hath given since to Europe had they been believed and hearkned unto But alas instead of taking that poor people into our protection and care or entring upon those Counsels with other Princes which the preserving the Peace of Europe and the securing unto the French Protestants the liberty of their Religion called for all the Intelligences we received were communicated to the French King upon which they became not only discouraged from placing any confidence in our Ministers for the future but one poor Gentleman who had ventur'd to treat with a certain person near his Majesty had the misfortune to be broken upon the Wheel and some others are forced upon the like account to live in perpetual Exile from their Country And yet even they by whom they were betray'd dare not say that ever they found them enclined to depart from their Allegiance unto their own King or to enter into any Confederacies unbecoming good Subjects and natural Frenchmen but that all which they aimed at and were willing to have transacted about was only that in preserving their Loyalty to their Prince they might not be suffered to be sacrificed and rooted out merely for their Religion Nor are the Stipulations of Kings or the established Laws of Kingdoms any security unto Protestants for their Lives or their Religion if once the Papists esteem themselves furnished with a sufficient Power and a seasonable Opportunity to subdue and extirpate it or them For as the Pope can Absolve all such Princes from the Promises and Oaths which they make to their Subjects so it is a known Principle of the Romish Church That no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks And where the Prince by not having the whole Legislation in himself is restrained from repealing Old and Enacting New Laws at his pleasure he will either mould and influence those who have a share with him in the Legislation to a compliance in what he designs or he will venture at the trampling upon all Laws and through the efficacy of the Principles of the Popish Religion will pursue the Extirpation of Heresie in defiance of all Boundaries prescribed unto him by the Law For what greater assurance could the Protestants in France have for the Liberty of their Religion and the preserving unto them all the Rights and Priviledges of Frenchmen than they enjoyed by that Edict of Henry the fourth commonly stiled the Edict of Nantes from the City where the King was when it was concluded and yet notwithstanding that Edict they are treated as if they were neither Christians nor Frenchmen being deprived of all that was therein granted unto them and brought to suffer every thing which that Edict was purposely made to defend them from For whereas by the said Edict they have a great number of Churches allowed unto them for the open exercise of their Religion and it is ordained that it shall be left free for any Papist to turn Protestant and that those of the Reformed Religion shall be as capable of enjoying publick Charges Honours Royalties and of exercising any Art or Trade as the Roman Catholicks themselves shall be and that there shall be no difference betwixt Protestants and Papists as to the security of their Lives the ways and means of their subsistence their authority over and freedom of educating and disposing their Childred yet through an implacable hatred which Popery inspireth men with against all that differ from them in Religion they are rob'd of all that was therein established in their favour and subjected to all the mischiefs which the fury of their malicious enemies and the power of a Prince guided by Father le Chaise the Jesuit can inflict upon them And as the Edict of Henry the fourth tho confirmed by Lewis the thirteenth proves no security to the French Protestants against the present Persecution which they are groaning and perishing under so it is to be feared that the Laws which the Protestants in other parts of the world do trust unto for the preservation of their Religion Lives and Legal Rights will be as insignificant to the securing these unto them in case they should fall under the power of a Popish Prince or that the Counsels of Ministers Popishly inclined should prevail as the Edict of Nantes hath been to the Hugonots For it is observable that as the Scots have at all times testified as much Zeal for the Reformed Religion as any people in Europe have done so they took care to establish the continuance of it to them and their Posterity by as good Laws as any Nation in the world could yet upon finding how useless such Laws as I shall name are unto the ends for which they were made and enacted there is a wonderful Jealousie possesseth the generality of that Kingdom That nothing can preserve them from being enslaved again to Popery but His Majesties outliving the Duke of York For it is Ordained by the Law of Scotland That no man is to James 6. p. 6. Act. 9. bear any publick Office within that Realm but such as profess the Protestant Religion And that none who shall not make profession James 6. p. 3. Act 47. of the said Religion shall be reputed a Loyal and Faithful Subject to the King but be punishable as a Rebel And that whoever shall at any time happen to Reign and bear Rule over that Realm shall at the time of his Coronation and the receipt of his Princely Authority make his faithful Promise James 6. p. 1. Act. 8. Charles I. p. 1. Act. 4. by Oath in the presence of the Eternal God That during the whole course of his life he shall serve the same Eternal God according to the uttermost of his power as he hath required in his most holy Word revealed and contain'd in the old and new Testaments and shall according to the same maintain the true Religion then professed and received within that Realm c. And therefore seeing these Laws have not been so observed but that one who doth not profess the Protestant Religion hath contrary unto them wrought himself into the chief administration of Affairs there under His Majesty hath presided daily in Council and sate as the Kings Commissioner in Parliament they begin to apprehend that other Laws may prove as ineffectual for the securing the Protestant Religion to the Nation as these have been to the excluding one from the highest Places of Authority and Trust under the King who hath not declared himself for the Protestant Religion as the foresaid Laws do require Besides it is not to be questioned but that the Protestants of this Kingdom in the time of Edward the sixth thought they had gotten their Religion so established by Laws that there was no fear of the reintroduction of Popery whoever should afterwards ascend the Throne and yet Queen Mary was no sooner come to the Crown than contrary to the Law of the Land as well as her promise to the Suffolk men who had espoused her
pretensions to any such thing It is also remarkable and serves to discover their Falshood in what they swore against the Earl of Shaftsbury that they endeavoured to make themselves valuable and worthy to be trusted by great and wise men by pretending a knowledg of the Transactions of the world and affairs of Kingdoms which as they were never capable of attaining so they had but betrayed their Folly and Vanity in offering to discourse concerning such things to that knowing and sagacious Peer For to hear Hayn's depose That he gave my Lord Shaftsbury See Proceedings at the Old-Bayly p. 27. an account of all Transactions from King Charles the First 's Reign to this very day and that my Lord was mightily satisfied pleased and free with him finding that he was a Traveller Is as if he should have told all the world that what he Deposed against that great man was all Forgery and that he was only seeking to beget a credulity in the Court by a vain ostentation of his knowledg in Civil Affairs and his being qualified to be admitted into the secret and hazardous Counsels of the greatest Statesmen Alas an acquaintance with the Occurrences of Princes Reigns and a being able to declare the affairs of two Regencies in their dependence and order with the Causes and Reasons of a War which few can penetrate into the grounds of â—re not things agreeable to the way of Hayns's Education nor to be expected from one that is not wonderfully conversant in the Memoire and Registers of Civil matters and who hath enjoyed an intimate acquaintance with those that were interested in the management both of Civil and Military Concernments Their Malice and Perjury in this whole Affair are open and palpable by their indirect and evasive answers to plain and easie questions Such was Booth's reply to Mr. Papilion who having ask'd him whether he knew any of Proceed p. 36. the Fifty men which he had deposed were listed under Captain Wilkinson said He never directly knew or conversed with any of them And such also was Haynes's reply to the question which was put to him concerning his having given an Information to a Justice of Peace of a design against Ibid. p. 42 43. the Earl of Shaftsbury for as he wrigled to and fro a great while before he could be brought to acknowledg it the answer was neither full nor ingenuous Again Their not remembring times and seasons when such things which they swore should be spoken or when they gave in their Informations about them does proclaim the Witnesses to be Impostors and whatsoever they deposed to be nothing but Forgery For several of the things which they declared they could not remember were such as it is morally impossible they should forget them Thus Haynes could not tell the time when the Earl of Shaftsbury spake Ibid. 44. the Treasonable words about making the Duke of Buckingham King Nor could either Smith or Turberville tell when they gave in their Informations against my Lord nor whether it was before or p. 40. after his Commitment Nay Smith could not tell in what month he did it In a word the Demeanor of the Witnesses carrying things so as if they would hector people into a belief of what they swore and their answering the questions proposed unto them either with great difficulty or with great artifice and cunning proclaim to all impartial men that the Design upon which they appeared was very ill and that they were suborned perjured fellows There was not that modesty to be seen in their Behaviour nor that simplicity in their Evidence nor that plainness easiness and directness in their Answers which was agreeable to Truth but their whole carriage and the manner of their delivering themselves was starch't huffing artificial and full of trick But whereas there is a Paper stiled An Association pretended to be found among other Writings in the Earl of Shaftsbury's Closet that morning he was apprehended upon which great stress is laid towards the proving a Conspiracy of this Lord and other Protestants against His Majesty and the Government I shall therefore with all that modesty which becomes me in reference to persons in Authority and yet with all that freedom which the Innocency of Peers and Gentlemen unjustly accused doth require take this Paper a little into consideration and make some just and modest Reflections in reference unto it An Association for the preservation of the King and the Protestant Religion if it be duly drawn and contain nothing in it contrary to the Rights and Prerogatives of His Majesty the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties and Property of the People will neither be found so new nor so surprising a thing as that the Grand Juries of the several Counties should be influenced and perswaded to abhor it For our Ancestors in Queen Elizabeths time being apprehensive that the Queens Life the Peace of the Kingdom and the Protestant Religion were in danger from the Papists upon the hope they had of a Popish Successor in case of the Queens Death they thereupon entred into an Association for the preservation of her Majesties Life and the revenging her Death if she should have perished by violent hands which instead of being ridicul'd and declared against was not only unanimously subscribed by the most considerable persons in the Kingdom but both approved and ratified by an Act of the Parliament that next followed But whether it was that our Forefathers loved the Queen and were more zealous for their Religion than we love his present Majesty and are zealous for ours or whether they thought there was more danger to be feared from Mary Queen of Scots who was then the apparent Popish Successor than we think there is from a Gentleman of the same Principles with her that hath the same and more palpable pretences to the Crown I shall not take upon me to determine However it is not unknown that Two several late Parliaments being convinced of the dangers which His Majesties Life is in from the Papists that they may accelerate the ascent of one of their own Communion to the Throne did after mature Debate and as a Testimony of the greatest Loyalty they could pay His Majesty come to this Resolve Resolved That in defence of the Kings Person and Government and Protestant Religion the House doth declare That they will stand by His Majesty with their Lives and Fortunes and that if His Majesty should come to any violent Death which God forbid they will revenge it to the utmost on the Papists Yea the last Westminster Parliament being deeply sensible what Plots the Papists were embark'd in for the Destruction of the King the extirpation of the reformed Religion in these Kingdoms and the placing the Crown upon the head of a Popish Prince they ordered a Bill for an Association to be brought into the House And whereas Secretary Jenkins deposeth upon Oath That tho he heard of such a thing as
prejudice Nay they have been not only connived at in the reintroduction of the vvhole Popish Hierarchy into that Kingdom and allovved the holding a Publick Assembly of the Papal Clergy by a Commission from the Duke of Ormond in the year 1666. for their Sitting but they have equally vvith His Majesties Protestant Subjects been advanced to several places of Civil Power and Trust so that when the Plot was to have been executed in England Anno 1678. there were no fewer than fifteen Sheriffs in Ireland who were either professed and avowed Papists or such as bred and educated their Children in that Religion And yet while this Forbearance and Tenderness have been expressed to the Papists such of His Majesties Protestant Subjects as in that Kingdom dissent from the Established Rites and Ceremonies of the Church have fallen under the misfortune of having an express Law made against them and divers Loyal Subjects who profess the Protestant Religion in all its Doctrinal Articles have been prosecuted to Fine and Imprisonment upon it And as to the Papists in England they were so far for many years after His Majesties Restoration from having any new Laws made against them that they never felt the weight of the old ones For saving the open exercise of their Religion whereof they have been restrained they enjoyed the same safety as to their persons and estates which the Kings Protestant Liege people did Nay many of them besides their having the personal favour of the Prince equally with others they were admitted into Places and Employments of Profit and Trust And tho by their late Hellish Plot they are made liable to some Tests or to be disabled from sitting in Parliament and rendred uncapable of publick Trusts yet notwithstanding the provocation which the Nation might have justly conceived against them upon the account of that Damnable Conspiracy there hath not to this day been any new Laws made against them for their Religion nor can they with any truth and justice complain of the rigorous execution of those which had been enacted before Whereas notwithstanding the agreement that is between all His Majesties Protestant Subjects in the Fundamental points of Religion those that are called Protestant Dissenters have not only been prosecuted since His Majesties Restoration upon ancient Statutes which were purposely made intended against none but Popish Recusants as well as upon that of the 35 of Queen Elizabeth which being also made upon the dangers that the Kingdom was in from the Papists as appears by the Speeches and Debates of the greatest Statesmen who were in that Parliament seems to have been originally designed against none but them vide Townsend Historical Collect. but there have besides been no fewer in one kind and othet than five several new Laws and these none of the gentlest enacted against them And while the Papists have hardly felt the severity of the Laws which are in force against Popish Recusancy the Protestants have unconceivably suffered by virtue of the Laws made against Dissenters from the Government Discipline Rites and Liturgy of the Church and upon a Law for Regulating Corporations whereof the most material terms were judged inconvenient burdensome and grievous when intended to have been imposed upon others in the form and manner of a Test Now having suggested these things both in the fewest words I can and with all imaginable regard and attendance to Truth we shall in the next place with the like sincerity and briefness intimate and recount what Plots Conspiracies and Designs the Papists have of late years been engaged in and pursued to the subversion of our Religion and the destruction of our Lives and Liberties notwithstanding the tenderness of the Government towards them and the excellent Laws which we are provided with and enjoy both for the security of all these unto us and for our protection from the Machinations of all Popish Enemies And tho' the methods wherein they have acted and the steps they have taken have been so secret as well as various that it is impossible fully to trace and display them yet so much is obvious to all who do not wilfully shut their eyes that by relating only what we demonstratively know we may be able to form a judgment concerning their Councels and Actings which lye more concealed and hid It is to the influence which the Papists have had upon our Publick Ministers that we owe the Enacting of those Laws which as they were directly calculated to ruin many of His Majesties Protestant Subjects so they have weakned the whole Reformed Interest in these Kingdoms by encreasing our Differences and inflaming Jealousies Heats and Animosities amongst us And if it was not from some of our Councellors being under their Guidance and Conduct that we embarkt in a bloody and expensive War with our Protestant Neighbours Anno 1665 both to the weakning them and our selves and the giving opportunity to a Popish Prince to aspire to a formidable growth It was certainly from the Power and Interest which they had in some trusted with the manage of our Affairs that the Triple League came to be dissolved an Alliance contracted with the French and a Second War wherein we were abandoned and betrai'd by our new Confederate begun Anno 1672. against the Dutch I will not deny but the Grounds and Causes of our quarrelling then with them might be weighty and just yet seeing it appears since by the Declarations which the French King caused to be made by his Ambassadors to the Emperour and the Pope that his invading them at that time by agreement and concert with us Was to extirpate those Hereticks and destroy Heresie I suppose our Ministers may not only find reason to believe that Popish Councels did more influence our Resolves and Affairs of State than they were aware of but to wish they had not encouraged His Majesty to that War and rather to have sought to adjust differences betwixt them and us in an Amicable way And since our being through that ascendency which the Papists have over some great Persons near His Majesty engaged in a close and strong Conjunction with the French King It is not to be imagined what advancement the Papists have made to the ruining of the Protestant Interest through all Europe as well as in these three Nations For as the Popish Clergy do universally apply themselves to the promoting the Grandeur Empire and Soveraignty of France in hopes that he will enslave all those to their Religion whom he subdues to an Obedience to his Scepter so they have all along by the impressions which they make upon our Ministers been endeavouring to prevail over us not only to remain Neutral while he is pursuing his Conquests but to contribute to his Victories by aids of Men and Ammunition Nor is it an inconsiderable step and advance which by keeping us linkt to France the Papists have made to the ruin of these Nations in that they have hereby caused a wonderful misunderstanding
Title and Quarrel against the Lady Jane she published a Proclamation to forbid and inhibit all Preaching and Expounding of the Scripture without her special License Which was to subject the Reformed to punishment if they offended whereas the Papists were sure not only to be pardoned in case they transgressed but were thereby in effect countenanced to restore the Romish Worship and Service And when a Parliament was called there was not only violence used in divers places to hinder the Commons from assembling to chuse and the election of several who were judged fit for the Queens turn promoted by force and threatnings but there were many false Returns made and some duly elected forcibly turned out of the House Upon which all the Laws against Popery came easily to be repealed and new Laws made for the suppression of the Reformed Religion and the persecution of Protestants Which as it serveth to convince all that have not wilfully shut their eyes against light and who are not resolved with a brutish obstinacy to withstand reason what we are to expect from a Popish Successor notwithstanding all the Laws which we enjoy for our security so the rage wherewith the Papists are at present transported and inflamed against the Protestants of these Kingdoms and the temper of the Gentleman whom they labour to see advanced to the Throne may cause us reasonably to fear and apprehend severer persecutions in case he should attain the weilding of the British Scepter than ever our forefathers under Queen Mary suffered or met withal For the Scheme which he hath set in Scotland while he is but a Subject and greatly restrained by the Wisdom Goodness and Authority of His Majesty from accomplishing half of what we are to suppose him inclined unto by his Principles may sufficiently satisfie all mankind what he is like to prove should he ever come to act with an uncontrolled liberty and have an opportunity to display the complexion of his mind His proceedings against the Earl of Argyle do not more surprise all the World than they proclaim how little he values the Lives of the Greatest and most Innocent Peers if they will not become subservient to his Interest and instrumental in his Popish and Arbitrary Designs And as the Earl's offering to explain in what sense he was willing to take the Test is a thing which no Law can justly forbid and which a Cobler might have done in England in the like case without being so much as liable to a rebuke so it is not unworthy of the knowledg of the World that he communicated the Explanation to his Highness beforehand and desired to know whether he might not be allowed to take it with the Proviso's which he afterwards mentioned in Councel And as the Duke did not prohibit but seem'd to permit at least to connive at what was proposed so it is remarkable that the said Earl was suffered to take his Place in Council after he had taken the Test in the sense which that Explanation did import But his Interest in the Kingdom and his stedfastness and zeal for the Protestant Religion administring matter of dislike and jealousie seeing nothing more material or really Criminal did occur were thought fit after some Nocturnal thoughts and private Consults to be laid hold upon for the ruining a Person vvhom as they could not manage to the service of their purposes so they dreaded the prejudice he might do them by running cross to their Designs Nor is the Earl of Argyles entertainment more severe in having that called Treason vvhich the common reason of mankind and all the Lavv of the World justifies than it is expresly contrary to the Lavv and Practise of Scotland to condemn attaint and forfeit any unless they either are or have been in actual Rebellion but such as are personally present or have had Warning given them to appear But the unpresidented Severity vvhich this Great and Wise Nobleman hath had measured unto him may be a Warning to all His Majesties Protestant Subjects what they are to expect if this Commissioner in Scotland arrive once to be King of Great Britain France and Ireland and how little the Laws which we so much rely upon will avail us if we be found to thwart his will and humour And as Laws are no security to Protestants against the Malice and Cruelty of the Papists when once they are armed with Force and Power sufficient to destroy them so neither the Liberty and Priviledges which the Papists are suffered equally to enjoy with our selves nor the Favours and Civilities which we have been ready upon all occasions to heap upon them can restrain or hinder our being ruined whensoever they are furnished with an opportunity to attempt and aceomplish our extirpation The Bloody Cruelties of Queen Mary to the Suffolk Protestants who in effect set the Crown upon her Head and the barbarous Severities exercised at present against the Hugonots of France who not only with the expence of their Treasure and Blood established Henry the 4th on the Throne of France when the Princes of Lorrain would have excluded him but by their Courage and Valour preserved the Soveraignty unto him that at this time persecutes them when the Prince of Conde would have wrested the Government out of his hand are so many uncontrollable Arguments and Demonstrations that no Merits or Services can secure Protestants from the Rage and implacable Malice which the Popish Religion inspireth men with And as the Irish Massacre ought never to be forgotten by the Protestants of these Dominions so it had this ingredient to aggravate the Barbarity of it that it was perpetrated at a season when instead of having any reason to complain of their usage by the English they were in the quiet possession of equal Priviledges almost with themselves But if we will descend to the present time and take a view of what the condition of the Papists hath been since His Majesties happy Restoration we shall easily perceive what an ungrateful generation of men they are and that they are not capable of being obliged by kindnesses For to begin with the Irish Papists who of all men deserved least lenity from a Protestant Government it is remarkable that notwithstanding the Rebellion wherein they had been ingaged and the infinite slaughters which they had committed in a time of Peace without the least provocation administred unto them yet there hath not any Law been made against them since the King's Return save one against their living in Walled Towns which was suspended by His Majesties Command expressed in a Letter to the Lord Deputy and Council from being put in execution And as to the ancient Laws which vvere in being and force against them that vvhole Kingdom swarming with Priests and Friers and their celebrating Mass every where with as much openness as the Parochial Ministers do preach the Word or read the Liturgy are undeniable Evidences how little those Laws have been applied to their hurt or
and juncture against Phanaticks it being so apparent a weakning of the whole Reformed Interest in these Kingdoms and a betraying all the Protestant party into the power and hands of their worst Enemies And seeing none but the Papists can reap any benefit or advantage by it it must be they and none else that were the first Authors and continue to be the promoters of such Councels And as some of these Laws were procured by the means of Sir Thom. Clifford Sir Thom. Strickland and others who have since appeared to be Papists so it is not unpleasant to observe how they have endeavoured to get them either suspended or executed according as this or that have lyen in an usefulness to their Designs Nor can we otherwise believe but that as some of our Ministers obtain'd them to be dispensed with 1672. in favour of the Papists so others pursue the having them put in execution in 1682. out of friendship to the same people Thus the Laws which were pretended at first to have been made for the preservation of the Church of England have been from time managed to set forward the concernments of the Church of Rome and advance the projections of the Papists Accordingly we have beheld them suspended for divers years when both most of the English Clergy were earnest to have had them executed and when the execution of them seemed to lye in a subserviency to support the grandess of the Church But now when neither the Church can be able to subsist nor are any means left to the preservation of the Protestant Religion unless Moderation and Lenity be exercised to Dissenters we are made daily and sad Spectators of Oppression Spoil and Havock brought upon a quiet industrious and useful people by the execution of these very Laws And we may be sure the Papists hug and solace themselves to find that through the Ascendency which they have over some Publick Persons who influence all our Counsels they can apply the Laws to the ruin of many Protestants and in revenge for their having escaped their murderous and bloody hands engage the Government and Authority of the Nation against them Nor is it less than a matter of Triumph to them to think that when the Commons of England in Parliament assembled had not only read and committed a Bill For the uniting His Majesties Protestant Subjects but Resolved it as the Opinion of that House That the prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning to the Protestant Interest an encouragement to Popery and dangerous to the peace of the Kingdom they should not only be able to alienate and exasperate us more from and against one another than ever we were but procure one Protestant to prosecute another upon the Penal Laws to the scorn and contempt of the Wisdom of Parliaments and the proclaiming to all the world of how little esteem and value their Counsel and Advice are What effect these proceedings upon the Penal Law against Dissenters may have upon others who are not Phanaticks is not easie to be throughly apprehended but it is certain that the English are naturally inclined to censure whatsoever is extremely rigorous and to compassionate such as suffer merely for Religion not for Crimes against the peace and safety of the Government How soon did the Nation grow dissatisfied with the Cruelties of Queen Mary and even they who had no Religion themselves came to abhor the seeing their Countreymen burnt for Principles which had no influence upon the subversion of Thrones and disturbance of Societies Yea tho her second Parliament revived the old Laws against Hereticks yet the minds of men were so much altered in a little time that the Commons in the third Parliament of that Queen would not pass a Bill which was brought in for incapacitating those from being Justices of the Peace that were suspected to have been remiss in prosecuting Hereticks And it is remarkable that not only our late Parliaments were for the mitigation of the Laws against Dissenters and for the uniting all His Majesties Protestant Subjects but even the Long Parliament which had been the Authors of all the new Laws against Phanaticks saw a necessity if they would preserve our Religion and the Lives of Protestants from the dangers which threatned them by means of the Papists to take other measures than they had acted by before and to recur to Methods of Lenity Accordingly the House of Commons in the Session that was held February 1672. sent up a Bill to the Lords in favour of Dissenters and about the Union of Protestants Nor is it to be imagined what jealousies it raiseth in the minds of most people concerning what they and all Protestants are to fear in case of a Popish Successor by seeing many of the soberest in the Nation and who agree with the present Church in all Doctrinals of Faith and Essentials of Worship so severely treated and prosecuted under a Protestant King only because of their differing from those of the established National way in some little and inconsiderable things And by how much all this rigor against Protestant Dissenters is thought to have its rise from the counsels and importunity of the Duke of York by so much are all thinking men possest with astonishing apprehensions of the Cruelties which they must expect to undergo if he come once to wear the Crown For being universally supposed and taken to be a Papist and thereupon of a Faith altogether opposite to ours so we are not now to learn that the very principles of his belief will oblige him to extirpate all that will not own the Tridentine Creed Yea such people as dare speak their thoughts do commonly say That the reason why the Duke adviseth His Majesty to courses so contrary to the Meekness and Compassion of his Royal Breast as well as the whole tenor of his Reign hitherto is that he may darken and eclipse the Glory of His hitherto merciful Government and by putting him upon austerities towards subjects who profess the same Religion that their Prince doth justifie himself hereafter in all the Slaughters and Barbarities which by virtue of the malicious ferment of Popery he may be inclined to perpetrate upon those whose Religion he so implacably abhors as he doth that of Protestants But would it not be worthy of the serious consideration of those at the Helm That it is not only the Dissenters who suffer by the Execution of the Penal Laws but the whole Nation which participates in the profits and advantages of their Industry More especially all they who have any relation unto or such as manage any Commerce with them do all bear a common share in their Calamities And besides the recentments which will spring up in the minds of men by seeing an innocent people harassed whose Lives tho they do not imitate yet they cannot but commend will it not be apt to impress their hearts with secret
Laws by which the Phanaticks are Disturbed Fined and Imprisoned will not be found to have the Legality Force and Power that some men do imagine But the Papists who at the bottom are the promoters of the present Severities against Dissenters are no ways solicitous concerning the Inconveniences which may ensue all they aim at is to alienate the hearts of the People from the Government inflame Differences and Animosities among Protestants foster Jealousies in the King of the Loyalty of his Subjects and by all this to render us the easier a prey unto themselves And since the Romish Conspirators were prevented in the execution of the Design which they had so carefully laid and carried on with so much Industry Confederation and Expence at home and which had it succeeded they apprehended themselves secure of a Foreign Succour as well as a Prince of their own Religion to support and justifie as they thereupon found themselves rendred both obnoxious to the Justice of Parliaments and the angry Resentments of the Nation so they have been making it their chief business either to get their own Plot wholly disbelieved or to forge and sham one upon Protestants Accordingly when they could neither corrupt the Witnesses who had made the Discovery of their Villanies to retract their Testimony and renounce their Evidence nor were able either by the persons whom they had suborned here or those whom they had brought from beyond Sea to weaken and defame their Credit they do at last entirely betake themselves to the framing a Plot wherein they would have it believed the Protestants are involved and engaged for the subverting of the Monarchy and altering the Government And as the endeavouring to impose the belief of such a foolish and obvious Forgery upon the Government and the Nation is a clear demonstration of the Truth of their own Conspiracy and the desperate shifts which their Guilt and Fear have driven them unto so the entertainment which some have given to so dull as well as Romantick a Fable is both an undeniable Evidence that there were more accessory to the first Popish Plot than yet are publickly accused and that there are a sort of people in the Kingdom who are only sorry for the miscarriage of it We might very reasonably have thought that upon the detection of the Meal Tub Sham in the year 1679. the Papists would either have been discouraged to forge another perfectly of the same Figure and Make in the year 1681. or that the Government would have received the tidings of it with neglect and indignation For as it is the same Design whereof we are now accused that we were to have been charged with then so these very persons whom they have procured Witnesses to swear Guilty of a Design to seize the King at Oxford were the first in the List of Nobles and Gentlemen whom they were then to have Sworn against That they resolved to raise a Rebellion against His Majesty and mustered Forces to that purpose How strangely are we abandoned to the malice and will of our Enemies that the Papists having mist the destroying us by a Massacre they should be permitted by Perjuries and Subornations to pursue our ruine in forms of Legal Trial. And as the countenance which the vilest Miscreants have met withal who tho apparently suborned and hired have come forth to testifie a Protestant Plot is an unanswerable Argument under whose conduct and influence some of our Ministers are so the baffles which the Authors and Managers of this Intrigue have received upon the Three late Adventures and Essays which they made towards the proof of a Protestant Conspiracy do proclaim aloud what opinion all wise and good men have both of them and this whole Affair Now tho the judgment of so many Juries upon a full hearing of what our Accusers had to charge us with be a sufficient vindication of the innocency of all the Protestants of England in this matter as well as of those persons against whom the several Presentments were brought yet we bear that respect to the Honour of our Religion the Reputation and Integrity of the last Parliament as well as the Credit of our own Names that we cannot believe we have discharged our duty as we ought towards the World till we have both triumphed over the folly and exposed the malice of our enemies to that degree as to render them the objects of the scorn and hatred of all Mankind And as we suppose our selves in this Undertaking secure of the Approbation of His Majesty it being in favour of that Religion which He not only professeth but whereof He is the Defender and in behalf of as Worthy and Loyal persons as any in his Dominions so in performing this most necessary duty we fear not the anger of Ministers much less the barkings of little people being stedfastly resolv'd not to say any thing but what we can approve our selves before God and man for the truth of Nor can any without an open espousing the Designs of the Papists be offended that we should vindicate the Loyalty and Justifie the Innocency of Protestants which have been so impudently and maliciously aspersed Yea it would be a transgression against all the Rules of Justice and Equity to allow or connive at the branding and arraigning us in daily Pamphlets if they should not permit us the liberty to detect the Forgeries and Criminations by which our Honour and Lives are invaded and brought into question And while the Compendium the Jesuits Plea Staffords Memoirs and the Vindication of the English Catholicks from the pretended Conspiracy against the Life and Government of His Sacred Majesty escape the Censure and Animadversion of our Administrators of Justice it would imply an entertainment of undue thoughts concerning the Justice of the Government should we not instead of a Reprimaud expect their Approbation Nor will we believe that it was either by the Authority of His Majesty or the Honourable Privy Council that a Messenger and the Wardens of the Company of Stationers went to the several Printing-houses requiring them to publish nothing in favour of the Innocency of the Earl of Shaftsbury or in justification of the Ignoramus which was brought in by the Jury upon the Bill that was preferred against him but we rather ascribe the Order for so unpresidented and illegal an action to some officious Agent for the Papists or to some little Ministers who were apprehensive of seeing themselves laid open and detected being conscious of their own guilt in the countenance and encouragement they had given to this Forged Protestant Plot for which many Noblemen and Gentlemen were designed to have been destroyed For as there is no Law whereby the coming into mens Houses the making a search after Books or Papers which may be in the Press or the laying an Inhibition upon them of printing whatsoever they judg safe or convenient is or can be warranted so it seems no ways equal and fair to restrain any
man from doing himself right when he hath been publickly as well as eminently injured And truly it looks like an imposing that upon the implicite Faith of the World which they know themselves unable to prove or it argues a distrust either of the goodness of their Cause or that it hath not been managed with integrity and candor when they are unwilling to admit both sides the priviledg of being openly heard For tho it may become the Wisdom of men in Power and Government to preserve the Justice of Courts and Reputation of Juries from being openly arraigned when an Indictment after a full Enquiry hath been approved and allow'd by such as are the proper and only judges of it yet such a procedure as the restraining men from defending their own Innocency and vindicating the impartiality of those who acquitted them after a full and Legal hearing can never adjust it self to the sense or reason of mankind Nor doth such a course and method import any thing less than that for having miss'd the satiating their Malice in the Blood of one or two whom they mortally hated they will pursue their Revenge in endeavours to blast the Credit and diminish the value and esteem of all that have been instrumental in preventing and defeating their Intendment NOW this Plot for Deposing the King and altering the Government whereof Protestants were to be Accused and Impeached was not only so contrived as that it might reach most English Peers and Gentlemen who stood in the way of Popery and Arbitrariness but the Protestants in Ireland were to be brought under the charge and accusation of it For the Popish Conspiracy having been carried on with the same vigour against the Lives of Protestants and the established Religion in that Kingdom as it was in this and the Parliament here being so far satisfied and convinced of the reality of it there as well as in England as to declare and testifie the belief of it by the unanimous Votes of both Houses accordingly the Papists in both Kingdoms were equally and by the same Artifices to be relieved from the imputation which lay upon them and to be rescued from the punishments which the Laws Adjudged and Condemned them unto Therefore the Protestants in both Nations were to be accused of having forged the Popish Plot and that having thereby amused His Majesty and the people they have in the mean time been fomenting and promoting a real one of their own This was that which St. Laurence the Priest would See No Protestant Plot First part p 33 34 35. have Hired and Suborned Mr. William Smith to Swear and Depose and whereof the Evidence was so strong against St. Laurence at his Trial that tho' he was acquitted yet he is still believed by all impartial men that heard it to have been really guilty For it is not only reported from thence by persons who deserve to be credited that such especially were returned upon the Jury who were known before-hand to have reflected upon Mr. Smith but it is most certain that whereas the Prisoner was allowed five Councel to plead for him there was none of the King's Councel nor any one man of the Gown besides that appeared in behalf of the Evidence Whether they forbore from an opinion that the Evidence was so plain that it required no Plea to enforce or apply it or whether they did it out of deference to some great men whom they would not offend by being concerned in any thing that may prejudice the honour and integrity of the Papists or whether it was in obedience to the commands of such who would not have an Intrigue detected upon the discovery whereof the Protestants may come to be thought peaceable and loyal again as I cannot certainly tell so I shall not take upon me to conjecture and divine But besides that which was sworn against St. Laurence by Mr. Smith which to any who read it will appear either the copy transcript or counterpart of what they have been doing here we have other evidence of the Papists labouring in Ireland to sham off their own Plot by representing it as a Forgery falsely laid upon them by the Pratestants and their endeavouring to possess the Government with a belief that during the noise and buz which the Protestants had raised concerning a Popish Plot they were themselves embarkt in a Conspiracy against the King and the Monarchy Thus whereas one Captain Morley had appeared before the Committees of Lords and Commons here and swore two Consults which the Papists had in Ireland in reference to the extirpating the Protestant Religion in that Kingdom they have procured no fewer than six or seven Irish Witnesses not only to Depose against the said Morley That he was Suborned by the Earl of Essex the Earl of Shaftsbury Sir Robert Cleyton and others to Swear Treason against the Duke of Ormond the Lord Chancellor Boyle and Sir John Davies but that he himself had said the King was on enemy to all Protestants and deserved to have his Head cut off as his Father had Here we have an Epitome and Abridgment of what the whole Popish Party is laying out their Money improving their Wit and employing the Power and Interest of their Friends for and about But why the Papists should in all their Depositions introduce the Protestants affirming the King to be a Papist and an enemy to those of the same Religion which he not only professeth but which he hath sacredly and solemnly Vow'd for ever to protect and defend I think no wise man is able to tell unless it be that they have a mind to recriminate upon us what they have been proved guilty of themselves It is not yet seasonable to declare by whose means and by what Arts the foresaid Deposition was obtained nor how Handland and Murphey two fellows that came over hither to Swear the Popish Plot were since their return transformed into Witnesses to prove a Protestant Conspiracy but all these things must be foreborn till his Majesty in his Princely Wisdom and from that Justice which he hath hitherto governed his people by and in the discharge of his promise which his Loyal addressing Subjects as well as others do rely upon be pleased to call a Parliament and then both all these and many other things will be more fully disclosed and set in a brighter light In the mean time this must be acknowledged to the Honour of His Majesty and the Justice of the Council-Board that tho the foresaid Deposition was received by some in Ireland with great fondness and transmitted hither not only with all expedition and speed but accompanied with an earnest desire that the Gentleman might be sent thither yet the King and Council would neither do so illegal and arbitrary a thing as to send a person from hence to Ireland without his own consent both born and bred here and who actually possesseth an estate in England Nor could it be done without great Injustice
seeing the words wherein alone the Treason must lye were owned to have been spoken above two year ago And for his being suborned by the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Shaftsbury to Swear Treason against the Duke of Ormond my Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Sir John Davies it is remarkable that he never testified any thing of that nature against them and what he did declare in relation to them or any others he referred himself for the truth of it to the Council-Books of that Kingdom or to such Depositions which had been either taken by the Council there or had been transmitted to them by others And as no man that is Master of sense and hath any knowledg of those two Honourable Persons will ever submit his Faith to receive so incredible a thing as that they should Suborn any man to swear falsly so Mr. Morley whose credit infinitely surpasseth that of the Witnesses who swore against him absolutely denies that they ever did or that he ever spake any such thing concerning them But they that can first invent and then get so absurd and impossible a thing as Transubstantiation received and believed may be pardoned both in forging and in hoping to vvin credit to things ridiculously foolish as well as abominably false Nor could so dull a Fable proceed from any but people of an Irish understanding neither vvill it obtain with any men but such as have renounced Reason as vvell as Honesty But there is yet a third and that a more signal Instance of the Papists endeavouring to involve the Protestants in Ireland under the guilt of a Plot against his Majesty and this displays and unfolds it self in the Accusation sworn against Mr. Hawkins The person charged is known to be an ingenious Gentleman and one vvho hath always acquitted himself as became Honour Discretion and Loyalty only it is his fortune to be a Protestant and was his unhappiness to be made acquainted vvith some of the Popish Designs against the Government which instead of furthering or concealing he communicated to My Lord Lieutenant That vvherewith he was charged doth in all things so quadrate with vvhat we have heard Svvorn against Protestants in England that we may boldly say they vvere all coined in the same Mint For one Mac-Gennis svvears That Mr. Havvkins told him he went for England to establish a Correspondency with my Lord of Shaftsbury and that be received a Commission from the said Earl for a Troop of Horse and one Mackoghlin deposeth That he was to be a Trooper under Mr. Hawkins and that he had three pounds from him towards the buying a Horse The very counterpart and direct parallel of what Booth informed against Capt. Wilkinson and vvhich he and Bains would have suborned the Captain to swear against the Earl of Shaftsbury and were both hammered in the same Forge But as the Devil and the Priests inspire the Papists with falshood and malice so God to over-rule and defeat their Rage and Treachery deprives them of common Wit and Understanding and gives them up to all prodigious folly and madness For as Mackoghlin never spake with Mr. Hawkins but once and that in the presence of another person and then he only endeavoured to have insinuated himself into his Acquaintance which Mr. Hawkins refused to admit him into so it is most certain that Mr. Hawkins never conversed with the Earl of Shaftsbury nor so much as at any time saw him And whereas it was sworn by Mackgennis That he should say he came to London to establish a correspondence with that Nohle Peer and that he received a Commission from him for a Troop of Horse The whole matter deposed is not only false but the condition which my Lord was at that time in being a Prisoner in the Tower shows the impossibility that such an Affair should be transacted between them at that season Neverthelss that Ingenious and Loya Gentleman was committed to the Castle of Dublin upon that Forged and Ridiculous Information and had not the Protestant Plot been so far detected as to be hissed off the stage by several Juries it might not only have cost Mr. Hawkins his Life but laid a foundation for superinstructing a Conspiracy upon wherein most Protestants of quality and zeal in that Kingdom would have been included and first or last charged with the guilt of it For there were no fewer than between Twenty or Thirty mustered up of a sudden to testisie a Protestant Plot persons who as they believe implicitely in matters of Religion they would likewise swear so for the Interest and Advantage of St. Patrick and the Holy Church And besides what they may reasonably be supposed to receive out of the Catholick Treasury for so seasonable and useful a Service as the Swearing innocent Protestants out of their Lives and Estates they had lately the confidence to petition the Council in Ireland that a maintenance might be allowed them from the State And it seems but just and equal that they should be afforded the same encouragement which those listed and employed upon the like Service in England have and that they should have some consideration for the sale of their Souls tho they will be so reasonable as not to keep up that Commodity to the price which it goes at and is valued here And whereas fellows not only of a meer Irish understanding and breed but such as had conversed all their days in Bogs and whose most refined and improved knowledg is how with handsomeness to steal Horses and Cows might be found deficient in art and cunning to manage this Meritorious work of Swearing with some consistency to themselves and one another there are some lately arrived there from hence who having been trained and instructed here by the grand Masters of the Forgery and Affidavit-School may be able to edifie and discipline those raw blades in the necessary Virtues of Perjury and Impudence and acquaint them with the laudable method of rehearsing the Depositions which had been given them to con without administring any symptoms of their speaking by rote But their understandings not being so docile and flexible as their Consciences they make daily some unfortunate and fatal misadventure And their having publickly accosted the greatest persons with rude and insolent Menaces and their having threatned to accuse every one whom according to their knowledg of the measures of the World they do but apprehend to have offended them they have already so enfeebled their Credit with all sorts of men that they are altogether become useless and unserviceable It is far from my intention to bring all the natural Irish under this Character for tho most of them who continue Papists would esteem it not only venial but meritorious to cut a Protestants throat yet there are thousands of them who from some principles of Mankind and Bravery do detest the destroying Protestants in the base and creeping ways of Subornation and Perjury And we desire to be pardoned for this
was pleased graciously to add that he should find him very just and kind in rewarding what he had done and suffered for him But what this Earl acted and underwent for the King when his Lordship's Father and almost all the Scotch Nation had either fallen in with or submitted to the Usurpers will better appear by a Paper under Middleton's hand which I shall here annex John Middleton Lieutenant-General next and immediate under His Majesty and Commandev in Chief of all the Forces raised and to be raised within the Kingdom of Scotland Seeing the Lord Lorn hath given so singular proofs of his clear and perfect Loyalty to the King's Majesty and of pure and constant Affection to the good of His Majesty's Affairs as never hitherto to have any ways complied with the Enemy and to have been principally Instrumental in the enlivening of this late War and one of the chief and first Movers in it and hath readily chearfully and gallantly engaged and resolutely and constantly continued active in it notwithstanding the many powerful Disswasions Discouragements and Oppositions he hath met with from divers hands and hath in the carrying on of the Service shewn such signal Fidelity Integrity Generosity Prudence Courage and Conduct and such high Vertue Industry and Ability as are suitable to the Dignity of his Noble Family and the Trust His Majesty reposed in him and hath not only stood out against all Inducements Temptations and Enticements but hath most nobly crossed and repressed Designs and Attempts of deserting the Service and persisted Loyally and firmly in it to the very last through excessive Trials and many great Difficulties and misregarding all personal Inconveniencies and chusing the loss of Friends fortune and private concernments and to endure the utmost Extremities rather than to swerve in the least from his Duty or taint his Reputation with the meanest shadow of Disloyalty or Dishonour I do therefore hereby testifie and declare that I am perfectly satisfied with his whole deportments in relation to the Enemy and their late War and do highly approve them as being not only above all I can express of their worth but almost beyond all parallel c. John Middleton What his after-Sufferings for His Majesty were and how he continued six years a Prisoner under the Usurpers for his Loyalty to the King I shall content my self to have only barely suggested them And as no man in all Scotland was more capable of serving his Prince both by reason of the greatness of his Parts the height of his Quality and the largeness of his Interest than this Noble Lord so no person of one degree or another hath at all times and in various Employments and Trusts more approved his Zeal and Loyalty to the King's Person and Government than he hath constantly done since His Majesties Restoration And if he have offended in any thing it is by an excess of compliance with his Majesties Will having as himself declared in his Speech at his Arraignment served him all along after his own way and manner Nor can any wise man believe that what he was accused of High-Treason for was either a Crime in it self or would have been charged upon this Earl as an Offence if His Majesties present Commissioner in Scotland had not upon some hidden and more important motive and inducement conceived an implacable hatred against him For the declining to swallow the Test abruptly and without such limitations as might give it both a determinate and a legal sense cannot be imagined to be more criminal than altogether to refuse it which not only many of the Conformable Clergy but divers Peers and Gentlemen without being accused of High Treason have done And surely it was more becoming a man of Honour and a Christian to declare plainly and openly in what sense he could and was ready to take it than to take it with a pious and devout ignorance as another Lord of His Majesties Privy-Council did And as the Council's publishing an Explanation of it is an unanswerable Argument that it required some Explication towards the reconciling it to its self and the Laws of the Land so wise men are apt to think that it is as lawful for a person to explain it for himself as for them to take upon them to explain it for others But it seems very strange that it should be Treason in the Earl of Argile to declare in what Sense he would take it when at the same time others have been allowed to put Senses and Constructions of their own upon it which were more remote from the meaning of the words than his were But that the World may be both able to judg of that Affair and of the hard and unpresidented usage which this Noble person hath met with I shall first subjoin the Explanation of the Test for which he was Accused and Condemned of High Treason Secondly I shall annex an Explication which he had prepared of that Explanation and which he threw into such a Texture with the words of the latter that being read interwoven together his purpose meaning and design will not only more clearly appear but justifie themselves to the minds of all rational men And I shall add in the last place the Opinion of several of the best Lawyers in Scotland concerning the Case of this Great and Loyal Peer The Earl of Argile's Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and I am very desirous to give obedience as far as I can I 'm confident the Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths Therefore I think no body can explain the Test but for himself I take it as far as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion And I do declare That I mean not to bind up my self in my Station and in a lawful way to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion and to my Loyalty And this I understand as a part of my Oath The Earl of Argile's Explication of his Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and have seen several objections moved by others against it and I am very desirous notwithstanding of all that I have seen or heard to give obedience in this and every thing as far as I can I am confident whatever scruples any man doth raise The Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths And because their sense and genuine meaning is the true sense and seeing the Test that is enjoined is of no private Interpretation nor are the Kings Statutes to be interpreted otherwise than as they bear to the intent they are made Therefore I think no body that is to say no private person can explain the Test for-another But every man for himself as he understands it to agree with and suit the Parliaments sense which is the true sense I take it notwithstanding all these scruples made by any As far as it is consistent with it self and which is indeed wholly in the Parliaments sense and true meaning which was the securing the Protestant Religion founded on the word of God and contained in the Confession of Faith recorded Parl. 1. Ja. 6. And I declare that by that part of the Test viz. that there lyes no obligation on me c. That I mean not to bind up my self in my station and in a lawful way still disclaiming all unlawful endeavours To wish and endeavour any Alteration I think according to my Conscience and Allegiance To the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion nor my Loyalty which I understand no otherwise but the duty and allegiance of loyal and faithful subjects And this Explanation I understand as a part not of the Test nor Act of Parliament but of my Oath that I am to swear and with it I am willing to take the Test if your R. H. and Lo. allow me it or otherways in submison to the Act of Parliament and your R. H. and the Councils pleasure am content to be held a Refuser at present The Opinion of the Lawyers about the Earl of Argyle's Case WE have considered the Criminal Letters raised at the instance of His Majesties Advocate against the Earl of Argyle with the Acts of Parliament contained and warranted in the same Criminal Letters and have compared the same with a Paper or Explication which is Libelled to have been given in by the Earl of Argyle to the Lords of His Majesties Privy Council and owned by him as the sense and explication in which he did take the Oath imposed by the late Act of Parliament and which Paper is of this Tenor I have considered the Test and am very desirous c. And likewise having consider'd that the Earl after he had taken the Oath with the explication and sense then put upon it it was acquiesced to by the Lords of the Privy Council and the Earl allowed to take his place and sit and vote And that before the Earl's taking of the Oath there were several Papers spread abroad containing Objections and alledged Inconsistencies and Contradictions in the Oath And that some thereof by Synods and Presbyteries of the Orthodox Clergy to some of the Bishops of the Church It is our humble Opinion that seeing the Earl's design and meanin in offering the said Explication was allenarly for clearing of his own Conscience and is of no contravention of the Laws and Acts of Parliament and doth not at all import the Crimes Libelled against him viz. Treason Leising-making Depraving of His Majesties Laws or the Crime of Perjury But that the Glosses and Inferences put by the Libel on the said Paper are altogether strained and unwarrantable and inconsistent with the Earl's true Design and the Sincerity of his meaning and intention in making of the said Explication FINIS