust in every part and branch of it And that I may act with more truth and candour than our Author hath done I do acknowledge that at the first commencement of the War against the King of Spain for the defence of the Laws and Priviledges of these and the neighbouring Provinces that not only they of the Reformed Religion but likewise the Roman Catholicks took Arms and hazarded their Lives and Estates in that just quarrel And I do also grant that thereupon there was Liberty of Conscience allowed and established by several Treaties in the vertue of which both parties were to be equally tolerated and the one not to disturb or disquiet the other Nor was there ever any thing done by way of Ordinance or Law to lessen or restrain the liberty of the Papists nor to abridge much less deprive them of any Power Jurisdiction and Authority that they possessed so long as they remained faithful in the common cause and behaved themselves with Equity Justice and Peace towards those who had withdrawn from the Roman Communion But such was the ascendency of the Priests over the Roman Catholicks and so powerful was their influence upon them that in a little time they not only hindred and molested the Protestants in the exercise of their Religion and committed many unjust and cruel severities against them but they proceeded to various attempts of betraying the Rights and Civil Liberties of the whole Country and of enslaving it both to the Tyranny of the King of Spain and to the bloudy and cruel Inquisition So that from hence it became a matter of necessity rather than at first of choice that the Government should be disposed into Protestant hands and that the liberty of the Papists should have those limits and regulations given unto it as might render it both consistent with the peace freedom and safety of those of the Reformed Religion and with the preservation of the Civil Rights and Priviledges of these Provinces This is the account which all who have written with any knowledge and integrity of the Transactions of those Times do give us of the many Changes and Revolutions that fell out in reference to Religion till all matters both concerning it and the Political Government of these Countreys came to be established in the Form and Way wherein they do still continue and subsist And this I do undertake to make good by all publick Authentick and approved Histories if our Author shall have the confidence to insist upon the justification of his criminations And all that I shall at present direct men unto for the confirmation of what I have said is that admirable Apology of William I. Prince of Orange whom his present Highness does in Wisdom Steddiness and true temperate Christian Zeal so signally imitate and which that great Prince who was the first and happy Founder of this Republick published in defence of himself and of those actings for which the slavish and mercenary Factors of Rome and Spain had traduced and aspersed him But let us advance to a particular Examination of those matters of Fact upon which our Author challengeth these States for violating their Faith with their Roman Catholick Subjects And the things he is pleased to specifie are their departing from the Terms of the Pacification of Gant and their breaking the Articles of the Vnion agreed unto at Utrecht 1597. Nor am I unwilling to acknowledge that soon after the Pacification concluded at Gant there were several indecent and undiscreet things done contrary to the purport and tendency of it both by those of the Romish and by them of the Reformed Religion Which proceeded from the Superstitious Fury of the former and the imprudent Zeal of the latter Yet it is certain that the ground of its coming to be rendred wholly ineffectual arose from a design of the King of Spain's under the cloak and palliation of that Treaty to subvert the Civil Rights and Priviledges of all the Provinces to the Defence and Preservation of which the Roman Catholicks as well as Protestants were sworn and bound by the said Pacification For after that Philip II. had in compliance with the necessity of this Affairs consented unto and ratified all the Terms Provisions and Conditions which both the Papists and the Reformed had in that Pacification League and Confederacy insisted upon and agreed to adhere unto it was soon after discovered by Letters intercepted to Don John who was at that time constituted Governour over the Low Countreys that all which Philip aim'd at was thro the having rendred them secure by the Ratification of that Treaty to take advantages whereby to enslave them and under the Covert of it to provide himself of means by which he might be established in an unbounded Tyranny over them So that by reason of what was detected in those Letters and from Don John's proceeding to possess himself of Namur and his endeavouring to corrupt and debauch the German Troops which were in the States service and paid by them
enacted for our security which to every ones knowledge are so palpably false that we have all the ground that may be both to question and suspect his sincerity and to conclude that his Masters do not purpose to confine themselves within the bounds that he is pleased to chalk out for them and which he undertakes they shall be contented with for their allotment For what can be remoter from Truth than that the Test Laws were designed as a preamble to the Bill of Exclusion as he phrases it Letter first and that they were contrived to exclude the Duke of York from the Crown as he expresseth it p. 15. of his Good Advice c. when it is most certain that as the Test in 73. was made long before there were or could be any thoughts of it and was enacted by a Parliament against whose Loyalty there can be no exception so there was a clause in the last Test Act by which it was provided that he should not be obliged to take it Again what can be more repugnant to experience than that the King onely desires ease for those of his Religion Good Adv. p. 44. and that the Papists desire no more than a Toleration and are willing upon those Terms to make a perpetual peace with the Church of England Good Advice p. 17. For do we not daily see Protestants turned out of all Places of Trust Authority and Command and Papists advanced into all Offices Military and Civil Could the King have been contented with a Non-execution of the Laws against those of his Communion and could they have been satisfied with such an Indulgence and have modestly improved it 'T is not improbable but that such a behaviour would have so far prevailed upon the ingenuity and good nature of the generality of Protestants that without needing to have been importuned they would have repealed all the Penal Laws against Roman Catholicks But the methods which have been pursued by his Majesty and them shews both that they aim at no less than the Domination and that we must be very willing to be deceived if we either credit Mr. Pen or suffer our selves to be influenced by him after his obtruding upon us for truths matters which our very senses inable us to refute It may justly make us question his sincerity and beget a suspition in all thinking people of the sinistrous design these Papers are adapted unto when we find him endeavouring to cajole the Nation to an abrogation of the Laws by which our Religion and Safety are secured by telling us That the King's word is enough for us to rely upon if they were gone Good Advice p. 49. and that he could easily pack a Parliament for Repealing them if he did not seek a more lasting and more agreeable security to his Friends Letter third p. 12. and that if they were abolished 't is below the Glory of our King to use ways so unlike the rest of his open and generous principles as to endeavour to get a Parliament afterwards returned that is not duly chosen Letter second p. 15. and that he is a Prince of that Honour Conscience and generoas nature as not by invading the Rights of the Church of England to become guilty of an injustice and irreligion he hath so often so solemnly and earnestly spoken against Letter second p. 11. He must needs take us to be strangely unacquainted with the whole Tenor of the King's Actings in England as well as in Scotland and Ireland and to be persons of very weak understandings and of an easie belief if he think we are to be imposed upon and decoy'd by such Topicks as these to absolish the Tests or that after what we have seen and felt contradictory to those Panegyricks and inconsistent with those beautiful and lofty Characters fastned upon his Majesty we should believe Mr. Pen to mean nothing but well and honestly towards the Protestant Interest in what he so earnestly solliciteth the Church of England and the Dissenters in the forementioned Papers to concurr and consent unto I do acknowledge that what he hath said about Liberty due to men in matters of meer Religion and by way of rebuke unto and reflection upon the Wisdom and Justice of those that either are or have been for persecution is very strong and convincing but I must withall add that it is all at this time very needless and impertinent For the Church of England is so sensible of the Iniquity as well as folly of that Method that there is no ground to suspect She will ever be guilty of it for the future They whom no Arguments could heretofore convert the Court whose Tools they were in that mischievous and Unchristian work and by whom they were instigated to all the severities which they are now blamed for by objecting it to them as their Reproach and Disgrace and by seeking to improve the resentments of those who had suffered by Penal Laws to become an united party with the Papists for their subversion hath brought them at once to be asham'd of what they did and to Resolutions of promoting all Christian Liberty for the time to come And should there be any peevish and ill-natur'd Ecclesiasticks who upon a turn of Affairs would be ready to reassume their former principles and pursue their wonted course we may be secure against all fear of their being successful in it not only by finding the Majority as well as the more learned both of the dignified and inferior Clergy unchangeably fixed and determined against it but by having the whole Nobility and Gentry and those Noble Princes whose right it will be next to ascend the Throne fully possessed with all the generous and Christian purposes we can desire of making provision for Liberty of Conscience by a Law Nor can I forbear to subjoyn how surprizing it ought to be to all Protestants that while Mr. Pen expresseth so much charity for the Papists he entertaineth so little for the Church of England He would perswade us that if the Penal and Test Laws were abrogated the Papists would be so far afterward from seeking to shake the Constitution of the Church of England or from breaking in upon the Liberty that is now vouchsafed unto Dissenters or from endeavouring to make their Religion National that they would not onely be contented with a bare Toleration but that upon their enjoyment of ease by Law they would turn good Countrymen and come in to the Interest of the Kingdom Letter first Whereas at the same time he would have us believe that all the Protestations of those in the Communion of the Church of England for exercising Moderation in time to come are but the Language of their fear that their promises are not to be trusted Good Advice p. 54. and that the Dissenters deserve to be begged for Fools should they be satisfied with any less assurance than the abolition of the Penal and Test Laws ibid. p. 55. 'T is enough not onely to excite
and lull those into a tameness of admitting his Return into his Dominions whom a jealousie of being afterwards persecuted for their Consciences might have awakened to withstand and dispute it And to give him his due he never judged himself longer bound to the observation of Promises and Oaths made to his People than until without hazard to his Person and Government he could violate and break them Accordingly he was no sooner seated in the Throne of his Ancestors and those whom he had been apprehensive of Resistance and Disturbance from put out of Capacity and Condition of attempting any thing against him but he thought himself discharged from every thing that the Royal Word and Faith of a Prince had been pledged and 〈◊〉 to stake for in that Declaration and from that day forward acted in direct opposition to all the Parts and Branches of it For having soon after his Return obtained a Parliament moulded and adapted both to his Arbitrary and Popish Ends he immediately set all his Instruments at work for the procuring of such Laws to be Enacted as might divide and weaken Protestants and thereby make us not onely the more easie Prey to the Papists but afford them an advantage through our Scuffles of undermining our Religion with the less notice and observation How such persons came to be chosen and to constitute the Majority of the House of Commons who by their Actings have made themselves Infamous and Execrable to all Ages were a matter too large to penetrate at present into the Reasons of but that which my Theme conducts me to observe is That as they sacrificed the Treasure of the Nation to the profuseness and prodigality of the Prince and our Rights and Liberties to his Ambition and Arbitrary Will so they both introduced and established those Things which have been a means of dividing us and by many severe and repeated Laws they subjected a great number of industrious English-men and true Protestants to Excommunications Imprisonments rigorous and multiplied Fines and all this for Matters onely relating to their Consciences and for their Obedience to God in the Ordinances of his Worship and House And notwithstanding the late King 's often pretended compassion to the Dissenters it will be hard to discern them unless in Effects which proceed from very different and opposite Principles The distance which he kept them from his Person and Favour the influencing these Members of both Houses that depended upon him to be the Authors and Promoters of Severities against them the enjoyning so often the Judges and Justices of Peace to execute the Laws upon them in their utmost rigour the instigating the Bishops and Ecclesiastical Courts if at any time they relented in their Prosecutions to pursue them with fresh Citations and Censures the arraigning them not onely upon the Statutes made intentionally against Dissenters but upon those that were originally and solely enacted against the Papists these and other Procedures of that Nature are the onely Proofs and Evidences which I can find of the late King's Bowels Pity and Tenderness to them And whereas the weak Church-men were imposed upon to believe that all the Severity against the Nonconformists was the Fruit of his Zeal for the Protestant Religion and for the security of the Worship and Discipline established by Law they might have easily discovered if Passion Prejudice Wealth and Honour had not blinded them that all this was calculated for Ends perfectly destructive to the Church and inconsistent with the Safety and Happiness of all Protestants For as his seeking oftner than once to have wriggled himself into a Power of superseding and dispensing with those Laws and suspending their Execution plainly shews that he never intended the support and preservation of the Church by them so his non-execution of the Laws against Papists his conniving at their encrease his perswading those nearest unto him to reconcile themselves to the See of Rome as he did among others the late D. of Monmouth his countenancing the Roman Catholicks in their open and intollerable Insolencies and his advancing them to the most gainful and Important Places and trusts sufficiently declare that he never had any love to Protestants or care of the Reformed Religion but that all his designs were of a contrary tendency and his fairest Pretences for the Protection and Grandure of the Church of England adapted to other ends Thus the Royal Brothers having obtained such Laws to be enacted whereby one Party of Protestants was armed with means of oppressing and persecuting all others neither the necessity of their Affairs at any time since nor the Application and Interposure of several Parliaments for removing the Grounds of our Differences and Animosities by an Indulgence to be past into a Law could prevail either upon his late Majesty or the present King to forgoe the Advantage they had gotten of keeping us in mutual Enmity and thereby of ministring to their projection of supplanting our Religion and re-establishing the Faith and Worship of the Church of Rome Hereupon the last King not onely refused to consent to such Bills as diverse late Parliaments had prepared for indulging Dissenters and for bringing them into an union of Counsels and Conjunction of Interest with those of the Church of England for resisting the Conspiracies of the Papists against our Legal Government and Established Religion but he rejected an Address for suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws against Dissenters which was offered and presented unto him by that very Parliament which had framed and enacted those cruel and hard Laws And as the Royal Brothers have made it their constant Business to cherish a Division and Rancour among Protestants and to provoke one Party to persecute and ruine another so nothing could more naturally fall in with the Design of Arbitrariness or be more subservient to the betraying the Nationâ—â— Papal Idolatry and Jurisdiction For several Penal Laws against a considerable Body of People do either expose them against whom they are enacted to be destroyed by the Prince with whom the executive Power of the Law is trusted and deposited or they prove a Temptation to such as are obnoxious of resigning themselves in such a manner to the Will and Pleasure of the Monarch for the obtaining his connivancy at their violation of the Laws as is unsafe and dangerous for the common Liberty and Good of the Kingdom For in case the Supreme Magistrate pursue an Interest distinct from and destructive to that of his People they who the Law hath made liable to be oppressed are brought under Inducements of becoming so many Parisans for abetting him in his Designs in hopes of being thereupon protected from the Penal Statutes the execution whereof is committed to him And as it is not agreeable to the Wisdom and Prudence which ought to be among Men nor to the Mercy and Compassion which should be among Christians for one party to surrender another into the Hands and Power of the Soveraign to be
recommended to the Favor of the two Royal Brothers Nor is it unworthy of Observation that some of the most virulent Writers against Liberty of Conscience and others of the most fierce Instigators to the persecuting Dissenters among whom we may reckon Parker Bishop of Oxford and Cartwright Bishop of Chester are since Addressing for the Declaration of Indulgence became the means of being graciously look'd upon at Whitehall turned forward Promoters of it tho their Success in their Diocesses with their Clergy hath not answered their Expectations and Endeavors For as these two Mytred Gentlemen will fall in with and justifie whatsoever the King hath a mind to do if they may but keep their Seas and enjoy their Revenues which I dare say that rather than lose they will subscribe not only to the Tridentine Faith but to the Alcoran so it is most certain that they two as well as the Bishop of Durham have promised to turn Roman Catholicks and that as Crew hath been several times seen assisting at the Celebration of the Mass and that as Cartwright paid a particular respect to the Nuncie at his solemn Entrance at Windsor which some Temporal Lords had so much Conscience and Honor as to scorn to do so the Author of the Liege Letter tells us that Parker not only extremely favors Popery but that he brands in a manner all such for Atheists who continue to plead for the Protestant Religion 'T is an Act of the same Candor and good Nature in the King with the former and another Royal Effect of his Princely Breeding as well as of his Gratitude when he Endeavors to cast a farther Odium upon the Church of England and to exasperate the Dissenters against her by saying in the forementioned Letter to Mr. Alsop That the reason why the Dissenters enjoyed not Liberty sooner is wholly owing to the Sollicitation of the Conforming Clergy whereas many of the learned and sober Men of the Church of England could have been contented that the Non-conforming Protestants should have had Liberty long ago provided it had been granted in a legal way and the chief Executioners of Severity upon them were such of all Ranks Orders and Stations as the Court both set on and rewarded for it 'T is not their Brethrens having Liberty that displeaseth modest and good Men of the Church of England but 't is the having it in the virtue of an Usurped Prerogative over the Laws of the Land and to the shaking all the legal Foundations of the Protestant Religion it self in the Kingdom And had the Declaration of Indulgence imported only an Exemption of Dissenters and Papists from Rigors and Penalties I know very few that would have been displeased at it but the extending it to the removing all the Fences about the Reformed Doctrine and Worship and laying us open both to the tyranny of Papists and the being overflowed with a deluge of their Superstitions and Idolatries as well as the designing it for a means to overthrow the established Church is that which no wise Dissenter no more than a conformable man knows how to digest For I am not of Sir R. L'Estrange's mind who after he hath been writing for many years against Dissenters with all the venom and malice imaginable and to disprove the wisdom justice and convenience of granting them liberty hath now the impudence to publish that whatsoever he formerly wrote bears an exact conformity to the present Resolutions of State Pref. to his Hist of the Times p. 8. in that the liberty now vouchsafed is an Act of Grace issuing from the supreme Magistrate and not a claim of Right in the people And as to recited expressions of the King they are only a papal trick whereby to keep up heats and animosities among Protestants when both the inward heats of men are much allay'd and the external provocations to them are wholly removed and they are merely Jesuitick methods by which our hatred of one another may be maintain'd tho the Laws enabling one party to persecute the other which was the chief spring of all our mutual rancor and bitterness be suspended It would be the sport and glory of the Ignatian Order to be able to make the disabling of penal Laws as effectual to the supporting differences among Protestants as the enacting and rigorous execution of them was to the first raising and the continuing them afterwards for many years And if the foregoing Topicks can furnish the King arguments whereby to reproach the Ch. of England when he thinks it seasonable and for the interest of Rome to be angry with them I dare affirm he will never want pretences of being discontented with and of aspersing Fanaticks when he finds the doing so to be for the service of the papal cause And if the forementioned instances of his Majesty's behaviour to the Ch. of England to which he stands so superlatively obliged be neither testimonies of his Ingenuity evidences of his Gratitude nor effects of common much less royal Justice yet what remains to be intimated does carry more visible marks of his malice and design both against the legally established Church and our Religion For not being satisfied with the suspension of all those Laws by which Protestants and they of the national Communion might seem to be injurious to Papists in their Persons and Estates such as the Laws which make those who shall be found to have taken Orders in the Ch. of Rome obnoxious to death or those other Statutes by which the King hath Power and Authority for levying two thirds of their Estates that shall be convicted of Recusancy but by an usurped Prerogative and an absolute Power he is pleased to suspend all the Laws by which they were only disabled from hurting us thro standing precluded from places of Power and Trust in the Government So that the whole security we have in time to come for our Religion depends upon the temperate disposition and good nature of those Roman Catholicks that shall be advanced to Offices and Employments and does no longer bear upon the protection and support of the Law and I think we have not had that experience of grace and favour from Papists as may give us just confidence of fair and candid treatment from them for the future Now that we may be the better convinced how little security we have from his Majesty's promise in his Declaration of his protecting the Archbishops Bishops and Clergy and all other his Subjects of the Church of England in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law established and in the quiet and full enjoyment of their poffessions without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever which is all the Tenour that is left us 't is not unworthy of observation how that beside the suspending the Bishop of London ab Officio and the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge both ab Officio and Beneficio and this not only for Actions which the Laws of God and the Kingdom make their duty but
in open Arms or with Arms in their Houses or about their Persons or in any Office or Imployment Civil or Military upon any Pretence whatsoever contrary to the known Laws of the Land shall be treated by Us and our Forces not as Soldiers and Gentlemen but as Robbers Free-Booters and Banditti they shall be incapable of Quarter and intirely delivered up to the Discretion of our Soldiers And We do further declare that all Persons who shall be found any ways aiding and assisting to them or shall march under their Command or shall joyn with or submit to them in the Discharge or Execution of their Illegal Commissions or Authority shall be looked upon as Partakers of their Crimes Enemies to the Laws and to their Country And whereas we are certainly informed that great Numbers of armed Papists have of late resorted to London and Westminster and parts adjacent where they remain as we have reason to suspect not so much for their own Security as out of a wicked and barbarous Design to make some desperate Attempt upon the said Cities and their Inhabitants by Fire or a sudden Massacre or both or else to be the more ready to joyn themselves to a Body of French Troops designed if it be possible to land in England procured of the French King by the Interest and Power of the Jesuits in Pursuance of the Engagements which at the Instigation of that pestilent Society his most Christian Majesty with one of his Neighbouring Princes of the same Communion has entred into for the utter Extirpation of the Protestant Religion out of Europe Tho we hope we have taken such effectual care to prevent the one and secure the other that by God's Assistance we cannot doubt but we shall defeat all their wicked Enterprises and Designs We cannot however forbear out of the great and tender Concern We have to preserve the People of England and particularly those great and populous Cities from the cruel Rage and bloody Revenge of the Papists to Require and expect from all the Lord-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace Lord-Mayors Mayors Sheriffs and all other Magistrates and Officers Civil and Military of all Counties Cities and Towns of England especially of the County of Middlesex and Cities of London and Westminster and parts adjacent that they do immediately disarm and secure as by Law they may and ought within their respective Counties Cities and Jurisdictions all Papists whatsoever as Persons at all times but now especially most dangerous to the Peace and Safety of the Government that so not only all Power of doing mischief may be taken from them but that the Laws which are the greatest and best Security may resume their Force and be strictly Executed And We do hereby likewise Declare that We will Protect and Defend all those who shall not be afraid to do their Duty in Obedience to these Laws And that for those Magistrates and others of what condition soever they be who shall refuse to assist Us and in Obedience to the Laws to Execute vigorously what we have required of them and suffer themselves at this Juncture to be cajoled or terrified out of ther Duty We will esteem them the most Criminal and Infamous of all Men Betrayers of their Religion the Laws and their Native Country and shall not fail to treat them accordingly resolving to expect and require at their hands the Life of every single Protestant that shall perish and every House that shall be burnt or destroyed by their Treachery and Cowardise William Henry Prince of Orange Given under our Hand and Seal at our Head-quarters at Sherburn Castle the 28th day of November 1688. By his Highness special Command C. HUYGENS. The following Paper was Published by Mr. Samuel Johnson in the Year 1686. for which he was Sentenc'd by the Court of King's Bench Sir Edward Herbert being Lord Chief Justice to stand three times on the Pillory and to be whipp'd from Newgate to Tyburn Which barbarous Sentence was Executed An Humble and Hearty Address to all the English Protestants in this present Army Gentlemen NExt to the Duty which we owe to God which ought to be the principal Care of Men of your Profession especially because you carry your Lives in your Hands and often look Death in the Face The second Thing that deserves your Consideration is The service of your Native Country wherein you drew your first Breath and breathed a free English Air. Now I would desire you to consider how well you comply with these two main Points by engaging in this present Service Is it in the Name of God and for his Service that you have joyned your selves with Papists who will indeed fight for the Mass-book but burn the Bible and who seek to Extirpate the Protestant Religion with Your Swords because they cannot do it with their Own And will you be Aiding and Assisting to set up Mass-houses to Erect that Popish Kingdom of Darkness and Desolation amongst us and to train up all our Children in Popery How can you do these Things and yet call your selves Protestants And then what Service can be done your Country by being under the Command of French and Irish Papists and by bringing the Nation under a Foreign Yoke Will you help them to make forcible Entry into the Houses of your Country-men under the Name of Quartering directly contrary to Magna Charta and the Petition of Right Will you be Aiding and Assisting to all the Murders and Outrages which they shall commit by their void Commissions Which were declared Illegal and sufficiently blasted by both Houses of Parliament if there had been any need of it for it was very well known before That a Papist cannot have a Commission but by the Law is utterly Disabled and Disarmed Will you exchange your Birth-right of English Laws and Liberties for Martial or Club-law and help to destroy all others only to be eaten last your selves If I know you well as you are English Men you hate and scorn these Things And therefore be not unequally yoaked with Idolatrous and Bloody Papists Be Valiant for the Truth and shew your selves Men. The same Considerations are likewise humbly offered to all the English Seamen who have been the Bulwark of this Nation against Popery and Slavery ever since Eighty Eight Several Reasons for the Establishment of a standing Army and Dissolving the Militia By Mr. S. Johnson 1. BEcause the Lords Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants and the whole Militia that is to say the Lords Gentlemen and Free-holders of England are not fit to be trusted with their own Laws Lives Liberties and Estates and therefore ought to have Guardians and Keepers assigned to them 2. Because Mercenary Soldiers who fight for twelve Pence a Day will fight better as having more to lose than either the Nobility or Gentry 3. Because there are no Irish Papists in the Militia who are certainly the best Soldiers in the World for they have slain Men Women and Children
to publish all his Arbitrary Declarations and in particular one that strikes at their whole Settlement and has ordered Process to be begun against all that disobey'd this illegal Warrant and has treated so great a number of the Bishops as Criminals only for representing to him the Reasons of their not obeying him if likewise the King is not satisfied to profess his own Religion openly though even that is contrary to Law but has sent Ambassadors to Rome and received Nuntio 's from thence which is plainly Treason by Law if likewise many Popish Churches and Chappels have been publickly opened if several Colledges of Jesuits have been set up in divers parts of the Nation and one of the Order has been made a Privy Counsellor and a principal Minister of State and if Papists and even those who turn to that Religion though declared Traitors by Law are brought into all the chief Employments both Military and Civil then it is plain That all the Rights of the Church of England and the whole establishment of the Protestant Religion are struck at and designed to be overturned since all these things as they are notoriously illegal so they evidently demonstrate That the great design of them all is the rooting out of this Pestilent Heresy in their stile I mean the Protestant Religion In the next place If in the whole Course of Justice it is visible that there is a constant practising upon the Judges that they are turned out upon their varying from the Intentions of the Court and if Men of no Reputation nor Abilities are put in their places if an Army is kept up in time of Peace and Men who withdraw from that illegal Service are hanged up as Criminals without any colour of Law which by consequence are so many Murders and if the Souldiery are connived at and encouraged in the most enormous Crimes that so they may be thereby prepared to commit greater ones and from single Rapes and Murders proceed to a rape upon all our Liberties and a destruction of the Nation if I say all these things are true in fact then it is plain that there is such a dissolution of the Government made that there is not any one part of it left found and entire and if all these things are done now it is easy to imagine what may be expected when Arbitrary Power that spares no Man and Popery that spares no Heretick are finally established Then we may look for nothing but Gabelles Tailles Impositions Benevolences and all sorts of illegal Taxes as from the other we may expect Burnings Massacres and Inquisitions In what is doing in Scotland we may gather what is to be expected in England where if the King has over and over again declared that he is vested with an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and has upon that annulled almost all the Acts of Parliament that passed in K. James the Ist's Minority though they were ratified by himself when he came to be of age and were confirmed by all the subsequent Kings not excepting the present We must then conclude from thence what is resolved on here in England and what will be put in execution as soon as it is thought that the Times can bear it When likewise the whole Settlement of Ireland is shaken and the Army that was raised and is maintained by Taxes that were given for an Army of English Protestants to secure them from a new Massacre by the Irish Papists is now all filled with Irish Papists as well as almost all the other Imployments it is plain That not only all the British Protestants inhabiting that Island are in daily danger of being butchered a second time but that the Crown of England is in danger of losing that Island it being now put wholly into the hands and power of the Native Irish who as they formerly offered themselves up sometimes to the Crown of Spain sometimes to the Pope and once to the Duke of Lorrain so are they perhaps at this present treating with another Court for the sale and surrender of the Island and for the Massacre of the English in it If thus all the several Branches of our Constitution are dissolved it might be at least expected that one part should be left entire and that is the Regal Dignity and yet even that is prostituted when we see a young Child put in the reversion of it and pretended to be the Prince of Wales concerning whose being born of the Queen there appear to be not only no certain Proofs but there are all the Presumptions that can possibly be imagined to the contrary No Proofs were ever given either to the Princess of Denmark or to any other Protestant Ladies in whom we ought to repose any Confidence that the Queen was ever with Child that whole matter being managed with so much Mysteriousness that there were violent and publick Suspitions of it before the Birth But the whole Contrivance of the Birth the sending away the Princess of Denmark the sudden shortning of the Reckoning the Queen 's sudden going to St. James's her no less sudden pretended Delivery the hurrying the Child into another Room without shewing it to those present and without their hearing it cry and the mysterious Conduct of all since that time no satisfaction being given to the Princess of Denmark upon her Return from the Bath nor to any other Protestant Ladies of the Queen's having been really brought to bed These are all such evident Indications of a base Imposture in this matter that as the Nation has the justest reason in the World to doubt of it so they have all possible reason to be at no quiet till they see a Legal and Free Parliament assembled which may impartially and without either Fear or Corruption examine that whole matter If all these Matters are true in fact then I suppose no Man will doubt that the whole Foundations of this Government and all the most sacred Parts of it are overturned And as to the truth of all these Suppositions that is left to every Englishman's Judgment and Sense The Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy no Badges of Slavery THE Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the Crown of England having been invaded and broke in upon by the Power of the Court of Rome in K. Henry the Eighth 's time all Foreign Power was abolished and the Antient Legal Supremacy restor'd and by many additional Acts corroborated But all that was done of that kind in K. Henry the Eighth 's time was undone again in Queen Mary's and therefore in the first Year of Queen Elizabeth's Reign an Act of Parliament was made Intituled All Antient Jurisdiction restored to the Crown A Repeal of divers Statutes and Reviver of others and all foreign Power Abolished Which Act recites that whereas in the Reign of R. H. 8. divers good Laws were made and established as well for the utter extinguishment and putting away of all Vsurped and Foreign Powers and
that the Earl never troubled him about any such matter nor solicited him now these Eighteen years for any Title Office or Imployment though he confesses he had of all sorts nor hath he been burthensom to His Majesty's Exchequer 500 l. yearly for four or five years that the Earl served in the Treasury being all that ever he touched of his Majesty's Money albeit few attended more and none so much that lived at his distance He was also twice at London to kiss His Majesty's hand but still on his own Charges Which things are not said to lessen His Majesty's bounty and goodness whereof the Earl still retains all just tender and dutiful impressions but to answer the Advocate and to teach others to hold their peace that cannot say so much His Life is known to have been True Honest and of a piece and all alongs he hath walked with that straightness that he can compare his Integrity with all that now attacque him By all which it is apparent That what the Advocate here pretends for an aggravation may wâ—ll be accounted a Second part of the Earl's Persecutions but cannot in the least impair either his Innocence or his Honour Seeing therefore the ground of the Earl's present accusation with all he either designed said oâ— did in this matter was only that when called nay required to take the Test and after leave first obtained from his Highness and Council he did in their presence before the giving of his Oath declare and propose to them the sense wherein he was willing to take it That this his sense neither contains nor insinuates the least slander reproach or reflection either upon the King the Parliament or any Person whatsomeever but on the contrair is in effect tenfold more agreeable to the words of the Test and meaning of the Parliament that framed it than the Explanation emitted by the Council and was also most certainly the first day by them accepted and when the next day challenged by him offered to be retracted and refused to be signed That the whole Indictment and more especially that part of it about the Treason is a meer Rapsody of the most irrational absurd and pernicious consequences that ever the Sun beheld not only forcing the Common rules of Speech Charity and Humanity but ranversing all the Topicks of Law Reason and Religion and threatning no less in the Earl's person than the ruine of every Man's Fortune Life and Honour That the Earl's Defences and grounds of Exculpation were most pregnant and unanswerable and either in themselves notour or offered to be instantly verified And lastly That the aggravations pretended against him do either directly make for him or most evidently discover the restless malice of some of his implacable enemies Shall our Gracious King who not only clearly understands Right and hates Oppression but also to all his other excellent qualities hath by his Gentleness and Clemency even towards his Enemies added that great Character of Goodness upon vain and false insinuations and unreasonable and violent stretches not only take away the Life of an innocent person but of one who himself and his Family be it said without disparagement have for a longer time and more faithfully and signally served His Majesty and the Crown than any person or Family of his degree and quality of all his Persecutors can pretend to Shall his numerous Family hopeful Children his Friends and Creditors all be destroyed Shall both former Services be forgot Innocence oppressed and all Rules of Justice and Laws of society and humanity for his sake overturned Shall not only the Earl be cut off and his noble and ancient Family extinguished but his Blood and Memory tainted with as black and horrible a stain as if he had conspired with Jacques Clement Ravillack The Gun-powder Miscreants The Bloody Irish Rebels and all the other most wicked and hainous Traytors of that Gang And all this for a meer imaginary Crime whereof it is most certain that no Man living hath or can have the least real conviction and upon such frivolous allegations as all men see to be at the top meer Moon-shine and at the bottom Villany unmixed After clearing these things the Earl it seems intended to have addressed himself to His Majesty's Advocate in particular and to have told him that he had begun very timeously in Parliament to fall first on his heritable jurisdictions and then upon his Estate and that now he was fallen upon his Life and Honour whereby it was easie to divine that more was intended from the beginning than the simple taking away of his Offices seeing that some of them on his refusing the Test were taken away by the Certification of the Act of Parliament and that those that were heritable he offered in Parliament to present and surrender to His Majesty on his knee if His Majesty after hearing him should think it fit only he was not willing to have them torn from him as hath been said and if that were all were designed as was at first given out the Advocate need not have set him on high as Naboth and accuse him as a Blasphemer of God and the King Then turning his Speech to the Lords of Justitiary he thought to have desired that they would yet seriously consider his words in their true sense and circumstances his own Explanation of his Explication and especially the foregoing matter of Fact to have been laid before them with his Defences and grounds of Exculpation as also to have told them That they could not but observe how that he was singled out amongst Thousands against whom much more then all he is charged with could be alledged and that they must of necessity acknowledg if they would speak out their own Conscience that what he had said was spoke in pure innocence and duty and only for the exoneration of himself as a Christian and one honoured to be of His Majesty's Privy Council where he was bound by his Oath to speak truth freely and not to throw the smallest reproach on either person or thing Adding That he was loath to say any thing that looks like a reflection upon His Majesty's Privy Council but if the Council can wrong one of their own number he thought he might demand If he had not met with hard measure For first he was pressed and persuaded to come to the Council then they receive his Explanation and take his Oath then they complain of him to His Majesty where he had no access to be heard and by their Letter under their hands affirm That they had been careful not to suffer any to take the Test with their own Explanations albeit they had allowed a thing very like it first to Earl Queensberry then to the Clergy And the President now Chancellour had permitted several Members of the College of Justice to premise when they swear the Test some one sense and some another and some nonsense as one saying he took it in sano sensu
and too apt to make constructions in such according to the favour or malice they bear to the Person or Cause Are not some men apt to construct that to tend to their dishonour which was designed for their honour and to think every thing an innovation of Law or Privilege which checks their inclination and design Whereas some Judges are so violent in their Loyalty as to imagine the meanest mistakes do tend to an opposition against Authority and thus Zeal Jealousie Malice or Interest would become Judges 4. Men are so silly or may be in such haste or so confounded and the best are subject to such mistakes as that no Man could know when he were innocent simplicity might oft times become a Crime and the fear of offending might occasion offence and how uncomfortably would the people live if they knew not how to be innocent 2dly P. 47. l. 9. Of the same Book he says That the eighth point of Treason is to impugn the Dignity and Authority of the three Estates or to seek and procure the innovation and diminution of their Power and Authority Act 103. Ja. 6. p. 6. Now this being another of the Crimes charged upon the Earl hear how the Advocate there understands it But this he adds immediately is to be understood of a N. B. direct impugning of their Authority as if it were contended that Parliaments were not necessary or that one of the three Estates might be turned out Which how vastly different from his indirect forced and horrible inferences in the Earl's Case is plain and obvious 3dly Ibid. p. 58 l. 2. After having said That according to former Laws no sort of Treason was to be pursued in absence before the Justices and urging it to be reasonable he adds ' Nor is it imaginable but if it had been safe it had been granted formerly And l. 31. he says The Justices are never allowed even by the late Act of Parliament to proceed to sentence against absents but such as are pursued for Rising in Arms against the King The true reason whereof he tells us is that the Law is not so inhumane as to punish equally presumed and real guilt And that it hath been often found that men have absented themselves rather out of fear of a prevailing Faction or corrupt Witnesses c. than out of consciousness of guilt Reasons which albeit neither true nor just seeing that the Law punishes nothing even in case of absence but either manifest contumacy or Crimes fully proven And that the only reason why it allows no other Crime save Perduellion to be proceeded against in absence is because it judges no other Crime tanti yet you see how this whole passage quadrats with the Earl's Case who being neither pursued for Perduellion nor present at giving Sentence was yet sentenced in absence as a most desperate Traytor 4thly Ibid. p. 60. l. 24. Speaking of the Solemnities used in Parliament at the pronouncing Sentences for Treason viz. That the Pannel receives his Sentence kneeling and that after the doom of Forfaulture pronounced against him the Lyon and his Brethren the Heraulds in their Formalities come and tear his Coat of Arms at the Throne and thereafter hang up his Escutchion ranversed upon the Mercat-Cross He adds But this I think should only hold in the Crime of Perduellion and then goes on to add That the Children of the Delinquent are declared incapable to bruik any Office or Estate is another Speciality introduced in the punishment of Perduellion only And yet both these terrible Solemnities were practised against the Earl even by a Court of Justitiary and not in Parliament albeit he was not accused of Perduellion nor be indeed more guilty of any Crime than all the World sees 5thly Ibid. page 303. ult He says That verbal injuries are these that are committed by unwarrantable expressions as to call a Man a Cheat a Woman Whore But because expressions may vary according to the intention of the speaker therefore except the words can allow of no good sense as Whore or Thief or that there be strong presumptions against the speaker the injuriandi animus or design of injuring as well as the injuring words must be proven and the speaker will be allowed to purge his guilt by declaring his intention and his declaration without an Oath will be sufficient 2dly The pursuer should libel the design and prove it except the words clearly infer it 3dly The pursuer is presently to resent the injury and if at first the words be taken for no injury they cannot afterward become such Which things being applied to the Earl's words do evidently say That unless his words could allow of no good sense or that there were strong presumptions against him or that he could not purge his guilt by declaring his intention or that his words did clearly infer the guilt there could be no Crime of Slandering Reproaching or Depraving charged against him except the injuriandi animus as well as the words had been both libelled and proven But so it is that his words do manifestly allow of a good sense that there is not the least presumption of injury can be alledged against him That he did most plainly purge himself of all suspition of guilt by declaring his sound and upright intention and that his words do not infer either clearly or unclearly the smallest measure of guilt and withal neither was the injuriandi animus at all proven But on the contrary the words at first were taken for no injury so that they could not afterward become such as is above fully cleared Ergo Even the Advocate being Judge the Earl is no Slanderer 6thly If it were necessary I could further tell you several things that he alledges to be sufficient for purging a Man of any criminal intention As where he says Ibid. p. 563. l. 2. That in matters of fact persons even judicious following the Faith of such as understand are to be excused And l. 30. That if it appear by the meanness of the crime he should say the smallness of the deed And what can be less than the uttering of a few words in the manner that the Earl spoke them that there was no design of transgression And that the committer designed not for so small a matter to commit a crime much less such horrid ones as Depraving and Treason In that case the meanness of the transgression or deed ought to defend against the relevancy c. But to give you one instance for all how much the Advocate may one day or other be obliged to plead the innocence of his intentions to free himself of words downright in themselves slanderous and depraving an Act of Parliament much better nor he understands it and in fresh and constant observance Ibid. p. 139. towards the middle speaking of the 151 Act Ja. 6. P. 12. Whereby it is Statute That seeing divers exceptions and objections rises upon criminal Libels and parties are frustrate of Justice by the
alledged irrelevancy thereof That in time coming all Criminal Libels shall contain that the persons complained on are Art and Part of the Crimes Libelled which shall be relevant to accuse them thereof swa that no exception or objection take away that part of the Libel in time coming He says That he finds no Act of Parliament more unreasonable for the Statutory part of that Act committing the Tryal of Art and Part to Assizers seems most unjust Seeing in committing the greatest questions of the Law to the most ignorant of the Subjects it puts a sharp Sword into the hands of blind men And the reason of this Act specified in the Narrative is likewise most inept and no ways illative c. What Reproaches What Blasphemies The Earl said not one word against any Act of Parliament But on the contrary That he was confident the Parliament intended no contradiction and that he was willing to take the Test in the Parliaments sense But here the Advocate both says and Prints it That an Act of Parliament is most unreasonable and most unjust and it's reason most inept and that it puts a sharp Sword in the hands of blind men Whereof the smallest branch is infinitely more reproachful than all can be strained out of the Earl's words But Sir Speculation is but Speculation and if the Advocate when his day comes be as able to purge himself of Practical Depravations as I am inclined to excuse all his Visionary Lapses notwithstanding of the famous Title Quod quisque juris in alterum statuorit ut ipse eodem jure utatur he shall never be the worse of my censure Murther will out Or the King's Letter justifying the Marquess of Antrim and declaring That what he did in the Irish Rebellion was by Direction from his Royal Father and Mother and for the service of the Crown Ireland Aug. 22. 1663. Ever honoured Sir LAST Thursday we came to Trial with my Lord Marquess of Antrim but according to my Fears which you always surmised to be in vain he was by the King 's Extraordinary and Peremptory Letter of Favour restored to his Estate as an Innocent Papist We proved Eight Qualifications in the Act of Settlement against him the least of which made him uncapable of being restored as Innocent We proved 1. That he was to have a hand in surprizing the Castle of Dublin in the Year 1641. 2. That he was of the Rebels Party before the 15th of September 1643. which we made appear by his hourly and frequent intercourse with Renny O Moore and many others being himself the most notorious of the said Rebels 3. That he entered into the Roman-Catholick Confederacy before the Peace in 1643. 4. That he constantly adhered to the Nuncio's Party in opposition to his Majesty's Authority 5. That he sate from time to time in the Supream Council of Kilkenny 6. That he signed that execrable Oath of Association 7. That he was Commissionated and acted as Lieutenant-General from the said Assembly at Kilkenny 8. That he declared by several Letters of his own penning himself in Conjunction with Owen Ro Oneale and a constant Opposer to the several Peaces made by the Lord Lieutenant with the Irish We were seven hours by the Clock in proving our Evidence against him but at last the King's Letter being opened and read in Court Rainsford one of the Commissioners said to us That the King's Letter on his behalf was Evidence without Exception and thereupon declared him to be an Innocent Papist This Cause Sir hath tho many Reflections hath passed upon the Commissioners before more startled the Judgments of all men than all the Tryals since the beginning of their sitting and it is very strange and wonderful to all of the Long Robe that the King should give such a Letter having divested himself of that Authority and reposed the Trust in the Commissioners for that purpose And likewise it is admired that the Commissioners having taken solemn Oaths To execute nothing but according to and in pursuance of the Act of Settlement should barely upon his Majesty's Letter declare the Marquess Innocent To be short There never was so great a Rebel that had so much favour from so good a King And it is very evident to me though young and scarce yet brought upon the stage that the consequence of these things will be very bad and if God of his extraordinary mercy do not prevent it War and if possible greater Judgments cannot be far from us where Vice is Patroniz'd and Antrim a Rebel upon Record and so lately and clearly proved one should have no other colour for his Actions but the King 's own Letter which takes all Imputations from Antrim and lays them totally upon his own Father Sir I shall by the next if possible send you over one of our Briefs against my Lord by some Friend It 's too large for a Pacquet it being no less in bulk than a Book of Martyrs I have no more at present but refer you to the King's Letter hereto annexed CHARES R. RIght Trusty and well-beloved Cousins and Counsellors c. We greet you well How far we have been from interposing on the behalf of any of our Irish Subjects who by their miscarriages in the late Rebellion in that Kingdom of Ireland had made themselves unworthy of Our Grace and Protection is notorious to all men and We were so jealous in that particular that shortly after Our return into this Our Kingdom when the Marquess of Antrim came hither to present his duty to Us upon the Information We received from those Persons who then attended Us by a Deputation from Our Kingdom of Ireland or from those who at that time owned our Authority there that the Marquess of Antrim had so misbehaved himself towards Us and Our late Royal Father of blessed memory that he was in no degree worthy of the least Countenance from Us and that they had manifest and unquestionable Evidence of such his guilt Whereupon We refused to admit the said Marquess so much as into Our Presence but on the contrary committed him Prisoner to our Tower of London where after he had continued several Months under a strict restraint upon the continual Information of the said Persons We sent him into Ireland without interposing the least on his behalf but left him to undergo such a Tryal and Punishment as by the Justice of that Our Kingdom should be found due to his Crime expecting still that some heinous Matter would be objected and proved against him to make him uncapable and to deprive him of that Favour and Protection from Us which we knew his former Actions and Services had merited After many months attendance there and We presume after such Examinations as were requisite he was at last dismissed without any Censure and without any transmission of Charge against him to Us and with a License to transport himself into this Kingdom We concluded that it was then time to give him