traducing it that they many times in their Addresses beg pardon for not having begun sooner not my Lord but that it was abhorr'd in the Heart of every good Subject look'd on as the Contrivance of Hell and Darkness as soon as ever it came to light but that they vye with one another for an early of those villanous designs which they think none can soon enough detest Upon the appearance of your terrible Comet the Nation seem'd to gaze a while on the dreadful Phaenomenon before they could make their Observations and the Reason why they might not presently fall on abhorring such damnable Practices might proceed rather from the deep Impression it had on their Minds than any shallow Inadvertency for Hearts that are surprized with any Passion either of Love or Detestation have their Tongues for a while suspended from expressing their Sentiments and inward Conceptions It has always been the stale Clamour of the vigilant and jealous Faction that the King and Kingdom was asleep if so I am confident they have now pretty well awaken'd both out of their secure slumber And that with a ghastly Spectrum of a Rebellion and the dreadful Ghost and Appearance of another Civil War In the next place Your Lordship lays a mighty stress on the single Vote of an House of Commons and well you may my Lord when your Friends have had of late such an â—nfluence and Interest therein and any States-man will have a great Conceit of their Proceedings who think well of his Maxims and take him for their Achitophel But this is but a reciprocal sort of associating in one anothers Defence and somewhat like that natural Combination there is among some Creatures when they are mumbling of a Thistle to claw one another Yet my Lord should the next House be men of other Sentiments condemn the Treason of this Association vote him for an Enemy to King and Country in whose Custody it was found would your Lordship be willing their Order'd and Resolv'd should be the sole Test of the Guilt as well as Innocence of the Person Yet our own Chronicles will afford Instances of greater Alterations in the Vein and Humour of Parliaments and whose Pulses have beaten as strongly quite another way A Parliament deposed Richard the second and a Parliament advanc'd Edward the fourth a Parliament set a price on the Head of our present King and a Parliament afterward set the Crown upon it And why one House of Commons may not as well vote him a Friend to the King and Kingdom whom others have done an Enemy I cannot understand But then from Irish-Witnesses and well-chosen Iuries the whole Nation prays as well as your Lordship Good Lord deliver us but then you may give them leave to curse too those that first brought over the one and pack't the other It seems Haynes was no Irishman when a blank Pardon was su'd for Dennis Oneal and Macnamarra no Rogues so long as they would hang none but Papists Willmoors Rowses Whitakers Harveys and the Jury I should have nam'd first of the noble Peer you vindicated these were not pick'd and chosen were they But because you instance in unreasonable Damages given by the Surry-men you shall have a Rowland for that Oliver too and what do you think of that of the Guild-hall who found it Assault and Battery for an Officer to pull off an insolent Fellow's Hat when upon his Tryal in an Ecclesiastical Court a Fellow that behaved himself as rudely towards your Party in his Curse ye Meroz as he has done since to ours in his Naked Truth And what a dishonest and ungrateful sort of Retribution is it for them to countenance now such a turbulent Wretch only because he can disturb our establish'd Church when all our sober persons condemn'd him for such an impetuous Railing even against your unwarranted Assemblies What can an indifferent and impartial person think of the foulness of such Proceedings but that you would close with any Villain that will but libel the Government and even with your worst of Enemies to do it an injury observing a sort of malicious Politicks in the very directing of your Anger and Revenge and wisely smother your Resentments against a private Foe if you can but make him an Instrument to disturb the publick Peace But my Lord the truth of it is that which makes you so uneasie is you find your selves lash'd with Rods of your own making and have conjur'd up a sort of Devils that won't be aw'd only by your own Wand and whom all your Sorceries I am afraid won't quickly lay Cavies in the late time was an opprobious Name fix'd on good Subjects and then they were nettl'd as soon as Roundhead was given to the bad Whig now had never been thought of had not Tory been first started we should have had no Pilkington Juries had the E. of S. been put upon his Tryal and you would have met my Lord with no such Gentle Reflection had you not first publish'd your Modest Account and since your Party alway leads the Dance can you in Conscience blame any for following the Round Then as for the business of the City-Charter perhaps it may not be so long in being compass'd as your Lordship imagines and for the justice you shall meet for your Fortunes when 't is gone I dare promise will be better than others will meet with for their Lives while 't is there But why do you think it so long my Lord Are Charters given and confirm'd without any Limitations and Reserves Had they their Swords in their hands when 't was granted And did they article and capitulate for theirs in the City as the Barons did for the great one in the Meadow Then perhaps your Advocates might find a Clause in it to prove it not forfeited by Rebellion in which the City seems already so deeply engag'd as if it were actually in another state of War with its Soveraign For won't your Lordship judge that Ass to rebel against his Driver in standing still or running back as well as if he had lifted up his heel against his Master And how near the stopping the Channel of the Laws or perverting the Justice of the Nation borders on the taking up of Arms and the cutting out their own Statutes with the Sword I leave even to the Determination of your Lordship who perhaps were an Eye-witness of that fatal Affinity that is between them and what a pretty sort of Praeludium it prov'd to the Civil War The President of the Guises was the most unhappiest Parallel your Lordship could have brought upon the Stage and at this time had been much better omitted it suiting as little with your Lordships Application as it mightily agrees with your Parties Practices The Guises were a bloody Faction indeed and design'd the overthrow of that Monarchy by the same means and measures your Associators do that of ours It was they deluded a youthful Prince with the hopes of a Crown and
two late Villains that preach'd Rebellion at the very place of Execution no doubt 't was with a great deal of Submission they made two several Insurrections one of which was but lately dispers'd at Bothwel-Bridge they submissively murdered the Bishop of St. Andrews and very lately with a great deal of Dissenters Humanity mangled and mutilated the poor Souldiers These are many I hope and strong Evidences of their bad Carriage whereas you have not given one single Instance of their good Your business in the next Paragraph is to make the discover'd Association a Popish Hobgoblin too a Mormo conjur'd up at White-Hall or to use your own expression The keeping Hounds in full cry with a Red-Herring out of their own Kitchin trail'd through the Kingdom to make a noise A pleasant Metaphor I confess in comparing a piece of Rebellion with a Red-Herring somewhat a more apposite Allegory even upon this account because both are great Commodities in the Dutch Common-wealths but I fancy my Lord could your Party but have kept this Herring close and drying in their own Chimney till the Nations Palate had been a little better disposed to relish such a salt Bit the Dogs that would have follow'd the scent then I am afraid would have shown themselves a thirsty sort of Blood-Hounds and took some of the King 's best Subjects for their Prey but now this dried Fish has took a little Air and rank Treason stunk and offended the whole Kingdom 't is no wonder if your Party won't allow the Dish to come out of their Kitchin when it looks as if it had been drest in Hell and had the Devil for its Cook Your Lordship has not carefully perused those Proceedings at the Old-Baily neither is to be imagined how you should impartially when you seem to be so much prejudiced or else you would find the Impudence to lye on your side in making the seizing of the Paper questionable the words of Mr. Gwin are as positive as the Case could admit which are plainly these It was certainly there for there I found it I don't know as to the particular Paper but all in that Bag were there vid. page 34. Now your Lordship won't allow it to be positive Evidence because not to the particular Paper But suppose my Lord one of your Irish Witnesses should transport hither a Ship-load of his Country Cattel to stock your Lordships Mannor would you not believe him if he swore they all came from thence and it was unlikely any other Breed should leap up in the Voyage And sure that Gentleman may pass for a more competent Witness than a common Bug-trotter The Messengers seiz'd a whole bundle of Colledge's infamous treasonable Ballads had it not been positive Evidence if they had sworn only to the whole Bundle as well as if to the particular Ballad produc'd in the Court But you can't have the Patience or Heart to examine the Parallel it being the woful Case of a dissenting Protestant But then you will take the pains to consider this there were Bundles of Letters found in Coleman's Study two or three of which were only used in his Tryal would your Lordship have had that sort of Traytor escap'd too had the Witnesses been only able to swear to the Papers in general that they found and not to the very particular one produc'd I don't know in what English Reports your Lordship has met with Monsieur Fouquet's Case which is a French one I am sure your Honour would be loth to be tryed by their Arbitrary Laws when it can hardly abide the Test of ours And whatever you think I fancy the State is higher concern'd against him that endeavours to subvert it than him that only defrauds its Exchequer And yet the one you see has been kept a long time Prisoner in the Bastile though the other quickly got out of the Tower And as for those Laws of Nature and Reason you urge on your part sure they are never so irrational to befriend a man suspected for unnatural plotting against his Prince and the Father of his Country which was the thing then in question but it s being a loose Paper and unsubscribed will that exempt a man from being questioned especially in Matters of Treason where there are no Accessories but every Concealer a Principal Were not some of the Jesuits questioned for Papers unsubscribed and Langborn partly condemn'd for receiving Commissions never produc'd found or like to be heard of And these Parallel Instances I don't urge as an extenuation of their Guilt who merited death by the Law but to shew your foul Reasoning and prejudic'd Argumentation in making that sort of Evidence light and empty in your Friends Case though only to put him upon his Tryal when you thought it full and weighty in your Enemies even for their Sentence and Execution The detestation of a damnable piece of Treason your Lordship calls A Popish Clamor and Abhorrence Are they all Papists my Lord that protest to defend his Majesty If so your own Party will be libel'd too in that Accusation who most of all make such Protestations though they least intend it And if they must be Papists that vow to preserve the present Government of Church and State your Lordship by such Doctrines will draw more Proselytes to the Romish Faith than ever did Priest or Jesuit or to use your own words have given a greater Blow to the Protestant Religion than all that ever went before you for such wild Positions and unreasonable Censures will make all to be of that Communion who love their God and their King or are willing to commence good Christians and loyal Subjects But not withstanding all your malicious Accusations is it to be prov'd there were any Roman-Catholicks that promoted these late Abhorrences or any single one that sign'd such an Address though they were ready perhaps to do it and can shame some of our Protestants whose Religion truly gives no such Dispensations for Treason and Rebellion and consequently should make them better Subjects Yet some of those spent their Blood for our late Soveraign when so many of ours lost it in fighting against him and also 't is unadvisedly objected that the Papists should be concern'd in these Abhorrences for that would make them more Friends to your Party than any other in affording you Matter for aspersing all those as such with whom they subscribe and only give your Lordship and your Crew a Pretence for such scandalous Suggestions But the mischief of it is they do no great service in such a forbearance since we deal with an Accuser as subtil and malicious as that primitive one the Devil and who would blast his Enemies Reputation were they all Angels But my Lord there are a number of as great and better Subjects than your selves who have better thoughts too concerning the late Abhorrencies and are so far from bering troubl'd at what they have done or perswaded to forbear by your unjust censuing and
may be unquestionable with a City-Rout a crowd of credulous Fools or resolute Knaves But if ever the Countrey has an occasion for a Triumvirate to write Paradoxes Lyes and Forgeries it will wisely pitch upon Mr. Baxt. Mr. H-t and this Person of Quality You are willing to lay a great Obligation on his Majesty from his Act of Oblivion but yet ungratefully forbear to mention your Party so much as oblig'd Then you address your self to the King's Friends and their Friends the Papist together I thought your Lordship could not allow Roman-Catholicks any relation or acquaintance with men that love the Religion of the Church of England and King of it as in common Charity my Lord some of us at least may be thought to do But why must we and they be thought such Intimates It no way appears upon Record my Lord as the Familiarity of your Party with the Jesuits neither has Mr. Oates sworn that they frequent our Churches as he testifies they do your Conventicles therefore without being such Favourites to them if you please we will obey your Injunctions and Consider what Promises Declarations and Engagements the dissenting Protestants had both of his Majesty his Lords and Bishops at the time of his coming over and how they have since been used and with what Submission and Loyalty they have carried themselves And now must tell your Lordship having considered and weighed every jot and tittle of it I can answer you to every Punctilio first that the Promises your dissenting Protestants had have certainly been made good to them perhaps above their bargain and expectation I am sure beyond their merit and desert not only the Laws when in full force against them and such Offenders have been seldom executed but for a while wholly suspended with a general Toleration although that I confess they will by no means grant to have been done in their favour notwithstanding it seem'd extorted by their own clamors and importunity and was the Counsel and Advice of some that are now the greatest Patriots and Bigots of their Cause And 't is very notorious that this dissenting Protestant all the time of that Indulgence resented it as an Act of Grace and Favour though I confess never the nearer won to Peace and Conformity with such a condescention but had their tender Consciences as much harden'd and steel'd with the Lenitives of Moderation as ever they could have been in the hottest flames of a real Persecution But as soon as ever they came to be bridled again by the Law with a seasonable restraint the Wretches that at best but flatter and dissemble when they command any thing in the Government presently arraign'd it as a design of introducing Popery though it truly promoted nothing more than the growth of their own Faction and made the Beast insolent and unruly by giving it the reins whom the curb of a severe Discipline might have made more gentle and tame And now I would have your Lordship tell us a way of satisfying so froward and perverse a Sect that is clamorous till it is indulg'd and then is discontented at its own Indulgence But beside all this your Lordship very well knows that they were not only conniv'd at in their Religious Schisms and sanctified ways of violating the Canons of the Church and the Laws of the Realm but some of them were advanced to Places of Honour and Profit and far'd once altogether as well as those that had more faithfully served the King and dutifully conform'd to the Discipline of the Church But granting these Promises and Declarations were not so punctually perform'd is the Government pretently to be upbraided for it And his Majesty almost told in plain terms that had you thought he would have fail'd you so he should never have got in the Throne so easily and can these grumbling and discontented Wretches be call'd the Restorers of his Majesty that would capitulate with their Prince for his Birth-right stand upon Terms and Articles like Rebels in a Garrison before they will surrender and are now sorry they had not made him compound for his Kingdoms at a dearer rate Your Lordship knows all this to be as true as the Suggestions of their hard usage are false and malicious would you have the greatest Laick of your Faction made the greatest Minister of State too that has been done already and your Noble Peer himself advanc'd to the Mace would you have some Head of your canting Priests preferr'd to be the Head of our Church and a thing put for the Pillar of it that has twice endeavour'd to undermine it why somewhat of this has been offer'd too and we have Mr. Baxter's own word for it that he refused a Bishoprick and now for God's sake my Lord what usage would you your self advise to be shown to such Miscreants whom neither Honour or Profit can perswade so much as to suffer the Government to remain undisturb'd Thus much for our Promises and Usage now my Lord for their Loyalty and Submission which you so vainly extol and magnifie but I wish your Eloquence a more copious Theam when-ever you have a mind to write a Panegyrick or else you 'l want indeed a great deal of Invention or rather another part of Rhetorick plain Hyperbole to make amends for the barrenness of the Subject You talk of the difficulty of finding a parallel Instance but all the while don't instance in one single act of this unparallel'd Submission and you vindicate your own Party just at the same rate as you vilify all others only with general Assertions but your Lordship shall see I will more fairly demonstrate their Treasons and Insurrections than you have done their Loyalty and Submission His Majesty was hardly settled in his Throne before these submissive Villains began to disturb it in 61. Venner and his Crew were plotting on the Government discovered and executed for High-Treason about 62. Phillips Tongue Gibbs and one Stubbs with another were arraigned for a Plot as Hellish altogether as this of the Papists the latter of which confesses the Fact before his Tryal the other four abiding it were upon full evidence condemned and executed In 63. we have one Captain Oates mustring up his Regiment of Traytors In 66. Another little Mutiny and Rebellion of a parcel of discontented Officers and Souldiers lately Mr. Colledge that with his last breath profess'd himself a dissenting Protestant condemned and executed for a more unparallel'd piece of Treason than any incomparable Instance you can give of Dissenters Loyalty and last of all for a head to this Comet this long train of Rebellion out comes the treasonable Scheam of Association and alarms the Kingdom with the fearful Presages of a second War Thus much my Lord for the submission of English Dissenters since the Restoration and now for the Loyal deportment of your Scottish one How many Field-Preachers since 60. have been executed renouncing with their last breath all Allegiance and Supremacy Kid and King
strengthen'd their Party by the weakness of a young Duke It was they made the profess'd Religion a pretence for all the Desolations that attended a miserable War It was they drew up the primitive Association and were the first Founders of an Holy League Lastly 't was they fell a cutting the Throats of the poor Hugonots and distinguish'd themselves in the bloody night at Paris with a white Scarf on their Elbows And by your endeavouring to remove Guards one would think you design'd the same way to cut off Popish Abhorrers and make your green and blew Streamers serve for the same purpose they us'd their white And so we may ee'n conclude this Paragraph with an bearty Prayer as well as your Lordship does his with a faint Wish That God would preserve the King and keep us out of the hands of all bloody Papists and as cruel and inhumane a sort of Protestants Your Lordship has not only the Subtilty of the Serpent but the Venom too and that you spit forth all now here in this place in arraigning the best Actions of the Duke for the worst Plot and Conspiracy and making his passing the Test in Scotland a fair step to the destruction of the Protestant Religion Is the swearing to preserve the present establish'd Religion the way to subvert it Are not the Bishops there as competent Judges of what will undermine the Church as your Lordship who profess your self a Friend to Protestant Dissenters and such as would blow her up And han't they thank'd his Majesty for his sending his Royal Brother and testified their satisfaction of his Zeal for our Church But these you will say are all bless'd with a Torish Humility as your new phrase has it though upon other occasions you can dignifie them with their old Appellation of proud Prelates But my Lord do you think that the Field-Preachers there to whom you must be a Friend if to the dissenting Ministers here do you think I say they show what is more expedient for the good of the Church in refusing the Test than those spiritual Lords did in passing it Do you think that the Rebels at Bothwell-bridge did not make a fairer step to the destruction of the Protestant Religion than as you maliciously suggest his Royal Highness and the Parliament have done since But we must give people leave when they are nettl'd with Passion and Revenge to be transported into Lyes and Absurdities and Malice is alway the greatest Enemy to Truth and Reason Your next Paragraph falls foul again upon Abhorrers whom you look upon as a pitiful Faction when all honest people take them for true Loyalists But waving the absurdity in calling them factious which none can reasonably apply but to such as oppose the Government in Church and State their Numbers are not so small as to be pitiful or contemptible two or three thousand Free-holders are said to subscribe that of Derby and then more I am sure by much than could be gotten out of any County in England to your Petitions And could your Lordship but get the favour and opportunity to consult the List you would find them more numerous and much to your dis-satisfaction and also amongst them many persons that have serv'd their Countrey in Parliament and been Members of that Honourable Assembly to whom you pay so great a Deference But it is a little harsh Censure for you to suspect all the Countrey-Sheriffs for ill men and their under-Sheriffs for Rogues Could we but get an indifferent person to decide the Controversie he would with more reason judge your City-Officers for such Gentlemen commonly vers'd in the jugling Tricks of Buying and Selling and all the methods of a priviledg'd Knavery such as first set about packing of Juries and alarming the Nation with an obstruction of Justice And won't you allow the King and his Council to be as honest and wise and as fit to prick the one as your City-Rout and Rabble who chooses the other I can't imagine what you mean by this elaborate task and all this fruitless pains you take to prove the number of Abhorrers so small and insignificant unless your meaning be only this to show plainly that you contend for a Party and have sent abroad your Muster-masters to take a List of all your Voluntiers or else have got your Association to stalk about the Kingdom incognito and now upon comparing the Subscribers of that with those of our Abhorrences find your selves the stronger by a million or thereabouts but I fancy were this really so you would never suffer this Abhorring and Protesting to go on so quietly Yet my Lord I 'le debate though not the truth yet the Reason of this Matter still more fairly with your Lordship Give you all that the prejudic'd Party can desire and for a while suppose this Paper of Association a meer Sham and a piece of Forgery or in your own phrase A red Herring trail'd through the Kingdom to make a noise yet still why must all those that detest and abhor it be traduc'd as Popish only because they dislike a Paper that is in it self treasonable and which your own selves presume unwarrantable at least by your seeming to renounce it There is every year a Zeal as hot as the Flames themselves shown against his Holiness in Pasteboard and in God's Name let them still in that Matter express their Resentment But you would think it a hard Censure my Lord to traduce all that innocent Rabble in Fleetstreet for Puritans and Fanaticks only because they express such an Abhorrence to that painted Effigie when all this while this is but a Pope of their own making And why then must all those be vilified as Tories Hounds and Popish Abhorrers that only dislike declare burn and protest against a paper'd Idol of a Common-wealth in whose Forehead is writ Treason as well as Abomination in the others Now when I have been so fair as to yield to your Lordship in his own Postulatum and yet the Corollary deduc'd will detract much from that Reasoning and Modesty you pretend to what will become of those Pretensions when it appears a demonstrable Proposition that this Scheam of Rebellion was drawn by your own Party and truly found where it was sworn to be And therefore for those Considerations tender'd to us in the beginning of your Book let us offer these to you toward the end of ours Consider this Engine and design how much it looks like the Workmanship of your State-Projectors And though the end seem'd somewhat honest pretending to unite a divided Nation consider it will never be compass'd in animating a factious and a zealous Crew 't is a Work only now for Omnipotence it self to heal our Breaches and cure our Divisions and the Union of God's people will never be perfected by your Protestant Ioyners and such Agents of the Devil Consider how likely that Faction is to contrive such an Association which has been so well vets'd in drawing up so
many Covenants and how improbable it is that those who enter'd into a League to fight against Charles the First should associate themselves for the preservation of the Second But these are but such Arguments I confess as the Schools call â probabilibus that which makes it demonstrably plain are the Shifts your Party use to avoid the Imputation whose Answers when they are question'd about it are like those of conscious Criminals full of Distraction Sometimes they fancy the truth of its being found not plain enough and then they deny the Matter of Fact then they begin to distrust that Refuge and stand up for its defence backing it with a President in Queen Elizabeth's time and pray my Lord Would you not take the young Bear to be the Whelp of such a Dam if you found her licking the little unform'd Monster into shape Then for its being found in the Closet we have a plain positive Oath and that of a very credible Witness The Keys sworn to be deliver'd by your Earl s own hand his Servants by when the Papers were put up and the Bag seal'd And sure his vigilant Domesticks would never suffer their Master to be so grosly abus'd had they put up other Papers than were found and brought Treason in their Pockets when they came to search for it My Lord It was the same poor defence Colledge made to the finding his treasonable Ballads and when nothing else could confront the Evidence it was insinuated as if they were laid there by the Searchers And you would do well to use some better Arguments for so great a person whom you would prove innocent than they did for a rascally Joyner whom all impartial people thought guilty But nothing makes it more unquestionable than those poor Shifts you use in questioning it You say Gwin dares not swear it and any one by what you say there to the contrary would swear you don't deny it and all your Argumentations look so conscious and guilty that they betray the very Cause they pretend to defend Among Heads that have but one grain of studied Logick or natural Reason 't is alway presum'd that nothing can be like it self and what-ever has any Reference must have another Extream to which it may refer and then what need of all this Comparison and Similitude if there be nothing found with which you would compare it What need has your Lordship to talk of Queen Elizabeth's Association as a Parallel if nothing since has been contriv'd like it by your Friends and Associates But you will say There has been a pretended one put upon you Then my Lord let me ask you Would you take all this pain to justifie a piece of Treason forg'd by your Enemies Did any of your Party write in favour of the Papers found in the Meal-Tub If these are your Measures and best Politicks what better Encouragement can there be for Shams and Forgeries than by writing Panegyricks and favourable Parallels on those Treasons of which you are suspected and accus'd You very civilly will allow his Majesty a Prerogative to call a Parliament but like the curs'd Cow that gives a little good Milk which she presently kicks down with her heels or Mr. H-t that defends the Bishops in his Book and blows them up in the Post-script your next Lines talk of having them conven'd frequently and sit usefully that is indeed whensoever your selves please and as long as your Faction shall think fit or till Grievances are redress'd and the Bill of Exclusion pass'd But for these Matters I may with better Authority use your own words in the business of the Charter Assure your Lordship It will be long before it be done But I would fain have you fix my Lord that indefinite Term of Frequent Parliaments Is your Lordship for Triennial ones again The Consequences of that were too fatal to expect such another unreasonable Grant And besides it is not above a twelve month since that your Lordship had one and that to your Mind too and therefore as yet no Reason to complain But if great Emergencies as you say shall determine the Prince to convene his States sure you may give him and his Council leave to judge whether they are really so or not Otherwise Dr. Oater's Quarrel with the Scotch Knight or the Disappointment of the City-Feast may by some be thought Matter of great Emergency and worthy the Consideration of a Parliament neither will the People my Lord as Things stand now be all of your Sentiments in thinking his Majesty's Friends and Counsellors humble Tories stupid Fools or designing Villains the best opinion you can have of them for not advising his Majesty as you think fit to call a Parliament We know those that gave worse Advice both for the Kingdom and all Christendom beside those that in their best regreted the Success of their own Councels and maliciously took now and then a few good Measures lest others should do it for them I can't apprehend my Lord what that distance of Time is in which without a Parliament our Liberties would expire and our selues on a sudden be shackl'd into Slaves We han't seen one for a whole year and perhaps may not for another and yet after many expir'd I dare swear our Magna Charta will be still the same though your City-Charter may not We will allow you Parliaments to be the Subjects Birth-right but then I hope we are not born to all sorts of Parliaments that Position my Lord would make you put in for a Right to that in Forty one since by special Act declar'd Traitors Your Lordship proposes by way of smart Interrogatory Whether the King's Prerogative in appointing the day will deprive us of the Right of having them in such a time and his Power of dissolving can render them useless to us I confess to men of your own Principles and Sentiments 't is impossible to answer them for such are resolv'd to take it for granted that the not letting them sit when they please is a deprivation of the Right of the Subject and the dissolving them when the King pleases is that which makes them useless whereas there are as great Men and as good Head-pieces who think the quite contrary And that his Majesty's appointing the day is the only Security we can have for their Sitting Perhaps without it we might have a Convocation of Rebels but not a Parliament a major part of Members treasonably associated but never an House of Commons lawfully assembled And then in this Case also differing so far from your Opinion that they think the only thing that can make them useful is the King's Power to dissolve them I confess to men that make an House of Commons to patronize all their Irregularities to countenance all those gross Abuses they put upon the Government to such a Dissolution is a useless thing indeed and deprives them of the making an honourable Assembly a pretended Abettor of all their scandalous Actions
an unbias'd man believe the justice of his Courts corrupted and his Judges Arbitrary because it is the opinion of some perhaps that have a mind to sit on the Bench Are those fair and competent Asserters of an Arbitrary Power and good Witnesses of their Princes Tyranny only because they are banish'd the Court and could see nothing of it when they sate in the Council Lastly can he truly fear Popery that is of no Religion at all and be an impartial Judge of the Temper of the Duke of York that is his avow'd and mortal Enemy neither the Civil Law or Common will admit of any prejudic'd Evidence And for God's sake let the King and Government when they are arraign'd have as fair play for it as one of your Joyners or Coblers a Colledge or an Hewson would expect Next my Lord you would prove the Queens Association to have been carried on without her knowledge from a certain Speech of hers to her Parliament but whether the Quotation be false or true we won't dispute at present but this seems to me a plain sort of owning the Paper of which your Friends are accused only you would say somewhat for your selves in not acquainting his Majesty with it a little sooner by telling the Kingdom his Predecessor Queen Elizabeth knew nothing of such a Combination any more than himself and that she look'd upon it as an obligation from her Subjects to find so many hands unknowingly subscrib'd but granting they agree in this circumstance that such a Loyal Design as well as a Treasonable one may possibly have been carried on in the dark Can you imagine my Lord She would have taken it for an Obligation too had they tender'd her a Paper that would have sworn her out of her Supremacy and lodg'd it in the major part of her House of Commons and with what face could ever any Subject offer a scheam of Rebellion to his Soveraign and desire of him the liberty to commence a Rebel and a Traytor only for his defence and preservation The Story of the Queen of Scots which you would make so plain a Parallel is in my judgment as little to the purpose First Did the Queen of England shew her self as vigorous in opposing the disinheriting of her next Heir as our King has been both kind and just in asserting the Rights of his Brother and Successor Secondly Do you think if she had really declared her self against the proceedings of her Parliament in that Affair her Subjects would have enter'd into an Association to have done it by themselves No no your Lordship is too good an Historion not to know that things were then carried on with her Majesties Connivance and tacit Approbation and that she acted her part of the Tragedy like one of Matchiavel's Monarchs behind the Curtain and for which even Writers very favourable to your own Party and no Causines have justly condemn'd her And it seems all your own factious Crew don't agree with your Lordship in thinking the Proceedings against that unfortunate Queen so fair and honourable for very lately a certain Protestant Buffoon has prov'd it plain Murder in his second part of a thing call'd a Speculum or the View and Reflection of a Chimera half Droll half Author and half Ass and from that very Case this Hotch-potch Animal proves King-killing to be the Doctrine of the Church of England but I hope you will agree with me because he differs from you in this point that this his Argumentation is like the rest of his Stuff very ridiculous but as for his abusing the Church-men there you may shake hands again for he paints them out very pleasantly like Fools Anticks and Jack-Puddings and you draw them out terribly all in blood Governours of the Popish Interest revengeful implacable and such as never forgive so that between you the Clergy may be pretty well secur'd of an Odium when you can expose them even in the two several extreams But would a Jew take such to be Christians that vilify the Church of which they would seem to be and ridicule the very Religion they are thought to profess And here I can't but observe a Barbarous as well as a Malicious hint of your Lordships who when you have represented how violent the Parliament was against the Succession of the Queen of Scots with a cruel and emphatical Malice cry out Nay and against her Life too We know my Lord the Parliament help'd the Grand-Mother to the Block and you saw another made the Father stoop to it But would you have your Associated Baalites sacrifice the Blood of the Son too This is stretching up a private Revenge to vye even with the Vengeance of the Almighty and an angry God only visits to the third and fourth Generation Your Lordship in this Insinuation shews a great deal of Inhumanity not to be parallel'd but by that of your Friends the Dissenters in their Association or the Cannibals of the West-Indies which as some say infest our Plantations there and refresh themselves in nothing more than in the Blood of an Enemy These are the bloody Measures which your Passion transports you to and not your Judgment directs People look through these transparent Politicks like Water and see nothing but Malice and Revenge at the bottom Your last politick Observation is That his present Majesty is the first Prince that ever was perswaded to be so willing to settle indubitably the Title of his presumptive Heir But why perswaded Has he not natural Affection enough to be willing himself And would he not much rather be thought the first should he humour your Faction that ever unnaturally disinherited a kind Brother and his Heir apparent And I believe nothing grieves you more than that his Majesty's Consent must be requir'd and could a Parliament be gotten once to act again without him no doubt but the Bill of Exclusion would be the first Act of the Session But the Law of Nations ever since the Time of Justinian the Laws of the Kingdom down from the Conqueror have happily placed the Sanction of every Law in the Will of the Prince and you and your Friends must be contented my Lord till you can perswade the King to give you his Le Roy Vult and the Crown and Scepter to the Bargain And seeing you are pleas'd to call the D. of Y. but a presumptive Heir and seem to lay such a stress and Emphasis upon the new-coin'd word we will discuss this Business a little further My Lord if I mistake not your Friend you pretend to vindicate was the first that applied this pretty Distinction to the next Heir of the Crown It looks like a piece of State-Sophistry and your noble Friend some say was fam'd for a fine distinguishing Logical Head when a young Academick and a body would almost swear this Vindicator the Vindicated and the noble Peer differ only like the little Man with three great Names who still makes but the same person