Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A37444
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The two great questions further considered with some reply to the remarks / by the author.
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Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.
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1700
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Wing D851; ESTC R20633
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11,615
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manifestly goes Abroad in quantities the rest is by Stealth and what can the Lords of the Treasury do in that But he that loves to Cavil will have something to say to every Body I think I have stated a Case wherein a Union of Interest between France and Spain will be very Fatal to Trade I Refer the Reader to what I have hinted in the former Book for more of the like I descend now to Matters of Strength all Men must allow that the Prosperity of this and of most Nations depends upon Peace for if Peace be not preserv'd Trade must suffer and if Trade suffer the Poor suffer and so on Now as is already noted the Ballance of Power is the Life of Peace and here is your Ballance broken as I said before I say again it is not enough to say we have a good Fleet tho' it be the best in the World and I do not think our Remarker can prove that to be a Contradiction any more than he can prove that to go by Germany is the way to come on the Back of Spain If our Fleet were Masters at Sea 't is true it might preserve us from Invasion and we are not afraid of it but a Thousand Men of War wou'd not entirely suppress the Privateers of France and Spain from injuring our Trade and snapping up our Merchants nor wou'd a Fleet ever reduce the French in Conjunction with the Spaniard to Peace with you if they were whole and unbroken in their Land Forces Nor is it enough if a Fleet cou'd secure our Ships if your Peace be precarious 't is no Peace and if you are not a Master for your Adversaries you shall have no Peace at all any longer than they please Why do all Nations covet to strengthen themselves by Leagues and Confederacies but to put themselves into a Condition to be fear'd by their Neighbours and if we leave our selves without Forces and without Alliances abroad we are like to be very little valued by Neighbours From all these Considerations I think this Conclusion is very natural That England ought so to act as to oblige the French to perform all the Leagues Articles and Agreements which they have entred into with us and which the King for Preservation of our Peace and Trade has thought fit to engage them in for Of what Value will the French King make any Treaties with the English Nation if at his Pleasure they shall be laid aside without any Notice taked by us If he esteems us not in a Condition to resent a Breach of Faith when our Interest is so much engag'd what Notice can we expect he shou'd ever take of us in any Treaty This is certainly the way to make it true that no Nation will trouble their Heads to confederate with us if when we have confederated with them we let the Enemy insult us all and bauk our Confederates in such Resentments as the Nature of the King requires If the French King can be reduc'd to Reason without a War and an Army or Fleet no Doubt 't is best but any of them are less Evils than a Union of Interests between Spain and France and such a Confederacy as may hereafter league against England to the Destruction of our Confederates and of our Trade The Debate here is not a standing Army in England but the Kingdom of Spain falling into the French Interests let the King and the Parliament alone to the Methods if it may be done by paying Foreign Forces or by no Forces in the Name of God Amen But to say 't is nothing to us who is King of Spain is as ridiculous as to say 't is no matter to us who has the Kingdom of Ireland And if I were to speak of annexing the Spanish Dominions to the Crown of France I believe it would be less Loss to England to give the French the whole Kingdom of Ireland than to suffer it FINIS ERRATA THE Reader is desired to mend the following Errata's that have escap'd the Press the Author living in the Country and not having revis'd the Proofs till after the Book was printed off In the Preface line 3. read the Contempt p. 2. l. 10. for Reasons r. Questions p. 3. l. 6. r. that if we have p. 4. l. 4. f. now r. not p. 6. l. 1. f. but r. that l. 23. dele to p. 7. l. 21. f. no Convenience r. not Convenient p. 9. l. 1. r. Standing Army p. 11. l. 11. f. late r. last p. 13. l. 30. r. Crown of Spain p. 14. l. 2. f. Reconciliation r. Renunciation l. 14. dele so p. 16. l. 12. f. Inmarriages r. Intermarriages p. 17. l. 29. f. that r. the p. 18. l. 1. f. in r. into p. 20. l. 11. f. King r. thing
assâ—r'd us he never will I have done with this railing Author and indeed had not meddled with him at all only to explain my self in the Persons I mean thro'out the Book he reflects on and methinks no Man cou'd imagin any Author wou'd be such a Fool to treat the Parliament of England in such a manner as I have done the People I speak of while he knows the Power of the Parliament to crush such a one with the Breath of their Mouth Without troubling the Reader any more with my Remarker or but by the by where I am oblig'd to come athwart him I shall take this Opportunity to say what I wou'd ha' said before had it been known that the King of France wou'd have declar'd his Grandson King of Spain And I shall lay it down as a further Answer to the grand Question What Measures England ought to take The League for the Partition of the Spanish Monarchy being not made publick and propos'd to the English Parliament says some is no League at all and therefore England has nothing at all to do with it If what such say be true which yet I do not believe then whenever His Majesty please to call a Parliament and acquaint them of it it becomes an English League for no Man ever yet disputed but that the Power of making Leagues and Treaties either for Peace or War was committed to the Kings of England nor can he tell us of a League ever made in England which was first discuss'd in Parliament when we had a King to be treated with All that I have yet said we ought to do amounts to no more than this that England ought to put her self into such a Posture with the rest of her Neighbours as that she may be able to preserve the Peace lately purchased at so dear a Rate and to preserve her Trade upon which the whole Nation so much depends If People will have me to mean a standing Army whether I will or no I cannot help it but I say again it may be done without a standing Army and where is your Argument then Of which I cou'd say more but I have not room for it here I did affirm it was a weak thing of the King of Spain to pretend to give his Kingdom by Will and I am of the Opinion we shall hear that he really did not do so that is that there was some Practices made use of to procure such a Will as in the true Sence of a late Will and Testament makes it void in its own Nature But be it which way it will it is an odd way of devolving the Succession of Crowns and here I cannot help meeting our Remarker again That notwithstanding all Deeds of Gift or other Titles whatever if the good People of Spain own him as their King and allow him the Soveraignty he has the most undoubted Title to the Kingdom of any in the World Though our Author is not worth answering having a right Notion in his Head but not the Sence to put it into English I shall tell him That in the main his Argument is true and yet the Consequence is false For The good People of Spain as he calls them whose Country is their own have all along agreed that their Crown shall descend by the direct Line to the lawful Issue of the House of Austria Successors to Ferdinand and Isabella in whom the contending Crowns of Arragon and Castile were united this our Author may find stipulated in the Contract between those two Families and sign'd to by the Council call'd by them the great Council of Spain which is the same thing with them as a Parliament Thus the good People of Spain acquiesc'd and have all along submitted to the Successors of that Family as their undoubted rightful Kings Now if it be the Peoplâ—'s Act and Deed that the Succession of the House of Arragon or Austria shall possess the Crown of Spain then the Duke d' Anjou has no more Title to the Crown of Spain than the Czar of Muscovy as I said before while the Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy are alive unlâ—ss the People of Spain legally Convocated had Declar'd the Throne vacant And to go on with the Argument in the same Notion of the People's Right to make Kings which is what these Gentlemen are so fond of When the People of a Nation have by any publick Act Legally made entail'd their Crown or committed the Government of themselves or what he pleases to call it to such or such a Family and such and such Heirs I hope they will allow then that such and such Heirs have a Right till the same which gave them their Right in the same legal Manner do publickly rescind alter or repeal the former Settlement on which that Right was founded If this be true then where is this Publick act of the People of Spain to rescind the Former Title of the House of Arragon To say they have not disclaim'd the Duke d'Anjou what a ridiculous Argument is that the Settlement they have agreed to is not Repeal'd nor the Great Council of the State been call'd to Debate it nor is their any need of it for the Heirs are in Being the Throne is not Vacant Now if you will form a Legal Title for the Duke d'Anjou on this Gentleman's Notion of the Peoples Right it must be thus The Dauphin is the Immediate Heir but he refuses to accept of the Crown for himself and his Eldest Son then the Great Council of the State which is the People of Spain ought in this Emergency to have been call'd to Consider to whom they wou'd dispose of the Crown or to whom they wou'd Submit and if this be true as I am sure by this Doctrine it cannot be otherwise they may as well bestow their Crown on the Emperor of Morocco saving his being a Mahometan as on the Duke d'Anjou Also if all Titles be deriv'd thus from the People and any one that they will Accept is Lawful King Why shou'd I be blam'd for saying 't was a weak thing for the King of Spain to give away his Kingdom by his Will which he had no Power do It had been much wiser to have call'd the Great Council of the Nation together and ha' caus'd them to settle the Succession as they thought fit as the only Persons who had a Right to do it Another Consequence I must draw from this Doctrine of the People's Right which the Gentlemen are not Historians enough it seems to know If it be the Peoples Right to dispose of the Government as they see fit as in the Case of a Vacancy of the Throne No body doubts then let the Title to the Crown Spain be whose it will 't is none of the Duke d'Anjou's for in the famous Treaty of the Pyrenees where the Match was made from whence this Title does proceed the Reconciliation made by the French to the Crown of Spain was Sign'd on