to answer the true Narrative if he do not that he does nothing Alas poor silly Woodpecker He come to strike at the root of a discovery with such dull Tools as these I had thought he would have brought such dismal Instruments of Ruin that would have display'd the very Foundations of the Tower of Babel that he would have put off his Doublet fallen to work and outdone Hercules's twelve Labourers Instead of this he comes in sneaking like some superannuated Pigmy with a couple of formal sentences which his Grandmother taught him or else collected out of Gregories Morals or some such musty Author as if he had quitted the force of Reason and intended to proceed by the more lazy way of Miracle Alas we knew that the speaking of material contradictions weaken the Credit of a Witness we knew what Truth and Falshood were without the aid of his Nonsensical Information Then he rambles into the Tryals of Ireland Coleman and Langhorn which no way belong to his Province and for Reply to which we shall referr the Reader to Dr. Oats's Vindication in Answer to the Compendium from whence this feeble Vindicator has rifl'd both his matter and his Observations Then he proceeds and says The Doctor declar'd in Parliament He had no body considerable to accuse besides those he had nam'd but after he accused some of the very Prime whom before he had not nam'd From this Suggestion though absolutely false the Vindicator would have the Dr. Evidently perjur'd To which purpose he sets up a Court of Judicature consisting of himself and by the help of a Scrap of Latin and a versicle of Scripture nothing to the purpose as being far more applicable to himself and his party condemns the Doctor and declares himself satisfi'd And thus you see Gentlemen the Vindicator has got a great Victory he has convinc'd himself and so there 's one of his great Labours over One would have thought he would have stop'd here as believing the World would have been fully satisfied in his Judgment But he proceeds and sayes the manner of the Accusation is such as any Knave by his Oath might bring any person in Question He means the Accusation was an Accusation for all the World knows an Accusation justified upon Oath will bring the Parties accused into Question But Accusations of that Importance as are contain'd in the True Narrative are too high attempts to be carryed on by ordinary Knaves but only such extraordinary Knaves as themselves such as they that had so lately contriv'd to put their Shamms upon the Innocent to cover their own shame But there was this difference between the Doctors Accusation and theirs that his was providentially upheld theirs by Providence confounded We have a long story quoth the Vindicator of Treasonable Words spoken and Treasonable Letters written by several who all protest they never heard of any such thing till Oats 's Narrative appear'd Assuredly this Fop of a Vindicator wrote his Vindication to be laught at for men were not such Fools to betray themselves And yet in some measure by the help of their dear Minion Equivocation they protested the Truth They did not believe they had spoken Treasonable Words or written Treasonable Letters till the Doctors Narrative appearing both their Words and Letters were so adjudged but then it seems their Ears were open'd and you do not hear the Vindicator urge their Protestation any farther than the appearing of the Narrative The Story of Bedingfield as he by his own Confession relates it out of a Pamphlet scribl'd by one of his confederates by which you may see from what Muck-hills of Treason he rakes his scoundrel Observations to speak his own Language is a wicked Lye For Bedingfield knew there was a Pacquet lay for him at the Post-house but not daring to fetch it himself sent a Friend for it and when he had it shew'd it another Cordial Friend besought him to carry the Letters to Court and to improve them to the best advantage which the Vindicator calls doing his Duty Thereupon the Letters were shewn in Council as disown'd by Bedingfield and an Argument drawn from thence of the Improbability of the Plot that men should of themselves produce Letters of that consequence but Bedingfield being sent for to be examin'd about them could not be found high nor low he had prudently withdrawn himself out of harms way The Story of Atalanta had taught Bedingfield that piece of cunning who not daring to trust himself to an Escape with such papers about him like those that scatter Gold to prevent the swiftness of pursuit sent his troublesome Pacquet to employ the debates of the Council when the business was new and scarcely believ'd while he shifted for himself Otherwise Father Bedingfield might as well have carryed his Innocent Pacquet to Court himself as have troubled his Friend And it had been a noble piece of service for such a Grave Father to have appear'd and by the Discovery of the Doctors Knavery as they call it to have diverted the Tempest so blackly threatning the heads of his dear friends But to give the Vindicator Scripture for Scripture out of the very next words to his Quotation in the first Epistle to Timothy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The rest of the Paragraph is meer Canting and Mockery of God and Men the more ridiculous for his quotation of Whitebread As if he had no other supports for his Vindication than the Hypocritical Ejaculations of Executed Traytors But now he will follow the Deponent step by step There 's something in that for all this while he has done nothing And what he says shall be confirm'd by the undoubtedly true Attestation of Arch-bishop of Tuam the perjur'd Frye of St. Omers and Doway the Jesuits of the Confederacy and the rest of his bloody Canaille Murtherers shall give it ye under their hands they are no Murtherers and Traitors attest they are no Traitors Drive on Coachman For though in Equity our bare Denyal ought to be preferr'd before his Asseverations when the Vindicator is Chancellor not otherwise for in dubio favendum est reo prius quam Actori which is utterly deny'd him when hitherto neither Justice nor Reason have made any doubt of the Guilt of his Party Yet he will prove irrefragably what he advances that is if he can However his heart is good and he promises fair so that if the old Proverbs of Curst Cows and Threatned Folks do not help us we are all at a loss In the two following Paragraphs you shall find him Accoutring Himself to make his publick Entry putting on the Vizor of a starched Humility dressing himself in all Habiliments of Dissimulation and Hypocrisie Flattering the King whom he abhorrs in his heart Colloguing with the Parliament which he abominates and acting all the tricks of Jesuitical Mountebankry that St. Omers Magazine could furnish him withall He says he will not repeat the Seditious and Traiterous words of his Majesties Sacred Person
way and accus'd White for desiring the Prayers of his fellow Traytors upon such an accompt he had but made a Discovery and so he did by taking his own Courses So that the Vindicator seems now to be angry at the Deponent not for discovering the Plot but for not doing it that way he would have had him But to make him amends if he will be pleased to come and make any farther and real Discoveries himself he shall have his Liberty to use his own Method The 77 Article contains the Deponents Entertainment at the Provincials Lodging This he calls coherene Nonsence For none says he who knew White in his Vigour will believe he could beat so stout a man as the Deponent considering the weak condition he was in when he came to London What made him venture his weak Carkass at London It must be no ordinary occasion certainly that made him hazard the Inconveniencies of Sea and Land in that weak condition This Vindicator can believe that St. Denis when he was in a weaker condition when he had his Head cut off could run with it in his Hand above a League and yet now he thinks it such a Miracle for the Provincial of the Jesuites to give an Inferior that durst not resist him and yet had so highly incensed him a blow or two of Correction with his Cane And yet his condition was not so weak neither but that he could stand well enough at the Bar long after that to tell a company of flim flam Lyes and Falsities without the assistance of Aqua Mirabiles The rest is onely a Repetition of the words of the Narrative with some few Comments and a Story of his own framing so little to the purpose as if he had made it his business to play the Fool. But at last he concludes that for all their fears of the Deponent White kept his ordinary Lodgings removed no Papers left those under his Conduct in their ordinary Stations c. Which alone to Posterity will be a convincing proof of his Innocency That is to say White believ'd that the Deponent was a Person whose Information would be easily crush'd by the ponderous weight of the Popish Interest and so he resolv'd to go with the Plot. It was not his Innocency but the blindness of his Zeal and the great encouragements and probability of success that hardned him to merited Destruction Quos Deus vult perdere was the Fate that hung over his Head His stay at his Lodgings could be no convincing proof to Posterity of his Innocency in regard that that very act of his render'd him a Criminal by which he had at that very time forfeited his Innocency to the Law of the Land And therefore he could not stay to justifie what he had forfeited by his stay but he had a longing desire to see the utmost of what He had bin so long a Spinning and was snapt in the midst of an insensible Vexation to see the Labour of many Months and Years lost As for his Chapter upon the Commissions given to the Nobility I pass it by in regard the Persons themselves are yet to make their Desences which if they prove no better then what their officious Vindicator present us with is a very Ominous Prospect of their success However to give them an Essay of his Rhetorick He tells them what a wise man said a very bad beginning my Lords for it seems it is not your Advocate that is the Wiseman but another Man and that 's apparent by his thus spoiling his own Market For the Lords will certainly go to the Wiseman and not to the Fool I mean the Vindicator But what says the Wiseman Why this Wiseman concluded That either what Homer and Ovid writ of the Lyes and Aesop of Beasts were no Fables or the English Conspiracy is a Fable Truly the Wiseman did not speak very good sense whoer'e he were He meant that if what Homer Ovid and Aesop wrote were no Fables then the English Conspiracy was no Fable But those were therefore this is This I suppose is the Wisemans Conclusion but with the Wisemans leave all the World allows there was a great deal of truth couch'd under those Fables and that very considerable truth two experienc'd and attested to be so by the Testimony of several Ages So that if the Narrative be so like those Fables it follows that there is a great deal of Truth couched in the Narrative Had not the Vindicator bin a Fool he might have bin as Civil to the Lords as the Wiseman and not have stood outfacing and denying like a Sott in so many Pages what a Wiseman has granted in two Lines And now being in the Company of Lords he is not asham'd to tell ye what he is as good a Traytor and as worshipful a Conspirator as any of the rest Never the less quoth he we suffer for the Truth that is as his Brethren Faux and Ravillac did for the Truth of their Crimes And the Truth shall set us free that is when they have the grace to believe in Christ as the Truth in that place spoken of and not the Popish Plot. However had he bin so ingenuous as to have quoted the Scripture right and put in You instead of Us it had come rightly from him as thus We that is the Vindicator and the Lords suffer for the Truth And the Truth shall set You the Deponent free I would wish the Vindicator to let Scripture alone unless he understood it better And so to his Word of Advice to the Deponent CHAP. X. Word of Advice to the Deponent BUT here you shall find that before he comes to play the Fool he plays the Knave and assumes to himself very arrogantly and audaciously to have convinc'd the Deponent of Evident Vntruths Infamous Perjuries and Shameful Perjuries when he has no more done it than he has remov'd the Southern Tropic into Lapland He has not assign'd one Perjury in all his ribble rabble discourse but only like the lying Products of Smithfield Wit swells his Title to put off his Book Nay he talks so ridiculously so idly of Perjury that he does not seem to know what it means He uses the word to fright Fools as Nurses make use of Raw-head and Bloody-bones to fright Children with yet neither know what they say His Party have been told that Perjurus is one qui male Iurat ex animi sui Sententia That there is this difference between Pejerare falsum jurare For qui Pejerat is sciens ex animi sententia falsum Iurat Qui falsum jurat non decipiendi animo hoc facit sed quia rem ita se habere putat Let him prove that the Deponent hath Sworn any thing through the whole Narrative Scienter ex animo Sententia Nay let him prove that the slips of memory as to names or time were ever accounted Perjury then the Pope shall give him the great Motto of Eris mihi magnus
he would suffer Christ to be murther'd In the same manner we may as well believe that the Vindicator and his trayterous Brood bred up in the same blasphemous principles so positive in the denyal and evading such apparent Truths and so notoriously prov'd in so many publick Courts of National Judicature would deny the very being and coming into the world of that eternal Deity whose Name and Order they profess were it for their disadvantage to allow it The Vindicator's conceit of his strength and his fond belief that men of reason will believe his Contradictions because he asserts 'em and confirms 'em by the attestations of men involv'd in the same guilt does but help to ruine his Papal Chimera and those swarms of Clamours Contumelies and Calumnies which he calls Lyes Contradictions and Perjuries will in the end sting his Vindication to death For Vindicators losing their end like bad Surgeons by their ill-applied Plaisters rather inflame and fester then asswage and heal And indeed I might well enough conclude as having shewn the Reader plainly enough the proportion of this Hercules by what his puny Arguments have hitherto been but we are forc'd to follow him step by step as he does the Narrative and to humour the Fool in his folly to prevent the Coxcombs crowing upon his own Dunghil of St. Omers Observe then how this Infidel of Truth proceeds He denies that Strange and Nine other Iesuits wrote a Letter to Ashby that they had an intent to stab the King c. 1. Because Strange avers it to be false in Attestation G. 2. Because Nine Iesuits never subscribed with their Provincial You must have it over and over again I tell ye the Customs of Jesuits in Conspiracies and Colledges are different things Besides the Doctor himself has sworn that he both saw and read the Letter which is much more convincing then your Attestation C. Now for your observation upon the Text for I find you are at a loss how to remove this Block out of your way You say to hear the Dr. speak a man would think nothing more ordinary in Jesuits Letters then to write of poysoning shooting stabbing and dispatching Kings Nothing more frequent in their Sermons and Writings and therefore not so much to be wondered at in their Letters But you hear that several of their Letters were perused and no such thing found in them You heard with your harvest ears For though you so easily believe your own Brethren we are not bound to believe you He denies That the same Fathers wrote other Letters to de la Chaize with thanks for his charity and care of propagating the Catholick Religion and that the Deponent carried it to St. Omers and thence to Paris And his Reason is because the Deponents whole journey from St. Omers to Paris was a Lye As if any man would be such a Fool to tell a Lye which all the World could convince him of The Vindicator's neater way would have been to have denied there were any such Towns in the World as St. Omers or Paris and then he had hit it He denies That Ashby shew'd the Deponent at his return from Paris a Letter to Strange and others in London shewing that they had stirred up the Scots to Rebellion and that Twenty thousand would be in Arms if France broke with England He denies that a way was made for the French to Land in Ireland that the Irish Catholicks were to rise or that Forty thousand Black Bills were ready for them 1. Because the Deponent never return'd from Paris as having never beeen there which is verified by Attestation D. 2. Because such a Letter was never written by the averment of Attestation G. 3. Because no English Iesuit ever dealt with Scotch Presbyterians 4. Because they never dealt with Irish Papists disposed to Rebel 5. Because there were no Black Bills prepar'd 6. Because there was no way made for French landing How is this prov'd Because here are no less then Six Becauses And Six Becauses with an Attestation D. and an Attestation G. make an Argument sufficient to confound all the Reason in Europe were there Ten times more then there is He denies that by Letters of the 18th of December it was specified that White was made Provincial Because he was not declar'd so till the 14th of Ianuary 1678. This is an evasion He might not be declar'd till the 14th of Ianuary and yet notice given of his Election before without any violence done to Madam Probability He denies that White ordered a Sermon against Otes in the Sodality Church Why Because he had no power before he was declar'd But what if he took upon him a little more then he needed they durst not contradict him And for the Rectors they have no such power as he talks of by the publick Rules of the Order And he denies there was any thing mention'd of Oaths because Coniers protests to the contrary and the Copy shews it as if they that Copy could not leave out what they please He denies Coniers was ordered to exhort all to stand by their new Provincial because it was never practised and then telling us the Sodalitie Church was not a convenient place for such a Sermon concludes the Deponent to be no such Confident of the Iesuits as he pretends 'T is not to be question'd but that they wish he had not been But it seems he was more their Confident then the Vindicator For he goes only the old Pack-horse-rode the Deponent was acquainted with all their new methods which the conjuncture of new affairs requir'd Your great men Friend Vindicator were moving out of their Sphear and therefore no wonder if they acted eccentrically And this answer may serve for your fopperies and strain'd Evasions of the 13 th Article Only take notice that Evasions are as bad as lies at any time for they do not only include a lye but endeavour to cloak the lye which the Evader labours to smother He denies that Blundel was made Ordinary of Newgate It seems the word Ordinary offends his Worship Let him choose what title he pleases 't was an employment of the same nature which for once he confesses yet calls it a lye For he hopes if the Provincial did employ any one in works of charity order'd him to visit prisoners to relieve or prepare them for a good end he was not to be blam'd for it Very true but he was to blame to send his agents upon Messages forbidden by the Law only to debauch the Consciences of men in misery and out of a covetous interest to prevent the slipping of any grise by their Mill. He denies it was done by Patent call it what you please Patent or Order or Commission it seems it was done and that 's sufficient He denies that the said Blundell ever instructed any Youth in London or taught them Treasonable Doctrine Upon what ground because 't is false and improbable How then came the Act of the Parliament of
Paris to call 'em Seducers and Corrupters of Youth To evade which common practice of theirs he says the Iesuits might be beg'd for fools to teach such Doctrine he means rank downright Treason for then they may be hang'd like Knaves for their Labours But for all his tricks and shifts and doubtings let me tell this Pumpkin of a Vindicator that the seed and the fruit are very different in shape and yet the seed sends forth the fruit From this discourse of so many Letters he takes an occasion to aim full at the Deponents face and thinks to give him a mauling rub You seem saith he quite through your Fabulous Narrative to represent St. Omers as the center of Iesuits Transactions when they that know St Omers know 't is the worst serv'd with Letters of any considerable Town in the Low-Countries Well Gaffer Fabulous what would you infer from all this You infer more than you can answer from what the Deponent has sworn but not believing that enough you would be inferring to the same purpose from what he never said He does not accuse St. Omers for being the center of all the Jesuits Transactions nor the Center of the World nor the Center of Europe or any Center But indeed since you put us in mind of it it seems to have been the Nursery of the Conspiracy But what 's the meaning of this impertinet Insinuation To prove that there were no Treasonable Letters sent to St. Omers because they are so ill serv'd by the Post. Silly Mortals what need had they of the Post who had such a trusty Messenger as the Deponent He denies that upon receipt of the above-mentioned Letters the Treasonable words were spoken by Nevil and Fermor in the Iesuits Library at St. Omers or that the Deponent heard them For saith he the words were never spoken when the Letters were receiv'd because there were no such Letters This with the Vindicators leave I take to be direct Nonsense When the Letters were receiv'd there were no such Letters But let it be what it will he has three Attestations E. K. Q. to make it out And lest they should fail he puts his hand in his Pouch pulls out a Contradiction Here I had thought to have produced the definition of a contradiction But because this is only a contradiction of the Vindicators own framing I shall defer that trouble till a better opportunity He says the Letters must be written upon Ian. 1 2 but takes the longest time and then appeals to the Post-master whether a Letter could come in 24 hours from England to St. Omers I know not what necessity there was that the Letters should be written upon the first of Ianuary The Deponent swears no such thing but he swears he heard the words spoken upon the third of Ianuary and tells ye where 't is no matter when the Letters were written And now what think you Sir are not these pretty Fables to trouble the world with You might have very well spar'd your Calculation and your Appeal unless they had been more to the purpose But he says the Deponent went on the third of Ianuary in the morning to Watten and dined there as appears by the Day-book of the Seminary and therefore could not be at St. Omers that Afternoon A worthy Record indeed and much for the Honour of St. Omers when they 're at such a pinch to bring their waste-paper in Evidence What low and ridiculous thoughts has this Vindicator of mankind to think that sense and reason would suffer themselves to be sway'd by the Day-book of the Seminary of St. Omers Had the dispute been for no more than half an hours absence they would have brought the record of the Seminary Day-book to prove the Deponent was gone to the House-of-Office To the 21 22 23 and 24 Articles he says so very little that it is just nothing so that we are to believe he grants them for truth And if they be true why not all the rest Nay since he has given us an Inch we 'l take an Ell and tell the Vindicator to his Teeth they are all true for this very reason because they are confirm'd by that worthless Oath of the Doctor as he most Jesuitically calls it which his railing and reviling language has only barkt at no where been able to penetrate It is a sentence of the Wise Calumnia semper opprimit meliora But on the other side we have this to relieve us Iustos mores mala non attingit Oratio And so let us go seek out our Vindicator again As good fortune will have it see where he comes all-to-be-new-recruited with the zealous inspirations of Brandy and Satan to gratifie his Papistical blind and superstitious fury He denies That White and other Iesuits writ a Letter on the tenth of March declaring that the Clergy were a sort of Rascally fellows that had neither wit nor courage to manage such a great design meaning the Plot. Here saith he the Deponent throws an apple of discord to sow dissention between the Clergy and the Society To pass by his polite Metaphor which shews him to be either a great Dunce or a meer Novitiate I would fain know cui bono What should move the Deponent to do a thing already done to his hands 'T is well known what opinion the rest of the Clergy have of the unlimited pride of the Jesuits in general and their haughty advancement of themselves above their brethren so that it was not the Deponents work either to unite or set them together by the ears for any man with half an eye may see the Deponents intention which was only to introduce their contemptible reflections upon the Clergy as a circumstance to prove how curious they were in their Trayterous Instruments But this is only a surmise of the Vindicators and therefore for fear it should not turn to account he brings his two never failing friends to nick it that is his own Averment and Attestation E. Very proper Don Quixot's and Sancta Pancha's to encounter the Wind-mills of his own erecting He denies That the Deponent saw a Letter from White mentioning that attempts had been made to assassinate the King at several times by William and Pickering had opportunity offer'd it self For missing whereeof he denies also that William was chid and the latter had twenty strokes with a discipline His reason is because he says that no body ever heard of it but by the Deponents Narrative And then he desires the Deponent to give a reason why White should only chide William that was his Man and whip Pickering over whom he had no jurisdiction By the way William was not Whites man but a servant to the whole Society in London and so was Pickering being under their Hire and consequently both equally under the Jurisdiction of White their Provincial Now I appeal to common sense and the judgment of those who have read or understand the extent of Papistical authority in
Apollo and we will grant him the Cause The Deponent has Sworn Scienter there was a Popish Plot. The Circumstances he sware only as believing ita rem se habere Caitiff of a Vindicator upon the False and Knavish Assertions of his own Brain to call a man Perjur'd and to think meerly with Din and Noise to stop the Inquisition and pursuit of Truth after Treason and Murther No he must not imagine England yet so easily scar'd and deluded by such a Priapus of a Vindicator as He. So that I may say to Him as the Ocean said to Prometheus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His slanderous Tongue will never do the Deponent Harm But what sort of Counsel is it that this same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 half Fox half Goose pretends so freely to bestow upon the Deponent He believes that he has disabl'd the Deponent to follow the Trade of a Witness and therefore advises Him to take to some more honest though less gainful way of living A very specious piece of advice indeed But when we consider from whence it comes and the aim at which our Adviser drives it appears to be only a drowsie piece of Exhortation glaz'd and sweeten'd over for the Palate of the Common People Good Counsel ought to be without respect of Interest for the sole benefit of the Person to whom it is given The Vindicators Advice to the Deponent is quite contrary He and his Party have been acting one of the foulest Conspiracies that History can Parallel and he advises the Deponent to be quiet for the future and to forbear his farther Prosecution Very good advice truly Now I would fain know of our Suttle Vindicator what way the Deponent shall take to follow his advice The Parliament of England are satisfied in the Truth of his Discovery they are satisfied that the Vindicator and his Accomplices are guilty of the Villanies and Treasons of which the Deponent accuses them and they require and expect from the Deponent that he should do his duty and go on as he has begun Which way now shall the Deponent proceed to take his advice and smother those crimes which he has so impertinently attempted to vindicate The Deponent therefore good Mr. Vindicator not believing either your pittiful Rhetorick and more pitiful arguments sufficient to perswade him to do a thing so unjust and detestable gives you this answer out of Tacitus Se neque Proditoris neque hostium consiliis uti He is resolved to make use neither of the Counsels of a Traytor nor his Enemies But what is this for For the good of the Deponents Soul How does he prove it from a mis-quoted place of Scripture of the Psalmes Fill their Faces with shame and they will seek thy name O Lord Psalm 83. not 82. Now this was a complaint of David himself upon a Conspiracy against his Life and Government as the Deponent had complain'd of a Conspiracy against the Life of His Majesty and the English Government The other is another mis-quoted Text from Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha For There is a shame that brings Glory and Grace And therefore he would have the Deponent asham'd of the good he has done for the safety of his Prince and Country As to the first of these Texts I cannot well understand how the Faces of men could be well filled with more shame than to be publickly condemn'd for Treason and as publickly Hang'd for the Crime and yet the Vindicator is so far from seeking the name of God that he still persists in the Devils name lying and justifying those detestable Enormities for which they suffer'd And for the latter Text he speaks too late for the Deponent had appropriated that shame long before to himself when out of an abhorrency of their lewd Impieties he forsook their Cercopum Coetus their Dens of Treachery and Forgery and betook himself to make his Discovery of which perhaps e're now he might have reap'd the Consequences that is to say Glory and Grace but for your busie Machinations to undermine and prevent him However the Deponent understands the Bible as well as your Worship and finds a little farther in the same Author Strive for the Truth unto Death and the Lord shall fight for thee which he believes to be far better Counsel than you have given him And indeed it had been impossible for him to have Swum against such a stream or rather Torrent of Opposition had he not had the strength of Verity to support and Buoy him up He has got the hatred of you and your Party most certainly and the ill will of those whom your sedulity has perverted He contends dayly with the reproaches of some the envy of others the dissimulation of others Only the Truth of his Narrative begets him some Friends among the better sort of the Nation and never more hopes than now that others will change their Opinions upon the sight of your lying and scandalous Vindication You say again you have advanced nothing material but what is certainly true Which is one of the greatest Lyes that ever one single man durst advance in the face of the whole World There being nothing that is either Material or True For saith he the chiefest points are attested by Witnesses of umblemish'd Reputation Here 's another Swinger For as to their Reputation it is so far from being unblemish'd that it is the fowlest under the Sun The Reputation of Fugitives Traytors and Conspirators with himself in as Bloody a design as ever Popery hatch'd and consequently Homines Triobolares Propertius's Damae Tressis Agasones In the Second place they are no Witnesses but vain Attestors in their own wicked cause of whom more anon Upon these rotten Surmises of his own unparallel'd Confidence this Etnean Beetle the Vindicator this Monsieur Homme de Rien this Pomarius Hercules presumes to judge of the Deponents Conscience and dispose of his Salvation A Sawciness in the Pope himself much more in such a Popelin as He. He has been talking Folly and Nonsence all this while and now conceited of his misshapen Foppery would needs set himself up for a Deus Ollaris and sit Judge of another mans Conscience and Salvation But I must tell you Sir 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast Philosophiz'd speaking to Earth and Heaven By whom there is no heed given to thy Speeches So that you would have done well to have forborn this impertinent piece of Trouble the Deponent having now quite done with Jesuitical Confessors and besides he does not know that ever he requir'd the Vindicators sollicitude for him in this particular nor believes that his Episcopal jurisdiction reaches into England He makes an idle Story of the Deponents fainting at the Iesuits Tryal If he did the Crowd and Season of the year might well excuse him But Homer tells us the reason of such a small accident as that far more discreetly than the Vindicators Malitious Inference The Deponent had a great
deal to remember and a great deal of business to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He took breath a while Rediitque in pectora Sensus The next thing he troubles the World with is a Sentence of the Lord Chief Justices in Sir G. W's Tryal Which in regard it makes nothing to his purpose we shall leave to the better construction of those who no doubt will make a more favourable interpretation of the words Lord what would these Fellows do with this Vile Heretical Deponents Body if they had him at Rome that have with so much inveteracy erected an Inquisition of his own Conscience and a Chief Justices Sentence to deprive him of his Salvation Usurping a vain Authority over both as well knowing that neither the Deponents Conscience nor the Chief Justices words are at their command From the Lord Chief Justice he repaires to K. Salomon and tells us He that is inconsiderate in his Language shall feel mischief From whence he undertakes to be a Fortune-teller and bodes the Deponent bad Luck In the first place he has confessed that the Narrative was Writ with a great deal of Consideration and then why may not the preceding words be as true as these A man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth Then for his Prophetick Spirit we value it not of a Nut-shell for the Proverb tells us 't is the Wise man that Governs the Stars and not such a Fool as He. He talks of Eternal Damnation due to False Witnesses and Murtherers What 's that to the Deponent Let him and his Attestators look to that Oh but quo He I have prov'd him to be both by the Fore-going Discourse as he calls it You have said so several times but you must come and tell us who you are and make it out before any man of reason will believe a word you say You will find it a hard task to make the World believe you are able to write Common Sense much less with your Feeble Armes to expugn the Truth of the Narrative If the English Catholicks had such a mind to a Vindication they should have done well to have made choice of some Person of more Wit and more Learning considering the Importance of the Charge with which they entrusted him than your empty Skull affords Having thus tost your little Squibs of Advice at the Deponent you throw your Fire-balls at the Citizens of London whom you call the Giddy Rabble of London An Expression you might have forborn had you had the least grain of prudence in your hollow Pericranium considering how much you have already exasperated 'em by your late Devastation of their City and laying their pretended Habitations in Ashes You may be sure they have not yet forgot it nor who were the Authors and Contrivers of their Calamity They find it in the Narrative which because you have so slenderly attack'd they must still and do believe And therefore you must not blame the Rabble of London for being kind to the Person that discover'd your Villany I know not what farther Designs you and your Confederates may have against the Rabble of London that you threaten 'em so hard but I believe for all your Vindication they will have a narrow eye upon your future Actions and continue as severely diligent as ever in the preservation of themselves from your Clandestine Machinations You say that Whitebread and his Fellow Sufferers pray'd for the Deponent at their Executions They had broken the Gallows Custom else 'T is usual and therefore no wonder All your Thieves Murderers and Malefactors are mighty tender hearted and Pardon all the World like so many Popes before they turn off But you may assure your self 't was more than the Deponent ever car'd for or desired at their hands and so you may tell the rest of the Surviving Iesuits that you say Pray for him still For he is fully satisfied how far the Prayers of the wicked will reach Heaven So that you may go Whistle with your Friendly Admonitions pack up your Awls and conclude that you have lost both your Labour and your hearts desire for that you are never like to have him in your Clutches at St. Omers again Now for the Attestators and Attestations themselves they are such as one would think he had intended a Vindication of the Spanish and Flemish Catholicks not of the English As for the Persons themselves certainly never was such a parcel of Vermin Muster'd together out of the Temple Walks or the Black-pot Houses in White-Frayars particularly Jesuits and Mule-men generally Fugitives Traytors of the same Gang with himself Conspirators in the same Plot and impeach'd for the same Crimes for which some of their Fellows have already been Hang'd and Quarter'd by the Law of the Land and all after a fair Tryal a deliberate Verdict and the Sentence of their Judges To tell you more of them they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Testes Domestici such as the Vindicator has at home that is within the Verge of Papistical Jurisdiction ready for his and their own advantage And so to bring Evidence of this nature is no more than what Cicero in his Third Book de Oratore cites as the saying of Catulus of a certain vain declaimer of that time Stultitiae suae quamplurimos testes domestico praeconio colligere to bring a Rabble of Knights of the Post or People of his own Stamp to attest his own folly In a word they are most of them of St. Omers Breed and what Ropes of Testimony have been sent from thence we have had experience sufficient and publick enough As for that same Dr. Linch that pretends to be Arch-bishop of Tuam in Ireland What does he at Madrid If he claim his Dignity from the sole head of the Church in that Kingdom who is the King of Great Britain why does he absent himself from his Diocess an Exile from his Duty and his Prince's favour If he claim under any other Authority he is a Rebel and then what have we to do with him or his Attestation either And the same may be said of Strange Warren Warner Blundel and the rest of his English Crew Then for the Attestations themselves being only the Subscriptions of such unblemish'd Gentlemen could ever any man but a Vindicator of the English Catholicks imagine they should be of any value here Suppose that an English Jesuit should commit a Felony in England and fly to St. Omers and being afterwards Out-lawd for the Crime should send an Attestation under his own Hand that he was Innocent and knew nothing of the matter is it possible for any man to believe that such a piece of wast Paper would be sufficient to acquit the Fellon and Perjure the Witnesses that accus'd him They that inform'd this Attestation-monger so precisely concerning the Deponents Physiognomy might as well have inform'd him that our Law admits of no such Rubbish in Criminal Causes as the Scrawls of Forraign publick Notaries Viva voce