Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
justice_n king_n law_n subject_n 5,288 5 6.8048 4 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A41163 A brief account of some of the late incroachments and depredations of the Dutch upon the English and of a few of those many advantages which by fraud and violence they have made of the British nations since the revolution, and of the means enabling them thereunto. Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714. 1645 (1645) Wing F731; ESTC R38871 64,396 76

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

to have Satisfactorily answered The first is That they would tell us what the meaning of a King de facto is and how such a One differs from a King de jure For I find that many both of the Lawyers Gentry as well as of the Clergy who do wholy disbelieve and in their Minds disclaim the Prince of Orange's Right to the Sovereignty do yet allow themselves to swear Allegiance to him and do pay him the Duty of Subjects meerly because he is got into Possession of the Throne and Royal Title and de facto hath assumed the exercise of the Kingly Power Nor am I ignorant that the pedant Writers of Politicks do speak of a King de facto as well as of a King de jure but so far as I am capable of understanding Reason or good Sense no Man can be called a King de facto who is not either antecedently or concomitantly a King also de jure Seei●g he that is stiled a King but who is not rightfully so is by all the Laws of God and Man a Robber and an Usurper but a King he is not nor can he be A Thief may as well be called a legal Proprietor of what he hath stolen from his Neighbour and he that Pads upon the Road may have as just a Claim to the Purse he hath forcibly taken from a Traveller though the Law makes both the one and the other obnoxious to be hanged and that very justly too as he can have either Right or Pretence to the Regal Title and Power who attains not to them by the Methods Rules and Measures and in the Virtue Force and Efficacy of the Constitution And as the Names of Intruder Usurper and Robber and not those of Prince Sovereign and King are which such a one ought only to be called by so instead of Allegiance due unto him or of our being under the Obligation eithe● of divine or human Laws to render unto that Person the Duties of Subjects we are bound bo●h in Law and Conscience to raise Hue and Cry after him and to persue him and make him accountable for the Crimes which have entitled him to the Names of Robber of his Neighbours Crown and Intruder into and Usurper of another Man's Throne Things are stubborn and inflexible and will not change their Natures because of the complemental soft Words that are fastned upon them Theft Robbery and Usurpation will not cease to be the same evil and abominable Crimes which God hath denounced Curses against and which Men in all Ages have annexed Punishments unto notwithstanding the smooth Whitehall and Kensington Language with which we varnish them over And whereas the Word and Name King hath been hitherto taken for a fair honest and honourable Word and Name and held no ways reproachful for a vertuous Man to have it ascribed unto him and to be denominated by it I will venture to say that it is one of the worst and most scandalous Words in the World and the most disgraceful and injurious Title that a Person is capable of having given him if it be allowed to express an Usurper by and used of one that has no Right to a Crown but meerly the Possession of it But whereas there are some who through want of Sense and others who through Ignorance of the Law may take the Prince of Orange to be a King de jure and may thereby hope both to save their Consciences and their Credits and think to justify themselves from Treason and Disloyalty in their swearing Allegiance to him and yielding him the Fealty due from Subjects I desire therefore in the second Place to ask our Senators of Wisdom and our Gentlemen of the Gowns how this Right to be King accrues to the Prince of Orange and from what Sources of Law and Justice the Royal Stile and Authority come to be derived unto and vested in him and by what Tenure he bears the Royal Name and exerciseth the Sovereign Power For as there are but Three ways in any Nation of arriving lawfully at the Supream Authority and of coming legitimately and honestly to be a King namely either by the Right of hereditary Succession or by the Right of just and lawful Conquest or by the Right of Election where through the known Laws and the fundamental Provisions of the Constitution there is upon every Vacancy of the Throne a Privilege vested in the People or in their Representatives or in some select Number of the most honourable and qualified Persons to chuse one to fill it And as none can have the Impudence to say either that the Prince of Orange is King of England by the Right of hereditary Succession seeing there are divers Persons who have an hereditary Right of inheriting the Crown antecedently to him Or that he attained to be King by a lawful Conquest in a just War seeing that is not only disclaimed by himself and repr●bated by the Parliament but because the offering to establish his Title upon that Foundation and to justify it by that Plea were to put us into the State of Slaves instead of Subjects and to make us enjoy all we are and have by his Pleasure and Will and not to have any Property in them by our antient Laws So in the third Place none who have the least Acquaintance with the Nature of our Constitution the Frame of our Government or the many Laws of the Land relative to the Right and Manner of Succession in the Sovereignty will dare to pretend that upon a Demise of the Crown the People or any certain Number of Persons whatsoever stand legally vested with a Power of chusing who shall succeed And the reason is obvious because our Monarch is and has been always an hereditary Monarch and not an elective Wherefore though there have been sometimes Interruptions in the Rightful Succession and Translations of the Crown from one Family to another yet save in the Cases of direct Usurpation such as Oliver Cromwel's it was never attempted on the Foot and Principle of the Peoples having a Power resident in them by Law to elect their King but it was always on the Motive and Foundation of doubtful and controverted Titles Which Claim though in some it was very weak yet it was always insisted upon and what their Title wanted in legal Goodness they endeavoured to make out by military Power I might add That there was no Demise here neither by Death nor by Resignation and much less were there any vested with a Regal Power of abdicating deposing and driving away King James So that upon the whole the Prince of Orange can upon ●o Foundation whatsoever nor in any Sense received among Men of coming Lawfully to a Crown be King of England de jure and by consequence he must be contented to be held for no other than an Usurper and as such ought all Men to account him who according to the Laws of Revelation and of the Kingdom would either approve themselves to God
subsist and pay our Troops might through a very small Care and friendly Conduct of the Prince of Orange in our behalf and through the least measure of Discretion Wisdom Justice Equity and Compassion of those Assemblies stiled our Parliaments to the Kingdom have been preserved in the Nation and have remained to circulate among our selves for the support and increase of our Manufacture and for the protection and enlargement of our Trade and Navigation And the Ways Means and Methods in and by which it might have been done are both so various and plain That had there not been a Conjunction of Malice in King William and of Treachery in our Senators towards England it would not have escaped the being undertaken persued and effected long ago For why might not we with as much Ease and with more Justice have carried all the Provisions from hence for the subsisting the Confederate Army or at least our own Troops and those of other Nations under our pay as that the Dutch should have the Privilege of furnishing it and to be encouraged as well as suffered to go away with the Gain Nor can any other Reason be assigned of the Conduct we have been under in this matter but that William intends to bring us first to Beggary and then into Thraldom and that too many among our selves are through Folly and Knavery willing both to assist and justify him in the effecting of it Had we not Ships enough as I am sure we had before we lost so many Thousands of them as we have done since the Revolution and the Commencement of this War which was the unhappy Off-spring of it to have carried over to Flanders our Grain Butter and Cheese Iron Bread and all things else that are necessary unto or consumable by an Army but that the buying of all those here and the transporting them thither should in a manner be given up and entirely consigned into the hands of the Dutch Whence we are justly become the Derision and Contempt of the World that being stored and furnished without purchasing of other Nations with all the Productions either of Art or Nature that an Army can need or use and the Dutch having scarce any thing of their own Growth and little of their own Manufactures to answer the Occasions and Exigences of so vast a military Body yet that they should engross to themselves the supplying them with all they want and we not only tamely connive at it but like People who have lost their Senses and forfeited their Understandings as well as abandoned the Care of their Country do approve it With what facility might it have been stipulated and provided for at our first entrance into the Confederacy or retrieved and recovered to us since upon renewing of Alliances with those whom we are become engaged to assist in this War that all those Supplies necessary for Troops which England could afford should be applied to that end and that as they should be transported by none but our selves so they should be expended and laid out not only upon our own Troops towards the saving the Remission of Money but taken off from us and accepted by our Allies in lieu of those vast Sums we have disbursed upon them Nor will ever England vindicate it self from the Dishonour and Ignominy brought upon it in that during all this time wherein we have been wasting our Men and Treasure to defend the Dutch Barrier and protect the Provinces of others and to make Conquests for them we should never have contracted for a Port where we might unload what we pleased towards the premised Uses and Ends without being liable to the Payment of Customs or any other Duties of that kind which use to be exacted Which the present House of Commons seems to be sensible of though it is now too late and have therefore declared in their Vote of Decemb 10. That it is the Opinion of that House that all Commodities and Provisions that shall be transported from England for the use of the Forces in his Majesties pay abroad be exempted from any Duty and Excise throughout the Spanish and United Netherlands But though this Vote doth sufficiently intimate their Sense of King William's Infidelity as to the trust reposed in him under the Quality and Stile of King of England and of his Treachery to this Nation in not having contracted and stipulated with those Allies for the forementioned Privilege and Immunity Yet the Treaties between him and these Confederates being already concerted and ratified without the mention or specification of any such Freedom and Advantage to be allowed us all the Effect and Operation which this Vote of the House of Commons can have is to proclaim them to be pragmatical weak and insolent in assuming a Power and Authority over the Rights of foreign Princes and States and that contrary unto as well as without regard to Articles adjusted between King William and those States in the fresh Alliances which have been lately renewed made and ratified Nor can any thing now after the aforesaid Vote preserve the House of Commons from the Derision Scorn and Contempt of Mankind but their declaring those Alliances to have been contracted and confirmed to the prejudice of England and therefore not to be supported by any Taxes to be levied upon the Subjects of this Kingdom And that the said House will grant no Money towards the Confederacy till such other Agreements are made and entered into between this Crown and those neighbouring States which may correspond with and come up to the Opinion of the said House as they have declared it in the foresaid Vote and by the Printing whereof they have published it to the World as the unanimous Opinion and Judgment of the Representative Body of the whole Commons of England And may not this Treachery in the present Administration so openly reflected upon by the foresaid Vote cause us remember both the Memory of Queen Elizabeth and of Oliver Cromwel with Commendations and Praises of their Conduct while in the mean time we must convey down to our Off-spring the Name of the Prince of Orange loaded with all the Obloquies Imprecations and Curses that a People impoverished and ruined by his contrived and chosen ill Conduct towards these Kingdoms can entail upon it For as that great Heroine Queen Elizabeth did upon her assisting the Dutch with a very few Troops in comparison of what we now do covenant with and obtain of them the Brill Flushing and Ramekins to be put into her hands as Cautionary Towns not only that she might thereby oblige them to a more firm dependency upon her and tie them to the better observation of their Alliances and secure unto herself the Reimbursment of some part of the Treasure which she expended in protecting them but that she might always be in a Condition and have it in her own Power to reinforce relieve succour and supply those Troops that she sent them for their aid and defence according