a Field as any of external Felicity wherein to exercise their own Virtue and to reward and encourage it in others In a word your Majesty hath enlarged our Liberties in consenting to the Bill to Regulate Tryals in Cases of High-Treason in which there are large Immunities granted to any that fall under that black Circumstance that their Lives may not be at the mercy of a Mercenary Judge or Judges if God should in his Judgment leave poor England to such Men But your Majesty hath begun and I question not but your Royal inclination will carry you on to compleat our security from such Vermin Therefore to conclude what a Government is this we enjoy than which nothing can come nearer the Divine Perfection The Monarch enjoys a capacity of doing all the good imaginable to Mankind but under a disability of doing any thing that is Evil. This Scheme of the Civil Government the Late King did well know and therefore in Council on the day of his Accession to the Crown he was pleased to say That the Laws of England were sufficient to make the King of England as great a Monarch as he could wish or desire so that your Majesty may see that he could own that the Greatness of the English Monarchy had its Birth and rise from the Laws Who then would have lessened himself as he did by breaking in upon those very Laws that had made him Great And who would have broken so excellent a Government as made him Secure and Happy And what Subject of England Papist or Protestant that would lose such Immunities and Privileges by joyning in with that unhappy Man to destroy themselves Were they so in love with King James that they were not satisfied till they had him Nay he and they waded through King Charles's Blood that he might Reign Why then did they not keep the terms of the Government which would have been the most effectual way of continuing him on the Throne Besides all this we cannot forget that the Parliaments under Queen Elizabeth King James King Charles the First and King Charles the Second made it Treason in whosoever that should attempt to Seduce any one of the meanest of your Majesty's Subjects to the Church of Rome And the Long Parliament held in the time of Charles the Second to all Penalties of the Statute Law added an incapacity for any Man to say that that King was a Papist or an introducer of Popery What Lawless and incapable Miscreants were these What wicked Traytors were those Men who did indeavour to pervert the whole Body of Protestants and to bring that about in effect which even to mention was penal at one Italian stroke attempting to subvert the Government and Religion to kill the Body and damn the Soul of the Nation Your Majesty finds to this day there are such a Set of Men in this Nation who have undertaken and have made it their business under your Majesties happy legal and perfect Government by the intended destruction of your Royal Person to introduce a French Slavery and instead of so pure a Religion that your Majesty ventured hard to preserve to establish the Roman Idolatry either of which Crimes are of the highest nature for if we look upon the Government if the Murther of your Royal Person be a fact so horrid as no Man can find words enough to declare his detestation and abhorrence of it how much more then is the Murther of your Royal Person with an intent to Assassinate the Kingdom And Sir none will deny but that to alter the Monarchy of these Kingdoms into a Republick is High Treason So by the same fundamental Rule the Crime is no less to Murther your Royal Person in order to make the Monarchy Absolute Sir I beg your Majesty's leave to tell you that my Heart is much enlarged to your Majesty I beseech your Majesty that your Royal Heart may be for this one time enlarged to me in your Grace and Pardon for this trouble I now give your most excellent Majesty Let me undertake upon serious inquiry to give your Majesty some satisfaction who these Men are that have from the Year 1660 to this day attempted to Subvert our Government and our Religion Had these Men been the old honest Cavaleers that fought for Charles the I. or suffered much in the time of Charles II. it would have been allowable in them as oft as their Wound did break out at Spring or Fall to think of a more Arbitrary Government as a sovereign Balsom for their Aches or to imagin that no Weapon-Salve but that of the Moss that Grows on an Enemies Skull could cure them or could they to have kept their Hands in ure have fought their Cause over again since they saw they were neglected and left to Starve yet their Age and times they lived in and their unjust usage they met with from two Kings might have pleaded something on their behalf in mitigation of Damages But Sir give me leave to make this Remark to your Majesty concerning those Gentlemen that they were and are still if any of them remain too Generous too good Christians and Subjects too affectionate to the English legal Government to be capable of such an Impression whereas these Conspirators that carried on the design of subverting our Religion into Popery and changing the Government into downright Slavery are such as have not one drop of Cavaleer Blood or no Bowels at least of a Cavaleer in them but such as starved the Cavaleers to revel and surfeit upon their Calamities making their Persons and the very Cause by pretending to it themselves almost Ridiculous Or had these Villains been all of the Popish communion and avowed so to be give me leave to say it over again to your Majesty your danger would have been the less their Religion would in some measure have been answerable for the Errors and Extravgancies they might have been guilty of to promote it but these render their intended Villany more black they were Protestants and of the Church of England too that joyned with Papists to Assassinate your Royal Person What can any Man say for them Your Majesty knows what to do with them These Villains because I perceive they lye under a great difficulty to find Accomplices enough at home to Mutiny and Rebel and Murther your Majesties true and loyal Subjects therefore they put themselves under the Banner and Pay of the French King to compleat their wicked designs and purposes to bring a foreign Enemy to Invade us that King being endowed with all those which in a French Prince or in an Abdicated King may pass for Vertues but in any private Man they would be Capital and moreover so abounding in Zeal for Popery and Slavery above all other Princes that none else could engage both Body and Soul in such a Villanous Undertaking to which Consideration adding that their Interests are both one and the one is and the other would be the Master of
notwithstanding their Quality and the signal Services performed for their pretended King Many Instances might be given of this nature and a reasonable Man might have judged that the many Instances of those Slights and Contempts that have been put upon them should have convinced them of the Folly and Madness of any of those that pretend to the Protestant Religion and Church of England who should Espouse the Cause of a Man that hates their Religion and Liberties Can they think that the present Misfortunes that the late King James lies under would if he should be re-invested with Power frighten him to alter his Measures and Resolutions of invading our Laws and Liberties for time to come seeing that neither the abandoning of Wives Children and Estates nor the hazarding nay loss of Life in his Service can render him just and favourable to those Protestants who have made a Sacrifice of all these things to follow him and yet that these Men should be found in so Villanous a Conspiracy to Murder him that delivered the Nation What Tongue can speak for such brutish and sensless Wretches I must leave to the Judgments of wiser Men than my self And what can they expect from a Man whose Father's Misfortunes his Brothers Exile wherein he himself was a sharer have not wrought a Reformation in him Can we expect that ever he will be more cautious of violating our Laws intrenching upon our Liberties or subverting our Religion or that ever he will be made more pliable For if he denies Men that have followed him into France the Exercise of their Religion what hopes have they of obtaining and enjoying it whenever he shall return Nay what then must your Majesties Protestant Subjects expect who have renounced him and associated to defend your Majesty as our Lawful and Rightful King against this pretended King and all his Wicked and Trayterous Adherents But Sir give me leave a little further to plead with your Majesty concerning these People that certainly never give themselves leisure to think I am sure no Man in his right Wits but must judge it the highest degree of Stupidity and Folly that these very Men should expect good Terms from a Person who doth not only treat his Protestant Adherents very ill who have followed him in his Misfortunes but also whose Religion lays him under the necessity of using them thus What Obligations did our Church lay upon him when he was a Subject Did she not like a Prostitute save him from being Prosecuted for the Popish Plot and from being Excluded from the Succession to the Crown Who were so Hot in that point on his behalf as the then Prelates in the House of Peers and afterwards from being driven out of the Kingdom by the late Duke of Monmouth yet all those Obligations were of no more value with him than his Coronation-Oath which he violated without the least regret and spared not to invade the Protestant Religion in general but the Liberties of the Church of England in particular What wicked Traytors are these wretched Men that shall assist the Popish Party in their attempts to pervert the Church and to bring that about in effect which even to mention makes every Loyal Subject of your Majesties to tremble For certainly had these Conspirators been all of them avowed Papists your Majesties Person and Government had not been in that danger but some of them that have undertaken this Horrid Design are such as lye under no Temptations of Religion Men thought to be secure that these now the Mystery of Iniquity is revealed are found Men obliged by all the Sacred Ties of Malice and Ambition to assist in the advancing your Majesties Ruin and the Ruin of the three Kingdoms and much better qualified than others under the Name of Good Church of England Men nay Preachers of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance will not be shut out of this Hellish Conspiracy for Wranglers but will have a hand against your Majesty's Person rather than so Eminent a piece of Service shall go unperfected Give me leave therefore Sir with the greatest Duty and Submission to observe to your most Excellent Majesty the Excellency of that Religion they would subvert by shewing the Vileness of that they would introduce and the happy Government they would destroy in the attempt they have made upon your Majesty's Person These Conspirators that say they are Protestants cannot but own that we are exceeding happy in relation to our Religion since by your Majesty's happy Accession to the Throne that we are once more freed from the Romish Yoke which so great a part of Europe do yet draw and labour under that Popery is such a thing as cannot but for want of a Word to express it be called Religion nor is it to be mentioned with that Civility which is otherwise decent to be used in speaking of Differences of Humane Opinion about Divine Matters were it open Judaism or plain Turcism or honest Paganism there is yet a certain Bonafides in the most extravagant Belief and the Sincerity of an Erroneous Profession may render it more pardonable But this Popery is a Compound of all the three an Extract of whatsoever is most Ridiculous and Impious in them incorporated with more peculiar Absurdities of its own in which those were deficient and all this deliberately contrived and knowingly carried on by the Rascally and Villainous Clergy under the Name of Christianity The Wisdom of this fifth Religion in this last and most Insolent Attempt upon the Credulity and Conspiracy against the Liberty of Mankind seems to all Understanding Men principally to have consisted in their owning the Scriptures to be the Word of God and the Rule of Faith and Manners but wickedly prohibiting at the same time their common Use or the Reading of them by those of their Communion there being no better or more rational way to frustrate the very design of our Lord Jesus Christ who first planted by the miraculous Power and extraordinary Gifts of the Holy-Ghost than to forbid the use of them in such a Language as the People could understand for having the Scripture which by all Christians are avowed to be of Divine Authority but appointing it to remain in such hands as were intrusted to undertake and carry on their holy Cheat they had the Opportunity to vitiate suppress or interpret to their own advantage for the support of their Villainous Priestcraft those admirable Evidences by which the common People hold their Salvation and they having by this Fraud gained their Point there was from that time nothing so monstrous to Reason and so abhorring from Morality or so contrary to Scripture which they might not in prudence venture on The Idolatry of Adoring and praying to Saints and Angels and worshipping Pictures Images and incredible Miracles and palpable Fables to promote that Veneration The whole Liturgy and Worship of the blessed Virgin the saying of Pater Nosters and Creeds the Honour of Saints and Ave-Maries too not to her
Life Then they procured King Charles to take away my Maintenance and Protection and this angry Duke he Sued me for charging him to be reconciled to the Church of Rome and then Suborned Witnesses against me and procured me in his Brother's Reign to be Indicted of two pretended Perjuries but he being impatient in his Expectation he snatched the Crown from his Brother's Head and mounted the Throne and then he and his Popish Witnesses his Packt Juries and Impudent Lawless Senseless and Mercinary Judges compleated my Ruin and I must have been destroyed had not God by your Majesty's coming to England rescued me beyond all Expectation Give me leave Sir with the humblest Submission to your Majesty to observe that where there is a Subject of such Credit with the King of such Authority with the Court and such Power in every County of the Kingdom as the Duke of York had when he was a Subject and to have such an Interest in the Church and Civil Government and Military Employments and Naval Preferments Could it be possibly hard or difficult for him to insult over and suppress those Truths I then Revealed for the service and preservation of the Religion Laws and Liberties of my Native Country against him and his numerous Party And how much more was it easie for him to destroy me when he had the Crown it self upon his own Head But above all Great Sir how can it be that such a Subject perverted to such a Villainous Religion should not be most dangerous to his Prince and Country And to what a lamentable State and Condition he brought it when he had Possession your Majesty well knows It was therefore high time for the Protestants of this Kingdom to implore your Majesties Aid and Help in that Hour of Distress that the Nation was brought to by that unhappy Person and his wicked Accomplices and blessed be God for putting it into your Royal Heart to come over to us and to bring along with you a Force sufficient to defend your Person from him and his Conspirators and tho he and they would have insinuated that your Majesty came to Conquer us and Enslave us and notwithstanding the villainous Scribling of some that would to this day assert your Majesty's Title to be by Conquest We that are Protestants do from the bottom of our Hearts believe That your Majesty had no other design in your Royal Undertaking but to procure a settlement of Religion Liberty and Property of the People of this Nation on so sure a Foundation that there might be no danger of this Nation 's Relapsing into the like Miseries at any time hereafter And for the Justice of your Cause your Majesty may appeal to God and to all Protestant Kings Princes States and People in bringing a Force sufficient to suppress the Conspirators and their damnable hellish Conspiracy And with the like Justice your Majesty then might require and adjure all English Protestants to assist you against those Enemies of God his Christ his Gospel and the Rights of this Nation and Liberties of Mankind And your Majesty might with the like Justice have Punished those as Banditi and Free-booters and common Rogues and Traytors to their Country that should have appeared to Oppose your Majesty in so Glorious a Work you had undertaken for the Rescuing three Kingdoms out of the Jaws of Hell Rome and France Since God engaged me in asserting the Laws and Liberties of England and the Protestant Religion and in discovering the Malicious and Hellish Designs of the Popish Party against us the Opposition of that Party and the Passive-Obedience and Non-Resistance Clergy-men grew strong and thick upon me and how those Varlets run in with the Popish Party together with their Guide Sir Roger L'Estrange to decry the discovery of the Popish Plot and would to this day decry by the very same Method they then used the present Discovery of this Hellish Design against your Majesty's Royal Person and the Religion and Government of this Nation if they had but hopes to go off with Impunity and by your Majesty's leave I dear challenge any of these Men to tell me what particular there was by me discovered that did not in process of time come to pass It will be to tedious to recite all particulars of the discovery of the Popish Plot that did come to pass and from the dismal and sad Consequences of that Conspiracy your Majesty under God hath delivered us or else these Villainous Traytors would insult and ask why and to what end your Majesty exposed your Royal Person in your late Glorious Undertaking in the Year 1688 The evil usage I have had from our Popish high Church Non-juring Conspirators hath so hardened and inured me to suffering that I praise God who hath taught me some weak Rudiments of his heavenly Art of drawing Light out of Darkness for mine own use I have not been trampled upon for so many Years to so little purpose as to remain yet either ignorant or insensible of mine own Vileness and to what Element I am nearest allied or so tender or querulous as either to complain of the weight of those who still go over me as the Stones in the Street or to project the suffering of any Man in order to please or solace my self my long Deprivation and want of respects from some that should have treated me as a Christian a Gentleman and a Presbyter of the Church of God is now turn'd into an Athletique habit some what after the manner of those who through long Fasting lose their Appetites and withall either Contract or find an Ability or Contentedness of Nature to live with a little or no Meat afterwards I can through the Strength of Christ suffer my self to be oppressed and from my poor Dunghil whereon I sit behold both Friends and Enemies that with much Contentment and sufficient Enjoyment of my self partaking of the good Things of this Life the more because that God still preserves your Royal Person from the Attempts that the Trayterous Conspirators have so often made to destroy You and the Nation from the intended Invasion by our implacable Enemies that would destroy and enslave us Next to Christ and this Truth I shall with the utmost Breath and Power I have according to my Oath and Duty in what Place and Station soever I am endeavour to be found Loyal and True to your Majesty as my Rightful and Lawful Sovereign Lord and King as all good Subjects and Christians ought to be and I cannot forbear out of the great and sincere Zeal and Affection that I bear to your Majesty bless God for the great Concord there is between your Majesty and Protestant Subjects which your Majesty hath found to have turn'd to a good account to your Ease Comfort and Peace in the managing your Affairs of Government both in Church and State and it is a great Comfort to your good People to see your Majesty relying upon your two Houses
Popery and this was done by our Priests blind admonition to the people of obedience to our Governors be it good they command or be it evil whatever they command it must be obeyed And what Nation soever came under the misfortune of being robb'd of their Rights and Liberties it was chiefly brought to pass by Priest-craft in preaching up blind obedience and extolling Vicious Kings and calling them excellent tho the vilest of Tyrants who were riding Post to swallow them up This was the Practice of our Pulpit-hunters in the time of the Reign of your Brother and in the beginning of your Usurpation of the Government and so they would have done to this day had not the Tythe-pig been in danger Nothing I say contributed more to the confirming and establishing the late King your Brother's Alliances with France as that progress your Priests and Jesuits made in perverting the people as to their Religion and our Ecclesiastical Brokers debauching their Morals by their immorality and looseness of living and enslaving their minds by their damnable Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance and the Divine Right of Succession to the Imperial Crown of the Realm 7. He being fully resolved to follow his Pleasure he left the Administration of the Three Kingdoms to your self and Cut-throat Party who were Enemies to the people of England and were in a damnable Conspiracy against his person and Government and the Protestant Religion That he was resolved upon his Pleasures you nor no man can deny and that you had the ascendency of him it is too plain and manifest to admit of the least doubt or scruple But that which was most wicked you kept him plied with those vile Wretches who promoted that Vice in him And tho he was the vilest of all the Kings that went before for his many Immoralities yet how did his Ecclesiastical Parasites flatter him and admire him as a Prince of the greatest Virtues a King of Peace they called him and a King of Righteousness I am sure he engaged the Government in two unjust Wars against the Dutch and thanks be to God he was by them worsted in both those Wars and it proved fatal to the Conspirators for the great Design of ruining the Dutch was the advancement of Popery and Arbitrary Power here in England which you durst not attempt till they were weakened you fearing their joining their Forces together to rescue us from your damnable Designs against our Religion Laws and Liberties as you know they did and that to very good purpose the effects of which will not be gotten out of your old Bones as long as you live Before I conclude this Head give me leave Sir to observe that whilst the King your Brother was swallowed up in his Pleasures you and your Minions did make it your business to beget in the people a low opinion of the method of Governing and by your Priests you taking opportunity by reason of our then villanous Caterpillars of the Church countenancing it in a very high manner to beget in the people a mean opinion of the Protestant Religion and Interest and you may remember you gained not a few to your Party Therefore when we consider our danger we cannot but be astonished at our deliverance For had your Banditti been avowed Papists our danger might more easily have been conquered for some nay the most of them when the Test came in force quitted their Imployment at Court amongst them Sir your sweet self quitted the Office and Title of Lord High Admiral of England but Sir you had gotten a Crew about you that did undertake with you to ruin and destroy the Government which lay under no temptation of Religion these joined their Forces and Interest against King and Kingdom and truly I think our greatest danger was from them You having this fair opportunity of your Brother's being so addicted to his Pleasures and he leaving the Administration of Affairs to you and your Hellborn Crew it was a great wonder you did not strike sooner and leap into the Chair an Age or two before the time you did It 's certain you came not in without Murther and Murther would have been but Murther if it had been done ten or a dozen years before Truly tho you had Villains that one would have thought were bad enough yet you had not enough for so black a Design as the overthrow of the Government and the Protestant Religion they were not I say ripe enough your Popish Party at home were keen enough but they wanted a good back to their edge therefore Sir you fearing your strength at home you applied you self abroad to the French King he being indowed with all those Qualities which in a Prince may pass for Vertues but in any man of a private Station they would be capital He being a Champion for Popery and Arbitrary Power with him you joined to ruin the Government and the Protestant Religion your damnable Conspiracy being a Project every way suitable to the Inclination and Interest of that Bloody Monster of Mankind You may remember the Trayterous Correspondencies you maintained with him and he with you by your most Excellent Secretary Coleman who you honestly left to be hanged for that great piece of secret Service he did you in that time 8. We well remember how careless he was in the maintenance of our Religion Truly when Princes are given up to their Pleasures it is no great matter what Religion they profess you may well call to mind what breaches you and your Party made upon our Religion through his carelesness and remisness how you advanced the Popish Interest and discountenanced the Protestants and as your Secretary Coleman observed that you would not forget the Tricks the Parliament of England had playd with you so we cannot but remember what Tricks you plaid with us for it is plain that there was not a considerable Preferment in the Church that fell but either he that was preferred was one of no Religion or else that which was worse he was a person that engaged in your unrighteous Cause and Quarrel Sir by your means and the means of your Partisans such men were made use of in the Church that through the ignorance and insufficiency of some of them and oscitancy and remisness of others to whom the Guardianship of her was committed our Religion and Worship became lamentably dismantled misfigured and defaced and this well nigh in all the integral and principal parts of it more or less insomuch that a man that understands the Doctrines and holy Intentions of our first Reformers from the Synagogue of Rome and shall compare things with things could nor yet can hardly be able to say this is the Protestant Religion But how can any man wonder that King Charles the Second should be careless in the support and maintenance of our Reformed Religion since that he was in his heart and soul engaged to the Doctrines and Communion of the Church of Rome
that the King your Brother was brought to that state of Security that if any Male-content among them should not prove true to them and their Design his Majesty would not give ear to their Information and therefore prayed them to be diligent for now was the time or never and accordingly Messengers were sent to Father La Chaise viz. Edward Nevil your Confessor and William Busby to carry the aforesaid Letters to La Chaise and these did bring home La Chaise's Answer and withal several Letters that Coleman had written to him upon that Affair in your Name and by your Command that bore date in the month of January as these also did in the month of January 1677 8. some little time before the Parliament sat down And then Sir there was a Pension obtained for Coleman your diligent Secretary of 2000 Crowns a Year and another from Rome but what that was I do not so well remember But this is not to be forgotten that the Fathers of S. Omers had great Assurance of considerable Sums from the Pope and from the General of the Jesuits if any Progress were made in that Glorious Attempt Here Sir you and your Party signalize your selves in several particulars worthy of your being put in mind of 1. The great Preparations that were made for the Rising of the Irish Papists 2. That the great Design of Rising was for the Defence of their Liberties and Religion 3. You were not certain but that your Brother might engage in earnest with the Parliament for entring into an actual War with France 4. That in case he should your Conspirators would let in French Forces into Ireland 5. That your Brother was brought to such a state of Security that if any Malecontent amongst you should not prove true to you or your Design he would not give ear to their Information 1. The great Preparations that were made for the Rising of the Irish Papists and this your Agent Talbot was engaged in and your Secretary Coleman was privy to it and you too by the Letters that Coleman wrote by your Order to the said La Chaise with whom you your self left this Jesuit to correspond Coleman being a Servant to you and a trusty one too But there were many Protestants that had their Eyes opened and made their Observations of the Carriage of your Teagues how imprudently insolent they had been and how they were Armed and Countenanced by some in the Government and therefore they can attest the Truth of this Proposition of mine and they are Men of unexceptionable Credit So that if you will try the Merits of the Cause you may come forth and be heard 2. That the great Design of Rising was for the Defence of their Liberties and Religion and the Recovery of their Estates You know Sir that you were converted to the Religion of the Church of Rome and you were so zealous for it even to a Miracle that you regarded nothing in the World in Comparison of your Religion And so it was with your Friends here in Ireland and whilst the English Protestants were uppermost you had instilled this Principle in them by your Jesuites and other Conspirators that they were but Slaves And as for those that could not recover their Estates forfeited by Rebellion by the dint of Perjury they must try by the dint of the Sword to destroy the English Protestant Interest or else they were not only Slaves but Beggars too into the bargain 3. They were not certain but that the King your Brother might engage in earnest with the Parliament in an actual War against France you know Sir he had been but uncertain in his Proceedings with you in this damnable Conspiracy for he had broke the Engagements that he had made with Madam your Sister in the Establishing the Popish Religion in Ireland and that he had passed the Test Bill in England and that he refused to sign Coleman's Declaration for the dissolving the Parliament notwithstanding his solemn Engagements to you and your Party to do it and that he received the Sacrament in his Chappel according to the Usage of the Church of England though he had received the same but that morning from Ireland the Jesuit according to the Rites of the Church of Rome and therefore neither Teague nor your self were sure of him 4. In Case he should heartily engage with the Parliament in an actual War against France your Conspirators would let in French Forces into Ireland and so they did when you Trayterously Invaded that Kingdom and what they did for you then they would have done as much for you eight or ten Years before They were zealous for the Popish Religion and so were you and your Interests were both one and they are to this day I think I need not go further to prove that Point 5. The King your Brother was brought to such a state of Security that if any Malecontent amongst you should not be true to you or your Design he would not give ear to their Information you know who it was that so governed the King and led him by the Nose but you supposed your selves safe But this remember that when Information was made of this Hellish Conspiracy the King your Brother heard it and the Evidence was so strong and the Plot made so plain that he could not gainsay it he being in every part of it himself excepting that of his own Life and was convinced that the Parliament ought to have the Examination of the same put into their hands which was accordingly done And what the Parliament that was within some few days after the Discovery thereof to sit did do and what Credit they gave to it and three other Parliaments you and your Followers cannot forget 9. Your Conspirators the Jesuites from St. Omer's were made acquainted by Letters from those of London in conjunction with your Servant Coleman That William Morgan and one Lovel Jesuites were dispatched as Messengers into Ireland to see how Affairs stood there and this Morgan's and his Companion 's Charges were paid by the said Coleman who gave them Instructions in your Name to encourage the Irish Papists to defend their Religion and Liberties And Coleman and the Jesuites transmitted 2000 Pound for the Supply of their present Wants and a Promise of 4000 Pound was in your Name made by Coleman and the Jesuites in case there should be any Action But Sir these Messengers Morgan and Lovel they went away on the last of January 1677 8. and returned the latter part of March following and gave such a melancholy Account of Peter Talbot's lavishing the Money that you had in a special manner entrusted him withal and not applying the same for the use of the Irish as you had directed that it strook a great Damp upon the Minds of your Conspirators here in London and That the said Talbot had forged Receipts of several Summs of Money by him pay'd to several of their Officers though the same were
but procured it after the Violence committed and it was antedated on design to serve a turn at that time yet the said Baily was fined 6000 Marks and kept in Prison for a long time which sort of Proceedings put the poor Protestants under sad Apprehensions 3. Now Sir I pray remember how your Conspirators used the poor Protestants when they had them in Prison There was fourteen Men taken at a Field Meeting who without being legally convict of that or any other Crime were secretly and in the Night taken out of a Prison upon a Warrant signed by the Earl of Linlithgo and the Lords Hatton and Collington and were delivered to Captain Maitland who had been Page to Duke Lauderdale but after a French Officer and was making his Levies in Scotland and were carried over to the Service of the French King in the Year 1676. Your Conspirators in Scotland did for your Brother's Service and yours upon many Occasions proceed to the most unreasonable and arbitrary Fines either for slight Offences or for Offences where the Fine is regulated by Law which they have never considered when the Persons were obnoxious to them So the Lord Cardross was fined 11000 l. for his Ladies keeping two Meetings in his House and Baptizing a Child by an outed Minister without his Knowledge the Provost formerly mentioned and Baily and many others were also fined without any Regard had to the Law 4. Give me leave Sir to put you in mind of a fourth Piece of Villany acted by you and your Brother upon the Protestants of Scotland Your Conspirators by your Brother's Authority and your Procurement did several times proceed to take away Gentlemens Dwelling houses from them and to put Garrisons into them even in the time of Peace contrary to all Law Justice and Reason In the Year 1675 it was designed against twelve Protestant Noblemen and Gentlemen and executed upon the Houses of the Earl of Callendar the Lord Cardross the Lady Lumsden c. and it was again attempted in the Year 1678 upon the Houses belonging to the Lairds of Chesnock Blaghan and Rowallane and they were possessed by Souldiers and declared Garrisons Nor did it rest here but your Conspirators sent Orders and required the Countries about those Houses to furnish them for the use of your Souldiers and to supply them with Necessaries contrary to the Laws of that Kingdom It was against this that Sir Patrick Hume now a Peer of Scotland applied himself to the Conspirators to have Redress and common Justice being denied him he used a legal Protestation in the ordinary Form of the Law of that Kingdom and was thereupon kept many Months in Prison and declared uncapable of all Publick Trusts 5. I must put you in mind how you by your Conspirators endeavoured to kindle a Flame amongst the Scotch for since you had disobliged so many of them and had begot such a Disaffection in them against you and your Brother your great Design was to keep that Disaffection alive and not only so but so to increase it as to make them rise and take up Arms in their own defence therefore in order to this in the Year 1677 April 19. the Letters of your Conspiring Jesuits to the Procurator-General at Madrid gave him notice that your Conspirators at London the Fathers of the Society had sent for Scotland three Jesuits in Masquerade to give the poor provoked Scots to understand these three things 1. That all the Miseries under which they groaned was from the Bishops and their Clergy which Doctrine they were inclined enough to believe they naturally hating the Government of the Church by that sort of Men as being against the express Word of God and tending to Tyranny 2. That there was no other way to recover their Liberty and Religion but by the Sword and this was certainly true for they had made all the humble Applications that could be made by Men both to the King your Brother and the Council in Scotland and could find no Redress of their Grievances for as these Villains were sent to exasperate them on the one hand so you and your Traitor Lauderdale augmented their Miseries on the other hand and all in Order to make them take up Arms in their own Defence 3. That the King your Brother was so addicted to his Pleasure that he neither would nor could take care in that Concern but left them to be redressed by those that cruelly oppressed them which was as notoriously true and you wanted not your wicked Instruments to accomplish the great Design you had in hand of enslaving the Protestants of that Kingdom so that the Method you took by your Jesuits by their Insinuations and by your Task-masters to oppress them you did very much incline them to take up Arms against your Conspirators in their own Defence Sir Your Jesuits in Scotland laid not aside their Attempts there to make the distressed Protestants rise for the whole Popish Party was at Work to stir up the Commotion by them designed in that Kingdom as appears by Letters from thence from your Incendiaries of the 11th of August 1678. Nay that the Work might take effect Eight thousand Scots that were of the Romish Religion should be ready For what to join with the disaffected Scots Such Sots you employed as if the disaffected Scots would join with them But the Truth of it was to Pillage and Destroy the Habitations of those that should rise in the Defence of their Lives Liberties and Religion for that was the Intent whatever Imaginations your Cut-throat Jesuites had in their empty Noddles that appears in their Pacquet of August the 10th 1678. directed to John Grove For you must remember that was your Design and Lauderdale's tho' your Jesuites thought that the poor Protestants might be brought to join with the Popish Party to make a Commotion there for when your Secretary perused the Contents he laughed at the Folly of the Scotch Jesuites but said If the Scotch would rise he cared not with whom they joined for their Rising was the thing that was desired Your Design had its effect for their Provocations were so many and their Oppression so great from Lauderdale and his wicked Party who were serving your Brother's and your Popish Designs to bring that People under a despotick Power and the Insolencies of your impudent Clergy was such that they could no longer bear and therefore in the Year 1679. they did raise Forces and armed them and by their Declaration they were far from carrying on a Popish Design for their Design was the Extirpation of Popery and Popish Prelacy out of Scotland which had been a great Grievance to that Kingdom And because Sir you may have forgotten their Declaration I will give it Word for Word and is as follows AS it is not unknown to a great Part of the World how Happy the Church of Scotland was whilst they enjoyed the Ordinances of Jesus Christ in Purity and Power of which we have been
one all their days Of these Sir you made most excellent Papists in process of time or at least Favourers of the Popish Party Your Conspirators had an Eye upon the City of London and therefore that none might stand in your way of debauching that City all the sober old Officers of the Army was not to come within 20 miles of it This was done by the Advice of your old Friends the Priests who visited all your soured Cavaliers and your Conspiring Villains and never left urging to them the danger the Government was in till they were disarm'd and banish'd London 'T is true the great Argument was the Safety of the Government but the true one was your making your progress in perverting the People to the Popish Religion for all Virtue being discourag'd both in Church and State they had the fairer opportunity of proselyting the prophaner part of Mankind to the Religion of the Church of Rome I must confess that some few that were sober men had the fortune to be prefer'd both in Church and State but what Joy you and your Conspirators conceiv'd when they were remov'd either by Death or Age is not forgotten Those Statesmen that oppos'd Popery or Arbitrary Power were soon remov'd and if they had the hap to dye in their Offices they could do no more against Popery and Arbitrary Power than tell their Friends what Care you took to bring it in But this I say if any were but zealous he was commonly laid aside as useless and dangerous to the Government for as long as they lived or continued in Power you and your Party could not go on so smoothly in your Practices against our Religion Laws and Liberties 2. It is well remember'd how your Conspirators carried a Villanous Design of putting on Sham Plots upon Men in order to take away their Lives and Estates to the utter ruine of their Families and Posterity for ever These were so many that to enter into the Particulars of them would be enough to fill a Volume but I will therefore reckon these that follow as the Chief of them 1. If you please I pray you Sir to call to mind the rising of the Fifth-Monarchy-men on the 6th of Jan. 1660 1. Who drew in those men to that foolish and wicked Attempt but your old Acquaintance Dr. Goff and Strange the Jesuite and Gray and another Jesuite that went by the name of St. George and Ashby that was afterwards Rector at St. Omer's who counterfeited themselves Fifth Monarchy-men For an Uncle of mine one Mr. Thomas Buttivant was engag'd with them and had been in the Rising if the Three hundred Horse had come they promised should joyn Fifteen hundred Foot and this Buttivant was to have been Commander in chief of the Horse He was so intimately acquainted with this Gray that they called Brothers this Gray I having seen so often with that Uncle of mine that when I came to be acquainted with the Jesuits notwithstanding it was so many years after I found this Gray to be a Jesuite who had pretended to Fifth Monarchy Principles and renewing my acquaintance with him he told me That he and Strange and others of the Society with this Goff used to preach to them in Swan-Alley in Coleman-street and at Mr. Buttivant's House in Cobb's Yard in Petticoat-lane and that they had drawn in several of those poor Dogs as they termed them to be hang'd but they themselves were protected by you at St. James's and in Whitehall and 't is true that Gray had the Fifth-Monarchy Notions to a Hairs-breadth In this Affair the Society were at some Hundreds of pounds charge for they were liberal of their Mony and possessed these poor Creatures of your Brother's and your being Papists and that your design was to destroy the Interest of Christ in the three Nations and to set up Popery and Slavery and so drew them into that Folly of Rising and all with this intent that they might obtain some severe Laws against the Protestant Dissenters in order to weaken the Protestant Interest within these three Nations and boasted very much of your being privy to the whole Design And by your Carriage in other Affairs you will be by all sober Protestants judged guilty of This. Against such strange Practices the poor Dissenters did at that time in their Addresses and Declarations to the Government positively without any Equivocation or Mental Reservation declare and protest their abhorrence and disavowed all such Principles as might tend to such irregular and disorderly Practises as tending highly to the dishonour of GOD and the Protestant Religion yet you and your Jesuites and Priests made great use of this to beget a disesteem of them in the future Parliament 2. Another Conspiracy was formed and contrived by you and your Banditti against Protestants and this was in November 1661. A doubty Knight of your Friendship forged several Letters from several Ministers of the Gospel about Worcestershire and several other Counties and in conjunction with this Villain several Jesuites acted amongst whom was Father Fitz Patrick and Father Peter Talbot afterwards the pretended Archbishop of Dublin and old Courtney all of these were employ'd by your self as I have seen in several Letters wherein they complained of your delaying their being satisfied for that Service But the Intrigue did not hold Water tho' several honest men suffer'd Imprisonment for the same But the Forgers and Framers of this Hellish Conspiracy in this pretended Plot had an aim at the rewarding Mr. Baxter for the great Service he did in your Brother's Restauration and yours 3. Another of the same nature was invented by your Conspirators in Oxford wherein the Names of several men of note and value to the number of above a Hundred whose Lives were design'd to have been made Sacrifices to Hell and Rome but neither did that Cheat take any other effect than to continue the then Parliament exasperated against poor Protestant Dissenters as men of restless Spirits that were always disturbing the Government So that by these Artifices you did not only find a way to throw them out of their Livings but endanger'd their Lives also 4. Your Priests and Jesuites not making their Sham-Plots to hold upon the Dissenters your Conspirators try what they could do with two Pillars of the Church of England one Hill and Riggs both highly carress'd by three special Guardians of the Church of England's Interest that is old Cosens old Hinchman and Sheldon three of the Devil's Brokers These two Villains Hill and Riggs both Parsons they pretend to discover a Fanatick Plot as they call'd it against the King's Yours and old Monk's and Turncoat Brown's Lives and this Plot was sworn against several Honest Men for which some lost their Lives the one got a preferment to a Living and the other was preferred to eat Salt Beef and Pork and Pease at Sea and sometimes he acted as a Chaplain in a Ship with great Promises of being preferred but God
of what they had confess'd against themselves others that had been in actual Arms hundreds of them were hang'd in the principal Towns and their Quarters hang'd up in the Highways as lasting Monuments of your Grace and Compassion And you being glutted with Blood you then thought of other Punishments for some other of those Offenders many Men and Women were order'd to be whip'd publickly in the Market-Towns others had their Estates seiz'd and a great number were sold into America to serve all days of their Lives so that there was nothing but the Voice of lamentation and weeping to be heard In a word your Grace Clemency and Tenderness was such that several of the Western Counties were made so many Fields of Blood and Butchery Nay Sir those who escaped your Mercy by vertue of your Proclamation were forced to retire to the Woods and desolate places their nearest and dearest Relations not daring so much as to harbour or relieve them so that several starved to death or perish'd with cold for want of things necessary for the preservation of Human Nature Some fled to the Dutch for shelter and were not only kindly receiv'd but as civily entertain'd till you began to have some Shame in you and pardon'd some in hopes that they would be of use to you and others came over with the Prince of Orange who by the Just Judgment of God upon you and your Adherents banish'd you the Kingdom and the Lords and Commons of England deposed you as useless to God and Man But Sir this is notorious that you never entertain'd the least Remorse of Conscience for the murther of these men in the West for those you pardon'd paid a Price sufficient for their Pardons or if you gave them Pardon freely it was to prevent their setting up their Trades in other Countries And Jefferies your Tool that you ought to have hang'd you let him go off with no other Punishment than to be made Lord High Chancellor of England who also did enrich himself with the Sum of 15000 l. extorted from one person who wanted a Pardon for nothing else but the not delivering his Country which he might have done for half the Mony I am more sorry that Jefferies got the Mony than for that Gentleman 's losing that Sum. Truly Sir I was in hopes that the Time of that Villain Jefferies had been come in which he should not only have paid his Debt to Nature but to his Faults too but he is gone to his Place and thereby he hath sav'd the Hangman a Labour but had he liv'd he would in my opinion have been made an Example for all his Villanies that he had committed both as a corrupt Judge and a trayterous Chancellor 3. You were pleased in the years 1687 1688 to publish a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and professed in both the said Declarations That it was always your Judgment that no man's Conscience should be restrain'd in Matters of Religion Now Sir if that were true why then did you persecute the Protestant Dissenters for their Conscience from Feb. 6. 1684 till the latter end of the year 1686 And if it were not your Judgment why then did you proclaim Liberty of Conscience as your Judgment But Sir to deal truly in the point you had a Popish Fabrick to erect and you wanted Liberty of Conscience to be the Scaffold and when you had done your business of settling Popery you would have laid Liberty of Conscience aside as your Brethren abroad of the Popish Religion have always done And this was the Clemency your Brother was pleas'd to shew to Dissenters and afterwards he and you could with great Tenderness suffer them to perish in Prison and you your self when you were in the Chair persecuted them to the ruine of some Thousands of Families you surfeited your self and Party with the murder and ruine of so many Men and yet you pretend to Clemency and Tenderness To conclude this particular your Brother and you made two Declarations for Liberty of Conscience for no other intent but to cheat the People of England into Slavery and Popery to the end that you might damn the Body and Soul of the Nation at once From such Clemency and Tenderness I trust God hath deliver'd this Nation and will preserve her under the present Government all your pretences to the contrary notwithstanding 4. What shall I say of those worthy persons that you kept in Jayl for the pretended Damages of 100000 l. and others of 10000 l. and others for one Fine or another What shall I say of the Murther of the Lady Lisle and Alderman Cornish Mr. Ayliff and Mr. Nelthrope and poor Disney These were Monuments of your Clemency and Tenderness 3. You promis'd in your Speech to the Council That you would maintain the Church of England as it was establish'd by Law Nay I think if you had not wrong done you you swore it too at your Coronation And Sir if you please call to mind how you kept your Promise and Oath in relation to the Church of England and the Protestant Interest nay you gave a reason for your Promise it being the only Reason that you ever gave in your Life I will put you in mind of it Because said you Her Members had shew'd themselves Loyal Subjects and that the Principles of the Church of England had been for Monarchy Therefore 1. How did you maintain the Church of England as by Law establish'd Were there not Laws in force for the preservation of the Church of England that had been enacted in the Reigns of several Princes that were your Predecessors amongst which Laws as a security of the Church of England against Popery That all persons whatsoever that were advanced to any Ecclesiastical Dignity or to bear Office in either University as likewise all Civil and Military Officers should declare they were not Papists but of the Protestant Religion and that by taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Test yet you and your Conspirators annulled all those Laws that were made to secure the Protestant Religion against Popery Was this to defend the Church of England and to maintain Her Laws I leave it to all men to judge But you and your villanous Commissioners thought your selves so wise as to reconcile Contradictions and therefore you were resolv'd to try your Skill upon the Church and the Nurseries of Learning which prov'd fatal to you and your Party by the Just Vengeance of Almighty God 2. Did you not against express Law and against the Promise of your maintaining the Church of England set up an Ecclesiastical Commission and impower the Persons named in that illegal Commission to take cognizance and to give arbitrary directions in matters Ecclesiastical in which Commission there was one who profess'd the Popish Religion and others that were Abettors of Popery and Popish Superstition therefore to what deplorable condition was the Church of England reduc'd that a Commissioner for the Church
Hell shall prevail he hath secured us our Liberties Laws and Religion he hath brought himself and Government to that Perfection notwithstanding the vexatious War which lies hard upon us that he is capable of doing good to all Mankind and he hath totally disabled himself from doing hurt to any he wants not the French King's Purse nor his Friendship he wants not his Interest for his Interest is his Peoples and his Peoples his by which they are so united that the attempts of your Scoundrel Crew for your Restoration will be in vain the Hearts of the Nation are set against you and for your perfidious dealing both in Church and State the People of England will trust you no more Sir We have Sworn Allegiance to this King we chose in your stead and we are bound to stand by him our choise of him was from a Principle of Love to God and the Protestant Religion which he hath asserted You kept not your Faith with us and therefore our Allegiance ceased to you your Actions have been very plain and open and so pernitious that it was a Wonder of Wonders thaâ— we and our Religion have been delivered from Blood and Oppression And Sir I would let you know that we are not afraid of you and your Adherents for I believe the Protestant Religion and Protestant King will stand notwithstanding alâ— your Attempts and if you had brought your French Dragooning Apostles oâ—er to us yet we would and should have maintained our Ground and destroyed â—â—em and you We value not your little Two-penny Stuff that you have left â—â—hind you to plead your Cause your impertinent ignorant Non-juring Clergy-men can never preach us out of love to that Loyalty that we owe to K. William â—e have scarce a Williamite Cobler but can baffle them all These things consiâ—ered How can you ever expect any thing less than that Judgment the Psalmist â—rays for to be inflicted upon his Enemies Hath not God already set a wicked Tyrant over you Have you not been Judged by the Lords and Commons of England and Condemned Was not your Reign short And hath not another taken your Office In time Sir the Judgment may be compleated upon you There is of your Issue that have had no Hand in our Miseries and for this Cause our Eyes are set upon them for good and we shall pray for their long Life But as for you that God would cloth you with Shame and Confusion of Face and that he would upon the Head of our Protestant King let the Crown long florish And I do not question but God will hear the Prayers of his Faithful Subjects and will by his means bring the Nation to such a Settlement that our Allegiance will be firm to him and his Successors notwithstanding all those villainous Attempts that you and that Monster of Mankind your Brother of France by his and your Traiterous Accomplices have made to deprive us of so great a Blessing Which brings me to a Sixth Consideration 6. The last Reason I shall give you why it will be impossible for you to return to the Administration of the English Government and that all Attempts of that nature will be in vain because of your late barbarous and villainous Attempt you by your Conspirators have made upon the Person of our King and your purpose of backing that intended Murder by an unnatural Invasion you had some that pittied you but now our Hearts are shut up against you and are hardned against all your Cursed Adherents For now your Plot is discovered and it is a Plot and a Villainous One nothing can be plainer no Man of Common Understanding but must see your Conspiracy to bring in Popery and Slavery and to destroy the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England We know Sir the Doctrine of your Popish and Non-juring Priests too well and your wicked Practices and we are now assured that you will not stick at any thing that may bring your wicked Designs about You must excuse me if I am plain with you I would not asperse you with hard Words if they were not very true I should not have been so Hot if you had not been concerned in the late wicked Design of murthering our King but if you had succeeded it would have been no more than you did to your Loving and Kind Brother but all this as well as the other is owing to you and your Popish Traiterous Crew who have debauched Mens Understandings overturned all Morals and destroyed all Divinity What shall I say of you and your villainour Party What is your Charity such as to destroy Kings And where was the Humility of insulting over the Nation The Mystery of Iniquity is revealed and you are disappointed The Nation sees that you are no Changeling as to yâ—â—r Vices and you will find that English-men are no Changelings Therefore it wâ—ll be in vain to make any more attempts to be Restored again for the future To conclude this Memorial Sir give me leave to tell you that I have thus fâ—â— laid open the Conspiracy against our Religion and Government and indeed it waâ— more than time it should be discovered for I think here hath been nothing asserteâ— but what hath been and can be made out we see how the French have been courted by you and your Party with what Ease have they been assisted and witâ— what Difficulty the Dutch both in your Brothers and your Reign We see your Brother and you abandon the Prince of Orange now our King in compliance with his and the Nations Enemies How can any Man think upon the French Depredations and Cruelties exercised at Sea upon the Subjects of England without Regret Call to mind your notorious Treacheries in that Affair Remember the constant Irregularities and Injustice from term to term of those who should have administred Justice between King and People Remember the search you made throughout the whole Kingdom to find Men of Arbitrary Principles that would bow the Knee to Baal in order to their being promoted to all publick Commissions and Employments and disgracing and displacing all those that durst in so universal a Depravation be honest and faithful in their Trust and Offices We saw to our great Grief the Defection of considerable Persons both Male and Female to the Popish Religion as if they enter'd by Couples Clean and Unclean into the Ark of that Cursed Synagogue not more in order to their Salvation than for their Temporal Advantage and Safety Sir the State of Ireland managed by your Brother and you would require a Volume to represent it and in your Time we could not but observe that all your Affairs and Councils in the Nation tended to a Popish Revolution And by the Foresight and Civility of the Man of Sin there was an English Cardinal prepared like Cardinal Pool to give us Absolution Benediction and to receive us to the Obedience of the See of Rome It is true your Conspiracy had taken effect had you not met with many Disappointments but the last Disappointment was the overturn of all your Designs at once which was occasioned by the Arrival of the Prince of Orange Guilt made you to flee The Sense the Nation had of your wicked Intentions against our Laws and Liberties caused the People of England to make choice of our Deliverer to reign over us He is anointed our King and as God hath set a Crown of pure Gold upon his Head so we question not but the same God will satisfy him with long Life and Happiness and that he will give him the Spirit of Wisdom Knowledge Zeal and Faithfulness to do what in him lies to the bringing on the New Heavens and the New Earth wherein Righteousness and Peace shall dwell by repairing the Breaches and decayed Places that you have made and caused amongst us And from hence Sir remember that though Hand join in Hand yet the Wicked shall not go unpunished they are Gods own Words who hath also declared with the greatest Solemnity that there shall be no Peace to the Wicked Isa 57.21 You have leisure to consider of these things and so Farewell FINIS
Liberties of your Subjects since they profess an Allegiance out of Conscience to a contrary Sovereign who destroy'd our Laws and Liberties and made them sharers in his many Designs and Conspiracies against us Or how can your Majesty expect Truth and Sincerity from these Conspirators where Treason and Lies are Virtues and Merits You have in this Tract many Tragical Instances within fresh Memory of their Wicked Purposes and Designs look back but to the beginning of your Majesties Reign since which time your Majesty cannot but remember how many Proofs they have given out of their own Mouths of their more than Villainous Disaffection to your Majesty and Government and Trayterous Intentions against your Royal Person both at Home and Abroad nay before your happy Accession to the Throne I may without offence to your Majesty take notice to you of your being abandoned by King Charles in Compliance with the French King at the Instigation of the then Duke of York and his Popish Adherents and not only so but your Ruin and Destruction when you only had the Title of Prince of Orange was designed by the Popish Party my Affection and Respects to you then though wholly a Stranger to your Person made me then discover the Conspiracy against you but none of the Council took any notice of what related to your Self but Prince Rupert and the Earl of Arlington and another considerable Peer who I suppose did transmit the same to you when in Holland But blessed be God your Majesty as a Monument of the Mercies of the most High is once more delivered out of their Hands and in your Deliverance we that have Espoused you are delivered and we question not but you will remember to distinguish between those that have testified their Sincere Loyalty to your Majesty and those that have openly appeared Traytors to your Royal Person and Government and question not Great Sir but that God who hath now so Miraculously delivered you and in whose hand are the Hearts of all Kings and Princes will fully Convince your Majesty of all the unworthy Principles of your secret Enemies and of my Integrity too how strange soever they have endeavour'd to represent me to your Majesty till then with all Patience and Humility I shall commend my Cause to the All-seeing Judge with a Resolution to persevere through his Assistance in my Truth Integrity and Loyalty against all Discouragements or Terrors or Neglects or Blandishments either to my last gasp What Peace can these Brutes have in their Souls and Consciences that do surrender their Liberties and Religion to the Mercy of a Person that would have inslaved them and being through the Mercy of God to us driven out from these Kingdoms for his Tyranny he neither can nor will he own them if he were to return It is strange to any thinking Man that of these Conspirators who profess the Protestant Religion that they should not consider the whole Series or Course of Life of that pretended King for whom they venture Body and Soul hath been a continued Conspiracy against them and their Religion Why should they not sit down and consider his Contriving the Burning of London his instigating a Confederacy with France and two ungodly Wars with Holland his fomenting the Popish Plot and contriving the Murther of Justice Godfrey to stifle it his forging of Treason against Protestants and suborning Witnesses to swear the Patriots of our Religion and Liberties out of their Lives his hiring execrable Villains to Assassinate and Murther the Great Earl of Essex and causing several others to be clandestinely Murthered in hopes to conceal it his advising and procuring the Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments in order to prevent inquiry into his Crimes so that he might escape the Justice of the Nation Why should not these Protestant Professors remember his Poysoning the King his Brother in order to his Invading the Throne his Murdering Algernoon Sydney Esq upon the Deposition of one scandalous Witness and the cutting off the late Loyal and Brave Lord Russel and Murdering him for Crimes alledged against him in reference to which if all had been Truth which was sworn against him yet there was nothing that according to Law could have reached his Life Give me leave Great Sir to acquaint your Majesty that none murmured more against the Proceedings of the late King than the Protestant Jacobites did I can remember how confounded they were when he began his Reign with a bare-fac'd avowing himself of the Romish Religion and calling into the Nation a multitude of Priests and Jesuits and empowered them to Exercise their Idolatries Nay who were so much concern'd as some of these Men and in my own hearing have owned that he was ill advised to trample upon those Laws which concern our Property seeing that by two Proclamations whereof the one required the Collecting of the Customs and the other the continuing the Excise which was to expire at King Charles's Death he violently and against all the Laws of the Land broke in upon the Estates of many of the People of England and they did own that the seven or eight suborn'd and forsworn Judges that countenanc'd him in doing so vile a Thing ought to have been hanged and they have often said that if he proceeded thus he would soon bring the Kingdom about his Ears and he must take it for his pains How can these Men look Mankind in the Face who have been in a barbarous Conspiracy for the restoring of a King that had thus acted in oppressing his People and for the Murdering of your Majesties Person that had delivered the Nation from these Oppressions When I reflect upon the Reign of that late King I cannot but be filled with the greatest Horror to think that there should be a number of Men left in England that should so much as attempt his Restoration when they well knew that he had precluded his Subjects of all hopes of Redress in Westminster-Hall and deprived us of all Succour where our Ancestors found it I thought that all Men would have joined with your Majesty to have declared the late King James a Tyrant Traytor and Murderer and all that did adhere to him should have been treated as Banditti and Freebooters and not as Gentlemen and English Men but instead of this that in the compass of seven Years behold two or three Conspiracies against your Majesties Person and Government detected and proved and yet these People will scarce so much as blush at the self-contradicting Carriage of themselves and Party Some of these Protestant Jacobites have been at St. Germains and then they must Experience the late King's usage of his Protestant Friends there and if a certain Writer may be depended upon their usage is hard and severe first he denied them a Protestant Chappel and Chaplain nay if a Protestant be any thing zealous for his Religion they want not Irish Papists to swear a Plot upon them and so they are confined
witness his being reconciled to that Church by Father Richard Huddleston who was related to John Huddleston of whom the said King Charles had such a tender care and not only so but Receiv'd the Sacrament from Father Ireland the Jesuit in the Duchess of Portsmouth's Lodgings and the same day afterwards he receiv'd it according to the Usage of the Church of England it being the Sunday called Easter-day In the last place witness those Papers that were found under his own hand in his Strong Box all which testify his inclinations were bent that way and therefore how can any man wonder at his being careless of supporting the Protestant Religion Nay Sir I must not forget one Instance more of his being of the Romish Persuasion that is that most Excellent Memorial that he put in by his Protestant Envoy to the Court at Poland wherein there was a passage to this effect That he had a great Esteem of the Roman-Catholick and Apostolick Religion as being most consistent with Monarchy give me leave to Cite a passage of a Letter of his to the Governor of St. Omers when it was by Conquest reduced to the Obedience of the French King which was That he should take care of the Jesuits according to the Contract he had made with his Master they being men upon whom the hopes of England did depend Give me leave Sir to put you in mind of his promises he made to the Jesuits in Spain after he was reconciled to the Church of Rome upon their Contributing Three thousand Pistols for his support of restoring the Catholick Religion when ever he should come to the Enjoyment of his Right in England and not only to them but to the Nuns in Ghent when he borrowed Money of them for which they waited several Years Then I say he declared he would restore their Religion when ever he should come to his Right When the Princess Henrietta came to Dover you know what her Errand was to press the King to restore the Romish Religion here in England and that the breach of the Peace with the Dutch was then and there contrived by you and your Conspirators and consented to by the King and all in order to the reducing those State to the Catholick Faith And it was determined to begin the Publick Exercise of the Romish Religion in Ireland and to facilitate that work you may well remember who was sent over Lord Lieutenant Upon all these Considerations a Man may not now wonder at King Charles's carelesness in the Support and Maintenance of the Protestant Religion You well remember that you your self and your other Conspirators had begot in the King your Brother a full persuasion of the Truth of this Proposition That the Roman-Catholicks were the greatest favourers of Monarchy therefore in his Letter to the French King bearing Date June 1676. that he resolved to be like his Neighbours in Religion but you know that he was prevented by the Lord Arlington and the Parliament for which you were pleased to tell Father Lacheise in your Letter of July 1676. that the Lord Arlington and others by a Thousand deceits endeavoured to break the good Intelligence that was betwixt the King your Brother and his most Christian Majesty and your self to the end they might deceive you all Three and therefore the Parliament and the said Lord Arlington and his party were by you declared in that Letter as useless and dangerous for that the said Arlington and his Friends did work incessantly to advance the Interest of the Prince of Orange and the Dutch and to lessen the Interest of the French King Now the King your Brother being a man unsteady in his resolutions he sometimes failed your Brother of France as well as your self and other Conspirators 9. We in his Life-time saw there was no likelihood of his having any legitimate Issue to Succeed him in the Government Truly Sir I think I may say that was contrived by your Father Clarendon and your self and in it you intended the hurt of the People of England but God who governs the World hath made his want of legitimate Issue to be the greatest Blessing that ever England saw for by that means we have a King that well knows that it is most certain and evident to all men that the publick Peace and Happiness of any State or Kingdom cannot be preserved where the Laws Liberties and Customs Established by the Lawful Authority in it are openly Transgressed and Annulled more especially when the alteration of Religion is endeavoured and that a Religion which is contrary to Law is endeavoured to be introduced Upon which those who are immediately concerned in it are indispensably bound to endeavour to Preserve and Maintain the Established Laws Liberties and Customs and above all the Religion and Worship of God that is Established among them and to take such an effectual care that the Inhabitants in that State or Kingdom may not be deprived of their Religion nor of their Civil Rights which is so much the more necessary because the Greatness and Security both of Kings and Royal Families and of all such as are in Authority as well as the Happiness of their Subjects and People depend in a most especial manner upon the exact Observation and Maintenance of these their Laws Liberties and Customs This Sir is the Sentiment and Blessed Resolution of King William and this he and his Ministers put in Execution which is a blessed Change which we could not have lived to enjoy had Charles your Brother left any Issue behind him that had been capable of the Crown but that which you contrived for our Mischief is turned to our greatest Good for we have the best of Kings upon the Throne and the worst of Men taking of the Air at St. Germains 10. The late King Charles your Brother did obstinately refuse to enter into a League with those who intended to uphold and maintain the Protestant Religion This I must say of the Dutch that ever since they delivered themselves from the intollerable Yoke of the Crown of Spain their great aim and design hath been to promote the Interest of the Reformed Religion and have endeavoured to make Alliances with those Princes that were and are of the Reformed Religion and have endeavoured to make good these Alliances but how King Charles your Brother your self and the rest of your Partisans treated the Dutch ever since his Restoration to the Crown it is well known and how he in the compass of Ten years made Two ungodly Wars but as I said before I must say again The Dutch did most commonly send us home with broken bones Our Cause was Wicked and God gave us Success suitable thereunto and for what ends and purposes these Wars were made you and your most Christian Brother can very well tell but least Sir you should have forgotten those Wars give me leave to give you a brief note of them In the year 1665. it is well known that
good account of them would he but have joined Sir Edward Spragg's assistance to his own Conduct for Sir Edward was in sight of them at the same time with another Squadron and Captain Legg making sail totward him to acquaint him with the Design till called back by a Gun from his Admiral of which several Persons have their Conjectures possibly Sir Robert Holmes considering that Sir Edward had sailed all along in consort with the Dutch and did but now return from bringing the Pirates of Algiers to reason thought him not proper to engage in this Enterprize before he understood it better But some have believed that it proceeded partly from that jealousie of admitting a share of Honour and Profit in this Piracy and partly out of too strict a regard to preserve his Commission secret but two of a Trade could not agree and by this means the whole Affair miscarried and through the Bravery of the Dutch Merchant-men and their little Convoy Sir Robert was forced to quit the Enterprize and all that was got by this piece of Piracy never answered the great damage his Fleet and Seamen sustained When the News arrived of Sir Robert's Fate I well remember with what a sad Countenance the Conspirators walked about St. James's Park and Whitehall you your self was much out of humour at the Defeat Your Confessor Beddingfield told me That that Defeat was of such ill consequence to their Design that it had almost broke all their Measures 4. Notwithstanding all this a War the Conspirators were resolved upon And if Sir you will give me leave to descend to the bottom of your Hellish Conspiracy and that was that of Religon for so Pious and so Just an Action in which Sir you imployed Sir Robert Holmes could not be better accompanied than by a Declaration of Liberty of Conscience you doubting that he could not find that admirable Commodity in the Hole of an Amsterdam Flyboat therefore while he was trying his Fortune in Battel with the Smyrna Merchant-men on the 13th and 14th of March 1672. the Indulgence was printing off with all haste and was published on the Fifteenth as a more proper means than Fasting and Prayer to obtain a Blessing from Heaven upon his Enterprize and upon a wicked War that was to second it upon which you may remember that the King your Brother at your persuasion and the Counsels of your Conspirators took upon him the Dispensing Power just as you did when you usurped the Throne for by this Indulgence all the Penal Laws against the Papists for which former Parliaments had given so many Supplies to the Crown and against Nonconformists for which the Pentionary Parliament had paid more largely were at one instant suspended in order to cheat the whole Nation at once of all their Religion which they had so dearly purchased But you and your Conspirators may say How was Liberty of Conscience to get Money You well remember Sir that the Popish Party were so well affected to this Point of suspending the Penal Laws and Statutes that were against them and that the King your Brother and your self making such solemn Protestations to the Gentlemen and Noblemen and the Monks and the Dominicans that this Indulgence was but a step to the establishing the Catholick Religion That several Gentlemens Estates were so impaired in contributing to this wicked War that they have not recovered the same to this day The Monks at the Savoy were so undone that they could scarce hold up their heads And the Dominicans having parted with their All were forced to fly for the Debts they had contracted in that Juncture of Affair But the whole amounted to so little that it did turn to little account for the whole you got and paid into the Conspirators Bank amounted to no more than 356000 l. As for the Protestant Dissenters tho they made use of the Liberty you procured for them yet they parted with no Money they remembring what a Cheat was so lately put upon the Nation in the business of the shutting up the Exchequer And considering that the Indulgence it self was but an Arbitrary Act in the King your Brother and would never pass for currant Law when ever a Parliament should meet your Jesuits they pleaded that they had no Cash they having let great Sums upon the security of several Estates belonging to the Noblemen and Gentlemen that were of the Catholick Church And besides all this they had met with a loss from one that had lately fallen from them so that then they had not ready Money to part with all this Project did not answer your Expectation Tho your Conspirators did assure you If it were done it would bring a Million into your Conspirators Bank but such a Sum as it was it hath caused many a Popish Gentleman to sing Lachrymae till your Accession to the Crown and as a Reward and Plaister they were put into Imployments both Civil and Military which Imployments never let them see the fortieth part of the Interest of their Money the Principal being totally lost A War being proclaimed you must now carry it on What did you do with the small Stock you had you equip out a Fleet. The French King seeing you and your Conspirators ingaged beyond retreat comes into the War according to agreement and proclaims War against the Dutch not in so sneaking a manner as you did for he would assign no Cause but said It was for his glory and that such was his pleasure But by his Ambassador to the Pope he gave the Pope the true Cause which you durst not for your Ears give to the Pope or any body else tho that was the Design of King Charles and your self His Ambassador said That his Master had not undertaken the War against the Hollander in conjunction with the English but for the extirpating of Heresie And the French King to the Emperor of Germany saith The Hollanders were a People that had forsaken God and were Hereticks and that all Christian Princes ought to associate together for their Extirpation That it was a War of Religion in order to propogate the Catholick Faith You know that your Brother's the French King's and your Interest and Religion were the same And what other Design then could you have in that wicked War but to advance the Religion of Rome's Church and Power of France both at home and abroad and that the Declaration of Indulgence was but a step towards the setting up the Romish Religion according to the Agreement that was made with Madam your Sister at the Interview in June 1670. and by that means you met with that Contribution from the Romish Party to carry on this War of Religion against the Dutch who you judged to be Hereticks Give me leave Sir to make a little digression You know that the late Duke of Buckingham who was then in the Conspiracy with you was sent into France to borrow 40 Sail of French Ships and by agreement our King
could never learn But Sir was it not hard that they should be incapable of Offices and Employments since they had purchased them at so dear a rate but these Arguments prevailed not so the Bills were passed and the Parliament was dismissed till the 27th of October 1673. and good reason there was for their dismission for their sitting was grown very uneasy to your Popish Conspirators But Sir we could not but laugh in our Sleeves to see some of the Conspirators take up the Cross and quit their Imployments as the Lord Clifford the Lord Bellasis and Sir Thomas Strickland and others who had long appeared zealous Sons of our Church yet discovered to be of the Synagogue of Rome as soon as the Test or Purgatory Bill passed and truly Sir we were not sorry when you appeared to be of the same Complexion with those other Conspirators tho at the same time I must tell you That your going off did astonish many men there being no Record in History of any Prince that changed his Religion in your Circumstances But did your Conspirators stand still and put up the Sword that was drawn against the Dutch No they had got 1250000 l. therefore you and they strove with all imaginable strength to regain by the War that part of the Cursed Design that was lost by Parliament tho some of you forsook your Places rather than your Consciences yet Sir you never wanted some double-dy'd Sons of the Church of England to succeed in your Places upon the same Terms your Popish Conspirators held them so that they were but your Conspirators Deputies who followed the same Councels and carried on the same Design for this Year was a fruitful Year of Engagements with the Dutch the French carries all before him by Land but we got nothing from the Dutch but maimed Ships and broken Bones we had indeed changed our General but our Success was the same For you remember with whom we were in Conjunction we may thank our selves for keeping such ill Company So that in a word I may say those Heretick Dogs as they were termed by the Great Lewis were too many for our English Popish Conspirators What then Did we nothing by land had we not an Army at Black-Heath and General Schomberg at the head of them Yes we had but that good Gentleman when he saw the Army and understood that they were not an Army against the Dutch but were designed against London he fairly quitted his Post and the Kingdom at the same time as being ashamed of your Conspirators Intentions in the raising that Army He being a French-man you imagined he would join with you in bringing in the French mode of Government and your Irish Papist that was Major-General was to have brought in the Irish Religion the latter would have been true to the uttermost of his power and Irish Discretion but the former was a Protestant and so washed his hands of the business You will say that the French were on our side yes Sir they were but it is as plain as the Sun shining at Noon-day that the French in this second War against the Dutch intended nothing less than really to assist us for he was no Changeling for he had practised the same Art at Sea in the first War the Conspirators had against the Dutch when he was in league with them for his Navy never did them any service for his business was only to see us batter one another and it 's well known that when he pretended to be on our side and to assist us they then only took an opportunity to sound our Seas to spy our Ports and to learn our Building and contemplate our way of Fight to consume our Navy and preserve his own to increase his own Commerce and to order all so that the two great Naval Powers of Europe being crushed together that he might remain Prince and Lord of the Ocean and by consequence Master of all the Isles and the Continent into the bargain To which purpose you and your Banditti furnished him with all possible Opportunities as I shall by and by relate as well to put you in mind of what you and the rest of the Conspirators did do as to inform those of your Party here that are still ignorant of the Transactions of those Times Notwithstanding that we were always worsted by the Dutch yet they having a regard to the preservation of our Religion and Liberties which you had agreed to part withal to the French Court made strong Applications for a Peace and the Conspirators for a Supply to carry on the War and all Endeavours were by you and your Friends used to render the Dutch odious to the Parliament witness the Importunities that were used and great Assurances given In a word nothing but the Voice of War was in their Mouths But you know that there was an unhappy Accident fell out which I shall show you in its proper place that made the King put off the Parliament that sat down the 27th of October till the 7th of January following and in the mean time what Artifices your Accomplices used for to prepare the Parliament to have an ill Opinion of the Dutch you may see in the Speech made by that Villain of a Keeper who was your Tool to all intents and purposes you may remember how he represented the Dutch how averse they were to Peace and Reason and how uncivil and indirect in their Overtures of Treaty with His Majesty and therefore a demand was made of a proportionable and speedy Supply But the Dutch who sound themselves abused and obstructed and hitherto in a manner excluded from all manner of Application and whatever means they had used was still misinterpreted and ill represented they were so wise and industrious as by this time to have undeceived most of the Members of Parliament therefore the House of Commons were for a Peace to be made with the Dutch and in order thereunto would not part with one Penny judging that to be the best means for a Peace to follow and began to call some of your Rogues to an account that had been principal Contrivers of that most ungodly War this was an excellent but a new way of negotiating a Peace with the States-General I well remember that some of your Friends began to look blew upon the business looking every day to be called to an account for their Conspiracy against our Laws Liberties and Religion in the contriving and carrying on this War as aforesaid By this means Sir but full against your will I can tell how it grieved your Soul to see the general bent of the whole Nation to be against the War especially because the French were engaged in it In a word The House of Commons advised your Brother to a Just and an Honourable Peace with the States-General which the King put off till it could be no longer opposed then a Peace was concluded with the Dutch and when that was done the
occasion the lessening the Affections of the People to your Person and for that you were so nearly related to the Crown they desired that your Honour and Esteem should be preserved But had they known of your Trayterous Confederacy with the French King and with him designing to subvert our Religion Laws and Liberties they would sooner have addressed for your being Banished from the King's Presence and his Councils for ever if not to have sent you out of the World as you justly deserved But Sir you may remember that you once were the Darling of the Nation and had the Esteem and Affections of the People upon the Account of your being the Son and Brother of a King and stood in a very near Relation to the Crown of England in the time of your Brothers Reign but when your Traiterous Designs were laid open the Parliament Apr. 27. 1679. Resolved That your being a Papist and the Hopes of your coming such to the Crown had given the greatest Encouragement to the then discovered Conspiracy and Designs of the Papists against his Majesty your Brother and the Protestant Religion Notwithstanding this Vote of the House of Commons you had an impudent Crew that did endeavour to perswade the Nation and not without some Effect through the Power of their bold Asseverations that you were no Papist but of the established Religion only that you were a Prince of more Generosity and Greatness of Mind than to comply with the Capricio's of a Parliament in Renouncing this or Swearing to that as they should in humour enact which Roguery in Conversation passed with a great many Rascally Profligate Protestants who would not believe your being a Papist till the day you opened your Chappel or Oratory the next or next Sunday but one after you took the Crown 5. The Parliament was of an Opinion that for an Age after the Consummation of the said Marriage at the least the People of England would be under continued Apprehensions of the Growth of Popery and the Danger of the Protestant Religion and so they were an Age before For when they saw so many Piracies made on the Dutch Factories in the Years 1663 1664. and a wicked War commenced in the Year 1665. and the City fired by Papists in the Year 1666. and the Papists incouraged not only in the Years aforesaid but in the Year 1667. and 1668. and Persons that had a hand in firing the City of London not only protected but preferred and the Trpiple League broken and another ungodly War proclaimed Priests and Jesuits increasing in their Numbers and their Insolencies and Impudence This increased the Fears and Jealousies of the Nation and your first Lâ—dy turning Papist and dying such but when you married an Italian Papist you had more Eyes upon you and the People by degrees began to see into your Designs against the Protestant Religion and Government That the Protestant Religion was by this means in danger is beyond Disputation for it had three great Enemies conspiring against it that had made a League together to destroy it and all those Princes and States that did intend to maintain and uphold it viz. your Brother Charles the French King and your self and this Confederacy was set up to destroy the Prince of Orange the Government of the States-General and the Parliament of England and this the Parliament feared and therefore they interposed in this marriage Object But here an Objection will arise Why should the Parliament object against this Match and be so zealous in their Interposition to prevent this Match with the Daughter of Modena since it is plain you in view of the World had been for several Months ingaged in a Treaty of Marriage with another Catholick Princess yet a Parliament nay that very Parliament held during the time of the Treaty and not the least Exception taken at it To this I Answer 1. That the Archduchess of Inspruck though she was of the Romish Religion yet she was an avowed Enemy of the French Cause and Interest For observe this there were many Papists which Sir you hated and by your Conspirators were looked upon with an evil Eye for the Lord Castlehaven that was one that served the King of Spain was one that was used very hardly by you Sir Kenelm Digby was also very obnoxious to you and so was my Master the Duke of Norfolk being one of the Spanish Faction and Anderson the Priest and several others that I can when called to it name who were Enemies of the French Faction And this Lady being not of the French Faction and Interest the Match through the Influence of the French King was broken and this Piece of Flesh you have was sent from Modena in her Room 2. The Match between you and that Duchess was never so near a Consummation as this between the Daughter of Modena and you was de non Appaparentibus non existentibus eadem est Ratio the Match did not appear to them therefore they touched not upon it But to make sure they addressed the King that you might not match with Modena or any other Popish Princess for several weighty Considerations 6. The House of Commons considered that your Princess of Modena being so near a Relation and Kindred to the many Eminent Persons of the Court of Rome might give great Opportunities to promote their Designs and carry on their Practices amongst us and by the same means penetrate into the most secret Councils of the King your Brother and more easily discover the State of the whole Kingdom It is observed that it is a standing Rule amongst the Venetians that if one of their Senators have a Relation that is made a Pope or Cardinal or is preferred to any great Dignity in the Court of Rome that the said Senator withdraws from or is dismissed his serving in the said Senate And the Reason is plain First Because they will not be imposed upon by any of that Vermine and Secondly Because they will not have their Councils looked into by any that belong to the Court of Rome nor Thirdly Will they have the Secrets of their Government discovered to them and lastly they will not have the State of their Commonwealth exposed to the Censure of the Ecclesiastical State Sir You were no sooner married but how Letters pass betwixt the Court of Rome and you self and your servant Coleman Jan. 4. 1676. Cardinal Howard writing to Coleman intimates That Sir Henry Tichburn was appointed by you to be your Minister at Rome and rejoyced at the Prorogation of the Parliament and further said That if the King would do well then all would do well Now you know what was meant by the King 's doing well that is if he were removed In that Letter he saith he hoped to do you good Service It is plain that now not only France but Rome was also to be interested in your Councils to destroy the King your Brother and expose the Councils and Secrets of the
to the French Interest which Letter Sir I saw and the Instructions were followed to a Tittle by the Fathers at S. Omers In those Letters the States-General were to be acquainted with this Now Sir it is well known that the King your Brother's being ingaged in the French Interest was no Secret at the Court at Vienna nor with the States-General but that the Prince of Orange was drawn into that Interest this must be surprizing Therefore Sir we might easily see the secret Hatred you conceived against the Prince and his Cause and Interest You and your Conspirators could have been heartily glad of being blest with such an Ally but because he was true to his Cause and Interest you by your lying Jesuits did what you could to create a Jealousie in the then Confederate Princes of the Sincerity of the Prince to the Confederacy and to the Interest of the United Provinces in order to his Ruin These Letters that were sent to the Emperor's Confessor bore Date Jan. 4. 1678. Stilo Novo Sir You may not forget the 12 Jesuits that Whitebread the Provincial of the Jesuits sent into Holland to create a Belief in the Dutch that the Prince of Orange designed no less than the Subversion of the Government of the United Provinces by procuring his Party to receive and own him as their King and that it was the Design of the said Prince to assume the Title and Crown of a King and change their Government and make a Seisure of their Freedoms These Jesuits were sent by Virtue of Letters sent from Coleman in your Name and Money was sent over to be received at Dunkirk the Sum was 4000 Crowns to bear the Charge of the Mission into Holland and the Bills were signed by one Busby a Merchant here in London the Money being paid in by Sir Allen Apsley therefore Sir it may well be concluded who was at the Head of this Piece of Villany In a word Sir you see what means you and the rest of your Popish Incendiaries used to beget in the Dutch an ill Esteem of the Prince of Orange and to widen the Difference between the Lovistein Party and his Friends and if possible to seduce his Friends and destroy his Interest and the Interest of the Protestant Religion and the best Title the Jesuits of St. Omer's us'd to give him was Apple-tree Will at which you were pleased in the multitude of your witty Thoughts to laugh as Coleman us'd to tell us when ever any Discourse happened concerning the Prince of Orange But Sir you may say That he was your Sister's Son and that at that time you had married your Daughter to him so that he was not only your Nephew but your Son-in-Law What then How you and your Party used him when he was your Nephew the Princes of Europe saw and the Honest Party of England resented his Usage and had Thoughts of you accordingly yea and of your Brother to but you pretend that you had married your Daughter to him No Sir it was neither you nor your Brother married the Lady Mary to the Prince of Orange it was something else I had almost said the Siege of Charleroy and the Advice of a worthy Minister of State upon the same But suppose you had married your Daughter to the Prince of Orange and that it was your own Inclination to which I cannot yet be reconciled in my thoughts but that after the Marriage you pursued his Ruin with as much vigour as you did before give me leave to sum up the whole in a few words You and your Accomplices resolved That the Prince of Orange should not become Great therefore he must be destroyed and in order to effect so mighty and so great a Work all means are used to stir up the Dutch to mutiny against him upon that Diabolical Suggestion of your Conspirators That he had designed and was resolved to subvert their Government and usurp a Crown and Title of a King the Emperor is also instigated to create a Belief in the States-General That the Prince designed the making himself Absolute and oh how did you and your Party hug your selves with the Expectation of a Breach between him and the States-General so that his and the whole Protestant Interest might fail in Holland In truth when a Man reflects upon this Affair he would wonder at your Barbarity and naturally ask this Question Why should this Prince aim at the Destruction of the Prince of Orange Was he not his Sister's Son his Son-in-law What profit would it be to you to destroy him An honest-thinking Man would hesitate at these things but when he considers who it is attempts this and for what cause then it naturally follows there was a pretended Cause for such Diabolical Suggestions and such Barbarous Designs You that was his Uncle was converted to such a degree of Zeal as not to regard any thing in the World in comparison of the Conversion of Heretical Kingdoms and so your Interests we know were inseparately united to the French King that it was impossible to divide them You know that you used all means to secure His Most Christian Majesty's Interest in England and that for many weighty Reasons one among the rest was That his and yours prevailing would give the greatest Blow to the Protestant Religion that ever it receiv'd from its birth then undoubtedly the Prince of Orange through God's mercy now our Gracious King at that time stood within a step or two of the Throne and being a Protestant ought in all Policy to be removed notwithstanding his being your Nephew and Son-in-law For what do Men talk of natural Affection amongst Popish Princes Was you not in a Conspiracy against Charles the Second when he was at Bruxels though he was your own Brother or else he is basely bely'd And was not the Queen his Mother zealous in the same Conspiracy notwithstanding he was her Son Why then should any Man talk of natural Affection Sir you cannot forget that you had a mighty Work upon your Hands that was The Conversion of these Kingdoms and subduing the Northern Heresie and that your hopes of it were very great and that you were zealous to a miracle of being the Author of so Glorious a Work Your mighty Mind and the Mighty Mind of the French King were relied upon by the Conspirators for that also that the Interest of the French King was highly attracted to that of yours Why then should any wonder at your Passing a Bill of Exclusion upon the Prince of Orange who the World knew notwithstanding all your Hellish Suggestions both to the Emperor and States-General stood ready with all his might to Baffle You and the French King and all your mighty Undertakings Consider further That the Interest of the French King was highly attracted to your Interest and this pleased you and your Party and so you thought your selves secure But here was your Nephew and Son-in-law his Interest was as highly attracted
to that of England Holland and the Reformed Churches of Europe to the Support of the Protestant Religion which You and the French King were to destroy by the Name and Title of the Northern Heresie I pray then what signifies a Nephew and a Son-in-law in such a Case as this Can any Man that ever knew you believe that natural Affection should interpose and prevent your destroying him since your natural Affection and Bigotry were and are still no Strangers in England or Holland Consider once more and then I have done with this Point You may remember that the French King did most generously offer you the use of his Purse to assist against the Designs of those that were Enemies to you and that Monarch Nay you know he protested That those that opposed you he should look on them his Enemies and you did as well protest That those who opposed him you would look upon them as your Enemies and it was the Opinion of the French King that the Parliament of England was neither in his Interest nor yours and you entirely agreed with him in that Thought of his so that it was your Opinion that it was necessary for you both to make use of your joint and utmost Credits to prevent the Success of the Parliaments Evil Designs against you both What Designs against you and the French King Yes Designs against you and the French King nay that which is more a dangerous Plot. Who are the Plotters And what was the Plot my Lord Arlington was at work without ceasing to advance the Interest of the Prince of Orange and the Hollanders and to lessen that of the French King And that he and several others were endeavouring to break the good Intelligence between Charles the Second the French King and your self wherefore you earnestly solicited the French King to assist with the Help of his Purse to prevent such Rogueries Thus Sir you make a Tripple League and set it up in Opposition to another In the one King Charles the French King and your sweet Self are engaged in the other the Parliament of England the States of Holland and the Prince of Orange are engaged The French is to furnish you with Money which is the Sinews of War the Parliament are declared Enemies King Charles stands as a Cypher only and therefore the French King and your self put your selves under the solemn Engagements to perform what was stipulated and strenuously to assist each other against the Designs of your and the French King's Enemies for that there was a dangerous and desperate Design on foot to advance the Prince of Orange and to lessen the French King And therefore can any think that it was unreasonable in you to endeavour to destroy him since his Advancement was of such a desperate and dangerous Consequence to the French King your Self and Romish Religion These things duly considered no Man that hath his Thoughts and Judgment keeping pace with each other but must from the Premisses rationally conclude That you and your Incendiaries must have a design of destroying the Prince and his Party and Protestant Interest in Holland notwithstanding any Excuses you may make to the contrary or your Party for you II. IRELAND Since Sir you have not left so good a Name in Holland as you might have pretended to it is much to be feared that upon enquiry your Name and Memory will not be very precious here in Ireland If you please to give me your Company thither I 'll assure you if you deserve it you shall have my good Word from thence for all the old Favours I receiv'd from you in the Day of your Power here amongst us but I suppose I shall find sad havock there made by you and your Plotters of the Protestant Religion and of the Civil Rights Liberties and Customs of the English and Protestant Interest Sir it pleased King Charles the Second to send the Lord Roberts as his Vicegerent into Ireland who was a warm Man and not at all Popishly affected and therefore not for your Turn or one that would gratifie the Conspirators in any one Point of countenancing Popery and therefore you procured him to be removed so that Ireland was put into such Hands as your Heart and Soul could wish for For whoever was Deputy or Lieutenant your Conspirator Boyle an Archbishop was the Governor a Fellow ' tho' of the Communion of the Church of England yet was a well-wisher to the Romish Mathematicks So Ireland was in a fair way to be Over-run and Ruined to all Intents and Purposes by yours and the Procurement of the Jesuites Upon the Removal of the Lord Robarts afterwards Earl of Radnor you remember who succeeded him and what Promises was made by this Successor and what Terms you required from him and how he complied and who it was that recommended this new Lieutenant as a Person fit to all Intents and Purposes to execute your Designs These things are worthy of consideration I assure you for we have considered them and what could be done in so little time as our King hath had many of those Abuses have been corrected and amended This Tool brought the Kingdom of Ireland into a sad condition by encouraging the Popish Recusants who are the profess'd Enemies to the Protestant Religion and English Interest by his or rather your Encouragement they grew more Insolent and Presumptuous than before that Tool of a Lieutenant came there which was of a dangerous Consequence to that Kingdom and the Protestant Religion and English Interest And it was like to have proved Fatal to that Kingdom had it not been in some measure prevented by the sending in his room that Great and never-to-be-forgotten Earl of Essex whom you and your Party procured to be Murthered in the Tower to make the Murther of the Good Lord Russel less difficult 1. For in the First Place in the Month of January 1672 3. you procured a Commission of Enquiry into Irish Affairs containing many Powers that were new and extraordinary not only Prejudicial to the English whose Estates and Titles were liable to be questioned but in a manner to Overthrow the King's Acts of Settlement which Commission you caused to be pursued to the great Charge and Attendance of many of the Protestants there And by this means you shook the Peace and Security of the whole Kingdom of Ireland It is well known Sir that you gave the Jesuites great Hopes of making a fair Step to establish the Romish Religion and old Gray the Jesuite in a Letter of February 1672. exhorts the Fathers at St. Omers to be very thankful to God that he had put it into the Hearts of the King and Duke to remember the sad Estate of the Catholick Religion in Ireland and that now there was some Hopes of Establishing it there since the Lord-Lieutenant was so well disposed towards it by the especial Care of His Royal Highness II. You were pleased to cause the Popish Party to be armed
Corporate and other Market Port Towns of that Kingdom to the great Terrour of the English Protestants and the Disturbance of their Trade To redress which how many Petitions were presented setting forth the Calamity the Protestant Interest was exposed to and what Danger they were in of losing their Trade both at home and abroad and how they returned without any manner of Redress but were ridiculed by Leyton and abused by your Tool the Lord Lieutenant It is well known that the Irish Papists some few only excepted did not understand Trade and therefore the End for which they were let in to live in Towns Corporate and into other Market-Towns within that Kingdom was that they might over-power the Protestant Party and seize their Effects as they did in the Rebellion They began in the Year 1641 and that they might get into Offices in those Towns Corporate to keep the Protestants so much under as would incapacitate them to stand upon their defence the Irish being well armed and the English being disarmed by a private Order from your self to the then Lord Lieutenant which was discovered in the Papers found at Jolliff's house in Weldstreet in Feb. or Jan. 1678 9 amongst Papers belonging to Sir Ellys Leyton And for two or three Years together great Inquiry was made by some of your Conspirators for News out of Ireland so big they were with the Expectation of a Rebellion there which certainly had been if it had not been for fear of the Scotch who were well planted in the North of Ireland who with all the Bravery and Resolution that became honest Men and good Protestants to stand by the English in opposition to the Irish for which Cause you did use your utmost Efforts to have those Scotch that were so planted in the North of Ireland to be disarmed but whether at that time your Design took effect I cannot well remember 6. Furthermore you to carry on your wicked designs and purposes in that Kingdom for the better establishing of Popery and Arbitrary Power and discouraging of the Protestant Religion and English Interest You procured Letters of the King your Brother bearing date Septemb. 28th 1672. and upon that Letter so procured there was an Order of Council of that Kingdom in which Letter and by which Order the English Protestants were strictly charged and commanded upon pain of his high Displeasure not to prosecute the Irish Papists in any Actions whatsoever for any Wrongs or Injuries committed by them during the late Rebellion Nay Sir you would not have it called a Rebellion but you desired it might be called rather the late Troubles which you could not obtain and rather than your Teagues should lose the Benefit of the said Letter you were content to have it called a Rebellion and the Reason was you and your Brother too were well satisfied who had a hand in it and first stirred it up witness the Parchments that were found in the Red Trunk in Jolliff's House in Weld-street and the Letter written in the behalf of the Marquis of Antrim to your Devilish Court of Claims in which the principal Author of that Rebellion was made manifest but that by the Way only In that Rebellion what Murders Rapines Thefts and barbarous Outrages were for some time daily committed by the Irish Papists upon the poor Protestants some yet alive in both Kingdoms to testifie And yet of your tender Care of those Barbarous Cut-throats you would not have them answer at Law for any of the aforesaid Villanies and why Because what they did was in Zeal for the Catholick Cause to which you by a Miracle was converted insomuch that for the promoting of it you had regard neither to Law or Justice Sence or Reason Nay some that did sue those Murderers before that damnable Court was set up were much discountenanced by your Party there and by your self here in England if they had occasion to make any Application to your self for any Favour or Kindness 7. You constituted Richard Talbot Agent from your self to the Roman-Catholicks and they constituted him their Agent to you from them for which Talbot had a sufficient Pension to whore and game withal and give the Devil his due he answered his Trust with all the Care Fidelity and Diligence both to you and the Popish Party Not only so but you procured for him the said Talbot a Command in Ireland as a Reward for his great Services done Of this Agency of the said Talbot Dr. Tongue and Mr. Thomas Jones your quondam Chaplain having some clear Proof they made Application to the King your Brother and he ridiculed the Business and said That Talbot was not only a Blockhead but was in no manner fit for an Agent for any party he being also a Man too much addicted to his pleasures and you met with Jones and asked him whether he was turned from a Preacher to an Informer and told him he had pitched upon a very unlikely man for an Agent Thus was any Truth that was against Poperty or Papists brought by any honest Man hissed of the Stage by your Brother and your self Sir I confess you would have used me so when I charged him with a Commission from some body to be General Governour and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the King then told me how Tongue and Jones had been to inform him that Talbot was an Agent from the Popish Party in Ireland to the Duke and an Agent from the Duke to the Popish Party which he rejected as an improbable thing but the Story I told him was more improbable I discovered his Agency and made out that by Letters under the hand of the said Talbot so that Tongue and Jones were justified and you did in a few Years so justifie that part and so many particulars of my Testimony in that Affair that your very Passive Obedience Rogues began when it was almost too late to look about them For in time he was General of the Army in Ireland in the time of the Earl of Clarendon's Regency and after him to the sorrow of many Unbelievers he was by you made Lord Lieutenant 8. Your Conspirators received a Letter from Talbot the pretended-Archbishop of Dublin wherein it was expressly said That your Jesuits in Ireland and others were preparing the Irish Papists to Rise in defence of their Liberties and Religion and to recover their Estates and that if the Parliament that was to sit in England did engage heartily with the King and the King with them in a War against the French King that a place or places should be opened to receive the French King's Army in Ireland whenever his most Christian Majesty should think fit to send one And by Order from Coleman and the Jesuits in London the Fathers at the English College at S. Omers were to advertise the Father Confessor to the French King of the same and other Jesuits that had an Interest in the French King and the Fathers of S. Omers were assured
deplorably deprived by the Re-establishment of Prelacy so it is evident not only to impartial Persons but to professed Enemies with what unparalell'd Patience and Constancy the People of God have endured all the Cruelty Injustice and Oppression that the Will and Malice of Prelacy and Malignants could invent and exercise And being most unwilling to act any thing which might import Opposition to lawful Authority or engage the Kingdoms in War although we have been all along groaning under the Over-turning the Work of Reformation Corruptions of Doctrine Slighting of Worship Despising of Ordinances the Changing the Ancient Church-Discipline and Government Thrusting out so many of our Faithful Ministers from their Charges Confining straightly Imprisoning Exileing yea and putting to Death many of them and Intruding upon their Flocks a Company of Insufficient Scandalous Persons Confining Imprisoning Torturing Tormenting Scourging and Stigmatizing Poor People Plundering their Goods Quartering upon them Rude Soldiers Selling their Persons to Foreign Plantations Horning and Intercommuning many of both Sexes whereby great Numbers in every corner of the Land were forced to leave their Dwellings Wives Children and Relations and made to wander as Pilgrims still in Hazard of their Lives none daring to Recet Harbour or Supply though Starving or so much as to speak to them though upon Death-bed without making themselves obnoxious to the same Punishments And these things acted under colour of Law in effect tending to banish not only all Sense of Religion but also to extinguish all natural Affection even amongst Persons of nearest Relations and likewise groaning under the intolerable Yoak of Oppression in our Civil Interest our Bodies Liberties and Estates so that all manner of Outrages have been most arbitrarily exercised upon us for a Tract of several Years past particularly in the Year 1678. by sending us an armed Host of Barbarous Savages contrary to all Law and Humanity and by laying on us several Impositions and Taxes as formerly so of late by a Meeting of Prelimited and Over-awed Members in the Convention of Estates in July 1678. for keeping up of an armed Force intrusted as to a great part of it into the Hands of avowed Papists or Favourers of them by whom sundry Invasions have been made upon us and most exorbitant Abuses and incredible Insolencies committed against us and we being continually sought after while meeting in Houses for Divine Worship Ministers and People frequently apprehended and most rigorously used and so being necessitated to attend the Lord's Ordinances in the Fields in the most desert Places and there also often hunted out and assaulted to the effusion of our Blood and killing of some whereby we were inveitably constrain'd either to defend our selves by Arms at those Meetings or be altogether deprived of the Gospel preached by Faithful Ministers and made absolute Slaves At one of which Meetings upon the First Day of June instant being the Lord's Day Captain Graham of Claverhouse being warranted by a late Proclamation to kill whomsoever he found in Arms at Field-Conventicles making Resistance did furiously assault the People assembled and further to provoke did cruelly bind like Beasts a Minister with some others whom he had found that same Morning in Houses and several being killed on both sides they knowing certainly that by Law they behoved if apprehended to dye they did stand to their own defence and continue together and there after many of our Friends and Countrymen being under the same Oppression expecting the same measure did freely offer their Assistance We therefore thus inevitably and of absolute Necessity forced to take this last Remedy tho Magistrates having shut the Door by a Law against Application that whatever our Grievances be either in things Civil or Sacred we have not the Privilege of a Supplicant do judge our selves bound to dcelare That these with many other horrid Grievances in Church and State which we purpose to manifest more fully hereafter are the true Causes of this our Lawful and Innocent Self-defence And we most solemnly and in the presence of Almighty God the Searcher of all Hearts declare that the true Reasons of our continuing in Arms candidly and sincerely are these First The defending and securing of the true Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Government founded upon the Word of God and summarily comprehended in our Confessions of Faith and Catechism and established by the Laws of this Land to which King Nobles and People are solemnly sworn and engaged in our National Solemn League and Covenant and more particularly the Defending and Maintaining the Kingly Authority of our Lord Jesus Christ over his Church against all sinful Supremacy derogatory thereto and incroaching thereupon Second The preserving and defending the King's Majesty his Person and Authority in the Preservation and Defence of that true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom that the World may bear Witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no Thoughts nor Intention to diminish his just Power and Greatness Third The Obtaining of a Free and United Parliament and a Free and General Assembly in Order to the Redressing of our foresaid Grievances for the preventing the eminent Danger of Popery and extirpating Prelacy from amongst us This therefore being the Cause we appear for and resolve in God's Name to own hereby homologating all the Testimonies of faithful Sufferers for the Truth in Scotland these eighteen Years by gone We humbly request the King's Majesty to restore all things as he found them when God brought him home to his Crown and Kingdoms and if that cannot be obtained then we heartily and humbly invite and intreat beseech and obtest by the Bowels of Jesus Christ all who are under the same Bonds with us to occur in this Common Cause and Interest and that they will not stand still and see not only us oppressed but this foresaid Cause ruined Adversaries proudly and highly insult against God and all good Men Friends of the Truth discouraged yea the Protestant Cause in Britain and Ireland and even your selves within a little time made a Prey of or else forced when we are broken which the good Lord prevent dreadfully to wrong your Consciences Finally because we desire no Man's hurt or blood we request our Country-men now the standing Forces of this Kingdom some of them being our Friends and Kinsmen not to fight against us least in so doing they be found fighting against the Lord whose Cause and Quarrel we are sure he will own and signally countenance seeing we fight under his Banner who is the Lord of Hosts This Sir you know was the Declaration of these Blessed Servants of God but you had not filled up the measure of your Sins and therefore God was pleased to deliver these miserably enslaved wretches into your hands and they were made a prey to your never to be forgotten Cut-throats and some of them sealed their Testimony of Jesus with their Blood You may remember what Havock your Popish Crew made of them
carry'd it for your going therefore a Command was sent to you all of a sudden That it was your Brother's pleasure you should be gone This Sir fill'd many with amazement who knew not for what ends such Counsels had been taken and it filled others with great Joy they now believing that the King your Brother and his Court would have been purg'd from Popery and his Popish Councels and the Popish Fabrick which had been so long a building would again tumble down when they saw you that were the chief supporter of it had left your station Well Sir away you go for Flanders as if you had been going into another World but your Conspirators were not a whit daunted but resolv'd to stick as faithfully to you as you had done before to them And tho' by this departure of yours many of your Conspirators for whom the Kingdoms were too hot and who ought to have danced a Gambrel at Tyburn under the pretence of being your Servants yet notwithstanding the hardiest and boldest of your impudent Crew staid behind and watch'd Affairs at home letting nothing be done that was material but what was done by your Advice and Direction and theirs and by your being abroad they had the opportunity of studying and advising what was fit to be done at home This Sir I must observe to you by the way that before you could be prevail'd upon to go you were faithfully promised that nothing of value or moment should be done or acted without you nay the Speech that was to be made at the Opening of the Parliament was concluded on before you went Yet for all this at the Meeting of the New Parliament which was now become almost a Wonder in this Nation a great panick Fear was struck in all or most of your Crew and they certainly had so much Fear upon them from the least to the greatest that they were even ready to cry Quarter or at least to offer terms of accommodation the Nation being in a very great ferment and your Party that had rely'd so much upon the mighty Mind of the French King for Mony began to curse him for driving them upon these Extremities nay you your self did not spare to revile him for the same The King your Brother happening to be indispos'd at Windsor which being posted over to you you return with all speed and unexpectedly and being here you had but a little inclination to return to Flanders again but the King pleasing you with some private Resolutions of his you did submit to return again to Flanders where you was as coldly received as at first but your stay was not long there for the Coast being then clear you resolved upon returning home and did accordingly return and the design you know was then to fix the Sham Protestant Plot you and your Conspirators had contriv'd But that would not keep you in England for it was resolv'd that you should go to Scotland to settle the Protestant Religion there where you receiv'd the sad News of the baffling the Sham-Plot that you and yours had thought to charge upon some Protestants which made you take new Measures and you resolv'd to part with a small spell of Mony to get the Parliament prorogued for some longer time and a greater Sum was pressed from France but without success for the Duke of Bucks spoil'd that Design for which piece of service you owed him a Cake and was resolv'd if it had not been timely prevented you would have bestow'd upon him a whole Loaf But that by the way Well you arrive in Scotland I pray how were you receiv'd with great Joy to your Banditti there Nay the most excellent Protestant Bishops receiv'd you with tokens of Welcome and highly resented the Affront that the Parliament of England had put upon you when they went about to exclude you and very honestly declar'd against it and tho' the Commons of England were so dim sighted as not to see that the only way to settle the Protestant Religion was by a Popish King yet they could see it and declare it as an undoubted Truth Now Sir it was expected that you should admire the Fabrick that your old Friend Lauderdale had so delicately contrived and in reward of his good Service advance his Interest No no you no sooner got into Scotland but you were designing against Lauderdale he being the great Instrument of sending you thither for you never forgave him that Affront so that after your arrival in Scotland his Interest much dwindl'd away Thus you rewarded one of your old Friends who had sold Body and Soul and all to the Devil to serve you and your Cause he is gone to his place I fear in sure and certain expectation of Wrath and Vengeance for the many Villanies he had committed against the Religion Laws and Liberties of his Country Whilst Sir you were in Scotland you and your Conspirators made your Designs to go on to your full content tho' much diligence was us'd and pains were taken in the point and to give you and your Accomplices that which is your due you never did spare your Pains for the bringing on your wicked Devices to perfection and you thought it good Policy and your best way to make sure of something that if England should be too hard for you yet you resolved to make sure of Scotland And to repeal those Laws that were in force which did debar a Popish Prince from inheriting that Crown therefore you got a Parliament call'd and your self made High Commissioner Upon this you labour the Point for the choice of the Commoners that should be fit for the purpose and to cajole some of the Lords you entice Hamilton to come into your Interest You mounted the Throne as High Commissioner without regarding the Law or due Qualifications necessary in taking the Oaths for that was below you And the King having furnish'd you with Letters you are admitted into the Council without taking the Oaths But being got into the House you carried all before you and got your Succession to the Crown of Scotland secured by an Act and you got a Test passed by which all were to swear not to endeavour to alter that Government either in Church or State and all such as refused were to lose their Employments In a word you made every thing to pass that you and your Crew had a mind to As you were a Privy Councillor in that Kingdom you wheedled in the Duke of Hamilton and admitted him one of the Council who was very zealous for the Protestant Religion formerly but then began to be very cool And so were the rest of the cajoled Lords they all put on the Temper that Scotchmen usually are attended withal that is to be false to the Cause that is persecuted for upon the rising of the Parliament they suffer'd the poor Dissenters to be squeezed to death and suffer'd all imaginable Severities to be used towards them You succeeding so well in
Parliament you used great Endeavours for a standing Army under the notion of securing the Peace against those Dissenters and Field Meeters but tho' you had labour'd hard in that point yet the Success did not answer your expectation so fully as to give you content Well Sir what becomes of old Lauderdale your faithful Servant and dearly beloved Favorite for I do not find him in this Parliament No he 's forced to stay in England not daring to appear in Scotland for his Hell hounds were not able to weather the Point because the Stream run so strong against him not that you had made any change of his Measures in the Conspiracy against the Protestant Interest and Religion unless it were for the worse and very desirous you were of getting him into Scotland and no doubt you would have served him a Scotch Maiden Trick Why so Because that Old Dog had been heard to say that all you had done in Scotland was nothing in regard the Oaths were omitted and that the Parliament was but a Convention and what you had done was in it self void and of no effect These were bloody words and highly resented by you and afterwards you had an Eye upon Argyle who began to snort at the Test and though he had been a Dog in a String to your Brother and your self some Qualm came cross his Conscience He therefore began to make his Interpretations upon it which were such as cut the Throat of the thing it self And altho' the Interpretation he gave could be no other than the genuine sence of the thing and plain to be understood that it could mean no other than what he intended to take it in yet it was so much disliked that he was then to have been made a Sacrifice under the notion of being guilty of High Treason only for explaining the Test he was accordingly seized and libelled against and found guilty of the Fact and he was then in a fair way to have lost his Life for his Ingenuity but he with a great deal of dexterity made his escape and so saved himself for that time from being murder'd by you and your Cut-throats there Scotland Sir you bridled and saddled and brought the Government there to be something like the French Mode differing nothing but that you had made the Scots the greater Vassals of the two And the People of that Kingdom caressed you highly for the grace and favour of their Vassalage notwithstanding which you were not willing to stay any longer there your Friends advising you by all means to return to England to secure your Interest in England you having setled Scotland to your content And this remember Sweet Sir that the Whore Portsmouth with her Bastard Son was by your Royal Brother sent to France to renew the Dover Treaty in which she was more successful than your Sister of blessed memory for she was caressed by the French King and her Bastard honour'd as a Prince of the Blood and she setled a firm Correspondency between Lewis of France and Charles of Great Britain pursuant to the Treaty at Dover This you heard of and you judged the Strumpet was undermining you and obtaining the Succession for her son which made you after your arrival at Whitehall more unwilling to return again for Scotland than before and you pressed the then King your Brother for your stay here but you were told that you must return to Scotland where your stay should be but short you obeyed and went by Sea with your chief Favourite Mumper who with you was like to have been lost but you saved your self and the Curr and lost some Treasure with a great part of your Retinue who drank your Health and went to the bottom But you arrive in Scotland and the Mony being lost your Intentions of having a standing Army there were sunk also Your stay was to be short in Scotland and so shall mine therefore since I have put you in mind of your bridling and saddling that poor Kingdom as a Subject and a High Commissioner for King Charles give me leave to remember you of your Carriage when you pretended to and usurped that Crown as King of Sâ—otland for by the Laws of that Kingdom all Popish Princes were uncapable of that Crown And because of your Omission of the Oaths that were to be by you taken all that you did in repealing them was null and void and to no effect so that those Laws were still in force against you notwithstanding the aforesaid pretended Repeal for without those Oaths the meeting together of Lords and Commons was no Parliament but a Convention which cannot repeal any Statute there Upon your taking that Crown the Earl of Argyle upon the 20th of May 1685 well knowing how the Protestant Religion must suffer in Scotland lands in Scotland near a place called Kentire and on the 21st sent forth his Declaration wherein he tells the Scots That the End of his coming was the defence of the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of the Protestants of Scotland against Popery and Arbitrary Government and therefore he required all persons from sixteen to sixty to come and joyn with him with Arms and Provisions necessary One of his sons sent Letters to several Gentlemen upon the same account so that in few days his Army was encreased to 2500 Men. But Sir your Trappan that betray'd the poor Protestants at Bothwâ—ll bridge 1679 escaping the Gallows lived to betray this poor Gentleman in the year 1685. for instead of shewing him the true way wherein he should have marched provided Rogues who led him into a bogg from whence he returning towards Glyde was fallen upon by some Scots and taken and Sir by your Arbitrary Order he was basely murder'd at Edinburgh on the 30th of June following This man had all along fought in your Brother's Cause and Quarrel and was an Instrument to betray his Father to your Brother and was murder'd in the beginning of his Reign after his Return This man had served your Cause and Interest in Scotland many years and had run in the same excess of Riot with your Conspirators but God opened his Eyes to see your base Designs against the Religion and Liberties of his Country and therefore nothing would satisfie you but his Blood and the ruine of his whole Family Well he is dead but I must say of him he deserved better Fortune in the World and more Favour from your Hands and his that is gone to his place Scotland did another time become a Field of Blood and till it was you were not contented But the Scots being weary of these perpetual disappointments they submitted to your Government and you then declared by the Advice of your Villanous Conspirators especially the damn'd Bishops that you were clothed with an Absolute Power and that all your Subjects of that Kingdom were bound to obey you without reserve upon which you did assume an Arbitrary Power both over the Religion and Laws of that
cut him off whilst Hill slept in a Pocky Skin Now Sir to lay open to you and the whole World the truth of this matter I pray observe that this Hill and this Riggs were in your Pay to be Spies upon the Conversations of several Honest men as Butler and Seely was afterwards in your Brothers for the same purpose Riggs and Hill gets into the Company of several Dissenters and in their hearing did talk at a strange rate against the Government and what a secret Cabal there was meeting in London for the change of the same and how that the King your Brother and your self were for introducing Popery and Slavery But to prevent your Attempts of that sort the said Riggs and Hill told them That Arms and Ammunition were provided and that a number of honest men were left to rise and defend the true Religion Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and that Deale Castle and Windsor Castle were to be surprized This sort of Talk they had with some few honest men who in the Integrity of their Hearts confessed that they heard Hill and Riggs talk at this rate Nay these Devils could not deny but that they did use this sort of talk and intimated that they had a License so to do Notwithstanding these poor Creatures denied that ever they had any hand in any such Conspiracy nor indeed was any thing proved but what Hill and Riggs swore they had talk'd to them yet they were condemn'd and basely murder'd and their Families ruin'd by your procurement and Hill and Riggs escaped with Impunity tho' not without Infamy Your Jesuites would have courted them both to the Church of Rome but they appearing to be such Rogues they were afraid they would be a Disgrace to them who from their rising up in the World had themselves been a Scandal and Disgrace to the Creation of God 5. You having some Success in this your Conspirators would not be idle but drew in some warm Men into another Conspiracy in the North. The then Sheriff of the County of York and a great man whose Name I will omit because he did in part afterwards make England some amends for that piece of Villany you know at that time to please the Court he was reconciled to the Church of Rome and no doubt whilst so he was a fit Tool to carry on so wicked a Design which was to discourse of the Oppression the Nation lay under thro' the Duties of Excise c. and the disturbance that the Lawyers had made in the Kingdom That your Brother and you were bringing in of Popery and Slavery at which these poor Creatures were enflam'd and being promis'd the supply of Mony and by the High Sheriff the Assistance of Posse Comitatus they were drawn in to engage But alas it was but a Trappan they were taken and executed upon the Evidence of some of them that were engaged with them but how you rewarded that Person of Quality afterwards it is well-enough known This was another of your Projects as the Person of Quality you employed hath told to several Friends with great Grief some of whom are alive to this day But not to forget one passage let me tell you that you and your Conspirators made at the Tryal of Mr. Alured two Witnesses of one Man first he appear'd in a strange disguise with one Eye and gave his Testimony under one Name and then withdrew and appear'd in his common Dress and gave his testimony by his own Name and so Alured was murder'd by the Conspirators This can be prov'd by good testimony 6. I will give you a short Truth of the Fire of London how that Eight Men were executed for having a design to fire the City of London on the third of September 1666. And great care was taken to lay it upon the Fifth-Monarchy-Men and the old Officers of the Army that served under the Parliament but in truth it was contrived by your self and your wicked Popish Party and by you and them carried on to destroy that great Protestant City that with more ease you and your Accomplices might introduce Popery and Slavery among us for London was the Bulwark of the Protestant Religion and English Liberties and therefore she must be made a Burnt-Offering to your self and Hellish Popish Crew 7. Another Instance of your Conspirators shamming their Plots upon poor innocent Protestants and that is the Case of the Lord Claypool and by this cast an Odium upon the whole body of Protestant Dissenters For in the Month of August just about the time that your Conspirators were to execute their wicked Design to destroy the King then you deal with Secretary Coventry to clap up that poor innocent Gentleman for designing to seize the King as he went to Newmarket and you had two Witnesses ready at hand to have sworn that Design against him the said Claypool who was by the Secretary's Warrant arrested for High Treason But he the said Claypool knowing nothing of the matter demanded to know his Accusers that was according to that Villain 's usual way deny'd him and he frown'd upon as if he had been the greatest Knave in England next to Coventry himself Claypool was as stout as that Knave of a Secretary was proud and insolent and as for Claypool he would scarce answer any Question so away he was sent to the Tower a close Prisoner This startled every one except the Conspirators and my self who was privy to the whole business by the repeated Orders Coleman receiv'd from Sir your self for his Prosecution that when the Blow was given upon the King it might be charg'd upon the Fanaticks And to that end Sing and Throgmorton two virulent Papists and Butler and Seely two Popish Spies of your Brother's and yours both pretended Fanaticks the last I think is a Cornish man and was a Major in the late Protector 's Army so that you and all your Popish Conspirators intended as one Man to revenge the Death of the King on the Dissenting Party concluding that the Vermin of the Church of England would strike in with the Popish Party since they hated a Dissenter worse than a Papist tho' differing from them only in a few scoundrel Ceremonies not worthy to wipe a Porter's Tail withal Therefore as a Prologue to that cursed Design you could not think of a man fitter than this Lord Claypool he being Son-in-Law to that Lord Protector Cromwell but you and your Villains were disappointed for a time from destroying the King for when the true Plot was discover'd your devilish Witnesses against the Protestant Party disappear'd And so much for Claypool 8. Another Instance of your implacable Hatred to the Protestants and of your designing to sham a Plot upon them was your old and very good Friend Mr. Thomas Blood whom you and your Brother set upon my self to bring me into a Conspiracy with Richard late Lord Protector and him the said Blood to dethrone your Brother and your self which Sir
the said Persecution were reduced almost to Beggery or to live upon the Charity of Friends Some were forced to fly the Nation and yet were more loyal under their Pressures and Provocations than your Cut-throat Papists were under their then Caresses and Favours received from your Brother and your self Nay a reverend Minister of the Gospel of Christ who had been very instrumental in your Restauration yea and ventur'd his Life for your Brother's Restauration in the year 1650 you suffer'd to perish in Newgate as a Reward for so great a piece of Service to your Brother and your self and Family and for no other reason but because he could not comply with some Rascally Ceremonies that our Ecclesiastical Vermin had borrow'd from the Church of Rome to Adorn our Protestant Worship and because he would not take the Oxford Oath lay'd upon the Nation to enslave it 8. Another Project you had for the ruining the Interest of the Protestant Religion and the Interest of England was the Advancing of Men that were Enemies to the Protestant Interest into the greatest Places of Trust As What a Sett of Villains had you made Judges of the Land by which means you brought all the Matters of Civil Justice into great Uncertainties by reason of the Tenour of their Commissions and the Ignorance of the Rogues you employ'd Therefore how miserable was the Nation who were obliged to Answer to such Judges that were forced to comply in all things with the Directions that were given by you and your Wicked Cut-throats or else to be turned out at yours and their Pleasure If we look further you had in your Brother's time the disposing of all Military Employments And how you did shew your Hatred to the Protestant Religion and the English Interest You did in his time raise a great many Persons to the greatest Military Trusts both by Sea and Land Strangers as well as Natives so that by these measures your Conspirators became Masters of the Affairs of the Government of the Nation and of the course of Justice and you had all the Church Vermin engag'd with you to subject the whole Kingdom to a despotick Arbitrary power and all these joyn'd together to execute your wicked Designs to enslave and debauch the People of the Land 9. To compleat the Work that nothing might stand in your way of Establishing your Popish Religion you murder'd your Brother who was uncertain in his Engagements in the Conspiracy for when he found it was not safe for him to appear in promoting Popery he soon left you Or if a Sum of Money could be gotten from a Parliament he commonly bless'd the Nation with a Proclamation or two against Popish Priests Jesuites and Popish Recusants or pass a Bill or so to the prejudice of the Popish Party as he did in 1673 when the Test-Bill passed as also another in 1678. This obliged you and your Conspirators to hasten his destruction which you had long contrived You found a fit Tool and as fit a Dose to do the Work in it you had your desired Ends and so you mounted the Throne Which brings me to the Second Point What you did in order to the Ruine of the Protestant Religion and the Government after your accession to the Crown II. Your Tyranny was very cruel but short yet full of strange and surprising Circumstances It was highly astonishing to see a Popish Prince ascending the Throne to rule a Protestant Nation and defend a Protestant Church but Sir you had no such Designs in your Head for you shew'd what you would do with our Laws when you could engage your Conspirators to dispense with part of the Oaths that you should have taken It is manifest and notorious that when you were upon the coming to the Crown you was receiv'd by all the People of England Scotland and Ireland as King without the least opposition for our Ecclesiastical Vermin had made your way clear by their Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance and the Divine Right of Succession and the possibility of preserving the Glory and Grandeur of their Church of England by a Popish Prince and that there was more danger from Fanaticks than from Papists and such-like scoundrel Notions You cannot but remember that King Charles your Brother having received the deadly Dose your Conspirators had prepar'd for him on February the 6th 1684 5 he went to his Place that very day Sir you were proclaim'd King to the sorrow of all that wish'd well to England and its Religion Liberties and Laws you then appear'd at the Council-Table as King and by all your Conspirators you was owned and saluted as such to whom you were pleas'd to make a sort of a Speech in which you were pleas'd to declare your self to this effect THat Since it hath pleased Almighty God to place you in that station and that you were now to succeed so Good and Gracious a King as well as so Kind a Brother you thought it fit to declare That you would follow his Example and more especially in that of his great Clemency and Tenderness to all his People That you had been reported to have been a man for Arbitrary Power tho' that had not been the only Story that had been made of you That you would make it your Endeavour to preserve Government both in Church and State as it was by Law establish'd That you knew the Principles of the Church of England were for Monarchy and that the Members of it had shewn themselves good and loyal Subjects and therefore you would take care to defend and support it That you knew the Laws of England were sufficient to make the King as great a Monarch as you could wish and therefore as you would never depart from the Just Rights and Prerogatives of the Crown so you would never invade any Man's Property And that you had ventur'd your Life very often in the defence of the Nation And that you would go as far as any Man in preserving it in all its Just Rights and Liberties This Sir is the sum and substance of what you were pleas'd to say at the Council board and one would have sworn that you would have taken up the Trade of being Speech wright-general to the whole Band of your Conspirators I am confident your old Friends the Jesuites that had been hang'd but a little before could not have outdone you though it had been to have saved their Lives Well it was a Speech and how true you were to this Speech you shall judge and your Conspirators too if you will but consider 1. You said You would not invade any man's Right and Property and that you would preserve the Nation in its Just Rights and Liberties And so you did for you the next day after your accession to the Crown publish'd a Proclamation for the continuing the payment of the Custom and Excise which were expir'd by the death of the King your Brother for several weeks after Did not this shew
of England's Affairs should publickly abjure the Protestant Religion by which means he was not only very unfit but also uncapable of holding any publick Employment And did not the Banditti give you such proof of their submission to your Popish Directions you gave them that they had continued in their Places to this day had not God of his Infinite Mercy deliver'd us from them and your self For they were men of an agreeable disposition to have furthered your designs of Popery notwithstanding all your Promises to maintain the Church of England for they took care that none should be prefer'd that had any zeal for the Protestant Religion for if you will be serious in considering who they were that you prefer'd to the Dignities in the Church and upon what terms you must own that they were men of such Morals and Principles as render'd them a very scandal to that villanous Design that you and your Conspirators were carrying on against the Church of England 3. I pray Sir was the suspension of the Bishop of London another demonstration of your Purpose and Resolution to maintain the Church of England Let any of your trayterous Crew stand forth and answer for you Was not that Prelate suspended for refusing to obey an Arbitrary Order sent to him by your Banditti Commissioners for the suspending of Dr. Sharp now Archbishop of York for preaching against Popery according to his Office and Calling without so much as citing the said Dr. Sharp before him to make his defence or observing any common forms of Process commonly us'd in such cases The Bishop comply'd with your Suspension and what damage it was to him he can tell better than I but it did work for our Good and hasten'd our Deliverance but it shew'd that you had but little regard to your Oath and Promise to maintain the Church of England 4. Another Specimen you gave us of your pious Resolution of maintaining the Ch. of England as by Law establish'd was the dealing with Magdalen Colledge in Oxford In the first place you turn'd out the President who was legally chosen by the Fellows of the Colledge who if I mistake not are sworn to chuse one from among themselves to bear that Office then you turn'd out all the Fellows for refusing to chuse one of your recommendation without so much as citing them to appear before any Court that could take legal cognizance in that affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a competent Judge and the only reason you gave for the turning them out was because they had refus'd a person that was a Papist who was not only uncapable by the Laws of the Land but also by the Statutes of that Colledge of bearing the Office of a President or Fellow of that Community And having expel'd both President and Fellows you put the said Colledge into the hands of Papists that you might the better maintain the Rights and Liberties of the Ch. of England as by Law establish'd But I hope it may be a warning to that Community and to all others of that University how they advance the Prerogative of the Crown so high and nourish those two pestilent Doctrins of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance and the Divine Right of Succession lesâ— those Doctrins do expose them to a greater Danger than the last 5. Another demonstration that was given by you of your stedfast Purposes of standing by and maintaining of the Ch. of England was your proceeding against the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge 1687. You had a great Favour for one Francis a Benedictine Monk a Rogue that was fit for any Villany that you could put him upon to act him you sent to Cambridge to corrupt the Youth there and no doubt but for his time he did the business for which you sent him You planted him in Sidney Colledge where you had placed one Basset a Papist in that House as Master but your Monk had an Apartment wherein he perform'd the Office of a Priest according to the Ch. of Rome but being a Fellow that had taken no Degrees in any University either at home or abroad you were resolv'd that he should be a Master of Arts in the University of Cambridge and in order to this you sent a Letter to the said Vice-Chancellor to admit the said Father Francis to be a Master of Arts without taking the Oaths which the Vice-Chancellor refus'd as contrary to the Law of the Land and the Statutes of the University Upon this you caus'd the Vice-Chancellor and the Delegates of the University to be summoned before your Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Affairs where that Villain Jefferies contrary to all Law or Reason pronounced Sentence that the Vice-Chancellor being guilty of great Disobedience to the King's Commands and other Crimes and Contempts should be depriv'd of the Office of Vice-Chancellor and suspended of his headship of Magdalen Colledge in the said University of Cambridge Thus Sir you were pleas'd to maintain the Ch. of England by suffering the Learning and Gravity of that University to be trampl'd upon and by letting in a parcel of silly impudent and illiterate Popish Priests and Fryers who were to joyn with you in supporting the Protestant Religion as it was then by Law establish'd Unless your Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Affairs judg'd that to destroy the two Universities as to Learning and to break in upon their Laws made to preserve their Communities would be a means to preserve the Church of England I cannot but wonder at those extravagant Proceedings in the last years of your Tyranny against them since they had so highly espoused your Cause when you were Duke of York against the Sence of the whole Nation 6. Another Reason you give us to believe that you did design to stand by and support and maintain the Ch. of England was your proceeding and causing to be summoned before your Ecclesiastical Commissioners all the Chancellors and Archdeacons of England and requiring them to certifie the Names of those Clergymen who had read the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience as well as the Names of those who had refused the same without considering that the reading of it was not enjoyn'd the Clergy by the Bishops who are their Ordinaries So that this was another way you intended even by these extrajudicial Proceedings in your Court of Commissioners Ecclesiastical to maintain the Liberties of the Ch. of England This was one great cause why several Persons of Quality both in Church and State refused to be concern'd in this Commission for they at last clearly saw that this damnable Commission tended to nothing less than the total Subversion of the Protestant Religion for you us'd it to no other end and purpose than to oppress such persons as were eminent for Learning and Virtue that should at any time or season preach against Popery Superstition And it was God's great Mercy to the Protestant Interest that they did at last see for sure I am that in the latter part
of your Brother's time and in the beginning of your time they were given up to such a secure state and judicial blindness that the Protestant Religion was in greater danger of being supprest than ever it was since the Reformation notwithstanding your Promise of maintaining and preserving it 7. Another Indication of your Care for the maintenance of the Ch. of England was the breaking thro' those Laws which forbid the erecting Churches and Chappels for the exercise of the Popish Religion and also against Monasteries and Convents and more particularly against the Order of the Jesuites for you did contrary to your Oath and Promise made to support the Ch. of England give out arbitrary and illegal Orders to erect Monasteries and in contempt of the Law you set up several Colledges of Jesuites to corrupt the Youth of the Nation Nay Sir that you might not leave your self without Witness of your stedfast Resolution of maintaining supporting and defending the Ch. of England you rais'd up a Jesuite that was in the Popish Plot in which the death of the King your kind and loving Brother was plotted and contriv'd and the subversion of the Government both in Church and State to be a Privy Councillor and a Minister of State By all which you did evidently shew that you were restrain'd by no Laws and therefore the Ch. of England must perish you being so well seconded in your Popish Progress by your most excellent Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Affairs But to conclude this Paragraph how those Villains that acted in that Commission of yours can look Mankind in the Face after they have done so many things against all Law Honour and Conscience I do not understand The truth is those that are yet alive have with the Whore in the Proverbs wiped their Mouths and say They have done no wickedness and without all doubt if they might be trusted would with as great earnestness appear against your Cause and Interest as they did wickedly in your time espouse it but they would be such a Reproach to an honest Government as would render the best and most honest Cause suspicious if engag'd in it IV. I come now to consider a 4th Passage in your Speech to the Council wherein you were pleas'd to say That you had been reported to have been a man for Arbitrary Power but you did assure them that you would preserve the Government in Church and State as by Law establish'd And That you knew that the Laws of England were sufficient to make the King as great a Monarch as he could wish How you preserv'd the Government of the Church is plain enough nothing indeed is more plain than this that you intended its Destruction and utter Subversion and that nothing less would serve your turn notwithstanding its Principles were for Monarchy and its Members had shew'd themselves Loyal Subjects How fared it then with the State Surely the Civil Government was preserv'd since the Laws of England were sufficient to make the King as great a Monarch as he could wish In truth Sir there was but a lamentable account to be given to your more than Glorious Successor of your management of Affairs in the Civil Government all things were out of order at his accession to the Crown which you may have forgotten therefore Sir be pleas'd to remember in the first place your Villains of your Council and of your Ecclesiastical Commission As they were in a Conspiracy against the Ch. of England to turn our Religion into downright Popery so they were in a Conspiracy against the State to turn the well establish'd Government of this Land into downright Slavery and this not secretly as if those Rascals were not asham'd of what they did for they had that matchless Impudence to act in an open and undisguis'd manner and to carry on your villanous purposes you and your Accomplices set up the Dispensing Power by vertue of which you might suspend and dispense with the execution of the Laws at your pleasure and in order to give this devilish Maxim of yours and your Conspirators countenance and credit you so manag'd that matter that you obtain'd an Opinion from the Judges most of which were mercenary Rogues who declar'd their opinion That this Dispensing Power was in the Kings of England as if it were in the power of these Villains to offer up the Laws and Liberties of the whole Nation to your self to be dispos'd of by you arbitrarily at your pleasure and expresly contrary to those Laws that were enacted for the liberty of the Subject In order to obtain this Judgment your Conspirators did before hand examine secretly the Sentiments of the Judges and procur'd such of them as could not in Conscience concur in so villanous an opinion or sentence to be turn'd out and others that had neither Law nor Conscience were substituted in their rooms so that by changing of hands they found out 12 matchless Rogues from whom you obtain'd that wicked Judgment which if my Memory fail me not was laid down in these 5 particulars 1. That the Kings of England are Soveraign Princes 2. That the Laws of England are the King's Laws 3. That it is an inseparable Prerogative of the K. of Engl. to dispense with Penal Laws upon necessity and urgent occasions 4. That the K. is the sole Judge of that necessity 5. That this is not in Trust given to the K. but 't is the ancient Remains of the Crown which ne'r was nor can be taken from him Give me leave Sir to examin these Particulars and let the world see how you were abus'd and how you abus'd the Government by the Opinions of these 12 mercenary Rogues 1. That the Kings of England were Soveraign Princes What then Must you by a Dispensing Power do what you list were you not subject to those Laws which you were sworn to keep And if you had not fled might you not have been call'd to an account Might not the People from whom you deriv'd your Authority have had any Power over you And was it not dangerous both to Church and State to have a Popish Prince so mighty that no Protestant House of Peers or Commons dare controul him Truly Sir I own that the Kings of England are soveraign Princes yet the Nation by their Representatives did ne'r allow the Kings of England to do what 12 mercenary Judges should deliver as their Opinions for Sir it was ne'r intended when you assumed the Government that your Will and Pleasure should stand for a Law for the Laws that support the Grandeur of the Crown limited your Will to Reason and ty'd your Commands to the Word of God the Laws of the Realm and the Weal of the People And since Sir you regarded not these things but follow'd the Sentiments of your corrupt Judges your Will was unlawful and Commands unjust The Kings of England always have been and still are Soveraign Princes but what makes them so Is it not the Law of the Land And
that necessity I never took you so much behind hand in Sense and Reason but that you might plainly see that this is but a bantre of these Rogues for they neither stated the necessity and the urgent occasions you had to forswear your self and never inquired whether any necessity or any urgent occasions could excuse you from lying under the guilt of Perjury Then they came off with an impudent lye and say the King is sole Judge of that necessity He is sole Judge of nothing but what he is intitled to by the Law where the Law makes him a sole Judge there I do and own my self bound to obey him as such But once more Sir Where was this necessity of which you were to be sole Judge When did it spring Out of what part of the World I believe if you could have convinced the Nation of this necessity and these urgent occasions they would not so readily concurred to your going to St. Germains were your Popish Friends oppressed And did the necessity arise from thence If it did Why did you not tell the Parliament of this Oppression Were they in want of Places at Court and Imployments under you which they could not hold Truly a great many Protestants went without them notwithstanding their being qualified Oh! but the Priests of the Church of Rome were in danger of the Law I never could yet see that day If they would be quiet and the Religion of the Church of Rome was your Religion Well if it was Had you not better to have refused the Crown rather than to have taken it with such Incumbrances and Clogs as should expose you to such necessities and urgent occasions of Perjuring your self and Damning your Soul and Ruining of three Kingdoms It was well you were the sole Judge of the necessity for if an honest English Parliament had sat in the time of your necessity and urgent occasions they would have made these Rogues have swung for their villainous Advice 5. That this is not in Trust given to the King but the Antient Remains of the Crown which never was nor can be taken from him you nor no King in England ever had any thing but what you received in Trust from the People of England in Parliament assembled therefore this was the greatest of Impudence that these Twelve ignorant Devils could be guilty of for what Authority Power or Riches have the Kings of England but what they received from the People and it is plain the Power and Authority that you received was for the benefit of the People and not for the ruin and destruction of the Laws you consented to you were intrusted with the Conservation of them not to Suspend or Dispense with them at your will and pleasure But what King of England was there since the pretended Conqest that was not Sworn to keep the Laws and defend the Rights and Liberties of the Church and People of England and who Administred this Oath to them but one or more in the behalf of themselves and all the People of England Your Brother though bad enough took the Government as a trust reposed in him by his good People of England what part was it then that was not a Trust they trusted him with vast sums of money they trusted you but with a very little I pray Sir would your Scoundril Conspirators but tell me what parts were the Remains of the Crown and how they came so to be if they cannot it is all Cheat and Nonsence By your management notwithstanding all that might have been said to the contrary even in your Reign without the danger of being hanged you obtained from your Judges this wicked Opinion I suppose you were not Idle but was resolved to proceed according to this Judgment of theirs for you presently invaded the Liberties both of Church and State I have given you some instances of your Invasion upon the Rights of the People of England in relation to Matters of the Church Now let us proceed to see how you carried your self in reference to the Civil Rights and Liberties of the People of England which brings me to a second Instance of your invading our Civil Rights 2. As your Brother did begin and made a very great Progress in so you went on to invade Priviledges and to seize the Charters of the Towns that had a right to be represented in Parliament and by your Tools procured Surrenders of them to be made to you especially where they were poor and not able to defend them And a Gentleman that valued himself upon his Oath that he had made to a Corporation whereof he was a Magistrate and therefore refused to deliver the same you rewarded him with a two or three years imprisonment and had not God interposed it had been to the ruin of himself his Wife and Children By these Surrenders Sir you caused all the Magistrates to give up their Rights and Priviledges to be disposed of at your pleasure and the pleasure of your Villains the Conspirators and by this means you placed in several of these Towns Popish Magistrates notwithstanding their incapacity or such as were Popishly affected and willing to concur with you in all your evil Designs and Purposes assuring your self that when necessity or your urgent Occasions should force you to call a Parliament you might have such a Parliament returned as should at once set up Popery and Arbitrary Power Nay Sir our danger in your time and in the time of your loving and kind Brother did most and doth still arise from those Beggarly and Paltry Borroughs that either are by Charter or Prescription enabled to send Members to Parliament 3. That you might not fail in the Counties of obtaining your wicked ends you gave Orders to Examin all Lords Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants Sheriffs Justices of the Peace and all other that were in any Publick Employments if they would Concur with you in the Repealing the Test and Penal Laws and those whose Consciences would not permit them to comply with your wicked Designs and Purposes were turned out and others who you found would be more compliant to you in your intentions in defeating the End and Execution of those Laws which had been made with so much Care and Caution to preserve not only the Protestant Religion but also our Civil Rights and Liberties and into many of those places you put in Papists and other persons of Arbitrary Principles notwithstanding the Law had incapacitated the former and the other for want of Reputation and Interest could do their Country but little Service unless like Devils they could do mischief by serving your Designs and the Purposes of your Conspirators so that this Nation was in a deplorable Condition and must have perished had not God raised up the Prince of Orange now our King to come over and deliver us out of your Hands 4. As your Brother in his time hated the Peoples Petitioning him for the redress of their Grievances and had a
Set of Men ready to Abhor and Detest such Popular Petitions though it was the Subjects Right to Petition the King for the redress of Grievances under which they groaned in his Reign So you was pleased to shew your aversness to Petitioning witness your proceeding against the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops who offered a most humble Petition to you in terms full of Respect and exceeded not the number limited by Law in which they set forth their Reasons for which they could not obey a certain Order which you by the Advice of your Popish Villains sent them to appoint their Clergy to Read in their Chruches the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience they were sent to Prison and afterwards brought to a Tryal as if they had been guilty of some enormous Crime they were not only obliged to defend themselves under this Persecution but also to appear before four Villains one Professed Papist and the other three had not taken the Test and by Consequence were Men whose Interest and Inclination too led them to Condemn them And the Judges that gave their Opinion in favour of those Prelates were turned out thus you may see a fourth Instance you have given us of your invading our Civil Rights But Sir while I speak to you of these things give me leave to plead with you What King was there that ever reigned that was too great to be petitioned by the meanest of his Subjects It cannot be pretended that any Kings how great soever their Power hath been and how Arbitrary and Dispotick they have been in the exercise of this Power have ever reckoned it a Crime for their Subjects to come with all submission and respect in a due number not exceeding the limits of the Law to represent Reasons why they could not execute such or such an Order Deal freely with the World send to your Dispensing Rogues and ask them whether it were one of the remains of the Crown that impowered you to wrest out of the Hands of the Subject this undoubted Right of Petitioning the Prince for theredress of Grieveances 5. How did you treat a Peer of this Realm Was he not used by you and your villanious Conspirators as a Criminal only because he said That the Subjects were not bound to obey the Orders of a Popish Justice of the Peace Tho it was evident that such being by Law rendred uncapable of all such Trusts No regard was due to any of their Orders This being the security which the People of England had and still have by the Law for their Lives Liberties Honours and Estates that they are not subjected to the Arbitrary Proceedings of Papists that were contrary to Law put into any Imployment Civil or Military This was another instance of the invasion you made upon us in respect of our Civil Rights and Liberties and manifested your self to be a Man for Arbitrary Government in subjecting our Persons and Estates to the Arbitrary Proceedings of Popish Magistrates and Officers under you 6. You apprehending that the great Remedy of your Grievances and Security of our Religion was a Free Parliament and least you might lie under a necessity of calling one you and your Accomplices did endeavour to make it impossible or at least very difficult to be obtained for you could not but apprehend that a Lawful Parliament being once Assembled would call you and your Villains to an account for all your open Violations of the Law and for your Plots and Conspiracies against the Protestant Religion and the Lives and Liberties of the People of England you endeavoured under the specious pretence of Liberty of Conscience first to sow Divisions between the Protestants of the Church of England and Protestant Dissenters the Design being laid to engage all Protestants that are equally concerned to preserve themselves from Popish Oppression into mutual Quarrellings So that by these some Advantages might be taken by you to bring about your Villainous Designs and Purposes and that both in the Election of Members of Parliament and afterwards in the Parliament it self for you could not but see that if all Protestants did enter into a mutual good understanding one with another and concur together in the preserving our Civil Rights and Liberties that it would have been possible for you and your Banditti to accomplish your wicked Ends. What could we expect from you when you struck at the Foundation of all our Civil Rights and Liberties in the hindring the Nation of the Choice of a Free and Lawful Parliament For did you not require all Persons in the several Counties of England that either were in any Imployment or were in any considerable Esteem to declare before hand that they would concur in the repeal of the Test and the Penal Laws and that they would give their Voices in the Elections to Parliament only for such as would concur in it such as would not thus pre-engage themselves were turned out of all Imployments and others who entred into these Engagements were put into their Places many of which are Papists and contrary to the Charters and Priviledges of those Burroughs that have a right to send Burgesses to Parliament You ordered such Regulations to be made as you thought fit and necessary for the assuring your self and your villainous Conspirators of all the Members that were to be chosen by those Corporations and by this means you gave your self and Tribe hope to avoid the being called to an account for your Villanies though it was then and is still apparent that all Acts made by Popish Magistrates are Null and Void of themselves so that no Parliament could have been lawful for which Elections and Returns had been made by your Popish Sheriffs and Mayors of Towns and therefore as long as the Authority and Magistracy was in such Hands it was impossible for us to have had a Lawful and a Free Parliament You might have known that the Constitution of the English Government and Custom time out of mind All Elections of Parliament Men ought to be made with an intire Liberty without any sort of force or the requiring the Electors to choose such persons as should be named to them and the persons thus freely Elected ought to give their Opinions freely upon all Matters that are brought before them they having the good of the Nation before their Eyes and following in all things the dictates of their Consciences Therefore you having usurped an illegal Authority and resolving upon the utmost Violations of our Laws you would not give us the least hopes of having our Grievances redressed by a Free Parliament legally called and chosen It is true you would have called one in which all Elections should have been carried by Fraud and Force and might have been composed of such persons of whom you and your Trayterous Crew would have been well assured in which all things would have been carried on by their Direction and Interest without any regard to the Good and Welfare of
this Nation which I prove to you and your Villainous Crew both at home and abroad For did you not try the Members of the pack'd Parliament that sat down in the Year 1685 to gain them to consent to the repeal of the Test and Penal Laws And did you not dissolve that Parliament when you found that you could neither by Promises nor by Threatnings prevail with these very Members to comply with your wicked Designs and those who would not comply were branded as if they were Disturbers of the publick Peace For you may remember that though the Prince and Princess of Orange did endeavour to signifie in terms full of Respects and Duty to your self the just and deep regret all your wicked and ungodly Proceedings had given them and in compliance to your desires they had signified their Thoughts concerning your Repealing the Penal Laws and Test which though they did it in such a manner that they had just Ground of hope that they had proposed an Expedient by which the Peace of England Scotland and Ireland and a happy Agreement among the Subjects of all Perswasions might have been certainly settled You and your Hellborn Crew put such Villainous Constructions upon their honest and sincere Intentions as that you were not ashamed to condemn them both as persons that designed to disturb the Quiet and Happiness of the Kingdom But Sir the people of England always Testified a most singular Affection and Esteem for the Prince and Princess of Orange as persons zealously Affected with and concerned for the Advancement of the Protestant Religion and Interest and therefore many of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and many Gentlemen and other persons of Note laid our miserable Case before them and beged their Aid and Assistance The Prince of Orange upon due consideration of our deplorable State to which we were brought by you and your wicked Accomplices found that in point of that Duty he owed to God and in return of the great Value the people of England had for him that he could no way excuse himself from espousing our Cause or Quarrel in a Matter of such high Consequence and from Contributing to the utmost of his Power for the maintaining both of our Religion and our Laws and our Liberties and to secure us in the perpetual Enjoyment of all our Rights Therefore he came over with a Force sufficient which through the Blessing of the Great God was sufficient to suppress you and your villainous Conspirators You know Sir that as you and your Conspirators were not only full of Cruelty and Guilty of the greatest Inhumanities and Barbarities So you and they were full of lies and deceit for upon the coming over of this Great Prince you were sensible of the Greatness of your Guilt and had no great Confidence in your own Forces which induced you to offer to the City of London some seeming Relief from their great Oppression you hoping thereby to beguile us of a firm Establishment and full Security of our Laws Liberties and Religion and finding that the Kingdoms Eyes were fully opened then you and your Hellborn Crew gave out with as much Mallice as Falseness that the Prince of Orange intended to Conquer and Enslave the Nation No Sir the Design of that mighty Deliverer was the security of our enjoying our Religion Laws and Liberties and that there might be no danger of the Kingdoms relapsing into the like Miseries for the time to come Well Sir you remember that the Prince arrives and you fled before him He no sooner comes but he was bid welcome by all True Protestants You run away A Convention was called and he to our great Joy was chosen our King A Parliament sits down and his Majesty joyned with them in making such Laws as have secured us and our All he Fights our Battles he Loves our Nation and we Love our King and we shall not refuse any thing that may be for his Honour Greatness and Content You are deposed as useless in the sight of God and driven from amongst Protestants to graze at St. Germains where you may take your ease till the French King shall be as weary of your Company as we were of your Wicked and Tyrannical Government You have made many attempts to be restored sometimes you Threaten us at other times you would Flatter us to a second Entertainment but that is but a foolish thought of your Counsellers at St. Germains which brings me to the last point of my Memorial which is to shew you 3. The Unreasonableness of your attempting of your Return hither on which particulars I hope you have leisure enough to reflect and to advise about with your worthy Ministry you have attending your Person there but least they should not have Honour and Honesty enough to deal plainly with you I will lay down Six undeniable Arguments why it is morally impossible that you should be ever readmitted to reign over us 1. Because we cannot bind you by the most Solemn Oaths 2. Because we are Protestants 3. Because we are English-men And 4. Because we are Free-men 5. Because we have a King of our own Religion and Judgment to whom we have sworn Allegiance who goeth out and in before us and fights our Battles for us 6. Because of your Attempt upon the Person of our King in employing your Traiterous Assassins to murder him 1. Because we cannot bind you by the most Solemn Oaths we saw our Laws over-turned our Liberties seized our Religion corrupted and subverted and you Forsworn The Laws of Nature taught us to provide for the defence of our All which was at Stake And can any Man think it hard that the Kingdom laid you aside And we laying you aside for the Breach of your Contract and Oath made to the People of England Can you expect that we should in the least be guilty of so base a Compliance as to submit our selves to the Government of a Man that by his Abominable Perjury dissolved his own Government You have time now to consider that Perjury in a King is a most Grievous Offence against God and his Own Crown and Dignity but much more Grievous when it is volantarily committed And when a Prince committeth Perjury willingly when he doth any thing willingly against his Coronation-Oath taken not by Force but by Free-will not unadvisedly but with great Consideration not to his Hurt but to his Advantage not to perform a Thing Dishonest or Impossible but that which is both Possible and Honest For when a Prince not being forced thereunto by just Fear or irrisistible Necessity breaketh such an Oath as there can be no colour to excuse his Perjury it arguing him and convincing him of Fraud and Deceit and gave occasion to all thinking Men that you had no manner of regard to your Coronation-Oath so it puts you under an absolute Incapacity of being Restored since the both Houses of Parliament upon the breach you made of your Contract have thought
them and you could not have added to or detracted from any thing in such a manner perfected without the consent of the people with whom you made this Contract for we were to have been benefited by this Oath and Contract of yours and not deceived again If Princes may break their Oaths and Contracts made to and with their Subjects How can we deal with such a King How can we tell when we obey We must be then at great uncertainties and so by consequenue we cannot be safe Furthermore Did it not lye at your door to have preserved your self from Scandal and Fraud Of which you took no care therefore you made no Conscience of of your Oaths and Contracts Again Sir we must suppose you to be a reasonable Creature and if so we must also conclude you ought to have submitted to Reason that you might have at least have had the reputation of a Man and not be signalized with the Character of a filthy Monstrous Beast Hence it is that Tyrants in sacred Writ are called Beasts because they will not submit to nor be governed by the Rules of right Reason In the last place Sir other Men may in their Oaths and Contracts have an Eye to their Profit but you ought to have had an Eye to your Honour and to have had an especial regard thereof Now what can be more Dishonourable in a King than to break his Word falsifie his Faith and violate his Contract And was not your Word Faith and Contract confirmed by a solemn Oath 3. There was a third Doctrine that was much promoted by your Conspirators that although Kings should be strictly bound to stand to their Contracts and their Oaths yet if they were induced to make a Contract and to take an Oath in things wherein they were not well informed or if the Contract and Oath do contain things too much derogating or diminishing their Jurisdiction or Authority Royal or if they have made a Promise that may be prejudicial to their Greatness they may then lawfully break their Contract Faith and Oath This Doctrine was very industriously spread about by your Party especially by your Jesuits and your Jesuited Papists and Passive Obedience Men. But certainly Sir your Conspirators represented your understanding to be but of Irish Standard and to be of the same Scantling with their Honesty Give me leave to ask you this one fair Question Was you not well informed what you were to do and what you did promise to do when you took the Coronation Oath to defend the Protestant Religion and preserve and maintain the Laws of the Realm and by them to govern this great People you took the Charge of Can any Man think Sir that you should be the only Man that was Ignorant of that which all the Nation knew and what your Grand-father Father and Brother had done before you Where Sir was the Dishonour or Blemish that might fall upon you if you had kept your Oath and made the Laws of the Land the Rule of your Government If you had been a good King you would have delighted to have been bound by the Laws of the Land and have rejoyced the Hearts of the People of England and then you would not have at this time have been obliged to France for your Subsistance But Sir God in his just Judgment gave you up to believe these lies and therefore you violated those Laws by which you were Sworn to govern to gratifie your Popish Hellborn Crew they have got you to themselves We have a King that thinks it no Blemish to his Regal Authority to maintain and keep our Laws he judges it no Dishonour to preserve the Liberties of his People and their Honours and Estates You have the reward of your Unrighteousness I wish you much Joy of it 4. Some of the Doctors and Casuists of your Synagogue of Rome say that Princes who may dispense with others may give a sufficient Dispensation to themselves and so revoke their Contracts and break their Oaths for that they have Might and Power and Authority there is no Law no Judge that can compel them to keep their Oaths and observe their Contracts It is manifest that you did take upon you to dispense with others and to give your self a Dispensation too and we own that we were not then in a Condition to call you to an Account but you were Admonished very often by the best and greatest of your Subjects to reform all that was amiss But after all this Admonition you did remain incorrigible then what could we do but make your Actions Cruelties and Tyrannies and Perjury known to the World And we implored the Aid and Help not of the French King but William Prince of Orange who came and suppressed you as an incorrigible Oppressor and Tyrant And your Party appearing bare-faced to murther our King and invade the Kingdom with a Foreign Force in order to enslave us will be treated as Villains and Common Rogues and receive the just recompence of Reward for all their Treasonable Conspiracies against our King and the well established Government of the Kingdom and the Protestant Religion To conclude this point How detestable and odious hath your Perjury made you it hath excluded you from that great Honour to which you arrived and it hath removed you from your native Country in a word it hath clothed you with so much infamy that it is impossible for you to attain that Honour Power and Authority and Majesty you have lost And therefore it is highly unreasonable for you or your Conspirators ever to attempt your Restauration 2. As your Perjur is an argument why it is not only impossible for you to be restored and folly for you to attempt it so in the second place we are Protestants And what can a Popish Apostate do at the head of a Protestant Interest The Popish Queen Mary she no sooner obtained the Crown by a Protestant Interest but she destroyed that very Interest by which she was advanced to the Throne This we well remember Sir and we need not burn our Fingers again the third time Suppose Sir that we should have so little sense as to try you once more and should succeed What Monsters must we appear to the World a Body of Protestants with a Popish Head This doth much astonish me that our little Prick-ear'd Priests of the Church of England have so much admired your Cause and pleaded it with such earnestness when as they cannot but conclude that you must of necessity deal by the Church of England as you would with an impudent Harlot Your Brother was careless in the maintenance of our Religion because he was a Papist though a loose one And can we otherwise conclude but you who have at all times and in all places whereever you have come shewed your self a bigotted Papist will not only discountenance the Protestant Religion but destroy it with all that Zeal that is consistent with the Principles of a perverse
Member of the Romish Synagogue You in the time of your short Tyranny made a sad Havock with the Protestant Religion and can we expect better usuage from you seeing you having Seven Devils more within you rageing against the Protestant Interest than you had before you left us What I say to you in this particular I speak not without Witness for it is most certain that you have and do to this very day entertain a very great aversness to any Man that bears the name of a Protestant Therefore since by your late behaviour to those whose Principles have led them to espouse your Interest and have followed you into France if they have any Sense of their English Liberties and of the Protestant Religion will abhor the thoughts of your return hither For if you appear so violent against our Religion now you are under so great an estate of Sufferings What will your declared Hatred be against Protestants here in England if we should admit you to reign over us For if you can presume to that degree of Malice as to deny your Protestant Tools your Grace and Favour at St. Germains What can we that are Protestants expect from you whenever you shall return Do you think that any of us should be so stupid to expect fair Quarter from you since your very Religion lays you under the necessity of Converting us with a Fagot and bringing us to your Obedience with the dint of a Dagger Nay Sir your Passive Obedience Curs fare not much better though they saved you from your being prosecuted for your being deeply interested in the Popish Plot and from being excluded from the Succession to the Imperial Crown of this Realm and also from being beaten out of the Kingdom by the late Duke of MONMOVTH What reason than have we not to believe that you will not only in general invade the Protestant Religion but also once again attempt the depressing the Church of England In your short Reign you sent Seven Bishops to the Tower but if ever you should return I will not excuse the whole Twenty Six from being more hardly used Upon which consideration I will appeal then Sir to your Judgment or the Judgment of your Friends here or those with you at St. Germains whether or no it is impossible for you to gain so great a Point as to be received again as a King And whether it would not be the greatest Folly or Madness in you or any of your Party to attempt it For have you any that are with you that are Protestants upon a Principle of Conscience How have you used and treated them and if they have no better usage from you since they follow you in their Afflictions and are contented to share with you in your Hardships as not to enjoy the Liberty of serving God according to their Dictates of their own Conscience How must it fare with them if you should arrive to that State and Condition in which you should stand in no need of them And if so What can we expect from you that have hated your Person and do hunt down your Cause and Interest out of the Nation Therefore the Duty that we owe to Almighty God and the Affection and Zeal we have for the Protestant Religion will oblige us to pursue you as a Murderer and an Assassin of the People of England and a Traytor to the Nation and those who shall be found fighting under your Banner will be used as Banditti and Robbers and Protestants that shall not have the benefit of Repentance 3. Consider we are English Men and that very Consideration might satisfie any Man that will but consult his Reason of the impossibility of your being restored to your pretended Right and of the folly of your many attempt in order thereunto Had your Interest been an English interest than your Conspirators might have had some colour for their attempt of this Nature but your Interest is a French Interst and therefore your Interest that you have espoused is incompatible or inconsistent with your being restored Here are two Points that must be considered 1. That your Interest is a French Interest 2. That a French Interest is not consistent with your Endeavours after a Restoration and both these Points fairly proved will justifie the refusal of the Kingdom of Englands admitting you to act and execute the Office of a King here again amongst us 1. Your Interest is not an English but a French Interest for as you followed your loving and kind Brother in most of his Vertues so you persued the same Interest that he pursued For was not the Interest of your Brother and the Interest of the French King and yours inseperably united Knowing saith your Quondam Secretary the Interest of our King and in a more particular manner of my immediate Master the Duke and his Most Christian Majesty to be so inseperably united that it was impossible to divide them without destroying them all Again his Majesty the French King was pleased to give Order to signifie to his R. H. my Master that his Majesty was fully satisfied of his R. H's good Intentions towards him and that he esteemed both their Interests but as one and the same and that my Lord Arlington and the Parliament were both looked upon as very unuseful to their Interests And again Father Ferier begged his R. H. to propose to his Most Christian Majesty what he thought necessary for his own Concern and the advantage of Religion and his Majesty would certainly do all that he could to advance both or either of them I communicated it to his R. H. to which his R. H. commanded me to answer as I did the 29th of the same Month. That his R. H. was very sensible of his Most Christian Majesty's Friendship and that he would labour to cultivate it with all the good Offices he was capable of doing his Most Christian Majesty That he was fully convinced that their Interests were both one That my Lord Arlington and the Parliament were not only unuseful but dangerous both to England and France and therefore it was necessary they should do all they could to dissolve it I did communicate this Design of mine to Monsieur Ravigney who agreed with me that it would be the greatest Advantage to his Master to have the Duke's Power and Credit so far Advanced Again If we can advance the Duke's Interest one step forward we shall put him out of the reach of Chance for ever Then would Catholicks be at rest and his Most Christian Majesty's Interest secured with us in England beyond all apprehensions whatsoever Our prevailing in these things would give the greatest blow to the Protestant Religion here that ever it received from his Birth If the Duke should once get above them after all the Tricks they have plaied with him they are not sure he will totally forget the usage he hath had at their Hands For my part saith he I can scarce believe my self awake
or the thing real when I think on a Prince in such an Age as we live in to be converted to such a degree of Zeal and Piety as not to regard any thing in the World in comparison of Christ These are the Discoveries of your Old Servant Mr. Coleman but to rivet the Matter I pray consider what Discoveries you were pleased to make of the Union of your Interest with that of the French King which Sir will put the Matter out of dispute Give me leave to put you in mind of your Letter you wrote to the French King's Confessour wherein you were pleased to own that the Interests of the French King and yours were so clearly linck'd together that those that opposed the one should be looked on as Enemies to the other and that the French King had told you that he was of the Opinion that neither the Lord Arlington nor the Parliament were in his Interest nor yours 2. As it is as clear as the Day that your Interest is not an English but a French Interest so now I must tell you in the second place that your Interest being a French Interest it will render your return impossible and the attempt in order to it very foolish and irrational You know that the English Nation is never safe unless a check be put upon the growing Greatness of France Therefore do but observe the Address of the House of Commons March 10. 1676 they put the King your Brother in mind of the great Danger that the Nation was exposed to by reason of the growth of the French King's Power and Greatness Now any Man that is in the Interest of the French King his Interest is no ways reconcileable to the Interest of England 1. As to its Peace 2. As to its Trade And the Consequence of both these are the Riches of the Nation which must be consumed by a Prince that is of an Interest different from that of the People 't is true the present War with France hath proved very chargable to the Nation but here is our Happiness that we have a King that advanceth the Interest of our Trade his People and He go Hand in Hand Their Interests are the same with His and His the same with Theirs which to me is an Argument that when it shall have pleased God by His Arms to reduce the French King to Reason that then no Nation under the Heavens can or will be more happy than the English Nation But if a Prince shall instead of pursuing the Interest of his People pursue their Destruction by setting up and advancing the Interest of a Foreign Power his Government cannot stand This Sir was that which lost you your Crown And can you then expect by that Interest to regain the Crown of England by which you strangely lost it Therefore to conclude this Head let not your Conspirators think that it is either probable or possible that ever the People of England will ever be brought into a French Interest or ever admit you to resume the Throne and Government since that you purely lost it for the sake of that Interest Your Scoundrel Abettors here at Home are such a sort of Animals that the Reformed Nations Abroad are at a stand and cannot tell what to make of them their Carriages of late Years have been so unaccountable and since it hath pleased God to put it into the Hearts of most of the Princes of Europe though of the Romish Communion heartily to embrace the late Revolution in England as the last Effort for the Common Liberty of Europe and have entered into the strictest Alliance with our King though of a different Religion to support it it looks like a Dream to meet with Men that call themselves English Protestants embarqued in your Interest in opposition to the Interest of their Native Countrey A little Priest of the Church of England in a Sermon of his on the Day your Father made his Exit was pleased to threaten us with an endless War that would be entailed on the Nation he is a mighty Votary for your Cause and Interest notwithstanding his Oath to King William to the contrary But Sir a thousand such Fellows can never reconcile your Interest with that of England nor would your Restoration put an end to his supposed War for it is not reasonable to imagine that so many Noblemen and Gentlemen who have associated and by their Association have engaged to support the Interest and Cause of our King will tamely submit to your Restoration Or that King William will ever abandon his Throne or that its possible that the Common Cause of Europe will ever be suffered to sink in such a manner as to comply with the Pride and Ambition of your Self or of him whose Cause you have espoused and whose Interest is the very same with yours When you were upon the Throne your Aim was to destroy the Interest of England but we have been too many for you and the Throne is filled up with one that will maintain and support our Interest notwithstanding the vain Efforts of your Crew both at Home and Abroad to the contrary And therefore that Loggerhead of a Cathedral Priest hath not made one single Convert to your Cause and Interest by the Noise he made of disputed Titles and endless Wars I will observe this to you that the Rascal hath more Preferment than Learning or Honesty but what can we expect of an Apostate 4. We are Freemen and therefore we can never be supposed ever to admit you who have always been a Person of Arbitrary Principles to govern this Nation You cannot but remember that the English Nation hath a very great Security for its Liberties and that is the Government it self with a good King at the head thereof and that is our present Happiness for our King Rules not upon the same Terms as your Brother of France doth for he by Force Usurps that share which his People ought to have in the Government and for several Ages past hath been in possession of an Arbitrary Power which yet no prescription can make Legal and he exerciseth it over the Persons and Estates of his People in a most Tyrannical manner And this your loving and kind Brother and you aimed at Witness your Dispensing Power that you took upon you when you ascended the Throne But our King hath so ordered it that his Subjects shall retain their Proportion in the Legislature the very meanest Commoner of England is represented in Parliament and is a Party to those Laws by which our King is Sworn to govern himself and his People 'T is true you Swore but you made no Conscience of your Oath nor did you in the least boggle at the Violation of our Laws you hated that way of Government which you had solemnly promised to maintain and defend Witness the Names you used to give the Parliament of England Now according to the Laws of the Realm no Money is raised but by
Kingdom From all which it 's apparent what you did when you were Duke of York was in order to compleat the Work when you came to be King James These great and insufferable Oppressions of the poor Protestants of that Kingdom and the open contempt of all Law Justice Sence and Reason together with the sad Consequences that most certainly followed upon it did put those poor People under great and just Fears and did thrice make them offer at such lawful Remedies as were Allow'd by the very Law of Nature tho' it was not with that effect that was desir'd Lauderdale and your other Conspirators did endeavour to make all men to apprehend the loss of their Lives Liberties Honours and Estates if they should go about to preserve themselves from your great Oppressions by Petitions Remonstrances or other means the Law did allow of So you did by several Scotch Noblemen and Gentlemen to their utter ruine therefore what Obligation you have laid upon the Kingdom in general or any one Protestant in particular both before and since your pretended Reign there I leave it to your self and Conspirators to judge And therefore blessed be God for delivering that Nation from your Tyranny and Oppression IV. ENGLAND NOW we have seen your particular Projects that you and your Conspirators pursued to ruine Holland Ireland and Scotland I think it will not be unnecessary to put you in mind of the Pranks you and your Party play'd both before and since you usurped the Imperial Crown of this Kingdom and then you will see whether you can expect that any honest Englishman should ever engage for your return again in Peace to this Nation Therefore I shall use this method 1. I shall shew you how far you were engag'd in the Conspiracy of turning the Civil Government into downright French Slavery and our Protestant Religion into Popery before you took the Crown And 2. I shall shew you what you contributed to it after 3. I will shew you the unreasonableness of the attempting your return hither On which Particulars I hope you have leisure enough to reflect and advise about with your worthy Ministry you have attending your person at St. Germains I. I will shew you how far you were engaged in the Conspiracy of turning the Civil Government into downright French Slavery and our Protestant Religion into Popery before you took the Crown When God was pleased to restore you and your Brothers you may remember that you came into a Land flowing with Milk and Hony for its Plenty and a well-govern'd Country for Religion and Virtue But this agreed not with the Complexion of your Souls you had another Game to play and this I found in a Letter of yours from Breda to old Courtney the Jesuite That you would follow the Directions that Mazarine had given you and then you question'd not but to bring the People to receive the Roman Catholick Religion This Sir was your Project and how you pursued it let all the World judge Therefore 1. Your Conspirators were resolv'd to remove all those who had been eminent in Virtue and Sobriety from any Command or Place of Trust in the Government I must not forget the Usage of those who had been great Instruments in that Work viz. Two thousand Ministers in one day laid aside that room might be made for those whose Doctrine should enslave the People and whose profligate Lives should render Men Atheists enough to be of any Religion but of that which was according to Godliness Make them Atheists said Mazarine aad you will soon make them Papists Nay the love of Debauchery created such a Prejudice in your Brother the King against the Marquiss of Argyle that it was the chief Obstacle to his being pardon'd for he had reprov'd Charles for offering Violence to a sober Lady in Scotland in the year 1650 for which Reproof he never forgave Argyle to his dying day Nay give me leave to remember you that when that unfortunate Lord was in Custody and humbly requested but to speak one word with the King before he was carried for Scotland to be murder'd you took upon you to reprove any that should move the King with this Jeer. That Argyle was one of the Godly Party it was not for such fellows to see the King Or to that purpose and the King your Brother was pleas'd to say Let my Lord Argyle be content he shall see the Maiden e're long his own dearly beloved Invention And nothing was a greater Argument for his Destruction than his Piety Sir I can prove that those men who were concerned in Judging and Condemning your Father to death tho' that was the Pretence or handle you took to have them cut off yet the great reason why they were not spared was that if they lived and as long as they lived they would have been great Obstacles in your way of debauching the People and that was the reason of their being cut off for old Courtney being at London and admiring their demeanour and deportment in their Confinement gave you an account of their Piety and Devotion And so did old Hitchcock the Monk but what Answer you made them was remarkable your Brother and your self would never have had them excepted had you not been fully satisfied that as long as they lived you could have no manner of prospect of settling the Government and advancing the Catholick Religion both which have told me of their stedfastness and resolution to the last degree and could not forbear shedding of Tears when they discoursed that matter to me and if you remember it was the weaker part of those men that had their Lives given them not but that some of them were worthy persons but they had not arrived to those Experiences of God and true Religion as the others had done that laid down their Lives in that Cause But the truth is I never found many of them had so little Grace as to repent of what they had done Nay your Rage did not cease here for you by all the Wrong imaginable pack'd a Parliament together of greenheaded young Gentlemen the Sons of some Cavaliers whose Parents suffer'd in the late War and so were haters of Dissenters from whom an Act was obtained to empower Commissioners to displace all Officers that they should judge not to be firm to the King's Interest and Proceedings By this Knack you had all Justices of the Peace and Corporation Magistrates that had been forward in punishing Prophaneness and Ungodliness in their respective Places and had been great Promoters of Religion and Holiness of Life turn'd out and in their rooms were put all profane and ungodly Wretches Swearers by and Blasphemers of the Name of Almighty God these being Men for your Turn that you might the more easily enslave and so pervert the People And it was come to that pass that none could have any Employment unless he could swear and damn for the Church tho' they never came within the inside of