two late Villains that preach'd Rebellion at the very place of Execution no doubt 't was with a great deal of Submission they made two several Insurrections one of which was but lately dispers'd at Bothwel-Bridge they submissively murdered the Bishop of St. Andrews and very lately with a great deal of Dissenters Humanity mangled and mutilated the poor Souldiers These are many I hope and strong Evidences of their bad Carriage whereas you have not given one single Instance of their good Your business in the next Paragraph is to make the discover'd Association a Popish Hobgoblin too a Mormo conjur'd up at White-Hall or to use your own expression The keeping Hounds in full cry with a Red-Herring out of their own Kitchin trail'd through the Kingdom to make a noise A pleasant Metaphor I confess in comparing a piece of Rebellion with a Red-Herring somewhat a more apposite Allegory even upon this account because both are great Commodities in the Dutch Common-wealths but I fancy my Lord could your Party but have kept this Herring close and drying in their own Chimney till the Nations Palate had been a little better disposed to relish such a salt Bit the Dogs that would have follow'd the scent then I am afraid would have shown themselves a thirsty sort of Blood-Hounds and took some of the King 's best Subjects for their Prey but now this dried Fish has took a little Air and rank Treason stunk and offended the whole Kingdom 't is no wonder if your Party won't allow the Dish to come out of their Kitchin when it looks as if it had been drest in Hell and had the Devil for its Cook Your Lordship has not carefully perused those Proceedings at the Old-Baily neither is to be imagined how you should impartially when you seem to be so much prejudiced or else you would find the Impudence to lye on your side in making the seizing of the Paper questionable the words of Mr. Gwin are as positive as the Case could admit which are plainly these It was certainly there for there I found it I don't know as to the particular Paper but all in that Bag were there vid. page 34. Now your Lordship won't allow it to be positive Evidence because not to the particular Paper But suppose my Lord one of your Irish Witnesses should transport hither a Ship-load of his Country Cattel to stock your Lordships Mannor would you not believe him if he swore they all came from thence and it was unlikely any other Breed should leap up in the Voyage And sure that Gentleman may pass for a more competent Witness than a common Bug-trotter The Messengers seiz'd a whole bundle of Colledge's infamous treasonable Ballads had it not been positive Evidence if they had sworn only to the whole Bundle as well as if to the particular Ballad produc'd in the Court But you can't have the Patience or Heart to examine the Parallel it being the woful Case of a dissenting Protestant But then you will take the pains to consider this there were Bundles of Letters found in Coleman's Study two or three of which were only used in his Tryal would your Lordship have had that sort of Traytor escap'd too had the Witnesses been only able to swear to the Papers in general that they found and not to the very particular one produc'd I don't know in what English Reports your Lordship has met with Monsieur Fouquet's Case which is a French one I am sure your Honour would be loth to be tryed by their Arbitrary Laws when it can hardly abide the Test of ours And whatever you think I fancy the State is higher concern'd against him that endeavours to subvert it than him that only defrauds its Exchequer And yet the one you see has been kept a long time Prisoner in the Bastile though the other quickly got out of the Tower And as for those Laws of Nature and Reason you urge on your part sure they are never so irrational to befriend a man suspected for unnatural plotting against his Prince and the Father of his Country which was the thing then in question but it s being a loose Paper and unsubscribed will that exempt a man from being questioned especially in Matters of Treason where there are no Accessories but every Concealer a Principal Were not some of the Jesuits questioned for Papers unsubscribed and Langborn partly condemn'd for receiving Commissions never produc'd found or like to be heard of And these Parallel Instances I don't urge as an extenuation of their Guilt who merited death by the Law but to shew your foul Reasoning and prejudic'd Argumentation in making that sort of Evidence light and empty in your Friends Case though only to put him upon his Tryal when you thought it full and weighty in your Enemies even for their Sentence and Execution The detestation of a damnable piece of Treason your Lordship calls A Popish Clamor and Abhorrence Are they all Papists my Lord that protest to defend his Majesty If so your own Party will be libel'd too in that Accusation who most of all make such Protestations though they least intend it And if they must be Papists that vow to preserve the present Government of Church and State your Lordship by such Doctrines will draw more Proselytes to the Romish Faith than ever did Priest or Jesuit or to use your own words have given a greater Blow to the Protestant Religion than all that ever went before you for such wild Positions and unreasonable Censures will make all to be of that Communion who love their God and their King or are willing to commence good Christians and loyal Subjects But not withstanding all your malicious Accusations is it to be prov'd there were any Roman-Catholicks that promoted these late Abhorrences or any single one that sign'd such an Address though they were ready perhaps to do it and can shame some of our Protestants whose Religion truly gives no such Dispensations for Treason and Rebellion and consequently should make them better Subjects Yet some of those spent their Blood for our late Soveraign when so many of ours lost it in fighting against him and also 't is unadvisedly objected that the Papists should be concern'd in these Abhorrences for that would make them more Friends to your Party than any other in affording you Matter for aspersing all those as such with whom they subscribe and only give your Lordship and your Crew a Pretence for such scandalous Suggestions But the mischief of it is they do no great service in such a forbearance since we deal with an Accuser as subtil and malicious as that primitive one the Devil and who would blast his Enemies Reputation were they all Angels But my Lord there are a number of as great and better Subjects than your selves who have better thoughts too concerning the late Abhorrencies and are so far from bering troubl'd at what they have done or perswaded to forbear by your unjust censuing and
strengthen'd their Party by the weakness of a young Duke It was they made the profess'd Religion a pretence for all the Desolations that attended a miserable War It was they drew up the primitive Association and were the first Founders of an Holy League Lastly 't was they fell a cutting the Throats of the poor Hugonots and distinguish'd themselves in the bloody night at Paris with a white Scarf on their Elbows And by your endeavouring to remove Guards one would think you design'd the same way to cut off Popish Abhorrers and make your green and blew Streamers serve for the same purpose they us'd their white And so we may ee'n conclude this Paragraph with an bearty Prayer as well as your Lordship does his with a faint Wish That God would preserve the King and keep us out of the hands of all bloody Papists and as cruel and inhumane a sort of Protestants Your Lordship has not only the Subtilty of the Serpent but the Venom too and that you spit forth all now here in this place in arraigning the best Actions of the Duke for the worst Plot and Conspiracy and making his passing the Test in Scotland a fair step to the destruction of the Protestant Religion Is the swearing to preserve the present establish'd Religion the way to subvert it Are not the Bishops there as competent Judges of what will undermine the Church as your Lordship who profess your self a Friend to Protestant Dissenters and such as would blow her up And han't they thank'd his Majesty for his sending his Royal Brother and testified their satisfaction of his Zeal for our Church But these you will say are all bless'd with a Torish Humility as your new phrase has it though upon other occasions you can dignifie them with their old Appellation of proud Prelates But my Lord do you think that the Field-Preachers there to whom you must be a Friend if to the dissenting Ministers here do you think I say they show what is more expedient for the good of the Church in refusing the Test than those spiritual Lords did in passing it Do you think that the Rebels at Bothwell-bridge did not make a fairer step to the destruction of the Protestant Religion than as you maliciously suggest his Royal Highness and the Parliament have done since But we must give people leave when they are nettl'd with Passion and Revenge to be transported into Lyes and Absurdities and Malice is alway the greatest Enemy to Truth and Reason Your next Paragraph falls foul again upon Abhorrers whom you look upon as a pitiful Faction when all honest people take them for true Loyalists But waving the absurdity in calling them factious which none can reasonably apply but to such as oppose the Government in Church and State their Numbers are not so small as to be pitiful or contemptible two or three thousand Free-holders are said to subscribe that of Derby and then more I am sure by much than could be gotten out of any County in England to your Petitions And could your Lordship but get the favour and opportunity to consult the List you would find them more numerous and much to your dis-satisfaction and also amongst them many persons that have serv'd their Countrey in Parliament and been Members of that Honourable Assembly to whom you pay so great a Deference But it is a little harsh Censure for you to suspect all the Countrey-Sheriffs for ill men and their under-Sheriffs for Rogues Could we but get an indifferent person to decide the Controversie he would with more reason judge your City-Officers for such Gentlemen commonly vers'd in the jugling Tricks of Buying and Selling and all the methods of a priviledg'd Knavery such as first set about packing of Juries and alarming the Nation with an obstruction of Justice And won't you allow the King and his Council to be as honest and wise and as fit to prick the one as your City-Rout and Rabble who chooses the other I can't imagine what you mean by this elaborate task and all this fruitless pains you take to prove the number of Abhorrers so small and insignificant unless your meaning be only this to show plainly that you contend for a Party and have sent abroad your Muster-masters to take a List of all your Voluntiers or else have got your Association to stalk about the Kingdom incognito and now upon comparing the Subscribers of that with those of our Abhorrences find your selves the stronger by a million or thereabouts but I fancy were this really so you would never suffer this Abhorring and Protesting to go on so quietly Yet my Lord I 'le debate though not the truth yet the Reason of this Matter still more fairly with your Lordship Give you all that the prejudic'd Party can desire and for a while suppose this Paper of Association a meer Sham and a piece of Forgery or in your own phrase A red Herring trail'd through the Kingdom to make a noise yet still why must all those that detest and abhor it be traduc'd as Popish only because they dislike a Paper that is in it self treasonable and which your own selves presume unwarrantable at least by your seeming to renounce it There is every year a Zeal as hot as the Flames themselves shown against his Holiness in Pasteboard and in God's Name let them still in that Matter express their Resentment But you would think it a hard Censure my Lord to traduce all that innocent Rabble in Fleetstreet for Puritans and Fanaticks only because they express such an Abhorrence to that painted Effigie when all this while this is but a Pope of their own making And why then must all those be vilified as Tories Hounds and Popish Abhorrers that only dislike declare burn and protest against a paper'd Idol of a Common-wealth in whose Forehead is writ Treason as well as Abomination in the others Now when I have been so fair as to yield to your Lordship in his own Postulatum and yet the Corollary deduc'd will detract much from that Reasoning and Modesty you pretend to what will become of those Pretensions when it appears a demonstrable Proposition that this Scheam of Rebellion was drawn by your own Party and truly found where it was sworn to be And therefore for those Considerations tender'd to us in the beginning of your Book let us offer these to you toward the end of ours Consider this Engine and design how much it looks like the Workmanship of your State-Projectors And though the end seem'd somewhat honest pretending to unite a divided Nation consider it will never be compass'd in animating a factious and a zealous Crew 't is a Work only now for Omnipotence it self to heal our Breaches and cure our Divisions and the Union of God's people will never be perfected by your Protestant Ioyners and such Agents of the Devil Consider how likely that Faction is to contrive such an Association which has been so well vets'd in drawing up so
an unbias'd man believe the justice of his Courts corrupted and his Judges Arbitrary because it is the opinion of some perhaps that have a mind to sit on the Bench Are those fair and competent Asserters of an Arbitrary Power and good Witnesses of their Princes Tyranny only because they are banish'd the Court and could see nothing of it when they sate in the Council Lastly can he truly fear Popery that is of no Religion at all and be an impartial Judge of the Temper of the Duke of York that is his avow'd and mortal Enemy neither the Civil Law or Common will admit of any prejudic'd Evidence And for God's sake let the King and Government when they are arraign'd have as fair play for it as one of your Joyners or Coblers a Colledge or an Hewson would expect Next my Lord you would prove the Queens Association to have been carried on without her knowledge from a certain Speech of hers to her Parliament but whether the Quotation be false or true we won't dispute at present but this seems to me a plain sort of owning the Paper of which your Friends are accused only you would say somewhat for your selves in not acquainting his Majesty with it a little sooner by telling the Kingdom his Predecessor Queen Elizabeth knew nothing of such a Combination any more than himself and that she look'd upon it as an obligation from her Subjects to find so many hands unknowingly subscrib'd but granting they agree in this circumstance that such a Loyal Design as well as a Treasonable one may possibly have been carried on in the dark Can you imagine my Lord She would have taken it for an Obligation too had they tender'd her a Paper that would have sworn her out of her Supremacy and lodg'd it in the major part of her House of Commons and with what face could ever any Subject offer a scheam of Rebellion to his Soveraign and desire of him the liberty to commence a Rebel and a Traytor only for his defence and preservation The Story of the Queen of Scots which you would make so plain a Parallel is in my judgment as little to the purpose First Did the Queen of England shew her self as vigorous in opposing the disinheriting of her next Heir as our King has been both kind and just in asserting the Rights of his Brother and Successor Secondly Do you think if she had really declared her self against the proceedings of her Parliament in that Affair her Subjects would have enter'd into an Association to have done it by themselves No no your Lordship is too good an Historion not to know that things were then carried on with her Majesties Connivance and tacit Approbation and that she acted her part of the Tragedy like one of Matchiavel's Monarchs behind the Curtain and for which even Writers very favourable to your own Party and no Causines have justly condemn'd her And it seems all your own factious Crew don't agree with your Lordship in thinking the Proceedings against that unfortunate Queen so fair and honourable for very lately a certain Protestant Buffoon has prov'd it plain Murder in his second part of a thing call'd a Speculum or the View and Reflection of a Chimera half Droll half Author and half Ass and from that very Case this Hotch-potch Animal proves King-killing to be the Doctrine of the Church of England but I hope you will agree with me because he differs from you in this point that this his Argumentation is like the rest of his Stuff very ridiculous but as for his abusing the Church-men there you may shake hands again for he paints them out very pleasantly like Fools Anticks and Jack-Puddings and you draw them out terribly all in blood Governours of the Popish Interest revengeful implacable and such as never forgive so that between you the Clergy may be pretty well secur'd of an Odium when you can expose them even in the two several extreams But would a Jew take such to be Christians that vilify the Church of which they would seem to be and ridicule the very Religion they are thought to profess And here I can't but observe a Barbarous as well as a Malicious hint of your Lordships who when you have represented how violent the Parliament was against the Succession of the Queen of Scots with a cruel and emphatical Malice cry out Nay and against her Life too We know my Lord the Parliament help'd the Grand-Mother to the Block and you saw another made the Father stoop to it But would you have your Associated Baalites sacrifice the Blood of the Son too This is stretching up a private Revenge to vye even with the Vengeance of the Almighty and an angry God only visits to the third and fourth Generation Your Lordship in this Insinuation shews a great deal of Inhumanity not to be parallel'd but by that of your Friends the Dissenters in their Association or the Cannibals of the West-Indies which as some say infest our Plantations there and refresh themselves in nothing more than in the Blood of an Enemy These are the bloody Measures which your Passion transports you to and not your Judgment directs People look through these transparent Politicks like Water and see nothing but Malice and Revenge at the bottom Your last politick Observation is That his present Majesty is the first Prince that ever was perswaded to be so willing to settle indubitably the Title of his presumptive Heir But why perswaded Has he not natural Affection enough to be willing himself And would he not much rather be thought the first should he humour your Faction that ever unnaturally disinherited a kind Brother and his Heir apparent And I believe nothing grieves you more than that his Majesty's Consent must be requir'd and could a Parliament be gotten once to act again without him no doubt but the Bill of Exclusion would be the first Act of the Session But the Law of Nations ever since the Time of Justinian the Laws of the Kingdom down from the Conqueror have happily placed the Sanction of every Law in the Will of the Prince and you and your Friends must be contented my Lord till you can perswade the King to give you his Le Roy Vult and the Crown and Scepter to the Bargain And seeing you are pleas'd to call the D. of Y. but a presumptive Heir and seem to lay such a stress and Emphasis upon the new-coin'd word we will discuss this Business a little further My Lord if I mistake not your Friend you pretend to vindicate was the first that applied this pretty Distinction to the next Heir of the Crown It looks like a piece of State-Sophistry and your noble Friend some say was fam'd for a fine distinguishing Logical Head when a young Academick and a body would almost swear this Vindicator the Vindicated and the noble Peer differ only like the little Man with three great Names who still makes but the same person