which means in a great measure they lost their old brave English Courage When our Seamen grow Effeminate and lose that Courage which with God's Blessing made them victorious England is but in a lamentable Condition 7. You punished or at least discountenanced such Officers as stood for the Honour of the Flag How often did the French refuse it And when some Broad-sides were exchanged and the French came off by the Lee their Ambassador used to complain and the Captain was severely check'd if not turned out For you were converted to such a Degree of Zeal to the French King that we must lose the Dominion of the Seas rather than the Holy Alliance with that Monster should in the least be intrenched and in the Private League your Brother made with that King the Business of the Flag was not mentioned and how indifferent your Brother and you were in the Case when it was in relation to the French is not yet forgotten Article XXV YOU stand charged with refusing the Test that was provided by Parliament and passed tho very unwillingly by your Brother to prevent Popery Truly we could not but laugh in our Sleeves when we saw your self with a sort of Irish Magnanimity quit your great Imployments for a Religion that makes Men Fools and renders them as the Sport of the Age But great Examples go a great way in such Cases When the Popish Party saw your Resolution to quit all rather than your Religion scarce worth the keeping several of them took up the Cross and quitted their Imployments also rather than be false to your Cause and Interest They did not do as your Brother did retain the Popish Religion and yet ever and anon to get a little Money of the Parliament was content to pass a Bill or emit a Proclamation or two to the Prejudice of that Religion his Soul was most affected with if with any Alas good Man he was for securing the main Chance If he had not complied for a little Money the Noble Fleet at Whitehall must have lain by the Walls without rigging to the great Disparagement of the old Trade of Whoring But as for your part you were resolved to give up your self to Rome and the French King which you could not have done if you had swallowed the Test Therefore as a great piece of Self-denial away go all Imployments by which you had ruined the Nation for you question'd not but to carry on your Conspiracy against the Protestant Religion and Interest by the help of your good and loving Brother notwithstanding your acquittal of them And 1. You engaged the French King to a closer Friendship with you by which you were sure not only of his Interest but his Purse to assist you against your Enemies and his even that Parliament that advanced this new State-Purgatory in opposition to you and your cursed Villains by which they had declared themselves the French King 's and your mortal Enemies who both of you drove on so furiously to have that Parliament dissolved in revenge for their laying such a Stumbling-block in the way of your Self and Party For as long as these Purgatory-makers were in being it was scarce possible for you to subdue the Northern Heresy that had so long domineer'd in the World And he and you proposed by that Method to be put into such a Condition as should enable you to give the Protestant Religion such a Blow as it had not received since its first Birth and to give you your due your Design of ruining the Protestant Religion was not ill laid and had you not over-done your Design would not have been so soon undone 2. By your not taking the Test you engaged a Party of Case-hardned Villains to espouse your Cause and Interest and for true proof of their Integrity they entered with you into a strict Conspiracy against our Religion Laws and Liberties For seeing they had met with such a terrible Blow from that Parliament they were resolved to try what they could recover by way of Reprisal from the Dutch and hoped some good would come of continuing the War with them but finding themselves defeated there you and they resolved with the gracious Consent of your Brother that England it self rather than fail should be made a Reprisal Which Design prospered so well upon your Hands that you went on as merrily as might be in your Plous Work and accordingly exposed the Nation to the Fury of the French And had old Clifford had the Grace not to have hang'd himself he would have appeared a very deserving Person and eminent in that Holy Confederacy However you did not fail of your Enterprize in some measure of ruining the Nation because of the Protestant Purgatory that was found out for its Service tho you could not find such a one in all your Romish Library 3. By this Example you engaged a great number of Priests and Jesuits to infest the Kingdom in order to storm the Church of England and would have ravished her poor Gentlewoman had she not held up her Smock to save them the trouble and these Varlots with the Argument of your Stedfastness to the Catholick Religion perverted very many of the lewder sort of People both Male and Female And seeing such a Number brought into your Ark you used to say you doubted not of an Army of Roman Catholicks to establish the Popish Religion 4. You made these Villains thus perverted so bold and daring that they drove on with such Fury as it was scarce possible for a Protestant that was any ways known to be zealous for his Religion and for the Interest of his Country to walk near Whitehall or St. James's without the danger at least of being affronted or beaten Whence it was that even that Purgatory-making Parliament thought they had not done enough to expel that Religion whose Professors in all Kingdoms stuck at nothing to establish their Superstition and to that End have troubled the Peace of the Christian World and had at that time by your espousing their Cause sufficiently strengthned as was feared their villanous Party to the overthrow of the Protestant Interest but resolved to use farther means to prevent the Practices of these Rascals that were so notoriously wicked as not any longer to be born One would have thought this Purgatory-Act should have done the Business yet it was backt with a multitude of Gracious Assurances to the Nation from your Brother a Person of great Integrity and Honour in his Promises to maintain and defend the Protestant Religion for a Testimony whereof observe and remember that the Cliffordian and French Designs were carried on notwithstanding the Test-Act in 1673 74 75 76 77 and part of 78 in as pernicious tho different manner from your first Design whose Method you were forc'd to change by reason of that Act which was so made as to execute it self And the Means of introducing that Religion seeming then at a stand you thought of a new Project
they called in an Act that raised it An humble Tender to his Sacred Majesty of the Duty and Loyalty of his antient Kingdom of Scotland And as a Testimony of the same they did offer to the King 20000 Foot and 2000 Horse sufficiently armed with 40 days Provision to be ready upon the King 's call and in the same Act they declared that if the King should have farther Use and Occasion for their Service the Kingdom would be ready every Man between Sixty and Sixteen and hazard their Lives and Fortunes if called for by his Majesty for the Safety and Preservation of his Person Authority and Government Sure one would think you had given them some State Philtre to create in them such a slavish Loyalty and Love to your Brother's Person and Government 4. Nay they went a step farther to please your Brother and your self being resolved not to fall short in expressing their Loyalty and Affection to him therefore do but observe them in another Act of Parliament wherein they most dutifully and humbly recognize his Majesty's Prerogative Royal and declar'd in the said Act That the ordering and disposal of Trade with Foreign Nations and the laying Restraints and Impositions upon Foreign Imported Commodities did belong to his Majesty and his Successors as an undoubted Privilege and Prerogative of the Crown and that therefore they might do therein as they should judg fit for the good of the Kingdom 5. These People certainly were bewitch'd with the thing called Loyalty and made it appear to the World that they placed the Security of all their Interests more in their Confidence of the King's Goodness than the firmest Provision of the best Laws for tho in the Parliament held by your Father in Person in 1641 many Acts were signed by him for settling their Religion Properties and Liberties which the deepest Consideration and Maturity of Judgment imaginable grounded upon long and well-weighed Experience many and well-managed Treaties and the Mediation of England could afford and furnish yet because the Glory of those Laws appeared to these Blockheads to be stain'd by the remembrance of some previous Contentions wherein they thought themselves very infortunate by having your Father differ from them to please your Brother at one blow they repealed the whole Proceeding of that Parliament and all the Laws then and there made for the Preservation of Religion as aforesaid 6. Those whom God will destroy he delivers up to Madness first and s he did these People in evidencing an unparallel'd Submission to the King and a Resignation of all that was near and dear to them into his Hands for tho that Nation since its first Reformation from Popery did continually oppose Prelacy yet after they had destroyed it and enjoyed their Church under a Constitution and Ministry according to their Hearts desire in compliance with your Brother they parted with the Presbyterian Government and reestablished Episcopacy to the Amazement of most Men so acceptable was he to the Scots Parliament at that Time And for the carrying on your cursed Designs you know how your Brother made James Sharp Mr. Hamilton Mr. Farwell and another whose Name occurs not at present to renounce their Presbyterian Ordination who were made Deacons and Priests and then consecrated Bishops by the Bishop of Winchester and two others of that Gang and four Scots Prelates thus made the King fixed the Government of that Church by Arch-bishops and Bishops as in his Father's time in 1637 who had the same Authority derived to them as they had in your Grandfather's Reign so by Proclamation bearing date Sept. 6. 1661. the Presbyterian Government ceased to be to all Intents and Purposes and the Council suspended the Meeting of the Presbyteries till they had received Power not from Heaven but from the Arch-bishops and Bishops who were in a short Time to enter upon their Government To compleat this Work the Parliament in the 2d Session reinstated the Bishops in the exercise of their Functions and restored them to all their Privileges Dignities Possessions c. Now one would think this Compliance of the Nation should have obliged your Brother and you to have treated them in some measure sutable to their Loyalty and slavish Resignation of themselves Your great Instrument in carrying on this blessed Work of inslaving the Kingdom of Scotland in these particulars in order to your farther Designs was the Earl of Middleton the first High Commissioner after your Brother's return who was most violent in pursuing this Change but by his impetuous Violence in this mighty Work on which he much valued himself he rendered himself obnoxious and despising Lauderdale who took hold of some of his Miscarriages in a short Time he was unhorsed by him and Lauderdale procured the Commission of Lord High Commissioner for the Earl of Rothes by whom Middleton's Parliament was dissolved upon which Madam Van Harlot their new Church appeared in its proper Colours and being made Triumphant 't is well known what Pranks the Whore played what Tumults her Guides excited and what Tragedies her Reverend Clergy acted in your Brother's Reign Nay old Hodg was not so much as advised withal in the Case and every thing was carried on with that Fury that had not Sir Robert Murray come in to the Relief of the People who were on the very brink of Destruction they must have inevitably perished But Sir I will not dwell here any longer only tell you that Lauderdale was the third Lord High Commissioner of Scotland by whom a lamentable Scene of Rogueries were acted and by whom you made your blessed Steps to ruin that poor Nation 1. Your first Step to ruin Scotland was the making Middleton and Lauderdale so excessively great In truth to give the Beasts their due as the Scotish Nation was not able to bear their Greatness so neither they to bear their own You remember that before Lauderdale was Commissioner by reason of his being sole Secretary of State for that Nation and Court-minister he had the absolute Rule and disposing of the Affairs and Concerns of that Kingdom which gave great Offence to the Scots who in the particulars abovesaid had shewed themselves so abominably Loyal as to quit their Religion Laws and Liberties to please your Brother and you As for Middleton he was invested with such Powers that Lauderdale was jealous of his Greatness who seeing him exercise his Power to the utmost imagined there would be nothing for him to do and therefore as I said justled Middleton out by whose Greatness Scotland by Consent of Parliament delivered up all as if Hallifax himself had issued forth Quo Warranto's against their Franchises both as to Liberty and Religion and you having had enough of Middleton's prostituting himself to your Brother's Will and yours exit Middleton and enter Lauderdale a case-hardened Rogue a Villain fit for the Devil's Service to all Intents and Purposes who the more easily to compleat your wicked Designs you may remember did
basely debar his Countrey-men from speaking with the King otherwise than he pleased for fear they might tell Tales of his exorbitant Power by which he disobliged them in the highest and by reason of his being mostly here at Court the Scots Noblemen and Gentlemen were subjugated to a base and vile dependance upon his Creatures and Favourites nay often-times upon his Servants with whom it 's well known they transacted for obtaining and dispatching Gifts and Sign-manuals and that it was by the said Lauderdale's Servants that Protections to Debtors were so villanously obtained Give me leave Sir to put you in mind how hurtful he was to the Nation as High Commissioner of that Kingdom in order to which we may note that the Office of High Commissioner is altogether extraordinary and for a particular Occasion viz. The holding of a Parliament in the King's Absence therefore scarce known in Scotland till James I. came to the Crown and when the Session of Parliament was upon its determination that Office also determined with it Now when you had made Middleton so great he brought in that Innovation of adjourning Parliaments for a long time that he might tamper with them to betray the Religion Laws and Liberties of the People whereby he most illegally continued his Commission in the Interval of Parliament so that he might fit and prepare that poor People for Destruction Truly he had gone a pretty way in it and that he might finish his Work and serve your Purposes upon that Kingdom he did as I said lengthen the Adjournment of that Parliament for about two Years or so a thing never before known in Scotland for which Sir your old Bandog Lauderdale accused him as a Criminal to the King and you with the reproachful Title of a Subverter of the Government But however the Matter was hush'd up for Middleton having done your Business so well there in time he was rewarded with the Government of Tangier But when Lauderdale got into the same Station he far outwent Middleton in continuing his Commission for he spun it out for four Years and a half for which there was no manner of Necessity if you consider but the State of Affairs then in that Kingdom Nay it was so far from being necessary that it was a notorious Grievance for by it he not only hindred the Proceedings of the Parliament but endeavoured to frustrate all its Meetings which as it was a known Violation of the Antient Constitution of that Government so the unnecessary Continuance and Arbitrary long Adjourments of the Parliament contributed exceedingly to the increase of the Peoples Burdens and Distresses Truly Sir it is plain that the villanous Deportment of that Lauderdale was such in the Trust your Brother and you reposed in him which in time appear'd to be his best Security And why so The Reason Sir is plain for what he had proudly plotted and contrived through his matchless Ambition being conscious to himself that he might be reckoned withal for his devilish Proceedings in that Station he was under some necessity of maintaining by his Power in a most tenacious way that he might perfect the Ruin of that People making good the old Proverb Over Shoes over Boots it would be all one at the Gallows at last So that the Relief of that poor and abandon'd People from the Disorders which you and your wicked Party had made in that Kingdom by those two Men remained only with Almighty God there being no Hopes from your Brother Therefore Sir after the Adjournment of a Parliament which was held if I am not misinformed in 1674. and adjourned in December that Year Duke Hamilton the Earl of Tweddale and some Gentlemen being sensible of the notorious Villanies of old Lauderdale and to prevent his Lies from taking place with the King repair to the Court in England with the Approbation of those to whom they communicated their Intentions being confident they should be delivered from the Oppressions occasioned by Middleton and Lauderdale and hoping the King would receive their faithful Representation of the Affairs of that Nation both as to Religion and Government But Lauderdale who was an Enemy of all Righteousness and Truth omitted no Obstruction he could lay in the way For 1. by a Proclamation he procured that no Scots-man should go out of the Kingdom without Licence from the Council that so the King might not have the Truth of Affairs laid before him whereby to see the State and Condition that poor People were in in order to give them some Legal Redress Again 2. it is well known he imployed a pitiful Rascal at Berwick as a Spy to intercept all free Correspondence who being impowred by him did seize and search Sir William Carnegie a Member of Parliament and detain'd him a Lord of his Name you well remember in his Passage thrô that Town to London 3. Lauderdale having by means of this Rogue got some Packets intercepted he like a base Villain transmitted them to our Court not considering the Violation done to the common Intercourse and good Understanding of the two Nations nor regarding that Tenderness which honest Men have for the Honour of their Country and obtained of the King for this Fellow for such Rogueries instead of a Pillory or Gallows the Reward of 50 l. Sterling to be paid out of the Exchequer in Scotland to the great Satisfaction of the King your Self and wicked Party 4. By the same Means and in the same Place he endeavoured to affront Duke Hamilton and his Company in their Passage by questioning their Retinue and refusing them a Night's lodging which was not known to the Governour of that Town he being absent But at the return of these Noble Persons both Governour and People of the Place testified their Respects to them 5. This Lauderdale incensed the King and you against a Gentleman Duke Hamilton sent before him as one that had been a Sequestrator in the Time of Oliver sometime Lord-Protector of these three Nations and a Person disaffected to the Government But notwithstanding all these Obstacles and many other Discouragements the same Persons arrived at Court and did with all Submission and Sincerity and in all Faithfulness and Truth acquit themselves giving a full Account of the State of Affairs both as to the King 's and Countrey 's Interest What was the Event of all this Truly they were dismissed with fair Words and had positive Promises that the Parliament in Scotland should meet and sit an the Day appointed that Grievances should be redressed and that the Commission Lauderdale held as Commissioner should be revoked Upon which they hasten home the Duke with extraordinary Difficulty both in respect of the rigour of the Season and his weakness of Body that they might attend the Parliament in their respective Places on the 3d of March to which Time the Parliament was adjourned which was the very next Day after their arrival But Sir instead of a Session so much expected by the
I should have much wondered if Scotland had escaped that Grace and Favour of yours which was generally speaking pretty impartial For why should the Administration of Justice be in better Hands there than it was here You were resolved that the doing of Justice in the three 〈…〉 be of a Piece and therefore play'd your Game there tho with more 〈…〉 as you did here To prove this you procured your Brother's Letters â—â— Lauderdale to constitute one Sir Andrew Ramsey one of the Lords of the Sessions who never was bred up to the Law but to Merchandizing Which extravaâ—â—ant Proceeding being complained of in Parliament as of dangerous Consequence Ramsey parted with his Place resigning it up to Lauderdale and was said to have more Knowledg than the other three And by reason of the Insufficiency of the Lords of the Session thereupon Partiality so manifestly crept into that as well as other Courts of Justice that the Foundations of Law and Justice were much shaken as was once ready to be proved in full Parliament in that Kingdom in the Time of Lauderdale's Ministry Now Sir you may see it was not a Fault in a Man to serve the late Protector if he would but join with Lauderdale and you to subvert the Government of that Kingdom and enslave the People in order to establish Popery For this Ramsey had been Provost of Edinburgh in the Protector 's Time and complied with him to the height of being knighted and after that got to be reknighted and reentred Provost by the Favour of Earl Middleton to whom he was a villanous Tool in assisting him to defraud the People of their Religion Laws and Liberties all at once But upon Middleton's Disgrace this Fellow strikes in with Lauderdale who had a greater Sacrifice to offer to Baal than Middleton had yet offered with whom and the Tradesmen of Edinburgh by his long-practised Arts of Flattery and Bribery he so mightily prevailed that continuing Provost for ten Years in that time he so domineered over the poor Citizens and so enriched himself by their Rents and Moneys at his Pleasure that by Lauderdale's Assistance and yours he cheated the King of near 20000 l. Sterling and had an Opportunity of obtaining to be constituted one of the Lords of the Session And tho he with the other three who as I said before were more unskilful in the Law made such Havock that Lauderdale himself could not keep him in that Station so many notorious Corruptions and illegal Proceedings being proved against him and them yet there was not a Change made in that Court without some difficulty And after all their signal Villanies they were let fall by your self and Lauderdale as Men that had overdone your Business 3. Another Step taken to ruin the People of Scotland was the Gift of a Part of your Brother's Revenue called the King's Casualties which is the Wards and Marriages to another of your Creatures there procured by Lauderdale thrô your Interest with the King tho contrary to all the Laws of that Kingdom in that Case which was not only prejudicial to the Government but extreamly vexatious to the People For these Casualties were an Arbitrary Revenue and paid or not as the King pleased Therefore the giving it to any one Man to make his most of it was both against Law and Reason and the Interest of the Subject This Creature of yours was the Earl of Kincaerden who the more to oppress the People in this Point was by the King's Letters by you procured joined in Commission with Lauderdale in the Treasury and also with the extraordinary Lords of the Session by which they went on without controul to grieve the People Sir It is apparent to those that understand the Constitution of that Kingdom that this Gift of the Casualties was never known in Scotland till attempted 〈…〉 Ministry who not being so bad as to join with you in such a piece of â—â—â—â—â—quency it proved one Cause of his Disgrace 4. You know it was your Rogues Design here in England to diminish and debase the Coin and Plate of the Kingdom the direful Effects whereof we feel at this Day and for which this Nation is bound to curse the Names and Memory of you and your wicked Adherents Thus you proceeded in Scotland tho your Father 's own dear Country where you corrupted the Mint and Coinage For by the King's Letters the Lord Hatton Brother to Lauderdale was constituted chief in that Office I think they call the Master of the Mint General but if I am mistaken in the Names I may be in some measure excused But as to the thing I am sure I am in the right for the Corruption of the Mint and Coinage was so great that the Scots People grew very uneasy and made a fearful Complaint in Parliament proving in that August Assembly that for several Years they had found to their sorrow the intrinsick Value of the Silver Coin sensibly diminished both in Weight and Fineness to the great Damage of that Kingdom Nay the thing rested not here but to vex the People care was taken by Hatton to over-charge the Country with a sort of base Coin without considering the Weight and Value of that sort of Money to the manifest hindering of the Trade of that Kingdom and it was an Artifice your Conspirators used for enslaving that People to impoverish them so that you might the more easily bring them under the Yoke of an Arbitrary Power But Sir that you might help on this Lord of the Mint in depraving the Silver Coin you may remember the Dutch Dollars commonly called Leg-Dollars usually imported by their Merchants and currant with them at 58 d. per Piece were cried down by your Bandog Lauderdale to 56 d. for no other reason but because he procured your Favour to obtain a Command from the King for so doing that the said Dollars might be brought as Bullion into the Mint for the Advantage of the Lord Hatton his Brother and your Favorite And notwithstanding the great Complaint of the People there was nothing done But upon the Adjournment of the Parliament a Sham-Trial was obtained and the Lord Hatton indemnified tho it was proved that none of the Money coined in his Time was either Weight or Standard 5. A fifth Step you took to overturn the Government of that Kingdom and defraud that People of their Religion Laws and Liberties was a certain Monster your Brother and you set up a Body of Villains called the Lords of the Articles The most valuable and considering Men of that Nation some of whom I have had the Honour to be acquainted with have judged this Body of Men to be nothing else but a virtual Subversion of the Power and Liberties of Parliament and highly prejudicial to the King and Kingdom I pray Sir observe 1. That this meeting of the Articles when reestablished by you and your Conspirators consisted of 8 Bishops chosen by the Lords and 8 Lords chosen by the
the People is very evident Therefore Sir abruptly to dissolve Parliaments when nothing but the Legislative and united Wisdom of the Kingdom could relieve the Protestant Party from their just Fears or secure their Religion from its certain Dangers is very inconsistent with the great Trust reposed in your Brother and seems to express but little of that Love and Tenderness which the People of England might justly have expected from him 5. Would not the Constitution of Parliament as by the Laws and Customs of England established have been equally imperfect and destructive of it self had it been left to the Arbitrary Will of a wicked King whether he would summons a Parliament or had it been put into his Power to dismiss them at his pleasure or at the Pleasure of two rascally French Whores or a little scoundrel French Ambassador And therefore was not your Brother's dissolving the Parliaments at Westminster and Oxford by your procurement a most unreasonable thing 6. Was not the Kingdom so alarm'd at the Wickedness of your Brother in dissolving those Parliaments that Men began to be exceedingly concerned not knowing where it would end insomuch that your Brother was necessitated in a sneaking Declaration to let the Nation see he was conscious to himself that his Dissolution of those Parliaments stood in need of an Apology so that it was but at the best an Appeal from his Parliament to the People of England And if your Brother and you could not justify your Usage of these Parliaments because so destructive to the Liberty of the Subject what assurance did your two French Whores Portsmouth and Mazarine and Barillon give you and the rest of your Party that your Brother's Declaration shewing Reasons for such a Violation to our English Government would make the Nation in love with such Treatments of their Representatives For Sir could you think in your Conscience that the People of England did not see themselves hereby exposed to the restless Malice of their Enemies and resented it highly since they could not but be sensible of the languishing Condition of the three Kingdoms and that nothing but a Parliament could cure the Distempers with which we were infected by you and your Party both as to Religion and Morals And had they not with great Charge and Difficulty chosen three Parliaments on whom they placed their Hopes And those being suddenly dissolved could they believe your Brother or you designed any thing less than a total Subversion of the Government Come Sir sit down put on your Irish considering Cap and judg why since Ned Coleman's Protestant Declaration was so unhappily published before its time the Nation should not be as much alarmed at Barillon's Declaration in April 1681 as they were at Coleman's in 1678. And could you and your Irish Teagues imagine that one French Declaration should so soon succeed another nay could you without being confounded see your Servant Coleman's Original fairly drawn by the Advice of the French King's Confessor to bring in Popery and Slavery so much outdone by Barillon's Copy since you judged it could never be outdone by any Man whatever And since the former exposed you and your Brother as the worst of Men how could you expect the latter should not have the same effect upon the English Nation and put them into such a Ferment as to deal by you and your Party just as we did in 1688 7. Did not your Brother April 20. 1679 not only in Council but Parliament declare how sensible he was of the ill Posture of his Affairs and the great Jealousies and Dissatisfaction of his good Subjects whereby the Crown and Government was become too weak to preserve it self which proceeded from his use of a single Ministry and of private Advices and therefore professed his Resolution to lay them wholly aside for the future and to be advised by those able and worthy Persons whom he had chosen for his Council in all his weighty and important Affairs Now Sir consider was it not most unreasonable in you and your French Vermine to put the King upon such a manifest Violation of his Royal Word and Promise to the Nation But to put the Matter out of dispute Did not your Brother on that Choice of his Council tell the Parliament of his Resolution of meeting his People often in Parliament And who was it that changed his mind and made him alter those Gracious Purposes but you and your wicked Party Would you make us believe that your Brother could so soon forget his Promises or that upon the meeting of these Parliaments there were no weighty Matters to be debated 8. Did not you and your Party in prevailing with the King shew the World that your Cunning kept not pace with your Malice since by this wicked usage of our Representatives in those Parliaments you and your Cutthroats made your selves known tho you had secretly and cautiously given that wicked Advice to your Brother only to be protected from the publick Justice of the Nation But in time you discovered your selves and told your own Names when Case-hardned enough to pull off the Mask and let us see what you would be at But what Offence did you take at those Parliaments Surely it was because the repeated Treasons and traiterous Designs of you and your Conspirators rendred you obnoxious to them And did you not put the King upon dissolving those Parliaments thinking thereby not to have been judged the Authors of that villanous Counsel Alas good Sir you have so exposed your self in that Matter that you left your self and Party not only without Justification but without all pretence hereafter but thanks be to God I lived to see the Justice of the Nation take place upon you and some of your Party There are some yet lurking and basking themselves in good Imployments but I hope our King will rid himself of the Vermine in time I am confident Sir you may reflect upon these Considerations and pronounce your self guilty of this unreasonable Usage of three as great Parliaments as ever England saw Now how can we conclude otherwise than that you then was and still continue an Enemy to Parliaments Fifthly The ill Consequences attending the Dissolution of those three Parliaments are worthy your Consideration and that I may be brief herein take notice 1. What Divisions you and your Party caused amongst the People of England thereby you made such Breaches in Families that I fear are not made up to this day unless Death hath reconciled them this you did by the Advice of your Priests Jesuits and Popish Council at St. James's and the wicked Ministry at White-hall who rather than the People should not be divided took their several Copies by your Original and came in a most comfortable manner to your Assistance hoping to make the People rebel These Differences you nourished with all the Industry imaginable to the great Hazard of the whole Kingdom But Sir this was to betray us into the Hands of our
lawful because of the uncircumscribed Power of Parliaments in judging what is lawful and what is necessary for the Safety of the People by whom they are sent to Parliament for redress of Grievances which no written Law could provide against in an universal way So then it being lawful in it self to propose a Bill to exclude you from the Crown the doing it after your Brother had signified his Pleasure against the Bill could not make it against Law for I remember no Law written or unwritten that ever constituted him Lord of the Articles upon the Parliament which they were to debate and propose or not But what was his Will and Pleasure or the Pleasure of two or three Villains and Whores that joined with him in usurping such a Power altogether strange to our English Constitution of Parliament And I must tell you your Brother 's intolerable Stiffness in that Particular I cannot think was out of Kindness to you or from any suspicion he had of the Danger of the English Monarchy by such a Law but from the Influence of some ill Men engaged in the Conspiracy with you to destroy that Constitution who knowing your Brother's Inclination in that Particular as well as yours made it their Business to nourish in your Absence a Misunderstanding between him and the People whom you and he mortally hated justly fearing if he should ever have come to the due Temper of an English Monarch and to have a Sense of the Peoples Affection to him as the Father of the Kingdom he would have delivered up you and your Rogues who had infected him with that deadly Notion that the Interest of an English Parliament was not only distinct from but opposite to his Interest and Designs 2. Your Conspirators used to urge another Argument against the Bill of Exclusion no doubt your own first or they would never have presumed to use it so long till it was become thredbare viz. that the King could not comply with the House of Commons in it tho the Interest as well as the Desire of the People of England because it so nearly concerned him in point of Honour Justice and Conscience Your Brother and you were both Men of Honour Conscience and Justice of which you both made this Nation sensible Well since it was so let me argue upon the Topicks of Honour Justice and Conscience with you Had it not been honourable in your Brother to be true and faithful to his Word and Oath to keep and maintain the Religion and Laws established Nay Sir could any Man have thought it dishonourable in him to have loved the Safety and Welfare of his People and the true Religion established amongst them above the temporal Greatness of his Relations Was it not just in conjunction with his Parliament for his Peoples Safety to make use of a Power warranted by our English Laws and the Examples of former Ages Or where was his Justice that was the Father of his Country to expose his Children to ruin out of Fondness to a perverse Brother and to abandon the Religion Laws and Liberties of these Kingdoms which he was sworn to maintain and expose them to the Rage of you and your traiterous Jesuits who thought your selves in Conscience bound to subvert them Your Brother by his own might have remembered your Religion and what your Brother's Conscience was in relation to your Succession a cunning Man could scarce find out but if he had been a Protestant I might have asked what Conscience obliged him to ascend the Throne to overthrow the Protestant and set up the Popish Religion â—ir since your Brother insisted so much upon Honour Justice and Conscience I 'll say of him as I ought that he was a Papist yet I am sure he was bound in Honour Justice and Conscience to have preserved to the People of England their Religion Laws and Liberties and in conjunction with this Parliament to have secured them from being subverted by you and your Followers since withâ—â— much Duty and Affection they recalled him from a miserable Banishment attended with Poverty and Dishonour and chearfully placed him upon the Throne and enlarged his Revenue above what any of his Predecessors had enjoyed and gave him vaster Sums in 20 Years than had been given to all the Kings since William the Norman Where then was his Honour Conscience and Justice in leaving them to be destroyed by you It cannot be said he had therein more regard to the Government than to the Person that succeeded him seeing if he had passed the Bill of Exclusion he had no ways prejudiced the legal Monarchy which he did enjoy with all those Rights Prerogatives and Powers which his Ancestors did ever claim besides what he usurped against Law which yet the People quietly submitted to 3. A third Argument your Party used was That it was a hard Case that a Man should lose his Inheritance because of this or that Perswasion in Matters of Religion Truly Sir had your Case been only so I should have thought your Argument pretty strong but alas Popery was not in you and your Conspirators an innocent Perswasion of Men differing from others in religious Matters but a real Conspiracy against Christianity it self nor was this Inheritance your Cattel used to mention a bare Inheritance of a private Person without the Consideration of an Oâ—â—â—ce annexed to it which required you to be Par Officio I pray what did your Logger-heads mean when they made such a Noise about an Inheritance nothing less than a Government of three Kingdoms the Protection of several Nations the making of War and Peace for them the Preservation of their Religion the disposal of all publick Places and Revenues the Execution of all Laws with many other things of the greatest Importance Truly Sir these inconsiderate Persons were mightily out in their Claim for the three Parliaments had reason to look about them when they had reflected upon the Bloody Tenets of the Church of Rome and more particularly upon the hellish Conspiracy then discovered and at that Time carrying on with Vigour by your Popish and Popishly affected Traitors and finding you to be the avowed Head of this devillish Party could you with any Justice think they should not prevent as much as in them lay your being a Shepherd since you had declared your self a Wolf And since you were a Papist how could they believe you would ever appear in the Defence of the Protestant Religion I think this may suffice for this Argument 4. A fourth Argument against the Bill of Exclusion was the Oath of Allegiance taken to your Brother by the Parliament of England Truly I never heard the Argument from any but an Irish Man not but we had then Fools enow to invent such an Argument as we have at this Day to attempt your Restoration But their Arguments were as silly as their Plots and this is one of the most foolish Arguments could be used against such great and wise Assemblies as
hated Parliaments for your Father of ever-notorious Memory hated them and therefore tried Conclusions with Parliaments for 12 Years together 'T is true he did call that blessed Parliament in 1640 that would have redressed England's Grievances had they not been prevented by the factious Spirits of some whose Zeal was not according to Knowledg Dr. Gauden tells you that your Father call'd that Parliament in Novemb. 3. 1640. Not more by the Advice of others or by the Necessity of his own Affairs than by his own Choice and Inclination I could expect no better from a Baal's Priest than to begin with a Lie For what Man that lived in that Time knew not how the Case stood with Charles the First And besides if I had not Access to a King yet I could discover his Inclinations either by those that were about him and in favour with him or by the Currant of his Actions all which I say testified to the World your Father's strange aversness to a Parliament Those that were near him and most in favour with him were Courtiers and Rascally Prelats Vermin whose chief study was to find out how he stood inclined and to imitate him exactly and that which was his Will was their Doctrine concerning Parliaments and so it was with you But that I may proceed in some Method I shall shew 1. That Parliaments are the Right of the People 2. That they are an essential Part of the Government 3. That you hated them tho such and by consequence was an Enemy to the Government of England 1. That Parliaments are the Right of the People of England which they may claim in order to have their Grievances redressed the common Safety of the Nation provided for and their Religion Laws and Liberties secured For call to mind with delight if you can the wonderful Discovery and undeniable Confirmation of the Popish Plot which designed so much Ruin and Mischief to these Nations in all things both Civil and Sacred and the unanimous Sense and Censure of so many Parliaments upon it together with some Acts of Publick Justice upon many of the Traitors The Nation was not without hopes that since that cursed Design of introducing Popery and Slavery and the Murder of your Brother was discovered for the space of 30 Months at least some effectual Remedies should have been applied to prevent the Attempts of your Cut-throat Party upon us the better to secure the Religion and Government of the Nation and the Person of the King But by sad Experience we found that notwithstanding the vigorous endeavours of three Parliaments â—o provide proper and wholsome Laws to answer both Ends by your influencing a pack of Villains you and your Party were so prevalent as to stifle in the Birth those Righteous Endeavours of our Parliaments by many surprizing Prorogations and Dissolutions whereby the Fears and Dangers of the People daily encreased and the Spirits of you and your Party heightned to renew and multiply fresh Plots against the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Realm I will lay down some known Maxims that relate to a King and Parliament of England 1. You know the Kings of England can do nothing as Kings but what of Right they ought to do 2. The King can neither do wrong nor die 3. The King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined by Law 4. The King has no Power but what the Law gives him and is called King from ruling well Rex à benè Regendo viz. according to Law and is only a King whilst he rules well but a Tyrant when he oppresses 5. That the Kings of England never appear more in their Glory and Majestick Sovereignty than in Parliaments 6. That the Prerogative of the Crown can do no wrong nor can it be a Warrant for so doing Now Sir having laid down some Truths relating to the Kings of England give me leave to lay before you some that relate to the Parliament 1. Then I say that the Parliament of England constitutes and gives a Being to the Government of England 2. A Parliament of England is to the Government what the Soul is to the Body which is only able to apprehend and understand the Symptoms of all Diseases threatning the Body Politick 3. A Parliament is the Bulwark of our Liberty the Boundary which keeps the People of England from the Inundation of Tyrannical Power and Government 4. Parliaments do make new and abrogate old Laws reform Grievances settle the Succession grant Subsidies and in a word may be called the Great Physician of the Kingdom From all which it appears if Parliaments are necessary in our Constitution that they must have their Times of Session and Continuation to provide Laws essentially needful for the being and well-being of the People and for redressing all Publick Grievances arising either for want of Laws or of undue execution of those in being or otherwise And sutable hereunto are those Provisions made by the Wisdom of our Forefathers as recorded by them both in the Common and Statute Law 1. Sir you was an excellent Man at the Common Law and so were your Gang at St. Germains and tho they have little occasion for it there yet I may refresh their Memories for having had so much leasure to study the Excellency of the French Religion and Government our Common Law may be forgotten by them Nay Rhyming Jack Carryl himself since the loss of his Estate may have resolved to forget the Law since he will not have so much occasion for it as he might have had if he had chosen Sussex instead of St. Germains and so may be at a loss to inform you I therefore give you a touch or so not that I pretend to cure the King 's Evil of the Common Law what it saith concerning Parliaments I pray Sir remember what old Coke saith one of your Grand-father's Judges who was a famous Lawyer and persecuted by him for you know what but never had the Courage to run away he tells us in one of his Law Books which your old Friend Jenner swears he never understood That the Common Law is founded in the immutable Law and Light of Nature agreeable to the Law of God requiring Order Government Subjection and Protection containing certain antient Vsages warranted by the Holy Scriptures and because given to all is therefore called Common Sir if you will send for your old Drudg Frank Withens I dare aver he cannot give you a better for his Life But you will say What is this to Parliaments Well Sir since this may pass the Understanding of your Dispensing Rogues I will tell you what he saith in his 9th Book in the Preface they are his own Words in the Book called the Mirror of Justice in which appears the whole Frame of the Antient Common Laws of this Realm from the Time of K. Arthur An. 516 till near the Conquest which treats also of the Officers as well as the Diversity and Distinction of the Courts of
their Pleasures before Grievances were redressed and publick Bills of Common-Safety passed because to dissolve and prorogue at Pleasure is a Privilege which belongs to the Crown Answ This word Prorogue is but a new-fangled Business a thing brought up in latter Days but as for dissolving Parliaments at Pleasure that has been the Practice of our former wicked Kings by the Advice of their Roguish Ministers and Judges who laid aside all Law Honour Honesty and Conscience to prostitute themselves to the abominable Lust of a filthy Prince who designed nothing less than the Ruin of the Kingdom What your Father did I will not here concern my self but what your Brother did by your Procurement is my Province at this Time Your Brother when he held his French Parliament at New-Market in 1677 where most of the Rogues and Whores of the Court were present and your gracious Self waiting on him did much aggrandize himself by that Glorious Assembly Upon April 16. the Parliament at Westminster was adjourned till May 21. following Immediately upon the Recess the Duke of Crequi aâ—d that modest sober chaste Man of God the A. Bp of Rheims and Monsâ—eur Barillon and a Train of 3 or 400 Persons of all Qualities appear'd there so that the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of France with so many of their Commons made it look like an old-fashioned French Parliament And the Parliament at Westminster had been adjourned for their better Reception But what Address they made to the King or what Acts passed at that Noble Parliament I cannot tell they having not been yet published But I suppose they were these that follow 1. An Act for continuing his Majesty's Subjects in the Service of France 2. An Act for enabling the Dutchess of Cleveland to use the Arch-Bishop of Paris for her Father-Confessor c. 3. An Act to discharge her Grace from farther Attendance upon the King 4. An Act to constitute the French Gentlewoman to be Whore in her room and a Spy for the French King 5. An Act to enable Nell Waal to be Woman and Bawd in ordinary to the said French Gentlewoman and his Sacred Majesty 6. An Act to supply the Extraordinary Occasions of that Whore Portsmouth and her Woman Nell Waal 7. An Act to enable the Dutchess of Portsmouth in order to her Health to possess and enjoy a certain Apartment in a House-Royal called the Lock situate at the end of Kent-street and Nell to have the Reversion after her decease in case of Necessity 8. An Act for the further Supply of French-Money in order to enslave the Kingdom of 3000000 Livres per Annum 9. An Act for enabling James Duke of York to go on with his Conspirators in the Conspiracy against the Laws Liberties and Religion of the People of England and to demand the French King's Purse Credit and Interest for his Help and Assistance 10. An Act to invest Edward Coleman with the Sum of 20000 l. and a good Pension from the French King for his great Services done and to be done for the Catholick Religion and French Interest 11. An Act of Abolition of all Claims and Demands from the Subjects of France on Account of all Prizes made of the English at Sea since the Year 1674 till that Day and for the future 12. Act to supply the extraordinary Needs of the Pensioners at Westminster 13. An Act to continue the Sham-Alliance with the States-General of the Vnited-Provinces There were I suppose several Private Bills in favour of the Pimps Bawds and Whores that were not sworn in Ordinary but passed the Royal Assent as I may suppose because at that time all things between England and France moved with that punctual Regularity that it was like the Harmony of the Spheres so consonant with themselves tho I could not hear the Musick I pray Sir let us know in your next Declaration what other Secret Bills were passed in that August Assembly wherein the Affairs of Peace and War were transacted with the greatest Confidence and when good Boys they had done their Master's Business with your Brother's Aid and Help they were adjourned from New-Market to London where they dissolâ—ed themselves without your Brother's Prerogative to make way for the Westminster Parliament and so rubb'd off with all Demonstration of mutual Affection and Friendship Alas Sir these were Matters of that Import that they required all imaginable Expedition and Secresy and it would have been the highest Presumption for the poor Pensioners in the Westminster Parliament to have intermedled with them Alas if they had been admitted to end the Work it might have ended in their own Dissolution in order to a couragious running away You say by way of Objection Your Partisans made that which your Brother and other Kings did by their Prerogative Royal dissolve Parliaments before Grievances were redressed and necessary Bills past because things did not move with that punctual Regularity between your Brother and them that was between him and the French King I pray what was the Reason Had they not had Gratuities at the Charge of the Nation Or had the Dutchess of Portsmouth jilted them out of the French King's Blessing which the Duke of Crequi and the Arch-Bishop of Rheims brought them of 200000 Lewis d' Ores Who can tell what to say to these things It is no wonder then that Crew of Voters were grown resty and did not move regularly Well what then the Parliament must not sit till some State-Clockmaker had mended their Motions and made them go true the House then had some good Bills over which they roared only and then were sent Home by a blast of Prerogative-Breath Had your Brother any other Prerogative but what the Law gave him and what he was invested with at his Coronation If he had let us know it but for once I will grant he prorogued and dissolved Parliaments at his Pleasure to serve you and your Cut-throat Crew It doth not therefore follow that he had a Right so to do according to a Maxim I learned almost 30 Years since A facto ad jus non valet consequentia especially when such Prorogations and Dissolutions are against so many express and positive Laws such Principles of Common Right and Justice and so many particular Ties and Obligations to the contrary Your Brother might by the Advice of wicked Statesmen and villanous Judges pretend to a Prerogative the Law had given him of which nothing ever was known unless revealed by some French Maxims learned abroad in his Travels Yet such a Prerogative could not justify such Practices for if he had been invested with such Prerogatives by the Law yet the Law could give none to destroy it self and those it protects But Old Hodg and his Inferior Clergy may interpose and say Had not King Charles his Prerogative founded upon Law Who questions Sir but the Kings of England had their Prerogatives Yet observe what Old Bracton saith Pag. 487. That tho the Common Law allows many
that attended the Dissolution of those Parliaments 6ly What Pretences you and your Party used for procuring the Dissolution of those Parliaments with Answers thereto First Your Inclinations shew'd you an Enemy to a Parliamentary Way of Government and this appears in the following Particulars 1. From your Nature and Temper 2. From your Usage even of the Pensioner-Parliament 3. From the Notions and Practices of your traiterous Party in relation to Parliaments 4. From the daily Breaches you made upon our Laws 5. By your Unwillingness to let that Parliament meet and sit 6. By the Opinion you had of their Affection to you 1. From your own Nature and Temper which I shall set forth before you in relation to 1. Your Religion 2. Your Politicks 3. Your Morals 1. Let us consider your Nature and Temper in respect to your Religion and this will prove your Aversion to English Parliaments and that way of Government Your Nature and Temper inclined you to set up the Popish Religion How was this to be done was it by an English Parliament If any of your Party should suppose this let me tell you the Supposition in it self was Nonsense Your Religion was such and I am perswaded you are no Changeling as went not altogether in the Old Primitive Apostolical Way of Preaching and Praying and teaching all Nations c. but Scourging Wracking and Broiling Men into the Fear of God Nay is not your Religion such that for its own Propagation it will make its Champions divest themselves of Humanity and act worse than Devils in order to be Saints Now Sir where could you get a Parliament to have established such a Religion by a Law And can any Man judg you in love with Parliaments who are such Enemies to this excellent Religion of yours I pray Sir reflect upon your Servant Coleman's Words in his Letter to Father La Chaise the French King's Confessor We have a mighty Work upon our Hands no less than the Conversion of three Kingdoms and by that perhaps the utter subduing of a Pestilent Heresy which hath domineered over great Part of this Northern World a long time there were never such Hopes of Success since the Death of our Queen Mary as now in our Days What Reason gives Coleman for this Doctrine when saith he God hath given us a Prince who is become I may say to a Miracle zealous of being the Author and Instrument of so glorious a Work but the Opposition we are sure to meet with is also like to be great so that it imports us to get what Aid and Assistance we can for the Harvest is great and the Labourers but few Here was a mighty Work and a mighty zealous Prince engaged in this Work I pray Sir why did you not apply to your mighty Band of Pensioners in your Long Parliament for Aid and Assistance No your Religion would not comply with that nor their Religion advance your mighty Work tho they were Villains enough in some Sense yet you did not think fit to trust them with the managing this mighty Work or to let them know your mighty Mind and Zeal in this great Work To whom then do you apply your self Why truly to the mighty Lewis the French King for do but observe your Agent 's Words in the same Letter where he saith That which we rely upon most next to Almighty God and the Favour of my Master the Duke is the mighty Mind of his Christian Majesty whose Soul inclines him to great Vndertakings Truly Sir I think the Case is plain that the subtle Jesuits had formed a Design to bring in Popery and to kill the King which they would never have been such Sots to attempt had they not been sure you would engage in this mighty Work Yet you were not privy to it Let who will believe that I cannot for do you think the Jesuits and Coleman would have ingaged in that mighty part of the Conversion had not they seen into your very Heart and Soul Now upon the whole Matter can any one think if there were no such thing in Nature as a mighty English Parliament to have joined with your mighty Zeal in the mighty Work you had upon your Hands that ever the Religion which you profest would incline you to be in love with an English Parliament that was ever averse to Popery and Slavery since the Reformation And because of your Aversion to an English Parliament as an Enemy to your Religion you apply your self to the French King which I am sure was not consistent with a hearty Love to an English Parliament 2. Let us consider your Nature and Temper as to your Politicks and by that I shall shew your natural Aversion to Parliaments and a Parliamentary way of Government As your Religion so your Judgment leads you to Arbitrary Government for it was not only Rome's Religion but the French Mode of Governing that was your Design and the end of all those Counsels you had with your Jesuits and your Servant Coleman who was a main Agent in that Affair yet when your glorious Enterprize was discovered you graciously left him to be hanged for all his good Secret Services done you in furthering the mighty Work you had upon your Hands But some of your Party may say That in opposition to a Parliament it was impossible to bring in Popery and Arbitrary Power it being inconsistent with the Rules of Policy to attempt such a thing in England To this I answer Let the Popish Crew say so if they dare I am certain they must bely their Consciences in this point whatever they do in other Points in their Politicks the hellish Popish Plot being a plain Demonstration that your Cut-throat Papists did believe it possible or else Coleman and others would not have on your Behalf so far engaged the French King's Aid and Assistance in the Affair for you attempted to be restored to all your Commissions and how came it to pass that you did not effect your Restoration It was not saith Coleman hindred by reason of any Aversion they had to your Person What then it was because of the Dissatisfaction the Faction entertained against you Who was this Faction but the English Parliament to whom you were so averse that the Popish Party could make no brisk Attempt on your Behalf for the Parliament then was very sensible that the French King's Interest was much attracted to yours which declared you to be no Friend to them and engaged them to provide for themselves against you and your cursed Party Again Sir by your leave could any thing be plainer than the Design that Coleman and the Jesuits had formed and had Hopes of effecting since they had joined you so close to the French King's Interest I am sure 't was contrary to Reason and Nature it self for them to attempt your Brother's Life and thereby commit the basest of all Murders for Murder-sake and tho natural Affection might interpose in that Design had you
been privy to it yet the Jesuits well knew it was impossible for you that was converted to that degree of Zeal for the Romish Religion and French Interest to have given ground in that Affair Now Sir I hope your Villains here will be fully satisfied that it was possible for the Popish Party to carry on such a Design as this in opposition to a Parliament which is a great Proof of your Aversness to Parliaments But to come close to the Point That your Nature and Temper in relation to your Politicks demonstrated your Aversness to English Parliaments the Jesuits you know were very industrious with you for the Promotion of their Religion which you consented to and what did you in order to this Did you not lay some Foundations for Popery in order to its being established Were there not Judges Justices of the Peace Sheriffs and other Judiciary Officers of your procuring in order to deprave the Law of the Nation and defile the Throne of Justice I pray how did the villanous Judges use even the Protestant Laws to open the first Gate to Slavery and our Laws being in their Hands did they not use them as barbarously as they could to the Discouragement of Vertue and promoting Vice Did not your Brother's Ministers of State betray our Liberties What Remedy had the People If a Session of Parliament was near you so hated them upon this very Principle of Arbitrary Power that either the Session was put off for a longer time or else it was to be so short that Grievances could not be redressed and when you got a Period put to a Session your wicked Judges were to play their Parts with the Laws whilst your Ministers were ravishing all our Liberties from us and as for Religion you had a Set of Apostolical Caterpillars who were to manage that for your Service and Interest These Measures of yours taken from your Popish Crew had rendred you so out of love to an English Parliamentary Government that you were at one time looked upon by Parliament the greatest Grievance of the Nation the universal Object of their Hate and Fear and the Subject of their Clamours and Curses At whose door did all the Discontents and Murmurs lie but at yours Were not the Murmurs so violent against you that they became a great part of the Complaints of good Men to Heaven in their own and their Country's Behalf Nay Murmurs were so bold that your Brother was attackt with them for did they not look upon you as Jupiter's Stork amongst the Frogs Notwithstanding all your former Glories and Conquests your whole Stock of Fame was lost and buried in your Apostacy from the Protestant Religion How all this and an innate Love to your Country and its Government could stand together I leave to wiser Men to judg We saw you design'd to make us submit to an Arbitrary Power Our Magna Charta was to have been destroyed by you and your Cut-throats our Religion and Liberties to have been abolished Popery and a Despotick Power set up the Lords and Commons extirpated and all to have devolved into you when they had given the fatal Blow that you might have set up Idols and Molten Calves and we have bowed down to them Now Sir consider who the Man was that took such Measures and laid such Designs and if it were possible for him to love an English Protestant Parliament I 'll be his Slave To conclude this Head Did you not by these Politicks of yours fet the whole Kingdom in a Flame and then please your self with it When you burnt our City you and your Party sung Te Deum for Joy whilst others were astonished at the dismal Sight Did not your unbounded Thirst for innocent Blood make the Kingdom of England a Slaughter-house And might you have had your Will you would have made Smithfield your Original Shambles It is well known Sir how you loved humane Sacrifices and what Measures you took from France and Rome to propagate your Cause is not yet forgotten nor I hope never will 3. Let us consider your Nature and Temper as to your Morals from which we will demonstrate your Disaffection and Aversion to Parliaments What Morality could we expect from you that was and still is a Papist and a bigotted one too And being so all your Morals are but Slaves to your Zeal Nay had you been Master of all the Cardinal Vertues there 's not one but must have been used to destroy our Religion Laws and Liberties Your Fortitude and Courage if ever you had any made you the more daring to push on Rome's Religion and the French Interest and to withstand the Opposition you met withal in Parliament Your Justice you made use of to restore the Power and Authority of the Bishop of Rome believing him to be Christ's lawful Vicar and Peter's true Successor and the said Office including the Ecclesiastical Supremacy you declared it your Duty to give the Pope the same Right over the Consciences of the People of England as you had to succeed your Brother tho through his Blood Let us consider Sir your Temperance which for once I will suppose you to be Master of too not for the publick Good but only to testify that you could conceal your Passions which were great enough to do publick Mischief for you had always a most firm Resolution to ruin these Kingdoms As for your Constancy it was no more than fixed Obstinacy But it may be your Party may say you were never heard to rage or scarce seen to frown how true that may be I cannot tell for I never was your Pimp or Admirer and therefore cannot pretend to that Familiarity with you that some may Yet what was your Temperance and Constancy but fit Pillars to support your damnable Designs against the Religion and Government of these three Kingdoms But Sir if we should again take a view of your admirable Temperance in its larger Signification that is a Denial of worldly Desires it was still worse and worse for when you voluntarily took up your Cross and quitted your great Employments under your Brother you left the Management of those Offices to Villains of a deeper dye than the rest of Mankind who still carried on your Design to destroy us you only quitted the toil of the Power and left it to your subordinate Villains In the last place we will comply with your Admirers and Flatterers and own you had Prudence if you had it was the worse for us because that and that alone could be your Trump-Gard the only leading Vertue that managed your Conduct in all your Hellish Plots and Designs with that Care and Art that you made a fair Progress in effecting the Business of Rome as to Religion and of the French King as to Arbitrary Power to enslave and pox us both in Religion and Liberty To give you your due you ripened that mighty Work you and Coleman had upon your Hands to a mighty Perfection
know what ground you had to raise such a foul Report and Slander upon so considerable a part of the Legislative Power I confess I can give no other name to these Proceedings of yours than a Conspiracy to destroy the use of Parliaments therefore had your Brother called another upon the Dissolution of the Oxford Parliament all English Protestants would have joined as one Man in humble Applications to that Assembly that you and your infamous Crew might have a due Punishment for such scandalous Reflections and false Accusations of those Parliaments It is well known Sir notwithstanding your said usage of these Parliaments that many of those honourable Persons sent up to serve as Members of those Assemblies had ventured their Lives and lost their Estates in endeavouring to restore the Monarchy in opposition to that very thing you charged them withal Nay they were all Lovers of Monarchy not only upon true English Principles but from their own Inclinations for deceive not your self they had too sad experience of a Common-wealth to be in love with that way of Government which they well knew was inconsistent with the Genius of this Nation and that nothing more agreed with the Peoples Temper than a well-regulated Monarchy as ours is by the fundamental Laws of the Realm and if your Brother had but considered the Point he could not have believ'd otherwise than that they were not nor could be true to the Monarchy that joined with you and your Conspirators to subvert the Rights and Privileges of Parliaments 2. The Parliaments not only lay under this filthy Calumny but your Party did also traduce those brave Men that stedfastly asserted the Power and Privileges of Parliament the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of the People as being in a Conspiracy against the King and Government but 't is plain that you knew not one Soul engaged in any such Conspiracy if you did why did you not according to your Duty and Allegiance discover them that they might have been brought to Justice If not why was all that noise made of a Conspiracy against the King's Person and Government But I believe you were afraid that your Folly as well as Knavery would have been manifested to the World and your Malice too into the Bargain Nay Sir let me tell you that upon the Intimation given by your Devil's Broâ—ers and the special Direction of old Hodg the Fidler to your little Parasitical Clerks the Pulpits rung with the noise of a Presbyterian Plot in order to betray us into Popery and Arbitrary Power for many if not all but especially those who made some sort of Figure in the Country hung their Tongues and set the tune of their Preaching to the humour of the Times and like the Devil's Messengers being instigated by your High Priests all they preached was against the Dissenters charging them with a Design to bring in a Common-wealth and Confusion But why was all this noise about a Prebyterian Plot Come I 'll tell you the Reason You may remember that your Popish Party were by me and others charg'd with a Hellish Conspiracy against the Person of the King our Religion and Government and the Lives of all the Protestants in England and this proved against them to the satisfaction of all sober Men as well by their own Papers as the Testimonies of several Witnesses and finding all your devilish Arts and Practices could not bring your selves off from the Reproach you justly lay under or the Punishment you must have suffered had a Parliament been permitted to sit you made this noise of a Dissenters Plot as your last Refuge which you and your Crew said was against the Monarchy under pretence of prosecuting a Popish Conspiracy And therefore with what Application did you form the Intrigue of the Meal-tub and also those Shams of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey's murdering himself and Lord Howard's penning Fitz-Harris's Libel all which discovered your Purposes as well as your Disappointments at once Surely Sir your Party never considered what a notorious Scandal they endeavour'd to fasten not only upon the most considerable People of England but the whole Kingdom which you caused to suffer much in its Reputation abroad as broken and divided against it self and relapsing into Confusion and Anarchy Nay let me tell you that you and your Party hereby brought your Brother and his Government and Prudence under the greatest Disreputation for must not our Neighbours stand amazed to see a King restored by unanimous Consent to the great Joy of the Nation in so few Years lose that Esteem Honour and Reverence for so great a number of his Subjects as you had caused to be accused What Nation would maintain an Alliance with such a King who had so much sunk his Interest How could they expect he should be able to support and answer the ends of such an Alliance Your great Ally the French King could not but laugh in his Sleeve to see the Nation in such a Posture Nay further what Jealousies did you create in the Peoples Minds so that the Popish Party were strengthned to destroy both Conformists and Nonconformists who were both Hereticks to them Hereby also that Impudent Tyrant the French King was emboldned to proceed in his Ravages upon his Neighbours Countries and if your Brother should have had the least Inclination to put a stop to this Nimrod what a Condition would he have been in since you and your French Pensioners had created such Feuds amongst us 8. Another Evil happening upon the Dissolution of those Parliaments was your Endeavours to perswade the People that they were in a secure State with relation to their Religion Laws and Liberties that so the Nation might be a Prey to your Popish Crew Now Sir how can your Party answer the so doing when we were in the midst of so many notorious Dangers Do you not remember that four Parliaments had represented the manifold Dangers the Nation was threatned with And hath it not been one of the greatest Difficulties that ever a Nation groaned under to preserve it self from your Popish Rage and Fury Nay all thinking Men judged it impossible but God with whom all things are possible did the Work his own way you know well enough to your woful experience I remember your Conspirators used to wipe their Mouths and mimp them up with a maidenly God damme the Nation was in no danger from the Popish Party tho the King in several Proclamations had signified the same and if your Rascals had not the manners to believe the Parliament they might have believed the King since he not only published his Proclamations to let the Nation know its danger but also in divers Speeches to both Houses of Parliament acquainted them therewith and upon the whole not only required their Advice and Counsel but proposed that some effectual Laws might be made to prevent those Dangers and Mischiefs that then attended the Nation But Sir you and your Party may say What danger
Brother's Debts and the Parliament would give no Money Come Sir a word or two to the point in general and then I will descend to some Particulars 1. What would not the Parliament give Money to support the Alliances I 'll assure you they were a parcel of naughty Boys indeed to be so refractory I pray Sir with whom were those Alliances made with the Dutchess of Cleveland Alas pious chaste Lady she had been a Cast-whore for several Years the triple League between your Brother her Grace and Mother Knight had been broke for many Years and she had made a new Alliance with her good Confessor the Archbishop of Paris and had given him all she had for a Guaranty What Alliances then were they Were they new ones with the Dutchess of Portsmouth and Nell Waal Truly your Band of Pensioners had so often supplied their extraordinary Occasions that one would think they should not have asked any more and if they knew not when they had enough the Nation could tell them they had too much and wanted nothing but an Apartment at a convenient Mansion-house in Tuttle-fields and the civil Usage of that House once a Week or so as the Ladies of their Profession use to be serv'd as a just Reward of their Diligence in their Calling It may be Sir there were Alliances of another nature as with Barillon your old Friend that were to be supported Alas the Parliament knew full well that your Brother and you could not want a Supply for such Alliances and that rather than fail you might have got a new Bill to have passed Intituled An Act to enter into an actual War with France with which you might haâ—e beg'd Money of the French King as you did in 1678. It may be you will say They were Alliances your Brother had made for Preservation of the General Peace of Christendom You say well and it is a wonder since your Brother was graciously pleased to demand Money that he was not as graciously pleased to tell the Parliament what those Alliances were Surely Sir you did not expect a blind Obedience from that Eagle-ey'd Parliament to contribute to the Support of what they were wholly ignorant of or if they had had some Hints from the Court it would not have been amiss to have used them as civilly as your Band of Pensioners were and to have had those Alliances laid before them those humble Curs never parted with Money for the support of Leagues till acquainted with the Nature and Tendency of them And if the Alliances were not designed for the end pretended you might have asked Money with as good Success for the two Whores at the lower end of the matted Gallery both Mistress and Woman as for those Alliances Let me good Sir ask you one fair Question Did your Brother expect Money for these Alliances and nothing else and for once we will suppose Portsmouth and her Woman not to have had one Great no nor Fitz-Harrris so much as a Sop in the Pan tho he had a hopeful Plot upon the Stocks that deserved two but that it should be applied only for Alliances made to preserve the General Peace of Christendom truly then ought not the Parliament to consider well of the General Peace it self and its Influence upon our Affairs before they came to any Resolution or so much as to debate about it since you had a Tool in the Ministry that told us it was more fit for Meditation than Discourse nay he impudently said the Peace was but the effect of Despair and I think he was not much out in it but he might have been so honest as to have told us the true Cause of that Despair yet for all his Worship's Rhetorick the Nation learn'd by whose means they were reduced to so low a Thought of their Condition nay if that Loggerhead were alive I could tell him what Price you and your Brother demanded of the Fr. King for that noble and most Christian piece of Service In a word Sir we had no reason to simper upon the Business unless with the wrong side of our Mouths for we could not sing any Tune but that lamentable one of a bad Market we all knew the effect of this General Peace of Chistendom that it was the Dissolving the Confederacy against the French King the Enlarging his Dominions and his gaining time to refresh his Souldiers almost harassed out of their Lives by long Service the settling and composing the Minds of his Vassals at home increasing his Fleet and filling his Exchequer for new and greater Designs but your Rogues that were Pensioners to the French King grew impudent upon it and expected he might have a spare hour or so to assist you in ruining the Religion Laws and Liberties of England and to have fairly laid aside the use of Parliaments and broke them up as you would have done a Field-meeting in Scotland or a private Conventicle in England and treated them like Traitors and Villains and not like the great Assembly and Wisdom of the Nation Was it the Alliance your Brother had made with the States General Truly your Band of Pensioners had so stigmatized that that neither the first Westminster nor the Oxford-Parliament would foul their Fingers with it much less give any Money towards the Support of it for the Pensioners speaking modestly could not believe it tended to the safety of the Nation Truly I must look again and see what this new Alliance was and good Sir I beg your pardon it was a new Alliance with Spain and would they not give Money to support this Well let us then see how the Case stood in relation to it I confess Alliances to a Parliament make a very pretty noise and may be as diverting as ever old Hodg's Fiddle was to any of his Tory Gang. Indeed old England stood in need of some new Friends being so beset with Enemies abroad and with Pensioners to those Enemies at home but what shall I say to this Point When I view the Speech at the opening of that Parliament that sat down Octob. 21. 1680. there is nothing said of any new Ally except the poor Spaniard whose Affairs at that time thro' the Defects of his own Government and the villanous falseness of our Ministers were reduced to such Extremities that he might sooner have been a Burden to the Nation than a Help unless you let us judg that this Name of a new League was necessary to recommend our Ministers to a new Parliament and bubble our honest Country Gentlemen out of their Money for by it we were like to have trouble enough being to espouse without any Limitation all the Quarrels of the Spaniards tho in the Philippina Islands and the West-Indies or that he had drawn upon himself by any of his Barbarities there or elsewhere nay his difference with the Elector of Brandenburgh was not excepted tho all that Elector had done in Reprisals upon the Spanish Ships for a just Debt
the best of my remembrance 't was in 1680 gave it a due Consideration nay they were so candid as to represent to the King how that important Place came to be in so miserable a Condition after so vast a Treasure consumed to make it useful and that nothing better could be expected of it since it consisted most of Papists and such as were Enemies to the Religion Laws and Liberties of England These Inconveniencies might have been redressed by your Brother had he so pleased and truly the Parliament advised him to it nay Sir you may put on your Spectacles and read the Address of Parliament November 1680 wherein they promised to assist him in the Defence of that Place if they might have a tolerable Security that any Supply for it should not be applied to augment the Strength of our Popish Adversaries and to increase our Dangers at home from that villanous Faction and could you with any reason blame them since they had to their Sorrow seen Money imployed contrary to those Ends for which given by your Band of Pensioners But above all the Popish Party's Insolencies and the Impudence of those that espoused the French Interest threatned the Nation with total Ruine at home and therefore they judged it not prudence to leave the Consideration of England to provide for Tangier it looking like securing one single Cabin whilst the whole Ship was on fire Therefore to conclude this Head let me ask you these plain Questions 1. Whether it could be judged consistent with the Wisdom of a Parliament that had seen the dismal Consequences of the Incouragement your Popish Party had received from your Brother and you to give Money to supply a Garison which was used to augment their Strength and increase the danger of the Nation and whether you would not have laughed as much at them for such a Compliance as you did at your Band of Pensioners for giving 1250000 l. for the King 's extraordinary Occasions in 1673 or for that vast Sum they gave for a War with France in 1678 2. Had you not several Regiments in pay besides the Guards in England which might be transported and maintained as cheap there as here and would it not have been more honourable for them to have been sent to Tangier to have beaten the Moors than to stay at home to beat their Landlords and Landladies in their Quarters 3. Had you not a Company of Popish Gentlemens Sons to be imployed in that Service whose Fathers were undone by the Supply they gave for maintaining Liberty of Conscience and the Dutch War in order to destroy the Protestant Religion all over Europe And could you and your Teagues think on any rational ground that ever a Protestant Parliament would give Money to preserve that Place which was nothing else but a Nursery of Popish Officers and Souldiers I believe your Popish young Gentlemen might want the Charity of those Imployments but the Parliament had a foresight of the fatal Consequences that would attend the placing their Bounty upon such Vermin who would have been ready to return home for those ends designed by you and your Council at St. James's 3. The Parliament would not part with Money for Paiment of the Debt of the Exchequer to the Bankers which your Crew urg'd did put your Brother out of a Possibility of supporting the Government This is the Charge and a heavy one too Now what was this Government that was to be supported but a parcel of nasty Whores Pimps Bawds Informers Suborners of Perjury Murderers and Thieves This was your Government in your Brother's days was it not Nay did he not consume more Money upon such Vermine in one year than would serve the Government of England ten Did the Credit of the Crown both at home and abroad depend upon Portsmouth's having 52000 l. Sterling a Year and Nel Waal for being Bawd in ordinary getting 30 or 40000 l. in Money and other Cattle of the same Profession being maintained in all manner of Luxury for no other merit but having had a hand in the ruin of the Nation No Sir the Credit of the Government did not depend thereupon the Parliaments did not settle Revenues nor give Taxes for such Ends but your Brother and you had advanced the Credit of the Government if you had sent such Vermin to Bridewel to have been set to work for their living as Whores ought to be and to have the Correction of the House all Titles of Honour to the contrary notwithstanding Come Sir to be plain with you the Honours of England are intrusted with the King but were never designed for such Vermin as Portsmouth that was but the Daughter of a poor French Fellow or a Bastard of some Body I name not who nor to have whole Families advanced for providing or pimping another Man's Wife to be a Whore Royal that has had no less to speak modestly than 20 Stallions to attend her besides your dear Brother of blessed Memory Sir it is certain notwithstanding the noise your Party made of your Brother's being thro' the Parliaments refusing to give Money put out of a Possibility to pay his Debts that he never would pay them which was his Resolution and therefore what Faith could be given to his Promises tho he knew the Honour of the Nation would suffer highly in his taking up his Brother of France's Custom of not being a Slave to his Word The truth is had the People always been to pay his Debts there might have been Taxes without end this Sir your Band of Pensioners well knew who therefore as mercenary as they were would never pay the Debt due to the Bankers and the last Westminster Parliament having so fair and fresh an Instance before their Eyes and their Ears filled with the daily Cries of the Widows and Orphans were obliged in duty to give a publick Caution to the People not to run again into the same Error because they judged all Securities of that Nature absolutely void and that no future Parliament could without breach of Trust repay that Money that was at first borrowed to prevent the sitting of a Parliament Thus I have gone through all the Particulars of the second Pretence that is that the Parliament would not supply your Brother with Money to support the Spanish Alliance preserve Tangier and to pay his Debts 3ly You had another Pretence for procuring those three Parliaments to be dissolved viz. two Votes that passed the Commons Jan. 7. 1680. 1. That whosoever should lend or cause to be lent by way of Advance any Money upon the Branches of the King's Revenue arising by way of Customs Excise and Hearth-money shall be adjudged the hinderer of the sitting of Parliaments and be responsible for the same 2. That whosoever should accept or buy any Tally or Anticipation upon any part of the King's Revenue or shall pay such Tally hereafter to be struck shall be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and be responsible
that in all probability might not attract that Envy that the preferring of Papists in several great Places of Trust had done yet that the same Ends might be more certainly and easily tho not so soon obtained Which brings me to Article XXVI IN order to strengthen the Popish and French Interest you were pleased to take to Wife the Daughter of the Duke of Modena whom you have and hold to this Day which was in it self a Scoundrel Match but that it might appear somewhat considerable the French King declared her an adopted Daughter of France and promised to give her a Portion sutable thereunto for her Father could not give her a Groat And whether he gave her a Portion or no at that time I cannot tell if he did not I suppose you will eat it out before you leave St. Germains Your Brother consented to the Match without much difficulty by a good Lord a Friend of yours who consummated the Marriage by the Royal Consent and Authority of your Brother according to the Form used amongst Princes as your good Protestant Brother was pleased to express it Before this precious Bit of Italian Flesh could arrive in England your Conspirators who advised this Marriage perceived that the 20th of October would come and that it might probably receive some Obstruction from the Parliament and that some other things were prepared against their meeting for the curbing your Rogues who were grown as observed to you in the First Part damnably Insolent for the Check the Test-Bill had given was far less than the Incouragement from this wicked Marriage And that a fatal Blow might be given to the Preparations of the then House of Commons in prejudice of your Conspirators you procured a Prorogation to the 27th of October 1673 whereby to put an End to that Session and all the Business unperfected in March 1671 3 should fall to the Ground But pray what was the Matter Why must some good Bills fall to the Ground that were so well prepared in March 1672 3 Why truly your Reasons for the Prorogation if I am not much out were these three 1. To prevent and remove from your Brother all Temptations to break the intended Marriage and the French Alliance the Parliament being like to use their utmost endeavour to hinder the Consummation of that Marriage which might render the Popish Religion and the French Alliance impregnable You know Sir that Cardinal Howard promoted the Match to serve the Catholicks and the Catholick Religion was your end too since you were converted to such a degree of Zeal that Coleman your Secretary knew not his Head from his Heels or whether he was awake or in a Dream and then to strengthen the Interest of the French King must be your design since his Interest and yours were so inseparably united that he that was your Enemy was an Enemy to his Interest and he that was an Enemy to his was to your Interest also Now what a wicked Parliament was it that would have separated such an Interest and oppose such a Religion in endeavouring to prevent so hopeful a Match whereby 1. The Folly 2. The Malice of you and your Party did appear 1. The Folly of your Party did appear for that Parliament did never fail to give Money whenever called for if they were but indifferently well used and the King was generally unwilling to let a Session go off without some Pocket-money for the modest Gentlewomen at Whitehall therefore your Partisans should rather have adjourned the Marriage than prorogued the Parliament who having notice of the Conspiracy which you had managed more like an Irish Teague than an English Statesman were very angry at the King's breach of his Word and Royal Promise made to them in March before Therefore notwithstanding the King's Speech Octob. 20. for a swinging Supply for carrying on the War against the Dutch the Parliament would vote nothing but an Address against this Match of yours with the Daughter of Modena for they considered the Nation was not able always to lie under the dispensation of parting with Money to secure the Popish Religion and French Interest And as a preparation to the Address you know they passed this Vote viz. This House taking into consideration the Condition of the Nation will not take into any further Debate or Consideration any Aid Supply or Charge upon the Subject before the time of the Payment of the eighteen Months Assesment granted by a late Act of Parliament intituled An Act for raising the Sum of 1238750 l. for the Supply of his Majesty's present Occasions be expired unless it shall appear that the obstinacy of the Dutch shall render it necessary nor before this Kingdom be effectually secured from the Danger of Popery and Popish Counsels and Counsellors and other present Grievances be redressed You having by your little Vermine given out with all Folly and Impudence that you stood in no need of a Parliament but to give Money by this Vote they were even with you who with your Crew were so nettled at their Vote that you were resolved to give them a remove from your Councils but that it might not seem altogether upon the account of denying Money you let the Parliament proceed and the Address was prepared with Reasons against this Match of yours which I have laid down in my first Part and therefore wave them now the Parliament being assured that this Marriage at that time was not so far concluded but that for Reasons of State it might be rejected as has been practised in divers Nations and even by the French themselves in several Examples as manifestly appears in the French Histories I having an Opportunity of discoursing about the Match the Jesuits condemned the Conduct of your Friends at St. James's in deferring it till the Session was so nigh and then putting the Parliament off whereas the Marriage ought rather to have been suspended till the Parliament had given Money and one Million well husbanded would have enabled your Brother to set up Arbitrary Power for the French King would have stood by him And further That your Counsellors had been too open in the steps they took in this Match and had too publickly boasted of the Advantage they should have by it both as to France and Religion and had too much undervalued the Parliament since you could not at that Time subsist without one 2. As your Party shewed their Folly so their Malice for as the King was unwilling to part without Money and also to quit the French Interest all the Grievances of the Nation must be postpon'd which were judged by you to be but Trifles if any difference did arise it was their Faults to insist on such small things therefore with Indignation you procured them to be prorogued that they might recollect themselves and basely comply with your wicked Designs of destroying the Dutch and advancing the Fr. Interest in this Match that they might for the future be of no use
to you for a moderate Sum of Money a Million or two would by the French King's Assistance have been a competent Stock to open Shop withal that our Laws Liberties and Religion too should have perished at one stroke such was your Rage against us at that Day Your Bullies about the Town had the aid of your Purse to swagger against the Parliament and to admire the French King and tell us how happy we were by being imbarked in the French Interest thrô this Match and why should a damn'd Parliament be suffered to sit till it was consummated beyond the Power of their interposing in it And the King was not to be trusted in this Affair if a Parliament were to sit for he would be wheedled by the House of Commons upon the account of Money to break off this hopeful Match yea and with the King of France too but keep him without a Parliament and he would do any thing to please the French King or your self Now Sir from all this we may conclude how foolish and malicious your Crew did shew themselves in the Prorogation of the Parliament that the King might not be engaged by them to break off that Match to the projudice of the Popish Religion or the French Interest 2. This was not the only Reason for you had another before you viz. The consideration that the Bill for ease of Protestant Dissenters whereby a major part of them should have Liberty of Conscience and be capable of Church-preferment had passed the Commons and was sent up to the Lords in March 1672 3 where it then remained and would not long stick as you and your Party feared before it would obtain the Royal Assent which if once effected you foresaw the uniting the Protestant Interest would tend greatly to the suppression of Popery and consequently no hopes of that Religion 's being replanted here but if you could any how prevent the passing that Bill you doubted not for all the Parliament could do to be safe amongst so many Dissenters and drive on your Designs underhand for the destruction of all Protestants From hence Sir let me observe 1. That this was a time when you and your Party were not for Liberty of Conscience because the uniting of Protestants by Liberty would be very fatal to you and therefore you got the Parliament prorogued that this Blessing might not fall upon you and your Friends But how comes it to pass that you gave God thanks that it was always your Judgment that all Men ought to have the Liberty of their Consciences in Matters of Religion and Worship Were not you a most notorious Hypocrite to say so 2. You must needs be engaged in a most Hellish Design against the Protestant Religion and your Party be resolved to proceed-no farther in any other Work but that must be destroyed or else what needed so much Care for proroguing the Parliament that the Bill for Liberty of Conscience then in the House of Lords might of course come to nothing By which Prorogation you so offended the Parliament that you lost at least the Gift of a Million of Money 3. It argued you certainly very full of Revenge that because your Brother was forced to break his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience you would procure the Prorogation of a Parliament to break the Bill for it tho it was more legal and commendable in the Parliament notwithstanding the Loggerheaded Reasons given against it in 1664 in a Session of the same Parliament for by it we saw plainly that an Arbitrary Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was the Sense of your Soul but a legal Liberty of Conscience you hated from the bottom of your Heart and would rather incur the Displeasure of a Parliament than they should have the doing of that which they would not suffer your Brother your Self and wicked Party to do in a most illegal manner without the Authority of Parliament 4. I perceive at that time it was the Sense of the Lords as well as of the Commons that such a Bill was necessary to secure the Protestant Religion and therefore it would have passed that House and the King have given his Royal Assent to it if there had been but a Million or 1200000 Pounds in the Case Therefore that they might be better informed concerning the Conveniency of your Italian Match and the Inconveniency of that Bill for Liberty of Conscience you obtained a Prorogation tho your Brother good Man lost a swinging Tax by the Bargain 5. That you gained your Point in reference to Liberty of Conscience for Time you know is often Life to a Cause And as the Protestant Interest run high in the Session of Parliament in 1672 3 and this Act came from the Commons to the Lords in favour of them who had passed it but for want of Time and another Bill passed against Popery by which Clifford fell and you and your Party put out of Humour so that Clifford's Fall might be gentle an end was put to that Session the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was broke or cancell'd and in revenge you put a stop to the passing the Bill that would have established Liberty of Conscience by a Law by breaking up the Parliament from Octob. 20. to 27. and then to Jan. 7. following In this Recess you not only compleated the Italian Design but so ordered the Matter that when the Parliament met in January all Favour to Dissenters was killed as dead as a Door-nail and not one word of reviving the Bill for Liberty of Conscience was heard of but on the contrary our Prickear'd Priests were instructed to preach this to be as true as the Gospel that now there was no more Danger from the Papists but that the Phanaticks were the only dangerous Enemy and you and the Devil's Brokers had found out a Scots Lord and 2 Men who then made a mighty Figure at Court that were impudent and desperate enough to put the King's Affairs on so narrow and weak a Bottom Nay Old Lawderdale rather than fail becomes a Patron of the Church and who but he with his Guts was cried up by our Parasitical Pulpit-hunters Nay I will say this for Clifford that tho Villain enough yet his Principles were very generous in comparison of your new Set of Juglers whose Business it was to ruin those this Year they had supported but the last nay give them their due they would never forgive a Man that had been but once in the Right Those Sir were your trusty Cards and they agreed with our Spiritual Guides and Roger their Master not only in Principles but Passion too therefore you presently joined with them in directing the Judges to put the Laws in Execution against Dissenters which was done as you required 6. Our Holy Church-men as their Zeal was much increased by your Influence to suppress the Dissenters so their Zeal against Popery was to all Intents and Purposes extinguish'd as if you and your Italian Mistress had
been naturally dead For if any of the young Fry had preached against it he was rebuked as too Pragmatical and Sawcy and truly so they were that presum'd to preach against a Religion your Brother and you had ventur'd Soul and Body to advance in order to pox the whole Nation both Men and Women for the French Disease was so Epidemical that a Man could scarce find fair Quarter no not in the-Church or Chancel unless he was of the French Interest Thus you may remember what Success attended your Design in proroguing the Parliament by which the Liberty of Conscience intended was defeated and how its Defeat with the Consequences thereof prospered upon your Hands But what signifies all this since there was a French Interest the Romish Religion and an Italian Comrade to support all So much for your second Reason for proroguing that Parliament 3. And lastly Your great Design in carrying on this Match by the Prorogation of the Parliament was to create a Jealousy between the King and them exasperating him with their Impertinency and by your prevailing with him to countenance that wicked Match you exasperated the Parliament against the King For tho that Parliament should for ever after that Match have denied to give Money yet you were so sure of the French King that you hoped by the help of his Forces to have brought Popery in upon us and with it Arbitrary Government the first of which your Popish Tools cried up as the best Religion and our High Church-Rogues in conjunction with them cried up the last as the best of Governments yet at the same time they would deny it to be practicable here unless it pleased God to find out some way for both these great Churches to unite together to suppress Phanaticism But the Parliament saw into your Game and observed your Steps You sunk much in their Opinion therefore you resolv'd they should sink in the King's Opinion which occasioned so many Prorogations when you and your Party had any Villany in hand I might have said more to this Point but that I have spoken to it in my First Part. Article XXVII YOUR Brother and you made a French-Man General of your Army to the great Dishonour of the English Nobility This French General was then Count Schomberg and one of the Mareschals of France and he was chosen to bear that Trust before many valuable Noblemen we had at that Day It 's true he was a great Souldier and worthy to have commanded a better Army than you had at Black-Heath but when he saw what Vermin you and your Crew had got together and that their Design was to plunder the City of London and not to fight against the Dutch he fairly quitted his Post and left you tho Sir it is not to be forgotten what Designs you would have engaged that Noble Person in for you proposed to your self and Friends that he being a French Man would have joined with you in the Design of Arbitrary Government but when the thing was put to him he abhorred it and would not therefore continue in the Command But what a Dishonour was this to the Nobility of England that not one of them could be found to take upon him such a Command 1. Were they such Cowards that they dare not undertake it Or 2. Were they so unskilful in the Affair that they could not with Honour do it Or 3. Was the Design so villanous that they were not to understand any part of it Were you-resolved upon the French Government Then Schomberg you judged would join with you in that Affair Or were you resolved that Popery should proceed Then you had the Judicious Major General Fitzgerald that was to have done it I believe Sir you despaired of any of our Noblemen joining with you in these two Parts of your Design Popery and Arbitrary Power and therefore sought for other Persons that might give better hopes of approving themselves fit for your turn which turned to an ill Accompt for it bred ill Blood in the Nobility against you and your villanous Party Article XXVIII YOUR Brother and you oppressed the Kingdom of Scotland in order to ruin the Protestant Interest there Be pleased Sir to call to mind that when in the Year 1660 it pleased God to restore your Brother to the Throne in that Antient Kingdom the news of it was grateful to that People hoping his Restoration would prove a great Blessing and Comfort to them and he had been so if you and your wicked Party had let him taken such Measures as would have settled that Kingdom in Peace and Quietness There are several Particulars relating to that Kingdom worthy your Consideration and supposing you may by Mrs. Abigail's leave have now some time of thinking I pray remember 1. Upon your Brother's Restoration notwithstanding the Troubles and hard Usage the Scots had met with from your Father which cost him his Life at long-run and from Monk who for several Years had acted the part of a Tyrant in his Government of that Kingdom yet they took no advantage of these Miscarriages but with all chearfulness put their Necks under your Brother's Yoke of Absolute Prerogative of chusing all Officers of State Counsellors and Judges in making War and Peace and calling and dissolving Parliaments and Conventions of State It is well known how they had been provoked to renounce your Father's Government and put themselves under the Protection of some other Prince and might have defeated your Brother's Pretensions to that Kingdom since he renounced the Covenant he swore to maintain But they forgot all this and gladly received him their King and for Peace sake parted with many Immunities which that Kingdom antiently had hoping thereby to have engaged him to be a Nursing Father to their Church as then constituted according to the Examples of the Reformers and as they judged to the Word of God 2. You cannot but remember that this was not the only Demonstration of the great Loyalty of that People For tho it is well known that a limited Power in the Prince and the support of it by the Peoples Purse was the just Ballance of the Government of that and all other Kingdoms yet forgetting all Differences in your Father's Reign they testified an affectionate Zeal to your Brother in making the Revenue above double what your Father or he possessed and had they given themselves up to an intire Vassalage he could scarce have desired such a Bounty nay he thought it such a piece of exuberant Liberality that he was pleased to declare it was enough and that he would have no more Yet the Commissioners that held the Parliaments notwithstanding the King was sensible of the greatness of their Benevolence have drawn forth several Taxes pretending the King 's great Necessities even beyond the Ability of that People 3. They also complied with the desire of your Brother by your procurement to submit to the Bondage and Slavery of a villanous standing Army which
a Debt for their Rogueries the Gallows groans for their perverting of Justice and Judgment Where are your murdering Judges of the West Some of them yet live They might without the Consent of a pair of Spectacles have seen and might without fear have told you they could not chuse but see what was contained in this Preamble now recited Were the Rogues ignorant Then why did not your Pemberton your Scroggs your Levins your Charlton and the rest of that Crew instruct your Brother and you what was contained and pointed at in this Preamble But alas they did not they were able enough but they had rascally durante bene placito Commissions that indisposed them to be plain and honest in that Affair they were more afraid of losing their Places than of being damn'd for not doing their Duties But since they had not the Honour Honesty and Conscience of upright Judges give me leave to be plain with you Therefore Sir observe 1. The intolerable Grievance and Burden occasioned by the illegal Incroachments of the See of Rome to which Yoke you and your Villains endeavour'd to reduce and subjugate these Kingdoms You fired our City and murdered our Friends you promoted Men of Villanous Principles and worse Morals to the Judgment-Seat and made them Vassals to your Will and Pleasure who if they complied not were reproachfully dismissed their Imployments and ruined if possible Nay if any of them attempted but to prosecute Popery alas they were not for your Turn for your Design was by them to revive that intolerable Grievance by incouraging the illegal Incroachments of the See of Rome 2. Observe the many Complaints the People had made who in those dark Times under Popery groan'd under such Burdens What Burdens I pray you under the Incroachments of the See of Rome Why truly in disposing of Benefices Ay it is a good Observation for the Pope would present none but such as should advance his usurped Power and Interest and if the People were so bold as to complain of these things were they not a parcel of Rebels and Traitors for their pains No they complain'd without being called or treated as such What Remedy had they A Parliament Now Sir had not we as much need of an Act of Provisors against you for in your Brother's Time how many of your Rogues were presented to the best Livings in the Realm at your Procurement and how many Villains were made Bishops by the Whores Cleveland and Portsmouth and the Pimps and Bawds at Court Did not we stand in need of Statutes of Provisors Name me one Man of these that were not to advance the Power and Interest of France and to wink at the Progress and Growth of Popery Had we not reason to complain Yes To whom to the King No he was engaged for Popery and the French Interest and Arbitrary Power as well as your self His Metropolitan Whores were Papists to please him or he one to please them Therefore to what purpose was it We had none to complain to but a Parliament and how you used them we have not forgot and how our Application to them was not only useless but dangerous is not unknown In a word Sir the Condition of the Complainants in the Time of Edw. III tho they lived in the dark Times of Popery were in a far better Condition than we were in your Brother's Reign for notwithstanding the Religion of Edw. III his Interest was his Peoples and therefore held frequent Parliaments to whom they might complain and from whom they might find Redress without being judged Traitors and Rebels to the Government 3. Observe the Endeavours used in vain by former Parliaments to redress the same and to bring their Laws in being to have their Force and Effect You know that when the Kings of England were wicked then to gain the Point they used to fly to Rome for Countenance and advance that usurped Power to the Prejudice of the People So it was with your Brother and you when you had a Design in hand to enslave the Nation then you set up the Power and Interest of France and none were to be preferred in our good Church but Villains that were case-hardned enough to join with your Brother and you in ravishing the Peoples Rights and Franchises Had we good Laws in being against Popery They were suspended Had we any good Laws against the growing Greatness of France Yes we got one poor Act of Parliament against France and that was eluded Nay now I think on 't we got an Act to enter into an actual War against France with which your Party did impudently beg Money from France We got a poor sorry Act for the Liberty of the Subject called the Habeas Corpus Act this was by you and your Villains evaded so that we were under a necessity of Complaining Those in the Time of Edw. III had redress we had none till we drove you and the French Interest and Popery out of the Kingdom 4. Observe the Acknowledgment of the King and Parliament that the Obligation to this Duty was upon the King who you know is entrusted by the Law to preserve the Peace and Liberties of the Realm and to rectify all Miscarriages in the Government Which is apparent 1. From the Right of the Crown obliging him to pass good Laws 2. There were good Laws committed to his Trust in full Force which he was to execute 3. There is the King's Oath to pass new Laws for the Peoples Safeguard which they should tender to him as well as to execute old Laws already made 4. From the Sense of the People exprest in their Complaints And 5. From the Mischief and Damage that would otherwise ensue and therefore it is said that by the Desire and Accord of his People he past this famous Law the Preamble of which I have recited to you in part 4. There is another Statute worthy of your Consideration and pretty much to the same purpose you will find it in the 2d of Rich. II. in N o 28. Also the Commons of England in Parliament desire that forasmuch as Petitions and Bills presented in Parliament by divers of the Commons could not heretofore have their respective Answers that therefore both their Petitions and Bills in this present Parliament as also all others which shall be presented in any future Parliament may have a Good and Gracious Answer and Remedy ordained thereupon before the departing of every Parliament and to this purpose a due Statute be ensealed or enacted at this present Parliament to be and remain in Force for all Times to come To which the King replied thus The King is pleased that all such Petitions delivered in Parliament of Things or Matters which cannot otherwise be determined a good and reasonable Answer shall be made and given before the departure of the Parliament This King you know left not a very good Name behind being drawn away from loving his People just as you and your Brother were
and had it not met with a mighty Blast you might by your supposed Prudence have ruined three mighty Kingdoms Now Sir if we grant you were endued with these mighty Vertues of Fortitude Temperance and Prudence yet we must say they were the absolute Hinges that open'd the Gates to Rome and France where Superstition ruled the Day Your moral Vertues were but lesser Lights that took their Light from that greater Orb above but how these moral Vertues did shine in you your old Friend Tom Jones if alive could plainly tell for he knew your Vertues very well even to his dying Day I must mind you of one thing more viz. your Oath of Alleâ—iance that you took to your Brother as your Sovereign Lord. Did you keep that Oath to him If you did surely the only Motive that prompted you was some Obligation you believed was in the Oath But pray tell me did not you Apostacy to the Church of Rome not only require a Renunciation of that Oath but also absolve you from the Ties of it Therefore I ask you again Could your Conspiracy with the French King against our Laws and Liberties consist with that Oath Or if you look'd upon your self released from it pray what Security could the Government have when you should come to the Crown that you would keep your Faith with an Heretical People that would not keep Faith and true Allegiance to your Brother who was of the same Religion with your self This Sir was your Morality of which your Party so much boasted And how the Exercise of these Vertues that were so used in the Drudgery of France and Rome could be consistent with an English Parliamentary Government I cannot tell Thus Sir the Consideration of your Nature and Temper in all these Respects shews you were a Person in whom it was impossible there could be any love for Parliaments Let your Party say what they will and boast of your Vertues till doomsday yet I must say that your Nature and Temper shewed you a Man of no good Morals your Conscience being ready at all times to transmigrate as you found occasion Those near you that understood the Pulse of your Opinion did not in the least doubt your Heart which whilst you profest to be a Protestant conveyed Symptoms of Inflammation against the Reformed Religion because it was not so ready to consume a Party of Men you hated according to a Maxim of your dearest Great Grandmother of notorious Memory Mary Queen of Scots to which purpose you zealously promoted about the time of your Brother's Restoration abundance of Church-Caterpillars that with the fiercest Wrath might devour those of the Reformed Religion nay how often did you fall upon these Vermin as not zealous enough in persecuting those that differed from them only in a few rascally Ceremonies not worthy of wiping a Porter's Breech by which means those base Creatures ruined several thousands of Families in the space of twenty odd Years and brought them to great want And for all the Pretences you ever made for Liberty of Conscience you used to discover to your Brother the Ardency of your Zeal against poor dissenting Protestants and the Moderate Church-men that they were the greatest Enemies against his Government and for no other Reason but because they would not part with their Religion as Christians nor their Liberties as English-Men but preserve both chast and inviolable that they might approve themselves Men of Uprightness before God and Man 2. Your Inclinations published you an Enemy of all Parliaments from your Usage of that very Parliament in which you had such a Band of Pensioners One would think you should never have parted with such a Parliament where you and your Villains had purchased such an Interest truly some of them were so fond to aid and abet the Destruction of the Nation that the Charges in their Elections were defrayed whatever they amounted to any some of them were so profligate that as they had no Estates so they had neither Conscience nor Honour but were such as you pick'd out as necessary Men whose Votes you most relied upon You procured Tables for many of them at Whitehall and Westminster and had them for their great Loyalty in their Votes received into Pension What vast Sums did they give a great part of which was by you obtained to carry on your wicked Designs and Purposes And what Sums did you obtain to carry on your first wicked War against the Dutch and to supply your extraordinary Occasions in the second How well they supplied the Necessities of the Court-Whores Pimps and Bawds is well known You no sooner demanded but they complied so that your Brother and you once thought your selves exceeding happy in a House of Commons notwithstanding the Exchequer was shut up and by a Proclamation that you procured the Crown was published a Baâ—krupt in the midst of so many Aids and Revenues given by them Yet what humble Slaves were these to you and your Interest that when you ought to have shared in the Publick Justice of the Nation due to Traitors they not only passed by all your Miscarriages but stood by you as far as they durst and tho your Sins cried aloud yet nothing moved them to call you to an account for them If your Brother asked they gave till even they themselves were near the point of becoming useless and their Pensions too in danger In recompence of this you aimed at their Dissolution and how you branded them in a certain Declaration drawn up by Coleman by your Privity which your Brother had promised to sign but not being a Slave to his Word did not is yet remembred In that Declaration you charge the House of Commons that had given your Brother such Testimonies of their Loyalty and Bounty with misconstruing all his Endeavours to preserve the Nation in Ease and Prosperity and against all Reason and Evidence represented them to the Nation as Arguments of Fear and Disquiet and that under pretence of securing Property and Religion they had demanded unreasonable things from the Crown to bring those Men that had so well served your Brother and you out of all Esteem with the Protestant Dissenters You declared them Enemies to Liberty of Conscience and to the Proceedings of the Government and that they made seditious Constructions of the same and many other Charges of a very high Nature especially for opposing your Match with Mrs. Modena your Italian Comrade Nay you charg'd them for being Enemies to the Church of England and therefore you laboured to the utmost to have them dissolved tho you well knew that if these poor Dogs were not in a Parliament they must be in a Prison If this were your usage of a Parliament in which you were so happy if we may believe the King's Message to the Commons Feb. 28. 1663. what can any Man judg from hence but this that if this Parliament could not please you none could This I think sufficiently demonstrates what
Inclination you had for any Parliament for certain you nor your rascally Party could never expect to see a Parliament more ready to assist you in all your wicked Designs 3. Your Inclination to Parliaments was seen by the Notions and Practices of your Party in relation to Parliaments especially from those of them that knew you best Were not Coleman Beddingfield Whitebread Strange Nevil and several other Villains of your Privy Council at St. James's and did not these study to find out your Inclinations and to imitate you exactly And how these and the rest of your villanous Crew stood affected to Parliaments in general is not yet forgotten by some that knew them Was it not their common discourse that they hoped there would be no more need of Parliaments did not your Popish Priests and Jesuits go from Coffee-house to Coffee-house and ridicule Parliaments Alas Sir this was but the Copy which your Villains took from your own Words who sometimes when they wanted a Supply for their extraordinary Occasions would be seemingly content that a Parliament should meet and sit to raise such a Supply but never to redress Grievances nay some of them have said that a King's Proclamation ought to be sufficient to raise Money and that it would never be well with us till the whole Government was reduced to the Model of that of France 4. Your Inclinations to a Parliament were seen in your daily Breaches upon the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom You knew the Parliament had made an Act of Uniformity and several Laws against Dissenters in 1663 and several Laws were made against Papists in former Kings Reigns yet to oblige the Popish Party you broke in upon all these Laws at once and procured your Brother in the said Year to put forth an Indulgence for tender Consciences not for the Encouragement of Protestant Dissenters but the Increase and Growth of Popery And as a necessary thing to usher in your second wicked War against the Dutch you put your Brother upon issuing forth another Declaration of Indulgence in 1671. Many other Instances I could give of this Matter but this shall suffice Now how this could consist with an innate Love to English Parliaments I must leave to better Judgments 5. Your Inclinations to Parliaments were seen in your Unwillingness to let that Parliament meet and sit in which you had so great a Band of Pensioners To my certain Knowledg Messenger after Messenger has been sent to France with begging Letters to get Money from the French King to put off the Sitting of the Parliament Give your Brother his due he never cared for their Sitting unless it was to get a Supply that he might exercise his Talent you know where without Molestation which he could not well do at a Session of Parliament Sir when the Parliament was by Prorogation to have met in Feb. 1672 3 O what Interest was used to put it off till October following and it had been done if your Party had brought in a Million as they promised but bringing in but 356000 l. there was no help but a Parliament must meet who I think made up the Defect in the Supply you expected from the Popish Party You know the Parliament was put off from Octob. 1670 till Feb. 1672 3. by which long Interval you had a competent Scope for the mighty Work you had upon your Hands that you and the rest of the Architects of our Ruine might be so long free from their odious and busy Inspection till it were finished A drinking Companion of your Brother's telling you that the Session of Parliament drew near and asking you what you thought of the Humour the Parliament-men would be in at next Session you answered you trusted there might be no Occasion for their meeting any more for you had hopes to bring the Cause to bear without a Parliament and took it as a great Affront that the Question was asked You know the old Squire your Brother laughed at you for that Capricio of yours tho your Jesuits thought it a piece of Impudence in that Gentleman so much as to mention the name of a Parliament in your Presence he knowing your Opinion as to that way of Government I must conclude that Man to be at a perpetual War with Mankind that will not admit of the sight of either Friends or Enemies If Sir you could not bear the Congress of your Friends that had been so loyal and bountiful you must certainly be averse to the meeting of a Parliament that would call you and your wicked Party to account for your many traiterous Designs against our Laws and Liberties 6. And lastly Your Inclination to Parliaments was seen in your Opinion of the Affection which your Band of Pensioners did bear to you and your Cause You know Sir you had put your self under the Protection of the French King and therefore it was scarce possible for you to engage any more in a Parliamentary way for all English Parliaments are haters of the French Interest Your Friend Coleman in his Letter to La Chaise Sept. 29. says That in Father Ferier 's time he had inculcated the great danger the Catholick Religion and the Interest of his most Christian Majesty would be in at the next Session of Parliament which was to be in Oct 1673. at which I fore saw that the King my Master would be forced to do somewhat in Prejudice to his Alliance with his most Christian Majesty which I saw so evidently and particularly that we should make Peace with Holland that I urged all the Arguments I could which to me were Demonstrations to convince your Court of that Mischief and pressed all I could to perswade his most Christian Majesty to use his utmost Endeavours to prevent that Session of our Parliament Again you find him pressing him for the Dissolution of the Parliament in order to bring the Confederates to a Peace upon the French King's Terms Then he plainly tells you That the Parliament as it was managed by the then Ministry was both unuseful to England and France and the Catholick Religion In another Part he tells you That Prorogations were but loss of time and a means to strengthen those who opposed the Crown and therefore still presses for a Dissolution which would give the Protestant Religion the greatest Blow that ever it receiv'd since its first Birth So that we may see by your Servant Coleman what Opinion you had of the then Parliament But that we may rivet the Matter I pray Sir take but a Note or two of your own Letter to La Chaise wherein you express your self extreamly pleased That the French King was satisfied of the unusefulness of the Parliament in order to the Service of the King your Brother and his most Christian Majesty In another place you say that his Christian Majesty was of Opinion that the Parliament was neither in his Interest nor yours Pray let me know what Parliament would be in your Interest
joined to that of the French King Shew me such a Parliament and I will then say I can shew you one that you would have a good Opinion of and since you could retain no good Opinion of your Band of Pensioners you can certainly have none of those that are for preserving the English Protestant Interest So that I think I have sufficiently shewed your Inclinations and by them your Enmity to Parliaments Secondly I now come to shew what those Parliaments were to which you were so averse and which you procured to be dissolved whereby your hatred to Parliaments and that way of Government did appear Were they Men of Common-wealth-Principles or did they aim at the Promotion of their own Ambition and Greatness did you or your Rogues know of such Persons why then did you not discover them The Nation would have charged the Account to themselves and have made your Party some recompence for so signal a Piece of Service to the Publick Nay if your Crew had brought these People to light and let the Parliament sat to have tossed them in a Blanket they would have found a little severer quarter than the Mayor of Scarborough did from one of your Apostles whom you sent to plant a Colony of Red-coat-Christians in that Place But Sir in plain English your Common-wealth-Christians we found were a number of Men that were in a most zealous manner devoted to the publick Good and common Service of their Country who believed Kings were instituted for the Good of their People and Government ordained for the sake of the Governed and therefore complained or were grieved when it was used to contrary ends Every wife and honest Man would then and still be proud to be of that Rank and Number And if Common-wealth signifies Common Good in which sense it has been taken in all Ages by most good Authors as Bodin speaking of the Government of France calls it a Common-wealth as do our own Authors the Mirrour of Justice Bracton Fleta Fortescue c. in former times as well as those of later Years particularly Sir Thomas Smith in the time of Q. Elizabeth and not only several Statutes use the word Common-wealth but K. James your Grandfather in his first Speech to an English Parliament own'd himself the Servant of the Common-wealth and K. Charles I. your dearest Father of famous Memory both before and in the time of the War never exprest himself otherwise to be fond then of such Common-wealth Principles becomes every good English Man and the whole Kingdom were glad to find they had sent such Men to Parliament But Sir your Villains used to call those Parliaments which you procured to be dissolv'd Persons conspiring to set up a Democratical Power in opposition to Monarchy that would overthrow the Government both in Church and State tho it was that which you and your Rogues designed in that villanous Alliance you made with France to destroy the King and the Protestant Religion The Nation saw it was not those they had sent up to Parliament but you that had a Design to overthrow the Government for you were so fond of your beloved Arbitrary Power and therefore resolved to subvert our legal Monarchy instituted for the Benefit of the Common-wealth by destroying the Honour and Reputation of our English Parliaments I pray Sir call to mind the Band of Pensioners you had in that Parliament which your Brother kept so long yet you could not bear with their Proceedings against your Party when your Designs were laid open before them and so plainly proved that they could not withhold Justice from being executed upon several of your Case-hardned Traitors When they were dissolved it is manifest that three greater Parliaments were never known in England since the time of William I than what succeeded them viz. those two that met at Westminster and that at Oxford they were I dare say the Flower of the whole Kingdom and might with all Justice be termed the Wisdom of the Nation their Debates and Votes which were printed and published shewed them to be Gentlemen of very great Ability and Integrity those that sent them knew them to be Persons of great Estates not beggarly Rascals such as were in your Pensionary Parliament that had betrayed us to you and your Party in a great measure these did not please you because they would not perpetrate so great a Piece of Villany how then could those please you that met together afterwards and approv'd themselves Well-wishers to the Protestant Religion and duly consider'd the State of the Nation and the many Dangers to which it was exposed by you and your Villains Therefore Sir if any one can inform me how all this doth not prove you an Enemy to the Constitution of Parliaments let him come forth and he shall be heard or let us know what sort of Men you are inclined to for I believe if you could obtain 513 Papists that were not of the French Interest to establish Popery separate from Arbitrary Power even such could not please you but would soon be exposed as others have been and if you should have met with 513 Men that could have complied with you in both you must have met with such as would have destroyed their own Constitution and put a Period to all Parliaments Now if any of your Party can say this would be a Demonstration of your Affection to Parliaments and proveâ—t Erit mihi magnus Apollo Thirdly Remember what Arts and Methods you and your Party used to expose the three last Parliaments your Brother held in 1679 1680 1681. It is worth your considering that when you had a great desire to have the long Parliament dissolved some objected that if that was dissolved the Crown was in danger because a new one was to be called But those that made the Objection did not consider a new one must be chosen which if they did yet they did not consider what the Men were that would in all probability be chosen and those new Parliaments if they might have been suffered to redress Grievances would have stuck at nothing to have rendred themselves acceptable both to Prince and People for it was first the best way your Brother took to become acquainted with the Nation to dissolve that Parliament that had so long continued Secondly the King might if he would have let his Parliaments sat obtained a great Sum of Money for Payment of his Debts nay they would have given it him as a Pledg of Endearment between him and the People they resolved to give freely and hoped he would receive as graciously in truth Sir they would have been generous even to your self for they would have excluded you from being King that you might enjoy the greater Security of your Person and Estate as a Subject which if you would have believed you had not at this day been rattling your Beads at St. Germains the People would have been free under their King as the King would have been
Popish Adversaries which they could not do but by inflaming the Differences between the Conforming and Non-conforming Protestants that we might not unite our Forces against the Common Enemy 2. You and your Party by this means weakened the Protestant Interest There can be nothing more plain than this for upon the Dissolution of the Oxford Parliament Swarms of Priests and Popish Conspirators returned home and fell to work to pervert the People to the Obedience and Communion of the See of Rome What Pensions then you got for some and Imployments for others and with what care you maintain'd their Interest and defended their Cause and Quarrel against those that pursued them for their many Treasons against the Government we all saw to our great Sorrow And what help was there since you and your Party had so much countenance from your Brother who was ingaged with you in the whole Popish Conspiracy saving that of his own Life 3. You procured a severe Persecution against Protestant Dissenters which you nor none of your rascally Crew durst do during the Session of Parliament but immediately upon their Dissolution you fell upon them either because they had occasioned the sending of good Men to Parliament or because they were zealous Assertors of the Protestant Religion against Popery and of our English Liberties against Slavery these were indeed high Crimes for which you and your Villains made them smart to the ruine of several thousand Families and had you continued somewhat longer in that glorious Adventure you might have made poor England a howling Wilderness tho when your Brother and you came home you found it a Land flowing with Milk and Honey Nay you had rather all should have run into Confusion than the Dissenters should not be ruined because they could not comply with a few Ceremonies for which your Party had no other Authority than a few Acts of Parliaments 4. You advanced Arbitrary Proceedings in Westminster-Hall where you had a Set of rognish Judges exactly of a size for that turn who had as much Impudence for the Court as they had had Dread of being called to Account in Parliament for all their Villanies And tho it was a standing Constitution that if any Man stood impeached by the Commons of England before the Lords in Parliament no inferiour Court could take Cognizance of that Cause or try him for that Treason in Westminster-Hall for which he stood impeached in Parliament which upon the Dissolution of the Oxford-Parliament was Fitz-Harris his Case yet for all this you found out your Pemberton your Jones and your Raymond that had Impudence enough to try the said Fitz-Harris and condemn him for alas good Men they were not to lose their Places for every small Peccadillo if it were to serve the Government especially to do a Job for you and your Crew 5. Upon the Dissolution of the 3 last Parliaments to alienate the King from his People you and your Party did industriously revive the Memory of the late unhappy Civil War between your Father and the Parliament which was your Brother's Interest as well as the Nation 's to have buried in oblivion the mentioning that unhappy War serv'd only to put us in mind of the sudden Dissolution of 3 Parliaments and the 12 years want of one and what the Villains had done in your Father's Reign and the better to colour your procuring the Dissolution of those three Parliaments you had your Parties abroad to asperse and brand the Members as being of the same Complexion with those that met Nov. 3. 1640 but none of your Cut-throats did ever mention the bloody Massacre in 1641 because begun and carried on by your Father's Command and for his Service But Sir let me tell you that none lived more peaceably under your Brother's Government than they who were engaged in that War on the Parliament's side therefore I cannot tell by what prudent Topick you went when you discourag'd those Men in their obedient living by such villanous Reflections and upbraided them with what the Law had pardoned and they had expiated by their Loyalty since supposing they had been Criminals which yet I think they were not But this is plain beyond all dispute that the Parliament that restored your Brother to his Throne and you to be a constant Plague to this Nation made an Act of Indemnity wherein many things were enacted which they judged necessary for the Settlement of the Nation they prohibited under a Penalty one Man's reproaching another with being concerned in that War for the space of three years after the Date of the said Act sure then they never intended Men should afterwards take the liberty to upbraid one another with it 6. Another ill Consequence of dissolving those three Parliaments was that by this means you made a way to succeed your Brother in the Government If those Parliaments had sat and their Counsels not been defeated by their unexpected Dissolutions you must have been disabled from ever inheriting the Imperial Crown of these Realms and it was plain those Whores and other Traitors that procured the Dissolution of those Parliaments aim'd at your coming to the Throne But Sir I think your Party should have shown so much Ingenuity and Candour as to have owned that all the People of England particularly those that were for your Exclusion were as zealous for Monarchy even in the Royal Line as any of your clamorous Bullies durst for their Ears be I am sure nothing so much endanger'd the legal Monarchy of England as your coming to the Crown which the Wisdom of the Nation foresaw and therefore that it might be preserved resolved to pass you by and let it descend to another Heir Nay Sir if you had continued James Duke of York I am sure you might have lived with more Honour and Comfort than you can propose by putting your Feet under the French King's Table but God having ordained you to be a Plague to us for our Sins I think you let us see what you aimed at in your four Years Tyranny There are some blind Puppies whose Eyes are not yet opened I could wish you had their Company at St. Germains being confident you would soon lick them open 7. Another Consequence of the Dissolution of those three Parliaments was the possessing the King of a Design carried on by the dissenting Party for his Destruction and to introduce a Democratical Power which they called a Common-wealth nay that you might hasten the Dissolution of the Oxford-Parliament you made use of this Lie for an Argument which your Brother was willing to believe that he might have some Pretence for quitting that way of Government There were two sorts of Persons charged 1. The Parliaments themselves 2. Those who stedfastly asserted the Power and Privileges of Parliaments the Protestant Religion and Liberties of the People in opposition to Popery and Slavery 1. These Parliaments were charged with a Design against his Majesty's Person and Government Now Sir let us
could there be since the Laws of the Land were the Rule of his Government To which I answer 1. Suppose K. Charles had all his days governed according to the Laws of the Land was his having governed according to the Laws already sufficient to discourage you and your Villains from plotting to destroy us And when your Conspiracy was detected did the King's governing according to Law remove the Fears we had of the Popish Party Object But you will say We had an ill Opinion of your Brother and his Government and thence came our pretended Fears and Jealousies Answ Alas Sir you are mistaken our Fears did not proceed so much from our ill Opinion of him as from the sense we had of the implacable Hatred you and your villanous Popish Party had to him and your Resolution to destroy him because he made not such haâ—â—â— to destroy us as you would have had him But suppose we had entertain'd all evil Opinion of the King we had just Cause for it he having left us in the hands of such as were so far from protecting the Nation that not one Law made to preserve the Protestant Religion was put in execution and you had so filled the Courts of Westminster-Hall with a Set of Rogues that perverted the Law to the hazard of the whole Nation that your Traitors escaped those Punishments due to them for their many Treasons 2. Could the Laws we then had without some additional Provision contribute to our safety since you were to succeed him Were not you and your Party then the worst of Men to declare to the World that we were in no danger notwithstanding your vigorous Application to extirpate the Northern Heresy which you were in a more effectual way to effect than ever Hence may appear the Malice of your Party in preaching Peace when they were preparing to make War upon us I might enumerate other Evils that happened on Dissolving those Parliaments but these at present shall serve and therefore I come to the last Particular of the third Head of this Article viz. Sixthly The foolish Pretences you and your Party made for procuring these 3 Parliaments to be dissolved in so reproachful a manner all which prove you an Enemy to Parliaments and that way of Governing I pray Sir let me put you in mind that your Brother hated Parliaments mortally which appears by his Letter to the French King in June 1676. to this purpose That if he could be assured of his Pension that it might continue he should not continue that way of Governing viz. by frequent Parliaments which at the best was but a clamorous Rabble that took upon them to direct Kings but as he was resolved to be like his Neighbours in Riches and Grandeur so he was resolved to be like them in Religion too Thus it seems at the long-run you were both of a mind except that he was not so hardy in observing his own word to ruin the Nation all at once as you were and what your goodly Pretences were for Dissolving three Parliaments to effect the same you have laid before you in these following Particulars 1st The first Pretence was their too vigorous prosecuting the Popish Plot. Now with what colour could you charge this upon them for as I told you before so I must again that those Parliaments were composed of Men of as good Sense and Quality as any in the whole Kingdom who proceeded and managed their debates with as great Moderation and Gravity as became their Place if they went too far in any thing relating to that cursed Design you might have instanced in the Particular and not have suffered your Hell-born Crew to censure their whole Proceeding in it But let me tell you they were so far from going too far that your Brother and you suffer'd 'em not to sit till they could do any thing considerable in any part of the Discovery Now Sir let me ask you one Question Why did not you and your Party rather fall upon the King and his Ministers for those Speeches and Declarations he made concerning the Popish Plot of which you shall have your full in its proper place But pray observe 1. Your Brother did frequently recommend the Prosecution of the Popish Plot to them with a strict and impartial Inquiry and can you think that a Parliament consisting of so many worthy Patriots would be such Traitors to their King and Country as not to comply in â—ome measure with his Commands especially since in his Speech Octob. 21. 1680. he used that prevailing Argument That he neither thought himself nor them safe till the Matter was gone through with Was not the King's Person nor Government safe and would you not have them zealous in inquiry into the said Plot to prevent the threatning Dangers 2. Did not your Brother in his Speech to his Parliament April 30. 1679. assure them of his constant Care to secure our Religion for the future in all Events and that in all things which concerned the publick Security he would noâ— follow their Zeal but lead it Therefore Sir you may see that by making this a Pretence for dissolving three Parliaments you did fly in the very Face of the King and his leading Zeal to have that Plot discovered and the Criminals brought to publick Justice 2ly A second Pretence you and your Banditti had for dissolving the three last Parliaments was because they would give no Money for supporting the Alliance your Brother had made for preserving Christendom in Peace and the keeping of Tangier by which the Nation might see the true Reason for which those Parliaments were called The truth is Sir you had almost perswaded the King not to use that Parliament which sat down Octob. 21. 1680. and in order to that you made Application to the French King for a Sum of 300000 l. Sterling and promised if your Brother was supplied with it the Parliament should not meet The French King agreed and the Money was to be paid at two Paiments Upon this the Parliament newly chosen in August 1679 was prorogued till November following and your great Ally assuring your Brother of the Paiment of the Money the Parliament was further prorogued till October 21. 1680. so that we had no Parliament sitting from May 1679 till October 1680. but the Duke of Buckingham getting Intelligence of this Contrivance and being in danger of his Life by the Subornation of a Villain to whom he had given Bread as also to his whole rascally Family finding his Head must fly for it if a Parliament did not meet makes a Journey over to France and so prevailed with the French King that the Money promised was not transmitted so that of Necessity not of Choice you permitted your good Brother that one time to meet his People in Parliament Well then Supplies were demanded to maintain the Alliance made for the Support of the General Peace of Christendom the Preservation of Tangier and for the Paiment of your
often demanded in vain was according to the Law of Nations and the Rules of Justice nay Sir we might have been engaged in his Quarrel with old Kate's native Country which we ought to have had special regard of for the Blessing they sent us in 1662. And pray what was the Quarrel Truly nothing but a treacherous seizing the Island of St. Gabriel which the Portuguese had peaceably enjoyed several Years upon which you know Jack the Portuguese invaded some part of the Spanish Country Also by virtue of this Alliance we were even obliged to assist the Spaniard in case of any disturbance in his own Dominions You and your Brother were admirable good at secret Articles and in one of those it is plainly expressed we were to furnish him 8000 Men for 3 Months so that if he inclin'd to make his Subjects as great Slaves to the Crown as they are to the Church our good King was to assist him in so good a Work Truly Sir when I reflect on Philip the Second's Barbarity to the People of the Low Countries whom our Ancestors thought fit to succour I could not but think this Alliance now under debate was for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Good of the Nation because my Lord Hallifax and old Lauderdale told me so and therefore as the Stars would have it it was not fit the League should be laid before the Parliament lest they should think so too and find a blind side or two in it and think it would contribute but little to the Good of the Nation or securing the Peace of poor Flanders Well Sir your Cake proved Dough that bout for there was Death in the Pot a standing Army aimed at in England that would not down with us at that time of which you were to have been General that would have done more good Business upon Hounslow-Heath than in Flanders for they were not to help the Spaniard till the French had invaded them three Months and it 's well known he could then have been Master of a considerable part of that Country But yet no Money came nor can I help it if I should cry my Eyes out let me therefore be a little more particular with you and ask two or three Questions it may be we may find some Expedient they might have used to allay the matter on your side Now supposing this League the best that ever could be made yet 1. Had not the Parliament just Cause to be very jealous of your Brother's Sincerity in this Alliance and the more because he would not declare what it was nor suffer it to be laid before them Therefore had it been the best in Christendom nay as good as that between him and Cleveland and Mother Knight the Bawd which he had broken for several years or that that was then in being between Mrs. Portsmouth and her Woman Nell Waall yet what could they say to such a League or what Security could they have that it should be kept more than the Triple League or that with the Prince of Orange or that with the States General which were all broken almost as soon as made 2. The Parliaments of England had been ill used by you and your Banditti and therefore you must allow this not to meet with that Temper you desir'd who after they had heard of this Alliance were not suffered so much as to have it laid before them to consider of tho it had been before your Council at St. James's and Barillon the French Ambassadour had perused it and was privy to the secret Article in it and had not like a Man of Truth given a Copy of it to one that let some have a sight of it Surely Sir you and your Party could not but provoke a Parliament by these Carriages and how then could you expect Money to support this new Alliance 3. I pray Sir how was it possible any good could come to Christendom in general or to these Nations in particular by this new Alliance It is plain that all Christendom after the separate Peace with the Dutch could not preserve Spain and the Spanish Netherlands from falling under the Dominion of the French King how then could your Brother by this new Alliance be in a Condition to support them without the Dutch since by the help of you and your Traitors he brought this Nation into a distracted and deplorable Condition Nay Sir one word more What good could these Kingdoms expect by this Alliance since thereby all the Hardships imaginable were put upon our Traders both to Spain and the West-Indies and had that King been as able as willing he would have let you known it ' ere this time 4. Was it not unreasonable to ask Money for the support of this League tho we suppose it the best that ever was made Your Brother was the first King that ever asked Money to support Alliances I have read of Kings when by the Advice of Parliament they have made War upon any of their Neighbours they have called for Money to carry it on with Vigour but I never find any of our Kings that ever called for Money to support Alliances especially when they were justly ashamed to declare what they were 5. Again Your Crew I confess at that time made a horrid noise about the Spanish Alliance and wondered the Parliament would give no Money to maintain it Alas Sir there was never yet an Alliance made with any State in Christendom if a good one but would earn its own living and therefore needed no Money to support it if it were a bad one I am sure it deserved none 6. Once more and I 'll conclude this Point since your Party made such a noise about the Spanish Alliance pray Sir how was it kept If my Memory fails not it was not over-well observed for I think in 1682. your Ally the French King blocked up Luxemburgh and in the year my Lord Russel was murdered took Courtray one of the six Towns delivered up by the French to the Spaniard and keeps it to this Day as he doth Luxemburgh which he took by force in 1684. Now I do not find your Brother ever assisted this Confederate of his according to the tenour of the Alliance or as he was Guarantee in the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle which in his excellent Declaration of War against the Dutch he declared he would maintain Upon the whole I see no reason why the Parliament should have given any Money to support this Alliance 2. As the Parliament would give no Money for the support of this Alliance so neither for the support of Tangier this stuck mightily in your Stomach and in the Maws of all your Party Now Sir Tangier being most valiantly deserted it deserves not to be mentioned but because it so highly offended your Friends who to this day mention it with reluctancy I will say a word or two to it It is some years since that the Commons of England to
of Protestants but against all they were sensible what Advantages your Popish Crew had made of our Divisions and observed with what Subtlety they had escaped Prosecution by the Laws in force against them by fomenting our Jealousies they saw the Strength and Greatness of the French King and how his Interest had been advanced by your Brother and you and judged of his Inclinations by his bloody Usage of his own Protestant Subjects they considered the Number of the Irish Papists and their bloody Principles and Practices and what Conspiracies were formed in that Kingdom and were ripe for Execution and that Scotland was in the Hands of you and your Villains and that you was the Head of the Popish and Popishly affected Party in the three Kingdoms they had with Grief observed that all the Places of Trust both Civil and Military were in the Hands of the avowed Enemies of the Laws and Liberties of England and notwithstanding all the humble Addresses made to the King and all his Proclamations for a strict Execution of the Penal Laws against Papists yet your villanous Faction evaded those Laws and went scotfree and only the poor Protestant Dissenters smarted under their Severity The Case being thus certainly that House of Commons had as much Reason to think of an Union amongst Protestants in 1680 as your Brother had if ever he spake Truth in 1679. And can you think they had any just Ground to believe that the Protestant Dissenters whilst under such Pressures and Provocations should chearfully and couragiously undertake the Defence of their Countrey since by it they had been and then were so ill treated Experience taught them it was in vain to force us to be of one Opinion and therefore the Commons took a very probable way to unite us in Affection 2. It is true they made this Vote not to arrogate to themselves a suspending Power but to shew they had a repealing Power They well knew that your busy Rascals would be striking whilst there were Weapons at hand and therefore that the Land might be in Peace they designed to take away all Occasions of Provocation from each other and resolved to take away those Penal Laws that occasioned them and accordingly began with a Vote declaring the Necessity of it to which if I am not much mistaken there was not one Negative in the House and a Vote of this nature did but precede the bringing in a Bill for the Repeal of that or those Laws they had voted grievous and inconvenient With what Face could you or your Party revile a Parliament for so regular a Proceeding according to the Custom and Usage of Parliaments How could you call the voting of a Law or Laws grievous and inconvenient a suspending of Acts of Parliament and charge them with Contempt of the Law established 3. We will suppose the Commons did not intend to bring in a Bill to repeal the Laws then in force against Dissenters for the Vote was not made to assume a Power of suspending Acts of Parliament neither did they require the Judges to forbear the Execution of them who were bound to see them performed but they only delivered their Opinion as a Matter of great Concern in that Juncture and notwithstanding the Noise your Cattel made it was wise and pious Counsel and tho it could neither command nor secure the Judges or Justices from doing their Duties if required yet we might have justly expected those that had the Management of Affairs to have hearkened in so plain a Case to the Voice of the Nation or given them or other Parliaments a Measure how to confide in them and the Judges and Justices had they not received Direction from your Brother and you were in Discretion and Conscience as much obliged to omit the Execution of those Laws as that of Bows and Arrows and several other Statutes then if not still in force but out of Use If our Ceremony-mongers had but given themselves leave to think and their Romish Zeal would have let them remembred they were obliged to put on Bowels of Compassion they would have found their Proceedings against their Protestant Brethren could not be justified either by Scripture or the Practice of the Primitive Church where nothing was so common as different Rites and Ceremonies nay Doctrines amongst them and yet the Band of Charity and Love maintained and Christians never learnt to persecute till Wealth and Secular Power did attend Religion and the Prince and Church made use of each other to enslave the World 4. Had not the Parliament reason to make that Vote charge them with what Usurpation you please since it was your constant Practice to inflame the Differences you had made thereby to betray us into the Religion of Rome and the Government of the French King therefore the united Strength of all Protestants was little enough to withstand you I pray let me ask you one Question why might not a Parliament attempt to make Abatements in the Terms of Conformity or dispense with the Ceremonies of the Church when those Ceremonies the Form of Worship and the very Hierarchy it self could plead no other Authority by which they are enjoined than some Acts of Parliament Nay Sir the Commons saw there was a Necessity of passing this Vote for your Popish Crew had poxt a Number of Men that pretended to be so zealous for the Protestant Religion that nothing could serve the turn for its Preservation but a Popish Head and tho the sorry Rogues were a Disgrace to any Religion yet they were so dangerously infected that they thought the Dissenters were equally if not more dangerous than the Papists to the Government tho they well knew the Dissenters had never sworn to any foreign Jurisdiction or Power The Parliament therefore seeing such a Division made in order to weaken our Hands and make us a Prey to your Teeth made this Vote in order to strengthen the Protestant Interest by which they manifested a Resolution of repealing those Laws that were used as Scorpions by our Clergy-men and scoundrel Justices to destroy their quiet and peaceable Neighbours 5. A fifth Pretence starts up in your Vindication and pricks up its Ears one would have thought some Countrey Vicar in his Study over the Oven had contrived and sent it up to you sweetly drest and it struts so daintily that I must not let it go without its due Consideration What is it then truly the House of Commons issued out Arbitrary Orders for taking Persons into Custody for Matters that related not to Privileges of Parliament Truly this is a pretty sort of Pretence surely the Parson's Wife or Daughter had a Hand in finding this Business out but it shall have its due Weight and therefore I shall say these three things 1. We will suppose they did issue forth Orders for taking Men into Custody for Matters that had no relation to Privileges of Parliament yet that House of Commons might have had this to say for
upon which the House of Commons did commit Men were not relating to the Privilege of Parliament and had been without Precedent yet you and your Crew carrying on a Design to root out the Protestant Religion in which you had engaged your Brother which was a Plot without Precedent why might not the House of Commons proceed against the Abettors of it without Precedent Other Parliaments before you were born had made Precedents for particular Offenders and why might not that Parliament without asking your Leave If it be in the Power of one Parliament to make Precedents why not in another I am sure there was as much Occasion for new Precedents in that House of Commons as ever in any Your mealy-mouth'd Cattel used to wipe their Mouths and say they were as great Lovers of Parliaments as any Men but thought it strange that the Commons should be so zealous against Arbitrary Power in the King and take such a Latitude to themselves These Hogs-heads have their Buts a Parcel of Coxcombs that would not consider under what Circumstances the then House of Commons lay there was a Plot laid before them for the bringing in of Popery and Arbitrary Power and to kill the King and that it was a Plot and a villanous one none yet could with any Sense or Reason deny but such Rogues as were either in it or Well-wishers to it When the Commons came to consider of this devilish Conspiracy they found Criminals that had been by a side-Wind Abettors of it and others that had been Sinners above the common rate therefore they were forced to take a Latitude in their Dealings with them that the Nation might not be undone by them and where there were Criminals of this Standard certainly a House of Commons if they could not find Precedents how to manage such unruly Monsters might make some in order to tame them Sir I could give Instances of such Precedents made by former Parliaments and if that House of Commons made new Precedents they did but follow the Steps of their Predecessors who made Precedents as the Necessity of Affairs required and if the House of Commons had not taken such Courses they had betrayed their Trust if by those Precedents whether new or old they had not asserted the Rights of those that sent them thither Now what becomes of this your Pretence of illegal and arbitrary Orders in Matters not relating to Privileges of Parliament for which you procured their Dissolution 6ly A sixth Pretence for dissolving that Parliament was for their Addresses to the King which I am sure were with all the Duty and Humility that could be nevertheless to allenate the King from them you and your Party called them Remonstrances rather than dutiful Answers to those Messages sent them by the King Surely Sir it was a strange Age in which that Parliament sat and they could not but judg themselves under very unhappy Circumstances when notwithstanding their extreme Caution and Prudence yet all was under an ill Construction at Court Now if the Commons had returned Answers to his Majesty's Messages without shewing on what Grounds they proceeded they had been and that justly too accused as Men proceeding peremptorily and without Reason but when they expressed with all becoming Modesty the Reasons of their Resolutions they were accused of Remonstrating But what if we should give your Ministers at St. James's and your Brother 's at White-Hall this Word and so I will for once if those of them that are alive will but tell me what they understoood by that Word and with what Crime they would charge that House of Commons for my part I am at a Loss in the Point perhaps Portsmouth and Barillon that understood French might have given you the Meaning of the Word Remonstrance and it may be told you there was some pernicious thing in it as the Carnegey or some Pox like it and therefore it might prejudice your Brother as it had done you you know when take it so and much good may it do you but if by Remonstrance you mean a declaring the Causes and Reasons of what they were doing where was the Fault that was so unworthily imputed to them since it was a way they learned from your own Brother in his Messages to his former Parliaments This is another Pretence much of the same Value with the rest and so let them go together 7ly A seventh Pretence you had for dissolving that Parliament was the falling foul upon several of your Friends and giving them their due Character the Ministers at White-Hall would never forgive the last Westminster Parliament for the Vote passed upon some Men then much in fashion at yours and your Brother's Courts which gall'd you to the Heart and Soul truly I would not have you think this a Character the House of Commons only had fixt upon them no every honest Man had done it long before the whole Current of their Lives Practices and Counsels being a full Proof of that Charge Therefore why did your Paltroons call these Votes illegal Was it illegal for that Parliament to impeach Persons that were Enemies to the King and Kingdom or to determine by a Vote who were wicked Counsellours and did deserve to be impeached so to find out the Sense of the House But since you are my old Friend my never-failing Friend and upon that Consideration I have an old Kindness for you and your Party I will with you suppose the Votes that passed against those Beasts of Prey were not in order to an Impeachment yet still there was nothing of Illegality in them nor nothing extraordinary for the Commons in Parliament have always had two Ways of delivering the Countrey from such Vermine either to bring them to a publick Trial that they may have publick Justice done upon them or give the Rogues an ill Name in an Address to the King that the Court and Council may not be plagued with such Rubbish and hereby the Countrey will know them again and treat them accordingly You were very tender of the Lives and Liberties of these Favourites and so was your Brother but I conceive their Lives and Liberties were never in danger till they had forfeited them and the Forfeiture could not appear till they had received a fair Trial Now Sir it 's plain they durst not stand one unless it were a Trial of Skill whether the Parliament should sit and see Justice done or be dissolved and the Nation undone this was the Trial they were in danger of and no other for that was concluded on by the King and Barillon in the Lodgings at the lower end of the matted Gallery But suppose their Lives and Liberties had been in danger by an Impeachment there was just Cause for the Parliament's proceeding that way with those Traitors and if they had been but endowed with Courage to have stood Trial there would have been legal Evidence to have proved the Matter of Fact upon them that they were Enemies to the