they did wisely and dutifully desire the Parliament might meet that being the properest way to have the sinking Honour of the Company supported but His Majesty instead of granting their reasonable desires was prevail'd upon by those who are Enemies to our Country to prorogue it further at the very time when they knew the Address was coming up and all the Answer thought fit to give them is That His Majesty is sorry for the loss of his Ancient Kingdom and of the Company that they shall have the same liberty to trade to the West-Indies as formerly and that he will call the Parliament when he thinks the good of the Nation requires it or to that effect It may easily be judged that this Answer could be no way satisfactory to the Company in such a Juncture nor are we to wonder if instead of cheering their Spirits it struck them dumb and fill'd them with Amazement We wish that those who advise His Majesty to such a Conduct towards the People of Scotland who have never been backward in testifying their Loyalty and Affection to his Person and Government would consider that this is a downright Violation of our Constitution It 's certain that none are so proper to give his Majesty advice when a Parliament is necessary as our own Nobility Gentry and Burrowghs who are most of them concern'd in our Company and therefore their Address ought to haye been more regarded than the advice of any particular Persons This false Method of Government hath ruin'd many of our Princes and we wish that those who put his Majesty upon such Measures may not have his ruin in prospect It is certain they can be none of his Friends who put him upon disobliging of the whole Kingdom of Scotland in this manner We come next to the Libeller's Defence of the Spanish Title to Darien p. 163. His first Argument That the Spaniards Title to that Country was never hitherto disputed by any Prince or State is a downright Falshood The Darien Princes themselves controverted it always and their Plea was allow'd to be good by the Judges of England as we have been forc'd to tell this Renegado and his Suborners again and again The Title of the Spaniards as Conquerours to any part of America is not only doubted by the Bishop of Cheapo Don Bartholomew de Los Casas mention'd in the Defence of the Scots Settlement but strenuously argu'd against and maintain'd to be unlawful in his Propositions concerning the Title of the King of Spain to America propos'd to the Consideration of the King of Spain himself In his ninth Proposition he asserts That when Christian Princes apply their Endeavours to propagate the Faith they ought to have no Consideration for any thing but the Service of God Or if they can do any thing for the advantage of their Dominions while they augment the Kingdom of Christ It ought to be without any considerable prejudice to the Infidels or the Princes that Govern them Prop. 10. He asserts They have their own lawful Kings and Princes who have a Right to to make Laws c. For the good Government of their respective Dominions so that they cannot be expell'd out of 'em or depriv'd of what they possess without doing Violence to the Laws of God as well as the Law of Nations Prop. 26. Seeing the Spaniards have not been supported either by the Authority of their Prince or any lawful Reason to make War against the Indians who liv'd peaceably in their own Countty and had done the Spaniard no wrong all such Conquests that have been or may hereafter be made in the Indies are to be accounted Unjust Tyranical and Null being condemned by all the Laws of God and Men. It s true he supposes the K. of Spain to have a Title to the Soveraignty of the Indies by the Popes Grant but it is with such Restrictions as those he mentions and in his 16 Proposition says the Pope has power to revoke it if it be found prejudicial to the Establishment of the Faith and he expresly declares throughout his Book that all the Methods taken by the Spaniards were such so that here 's one strond Evidence of their own against them Dominicus de Soto the K. of Spain's Confessor at the time seems by his summing up the Dispute betwixt this Bishop and Dr. Sepulveda to have been of the same Opinion and Sepulveda Books maintaining the contrary were suppress'd by the Emperor Charles V. Of the same Opinion and indeed more express against the Methods by which the Spaniards acquir'd their Dominions in the Indies is Franciscus a Victoria chief Professor of Divinity in the University of Salamanca whom the Emperor Charles V. consulted in Cases of Conscience and in this amongst others as may be seen in his Relectiones Theologicae Relectione 5. de Indis where he argues the Point at large and in Relect. 7. de jure bell lays down this as a Maxim That an Injury receiv'd is the only just Cause of making War So that it being plain from Matter of Fact that the Indians did no manner of Injury to the Spaniards their War upon them must of necessity by this Argumnt be unlawful More has been said already in Vindication of our Title in the defence of the Scots Settlement than the Renegado and his Suborners can answer therefore we shall wind up this Matter in a few Words more His alledging we might as well land in Iamaica where the wild Negroes have deserted their Masters or in Tobago c. serve only to discover his own Folly There 's no unconquer'd Natives who have their own Princes to govern them in either of those Islands nor are the Titles of the English and D. of Curland to those Places question'd The Irish having admitted French Troops into their Kingdom is as little to the purpose since they have had no shadow of Government or Sovereignty left them for several Ages have from time to time submitted to the Government of England and admitted those Troops in defence of the late K. Iames's Title which he derives from Hen. II. that Conquer'd them Besides the Libeller himself owns p. 54. that the Natives themselves were pleas'd with the hopes of being restor'd by us to their Ancient Liberty and Greatness and p. 55. That Ambrosio one of their greatest Captains was at War with the Spaniards before our Arrival His alleaging that Cap. Andreas was a Spanish Captain at the time of our Landing needs better proof than his assertion that he might be then at Peace with the Spaniards and have some respect for them because of his being bred among them as H says he was p. 60. and that they then gave him a Commission as a Captain does not at all argue that he was in the Spanish Interest when we Landed or any way subject to the Crown of Spain if he himself promised subjection it does not divest his Subjects of their Right and that Andreas's Successor and they were no Friends to the Spaniards is evident from the Libeller's own Story that they gave our Colony notice of the Spanish Party that came to view them and led them to the place where they were We have likwise the Testimony of all that have writ of this Place against the Renegado besides that of the Journals of our own Colony which give an Account that Ambrosio had engag'd all his Neighbouring Princes in a League against the Spaniard before our Arrival FINIS
is such as our Ancestors if we may believe our Historians would have thought inconsistent with the Trust reposed in a King of Scots a manifest Reflection upon the Justice and Fidelity of the Nation and a discovery of their Arcana Imperii to those that were quarrelling with them We are not to suppose that his Majesty would give an Answer to an Address of this importance without Counsel If he consulted with our Dutch or English Opposers it was the same as if he had consulted our profess'd Enemies if he consulted with Scots-men and was advis'd to this Answer by any of them they are Traitors to their Country and have betray'd its Soveraignty for they ought to have advis'd him to answer that as King of Scots he was not to give an account to the English for any thing transacted in that Kingdom but if they found themselves any ways aggriev'd or thought their Trade endanger'd by the Scots Act he should be willing to have the matter debated and adjusted by Commissioners of both Nations as became the Common Father of both This could not justly have been look'd upon by the English as a refractory or stubborn Answer but must have been imputed to his braveness of Temper and fidelity to his Trust. But at once to give up the Soveraignty of Scotland without demurring upon it argues that his Majesty was advis'd to this Answer by Enemies to the Scotish Nation Our Parliaments have originally a greater Power than that of England for what the States of Scotland offer'd to the touch of the Scepter their Kings had no power to refuse or if they did the Resolves of the States had the force of a Law notwithstanding Thus our Reformation was established in 1560. by an Act of the States and tho our Queen Mary then in France and her Husband the Dauphin afterwards Francis I. refus'd to give their consent it remain'd a firm Law which Q. Mary when she return'd to Scotland was so far from offering to dispense with tho she was a great Asserter of her Prerogative that she was oblig'd to intreat of the States so far to dispense with it themselves as to suffer her to have Mass in her own Family We might go further back to the Reign of Robert II. who was check'd by the States for making a Truce with the English without their Consent it not being then in the power of our Kings either to make Peace or War without the States But the truth of that Maxim laid down by our Historian That the supreme Power of the Government of Scotland is in the States is so obvious to every one that reads our History that it cannot be denied and hence it is that our old Acts of Parliament are often call'd the Acts of the States and say The three States enact c. for by our original Constitution the King is none of the States but only Dux belli and Minister publicus which was well understood by our Viceroy the E. of Morton and the other Deputies from the States of Scotland when they acquainted Q. Elizabeth in their Memorial That the Scots created their Kings on that condition that they might when they saw cause divest them of that Power which they receiv'd from the People which we have now reasserted in making our Crown forfeitable by the Claim of Right at the last Revolution and perhaps that 's none of the least Causes why our Ruin is now endeavour'd by the Abettors of a growing Prerogative It were easy for us to enlarge on this and to shew from our Histories and Acts of Parliaments that our Kings according to our antient Constitution which those Rapes committed on our Liberties in some of the last Reigns can never overturn were inferior to their Parliaments who inthron'd and dethron'd them as they saw cause made them accountable for their Administration allow'd them no power of proroguing them without their own consent nor of hindering their meeting when the ardua Regni negotia requir'd it They could not make Peace or War without them nor so much as dispose of their Castles but by their consent Their Councils were chosen and sworn in Parliament and punishable by the States Nor had they any Revenue but what their Parliaments allow'd them These and many more were the native Liberties of the People of Scotland as may be seen in our Histories the Acts of all the Iames's the Protestation of the States of Scotland in 1638. and their Representation of their Proceedings against the Mistakes in the King's Declaration in 1640. And therefore his Majesty had no reason to say he was ill serv'd by the passing of an Act offer'd by the States of Scotland The Ignorance of those things hath often occasion'd our being misrepresented by the English Historians and other Writers as Rebels and what not when we really acted according to our own fundamental Laws And not only they but even our own Princes since the Union of the Crowns have either been kept ignorant of our Constitution or so incens'd against it by the Abettors of Tyranny that they have all of 'em his present Majesty excepted endeavour'd our Overthrow as well knowing it to be impossible to bring Arbitrary Government to perfection whilst a People who had always breath'd in a free Air and call'd their Princes to an account when they invaded their Properties were in any condition to defend themselves or assist others against such Princes as design'd an absolute Sway. But the Pill being too bitter to be swallowed by it self there was a necessity of taking Priestcraft into the Composition and to gild it over with the specious pretext of bringing the Scots to an Uniformity in Religion The Court knew that this would arm the Zealots against us and that it could never be effected without the ruin of our Kingdom whose Religion was so interwoven with our Civil Constitution that there was no overturning of the one without subverting the other This will appear plain to those that know that besides the Sanction of Acts of Parliament the Church of Scotland is defended by a full Representative of the Clergy and Laity of the Kingdom call'd a General Assembly which preserves us from being Priest-ridden as our Parliaments do from being Prince-ridden where the King by Law had no negative Voice no more than he formerly had in our Parliaments This in effect is the Representative of the Nation as Christians as the Parliaments are our Representatives as Men and as to the Laity many of them are the same individual persons that sit in Parliament So that those Assemblies being a second Barrier about our Liberties it was thought fit to run down the Constitution of our Church as not suted with Monarchy The Case being thus we dare refer it to the thoughts of our neighbouring Nation who have gallantly from time to time stood up for their own Liberties whether it were not more generous for them to unite with us than to suffer us to be oppress'd and
those they set over them and to complain of Governors when they find themselves aggriev'd and their Privileges torn from them by Violence This Generation has prov'd it beyond possibility of Reply that the greatest Pretenders to submission to Princes and the most zealous Patrons of Passive Obedience will resist and dethrone their Kings too when they find themselves oppressed by them They that maintain the contrary are nothing but mean-spirited Flatterers or such as temporize with Courts because of their own private Advantage and be their Quality what it will are far from being so noble and brave as that poor Woman who told Philip of Macedon that he ceas'd to be King when he refus'd to hear her Petition Upon the whole it will appear that the Author of the Defence of the Seots Settlement made the best Apology for his Majesty that could be made when he said that he was a Prisoner in England and therefore forc'd to act thus against the Interest and Dignity of his Crown as King of Scots It is demonstrated thus If his Majesty were in Scotland and another Person upon the Throne of England it is certain his Majesty would have encouraged the Trade of Scotland and resented such practices in the King of England as contrary to the Laws of Nations and the Soveraignty of his Crown If he did not he would be look'd upon to be mean-spirited and not fit to wear it and if he took part with the King of England against the Dignity of his Crown and the Interest of his Kingdom he would not only be looked upon as an Enemy to his Country but as felo de se. From all which it is plain that as it is the best Apology that can be made for the King of Scots when he acts thus contrary to the Honour and Interest of himself and his Country to say he is a Prisoner in England so it is a sufficient Justification of the People of Scotland to refuse Obedience to what he commands by the Influence of the English or other Councils in opposition to their Interest because they are the Commands of a Captive and not of the King of Scots If our Enemies say he is no Captive but at Liberty to go to Scotland if he pleases it is so far from making his Case better that it makes it ten times worse for if his Affections be captivated we are without remedy except we either sue for a Divorce as in case of wilful Desertion and denying conjugal Duty or withdraw from under his roof and remove to another Family as God and Man will allow one Sister to do that is oppressed and denied the Privileges of paternal Love and Protection whilst another is caressed and dandled and has her Fortune raised by diminishing that of the neglected Sister The Iamaica Proclamation against our Colony at Darien comes next to be considered and is as follows By the Honourable Sir William Beeston Knt. Governour and Commander in chief for his Majesty in the Island of Jamaica and of the Territories and Dependencies of the same and Admiral thereof WHereas I have received Orders from his Majesty by the Right Honourable Iames Vernon one of the Principal Secretaries of State importing that his Majesty was not informed of the Intentions and Designs of the Scots in peopling Darien which is contrary to the Peace between his Majesty and his Allies commanding me not to afford them any Assistance In compliance therewith in his Majesty's Name and by his Order I do strictly charge and require all and every his Majesty's Subjects that upon no pretence whatsoever they hold any Correspondence with the Scots aforesaid or give them any Assistance with Arms Ammunition Provision or any thing whatsoever either by themselves or any other for them nor assist them with any of their Shipping or of the English Nation 's upon pain of his Majesty's Displeasure and suffering the severest punishment Given under my Hand and Seal of Arms the 9 th of April 1699. and in the 11 th year of the Reign of William the 3 d King of England Scotland France and Ireland and Lord of Iamaica Defender of the Faith It contains a heavy Charge against the Scots Company as having settled in Darien without informing his Majesty and having thereby broke the Peace betwixt his Majesty and his Allies As to their not informing his Majesty with their Design there was neither any need of it nor had they reason to do it that there was no need of it is plain enough from the Act of Parliament impowering them to settle any where in Asia Africa or America upon places not inhabited or any other place with consent of the Natives and not possess'd by any European Potentate Prince or State So that they were under no Obligation to acquaint him where they design'd to settle provided they kept to the Terms of the Act. And that they had no cause so to do is evident from that unreasonable opposition that a Faction at Court had prevailed with him to make to them all along which gave them just cause to expect the like treatment in time to come Then as to the Breach of the Peace betwixt his Majesty and his Allies by the Settlement they had no reason to think themselves guilty of any such thing and so much the less that Dampier Wafer and all others that wrote of the Country gave an Account of the Natives being in possession of their Liberty and almost in continual Wars with the Spaniards Besides it was a rul'd Case in England since Capt. Sharp was by Law acquitted in K. Charles Il's time not only for having marched through Darien in a Hostile manner but for attacquing Places that were really in possession of the Spaniards as St. Maria and Panama because he acted by virtue of a Commission from those Darien Princes This together with their not finding a Spaniard or Spanish Garison on all that part of the Isthmus was enough to justify the fairness of the Scots Settlement there and to have put a stop to this hasty Sentence till both sides had been heard But instead of that the Advisers to this Proclamation take upon them in a very Magisterial manner to declare the Scots guilty of a Breach of the Peace betwixt his Majesty and his Allies which is so much the more remarkable that this Proclamation is publish'd in the West-Indies before ever it was known what the Scots could say in their own defence and sent away before the presenting of the Spanish Memorial which was on the third of May 1699. and the Proclamation bears date April 9 th 1699. The unfairness of this Proclamation is evident from this that at the very same time it is publish'd in the West-Indies the Lord President of the Sessions and his Majesty's Advocate for the Kingdom of Scotland were sent for from hence to see what they could say to justify their Pretensions to Darien which they did by such Arguments as have not yet been answer'd
We leave it then to the impartial Thoughts of the good People of England whether we have not occasion to say that our King is in the Hand of our Enemies since we are thus condemn'd without a hearing and our Nation put to the trouble and expence to send Lawyers out of the Kingdom to defend themselves before those that had already condemned them And since this is a visible effect of the Union of the Crowns by which we are every day more and more oppressed let them speak their Consciences if we have not all the reason in the World to dissolve that Union except the Nations be more closely united and upon a better footing That we were so treated in former Reigns we had no great cause to wonder when the Court was engaged in a Conspiracy against our Religion and Liberties And our Nation being inferior to none in their Zeal for both it was but natural to think that we should be the first Sacrifice But to be treated thus by a Prince who hath ventur'd his Life to save us from Popery and Slavery a Prince who for Courage in War and Conduct in Peace is not to be match'd in Story a Prince who is under God the Great Champion of our Religion and the bold Asserter of Europe's Liberty a Prince whose Family we revere and whose Person we adore a Prince for whom we have so chearfully ventur'd our Lives and lost so much of the best Blood in our Veins to be so treated by such a Prince hath some thing cutting beyond expression and proves that our Disasters are no way to be remedied but either by a total Separation or a closer Union of the two Kingdoms We cannot be so unjust to his Majesty's Character as to think a Prince of his Magnanimity could be guilty of so mean a thing as willingly to subject the Crown of his Antient Kingdom which he received free to that of another We cannot once suffer it to enter into our thoughts that he who dares to out-brave Death in the Field a thousand times a day should act so unworthy a part as first to condemn and then to try us These and all other things of that sort we must needs charge to the account of our Enemies about him who misrepresent us and therefore surprise his Majesty into any thing he does against us As to that positive Sentence of our having acted contrary to the Peace betwixt his Majesty and his Allies we have all the Reason in the World to complain of it Is our Kingdom then become so mean and contemptible that what is transacted according to the Acts of our Parliaments and Patents of our Kings is liable to be annull'd or declared illegal by any Person that has the hap to be made an English Secretary of State Governor of one of their American Plantations or a Member of their Council of Trade If it be so his Majesty's Dignity as King of Scots is well defended in the mean time when it is liable thus to be trampled upon by his own Servants as King of England This does indeed verify what has been said that our Kings since the Union leave their Antient Kingdom to the disposal of their Servants but whether this be agreeable to the Coronation Oaths of our Kings let them determine that are concern'd to enquire and perhaps it may be worth the consideration of our Neighbours whether since we have been govern'd by Servants they have not for the most part been subject to Minions and that the one does naturally pave the way for the other So that they are no great gainers by the Bargain If it be answer'd that the Proclamations are issued by his Majesty's Authority and that therefore our Sentence proceeds from his Bar We answer 1. That there are shrewd Suspitions that a certain Gentleman or two who have affected all along to shew their Zeal against the Scots in this Affair have push'd this matter beyond their Instructions for there 's no man that knows his Majesty's Justice and Wisdom can admit a thought that he would condemn us before we were heard 2. We don 't at all question his Majesty's Authority as King of England to forbid his English Subjects to give any manner of Assistance to the Scots at Darien tho we might say it was unkind but we absolutely deny that he has any Authority as King of England to condemn the Proceedings of the Subjects of Scotland for any thing they transact without the Dominions of England If it be otherwise his Majesty as King of Scots is bound to appear at the King 's Bench-bar in Westminster-Hall for what he hath done as King of Scots upon the Lord Chief Justices Summons and of what Consequence this may be to himself or his Successors may be easily judg'd Had Oliver and the other Regicides bethought themselves of this it had been more for the Honour of England and would have taken off a great deal of the odium that is charg'd upon them for cutting off King Charles had they search'd for something Criminal in his Conduct toward the English Nation as King of Scots and condemned him for that Tho they did not think upon this perhaps others may and then the English will be able to justify themselves as not having cut off their own King but their Enemy the King of Scots as there 's no doubt they would have done by King Charles II. had he not made his escape after the battle of Worcester This may perhaps deserve the thoughts of his present Majesty and others concern'd in the Succession and so much the more that the dependence of the Crown of Scotland upon that of England hath been lately asserted by some English Historians and indirectly hinted at in a pretended Answer to the Defence of the Scots Settlement at Darien p. 24. But to satisfy that Gentleman and others who please themselves so much in vilifying the Scotish Nation they may turn to the Reigns of Edward I. II. and III. and they will quickly find that Sir William Wallace K. Robert Bruce Iames Lord Douglas Thomas Randolph Earl of Murray and others that we could name did so gallantly defend the Soveraignty of Scotland against those bold Pretenders to a Superiority over us that their Successors have had no great stomach to pursue their Claim to it since So that if ever they had any it is forfeited by Prescription Oliver's imaginary Conquest so much insisted on by the dull Answerer of the Scots Defence and others will be of no use to the Faction in this matter since that was no National Quarrel nor did the English pretend to any such thing as a Conquest of us but immediatly withdrew their Forces upon the Restoration So that Oliver's Conquest as he calls it was only the Victory of one Party over another in a Civil War it being well known that he had Friends in Scotland as well as England which if that Wise Author will have Oliver's Victories to be Conquests he
opposition and unaccountable Proclamations for which they had no Authority we hope that this will be allow'd to be something more than refusing to be accessary to an Act that neither he nor his Suborners will ever be able to prove Felonious and which we have already told him the Laws of England have in a parallel nay much worse case judg'd to be honest and righteous So that all this Author hath got by his charging us maliciously with Felony is to prove himself a wilful Felon for he tells us at the end of his Book of a long dispute betwixt himself and Sir I. Stewart his Majesty's Advocat for the Kingdom of Scotland about the Title of the Spaniards to Darien and if we may believe H s he baffled the Advocat and prov'd the Right of the Spaniards which proves himself to have engaged in a Design that he thought Felonious for we do not find by his own Relation that he left the place from remorse of Conscience but only on the Account of a Malladie Imaginaire and want of Provisions so that we thank him for telling the World from his own Mouth that his Evidence against us is that of a Felon As to their engaging themselves in an unreasonable War and assisting us with Weapons to break their own Heads we did not desire they should engage in a War for us but think it very unreasonable the English Court should have engaged so far as they have done against us It had been sufficient for them to have denied us their Assistance without having condemn'd us as guilty of breach of Alliance which as all the other parts of the opposition made to us we are satisfied is not the Act of the English Nation and therefore can create no misunderstanding betwixt them and us but perhaps may prove a Weapon in time to break the Heads of H s and his Suborners In the 5 th Page that his Book may be all of a piece he advances a forg'd Obligation upon us from the Union of the Crowns which is that we are thereby deliver'd from the daily Feuds and bloody little Wars that rag'd amongst us for 1900 years which unnatural Massacres our native Princes were unable to suppress c. This is down-right falshood in matter of Fact for those Feuds as he calls them ceas'd in the Lowlands long before the Union but continue still in the Highlands which we can scarcely think is unknown to our Author who was born so near that Country as Dumbarton The Macdonalds have been several times in Arms against the Earl of Argile since the Restoration and there 's a Feud now depending between the Frazers and the Murrays or rather the Family of Athol Nor did we ever hear of any thing that look'd so like an unnatural Massacre in Scotland as that committed since the Revolution upon the Inhabitants of Glenco which had it not been for the Union of the Crowns would not have been suffer'd to go unpunished But admitting it to be true that the Union had deliver'd us from those little Feuds we are no gainers by the Bargain since it hath occasion'd greater particularly that unnatural Feud which rag'd so long betwixt the Episcopal Party and Presbyterians and had its rise altogether from the Union of the Crowns the very prospect of which was the sole cause why the Earl of Morton when Regent set up the first Protestant Bishops in Scotland Into what Couvulsions that Imposition threw the Nation is well enough known and how besides the bringing down K. Charles I. with 30000 Men against our Kingdom and contributing to engage the Nations in a Civil War it occasioned King Charles II. to plunder the West of Scotland first by Sir Iames Turner which gave rise to the Insurrection at Pentland and twice afterwards by the Highland Host which occasion'd that of Bothwel-Bridg And afterwards the Oppression run so high that it forc'd some of the Presbyterians into unaccountable Actions which gave occasion to oppress the whole Party so that it was made punishable by Death for any of their Ministers to preach or for the People to hear them From this indeed we were totally delivered by the Revolution tho our freedom in that respect was partly begun by the late King Iames's Declaration But our Enemies unwilling that our Nation should be long at ease have found other Methods to set our Court against us And because they know that his present Majesty has too great a Soul to persecute any man on the account of Conscience our Enemies have chang'd their Battery and instead of pointing their Cannon at our Religion they level them against our Civil Liberties The Powder they prime their Artillery with is That we are Enemies to Prerogative But because this would not go down with the good People of England who are strenuous Assertors of Liberty and Property they must gild it over with the specious Pretence that we have a design to undermine their Trade and have unjustly invaded the Spanish Dominions This is the Design of H s and his Suborners and therefore they insist so much on our Clandestine Declarations as they call them that we publish'd in the English Plantations on purpose to drain them of their People but unhappily overthrow what they advance at the same time when they tell us That the Jamaica Sloops were Witnesses that we had neither Provisions nor Money for the sustenance of our own People pag. 148. And therefore it cannot reasonably be suppos'd that we had any such design as he maliciously charges us with to draw over the People from the English Plantations since we had not wherewith to support our own but more of this anon Our Author learn'd the Maxim of Calumniare audacter aliquid haerebit when he was a Papist And if he and his Suborners can be any way instrumental to set the Nations together by the Ears by this Method or if that fail if they can but raise Animositys between them they know it will be a good pretence for some People to put his Majesty upon pressing for a Standing Army and perhaps for having it enlarg'd it being necessary say they to overaw the Scots but in reality to protect such evil Counsellors from being brought to Justice that have advis'd to such Measures as visibly tend to the disadvantage of both Nations It may perhaps be worth the Enquiry of our Neighbours whether this be not the real meaning of this intolerable Oppression exercis'd upon our Nation as to their Trade both at home and abroad viz. that knowing our praefervidum Ingenium as they are pleas'd to call it to be impatient under Tyranny the Faction think thereby to provoke us to a resentment that may give occasion for raising an Army against us which if it have the good hap to subdue us or force us to digest our Oppression without any more to do shall be made use of afterwards to chastise themselves and bring them to better Manners then to limit their