THE SPEECH OF THE President de la Tour, Envoy Extraordinary from his ROYAL HIGHNESS the Duke of SAVOY, To His MAJESTY, At his First Publick Audience, Novemb. 2. 1690.
Published by Authority.
HIS Royal Highness my Master does by me Congratulate Your Sacred Majesties Glorious Accession to the Crown; It was due to Your Birth; deserved by Your Vertue, and is Gloriously maintain'd by Your Valour: Providence had design'd it for Your Sacred Head, for the Accomplishment of its Eternal Decrees, which after a long Patience, do always tend to raise up chosen Souls to repress Violence, and protect Justice. The Wonderful Beginnings of Your Reign, are most certain Presages of the Blessings which Heaven prepares for the Uprightness of Your Intentions; which have no other Scope than to restore this flourishing Kingdom to its Greatness and break the Chains which Europe groans under, This Magnanimous Design, worthy of the Hero of our Age, fill'd his R. H. at first with inexpressible Joy; but he was constrained to conceal it in the secret of his Heart: and if at last he has been free to owne it, he is oblig'd to the very Name of Your Majesty for it, since that alone has made him conceive some hopes of Liberty, after so many years of Servitude.
My Words, nor the Treaty which I have Sign'd at the Hague with Your Majesties Minister, do Express but weakly the Passion which my Master has to unite himself by the most inviolable Ties to Your Service. The Honour, SIR, which he has to belong to You by his Birth, has tyed the first Knots of this Union; the infinite Respect which he has for Your Sacred Person, has, as it were, knitted them faster, and the generous Protection which You are pleased to Grant him, will without doubt, make them Indissoluble. These are the sincere Sentiments of His Royal Highness, to which I dare not add, any thing of mine; for how ardent so ever my Zeal may be, and how profound the Veneration which I bear to Your Glorious Atchievements; I think, I cannot better Express, either than by a Silence full of Admiration.
Edinburgh, Re-printed by the Heir of Andrew Anderson Printer to Their Majesties, 1690.