Sir William Waller HIS VINDICATION.
I Have lately heard the doleful loss of your Commission, and have wept as many tears as you drank dorps of Wine with Mr. Higgy, alias Hicky (your too Costly aquaintance) sighing, mourning, and lamentations, have been my meat and drink so long that I am even worn away like the flesh from old Olivers bones; my Spirits are dejected and my bones that were lately moistned with marrow (when you were at the height of Ambition) are now as dry as a Constables Staff, my Legs are scarce able to bring me to a Meeting-house, I fret and fume, I pine and repine, but how [Page 3] a Devil can I help it! Was it not enough that you were a Justice of Peace to commit, but you must usurp the Power of a King to Release? What, are you turn'd Spaniel since I saw you? Do you both fetch and carry too? What a Plague had you to do with Higgy all night at a Tavern? It had been more fit you had been in bed with our Parsons Wife all night, in my opinion. Now you have lost the power of Committing, you may go hang your self for a livelyhood: Time was, when you might have fill'd every Gaol in Middlesex; had you so done, you might have had a fair opportunity, under the pretence of burning the Rump, to have fill'd the streets with bloud, and so we might have Swam to an other Common-wealth; but now your waxen wings, by which you flew into the Air are melted, our hopes are blasted, and our and your Interest destroyed. I wonder you did not call a Councel or an Assembly of Divines to assist or instruct you before so Rash an adventure, viz. the most Reverend T. O. by the Grace of O. Archsaviour of England, Scotland, and Ireland, that right Reverend W. B. Metropolitan of Flanders, and port Neufe the Reverend Mr. D. P. M. and B; had these been at your elbow, they would have taught you a more politick Lesson: Is this a time to lose ground or give our Enemies advantage, surely the hope of some bribe did Infatuate your understanding. Well, now you may go sell your Horses, Pawn your Coach, and Pistol your self, or take up a Resolution to die a Begger: The Protestants despise you, supposing you to be of your Fathers Principles, to fight [Page 4] against the King, and but a pretended Protestant, or a Papist in Masquerade, by reason you frequented Conventicles: The Papists abhor you as the Egyptians did their Frogs and Lice, by reason their Gold and Silver (taken for Papist Trinkets) is not (nor like to be) restored: The Presbyterians contemn you meerly for want of wit, and the Quakers detest you, because of your long lac'd borrowed Cloak. You have ruin'd us and your self too, to all intents and purposes, and now what may we expect but Destruction of Meeting-houses, Lampooning of Presbyters, and the Song of Te Deum in France for your unhappy downfal. Possibly you may expect a Prayer from me, if you do, take it out of the 109th Psalm from the sixth to the seventeenth Verse, Farewel,