THE Poor Man's PLEA To all the Proclamations Declarations Acts of Parliament c. WHICH Have been or shall be made or publish'd for a Reformation of Manners and suppressing Immorality in the Nation The Second Edition Corrected LONDON Printed for A. Baldwin near the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-Lane MDCXCVIII THE PREFACE REformation of Manners is a Work so Honourable and at This Time so absolutely necessary that like the Reform of our Money it can be no longer delayed The Ways by which the present Torrent of Vice has been let in upon the Nation and by which it maintains the Tyranny it has usurp'd on the Lives of the Inhabitants are too plain to be hid The following Sheets aim at the Work by leading to the most direct means Viz. Reformation by Example Laws are in Terrorem Punishments and Magistrates Compel and put a Force upon Mens Minds but Example is Persuasive and Gentle and draws by a Secret Invisible and almost Involuntary Power If there can be any Remedies proposed more proper to bring it to pass they that know them would do well to bring them forth In the mean time the Author thinks Conscience in the Minds of Men Impartially Consulted will give a Probatum to the following Proposal and to that Iudgment he refers all those who Object against it D. F. THE Poor Man's PLEA TO All the Proclamations Declarations Acts of Parliament c. which have been or shall be made or publish'd for a Reformation of Manners and suppressing Immorality in the Nation IN searching for a proper Cure of an Epidemick Distemper Physicians tell us 't is first necessary to know the Cause of that Distemper from what Part of the Body and from what ill Habit it proceeds and when the Cause is discover'd it is to be removed that the Effect may cease of it self but if removing the Cause will not work the Cure then indeed they proceed to apply proper Remedies to the Disease it self and the particular part afflicted Immorality is without doubt the present reigning Distemper of the Nation And the King and Parliament who are the proper Physicians seem nobly inclin'd to undertake the Cure 'T is a Great Work well worthy their utmost Pains The Honour of it were it once perfected would add more Trophies to the Crown that all the Victories of this Bloody War or the Glories of this Honourable Peace But as a Person under the Violence of a Disease sends in vain for a Physician unless he resolves to make use of his Prescription so in vain does the King attempt to reform a Nation unless they are willing to reform themselves and to submit to his Prescriptions Wickedness is an Ancient Inhabitant in this Country and 't is very hard to give its Original But however difficult that may be 't is easy to look back to a Time when we were not so generally infected with Vice as we are now and 't will seem sufficient to enquire into the Causes of our present Defection The Protestant Religion seems to have an unquestion'd Title to the first introducing a strict Morality among us and 't is but just to give the Honour of it where 't is so eminently due Reformation of Manners has something of a Natural Consequence in it from Reformation in Religion For since the Principles of the Protestant Religion disown the Indulgencies of the Roman Pontiff by which a Thousand Sins are as Venial Crimes bought off and the Priest to save God Almighty the trouble can blot them out of the Account before it comes to his hand common Vices lost their Charter and men could not sin at so cheap a Rate as before The Protestant Religion has in it self a natural tendency to Virtue as a standing Testimony of its own Divine Original and accordingly it has very much suppress'd Vice and Immorality in all the Countries where it has had a Footing It has civiliz'd Nations and reform'd the very Tempers of its Professors Christianity and Humanity has gone hand in hand in the World and there is so visible a difference between the other Civiliz'd Governments in the World and those who now are under the Protestant Powers that it carries its Evidence in it self The Reformation begun in England in the days of King Edward the sixth and afterwards gloriously finished by Queen Elizabeth brought the English Nation to such a degree of Humanity and Sobriety of Conversation as we have reason to doubt will hardly be seen again in our Age. In King Iames the First 's time the Court affecting something more of Gallantry and Gaiety Luxury got footing and Twenty Years Peace together with no extraordinary Examples from the Court gave too great Encouragement to Licentiousness If it got footing in King Iames the First 's time it took a deep Root in the Reign of his Son and the Liberty given the Soldiery in the Civil War dispers'd all manner of Prophaneness throughout the Kingdom That Prince though very Pious in his own Person and Practice had the Misfortune to be the first King of England and perhaps in the whole World that ever establish'd Wickedness by a Law By what unhappy Council or secret ill Fate he was guided to it is hard to determine but the Book of Sports as it was called that Book to tolerate the Exercise of of all sorts of Pastimes on the Lord's Day tended more to the vitiating the Practice of this Kingdom as to keeping that Day than all the Acts of Parliament Proclamations and Endeavours of future Princes have done or perhaps ever will do to reform it And yet the People of England express'd a general sort of Aversion to that Liberty and some as if glutted with too much Freedom when the Reins of the Law were taken off refused that Practice they allow'd themselves in before In the time of King Charles the Second Lewdness and all manner of Debauchery arriv'd at its Meridian The Encouragement it had from the Practice and Allowance of the Court is an invincible Demonstration how far the Influence of our Governors extends in the Practice of the People The present King and his late Queen whose Glorious Memory will be dear to the Nation as long as the World stands have had all this wicked Knot to unravel This was the first thing the Queen set upon while the King was engaged in his Wars abroad She first gave all sorts of Vice a general Discouragement and on the contrary rais'd the value of Virtue and Sobriety by her Royal Example The King having brought the War to a Glorious Conclusion and settled an Honourable Peace in his very first Speech to his Parliament proclaims a New War against Prophaneness and Immorality and goes on also to discourage the Practice of it by the like Royal Example Thus the Work is begun nobly and regularly and the Parliament the General Representative of the Nation readily pursues it by enacting Laws to suppress all manner of Prophaneness c. These are Great Things and well
improv'd would give an undoubted Overthrow to the Tyranny of Vice and the Dominion Prophaneness has usurp'd in the hearts of men But we of the Plebeii find our selves justly aggriev'd in all this Work of Reformation and the Partiality of this Reforming Rigor makes the real Work impossible Wherefore we find our selves forced to seek Redress of our Grievances in the old honest way of Petitioning Heaven to relieve us And in the mean time we solemnly Enter our Protestation against all the Vicious Part of the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation as follows First We Protest That we do not find impartially enquiring into the matter and speaking of Moral Gooodness that you are one jot better than we are your Dignities Estates and Quality excepted 'T is true we are all bad enough and we are willing in good Manners to agree that we are as wicked as you but we cannot find on the exactest Scutiny but that in the Commonwealth of Vice the Devil has taken care to level Poor and Rich into one Class and is fairly going on to make us all Graduates in the last degreee of Immorality Secondly We do not find that all the Proclamations Declarations and Acts of Parliament yet made have any effective Power to punish you for your Immoralities as they do us Now while you make Laws to punish us and let your selves go free though guilty of the same Vices and Immoralities those Laws are unjust and unequal in themselves 'T is true the Laws do not express a Liberty to you and Punishment to us and therefore the King and Parliament are free as King and Parliament from this our Appeal but the Gentry and Magistrates of the Kingdom while they execute those Laws upon us the poor Commons and themselves practising the same Crimes in defiance of the Laws both of God and Man go unpunish'd This is the Grievance we protest against as unjust and unequal Wherefore till the Nobility Gentry Justices of the Peace and Clergy will be pleased either to reform their own Manners and suppress their own Immoralities or find out some Method and Power impartially to punish themselves when guilty we humbly crave leave to object against setting any Poor Man in the Stocks or sending them to the House of Correction for Immoralities as the most unequal and unjust way of proceeding in the World And now Gentlemen That this Protestation may not seem a little too rude and a Breach of good Manners to our Superiors we crave Leave to subjoin our humble Appeal to your selves and will for once knowing you as English Gentlemen to be Men of Honour make you Iudges in your own case First Gentlemen We appeal to your selves whether ever it be likely to perfect the Reformation of Manners in this Kingdom without you Whether Laws to punish us without your Example also to influence us will ever bring the Work to pass The first Step from a loose vicious Practice in this Nation was begun by King Edward the Sixth back'd by a Reform'd Clergy and a Sober Nobility Queen Elizabeth carried it on 'T was the Kings and the Gentry which first again degenerated from that strict Observation of Moral Virtues and from thence carried Vice on to that degree it now appears in From the Court Vice took its Progress into the Countrey and in the Families of the Gentry and Nobility it harbour'd till it took heart under their Protection and made a general Sally into the Nation and We the Poor Commons who have been always easy to be guided by the Example of our Landlords and Gentlemen have really been debauch'd into Vice by their Examples And it must be the Example of you the Nobility and Gentry of the Kingdom that must put a Stop to the Flood of Vice and Prophaneness which is broken in upon the Countrey or it will never be done Our Laws against all manner of Vicious Practices are already very severe But Laws are useless insignificant things if the Executive Power which lies in the Magistrate be not exerted The Justices of the Peace have the Power to punish but if they do not put forth that Power 't is all one as if they had none at all Some have possibly exerted this Power but whereever it has been so put forth it has fallen upon us the poor Commons These are all Cobweb Laws in which the small Flies are catch'd and the great ones break through My Lord-Mayor has whipt about the poor Beggars and a few scandalous Whores have been sent to the House of Correction some Alehousekeepers and Vintners have been Fin'd for drawing Drink on the Sabbath-day but all this falls upon us of the Mob the poor Plebeii as if all the Vice lay among us for we do not find the Rich Drunkard carri'd before my Lord Mayor nor a Swearing Lewd Merchant Fin'd or Set in the Stocks The man with a Gold Ring and Gay Cloths may Swear before the Justice or at the Justice may reel home through the open Streets and no man take any notice of it but if a poor man get drunk or swear an Oath he must to the Stocks without Remedy In the second place We appeal to your selves Whether Laws or Proclamations are capable of having any Effect towards a Reformation of Manners while the very Benches of our Justices are infected with the scandalous Vices of Swearing and Drunkenness while our Justices themselves shall punish a man for Drunkenness with a God damn him set him in the Stocks And if Laws and Proclamations are useless in the Case then they are good for nothing and had as good be let alone as publish'd 'T is hard Gentlemen to be punish'd for a Crime by a man as guilty as our selves and that the Figure a man makes in the World must be the reason why he shall or shall not be liable to a Law This is really punishing men for being poor which is no Crime at all as a Thief may be said to be hang'd not for the Fact but for being taken We further Appeal to your selves Gentlemen to inform us whether there be any particular reason why you should be allow'd the full Career of your corrupt Appetites without the Restraint of Laws while you your selves agree that such Offences shall be punished in us and do really execute the Law upon the Poor People when brought before you for the same things Wherefore That the Work of Reformation of Manners may go on and be brought to Perfection to the Glory of God and the great Honour of the King and Parliament That Debauchery and Prophaneness Drunkenness Whoring and all sorts of Immoralities may be suppress'd we humbly propose the Method which may effectually accomplish so great a Work 1. That the Gentry and Clergy who are the Leaders of us poor ignorant people and our Lights erected on high places to guide and govern us would in the first place put a voluntary force upon themselves and effectually reform their own Lives their way of
they are capable of it Our Laws seem to take no Cognizance of such perhaps for the same reason that Lycurgus made no Law against Parricide because he would not have the Sin named among his Citizens Now the Poor Man sees no such Dignity in Vice as to study Degrees we are downright in Wickedness as we are in our Dealings if we are Drunk 't is plain Drunkenness Swearing and Whoring is all Blunderbus with us we don't affect such Niceties in our Conversation and the Justices use us accordingly nothing but the Stocks or the House of Correction is the Case when we are brought before them but when our Masters the Gentlemen come to their Refin'd Practice and Sin by the Rules of Quality we find nothing comes of it but false Heraldry the Vice is punish'd by the Vice and the Punishment renews the Crime The Case in short is this the Lewdness Prophaneness and Immorality of the Gentry which is the main Cause of the General Debauchery of the Kingdom is not at all toucht by our Laws as they are now Executed and while it remains so the Reformation of Manners can never be brought to pass nor Prophaneness and Immorality Suppress'd and therefore the Punishing the Poor distinctly is a Mock upon the good Designs of the King and Parliament an Act of Injustice upon them to punish them and let others who are as guilty go free and a sort of Cruelty too in taking the advantage of their Poverty to make them suffer because they want Estates to purchase their Exemption We have some weak Excuses for this Matter which must be considered As 1 The Justice of the Peace is a Passive Magistrate till an information be brought before him and is not to take notice of any thing but as it is laid in Fact and brought to an Affidavit Now if an Affidavit be made before a Justice that such or such a man Swore or was Drunk he must he cannot avoid Fining him the Law obliges him to it let his Quality be what it will so that the Defect is not in the Law not in the Justice but in the want of Information 2 The Name of an Evidence or Informer is so scandalous that to attempt to inform against a man for the most open Breach of the Laws of Morality is enough to denominate a man unfit for Society a Rogue and an Informer are Synonimous in the Vulgar Acceptation so much is the real Detection of the openest Crimes against God and Civil Government Discouraged and Avoided 3 The Impossibility of the Cure is such and the Habit has so obtain'd upon all Mankind that it seems twisted with Human Nature as an Appendix to Natural Frailty which it is impossible to separate from it For Answer 1. T is true the Justice of the Peace is in some respect a Passive Magistrate and does not act but by Information but such Information would be brought if it were encouraged if Justices of the Peace did acquaint themselves with their Neighbourhood they would soon hear of the Immoralities of the Parish and if they did impartially Execute the Law on such as offended without respect of Person they would soon have an Account of the Persons and Circumstances Besides 't is not want of Information but want of punishing what they have information of A Poor Man informs against a Great Man the Witness is discouraged the man goes unpunish'd and the Poor Man gets the scandal of an Informer and then 't is but too often that our Justices are not men of extraordinary Morals themselves and who shall Inform a Justice of the Peace that such a man Swore when he may be heard to Swear himself as fast as another or who shall bring a man before a Justice for being Drunk when the Justice is so Drunk himself he cannot order him to be set in the Stocks 2. Besides the Justice has a power to punish any Fact he himself sees committed and to enquire into any he hears of casually and if he will stand still and see those Acts of Immorality committed before his Face who shall bring a Poor Man before him to be punished Thus I have heard a Thousand horrid Oaths sworn on a Bowling Green in the presence of a Justice of the Peace and he take no notice of it and go home the next hour and set a man in the Stocks for being Drunk As to the Scandal of Informing 't is an Error in Custom and a great Sin against Justice 't is necessary indeed that all Judgment should be according to Evidence and to discourage Evidence is to discourage Justice but that a man in Trial of the Morality of his Neighbour should be ashamed to appear must have some particular Cause 1. It proceeds from the Modishness of the Vice it has so obtain'd upon mens Practices that to appear against what almost all men approve seems malicious and has a certain prospect either of Revenge or of a Mercenary Wretch that Informs meerly to get a Reward 'T is true if no Reward be plac'd upon an Information no man will take the trouble and again if too great a Reward Men of Honour shun the thing because they scorn the Fee and to Inform meerly for the Fee has something of a Rascal in it too and from these Reasons arises the backwardness of the People The very same Rich men we speak of are the persons who discourage the Discovery of Vice by scandalizing the Informer a man that is any thing of a Gentleman scorns it and the Poor still Mimick the Humour of the Rich and hate an Informer as they do the Devil 'T is strange the Gentlemen should be asham'd to detect the Breach of those Laws which they were not asham'd to make but the very Name of an Informer has gain'd so black an Idea in the minds of People because some who have made a Trade of Informing against People for Religion have misbehaved themselves that truly 't will be hard to bring any man either of Credit or Quality to attempt it But the main thing which makes our Gentlemen backward in the prosecution of Vice is their practising the same Crimes themselves and they have so much wicked Modesty and Generosity in them being really no Enemies to the thing it self that they cannot with any sort of freedom punish in others what they practise themselves In the Times of Executing the Laws against Dissenters we found a great many Gentlemen very Vigorous in prosecuting their Neighbours they did not stick to appear in Person to disturb Meetings and demolish the Meeting Houses and rather than fail would be Informers themselves the reason was because they had also a dislike to the think but we never found a Dissenting Gentleman or Justice of the Peace forward to do thus because they approved of it Now were our Gentlemen and Magistrates real Enemies to the Immoralities of this Age did they really hate Drunkenness as a Vice they would be forward and zealous to root