Mr. ALSOP's SPEECH TO King JAMES the II.  
At the presenting the Presbyterians Address, in April, 1687.  
See London Gazette, No. 2238.  
Humbly Inscribed  
To B. B. B.—  
As a Specimen of SINCERITY.   

A COPY of a SPEECH To King James the II. by Mr. Alsop, upon the presenting of an Address, as in the London Gazette, No. 2238.  
Great Sir,  
WE could wish your Majesty had a Window in our Breasts, through which you might discern how our Souls Embrace your Royal Clemency with the highest Admiration, and yet with the profoundest Veneration.  
For we look upon ourselves truly transplanted from a hotter Climate, and happily seated under the temperate Zone of your Majesty's most mild and gentle Government, where instead of the scorching Beams of Severity, which had almost calcined us to Ashes, we now feel the cool Breezes of your Majesty's Favour to revive and refresh us.  
Really Sir, though we pretend not to any refined Intellectuals, nor presume to Philosophise upon the Mysteries of Government, neither to pry into the Mysteries of State; which things as they are far above, so they belong not to us at all, yet we make some small Pretence to the Sense of Feeling; whatever our Dullness may be, yet we can easily distinguish between a Wound and a Plaster; and know the difference between the smart Lashes of some of our Fellow-Subjects, and the healing Clemency of our Sovereign.  
We now, (Dear Sir) silently wait for some happy juncture to give your Majesty such essential Proofs of our Loyalty, and the Sincerity of this our humble Address; as may demonstrate that the greatest things, we have been able to express or promise in this poor Paper is the least thing we shall cheerfully perform for your Majesty's service and satisfaction.  
Go on (Great Sir) in this your Royal Line, (that is) your own proper Way and Method of Grace and Clemency, that the World may be more fully and further convinced, that you are the best as well as the greatest, and therefore the greatest, because the best of Princes, that so if there should remain any Seeds of Disloyalty in any of your Subjects, this transcendent Goodness of yours may mortify and kill them, or if any Sparks of Duty should be almost smothered in well-meaning, though mistaken Minds, such sovereign Grace may awaken and revive them, which above all Regalia's, will most gloriously adorn your Majesty's Imperial Throne and Diadem.  
FINIS.