A LETTER TO Mr. Secretary TRENCHARD, Discovering a Conspiracy against the Laws and ancient Constitution of England: With Reflections on the present Pretended PLOT.

SIR.

AS the Character you are cloathed with entitleth you to all Informati­ons, both of what may preserve the Government, and of what is con­trived and carried on for the Subversion of it; So the Employ you have taken upon you, in reference to the present Pretended PLOT, tho neither agreeable to your Office, nor to the Title of a Man of Honour, gives you an indispu­table Right to the Discovery I am about to make: And being indebted to you for the share you have been pleased to vouchsafe me in your la [...]e Administration, I can think of no better a way of making my Acknowledgments and of testifying my Gratitude, than of render­ing you a piece of Service, which every one at your Devotion is not qualified for, and very few have the Integrity and Fortitude either to undertake or perform. And seeing nei­ther the Honour of having been Secretary of State, nor the wife and just Discharge of that Office are like to give you that Name in History which you deserve, nor to perpetuate your Fame to the extent and measure of your Va­nity and Ambition; Permi [...] me to try whether I can enable fu [...]ure Wr [...]rs to e [...]ze your Memory in the Registers of T [...]me, by han [...]ing to them brief Memoirs of some Actions peculiar to your Self, and to a few more of your Eleva­tion in Vertue and Poli [...]icks: And which none, but one as much distinguished as you are from the Rank of Common State [...]men, as well as the several Tribes of Christians, would have had the Artifice mixed with Malice to have undertaken.

And that you may engross to your Self the whole benefit of this Discovery, and not be obliged, as in other Cases, where you have shared between You and the Informer the Sa­laries and Pensions apply'd to the forging and inventing Conspiracies against the State, tho set apart and issued out by the Dispen [...]ers of the Publick Treasure only for detecting them: I do freely and entirely resign to You all my Part and Portion of it, whether arising from the Generosity of the Ministers, or due from their Justice, which I hope will not be [...]wel­come to you, nor come unseasonably towards the compleating your Twenty Thousand Pounds Purchase. For as it is impossible (that con­fining your self to what either righteously or legally accrueth from the Place and Office of Secretary) you should have heaped together so large a Sum in the Circle o [...] little more than a Year, so it is a Charity to help to advance you above the mean tempta [...]ion of de [...]nd­ing those [...] Creatures, who selling their Souls at easy Rates, to support forged Accusations by Perjury can [...] [...]th [...]one so sneaking and ignoble as [...] thing from the Pri [...], except [...] [...]ho having [...] a lo [...] [...] upon [...] [...] [...], d [...] value o [...]er Me [...] accordingly. A [...] Gain there­fore and Advantage which this Informa [...]ion [Page 2] can produce, I do chearfully consign and be­queath unto you, wishing that besides the Pro­si [...] of [...]at kind whic [...] it is calcul [...]ted to yield you, i may serve to raise your Reputa [...]ion in the World, by giving [...]he Nation more generall [...] understan [...] (the old Innocent Ways o [...] Administra [...]ion b [...] S [...]ate-Affairs be­ing unadapted and insuffic [...]ent to [...]e durable upholding of what was prec [...]pi [...]ately [...] [...]u­multuous [...] raised) how [...] hi [...] W [...]do [...] hat [...] been [...]laced who recommended you to the Po [...]t you fill, being [...]o admirably qualifi [...]d [...]o support the Gover [...]ment [...] Trick [...] [...] [...] ­shoods of th [...] [...]me K [...]ded and [...]ce with those by which t [...]e Revolu [...]on w [...]s carr [...]ed on and effected You are [...]oo c [...]nver [...]ant [...]o T [...]ci­tus to [...]eed my [...] [...]ng to you [...] Saying of his, Nemo imperium flagitio quesitum bonis [...] exercuit, N [...] [...] [...] legally and we [...] that arrived at the Government by Fraud and Injustice Yet suffer m [...] [...]o [...] in [...]e [...] [...]ging of a French League and Supposititio [...] [...] W [...]les, lawful as well a [...] n [...]cessa [...]y [...]or [...]e pro­mo [...]g [...]he Designs in agi [...]ation Anno [...] cannot [...]e thought [...]o scrupulous [...] [...]ct disc [...]bly [...], [...]f [...] [...] Exige [...], [...]tuey [...] [...]is tim [...] [...] Compr [...]cy against [...]e Govern­ment, and charge [...] up [...] inn [...]cent M [...]n, who are willing to live peacea [...]ly if you would permit them. And as you know your own accession to the First, and have had th [...] For­tune o [...] [...]e [...]etter rewa [...]d [...]d tha [...] others that joined with you in that Treachery and Fraud, so I hope [...]hat the vn [...]ica [...]ing to you [...]he glo [...]y of the Latter, wherein you have had so [...]e [...] i [...]pe upon and share with you, [...]ll have a endency to your being exalted high [...]r than you [...], and quicken your receiving the Re­compences you have not yet attained, tho long ago so much your [...]e▪

But is it not to [...]eg [...] into a despicable M [...]anness, an to make your [...]elf contemp [...]bly little, after you had been engaged for so many Years in forming Plo [...]s ag [...]inst Kings, Princes, and States you should at [...]ast dwindle [...] a Consp [...]r [...]tor against Mechanicks, reduced Offi­ce [...]s, [...]is [...]n [...]e Ce [...]ls, and private [...]le­men That from enrolling Troops at Ta [...]nton [...]nd elsewhere, as your Interest [...]ay, and your Province was allotted, for dethroning Mo­narchs, and altering the legal Course of the Royal Succession, you should shrink to the mustering mercenary Rascals, for whom you have rak [...]d Go [...]ls and Kennels, to destroy a Comp [...]ny of P [...]rsons who neither could en­danger you, by perverting Laws or altering their F [...]ame, nor [...]us [...]ve you [...]y Armed Guards [...]n [...] M [...]li [...]ary Power. [...]o have undertaken to curb [...]nd bridl [...] Sovereigns, and [...] dissolve and break the Chain which the Constitution as well as the Statu [...]es of the Real▪ had made for regulating the com [...]ng to inherit Crowns was [...] and [...] [...] at the [...] crim [...]nal and [...]: Bu [...] to hou [...]d o [...] Mes­senge [...]s, b [...]ck'd with Tro [...]p as well as forti­fi [...]d with A [...]thority to [...] the Dwellings of [...] [...] [...] innocent and naked, and up­on [...] [...] su [...]orn'd [...] [...] to seize G [...]n [...]l [...]m [...]n i [...] their Houses, where he Laws should [...] special manner pro [...]ect them; and [...]o [...]ad them Cap [...]ives through a gre [...] part of [...]he Kingdom, under the Power of O [...]landish Troopers, to [...]ur [...]ish na [...]er for a Dutch Tri­ [...]h, was sneak [...]ng and m [...]an as well as illegal and impious But i [...] is natural to those that hav [...] [...] [...]ra [...]ned u [...] an [...] habituated to any Cou [...]se, to play at low Game, rather than stand ou [...] [...]rom pract [...]sing what they have [...]een in­ [...]d [...]. H [...]wever, no Man will suspect ei­ther your Disposition or Qualification, to be­ [...]parter, accuse and arraign li [...]tle People, ha­ving been bred and accustomed to [...] and impeach P [...]inces: For they that could forge G [...]vances in Governments, where [...]here were [...] bu [...] what [...]heir own Luxury, Cove­tou [...]ness [...] Am [...]i [...]ion made, and who could tran [...]plant the Gui [...]ean League from France to England, and mak [...] a Prince's Religion a Crime, incapac [...]ng and disenabling him to enj [...]y his Civil Right can easily, either upon the Suggestions of their Fea [...] and Coward [...]e, or I [...]ci [...] men's of Pr [...]de and Avarice, invent Conspi [...]cies ag [...]inst Governments (in the up­holding whereof their Hon [...]urs, [...]ortunes and Prospect he) and lodge them on whom they will, especia [...]ly upon such against whom they entertain an inveterate Malice, and seem furnished with Probabilities and specious P [...] ­tences of gaining Credit [...]o tha [...] wherewith they ch [...]rge them. But I find that as Men grow in Years they encrease in Craft, tho they decay in Bravour; and that while they per­severe [Page 3] in the like Criminal Methods they learn to lay [...]he Scene where there is le [...]s Dan [...], alb [...] parallel Gu [...]t [...] [...]rly they made themselves ob [...]xious unto: And no Man knows better than you, that 'tis much safer, as wel as mo [...]e beneficial to take upon you the uphol [...] and serving a Governmen [...] by invol­ving [...] P [...]ple in a forged [...], agai [...]st it, than to be in a real one your self for sub­ver [...]ing it; e [...]p [...]cially if the Consp [...]racy must be ex [...]cu [...]ed by F [...]r [...]e and Arms, and not to be conspas [...] and made effectual by Tr [...]ac [...]e­ry, Lyes an [...] Calumnies. For tho in [...]e fo [...]me Cas [...] you have the [...]ea [...] Law w [...]th [...]he S [...]ncti [...]n of a feeble P [...]nalty against you; yet it is too likely that you will have the liv [...]g Au [...]hority [...] and vigorous for you: An [...] should your Crime be made as evi [...]en [...] as it is heinous, ye [...] considering with wh [...]m the exe­cu [...]ive P [...]r of [...]e Law is lodged [...] you may reas [...]na [...]ly [...] to be covered from [...] Pu­nishment and publick Disg [...]ce and only to [...], have the [...]ct [...] just [...], an [...] you [...] sel [...] p [...]blickly rewarded. But [...]n the lat­ter Case, y [...]u are, besides [...] [...]ams [...]ha [...] at­te [...] the Off [...]nce sure to have Law bac [...]'d with P [...]wer, and M [...]ght autho [...]z'd by Law, t [...] destroy you, and impoverish you [...] Posterity So that the H [...]zar [...] is much le [...]s t [...]o [...] D [...] ­grace be not, in persui [...]g that wherein [...] are now embarqued than in prosecuting the Plot wherein you were engaged, Anno [...] 82 For tho you had been not only a wa [...]m F [...]m [...]nter, but a principal Author of that Con [...]pir [...]cy a­g [...]nst the then King and Government, yet when your Assistance wa [...] required, upon its com [...]ng to have been ex [...]cute [...] in November, your Fear being awaken'd and [...]crea [...]ed, by the approach of the Da [...]ger and your Courage not b [...]ing answer [...]ble to your D [...]sl [...]yalty, you excu [...]ed h [...]th appearing your sel [...] & [...]he giving the Aid you had pr [...]mised, upon Pretence of a Disease that had over [...]aken you by an [...]mor [...]us M [...] venture: Which having been [...] by the Duke of Monmou [...]h to some assembled for fixing [...] Day, and for determining the Pla­ces and Manner of the Insurrection, after they had thereupon agreed to a [...]j [...]urn the Execu­tion of the Design, it was pleasantly [...]aid by one of the Number, that he foun [...] Dr. Parker understood that Mala [...]y better th [...]n was [...]ma­gined, and that he had not misnamed it in stiling it a lazy Distemper. Nor is the discove­ry of this [...] [...] [...] b [...]trayi [...]g of Se­crets, [...] [...] [...] Obl [...]ga [...]or upon [...] to observe measu [...]es of Decency with one, who, instead of attacking [...] Neighbours either by the allowed and [...] M [...]ds of Law an [...] Ju­stice, [...] [...] persuing them by an honour [...]ble and [...]ai [...] [...] [...] murder [...]h [...]m by Assassi­nates and Banditti: [...] [...] and worse I [...]le [...] a [...]d [...] W [...]nesses. A [...]d Sir, you must blam [...] your [...] and no [...] me, if I know n [...] L [...]ws of Decorum [...]o b [...] ob [...]erved in treating of you. You are ou [...] of [...]he Purli [...]us of all that i [...] due in the way o [...] Beins [...]ance, in that no [...] be [...]n [...] sa [...]fied [...]o [...]e [...] loo [...] upon us [...]uch in amou [...] Mi [...]crean [...]s as you [...] Bak [...]rs your King [...] your Lunis and Brereton &c▪ you have [...] [...] your brother Hugh Speake to inv [...]lv [...] us under all the G [...]ilt th [...] [...] Mad­ness and Folly can invent, [...]or his Impudence fasten upon us either by himsel [...] o [...] others.

Howev [...]r, I will always [...] my sel [...] and Mankin [...] [...]hat Righ [...], as [...]o say nothing of you bu [...] what is [...]rue and necessary (as you have flag [...]o your sel [...].) [...]or [...] World to know, and an honest Man t [...] publish: Though I will not und [...]r [...]ke, that all I [...]eclare wil [...] [...] of the g [...] [...]eding, and have that Stamp of C [...]vi­lity upon it. which I am known to exerci [...] to­wards others. And till we can la [...] your un­ [...]ghteous P [...]oceedings, and the unjust Suffer­ings of those you have caused [...]o apprehend and imprison, before a Parli [...]ment, i [...] it is become ab [...]lutely ne [...]dful, in order to the pre­serving the Lives of the Guiltless, and the Vindication of their Innocence, that we make our Appeal to the K [...]ng [...]m, and proclaim your Administ [...]ation to [...] and Countrey.

Nor does the apprehending so many Gentlemen, and confining them to Pri­sons, or the fur [...]ous and general Hunting after more, conduce in the [...]east to the Support of the Government, or to the Pr [...]serva [...]ion of the Pu [...]lick Pe [...]ce. I do know these are the Ends you would be thought to a [...]m at, in your unrighteo [...]s, irregular and illegal Pro­ceedings; and would have the persuit of them to legitimate [...] [...] M [...]ans by which you are in hopes [...]mpass and a [...] them. But a [...] you are bo [...]h m [...]rally and politically a bad Man, and an [...]ll Member of the Common-Wealth, and a worse Christian, to prosecute [Page 4] the best Ends by any other Means than what are just and legal; so you are a very hallow and weak S [...]ates-ma [...], if you reckon those Me­thods ad [...]pted to what you calculate and de­sign them for: Seeing all to be expected from the Paths you walk in, is not only to render those revengeful and desperate, who were be­fore quiet and peaceable; but, through your injuring so many of the Subjects, to alarm all. For if Innocency be not enough to pro­tect and cover every [...], it will not be long judged sufficient to preserve and skreen any. And when all Persons find, that they possess their Liberties and Lives by no other Title than your Pleasure, and the Courtesy of your mercenary Witnesses, they will be sure to en­deavour all they can to ch [...]nge [...]nd m [...]nd the Tenure: And the impoverishing or destroying one whom you either call or believe an E­nemy to the present Constitution, upon the Deposition of Suborned Rascals, will change and transform all your Friends that have Wis­dom or Vertue into Enemies, and thereby raise and creare you Thousands, when for­merly you had not Scores. But though this be a Topick proper enough to be inculcated and insisted upon, and on which it were easy so to enlarge as to expose your Conduct and Management, and make them ridiculous; yet there are others, and those less thought of, to the displaying and enforcement of which I intend to confine my self, and I do not doubt but before I have gone through them I sh [...]ll demonstrate, from your Administration, that you are both a Traytor, either through Igno­rance or Design, to K. William, whom you pretend to serve, and a Subvertor of the Go­vernment, which you take those impious and illegal Courses to uphold. In order to whic [...] I premise three Things, or rather propose them as Postulata, which command an assent as soon as men [...]ioned.

The First is, That whatever [...]here was of an Original Contract between former K [...]ngs and the free People of these Kingdoms, yet it is undeniable, there is a very fo [...]mal and ex [...]li cite One between K. Willi [...]m and them. And, to declare [...]ny Opinion freely, without Re­serve or Disguise, I do know o [...] none [...]efore, besides that which was couched and im [...]lied in the Constitution. And as it is impossi [...]e to produce or shew any other, so the very Sup­position of one, is not only inconsistent with the Doct [...]ine both of our Churchmen and Lawyers, but re [...]ugnant to [...]he Drift and Te­nure of all our Laws, and directly opposite to the express Words as well as the Sense of a great many Statutes. For what can be more irreconcileable than a Contract by which K [...]ngs are made deposible, or an [...] way, judicially censurable for Miscarriages in their Govern­men [...]: And tho [...]e several Acts o [...] Parliament that do not only declare our Pr [...]nces to be un­accountable to their People, whether taken col­lectiv [...]ly, distributively or repesen [...]atively; but which do make it Treason To take up Arms against them, on any Pretence whatsoever: And to imagine it either lawful or practicable to Abdicate, forfeit or Depose Kings, without a Liberty allowed of taking up Arms against them, is a Contradiction that none will pre­tend to reconcile, but they who are either Lunatick or deeply Hypocondriacal. And as for that Contract (if it might be called one) which was involved and [...]citly wrapt up in the Constitution, the whole Import of it was, to declare the Ends for which our Princes were to rule, namely, the Safety, Peace and Pros­perity of their People, and to teach and in­struct them, that they were to govern us by Laws; but it no ways provided, that they should be accountable unto, or arraignable by their Subjects, if they did not; leaving them for that only responsible to God, and no ways punishable here, saving by the Stings and Twinges of their own Consciences. But the Case is much other wise between K. William and U [...]: For as by his countenancing the Abdica­tion, and laying aside of K. James, upon pre­tended Miscarriages in his Government, he declared upon what Terms he was willing to succeed him, and that he was contented to be accordingly dealt with if he should prove guilty either of those or the like; so there wa [...], upon his Admission to the Crown, bo [...]h an Enumeration made of Grievances by those tha [...] con [...]erred it, which they demanded that he would redress; and a D [...]linca [...]on of Mea­sures in and by wh [...]ch they did, as it were, stipulate how he should be bound to govern, 'Tis true, that they in Scotland were more ex­plici [...] and formal in what they did in this mat­ter and k [...]nd than we were: Yet there was e­nough done here to instruct him, that he is no [Page 5] otherwise King, than as he is upon his Behaviour: And that he holds the Crown, as the Judges do their Places, Quam diu benese gesserit. And he may be [...]ure, that they who could extort and wrest from the Constitution, which gave no such Allowance, and much less Authority, a Power and Right to dethrone K. James, and transfer their own and the Peoples Allegiance from him, upon Allegations which were never examined as to their Weight and Importance, nor proved as to their Reality and Truth, will be ready and forward enough when the Humor and Caprice takes them, to treat him in case of Miscarriages after the same Rate; and will have that, bo [...]h to warrant the doing of it, and to justify it when it is done, which they wanted before. For besides the Precedent they have made with his Allow­ance, and by which he has taught them, that it is lawful as well as practicable, 'tis but for the People, when [...]etted and [...]nraged by dis­appointment of their Hopes, loss of their Estates, invasion upon their Liberties and Rights, and their having their Lives brought into hazard wi [...]hout leg [...]l cause and provo­ca [...]ion, to have [...]ecour [...]e to [...]he Contract and Stipulation between him and them, and thence to furnish them [...]elves with Reasons, upon those F [...]uls in the Administration, which you, Sir, more than any other, make it your Business daily to commit, both for legitima­ting and authorising another Revolution.

The Second is this, That through the not punishing any of the Ministers of the late Reign, who were by Law the only Persons ac­countable for Mi [...]carriages in the Govern­ment, you have made K W. and him alone, responsible for the pol [...]tical Crimes of his Ci­vil Officers. The Wisdom of our Ancestors made it an Axiom of our Gove [...]ment and State, That the King could do no Wrong; and that therefore no Accusation [...] of him could be justified, and much less any Force against him lawful. And indeed, this was the Basis of our Constitution, and the chief Source of Peace between the Sovereign and the Sub­jects, That the King, th [...]ugh cloathed with the supream Authori [...]y, and vested with all the executive Power of the Government, yet that doing all Things by his Ministers, he could thereupon himself do no Inj [...]oy, but that they whom the Law had entrusted with the Exe­cution of Matters under him, were to answer and be liable to Punishment for all that was illegal and oppressive. It was upon this weighty Ground and Foundation, that Sir John Markham told Edward the 4th (as is re­ported by Judge Huss [...]y, who was Chief-Ju­stce under Hen. 7th) That he [...] not arrest a Man either for Treason or Felon) as a Subject might, because if the Party so arrested had thereby Injury done him, he could have no Satisfaction against him. To which I might add many other Authorities as that 16. H. 6. Tit. 1. Jurans de suite. & 22 H. 6. Naton, when it was solemnly adjudged, That the King cannot command any one to be arrested, but an Action of false Imprisonment lies a­gainst him that arrests him. For hence it is that the King is said to do no Wrong, because he does nothing immediatly himself, but does every Thing by his Officers of Justice, State or War. And therefore, tho it never be al­lowed either to Officers or People to resist, be the King' [...] Commands what they will, yee they are permitted, and 'tis a Duty they owe both to God and to him, in some Cases to re­fute to obey: For when the thing required of Ministers is either immoral or illegal, it is not only extreamly laudable in it self, but the best Service they can render their Master, both as to his Honour and Interest, modestly to ex­cuse themselves from executing what either through Passion, Misleading, Ignorance, of his Duty, or by mistaking wherein his own Glory, and his Peoples Happiness consists, he was pleased to enjoin: For as a Prince's Sal­vation hereafter, as well as Great and Honour­able Fame here, depend more upon his wise Administration and good Government, than upon his private Morals and good Life; so the goodness of his Government depends ex­ceeding much upon those that advise him, and those that execute under him; tho they are always to yield unto their Prince all the Reputation arising from their wisest Councels and best Performances, and never to inter­cept the Credit and Honour of them from him. Nor is there a more infallible Maxim than this, namely, That he is not the worst King, who is the worst Man; but he who has the worst Counsellors about him and Instruments under him. Now [...]. James's Ministers ha­ving escaped all publick Accusation and Cha­stisement, [Page 6] whom the Law made the only Per­sons obnoxious to be arraigned and punished, there is thereby another very unfavourable, and, as it may prove, a pernicious Precedent made and established for K. W. For wherei [...] they in K. James's Confidence, and at the Head of his Affairs, should have been only pitched upon to answer criminally for all those Things that were called Miscariages during his Reign; he whom both the Constitution, and all the Laws of the Land made not only impunible but innocent, was (as a learned and most worthy M [...]n expressed it once in a Coffee-House selected as the Se [...]pe-Goat, to have all the Off n [...]es of the Ministers, and of the subordin [...]te Tools of the Government, transferred and said upon him and drove a­way, un [...]er the Guilt and Weigh [...] of them, into a Wilderness and Land of O [...]livion: Which Original, should it come to be copied, would too late, but unhappily to your Ma­ster, shew what a bad Minister you are to him. In contracting Guilt which he may be made a Sacrifice to expiate, and committing Crimes misbecoming your Character, and contrary to the Duty of your Office, that K. William m [...]y undergo the Reproach, and bear the Punish­ment of them. But to decline the persuing this Head any fur [...]her, I sh [...]ll only take notice how the subjecting King James to suffer in the stead and room of his Ministers, when the Law had only marked them out as Off [...]r­ings of Atonement for his Faults (had he been guilty of any) as well as their own, has expo­sed K. [...]. to som [...] very ill-natur'd Reflections, but it is hoped they are not so true, as they are Piquant. One is, That notwithstanding all the glorious Promises made to the Nation in the Prince of Orange's Declaration, Dated at the Hag [...], Anno 1688, and all the Accusarions therein fastned upon, and Menaces denounced against K. James's Ministers, that yet it ap­pears by the Events, and the whol [...] Tenour of Transactions since, how neither the chastising of those ill Men, nor the relieving the King­dom from Pressures and Oppressions, or the redressing what was called Grievances, were the Ends of the P. of O's coming hither, but that his main, if not whole Design was to supplant his Father-in-Law and Uncle, and to get the Crown. To which they add another, name­ [...] [...]hat K. W. having been mainly instru­mental in saving and protecting the former Ministers, who ought to have been punished, and not their Master, was not only to prevent the discouraging, but to embolden those whom he employs himself under the like Cha­racter to be the more willing to venture upon illegal Things, and the less to hesitate at the executing of his own Arbitrary Commands. Nor do they forbear to subjoin a Third, viz. That those ill Men came therefore to be over­look'd and cover'd, because they were the Prince's Pensioners and Tools, while by their Oaths and Places they were K. James's Mini­sters; and that they were hired and instructed from abroad to betray and disserve their Ma­ster at [...]ome, that the m [...]ght serve and fur­nish Pretences for the Prince's Invasion.

But I hasten to my Third Postulatum, which is, That most of those who serve this Govern­ment, as well as all those who refuse Allegi­ance to it, believe him on the Throne to be only King de facto, but not de jure: Not [...] this meerly the Opinion of your Non-S [...] and those called Jacobites, but it is the [...] belief of Two parts in Three of your S [...], who are vulgarly stiled Williamites: For the utmost that either Law or Religion will allow them to acknowledge, is, That he is a King by Exercise, but not by Right. 'Tis in this that Sher­lock has many more Followers than Johnson; the Rich, Great, Learned being of the Sentiments of the former, whereas few but) our unthinking Mob and downright Republicans are of the be­lief of the latter. Now all that this Princi­ple can carry any unto, when most under the Impression and Influence of it, is to serve the Government upon the Motives of Convenience, but no [...] upon Inducements of Conscience. And to submit to it, and exteriorly own it, upon the foot of Safety and Interest, but not on the S [...]ore of Duty and internal Reverence. And those men being uneasy through the Reproach that attends their Inconsistency with them­selves, and through the Lashes which they re­ceive from thei [...] own Minds, for owning that, the Righteousness whereof they do not ap­prove, and swearing to uphold a Constituti­on, which they believe to be not only illegal, but morally unlawful, they are thereupon both weary of the Government, and would be rid of it. And all that hinders their co-ope­rating openly to it's Subversion, is an Appre­hension, [Page 7] that it cannot be effected without too much private and publick Damage; which restraining Thought, in the Opinion of some, though it may argue the Goodness of their natural Temper, yet it speaks a mean and un­generous Understanding. Now all these, who are indeed the Bulk of the Nation, are ex­treamly pleased at the Irtegularities, illegal Excesses, and Miscarriages of the Ministerial Conduct and Management; there being nothing that they do more cover, than to see the Go­vernment loaded with Infamy, and rendred odlous, as reckoning it a m [...]e [...] Usurpation, and not a lawful Establishment. So that, Sir, your Administration gratifies many Thou­sands whom you call your Friends, as well as It doth all your Enemies, because the Iniqui­ty and Badness of it gives the one and the o­ther prospect and hopes of seeing the Govern­ment pulled down, with more Facility and Resistance than it was set up: But how Loyal you are to your Master in the mean time, we shall discourse anon.

And therefore having discharged the fore­going Postulata, with all the Brevity that the Matter would admit, I shall now proceed to a more particular Recapitulation of the Miscarriages in the Conduct of K. W's Mini­sters, and chiefly of yours, which have far exceeded that of others in Illegality, Inhuma­manities and barbarous Practices: And I do challenge all Mankind, ere I advance any further, to name so much as one Thing cal­led a Grievance under the Reign of K. James, that has not been repeated or out-gone since the Reign of K. W. May be we have not had all the same things over again in Specie, but we have had them to the full in the Value and Equivalent. And for those we have not had specifically repeated, it is not because they have been thought unlawful, but because the Passions and Inclinations of K W, and hi [...] Mini­sters are of a disti [...]ct kind from those of K. James, and travel in a different Road from what his did. But if the former King did in some things exceed the Bounds which the Law had chalked out as the Measures of his Government, that he might thereby have brought all his People to stand upon [...]he same level of Capaci [...]y, in reference to civil and military Employs, and in order to putting a Period to Persecutions for matters of meer Conscience and revealed Religion, without damage to the Church by Law established, ei­ther in it's Dignities, Properties or Jurisdi­ctions, they were so Noble and Royal Ends, as might have served to excuse, if not to ju­stify, the little irregular Excesses taken and persued for compassing of them: Whereas we have since the Revolution, not only seen the principal Offices of Honour and Trust, right­fully due only to natural Subjects, conferred and bestowed chiefly upon Foreigners, but have had the Misfortune to be often arbitrarily rob'd of our Liberties, which is both the lea­ving us no legal bottom at all to stand upon, and infinitely worse in it self, than the having our Countreymen, Fellow-Christians and Neighbours brought, in the things fore-men­tioned and practised under K. James's Reign, to live upon the square with our selves. And the Invasion upon our most essential Right, as well as the first and most inseperable and va­luable Property, which is that of the Free­dom of our Persons, and Safety of our Mansi­on-Houses, has been so daring, notorious and often repeated, that the Ministers of K. W. have been forced to solicit and procure divers Acts of Parliament sometimes, to legitimate them beforehand to commit Rapine upon ou [...] Liberties; as in the dispensing oftner than once with the Habeas Corpus Act, and at other times to indemnify them for the Violences they had perpetrated without a previous Al­lowance. And as we have had the same or the like Oppressions and Grievances renewed, which we pretended to be under, and so much complained of before; so there are two very ill-favoured Aggravations attend the latter, wherewith the former were no ways accompanied. One is, That we have increas­ed our Disease, where we expected our Reme­dy; and that those who set up for our Physici­ans, have enlarged our Wounds, in the stead of curing them, and that we have Poyson ad­ministred to us in the room of healing Medi­cines. All Men know with what different pre­apprehensions in many of the People K. James and K. W. came to the Crown, and the first as much exceeded our hopes, as the last has dis­appointed them. The other is, That where­as K. James erred upon Example in most Things, without seasonable and temperate Caution given him in any, and upon the Au­thority [Page 8] of the Judges (whose Office it was to expound the Laws to him) in some: The Illegallties of this Reign, are, in Contra­diction to Promises, in violation of Stipulati­ons, in defiance of Warnings, without the Countenance and Concurrence of the Judges, and with the Improbation of the Parliament, registered in divers of their Addresses: From which it is very obvious for peevish People to draw a couple of unfriendly but very natural Consequences; namely, that as by repeating the worst of Things chargeable upon King James's Government, as well as by perpetrating those, of a more mischievous nature, than any it could be accused of, you have ridi­culed all the Motives of his Abdication, and made it an Act of insolent Disloyalty, and perverseness of Will, and not of Zeal to pre­serve our Laws, and vindicate our Liberties; tho had that been as real is it was pretended, it would not have justified the doing of it: So the Ministers of K. W. by doing both the one and the other, have not only given occa­sion for, and provocation unto another Revo­lution, but have made it vastly more needful, as well as more vindicable than that which was before.

Now tho the Illegalities and Miscarriages, whereof you are guilty in your Ministerial Administration and Conduct, do ex [...]end to all the Parts and Branches of your Office, both as you are a Privy Councellor, and a Secretary of State, and be of no less compass than the vast Latitude of Affairs, wherein you have occasion to interpose, under the one Capaci­ty as well as t'other; yet I shall not only con­fine my self at present to those Offences, Transgressions and Crimes, whereof you are accusable as Secretary of State, but even narrow them to such as meerly relate to your seizing, detaining, treating Men while in hold, and prosecuting of them upon pretended criminal Allegations of Treason or Misdemeanor against the Government: And these are so variou for their Quality, and many for their Number, that I shall have both sufficiently represented you, and done what becomes me to awaken and alarm the Kingdom, before I have gone through them; which I purpose to do with all the Brevity imaginable. And the First of this Sort whereof I not only accuse and publish you Guilty, but consign you over to the Parlia­ment to be impeached and prosecuted for it, is your hounding out the Messengers of the Go­vernment, armed with Blank-Warrants, by which they take upon them to apprehend and make a Prey of whom rhey will; which is in effect to furnish them with a Pretence, if not to cloath them with an Authority to bid every one Stand, and Deliver, whom they meet with. And were not the Jacobites more tame, as well as peaceable, than you would have them be believed to be, they would long e're this, without becoming guilty by Law, either of Man-slaughter or Murder. have stab [...]'d or pistoled some of your Officers, who have as­saulted and hall'd them to Prison, under the Countenance of your Hand and Seal, without the least mention of Names, by which they ought to have been individually pointed forth as the Perso is to be apprehended. For what is this but to commissionate your Officers to go a Mucking, which au [...]ho [...]zeth those that first can to knock them on the Head, in order to secure the publick Peace, and to prevent their going about as priviledged Assassinates of out Laws and Freedom. For a Badge and Blank-Warrant do, according to our Laws and those of all Nations besides, no more restrain me from resisting, and thereby defending and vindicating the Liberty of my Person, than the Blew Cloak and Case of Pistols of a Dutch Trooper do forbid my drawing upon him, when he violently assaults me in the Street or Road. Nor does the issuing out of such Warrants im­port any thing less than the furnishing Fellows with a License to rob Men; seeing those whom they once seize, must before they recover their Liberty pay down a Ransom for it: Which, to express it with all the Modesty I can, is the transforming the Office of a Secretary of State, into that of Licenser for Picking of Pockets. And as it is a Rule among a certain Tribe of Men, that the Holder and Receiver is to have Shares with the Diver and Taker; so it gives too much ground for a Suspicion, that either you or your Clerks find your Interest and Advantage in this Pillage. But to wave the giving this Practice any further the Cha­racter which it justly deserves, I shall only say that as it is highly illegal, so it is extreamly inhumane and barbarous.

A Second Contempt of the Law, as well as neglect of, and deviation from it, in the Exe­cution [Page 9] of your Place, is, That tho you insert the Names of those in your Warrants whom you would have seiz'd, yet you do not always express and specify the Crimes, for which you require them to be apprehended. Nor is this Method of your Administration less ar­bitrary and criminal than the former was: For as no Title you bear, or Character you are cloathed with, empowers you to deseize any Man of his Liberty, but whom the Law de­seizeth, nor for any Offence (how much soe­ver it may provoke and enrage Mr. Secretary Trenchard) but that which the Law has made thereunto obnoxious; so the Commanding to apprehend Men without mentioning their Crimes, is the acting despotically, and the ad­vancing your Will and Passions into the place and room of Laws. It is an Axiom in our Constitution, That Corpus and Causa must go together, and where there is not that which the Law accounts the last, no man, be his Ti­tle what it will, is legally empowered to lay hands upon the other. The Monarchy of England is not Seignioral, but Royal; being a Government under which we are Freemen, ha­ving Rights and Properties; not Villains and Slaves, who have neither Right nor Property in any thing: And therefore whatsoever the Subject has a Right in, he must both be enti­tuled peaceably and securely to enjoy it, and have a Remedy for the recovering it, if dis­seized and dispossessed. And without these, it's in vain to talk of being governed by Laws, all we are and have being subjected to Will and Pleasure. But so provident is the Law in this matter, that the King's Writ under his Great Seal cannot imprison a Subject, unless it shews a Cause: And were a Writ of that na­ture sent to a Sheriff to be executed, he may return it without doing what is required, and he is no ways punishable for his Disobedience or Neglect, the Writ having been void in Law. And can we imagine, that the King's War­rants, issued out by a Secretary ought to have more power and efficacy by the Law, than his Writ under his Brood Seal hath? Surely, we must renounce Sense and Understanding ere we sink into such a Belief. And if the Law doth not give you a Power over our Lands and Goods, nor any Prerogative where­with the Kings of England are vested allows you to meddle with any Man's Estate or Chat­tels; much less can you in their Name, and by their Authority, imprison our Persons, seeing Scripture as well as Reason do assure us, That the Body is more worth than Raiment, where, by Raiment, according to all Expositors as well as the Canonists, every thing that is outward is meant, to distinguish it from Corporal. For the Common Law hath so adjusted and cir­cumscribed the King's Prerogative, as that he cannot prejudice any Man in his Inheritance, and the greatest Inheritance a man has, is the Liberty of his Person, all other things being subordinate and subservient to that. Yea, so tender is the Law of our Liberty, that if a Wrong be done to a Man's Person, it does not oblige him to sustain it, and afterwards accept a Remedy; This being a Rule in Law, That Corporalis Injuria non receipt Estimationem­e futuro, that no Damages recovered by the Injured Person are a sufficient Recompence for a Wrong that is Corporal. And therefore, where the Law doth not deseize a Man of his Liberty, and render him imprisonable, it makes many things lawful in Defence of it, which otherwise would in some particulars be Trespasses, and in o­thers very heinous Offences. Accordingly, it is a Maxim in the Law, Quod quis ob [...]tute­lam Corporis sui fecerit, id jure fecisse existimatur, That whatsoever a Man does in the necessary De­fence of his Person, he is to be esteemed to have done it rightfully. Nor can any man be innocent, that you from Pique, Revenge or Avarice have a mind to make guilty, if your bare vo­ting and pronouncing him so in a Paper with your Hand and Seal to it shall subject him to be treated as if he really were. How often does it come to pass, that a Matter which the Law makes no Offence, may give more Pro­vocation to a Minister of State, than that which it declares and publishes a heinous Crime? Must he therefore be allowed to wreck his Spleen in punishing the former, more than he does imploy his Justice in cha­stising the latter? For example, Should a­ny one write a Satyr on the present Govern­ment, with the Wit and Acrimony that Petro­nius Arbiter writ one upon Nero's Court, there are few Punishments so severe but the Law would adjudge the Author to them. Where­as should the History of the last five or six Years Transactions be writ with the Truth that becomes an honest Man, and with that [Page 10] seasoning which may make it palatable to the Age, the Law would render this no Crime, nor subject the Writer to any Penalty; and yet some think, that such a History would more provoke and enrage the Government, as well as render it more ridiculous and contem­ptible, than all the Satyrs in the World would. So that when your Ministers are most angry, there is not always the most legal cause for it. And therefore, if the reasons of every Appre­hension and Commitment be not declared in the Warrant, a Man may be treated as a Tray­tor against K. William, and a Conspirator to o­verthrow the Government, when at the bot­tom all that the Gentleman is taken up and thrown into Prison for, may be only a piece of Banter upon the Green-Ribbon Secretary, or a Lampoon upon the mighty States-man, per­fected in the Politicks by the Degrees he took at the Rose-Club. For it is not your knowing my Name, and the inserting it into a War­rant, that gives you a Right over my Person and Freedom, but my being chatged with some Offence, for which the Law has made me forfeit my Freedom, and rendered me im­prisonable. And if my Offence were not to be expressed in the Warrant, I might come to lose my Liberty, tho' innocent of any Crime against the State, merely for being thought to know too much of the Treache­ry and Bribery of certain Ministers, which an observing Person must shut his Eyes, and stop his Ears, as well as avoid all Conversation, to remain long a stranger unto. In a Word, we hold not our Liberties by Law, but preca­riously, and at the Discretion of our Ene­mies, and are no more Freemen but Slaves, if we were not to be told why we were stript and divested of them.

A Third Thing whereof you are accusable, as departing from and transgressing the Law, In the execution of your Office, i [...], That tho you both specify Persons and Crimes in your Warrants, yet you order the apprehending Men for those Crimes, upon bare and naked Suspicion, without any Proof or Deposition upon Oath be­fore you of their being guilty of them. The common Tenour of the Warrants for a long time used to be, The empower [...]ng the taking up such and such, upon Suspicion of Treason and High Misdemeanour against the Govern­ment; till this Form of Commitment com­ing to be argued at the King's Bench Bar, Anno 1690. such Persons were declared to be taken into Durance contra Legem Terr [...]. For tho' ac­cording to Law a Person may be taken up up­on Suspicion, yet he cannot be legally detain­ed and imprisoned upon Suspicion, but where there appears no more against him, he is to be discharged, or at least admitted to Bail: There being this Difference between Discharg­ing and Bailing, that the last is a kind of Im­prisonment, where [...]s the fi [...]st is a total Deli­very: In the one Case the Man walks abroad, dragging his Chains after him, and as a Pri­soner upon Parole to his Sureties: In the o­ther he is a perfect Freeman, and may dis­pose of himself (so as it is without Injury to a­ny) as he will. But neither the Illegality of the thing in it self, nor the Declaration of the Judges that it is so, has been sufficient to de­ter you from proceeding sometimes in the same Method and Course. Nor will it sail sooner or later to rise in Judgment against you, that having committed Col. Parker to the Tow­er for High-Treason, as you pretended, yet you told my L. Lucas, that you had not Wit­nesses against him, but were resolved to keep him in hold, till you could procure some: Which that noble Lord imparting to the Col­lonel, either out of Friendship or th [...]o Indis­cretion, he thereupon contrived and made his Escape. For what less was this than to tell him, that how innocent soever he might be, yet he was to be destroyed, and made a Sa­crifice to Malice and Revenge, when he could not be to Justice; and that tho' he was not guilty, yet it was designed and concluded he should be made so: Nor can any Thing be more arbitrary and illegal, than without In­formation upon Oath to apprehend and com­mit Men, and because you are pleased to sus­pect them to be guilty, to treat them there­fore as if they were. Surely, If Suspicion be sufficient to render Persons guilty, and sub­ject them to be proceeded against as if they were, very few will be long safe, or accounted innocent. And as your most timourous Crea­tures are always the most suspicious, which makes the Ape and Baboo [...] to fear and flee from the Snail; so, of all Persons that ever exerci­sed the Office, which you are now honoured to do, you are the best qualified, through constitutional Cowardice and Fear, to enter­tain [Page 11] treasonable Suspicions of all such whom you hate, and do therefore dread. But pray Sir, How would you have stiled such a Pro­ceeding heretofore against your self? Seeing your Memory cannot be so weak and treache­rous, as that you should have forgotten, how during the several Years that you were really guil [...]y of plotting and conspiring against King Charles the Second, you were nevertheless per­mitted to live at Ease and Peace, because the Ministers of that Government had not positive Evidence against you: tho' they had all the while both Suspicion enough, and too much Ground for it. And is this the best Return you make the Nation for having been released and discharged out of the Tower, after a short and gentle Confinement, An. 1683. when Hundreds, as well as your self, knew you were guilty to the highest Degree, and yet dischar­ged because there did not appear sufficient and credible Evidence against you? Is this the blessed Advantage we have attained unto by the laying aside those whom we stil'd Tori [...]s, to introduce and imploy such who gloried in the Name of Whigs? And are these the Felicities we are to reap by a Government un­der which all the Grievances of former Reigns were both promised and expected to be re­dressed, to find the Fingers of the Ministers of this, heavier than the Loins of the worst of those that were imployed under the two last? Tho the Woman that had been in the Oven, might be excus'd for looking for her Daughter there, yet it would have been unkind, as well as unn [...]tural and unjust, when she did not find her, to have accounted her guilty, and to have treated her accordingly, merely upon the remembrance of her own Crime. Howe­ver, it is from this illegal and villainous Pra­ctice of apprehending and imprisoning Per­sons upon naked Suspicions, that you are forced to hawk after, bribe and suborn Witnesses a­gainst them after you have taken them into Custody, For this is that which you become in a manner necessitated unto, for the Vindi­cation of your Wisdom and Justice in having committed them, And they had need have a great deal of Vertue, as well as Honour, to enable them to escape the Temptation to such Villainies, who have run themselves into Cir­cumstances, that they must either get those destroyed, or be disgraced and punished them­selves. Is it not enough that your imprison­ing any one for Treason is equivalent to a Si quis against him, to invite and allure all that can to come in and depose; but that you must send through the 3 Kingdoms, as well as the several Coun [...]ies of England, to enroll and muster Witnesses, and to allow more for levying one qualified for Villany and Impu­dence to do you Service at the Old-Baily and Westminster-Hall, than for listing a whole Foot-Company to fight in Flanders. And by set­ting a Price upon the Lives of innocent Men, but whom you are pleased to suspect as crimi­nal, you draw in the necessitous and merce­nary to drag them by Perjuries to Scaffolds and Gibbets. But to conclude this Head, Fe­stus the Heathen Roman was better instructed in this Matter, than some of our Christian Se­cretaries are under all their Advantages of Revelation, seeing he could say, as we have it recorded in the most infallible History, namely, Acts the 25. ver. the last, That it was without Reason to send a Man to Prison with­out Cause.

But I proceed to a Fourth Instance of your violation of the Laws in the Administration of your Office, which is, That when you hum­ble your self to assign the Offences for which you order Men to be apprehended, you fre­quently alledge and insert in your Warrants, those Matters for Crimes which the Law does no way account sufficient either for the seizing or de­taining any. Actions are stubborn and unpli­able Things, which it is in the Power of none to alter or raise the value of beyond what the Law has set them at, and stampt them for. So that tho you may make Dutch Skillings, which are not intrinsically worth Two Pence, to pass for an English Six Pence, yet you must not think of doing so by Actions, tho really offen­sive; and render that Treasonable, which is but an Undecency or at the most a Misdemea­nour. To piss at White-Hall-Gate may draw the Guard upon one till he has paid his Six-Pence, which tho he be not obliged to do, yet he is willing to bestow, rather than draw a Crowd about him and be houted at; but it were to push such a matter too far, to send the Man to Newgate or to the Gate-house for it: And yet I am very apt to believe, that should you produce it as an Overt-Act, whereby to prove the Person guilty of having designed to [Page 12] murder K. W, or to blow up the Tower, you might have some London Juries that would both find the Bill and convict him upon it. Tho you be priviledg'd to bestow upon your own Chil­dren (whether begotten in Wedlock or out of it) what Names you please, yet you are vested with no Right of giving other Titles to Men's Actions than what the Law has conferr'd and fastened upon them. And to speak plainly, your committing Persons (as the usual Tenour of your Warrants run) upon pretence of their having been Aiding and Assisting to K. William's Enemies, without the condescending to mention the Particulars wherein, which you seldom vouchsafe to do, are no legal Commitments, but highly Arbitrary. For besides, That the Law admits no Man to be divested and de­seiz'd of his Freedom upon general and inde­finite Allegations, without mentioning at the least the Species of the Crime, if not the in­dividual Act; so there are innumerable Cases, wherein a Person very Loyal to this Government may be aiding and assisting to K. W's Enemies, and in the mean time be nei­ther guilty of Treason nor Misdemeanour. For suppose I were indebted to a Banker or a Merchant in Paris the Sum of Ten Thousand Pounds for redeeming my Wife and Children, and ransoming four or five Ships from Jamaica or Barbadoes, on which my whole Estate and Fortune had been imbarqued, which through the Neglect of the Government to protect our Navigation and Commerce, had been taken by French Privateers, whilst our Fleet was fooling away a Campaign, and squandring the Treasure of the Nation upon the impracticable Expeditions of Bombing Brest and Callice, and blowing up Dunkirk by your Machine Vessels; this were an aiding K. W's Enemies, as well as a relieving my self: And yet it would be so far from being any sort of Crime, that it were a Duty I ow'd my Family, as well as a Justice to my Creditor. Or suppose, that a General Officer in our Army, thro staying too long in the Field to cover the Escape of K. W. and to facilitate the Flight or Retreat of our Troops at the Battle of Landen, and thereby coming to be wounded, made Prisoner, and carried to Namure, where, by Luxemburg's Order, he was better treated than he would have been at Brussels, should, in Recognition of the gene­rous Care that was taken of him, and in gra­titude for the noble Entertainment he had re­ceived, send to the Mareschal, at the beginning of this Campaign, 2 or 3 of the best Horses he could purchase for Money; this were certain­ly to be aiding and assisting to the King's Ene­mies, and yet none will believe it criminal, and much less a treasonable Offence, unless they be both furnished with your Morals, and enriched with your Law and Politicks. Let us put the Case, That one of the French King's Physicians, or some other near his Person and extreamly in his Confidence, should offer to poyson him, provided K. W. or the Commissio­ners of the Treasury, would promise to pay them a Sum of Money; most Insallibly, the disco­vering this to Lewis Le Grand, would be an aid­ing and assisting the only Person in the World whom K. W. thinks most his Enemy: And yet no Man of Sense, Honour or Vertue, would account it a Crime; seeing the Roman Consuls detecting the like to Pyrrhus, when in actual War against the Romans, in the very Bowels of their Countrey, was so far from being esteemed an Offence against the Senate and Commonwealth of Rome, that it had both the Praise of that People then, and the Commen­dation of all Nations and Ages since, of being a noble, brave and vertuous Action. Or suppose, That some of our almost ruined Merchants, and particularly Mr.—who lost Shares and Cargoes in 23 several Ships, which the French have taken, notwithstanding the utmost Care both of our Royal Navy, and our three and forty Cruisers, appointed by Act of Parliament to secure and preserve our Trade, I say, suppose that such Persons shall (after the Pattern of the Merchants of Amsterdam and Rotterdam) make themselves Freemen and Burgesses of Stockholen or Copenhagen, and in that Quality freely and boldly trade with France, this would not on­ly be an aiding and assisting of the King's Ene­mies, but the running counter to an express Act of Parliament, that makes it highly cri­minal; yet I do not think that the Govern­ment would do wisely to call it Treason, and to prosecute it as any manner of Crime: Un­less our Ministers have a Mind to sacrifice the whole Nation to the Interest of the Dutch, and be embarqu'd in a design of breaking the Exchange of London to enrich those of the Seven Provinces. For whatsoever our Law doth make it, yet you cannot be ignorant, [Page 13] that it was within those few Years accounted to be in the power of British Subjects to trans­fer their Allegiance to Foreign States, this ha­ving been not only done, but justified in Print by an Eminent Divine, and as Famous a Man, now dignified at Salisbury, who under that Plea, Covert and Protection, not only corre­sponded with the Enemies of his natural Prince, but plotted and conspired the high­est and barest-fac'd Treasons against him. And it were worth our knowing, whether he were not preferred to a Bishoprick upon the Merit of being subject to the States-General; and whether he doth not sit in the House of Lords (where he pretends to have a mighty Influence over Debates) under the Qualificati­on of the Allegiance he swore to those High and Mighty. But may be he has a peculiar Priviledge, which other People claim not, of renouncing and re-assuming his Allegiance as his Interest guides him; and that our Laws are as pliable to that learned Man's Conveni­encies as his own Conscience is. For quo te­ [...]am vultum. And before I dismiss this Head of your apprehending and imprisoning Men, for what the Law does not hold and account a sufficient Cause for either; I shall remind you of your late Methods of Procedure against Col. Parker, and Mr. Crosby, who being com­mitted the one to the Tower, the other to New­gate: And having an assurance of their own Innocence, and that you could legally charge them with no treasonable Crime, did there­upon severally move by their Councel, the last Trinity-Term, for their Habeas Corpus, and ob­tained it; but when they expected and should have enjoyed the benefit of it the last Day of the said Term, you took care to deprive them of that Favour, by causing to exhibit, and obtaining to have found two Bills of High-Treason against them, upon their having been in Arms in Ireland, for, and under K. James, which could be no legal ground for an Indict­ment; all such Things (if ever they were Crimes) having been pardoned by the Arti­cles of Limerick, and by a Treaty ratified and exchanged, made impunible: And according­ly you never durst since venture to try them upon those Indictments, as knowing that they must have been acquitted, and the Govern­ment have undergone the Infamy of all the Trouble and Hazard which those Gentlemen had been brought unto. So that instead of discharging your Duty and Office in this mat­ter according to Law, you set up to play tricks, in order to clude the Laws, illude the Nation, and oppress free-born Subjects, and that of equal Quality and Education with your self; for which it is hoped, both You, and such of K. W's Councel at Law as were con­cerned in it, as well as Mr. Aaron Smith, will ere long be made accountable. And the Par­liament having, in their former Meeting, be­gun to take notice of this irregular and illegal committing of Persons, upon Pretences of ha­ving aided and assisted the Enemies of the Go­vernment, when the Practice neither reached to so many as it now does, nor was accompa­nied with so much Scandalousness; I shall therefore refer both the further Enquiry into it, and the inflicting those suitable Punish­ments for it which it deserves, to the next Ses­sion of the Two Houses; where it is little to be doubted, but that the Dishonour and Misery which the Kingdom is sunk into, will in de­spight of your Rich's and Clarks, awaken them to be more careful of our Lives and Liberties, as well as of the old English Constitution, than their giddy Zeal, or at least an intemperate and Mobbish Noise, have allowed them hither­to to rhink of, with the Circumspection and Prudence which become them, in reference to themselves, their Countrey and Poste­rity.

And therefore I advance to a Fifth irregu­lar and arbitrary thing, in the manner of your seizing and committing the free-born Peo­ple of England, which is, That when you have both published the Names of the Per­sons whom you would have taken, and spe­cified the Crimes for which you authorise your Messengers to apprehend them, yet you do not always declare, as you ought, that the legal Transgressions for which you make them imprisonable were sworn and deposed upon Oath before you. For it is not enough, that such and such things are sworn, but it ought to be express'd in the Warrant, that they are so. And be your personal belief of their Guilti­ness of such and such Facts never so well grounded, and be your Credit as good as any can imagine or desire, to reconcile the Faith of others to what you say, yet the Rule, Me­thod and Prescription of the Law are to be [Page 14] obeyed and attended to; and the Law ex­presly requires, that you should not only men­tion in your Warrants, that you are informed of such a Persons having committed those and those criminal Offences; but that you have the whole Matter, with the enhauncing Cir­cumstances of it, deposed upon Oath before you, For so tender is the Law of the Subject's Li­berty, that it will not have it depend upon, or be forfeltable upon the most credible Man's Accusation, tho of never so heinous a Crime, unless he both can and do actually swear to it. Nay further, Our Freedom is of that preci­ousness, value and esteem in the eye of the Law, that it will not allow a Per­son's being diseized and divested of it upon the single Oath of any one, tho never so great and honourable; but it expresly requires that there should be more, and that at the least there should be Two. 'Tis true, that a Man is liable to be taken up and brought before a Secretary of State, or any other Officer of Ju­stice, upon one Oath; but there must be no less than Two, in order to confine and impri­son him, and to preclude him from the Bene­fit of Bail: Yea, Treason it self, and the high­est that can be imagined, sinks into bare Misdemeanour, when there is but one Testimo­ny upon Oath against the Offender; and that which is in it self Capital, becomes in such a ease obnoxious only to lesser and and more trivial Punishments. I do mention this, be­cause of what was perpetrated by the Mini­sters of the present Government, An. 1692. when so many Persons of all Ranks and De­grees in the Nation were apprehended and committed without any Deposition upon Oath against them, or at the most upon a single one. And when some of the first Quality of Eng­land, after they had made their Application to the Court of Kings-Bench in order to be Bail'd, were remanded back to Prison upon Mr. Aaron Smith's deposing that he had Evi­dence against them; whereas it appeared by the Issue afterwards, that the most he had (if that) against any one of them, was a single and individual Witness; which is no evidence for the detaining of Men, and pre­cluding of them from the Habeas Corpus Act, because not legal and according to what the Laws of the Land do require. And it hath very much detracted from the Reputation, Justice and Honour of the House of Lords, that they tamely connived at such an Injury done unto, and Affront put upon their Honourable Fellow Members, and that they did not both imprison the presumptuous and daring Depo­ser, and order him to be prosecuted accord­ing to the utmost Rigour of the Law, or at the least, that they voted him not to be for ever uncapable of serving the Government in any Place or Capacity whatsoever. But we hope they are by this time grown more sensible of their own Dignity and Jurisdiction, as well as what they owe to the Kingdom, the ancient English Constitution, and Generations to come: So that they will treat him otherwise the next time he is handed unto and staged before them, which will speedily be done, if for nothing else, yet for the Bills he preferr'd to the Grand-Iury against Collonel Parker and Mr. Crosby, in direct Contempt and Defiance of the Articles of Limerick, which had anull'd and superceeded all Prosecutions of that kind, as well as in a visible subserviency both to in­volve Ireland in a new War, and to shake the Peace and Tranquility of this Kingdom. See­ing, if Stipulations and Agreements be not so duly observed, as that People may rely upon them for their Safety, they will think of find­ing better Security, tho they must come to be indebted for it to their Swords. However, so it is, that thro the Parliaments over-look­ing the Arbitrary and Illegal Proceedings of the Ministers, An. 1692. you, Sir, have been encouraged and emboldened to revive and repeat the same unjust Practices in the Year 1694. But we would humbly presume to ex­pect that both the Houses will think of hitting that Blow now, which they took not that No­tice of then, which they ought. And it is in order thereunto, that we without Doors publish our Complaints in this manner to those wit [...]in; that if they will not vouchsafe to hear and re­lieve, the whole Kingdom may understand, both how precariously every Man possesseth all that is valuable unto him, and how little care, particularly their Representatives take of them.

But I hasten to another Grievance which the Subject groaneth under in reference to his Liberty, and which maketh the Sixth Illegali­ty in the execution of your Office, and in your Administration of the Affairs of the Govern­ment, [Page 15] and this is, That your Messengers do often search Houses, and that by Night as well as by Day, without the Presence and Company of a Constable or a Headborough. So careful is the Law, in relation to our Liberty, and preser­vation of the Free-hold that every one has in it, that as it will not suffer the House of a Peer to be searched, nor his Person there appre­hended, without the Presence of a Justice of Peace; so it doth not allow the breaking into, and searching the House of the meanest Com­moner, without the Aid and Assistance of a Constable, or one of parallel Character, tho in some places otherwise stiled. Those whom the Court calls Messengers are no civil Officers, nor does our Law know them by any Title that empowereth them to meddle with Mens Persons or Goods, farther than as they are Se­cretary-Office and Council-Chamber Porters, to carry Warrants and Orders from thence to the Justices of Peace or Constables, to get them executed. Neither have the very Secretaries any Authority or Jurisdiction over the Liberty of the Subject, in the Quality and under the Figure of Secretaries, but merely as they are themselves Justices of the Peace: Tho I know that in their own single Persons, as well as to­wards others, Mr. Secretary doth often supplant Mr. Justice, and usurp over him. Yet this I do affirm, that, according to our Laws, all that they can pretend unto and claim under that Character, is to write Letters, hand the Peoples Petitions to their Master, and his An­swers to them, and the like; but they have no power to diseize Men of their Liberties, or take away their Papers, &c. otherwise than as being Justices of the Peace. 'Tis true, there is another Thing very much in Fashion, which, for what I pretend to understand either of Matters of Law or State, their Jurisdiction may extend unto; and I am sure that some of them, thro the Profit they make by it, find their Interest in it, and that is the supplying your Gazetteers and Writers of News-Letters with Cargo of Intelligence; the Honour whereof I do no wise envy those that practice it, being in my Opinion no better, nor other, than the furnishing Wind at a certain Price to the Speaking-Trumpets and Cra [...]k-Farts of the Nation. But, Sir, besides the Tyranny you exercise over us, by authorizing or by counte­nancing your Messengers, to break into and search our Houses, without their being accom­panied with a Legal and Civil Officer (for all Power that the Law allows not, is tyrannous and usurped;) how many particular Mischiefs are we subjected and enslaved unto by this one Method of your administring your Office. For your Messengers being Fellows that most People are wholly Strangers unto, and whom very few know by Face, and least of all they whom they are usually heunded out upon, how liable are we to be robb'd by such as they may either in Friendship lend their Badges un­to, or by those that may counterfeit them, that being every way as feasible as counterfeiting the publick Coin is, which is every day pra­ctised. Nor while this Course is allowed, are we out of danger of being murdered by Ruffians, charactering themselves Messengers, and furnished with the Passport of a Badge. And this is the more easily practicable, be­cause those who are real Messengers carry ma­ny times only Blank Warrants, and at other times (especially towards meaner People) re­fuse to produce and shew any at all. But let us suppose, that none do come to our Houses, but such who truly are what they vouch them­selves (tho we can never be sure of it, while the Method I have been mentioning is allowed or connived at) yet if they exceed their Bounds, and copy Sir W. Waller's Originals, Pray, in that case, how shall we be redress'd, or whom shall we attach for Reparations? For it is upon that account, as well as to keep the Peace, that the Law ordains and requires the Presence of a Constable, and of such a one as is of the Neighbourhood; that if we be either pillaged or otherways injured, we may know whom to sue and make responsible. And I am very suspicious what your Messengers may do, in fingering and detaining what they ought not to meddle with, unless they be un­der the Inspection and Restraint of a Civil Officer, since the time that I heard a very odd and ungentile Story of your self, which I have made that just Inquiry into, that I un­dertake for the Truth of it; Namely, That upon your being informed, that a certain Gen­tleman about this Town had the Picture of the Prince of Wales (which certainly is as lawful for any one to buy and keep, as it is the Pictures of the Emperour Leopol [...] and K. William,) you sent for him, I suppose: [Page 16] by that Authority which you conceive vested in you as Secretary, and having questioned him about it, and demanding a sight of it, upon his obeying your Command, and grati­fying your Request, you put it immediately into your Pocket, and have not to this Day restored it again. Now, pray, what is this but to rob by virtue of the Seals of your Office, and to teach those under you to do the like by your Example: But it may be it was design'd for you as a Pledge of K. James's Grace and Favour, and of your own Reconcillation to him, and that the manner of your getting into Possession of it, was only Artifice to conceal the Mystery of your having made your Peace with that Exiled Prince, and to cover your remaining in the Post you are, about K. W. in order to betray him, of which your whole Administration seems strongly to smell.

But I hasten to another Miscarriage in your Management, which as much declares your acting with Arbitrariness and Illegality, as any of those can do which I have mentioned al­ready; and that is, while you pretend to seize Papers of Treasonable and Seditious Impor­tance, your Officers take and carry with them the Deeds of Men's Estates, their Books of Ac­counts relative to Trade, and their Letters of pri­vate Conversation with their Friends. All which, as they ought to be preserved Secrets which none should presume to pry into, with­out Consent of the Owners; so the Law al­lows no Man a Right and Authority to meddle with them. The disordering Men's Letters, in reference to common and private Business, may sometimes be an Inconveniency not easy to be redressed; and the penetrating into the State and Condition of their Civil and Secu­lar Affairs, may come so to affect their Credits that the Wrong is for ever Irreparable. There are several, since this Revolution, that will never emerge from under the Inconveniencies and Difficulties which were brought upon them, by the seizing and detaining their Books and Papers, till the Attorney General, and Mr. Aaron Smith, would be at leisure to look them over. I am far from complaining of any Governments seizing Asseciations against the State; or Letters of treasonable Correspon­dence; but it is illegal as well as rude, to heap a Gentleman's Papers together promiscuously, and to carry them away in the Bulk. And as none of the Messengers are qualified to distin­guish those of dangerous Importance from such as are not; so they are commonly so hasty to be upon the Scent of fresh Game, that they will not allow themselves time to do it, if they could. And in the paraphrazing what passeth in Writing between Friends, there ought to be the largest Allowances grant­ed imaginable: For how many Words and Sentences may there be, in familiar Letters, between intimate and ingenious Acquaintance, that were very innocently intended, and yet by a malicious Interpretation may be easily trans­formed into Libels? The Earl of Shaftsbury's Catalogue of Men Worthy, and Worthy Men, im­ported no legal Offence, and yet what a Noise was made of it, even to an Essay of grafting a Plot upon it heretofore. There are few in the Kingdom, of Genteel Learning, Political Ob­servations, or of a large Converse, but, were their Studies ransack'd and pillag'd, there would be something met with that would dis­please a peevish & Hypocondrycal States-man; and yet they with whom they were found, may, notwithstanding that, be Loyal even to Bigottry. And, as if it were not highly ille­gal, as well as extreamly damageable to the Person concerned, to have all his Papers sei­zed promiscuously, and in the gross, There is another Thing commonly practised in these Cases by your Messengers, which is of most threatning, and may be of fatal Consequence; and that is their neither numbering nor marking them themselves, nor allowing those concern'd and from whom they seize them to do it; which is to expose and make obnoxious those, with whom they were taken, to have others shuffied in among them that were not there be­fore. And this is practicable so many ways, that, where this previous Security is not vouchsafed, the Prisoner is by the Civil Law, which is the Law of Nations, made unaccount­able even for those very Papers which were ta­ken with him: For the Law, that always fa­voureth the Accused, will suppose that to be done by them who prosecute, which they have furnished themselves with so fair an occasion for the doing of. This preserved Monsieur Fouquett, when the late Colbert, who was at that time the chief Favourite of France, pro­secuted him with all the Art as well as all the Malice he could. And while we not only pre­fer [Page 17] out own Laws so much above theirs, but so infinitely extol the Justice and Mercy of K. W. beyond those of K. Lewis, we might very well expect (tho I cannot tell whether we may hope for it, if some Ministers be heark­ened unto) that we may have the same equal dealing at London and Westminster, which are met with at Paris. For how easy is it for some (where the fore-mentioned Care is not had and observed) by the Aid and Assistance of their Old Friend Parson Young, both to counterfeit what Hands and forge what Trea­sonable Papers they please, and then to have it sworn by their bribed Mercenaries, that they are the Hand-Writing of such or such a one, and taken in the Custody of this or that Man, whom they have a mind to have destroyed. So that upon this account, as well as that there were no Papers taken about him, all the Trea­sonable Writings and Correspondencies, with which Mr. Crosby is loaded, signify no more, in Law to affect him, than if they were Old Almanacks; and the Crimes pretended to be witnessable by those Papers, can, according to Law, (may he be but allowed the benefit of it) no more hurt or prejudice him, than if they were Bagatelles or Stories of Robin Hood and Little John. And our Ministers, were they not in a Conspiracy to waste the Treasure of the Nation, as ridiculously as well as uselessly, as Myn Heer Meesters does it upon Machines, might have spared the Expence of bringing People from Ireland to swear to the Similitude of his Hand, seeing while the Kingdom re­members what a late Favourite Young was with some of our Statesmen, and the Service he employ'd himself about; nothing like the Si­militude of Hands can influence the Belief of any Man, that is not on the Score of Distra­ction and Folly fit for Bedlam, or upon the account of Villainy for Bridewell. Nor will it be very grateful to the Nation, instead of better Divertisement given unto them, to have the Tragedy of Colonel Algernoon Sidney re­acted before them. To which I shall subjoyn, under this Head, That as several Papers rela­ting to Mens Trade and Estates, &c. have been lost and embezled, before the Secretaries could fall into the good Humour, or so far re­cover the Sence of Justice and Honour, as to order them to be returned; so sometimes they have been wholly detained, and refused upon any Terms to be restored. Of this I have an Instance in a particular Friend, who having all his Papers taken by a Messenger, and carri­ed to the Secretary's Office, he could never re­cover one of them, tho there was not a Script among them of a treasonable or seditious Im­portance: And the loss of them was not only an Injury to the Gentleman, as it was a rob­bing him of his Goods and Property, but as it was a depriving him of the means of getting Bread to himself and Family: There having been several of them prepared for the Press, in order to convey to Posterity the remem­brance of Actions that are past, and to remain as Memoirs to assist such as may write the Hi­story of the two late Reigns. And since they were withheld from the Author, after they had been several times demanded, they have been either hired out for Money, or lent a­broad in Courtesy to divers to be perused: But he from whom they were plundered hath this to comfort him, that the Minister of State by whose Order and Authority they were ta­ken, it a Person sufficiently responsible; and he may assure himself that the Sufferer is not of that tame and pusillanimous Temper, but that he will sooner or later make him account for them: And if he cannot obtain Satisfacti­on by Legal Methods, he will make Reprizals in the best ways he can, but in such as shall be always honourable and just. Yea I may here­unto add, That your Messengers, and those o­ther Persons whom you employ upon these Errands, don't only carry away Papers with them, which they have no right to meddle with, but they rob Men of their Money, as if it were Treason for such as you stile Jacobites to have Silver or Gold by them. Of this we have a late as well as a famous Instance, in that Harry Baker, accompanied with the Dutch Con­servators of our Liberties, did either feloni­ously rob, or militarily plunder Mr. Tildsley of a Purse full of old Gold, while they were ran­sacking his Closet, in search (as they preten­ded) of treasonable and seditious Papers. And these are the blessed Fruits we reap, by retaining and luxurlously feeding these Mir­midons in England, while our Brittish Troops are near starving in Flanders, and dropping into another World by Hundreds and Thou­sands in defending the Barrier of the Seven Pre­vinees. But tho those Holland Troopers may be [Page 18] above the Cognizance and Animadversion of our Laws, in Compensation for their having r [...]s [...]ued and preserved them unto us, at a time when we were in as full and quiet enjoyment o [...] our Properties as ever we were, save that in D [...]f [...]ren [...]e to the Declaration dated at the H [...] [...] 168 [...], we were bound in defiance of Sence and Experience to believe them to have been trampled upon and annulled: Yet we hope that neither Harry Baker, nor you who commissionated him down to La [...]cahire and [...] are above being made responsible for this and divers other Criminal Injuries there perpetrated.

The next Illegality which makes the Eighth, whereof I accuse you in the execution of your Office, is the detaining those whom your Mes­sengers have taken for a long time in Custody, without vouchsafing to call for and examine them. You ought to know (having been bred to the Gown) that every Hours Restraint, when there is no legal Cause for it, is false Imprison­ment, which fastens a high Trespass and Mis­demeanor upon the Actor, and rendereth him obnoxious [...]o Punishment. Nor is it enough to plead want of Leisure to send for and que­stion them (which is your common Excuse when addressed unto about it) seeing he who is not at Leisure to discharge the Duty of his Place, ought not to be allowed the Priviledge to hold it for a Day. And it is strange that you should have always time enough for issu­ing our your Warrants to apprehend Men, which is for the most part the doing them In­justice, and you should want it for Weeks and Months, when you should not only do them and their Families Right, but the Kingdom likewise. For tho the immediate Wrong be done to particular Persons, yet both the Con­stitution cometh thereby to be reproached, and the whole Community suffere [...]h in that pernicious Example. And I cannot omi [...] bo [...]h the [...]g you, and the advertising the King­dom, that when you have l [...]st wherewith to [...]ha [...]g [...] the Prisoner, you usually delay the l [...]nger [...] [...] condescend to [...]x [...]m [...]ne him: W [...] [...] [...]ff [...]t to say, Th [...] [...] are resol­ved [...] pu [...]h [...]m out [...] M [...], when you suffice [...] un [...]and that if you would al [...] him [...] of b [...]ing heard, you [...] d [...] [...]. How Criminal do you render your [...] before God, and punishable as well as reproachable by Men, by suffering a Free­born Subject to lie three or four Months un­heard at a Messengers; and at last when you condescend to examine him, to find your self under a Necessity sometimes of discharging him immediately, and at other times of ad­mitting him to Bail: Which is plainly to ac­knowledg that he was wrongfully kept in Cu­stody during all the time he was held in Du­rance. And in the Interi [...], while he is thus illegally and unjustly treated; if he was a Tradesman he has lost his Customers; if a Physician his Patients; if a Lawyer his Clients; and is extreamly prejudiced, if not wholly ru­ined, of whatsoever Course of Life he was. And if I do not mistake, no Man tho never so legally seized is to be sent to Prison, until he hath been brought before some proper and competent Magistrate, and hath been there examined. And I am sure that whatsoever the Law prescribes in this Matter, Reason tells us it should be so; seeing it is possible that a Person may be taken up upon Mistake, which his being examined may easily rectify. Nor do we want Examples, how sometimes, thro Similitude, and at other times thro Identity of Names, a very innocent Person has been apprehended in the stead of one that was Criminal. And of this both the Popish Plot, and the Consplracy in 1682, have furnished us with several Instances. Which as nothing could adjust but an Appearance before a Ma­gistrate, so it is absolutel [...] needful, in order to shew the Equity and Righteousness of your Proceedings. And this is yet more indispen­sably necessary, when Persons are seized upon blank Warrants, where the Envy or Covetuous­ness of the Messenger do more govern him in whom he apprehends, than the Paper with a Hand and Seal annexed unto it, which you arbitrarily and illegally gave him. Nay, It is possible that when there is no mistake com­mitted in the Person that is taken up, that yet he may be able so fully to convince you of your having been misinformed in the Mat­ters for which he was se [...]zed, that the bare ex­amining of him will both vindicate his Inno­c [...]ncy, [...]nd prevent your dishonouring the Go­vernment, and the making your self punish­able for keeping a guiltless Person in durance. Of this I could give you many Inst [...]nces; [...] I shall only assign that of Mr. Matthew M [...]d the [Page 19] Minister, who was taken up in the Year 1683, not only upon grounds of just Suspition, but upon positive Information given in against him. And yet thro obtaining the Justice as well as Favour of being examined before the King in Council, he did so well justify him­self, and with that Wit and presence of Mind, that he was immediately discharged and dis­missed home to his Family. Nor is it for the Credit of King W's Reign, under which we expected more Fairness and Generosity, as well as more Justice, than were said by you and some others to be exercised under that of King Charles, that the Subjects should meet with harder Measure in 94, than they did in 83; and be worse treated now than they were th [...]n. But it seems we are disappointed of our Expectations in this, as well as in most Things else; which makes some think that we are sunk back into the Times of [...] [...], when all the Laws in reference to the Liberty of the Subject were superceded and trampled upon, as well as those which re­lated to the rightful Enjoyment to the Grown. And some do not forbear to [...]. That there was more deco [...]um as well as Justice observed under that Usurpation, than there is under this Conventional constituted Gover [...]t. To which may be added, That the old [...]y Secre­tary Sir Lionel I [...]nk [...]ns, had more Sence, Up­rightness and Honour, then to be guilty of those Illegalities and Oppressions, which his [...]g Successor Secretary [...] commits without Shame or Remorse.

But I advance to a Ninth Particular in your daily Practice, whereof I do both accuse yo [...], and do affirm it to be one of the [...]ig [...]est Op­pressi [...]ns and greatest Illegalities imaginable; and that is your co [...]ning Men to [...] Houses, which neither are, nor never [...]ere, ac­counted legal Prisons. And what is this, but to make your Messengers such [...] Crea­tures, as that we cannot [...]ell of what Species they are▪ Surely it is needful that you should define [...], that we may know [...] they are G [...] or Mess [...]gers, for ac [...]ing to L [...] they cannot be [...]. For tho our La [...] [...] ­not prevent N [...]ral, yet they do [...]: no Court [...]: N [...] are two S [...]xes twisted into o [...]e individ [...] so om [...] in the Elementary World, [...] s [...]c [...] [...] in Na­tions as Messenger and Goaler brought to c [...]r in one Person are in Civil and Political States-For besides other Mischiefs that may attend this common practice, there at Three that are inseparable from it, and all of them inconsi­stent with, and destructive of, the Subjects right unto his Liberty. One is, that by this Method of confining Men, the Judges, who by their Places, Employs and Characters, are the Guardians of every Man's Freedom, and the Guarantees between King and People, are precluded from all regular ways of knowing who are taken into and kept under Cu­stody. Whereas were all Prisoners com­mitted to Legal Goals, they could not miss having cognizance of them at the respec­tive Sessions here in Town, and at the [...] in the Countrey. For the Goalers be­ing obliged at those Times to give in a K [...] ­dar or Li [...]t of all they have under their Custo­dy, it cannot then escape arriving at their Knowledg who they are. And, as many are kept in Captivity for Months and Years with­out the Judges receiving any Intelligence of them; so if at any time they come to attain it, by the Reports of those that visit them, and as a part of the Common News, as I do not know they can judicially take notice of it, so I believe they are not by their Duty ob­liged to it: And for them to meddle beyond that would be to have their Sallaries paid worse than they are, which they are already ill enough. For tho they hold their Places [...] [...] bene s [...] g [...]ss [...]int, yet as to the time of being paid their Sallaries, they are under a [...]. Nor could an Act be obtained to rectify this, and relieve them from a pre­carious Dependance, tho a Bill had past both Houses, and was offered to King W. in order to the obtaining the Royal As [...]ent for it: But he preferred his own Interest to that of his People, and refused it. For among the many other Blessings which we have attained by the late Revolution that of having more Negatives given to publick [...]ills in five years, than had been given in thirty eight before, may be reck­ [...] for one, and that not of the smallest Size. Another Mischief accompanying this Practice of committing Prisoners to Messengers Hou [...]s, is the robbing them of the Priviledg and Benefit of being delivered out of their Thraldom and restored to their Liberty with that Conveniency and Speed as otherwise they [Page 20] might: For those Houses being out of the Cir­cle of a Commission of Oyer and Terminer at the Old Baily, such as are coopt up in them do sue in vain for Remedy at the Sessions. Of this we have had the Misfortune to see many dole­ful Instances, and some very lately. And Ap­plications of this nature being usually made the last Day of the Sessions, and after the Dis­patch of all the Tryals, when the Judges are seldom on the Bench, Honest Salathiel, whose Learning, Wisdom and Justice are all of a Size, does not only reject them with Scorn and Contempt, but treats those who make the Motions, with the Pride and Insolence which supply the room of other Qualifications requi­site for his Place. Nor can any give the Di­mensions of this Grievance, but they who ha­ving been thrown into the Dens of Lyons at the beginning of a long Vacation, have been forced to continue under their Paws and Teeth as well as remain deprived of their Li­berties, withheld from their Familles, and shut out from all their Business, till the last Day of Michaelmas Term. To which I subjoin a Third Plague that inseparably cleaves to this way of Commitment, namely, That it tempts the Messengers to suborn Rascally Fellows in Town and Country to inform and depose against Ho­nest and Quiet Men, that they may have an Opportunity administred of preying upon and fleecing of them. And considering the Morals of most of them, it is more than probable in reference to many, and proof can be made of it in relation to some, how they employ Setters to entangle Persons into their Clutches, and have their Spaniels to start Game for them to worry. Nor is it much to be wondered at, that having purchased their Places at dear Rates, they should sell the Devil as well as they had bought him. And their customary Sala­ries being but ill paid, the Government being usually a Year or two in Arrear to them, while German Troops Abroad, and Dutch Projectors, under the Notion of Incompatable Artifis and Ingeniers at Home, swallow up our Money even to the starving almost King IV's Houshold; few People will think it strange, if those Blades, who have neither Honour nor Conscience to restrain them, should purvey for a Subsistence in all the ways they possibly can, without re­gard to the Justice of them. And I will fur­ther add upon this Head, That if those who are forcibly detained in such Hands and Places shall make their Escapes, the Law neither doth nor can make any Crime of it: For whatsoever Cognizance it takes of Escapes out of Legal Prisons, and whatsoever Punishment it makes the Officer in that Case obnoxious unto; yet it can annex no Penalties where it hath made no Establishments, nor inflict Chastise­ment for not remaining, where it is so far from requiring, that it doth not allow that any Man should be. And if the Law of 1 Ed. 2. de frangentibus Prisonam, doth neither make [...] Person that breaks Prison, nor the Goaler that consents to it, (tho he whom he had in Cu­stody were guilty of High Treason) corporally punishable, and much less with death, unless the Warrant by which the said Person was committed express and declare the Cause of his Commitment: By parity of Reason, an Escape out of an illegal Prison, is as little pu­nishable. Seeing the Law that hath ordered it to be always specified and declared for what Cause Men are taken into Custody, hath taken no less care in providing whither they are to be sent, and in what Places they are to be de­tained.

But I hasten to a Tenth Grievance, under which the Subject groans thro your illegal ex­ecution of your Office towards those you ap­prehend and commit, and that is in the suffer­ing if not encouraging and authorizing those called Prisoners of State to be treated both in Goals and in Messengers Houses with the utmost Barbarity, Rudeness and Insolency. For what­soever you do not either prevent or remedy, when you both ought and may, you must be thought to justify and allow, and ought accor­dingly to be made responsible for it. Prisons are not by the Law intended for Punishments, but only for the detaining Persons accused in safe Custody till they come to be tried, and do either vindicate their Innocency, or be convicted of their Guilt. And as it is to be supposed in Justice as well as Charity, that every Man, notwithstanding what is informed and deposed against him, may be innocent till he be proved and found guilty; so he ought in the mean time to be treated with all the humanity and fairness that are consistent with the preserving him safe, and forth-com­ing to a Tryal. But that it is wholy otherwise I shall endeavour to lay before the Nation, in [Page 21] several Particulars, that if they have any Sence left of the Rights of English-men, or any Bowels towards their oppressed Country-men and Brethren, or any Apprehension or Pro­spect of what may be their own Portion and Lot, they may resent the Injuries answerable to the Weight and Importance of them; and by application to their Representatives in Par­liament endeavour to get them both Reven­ged and Remedied. Nor will I insist upon the little and mean Injury, tho it be hainous enough to many in some Circumstances, that is commonly practiced in all your Goals, and particularly in Newgate towards Prisoners; which is the denying them the Liberty to purchase their Bread and Beer from abroad, but forcing them to buy them in the Goal at those scanty and stinted Measures which the Goalers think fit to allow. And the Sutier giving several hundreds of Pounds for his Place hath no other way to reimburse himself, and make provision for his Family and Poste­rity, than by abridging Prisoners in the Quan­tity, as well as by defrauding them in the Kind of what they ought to have. But I shall reduce all I have to say on this Head to the following Particulars, and branch this one ge­neral Grievance into Five kinds of Tyranny and Oppression exercised over the Subject in this Matter; whereof the First is the shutting up Men without regard to their Age, Quality, natural or adventitious Infirmities, or to the former method of their Living, under close Confinement, neither allowing them the Free­dom of the respective Prisons, nor the benefit of that little Air which those Places afford. I do know that the Law speaks of arcta Custo­dia as well as Libera, but as it is only either for some infamous Facts, or for Persons from whose ill Character some attempt may be justly feared of making their Escape, that the first is ordained; so it is not intended by it, that Men should be locked up Weeks and Moneths within narrow, moist, and dark Rooms, with Warders lying in their Cham­bers all Night, as well as Centinels constantly at their Doors, which is the Method of your Lieutenant of the Tower towards his Prisoners; who tho he be a Peer, may be said to be a Stranger to the Breeding and Civility of an or­dinary Gentleman; and of whom it may be affirmed without Scandalum, That of the whole Bench, whether Earls or Barons, he is wor­thiest for the Character he bears, and the best adapted to it, having more of the true and proper Qualities of a Goaler [...]hin others are ambitious of being endued with, or capable of attaining unto. And to convince all Man­kind that this is a Piece of despotical Tyran­ny, and not what the Law requireth, or whereunto the Goalers duty obligeth him, they both can and do dispence with much of this Severity, and practice more Humanity and Gentleness, when they are liberally bribed to it; which proclaims them either barbarous Oppressors in the one case, or treacherous Rogues in the other. For as upon the one hand, if the Law restrains them from using that Moderation, they are Villains and Tray­tors to those that trust them in exercising of it; so upon the other, if the Law ex­acteth all that Civility and Fairness of De­meanour from them towards those who are their Prisoners, which is consistent with the keeping them safe, then they are brutal Ty­ranes, and worse than Bashaws in refusing it. But besides this, there is a Second Sort of Op­pression practiced upon all your Prisoners of State in whatsoever Places they come to be confined; and that is, The demanding and ex­acting from them illegal and exorbitant Fees. I do not deny but the Law alloweth some small Thing, by way of Fee, to the Keepers of City and County Goals, but it bears no pro­portion to what they require, and you Sir, as Secretary of State, countenance them to take. But for your Messengers I do know no Law that allows one Farthing to them from the Prisoner by way of Fee: For being the immediate Servants of the Court, they are to expect their Wages from those that set them at work, and whose Drudgery they do. Nor is it possible that according to Law they can challenge any Thing from those they de­tain in Custody, seeing our Laws know none bearing those Names for Goalers, nor acknow­lege any such Houses as theirs for Prisons. As for your Lieutenant of the Tower, I am told that there is only a Groat legally due to him; and that if more be given him, it is meer Gratuity, for which, tho never so little, he ought to make a Leg, and be thankful. By what Name then shall we call that Exaction of exorbitant and illegal Fees from Prisoners [Page 22] of Sta [...]e, which hath been more practised since the late Revolution than ever it was before, and under your Ministry than that of any other? For Extortion is too dimini­tive a Title for it; nor can it be otherwise accounted of, than as a higher Degree of Op­pression than any perpetrated in the Domini­ons of the Grand Seignior and Great Mogul. And it would seem that some of you Ministers do reckon that you are in a State of War with the English at Home, as well as with the French Abroad; and that you may treat the Prisoners you make in the same manner as the Soldiers do those of the Enemies they take in the Field, where all they find upon the Captive is held lawful Plunder. So excessive are the Fees which are every where exacted of those cal­led Prisoners of State, that a very great Fine inflicted for a High Misdemeanour against the Government, would not amount to so much, nor be so grievous, were the Prisoners tryed and convicted immediately, as the lying Five or Six Months in a Messenger's hands, or in Goal at Newgate, ariseth unto in bare and naked Fees. Yea many, who when admitted to Tryal are found innocent and acquitted, find themselves so impoverished thro paying for so long time the large Fees that have been exacted of them, that they are for ever after disabled from getting Bread for themselves and Families. Nor is the suffering and allow­ing this Extortion any ways serviceable to the Government, which you pretend to preserve and uphold; seeing more are of the Humour of the Gascoign than you imagine, who told one of the Kings of France, that tho the whole Treasure of the Kingdom could not bribe him to be Disloyal, yet he did not know but that an Affront or Oppression might provoke him to turn Rebel. For many will chuse rather to [...]un the hazard of dying by the Swords of [...]our armed Troops than to be eat up peice. [...] and Limb after Limb by your Messe [...]gers and G [...]lers, which is like the being gnawn by [...] and [...]s, instead of being devoured by [...] [...]ut you know in whose Reign, and by whom it was said, sentiant se mori, let the [...] [...]e; and that he was not so much in favour wi [...]h [...]ose he either feared or hated, as to [...]ow them the Privilege of expiring spe [...]y. A [...] barbarous [...] exer­ [...]ised towards those you have in Custody, is, The refusing their nearest Relations, and most ne­cessary Friends, admission to them; whose Com­pany, if needful and comfortable at any time, is while they are in such Circumstances more especially so. This was a Hardship seldom practised heretofore, tho grown much into Fashion since the late Revolution: Nor was either the Earl of Shaftsbury or the Earl of Es­sex denied the attendance of their own Ser­vants, under the severe Reign of King Charles, and those we called his Despotical Ministers, as my Lord Molineux and the Lancashire Ge [...] ­tlemen are, under the Gracious Reign of K. [...]. and easy Administration of those he employs in the Head of his Civil Affairs. For since the Exchange was made of Princes, some have stood confined for many Months, if not Years, and none suffered to go near them besides Goalers. I do acknowledg that in some Cases, and towards some Prisoners, it may not be convenient that any should have the Liberty of access to them, save in the Presence of a Keeper; but with that Proviso and that Cir­cumspection, there cannot be the least danger of giving their Friends and Relations admis­sion to them at seasonable Hours. For what­soever can be vouchsafed a Prisoner, without Danger to the Government, or in Subservien­cy to the making an Escape, the Law requi­reth that it should not be denied him. And that it is not from any care of preserving the Government, or apprehension of the Prisoners contriving an Escape, that this Privilege is with-held from them, but from Covetuous­ness to squeeze Money out of them, is apparent from hence, that upon Application for leave and paying down so much for an Order of Ad­mi [...]tance from the Secretary, the Liberty which was before refused is then granted. But then the Mischief is, that this Order will for the most part give only a Freedom of Access to the Prisoner for once, and that whosoever would go again [...]ust pay down t [...]other Fee to get it renewed: And this Method is held, till you and your Clerks have levied so many duy­ly or weekly Taxes on the Subject as satisfy your Avarice, and then a general one is vouch­safed, by which either any Person is allowed to see the Prisoner, or at least that such and such may do it, as are therein mentioned and expressed. And this customary Practise of some Secretaries in oppressing the Subject, [Page 23] encourageth Goalers to do the like, which tho they cannot exemplify in the same manner, yet they imitate it as well as they can. So that even when the Secretary does no way intend by his Form of Commitment, that the Priso­ner should be debarred the sight of his Rela­tions and Friends, yet the Goaler will not ad­mit them, unless they make their Address by Guineas, and seek his Favour by the Interces­sion of Angels, and then the Doors fly open, and the Prisoner may be seen and conversed with. To which may be added as a Fourth Il­legal Severity used towards Prisoners under their Confinements, that they are refused the having their Counsellors and Sollicitors admitted to them, when they need and desire them. For as if their Conditions were not distressful enough, thro a shameful defect in our Laws, in not allowing them the Assistance of Council at and upon their Tryals for Treasonable Of­fences, which no Laws in the World besides ours but allow. You, Sir, render it more deplorable and worse by denying them to speak with their Councel freely, and as often as they please before, which is the robbing them of a Right, which the Law under all its other Deficiencies in this matter grants unto them. For a Counsellor at Law is the same thing to a Person confined, and to be arraigned for a Conspiracy against the Government, that a Physician is to one sick of a dangerous and malignant Distemper; nor ought the First be refused the coming to his Client with the same Freedom that the Latter goes to his Patient. I do the rather insist upon this, because of the unpresidented Barbarity used towards Mr. Cros­ly, even after he had warning given him by Mr. Aaron Smith to provide for his Tryal. For tho Mr. Momp [...]sson, who is his Council, and Mr. Barleigh, who is his Sollicitor, had admis­sion to see him, yet they neither were, nor yet are permitted to speak with him, but in the Presence of a Keeper. Which is not only all one, but much worse than if they were not suffered to come near him at all; so it does put him only to the expence of so many Fees, with­out leaving him in a Condition either to de­clare with Safety his own Case, or to receive their Advice. And the Fellows fastened up­on him at those Seasons are only so many Spies, whose Business is to observe what he does say, that so if he discover the least Thing, which being known may do him hurt, they may be ready as Witnesses and depose against him, and thereby supply the want that the Go­vernment still laboureth under in that matter, after they have hunted through the three Kingdoms to procure such as with any pro­bability may swear him out of his Life. And through this Severity put upon Priso­ners for High Treason, which most in both Houses of Parliament, as well as the gene­rality of the Kingdom, and even Mr. Secretary Trenchard oftner than the rest have been guilty of, they are worse treated than Felons, Mur­therers, and Highway-men are; that being never denied to the latter, which is thus scan­dalously refused the former. To which I subjoyn in the fifth and last place, as another hainous and intolerable Grievance put upon State Prisoners in some Goals, and that this is the subjecting them to wear Irons, unless they redeem themselves from the Barbarity by Mo­ney. For tho I cannot tell whether this In­humanity be exercised towards Prisoners by your Authority, or meerly by your Conni­ance; yet this I am sure of, that exercised it is, and that upon Persons whose Quality, Educa­tion and Character, equal them to your self in every thing, save that they are not advanced to the Honour by being vested with the Seals of the Office. Nor is this only a punishing of Men before they be convicted, or proved guilty of the least Crime (seeing none will deny, but that the wearing Irons is a Punish­ment, and that as Grievous as it is Ignomi­nious) but it is a Treating them as if they were actually Sentenced and Condemned to Gallys, and not as such as are meerly put under Confinement to be kept in safe Cu­stody until they can be brought to undergo a Legal Tryal. Now this is so commonly pra­ctised upon all that are committed to Newgate upon pretence of having conspired against the Government, that I need not assign par­ticular Instances of it, tho divers very late ones are produceable; and for which, if re­paration cannot legally be obtained against Tell the Keeper, Gentlemen will be tempted whensoever they recover their Liberty to vin­dicate themselves by a Cane, if not by a Sword, from the dishonour that has been done them: However I do both lay this Ear­barity at your Door unless remedied; and [Page 24] offer It to the Cognizance and Animadver­sion of the Parliament the next Sessions. If they be not either so employed about Ways and Means for carrying on a vigorous War against France, that they cannot find leisure for what concerns the preserving our Rights and Liberties at home; or that some of them have a mind to suffer poor Jacobites to re­main unrelieved in this particular, till some of the Advocates for the Merc [...] of this Go­vernment, and who have laboured so stre­nuously for the Redress of those Grievances which we complained of under former, may come themselves to fall under this Barbarity, which it is not impossible but that sooner or later they may. However this ignominious Severity is not inflicted upon State Prisoners in persuance either of Common or Statute Law, seeing by bestowing a few Guineas on the Keeper they may either prevent it, or rescue themselves from it, when they please. But in the mean time I would desire to know, by what Act of Parliament, either Fell, or any other Goaler, becomes authorised to levy ar­bitrary and exorbitant Taxes upon any of the People of England, and how our Ministers either of Justice or State can answer the con­niving at it under a Government that is Le­gal, and not Dispotical?

But it is now time to advance to the next Grievance under which Prisoners of State do suffer, which makes the Eleventh Illegality, which in the Course of your Administration you exercise towards them; and that is, The refusing to admit them to Bail in Cases that are by Law bailable, and the allowing none for suffi­cient Bail, but such as Mr. Aaron Smith thinks fit to approve of. It would extend this Paper to an undue length, to call over and enlarge upon all the Cases according as the Weight and Importance of them do require, in which you refuse to admit Persons to bail, when you not only may, but ought to do it. As when Men are taken up upon bare Suspi­cion; when the Suggestions and Informations made against them are [...]rifling and frivolous; when the Depositions before you are not up­on Oath; when there is only one Witness that sweareth to what is deposed; when such as swear, tho never so many are to your own knowlege suborned and infamous Fellows; or when the Informations are not made to your self, but handed to you from a Scotch Secre­tary, who is allowed by our Law to take no further cognisance of English Affairs than as he sendeth those whom he finds capable to inform, either to your self, or to some other Officer of Justice, whom the Laws have au­thorised to receive Depositions against Eng­lish-men. In all these Cases, to mention to more, you are bound by the Duty of your Place to admit such as are apprehended to Bail. But your practice in all of them is much otherwise; yea, so little do you either value the Liberty of your Fellow Subjects, o [...] regard the Authority of the Laws of England, or are apprehensive of the Justice of a Parlia­ment, that when applied unto upon such Oc­casions, you do with a scornful Smile, which is as the oyling of your Hone, bid them go and seek their Relief at the Old Bailey, or at Westminster-Hall. But as every one you send to Prison is not so well furnished in the Pocket as to be at the Charges of obtaining Remedy in those Places; so for any to re­main arbitrarily robbed of their Liberty till opportunities offer there of recovering it, is a Scandal to the Government, and a high Oppression of the Subject. Nor needs ther [...] more to unfold and display your Guilt in this matter, and to apparel it with the most aggravating Circumstances, than that after you have kept Men many Months in Prison for High Treason, but are at last forced to prosecute and bring them to a Tryal, you do then either discharge them without the preferring of Bills of any kind against them, or at most do dwindle them into Bills for Mis­demeanor, or may be try them for drinking King James's Health. Whereas instead of making that a Crime, it would become the Wisdom of the Government upon the Score of Interest, to get a Prayer inserted into the Li­t [...]gy for it, and to enjoyn it as a part of every Mans dayly Devotion; seeing it is not from any Satisfaction that the People have in the Government, and much less from any Love they bear to it, that under so many Disappoint­ments, such vast Charges and inconceivable Losses, they so quietly and with that tame­ness submit unto it. But it is from a vain dread of King James, thro an unjust as well as uncharitable Apprehension, that his Re­venge will be proportionable to their Guilt; [Page 25] whereas whosoever allows himself Liberty to think, will find that King James is no less ca­lumniated in being represented revengeful in order to hinder and prevent his Restoration, than he was here ofore in the matter of a French League, and a Supposititious Prince of Wales, in the Subserviency to the driving him from his Throne. Nor can that Prince who was enriched with Mercy to pardon Mr. John Trenchard, who had not only brought into the House of Commons the Bill by which he was to have been excluded from Succession to the Crown, but who had been involved in the Duke of Monmouth's Invasion, An. 1685, as well as in the Plot about an Insurrection [...] 1682; I say, that Prince cannot be ima­gined to labour under deficiencies of Grace and Mercy for pardoning any of his People, even the most hainous Offenders, that by re­turning to their Duty will make themselves capable Objects of it. But as your refusing to admit Prisoners to Bail, in Cases that are by Law Bailable, is a great Injustice in you, and a high Oppression upon them; so the allowing none to stand for Bail in behalf of Prisoners, [...] such as Mr. Aaron Smith will accept and re­commend unto you, is an Act of that Tyranny and Arbitrariness, that our Language is too penu­rious to furnish Words sufficient to express it. And I would here know on what Law that Of­fice is founded, which he enricheth himself and oppresseth others in the Execution of; seeing by what I have either read, or could be in informed of, it was never heard of un­til the Reign of King Charles the Second, that it had its first Rise and Original in Mr. B [...]rton and Mr. Graham. And the Season when it began, as well as the first Essays of exercising it, being in Reference to the Sham Plot wherein so many Protestants were to have been involved, An. 1681, might have served to have gotten it damned and suppressed un­der this Reign, that was Established to sup­press Grievances, if it had been but for the Infamy of its Original, and the Sanguinary Ends it was erected for. But it is too pro­bable that this is what does recommend it to some People, and keeps them extreamly in love with it, and preserves it among the uti­li [...] inventa, instead of suffering it to sink down among the deperdita during this Govern­ment, at least while your Administration last­eth. And yet it was executed by those two Gentlemen with greater Temper and Mode­ration, as well as with more regard to Laws, and all the Rules of good Breeding, than it has been since, or ever will be, by Mr. Smith. For whatsoever was complained of then, re­maineth not only still repeated, but accom­panied with fresh and formerly unheard of Injuries, to cause us both to renew our Com­plaints, and to proclaim them louder: And indeed in hoc uno Mario multi Scill [...], we have many Burtons and Grahams in this one Mr. Aa­ron Smith. And whosoever considers how he thrust himself into the Office, by threatning the Commissioners of the Treasury, will not wonder if the Man be not yet recovered of the Rage and Madness which had then over­taken him: For when Mr. Hambden, and some others who had been made Commissioners of that Board upon the Revolution, demurred about electing him into the Place, because of his insolent Pride, and the Brutalness of his Humour, as well as by reason of some other Qualities with which he is too well furnished, that sufficiently discouraged them; he mena­ced them; and particularly the Gentleman that I have mentioned, ratisying his Threat­ning with an Oath, That in Case he obtained It not, he would Stab or Pistol them; being at the same time provided with Instruments for doing it. Nor is the Truth of what I have here related to be questioned, there be­ing so many about the Town ready to attest it upon the Authority of his own Testimony; who as he gloried in telling of it, so it has taught others a very probable Method, in case those fail which favour of more Humanity and better Education, of gaining the Kindness and Favour of some cowardly Ministers. But Sir, what is this of your accepting or refu­sing Persons for Bail according as Mr. Aaren Smith shall be pleased to character them, but the constituting him a Sovereign Judg of the Reputations, Fortunes and Qualities, of the generality of the most valuable part of Man­kind: Seeing they are not of the Mob, but those of a higher Rank in the World, that ap­pear in the nature of Sureties in behalf of their suffering Acquaintance and Friends. So that Persons distinguished from the Vulgar, must pass for Poor or Rich, for those of a Fair or those of a Sul [...]ied Esteem, not according [Page 26] to what they are really and in themselves, but according to the Representation that Mr. Smith is in the Humour to give of them. This is such an unlimitted Jurisdiction and Power, as no Judg in Westminster Hall is vested with an Authority to parallel it. And to allow him this uncontroulable Right which he usurps of determining concerning the Credits of Men, as well as their Estates, is more than the Cloathing him with an Arbitrary Power over their Lives, and subjecting them to dye by every passionate P [...]ff of his venomous and fiery Breath: Seeing the former are much dearer to all that are framed of a better Mold, than the latter are. Nor is any thing more notorious, because customarily practised, than his blasting the Credits of very substantial Persons, thro refusing them for Bail, when the Sums in which they are to be bound, amount not to above Two or Three hundred Pounds, and thereby (at least so far as falls within his Power) diminishing their Esteem in the Places where they live, and draw their Cre­ditors every where upon them. For which as by Law they have very good Actions against him, so it is hoped that sooner or later they may recover lusty Damages. Yea, when the Ill-natured Man cannot except against Per­sons upon the foot of their Inability, he re­fuseth to admit them upon Pretence of their being Disloyal, and brandeth whomsoever he beareth a Spleen unto, with the Name of Ja­cobites; which besides the Prejudice that it may do to the Person that offereth to be Sure­ty, and stands excluded upon this Allegation, it may often leave the Prisoner under a Ne­cessity of remaining confined for want of Bail; seeing his Acquaintance and Interest may lye among no other but those whom Aa­ron thus Charactereth. Nor is this an Excep­tion that a Court ought to admit; seeing all that the Law prescribeth and requires in such a Case, is, only th [...] the Person be truly re­sponsible to the Government for so much as he is to be bound in, and not what his Opi­nion is about the Rights and Ti [...]les of Princes. And yet how often doth this lofty Man, who alone and single is a whole Court of Inquisition, treat Men in reference to the Politicks, with no less Rigour and Uamercifulness in his way, than the great Body of inq [...]isit [...]rs at Rome and Madrid handle those under their Jurisdiction on the Motive of what they stile Heresie. But is it not to expose the Government, to the utmost reproach, and that when a Man of Quality and Condition is to appear at the Secretary's Office, and I am sorry I have occa­sion to say it, even at the King's Bench, ac­companied with Knights, Gentlemen, and Citizens of the best Figure, to stand Bail for him, he must antecedently to his Appea­rance, and to obviate his being remanded to Prison, thro Mr. Smith's reprobating those as insufficient whom he brings along with him for Sureties, be obliged to convey their Nam [...]s to Aaron; and to understand his Pleasure, whether he will admit them to pass muster, or nor. Surely our Ancestors have not been so careless, nor are our Laws so defective, as to leave Magistrates unprovided of Rules for their Conduct in this part of their Admini­stration? No; For the Law in this Case still is, and the Method heretofore practised always was, That if the Court of Judicature, or Ju­stice of Peace, did suspect any of those offer­ed for Sureties not to be responsible for so much as they were to become bound, they were in that Case to be upon their Oaths that they were really worth so much, all that they were at that time Debtors for being paid. Nor doth it look favourably upon those trust­ed now with the Guardianship of our Laws, and the Administration of Justice; nor doth it prognosticate well to the Ancient English Conssitution, That so horrid and injurious an Innovation, in a Matter of so unconceivable Moment and Consequence, should be so tame­ly overlookt and connived at, and all for the gratifying a peevish Man, and for the advan­cing him to Wealth and Opulency, who knows not what it is to be Loyal from Principle, but meerly out of Interest; as he was not former­ly Rebellious upon Motives of Reason, or out of Zeal to preserve the Constitution, but from Discontent with his own Condition, and Re­venge that he was not Preferred and Employ­ed. And by this Privilege granted unto him of passing Sentence on the Sufficiency or In­sufficiency of all that are to be admitted for Bail in behalf of Prisoners of State, he rai­seth annually such a Tax upon all that have occasion to sue for a Habeas Corpus, or are vouchsafed the Favour to recover their Li­berty upon giving Sureties for being forth [Page 27] coming to answer what they are charged with, as is not easily to be imagined or computed. And it is pity that we have not Commissioners appointed to enquire after illegal Exactions of this kind, as we have Commissioners of Ac­counts for examining how the Publick Moneys are issued out: Se [...]ing I am very sure, That were there a Report to be made of the first, as by Virtue of an Act of Parliament there ought to be of the later, the one would be no less surprising than the other, and admi­nister equal occasion of Melancholy. For as the least that the Prisoner is forced to give upon this occasion is two Guineas; so if he does suspect the Passableness of any of those he has been able to procure to be bound for him, he must in that Case advance five or t [...]; and then be their Condition never so Mean, yet Aaron can recommend them as Able and Sufficient Sureties. For what his Name-sake the Ordinary of Newgate does in the Case of Felons admitted to the Benefit of their Clergy, the same will this Gentleman do in relation to those about whom his Concerns lie, and that upon the like Motive and Inducement. Nor is the First more Arbi­trary in pronouncing that such or such a one, Legit or not Legit ut Clericus, than the Latter is in legitimating or disclaiming Persons for Bail, according to the manner he hath been addres­sed. There are many other Things that might be offered in reference to this Matter; as that Mr. Smith's Office is a plain Usurp [...]ion upon that of the Attorney General, and that his Pro­vince, as he manageth his Employ, is to be a Tutor to the Secretaries of State, and a Super­intendant and Guide to Judicial Courts. But let them either chuse to bear, or take cou­rage to rescue and emancipate themselves from the Slavery: It is enough for me to have said open the Injury done by it to the Free People of England, and to have detected the Illega­lity and Injustice of such an Office, in relation to the Community and Body of the Kingdom; especially as it still is, and hath been all along executed by Mr. Aaron Smith.

So that from this I proceed to another Grie­vance, which makes the Twelfth that the Sub­ject hath reason extreamly to complain of, in the way that you administer your Place; and that is, Your employing and ho [...]nding forth Trepans, to decoy, entangle and ensnare, indiscreet but well­meaning People into Crimes, which they would not otherwise have entertained a Thought of. I do acknowlege that Spies may be sometimes used by a very wise and temperate Govern­ment, tho the Employ be attended with that deserved Ignominy, that a Man of Honour would chuse sooner to die than to undertake it. But for T [...]pans, they are Tools only-for a mali­cious Government to make use of; and the em­ploying, of them is an infallible Argument, that the Government which [...]eth them, judgeth it self either Illegal and Unrighteous, or Unstea­dy and Weak; and that being sensible of the badness of its Title, or thro not knowing how to subsist by Innocent, Noble and Generous Methods, it applyeth to base Artifice and Tricks for its support. Accordingly, the first Time they were known and made use of in England, was under and during Oliver's Usur­pation: And it is not for the Honour of the present Government to borrow from the Pre­cedents which that Usurper made, Rules for the Ministers of this Reign to act by. I con­fess their first Original to be as antient as the Reign of Tiberius, but it is little for the Repu­tation of the Ministers of K. W. to revive an Institution, which the Historian Tacitus brands with so indelible a Reproach, in saying, Dela­tores genus hominum publico exitio repertum, & paenis nunquam satis exercitum, perpraemia elici [...] ­bantur; That Trepans and Informers which were at all Times a Plague and publick Mischief to a go­verned Community, and whom Punishments at any Time could hardly prevent and restrain, were then tempted and encouraged by Sallaries and Rewards. And it must be confessed, that you who are the Ministers of this present Reign, have those Advantages for the inflaming and enraging the People to Discontented, Seditious and Trea­sonable Expressions, which those who served under former Reigns were very much at a loss for, if not wholly destitute of. For without having recourse to Lies, Fictions and malici­ously invented Stories, whereby to run People not only upon Raileries, but the most veno­mous and disloyal Speeches: You need only give and recount to them the true and imparti­al History of Transactions since the late Revo­lution. So that instead of a League with France for extirpating the Protestant Religion, and the enslaving these Kingdoms; of a Suppositi­tiovs Prince of Wales, and several other Things [Page 28] of the same Complexion, which were the for­ged Calumnies to undermine King James in the Affections of his People, and to dispose them to receive and succour an invading Prince, whose Errand, as appears by the E­vent, was to drive that Monarch frum his Throne: You need only tell them of Thirty Millions, as uselesly expended as if it had been thrown away at Ducks and Drakes; of above Four or Five Thousand Ships, several of them of War, and the rest of Traffick, lost by us and taken by the French; of the trifling away a Ma­rine Campaign in the Mediterranian, with a vast loss of our Seamen, without gaining either Ho­nour or Profit; of being busied to little purpose in Flanders, tho furnished with an Army of One Hundred and Thirty Thousand Men, and neither able to beat the French nor yet to get into the Bowels of France; of the Dutch being countenanced and encouraged to supplant us every where in our Trade; o [...] the total Decay of all our profitable as well as honourable Commerce; and of the Ruine of the greatest of our Substantial Merchants: In all which, as there is not one Word of Falshood, so there is not the least Exaggeration. And all this being fresh in your Remembrance, you can neither be unprovided of Topicks of Discourse, wherewith to furnish your Trepanning Emissaries, nor they of means both of insinuating themselves into the Fel­lowship and Confidence of weak, credulous and oppressed People, and of haranguing them not only into Shame and Remorse for the Change they were accessary to; but into the cursing K. W. at least his Ministers, and wishing a speedy Deliverance from those, if not from him. Nor is it improbable, but that some of the Ministers contribute what they can to Miscarriages in the Government, that the Informations of their Witnesses may be the more easily believed, in Reference to the scandalous, seditious and treasonable Discour­ses of those whom they would have destroy­ed. For we cannot forget that of Tacitus; [...]evitabile [...]rimen cum ex moribus Principis [...] ­dissima quaeque deligeret accusator, object aretque [...], nam quia v [...]ra erant etiam dicta credebantur: Men are then deprived of all means of defence, when accused of having spoken those Things of which a Government is guilty; seeing there be­ing true makes it the more [...]redite [...] that they were [...]id. But by those Methods which your Trepans pursue, and you authorise, you may come to kindle a Fire, that neither they nor you can quench; and raise such a Devil in the Nation, as all the Power of Whitehall will not be able to lay again. Sir, let me tell you, That the sending Trepanning Villains thro the Kingdom, fraught with such Heads of Dis­course, thereby to ensnare poor People, who tho they be not fully satisfied in your Con­duct, yet are willing to live quietly, is not very prudently done in reference to the Go­vernment, and carrieth a great deal of Malice in it towards those whom you seek to entangle. Which brings to my remembrance another Passage of Tacitus, who complaining of the Reign of Tiberius says, Multitudo periclitantium glisc [...]bat, cum omnis domus delatorum interpreta­tionibus subverteretur; That therefore such a Mul­titude was brought into danger, because all M [...]n lay at the Mercy, and stood obnoxious to the slan­derous Reports and Informations of Trepans. Doth it savour of any deep Policy (for of Vertue, Religion and Honour, it doth not) to send your Kingston now into one County, and then into another; and sometimes in the Habit of a Parson, and assuming his Character; at another time in a lay Garb, and personating in one place a Phisician, and in another a dis­carded Jacobite Officer; and all to try whe­ther he can decoy any into a complacential Hearing of a Conspiracy against the Go­vernment, and thereupon to speak favou­rably of it, and wish success to it, that you may thereby support the sinking Re­putation of your Plot. But you have bubbled the Nation so long with Falshoods, that you have very near attained the Reward and Recompence of Lyars; which is not to be believed should you speak Truth. Nor is the licensing your Emissaries to declaim against the Government, the only Method you con­fine your selves unto, in order to trepan and inveagle Men to own and acknowlege some­thing that may involve either themselves, or others, in a Plot: But there are divers other Artifices which you use, as accounting your selves of the number of those pro [...]i viri, who are privileged mentiri Reipublicae causa. For sometimes you tell those whom you accost, that the Persons whom you would have them accuse have themselves owned what you desire to have deposed against them. Thus, you en­deavoured [Page 29] to dec [...]y and trepan [...]me whom you had under Examination before you, as to [...]. [...] having been in France at such a time as might both have brought him within the compass of the Statute that makes it Death to come out of France without leave, and have given Umbrage to his having been engaged with the French Chevalier for assassinating King William; and to oblige them to own and depose it, you had the Confidence to tell them that Col. Parker had himself acknowleged it, which provoked one of them to reply, (tho then before you under the Hardship of a Charge of High Treason) that if the Colonel had said so, he had standered and belied him­self, seeing to his Knowledge he was not then in France. At other Times the Course you take with those whom you attack, is to study to obtrude upon their Belief, that you are fully appriced of the Plot, in all the Parts and Di­mensions of it, but that out of Friendship and Compassion to them, you have a great desire to preserve them from the Punishment that is ready to overwhelm them; and that you may be capable of doing them that Ser­vice, your Advice is that they would confess only in general, that there is a Conspiracy carrying on against the present Government: And that you will have that Tenderness for their Reputations, as not to require them to conde [...]d upon Particulars, and much less expect from them so ignominious a Thing, as that they should be Witnesses against any Man. This, Sir, is the way, wherein some have been, and still are, very industrious, in assaulting a certain Gentleman that is now in [...]lose Custody. For you know that as the ob­taining Credit to a Plot in general, would in great measure enable you to fasten it upon such particular Persons afterwards, as you appre­hend the most Danger from, and bear the greatest Malice unto [...] [...]o it would serve both to amuse a great many in the Nation, and to [...] s [...]me, till you should w [...]le and bub­ble the Kingdom out of [...] or Si [...] Millions the next sessions of Parliament.

[...]o that I do now proceed to the last Thing, which I have [...] [...] Ti [...] [...] [...]a [...]en upon you in the [...] of your Place, and in the Administration of Affairs of State: and that [...], your [...]ing and [...]b [...]t [...]ing the [...] of [...]mous [...], for t [...]ir per [...]y [...]earing [...]ocent and [...] M [...]n out of their L [...]s: And though this Villainy hath been already in some Measure [...]aid [...], and re­presented to the World in a Letter to my Lord Chief Justice Holt; yet the Trouble and Dan­ger which divers Gentlemen are brought into, arising from and being caused by those Mis­creants, I shall endeavour to pursue and de­tect that Matter a little farther, but without quoting or borrowing any Thing from the forementioned Paper. And I shall use th [...] same Method which that Author hath done; namely, To give an Account First of a Sub­orner and Manager of Evidence that was not there mentioned, and then to Character some more of the bribed Witnesses; that the [...] ­tion may fully understand upon the Oaths of what Sort of Rake-bells there is a Design car­ried on for the Destruction of honest Gentle­men. And to begin with one, who tho he hath not hitherto set up for [...] Witness, yet valueth himself extreamly upon the having procured and brought in those th [...] are th [...] Name, that neither this Age no [...] those that are to come may be ignorant of him, is Alex­ander Johnstone, Brother to the Scotch S [...]re­tary Mr. James JohnstoSpan [...]. For these Brothers, and Brothers in Law of Secretarie [...] [...] ways of getting into Employs, which s [...]e h [...]ve Honour enough to [...]corn and refuse as others wa [...]t interest to attain u [...]. Of which [...] [...]peak [...], and the Person whom I have just now mentioned, are very remarkable Inst [...]. And it is fit that each of the two British [...] should furnish their respective Quota's for the Support and Maintenance of the Go­vernment. And tho England hath the [...] of supplying the State with most of [...] T [...] of this Kind, yet Scotland is [...]th to [...]y [...] un­der the Disgrace of not being [...]le to ob [...]ige the Court with some qualified for this [...] ­ploy. And the Reputation of doing the Mi­nisters, and in them the Government, this piece of Service [...]eth to the [...]hare [...] Mr. Alexand [...] [...]; who [...] his [...]ation Office at the [...] [...] bel [...] [...]ha [...]ing [...], w [...]re having [...] and w [...]d th [...]se h [...] de [...] to make impress [...] upon with Plenty of W [...], he [...] in the [...] Place [...] them with the [...] of [...]; and with [...] either of [...]vil or [...]ilitary Employ [...], if they will [...]nder [...] [...] [Page 30] Swear such and such out of their Lives. And it is to his Art and Industry, if we may be­lieve himself, that the Government is in­debted for most of the Scotch Witnesses. For your Bruces and Seatons are said to be of his Mustering, and so are your Martins and Som­merils; the last of which decoyed Mr. Cham­bers into his Company, and then betrayed him. And having mentioned Mr. Chambers, it were worth the knowing upon what My­stery of State he should be refused the small Allowance of Four Penee a day, which the other Prisoners in the Marshalsea with him have afforded them. But to return to Mr. A­lexander Johnstone, who lyeth under this Pre­judice, that all whom he enrols for this Ser­vice will be thought allied to him in one Quality, which all that know him affirm his being endowed with in so great a Measure, that no Man believes a Word he says. For as his Character among all his Acquaintance is that of False and Lying Sandy; so it passes for the Badg of a weak Man to give Credit to any thing that Mr. Alexander Johnstone de­clareth, tho he swear to it. But albeit the Court hath been a Sanctuary to him, all along since the Revolution, to cover him from his Creditors; and Whitehall hath been to him in the quality of a White-fryars; yet it is ho­ped that no Place will long shelter him from the Punishments due to him as a Suborner. Nor is this Trade of his of Suborning Witnesses to to swear to Falshoods, and to depose Per­juriously, an Employment with him of a late date, seeing he set up the Practice of it many Years ago. So that whosoever will but take the Pains to go to Doctors Commons, will find a large Catalogue registred there of those he had Bribed to Swear to his Marriage with one Mr. Perrier's Daughter, and to many Fa­miliarities with her, which I shall not men­tion, of which that Court after great Enqui­ry, and a Suit long depending, did not be­lieve one word to be true. Yea, the Subor­nations whereof he had been in that Case guilty, were so numerous, notorious and gross, that they not only determined it against him, but both then, and ever since whensoever he is named in presence of any who belong to that Society, they brand him with the Cha­racter of the boldest and most Impudent Sub­ [...]r that ever commenced or pursued a Suit in that Place. And the Perjurles he had been accessary unto, were so many and apparent; and the Defamations he had fastned upon the young Gentlewoman so scandalous and gross, that had he not withdrawn first for Scotland, and then to Ireland, he had been prosecuted in the Courts at Westminster, and brought to undergo an ignominious and corporal Punish­ment. It is unwillingly, and with regret, that I do either call these Things to remembrance, or publish them to the World; but when the Man is not satisfied in the Enjoyment of a Credit which he doth not deserve, but will upon a Reputation that is only charitably con­nived at, set up to destroy innocent Persons upon the Testimony of bribed and perjured Witnesses; it is then indispensably incum­bent upon such as know those Things, to strip him of his Mask and Disguise, and to present him to the World in his natural Image, and expose him to view in the best Light they can. Especially when he is growu up to that Impudence, upon a Presumption of Me­rit by the many Services of this kind which he hath done the Government, as to tell Sir George Maxwell that he was to dye as [...] Traytor, and that his Estate was offered to him; which, by the way, is a much better Estate than ever was forfelted from him, and the rest of his Family by his Father's Attainder. And that it may appear with what Intem­perance, Temerity and Malice, Mr. Secretary Johnstone hath engaged himself, if not in the Forgery, yet at least in the Support of this Sham Plot upon the Credit (as I am willing to believe) of his Brother, I shall lay before the Kingdom one Instance of it among many, and that a very late one; namely, That the said Mr. Secretary being informed, or at least pretending to be so, by that Suborned and Mercenary Fellow Seoton, how one Lieutenant Drumond, who serves King William in one of the Regiments in Flanders, could be an Evi­dence against Colonel Fountaine, he not only writ to have the said Drumond sent immediate­ly over from thence hither; which King Wil­liam (whom you Ministers have drawn into the Belief of a Conspiracy against him) ac­cordingly did, and that under a Comm [...]d of making so much haste to be here, that the Gentleman had not so much time allowed him, as to fetch his Linnen and Cloaths from the [Page 31] Place where they lay: But upon his arrival the said Secretary would have at first wheed­led, and at last endeavoured to huff him to appear as an Evidence against the foremen­tioned Colonel Fountain. And tho Drumond averred to him upon the Word of a Gentle­man, that he was so far from understanding any thing whereof the Colonel was accused, that he did not so much as know him, nor was ever in his Company, to the best of his remembrance; yet the forenamed Secretary continued not only to rail against Colonel Foun­tain as a hainous Traytor that must dye, but both to in [...]inuate and affirm that Drumond must know a great deal against him. Which so provoked the Gentleman upon the finding himself tempted and importuned to murther an innocent Man, by a false and perjurious Deposition; that he told the said Secretary, That as he neither could nor would be an Evidence in that Matter, so the Secretary needed not be so earnest to suborn and de­bauch him, seeing he might easily furnish himself with enough of such Witnesses about the Town as he looked after for half a Guinea a Man. Which as it declares how large and deep this Conspiracy is, of those that serve the Government, against the Lives of gui [...]less Persons; so it both shews the hazard that Co­lonel Fountaine is in, upon no other foot save that of meer Malice; and unfolds unto us the Methods taken and persued to draw in and muster Witnesses. Nor is it improbable but that Drumond upon declining to forswear him­self, to destroy both an innocent Person, and one whom he doth no ways know, may not only have his Commission taken from him, but be refused the Payment of his Arrears; where­as had he complied to do what was required of him, he might have reckoned upon the being speedily preferred to a very conside­rable Command, and that upon the score of the highest Merit that is now in Fashion. But can there need more to supplant the Be­lief, and eternally to blast the Credit of the present pretended Plot, than that Harry Baker and Alexander Johnston are the Procurers and Managers of Witnesses for the support of it. And I have been the rather obliged to give the Character of this Gentleman, because that as Mr. Secretary Trenchard declares he knows very little more of this Plot, than what Mr. Secre­tary Johnston conveyed unto him, either im­mediately by himself, or by such Witnesses as he sent him, so it is not improbable but that Mr. Secretary Johnston had the Intelligence of it from his Brother Alexander, and those whom he handed to him; having first suborned them. So that this whole Conspiracy, for which so many have been taken into Custody, and more have been looked after, seems to have been first minted by Harry Baker, Alexan­der Johnston and Hugh Speak, and afterwards made current thro the Kingdom, by the Cre­dit which the two Secretaries Johnston and Trenchard have stampt upon it. For that No­ble and very Honourable Person, who filleth the Place and beareth the Title of English Se­cretary, in Conjunction with Trenchard, is a perfect Stranger to this whole Plot; farther than as they have involved him in the Ignomi­nious Drudgery of pursuing it, by imperiously as well as craftily playing their Witnesses upon him: And considering his great Sense and Honour, he cannot but resent the great Affront and Indignity done him by Mr. Secretary Trenchard, in turning all the Witnesses upon him to clamour Men out of their Lives, while he withdrew into the Countrey to observe, at a distance, how the Mine should spring which he and some others have been so long in digging and working at in Powis House. Or if it should reverberate on those that gave Fire unto and stand near it, he might be out of the reach of the Disaster, and have the pleasure of seeing the Honourable Person, whom he left here covered with the Dirt and Dust which it raiseth, if not buried under the Ruines of it. However this Trade of Suborn­ing Witnesses is become so common, (which it could not be were their not too much coun­tenance given unto it by those in Authority) that every pitiful Fellow that hath a Mind to ingratiate himself into Court-Favour, and to obtain a Pension, dare Openly & with Boldness venture uponit. For it is not long since that two Bayliffs took the Confidence to accost a Third, and to tempt him to come in as an Evidence against Mr. Tildsley, and another Gentleman, and depose his having heard them speak trea­sonable Words against their Queen, and about the Murder of her: Tho the Person thus ac­costed (as he confessed to a Friend whom he consulted about the Matter) never knew [Page 32] Mr. Tildsley nor [...]her Gentleman, and much less heard them speak the Words, or any like unto them, which the two Suborners would have had him to have sworn against them. Nor is it to be questioned, but that those two Rascals, who endeavoured to inveagle their Companion to be a false Witness, will appear as Evidences both against the two Gentlemen I have mentioned, and against all such as they shall be hounded at. But tho Secretaries may take up and imprison Men, upon such Testi­mony, yet I cannot apprehend (albeit I have a very slender Opinion of the Sense, Vertue and Fortitude of many that are admitted up­on Pannels) that any Jury will give the least Faith or Credit to what such Villains shall have the Impudence to swear. Yea this Prac­tice of Subornation is grown so much into Fashion, and receiveth such Encouragement, that even those who are upon the List, and have the Sallary of standing Witnesses for the Government, are not contented with the single Province of being Whitehall Evidences, and to perjure themselves, but they interlope like­wise upon Alexander Johnston and Harry Baker, and turn Suborners of others to come in and forswear themselves; whereof we have a re­markable Instance in Lunt, the much celebra­ted Witness concerning the present [...]lot, in his endeavouring to suborn those Gentlemen, whom Taffe had introduced into his Company, For tho Mr. Bagshaw, of whom I made lately mention, declined meeting with Lunt, from an Apprehension of the dangerous Consequen­ces that might at [...]end the having been in the Company of a Person of his Character, yet Mr. Bancks and Mr. Beresford ventured to me [...] both Lunt and Taffe, at the Ship Ale-House, in Butcher-Ro [...], by Temple- [...]ar, on [...]ryday the [...]8th of September last, abou [...] Three of the Clock in the Afternoon: At which Yime and Place, Lunt upon the encouragement of Taffe, taking those two Gentlemen to be Persons very proper for his Purpose, told them without much Ceremony or Compliment, that he wanted some Gentlemen of [...]eputation to sup­port his Design, and that if they would be ser­viceable unto him, they should be plentifully provided for, seeing that for want of Men of Credi [...], he was for [...]d to maintain some s [...] ­d [...]lous Fellows to keep his Plot on [...]: Af­ter which having produced a Paper he called [...] Narrative of his Plot, and caused [...] to [...]ead it unto them, Lunt began to be very frank, and to declare how zealous he was to perfect the Plot, relating withall how dextrous he had hitherto been in the managing of it. Adding that as Mr. Lee of Lime had a vast Estate, so his Business must be done; and that he designed those two Gentlemen Mr. Bancks and Mr. Be­resford to do a particular Service in that mat­ter. In brief, he attempted to suborn them to be Witnesses in Relation to Commissions gran­ted by the late King James, for raising Troop [...] to subvert the present Government: Telling them that the Commissions must be wrote very plain and legible, and that he would take care to have them signed with King James's Hand, as he usually wrote it. All this is deposed up­on Oath by the two forementioned Gentlemen, and was not only shewed and imparted to my Lord Chief Justice Holt, but was likewise offer­ed to be sworn before him. And if it be true, that any of the Judges (as is commonly sald of some of them, and fully known of my Lord Keeper) have both perused the Depositions against the Gentlemen that are to be tryed, and discoursed with the Witnesses, which I am sure by Law they ought not to have done, b [...] have as well avoided all Cognizance of the matte [...], till it appear before them in Court, [...] all talking with the Witnesses till they are pro­duced at the Bar: I will say that they might with as much Honour and Justice, yea, that they should in Duty have been as ready ante­cedently to hear what can be said and sworn in Favour and Behalf of the accused, and for invalidating the Testimonies of the Villains that come in Witnesses against them, How­ever, this that I have recounted being insallibly true, it shews both how pretended Commissions from King James come to be charged upon se­veral Gentlemen now in Custody: And that there is no Man in England can [...]y he is [...] if this Practice he not [...]eedily suppressed, and all those who are either directly gu [...]ty of it, or have the least [...] thereunto, [...] [...] punished with the utmost Rigour that ac­cording to Law can be inflicted upon them. Nor are these the only Persons whom Lunt has been endeavouring to [...], but he [...]ade [...] like attempt upon one who was of the [...]umbe [...] of those Persons carried to [...]. [...], and importuned him under promise of [...] Re­wards, [Page 33] to swear that he had received Money of Mr. Walmesley for the carrying on and pro­moting the Service of King James; and upon that Persons answering that he had never seen Mr. Walmesley, the Miscreant had nevertheless the Impudence to tempt and entice him to own what was delivered to him the said Lunt, and another, and that then they Two would swear to it, and excuse the Person whom they accosted from being an Evidence. Which the poor Man likewise refusing, Lunt there­upon grew enraged, and threatned him both with abridging the mean Commons that were allowed him in Prison, and with the greatest Severities that could be inflicted in a Goal. And as if the execution of all this to the full at Chester had not been Injustice and Barbarity enough, they have haled the poor Man hither to Town, and thrown him with Two other Persons more into Messengers hands, to be there wrought over and trained up for Evi­dences; which that they may the more easily and better Effect, the Messenger not only re­suseth to admit any to come to them, but dis­owneth the having them in Custody. Which serveth farther to instruct us of the Mischiefs that attend the Confinement of Prisoners to other Places than Legal Goals. And it would seem that there are Privileges belonging to the Ministers of this Government, that were never allowed to those of the former; name­ly, That as they may without being made accountable press Men for Soldiers, when they will not of their own accord list them­selves; so they may torture Men into the be­coming Witnesses, when they can neither wheedle nor bribe them to it. For I do account such a Confinement as I have re­counted, and the Starving them thro not al­lowing them a Sixth part of what their Appe­tites crave, to be a torturing of them. Nor do the Scotch Boots, which are the Disgrace of that Nation and the Scorn of this, affect Men in so sensible Parts as the pinching them for Weeks and Months in their Bellies doth. Which will make me always dread the hea­ring some People threaten to touch their Ene­mies in the most sensible part; and the ra­ther, when I find it executed upon such as they call so at home, instead of falling upon those that are so abroad. And we may easily imagine how admirably qualified some of your Messengers are for to rack and torture poor Men when they have taken them in Custody, by the hostile and violent Methods which they practice, and seem to be licensed to use, in their apprehending them. Of which I crave leave to refresh. your Memory with one re­markable Example, whereof not having had seasonable Intelligence. I could not insert it in its proper Place, as otherwise I should; namely, How that Kitson breaking into a House in Scroops Court near S. Andrew's Church, where some quiet People were peaceably as­sembled to worship God, on the 30th of Sep­tember last, and having seized several without either producing or having any Warrant, and demanding the Key of Mr. Grascom's Closet to rifle for Papers, which the said Mr. Grascom refusing to deliver, unless he might see his Warrant, and know by what Authority he stood empowered so to act; the fore-menti­oned Kitson, pointing to his Badge as his sole and sufficient Warrant, pulled a Pistol out of his Pocket, and swore by God that he would shoot Mr. Grascom (who is a Learned and Holy Minister) thro the Head, unless he immedi­ately surrendred the Key of his Study. Hear O Heavens! and be astonished O Earth! That England, under Pretence of having its Rights and Liberties rescued and vindicated, should be reduced into this worse than Turkish Bon­dage and Slavery. And that under One whom a deluded Nation entertained as a Moses to re­deem them out of a meer fancied Egypt, they should be translated out of a Ca [...]aan, where only too much Safety, Ease and Plenty, made them complain, and brought into an unpresi­dented and intolerable Thraldom. As if those Things were again to be re-acted which made Tacitus say, Quantoque majore libertatis imagine tegebantur, tanto eruptura ad intensius servitium; That the great Pretence of the restoring us to Liberty, was only that with the more Faci­lity we might be made the greater Slaves. But it is worth enquiring, Whether Self-Defence, in all the ways God and Nature have enabled us, be not in such a Case, as that of Mr. Grascom's, both lawful and necessary? And whether I ought not in Duty to God and my Country, as well as I may by the Law of the Land, slab such a Fellow as Kitson who thus hastily assaults me? And for the being resolved about it I do recommend all true Englishmen to [...] [Page 32] [...] [Page 33] [...] [Page 34] very Eminent Divines, and as singular Casuists. Namely, to the Author of the Measures of Obedi­ence that liveth at Salisbury, who hath told us that when the Laws of a Constitution are pub­lickly violated, how we may have recourse to the Laws of Nature, which put us upon a com­mon Level with those that were antecedently our Rulers, and give us Liberty to oppose them, and defend our selves and our Govern­ment by Laws established: To the celebrated Inventor of that needful Distinction of Swear­ing to this Government to hinder the growth of Popery, and of not Swearing to it to prevent a De­luge of Atheism, who resideth at Litchfield: And to that great Man who dwelleth on the other Side of the River, whose Divinity in 88 stood in direct Contradiction to his Theology in 83; as appears by comparing his admirable Letter to the late Lord Russel with his many Loyal and [...]ing S [...]s since the Revolu­tion.

Nor shall I at present insist further upon your Suborners, being resolved to keep some­thing in reserve undiscovered till this Matter come to lie before a Parliament; and shall therefore proceed to the charactering some o­ther of your Witnesses that have not been hi­therto staged and detected in any Paper already in Print. And had your self, and the rest of the Cabal a [...] Pawis House, been so prudent as to grow temperate in your Conduct upon the Ad­vertisements published in the Letter addressed to the Right Honourable My Lord Chief Justice Holt, you had prevented my falling under a Necessity of exposing those that you seem to have an Esteem for; and thereby of bringing both your Judgment, In [...]ty and Honour into qu [...]n. And the [...] [...] I shall unvail and de [...] and a [...] Nation the Diversion of viewing [...] [...] than the Grand J [...]y a [...] Hi [...] Hall, [...] Ad­vantage o [...] [...]ing [...] [...] a [...] of High, [...]son ag [...] [...], is one B [...] or B [...] [...] [...] of whose [...] [...] [...] only give a few Y [...] A [...] [...], w [...] [...] [...] won­der, that he [...] [...] [...] [...] the T [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] Asto­nishment [...] [...] [...] [...] his re­p [...] [...] [...] have the [...]ing Impu­dence [...] [...] as a Witness [...] a Court of Judicature. For not to speak of his B [...]king most, if not all, the Persons in whose Houses he had the Favour to lodge, and running a­way by stealth without giving them Notice, or paying what he had contracted for: Seeing, whosoever hath a desire to be satisfied in this, need only go and enquire at Mr. Toor [...]s next Door to the Sun Tavern in the Strand; at Mr. Terry's a Taylor in Holtford's Alley in Wild­street; or at Mr. Salisbury's a Hosier near Kings­gate in Holbourn: From all whose Houses he went away clandestinely, without paying a Farthing of what he was indebted un [...]o them for the Rent of his Chamber. I shall insist [...] a little more particularly on his being guilty of a Crime of a higher Nature, and for which as the Law makes him obnoxious to Corporal Pu­nishment, so no Man, even not Mr. Aaron Smith, can have the Face, after I have represented it, to judge him fit to be allowed for a Legal and Credible Witness. In brief then, this Cap­tain Brereton or Brewerton, being entertained as a Lodger at one Mrs. Cottons, that liveth in New-Court near Holbourn-Bars, he not only inveig­led a Servant Maid into such wicked and un­clean Commerce, that the Mistress detecting it turned them both [...]ut of Doors; but he was Accessary in a little time after to the robbing of the said Mrs. Cotton of Fifty Guineas, [...] Gold Watch, and of several other Goods; or rather of perpetrating the Fact himself, which is the more probable: For Search being made after the fore-mentioned Goods, upon the loss of them, they were found in this Brereton or Brewerton's Chamber yea in his Pocket, at the Sign of the Three Herrings in Red-Cross-sire [...]t. And the Fellow being sensible of his Guilt, and knowing the Punishment he was liable un­to, for so reproachful as well as heinous a Crime, he fell upon his Knees and begged of the Gentlewoman that she would not prose­cute him, seeing his Reputation would be thereby ruined; that is, as I suppose, he would be incapacitated to be a Witness, which it is very probable he had then in pros­pect, as the last Shift and Trade to subsist by. It were superfluous after this to tell you, how that upon cl [...]ndestinely abandonning his Lod­ging once in France, he left a Trunk behind him filled with Stones, hoping thereby to have imposed upon his Landlord, as if he had not only left behind him above the Value of what he owed, but that he intended to come [Page 35] again. But the French-man breaking open the Trunk sooner than Brereton conceived he would, and finding what Treasure it was fur­nished with, immediately pursued, took, and carried him back; and besides the treating him with the Severity he deserved, he forced him to borrow Money, and to pay his Debt, before he let him go. Nor need I assure you that he went under such an infamous Cha­racter at St. G [...]ains, that when after his de­parture from thence, he was seized and stopt at Lis [...]e, till some Account could be had of him from King James's Ministers; who there­upon gave such a Representation of him to those who had stopt and detained him, that he was upon the Receit of it thrust out of Lis [...]e, with the Drum beating after him, as a Mark of Disgrace. Yet this is the credible Person upon whose Testimony principally a Bill of High Treason was found at Hi [...]k's Hall the last Sessions against Cap [...]. William [...]n, and upon whose Deposition he is to be tryed [...] the Old Bail [...]y the next Sessions. For the Question properly is not whether Capt. Wil­liamson was in France, but whether it Legally appears that he was there within the time ex­pressed, and limitted by the Act? And whe­ther this Brereton have the Qualifications re­quired by the Law to render him capable and fit to testify it? For according both to Law, and all other Sciences, De non apparentibus & non existentibus eadem est ratio, Things that ap­p [...]er not are to be accounted of as if they were not [...] all. And suffer me to add upon this Oc­casion, That I can never believe that the De­sign of the Parliament was to make it Capital to go for F [...]e, when the Errand thither might be both Lawful and Necessary. For that were to suppose the Members of both Houses (or at least the Majority) to be in a Combination to sacrifice the People, and In­terest of England, to our Forein and Co [...]e­rate Neig [...]: Seeing nothing is more certain than that the Su [...]jects both of the Se­ [...] P [...] and of the Spanish N [...]s, have a dail [...]ercourse with [...], by g [...]g and return [...]g; and that not only by Conni­vance, but by the Authority of publick [...] whensoever they [...]e demanded. And f [...]r these that D [...]n to go from hence [...] [...]er upon any Treasonable Account, it were easy to effect it, without the Governments being able to make it punishable, tho they should come to know of their having been there. For it is only to acquaint some of the French Privateers before hand, that you are to em­bark on such a Vessel for R [...]rdam, or Ostend, and to desire them to intercept the Ship. But this carrying with it an Injustice to others, which few of those s [...]il [...]d [...] are capable of being guilty of, there is a Genteeler as well as more Innocent way of going thither, and that is by your own Pass. And you may be sure more have gon thither by the S [...] Pass. than ever went elandestinely. For as you will not deny a Pass to the Hague, upon having so much Money for it; so it is eas [...] to obtain one from thence to Brussels, and from Brussels to Li [...]le, at less charge than I can purchase one at Whitehall for going from London to Edenbrugh.

But to return to the giving an Account of some more of your Witnesses, and of what Reputation they ought to be esteemed by a Court of Judicature, and a Jury. In the pur­su [...]t of this I shall therefore, in the next Place, give the World a Representation of Mr. Slings­ [...]y, whom the Ministers have brought out of Ireland to be a Witness against Mr. Crosby, and do extreamly value themselves upon the ha­ving one called a Gentleman, and of some Fortune in the World, to appear in the Fi­gure of an Evidence: But by that time I have presented him by another handle than that of Birth, and Estate, by which the Mi­nisters lead him forth, and shew him; I am much mistaken if they be not ashamed of sen­ding for him upon such an Account, and if he does not wish he had frayed where he was, and not come hither upon so ignominious an Employ. And it extreamly detracts from the Credibility of [...]ever he deposeth, that he comes over Hired and Bribed to do it. For his telling Mr. [...], that one of the Lords Justices of [...] had promised [...] should be provided for all his Life, in ca [...]e he [...] [...]e a Witness against Mr. Cros [...]y, a noun­t [...]h to [...]o less, b [...]h in Law and common Sence, than that he [...] scanda [...]ously hired to be an Evidence. Nor is his an unsuitable Employ [...]o a Person who hath in many In­star [...] discovered himself a common Cheat. Yea, so natural is a Couzenage unto him, that he could not forbear practicing it even [Page 36] upon those in whose Power he knew it was to crush him. Witness his defrauding my Lord Renelaugh of Sixty Pounds, for which that Lord treated him to his Face, in the Hearing of divers Persons of Condition, with no better Titles than those of Rogue and Ras­cal. And it is notoriously known, that a­bout the time of King James's withdrawing, he cheared the Regiment (to which he stood then in the Relation of Agent) of several Hundred Pounds, as is ready to be attested by several Officers, as well as private Centinels, that suffered by his Knavery. But that which brands him with indelible Infamy, and ought to incapacitate him from being esteemed a Credible and Legal Witness, is, his having fastned upon a Gentleman a Sham Bill of Fifty Pounds, and of which he received Fifteen be­fore the Cheat was detected. But the Cou­zenage, and Falsification, being discovered, e're he had received the rest, he was arrest­ed and thrown into the Counter; from whence he got out upon Sham Bail, and so having escaped the Punishment of one Crime, by perpetrating another, he fled into Ireland, whi­ther it was not worth the while, nor at that time easy to pursue him. Neither can any thing be so Infamous, which this Man will not commit; seeing in Contempt both of the Laws of Nature and Revelation, and in Vio­lation of the Duty and Affection of a Brother, he hath thrown his Eldest Brother into Pri­son in order to defraud him of an Estate. To which I crave leave to add, That having been bred a Protestant, and continued so till of late years, he then turned Papist; tho as he declared to several at that time, and hath often repeated it since, that he did it not upon any Conviction of Mind, but meerly to comply with the Desires, and to gratify the Importunity of his Relations: Which speaks him to be a worse Man, than if he were an avowed and down-right Atheist. Because while the one denies that there is a God, he doth in effect renounce him, at the same time that he pretended to believe there is one. For whosoever departs from a Religion that he Judges to be true, to embrace one of the Truth whereof he hath no Conviction upon his Mind, doth no less than both de­spise, and implicitly disclaim that God whom he owneth and pretendeth to worship. Nor is such a Man's Oath to be more valued, or what he declares upon it to be more credi­ted, than one would rely upon the Oath of a professed Atheist, or believe him that ridi­cules a Deity in what he swears. So that lea­ving this Gentleman cloathed with Infamy, and the Court covered with Dishonour, in offering to use him in the Quality of a Wit­ness; I shall advance to the Representation of another of your Powis House Evidences.

And that shall be Lunt, whom I cannot over­look, without giving some additional and farther account of him than what the World is already furnished with; either in the Lat­ter to my Lord Chief Justice Holt, which hath been so often mentioned, or in any former Paragraph of these Sheets. And it is a very shrewd Presumption that he is Bribed [...] Suborned, in that he who a few years [...] wrought as a day Labourer at Highgate, [...] cleansing the Ponds for Twelve Pence a day, can now pull Sixty or Seventy Guineas at a time out of his Pocket, as he lately did; and that for no other end than to publish his Vanity, and shew how well he is Stockt with Money out of the Exchequer. However as it pro­claims him a great Villain to be so well Fur­nished, and yet to suffer his first Wise, [...] the two Children he hath by her, to be ready to Starve in St. Alban's street in St. I [...]s's Parish, and who would infallibly be Fa­mished, if the Parish did not keep and maintain one of them; so it declares what a profitable Trade it is to swear Men perju­riously out of their Lives in favour of the Government. Nor can any thing more detect the Villainy of the Rascal, than that being asked by a poor Man for a Debt which he owed him, and which the Creditor said he hoped he would pay him having gotten Plenty of Money; he instead of that caused him to be apprehended as a Traytor: So that he is now a close Prisoner in a Messengers, where none are allowed to speak with him, but they who have him in Custody: And in the mean time, under this unmerciful and illegal Re­straint, all the Methods of Caress and Menace are used towards him to gain him to be a Wit­ness. Neither is that poor Man the only Per­son among his Benefactors and Creditors whom he has thus unthankfully and villain­ously rewarded: For Mr. Noel of Dover ha­ving [Page 37] in December 93, not only relieved him and his Wife, at their Landing there from Flanders, in their passing thro which they said they had been robbed of 50 l. but having withal lent him 5 l. and given him 20 s. gratis to enable him to defray his own and Wives Charges to London; the Rog [...]e, in requital thereof, hath accused the said N [...]l of High Treason; and by swearing that he intended to murther King William, hath caused him to be turned out of a Place which he enjoyed under the Government, and to be taken into Custody. Yea, the Miscreant having been recommended by the said Mr. Noel to Mr. Shel­ton at Canterbury, and to Mr. Cross at Rochester, for their affording him and his Wife Lod­ging and Entertainment in their travelling hi­ther, he borrowed of Mr. Shelton 50 s. and of Mr. Cross 20 s. and instead of repaying them hath sworn them both into the Plot. And whereas there was but one Man in the World, namely, Mr. Whitfield, at the Knave of Diamonds near Leicester Fields, that had taken Compassion upon him at all times un­der his Poverty, and who at several Seasons had lent him to the Sum of 40 l. for which he hath his Bond; the ungrateful and barba­rous Rascal hath, in return for his Mony and manifold Kindnesses, given an Information of High Treason against him, and caused him to be apprehended. But that which most signally discovers both the Infamy of the Mis­creant, and the Combination which some of the Ministers and other Inferiour Officers of the Government are confederated in for destroy­ing Innocent Men, is, That the Rogue stand­ing indicted for Felony for marrying a Second wife, while the First by whom he hath two Children is still alive, and for which being ap­prehended the 2d of this present October, by a Legal and Bench-Warrant, granted under the Hands and Seals of Mr. Prideau [...] and Mr. Eyton, two Justices of Peace; Aaron Smith did so hector both my Lord Mayor and the Recorder, by telling them what a necessary and useful Instru­ment this Rascal was of the State, and how much they wanted him to support the Belief of the Plot, and for the Conviction of those Priso­ners that were to be tryed for High Treason; that those two Magistrates suffered themselves against all Law and Justice to be huffed into a Complyance of admitting him to Bail. And because none, who had any Reputation to Iose, could be found to be Sureties for a Fellow that is perjuriously engaged in making a Plot, where all wife and dise [...]rning Men (save those of the Sanguinary Club at Powis House) both know and acknowlege that there is none. Aaron himself, who is sufficiently dipt in all the parts of that Villainy, together with one C [...]lliford (who waits constantly upon Aaron in the Quality of his Follower, and whom he employs to run into all Companies to know what is said of him) became Bail for the Ras­cal. And because the Title of Labourer or the Stile of Victualles, by which Lunt designs him­self in a Judgment granted under his Hand and Seal, were too mean for one of King W's Wit­nesses to go by, and too contemptible for a Person of Aaron's Degree and Haughtiness to own under either of those Characters; he caused insert him into the Bail Bond by the Title of Gentleman. And undoubtedly Mr. Smith who acteth as invested with a power to dispose of mens Lives at he pleaseth, may conser Honours on whom he will. And ha­ving made a Gentleman of a Rogueish Pea­sant he may in a little time challenge the cre­ating whom he thinks meet Barons and Earls: Seeing these are more indebted to Inclination and Humour for their Creation, than any are or can be in their being made or rendred Gen­tlemen. For as King James the First said plea­santly enough to a certain Person that had de­sired to be made a Gentleman; Friend, I can make you a Knight, but it is not in my Power to make you a Gentleman. But no Behaviour of Aaron's can be thought undecent, and much less insolent towards my Lord Mayor and the Recorder, if we do but observe with what im­periousness at the end of a Sessions, after the Judges are withdrawn, he not only dictates unto them the Fines they are to impose upon such as are convicted of Misdemeanor; but how they must over and above at his Pleasure and Back, bind such to their good Behaviour as he thinks [...]it. In a Word, there was never such packing of Juries, obstructing and per­verting of Justice, obliging Persons both to High and Supreamary Bail, as since the Nation fell under the Grand Vistership of Mr. Aaron Smith. So that under Burton and Graham we may be said (notwithstanding all our Com­plaints) to have lived in Republica Platonis; [Page 38] whereas the best we can now pretend unto is to be in faece Romuli. But in the mean time, where is Law, Government and Justice, that a Criminal indicted of Felony, and taken into Custody, should be thus rescued out of the Hands of Magistrates, and from under the power of the Law, to be made use of as a Witness to destroy those that are Guiltless? And this at such a Season when the Felon was to have come upon his own Tryal, to receive the Punishment due to his Crime: With this further Aggravation, that this was done by the imperious Interposition of Aaron Smith, who being an Officer under the Government, should for the Honour of K W. and Credit of the Court, have not only permitted the Law to have its Course, but ought to have assisted in preventing all Obstructions in the Execution of Justice. But Aaron knows where his Inte­rest lies, and that he gains more by the Tryai of State-Prisoners, than by the Prosecution of Felons. For the heaping up of Money justly or unjustly, is what Smith principally aims at; and not being contented with Sixteen Thousand Pounds payable into the Treasury, which he hath gotten into his Hands, and not paid one Thousand of it (being resolved as it seems to cheat the Government of the rest;) he en­deavours to give all the Countenance he can to Sham-Plots, as finding them so subservient to his Profit. And while he grows Rich by other Mens being suspected and taken up as guilty of Treason (every pretended Plot being worth unto him some Thousands of Pounds) he doth all that Craft and Malice can suggest, for the forging of Conspiracies, and the pointing out such for Criminals whom his Covetousness makes him desirous to have believed Traytors. And there is enough to be laid before the Par­liament to convince the most Incredulous and Obstinate, that he hath been a wilful and mali­cious Encourager of this Sham-Conspiracy, as he is known to be the principal Countenancer of Suborners, and the chief Supporter of per­jured Witnesses. But what can be expected that is either Legal or Righteous, from a Man that makes it his Business against the time of any Tryals for State-Crimes, to get the Under-Sheriff to return what Grand and Petty Juries he pleases: And if his Blood-thirsty desires be not readily complied with, he complains to the Upper-Sheriff, and never leaves swagger­ing and threatning till he gets it done. And as if this were not enough towards the com­passing his Sanguinary and Cruel Ends, he fre­quently sends for the Lists of those that are to be returned upon the Pannels, and strikes out and puts in whom he thinks meet. Yea, he is risen to that heighth of unpresidented Bar­barity, as to take upon him to dictate to Grand Juries, when sworn and sitting, how they are to find the Bills that lie before them, imposing upon them with an Insolence peculiar to him­self, that such and such both ought and must be made Examples. Nor will any Man wonder at Aaron's haughty Impudence towards Juries, that observes how he treats the very Judges in his Application unto them, as if he were in the Place and had the Authority of Dictat [...], and they only to be the Executioners of his Pleasure, with as implicit a Faith as an Obedi­ence. Nor does any one give that check to his Imperiousness, Pride and Insolence, as the Attorney General doth; who finding of what Profit and Advantage it is to be as much as he can at the head of all Treasonable Causes, and to keep Prosecutions of that nature under his own Conduct, doth therefore whatsoever lies in his Power to confine Aaron to a shorter Te [...] ­der than he is willing to be staked down unto: for which he talks of Mr. Attorney with the ut­most Contempt, detracting both from his Know­lege and Integrity in all Companies. Which Mis­understanding I leave to be arbitrated between themselves, as being best acquainted with each others Intellectual and Moral Qualifications.

But why do I insist so much upon the un­presidented Illegalities of Aaron Smith, when the very Secretaries of State themselves, with­out regard to Law, Honour, Justice or Huma­nity, cause seize and apprehend both Men and Women, for no other Offence alleged against them, but that they disc [...]ver what they know of the Infamy of the Witnesses, and take the Methods which the Laws have provided and chalk'd forth for bringing them to an account­ableness for their Crimes. And as the like was never practised under any of those Reigns of which we did most complain, and as it appears since very unjustly; so it is worthy of our Ob­servation, that when a Pack of Scandalous Rascals had combined in the Year 1681, to involve a great many Protestants in a Conspi­racy of seizing King Charles, and for altering [Page 39] the Government, yet no one was molested ei­ther for detecting the Forgery of that Plot, or for laying open and exposing the Crimes, Vil­lainies and Perjuries of those who were then stiled the King's Evidences. Yea, when three several Discourses, all of them bearing the Title of No Protestant Plot, were printed and pub­lished in Vindication of the Innocency of those that were suspected, as well as of those that were apprehended and imprisoned, and for detecting the Scandalousness and Legal Impro­bity of the Evidences, and withal the Picquancy which the Author of those Discourses had ei­ther Spirit or Language to season them with; yet they were not only read by every Man with Safety, but openly sold by most Stationers a­bout London, without Animadversion or Con­troul. Nor can any Age parallel such a Com­mitment, or furnish us with a Warrant of the Tenor of that issued out by the present Secre­taries upon this occasion; whereof I shall sub­join a Copy, that this Generation may see their Misery, and the next laugh at our Folly. Namely (afterwards of course in all Warrants) That they should apprehend and bring before them the Persons of——together with their Pa­pers, for conspiring and endeavouring to suborn Wit­nesses against the Lives and Credit of several witnesses for their Majesties, against Persons char­ged with High Treason, &c. Which looks like a summoning all the Malefactors in the several Goals of the Kingdom, to come in and list them­selves Witnesses for the Government, with as­surance not only of Protections and Rewards, but that they shall have the Satisfaction and Pleasure to see those imprisoned and punished, that shall dare to prosecute them for their Crimes, tho they should be Murders and Bur­glaries as well as Felonies. Were not the mat­ter before me too open to be exposed, as well as it is tempting to render me severe beyond my Temper and Inclinations, I would add more upon this Theam. But tho nothing can be rude, and much less picquant enough a­gainst those that have had the Indiscretion, if not the Malice to issue out a Warrant of this Nature, yet I will so far both retain my Passi­ons, and regulate my Heat, as only calmly to expostulate the matter in one Word: Is the rescuing our Laws, and the vindicating our Li­berties, which were the Pretences for the Prince of Orange's Descent into England, and the great Motives to the late Revolution, issu­ed in this? That we have neither Laws nor Liberties left us, but that we must stand with our Mouths shut, and our Hands bound, till our Lives be destroyed and our Estates forfeited, upon the Perjuries of the most Notorious as well as Hainous Villains that that ever the Earth bare. And let me tell you, That we think it much more eligible, that you should command your Dutch Dra­goons to cut our Throats (if they can) than that a Design should be carried on, and thus countenanced, by Authority of murthering us by Forms of Law. For as in the one Case, we should be sure to sell our Lives e're we lost them, and should we miscarry in our own defence, would hope to dye not only pitied, but expect to have our Deaths revenged; whereas in the other, we fall with Disgrace; and there are few have the Honour, Zeal and Generosity, to resent the Wrong and Inju­stice that are done us. Yet it may be [...]hat when proximus ardet Utalegon, every Man will be allarm'd; and that the Methods which render quilibet homo reus, may in a little time make omnis homo miles. And as I am very well assured, That by the Course you take to destroy some, all Men are threatned; so I do not know, but that the common hazard, may run the Nation upon a Defence as universal as the Danger is.

But I return to a Representation of some more of your Witnesses; and he whom I shall next unmask is Wilson, who was former­ly a Chamberlain at the Bear Inn in Smithfield, but who I do suppose is by this time com­menced Gentleman, thro the Grace and Fa­vour of Aaron Smith, who takes upon him to be the Fountain of Honours. But this Fellow Wilson having within these Two years been tryed and convicted of Felony before Mr. Ba­ron Turton for stealing Four Bullocks, and ha­ving thereupon been sentenced to be burnt in the hand, which was accordingly execu­ted: I shall need to say no more to render him Infamous to all the sober and impartial part of Mankind. Only I am sorry, Sir, that that you, and the rest of the Powis-house Ca­bal, should make it your Business so effectual­ly to disgrace the Government whereof you are Ministers, as you apparently do in using, encouraging, and maintaining such a Rascal [Page 40] for a Witness, to destroy those whose Persons you hate, and whose Estates you covet. And as you cannot be ignorant of what I have now related concerning him; so you might easily inform your selves, if you preserved any re­spect to Justice, that at those Seasons which Wilson swears he was in Lancashire, and upon the treasonable Secrets of those Gentlemen a­gainst whom he hath deposed, that he was at those times in Lo [...]on In a very mean and servile Employ. But I will say no more of him, seeing if what I have reported doth not render him infamous nothing will. I shall therefore proceed to the Representation of a young Sprig of an Evideace, but who being placed for a few years under the Cultivation of Harry Baker may grow up into an unquestion­able Witness for the State; if Treachery and Forgery can make him so. His Name that it may not be forgotten, when you, and Mini­sters of your Complexion, have occasion to make use of him, is, Stephen Chazall; who having been formerly Servant to Mr. Berionde, and dismissed by him about Two years ago for Fraud and Infidellty, hath been ever since endeavouring to qualify himself to be an Evidence: For soon after he was dis­charged from his Masters' Service, he made his first Essay of Roguery in breaking open a Trunk at the Black Swan Tavern in Bartholomew-Lane, where being taken in the Fact of robbing it, he had been prosecuted by the People of the House for Felony, if Mr. Berionde had not by earnest Intercession prevailed with them to overlook the Crime, and to let him alone: But the Graceless Youth, instead of being thankful to Mr. [...]ionde for saving him from the Pillory. or the Carts Tail, did soon after forge his Hand to two Notes upon Goldsmiths, the one upon Mr. Richard Pierson for 25 l. the other upon Mr. [...]alg [...]ave for 50 l. which by good Fortune, no [...] being immediately paid, the Forgery camé to be detected e're he could receive the Money. Yet instead of being dis­couraged by the repeated Discoveries of his Villainles, from attempting the like, he grew more emboldened to proceed in his Criminal Practices; and thereupon he not only again counterfeited Mr. [...]erionde's hand to Two other Notes, one to Mr. Poiterme at the George in Pall Mall, and the other to Mr. Pawlet at the [...]ew Posts in the Hay market, and both of them for Wine; but he likewise forged Mr. L'Espine's hand to a Note to Mr. Bancks the Draper for Cloth: Which Bills and Notes tho preserved, and ready to be produced, yet thro the too much Compassion and Humanity of those whom he would have cheared and defrauded, he escaped being pro­secuted, and had only a Reprimand given him, seconded with good Counsel and Ad­vice. But according to the Proverb, Save a Rogue from the Gallows, and he will cut your Throat; so this young Villain, advanced from Forgery in order to rob and defraud them, to Perjury in order to murther and destroy them. For hearing how tenderly those were cherished, and how ple [...]tifully they were main­tained, that had set up to be Witnesses in re­ference to a Sham Plot, he resolved to try whether he could not raise a Fortune, or at least gain a Subsistance by coining Falshoods, and deposing them upon Oath for Truths, as well as your Breretons and Lunts have done. In order whereunto he gave an Information of High Treason upon Oath against Mr. B [...]d, Mr. De Hersee, and Mr. Sentiman; on which they were all Three taken up, had their Pa­pers and Books seised, and were committed Prisoners to a Messenger's. Nor will the Se­cretaries want business (how honourable let them and the World judg;) nor quiet and peaceable People trouble, so long as Suborna­tions are countenanced, and Perjuries rewar­ded. For who is there that Lunt (to men­tion one in the room of all) will not swear against, rather than b [...] d [...]graded from a Gen­tleman such as [...] [...] has made him, to be a Victu [...]ller at [...], or a Labourer at Highgate; or to be reduced from swagger­ing with Sixty or Seventy Guineas in his Pocket, to wo [...]k servile labour for 1 s. a day, as he was formerly accustomed to do.

But being wearied as well as ashamed in sweeping Kennels, and in [...]aking thus long in Dungh [...], I shall therefore discharge my self from this Drudgery, after I have given an Account of one celebrated Witness more, whom you, Sir, have taken into your special Care, Favour, and Protection, and are in­debted to N [...]wgate for him. The Person whom I mean, is, your Friend and Darling, William A [...]lock; who lived heretofore with Dr. Oates, that was of all Mankind the fittest to instruct [Page 41] him in the Forging of Plots, and how to sup­port the Belief of them with unparalleled Im­pudence and Perjuries. Now the Dr. having having no farther occasion for this Ashlock, since he got a Female Bed-fellow, the Blade became Servant to one Mr. Freeman, a Barber, in Throgmorton-street near the Royal Exchange: And having brought several good Qualities along with him from the Drs. the first Proof he gave of the Improvement he had made by the Example and Doctrine of his old Master, was to rob Freeman in Hair and Money to the Value of about 30 l. And tho the Fact was clandestinely committed, yet knowing where A [...]lock had been formerly Entertained and Disciplined, he had a Suspicion that he must be the Thief that had robbed him: And there­fore causing him to be apprehended, and car­ried before a Justice of the Peace, some of the Money (which his Master could distin­guish from all other) was found about him, and the Fellow thereupon committed by the Justice to Newgate, a little before Whitsunday last: Where he had not lain long, e're he gave a new Testimony where he had been Educated, and that he had been a very teach­able Scholar under so expert and famous a Tutor. So that he took upon him to discover a Plot, whereof he could not miss the making this the chief part, namely, That there was a Design to kill Her whom they call the Queen. For the Burthen of the Doctor's Discovery heretofore being a Conspiracy to Murther King Charles, he would Copy his Master's Draught as near as he could, with the single change of a Princess to be assassinated, instead of a Prince. And to tread as much as possible in the Steps of the first grand Architect of Forged Conspiracies, having coined and fra­med a Plot in his Head, he in the next place wrote a Narrative of it, and took care to have it sent to my Lord Mayor, Sir William Ashurst. Which he not being so forward to give credit unto as Ashlock expected, and who having sucked in a liberal Share of the Insolence and Impudence of the Doctor, and being willing it should appear how well he had profited un­der him, he sent to my Lord Mayor to know what he had done with his Discovery and Nar­rative; which my Lord being allarmed at, as foreseeing the Consequences that might ensue upon it, he returned it unto him with a com­mand, That he should attest before Witnesses what he had writ, or else that his Lordship would not farther meddle with it. And that being done by the Rascal with all readiness; my Lord, to deliver himself both from the trouble and reproach of it, caused conveigh and deliver it to Mr Secretary Trenchard, whom I take to be you, Sir. Nor did you think it enough to receive it (as may be your Place did oblige you) but you had the Indiscretion to entertain it with a great deal of Fondness, and to say, he was a Person might do you a great deal of Service. And as a Testimony both of your Esteem of the Fellow, for the good Qualities I have mentioned, and of your being engaged in a Design of murthering Men by the worst and most infamous Means and In­struments imaginable, you gave Order that he should not be prosecuted the Sessions fol­lowing for his Felony. For to obstruct Ju­stice, and to pervert it, are the usual Methods with you of Administring your Office. But Mr. Freeman having upon that Disappointment consulted with a Friend what he should do, being very desirous to recover his Money, he was adviced to prosecute the Rascal the next Sessions that should ensue, and to com­plain in Court if the Law were not allowed its free course. Upon which, Sir, you began to think, That you should make a cheap Pur­chase of a Witness at the Price of 30 l. and a w [...]ekly Allowance ever since; and there­fore you took care to have Freeman paid half his Money before that Sessions, and the o­ther half within a little time after it. Nor can it be but from a malicious Design, that tho this Fellow has not hitherto been prosecuted, nor likely to be by Freeman, yet you keep him still in Newgate. However in this, as in other Things, you do but dance in a Net; seeing we plainly discern you, notwithstanding your Cover. In brief, he is detained there not on­ly as a Spy, but to acquire some umbrage of Credibility in what he is to be brought forth to swear against such there, as you have a mind to destroy. For tho he be admitted into Conversation with none of the Prisoners of State; yet you hope that his walking in the Press-yard among them, may give some Reputation to what he shall perjuriously De­pose. And that you may supply that defect of Evidence you laboured under when you [Page 42] sent several Gentlemen thither into Custody, by having one ready to swear that they are become guilty of Treason since they were in hold. Nor can I compare this Discovery of Ashlock's, after he was in Newgate in danger of being hanged, to any thing more properly than to the Detection which Whitney preten­ded to make of a Conspiracy for murthering King William; in hopes, after all his Crimes, and the Sentence of Death which he lay un­der, to have thereby escaped the Gallows. And I tremble to think how many, and of what Quality, that Fellow offered to depose against; and with what Leachery his Information was entertained, till my Lord Chief Justice Holt, from a Horrour of the Villainy he saw pro­jected by Whitney, and cherished by others, interposed with the Zeal, Justice and Courage, that are natural to him, and got him hanged. And thanks be to God, that how ill natured so ever some of them were, who then filled the chief Places of the Ministry, yet we knew nothing at that time of a Powis-house Juncto, nor of a Cabal instituted to form Treasons, and who sit brooding to shed innocent Blood. But surely we might have expected, that after the ignominy which the Government fell under, for hearkening so far as they did to Whitney a­bout Discovery of a Plot, we should not have heard of another Detection of a Conspiracy from Criminals and Malefactors in Newgate; but some Men when they cannot flectere Superos, they will movere Acheronta; and apply to Hell for support, when they despair, and that very justly, of the farther favour of Heaven.

And Goals being the properest Places to yield agreeable Tools to the Exigencies of the Government, and most fertile of those of a Vertue and Credit proportionable to the good Qualities of such as need and employ them; and all the Prisons of England not furnishing Rogues enough of a Character becoming Royal Evidences, the Goals of other Nations have been searched and ransacked in order to the obtaining a Supply of Witnesses, fit to pass muster against Jacobites at the Old Baily, and to he credited by London Juries. Of which I shall recount one Remarkable Instance; namely, That one Bateman, and his Wife, ha­ving perpetrated Sac [...]i [...]ege, and Theft, by robbing a Church in Flanders, and being there­upon apprehended and committed to Prison, in order to be boiled to death according to the demerit of their Crime, they were rescued thence, and transformed from being the worst of Criminals there, to appear in the Quality, and make the Figure of good and legal Wit­nesses here. For these two Miscreants being sensible, that there was no way of escape for them, but by the Intercession of King William, and knowing how to recommend themselves to his favour, and to merit a Share in all the Interest he had in the Duke of Bavaria, took care to get him informed, what mighty Dis­coveries they were able and ready to make of a Plot here in England against his Person and Government; whereupon he immediate­ly interposed with the Elector, for their Par­don; and ordered their being defrayed and conveyed hither, to pass as Witnesses against the Lives of those, whom Aaron Smith, and others, should think fit to mark out to be murthered. And being consigned over to you, Sir, it is known with what fondness you received them, and how you committed them to Cooke the Messenger, to be preserved fo [...]h­coming as Royal Evidences upon all Occa­sions; and in the Interim to be treated gent­ly, and entertained with Civility and Friend­ship. But the Wretches having compassed their End, thought fit to frustrate and dis­appoint you and Aaron of yours. For find­ing an Opportunity of robbing Cooke, and his Wife, of Money and Goods to a considerable Value, they made their Escape, to the Sor­row and Grief of some of you Ministers, that reckoned upon mighty Services from them.

So that having dispatched all that I intend at present upon this Subject, instead of a Com­pliment before we do now part, I will [...]ay before you Three short Remarks, and all of them suggested to me by Tacitus; for to a Statesman, as you pretend to be, I will quote no other Author. The first is in Reference to King William who doth intrust and employ you, and who has thereby given matter of great Suspicion to the Kingdom, of his being of the Humour and Genius both of a certain Emperour, and of one that was for a long time his chief Favourite. For as the Emperour in chusing his Ministers, and principal Officers of all Kinds, was careful, and made it the Master-piece of his Politicks, never to prefer Men of the most Vertue and Zeal for the Li­berties [Page 43] of their Country: Quia ex optimis peri­ [...]l [...]m metueba [...]; Because he apprehended such would [...] him in his arbitrary Designs, and not be the ready Tools of his Craft and Tyranny: So his Favourite was endowed even so long ago with those modern Qualities, That ejus voluntas nun­quam nisi scelere quaerebatur; No Man could ac­quire his Favour and Confidence but by being Vil­lainous. And let me tell you, Sir, That as the Grand Seignior hath no better Instruments of his Dispoticalness, than a Renegado Christian turned Turk: So the fittest Tools a Prince can use that would enslave England and Scot­land, are such of the Whigs as have neither Ho­nour nor Probity. And that the Whig Faction is not barren in yielding enough of those Cha­racters for all kind of Employs, is evident beyond Contradiction by the Practices of most of that Denomination, who have been ad­vanced to Places since the Revolution. And among whom should any Prince that would be a Sultan look for M [...]stys and Bashaws, but among those where Oliver Cromwel found his C [...]aplains and Major Generals. The Second is in order to instruct the People of England (if they have not out-lived their Wits, as well as their Loyalty and Estates) how to form a Character of your self, out of two Passages of the same Author; whereof the one is, That there were some, Qui gaudebant caedibus, tan­quam s [...]met absolverent; Who took Pleasure in the Destruction and Murther of others, that they might thereby appear Loyal, which in truth they w [...] not. For when I call to mind the Asper­sions which heretofore you used to throw up­on the Prince of Orange in relation to the Murther of the De Witts; I can hardly forbear thinking, but that in order to your promo­ting a Republican Design, and the changing the Monarchy into a Commonwealth, you have concurred with others, that were always known unfriendly to Kingship, in the con­triving and persuing this Plot against the Lives of so many innocent Men in England, that you may the better infect the Minds of the People of these Nation, with an Opinion and Belief of the Prince's Guilt in the Assassination of those Dutch Gentlemen. And I do assure you, That the many Sham Plots since the Revolu­tion for murthering even by Forms of Law those that are guiltless, do not only leave ve­ry undecent Impressions upon the Spirits of all that give themselves leave to think, in re­lation to the forementioned Massacre perpe­trated at the Hague, but awaken strange Jea­lousies in them in reference to every Man's Safety in Britain that will not come into the Politicks of the Court. And when I reflect upon the barbarous Design of attempting to have procured not only all the Papists, but all those Protestants who were most remarkable, and steady in their Loyalty to the King, to have been massacred by the Mob, An. 1688, upon spreading and diffusing thro the whole Nation in one Night, how the I ish were bur­ning Houses and cutting Throats in all Quar­te [...]s and Places of the Kingdom; I cannot avoid thinking, but that those Persons who were capable of being accessory to so fro [...] less a Lye, and of giving countenance to a Con­trivance that might have cost the Lives of so many Thousand Innocents, will be always ready and disposed to authorise, as well as encourage, either private and personal Assas­sinations, or more general and publick Mur­thers, by Forms of Law, whensoever they find the one or the other subservient to their Interest. Nor am I surprised to find the brainless and unthinking Universality of the Kingdom, disposed to believe and swallow all that hath been lately noised of a Plot a­gainst the Government; when I consider how forward they were to receive that hellish, im­pudent, and self-contradictious Lye, of a few disarmed, disbanded, frightned, and intimidated Irish, being firing and murthering in all Places. And the barbarous Massacre committed at Glen [...]o, in the murthering a whole Clan of Scotch Highlanders, without regard to Age or Sex, in one Night, An. 1691, except a very few, to whom the Darkness of the Night, the Deepness of the Snow, and the Tempestuous­ness of the Weather, afforded means of esca­ping, the being brutally as well as inhumane­ly Slaughtered; and this perpe [...]ated not only upon naked and unarmed Men, but upon such as had both taken the Protection of the Go­vernment, and with whom their bloody Mur­therers had been conversing as Friends, and entertained by those poor Souls, void of Fear and Jealousy, with all the Frankness and Plenty that the kindest Guests could expect. I say, this barbarous Massacre shews what some Persons are capable of commanding, [...] [Page 44] well as of countenancing; and what others who serve this Government are ready, and have the Villainy to execute. For as I have seen an authentick Copy of the Orders under a great Man's hand, requiring it to be done; so I have heard those that perpetrated the bloody Crime, justify the doing of it; upon their having the command of their Master for it, whom they declared themselves resol­ved in all Things to obey, without respect to Religion, Law, Justice, Honour or Humanity. But I advance to the other Passage afforded me by Tacitus, for the framing of your Cha­racter, which is this, That Reperies qui ob similitudinem morum aliena facta sibi objectari putent, etiam gloria & virtus intensos habent, ut nimis ex propinquo diversa arguens: There are some who having been often Traytors themselves, do therefore think that they can pay an Allegiance to none, unto whom such as have been of a different Party from them are not Disloyal; and that when they can find nothing else to [...]ate Men for, they abhor them for their Vertue, Honour and Probity, as reckoning their own Crimes detected and exposed by the Laudible Qualities which others are possessed of. And as I am, my self, obliged to the Au­thor I have quoted, for sending me his Pensil and Colours to draw your Picture, tho in lit­tle, yet so much to the Life; so I heartly wish it may serve to represent your Interior longer to Posterity, than any Piece painted by the best Master, can your External Lineaments and Figure. There is yet a Third Remark sug­geste to me by Tacitus, which I convey to you by way of Advice, if you be capable of taking it; which is, That Levi post admissum sc [...]lus gra­tia, dein graviore odio, quia malorum facinorum. Ministri quasi exprobrantes aspiciuntur. Tho for a while you may be in Favour, for involving Inno­cent Men under the Guilt of a Plot, yet you will i [...] a little time be the more detested, even by [...] whom you have been endeavouring to serv [...]; it being natural to Princes to esteem themselves [...] reproached, whensoever they look upon those [...] either in Complyance with their Secret Des [...]es, [...] in Obedience to their Publick Commands, have [...] their Instruments and Tools in Criminal and Vil­lainous Things. To which I will subjoin [...] Word more of the same Author, speaking of Tiberius, That tho Scelerum Ministros [...] ab aliis nolebat, ita plerumque satiatus, & [...] in eandem operam recentibus, veter [...]s & [...] ad [...]ixit.

I kiss your Hand, and am.

SIR,
The most Faithful of all your Serv [...]nts, As being as much above Flattering as Fearing of you. A. B.

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