A Gentle Reflection ON THE MODEST ACCOUNT, AND A VINDICATION OF THE Loyal Abhorrers, FROM THE CALUMNIES OF A FACTIOUS PEN.  
By the Author of the PARALLEL.  
LONDON, Printed for Benj. took at the Ship in St. Paul's Churchyard, and Tho. Sawbridge at the Three Flower-de-luces' in Little-Britain. MDCLXXXII.   

A GENTLE REFLECTION ON THE Modest Account, etc.  
ALthough Person of Quality, in the beginning of a Book, is grown now as common as Finis in the end, and an illiterate Fellow might take both for voluminous Authors, yet this Gentleman shall have the benefit of his Peerage, both because he endeavours so much to secure it in the Title-Page, and also because the following Discourse looks very much like that of a noble Peer. So that we won't treat him like a common prostituted Scribbler, though his Books and Pamphlets are tumbled in the City by day, as much as their Jilts and Wenches at night, but give him that Title which he pretends to so much, and so little deserves: Each scribbling Ass expects now to be answered with a Sir, as well as every Whore with a Madam. Wherefore—  
May it please your Lordship,  
IT would be an officious piece of Presumption, for my Pen to defend that worthy Person, whom yours acknowledges (except one) the Kingdom's best Penman. All the Vindication here intended, is only of the King's best Subjects, from his worst of Enemies, and to wipe off those scurrilous Aspersions, impossible to be cast on them in any Modest Account. And to begin in your civil Style: All the Lines in your following Discourse, have very elaborately given the lie to the first in the Title-page; and never did man take so much pains to confute his pretensions to Modesty, in such impudent and immodest Assertions. It might have been tolerable, my Lord, for a poor senseless Scribbler, for an ignorant Theophilus, to title his Scroll a Rationale, though when sifted it won't yield a grain of Sense or Reason. But for your Lordship, a man of applauded Wit and Integrity, to juggle thus with the Nation, and decoy the credulous Buyer out of his easy Sixpence, with a Smithfield Trick, a Raree Show, and a fine front, when there is nothing like it to be seen in the Booth; certainly this does not agree with the Quality of that person you would be taken to be, or that undeserved Character you may really bear.  
In the first place you take notice of other people's Rail, when all the while you design to write nothing but a satire; you observe persons having been unsuccessfully hired to libel and abuse you: That Calumnies are fruitless and ineffectual, proceeds many times from the Gild, as well as Innocence, of those that are aspersed. And some people's Crimes may be so notoriously black, not to be darkened with any deeper dye: some are armed with confidence against the most pointed Satyrs, and with a conceit of their own judgement, against the strongest conviction of reason; and so neither to be reclaimed by bitter Invectives, or sober Debates. But sure your Party cannot with any modesty reflect on Hirelings, either for Affidavit Drudges, or railing Satirists, who first made such large Contributions for their Salaries and Maintenance; much less your selves, shrewdly suspected for having had the breeding of such rascally Irish Cattle, and the sole command and management of the Protestant Exchequer; and so never wanted a Whiffler, to throw dirt in the face of the Government, or your Plot-Leeches, to suck the blood of any Minister of State.  
But pray tell me, my Lord, Are these Volunteers, or rather hired Rascals, that under an Hereditary Monarchy, can be got to write an History of the Succession, only to prove it alterable, and under a merciful Monarch can insist on the Precedents of deposing Kings? Would those Wretches that live under a gracious Prince, venture to place the Sovereignty in the People? Were they not pretty well paid for venturing their Necks too? Would there ever have been writ An Appeal from the Country, had it not been first moved and encouraged from the City? And I much question whether ever Mr. College would have had the stomach to breakfast on the Gallows, had he not dined sometimes at the Sun-Tavern. And therefore (were your Suggestions as rational, as they are really groundless and unreasonable) pray consider, my Lord, when you condemn loyal and honest Hearts, for mercenary Rogues, what will become of those poor Wretches, that can libel their Prince for a Penny, and write Treason for Bread?  
It is but a little and a poor Vindication of that noble Peer, to make his paternal Revenue so rich and great: It only aggravates his continual espousing of the Quarrels of the Factious, in which commonly few engage themselves, but men desperate either in their Lives or Fortunes; it makes him to have chosen his bad Principles out of inclination and humour, which others maintain only out of want and necessity; and any Casuist would look upon a Wretch, that's starved almost into a Rebel, far less a Criminal, than a wanton Jesurun that kicks at God Almighty and his Sovereign, only because he's grown fat.  
Your Lordship talks of other People's having a sort of Impudence beyond the jesuits: An Emphatical description indeed of eminent Boldness, whilst you think, with a great deal of Modesty, you may lay down these following Hyperboles: First, That your noble Peer had a chief hand in restoring our Prince; which Paradox, I confess, shows you a bold Champion for the Cause, but a weak Assertor of the Truth, when the Memory of Man, as well as Narrative and History, can give you the Lye.  
Yet I don't question but several might have a little Finger in bringing in their Sovereign, when they found it impossible to keep him out; and triumphantly shouted their O King, live for ever, when they could not make him die on his Father's Block: The Fox that insults o'er the Lion when entangled in his Snare, is always the first too that congratulates his deliverance.  
But your Lordship is not the first and sole Person eminent for such palpable Forgeries in these Matters: It has been as confidently asserted, (and that long ago in Print, by as eminent a Divine, as never boggled at Conscience, or scrupled at a Lie) That the late War and Rebellion was begun by the Episcopal Party, which he in his wont phrase statedly declares to be very true. It was but lately that another, as famed for Law, as this for Divinity, undertakes to prove the Presbyterian Party the sole Restorers of his Majesty; and so between them leave nothing to the poor Prelate and Cavalier, but the guilt and shame of having been Fools, Knaves, and Traitors; of having trepanned and murdered their Sovereign, only to oblige them with the Villainy, and like poor silly Tools, let others reap the Spoils, in the following Anarchy and Confusion: And now your Lordship here has miraculously discovered the strange Restorer of his Majesty. I confess, the Veracity of these Gentlemen, and their wild Positions, may be unquestionable with a City-Rout, a crowd of credulous Fools, or resolute Knaves: But if ever the Country has an occasion for a Triumvirate to write Paradoxes, Lies and Forgeries, it will wisely pitch upon Mr. Baxt. Mr. Ht. and this Person of Quality.  
You are willing to lay a great Obligation on his Majesty from his Act of Oblivion, but yet ungratefully forbear to mention your Party so much as obliged. Then you address yourself to the King's Friends, and their Friends, the Papist together: I thought your Lordship could not allow roman-catholics any relation or acquaintance, with men that love the Religion of the Church of England, and King of it, as in common Charity, my Lord, some of us at least may be thought to do. But why must we and they be thought such Intimates? It no way appears upon Record, my Lord, as the Familiarity of your Party with the Jesuits; neither has Mr. Oats sworn, that they frequent our Churches, as he testifies they do your Conventicles; therefore without being such Favourites to them, if you please, we will obey your Injunctions: and  
Consider what Promises, Declarations, and Engagements the dissenting Protestants had, both of his Majesty, his Lords and Bishops, at the time of his coming over, and how they have since been used, and with what Submission and Loyalty they have carried themselves.  
And now must tell your Lordship, having considered and weighed every jot and tittle of it, I can answer you to every Punctilio; first, that the Promises your dissenting Protestant's had, have certainly been made good to them, (perhaps above their bargain and expectation) I am sure beyond their merit and desert; not only the Laws, when in full force against them, and such Offenders, have been seldom executed, but for a while wholly suspended, with a general Toleration; although that, I confess, they will by no means grant to have been done in their favour, notwithstanding it seemed extorted by their own clamours and importunity, and was the Counsel and Advice of some that are now the greatest Patriots and Bigots of their Cause. And 'tis very notorious, that this dissenting Protestant all the time of that Indulgence, resented it as an Act of Grace and Favour, (though I confess, never the nearer won to Peace and Conformity with such a condescension, but had their tender Consciences, as much hardened and steeled with the Lenitives of Moderation, as ever they could have been in the hottest flames of a real Persecution.) But as soon as ever they came to be bridled again by the Law, with a seasonable restraint, the Wretches (that at best but flatter and dissemble, when they command any thing in the Government) presently arraigned it, as a design of introducing Popery, though it truly promoted nothing more than the growth of their own Faction, and made the Beast insolent and unruly, by giving it the reins, whom the curb of a severe Discipline might have made more gentle and tame. And now I would have your Lordship tell us a way of satisfying so froward and perverse a Sect, that is clamorous till it is indulged, and then is discontented at its own Indulgence.  
But beside all this, your Lordship very well knows, that they were not only connived at in their Religious Schisms, and sanctified ways of violating the Canons of the Church, and the Laws of the Realm, but some of them were advanced to Places of Honour and Profit, and fared once altogether as well as those that had more faithfully served the King, and dutifully conformed to the Discipline of the Church. But granting these Promises and Declarations were not so punctually performed, is the Government pretently to be upbraided for it? And his Majesty almost told in plain terms, that had you thought he would have failed you so, he should never have got in the Throne so easily; and can these grumbling and discontented Wretches be called the Restorers of his Majesty, that would capitulate with their Prince for his Birthright, stand upon Terms and Articles, like Rebels in a Garrison, before they will surrender, and are now sorry they had not made him compound for his Kingdoms at a dearer rate?  
Your Lordship knows all this to be as true, as the Suggestions of their hard usage are false and malicious; would you have the greatest Laic of your Faction, made the greatest Minister of State too? that has been done already, and your Noble Peer himself, advanced to the Mace; would you have some Head of your canting Priests preferred to be the Head of our Church, and a thing put for the Pillar of it, that has twice endeavoured to undermine it? why somewhat of this has been offered too, and we have Mr. Baxter's own word for it, that he refused a Bishopric; and now for God's sake, my Lord, what usage would you yourself advise to be shown to such Miscreants, whom neither Honour or Profit, can persuade so much, as to suffer the Government to remain undisturbed?  
Thus much for our Promises and Usage; now, my Lord, for their Loyalty and Submission, which you so vainly extol and magnify; but I wish your Eloquence a more copious Theme, whenever you have a mind to write a Panegyric, or else you'll want indeed a great deal of Invention, or rather another part of Rhetoric, plain Hyperbole, to make amends for the barrenness of the Subject: You talk of the difficulty of finding a parallel Instance, but all the while don't instance in one single act of this unparallelled Submission, and you vindicate your own Party, just at the same rate as you vilify all others, only with general Assertions; but your Lordship shall see, I will more fairly demonstrate their Treasons and Insurrections, than you have done their Loyalty and Submission.  
His Majesty was hardly settled in his Throne, before these submissive Villains began to disturb it; in— 61. Venner and his Crew were plotting on the Government, discovered and executed for High-Treason; about— 62. Phillip's, Tongue, Gibbs, and one Stubbs, with another, were arraigned for a Plot, as Hellish altogether as this of the Papists, the latter of which confesses the Fact before his Trial, the other four abiding it, were upon full evidence condemned and executed. In— 63. we have one Captain Oats, mustering up his Regiment of Traitors. In— 66. Another little Mutiny and Rebellion of a parcel of discontented Officers and Soldiers, lately Mr. College, that with his last breath professed himself a dissenting Protestant, condemned and executed for a more unparallelled piece of Treason, than any incomparable Instance you can give of Dissenters Loyalty; and last of all, for a head to this Comet, this long train of Rebellion, out comes the treasonable Scheam of Association, and alarms the Kingdom with the fearful Presages of a second War.  
Thus much, my Lord, for the submission of English Dissenters since the Restoration; and now for the Loyal deportment of your Scottish one; How many Field-Preachers since— 60. have been executed, renouncing with their last breath, all Allegiance and Supremacy? Kid and King, two late Villains, that preached Rebellion at the very place of Execution, no doubt 'twas with a great deal of Submission; they made two several Insurrections, one of which was but lately dispersed at Bothwel-Bridge; they submissively murdered the Bishop of St. Andrews, and very lately with a great deal of Dissenters Humanity, mangled and mutilated the poor Soldiers; These are many, I hope, and strong Evidences of their bad Carriage, whereas you have not given one single Instance of their good.  
Your business in the next Paragraph, is to make the discovered Association a Popish Hobgoblin too, a Mormo conjured up at White-Hall; or to use your own expression, The keeping Hounds in full cry with a Red-Herring, out of their own Kitchen, trailed through the Kingdom to make a noise.  
A pleasant Metaphor, I confess, in comparing a piece of Rebellion with a Red-Herring; somewhat a more apposite Allegory, even upon this account, because both are great Commodities in the Dutch Commonwealths; but I fancy, my Lord, could your Party but have kept this Herring close, and drying in their own Chimney, till the Nation's Palate had been a little better disposed to relish such a salt Bit, the Dogs that would have followed the scent then, I am afraid would have shown themselves a thirsty sort of Bloodhounds, and took some of the King's best Subjects for their Prey; but now this dried Fish has took a little Air, and rank Treason stunk and offended the whole Kingdom, 'tis no wonder if your Party won't allow the Dish to come out of their Kitchen, when it looks as if it had been dressed in Hell, and had the Devil for its Cook.  
Your Lordship has not carefully perused those Proceedings at the Old-Baily; neither is to be imagined how you should impartially, when you seem to be so much prejudiced, or else you would find the Impudence to lie on your side, in making the seizing of the Paper questionable; the words of Mr. Gwin are as positive as the Case could admit, which are plainly these: It was certainly there, for there I found it; I don't know as to the particular Paper, but all in that Bag were there: vid. page 34.  
Now your Lordship won't allow it to be positive Evidence, because not to the particular Paper. But suppose, my Lord, one of your Irish Witnesses should transport hither a Ship-load of his Country cattle, to stock your Lordship's Manor, would you not believe him, if he swore they all came from thence, and it was unlikely any other Breed should leap up in the Voyage?  
And sure that Gentleman may pass for a more competent Witness than a common Bug-trotter. The Messengers seized a whole bundle of Colledge's infamous, treasonable Ballads; had it not been positive Evidence, if they had sworn only to the whole Bundle, as well as if to the particular Ballad, produced in the Court? But you can't have the Patience or Heart to examine the Parallel, it being the woeful Case of a dissenting Protestant. But than you will take the pains to consider this▪ there were Bundles of Letters found in Coleman's Study, two or three of which were only used in his Trial; would your Lordship have had that sort of Traitor escaped too, had the Witnesses been only able to swear to the Papers in general that they found, and not to the very particular one produced?  
I don't know in what English Reports your Lordship has met with Monsieur Fouquet's Case, which is a French one; I am sure your Honour would be loath to be tried by their Arbitrary Laws, when it can hardly abide the Test of ours. And whatever you think, I fancy the State is higher concerned against him that endeavours to subvert it, than him that only defrauds its Exchequer; And yet the one you see has been kept a long time Prisoner in the Bastile, though the other quickly got out of the Tower. And as for those Laws of Nature and Reason, you urge on your part, sure they are never so irrational, to befriend a man suspected for unnatural plotting against his Prince, and the Father of his Country, which was the thing then in question; but it's being a loose Paper and unsubscribed, will that exempt a man from being questioned, especially in Matters of Treason, where there are no Accessories, but every Concealer a Principal? Were not some of the Jesuits questioned for Papers unsubscribed, and Langborn partly condemned for receiving Commissions never produced, found, or like to be heard of? And these Parallel Instances, I don't urge as an extenuation of their Gild, who merited death by the Law, but to show your foul Reasoning and prejudiced Argumentation, in making that sort of Evidence light and empty in your Friend's Case, though only to put him upon his Trial, when you thought it full and weighty in your Enemies, even for their Sentence and Execution.  
The detestation of a damnable piece of Treason, your Lordship calls, A Popish Clamour and Abhorrence. Are they all Papists, my Lord, that protest to defend his Majesty? If so, your own Party will be libelled too in that Accusation, who most of all make such Protestations, though they lest intent it.  
And if they must be Papists, that vow to preserve the present Government of Church and State, your Lordship, by such Doctrines, will draw more Proselytes to the Romish Faith, than ever did Priest or Jesuit, (or to use your own words) have given a greater Blow to the Protestant Religion, than all that ever went before you; for such wild Positions, and unreasonable Censures, will make all to be of that Communion, who love their God and their King, or are willing to commence good Christians and loyal Subjects. But not withstanding all your malicious Accusations, is it to be proved there were any roman-catholics, that promoted these late Abhorrences, or any single one that signed such an Address, though they were ready perhaps to do it, and can shame some of our Protestants, whose Religion truly gives no such Dispensations for Treason and Rebellion, and consequently should make them better Subjects? Yet some of those spent their Blood for our late Sovereign, when so many of ours lost it in fight against him; and also 'tis unadvisedly objected, that the Papists should be concerned in these Abhorrences, for that would make them more Friends to your Party than any other, in affording you Matter for aspersing all those, as such with whom they subscribe; and only give your Lordship and your Crew a Pretence for such scandalous Suggestions. But the mischief of it is, they do no great service in such a forbearance, since we deal with an Accuser, as subtle and malicious as that primitive one the Devil, and who would blast his Enemy's Reputation, were they all Angels.  
But, my Lord, there are a number of as great and better Subjects than yourselves, who have better thoughts too, concerning the late Abhorrencies, and are so far from bearing troubled at what they have done, or persuaded to forbear, by your unjust censuing and traducing it, that they many times in their Addresses beg pardon for not having begun sooner; not my Lord, but that it was abhorred in the Heart of every good Subject, looked on as the Contrivance of Hell and Darkness, as soon as ever it came to light, but that they vie with one another for an early of those villainous designs, which they think none can soon enough detest. Upon the appearance of your terrible Comet, the Nation seemed to gaze a while on the dreadful Phaenomenon, before they could make their Observations; and the Reason why they might not presently fall on abhorring such damnable Practices, might proceed rather from the deep Impression it had on their Minds, than any shallow Inadvertency; for Hearts that are surprised with any Passion, either of Love or Detestation, have their Tongues for a while suspended from expressing their Sentiments and inward Conceptions. It has always been the stale Clamour of the vigilant and jealous Faction, that the King and Kingdom was asleep; if so, I am confident they have now pretty well awakened both out of their secure slumber. And that with a ghastly Spectrum of a Rebellion, and the dreadful Ghost and Appearance of another Civil War.  
In the next place, Your Lordship lays a mighty stress on the single Vote of an House of Commons; and well you may, my Lord, when your Friends have had of late such an ●nfluence and Interest therein; and any Statesman will have a great Conceit of their Proceedings, who think well of his Maxims, and take him for their Achitophel. But this is but a reciprocal sort of associating in one another's Defence, and somewhat like that natural Combination there is among some Creatures, when they are mumbling of a Thistle, to claw one another. Yet, my Lord, should the next House be men of other Sentiments, condemn the Treason of this Association, vote him for an Enemy to King and Country, in whose Custody it was found, would your Lordship be willing, their Ordered and Resolved should be the sole Test of the Gild, as well as Innocence of the Person? Yet our own Chronicles will afford Instances of greater Alterations in the Vein and Humour of Parliaments, and whose Pulses have beaten as strongly quite another way: A Parliament deposed Richard the second, and a Parliament advanced Edward the fourth; a Parliament set a price on the Head of our present King, and a Parliament afterward set the Crown upon it. And why one House of Commons may not as well vote him a Friend to the King and Kingdom, whom others have done an Enemy, I cannot understand?  
But then from Irish-Witnesses and well-chosen juries, the whole Nation prays as well as your Lordship, Good Lord deliver us; but than you may give them leave to curse too, those that first brought over the one, and packed the other. It seems Haynes was no Irishman, when a blank Pardon was sued for; Dennis, Oneal, and Macnamarra, no Rogues, so long as they would hang none but Papists: Willmoors, Rouses, Whitakers, Harveys, and the Jury (I should have named first) of the noble Peer you vindicated; these were not picked and chosen, were they? But because you instance in unreasonable Damages given by the Surry-men, you shall have a Rowland for that Oliver too; and what do you think of that of the Guild-hall, who found it Assault and Battery, for an Officer to pull off an insolent Fellow's Hat, when upon his Trial in an Ecclesiastical Court, (a Fellow that behaved himself as rudely towards your Party, in his Curse ye Meroz, as he has done since to ours in his Naked Truth? And what a dishonest and ungrateful sort of Retribution is it, for them to countenance now such a turbulent Wretch, only because he can disturb our established Church, when all our sober persons condemned him for such an impetuous Railing, even against your unwarranted Assemblies? What can an indifferent, and impartial person, think of the foulness of such Proceedings, but that you would close with any Villain, that will but libel the Government, and even with your worst of Enemies, to do it an injury, observing a sort of malicious Politics, in the very directing of your Anger and Revenge, and wisely smother your Resentments against a private Foe, if you can but make him an Instrument to disturb the public Peace?  
But, my Lord, the truth of it is, that which makes you so uneasy, is, you find yourselves lashed with Rods of your own making, and have conjured up a sort of Devils, that won't be awed only by your own Wand, and whom, all your Sorceries, I am afraid, won't quickly lay; Cavies in the late time was an opprobious Name fixed on good Subjects, and then they were nettled as soon as Roundhead was given to the bad; Whig now had never been thought of, had not Tory been first started; we should have had no Pilkington Juries, had the E. of S. been put upon his Trial; and you would have met, my Lord, with no such Gentle Reflection, had you not first published your Modest Account; and since your Party always leads the Dance, can you in Conscience blame any for following the Round?  
Then as for the business of the City-Charter, perhaps it may not be so long in being compassed, as your Lordship imagines; and for the justice you shall meet for your Fortunes when 'tis gone, I dare promise, will be better than others will meet with for their Lives while 'tis there. But why do you think it so long, my Lord? Are Charters given and confirmed without any Limitations and Reserves? Had they their Swords in their hands when 'twas granted? And did they article and capitulate for theirs in the City, as the Barons did for the great one in the Meadow? Then perhaps your Advocates might find a Clause in it, to prove it not forfeited by Rebellion; in which the City seems already so deeply engaged, as if it were actually in another state of War with its Sovereign: For won't your Lordship judge that Ass to rebel against his Driver, in standing still, or running back, as well as if he had lifted up his heel against his Master? And how near the stopping the Channel of the Laws, or perverting the Justice of the Nation, borders on the taking up of Arms, and the cutting out their own Statutes with the Sword, I leave even to the Determination of your Lordship, who perhaps were an Eye-witness of that fatal Affinity that is between them, and what a pretty sort of Praeludium it proved to the Civil War.  
The Precedent of the Guises was the most unhappiest Parallel your Lordship could have brought upon the Stage, and at this time had been much better omitted, it suiting as little with your Lordship's Application, as it mightily agrees with your Parties Practices. The Guises were a bloody Faction indeed, and designed the overthrow of that Monarchy, by the same means and measures your Associators do that of ours. It was they deluded a youthful Prince with the hopes of a Crown, and strengthened their Party by the weakness of a young Duke: It was they made the professed Religion a pretence for all the Desolations that attended a miserable War: It was they drew up the primitive Association, and were the first Founders of an Holy League: Lastly, 'twas they fell a cutting the Throats of the poor Hugonots, and distinguished▪ themselves in the bloody night at Paris, with a white Scarf on their Elbows: And by your endeavouring to remove Guards, one would think you designed the same way to cut off Popish Abhorrers, and make your green and blue Streamers serve for the same purpose they used their white. And so we may e'en conclude this Paragraph with an bearty Prayer, as well as your Lordship does his with a faint Wish; That God would preserve the King, and keep us out of the hands of all bloody Papists, and as cruel and inhuman a sort of Protestants.  
Your Lordship has not only the Subtlety of the Serpent, but the Venom too, and that you spit forth all now here in this place, in arraigning the best Actions of the Duke, for the worst Plot and Conspiracy, and making his passing the Test in Scotland, a fair step to the destruction of the Protestant Religion. Is the swearing to preserve the present established Religion, the way to subvert it? Are not the Bishops there as competent Judges of what will undermine the Church, as your Lordship, who profess yourself a Friend to Protestant Dissenters, and such as would blow her up? And han't they thanked his Majesty for his sending his Royal Brother, and testified their satisfaction of his Zeal for our Church? But these, you will say, are all blessed with a Torish Humility, (as your new phrase has it) though upon other occasions, you can dignify them with their old Appellation of proud Prelates. But, my Lord, do you think that the Field-Preachers there, (to whom you must be a Friend, if to the dissenting Ministers here) do you think, I say, they show what is more expedient for the good of the Church, in refusing the Test, than those spiritual Lords did in passing it? Do you think that the Rebels at Bothwell-bridge, did not make a fairer step to the destruction of the Protestant Religion, than, as you maliciously suggest, his Royal Highness and the Parliament have done since? But we must give people leave, when they are nettled with Passion and Revenge, to be transported into Lies and Absurdities; and Malice is always the greatest Enemy to Truth and Reason.  
Your next Paragraph falls foul again upon Abhorrers, whom you look upon as a pitiful Faction, when all honest people take them for true Loyalists. But waving the absurdity in calling them factious, which none can reasonably apply, but to such as oppose the Government in Church and State, their Numbers are not so small as to be pitiful or contemptible; two or three thousand Freeholders' are said to subscribe that of Derby, and then more, I am sure, by much, than could be gotten out of any County in England to your Petitions. And could your Lordship but get the favour and opportunity to consult the List, you would find them more numerous, and much to your dis-satisfaction; and also amongst them, many persons that have served their Country in Parliament, and been Members of that Honourable Assembly, to whom you pay so great a Deference. But it is a little harsh Censure for you to suspect all the Countrey-Sheriffs for ill men, and their under-Sheriffs for Rogues. Could we but get an indifferent person to decide the Controversy, he would with more reason judge your City-Officers for such, gentlemans commonly versed in the juggling Tricks of Buying and Selling, and all the methods of a privileged Knavery, such as first set about packing of Juries, and alarming the Nation with an obstruction of Justice. And won't you allow the King and his Council to be as honest and wise, and as fit to prick the one, as your City-Rout and Rabble, who chooses the other?  
I can't imagine what you mean by this elaborate task, and all this fruitless pains you take to prove the number of Abhorrers so small and insignificant, unless your meaning be only this, to show plainly that you contend for a Party, and have sent abroad your Muster-masters, to take a List of all your Volunteers, or else have got your Association to stalk about the Kingdom incognito, and now upon comparing the Subscribers of that with those of our Abhorrences, find yourselves the stronger by a million, or thereabouts; but I fancy, were this really so, you would never suffer this Abhorring and Protesting to go on so quietly. Yet my Lord, I'll debate, though not the truth, yet the Reason of this Matter still more fairly with your Lordship: Give you all that the prejudiced Party can desire, and for a while suppose this Paper of Association a mere Shame, and a piece of Forgery, or in your own phrase, A red Herring, trailed through the Kingdom to make a noise, yet still why must all those that detest and abhor it be traduced as Popish, only because they dislike a Paper that is in itself treasonable, and which your own selves presume unwarrantable at least, by your seeming to renounce it? There is every year a Zeal, as hot as the Flames themselves, shown against his Holiness in Pasteboard, and in God's Name let them still in that Matter express their Resentment: But you would think it a hard Censure, my Lord, to traduce all that innocent Rabble in Fleetstreet, for Puritans and fanatics, only because they express such an Abhorrence to that painted Effigy, when all this while this is but a Pope of their own making. And why then must all those be vilified as Tories, Hounds, and Popish Abhorrers, that only dislike, declare, burn, and protest against a papered Idol of a Commonwealth, in whose Forehead is writ Treason▪ as well as Abomination in the others.  
Now when I have been so fair as to yield to your Lordship in his own Postulatum, and yet the Corollary deduced will detract much from that Reasoning and Modesty you pretend to, what will become of those Pretensions, when it appears a demonstrable Proposition, that this Scheam of Rebellion was drawn by your own Party, and truly found where it was sworn to be? And therefore for those Considerations tendered to us in the beginning of your Book, let us offer these to you toward the end of ours. Consider this Engine, and design how much it looks like the Workmanship of your State-Projectors: And though the end seemed somewhat honest, pretending to unite a divided Nation, consider it will never be compassed in animating a factious and a zealous Crew; 'tis a Work only now for Omnipotence itself to heal our Breaches, and cure our Divisions, and the Union of God's people will never be perfected by your Protestant joiners, and such Agents of the Devil. Consider how likely that Faction is to contrive such an Association, which has been so well vetsed in drawing up so many Covenants, and how improbable it is, that those who entered into a League to fight against Charles the First, should associate themselves for the preservation of the Second. But these are but such Arguments, I confess, as the Schools call▪ â probabilibus; that which makes it demonstrably plain, are the Shifts your Party use to avoid the Imputation, whose Answers, when they are questioned about it, are like those of conscious Criminals, full of Distraction. Sometimes they fancy the truth of its being found not plain enough, and then they deny the Matter of Fact; then they begin to distrust that Refuge, and stand up for its defence, backing it with a Precedent in Queen Elizabeth's time; and pray, my Lord, Would you not take the young Bear to be the Whelp of such a Dam, if you found her licking the little unformed Monster into shape? Then for its being found in the Closet, we have a plain positive Oath, and that of a very credible Witness: The Keys sworn to be delivered by your Earl▪ s own hand; his Servants by when the Papers were put up, and the Bag sealed: And sure his vigilant Domestics would never suffer their Master to be so grossly abused, had they put up other Papers than were found, and brought Treason in their Pockets when they came to search for it. My Lord, It was the same poor defence College made, to the finding his treasonable Ballads, and when nothing else could confront the Evidence, it was insinuated as if they were laid there by the Searchers: And you would do well to use some better Arguments for so great a person whom you would prove innocent, than they did for a rascally joiner, whom all impartial people thought guilty. But nothing makes it more unquestionable than those poor Shifts you use in questioning it: You say, Gwin dares not swear it; and any one (by what you say there to the contrary) would swear you don't deny it; and all your Argumentations look so conscious and guilty, that they betray the very Cause they pretend to defend. Among Heads that have but one grain of studied Logic, or natural Reason, 'tis always presumed, that nothing can be like itself; and whatever has any Reference, must have another Extreme to which it may refer; and then what need of all this Comparison and Similitude, if there be nothing found with which you would compare it? What need has your Lordship to talk of Queen Elizabeth's Association as a Parallel, if nothing since has been contrived like it, by your Friends and Associates? But you will say, There has been a pretended one put upon you: Then, my Lord, let me ask you, Would you take all this pain to justify a piece of Treason forged by your Enemies? Did any of your Party write in favour of the Papers found in the Meal-Tub? If these are your Measures and best Politics, what better Encouragement can there be for sham's and Forgeries, than by writing Panegyrics and favourable Parallels, on those Treasons of which you are suspected and accused.  
You very civilly will allow his Majesty a Prerogative to call a Parliament; but like the cursed Cow that gives a little good Milk, which she presently kicks down with her heels; or Mr. Ht▪ that defends the Bishops in his Book, and blows them up in the Postscript, your next Lines talk of having them convened frequently, and sit usefully, that is indeed, whensoever yourselves please, and as long as your Faction shall think fit, or till Grievances are redressed, and the Bill of Exclusion passed. But for these Matters, I may, with better Authority, use your own words in the business of the Charter, Assure your Lordship, It will be long before it be done.  
But I would fain have you fix, my Lord, that indefinite Term of Frequent Parliaments.  
Is your Lordship for Triennial ones again? The Consequences of that were too fatal, to expect such another unreasonable Grant: And besides, it is not above a twelve month since that your Lordship had one, and that to your Mind too, and therefore as yet no Reason to complain. But if great Emergencies (as you say) shall determine the Prince to convene his States, sure you may give him and his Council leave to judge whether they are really so or not: Otherwise Dr. Oater's Quarrel with the Scotch Knight, or the Disappointment of the City-Feast, may by some be thought Matter of great Emergency, and worthy the Consideration of a Parliament; neither will the People, my Lord, as Things stand now, be all of your Sentiments, in thinking his Majesty's Friends and Counsellors, humble Tories, stupid Fools, or designing Villains; the best opinion you can have of them, for not advising his Majesty (as you think fit) to call a Parliament. We know those that gave worse Advice both for the Kingdom and all Christendom beside; those that in their best regreted the Success of their own Counsels, and maliciously took now and then a few good Measures, lest others should do it for them. I can't apprehend, my Lord, what that distance of Time is, in which, without a Parliament, our Liberties would expire, and ourselves, on a sudden, be shackled into Slaves. We han't seen one for a whole year, and perhaps may not for another; and yet after many expired, I dare swear, our Magna Charta will be still the same, though your City-Charter may not. We will allow you Parliaments to be the Subjects Birthright, but then, I hope, we are not born to all sorts of Parliaments; that Position, my Lord, would make you put in for a Right to that in Forty one, since by special Act declared Traitors.  
Your Lordship proposes by way of smart Interrogatory:  
Whether the King's Prerogative in appointing the day, will deprive us of the Right of having them in such a time, and his Power of dissolving can render them useless to us?  
I confess, to men of your own Principles and Sentiments, 'tis impossible to answer them; for such are resolved to take it for granted, that the not letting them sit when they please, is a deprivation of the Right of the Subject; and the dissolving them when the King pleases, is that which makes them useless, whereas there are as great Men, and as good Headpieces, who think the quite contrary. And that his Majesty's appointing the day, is the only Security we can have for their Sitting: Perhaps without it we might have a Convocation of Rebels, but not a Parliament; a major part of Members treasonably associated, but never an House of Commons lawfully assembled: And then in this Case also differing so far from your Opinion, that they think the only thing that can make them useful, is the King's Power to dissolve them. I confess, to men that make an House of Commons to patronise all their Irregularities, to countenance all those gross Abuses they put upon the Government; to such a Dissolution is a useless thing indeed, and deprives them of the making an honourable Assembly, a pretended Abettor of all their scandalous Actions. And now for your two civil Interrogatories, give me leave to propose a couple of honest Queries.  

1. Whether the late King's frequent Parliaments, did not bring the Nation into that miserable Confusion?  
2. Whether his not being able to dissolve them, did not bring him to the Block?   
I fancy, your Lordship has the same Notions of Parliaments, that a late wild extravagant Author has published in his Tory-Plot, That they have an absolute Dominion over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates, of all the Subjects; vid. page 16. But with what Face then can such Wretches talk of his Majesty's assuming an Arbitrary Power, when all the while they endeavour to make their petty Kings in Representative more absolute than the Turk himself? And can't the miserable Change that they made at Athens, terrify these preposterous Assertors of Liberty, and satisfy them of the Felicity of the Subject, even under a tyrannising Prince, in respect of the Miseries they suffered under a Commonwealth of Tyrants? This, I confess, is a Power of Parliaments, that would give them an unquestionable Right for the altering Succession, when it empowers them to deprive the right Heir of his Life too, as well as of his Dominion. But I would have such an extravagant Fellow tell me, What sort of Government he stands up for? and what Notion the silly Wretch has of Justice and Equity? Does not this giddy Libertine at the same time draw up a Scheam for Tyranny and Oppression, when he would be thought to stand up for▪ the Liberties and Freedom of the Subject, and like a crack'd-brained Politician, run counter to his own Maxims? This Gentleman first preaches up his absolute Dominion in King, Lords, and Commons, and then what Security have we, that his gifted Brethren won't come and found it again in Grace, and so place it only in their sanctified Brothers of the Lower House? And then no wonder if Clubs turns up Trump again, when they are let alone to shuffle the Cards. We'll grant this politic Ass his Parliament so far omnipotent, as able to make any Statute, but then they must be consonant to the Laws of Nature and Reason: Our Saviour among all his Precepts never contradicted those, and sure his Commission was a little larger than that of the Parliament's they adore. Must their Laws determine what is just and equitable? or rather ought not Justice and Equity be the Standard of their Laws? There is a great deal of difference sure between Legality and Justice, the Power of making Laws, and the Reason of them: But it is always observable, that every politic Body, when it endeavours to swell itself into an arbitrary Sway, will be sure to confound them. Thus those Villains, conceited of their own treasonable Principles, justified the Murder of our late Sovereign, only because they passed an Act for his Trial, and made their own Orders a punishing of him according to Law. Thus Strafford might be said to be legally executed, because they then made accumulated Treason, death by a Law; and now another would illegally die for the same Crimes, because they passed another to make his Case no Precedent. But would a Turk or Mahometan take this for Justice? And with the same false Notions, our present Statesmen justify the Lawfulness of the Bill of Exclusion, only because when their Parliament has enacted it, it will be really Law. But would an Heathen take this for a piece of Equity? And these same Bigots, for a Parliamentary Power, upon these Principles, are forced to grant them a Right of punishing Offenders, by Statutes enacted after their Offence, and to make them suffer by those Laws they could never transgress, when even the Judge of all the Earth has made it no Transgression, where there is no Law.  
It is a pretty sort of State-Paradox, my Lord, to say a Parliament can do no wrong: The only Argument they use for such a strange Position is, that there is somewhat of improbability, so great and wise a Body should enact any thing contrary to Reason or Equity. But, my Lord, since we know these great Bodies to be but humane, why may they not sometimes verify the Latin Aphorism, and err too? Or why should not a numerous Assembly be as fallible as his single Holiness? Since we have known several poor Subjects ruined with an Act of Parliament, why should we always think it to do right? and since we have seen such a mighty Senate transported, like one man, with Fears, jealousies, Animosities, and Discontent, and that to the very ruin of three Kingdoms, why should we think the Nation secured, of being saved by their deliberate Councils, and sober Debates? And these Reasons I offer, with a greater veneration for that Body, than those fawning Sycophants, that would be thought to revere it more, and who with a sort of blind Obedience, think them infallible too, and stretched the Power of their Governors, even to the unhinging of the Government itself.  
In the next place, my Lord, you fancy the Militia, as you call them, of Abhorrers, and Addressors, will put a trick upon you, one of these days, and tell you, that by Religion, established by Law, they meant Popery, as established by Magna Charta; a pretty conceit indeed: But why may not we fancy too, when you set up so plausibly for the Government, that you mean nothing else, but that of Oliver Cromwell, and that your bawl which are always the loudest, about Religion, is only for the Catechisms of your old Assemblies, and the re-establishing of a Directory? I can assure your Lordship, your Friends, the Protestant Dissenters, have put this trick upon us once already, and so we have more reason to fear such another Cheat, than you that were never served so, and are too cunning to be circumvented. But why does this Malitia of Abhorrers shiver you now into such a panic fear, when but in the preceding Page, you swagger at them as a parcel of inconsiderate Fellows, twelve or a Baker's dozen in a County; I am afraid, you fancy too, with your Friend, in his Tory Plot, that these Addressors only make his Majesty fearful of Parliaments, and so you will be never like to have one; whereas, any rational body, would rather think the quite contrary. And that these Assurances of their Fidelity, and Resolutions to protect him against all his Enemies, upon any colour or pretence whatsoever, should make the King venture the calling of a Parliament, though your City had the choosing of every Member, and they were sure to prove another such a pack of Traitors as those in Forty one. But did ever a forging Villain cast a more unreasonable aspersion, on so many loyal Hearts, that love their Country as well as their King, that they but endeavour to make him fearful of Parliaments, when your own Party still talks, how fearfully they were dissolved at Oxford, which was long before any Declaration was penned, or Addresses thought of? and if your Protestant Friends show themselves Turbulent, Factious, and Dangerous, pray tell us who they are, that make the Nation timorous and fearful? and therefore, my Lord, you might have forborn to have termed them in such terrible Jargon, a Militia, we having nothing that can be called so, but the trained-bands, and his Majesty's standing Forces, unless you have procured an Army, to obey that major part of disbanded Members.  
The growth of the French King ought lest of all to be imputed to us, since your own Faction is always the Promoter of foreign Invasions, as well as of domestic Broils; and nothing makes a Neighbouring Prince look higher, than the Civil Dissensions amongst his Neighbours, which will be sure to keep them low; the Wars here at home, on our Continent, made William of Normandy, take that opportunity of invading it, who had bought his Conquest at a dearer Rate, if Harold had not sold a great deal of English Blood before; the Footing we once had in France, might have been still retained, had not the jealousies of a Faction at home, given occasion for their revolting abroad; while Malcontents here, were always quarrelling at the Government of the Regent there; and our Kings necessitated to leave Forces, to keep their Subjects orderly in England, when they might have subdued their Enemies in France. And to what sort of People, now do the French owe their growth? But, your Lordship, has less reason again to take up such a defensive Weapon, in the Vindication of your noble Peer, when it wounds the Party that wheels it in the Rebound, more than ever it does the Adversary in the direct Stroak. All the Kingdom knows, who they were, that persuaded the breaking of the Triple League, and then the whole World may judge, who nursed up the King of France to this height; had that Old one been yet inviolated, there would have been no need of this New one of Gueranty. The French Conquests had never made up so large a Map, or the Spaniards retained so little Footing in the Netherlands; so that upon Computation, my Lord, to all that poor Bankrupt Country your own Friends will be the Creditors, and all Christendom in your debt, for a vast expense of Blood as well as Moneys; and well may your Lordship's Party be contented to see a most Christian King lord it over all Europe, when they envied even his Majesty's success against the Moors in Africa; and those that were so little moved at the Siege of Tangier, can never be much troubled at the Conquest of Flanders.  
In the next Page, you very fairly confess yourself a friend to Protestant Dissenters; the Confession is somewhat generous and superfluous too, because we should have understood that without it; but the Reasons you give for it, are most absurdly vain and ridiculous. First, you say, because there is not yet found an Infallible decider of Faith; the same Logic will afford you an Argument for the befriending Turks and Mahometans, who have a sort of Faith too, and believe better in their Alcoran, than men of your Principles can do in the Creed. Secondly, because they live soberly and honestly by you; but did they do so, when they plundered, sequestrated, and massacred their fellow-Subjects; when they deposed, fought, and murdered their Sovereign? I can assure your Lordship, they were as true Protestant Dissenters as any of your Friends, and do they live soberly and honestly now, when they violate the Laws most immoderately, abuse the Government grossly, and combine together treasonably?  
I will concur with your Lordship, in an Abhorrence (if you can bear with that expression) of Popery, grant that it is a Religion, inconsistent with Government, and full of rebellious Principles; But suppose, my Lord, that the Alcoran did authorize the deposing and murdering of Princes: For as their History tells us, there are Fanatical Sects among those Heathens too. Would your Lordship, for that, ever have the better opinion of the Pope's Bull, that first pulls off their Purple Robes, and then delivers them to be crucified? Or did the Turks Mufti preach up Rebellion, would you think Priests and Jesuits good Subjects? The blackness of one Negro, will never make another of the same colour appear white. And yet, my Lord, this is the very Case; the Popish Councils have allowed the deposing of Kings, and how can you defend our Assemblies, that have commenced the same sort of Casuists? Pope Hildebrand countenanced that Arch-Rebel Phocas, against his Sovereign, yet you are a Friend to Mr. Baxter, that maintained the Usurpation of Oliver Cromwell; their Suarez and Bellarmine's, no doubt, are damned by you, for treasonable Doctrines, and yet you can own yourself a favourer of Knox, and Buchanan; 'tis plain, my Lord, that both these Religions are rebellious, and these treasonable Positions have been on both sides defended, and some of the very Reformers of our Religion, have been so little Friends to Monarchy, and so much agreed with the Romanists they dissented from, as to tolerate, in some Cases, the dangerous Doctrine of deposing Kings; and there is still but a small interval, between a degraded Prince, and a Prisoner; and than it was the Assertion of our Royal Martyr, that died for it, and verified the fatal Aphorism in his blood, that there is but a little distance between their Prisons, and the Grave.  
Your Lordship reflects on the black Transactions of Court-Converts; but I can tell you of the blacker Crimes of those that have deserted it, and become your own Proselytes, such as have been drawn from their Love and Allegiance to their Sovereign, with the Sorceries, Cunning, and Carresses of your High and Mighties, that can keep open Entertainments for every staggering Judas, and make the Devil, and Sedition, enter the completed Apostate with a Sop; these are those, that are now a days betraying their Sovereign too, with a sort of Kiss, and with a pretence of discovering his Enemies about him, would dispossess him of his real Friends, and persuade the Nation, they know every evil Minister of State, from their having been a little concerned in the Affairs of it: But what does your Lordship think of the Faith and Integrity of these Runagadoes, that were formerly nothing but Objects of your Hatred and Indignation, Enemies to King and Country? And what security have you, they will serve you more faithfully than they did their Prince,; those pampered jesuruns, that fattened with his Bounty, kick at him, only for withdrawing his hand, and like a politic sort of Table-Brutes, fawn no longer than they are fed.  
But, can any soul living, take the suggestions, and insinuations of these discontented Wretches for Gospel-truths', and their discoveries of the slips and failings in the Government, (which none ever was without) for Revelation, when these lying Oracles of the Rabble, are possessed with a Devil of malice and revenge, two things that quickly transport any disaffected Creature, beyond the bounds of Truth, Reason, and Humanity itself? Will any indifferent person, concur with those, who thinks the King's business ill done, only because they can no longer solicit it? Can an unbias'd man, believe the justice of his Courts corrupted, and his Judges Arbitrary, because it is the opinion of some perhaps, that have a mind to sit on the Bench? Are those fair and competent Asserters of an Arbitrary Power, and good Witnesses of their Prince's Tyranny, only because they are banished the Court, and could see nothing of it, when they sat in the Council? Lastly, can he truly fear Popery, that is of no Religion at all, and be an impartial Judge of the Temper of the Duke of York, that is his avowed and mortal Enemy; neither the Civil Law, or Common, will admit of any prejudiced Evidence? And for God's sake, let the King and Government, when they are arraigned, have as fair play for it, as one of your Joiner's, or Cobblers, a College, or an Hewson, would expect.  
Next, my Lord, you would prove the Queens Association to have been carried on, without her knowledge, from a certain Speech of hers, to her Parliament; but whether the Quotation be false, or true, we won't dispute at present; but this seems to me, a plain sort of owning the Paper, of which your Friends are accused, only you would say somewhat for yourselves, in not acquainting his Majesty with it a little sooner▪ by telling the Kingdom, his Predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, knew nothing of such a Combination, any more than himself, and that she looked upon it, as an obligation from her Subjects, to find so many hands unknowingly subscribed; but granting, they agree in this circumstance, that such a Loyal Design, as well as a Treasonable one, may possibly have been carried on in the dark. Can you imagine, my Lord, She would have taken it for an Obligation too, had they tendered her a Paper, that would have sworn her out of her Supremacy, and lodged it in the major part of her House of Commons? and with what face, could ever any Subject, offer a scheam of Rebellion to his Sovereign, and desire of him, the liberty to commence a Rebel, and a Traitor, only for his defence and preservation?  
The Story of the Queen of Scots, which you would make so plain a Parallel, is in my judgement, as little to the purpose. First, Did the Queen of England show herself as vigorous in opposing the disinheriting of her next Heir as our King has been both kind and just, in asserting the Rights of his Brother and Successor? Secondly, Do you think, if she had really declared herself against the proceedings of her Parliament in that Affair, her Subjects would have entered into an Association to have done it by themselves? No, no, your Lordship is too good an Historion, not to know that things were then carried on with her Majesty's Connivance, and tacit Approbation, and that she acted her part of the Tragedy, like one of Matchiavel's Monarches behind the Curtain; and for which, even Writers, very favourable to your own Party, and no Causines, have justly condemned her.  
And it seems, all your own factious Crew don't agree with your Lordship, in thinking the Proceedings against that unfortunate Queen so fair and honourable; for very lately, a certain Protestant Buffoon, has proved it plain Murder, in his second part of a thing called a Speculum, or the View and Reflection of a Chimaera, half Droll, half Author, and half Ass; and from that very Case, this hotchpotch Animal, proves King-killing to be the Doctrine of the Church of England; but I hope, you will agree with me, (because he differs from you in this point) that this his Argumentation, is like the rest of his Stuff, very ridiculous; but as for his abusing the Churchmen, there you may shake hands again, for he paints them out very pleasantly, like Fools, Antics, and Jack-Puddings, and you draw them out terribly, all in blood, Governors of the Popish Interest, revengeful, implacable, and such as never forgive; so that between you, the Clergy may be pretty well secured of an Odium, when you can expose them even in the two several extremes. But would a Jew take such to be Christians, that vilify the Church, of which they would seem to be, and ridicule the very Religion, they are thought to profess.  
And here I can't but observe, a Barbarous, as well as a Malicious hint of your Lordships; who, when you have represented, how violent the Parliament was against the Succession of the Queen of Scots, with a cruel and emphatical Malice, cry out— Nay, and against her Life too. We know, my Lord, the Parliament helped the Grandmother to the Block, and you saw another made the Father stoop to it. But would you have your Associated Baalites sacrifice the Blood of the Son too? This is stretching up a private Revenge, to vie even with the Vengeance of the Almighty, and an angry God only visits to the third and fourth Generation. Your Lordship in this Insinuation shows a great deal of Inhumanity, not to be paralleled but by that of your Friends, the Dissenters, in their Association, or the Cannibals of the West-Indies, which, as some say, infest our Plantations there, and refresh themselves in nothing more than in the Blood of an Enemy. These are the bloody Measures which your Passion transports you to, and not your Judgement directs: People look through these transparent Politics like Water, and see nothing but Malice and Revenge at the bottom.  
Your last politic Observation is, That his present Majesty is the first Prince that ever was persuaded to be so willing, to settle indubitably the Title of his presumptive Heir. But why persuaded? Has he not natural Affection enough to be willing himself? And would he not much rather be thought the first (should he humour your Faction) that ever unnaturally disinherited a kind Brother, and his Heir apparent? And, I believe, nothing grieves you more, than that his Majesty's Consent must be required; and could a Parliament be gotten once to act again without him, no doubt but the Bill of Exclusion would be the first Act of the Session. But the Law of Nations ever since the Time of Justinian, the Laws of the Kingdom down from the Conqueror, have happily placed the Sanction of every Law in the Will of the Prince, and you and your Friends must be contented, my Lord, till you can persuade the King to give you his Le Roy Vult, and the Crown and Sceptre to the Bargain.  
And seeing you are pleased to call the D. of Y. but a presumptive Heir, and seem to lay such a stress and Emphasis upon the new-coined word, we will discuss this Business a little further. My Lord, (if I mistake not) your Friend you pretend to vindicate, was the first that applied this pretty Distinction to the next Heir of the Crown: It looks like a piece of State-Sophistry, and your noble Friend, some say, was famed for a fine distinguishing Logical Head, when a young Academic; and a body would almost swear, this Vindicator, the Vindicated, and the noble Peer, differ only like the little Man with three great Names, who still makes but the same person: And it was a merry Conceit of a pleasant Gentleman, who never had a good opinion of these sort of individual Triumvirs. But though there may not be much weight in such a acquaint Fancy, I am sure there are some that disturb the Government with the quaintness of their Politics, as if they had so many Heads too as well as Names, and verified the feigned Monster of the Poets in themselves, in resembling a sort of factious Hydra, and which kind of Creature, (if you believe St. John's Revelations in the Ille of Patmos) this Whore of Babylon, (with which terrible Tropology your canting Priests are always alarming the People) is seen to ride on. And I hope you may allow this as good an Interpretation of the Vision, or at least it may pass for a Moral drawn from it; That whenever Popery is brought into England, it will be on the Back of some of the greatest Politicians, among your Friends (as you call them) the Dissenters, and by the sole Projects of some of their dangerous Headpieces: And if Commentators can expound the Cruelties of the Church of Rome, Emblematically represented in this purpled Harlot, I don't see but it may be as warrantable an Exposition to make the bloody Principles of your rebellious Assemblies, predicted in the Description of the scarlet Beast. Your fine Notion of his being a presumptive Heir, looks more like a Distinction in Metaphysics, than a Term in Law: In this yourselves seem rather spinning your Politics into Cobwebs, as if you only designed to catch Flies; for a bare presumptive Heir is really none at all, and that you can quickly prove, I warrant you, when it serves for your Turns; much less can one be called so, that appears to be the immediate Successor, and has none living to intercept the Title. Your Lordship need not mince the Matter so tenderly, and only distinguish him out of his Title: You have a Law-Maxim, I warrant you, at your Finger's end, that will prove him no Heir at all, with a Non datur Haeres viventis. But this received Aphorism among the Learned, in the Faculty (though it happen to be true Latin) yet is a fallacious and Ignoramus sort of Sophistry, when every body knows the common Acception of the word Heir, and that it is oftener applied to him that expects to be so, in futuro, than to one that is actually, and de facto, such. With this your distinction of Presumptive, you may make an Heir of him that is never so far off, if you can but have a strong Presumption he will survive all those that are before him; or even of one that has no Right at all, if you presume he shall destroy all those that have, or get them to relinquish their Titles, and so make himself a Proprietor, as the Civilians phrase it, Pro derelicto. Upon these Considerations, you may call the fair Idol you now set up and worship, a presumptive Heir too: And if you call him only Presumptive, who may be dispossessed by the Birth of another, neither in that Notion will it hold good too. We have many Places here in England, my Lord, where Custom has made it statutable for the youngest Brother to inherit; but I can see no Reason, why this youngest one may not pass for an Heir apparent for the while, till there is a younger again appears to dispossess him. Though in most of these Cases, there may be more ground for a Presumption of their being debarred the Succession, by a latter Birth, viz. from the Fertility of the Parent, than your Lordship himself will admit in the Case of the D. of Y. who but in the same Paragraph talk of the King's being married to a Lady of great Birth, whom, with the help of the Spanish Ambassador, you could have proved long agone, was never able to have Children. And than who is not the D. of Y. an apparent Heir to the Crown, as much as ever your Friend was to his Estate of 9000 l. per annum? Or who may be presumed to pretend to it now, beside his Highness?  
But I can tell you other Mediums you seem to take, to prove his Royal Highness, but to presume himself a Successor.  
First, Because 'tis possible that according to the words of your Association, he may be subdued, expelled and destroyed, and so has no absolute certainty of succeeding to the Crown, because not so much as Security for his Life: But this is making him but a presumptive Heir, upon a presumption of your own Power to dispossess him, or the readiness of your Associators to subscribe for his Murder and Destruction. These are Methods the Turks and Jesuits use, to make Princes resign their Birthrights with their Breath, and keep them from being any ways apparent, by sending them to the Grave.  
Secondly, Because you have cajoled another young Prince (unfortunate in your very Favours) to set up for a Pretender, notwithstanding the sad Precedents you have of the miscarriage of no less than two such Projects in the time of Henry the Seventh: And this deluded and abused young Gentleman, I am afraid, will only stand obliged to you, for having made him the greatest Cully, but the poorest Prince. I confess, I have read, my Lord, that in the Parliament, 20 of Henry the Third, it was moved in the House, that such natural Sons as were born before Wedlock, might have the same Right of Succession, as those that were truly legitimate and begot after: But the Motion was soon unanimously rejected, all declaring, they would never change their old Laws of England; and your Lordship and his Adherents will hardly find there was ever such an Act passed since. I grant, if you consult the Constitutions of the Imperial Law, and the Codes of Justinian, instead of the Statutes of the Realm, you will find an illegitimate Birth allowed to put in for an Heir too: But I may defy all those busy, factious Archivesearchers, and Record-mongers, you now employ, to discover it in any Roll or Act of Parliament. And 'tis strange you should set up now, my Lord, for such an Alteration in a Prince's Right to the Crown, against the Sense and Opinion of the very Parliaments you adore, and who opposed it, even in the Succession of every private Subject to his Estate. By these Methods you may prove a Prince of Wales, never an apparent Heir, because it is in the Power of an associated Crew of Malcontents, to set up another Pretender.  
Lastly, You may think the D. of Y. but a presumptive Heir, because you think a Parliament may dash his Expectation with a Bill of Exclusion. But pray, my Lord, would the Judgement of that High Court, and Sanhedrim, ever make him really appear to have the less Right, In foro Conscientiae? The very sacred Writ tell us, that all things are not just and equal that are expedient: And there is no necessity we should cease to be Christians, to set up for Statesmen, or burn our Bibles, though it were to prevent our own Suffering in the Flame; and one of the greatest Reasons your Sticklers urge for such a dangerous Alteration in the Government, is but Matter of Expediency. These factious Innovators, I confess, fling about a common Objection too, That it is a little strange, a Parliament, their public Representative, should not be allowed, what we grant every private Subject, viz. To Disinherit. But, I hope, there is some difference between an Heir to three Kingdoms, and one perhaps only to so many Acres; Lands and Leases may be disposed of by the Proprietor, when Crowns and Sceptres are out of the disposal of the Prince. The Laws of Nations will allow men a Dominion over their Issues and Estates, when they won't Kings a Power of disinheriting their own Successors, much less an hereditary Monarch to pass for a Parliament's Heir, instead of the Crown's. Our Chronicles tell us of one of our young Princes, that laid hold on the Crown as soon as ever the old King was but supposed dead, and told the dying Monarch, when he revived for a little while, that he thought him expired, and then knew the Crown to be presently his. And why would not the D. of Y. (who notwithstanding all your Lordship's malicious Suggestions, never showed such a forwardness to mount the Throne) have the same Diadem immediately transferred, should his Majesty, which (I hope will be long first) yield to the same Fate, the Laws admitting no more of an Interregnum, than an Exclusion? But if your Lordship (whose Politics are best understood from the Measures you take) can bring this Monarchy to an Elective one, then, I grant, the Successor must be forced to court your honourable Assemblies for their Suffrages: But then I date promise, he will wave his Pretention to the Crown, and have more reason to despair of Justice, than those that lately let fall their Suits and Actions: Then he shall relinquish his Right to the Government of Old England, and leave your Lordship sole Candidate, to be King of a New Poland.  
There are many Creatures sometimes maliciously good, and that makes your Lordship bestow a few faint Eulogies on his Majesty, only that his Brother may appear the more odious; and with a great deal of spite you could picture him a Saint, could you make the other the more truly to represent the Devil; the Greatness of our Sovereign's Spirit is as well known as the Meekness of his Temper, and his Abilities and Courage, need no such spiteful Pen as yours, to write the Panegyric. But why then must his Highness, that has the same Blood in his Veins, be thought an effeminate Person, and a Coward? but the best of it is, no one will think him so the sooner, for an envious Suggestion of his inveterate Enemy; and no indifferent person can be so mad, as to take the Character of the Duke of York, from a Friend of the E. of S. And can those with Modesty accuse him for want of Valour, that has hazarded his Life for the Service of his King and Country, against the Forces of the Dutch, and the Rage of Wind and Water, who have never shown any of their own, unless it were in Arms against their Sovereign, and fight under the Banner of a Commonwealth? And as for his Temper, it is both generous and mild enough, and not hated by such Multitudes, as your Lordship would insinuate, and by none, I fancy, but those that fear it, and have merited the severest of its Animadversions; and it was the Fox's Trick in the Fable, my Lord, when it had offended the Guardian Mastiff of the Flock, to accuse him for the worrying of the Sheep.  
And as Religious as you seem to be in the Close, you shall find us altogether as Devout, praying with more Zeal, and less Hypocrisy, that the God of Heaven, who is the searcher of all Hearts, would still detect the deep Designs of yours, bless the King, in defeating the Counsels of all Achitophel's, and the Curses of every Shimei.  
FINIS.