THis Author, who by his stile and the manner in which he treats all those that have the misfortune to fall under his Censure, appears to be no mean person; seems every where throughout the whole Discourse to be trans­ported with so much Anger and Rage; that he was neither master of his own Reason, nor able to use that Learning he had to any good purpose: From whence we may sup­pose it hapned, that putting the Title of his Book in the first lines of it, he never more thought of the Justice or Modesty pretended, but a Vindicative Spirit took such pos­session of him, as he never became his own man after. My Reader therefore, I hope, will pardon me, if his Passion happens to move one in me, in any part of these Reflections; [Page 2] because is is difficult to converse patiently with a man of this temper.

He begins thus: The Amazement which seized every good man, upon the unlooked-for dissolution of two Parliaments within three Months, was not greater than at the sight of a Declaration pretending to justifie and give Reasons for such extraordinary proceedings.

Thus my Author comes staring upon the Stage, as one newly recovered out of one Amazement, and just then taken with another, he fansies all the good men of the Nation under the same distraction of mind. And what was it that wrought so powerfully on him, that every man that was not so affected deserved not the Title of a Good Man? Nothing in the world but the Dissolution of the two last Parliaments, and the sight of the before-mentioned De­claration. A frightful ominous sight! He tells us after­wards there never appeared such a Prodigy before,Pag. 3. but in 1628. and that was one of the first sad Causes (though he does not prove it to be so much as an Occasion) of the ensuing unhappy War; a soft name for a Rebellion, which as good men never had Cause, so ill men never wanted a Pre­tence to stir up.

I can assure him that there were many good men who observed all this as well as he, who did not instantly fall into fits upon it. Good men can trust God and their King, and rest quietly and free from Amazement in greater Acci­dents than these.

Having a little recovered himself out of the Muse he was in, thus he proceeds. It is not to be denied but that our Kings have in a great measure been intrusted with the power of Calling, and Declaring the Dissolutions of Parliaments. Have they so? Whose Trustees are they? When did they first obtain this favour?

I protest now I was so dull as to think that this right of Calling and Dissolving Parliaments was a Natural Right, [Page 3] inherent in the Crown,Pro. Dom. Rege dicit, quod cum placeat ei, Parliament suum tenere pro utilitate Regní sui, de Regali potestate suâ facit summoneri ubi & quan­do, &c pro voluntate sua. Cok. Jurisdict. p. 16. and as old as the Bri­tish Monarchy, and that at the granting of the great Charter, and at all other times before or since, when the Kings of England granted any new Priviledges to their Subjects they still reserved to the Crown the power of calling Parliaments when and where they pleased, and to continue them as long as they thought fit, and then to Dissolve or Prorogue them. Well, but if I was therein mistaken, yet he allows our Kings a great measure of that trust, and who claims the Remainder of it? Not the Petitioners, I hope. No, the Privy Council, he tells us, are to be advised with. Now that is matter of Expedience only, not of Right; for whatever His Majesty can lawfully do with, doubtless he may as lawfully (though not in all cases and circumstances so prudently) do without, the Advice of his Privy-Coun­cil, who never claimed, that I have heard of, any co-ordi­nate right of managing affairs with our Kings; and matter ofThe Three Estates do but Advise as the Privy-Council doth, which if the King imbrace, it becomes the Kings own Act in the one; and the Kings Law in the other; for without the Kings Acceptation both the publick and private Advices be but as empty Egg-shells. Sir Walter Ralcighs Prerogative of Parliaments, pag. 57.—Vide & Grotium de imp. sum. potest. circa Sacra. Cap. 6. Advice in its own nature supposes a liberty in the Person to whom 'tis given either to adhere to, or to re­ject it.

Well, Pag. 3. but whoever has the rest of that Trust, care hath been anciently taken, both for the Holding of Parliaments Annually; and that they should not be Prorogued or Dissolved till all the Petitions and Bills before them were Answered and Redressed. And for this my Author quotes two Acts of Parliament, which because they are short I will insert here. The first is this:4. Ed. 3. c. 14. Item it is accorded that a Parliament shall be holden every year once, and more often if need be. Here is every word in that Statute. The second [Page 4] follows:36 Ed. 3. c. 10. Item, for maintenance of the said Articles and Statutes, and redress of divers mischiefs and grievances which daily happen, a Parliament shall be holden every year, as another time was ordained by a Statute, which is the very same that I have recited before.2 R. 2 Num. 28. The Record which he [...] I can say nothing to. So I agree with him that there are two Statutes provided for the holding of Parliaments Annually, and more often if need be, of which the Kings of England have ever since thought themselves the Judges. But where are the Statutes to be found that these Parliaments should not be prorogued nor dissolved till ALL the Petitions and Bills before them were answered and redressed? Here is not one tittle of this in either of these he quotes, yet that is the main thing in controversie, and which only needed proving. But he goes on. The Constitution had been equally imperfect and de­structive of it self, had it been left to the choice of the Prince whether he would ever Summon a Parliament; or put into his power to dismiss them Arbitrarily at his pleasure. Then sure it had been worth the while to have proved for what time they were to sit, as well as how often. And if this can be made out that it is an Arbitrary, that is, in the sense he would be understood in, an Illegal Act, for the King to prorogue or dissolve a Parliament, till all the Pe­titions and Bills be answered and redressed, then will it be possible for a Parliament to perpetuate it self for ever by an endless succession of Petitions and Bills mixed with other great affairs, which as it is contrary to the practice of all our Kings since these Statutes, so if it were true, the Me­narchy wuld not then be what it now is; but be much nearer a Commonwealth. So that be the Consequence what it will, this learned Gentleman must yield, that it is at the choice of our Princes to summon Parliaments when they think it needful; and to dismiss them when they please. As for the word Arbitrarily, which he here useth, [Page 5] it is needless; and was suggested to him by his Spleen, and and not by his Reason.

That Parliaments should thus meet (Annually) and thus sit, Pag. 2. (till all the Petitions and Bills before them are answered and redressed) is secured to us by the same sacred tye by which the King at his Coronation does oblige himself, to let his Judges sit to distribute Justice every Term, and to preserve inviclably all other Rights and Liberties of his Subjects. I thought the Law had been altered a little in the first particular, by a Statute made in the Seventeenth year of his now Majesties Reign. Cap. 1. the words of which are as followeth. And, because by the Ancient Laws and Statutes of this Realm, made in the Reign of King Edward the Third, Parliaments are to be held very often, Your Majesties humble and loyal Subjects the Lords Spi­titual and Temporal, and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, most humbly do beseech your most Excellent Majesty, &c. that hereaf­ter the sitting and holding of Parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above three years at most, but that within three years from and after the Determination of this present Parliament, and so from time to time within three years after the de­termination of any other Parliament or Parlia­ments; or if there be occasion more or oftener, your Majesty your Heirs and Successors do issue out your Writs for calling, assembling, and holding of an­other Parliament, to the end there may be a fre­quent calling, assembling, and holding of Parlia­ments once in three years at least. So that surely his Majesty may without breach of his Coronation Oath de­lay the calling of a Parliament three years, if there be no occasion for one sooner.Pag. 2. of which he is the Judge. There­fore (as he goes on) abruptly to dissolve Parliaments at such a time, when nothing but the Legislative Power, and the [Page 6] Ʋnited Wisdom of the Kingdom could relieve us from our just fears, or secure us from our certain dangers, is very unsuita­ble to the great Trust reposed in the Prince, and seems to ex­press but little of that affection which we will always hope his Majesty bears towards his People and the Protestant Religion. That there was then too much need of the Legislative Power and the Wisdom of the Nation united in Parlia­ment, is not to be denied, and that his Majesty was very sensible of it appears, by his calling three Parliaments in twenty six Months, as my Author computes it, page 46. and we shall have occasion hereafter to enquire by whose fault it came to pass that they were all so abruptly dissolved, and that will lead us to a probable conjecture why none hath been since called; notwithstanding his Majesties Affe­ction to his People and the Protestant Religion is such, that we have great reason to bless God for it, and to acknow­ledge it thankfully to him.

My Author goes on thus:Pag. 2. But it is not only of the Disso­lution it self that we complain; the manner of doing it is un­warranted by the precedents of former times, and full of dan­gerous Consequents. We are taught by the Writ of Sum­mons, that Parliaments are never called without the advice of the Council, and the usage of all Ages has been never to send them away without the same advice. To forsake this safe method is to expose the King personally to the reflections and Censures of the whole Nation for so ungrateful an Action. We may grant it the most usual, and the best and safest way to consult the Council in both these Cases. But yet that will not presently make the Act Arbitrary or Illegal, if it be omitted, and in this Case if it were otherwise it may possibly in the end appear to have been matter of necessi­ty rather than choice.Colledges Trial, p. 37, 57, 73. We may very well remember that a great number of the Gentlemen of the Lower House went to Oxford with armed men to guard them from the Papists, and some of them told the people at parting; They [Page 7] did never expect to see them again. The meaning of which is possible to be understood. And besides these there were some other zealous men went; so that if his Majesty did not think it fit, or safe to consult his Council, and spend time in deliberating in the midst of such dangers, they must bear the blame who gave the occasion, and made it necessa­ry. So that these are the men, next such as my Author, who are to be charged, tho not with advising, yet with necessitating the last dissolution to be made, in the manner it was,Colledges Trial, p. 27, 30. for the security of his Majesties Life and Liberty, which yet I would never have said but to justifie his Majesty.

But yet we must know all this Concern for the Council is not out of kindness or respect to them, Pag. 2. he saith, They are punishable for such Orders as are irregular; nor can the Mini­sters justifie any unlawful Action under colour of the Kings Commands, since all his Commands that are contrary to law, are void; (which is the true reason of that well known Maxim, that the King can do no wrong) a Maxim just in it self, and alike safe for the Prince, and for the Subject; there being no­thing more absurd than that a Favourite should excuse his enormous Actings by a pretended Command, which we may rea­sonably suppose he first procured to be laid upon himself. But we know not whom to charge with advising this last Dissolution: it was a work of darkness, and if we are not misinformed, the Privy Council was as much surprized at it as the Nation. The sorrow was; that in the next Parliament this great Patriot would be at a loss in his hunting for some body to blame for an Action so ungrateful, as he represents it, to the whole Nation; which in my judgment is a pretty way of spending his Reflections and Censures on the King.

And this is not all his vexation neither; for in the next Paragraph he tells us, Pag. 3. Nor will a future Parliament be able to charge any body as the Author or Adviser of the late Printed Paper, which bears the Title of his Majesties [Page 8] Declaration, tho every good Subject ought to be careful how he calls it so: for his Majesty never speaks to his People as a King, but either personally in his Parliament, or at other times under his Seal, for which the Chancellour or other Of­ficers are responsible, if what passes them be not warranted by Law. Nor can the direction of the Privy Council enforce any thing upon the People unless that Royal and legal Stamp give it an Authority: but this Declaration comes abroad without any such Sanction, and there is no other ground to ascribe it to his Majesty than the uncertain credit of the Printer, whom we will easily suspect of an imposture, rather than think the King would deviate from the approved course of his Illustrious Ancestors, to pursue a new and unsuccessful method.

So here is all the Credit of the Declaration gone, and the poor Printer left in the lurch to answer it to the next Parliament for putting this imposture on the Nation. But what comfort is there in such small game? A Lord Chan­cellour, or other great Officer, is a Royal Game, and worth the pursuit of a House of Commons to pull him down; but a pitiful Printer, who can find in his heart to imploy his Oratory against such mean Mechanicks? and as for the Privy Council they can enforce nothing upon the Peo­ple without the Seal, so that for time to come all Procla­mations, and other publick Papers, may be securely slighted except they come Sealed with the great Seal, or some body be sent with them to assure us he saw it to the Original. Thus far the Historian went, but then the Prophet comes forth, and assures us, as this Method is new, so it will be unsuccessful. How truly the World is not now to be told.

From the Effect of the first Declaration of this kind, which he saith was published in 1628. and filled the whole Kingdom with Jealousies, and was one of the first Causes of the ensuing unhappy War;Pag. 3. he proceeds to tell us, That Declarations to justifie what Princes do, must always be either [Page 9] needless or ineffectual: their Actions ought to be such as may recommend themselves to the World, and carry their own Evidence along with them of their usefulness to the publick; and then no Arts to justifie them will be necessary. Were all Mankind wise and honest, this Argument would be un­answerable, but as long as some men out of Dulness, and others out of Obstinacy and Interest shut their Eyes to the plainest and most evident demonstrations of Reason, it must of necessity be sometimes necessary and fit for Princes to Inform their Subjects of the reasonableness of their Actions; and accordingly the same course hath ever been taken, and though it might fail of that end in 1628. yet it hath often heretofore, and doubtless will often again suc­ceed, and the Jealousies which then arose were not the effect of the Declaration, but of those ill Arts by which such a sort of men as we have now to deal with, wheedled the Populace into an ill opinion of the best of Princes for Ends, that are now too well known to be again imbraced.

When a Prince descends so low as to give his Subjects Rea­sons for what he has done, Pag. 3. he not only makes them Judges whe­ther there be any weight in those reasons, but by so un­usual a submission gives cause to suspect, that he is conscious to himself, that his Actions want an Apology. I never thought before that the French Kings Logick was the only Argu­ment that became a Prince, Car tel est nostre plaisir, For so our will and pleasure is. And those Subjects must be very ill natured that grow jealous upon the Condescentions of a Prince, and judge the Reasons of a King to have the less weight because he graciously offers them to the Judgment of his People; Sure I am sometimes God Almighty is pleased to do it, who only hath a right to command our absolute submission, upon the account of his infinite both Wisdom and Soveraignty. So that to suspect the want of of an Apology on no other grounds than a mans willingness [Page 10] to satisfie the World of the justice of a mans Cause, and the reasonableness of his Actions, is a perverseness to which common Knaves do seldom arrive; the Heroes of Villany do not often rise to that pitch of Brutality without the help of Malmsbury Philosophy. And I am persuaded that our Author would have spared this Cavil against his Majesties Declaration if he had before-hand considered that in natural consequence he charges not only the King, but also the Three Estates with so many deliberate Acts of folly and injustice as there are Acts of Parliament contain­ing the reasons of Enacting so or so.

If a Princes Actions are indeed unjustifiable,Pag. 3. if they are opposite to the Inclinations, and apparently destructive of the Interests of his Subjects, it will be very difficult for the most eloquent or insinuating Declaration to make them in love with such things.

And if they be none of all these, if a Crafty man may but comment upon them, and by Ifs and Ands insinuate into the heads of the Common People that he takes them for such, it is possible all the Eloquence in the World may not be powerful enough to bring them into their right wits again, but yet this may fail too sometimes.Pag. 3.

And therefore they did certainly undertake no easie task in pretending to persuade men who see themselves exposed to the restless malice of their Enemies; who observe the languishing condition of the Nation, and that nothing but a Parliament can provide remedies for the great Evils which they feel and fear; that two several Parliaments, upon whom they had placed all their hopes, were so suddenly broken out of kind­ness to them, or with any regard to their advantage.

No, I suppose no body was so silly as to undertake such an impossible task: but there was another sort of men, who had looked better into things, and care was to be ta­ken of them to confirm them, and a third sort that were not yet well resolved what to think of things, and they [Page 11] were to be directed and assisted, and it was not impos­sible the Declaration might have a good effect upon them, as indeed it had; as for those that had placed all their hopes upon the two last Parliaments, and were pleased with all they did; there was neither hopes nor design of working that Miracle upon them, but they were to be left to time to be cured. And in the interim I would advise them to study Colemans Declaration, of which my Author saith fine things, which I care not to transcribe.

But should this Declaration be suffered to go abroad any longer under the Royal Name;Pag. 4. yet it will never be thought to have proceeded from his Majesties Inclination or Judgment, but to be gained from him by the Artifices of the same ill men, who not being content to have prevailed with him to dissolve two Paliaments, only to protect them from Publick Ju­stice, do now hope to excuse themselves from being thought the Authors of that Counsel by making him openly to avow it. But they have discovered themselves to the Kingdom, and have told their Names when they number amongst the great Crimes of the House of Commons, their having declared divers Emi­nent Persons to be Ememies to the King and Kingdom.

So his Majesties Inclination and Judgment being kindly absolved from the guilt of this Declaration of purpose to abate the Esteem it ought to have. And seeing it is not possible to keep it within doors, and that some may think the worse of it because there was a sham Declaration found among Colemans Papers, as you know there was a sham Plot in the Meal-Tub, and yet there may be others that are real. The next Inquiry, or rather Hue and Cry, is af­ter the Authors, and those he thinks he hath found by the passage he cites out of the Declaration, those Eminent Persons, or some of them, must needs out of Revenge and Fear be the Authors of this Pestilent Declaration. His Reason is this:Pag. 4. None could be offended at the Proceedings of the Parliaments but they who were obnoxious, none could be [Page 12] concerned to vindicate the Dissolution but they who advised it. But is my Author sure of that, that never a man in the Nation was offended at their proceedings but such as were obnoxious to them? I am of another mind, and so is all the world now. Is it impossible for any man to be con­cerned to vindicate the Actions of a Prince but they that advise him? What pitiful Sophistry this is. But were no men obnoxious to the proceedings of these Parliaments but these eminent men?Declaration. May not it be some of those Subjects who were by Arbitrary Orders taken into Custody for matters that had no relation to Priviledges of Parliament? They are mentioned before the Eminent Persons tho of a Meaner degree. If I be not mistaken, some Members too were very disgracefully Expelled the House. Might not some of them have a hand in it?Pag. 5. We are assured a little lower, that the Writer was of another Nation from this Gallicism, It was a matter extremely sensible to us. So that this Gentle­man is suspitious it is but a Translation of a French Copy, and the rather because Monsieur Barillon, the French Em­bassadour, read it to a Gentleman three days before it was communicated to the Privy Council, if his intelligence did not deceive him. So here is fair Scope left to find, or suspect at least, other Authors besides the Eminent Persons, other Advisers besides those that were obnoxious. For I suppose Monsieur Barillon doth not fear a House of Com­mons. And as for this and other Gallicisms that may occur they are not to be wondred at in an Age that gene­rally understands the French Tongue, in a Court where almost all the Great men speak it; in a Prince who hath lived in France, and is descended of a French Mother. And the wonder is not so prodigious neither that the French Embassadour should get a transcript of a Paper, in­tended to be published to the whole Nation, two or three days before it was read in Council. These things make a great noise to ignorant people, whilst I am persuaded this [Page 13] Gentleman smiled to think how finely he was deluding them. But be these things as they will, the Eminent Per­sons must expect to answer it.Pag. 4. And our Author thinks they cannot blame him or his Party for hoping one day to see justice done upon such Counsellours. Pag. 5. And that the Commons had reason for their Vote, when they declared those Eminent Persons, who manage things at this rate, Enemies to the King and Kingdom, and Promoters of the French Interest. Pag. 6.

It is not strange at all (that the Parliament at Oxford should anger the Court more than that at Westminster) for the Court did never yet dissolve a Parliament abruptly, and in heat, but they found the next Parliament more averse, and to insist upon the same things with greater eagerness than the former. English Spirits resent no affronts so highly as those that are done to their Representatives; and the Court will be sure to find the effects of that resentment in the next Election.

The truth of this as matter of History is very apparent, for so it came to pass in the Reign of his Majesties Father, upon every Dissolution, the Commons made choice of the same, or worse, Members; till in 1640. they had fitted themselves with a Parliament to their hearts desire, who resented, not the Affronts done to themselves as the Peo­ples Representatives, but the several Stops and Rubs that had been laid in their way, so highly, that the Court, i, e. the King, soon felt the effects of it. But did the Na­tion escape? No, but Bloud and Violence, Anarchy and Consusion took possession of them to that height that the pious Martyr called it, [...]. Cap. 15. A Hell of Misery, and Chaos of Confusion.

The Author in the next line acquaints us, That a Par­liament does ever participate of the present temper of the People. Never were Parliaments of more different Com­plexions than that of 1640. and that of 1661. yet they both exactly answered the humours which were predominant in the [Page 14] Nation, [...]lledge averred, that the [...] of 40. did [...] what they had just [...] for, and the Parliament [...] last at Westminster [...] of the same opinon. [...] 83. And to this [...] a great while [...] had excused the [...] from [...] War, and [...] King, which he [...] Papists did. when they were respectively chosen. It doth not become me to say whether that of 1680. were liker that of 1640. or 1661. but I must needs say, I wonder my Author could reflect so sensibly on the difference, and yet at the same time heighten the Popular Heats with inculcating the fears of France and Po­pery, and not rather endeavour to allay them by telling his Country-men, that twenty years Misery followed the 1640 Parliament, and twenty years Peace the latter, which I cannot but esteem a more Loyal and a more Prudent reflection than that he hath made; and much more necessary both for the Representatives and Electors. Let them however now consider seriously of it, and the next time send up men zealous to bring the real Incendiaries of the Nation to Justice, and then it is not to be doubted but some that are Country Favourites, will be found to promote the French and Popish Interest, as well as the Republick. And I dare then become their Sponsor (if it might not look too presumptuously in so mean a person as I am) that by Gods mercy we should enjoy another Score of Halsion years, to the confusion of Popery, and the extreme damage of France. [...]. du Moulin's Vindication of the since­rity of P. &c. p. 58. London. 1679. Both which do as certainly promote our present distempers as they did those in Charles the First his times; as have been made so apparent, that the Dissenters, who were the Principals then as they are now, would fain per­suade the world that the Accessaries,Colledges Trial, [...]. 81, 82, 83. the French Emisaries and Jesuits, did all that mischief that was then done. But as this is ridiculous and impossible, so, if duly considered, it might prevent a relapse into the same misery and confusion, which is more to be desired by all good Christians than the most delightful revenge upon the Favorites.

But it is but reasonable to expect all that I can say will signifie but little to this sort of men, if the modest Gentle­man [Page 15] I am examining may be presumed better acquainted with their tempers than I am.Pag. 6. For surely (saith he) this DECLARATION (what great things soever may be expected from it) will make but very few Converts, not only be­cause it represents things as high Crimes, which the whole Kingdom (the contrary of which is now too apparent to be proved on one hand, or denied on the other) has been celebrating as meritorious Actions: but because the People have been so often deceived by former Declarations, that whatsoever carries that Name will have no credit with them for the Future. This, I confess, is one good way to pre­vent the making too many Converts to Loyalty; for if a People can once be effectually persuaded their Governours are faithless perfidious men, that seek nothing but an op­portunity to delude and abuse them by false pretences, there will be no great danger they will pay them too much respect and obedience. But surely the man that talks thus is some French Emisary or Jesuit, such thoughts as these never arose from a Church of England Gentlemans heart, for the worst enemy of England could not have breathed a worse insinuation into the hearts of his Majesties Subjects.

They have not yet forgot the Declaration from Breda, Pag. 7. tho others forgot it too soon, and do not spare to say; that if the same diligence, the same earnest solicitations had been made use of in that affair which have been since exercised directly contrary to the design of it, there is no doubt but every [...] of it would have had its desired effect, and all his Majest [...] Subjects▪ would have enjoyed the fruits of it, and [...] extolling a Prince so careful to keep his Sacred Promise [...] [...] People.

Before this unworthy Insinuation can be [...] [...] swered, I must transcribe so much of that Declaratio [...] [...] here supposed to have sailed of its [...] followeth:

[Page 16] And because the Passion and uncharitableness of the times have produced several opinions in Reli­gion,Declaration from Breda. April 4. 1660. by which men are engaged in Parties and Animosities against each other, which, when they shall hereafter unite in a freedom of Conversation, will be better understood, we do declare a liberty to tender Consciences, and that no man shall be dis­quieted, or called in question, for differences of Opi­nion in matter of Religion,☞ which do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom, and that we shall be ready to consent to such an Act of Parliament, as upon ma­ture deliberation shall be offered to us for the full granting that Indulgence.

Here is his Majestie, Royal Promise, wherein ought to be observed, that his Majesty promised nothing to any Party that should disturb the peace of the Kingdom. Nor to them that did not, further than that he would consent to such an Act of Parliament when it should be offered to him. So that he was not obliged to procure such an Act, nor yet to do it without an Act. And now let us see how they behaved themselves towards him.

Whilst (says his Majesty) we continued in this temper of mind and resolution,Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs, Octob. 25. 1660. and have so far complied with the persuasion of particular persons, and the distemper of the times, as to be contented with the exercise of our Religion in our own Chap­pel according to the constant practice and Laws esta­blished, without enjoying that practice, and the obser­vation of those Laws in the Churches of the King­dom, in which we have undergone the Censure of many, as if we were without that zeal for the Church which we ought to have, and which by Gods Grace we shall always retain; we have found our selves not so Candidly dealt with as we have deser­ved, and that there are unquiet and restless spirits, [Page 17] who without abating any of their own distemper in recompence of the Moderation they find in us con­tinue their bitterness against the Church, and endea­vour to raise Jealousies of us, and to lessen our repu­tation by their reproaches,☜ as if we were not true to the Professions we have made, and in order thereun­to they have very unseasonably caused to be printed, published, and dispersed throughout the Kingdom a Declaration heretofore printed in our Name during the time of our being in Scotland, of which we shall say no more than that the Circumstances by which we were enforced to sign that Declaration, are enough known to the World; & that the worthiest & greatest part of that Nation did even then detest and abhor the ill usage of us in that particular, when the same Ty­ranny was exercised there by the power of a few ill men, which at that time had spread it self over this Kingdom, and therefore we had no reason to expect that we should at this Season,☜ when we are doing all we can to wipe out the memory of all that hath been done amiss by other men, and we thank God, have wiped it out of our own remembrance, have been our self assaulted with these Reproaches, which we will likewise forget.

Since the Printing that Declaration se­veral☜ seditious Pamphlets and Queries have been published and scattered abroad,There are some seditious Preachers who cannot be con­tent to be dispenced with for their full Obedience to some Laws Established without re­proaching and inveighing against those Laws▪ how Esta­blished soever, who tell their Auditors, that the Apostle meant when he bid them stand to their Liberties, that they should stand to their Arms, &c. Lord Chancellors Speech, May 8. 1661. to infuse dislike and Jealousies into the hearts of the People, and of the ARMY, and some who ought rather to have re­pented the former mischief they have wrought, than to have endeavoured to improve it, have had the hardiness to pub­lish that the Doctrine of the Church, against which no man with whom we [Page 18] have conferred hath excepted, ought to be reformed as well as the Discipline.

This over-passionate and turbulent way of pro­ceeding, and the impatience we find in many for some speedy determination in these matters, where­by the minds of men may be composed, and the peace of the Church established, hath prevailed with us to invert the Method we had proposed to our Self, and even in order to the better calling and composing of a Synod (which the present Jealou­sies will hardly agree upon) by the Assistance of Gods blessed Spirit, which we daily invoke and supplicate, to give some determination Our self to the matters in difference, untill such a Synod may be called, as may without prejudice or passion give us such further assistance towards a perfect union of Affections, as well as submission to Authority, as is necessary: And we are the rather induced to take this upon us by finding upon the full Conferences we have had with Learned men of several Persuasions, that the mischiefs, under which both Church and State do at present suffer, do not result from any formed Doctrine or Conclusion which either Party maintains or avows, but from the Passion, and Appetite, and Interest of particular persons, who contract greater prejudices to each other from those Affections, than would naturally rise from their Opinions; and those distempers must be in some degree allayed before the meeting in a Synod can be attended with better success than their meet­ing in other places, and their discourses in Pul­pits have hitherto been; and till all thoughts of vi­ctory, are laid aside, the humble and necessary thoughts for the vindication of Truth cannot be enough entertained.

[Page 19] We must for the honour of all those of either per­suasion, with whom we have conferred, declare, that the profession and desires of all for the advancement of Piety and true Godliness, are the same; their professions of zeal for the peace of the Church, the same: of affection and duty for us, the same; They all approve Episcopacy; they all approve a set Form of Liturgy; they all disapprove and dis­like the sin of Sacriledge, and the Alienation of the Revenue of the Church; and if upon these excellent foundations, in submission to which there is such a harmony of affections, any superstructures should be raised, to the shaking those foundations, and to the contracting and lessening the blessed gift of Cha­rity, which is a vital part of Religion; we shall think Our Self very unfortunate, and even suspect that we are defective in that Administration of Go­vernment with which God hath entrusted us.

Page 18. of this Declaration, ‘His Majesty did again renew what he had formerly said in his Declaration from Breda for the liberty of tender Consciences, &c. and declared, if any have been disturbed in that kind since Our Arrival here, it hath not proceeded from any Dire­on of ours.’

His Majecty saith in the fifth page of this Declaration▪ The Presbyterians did only desire modestly such al­terations in Episcopacy and the Liturgy, as without shaking foundations, might best allay the present distempers which the indisposition of the time, and the tenderness of some mens Consciences had con­tracted, for the better doing whereof we did intend upon our first Arrival in this Kingdom to call a Sy­nod of Divines, as the most proper Expedient to pro­vide a proper Remedy for all those differences, and dissatisfactions which had or should arise, &c.

[Page 20] In the next Spring a Commission was Issued out under the Great Seal to several Episcopal and dissenting Divines to review and correct,Address to the Freemen and Freeholders of the Nation, Part. 1. if they should see cause, the Book of Prayer, and to make such alterations in it as should be thought fit; instead of which the Dissenting Divines re­jected the whole Book, and published a new one: So that this meeting, which was designed chiefly in favour of the Dissenters, discovered the falshood of all their Oyly pre­tences, and shewed they were neither for Liturgies or Episcopacy.

They had also made a strong Party in the Army, of which an account hath been given already.

So that the Parliament seeing there was no peace to be had as long as these men might do what they listed; and pervert the People, and incence them against the Govern­ment, passed the Act of Uniformity to Commence from St. Bartholomew, 1662.

During all this time his Majesty, notwithstanding their ill usage of him, mentioned in the last Declaration I cited, continued so courteous to these firy men as to excuse it to the Parliament, March 1. 1661. in these words:

Gentlemen, I hear you are very zealous for the Church, and very solicitous, and even jealous that there is not Expedition enough used in that Affair; and I thank you for it, since I presume it proceeds from a good root of Piety and Devotion, but I must tell you, I have the worst luck in the world, if, after all the reproaches of being a Papist, whilst I was abroad, I am suspected of being a Presbyterian now I am come home: I know you will not take it unkindly, if I tell you I am as zealous for the Church of England as any of you can be, and [Page 21] am enough acquainted with the Enemies of it, on all sides; that I am as much in love with the Book of Com­mon-Prayer, as you can wish, and have prejudice enough to those who do not love it; who I hope in time will be better informed, and change their minds; and you may be confident, I do as much desire to see a Uniformity settled as any amongst you. I pray trust me in that Affair, I promise you to hasten the dispatch of it with all convenient speed, you may relie upon me in it.

I have transmitted the Book of Common-Prayer, with those Alterations and Additions, which have been pre­sented to me by the House of Convocation, to the House of Peers with my Approbation, that the Act of Uni­formity may relate to it, so that I presume it will shortly be dispatched there: And when all is done we can, the well setling that Affair will require great Prudence and discretion, and the Absence of all Passion and Pre­cipitation.

The Act of Uniformity being setled and passed his Ma­jesty did not give over all his thoughts for the Dissenters,By a Declaration published December 26. 1662. in which are these words: but in the year 1662. was again labouring to revive his Declaration from Breda for Liberty of Conscience;We shall make it our special care, so far forth as in us lies, without invading the freedom of Parliament, to incline them to make such an Act, &c. which the House of Commons opposed, and drew up their reasons against it, in the form of an Address, wherein they particularly answer the pretences from the Declaration from Breda. Which tho the whole Address is in the third part of the Address to the Freemen and Freeholders of the Nation I will here transcribe, because this Book may possibly fall into some hands which have not that.

Yet after all this, the Fifteenth of March 1671-2. his Ma­jesty published a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience by the Advice of his Privy Council; which he was hardly persuaded to depart from by the Commons in Feb. See the first part of the Ad­dress to the Freemen, &c. 1672. The mischiefs of which Toleration or Indulgence have been so great to his Majesty in particular, and the whole Nation in general, that no man can well express them.

And now who can enough admire the Insolence of this discontented Gentleman, who dare say as he doth, That if the same diligence, the same earnest solicitations had been made use of in that affair, which have since been exercised di­rectly contrary to the design of it, there is no doubt but every part of it would have had the desired success, and all his [Page 24] Majesties Subjects would have enjoyed the fruits of it, and have now been extolling a Prince so careful to keep sacred his Promises to his People.

I say on the contrary, could his Majesty have been pre­vailed on by the unanswerable reasons of that most Excel­lent and most Loyal House of Commons, to have en­forced the execution of the Laws against Dissenters, he had never seen his Affairs reduced to that ill condition they were not long since in. And tho I question not but by Gods blessing his Majesty will in a short time resettle things, yet I will hope for time to come it shall be a Maxim in Eng­land, That the Strength of the Dissenters is the Weakness of the Throne.

As for our Authors jeering reflection on his Majesties other Declaration of April 20. 1679. concerning the Privy Council, and some persons then taken into it, his Maje­sty hath had but too much reason not to stick to the same when he see there were some men whom nothing could oblige to be faithful to him; but if his Majesty hath not advised with them; he hath with some others, at least as wise, and much honester than some of those who were laid aside, so that that Declaration hath been effectually made good to the Nation. And therefore we have no reason to question his Majesties Candor in this.

As for the Declaration read in our Churches the other day,Pag. 7. there needs no other Argument to make us doubt of the reality of the Promises which it makes, than to consider how parti­ally, and with how little sincerity the things which it pretends to relate are therein represented, it begins with telling us in his Majesties Name, That it was with exceeding great trouble that he was brought to dissolve the two last Parliaments without more benefit to the People by the calling of them. We should question his Majesties Wisdom, did we not believe him to have understood that never Parliament had greater Opportunites of doing good to Himself and his People. He [Page 25] could not but be sensible of the dangers, and of the necessities of his Kingdom, and therefore could not without exceeding great trouble be prevailed upon for the sake of a few desperate men (whom he thought himself concerned to love now, only because he had loved them too well, and trusted them too much before;) not only to disappoint the Hopes and Expectations of his own People, but of almost all Europe. His Majesty did indeed do his part, so far, in giving opportunities of proving for our good, as the calling of Parliaments do amount to, and it is to be imputed to the Mi­nisters only that the success of them did not answer his and our Expectations.

Thus far my Author is recited verbatim, that it may appear I do him no wrong. By which discourse of his (taking for the present no notice of his reflection on his Majesty for a person whose Promises were not real) it is agreed that the two last Parliaments had great opportuni­ties of doing good to his Majesty and his People, and my Author goes further, and adds the Hopes and Expecta­tion of almost all Europe to them. That his Majesty called these Parliaments he owns. That one of them sat a com­petent time for that purpose cannot be denied, viz. from Thursday October 21. 1680. till Monday the tenth day of January following, which deducting the time spent in the Trial of Viscount Stafford, was in some mens opinions suf­ficient to have dispatched much more business than was then done. And yet it doth not appear that his Majesty was enclined to have prorogued them then if he had not been highly provoked by them.

What my Author means by those few desperate men that prevailed upon his Majesty so much against his Will to part with that Parliament, I cannot guess, except they be the Eminent Persons which were declared Enemies to the King and Kingdom: which if they were, they are neither so few, nor such desperate men as to be laid aside barely upon [Page 26] a Vote of the House of Commons, without any Order or Process of Law, The Declarati­on. any hearing of their Defence, or any proof so much as offered against them. And I believe the meanest of them is equal to this Gentleman, as scornfully as he speaks of them.

But then in the last place, whether or no the dissoluti­on be to be imputed to the Ministers, or to the Parliament, i. e. the House of Commons will appear best in the exami­nation of his discourse, and of the Declaration.

It is certain (saith my Author) it cannot be imputed to any of the proceedings of either of those Parliaments; Pag. 7. which were composed of men of as good sence and quality as any in the Nation, and proceeded with as great moderation, and ma­naged their debates with as much temper, as ever was known in any Parliament. If all this is as certainly true as it is confidently asserted, then is it but a folly to dispute any further about it. But because his Majesty in his Declaration hath said some things that seem to look another way, my Reader may, if he please, suspend his belief of this parti­cular too; till his Majesties Allegations and this Gentlemans defence are examined, and then he will be better able to pass his Judgment.

If they seemed to go too far in any thing, his Majesties Speeches or Declarations had misled them, by some of which they had been invited to enter into every one of those debates to which so much exception hath been since taken. Did he not frequently recommend the prosecution of the Plot to them, with a strict and impartial inquiry? Did he not tell them, That he neither thought himself nor them safe,Speech. Octob. 21. 1680. till that matter was gone through with? Yes doubtless his Majesty did all this; but then where is any exception taken against any thing of this Nature they have done?

Did he not in his Speech April 30,Pag. 8. 1679. assure them that it was his constant care to secure our Religion for the future in all events; and that in all things which concerned the [Page 27] Publick Security, He would not follow their Zeal, but lead it. But,Address to the Freemen and Freehol­ders, Part II. pag. 22. Sir, did not his Majesty then also let you know that he excepted one thing, in which he would neither lead, nor follow their Zeal, which was the altering the descent of the Crown in the right Line, or defeating the Succession, which his Majesty commanded to be further explained by the Lord Chancellour, in such manner that it appeared to the whole Nation that his Majesty was resolved to do any thing for the freeing his People from their fears of Popery but what might tend to the disinheriting the Duke of York, or any other Lawful Successor? NowThough his Majesty could not do that without acting contrary to his own judgment, strengthened with the Opi­nion and Ad­vice given by his Royal Grandfather, King James of blessed memory, to his Eldest Son Price Henry, in these words: But if God give you not Succession, defraud never the nearest by right, whatsoever conceit ye have of the person. For Kingdoms are ever at Gods disposition, and in that case we are but live-rentars, lying no more in the Kings, nor Peoples hand to dispossess the righteous Heir. Basil. Doron. 62. ult. Ed. you, Sir, may re­member that nothing but this would satisfie the Commons in either of the two last Parliaments, in which they were not misled by any of his Majesties Speeches or declarati­ons, much less by this which was made of purpose to pre­vent the Bill before it was moved in the House of Com­mons.

Has he not often wished that he might be enabled to exer­cise a power of Dispensation in reference to those Protestants, Pag. 8. who through tenderness of misguided Conscience did not conform to the Ceremonies, Speech, Octob. 26. 1662. Discipline, and Government of the Church: Speech, Dece [...]. 26. 1662. and promised that he would make it his special care to encline the wisdom of the Parliament to concur with him in making an Act to that purpose? And did not that very Parliament draw up a long Address to his Majesty, containing the rea­sons why they could not concur with him in that point? And is not this one good proof that his Majesty was not unmindful of his Declaration at Breda, but was kept from doing what he was otherwise enclined enough to, not by a few desperate men, but by the Parliament?

[Page 28] And least the malice of ill men,Pag. 8. (i. e. the Dissenters) might object, that these gracious inclinations of his continued no longer than while there was a possibility of giving the Papists equal benefit of a Toleration. Has not his Majesty, since the discovery of the Plot, since there was no hopes of getting so much as a connivance for them in his Speech of March 6. 1678-9. express'd his zeal not only for the Protestant Religion in general, but for an Ʋnion amongst all sorts of Protestants. His Majesties words here are not truly recited, but are these: I meet you here with the most earnest desire that man can have to unite the minds of all my Subjects both to me and to one another, and I resolve it shall be your faults if the success be not suitable to my desires, &c. And a little after; Besides that end of Ʋnion which I aim at (and which I wish could be ex­tended to Protestants abroad as well as at home) I propose by this last great step I have made (the sending away his Royal Highness the Duke of York) to discern whether Protestant Religion and the peace of the Kingdom be as truly aimed at by others as they are really intended by me, &c. By which it ap­pears the Union his Majesty here meant was not that Union that was afterwards set on foot in Parliament, and I cannot but suspect these words were misrecited of purpose.

And did not he comand my Lord Chancellour to tell them,Pag. 8. That it was necessary to distinguish between Popish and other Recusants, between them that would destroy the whole flock, and them that only wander from it. These words are in­deed in the Lord Chancellors Speech but with this Preface, Neither is there, nor hath been these fifteen hundred years, a purer Church than ours,Speech. Mar. 6 1678-9. so 'tis for the sake of this poor Church alone that the State hath been so much disturbed. It is her Truth and Peace, her Decency and Order which they (the Plotters and Papists) labour to undermine, and pursue with so restless a malice; and since they do so, it will be necessary for us to distinguish between Popish and other Recusants, between [Page 29] them that would destroy the whole Flock, and them that only wander from it. So that whatever distinction his Majesty intended to allow between the Popish and Protestant Re­cusants, it must be such as was consistent with the Truth, Peace, Decency, and Order of the Religion by Law esta­blished, which I suspect the Project of Union set on foot was not, much less the Vote of the tenth of January for the suspending the execution of all Penal Laws made against them, as a weakening of the Protestant Interest, an encouragement to Popery, and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom.

These things considered, Pag. 8. we should not think the Parlia­ment went too far, but rather that they did not follow his Ma­jesties Zeal with an equal pace. At this rate of concluding a man may draw any Conclusion from any premises if he hath a mind to it. His Majesty would joyn with them in any course that might tend to the security of the Prote­stant Religion for the future,Lord Chan­cellors Speech, March 6. 167 [...]- [...]. so as the same extend not to the diminution of his own Prerogative, nor to alter the descent of the Crown in the right Line, nor to defeat the Succession. Therefore when they brought in a Bill to disinherit his Ma­jesties Brother against his expresly declared resolution, they did not go too far, but rather they did not follow his Ma­jesties Zeal with an equal pace. When his Majesty thought it necessary to distinguish betwixt Popish Recusants, and Protestant Dissenters; that is, to favour the latter more than the former, they were for taking away all those Laws at once that have distinguished betwixt the Dissenters and the Religion established, and giving up this Pure Church into the hands of her bitter Enemies, that had but just be­fore bid fair for her ruine; as if the only care had been, that the Papists might not have had the honour of destroy­ing her, and yet we are not to believe they went too far in this neither.

[Page 30] The truth is,Pag. 9. if we observe the daily provocations of the Popish Faction, whose rage and insolence were only increased by the discovery of the Plot, (so that they seemed to defie Parliaments, as well as inferiour Courts of Justice, under the Protection of the Duke, their Publickly Avowed Head;) who still carried on their designs by new and more detestable me­thods than ever, and were continually busie by Perjuries and Subornations, to charge the best and most considerable Pro­testants in the Kingdom with Treasons as black as those of which themselves were guilty. If we observe what vile Arts were used to hinder the further discovery, what liberty was given to reproach the Discoverers, what means used to destroy or corrupt them; how the very Criminals were incouraged and allowed to be good Witnesses against their Accusers: We should easily excuse an English Parliament thus beset, if they had been carried to some little Excesses not justifiable by the Laws of Parliament, or unbecoming the wisdom and gravity of an English Senate.

Now other men may possibly be of another mind, and think that if the state of things had been but half so deplo­rable as they are here described, the least Excess had been then inexcusable, for there is never more need of gravity than in great and eminent dangers; but what I shall say will, it is like, not be much regarded, hear then what the Chancellour of England said:Speech Mar. 6. 1678-9. The Considerations which are now to be laid before you are as Ʋrgent and as Weighty as were ever yet offered to any Parliament, or indeed ever can be, so great and so surprizing have been our Dangers at home, so formidable are the appearances of danger from abroad, that the most Ʋnited Counsels, the most Sedate and the calmest Temper, together with the most dutiful and zealous affections that a Parliament can shew, are all become absolutely and in­dispensably necessary for our preservation. So that little excesses are great crimes; when men are beset with dangers tho they may be excused in times of Peace and [Page 31] Security, if I rightly understand this wise and honourable person.

But if we come to search into the particulars here enu­merated, there may possibly arise better Arguments to excuse their Excesses. The Popish Faction about that time having tried all other ways to clear themselves of the Plot, without any good success, fell at last upon another Project, which was to start a New Plot. They knew there were in London some Clubbs, and Coffee-house-Sets, of Presbyte­rians, Old Army Officers, discontented Gentlemen, and Republicans, which had close Cabals, and private Meet­ings, and that the Court had a jealous eye upon them, as indeed there was good cause for it, and out of these mate­rials they thought they might easily raise the structure of a Presbyterian Plot against the State, but all the chief men of the Popish Faction being fled, imprisoned, or executed, this grand Design fell into the hands of people of no great either parts or reputation, to carry on so difficult an Under­taking, and it was not likely neither to be easily believed if it had no other Witnesses but Papists to attest it. And it was not possible for them to bring over any other, of any reputation, in the low estate their affairs then were, so that the Contrivance miscarried, and only tended to make the Papists more hated than they were before, and this is called the Meal-Tub Plot; which I should rather have ascribed to the rage and desperation of the Papists, than to their Insolence, which was then very well abated by the Execution of Coleman, Staley, the Murtherers of Sir Ed­mundbury Godfry, and the Jesuits, which had reduced them to too low a condition to defie the meanest Courts of Ju­stice in the Nation, and put them upon those mean and base thoughts of Perjuries and Subornations, to avoid that ruine which they saw ready to overwhelm and destroy them.

[Page 32] But that which they were never able to effect themselves the Dissenters did for them, for from the moment the Po­pish Plot was discovered they entered into a project to make use of it another way against the King and Court on one hand, and against the Church and the Loyal Gentry on the other.

In order to this they had these close Cabals, and private Meetings, (I last mentioned) where they invented and spread abroad a thousand idle Stories to fright the Common People out of their little Wits; and also raised Money, which they liberally bestowed amongst the Informers to render them more obsequious to them, so that in a short time Informing became a very thriving trade, if it would have held; and this great familiarity betwixt the discoverers of the Plot and the Whigs was the best colour afterwards for the Meal-Tub Presbyterian Plot.

By this means the People were easily deluded into a conceit that these Gentlemen who took such care of the Discoverers, and their Party, who were always haranguing against Popery, were the only Protestants in the Nation that could save them out of the hands of the Papists. And on the other side, the Court and all the Loyal Gentry and Clergy became suspected of want of zeal against Popery; and this was heightned by the Discoverers themselves, who were for the most part men of no very great or good qua­lities, and were so puffed up by the flatteries and Libera­lities of the Whigs, and their own high conceits of the Service they had done the Nation, that they thought no recompence, no respect which was bestowed upon them was great enough, and so became insolent both in their carriage and discourses, by which means they became less respected rhan before, till at last they were forced to give themselves up intrirely to the Whigs.

This had two very different effects upon several sorts of men, some believed that there was no Popish Plot, after [Page 33] they saw the Dissenters reap all the advantage by it. And others thought that all but the Dissenters were more or less concerned in the guilt of it as well as the Papists, or at least were favourers of the Papists and Popery.

Things being in this state, especially after the dissolu­tion of the Long Loyal Parliament, the Discoverers lost much of their reputation, but that ever any vile Arts were used to hinder any further discovery of the Plot by any but the Papists, or that liberty was given to reproach, or any means used to corrupt or destroy them that were the Wit­nesses, except it were by Papists, doth not appear, and in all those cases, all the care in the world was taken of the Witnesses too, by the King and his Council. And as to that which my Author mentions in the last place, How the very Criminals were incouraged and allowed to be good Wit­nesses against their Accusers, I cannot imagine what he means by it; or when, or where it should be done, tho I have read over all the Printed Trials, and therefore it is enough to deny this, and put him upon the proof of it.

But how did all these things tend to the advantage of the Popish Plotters in the end?

First, As the Zeal of these people fired the Rabble, so it put the Long Loyal Parliament too into so great a fret, that it proved mortal; and then going downward, it put the Country into such disorder, that tho his Majesty hath given us the opportunities of chusing three Parliaments one after another, we have not been able to send up one, that has not fallen into those little Excesses which have occasioned their dissolution before they had done us any considerable good. And at length his Majesty is forced for some time to keep us without one; to try if Fasting will bring us in­to our senses again, and in the mean time the noise of the Popish Plot is drowned, by new and more surprizing at­tempts of the Whigs, and that Popish Party, which whilst [Page 34] it had none but real Papists in its List, was the abomination of all Protestants, now the Whigs have joyned all the Church of England men to them by their lies and slan­ders, even that very Popish Party begin to be better thought of for their sakes who are falsly joyned with them, and by these and many other ways the prosecution of the Popish Plot any further is thought by most men impossible. Whereas had not the Dissenters been thus serviceable to them, there is reason to believe they would have suffered much more than they have done, and there would have been much sharper Laws made against them, than they need fear now.

If all this be considered, it will easily appear, it was not the Protection of the Duke, whom this Gentleman can never prove the Publickly avowed Head of the Papists, but the over-doing of the business, that hath delivered the Po­pish Faction out of that fear and danger which the discove­ry of the Plot had cast them into.

We must own (saith my Author) that his Majesty has opened all his Parliaments at Westminster with very Gracious Expressions,Pag. 9. nor have we wanted that Evidence of his readi­ness to satisfie the desires of his Subjects, but that sort of Evi­dence will soon lose its force if it be never followed by Actions correspondent; by which only the World can judge of the since­rity of Expressions or Intentions.

Had the two short Parliaments at Westminster been the only Parliaments his Majesty had ever called since his re­turn, there might have been some colour for this undutiful reflection, but all the World knows there were two there before them, and that his Majesty complied with them in almost all they asked in a regular way, and when at any time he was necessitated to deny them any request, he gave them such reason for it, as they seemed to be well plea­sed with his denial.

[Page 35] It will appear to any man that his Majesty hath passed more Acts in twenty years than any one of his Ancestors have done in twice the time, that he hath abated more of his just and real Prerogative than any Prince we ever yet had could be brought to part with. The Court of Wards, and the Right of Purveyance, were great advantages to the Crown, and as troublesom to the Subjects till his Majesty generously gave them up, and these two Pre­rogatives were never Contested, and I might instance in some other if I did not think it sit to be as short as I can.

In almost twenty years that the Long Loyal Parliament sate, I never heard of above one Bill that had passed both Houses, which was denied his Royal Assent, and that was, The Bill for preserving the peace of the Kingdom by raising the Militia, and continuing them in duty for two and forty days; which Bill was refused November 30. 1678. and then also his Majesty gave this reason for it: That he did not refuse to pass it for the dislike of the matter, but the manner, because it put the Militia for so many days out of his power, and if it had been but for half an hour he would not have consented to it, because of the ill consequences it might have hereafter, the Militia being wholly in the Crown, &c. Now I believe it would be difficult for my Au­thor to make and prove the like instance, in any of our for­mer Princes.

And in the first of the short Westminster Parliaments his Majesty passed the Act for the better securing of the Li­berty of the Subject, and for preventing imprisonment beyond Seas, A seasonable Address to both Houses of Parliament, pag. 4. to which an honourable Person adds, The Act against quartering of Souldiers upon the Subject, and saith, his Majesty might have had many Millions for these Acts if he had insisted on a bargain, or known how to distin­guish between his own private Interest and that of the Subject, or the truckling way of Bartering when the good of his People was concerned.

[Page 36] And in the last short-lived Westminster Parliament his Majesty passed the Act against Importation of Irish Cattel, for no other visible cause, but because both Houses had passed it, tho it tended to the Diminution of his Revenue. And now let us see how gratefully our Author treats him for all these Royal and Prince-like Favours.

Therefore the Favorites did little consult his Majesties Honour when they bring him in solemnly declaring to his Subjects,Pag. 9. that his intentions were as far as would have consisted with the very Being of the Government, to have complied with any thing that could have been proposed to him to accomplish those Ends he had mentioned, which were the satisfying the de­sires of his Subjects, and securing them against all their just fears, when they are not able to produce an instance wherein they suffered him to comply in any one thing. Whatever the House of Commons Addressed for, was certainly denied, tho it was only for that reason; and there was no surer way of Intituling ones self to the favour of the Court, than to receive a Censure from the representative body of the People.

As to the Addresses made by the House of Commons alone, they were many of them such as his Majesty could not comply with without great mischief to himself or them that had exprest the greatest Zeal for his Service, and when for that case only they seemed to be persecuted, it would have been very impolitick in his Majesty, tho he had been his own man, and not under the dominion of the Favorites (as it seems he was) to have yielded to the Com­mons against them.

But cannot the Favorites instance wherein they suffered his Majesty to comply in any one thing with the House of Commons? Did not his Majesty at their single request Par­don a great many Informers against the Plotters? Did he not pardon B. Harris too, his 500 l. Fine and Imprisonment which he had incurred by Printing disloyal and seditious [Page 37] Pamphlets? Did not his Majesty upon their Address dis­charge all the Protestant Dissenters who were then under prosecution upon several Penal Statutes, without paying Fees, as far as it could be done according to Law, and pro­mise also to recommend them to the Judges? There might many other instances be given, of moneys issued out, of persons taken care for, and the like upon the single re­quest of the Commons, so that I cannot but wonder where my Authors modesty was when he pressed the Favorites to give one instance of his Majesties compliance with the House of Commons.

But his Majesty and the Court were kind to all that re­ceived any Censure from the representative body of the People. They might thank themselves for that who be­stowed their Censures so freely on men that had deserved very well of his Majesty and the Government, and yet I believe there may be some instances given of men whom they Censured or imprisoned, that have not been mightily advanced since by the Court, but let us examine those few particular Examples my Author hath marked out.

Let it for the present be admitted (saith my Author) that some of the things desired by that Parliament were ex­orbitant,Pag. 10. and (because we will put the objection as strong as is possible) inconsistent with the very being of the Govern­ment, yet at least some of their Petitions were more rea­sonable.

Doubtless there was some such, which therefore were freely granted by his Majesty, as I have proved.

The Government might have subsisted though the Gentlemen put out of the Commission of the Peace for their zealous acting against the Papists had been restored.Pag. 10.

And so might the Protestant Religion by Law established be preserved without the assistance of these zealous Gentle­men, and therefore his Majesty was not to be instructed by these Representatives, whom he should imploy as Justices [Page 36] [...] [Page 37] [...] [Page 38] of the Peace, especially after they had discovered so much kindness for the Dissenters, who have something an odd Notion of Papists and Popery.

Nor would a final Dissolution of all things have ensued,Pag. 10. tho Sir George Jefferies had been removed out of all Publick Offices, or my Lord Hallifax himself from his Majesties Pre­sence and Councils.

The first of these, Sir George Jefferies was then Recorder of London, Votes. Nov. 13. 1680. and was prosecuted by a part of the City, for that he by traducing and obstructing Petitioning for the sitting of that Parliament, had betrayed the Rights of the Subject. Now that Gentleman opposed them (as many others did) in obedience to his Majesties Proclamati­on, and the Laws of the Land; and it was a little unreaso­nable that his Majesty should joyn with the Commons to ruine him, though it could be made out that his Majesties Proclamation was illegal, and that there were a mistake also in the point of Law.

My Lord Hallifax was prosecuted only for opposing the Bill for disinheriting the Duke of York in the House of Lords, and no fault whatsoever laid to his charge. Now he being a Member of that House, it had been very unreasonable for his Majesty to have punished him for using his own just and legal freedom, in a case especially where­in his Majesty had declared his own resolution so very often before.

Now, Sir, tho these two Persons are not essentially ne­cessary to the preservation of the Government, yet it is ab­solutely so, that his Majesty do not give up those that have faithfully and legally served him in their proper Stations, either to please the People or their Representatives, with­out a legal trial, and a just defence. We may all remember what the Consequences of his Majesties Fathers giving up the Earl of Strafford in the beginning of the late troubles were; and I hope I shall never live to see that sort of com­pliance reacted again.

[Page 39] Had the Statute of 35.Pag. 10. Eliz. (which had justly slept for Eighty years, and of late, unreasonably16 Car. 2. &c. 4. revived) been repealed, surely the Government might still have been safe. And though the Fanaticks perhaps had not deserved so well as that in favour to them, his Majesty should have passed that Bill, yet since the Repeal might hereafter be of great use to those of the Church of England, in case of a Popish Successor, (which Blessing his Majesty seems resolved to bequeath to his People) one would have thought he might have complied with the Parliament in that Proposal.

It is very probable his Majesty would have complied with them in that particular, tho it is past a perhaps the Fanaticks had not, nor ever will as long as they continue such, deserve that favour at his hands: But, modest Sir, how doth it appear that his Majesty is resolved to bequeath his People the Blessing of a Popish Successor? Hath he promised the Duke to die before him? Hath his Majesty obliged him to continue a Papist (if he be one) in spight of his Interest to the contrary? Is this your Justice? Is this your Modesty?

But the Ministers thought they had not sufficiently trium­phed over the Parliament by getting the Bill rejected unless it were done in such a manner as that the precedent might be more pernicious to Posterity,Pag. 10. by introducing a new Negative in the making of Laws, than the losing the Bill, how useful so­ever, could be to the present Age.

That this Bill was not tendered to his Majesty for his Assent appears by three Votes of the Commons at Ox­ford.

The House then according to their order (the day before) took into consideration the matter relating to the Bill which passed both Houses in tbe last Parliament,Friday, March 25. 1681. entituled, An Act for the repeal of a Statute made in the 35 year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, but was not tendered to his Majesty for his Royal Assent.

[Page 40] Resolved, that a Message be sent to the Lords, desiring a Conference with their Lordships in matters relating to the constitution of Parliaments, in passing Bills.

Ordered that a Committee be appointed to consider of, and prepare the subject matter to be offered at the said Conference.

Thus far that Parliament went in order to the discovery of the cause of the not tendering that Bill, and I have heard the Lords also were upon an inquiry what was become of it, but the dissolution preventing them, I never heard that there was any discovery made then or since of the person or persons that took it away.

Now where my Author had his intelligence that the Mi­nisters took it away to introduce a new Negative in the making of Laws, I shall not inquire.

This we may affirm,Pag. 10. That if the success of this Parliament did not answer expectation, whoever was guilty of it, the House of Commons did not fail in doing their part. Never did men husband their time to more advantage. They opened the Eyes of the Nation, they shewed them their danger, with a freedom becoming English men.

It was a Caution given by Queen Elizabeth in the end of a Parliament held in the 35th year of her Reign:Historical Col­lect. of the four last Parlia­ments of Q. Eliz. p. 47. That she would not have the People feared with reports of great dangers, but rather encouraged witb boldness against the Ene­mies of the State, And what the effect of our new Poli­ticks was once before we will remember.

They Asserted tbe Peoples right of Petitioning.

Yes, that they did too very effectually. Tho there was an Act of Parliament then in force, with this Preface. Whereas it hath been found by sad experience that tumultuous and other disorderly soliciting,13 Car. 2. ca. 5. and procuring of Hands by private persons to Petitions, Complaints, Remonstrances, and Declarations, and other Addresses to the King, or both or either [Page 41] houses of Parliament, for alteration of Matters Established by Law, redress of pretended Grievances in Church or State, OR OTHER PUBLICK CON­CERNMENTS, have been made use of, to serve the Ends of factious and seditious persons gotten into power, to the violation of the Publick Peace, and have been great means of the late unhappy Wars, Confusions, and Calamities of this Nation, &c.

They Proceeded vigorously against the Conspirators disco­vered,Pag. 10. and heartily endeavoured to take away the veryBy the Bill to disinherit his Royal Highness. Root of the Conspiracy. They had before them as many great and useful Bills as had been seen in any Parliament, and it is not to be laid at their doors that they proved abortive. This Age will never fail to give them their grateful Acknowledg­ments, And Posterity will remember that House of Commons with honour.

We come now to the particular enumeration of those gra­cious things which were said to the Parliament at Westmin­ster. Pag. 11. His Majesty ask'd of them the supporting the Alliances he had made for the preservation of the General Peace in Chri­stendom. It is to be wished his Majesty had added to his gra­cious asking of Money a gracious Communication of those Alliances, that such blind obedience had not been exacted from them as to contribute to the support of they knew not what themselves, nor before they had considered whether those Alliances which were made, were truly designed for that End [Page 42] which was Pretended (very dutifully said) or any way likely to prove effectual to it, since no precedent can be shewn, that ever a Parliament (not even the late Long Parliament, tho filled with Danby his Pensioners) did give money for maintain­ing any Leagues till they were first made acquainted with the particulars of them.

That Leagues have been communicated to Parliaments heretofore is not to be disputed, but that they were ever tendered before they were asked for, is not so plain; Nor doth it appear this was denied. And as to his Parenthesis I desire only that it may be observed for my excuse, in case I happen to speak any thing not respective enough of the renowned Parliament at Westminster.

But besides this,Pag. 11. this Parliament had reason to consider well of the general Peace it self, and the influence it might have, and had, upon our Affairs, before they came to any reso­lution, or so much as a debate about preserving it; since so wise a Minister as my Lord Chancellor (blessed be God we have one wise Minister, Lord Chancellors Speech. May 23. 1678. The words are these: The influence such a Peace will have upon our Affairs are fitter for Medita­tion than Discourse.—There­fore it will import us to streng­then our selves at home and abroad, that it may not be found a cheap or easie thing to put an Affront upon us. they have all along hitherto in general terms been treated at such a rare as if none of them had had either Wit or Honesty) had so lately told us, that it was fitter for meditation than discourse. He informed us in the same Speech, that the Peace then was but the effect of Despair in the Confederates, and we have since learnt by whose means they were reduced to that Despair, and what price was demanded of the French King for so great a Service.

It is an old Maxim, That men should neither deliberate nor debate about those things that are not in their power. Now, whatever this General Peace was, and whatever the effects of it might be, the right of Peace and War was in the King, and the Commons could not alter one tittle of it: And a small degree of experience in the World will [Page 43] tell any man, that England was not then in a condition to break alone with that Monarch, which had tired out all Chri­stendom with a tedious expensive War, when they were united against him: And therefore the best Expedient that could then have fallen into the Heads of the Commons had been to have shewn him, and all the Confederates, that we were resolved to have stood by our King with our Lives and Fortunes, which would have heartned them on to a stout resistance in case of his further encroachments upon them, and in likelihood have kept him in some aw; whereas the course that was taken had a quite contrary effect, and tended more a thousand times to the discou­ragement of the Confederates than the fruitless attempt he hints at, made by the Earl of Danby, who was then in the Tower for it. So that I believe all Europe will bear me Wit­ness, that all the great things the French King hath since done were in a great measure owing to theDr. Nalson ob­serves, that the like disorders had the same effect in the time of His Majesties Fa­ther, who (he saith by this means) lost the opportunity of being able to support his Friends and Allies, as also that Honour and Terrour among his Enemies Abroad, which the Union and hearty Affecti­ons of his Parliament, would have rendred great and dreadful, but now he became mean and contemptible; that Prince who hath not power o [...] his own Subjects at home being in no probable capacity of doing any great matters abroad. Preface to his impartial Collection. Pag. 61. disorders of our English Parliaments, and their declared resolution of giving the King no Supplies upon reasonable terms, which rendered the Alliance and Enmity of our King abroad inconsiderable.

Amongst the great things the French King hath done since the Peace, Pag. 11. my Author tells us this: His Pensioners at our Court have grown insolent upon it, and presumed that now He (the French King) may be at leisure to assist them (the Pensioners) in ruining England, and the Protestant Religion together. (And they) have shaken off all dread of Parlia­ments, and have prevailed with his Majesty to use them with as little respect, and to disperse them with as great contempt, [Page 44] as if they had been a Conventicle, and not the great Repre­sentative of the Nation, whose Power and Wisdom only could save him and us in our present Exigencies.

Surely the man that talks thus contemptuously of his Majesty and all the Ministers, durst have told us, if he could, who were these French Pentioners, but it was not his de­sign to point out the men; but to cast out general Accu­sations against the King, the Ministers, and the whole Go­vernment, thereby to incense the People, and to make them ungovernable, that so his Majesty might be the sooner necessitated to submit himself to that Power and Wisdom that could only save him and us, but might also easily ruine both, if things were once put into such a state, as his Maje­sty were no longer Master of that Power.

As to the Accusation, or rather Calumny, that the English Ministers are Pensioners to the French King, it will easily appear false to any man that doth but reflect on Colemans Letters, in 1674: when the King was in a much better condition to oppose and ruine the French designs and enterprizes, and the French King had all the Confederates United, and in an Actual War with him, and there was nothing to fear or hope for but in England, yet he then re­fused three hundred thousand Pounds, tho it was pretended it would have assured the Dissolution of that long Loyal Parliament, which France feared more than threescore such as have followed it; and when at last Coleman descended to 200000 l. and at one time begged shamefully but for 20000 l. Colemans long Letter. He was denied it, Monsieur Rouvigni, the French Embassadour, usually telling him, That if he could be sure of succeeding in that design his Master would give a much larger Sum; but that he was not in a condition to throw away money upon uncertainties, Nor doth it appear that ever Coleman got one farthing at that time.

And after the discovery of the Plot, and the dissolution of the long Loyal Parliament, the general Peace having [Page 45] delivered the French King from all Apprehensions of good or hurt from England; His Majesty having such ill success in the first short Westminster Parliament, and the Divisions of England appearing more fully in the Election of the Second, and the year that passed betwixt that and its sitting, (all which were as well known in Paris as in London) it is not to be doubted but he very well understood that there was then less reason to maintain Pensioners in England than be­fore So that we may conclude from that time there hath come but little French Money over into England for Pen­sions to any Party, England being thought in France so in­considerable by reason of her Domestick Feuds, Fears, and incurable Jealousies; that there is nothing to be feared or hoped from it; whereas Pensions are to be imployed in Po­tent and United States.

I do not design by this to prove that no French Pensioners are now maintained in England, but that they are few, and gain but little by it, and therefore it is ridiculous to con­ceive that all our Ministers of State are such, and that they should be such fools as to conspire with France to ruine England for nothing, or that which is next to it. And it is as silly a supposition that the Privy Council, and the rest of the Ministers of State, who are not Pensioners, should not discover those that are, as soon as this discontented Gentleman.

There is a lewd and impossible conceit spread under­hand about the Nation that the King himself is a Pensioner to France: and all that is pretended to justifie it, is only his being able to subsist so long without Parliamentary Sup­plies. Now, this I believe is not credited by any men of understanding, but yet there are many such, who for ill ends speak it in some companies, and will shake their heads, and shrug their shoulders, and look gravely in other com­panies, that they may seem to fear what they durst not speak.

[Page 46] Now, if what I have said before be applied to this in­stance, it will appear more ridiculous; for that Pension that may tempt a hungry Courtier, who is to raise a Fami­ly, would be rejected with scorn if it were tendered to a meaner Prince than ours is. And it is not to be thought that the French King, who is observed to be as sparing of his Wealth, as prodigal of his Souldiers, would ever be at such an Expence as to maintain our Court and his own; for fear the King should unite with a Parliament that would be an Enemy to France; no, all knowing men understand how little he cares for England if it were quiet at home, but as now things stand he scorns it, as beneath his Consi­deration.

Well, but if neither the Ministers, nor his Majesty are to be suspected, who are? I will tell you that in the words of a more knowing man than I dare pretend to be.

Those that roar most against French Councils and Measures;A seasonable Address to the Parliament. Ʋnder-hand-bargains, and Agreements, between both the Kings,pag. 6, 7. know they belye their own Consciences, and that the French have us in the last degree of Contempt. This the Earl of Danby Printed in his own vindication, perhaps not ignorant that some of their Ministers did in the year 1677, and 78. before the breaking forth of the Plot, declare, That Monsieur L. had greater interest, and more Friends in England than the Duke of York; that the King had need be on his guard, for he was in great danger of running the same risque with his Father, when it was likewise inquired what interest amongst the People two great Peers had, who have since the Plot been great Pillars of the Protestant Religion, tho neither was ever reputed to have any, were Ministers and Advisers in 1670, and 71. very good Friends to France and Popery, Enemies to the Triple Alliance, and to Holland, &c. It was also said, That 300000 l. a year bestowed in Scotland and England, among the Factious and Discontented, would bet­ter serve the Interest of France, than any Bargain they could [Page 47] drive with the Ministers. Thus far that noble Pen hath discovered who are the French Pensioners, and Reason speaks the same thing: For if it be the Interest of France to divide England, it is their Interest too, to do it as cheap as they can, and there is no doubt to be made of it but 10000 l. a year, divided amongst the London Holders­forth, and the Walling fordians, on no other condition but that they should declaim stoutly against the King, the Court, the Ministers, France, and Popery, (things which no money could make them forbear speaking against) would more effectually engage them to go on in that course, than all the treasures of France would the King and Mini­sters to procure the Ruine of England, and the settlement of Popery; things which Nature and Education have taught them to abhor. And by this means England (as they might easily foresee) would be so divided, that if a Civil War did not follow, yet at least there would be no fear of its being in a condition to look abroad and succour its Neighbours.

To these men is owing all that Contempt that hath fallen upon our English Parliaments both at home and beyond the Seas, who by putting the House of Commons upon those things that would disgust the King, and all the Gen­try in the Nation, have done as much as they could to make them first feared, and then hated by almost one half of the Subjects, and tends as directly to the ruine of that ancient and excellent Constitution as the disorders of the Tribunes of the People, did to the ruine of the Liberty of the Romans.

But alas if we look into the Speech made at the opening of the Parliament,Pag. 12. we shall find no mention of any new Ally ex­cept the Spaniard, whose Affairs at that time, through the defects of their own Government, and the Treachery of our Ministers, were reduced to so desperate a state, that he might well be a burthen to us, but there was little to be hoped from [Page 48] a Friendship with him; unless by the name of a League to recommend our Ministers to a New Parliament, and cozen Country Gentlemen of their Money.

Before I can answer this, I ought to Transcribe so much of his Majesties Speech as concerns this business; which is as followeth:

[Page 49] Now all the Gentlemans Craft lay in the word New, there is no mention of any New Ally. No, but there is mention of an old one, double Confederated both with Spain and England to the same purpose, and these three States being thus United, as his Majesty truly tells them, would in a little time draw in more if our Divisions did not prevent it. Our Divisions had that effect, and made the King a true Prophet against his will, and now all the blame is to be thrown upon the Ministers, that is in reality upon the King.

Nay, our Ministers (poor unfortunate men) must bear the reproach of Ruining not only England, but Spain too by their Treachery: but yet our kind Author doth not lay all that burthen upon their shoulders, but confesseth that their ill Governing had a part in it; but however it came to pass, Spain was in so desperate a state then that it might be a burthen to England, but no ways beneficial. And yet before the end of this very Paragraph he is in a dreadful fear that Spain should joyn with his Majesties Successor, and for the introduction of Popery make a War upon the People with all his Forces by Sea and Land. At this rambling rate does our Gentleman talk.

It cannot be denied but that the Affairs of Spain were very ill managed at that time, but then that was owing to the Minority of their King, the Factions in their Court, the Contests betwixt Don John and the Queen-Mother their Regent, and their two Parties, and it is not improba­ble the French King might have some few Pensioners in Spain as well as England; but yet that once most potent Kingdom was not sunk to so low an Ebb of Fortune as to be only a burthen to its Allies, tho it had need of them, and ought by all the rules of Policy to have been so much the more carefully secured and supported by them, especially by England.

[Page 50] And therefore our Country Gentlemen, who were too wise to be cozened of their money by the crafty Mini­sters, will, I hope, not lay it to their charge too, that the Affairs of Spain have ever since visibly declined, and the French King hath taken near as much from his Neighbours during the Peace, upon pretence of Dependencies by Pro­cess, as he got in all the War by his Sword and potent Ar­mies. For this seems in great part at least, not so much owing to the Treachery of our Ministers, as to the Tenacity and thriftiness of these Country Gentlemen, that were so shie of being cozened of their Money.

But upon the perusal of the League,Pag. 12. it appears by the 3, 4, and 5. Articles, that it was like to create us troubles enough, for it engages us indefinitely to enter into all the quarrels of the Spaniards, tho they hapned in the West Indies or the Philippine Islands, or were drawn upon himself by his own injustice or causeless provocations.

Whether my Author have been any more faithful in his account of this League, than he was of the Kings Speech I cannot say; because it is not in my power to examine those Articles. But his mentioning our obligation to assist Spain in the West-Indies and Philippine Islands, where it is impossible, against the Duke of Brandenburg, and the King of Portugal, where it would be unjust, and against his Pro­testant Subjects opprest by him, as they were by his Grandfather Philip, are such things would make a man suspect his sincerity a little; and the rather, because his Majesty tells us, The League was suitable to that which he had before with the States of the Ʋnited Provinces, and they also had with Spain, consisting of mutual obligations of Succour and Defence.

Now, the account my Author gives of it is in part so impossible, and in the rest so improbable, that no Mortal in his right Wits can believe that Spain should desire, or England grant, any such things. And therefore if he had [Page 51] at all expected to have been believed, he ought to have Transcribed those three Articles for a proof of what he had said.Verbae strictius quam fere proprietas, sumenda erunt, si id necessarium erit ad vitandam iniquitatem, vel Absurdltatem, atsi non talis est necessitas, sed manifesta aequitas vel utilitas in restrictione, subsistendum erit intra arctissimos terminos pro­prietatus nisi Circumstantia ali­ud suadeant. Grot. de jure Belli & Pacis, lib. 2. cap. 16. sect. 12. And whereas he tells us, it engages us indefinitely to enter into all the quarrels of the Spaniards. That, if true, will bear a fair Construction, and will no more oblige us to those things he mentions (if they be not ex­press'd, (nay, I think I may say, if they be) in plain terms) than it will to help the King of Spain to destroy our selves, in case he should happen to have a quarrel with us hereafter. For no League can bind any further than as it is just and possible.

But that which concerns us yet nearer (saith my Author) in this League,Pag. 13. is, that this obligation of Assistance was mutu­al, so that if a Disturbance should happen hereafter in England upon any attempt to change our Religion, or our Go­vernment, tho it was in the time of his Majesties Successors. The most Catholick King is obliged by this League, (which we are still to believe was entered into, for the security of the Protestant Religion, and the good of the Nation) to give aid to so pious a design, and to make War upon (their Majesties) the People with all his Forces both by Land and Sea. And therefore it was no wonder that the Ministers were not for­ward in shewing this League to the Parliament, who would have soon observed all these inconveniences, and have seen how little such a League could contribute to the preserving the General Peace, or to the securing of Flanders, since the French King may within one months time possess himself of it, and we by our League are not obliged to send our Succours till three months after the Invasion, so that they would upon the whole matter have been inclined to suspect, that the main end of this League was only to serve for a handsom pretence to raise an Army in England, and if the People here should grow discontented at it, and any little disorders should ensue; [Page 52] The Spaniard is thereby obliged to send over Forces to suppress them.

This is fraught with such rare new Politicks, and he has taken such care to make Rebellion safe, whether it hap­pens in his Majesties time, or in his Successors, especially if it were in order to the preservation of our Religion and Government, (and wo be to the man that begins one on any other pretence) that I thought sit to transcribe it intire.

But Sir, whatever the Spaniard hath promised, or the Ministers intended against the People must needs come to nothing; for you know that his Affairs were lately, through the defects of his own Government, and the Treachery of our Ministers, reduced to so desperate a state, that he might well be a Burthen to us, but there was little to be hoped for from a friendship with him; and therefore as little in hast to be feared from his Forces too, if he should be so Popishly in­clined as to think it a Pious design to help the King to bring in Arbitrary Government, by the handsom pretence of an Army raised for his assistance: or that and Popery too in the time of his Majesties Successor, to which this Gentleman knows (no man better) the People have no Maw, tho the Ministers have a filthy inclination, and therefore cunningly took care by their Treachery to reduce his Affairs (whose help they chiefly relied on) into that desperate condition we lately see them in.

Well, but for all that he may recover some part of his ancient Power; yes, who doubts that, to hurt us, but not to help us. And now, no man can blame the Ministers that they were not forward in shewing this League to the Parliament, who would doubtless have forthwith Ad­dressed to the King against them, and ushered it in with a Vote, that they were all of them Promoters of Popery, and Spa­nish Counsels, and Enemies to the King and Kingdom.

[Page 53] By this League in seems the King was not obliged to send over any Succours till three months after an Invasion, (tho it is as plain as the Nose on a mans face) that the French King may in one months time possess himself of Flanders. He may however take longer time, if he please, for any care was taken here to prevent it, so that if his Majesty had taken a little too long a time to send in his Aids (which all things considered few men will think he did) yet they that should have backed him in it have taken a longer time, and therefore ought not to com­plain.

The next thing (saith my Author) recommended to them was the further Examination of the Plot,Pag. 13. and every one who have observed what has passed for more than two years toge­ther, cannot doubt but that this was sincerely desired by such as are most in credit with his Majesty. And then surely the Parliament deserved not to be censured upon this account, since the Examination of so many new Witnesses, the Trial of the Lord Stafford, the great preparations for the trial of the rest of the Lords, and their diligent inquiry into the Horrid Irish Treasons, shew that the Parliament wanted no diligence to pursue his Majesties good intentions in that affair.

Now Sir, If they had but suspended the Bill for disinhe­riting the Duke of York, and their Votes that followed upon the throwing it out in the Lords House, and could but have held their hands from sending for their fellow-Subjects into Custody, till they had dispatched this great Affair, & tried all the other Lords in the Tower; it is thought by wiser men than I, they might have had time enough to have gone through with this business, but some body tells us the Plot was to be kept on foot, Seasonable Address, p 3. else they would be defeated. It was to be used like the Holy War, always a doing, never done withal, till it made way for some other designs that would not go merrily without the noise of a Plot to drive them.

[Page 54] When his Majesty desired from the Parliament their Ad­vice and assistance concerning the Preservation of Tangier, Pag. 13. the Commons did not neglect to give it its due Consideration, as appears by their Addresses of November 29. and Decemb. 21. 1680. and they told him, no better could be expected of a Town for the most part under Popish Governours; and always filled with a Popish Garrison.

Now this Gentleman might have done the World a Kindness to have told us how the Popery of the Gover­nours or Garrison contributed any thing to the present Exi­gencies of that place, into which it fell, not by any neglect or Treachery, but by a Siege laid about it by a potent Army of Moors.

They promised to assist him in defence of it,Pag. 13. as soon as ever they could be reasonably secured, that any Supply which they gave for that purpose, should not be used to augment the strength of our Popish Adversaries, and to encrease our dan­gers at home.

All the rest is of the same kind with this. But Sir, can you tell what was meant by a reasonable security? Or wherein the state of England would have been mended if Tangier had been lost? Or can you give us any reason why this Parliament seemed resolved to run the Risque of losing this Town,April 7, and 9. 1678. when the former Parliament had Voted so stoutly for the Annexing it to the Crown? I might perhaps go near to answer all these questions from the exact Collection of Debates which are Printed, but the safer and shorter way is to refer my Reader to them for his sa­tisfaction.

My Author owns that his Majesty offered to concur in any Remedies that could be proposed for the security of the Pro­testant Religion,Pag. 14. but (saith he) he was pleased to go no fur­ther, (how could he?) for those Remedies the Commons offered were rejected, and those which they were preparing were prevented by a dissolution.

[Page 55] What was rejected is well enough understood, viz. the Bill of Exclusion, and if the Association was what was preparing, it is not great wonder it should be prevented by a Dissolution. But for this we must be contented to remain in ignorance.

His Majesty had complained of Addresses in the name of Remonstrances rather than Answers.Pag. 14. Now, here my Author cannot guess what the Ministers would have the word Remonstrance sig [...]ifie; but he takes it to be a modest expressing the reasons of their resolution. Now, if this be the meaning of the Word, we must own his Majesty hath in this particular charged the Commons wrongfully, for there was seldom too much modesty joyned with their Reasons, but they rather to us poor Country Folk, seemed to have altogether lost that respect that was due to the Crown, as any body else would think that should compare their Addresses with those made in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Hist. Col. of the four last Parliaments of Q Eliz. particularly that made to thank her for taking away a part only of the Monopolies that oppressed them in the 44. year of her Reign, when the Speaker and the whole House of Commons sate a good while on their knees to her, but our Gentlemen treated our King at quite another rate, and not much unlike those who remonstrated to his Majesties Father till they at last fairly brought him to the Block.

My Author considers in the next place that part of the Declaration which concerns the Arbitrary Orders for ta­king persons into custody, Pag. 15. for matters that had no relation to Priviledges of Parliament, &c. If (saith he) they (the Ministers) intended by these general words to reflect on the Orders made to take those degenerate Wretches into Custody who published under their hands Abhorrences of Par­liaments, and of those who in humble and lawful manner pe­titioned for their sitting, in a time of such extreme necessity. Surely they are not in good earnest; they cannot believe [Page 56] themselves, when they say, that these matters have no relati­on to Priviledges of Parliament, if the Priviledge of Par­liament be concerned when an injury is done to any particular Member, how much more when men strike at Parliaments them­selves, and endeavour to wound the Constitution?

But, Sir, I hope it is no breach of Priviledge of Parlia­ment now to beg a small favour at your Worships hands, and that is to produce but one instance of one single man that ever published an Abhorrence of Parliaments in gene­ral, or of that Parliament in particular before it sate. It seems mighty probable to me, that these Wretches were a part of them, and the rather, because my Author is fain to misrepresent the whole matter of Fact to make it seem just. Now, Sir, all the question was, whether the manner of Petitioning, then taken up by the Rabble, was lawful or humble? You say it was both, but, Sir, your Sentence is neither Concluding, nor yet infallible; and therefore we appeal from it to the next Loyal Parliament, which we hope some at least of those Degenerate Wretches may live to see, and in the mean time there will ever be some ready to abhor a Petition signed by 60000 Shop-Keepers, Ap­prentices, &c. humbly pretending to instruct the King and Council, in spight of a Proclamation to the contrary, when its fit a Parliament should sit; which some are such fools as to imagine may be done again without abhorring Parliaments; and consequently without breach of Pri­viledge of Parliament. And because this was all that was done then, to the best of our remembrance, and as it is conceived may be made appear by those very ab­horrences still extant, therefore it is humbly concei­ved the Imprisonments thereupon were Arbitrary and illegal.

As to those two Persons my Author names, of them that were taken into Custody by Order of Parliament Sheri­don, and Thompson, I will raise no Contest with [Page 57] him, because their case will depend upon the general determination.

The King's Declaration lays down this as a Rule; that for the House of Commons to take into Custody any Subject, for matters that have no relation to priviledges of Parliament is Arbitrary, i. e. Illegal.

This the Author quarrels at, and by a very few Prece­dents endeavours to prove, That the House of Commons may order men to be taken into Custody for matters not relating to priviledge. These two are directly contrary each to other, and I only desire the liberty to enquire which of these seem likeliest to be in the right.

The Priviledges of the House of Commons are indeed our own, and they enjoy and ought to use them as our Trustees, and for our good, and therefore it is folly in us to lessen them when they are such as are necessary: and it is a great injury in them to extend them beyond what they anciently were to the damage of the Crown; or of the Liberties of the Subjects, or on the other hand to abuse those they really have, and ought to enjoy, to our damage, or to the Detriment of the Kings Prerogative, which is as necessary for our preservation as the Priviledges of Parlia­ment themselves are.

The Priviledges of Parliament are many, and relate either to the whole Body, the Three Estates taken Colle­ctively, or to the Lords, or to the Commons.

Those relating to the Commons respect either the King, or the Lords, or the rest of the Subjects which are not Members of their House, or the Members of their own House.

Our Enquiry is only in this point concerning those that relate to those Subjects that are not Members of either House, whether they may be imprisoned by Vote of the Commons for matters that have no relation to Priviledge of Parliament.

[Page 58] In the latter end of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth it was a question whether the Com­mons could imprison those that were not Members of their own House for matters that had a certain and apparent relation to the known Priviledges of Parliament,Proceedings of the four last Parliaments of Q. Eliz. p. 254. Anno Regni 44. It seems probable to me that this question was then first resolved, by the Arguments brought for it, which use not to be in plain cases; and one Member opposed it, and another said many were sent for, but none appeared, none were punished. as for Arresting them or their Servants in time of Parliament, which hath been since gained, and is no longer Contested by any body, but is a strong Argument that they had not then that power the Author claims, and for which he brings the Precedents, which are indeed of a later date except one, and that was in the Minority of Edward the Sixth.

Anciently if any man were impeached in Parliament,Cokes Instit. part. 4. of the proceedings in Parliament against ab­sents. p. 38. there was a Writ directed to the Sheriff to summon him to appear and Answer, as my Lord Coke acquaints us, and sets down the form of the Writ; and upon the return of this Writ the Attachment it is likely went out of the House of Lords, but of this Power of the Commons that great man speaks not one word, which is a good Argument they had it not, and indeed the latter instances are all after his time.

It is not consonant to reason that any Subject of England should be imprisoned upon a bare suggestion without the Oath of the Accuser: Now the Commons have no power to give an Oath in this case, and therefore it seems rea­sonable that they should not imprison any man who is not a Member of their House, much less whomsoever they please.

The House of Commons is not a Court of Judicature, (except in matters of Priviledge and Elections) but all persons accused in Parliament must be tried by the Owned by this Author. p. 39. Lords, therefore it is contrary to the Law of England that any man should be imprisoned by the Com­mons, [Page 59] who * (Cokes Instit. part. 4. p. 24. as the Grand Jury of the Nation) are his Accusers.

It is said that a man taken into Custody by Order of the Commons is taken in Execution,Debates of the House of Commons pag. 217. A Com­mitment of this House is always in nature of a Judg­ment, and the Party not Bailable. but it is contrary to the eternal Laws of Nature, and all Nations, that a man should be taken in Execution before he have made his Defence, and a legal Sentence be passed upon him by Legal Process and proof.

It is destructive of the Liberty of the Subject that any man should be so taken by them into Custody,Address to the Freemen, &c. Part. 2. p 38. because he is without all remedy, and if the thing happen to prove iujurious and oppressive, as it did in the Case of John Wilson and Roger Beckwith Esquires, two Torkshire Justices of the Peace, who were notoriously injured by it.

For these reasons, which I submit to wiser men than my self, I am humbly of opinion that no man ought to be ta­ken into Custody by the Order or Vote of the Commons, that is not a Member of their House; except it be for matters relating to the Priviledges of Parliament, and that such Priviledges as are commonly known; for if they may call what they please a Priviledge of a Parliament, it will in the Event be the same thing as an unlimited power.

As to all his Instances they do not deserve any conside­ration except the first,4 Edw. 6. 18 Jac. 20 Jac. 3 Car. and that no man, as he relates it, can tell by whom the Commitment was made, without the Record which I cannot come at, and the latter were the Acts of Popular Parliaments which laid the foundations of our late troubles by such proceedings.

My Author in the next place comes to justifie the Votes against the Ministers, and lays down this as his foundation. The Commons in Parliament have used▪ Pag. 16. two ways of delivering their Country from pernicious and powerful Favourites, The one is in a Parliamentary Course of Justice by impeaching [Page 60] them which is used when they judge it needful to make them publick examples, by Capital, or other high punishments, for the terror of others: The other is by immediate Address to the King to remove them as unfaithful or unprofitable Ser­vants. Their Lives, their Liberties, or Estates are never endangered, but when they are proceeded against in the former of these ways: Then legal evidence of their guilt is necessary, then there must be a proper time allowed for their defence. In the other way the Parliament act as the Kings great Coun­cil, and when either House observes that affairs are ill admi­nistred, that the Advice of Parliaments is rejected or slight­ed, the Course of Justice perverted, our Councils betrayed, Grievances multiplied, and the Government weakly and dis­orderly managed, (of all which our Laws have made it im­possible for the King to be guilty,) they necessarily must, and always have charged those who had the Administration of affairs, and the Kings Ears, as the Authors of these mis­chiefs, and have from time to time applied themselves to him by Addresses for their removal from his presence and Councils.

So here are all the Ministers of State that are, or ever shall be, exposed to the mercy of the House of Commons, if proof can be brought against them, then have at all, Life, Liberty, and Estate must go for it; but if none can be had, then it is but voting them Enemies to the King and King­dom, and Addressing to have them removed from his Ma­jesties Presence and Councils for ever, and the work is done without allowing the liberty to answer for them­selves. And the reason that he gives for it is a pleasant one; because the King cannot be guilty, therefore they must. But may not a House of Commons be mistaken, and punish a man for what he never did? may not one man give the Advice, and another suffer for it at this rate of proceedings? But this is an old Custom; What then, it is an unjust one.

[Page 61] There may be many things plain and evident beyond the testimony of any Witness,Pag. 17. which yet can never be proved in a legal way.

This is true; but I hope he will not infer from hence that any man shall be punished for those things without testimony. I always thought all these cases were reser­ved to the Tribunal of God Almighty. And I believe this Gentleman would be loth to be tried by his own rule.

The Parliament may be busied in such great Affairs,Ibid. as will not suffer them to parsue every Offender through a long process.

Then they may let him alone; or leave him to the Com­mon Law, but to condemn him unheard, for want of lei­sure, is such a piece of justice as no man would be willing to submit to in his own Case.

There may be many reasons why a man should be turned out of Service,Pag. 17. which perhaps would not extend to subject him to punishment.

That there may be reasons why a man should be turned out of Service is undeniable, but then those reasons ought to be alledged and proved; for the turning a man out of Ser­vice is certainly in many cases a great punishment, tho not equal to hanging.

The People themselves are highly concerned in the great Ministers of State,Ibid. who are Servants to the Kingdom as well as to the King; and the Commons, whose business it is to pre­sent all Grievances, as they are most likely to observe soonest the folly and treachery of those publick Servants, (the greatest of all Grievances) so this representation ought to have no little weight with the Prince.

Here is the true reason as long as the Ministers look upon themselves as the Kings Servants they will adhere to the Crown, but if they be taught once that they are Ser­vants to the People too, then because it is difficult to serve [Page 62] two Masters, they will be more distracted, and act more timorously, especially if according to the modern distinction the Country-Party get the Ascendent of the Court-Party in a Parliament.

Queen Elizabeth told the Commons by the Lord Keeper,Proceedings of the four last Parl. p. 47. that she misliked that such irreverence towards Privy-Coun­sellors, (who were not to be accounted as Common Knights and Burgesses of the House, that are Counsellors but during the Parliament) whereas the other are standing Counsellors, and for their Wisdom and great Service are called to the Coun­cil of State.

They were not then thought to be such publick Servants as might be treated at any rate, sent to the Tower, or to carry up a Bill to the Lords, against which they had given their Vote, as if it were to triumph over them.

But Henry IV.Pag. 17. (a wise and a brave Prince) in the Fifth year of his Reign turned out four of his Servants, In hoc Parliamento concessa suit Regi taxa insolita & in­colis tricabilis, & valde gra­vis, Wals. nec servarentur ejus Evidentiae in Thesauria Regia. Ibid. only because the Commons desired they might be removed. But then this Prince had no Title, and therefore was not in a capacity to dispute any thing with them;Polid. Virgil. Sunorum crebris conjurationi­bus vexatus. and in this ve­ry Parliament too; they gave him so extraor­dinary a Tax, and so troublesom to the Sub­ject, that they would not suffer any Record of it to be left in the Treasury; and he was obliged to grant them this extraordinary favour in recompence of it. He had but newly in Battel conquered one Rebellion, wherein Morti­mers Title was at the bottom, and was ingaged then in a War with France. And he had reason to fear a general Defection of the Nation; King Richard being reported to be alive. And he was then in great want of Money, so that for such a Prince so beset to grant any thing was far from a wonder, but ought no more to be drawn into Example than that Tax they then gave him; and least of all now, when things are in a very different posture.

[Page 63] But then all these Ministers are censured for doing that which was approved by two of the three Estates. The Resolve was this.

That all persons who advised his Majesty in his last Message to this House,Jan. 7. 1680. to insist upon an opinion against the Bill for Excluding the Duke of York, have given pernicious Counsel to his Majesty, and are promoters of Popery, and Enemies to the King and Kingdom.

Now this Bill was before this thrown out by the House of Lords, and therefore there was no reason to Vote the Ministers Enemies to the King and Kingdom for doing that which was approved by two of the three Estates in Parliament.

But they ought not to have appealed to the People against their own Representatives. Pag. 18. (Why not?) The un­fortunate Reigns of Henry III. Edward II. Richard II. and Henry VI. ought to serve as Land-marks to warn succeeding Kings; from preserring secret Councils to the wisdom of their Parliaments.

And so ought the Example of his Majesties Father to warn both his Majesty and the whole Nation how they suffer the Ministers of State to be trodden under foot by Factious men; and the Prerogatives of the Crown to be swallowed up, by pretended Priviledges of Parliament. for all these things have once already made way for the Ruine of the Monarchy; as that did for the enslaving of the People.

The next thing my Author falls upon is the business of the Revenue, but here I cannot imagine what he would have, he makes a long Harangue against Alienation of the Revenues of the Crown, and about the reasonableness of Resumptions of those that had been alienated. And tells us,Pag. 19. No Country did ever believe the Prince, how absolute soever in other things, had power to sell or give away the Revenue of the Kingdom, and leave his Successor a [Page 64] Beggar. That the haughty French Monarch, as much power as he pretends to, is not ashamed to own that he wanted power to make such Alienations, and that Kings had that happy ina­bility that they could do nothing contrary to the Laws of their Country.

This and much more my Author hath upon this occa­sion learnedly, but very impertinently, written about these two Votes, believing his Reader could not distinguish be­twixt an Alienation and an Anticipation.

But the best way to have this clearly understood is to insert the Votes of the Commons, which are as fol­loweth:

Resolved,There were two Votes of the same na­ture passed in 1626 concern­ing Tonnage and Poundage. Nalsons Pre­face to his Collections. pag. 60. That whosoever shall hereafter lend, or cause to be lent, by way of Advance, any money upon the Bran­ches of the Kings Revenue, arising by Customs, Excise, or Hearth-money, shall be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments, and shall be responsible for the same in Par­liament.

Resolved, That whosoever shall accept or buy any Tally of Anticipation upon any part of the Kings Revenue (or whose­ever shall pay such Tally hereafter to be struck, shall be ad­judged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments, and shall be re­sponsible therefore in Parliament.

Now what Advancing money upon the Revenues, and accepting Tallys of Anticipation have to do with Aliena­tion of it I cannot devise. For certainly it is one thing to advance a Fine, and take a Farm so much the cheaper for three, four, or seven years, and another thing to purchase the same to a man and his Heirs for ever. And it is one thing to receive an Order to take such a Sum of Money of the Tenant out of the next half years Rent. and a quite other thing to purchase the Feesimple of an Estate, which is an Alienation.

The Revenues of the Crown of England are in their own nature appropriated to Publick Service, Pag. 19. and therefore cannot [Page 65] without injustice be diverted or Anticipated. May not an Anticipation be as well imployed upon the Publick Service as a growing Revenue when it is become due? Does Anti­cipation signifie mispending or diverting from a Publick to a private use? Is it impossible the Publick should at any time need a greater Sum of money than the Revenue will afford, and may not a Prince in such a case Anticipate, and afterward get it up again by his good Husbandry: No, for

Either the Publick Revenue is sufficient to answer the ne­cessary occasions of the Government,Pag. 19. and then there is no colour for Anticipations, or else by some extraordinary Accident the King is reduced to want an extraordinary supply, and then he ought to resort to his Parliament.

Well, but suppose (as it may happen) the necessity is so urgent, that it cannot be put off till a Parliament can be called, and meet, and raise money. Or if you please, suppose a Parliament dare not trust the King with money, or, which is all one, will pretend so. Or will not supply him unless he will pass an Act that they shall sit as long as they please; or unless he will let them turn out what Mi­nisters of State, Justices of the Peace, &c. they think sit, and put in others as they please. May not a Prince relieve himself in these cases by an Advance or Anticipation, but must submit absolutely to the Commons? I hope he will not say these are impossible accidents.

Our Ancestors did wisely provide that the King and his People should have frequent need of one another,Pag. 20. and by ha­ving frequent opportunities of mutually relieving one anothers wants, be sure ever to preserve a dutiful affection in the Sub­ject, and a Fatherly tenderness in the Prince. When the King had occasion for the liberality of his People he would be well inclined to hear and redress their Grievances, and when they wanted ease from oppressions, they would not fail with alacrity to supply the occasions of the Crown.

[Page 66] All this is certainly true, and was the very reason why the two first Parliaments of his Majesties Reign, of whose Loyalty and hearty affections to the Crown no man ever doubted, setled part of the Revenue on his Majesty for his Life only, that his Successor might be obliged by a regrant of it. And the whole which they gave to this King was but equal to the constant and regular Expences of the Go­vernment, as they designed it, tho it is said it falls short of that too.

Now, might things be thus carried, as my Author tells us, they were designed to be, England would certainly be the happiest Nation in the World. The King would be as rich as his People could make him, and the People as happy as a tender and good King could make them. But alas! there is sprung up a new Generation of men who have taken such an Aversion for Monarchy, and the just Prerogatives of the Crown, that till these Grievances (the greatest Grievances that ever can betide a free-born people) be totally taken away, they can find no gust in the re­moval of all those other petty Grievances, of which our Ancestors complained so often, and as often found redress.

There is also arisen a sort of sober Protestants (as the Dissenters will needs be called) who can neither agree one with another, nor with the Religion that is Established, and to them it is an intolerable Grievance to see Episcopacy, a Liturgy, and a few innocent Ceremonies, which they call Popery, established in the Church, and till these are extirpated Root and Branch, and every of their pi­ous Whimsies setled successively in the place of them, or tolerated at once, they, good men! cannot be at ease neither.

These two have twisted their interests together with a third sort that have no Religion at all, but have a damna­ble inclination to the Spoils of the Church, and the Plunder [Page 67] of the Nation. And they by Popular Arts have wheedled and deluded great numbers of the Freemen and Freeholders of the Nation into a strong belief that Popery is by our Governours designed to be set up in the Church, and Ar­bitrary Government in the State, things which these good men hate mightily, as there is good reason for it, but are very much abused by the Information, and much more by being persuaded, as they have been, that the chusing dis­contented men to be their Representatives in the House of Commons was the only way to prevent these two dreadful things from falling upon them.

These men however have sometimes got to be the major part of that House, and the Consequence hath ever been that the King could get no Supplies, be his necessities what they could be, unless he would grant such things as tended immediately to the ruine of the Church and Monarchy. And if he were a little averse to it, then he was presently Libelled to the Nation as a favourer of Popery, and a de­signer of Arbitrary Government; but if it were not safe to attack him, then (according to the method of the late Rebels) the cry was raised against the Evil Counsellors, or the Corrupt Ministers, and nothing would do, but the turning them out of their employments as treacherous Servants to the Kingdom, for being too faithful to the King.

And because they can never effect these great things by other means, they have always turned this excellent Con­stitution against it self, and that which was intended to endear the King and his People each to others, their mu­tual want of each others assistance, hath been made a Steppal to mount the Throne, and pluck down the Mitre. So that his Majesty, who knew how things went in his Father's days, was not out when he told the Commons in his Speech, March 1. 1661. as followeth:

[Page 69] This Parliament understood things well, and provided accordingly, so that the nineteenth of May following, the Lord Chancellor, in a Speech made at their Prorogation, told them, They had wisely, very wisely provided such a constant growing Revenue as may with Gods blessing preserve the Crown from those scandalous wants and necessities as have heretofore exposed it and the Kingdom to those dismal mise­ries,☜ from which they are but even now buoyed up; for what­soever other humane causes may be assigned,☜ according to the several fancies and imaginations of men, of our late miserable distractions, they cannot be so reasonably imputed to any one cause, as to the extreme poverty of the Crown: the want of power could never have appeared, if it had not been for the want of money.

But since that, the rising greatness of our Neighbours have mounted the Expences of the Crown above that growing Revenue that was then setled, and the Repub­lical Party, as his Majesty stiles them, promise themselves the happiness of bringing about another Revolution, by the same means the last was, in his Majesties days, if it be possible, but however at his Death. And therefore if the Crown thus beset shall at any time make use of Anticipa­tions to relieve it self; they only ought to be responsible for it, who have, or shall, make it necessary: For surely no Prince would borrow, when he might have it freely given upon reasonable terms, unless he took a pride in counting the number of his Creditors.

And therefore (saith my Author) it has ever been esteem­ed a Crime in Counsellors,Pag. 20. who persuaded the King to Antici­pate his Revenue, and a Crime in those who furnish'd money upon such Anticipations in an extraordinary way, however extraordinary, the occasion might be. For this cause it was that the Parliament in the 35 of Henry VIII. did not only discharge all these Debts which the King had contracted; but Enacted that those Lenders, who had been before paid again [Page 70] by the King, should refund all those Sums into the Exchequer, as judging it reasonable punishment to make them forfeit the Money they lent, since they have gone about to introduce so dangerous a precedent.

It is bad Logick that raiseth general Conclusions from particular instances, and it will appear so in this that we have in hand; which, because I cannot so well and creditably do it my self, I will make appear by tran­scribing a passage out of my Lord Coke, tho it be somewhat long.

Now let my Reader judge if it be reasonable to make what the Parliament did in the 25 of Henry VIII. a stand­ing Rule for all succeeding times, when it is morally im­possible that ever any King of England should have such a [Page 72] Treasure and Revenue as they had given this King within less than seven years, and a Subsidy but the very year before besides. If we had such Parliaments now, and it were possible to give the King such Supplies as they did, I would freely give my Vote to have the next Lender Hanged.

The true way to put the King out of a possibility of sup­porting the Government,Pag. 20. is to let him waste in one year that money which ought to bear the charge of the Government for seven.

But, Sir, to put you out of pain for that, this would necessitate the sitting of Parliaments, and the yielding to whatsoever they could desire. So this, tho true, was not the reason of the Vote, but directly contrary to it; but the King knows the Consequence of that too well to need any restraint in that particular, for he knows as well as you; that this is the direct method to destroy not only the Credit of the Crown at home and abroad, but the Monar­chy it self.

If the King resolves never to pay the money that he bor­rows,Ibid. what faith will be given to the Royal Promises, and the honour of the Nation will suffer in that of the Prince. And if it be put upon the People to repay it, this would be a way to impose a necessity of giving Taxes without end whether they would or no.

Omitting the undutifulness of these suppositions, it is very remarkable, that the great Anticipations upon the Revenue were made in the time of the last Dutch War, when they who now so much clamour against them were Ministers, and they who now are such, and bear all the blame, were not in a capacity to hinder it. Whether they had any such intentions as these in it, they best know, but I am sure one of them made it out powerfully that there was all the reason in the world that the Parliament should pay off this debt. But, saith my Author, as mercenary as [Page 73] they were, the Pensioners would never discharge the Revenue of these Anticipations to the Bankers. Which is an Ex­cellent and convincing Argument that they (how much so­ever they are slandered) were not such mercenary Pensi­oners, as the world is now told they were.

Now, as he tells us, the W. Commons made this Vote purely to keep people from being again choused the same way, and in mere pity to the Cries of many Widows and Orphans. And truly, if they had taken care to have had those that wanted this Caution first paid off, the world might have possibly thought so. And then a Decla­ration that such securities were void, and that no future Par­liament could without breach of Trust repay that Money which was at first borrowed only to prevent the sitting of Parliaments, might have had a better reception in this Kingdom than the two Votes they made without it. As for his quotation of 1 R. 3. Cap. 2. against Loans, that and all the after Statutes is against involuntary and forcible taking of money.

But the Commons were very modest,Pag. 21. and restrained their Votes to only three branches of the Revenue, all which were by several Acts of Parliament given to his present Majesty.

Sir, I think the last Vote is general, and extends to the whole Revenue, tho the first doth not, but only to those three small Branches of Customs, Excise, and Hearth mo­ney. A modest restraint indeed.

The Statute 12 Car.Pag. 21. 2. Cap. 4. says, That the Com­mons reposing Trust in his Majesty, for guarding the Se [...]s against all persons intending the distarbance of Trade, and the invading of the Realm to that intent do give him Toanage and Poundage, and this is as direct an appropriation as word, can make, and therefore as it is a manifest wrong to the Subject to divert any part thereof to other uses, so for the King to Anticipate it, is plainly to disable himself to perform the trust reposed in him.

[Page 74] Now here are several ill Consequences from an un­doubted true Principle. For it is no wrong to the Subject to divert a part of it to other uses if the Seas can be guarded, and the Realm secured with less than the whole, ar they have been very well all his Majesties Reign hi­therto. Secondly, An Anticipation may be necessary to attain the ends of the trust if Parliaments shall still go on to refuse the King extraordinary Supplies upon extraordina­ry occasions.

The Statute of 12 Car.Ibid. 2, Cap. 23. which did impower the King to dispose of the Excise did Enact, that such Contracts shall be effectual in Law, so as they be not for longer time than three years. So that here is care taken before their Vote that no great Advance or Anticipation shall be taken upon that Branch.

The Statute of the 13.Pag. 22. and 14. of Car. 2. Cap. 10. declares that the Hearth-money was given that the publick Revenue might be proportioned to the Publick Charge, and it is im­possible that should ever be whilst it is liable to be preingaged and Anticipated.

Is it so? Must a Prince act to the utmost of his power with less prudence and discretion than other men? Must I needs Sell or Morgage my Estate for as much as it is worth; because I may do it, and no man can hinder me?

The Parliament took another care in relation to this Branch, Pag. 22. and made it penal for any one so much as to accept of any Pension or Grant for years, or any other Estate, or any Sum of Money out of the Revenue arising by (Hearth-money) by virtue of that Act, from the King, his Heirs or Successors, as my Author takes notice: and now what reason was there for him to make such a Splutter as he did about Alie­nations and leaving the Successor a beggar, when one of these Branches, the Customs and half the Excise is given to his Majesty only for life, and such care is taken to [Page 75] keep the third unchargeable by the very Act that gave it? If these things tend to the vindication either of my Author, or the Votes, I have lost my Reason.

My Author concludes with this smart reflection on the Declaration, Pag. 22. This we are sure of, that if the inviolable ob­servation of these Statutes (it should have been Votes) will reduce his Majesty to a more helpless Condition than the meanest of his Subjects, he will still be left in a better Condi­tion than the richest and greatest of his Ancestors, none of which were ever matters of such a Revenue.

The King complains of the Votes, and the Statutes are craftily laid in the way to bear the brunt; the intention of a thing may possibly never succeed, as I hope it never will here: But yet the complaint is just, if it apparently tended to such an end, tho it never follow. But how his Majesty can be in the most helpless and most wealthy con­dition at one and the same time, in fact, my Author must inform us. His Majesties Expence as well as Revenue is above all his Royal Ancestors, and whatever his Revenue is he was not beholden to these Voters for it, who gave him nothing but paper and trouble. And of the first of these his Majesty had such a quantity; that he is said to have chid his Tailor for not making his Pockets big enough to receive it. His Cossers in the mean time were not sur­charged. nor like to surfeit.

The next thing my Author falls upon is the Vote for suspension of the Execution of the Penal Laws against the Dissenters; which he first recites, and then justisieth, and I will follow him.

The House of Commons are in the next place accused of a very high Crime,Pag. 22. the assuming to themselves a power of suspending Acts of Parliament, because they declared it was their Opinion. That the prosecutier of Protestant Dissen­ters upon the Penal Laws, is at this time grievous to the Subject, a weakning of the Protestant Interest, an incou­ragement [Page 76] to Popery, and dangerous to the Peace of the Nation. The Ministers remembred that not many years ago, the whole Nation was justly Alarm'd upon the assuming an Ar­bitrary power of suspending Penal Laws, and therefore they thought it would be very popular to accuse the Commons of such an Attempt.

Did the Ministers remember how the Nation was Alarm'd, and had the Commons forgot it? Well. let us follow the Gentleman, and see how he will clear his Commons from the guilt of this high Crime which he ac­knowledgeth was so justly blamed in the Ministers.

But how they (the Ministers) could possibly misinterpret a Vote at that rate,Pag. 22. how they could say the Commons pretend­ed to a power of repealing Laws, when they only declare their opinion of the inconveniency of them, will never be under­stood till the Authors of this are pleased to shew their Causes and Reasons in a second Declaration.

The charge in the Declaration is that by this Vote, They assumed to themselves a power of suspending Acts of Parlia­ment, without any regard to the Laws established. This the Author could not deny, nor defend; and therefore he changeth the terms into a power of Repealing Laws, with which the Commons were never charged. Now, a power of Suspending and a power of Recpealing are vastly diffe­rent. Every Pardon is a suspension of the Execution of the Law in relation to the Party pardoned, and so is every Dispensation; and when the King put forth the Declarati­on for Liberty of Conscience, there was no design of re­pealing, but only of suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws pro tempore; so that if the Commons designed this Vote or Declaration of theirs should have any other effect than to shew their good will to the Dissenters, it must ex­tend tho not to a Repeal, yet to a suspension of the Execu­tion of the Penal Laws against them, which is all the De­claration charged the Commons with; and so the Dissenters [Page 77] understood it, and have since pleaded this Vote in Bar to the Execution of those Laws against them, tho they ac­knowledge they are not Repealed thereby.

Every impartial man will own that the Commons had rea­son for this opinion of theirs.Pag. 22.

Suppose they had reason for it, this will not give them a legal Power. The King hath good reason to do many things which yet if he should offer at, they would clamour against him as an Usurper of an Arbtrary Power; for rea­son gives no man any Author; to act, except he hath a lawful power to back his reason with. There may be great reason to repeat an Act of Parliament, and yet in all the Judges in Westminster should thereupon declare it to be either suspended or repealed, I know what we should hear of it quickly. Well, but let us hear their Reasons.Pag. 22.

They had with great anxiety observed that the present design of the Papists was not against any one sort of Prete­stants, but Ʋniversal, and [...] extirpating the Reformed Re­ligion.

That this might be the ultimate design of the Plot, is not much to be doubted, but it was immediately bent only against the Religion established, and accodingly ther­were Successors appointed to all the Bishops and [...] Clergy, but none to Mr. Baxter, Dr. Owen, and the rest of that Fry that ever I heard of. So that this reason con­cludes not in favour of the Dissenters, but of the Regular Clergy, who as they were in most danger ought to have been most taken care of. But this Vote left them in the same danger it found them of being destroyed by the Papists, and let loose the Dissenters upon them too, to en­crease that danger.

2.Pag. 23. They saw what advantages these Enemies made of our Divisions, and how cunningly they diverted us from persecu­ting them by fomenting our Jealousies of one another.

[Page 78] Did they not, Sir observe too how the Dissenters took the occasion of the Plot, and of the general hatred against Popery to ruine the Loyal and Conformable Clergy? How they presently engrossed the Title of Protestant, and en­deavoured to make the Rabble believe that all but the Bobtail Holders forth and their Followers were Papists in Masquerade, Tories, Tantivimen, &c. If they did not observe these things, others did. And also that all of a sudden all the Jesuits assumed the shapes of Noncon­formists, and railed stoutly against Bishops, Ceremonies, Humane Impositions, and Arbitrary Government. They knew there was no Possibility of escaping the vengeance of the Church of England men but by setting the Dissenters upon them, and they needed no Spur. So this was a good Argument to have taught the Dissenters more modesty; but since they had not that, it was a strong Argument to have suppress'd them vigorously as the only Auxiliaries of the Papists against the Church; and the great hinderers of the prosecution of the Plot.

3. They saw the strength and nearness of the King of France, and judged of his inclinations by his usage of his own Prote­stant Subjects.

4. They considered the number, and the bloudy Principles of the Irish. And

5. That Scotland was already delivered into the hands of a Prince, the known head of the Papists in these Kingdoms, and the occasion of their Plots and Insolencies, as more than one Parliament had declared. (It should have been worded thus) as they had declared in more than one Parliament, for these were the same men in several Parliaments, who made these several Declarations.

Now I cannot conceive wherein the force of these three Arguments lies, the French King was powerful, and hated Protestants, therefore the Church of England must be pre­pared for ruine by giving as many as pleased a free liberty [Page 79] to separate from her, and procure her destruction. The Irish Papists had ill designs just ripe for execution, therefore the English Nonconformists were to be tolerated that they might get strength, and be able to rise at the same time, to ascertain the destruction of the Church.

But the fifth Reason is much better; Scotland was in the hands of the Duke, How came he by it? What, did he invade it by force and violence against his Majesties Will? If he did, then let us make a mighty Combination against him: But if it were delivered to him by the proper Owner, who may govern it by whom he please, what occasion is there for the Dissenters service here?

6.Pag. 23. They could not but take notice into what hands the most considerable Trusts both Civil and Military were put.

7. And that notwithstanding all Addresses, and all Proclama­tions, for a strict execution of the Penal Laws against Papists, yet their Faction so far prevailed that they were eluded, and only the Dissenting Protestants smarted under the rage of them.

That they took very good notice who were imployed in Civil and Military Trusts appears by the Address of December 21. 1680. not many days before this Vote, where they tell the King, That several Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace, fitly qualified for those imployments, have been of late displaced, and others put in their room, who are men of Arbitrary Principles, and Countenancers of Papists and Popery. These they would have had turned out, and others put in; who are men of Integrity and known affection to the Protestant Religion; and may be moreover men of Ability, of Estates and Interest in their Country. His Ma­jesty knew what they meant, but did not think fit to change his choice; and the truth is they gave him no great encouragement by their own carriage to have any more to do with these able, wealthy, popular men.

[Page 80] And therefore it seems this was one reason that moved them to Vote the Protestant Dissenters free from Penal Laws, either to keep them out of the hands of these evil Trustees both Civil and Military; or else to make a Party out of them not only against the Duke of York, but also against these Countenancers of Papists and Popery; that is, against his Majesties Officers both Civil and Military. As if because the French King, notwithstand­ing his great Power and Aversion to the Protestant Reli­gion, could not hurt the Church of England, therefore the Dissenters were to be caressed and cherished, that they in a small time might be in a capacity to do it. And now if these were not good reasons for the Vote, let any impar­tial man (that is, any but a Church of England man) judge.Pag. 23.

In the midst of such Circumstances was there not cause to think an Union of all Protestants necessary, and could they have any just grounds to believe that the Dissenters, whilst they lay under the pressures of severe Laws, should with such Ala­crity and Courage as was requisite, undertake the defence of a Country where they were so ill treated?

Whether this question relates to the French King and the Papists, or the Duke and the Civil and Military Officers may be a question, and therefore it must be so answered. As to the first, there was all the reason in the world that they should joyn heartily with the Government against the Papists and French, for they could not hope to mend their condition by falling into their hands, who they knew would treat them with other manner of severities than those they met with from the Laws; if they did not know this, any of the French Protestants that fled over [...] England might have informed them sufficiently. N [...]w, of evils the least is to be chosen, and tho their con [...]ti­on had not been equal to their desires, yet it had been a madness to have made it worse by delivering up them­selves [Page 81] and their Country into the hands of the French and Papists.

But if it relates to the Duke, and the Civil and Military Officers, then I hope he will excuse me if I do not think it fit to have another Union of Protestants of that sort again.

A long and sad Experience had shewed,Pag. 23. how vain the en­deavours of former Parliaments had been to force us to be all of oneSuppose that the Church of England were disarmed of all those Laws by which she is guarded; and would not this turn a National Church into nothing else but a Tolerated Sect or Party? Would it not take away all appea­rance of Establishment from it? Lord Chancellors Speech, April 13. 75. Would this Unite us in one Affection? Opinion, and therefore the House of Commons re­solved to take a sure way to make us all of one Affection.

This was the very reason of the Declaration of Liberty of Conscience: But how unlike that course was to prevail, the Nation had sufficient experience in a few years. And, Sir, I can assure you, it is above the power of a House of Commons to unite those men in Affection, who differ not only in Opinion, but Practice too, in matters of Re­ligion.

For these reasons my Author saith this Vote was made in order to a repeal of them by a Bill to be brought in, and presently he grows Pettish,Pag. 24. and tells us, None but a French­man could have the confidence to declaim against a proceeding so regular and Parliamentary as this.

Your humble Servant Sir, I pray be a little pacified, you may possibly be mistaken as well as another man, but would, I believe, take it a little unkindly to be called Mon­sieur presently. They very first Vote they made that day was this: Resolved, That whosoever advised his Majesty to Prorogue this Parliament, to any other purpose than in order to the passing of a Bill for the Exclusion of James Duke of York, is a betrayer of the King, the Protestant Religion, and of the Kingdom of England; a promoter of the French interest, [Page 82] and a Pensioner to France. So they knew they were to be Prorogued that very day, and as the Story goes, made more than ordinary haste to pass these Votes. Now, it was impossible that a Bill should be brought in, much less passed in that Session which was to end before night, and therefore this was not, nor could not be the cause of that Vote, and all your little Queries, founded upon this supposition, are silly and impertinent.Pag. 24.

There was not the least direction or signification to the judges which might give any occasion for the reflection which follows in the Declaration. The due and impartial execution of the Laws, is the unquestionable duty of the Judges, and we hope they will always remember that duty so well, as not to necessitate a House of Commons to do theirs, by calling them to account for making private instructions the Rule of their judgments, and acting as men who have more regard to their Places than their Oaths.

So the Dissenters may see they are mistaken when they think the Judges or Justices may forbear executing the Laws against them upon the score of this Vote.Ibid.

But tho the Judges are sworn to execute all Laws, yet there is no obligation upon any man to inform against another.

No Sir, Is not every Grand-Jury man, every Constable, and Churchwarden sworn to Present the breakers of our Laws as well as the Judges are to punish them? And as for the next Conundrams of yours, the comparing a parcel of Laws made within twenty years, to those Antiquated ones about Caps, and Bows and Arrows, and killing of Lambs and Calves, and your business of Empson and Dudley, they are such stuff as a man of half your under­standing would have been ashamed to have mensioned in a good cause.

In the next place my Author acquaints us what are the causes usually of disusing Laws,Pag. 25. alterations of the Cir­cumstances whereupon a Law was made; or if it be against [Page 83] the genious of a People, or have effects contrary to the intents of the Maker, none of which can be said in this case. Nor is that true which follows, that the quiet, safety, or trade of our Nation hath been promoted by the not executing of these Laws, as any man may know that can remember but ten years backward. And therefore notwithstanding the Vote of the Commons, the Judges may act wisely and honestly if they should encourage Informers, or quicken Juries by strict and severe Charges. For the due and impartial execution of the Laws is the unquestionable duty of the Judges, according to my Author, and therefore I will hope they shall not be accounted Knaves or Fools for doing their unquestionable duty.

But then my Author hath another quarrel with the Ministers, and that was for numbring this Vote amongst the causes of the Dissolution of that Parliament when the Black Rod was at the door of the House,Pag. 25. to require them to attend his Majesty at the very time when it was made.

Well, suppose we should grant that this was not one of those Votes that occasioned the Prerogation, it not being then made when that was resolved on, yet it might occa­sion their Dissolution, which hapned some time after. And was not this an excellent time to make Votes for the bringing in of Bills for the Repeal of Laws when the Black Rod was at the door to call the House to a Pro­rogation?

After a little anger against the Ministers for arraigning one of the Three Estates, in the face of the World, for usurping power over the Laws, imprisoning their fellow Subjects, Arbitrarily exposing the Kingdom to the greatest dangers, and indeavouring to deprive the King of all possi­bility of supporting the Government,Pag. 11, 20. (the man hath for­got how often he hath arraigned the Long Loyal Par­liament for a parcel of Mercenary Pensioners) he in the [Page 84] next place falls foul upon the Clergy for publishing this Declaration like an Excommunication in all Churches.Pag. 26.

But if they (the Ministers) erred in the things they judged rightly in the choice of the persons who were to pub­lish it. Blind Obedience was requisite, where such unju­stifiable things were imposed, and that could be no where so in­tire as amongst those Clergy-men whose preferment depended upon it.

Yes, without doubt, ten thousand Clergy-men did ex­pect to be preferred presently for this piece of blind Obe­dience. Yet he is at it again in the next page, a Set of Presbyterian Clergy would not have been so tame. Well, but this would not have done tho, If the Paper, which was to be read in the Desk, had not been so suitable to the Doctrine which some of them had often declared in the Pulpit. Then it did not go against their Consciences.

It did not become them to inquire whether they had sufficient Authority for what they did, since the Printer calls it the Kings Declaration.

No; Where, or of whom should they have enquired? And it being Printed by the Kings Printer, with his Maje­sties Royal Arms before it, and sent them by their Ordi­naries the Bishops, they had no reason to question whether it were the Kings or no. And there was as little reason that they should concern themselves, Whether they might not one day be called to an account for publishing it. They had reason to trust that his Majesty, who commanded them to do it, would protect them in their blind Obedi­ence. And as for his Law-Quirks, whether what his Maje­sty singly Ordered when he sate in Council, and came forth without the Stamp of the Great Seal, gave them a sufficient warrant to read in publickly. These things never entered into their heads.

Well, but Sir, tho those same Clergy-men, driven on by Ambition, might act in this without fear or shame, and think [Page 85] as little of a Parliament, as the Court Favourites, who took care to dissolve that at Oxford, before they durst tell us the faults of that at Westminister. Tho it might be so as you say, yet the Shoal of Addressors that came in to thank his Majesty for that Declaration, they had more light; and, Sir, if you be resolved to call all these Ministers, all these Clergy-men, all these Addressors to an account in the next Parliament, pray for cold weather, and long days, and another Parliament, that may sit for ever if it please, or you may happen to want time to go through with so pious and good a work.

But Sir, tho the Ministers durst not discover the faults of the Westminster Parliament till they had taken care to dissolve that Oxford, his Majesty in his Speech there, did. Which he began thus:

The unwarrantable proceedings of the last House of Commons were the occasion of my parting with the last Parliament:The gracious Speech there made, and the gracious De­claration that followed, are so much of a piece that we may justly conclude the same persons to have been the Au­thors of both. Pag. 27. of this Book. For I, who will never use Arbitrary Government my self, am resolved not to suffer it in others. I am unwilling to mention particulars, because I am desirous to forget faults, &c.

So that you may see if you please that the Oxford Parlia­ment was told in general the faults of that which preceded in order to their avoiding them, if they could have made that good use of his Majesties Advice, which will render them the less excusable to all the world.

So now we come to that Parliament at Oxford, Pag. 27. which saith the Declaration was assembled as soon as that was dissolved; and (saith my Author) might have added, Dissolved as soon as Assembled, the Ministers having imployed the People forty days in chusing Knights and Burgesses to be sent home in [Page 86] Right, with a Declaration after them, as if they had been called together only to be affronted.

As to the People, if their Knights and Burgesses came back sooner than they expected, they had reason to thank themselves,Pag. 6. who had twice before sent up the same men; and as you observed before, the people do not change sud­denly, so neither doth the Court, but doth as certainly send back a Parliament, that will not be governed, as the People send them. And the People were overjoyed too, to see them again, for when they went out they had told them, they never expected to come back again. So that so speedy and safe a return was as welcome to them that sent them, as could be imagined.

As for the Knights and Burgesses themselves they had fair warning given them by his Majesty before-hand, and if they would affront either Him, or the Upper House, they did it at their apperil; and it was well they scaped so well, as to be sent home with a Declaration after them.

My Author acknowledgeth that his Majesty failed not to give good Advice unto them, Pag. 27. who were called together to Ad­vise him. And so many; I might say, all our former Princes have done before his Majesty; and commanded them too, not to meddle with such and such things; yea, and punished private Members sometimes for doing other­wise. The Lord Keeper in the 35 year of Queen Elizabeths Reign spoke thus to the Commons.

‘And whereas heretofore it hath been used that many have delighted themselves in long Orations,Viide. p. 178. full of Ver­bosity and vain Ostentations, more than in speaking things of substance, the time that is precious would not [Page 87] be thus spent.’ And in the same Parliament, the Lord Keeper upon the usual demands by the New Speaker, said thus:

Now, let what his Majesty said at Oxford be compared with this, and let any man tell me whether the Parliament deserved any commendation from my Author, for their having so much respect to the King, Pag. 27. as not particularly to complain of the great invasion that was made upon their Li­berty of Proposing and Debating Laws, by his telling them before-hand what things they should meddle with, and what things no reason they could offer should persuade him to consent unto.

[Page 88] In that very Parliament I have mentioned,Feb. 24. 1592. 35 Eliz. Mr. Peter Wentworth and Sir Henry Bromley delivered a Petition unto the Lord Keeper, therein desiring the Lords of the Ʋpper House to be suppliants with them of the Lower House unto her Majesty, for entailing the Succession to the Crown; whereof a Bill was already drawn.

Her Majesty was highly displeased therewith, after she knew it, as a matter contrary to her former streight Command­ment, and charged the Council to call the Parties before them. Sir Thomas Henage presently sent for them, and after speech with them, commanded them to forbear coming to the Parlia­ment, and not to go out from their Lodgings,

The next day, Prerogative of Parliaments, Pag. 56. being Sunday, Mr. Peter Wentworth was sent prisoner to the Tower; Sir Henry Bromley, one Mr. Ri­chard Stephens, and Mr. Welch, the other Knight for Worce­stershire, were sent to the Fleet. And Sir Walter Rauleigh tells us, Wentworth died in the Tower, tho this Motion was but supposed dangerous to the Queens Estate.

Yet here was no express Command against it, but only a general Command which I have recited; neither doth it appear that any disherison of any right Heir to the Crown was intended. And in this very Parliament one Mr. Morris. Attourney of the Court of Wards, bringing in a Bill against the abuses of the Bishops, as he pretended, in Lawless In­quisitions, injurious Subscriptions, and binding Absolution; he was the next day sent for to Court, Feb. 28. 1592. and committed unto Sir John Fortescues Keeping. And upon both these the Queen sent this Message to the House by their Speaker.

The Calling of this Parliament was only that the Majesty of God might be more religiously served, and those that neglected this Service might be compelled by some sharper [Page 89] means to a more due Obedience,And accord­ingly in this Session of Par­liament was the sharp Sta­tute made against the Dissenters, which was designed to have been repealed, when the Bill of Repeal was lost in the House of Lords. and a more true service of God than there hath been hitherto used. And further, that the safety of her Majesties Person and of this Realm might be by all means provided for against our great Enemies, the Pope and the King of Spain.

Her Majesties most excellent pleasure being then delivered unto us by the Lord Keeper, it was not meant we should med­dle with Matters of State, or in Causes Ecclesiastical; (for so her Majesty termed them) she wondered that any would be of so high Commandment to attempt (I use her own words) a thing contrary to that which she had so expresly forbidden, wherefore with this she was highly displeased.

And in all her Reign after durst no man attempt to med­dle with either of these things. Now I have taken the pains to transcribe all this out of the transactions of her Reign rather than of any other, because she was never accused of affecting Arbitrary Government, or Popery, but was beloved of all her Subjects whilst she lived, and her Memory is, and ever will be had in honour by all English men, and she ought to be a pattern for all her Successors.

And now let us hear our modest Vindicator. Pag. 27. But every man must be moved to hear it charged upon them as an un­pardonable disobedience, that they did not obsequiously sub mit to that irregular command of not touching on the business of the Succession. Shall two or three unknown Minions take upon them, like the Lords of the Articles of Scotland to prescribe unto an English Parliament what things they shall treat of? Do they intend to have Parliaments, inter instrumenta servitutis, as the Romans had Kings in our Country? This would quickly be if what was then attempted had succeeded, and should be so pursued hereafter, that Parliaments should [Page 90] be directed what they are to meddle with, and threatned if they do any other thing: For the loss of Liberty of freedom of Debate in Parliament, will soon and certainly be followed by a general loss of Liberty.

This is the right temper and Spirit of a good Common­wealth man, thus did your Fathers talk in the days of his Majesties Father, till Priviledge of Parliament had eat up all the Prerogatives of the Crown, and the Liberties of the Subjects, and delivered us over to slavery, poverty, and confusion, so that the Tyrannical, Arbitrary, bloudy Go­vernment of Oliver Cromwel was thought a blessing to the Nation, in comparison of these Parliamentary Instruments of slavery, and their Legions, which I hope this Generation will so well remember as never to set it up, or suffer it to be set up more in my days.

My Author having told us in the next place, Pag. 28. That the King ought to divest himself of all private inclinations, and force his own affections to yield unto the Publick Concernments, and therefore his Parliaments ought to inform him impartially of that which tends to the good of those they represent, with­out regard of personal passions, and might worthily be blamed if they did not believe that he would forgo them all for the safety of his People; Concludes, That therefore if in it self it was lawful to propose a Bill for Excluding the Duke of York from the Crown, the doing it after such an un­warrantable signification of his pleasure would not make it otherwise.

To which I reply, that Parliaments as Subjects are more bound to comply with the natural and reasonable Affections and Passions of their Princes, than Princes are in the same Circumstances with those of their Subjects. And that in this case his Majesties own Personal safety and interest was wrapt up in that of his Brother; for if he might be Excluded, another might be Deposed on the same pretence, as Coleman said truly enough. And tho it [Page 91] should be granted that Parliaments ought to inform Princes, yet it is certain, they ought not to force them; they had informed the King in the two former Parliaments what they thought of this Affair, and his Majesty had re­jected their Advice, and in the beginning of this Parlia­ment at Oxford had told them, That what he had formerly, and so often declared touching the Succession he could not depart from. And after all this for them to enter again upon it in the very first place, looked like an intended force: And then tho the thing were lawful in it self, it may be thought unreasonable thus to pursue it; and Queen Elizabeth would have made them have felt the Effects of her resent­ment for presuming to be of so high Commandment, if she had been in his Majesties place.

In the next place we are told his Majesties unusual stiffness upon this occasion,Pag. 28. begins to be suspected not to proceed from fondness to his Brother, much less from any thoughts of danger to the English Monarchy, by such a Law, but from the influence of some few ill men upon his Royal mind, &c.

Now let all the World judge betwixt the King and this Party; they grant the King has been heretofore compliant enough to their desires; and then in the rudest Language that spight and scorn could dictate, conclude, against sense and reason, that it was not fondness to his Brother, nor kindness to the Monarchy, but the ill influence of a few men that had thus disposed him. A likely thing, that he which could give up a Brother, and be so unconcerned for his Crown, should be so stupid rather than stiff as to venture all for a few ill men.Ibid. Creatures to the Duke, and Pensioners to France, wicked Wretches who have infected him with the fatal Notion, that the Interests of his People are not only distinct, but opposite to his. No words I can write are sharp enough to reprove this Miscreant, that thus rails against his and my Sovereign the Lords Anointed, and therefore to God Almighty I leave it.

[Page 92] He tells us in the next place, his Majesty doth not seem to doubt of his Power in Conjunction with his Parliament to Exclude his Brother. He very well knows this Power hath been often Exerted in the time of his Predecessors.

Yes, doubtless his Majesty hath read the English Story, and observed at the same time, that more Princes have been deposed by Pretended power of Parliament than Ex­cluded; and he very well knows that if he shall yield that an Argument drawn from Example is valid, he will then stand upon slippery ground. He also knows that the right Heir was never put by but a good plenty of Miseries, Wars, and Calamities followed upon it; and he is able to foresee, that if the same should happen again, the French King may easily possess himself of these miserable King­doms, and therefore it is fairly probable love to his People as well as his Brother hath kept him from consenting.

The reasons he saith that his Majesty hath aliedged are because it concerned him so near in Honour,Pag. 28. Justice, and Con­science, not to do it.

And are not these three powerful Arguments? But my Author can ridicule them, and turn them all against the King. It is not (saith he) honourable for a Prince to be true and faithful to his Word and Oath? To keep and maintain the Religion and Laws Established? Yes, who doth question it, but all this, and all that he hath said besides, may be done without Excluding his Brother, who would have just as much right (supposing the King dies without law­ful Issue) to the Reversion, as his Majesty hath to the pre­sent Possession. And can his Majesty wrong him of that Right without a blemish to his Honour, Justice, and Con­science? Who will ever after dare to relie upon his Majesty if they once see him desert his own Brother?

But that which follows is amazing.Pag. 29. All Obligations of Honour, Justice, and Conscience, are comprehended in a grateful return of such benefits as have been received, can his Majesty [Page 93] believe that he doth duly repay unto his Protestant Subjects, the kindness they shewed him, when they recalled him from a miserable helpless Banishment, and with so much dutiful affecti­on placed him in the Throne, enlarged his Revenue above what any of his Predecessors had enjoyed, and gave him vaster Sums of Money in twenty years, than had been bestowed upon all the Kings since William the First? Should he after all this deliver them up to be ruined by his Brother?

It should have been, Should he after all this deliver them up to be ruined by the Dissenter: and the Faction that Murthered his Father, drew up an Oath of Abjuration of the whole Family of the Stuarts, hanged, plundered, murthered, sequestred, and destroyed so many of his Loyal Nobility, Gentry, and Clergy? Sir. I am not so ill bred as to Catechise my Sovereign, but I thing I may with­out offence ask the Whigs a few small questions. Have you the impudence after all the Villanies you have done, to Usurp the Loyalty that you never were guilty of: Was it not enough to banish your Sovereign,The Lord Chancellor told the Parliament May 1 [...]. 1662. that they had well provided for the Crown by the Bill of the Mil [...], and the Act for the Additional Revenue, to their high Commendation [...]. How [...]owa [...]d and indispo­sed soever many are at pre­sent, who [...] such ob­structions laid in their way to Mutiny and Sedition, use all the Artifi [...]e they can to persuade the people that yo [...] have not been soiretou enough for their Liberty, nor [...] enough for their pro [...], and [...] labour to [...] their reve­rence towards you which sure was [...] more due to any Parliament. and keep him twelve years in that miserable helpless con­dition, but you must reproach him too with it? Did he not pardon you when you had sormited your Lives and all you had to his Justice by all the Laws of God and man? Must he once more put himself into your power that he may try whether you will use him as you did his Father? Have you not repined at his Restitution, en­deavoured to Banish him the second time by all the Arts imaginable? Have you not murmur'd at all that has been given him? Slandered that Parliament that gave it whilst it fate, and since it was dissolved, laboured to represent it to the Nation as the worst Parliament that ever sate? Have not you, Sir, called them Danby's Pen­sioners, Mercenary Pensioners? &c. And can [Page 94] you shew any vast, or indeed competent Sums of Money given to the King since you know when? And after all this, have you the insolence to call your selves Protestants, or own your selves Subjects? And expect the King should, in pure gratitude for what you never did, lay all at your feet again? As for those Protestant Subjects who, besides all that you have falsely ascribed to your selves, fought for him and his Father, they do not fear his Majesties Brother would ruine them if he could, and therefore have by thou­sands thanked his Majesty for his care in preserving the Suc­cession in its due and legal course of descent.

In the next Paragraph my Author is very Politick, and tells us, Pag. 30. Our Ancestors have been always more careful to pre­serve the Government inviolable, than to favour any per­sonal pretences, and have therein conformed themselves to the practice of all other Nations, whose examples deseve to be followed.

That is, they have been more careful to preserve the Mornarchy it self, and the Liberties of the Subject, than the due and legal Descent in the Succession. This is cer­tainly true. And they have paid well for neglecting the other; as is apparent to any body that has read the Hi­story of England. I will instance only in the Wars betwixt the Houses of Lancaster and York. Richard II. being de­posed and murthered, Henry IV. who had no Title, but was a brave Prince,The continu­ation of the History of England by John Trussel. was set up. But mark the Con­sequence, before this Quarrel could be ended in B sworth Field, there perished 80998 Private Souldiers, two Kings, one Prince, ten Dukes, two Marquesses, twenty one Earls, twenty seven Lords, two Vicounts, once Lord Prior, one Judge, one hundred thirty nine Knights, four hundred forty one Esquires, and my Author knows not how many Gentlemen, in twelve Battels. The total, saith my Author, of all the persons that have been slain is, 85628. Christians, and most of them of this Nation. Is it [Page 95] fit to run the Risque of suffering all this over again?

As to his Examples of Princes that have been Excluded upon the account of Religion, or for other smaller matters, they prove nothing, but that ill things have been done, but ought they therefore to be reacted? As for his railing Accusations brought against his Royal Highness, they de­serve so much the less consideration because he treats the King at that abominable rate he doth; of whose Clemency, Justice, and Compassion all Europe are Witnesses.

Having concluded there must be a War; Pag. 31. he saith, Let it be under the Authority of Law, let it be against a Banished Excluded Pretender. There is no fear of the Consequence of such a War. No true Englishman can joyn with him, or counte­nance his Ʋsurpation; after this Act, and for his Popish and Forein Adherents, they will neither be more provoked, nor more powerful by the passing of it.

This man all along supposeth that neither the Duke nor the King have any natural Hereditary Right to the Crown; but talketh as if it were meerly at the pleasure of the Peo­ple and their Representatives to make what man they please King of England, supposing that a Son of an Empe­rour of Germany, or of a King of Poland, were passed by or Excluded, and should enter a War for the gaining of that Crown, to which for want of an Election he had never any legal right, he might be stiled a Pretender or an Usurper; but in an Hereditary Kingdom it can never be so, if according to the before cited opinion of K. James, no Act of Parliament can extinguish the Dukes Right, which God and Nature hath given him, in case the King should die before his Royal Highness without lawful Issue, tho it may prevent his ob­taining it. So that he can never be an Usurper or Preten­der till the Monarchy of England is declared to be Elective. And this may be thought to be one reason why his Majesty should never yield the point. And as for my Authors [Page 96] confidence in the success of such a War, it speaks nothing but his earnest desire of one, rather than not to have his Will, and I hope the Nation will have no occasion to prove him a false Prophet.Pag. 31.

Nor will his Exclusion make it at all necessary to maintain a standing Force, for preserving the Government, and the peace of the Kingdom. The whole People will be an Army for that purpose, and every heart and hand will be prepared to maintain that so necessary, so much desired Law.

If all this were true, there would be no need of an Army indeed, but then there would also be as little need of an Association too, for I never heard of a Prince that was able to compel three whole Nations to submit to him against all their Wills, and without Forein Aids. But, Sir, the House of Commons thought the latter necessary, or else they would never have desired that his Majesty would be likewise Graciously pleased to Assent to an Act whereby his Majesties Protestant Subjects may be enabled to Associate themselves for the defence of his Majesties Person, Address of Decemb. 21. 1680. the Pro­testant Religion, and the security of your Kingdoms. This was thought as necessary as the Bill of Exclusion, and what kind of Association some men intended is well enough un­derstood now by the whole Nation.

As to his Recrimination upon the Ministers for the two Armies and the Guards; let him set his heart at rest, for the World is very well satisfied, the one were never intended to be kept up, and it is hoped the other (the Guards) will be ever formidable to such Gentlemen, as my Author, who in kindness to the Queen of Scots Title, and the Bill of Exclusion, is, like a good Protestant, contented to insinuate that Queen Elizabeth was a Bastard, though born in Ma­trimony. For so she must be, if what the Papists say of her having no other Right but only that of an Act of Parliament, by which Mary Queen of Scots was Excluded, be true.

[Page 97] In the next Paragraph my Author endeavours to face his Majesty down, Pag. 32. That nothing was intended by those other ways which were darkly and dubiously intimated in his Ma­jesties Speech unto the Parliament at Oxford, and repea­ted in the Declaration; and he saith, that his Majesty in his wisdom could not but know that they signified nothing.

Now this is a strange way of proceeding with Princes, and would anger a private man. The Regency signified nothing, the distinction betwixt the Kings Personal and Politick Capa­city was unfeasible; the Pope might absolve him from all Oaths,Pag. 33. as he did King John, and Henry III. and it would be more fatal to us when Religion is concerned, which was not then in question. His Confessor would excite him against us, and he who has made use of all the Power he has been intrusted with hitherto for our destruction, (witness his Naval Wars against the Dutch) would certainly Elude all Methods but the Bill of Exclusion, and if it were otherwise, there was no hopes of having any fruit of any Expedient without a War; and to be obliged to swear Allegiance to a Popish Prince, to own his Title, to acknowledge him supreme Head of the Church, and Defender of the Faith, seems (says my Author) a strange way of entitling our selves to fight with him.

It doth so; and therefore all those that are resolved on a War will I suppose never do it. But are all these Titles annexed to the Crown as Protestant, or as imperial and subject to none but God? Did they belong to Henry VIII. or did they not? And supposing no Expedient should be used, would not the Number, Constancy, and Resolution of the English Nation, and Protestants in it, preserve the Religion in one Prince's Reign, tho of a different Religion, without a War?

The Expedient propounded by his Majesty. that if means could be found, That in case of a Popish Success [...]r, the Administration of the Government might remain in Protestant hands, whether it be feasible or no, shews an inclination in [Page 98] his Majesty to submit to any thing but what will ruine both him and his Brother, as the Bill of Exclusion, backed with such an Association, as was lately found, certainly will. In short, this Case is beset with so many and great difficulties that it baffles all humane wit and understand­ing to provide such an Expedient for it, as may be secure and satisfie; and therefore when all is done that can be done, it must be left to God Almighty, who only can, and will determine it.

Having denied the charge in the Declaration, That there was reason to believe that the Parliament would have passed further to attempt some other great and important changes even at present, and according to his wont, schooled the King; and told the Ministers, That they hate Parlia­ments, because their Crimes are such that they have reason to fear them. He relents a little, and tells us, if they (the Ministers) by that expression meant, Pag. 34. That the Parliament would have besought the King that the Duke might no longer have the Government in his hands. This is a little hard to be understood, the Duke not being then in England. 2. That his Dependants (those that had voted against the Bill) should no longer preside in His Councils, no longer possess all the great Trusts and Offices in the Kingdom. 3. That our Ports, our Garrisons, and our Fleets should be no longer go­verned by such as are at his devotion. 4. That Characters of Honour and Favour should be no longer placed on men that the Wisdom of the Nation (the House of Commons without the Lords, for they have it seems lately got a Patent to Monopolize all the Wisdom of the Nation) hath judged to be favourers of Popery, or Pensioners of France. These are great and important Changes, but such as it becomes Englishmen to believe were designed by that Parliament, and such as will be designed and prest by every Parliament, and such as the People will ever pray may find success with the King; without these Changes (and the Association forgotten by my [Page 99] Author) the Bill of Exclusion would only provoke, not dis­arm our Enemies. Nay, the very money which we must have paid for it, would have been made use of to secure and hasten the Duke's return upon us.

Now this was all perhaps was meant by that passage in the Declaration,In plain English there must be a Change, we must neither have Popish Wife, nor Po­pish Favourite, nor Popish Mistris, nor Popish Counsel­lor at Court, nor any new Convert. We want a Go­vernment and a Prince that we may trust, &c. A Speech of a Noble Peer of the Realm. and the Conse­quences of these things are such that no be­seeching will ever obtain them, till his Majesty is weary of all he hath, and therefore it well becomes all English men, that do not design another Rebellion, for time to come to design, and pray: and our Parliaments to press for some other things that may be fitter for them to ask, and his Majesty to grant. I conclude with the Wisemans Advice, My Son fear thou the Lord and the King: and meddle not with them that are given to change. Especially to such important changes.

We are now come to the consideration of that only fault which was peculiar to the Parliament at Oxford, Pag. 35. and that was their behaviour in relation to the business of Fitz-Harris, the Declaration says, He was impeached of High Treason by the Commons, and they had cause to think his Treasons to be of such an extraordinary nature, that they well deserved an examination in Parliament.

We shall by and by come to examine the reasons that made them think so, and in the interim it is worth the while to recite the very words of the Declaration which are these:

[Page 100] The Votes are these:

And now let us follow my Authors account of Fitz-Harris his business, Pag. 35. who, he says truly, was a known Irish Papist, and it appeared by the Informations given in the House, he was made use of by some very great persons to set up a Counterfeit Protestant Conspiracy,Oatos tells us, these were the Protesting Lords, and the Leading men in the House of Commons. Trial, pag. 28. and thereby not only to drown the noise of the Popish Plot, but to take off the Heads of the most eminent of those who refused to bow their knees to Baal, &c. That this might look as unlike a Popish Design (and be the better received by the people) as was possible, they framed a libel full of the most bitter invectives against [Page 101] Popery and the Duke of York, it carried as much seeming zeal for the Protestant Religion as Colemans Declaration, and as much care and concern for our Laws, as the pen­ners of this Declaration would seem to have: But it was also filled with the most subtile insinuations, and the sharpest expressions against his Majesty that could be in­vented, and with direct and passionate incitements to Re­bellion.

This Paper,Trial, pag. 21. as it appears by the account of it which was given at Fitz-Harris his Trial, was penn'd in the stile, and just like the Libels the sober Protestants daily Print, and perhaps not much unlike our modest Vindicator, in the main, but had some things in it which they whisper for the present, because it is dangerous Printing of them. And some other things plainly spoken, which the other Party have a way to insinuate craftily, so that it may be under­stood, and yet not hazard their sweet lives.

This,Pag. 35. saith my Author, was to be conveyed by unknown Messengers (Oates says by the Penny Post) to their hands who were to be betrayed, and then they were to be seized upon, and those Libels sound about them, were to be a Confirmation of the truth of a Rebellion, which they had provided Witnesses to swear was designed by the Protestants, and had before prepared men to believe by Private Whispers. And the credit of this Plot should no doubt have been soon confirmed by speedy Justice done upon the pretended Criminals.

And now it is time to give a little better account of this Li­bel, than perhaps the Author has given, it was penned by one Mr. Everard, by the direction of Fitz-Harris, he fearing he might be shamm'd, and that it was designed so, called in one Mr. Smith, and Sir William Waller into the business, that so he might clear himself of it, and trappan Fitz-Har­ris. These two Gentlemen heard Fitz-Harris dictate the heads of it to Everard. and one of them heard him ap­prove of it, when it was delivered to him. Mr. Everard [Page 102] was promised his reward for all this by the French Embas­sadour,Pag. 24. as Sir William Waller swears in the Trial he heard Fitz-Harris say; and upon Sir William Wallers giving the King an account of it, Fitz-Harris was taken with the Li­bel about him.

Being taken and committed to Newgate, Feb. 27. he was exami­ned the tenth day of March by Sir Robert Clayton, and Sir George Treby, There he speaks not one word of the Author of the Libel.Said Colledge, If you do not joyn with Fitz-Harris, and charge the King home, you are the basest fellow in the world, &c. Colledge Trial. pag. 30. But being thus imprisoned, he found there was no way to save his life, but to curry favour with those eminent men that had never bowed the knee to Baal. So that Story was set up, which he was not able to prove one Syllable of at his Trial, but however it was easily enough believed by them, who love to make the King and Court as odious as they can, as well as the Papists.

My Author goes on. The heinous nature of the Crime, and the greatness of the Persons supposed to be concerned,Pag. 36. de­served an extraordinary Examination, which a Jury, who were only to enquire whether Fitz-Harris was guilty of framing that Libel, could never make; and the Commons believed none but the Parliament was big enough to go through with it.

The Trial of this Person being extant, I must for brevity refer my Reader to it; and I see not how it had been possi­ble for the Parliament to have sifted that business of Fitz-Harris his being put upon this by the Court, to ruine the eminent men, more narrowly than it was at the Trial, and there was not one syllable proved by any of the Witnesses he produced, which were many, and persons of great worth, only Mr. Oates said, he heard Everard say some such thing, which Everard again denied upon his Oath. And Sir William Waller owned he had heard the King was dis­contented at his troubling him with this business; but Sir William Waller, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Everard proved it positively upon him that he had ordered the drawing of [Page 103] that Libel, had approved of it when it was drawn, and amended some words in it with his own hands. And now after all this to lay the Crime upon the Court, upon the suggestion of the Malefactor, was such a piece of Justice as never was attempted.

Nor did they (the Commons) only fear the perversion of Justice,Pag. 36. but the misapplication of Mercy too, &c. because when Fitz-Harris was inclined to Repentance, and had begun a Con­fession, to the surprize of the whole Nation, without any visible cause, he was taken out of the lawful custody of the Sheriffs, and shut up a close prisoner in the Tower.

That he had not only begun, but gone through with a Confession appears by a Printed Narrative, taken by two, which I think were both of the House of Commons, one I am sure was. And when notwithstanding this, some eminent men began to tamper with him to turn all this upon the Court; then, and not before, was he taken out of the custo­dy of the Sheriffs, and put into the Tower, that they might not make an ill use of him to the Damage of the King and the Government.

The Commons had therefore no other way to be secure that the prosecution should be effectual,Ibid. the Judgment indifferent, and the Criminal out of all hopes of Pardon, (unless by an ingenuous Confession be could engage both Houses in a powerful mediation to his Majesty in his behalf.) But by impeaching him they were sure no pardon could stop their suit, tho the King might release his own Prosecution by his Pardon.

What need there was here of any further or more inge­nuous Confession that he should make, than what he had made I cannot imagine; but we may guess it was meant, that if Fitz-Harris should lay the blame of this Libel on the Court, and say it was designed to Trappan the emi­nent men, then they would try to get him pardoned, but if he did not do this, then he should have been hanged without mercy.

[Page 104] Well, But what if the King would not have consented to the Pardon, which was to have been purchased with his dishonour? Then the Commons would not have pro­ceeded with their impeachment, and the Consequence would have been (if the Lords had not rejected the Impeachment) that then no inferiour Court could have tried him, and so he should never have been tried.

So that it is plain, that if the Lords had not rejected this Impeachment, it would, as the King saith in the Declaration, have been made use of to delay a Trial that We had directed against a profess'd Papist charged with Treasons against Ʋs of an extraordinary nature: And certainly the House of Peers did themselves Right in refusing to give countenance to such a proceeding.

Part of the 36,Pag. 36, 37, 38, 39. and all the 37, 38, 39, Pages are spent by my Author to prove that a Commoner may be tried by the Peers in Parliament upon an Impeachment of the Com­mons; in which matter I will have no Controversie with him because he may be in the right for ought I know. And I have as little to say to him,Pag. 40. whether such Commoners as are tried there ought to have any Juries, or whether the Lords rejecting the Impeachment was, or only looked, like a denial of Justice. For it is plain, that as good justice might be had, and in this case was had, in the Kings Bench as could have been had before the Lords, and if Fitz-Har­ris had been acquitted there, then the Commons might afterwards have impeached him of any branch of Treason that was not; or could not have been tried in the Kings Bench; so that the pretence he makes that part of his Trea­sons were thought such as could only be adjudged in Parlia­ment, is impertinent, for the remainder were apparently such as he ought to be hanged for, in an inferiour Court, and he could suffer but once, and the taking notice of the rest would have been impertinent.

[Page 105] I think I may modestly say this, that the impeachment of Commoners before the Lords is so extraordinary a way, that it would be used as little as is possible; but these Gen­tlemen were for nothing else, and Thompson, Sheridon, Ver­don, and the Lord knows how many more, were to have been thus proceeded against, tho they were not persons of such extraordinary degree or quality, but they might full as well have been tried in any other Court, and the Consequence of this would have been, that neither the Lords nor Com­mons would have had any leisure for any thing else but this.

Might it not be well retorted by the People,Pag. 41. that it had been long a matter extremely sensible to them, that so many Proro­gations, so many Dissolutions, so many other Arts had been used to delay the Trials, which his Majesty had often desired and the Parliament prepared for, against the five professed Popish Lords charged with Treasons of an extraordinary nature.

The King might if he had pleased have charged this up­on the Commons too, that notwithstanding the long time they had been imprisoned, yet the Commons would not go on with their Trials, that they might legally and regularly be discharged. The Impeachment of the Earl of Danby be­fore they had tried these five Lords occasioned the dissolu­tion of the Long Loyal Parliament. A Controversie be­twixt the Lords and the Commons about the Trial of the said Earl of Danby broke the next Parliament. Then comes the second short Westminster Parliament, and having tried only one of them, the Earl of Stafford, when all the World were in expectation they would have gone on, and have tried the other four, they fell upon the Exclusion Bill, and that being rejected by the Lords, they fell upon the Revenue, and seemingly Voted the King a [...] the Third's time, they put down the Purveyor of the Meat for the maintenance [...] House, as if the King had been a Bankrupt, and gave order that without ready Money he sh [...] not take up a Chicken. Prerogative of Parliaments, p. 15. Bankrupt Jar. 7. by declaring that no man ought to trust him further than he [Page 106] had ready money; nor lend him any, and Declared that several eminent men of the Privy Counsellors were favou­rers of Popery, and enemies to the King and Kingdom, and for which and the other things they were dissolved; then comes that at Oxford, with the Votes I have recited, for which, and for insisting upon the Bill for Excluding the Duke of York they were dissolved. Could none of these Parliaments have tried the Popish Lords without these things? Yes, doubtless they might, but they would not, but kept these Lords in the Tower, that whatever provo­cation they should give the King to Dissolve or Prorogue them, still the clamour might be that it was to prevent their Trials. And I am fully persuaded there are some men in England would almost choose to be hanged them­selves rather than be deprived of this glorious and popu­lar pretence of insensing the People against the King and the Court.

If there be no other Evidence of the Unparliamentary and mean Solicitations used to promote this pretended Rejection of the Commons Accusation,Pag. 41. than this scurvy Hint in my Author, which he acknowledgeth not fit to be remembred, tho he cannot forbear Printing it, I suppose it is but a small part of the Nation that will be extremely sen­sible of it.

But yet however if their Impeachment had not been re­jected, Fitz-Harris had long since been executed, or deserved mercy by a full discovery of these malicious designs against the King and People, and the secret Authors of them. And that he would certainly have done to have saved his own life, and then we should have had an opportunity to have made the World believe,Trial, p 54. that the King did hire Fitz-Harris to raise a Rebellion against himself, to defame him­self, and insense the minds of the People against him, for thus he defamed the King at his Trial. This was all he could do to merit a Pardon by, and this he did at his [Page 107] Trial, but was able to produce no testimony to back it.

But this Trial occasioned strange talk in Westminster Hall, and Questions were raised of a strange nature that will never have a determination in any inferiour Court, but will assuredly at one time or other have a further Examinati­on. Pag. 41. These questions were moved then by Fitz-Harris his Counsel, and need never be determined.

By the Term in the Declaration of the Lords having done themselves right by refusing to admit the Impeach­ment,Pag. 42. he hath discovered the Penman of the Declaration, and says, he has done himself and the Nation Right, and discovered himself by using his ordinary Phrase upon this occasion. Now I thought verily the next word would have been his Name; no, but stay you there. The Person is well known without naming him, who always tells men they have done themselves no right, when he is resolved to do them none. Now cannot I tell any more whom he means, by this private token than the man in the Moon, and if he had graciously vouchsafed to have whispered his name in my Ear, and I had known that he had usually thus expressed himself, yet I should still be a little jealous some Frenchman or other might be the Author of it, because my Author hath given full as good evidence, Page 5. to prove it was so.

As for the Commons nothing (says my Author) was carried on to extremity by them,Ibid. nothing done but what was Parliamentary, they could not desire a Conference till they had first stated their own Case, and asserted by Votes the matter which they were to maintain at a Conference.

This was done effectually in the first part of the first and second Vote, without adding, That the refusal of the Lords to proceed in Parliament upon such Impeachment, is a denial of Justice, and a violation of the Constitution of Parliaments, and in the second Vote, and an obstruction to the further [Page 108] discovery of the Popish Plot, and of great danger to his Ma­jesties Person, and the Protestant Religion.

Here the Declaration lays the stress of the business, and says, That when either of the Houses are so far transported as to pass such Votes concerning the proceedings of the other, without Conferences first had to examine upon what grounds such proceedings are made, and how far they might be justified; this puts the Two Houses out of a Capacity of Transacting business together, and consequently is the greatest violation of the Constitution of Parliaments. Now surely the House of Commons might have asserted their Right without these Expressions, which must needs insense the Lords, especially when they were Printed, and spread over the whole Nation.

But the House of Commons was so far from thinking them­selves to be out of a Capacity of Transacting with the Lords any further that they were preparing to send a Message for a Conference to Accommodate this difference,Pag. 42. at the very instant when the Black Rod called them to their dissolution.

But this it is very probable was not known to his Maje­sty, so that it came too late to save them.

If every difference in Opinion and Vote should put the Two Houses out of a Capacity of transacting business together, every Parliament must be dissolved as soon as called.

Now, Sir, I could never have thought that it is so usual a thing for the Two Houses to make such Votes as these against each other; I am persuaded the Lords would never have treated with the Commons if a Conference had been demanded till the Conclusions of the first and second Vote had been recanted.

But the Ministers promoted this difference between the Two Houses, (what, did any of them dictate these Votes?) and then broke the Parliament lest it should be composed. And for this my Author gives you his own honest word over again in the next Page, and hopes no man will be so hard­hearted as not to believe him.

[Page 109] But my Author hath another quarrel against the Mini­sters, because they censure these Votes of the Commons as the greatest violation of the Constitution of Parliaments; They ought certainly (says my Author) to have excepted the power which is here assumed of giving such a Judgment,Pag. 43. and Publishing such a charge, as being not only the highest violati­on of the Constitution, but directly tending to the destruction of it.

Well then, I for my part will never undertake to defend them in it. Aut I have observed one thing in these debates, that the Priviledges of the House of Commons are not much unlike the Power claimed by the Pope, which is to judge all men, and to be judged by no man. So that what­ever they are pleased to call Priviledge of Parliament I am bound to believe is so, with an implicit faith: For these Priviledges of Parliament are known to none but those that sit in St. Stephens Chappel, and if a man sit there twenty years, yet he shall be allowed to know no more of them the day after he is turned out than I do.

The Declaration mentions one sort of men who are fond of their old beloved Commonwealth Principles,Ibid. and others are aangry at being disappointed in designs they had to accomplish their own ambition and greatness. Surely (says my Au­thor) if they know any such persons, the only way to have prevented the mischiefs which they pretend to fear from them, had been to have discovered them, and suffered the Parlia­ment to sit to provide against the evils they would bring upon the Nation, by prosecuting them.

I cannot but fancy my Author smiled to himself when he made this pleasant Proposition.

In the next place my Author gives us a description of men of Commonwealth Principles; he tells us, Ibid. They are men Passionately devoted to the publick good, and to the com­mon service of their Country, who believe that Kings were in­stituted for the good of the People, and Government ordained [Page 110] for the sake of those that are to be governed, and therefore complain or grieve when it is used to contrary ends, and that wise and honest men will be proud to be ranked in this number.

Now, as favourably as he hath drawn it, I assure him, I for my part am none of the number; for tho I know that if there were no People, there could hardly have been Kings, and that one main end of Government was the good of those that are to be governed; yet I believe that God Almighty had some respect for Princes and Governours, and did not design only the good of the People, but their good too; and tho I can grieve, yet I am not apt to complain when things go amiss.

My Author in the next place spends a great deal of learn­ing to prove, That the word Commonwealth signifies the common good, in which sense it hath been used by all good Authors, &c. Now, this I will yield him, with all my hearts, that till one thousand six hundred and forty all the World thought that a good Commonwealth man and a good Subject were terms that might be promiscuously and in­differently used; but the Author cannot be ignorant, that not long after the word Commonwealth was so wholly ap­propriated to an odious Democracy by the Rebels of the late times, whose usurped Seal and Coyn bore the Image and Superscription of the Beast, that it is no ways likely it should ever recover its Primitive signification.

And I dare assure him, that many of the English Nation will never be pleased to find in Parliament such men as have so great a kindness for the word, as implies a han­kering after the thing it has obtained to signifie.

But if the Declaration (says my Vindicator) would inti­mate that there had been any design of setting up a Democrati­cal Government,Pag. 44. in opposition to our Legal Monarchy, it is a Ca­lumny just of a piece with the other thing which the Penners of the Declaration have vented, in order to the laying upon [Page 111] others the blame of a design to overthrow the Government, which only belongs to themselves.

Now,There hath not been a Week (since Venners rising) in which there have not been Combinations and Conspi­racies formed against his Majesties Person, and against the Peace of the King­dom, &c. Lord Chancellors Speech, May 8. 1661. Sir, This is not the first time that his Majesty hath complained of a parcel of men who had such a design; and if you please we will inquire a little into the reason of it. That there was in the Nation a great number of men that had imbibed a Notion, that all other kinds of Governments but what had something of the Democratical form in them without a single Person, were Arbitrary and Tyrannical, I suppose will not be denied, that these men did not all of them expire when his Majesty landed from Breda is very probable, but his Majesty being setled, and all things running quite con­trary to their Interest, as you have told us, may appear by comparing the Parliaments that were sent up in 1640.Pag. 6. and 1660. these men were forced to seem more loyal than they were, that they might one day appear what they were.

Now, Sir, it is not to be expected they should openly declare for the Commonwealth of England, and desire Charles Stuart to march off, and give them their right, when blessed be God they have neither Men nor Money to back such an insolence with, but yet we may be allowed to guess at their Designs by their Actions, and if that may be allowed, the Penners of the Declaration were not the only men that thought there was then, and is now, some De­mocratical or Commonwealth designs against the very Monarchy driving on, and you must excuse me if I say the Calumny lies at your doors, get rid of it as well as you can.

It is strange how this word should so change its significa­cation with us in twenty years.Pag. 44. All Monarchies in the world that are not purely Barbarous and Tyrannical have ever been called Commonwealths, &c. Sir, I will grant more than [Page 112] that, that all without exception have by some men been so stiled, and produced good Authors for it. But yet we that had so lately like to have been ruined by the word, and men that were fond of it, shall ever have reason to hate them and it,Tacitus in the end of the Reign of Augustus saith, Senes plerique inter Bella Civium na­ti, quotusquisque reliqu [...]s qui Rempub. vidisset? igitur ver­sus Civitatis status, nihil us­quam pris [...]i & integri moris: Omnis exuta aequalitate jussa Principis aspectare. H. lib. 1. In which passage Monarchy is opposed to the ancient Liberty or Commonwealth. and a less space of years than twen­ty such as passed betwixt 40. and 60. might be allowed to render a word hateful, which in strict propriety signifies the Publick Affairs of a People managed by many with equal Authority. I could easily answer all you have brought to defend the word, but the case being plain, I will not trouble my self or my Reader; and therefore if you have no other Argument to prove men guilty of a fondness to Arbitrary Power than their aversion for this word, I shall never go about to contend with you.

No man can have a greater Veneration for Parliaments than I have, but then who are they that have disordered things to that height they lately were? You say the Mini­sters are the men, whom you represent as you use to do, with bitter reflections on his Majesty, and not the Parlia­ment; others say, it was such men as your self; and the case hath been by both Parties referred to the People, and they have by thousands given their Verdicts against those their Representatives, which to me is a strong Argument the case is not so difficult as you pretend, for I do not conceive it possible to delude (so great a part of the) People into an abhorrence of their own Representatives,Pag. 45. without their having given them just cause.

And if we look about us, we shall find these who design a change, on either hand fomenting a misunderstanding between the King his Parliament and People, whilst persons who love the Legal Monarchy both out of Choice and Conscience, are they who desire the frequent and successful meetings of the great Council of the Nation.

[Page 113] Sir, if you durst have spoken your mind plainly, I might possibly have thought this the only honest passage in this whole Book; but as it now stands it is to me apparent that you would not let your Conscience in this passage give your Passion in all the rest the lie.

Now, if I might interpret your meaning I should guess it to be this, They that on the one hand pretend to main­tain the Legal Monarchy, but do really intend to advance it into an absolute form, without any dependence upon Parliaments, and they who pretend the same thing, but design to throw off the Monarchy, and put the whole Power into the hands of the People, i. e. the Commonwealth Party, are the men that have brought things into the disor­der they are now in. Whilst they who love the Legal Mo­narchy both out of Choice and Conscience, (amongst which persons I will subscribe my name when occasion requires,) are they who desire the frequent and successful meetings of the Great Coucil.

Now, Sir, here seems to be a little Justice in this, for as it were a high and flagrant piece of injustice to say that all that made up the House of Commons in the two last Parlia­ments designed to ruine the Monarchy, and set up another Parliamentary Commonwealth of England: So it is the same notorious and base injustice in you to traduce the Mi­nisters in general, as you do throughout the whole Pam­phlet, when as it is apparent enough, first, That his Maje­sty never did intend to set up one Dram of Arbitrary Go­vernment. Secondly,See the Pre­face to the first part of the Addre [...]s to the Free­men, &c. That it is not possible for the Mi­nisters to do it without his consent. Thirdly, That it is scarce possible for him and them to do it, if they had de­signed to do it, till there hath been another War. Fourth­ly, That never any considerable person, or number of per­sons amongst the Ministers, did ever yet make one step to­wards it. For all those Acts that have been so basely tra­duced are fairly defensible. Those that look worst, the [Page 114] Transactions about 1671. and 72. not excepted, one of which you your self have excused,Pag. 19. viz. the Postponing of all Payments to the Bankers out of the Exchequer: And the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, though you stile it an Arbitrary Power assumed to suspend Penal Laws, Pag. 22. and say the whole Nation was justly alarmed upon it; yet I be­lieve should his Majesty do the same thing over again, those that now make the greatest noise against Arbitrary Power without cause, would willingly enough accept of it. And yet there is no reason that the present Ministers should bear the blame of these things, when they that promoted them are now, Sir, in your Interests.

And, Sir, that the meetings of the Great Council may be successful as well as frequent, one of these things must be, that either the People change the Members of the Lower House; or that those Members change their Methods of Proceeding; and till this be done these meetings, how fre­quent soever, can never be successful. For if things be carried in the next Convention as they were in the late Parliaments, neither can the King, neither will the Nation endure it; and for all our Threats you will find, when you come to bring it into Act, such difficulties as I car not to foretel, tho I can foresee them.

As for the other sort of Peevish men,Pag. 45. of whom the Decla­ration gives us warning, who are angry at the disappointment of their Ambitious Designs. If these words are intended to reflect on those men of Honour and Conscience, who being qua­lified for the highest imployments of State, have either left, or refused, or be removed from them because they would not accept ro retain them at the Price of selling their Country, and inslaving Posterity: and who are content to sacrifice their Safety as well as their Interest for the Publick; and expose themselves to the malice of the men in power, and to the daily Plots, Perjuries, and Subornations of the Papists. I say, if these are the Ambitious Men spoken of, the People will have [Page 115] consideration for what they say, and therefore it will be wis­dom to give such men as these no occasion to say they intend to lay aside the use of Parliaments.

This your Appeal to the People hath spoiled all the fine things you had said before, for supposing all the rest had been true (as it is notoriously false) yet this making the People the Judges is a kind of attempt to separate them from their Governours, and exasperate them against the Government, from whence must spring as great inconve­niences as those you pretend to avoid; and therefore had I been one of these men, I would never have appealed to them; but to God and my own Conscience, and have sate still till he had pronounced the Sentence in this World, or that which is to come. You know, Sir, the People are not able to examine any thing, but being once put into a rage by such specious Harangues as these are, rush into dis­order and confusion, and take all that endeavour to quiet them for Enemies and Papists, and so the guilty escape, and then innocent are cut in pieces. And besides all this, never was any disorder in a Government rectified by the People, but by a greater and more fatal disorder, as we had experi­ence in the late times, and very often before.

But let the Event be what it will, you are resolved to stir up the People to the utmost to revenge your case upon the Government; and to that purpose insinuate there is a design to lay aside the use of Parliaments: as if you should have said, Stand to your Arms, Gentlemen, against these Ministers, for as they have laid us aside, men of Honour and Conscience, because we would not sell our Country, and enslave Posterity; so the next thing to be done is the laying aside Parliaments, and you are the men that must by your consideration of us prevent this great mischief.

This was pretty well, Pag. 46. but the next is excellent. In good earnest, the behaviour of the Ministers of late gives but too just occasions to say, that the use of Parliaments is already laid [Page 116] aside; for tho the King has own'd in so many of his Speeches and Declarations the great Danger of the Kingdom, and the necessity of the aid and counsel of Parliaments, he hath never­theless been prevailed upon to dissolve four in the space of twenty six months without making provision by their Advice suitable to our dangers or wants.

My Author was sensible that the People might think that the former hint proceeded from Passion, or was not serious, or at least the danger was not eminent; and he comes now nearer to them, and tells them in good earnest they had but too just occasions to say that Parliaments were already laid aside as to any use of them; and he proved it too: Four had been dissolved in twenty six months; but three of them were called in that time. And this is an odd sort of laying them aside to call as many in twenty six months as heretofore have been called in so many years▪ Well, but there was no provision made by their Advice suita­ble to our Dangers or Wants. The fault, says the Decla­ration, was in them,Declaration. The King was willing to have done any thing which would have consisted with the very being of the Government. He passed every Bill that was tendred; con­nived so long at the proceedings of the last Parliament of Westminster, that many men wondred, and some (that were neither Papists, nor Malefactors) murmured. And a grave man told the very Parliament, that he suspected they were permitted to sit there, Debates, p. 19 1. rather to destroy themselves than to save their Country. And now after all this is his Majesty to bear the blame that no provision was made by their Advice suitable to our wants and dangers. Well, but the People, to whom my Gentleman is appealing, they will never un­destand nor consider these things, nor any thing else, and therefore my Gentleman did wisely to make them the Judges, but for the honesty of it, or the truth of any of this I have nothing to say.

[Page 117] Nor can we hope the Court will ever love any Parliament better than the first of those four,Pag. 46. wherein they had so dearly purchased such a number of fast friends, men who having first sold themselves, would not stick to sell any thing after. And we may well suspect they mean very ill at Court, when their de­signs shockt such a Parliament.

The business of the Pensioners hath been considered elsewhere,Address to the Freemen, p 39. part. 2. and need not here be repeated. Now, to me one of these things must be false, viz. that there was such a number of men who had so sold themselves: Or that the Court are such men as you, Sir, say they are. If these men had sold themselves, why did they not go on with the bar­gain? If the Court had such an interest in them, and such designs upon them and us, why did it part with them? Especially when the Ministers knew they lost thereby a constant Revenue of extraordinary Supplies, as you say they did, and I may say they have had little enough since. Oh, the Rea­son was, they began in good earnest to examine what was done, and what was doing. And therefore they were pack'd away. Well, the matter was not great, they were a company of Pensioners, men that had sold themselves, and would not stick to sell any thing after. And, Sir, if it were so, the Nation has no reason to complain of the Court for that, and I hope I too shall be excused if I have dropt a few less respective words of the three Parliaments that have since followed; for they are not better, nor more sacred than this, of which many of the Lord Chancellors have given high Encomiums, my Lord ofSpeech to the Parlia­ment. Feb. 5. 1672. Shaftsbury not excepted.

Now let my Reader reflect on all this seriously, and tell me if any person, even Fitz-Harris himself, could possi­bly write any thing worse than this; and which tended more to heighten the resentments of the Nation, and put the People into disorder and confusion. Pag. 35. The most direct and passionate incitements to rebellion he used, are not more likely to stir them, than our Authors warm and earnest applications on [Page 118] the behalf of these Ambitious men, as I perceive the De­claration rightly stiles them, for none but such would ever desire to see their Country imbroyled, and to that end ap­peal to the People. And supposing the People to be well disposed that way,Pag▪ 6. it would be no wonder that the Ministers dare not suffer a Parliament now to sit, till the People are in a better temper to chuse one; but then, Sir, this is owing to such men as you, and such Books as yours, and you must answer for it.

But we have gained at least this one point by the Declara­tion,Ibid. that it is own'd to us, That Parliaments are the best Me­thods for healding the distempers of the Kingdom, and the only means to preserve the Monarchy in Credit both at home and abroad. Own'd by these very men who have so maliciously ren­dered many former Parliaments ineffectual, and by this De­claration have done their utmost to make those which are to come as fruitless, and thereby have confessed that they have no concern for healing the distempers of the Kingdom, and preserving the credit of the Monarchy, which is in effect to acknowledge themselves to be what the Commons called them, Enemies to the King and Kingdom.

Just before, Sir, you had been proving them designing to lay all use of Parliaments aside, and now you bring them in owning what will certainly ruine that design; not long before that you had been convicting them of a design of making the Monarchy Arbitrary and absolute, and now they are unconcerned for the very Credit of the Monarchy. Are you in your right Wits? Do you think thus to prove them Enemies to the King and Kingdom? Why must those Parliaments that are to come be as fruitless as those that are past? The Ministers may be changed, or the People may change, or the very Parliament men may change; and time may be Gods grace have strange effects. And in the mean time his Majesty is not in [...] wants of a Par­liament, but he [...] than a bad one, [Page 119] a Rending instead of a Healing Parliament. And in the interim his Majesties good Subjects can rely as socurely up­on his Royal Declaration that he intends not to lay aside the use of Parliaments, as if there were one now actually sit­ting at Westminister.

However we rejoyce,Pag. 47. that his Majesty seems resolved to have frequent Parliaments, and hope he will be just to him­self and us, by continuing constant to this Resolution. Yet we cannot but doubt in some degree when we remember the Speech made January 26. 1679. to both Houses, wherein he told them, that he was unalterably of an Opinion, that long in­tervals of Parliaments were absolutely necessary for com­posing and quieting the minds of the People. Therefore which we ought rather to believe the Speech or the Declarati­on, or which is likely to last longest, a Resolution, or an unal­terable Opinion, is a matter too nice for any but Court Cri­ticks to decide. The effectual performance of the last part of the promise will give us assurance of the first.

When, or where this Speech was spoken by his Majesty I cannot devise, for at the time assigned there could be none. The first short Parliament was Prorogued May 27. 1679. And the second met not till October 21. 1680. and was Prorogued the tenth of January following. I have read over all his Majesties Speeches too about that time, and I find not one tittle in them to this purpose.

But if there ever were any such Speech spoken (for I will not be positive there was not) it is fairly reconcileable with the very words of the Declaration, for the Statute made in his Majesties Reign calls Triennial Parliaments,17 Car. 2. C. 1. A frequent calling, assembling and holding of Parliaments, which yet is a very long Interval in comparison of the time his Ma­jesty hath hitherto interposed betwixt the Dissolving or Proroguing of one Parliament and the sitting of another; so that the matter was not so nice but it might have been [...]een determined by a meaner Critick than our Author, who [Page 120] hath shewn his great skill in the French Tongue in his learned Remarques on the Phrase,Pag. 5. it is a matter extremely sensible to us: And in the Latine upon the word Republick or Commonwealth.Pag. 43, 44, If he had not from hence sought an occasion to call his Majesties Fidelity in question, which tho it may become a Republican, is very indecent in a good Subject.

When we see the real fruits of these utmost endeavours to extirpate Popery out of Parliament;Pag. 47. when we see the Duke of York no longer first Minister, or rather Protector of these Kingdoms; and his Creatures no longer to have the whole di­rection of Affairs; when we see that love to our Religion and Laws is no longer a Crime at Court, no longer a fore-runner of being disgraced and removed from all Offices and Imployments in their Power.

That is, when the Duke of York is ruined, and not only his Popish, but his Church of England Creatures, who have shewn themselves such by Voting against the Bill of Exclusion be laid aside. When our Religion, (which no man knows what it is) and that part of the Laws which we skulk behind now, to ruine all the rest, and the King and Kingdom to boot, shall not hinder our Preferment what­ever we do or say.

When the word Loyal (which is faithful to the Law) shall be restored to its own meaning,Ibid. and no longer signifie one who is for subverting the Laws.

That is, when men may safely pretend so much respect to the Laws, that they may affront his Majesty who is the Fountain of all Laws, and the Protector of them, and us by them; when the word Loyal shall have no other relation to his Majesty, than the same word (if in use there) hath in Venice, when spoken concerning their Duke.

When we see the Commissions filled with hearty Prote­stants, (that is, with Whigs and Republicans) and the [Page 121] Laws executed in good earnest against the Papists, (and the Dissenters passed by unpunished.) The Discoverers of the Plot countenanced, or at least heard, and suffered to give their Evidence, (except when they make bold with our selves, and such a Colledge, and Fitz-Harris, and the Association­men, in which cases they ought neither to be heard, nor be­lieved.) The Courts of Justice steady, and not avowing a jurisdiction one day which they disown the next, (but just such as they were in the late times.) When we see no more Grand-Juries discharged lest they should hear Wit­nesses; nor Witnesses hurried away lest they should inform Grand-Juries, (tho it were against his Majesty, and when all Grand-Juries are of the Family of Ignoramus the Lawyer, and will find according to their Conscience, tho against both their Oath and their Evidence, especially when a Precious man is in jeopardy to be hanged for something done or said against the King) When we see no more instruments from Court labouring to raise jealousies of (Associating Peti­tioning) Protestants, (who have a Patent from heaven to retail all the fears and jealousies that ever shall from hence­forward be put off in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and in all other his Majesties Dominions and Countries whatso­ever. And to that purpose have erected several Mints for the Coining of them in London, and the parts adjacent, and do maintain several Presses, and a great many Intelligencers to collect and disperse the same for the benefit of his Majesties discontented Subjects, who receive much comfort by the worst and falsest of them, and hope to have just such another harvest in the end, as they reaped from the same Seed in and about the years 1640, 41, 42, and so on till 1660.) When we see some regard had to Protestants abroad, (tho his Maje­sty should be, by our defaults, brought into such straits as hardly to be able to maintain the Government at home.) When we observe somewhat else to be meant by Governing ac­cording to Law, than barely to put them in execution against [Page 122] Dissenters, (in whom our strength against the Government doth chiefly consist) the Laws made against Papists. (In which num­ber we desire the Church of England men, that is, all that stick to the Religion by Law Established, Colledges Trial, p. 18. 25. may be included; and) then we shall promise our selves not only frequent Parliaments, (but everlasting ones) and all the blessed effects of pursuing Parliamentary Councils, the Extirpation of Popery, (and Prelacy,) the redress of Grievances, the flourishing of Laws, and the perfect restoring the Monarchy to the credit (which it had in 1658, and 59.) both at home and abroad. There needs no time to open the Eyes of his Majesties good Subjects (the Whigs,) and their hearts are ready prepared to meet him in Parliament, in order to perfect all these good Settlements and Peace (which are) now wanting in Church and State.

But whilst there are so many little Emissaries imployed to sow and encrease divisions in the Nation,Pag. 48. as if the Ministers had a mind to make his Majesty head of a Faction, and joyn himself to one Party in the Kingdom, who has a just right of Governing all, (which Thuanus lib. 28. says was the notorious Folly, and occasioned the destruction of his great-Grandmother Mary Queen of Scots) whilst we see the same differences Promoted industriously by the Court, which gave the Rise and Progress to the late troubles, and which were once thought fit to be buried in an Act of Oblivion.

What is meant by the little Emissaries here I know not, nor will I guess. Nor did I ever observe the Ministers had a mind to make his Majesty the Head of a Faction, which your Author much blames in Henry III. of France too, when he suffered the Holy League, the Prototype of the Association, to be set afoot, and propagated so far before he took notice of it, that he was forced at last to attempt to make himself the Head of it, which was properly a Faction combined by an Oath against the Right Heir to the Crown, and a part of the Natural Subjects of France; on [Page 123] pretence of Religion for the Exclusion of the first, and destruction of the latter, without, and against the consent of the King; which caused a Rebellion in France, the de­struction of the King, a sooner Succession of Henry IV. the right Heir, (upon changing his Religion) and if God had not prevented it, had betrayed France into the hands of the Spaniards, or Cantoned it into small Principalities. Now, this is properly to make a Prince the head of a Faction without consideration of the Rise of our late Troubles; which sprung from such another League, but to counte­nance a Loyal Party more than a Rebellious one is not so, and whatever effect it had in the Reign of Queen Mary, his Majesties Grandmother, seems the only way now to save England, and prevent the need of another Act of Oblivion and Indemnity for all those Crimes that were pardoned by his Majesty, but never repented of by them that acted them.

Whilst we see then the Popish Interest so plainly countenanced,Pag. 48. which was then done with caution, when every pretence of Prerogative is strained to the utmost height, when Parlia­ments are used with contempt and indignity, and their Judi­cature, and all their highest Priviledges brought in question in inferious Courts, we have but too good reason to believe tho every Loyal and good man does, yet the Ministers and Favou­rites do but little consider the Rise and Progress of the late troubles, and have little desire or care to preserve their Country from a relapse.

All this is Party-per-pale a justification of the last, and an Exhortation to another Rebellion, upon the self­same false pretences only a little aggravated, because the People are more slow to a new Rebellion than they were to the last.

And who (the Ministers) as they never yet shewed regard to Religion,Ibid. Liberty, or Property, so they would be little concerned to see the Monarchy shaken off, if they might escape [Page 124] the Vengeance of Publick Justice due to them for so long a course of Pernicious Counsels, and for Crowning all the rest of their faults by thus reflecting upon that High Court, before which we do not doubt but we shall see them one day brought to Judgment.

Sir, I suppose my Reader is very well informed by this time that your Pen is no slander, and I assure you there is some hopes of seeing your Party one day brought in Judg­ment for all your ill Courses which have so much dis­honoured Parliaments, and by these repeated Threats en­deavoured to make them Odious as well as Dreadful to so many who are Loyal (not in your hide-bound Notion,Redde Reverentiam Praelato & Obedientiam quarum altera Cordis, altera Corporis est. Nec enim sufficit exterius ob­temperare majoribus nostris, nisi ex intimo Cordis Affectu sub­limiter sentiamus de tis. S. Ber­nard. Serm. 3. de Advent. This internal reverence due to the Sacred Majesty of our Kings, above all other Su­periours whatsoever is that which we express by the word Loyalty. but) in the good old Christian acceptation of the word, in the affe­ction of their Souls, of which humane Laws can take no notice, and that not to the Law which is nonsense, but to the King. But, Sir, how can you be so positive in your Menaces, who in the Page before were in some degree of doubt there might be a long interval of Parlia­ments, and so you may not see this One desirable day; but may happen to be brought to Judg­ment in the interim before a higher Court for all your slanders and defamations of your Sovereign the Lords Anointed?

And now,Conclusion. Sir, I have taken the same liberty in relation to you which you took with less modesty and reason against all the Ministers; and if you please you may reply, and for ought I know the Press is as open for you as me, and I had not taken all this pains but to shew the World, your sheets are as weak, and as full of Errors; as of Malice against the Ministers in pretence, but against his Majesty in good earnest. And if you had been pleased to have used the name▪ of Evil Counsellors instead of Ministers, it would have been more apparent what you designed, and I do not [Page 125] in the least question but there are very many Persons in his Majesties Dominions who are not only of true English cou­rage, but of greater intellectuals than to be Cajoled by such a Pamphlet as yours into an ill opinion of the King, his Ministers, or the Declaration, of which number in every respect I do acknowledge my self to be one of the meanest.