Church I shall only desire him and the dissenting Party to make the use they ought of the King Gracious Disposition to them in not yet proceeding with all the violence which the penal Laws require against them But this calm of my Author was too happy to last long You find him immediately transported into a storm about the business of Fitz-Harris which occasion'd the Dissolution of the Parliament at Oxford and accusing according to his sawcy Custom both his Majesty and the House of Lords concerning it As for the House of Lords they have already vindicated their own right by throwing out the Impeachment and sure the People of England ought to own them as the Assertors of the publick Liberty in so doing for Process being before ordered against him at Common Law and no particular Crime being laid to his Charge by the House of Commons if they had admitted his Cause to be tryed before their Lordships this would have grown a President in time that they must have been forc'd to judge all those whom the House of Commons would thrust upon them till at last the number of Impeachments would be so increas'd that the Peers would have no time for any other business of the Publick and the Highest Court of Judicature would have been reduc'd to be the Ministers of Revenge to the Commons What then would become of our ancient Privilege to be tryed per pares Which in process of time would be lost to us and our posterity except a proviso were made on purpose that this judgment might not be drawn into farther President and that is never done but when there is a manifest necessity of breaking rules which here there was not Otherwise the Commons may make Spaniels of the Lords throw them a man and bid them go judge as we command a Dog to fetch and carry But neither the Lords Reasons nor the King first having possession of the Prisoner signifie any thing with our Author He will tell you the reason of the Impeachment was to bring out the Popish Plot. If Fitz-Harris really know any thing but what relates to his own Treason he chuses a fine time of day to discover it now when 't is manifestly to save his Neck that he is forc'd to make himself a greater Villain and to charge himself with new Crimes to avoid the punishment of the old Had he not the benefit of so many Proclamations to have come in before if he then knew any thing worth discovery And was not his fortune necessitous enough at all times to catch at an impunity which was baited with Rewards to bribe him 't is not for nothing that Party has been all along so favourable to him they are conscious to themselves of some other matters than a Popish Plot. Let him first be tryed for what he was first accus'd if he be acquitted his Party will be satisfied and their strength increas'd by the known honesty of another Evidence but if he be condemn'd let us see what truth will come out of him when he has Tyburn and another World before his Eyes Then if he confess any thing which makes against the Cause their Excuse is ready he died a Papist and had a dispensation from the Pope to lie But if they can bring him silent to the Gallows all their favour will be to wish him dispatch'd out of his pain as soon as possibly he may And in that Case they have already promis'd they will be good to his Wife and provide for her which would be a strong encouragement for many a woman to perswade her Husband to digest the Halter This remembers me of a certain Spanish Duke who commanding a Sea-Port-Town set an Officer of his underhand to rob the Merchants His Grace you may be confident was to have the Booty and the Fellow was assur'd if he were taken to be protected It fell out after some time that he was apprehended His Master according to Articles brought him off The Rogue went again to his vocation was the second time taken delivered again and so the third At last the matter grew so notorious that the Duke found it would be both scandalous and difficult to protect him any longer But the poor Malefactor sending his Wife to tell him that if he did not save him he must be hanged to morrow and that he must confess who set him on His Master very civilly sent him this Message Prithee suffer thy self to be hanged this once to do me a Courtesie and it shall be the better for thy Wife and Children But that which makes amends for all says our Author is the Kings resolution to have frequent Parliaments Yet this it seems is no amends neither for he says Parliaments are like Terms if there be Ten in a Year and all so short to hear no Causes they do no good I say on the other hand If the Courts will resolve beforehand to have no Causes brought before them but one which they know they cannot dispatch let the Terms be never so long they make them as insignificant as a Vacation The King 's Prerogative when and where they should be call'd and how long they should sit is but subservient as our Friend tells us to the great design of Government and must be accommodated to it or we are either denyed or deluded of that Protection and Iustice we are born to My Author is the happiest in one faculty I ever knew He is still advancing some new Position which without proving he slurs upon us for an Argument though he knows that Doctrines without proofs will edifie but little That the Kings Prerogative is subservient or in order to the ends of Government is granted him But what strange kind of Argument is this to prove that we are cheated of that Protection to which we are born Our Kings have always been indued with the power of calling Parliaments nominating the time appointing of the Place and Dissolving them when they thought it for the publick good And the People have wisely consulted their own welfare in it Suppose for example that there be a Jarring between the three Estates which renders their sitting at that time Impracticable since none of them can pretend to Judge the proceedings of the other two the Judgment of the whole must either reside in a Superiour power or the discord must terminate in the ruine of them all For if one of the three incroach too far there is so much lost in the Balance of the Estates and so much more Arbitrary power in one 'T is as certain in Politiques as in Nature That where the Sea prevails the Land loses If no such discord should arise my Authors Argument is of no farther use for where the Soveraign and Parliament agree there can be no deluding of the People So that in short his quarrel is to the constitution of the Government And we see what nettles him That the King has learnt from the unhappy example of his Father not
His Majesties DECLARATION DEFENDED In a LETTER to a Friend BEING AN ANSWER TO A Seditious Pamphlet CALLED A LETTER from a Person of Quality to his Friend CONCERNING The Kings late Declaration touching the Reasons which moved him to Dissolve THE TWO LAST PARLIAMENTS AT WESTMINSTER and OXFORD LONDON Printed for T. Davies 1681. THE Kings Declaration DEFENDED SIR SINCE you are pleas'd to require my Opinion of the Kings Declaration and the Answer to it which you write me word was sent you lately I shall obey you the more willingly because I know you are a lover of the Peace and Quietness of your Country which the Author of this seditious Pamphlet is endeavouring to disturb Be pleas'd to understand then that before the Declaration was yet published and while it was only the common news that such an one there was intended to justifie the Dissolution of the two last Parliaments it was generally agreed by the heads of the discontented Party that this Declaration must be answer'd and that with all the ingredients of malice which the ablest amongst them could squeeze into it Accordingly upon the first appearance of it in Print five several Pens of their Cabal were set to work and the product of each having been examin'd a certain person of Quality appears to have carried the majority of Votes and to be chosen like a new Matthias to succeed in the place of their deceas'd Iudas He seems to be a man cut out to carry on vigorously the designs of the Phanatique Party which are manifestly in this Paper to hinder the King from making any good impression on his Subjects by giving them all possible satisfaction And the reason of this undertaking is manifest for if once the goodness and equity of the Prince comes to be truly understood by the People the Authority of the Faction is extinguish'd and the well meaning crowd who are misled will no longer gape after the specious names of Religion and Liberty much like the folly of the Iews expecting a Messiah still to come whose History has been written sixteen hundred years ago Thus much in general I will now consider the Cavils of my Author against the Declaration He tells us in the first place That the Declaration seems to him as afore-runner of another Parliament to be speedily call'd And indeed to any man in his right sences it can seem no other for 't is the business of its three last Paragraphs to inform the People that no irregularities in Parliament can make the King out of love with them but that he looks upon them as the best means for healing the distempers of the publick and for preservation of the Monarchy Now if this seems clearly to be the Kings intention I would ask what need there was of the late Petition from the City for another Parliament unless they had rather seem to extort it from his Majesty than to have it pass for his own gracious action The truth is there were many of the Loyal Party absent at that Common Council and the whole strength of the other Faction was united for it is the common failing of honest men to trust too much in the goodness of their cause and to manage it too negligently But there is a necessity incumbent on such as oppose the establish'd Government to make up with diligence what they want in the justice of their undertaking This was the true and only reason why the majority of Votes was for the Petition but if the business had not been carried by this surprise My Lord Mayor might have only been troubled to have carried the Addresses of Southwark c. of another nature without his offering them with one hand and the City Petition with the other like the Childrens play of This Mill grinds Pepper and Spice that Mill grinds Ratts and Mice In the next place he informs us That it has been long the practice of the Popish and Arbitrary Party that the King should call frequent short and useless Parliaments till the Gentry grown weary of the great expences of Elections should sit at home and trouble themselves no more but leave the People expos'd to the practices of them and of their Party who if they carry one House of Commons for their turn will make us Slaves and Papists by a Law Popish and Arbitrary are words that sound high amongst the multitude and all men are branded by those names who are not for setting up Fanaticism and a Common-wealth To call short and useless Parliaments can be no intention of the Government because from such means the great end of Settlement cannot be expected But no Physitian can command his Physick to perform the effects for which he has prescrib'd it yet if it fail the first or second time he will not in prudence lay aside his Art and despair of his Patient but reiterate his Medicines till he effect the cure For the King as he declares himself is not willing to have too hard an Opinion of the Representatives of the Commons but hopes that time may open their eyes and that their next meeting may perfect the Settlement of Church and State With what impudence can our Author say That an House of Commons can possibly be so pack'd as to make us Slaves and Papists by a Law for my part I should as soon suspect they would make themselves Arbitrary which God forbid that any Englishman in his right sences should believe But this supposition of our Author is to lay a most scandalous imputation upon the Gentry of England besides what it tacitly insinuates that the House of Peers and his Majesty without whom it could not pass into a Law would suffer it Yet without such Artifices as I said before the Fanatique cause could not possibly subsist fear of Popery and Arbitrary power must be kept up or the St. Georges of their side would have no Dragon to encounter yet they will never persuade a reasonable man that a King who in his younger years when he had all the Temptations of power to pursue such a Design yet attempted it not should now in the maturity of his Judgment and when he sees the manifest aversion of his Subjects to admit of such a change undertake a work of so much difficulty destructive to the Monarchy and ruinous to Himself if it succeeded not and if it succeeded not capable of making him so truly Great as he is by Law already If we add to this his Majesties natural love to Peace and Quiet which increases in every man with his years this ridiculous supposition will vanish of it self which is sufficiently exploded by daily experiments to the contrary For let the Reign of any of our Kings be impartially examin'd and there will be found in none of them so many examples of Moderation and keeping close to the Government by Law as in his And instead of swelling the Regal power to a greater height we shall here find many gracious priviledges accorded to the
the Ministers in the Examination of the Popish Plot. Which being prov'd by Coleman's and others Letters and by both Houses by declaring the King's Life to be in danger c. Yet they have persuaded the King to believe nothing of this danger but to apprehend the Plot to be extreamly improv'd if not wholly contriv'd by the Presbyterians And to think it more his concernment to have an end of all then to have it search'd to the bottom and that this was the true reason why four Parliaments during the Examination of the Plot have been dissolv'd Reasonable People will conclude that his Majesty and his Ministers have proceeded not ridiculously but with all that caution which became them For in the first heat and vehemence of the Plot the Avenues of White-Hall were more strictly Guarded His Majesty abstaining from Places of publick Entertainment and the Ministers taking all necessary Care in Council both to discover Conspiracies and to prevent them So that simply considered the Popish Plot has nothing to do with the Dissolution of Four Parliaments But the Use which has been made of it by the House of Commons to Dis-inherit the Duke to deny the King Supplies and to make some Votes which the King declares to be illegal are the real and plain occasions of dissolving those Parliaments 'T is only affirm'd but never will be prov'd by this Author that the King or his Ministers have ever been desirous to stifle the Plot and not to have it search'd into the bottom For to what end has his Majesty so often offer'd the Popish Lords to be brought to their Trial but that their innocence or guilt and consequently that of the whole party might be made manifest Or why after the execution of the Lord Stafford did the House of Commons stop at the other Lords and not proceed to try them in their turns Did his Majesty stifle the Plot when he offered them or did they refuse to sound the depth of it when they would not touch upon them If it were for want of Witnesses which is all that can be said the case is deplorable on the part of the accused who can neither be bail'd because impeach'd in Parliament nor admitted to be tryed for fear they should be acquitted for want of evidence I do not doubt but his Majesty after having done what in him lies for the utmost discovery of the Plot both by frequent Proclamations of Indemnity and Reward to such as would come in and discover more and by several others too long to repeat is desirous for what good man is not that his care and trouble might be over But I am much deceiv'd if the Antimonarchical Party be of the same opinion or that they desire the Plot should be either wholly discover'd or fully ended For 't is evidently their Interest to keep it on foot as long as possibly they can and to give it hot water as often as 't is dying for while they are in possession of this Jewel they make themselves masters of the people For this very reason I have often said even from the beginning of the Discovery that the Presbyterians would never let it go out of their hands but manage it to the last inch upon a Save-all And that if ever they had tryed one Lord they would value themselves upon that Conquest as longas ever it would last with the Populace but whatever came on 't be sure to leave a Nest Egg in the Tower And since I doubt not but what so mean a Judge as I am could so easily discover could not possibly escape the vigilancy of those who are at the Helm I am apt to think that his Majesty saw at least as great a danger arising to him from the discontented spirits of the popular Faction as from the Papists For is it not plain that ever since the beginning of the Plot they have been lopping off from the Crown whatever part of the Prerogative they could reach and incroaching into Soveraignty and Arbitrary Power themselves while they seem'd to fear it from the King How then could his Majesty be blam'd if he were forc'd to dissolve those Parliaments which instead of giving him relief made their Advantages upon his Distresses and while they pretended a care of his Person on the one hand were plucking at his Scepter with the other After this the Pamphleteer gives us a long Bead-roll of Dangerfield's Plot Captain Ely young Tongue Fitz-Gerard and Mr. Ray rails at some and commends others as far as his skill in Hyperbole will carry him Which all put together amounts to no more than only this that he whom they called Rogue before when he comes into their party pays his Garnish and is adopted into the name of an honest man Thus Ray was no Villain when he accus'd Colonel Sackvile before the House of Commons but when he failed of the reward of godliness at their hands and from a Wig became a tearing Tory in new Cloaths our Author puts him upon the File of Rogues with this brand Than whom a more notorious and known Villian lives not The next thing he falls upon is the Succession which the King declares He will have preserved in its due descent Now our Author despairing it seems that an Exclusion should pass by Bill urges That the Right of Nature and Nations will impower Subjects to deliver a Protestant Kingdom from a Popish King The Law of Nations is so undoubtedly against him that I am sure he dares not stick to that Plea but will be forc'd to reply that the Civil Law was made in favour of Monarchy why then did he appeal to it And for the Law of Nature I know not what it has to do with Protestants or Papists except he can prove that the English Nation is naturally Protestant and then I would enquire of him what Countrymen our Forefathers were But if he means by the Law of Nature self-preservation and defence even that neither will look but a squint upon Religion for a man of any Religion and a man of no Religion are equally bound to preserve their lives But I answer positively to what he would be at that the Law of self-preservation impowers not a Subject to rise in Arms against his Soveraign of another Religion upon supposition of what he may do in his prejudice hereafter for since it is impossible that a moral certainty should be made out of a future contingency and consequently that the Soveraign may not extend his Power to the prejudice of any mans Liberty or Religion The probability which is the worst that they can put it is not enough to absolve a Subject who rises in Arms from Rebellion in foro Conscientiae We read of a divine Command to obey Superior Powers and the Duke will lawfully be such no Bill of Exclusion having past against him in his Brother's life Besides this we have the Examples of Primitive Christians even under Heathen Emperors always suffering yet never
to perpetuate a Parliament But he will tell you that they desire only a lasting Parliament which may dispatch all causes necessary and proper for the publick And I Answer him that it lyes in themselves to make it so But who shall Judge when it shall be proper to put an end to such a Parliament there is no farther Answer left him but only that the Reason of things is the only Rule for when all necessary causes are dispatch'd then is the proper time of Dissolution But if you mark it this Argumentation is still running in a Circle For the Parliament that is the House of Commons would constitute themselves Judges of this reason of things and of what causes were necessary to be dispatch'd So that my Author had as good have laid down this Position bare-fac'd that a Parliament ought never to be Dissolved till an House of Commons would fit no longer My Author goes on scoffingly That he has nothing to say for those angry men he means of his own Party whose particular Designs are disappointed only that they might have kept their places and that he can find no difference betwixt them who are out and those who are put in but that the former could have ruin'd us and would not and these cannot if they would I am willing to let them pass as lightly as he pleases Angry they are and they know the Proverb I hope I may have leave to observe transiently that none but angry men that is such as hold themselves disobliged at Court are the Pillars of his Party And where are then the principles of Vertue Honour and Religion which they would persuade the World have animated their endeavours for the publick What were they before they were thus Angry or what would they be could they make so firm an Interest in Court that they might venture themselves in that bottom This the whole Party cannot choose but know for Knaves can easily smell out one another My Author an experienced man makes but very little difference betwixt those who are out and those who are put in But the Nation begins to be awake his party is mouldring away and as it falls out in all dishonest Combinations are suspecting each other so very fast that every man is shifting for himself by a separate Treaty and looking out for a Plank in the common Shipwrack so that the point is turn'd upon him those who are out would have ruin'd us and cou'd not and those who are in are endeavouring to save us if they can My Adversary himself now drawing to a conclusion seems to be inclining to good opinions and as dying men are much given to repentance so finding his cause at the last gasp he unburthens his Conscience and disclaims the principles of a Common-wealth both for himself and for both Houses of Parliament which is indeed to be over-officious for one of the Houses will not think they have need of such a Compurgator But he wisely fears no change of Government from any but the Papists Now I am of a better heart for I fear it neither from Papists nor Presbyterians Whether Democracy will agree with Jesuitical principles in England I am not certain but I can easily prove to him that no Government but a Common-wealth is accommodated to the Systeme of Church-worship invented by Iohn Calvin The Declaration concludes that the King is resolv'd to govern in all things by the Laws And here the Author of the Answer is for frisking out into a fit of Joy which looks as aukward with his gravity as ever was King David's dancing before the Ark. This similitude I hope has pleas'd hin if it does not Esop's Ass stands ready Sadled at the door But a melancholick consideration has already pour'd cold water in his Porredge for all promises he says are either kept or broken well-fare a good old Proverb I could find in my heart to cap it with another that the old Woman had never look'd for her Daughter in the Oven if she had not been there her self before But if the King should keep his word as all but his Enemies conclude he will then we shall see Annual Parliaments sit longer I hope when they meddle only with their proper business They will lose their time no more in cutting off the Succession altering the course of Nature and directing the providence of God before they know it We shall have no uniting of Sects against the Church of England nor of Counties against the next Heir of the Crown The King shall then be advis'd by his Parliament when both Houses concur in their advice There shall be no more need of Declarations about the dissolving of Parliaments and no more need of factious Fools to answer them But the People shall be happy the King shall be supply'd the Alliances shall be supported and my suppos'd Author be made a Bishop and renounce the Covenant That many of these things may happen is the wish of every loyal Subject and particularly of Sir Your most humble Servant
taking it upon their terms asmuch as in them lyes they dissolve the Government and the Interest of the Nation abroad must be left in the Suds till they have destroy'd the Monarchy at home But since God and the Laws have put the disposing of the Treasury into his Majesties hands it may satisfie any reasonable Englishman that the same Laws have provided for the mispending of the Treasury by calling the publick Officers into question for it before the Parliament For God be thanked we have a House of Commons who will be sure never to forgoe the least tittle of their Priviledges and not be so meal-mouth'd as the States of France of whom neither Monsieur Sully nor any of his Successors have never had any cause of apprehension But since the wisdom of our Ancestors have thought this Provision sufficient for our security What has his present Majesty deserv'd from his Subjects that he should be made a Minor at no less than fifty years of age or that his House of Commons should Fetter him beyond any of his Predecessors where the Interest goes you will say there goes the power But the most ingenious of your Authors I mean Plato Redivivus broaches no such principle as that you should force this Prerogative from the King by undue courses The best use which can be made of all is rather to support the Monarchy than to have it fall upon your Heads If indeed there were any reasonable fear of an Arbitrary Government the adverse Party had somewhat to alledge in their defence of not supplying it but it is not only evident that the Kings temper is wholly averse from any such Design but also demonstrable that if all his Council were such as this man most falsely suggests them to be yet the notion of an absolute power in the Prince is wholly impracticable not only in this Age but for ought any wise man can foresee at any time hereafter 'T is plain that the King has reduc'd himself already to live more like a private Gentleman than a Prince and since he can content himself in that condition 't is as plain that the supplies which he demands are only for the service of the publick and not for his own maintenance Monsieur de Sully might give what Council he thought convenient for Henry the Fourth who was then designing that Arbitrary power which his Successors have since compass'd to the ruine of the Subjects liberty in France but I appeal to the Consciences of those men who are most averse to the present Government if they think our King would put his Peace and Quiet at this time of day upon so desperate an issue What the necessities which they are driving him into may make him part with on the other hand I know not But how can they answer it to our Posterity that for private Picques self Interest and causeless jealousies they would destroy the foundation of so excellent a Government which is the admiration and envy of all Europe The rest of my Authors Paragraph is only laying more load upon the Ministers and telling us that if a sum of Money sufficient for those ends were given while they were Managers of Affairs it would be only to set them free from any apprehensions of account to any future Parliament But this Argument having only the imaginary fear of an Arbitrary power for its foundation is already answer'd he adds in the close of it That the Prince has a cheap bargain who gives Paper-Laws in exchange of Money and Power Bargains he tells us there have always been and always will be betwixt Prince and People because it is in the Constitution of our Government and the chief dependance of our Kings is in the love and liberality of their People Our present King I acknowledge has often found it so though no thanks I suppose to this Gentleman and his Party But though he cry down Paper and Parchment at this Rate they are the best Evidence he can have for his Estate and his friends the Lawyers will advise him to speak with less contempt of those Commodities If Laws avail the Subject nothing our Ancestors have made many a bad Bargain for us Yet I can instance to him one Paper namely that of the Habeas Corpus bill for which the House of Commons would have been content to have given a Million of good English money and which they had Gratis from his Majesty 'T is true they boast they got it by a Trick but if the Clerk of the Parliament had been bidden to forget it their Trick of telling Noses might have fail'd them Therefore let us do right on all sides The Nation is oblig'd both to the House of Commons for asking it and more especially to his Majesty for granting it so freely But what can we think of his next Axiome that it was never known that Laws signified any thing to a People who had not the sole guard of their own Prince Government and Laws Here all our Fore-fathers are Arraign'd at once for trusting the Executive power of the Laws in their Princes hands And yet you see the Government has made a shift to shufflle on for so many hundred years together under this miserable oppression and no man so wise in so many ages to find out that Magna Charta was to no purpose while there was a King I confess in Countreys where the Monarck governs absolutely and the Law is either his Will or depending on it this noble maxim might take place But since we are neither Turks Russians nor Frenchmen to affirm that in our Countrey in a Monarchy of so temperate and wholsom a Constitution Laws are of no validity because they are not in the disposition of the People plainly infers that no Government but that of a Common-wealth can preserve our Liberties and Priviledges for though the Title of a Prince be allow'd to continue yet if the People must have the sole guard and Government of him and of the Laws 't is but facing an whole hand of Trumps with an insignificant King of another sute And which is worst of all if this be true there can be no Rebellion for then the People is the supream power And if the Representatives of the Commons shall Jarr with the other two Estates and with the King it It would be no Rebellion to adhere to them in that War to which I know that every Republican who reads this must of necessity Answer No more it would not Then farewell the Good Act of Parliament which makes it Treason to Levy Arms agaist the present King upon any pretences whatsoever For if this be a Right of Nature and consequently never to be Resign'd there never has been nor ever can be any pact betwixt King and People and Mr. Hobbs would tell us That we are still in a state of War The next thing our Author would establish is That there is nothing in Nature or in Story so ridiculous as the management of
See then in the first place the written Law is laid aside that fence is thrown open to admit reason in a larger denomination Now that reason which is not Law must be either Enthusiasm or the head-strong will of a whole Nation combin'd because in depite of any Earthly Power it will have its effect so that which way soever our Author takes it he must mean Fanaticism or Rebellion Law grounded on reason is resolv'd into the Absolute Power of the People and this is Ratio ultima Reipublicae Furthermore The King is a publick Person in his private capacity as we are told he can only eat and drink and perform some other acts of nature which shall be nameless But his actings without himself says my grave Author are only as a King In his politick capacity he ought not to marry love hate make war or peace but as a King and agreeable to the People and their Interest he governs In plain terms then as he is a man he has nothing left to do for the Actions which are mention'd are those only of an Animal or which are common to Man and Beast And as he is a King he has as little Business for there he is at the disposing of the People and the only use that can be made of such a Monarch is for an Innkeeper to set upon a Sign-Post to draw custom But these Letters of Instruction how he should behave himself in his Kingly Office cannot but call to mind how he was school'd and tutor'd when the Covenanters made just such another Prince of him in Scotland When the terrible fasting day was come if he were sick in bed no remedy he must up and to Kirk and that without a mouthful of Bread to stay his Stomach for he fasted then in his Politick Capacity When he was seated no looking aside from Mr. Iohn not a whisper to any man but was a disrepect to the Divine Ordinance After the first Thunderer had spent his Lungs no Retirement the first is reinforc'd by a second and a third all chosen Vessels dieted for Preaching and the best breath'd of the whole Country When the Sun went down then up went the Candles and the fourth arises to carry on the work of the night when that of the day was at an end 'T is true what he says that our greatest Princes have often hearkened to the Addresses of their People and have remov'd some persons from them but it was when they found those Addresses reasonable themselves But they who consult the manner of Addresses in former times will find them to have been manag'd in the House of Commons with all the calmness and circumspection imaginable The Crimes were first maturely weigh'd and the whole matter throughly winnow'd in Debates After which if they thought it necessary for the publick wellfare that such a person should be remov'd they dutifully acquainted the King with their opinion which was often favourably heard and their desires granted But now the Case is quite otherwise Either no Debate or a very slight one precedes Addresses of that nature But a man is run down with violent Harangues and 't is thought sufficient if any member rises up and offers that he will make out the Accusation afterwards when things are carried in this heady manner I suppose 't is no sign of a Great Prince to have any of his Servants forc'd from him But such Addresses will insensibly grow into Presidents you see our Author is nibbling at one already And we know a House of Commons is always for giving the Crescent in their Arms. If they gain a point they never recede from it they make sure work of every concession from the Crown and immediately put it into the Christmass Box from whence there is no Redemption In justification of the two Votes against lending or advancing Money to the King he falls to railing like a Sophister in the Schools when his Syllogisms are at an end He arraigns the Kings private manner of living without considering that his not being supplied has forc'd him to it I do not take upon me to defend any former ill management of the Treasury but if I am not deceiv'd the great grievance of the other party at present is that it is well manag'd And that notwithstanding nothing has been given for so many years yet a competent provision is still made for all expences of the publick if not so large as might be wish'd yet at least as much as is necessary And I can tell my Author for his farther mortification that at present no money is furnish'd to his Majesties Occasions at such unconscionable Usury as he mentions If he would have the Tables set up again let the King be put into a condition and then let eating and drinking flourish according to the hearty honest and greasie Hospitality of our Ancestors He would have the King have recourse to Parliaments as the only proper Supply to a King of England for those things which the Treasury in this low Ebb cannot furnish out but when he comes to the Conditions on which this money is to be had they are such that perhaps forty in the Hundred to a Jew Banquer were not more unreasonable In the mean time if a Parliament will not give and others must not lend there is a certain story of the Dog in the Manager which out of good manners I will not apply The Vote for not prosecuting Protestant Dissenters upon the Penal Laws which at this time is thought to be a Grievance to the Subject a weakning of the Protestant Religion and an Incouragement to Popery is a matter more tenderly to be handled But if it be true what has been commonly reported since the Plot that Priests Jesuits and Friars mingle amongst Anabaptists Quakers and other Sectaries and are their Teachers must not they be prosecuted neither Some men would think that before such an uniting of Protestants a winnowing were not much amiss for after they were once sent together to the Mill it would be too late to divide the Grist His Majesty is well known to be an indulgent Prince to the Consciences of his dissenting Subjects But whoever has seen a Paper call'd I think An intended Bill for uniting c. which lay upon the Table of every Coffee-House and was modelling to pass the House of Commons may have found things of such dangerous concernment to the Government as might seem not so much intended to unit Dissenters in a Protestant Church as to draw together all the Forces of the several Fanatick Parties against the Church of England And when they were encouraged by such a Vote which they value as a Law for so high that Coin is now inhaunc'd perhaps it is not unreasonable to hold the Rod over them But for my own part I heartily wish that there may be no occassion for Christians to persecute each other And since my Author speaks with some moderation candor and submission to his Mother