THE CONTENTS.  
A Premonition against Causeless Fears; by showing the Great things, the King and the Government has done for England; and the Ungrateful Returns His Majesty has encountered from a Mixture of Various Interests, Assembled at several Cabals; composed of  
Old Jacobites, Republicans, False Friends, New Converts, Place-Mongers, Envious and Ambitious Murmurers, Seditious Clubbers and Writers; Who are continually  
Undermining Royal Authority, Reviling the public Ministry, and Raising causeless Jealousies and Suspicions, to amuse the People, and Advance themselves into the Supremacy, by False Notions in Government.  
Which are examined and Refuted: Their Suspicions prov 〈…〉 Groundless: Their designs plainly discovered, in contributing toward the Disbanding the whole Army, Sending away the Dutch Guards, Secluding Members of Parliament, &c. And the Ways and Means by which they Promote Discontents, are Detected, &c.   

CURSORY REMARKS Upon some LATE Disloyal Proceedings, IN SEVERAL CABALS: Composed of an Intermixture of INTERESTS.  



Engl.  
Scotl.  
France  
Irel.     
LONDON, Printed in the Year, 1699.   

PREFACE TO THE READERS.  
'TIS Notoriously known, to the Grief of Good Subjects, and the shane of Bad Ones, that the King's Majesty, at several Cabals, has been Treated with less Honour and Respect, than is due to His Illustrious Merits, and Glorious achievements: Or, that becomes a People, whose Vast Obligations to Him, should have better Instructed them in their Duty.  
But since Scandals will arise; to prevent the Woes: that attend the inventors and Promoters of them, I have essayed to put a Stop to their Currency, by endeavouring to Reclaim the Traducers, and Disabuse the People, who are imposed upon by False Suggestions, and attempted to be Frighted out of their Allegiance, with feigned Fears and Dangers.  
This being a kind Office to all, none can be displeased at the Undertaking. For tho' I show how the Nation is Abused, by Misrepresentations of Men and Things, I name not the Persons, and if any are so fond of discovering themselves, by being concerned at General Reflections, and say, There the Author means us, I cannot help it, They are in the Right, and I can only say, What made them there, they know themselves, and I my own meaning; which I take to be so plainly expressed, that no English Man can doubt of it, or think I have usurped a Province I had no Commission for.  
If Men will do things they are unwilling to hear of, and raise Spectrums they are afraid to See, the Fault's their own. They that makes the Clamour must not blame the echo. Nor they that Raise Evil Spirits, be Angry at him that lays ' em.  
Some Men have taken the Freedom publicly to Affront, scandalise and abuse Authority, and if Others may not have the Privilege of Vindicating injured Innocency and Integrity, and of throwing the Calumnies upon the Heads of the Agressors, the Case is very hard, and admits of greater Aggravations, by reason their Cause is juster; for if such a Course must carry it, the Liberty we have so long and earnestly contended for, is all Chimaera, whilst every Man hath not an equal share in it. And therefore since it can't be supposed, that any Law of Honour, Conscience, or of the Nation can be violated, by an honest Design of continuing a Right Understanding, and a mutual Agreement, between the Royal Head and Loyal Members, by removing the Cause of dissension, I shall not be in pain about the Contents of the ensuing Pages.   

CURSORY REMARKS, Upon some Late Disloyal Proceedings, &c.  
THE Affairs of this Sublunary World, carry a Resemblance with those of the Air; for as in those Celestial Regions, there is sometimes a Sweet and Harmonious Concord, and Serenity through the whole Hemisphere, and at other times the Face of Heaven is overcast with Frowns, Fogs, and Exhalations, which hover a while in the Air, and at length break into dreadful Fulgurations, and raise a kind of War in the Elementary World: So it is in this Inferior Orb, which is peopled with Men compounded of the Elements: Sometimes we have gentle Calms of of Peace and tranquillity, and other times nothing but Wars, Seditions, Heats and Animosities, which like the Plague Infect our Conversations, disturb the Body politic, and put all things out of Order.  
And as the Commotions in the Sky are engendered of Fogs and Mists, drawn out of Fenny and Diseased Commons, and are usually foreshown by rolling Clouds, and the Malevolent Conjunctions of erratic Stars; so the Troubles of the World in General, and of England in particular, take their Birth and Nourishment from Ill Humours that possess Ambitious Minds, and Indigent and malcontented Men, who Aspire without Desert, Rail without Reason, and would put the Kingdom into a flamme, to warm themselves by the Heat on't: Or by dispersing their causeless Fears and Jealousies through the Nation, design to Divide and Destroy it.  
We are fallen into those dregs of Time, wherein Atheism and Irreligion, Sedition and Debauchery, seem to divide the World between them; wherein True and unaffected Piety is out of Countenance; wherein all the Sacred ties to our Sovereign, are as Loose as our Manners; and in which that Generous Honesty, and Religious Loyalty, which was once the Glory and Character of our Nation, is vanished into Disobedience and Contempt of our Superiors: For among all the Vicious and Impertinent Humours of the Age, as none are more Common, so none are more Equally Lamentable, Dangerous and ridiculous, than Aspersing things Venerable and Sacred, and speaking Evil of Illustrious Persons; and yet that is now Improved to such a Wicked Height, that he is accounted the Witiest Man, and Stanchest Member of his Party, that dares calumniate Loudest; or else has the Peculiar knack in wounding Authority, with Sly, obliqne and Ominous Suggestions; that can Stab, and look another way, as if they were wholly Innocent, and unconcerned in the Mischiefs, that are only of their own contriving.  
Now were these mean and scandalous Practices, to be found only among a few, from whose weak and crazy Heads better Morals could not be expected, like a slight scratch in the Body, it might be cured by neglecting and contemning it; but since the Disease is grown Epidemical, and has intruded into Topping Societies, 'tis time to put a stop to the gangrene, before the whole Body of the People are Infected, and grow sick of their Prosperity. Next our Duty towards God, it greatly concerns our Peace and Happiness, to Uphold our Loyalty to God's Anointed, and our Obedience to his Government; for our Peace and Safety being wrapped up in the Welfare of the King, and the Prosperity of his Laws, 'tis our Wisdom and Interest to be True to both, and bear a just Abhorrence of all Seditious Members in the Kingdom, who would weaken the Head, to fortify the Body, and would persuade us, that to Traduce and Expose his Majesty, is the way to make his Reign, and our Lives happy; and that the Diminution of his Regal Power and Prerogatives, is the way to support his Grandeur, and make Three Kingdoms Happy.  
These are the abominable fallacies, which some Seditious Members of our Body politic, are putting upon the Fickle and Injudicious Populace, with design to abase the Monarch's Legal Power, and Lodge it in themselves; and therefore 'tis every honest Man's concern to oppose these wicked Antimonarchial Principles and Practices, and to convince Men by the Truth and Reason of the thing, that the way to be happy our selves, is first to make the King so; and that to obey him Humbly, to Honour him Conscientiously, and to Love him Affectionately and hearty, is both our Duty and Advantage; whereas to cast off that Reverence that he has a Just Right to, to Misconstrue his Actions, to Traduce his Counsels, to suspect his Integrity, and if it were possible to render him Cheap and Insignificant, which is the Course that is now taking by our Pseudo Patriots, is to tear our Peace, our Government, and All to pieces, without the help of a foreign Enemy.  
Sure England is the Unhappiest iceland in the World, that can ne're be Prosperous and Peaceable, Fortunate and Loyal, Safe and Contented at the same time. For no sooner are we on the Borders of a happy Settlement, but Ill Accidents or Malicious Inventions, intervene to across and Disturb it. No sooner are we in possession of a long desired Peace, but some Seditious Chymaera's, nicknamed the public Good, or some cunningly staged Fears and Jealousies, Suspicions and feigned Dangers,( which if duly examined, are nothing but the results of a Spirit of Contradiction, and disobedience to Monarchial Authority) throws us into such violent Concussions and preternatural Heart-burnings, that the Nation, like a Distracted Body, is laying Hands upon itself, and contributing more to its ruin, by its own Heats and Divisions, than the Swords of our Enemies could effect.  
Detestable Jealousy and Suspicion! How Dismal are thy Products? How Destructive to Christian Charity? How Pernicious to human Societies? That no Bond is so strong, no tie so sacred, no Deliverance so obliging, but this deluding Inchantress is able to dissolve them.  
What shall we say? Sure some strange Fatality, some unusual, unheard of Giddiness, has seized and Infatuated some Members of the Kingdom, that they should take Pleasure in Affronting their King and Deliverer, and out of an Innate Aversion to Monarchy, refuse to do themselves and their Country Right, for no other Reason, but because they thought the King desired it. Is not this to Retort his signal Favours with Indignities, to requited his Love with Jealousies, and to sting him with our Tongues, while he is warming us in his Bosom?  
Did he not deliver us from tyranny and Oppression? Has he not Fought our Battles, and procured us Peace and Plenty? These Favours one would think, had been enough to oblige a People of any Ingenuity, and for ever Indear'd a Prince to us, who snatched us from the brink of ruin, and with the Hazard of his own Life, preserved Ours, and the Kingdom.  
Sure tho' we are unable to requited him, we ought not to Injure him in his Honour, by base Surmises, and Unwarrantable Suspicions, and instead of Treating him with the highest Epithets of Royalty, scarce afford him the Civil usage of a Gentleman; certainly this is Ingratitude in the Abstract, and wants a Name bad enough to signify its baseness; and that it may yet appear more Black, and Fright the Seditious from Repeating their Crimes, by showing them a Monster of their own begetting; let us look a little backward, and trace it to its Original.  
Our late Inability to Extricate ourselves, and our Laws, from a threatened Slavery, and Vassalage to a Homebred and foreign Tyranny; and to defend our Liberties and Properties, from the Insults and Depredations of our own Countrymen and Strangers, made it absolutely necessary for us, to Resign our Power into the Hands of the Prince of Orange, now our gracious King; who wrought such a Deliverance for the Nation, as ought never to be forgotten, and can never be sufficiently Requited; if we consider both the Matter which was Great, and the manner which was kind, and both Extraordinary, and which will be mentioned with Honour by Men of sense, so long as the Protestant Name shall be remembered.  
His Majesty came not as the ancient Romans and Saxons, to Conquer and led in Triumph after him, our Religion and Laws, our Lives and Liberties; but to Defend, Preserve, and Secure us in them all.  
For this end alone he undertook that Dangerous and Chargeable Expedition, which has proved as much to our Advantage, as it will be to His Majesty's lasting Reputation.  
What he has done, Argues that he was moved by a Higher Principle than any this World can afford; in overlooking his own ease and Securiry, when the public Good, and the Concerns of Christianity, called for his Seasonable Assistance. And  
Here I could easily make a Panegyric upon his virtues, and equal him to the most famous grecian and Roman Generals; but I need not set forth his Praises, which do so loudly speak for themselves. Nor draw any tedious Parallels betwixt His Majesty, and the Celebrated Hero's of former Ages, since I am herein prevented, by all who have red the 〈…〉 and are Ocular Witnesses of what his Princely Goodness, with so much Courage, Mildness, and Prudence, hath done in this; for things succeeded so well under his Conduct, that we all submitted ourselves to his Wise Direction, and put ourselves under his Gracious Protection, as the Tutelar Genius of the Nation: And the Effects of his enterprise were so strange, so Wonderful, and surprising, that had we not seen, we should scarce have believed them, which makes the wonder greater, that we should so easily forget them.  
As soon as His Majesty Landed, with what Joy, and universal good wishes was the News received? How forward were all sorts of People to Declare for his Highness; How willing were they to lend him a helping hand, for accomplishing his great Work? How did we all generally concur, and unanimously agree, to forget our obligation to the late King, and assist his present Majesty, rather than James the Second, against ourselves and his own Interest?  
Nay, the Army itself, that now some Scurrilous and Trifling Pens have loaded with Opprobrious Names, and stigmatized with base and Ungenerous Reflections; for doing the best piece of Service that e're was done for England; went over to him, choosing rather to lie under the imputation of cowardice, and Disloyalty( which yet True English Men had rather die than really deserve) than to be Instrumental in Enslaving their Native Country, and bringing it again under the Yoke  
In short, all Orders of Men, ecclesiastic, Civil, and Military, had their Eyes fixed upon his present Majesty, as their great Deliverer, were resolved to espouse his Cause, and accordingly when the late King had withdrawn himself. First, put the Regal Administration into his Hands, and soon after by a Universal Consent, set the Imperial Diadem upon his Head. Where may it flourish for many many Years.  
Now, who that ever heard the doleful Sighs, and Lamentations of English Protestants, when their Religion was in danger of being lost, and Popery, Idolatry, and Superstition, was setting up as the National mode of Worship could ever imagine, that the English could so soon, and so ungratefully, forget the benefit of restoring their Religion, or make any Undecent returns to King William, that accomplished it.  
Who that ever knew, how in the late Reign our Laws were suspended, our Properties Seized, our Rights and Liberties Invaded, and Protestants insulted by furious Papists, could ever think to see the day, that any English Protestant should requited Good with Evil, and industriously slander the Footsteps of the Lords Anointed, that healed all our Breaches, and restored us to Liberty.  
Who that has ever heard, or red, the humble Remonstrance, and Request, of a Considerable part of the English Clergy, Nobility, Gentry, and Commons, to King William,( when in Holland) to come over and help them: The promises they made of standing by him with their Lives and Fortunes, and how cheerfully that great Prince undertook, and almost miraculously accomplished our Deliverance, could believe that the same Prince, should from the same people receive a less Dutiful and Glorious Return, than the Noble enterprise deserved.  
Who, that has ever heard, how unanimously, and freely, the Representatives of the Nation in the Convention at Westminster, offered his Highness and his Princess the Crown? How they rejoiced at their Acceptance of it, and with what extraordinary Solemnity and Satisfaction they were proclaimed and crowned King and Queen of England, could ever think of seeing any thing that should look like a Diminution of his Royal Authority, or Suspect his Kindness and good Intentions to a Nation, that he had Obliged beyond Expression?  
Who could think, that after Acts of Settlement, Recognition of the King's Right, Association for his Safety, and settling a Fund for the War, and a Maintenance of his Royalty, that a sullen, froward and seditious Sort of People should rise up among us, of all Qualities, but of no Religion, or moral Prudence, to beget a misunderstanding betwixt this glorious King, and these Loyal People, whose mutual Concord and Agreement is the safety of the Kingdom, and the Terror of its Enemies.  
However; a few such there were, even in that very Parliament, that had given such ample Demonstrations of their Love and Loyalty. For the Nation having then a War upon its hands,( for the maintenance of our new Settlement) with a Potent Monarch that protected the Person, and espoused the Quarrel of the late Abdicated King; and that great Supplies were absolutely necessary, to enable his Majesty to sustain the Force of a Kingdom, which by their own Wise Administration, and the Supineness of England in the late Inglorious Reigns, was now grown so Potent, that it required a longer Sword to Resist, than heretofore to Conquer it, and in which his Majesty( without flattery) has acquired more Honour, by checking and controlling the Power of France, than any of his great Predecessors did by subduing it; the Parliaments were obliged to lay great Taxes upon the People, and the Nation being not insensible of the Burden, the malcontented Jacobites who were always more cunning in embroiling our Affairs, than in advancing their own, took the advantage of it, and in all Companies declared, that the Government must of necessity sink under its own Weight, and that our Heavy Taxes by reducing us to extreme Poverty, would inevitably prove our Destruction: And never ceased declaiming on this popular Subject, and galling the People in their Tender part; in hopes to make 'em weary of a Government, which was represented so burdensome, and to persuade them rather to let in the Deluge, than be at the expense of maintaining the Banks.  
Besides this Party that were for King James, there were others, that were for no King at all, a sort of Republicans of the old Stamp, that are for subverting Monarchy itself, to set up an Idol they know not what in the Room on't; and care not what becomes of King, and Parliament, and Kingdom too, so they can gratify their own Pride and Peevishness, and advance the Dagon of a Common-Wealth; which is so inconsistent with the humour, Nature, Interest and Constitution of the English People and Government, that they might as well attempt to stem the Tide, or reconcile disagreeing Elements, as think either to court or force them to submit to such a Form; yet however unlikely it was to expect the Peoples compliance, they use their utmost endeavour to promote it, and to this end Mr. Harrington's Common-Wealth of Oceana, and all Mr. Milton's Antimonarchical Treatises, and that too, which justifies the Murder of Charles the First, and many Discourses of other Authors, as Ludlow's Letters, and Mr. Sidney's Discourse of Government, all on the same Subject, and tending to promote the Design of Lessening and Reproaching Monarchy, are Reprinted, which, in their Ends and Designs, as well as their Authors, are no less Enemies to the Government, their King and Country, than the former, and assist in carrying on Discontents and Divisions among us, being such an odd sort of Men, and so averse to all Kings, that if God should sand them one from Heaven, they'd never like him two days together; Nay, if they were in Heaven themselves, 'tis to be feared they'd be turned out again, for Attempting against the Monarchical Power of God Almighty. These, I say, are some of the Troublers of our Israel, and are no less busy in Traducing the King, than the Rankest Jacobites in England, and greedily swallow down any Defamation upon the Court, to disgorge it with a greater mixture of Malice and slander at their next Republican Association. And tho' they are both in extremes, and as opposite to the Jacobites in their Principles, as they are to Peace and Loyalty; yet they both agree in Opinion and practise against King William, and his Government, and take the same Methods of Lying and slandering, and raising Fears and Jealousies to weaken and destroy it.  
The Jacobites said we should ne're have Peace till James the Second was restored; and the Republicans said we should ne're be able to cope with our Enemies, but must sink under them, if we did not put ourselves under the Regiment of a Common-Wealth, and Crown our Sov. L. the People. These contradictory Notions were both supported by their Pamphleteers without Doors, and their crafty and dissembling Ambodexters Within, who, by Asserting the War was like to be Eternal, and the Nation's Ruin irretrivable, were Tearing the Bowels of our Common Mother, and plunging us into new Confusins, by the united endeavours of those that were for a popish Arbitrary King, and those that were for no King at all.  
But the never to be forgotten goodness of God, and the great Wisdom, Invincible Courage, and inflexible Resolution of his Majesty, having to the great Mortification of the Enemies of the King and Kingdom. The entire Satisfaction of the true Friends of both, and the Admiration of all Men; concluded the War with France, and brought home an Honourable Peace, it confuted all their Ominous predictions, silenced their Clamours, shamed their Intrigues, and confounded all the pretended dangers, raised by our Enemies. And now one would think, we had nothing to do, but to return our due thanks to God and the King, make our Gratitude and Obedience, as Conspicuous as the benefit was Extraordinary; to pay our Debts, Reward our Friends, forgive our Enemies, and under our own Vines and Fig-Trees, solace ourselves in a happy Peace, and live in Unity and Amity, and in Peace and Concord among ourselves.  
These were the things most desirable, best becoming Professors of Christianity, suitable to our Obligations, and ought to have been the Endeavours of all in their several Stations. But alas, to show there is nothing completely happy on this side Heaven, How have we frustrated the Designs of God Almighty, whose Goodness and long Suffering should have lead us to Repentance, by continuing in our Impieties? How Ill and Ungratefully have we treated his Majesty, who as the Royal Instrument in the Hand of God, has procured us this, and many other inestimable Blessings? And how have we injured the whole Community, by dividing into Parties and Factions, and worrying one another by Intestine Seditions? For,  
No sooner was there a Dissolution of the former Parliament, and a fresh one convened, but New Murmurers, under the Names of Old Friends,( though in truth but a compound of the other Two) started up amongst us to trouble our Affairs; who, though great Asserters of the late Revolution, seem inclinable enough to a second, if their private Sentiments may be collected from their public Discourses: For from I know not what private Disgusts, and and personal Quarrels and Disapointments, they are grown sour and uneasy; and to express their Resentments; in all Conversation endeavour to bring our Administration into contempt: To clog the Wheels of the Government that it move slowly, or not at all; and, in short, are against all things which our known and open Enemies are against, and for all things which they are for and 〈◇〉 the consequences be as mischievous as they will, they think the more the better; and by these and other Clandestine Popular Arts, Recommend themselves to their Country as great Patriots, for no other reason but that they would Starve, or bind up the hands of the Government, that it should not be able to support and defend itself. The proceedings against these men, whither in their own Houses or at clubs, are of all others the most absurd and unaccountable, and the Opposition they make against the Government, seems to be the effect of some strange Infatuation. For tho' it should be allowed, as 'tis a standing Maxim among them that the Character of a Patriot, without distinction of Times or Persons, is to be always, and in all Cases whatsoever, against the Court; yet they cannot be unsensible, that the Face of Affairs is so altered by the late happy Revolution, that the Interest of their Country is the same with that of the Court. However, tho' this was a Government of their own Choosing, Approving and Settling, which methinks should weigh much with all considering Men, that would not be thought guilty of Levity, Novelty and Inconstancy; yet the Witchcarft of Parity, Envy and Ambition gives them such a satisfaction in Crossing the King, Thwarting the Court, and by those Arts rendering themselves Popular, that 'tis the Business of their Lives to make the King and his Ministers Uneasy, and, if 'twere to be done, Despicable in the eyes of the People. Now  
Were these Mischiefs done by the open and professed Enemies of the King and Government, the Crime would be more tolerable: or were they hatched by the little Animals that frequent Seditious Coffee-Houses, it would be more pardonable, because their Tongues are no slander; but to see and hear it done by our pretended Friends, Men of Quality and Figure, that are in Eminent Posts in the Kingdom, that have a Hand in public Affairs, is able to chill and stagger every Sense about one! and what can these scandalous Practices be ascribed to, but a deep died Dissimulation and Hypocrisy; when we see Men Court and Cringe at Kensington, and rail at Westminster; Hug and Embrace a Minister in the Painted Chamber, and cut his Throat in the chapel; give a Courtier the smoothest Words to his Face, and hang him behind his Back. What can one think, but that they were Tainted in their Original, and are so in Love with Anarchy, that they hate the King, and all that belong to him; and let them pretend what they please, from this Principle you can never Court nor Drive them, for the Moor was born black, and will continue so, in despite of all the soap i'th'Kingdom. The Snakes will be Hissing and threatening, and if you should cram them with all they can wish, or you can give, they will never lose their Natures; and of these there are two sorts, and both worth the Knowing, that you may avoid them.  
First, the loud and open Talkers; and secondly, the private seditious Whisperers. The first need no particular Description, for the Noise they make, and the Hazard they run of forfeiting their Understandings, to gratify their Ill Nature, and humour their Faction, is the best Denomination of them. These, though always Declaiming against the Government, do less harm than the other; for all their Invectives against the King and Court, being usually carried as far above Truth, as beyond the Bounds of Decency, they are not like to succeed in their Designs; unless when they assume a power of Talking away their King's Right, they could take away the Peoples Reason also; which can never be done by Men whose Understandings are warped with their Interests, and are not Historians of public Actions, but Lawyers of a Party: For grounding all they say upon Idle Tales, Reports, and Hearsays, they prove nothing but their want of Breeding, and better Arguments, and their Calumnies when driven home, will recoil upon their own Heads: For they that charge others with Crimes they cannot justify, Indite and Convict themselves of Falsity.  
The Private Whisperers are commonly Men of a superior Quality, such as are ashamed to own their Practices openly, and therefore like Gun-powder in a Vault, do incomparably the more Mischies for being stisted. For though they take Pleasure to be always finding Fault, ever Complaining and murmuring, and Censuring the wisest Councils, and the uprightest Conduct; yet they still antimonarchical behind the Curtain, and look as Demure and Harmless, as if they had no concealed Sting, nor no gall was mixed in their Creation, when they are the greatest Enemies to the King and Government in the World. For though they do not speak directly, and in terms against his Majesty; yet they vent such base Reflections, and unmannerly Insinuations against him, under double and Abiguous Meanings, as poison the Ears of their Admirers, and prepare their Tongues to use a greater Liberty 'Tis from such pernicious Presidents of scandalous babbling and Idle Whispering against Authority, that the lewdness of the Tongue becomes so epidemical in the Nation, and that the common People, first corrupted by Ill Principles, and then influenced by the Example of Factious Great Ones, are grown to such Excesses in their Pragmatical censuring the Actions of their Superiors, as is unsufferable to the Loyal and Sober part of Mankind; Dangerous to the State, and ple●●ing to none but Seditious Incendiaries, who play the Body against the Head, with design to destroy the whole.  
What a strange Liberty is taken in this licentious Age, when every private Person, that thinks he has half a dram of Brains about him, shall Arraign the Actions of their Superiors. What is this, but blasting the choicest Flowers of the Crown, and shrinking the Imperial Dignity of our English Monarch, into a dog of Venice? For he is but a Titular and no Real King, whose Sovereignty, and Prerogative Royal, is liable to the Popular Scannings and Infractions of every Proud and Peevish Subject. There is no Tyranny to be compared to the Tyranny of a Seditious Multitude, and the condition of our English Kings are very little mended by those, that free them from the Pope's Supremacy in ordine ad bonum spiritual, and subject them to the People, in ordine ad bonum publicum: For if General Assemblies for making Laws have but the power of Advising the King, 'tis the highest Insolence in private Persons, to censure and misrepresent him. Are the Kings Prerogatives and Sovereignty the only Rights that may be Invaded, and scandalously tossed from Mouth to Mouth, as if the King that owns them were not Sacred, and exempted from such impertinent Discourses? Sure the World is turned Topsy Turvy, and Mens Understanding grow Downward, or they could never think the Multitude are invested with the highest price of Regality, viz. Judging of the public Good, and controlling all; whose Incapacity, Levity, and Ignorance, renders 'em unfit for any thing of this Nature. Therefore, if any such are found, that by Usurping upon the King's Sovereignty, would pled for such a privilege of the Subject, the Cockatrice ought to be crushed in the Fgg, their Tongues should be tied as well as their Hands; nay, the boiling of their Thoughts when they rise so high should be scumm'd, and suppressed, or all will run into the Fire of Contention.  
Though after all, I cannot be so Injurious to the generality of his Majesty's People, as to think they aim at any thing above the Sphere of Dutiful Subjects; for their Zeal and forwardness to venture their Lives in his Majesty's Service, is a manifest contradiction of such a Calumny, and a convincing Evidence of their constant Loyalty and Fidelity; and my only Design in exposing the Principle was to show, that Kinging the Multitude, is only a Trick to weaken the Monarchy, and is employed as a Blind,( by some that in the Course of Affairs, are come to have a share in great Actions) to amuse the Nation with this Popular, and Taking Theme, while they are laying a Foundation for their own Arbitrary Ends, and uncontrowlable Authority.  
Having therefore acquainted my Reader, that the Government had Three sorts of Enemies, Jacobites, Republicans, and discontented Murmurers, which under the mask of Friendship were great Underminers of the Government, 'tis now my business to show, that according to an old laid Scheme of the Jacobites to destroy the Government, to the Three factions already name, are added another set of Enemies, more dangerous than all the rest to effect it, which to distinguish from the former, I call The Mixture, New Converts, or Seditious Interpositors, whose designs having been the Work of great Thoughts, and long time. And now, as the last Game is beginning to be played among us.  
I know it will displease the Republicans, to be coupled with the Jaccbites; our malcontented Murmuring pretended Friends, to be joined with the other Two; and our New Converts to be linked with them all; however, in the cause of my King and Country, that are Harras'd and sawn by this unhappy Mixture of various Interests, combined against them, which like Beasts of different Species, and Sexes, shut up together, forget their Natural enmity, to satisfy their common Lusts, and care not what kind of Monsters are produced betwixt them, so their Brutal appeties are but gratified. I shall not value what they can say, or do, against me; for as 'tis a Symptom of an ill cause, when it can't bear Examining and that none are so much concerned at Reflections, as those that cause them, so an Honest design of endeavouring the Peace of the Nation, as it don't deferve, so it will not stand in fear of any Mens Displeasure; and therefore I shall proceed to show, that the Farce now Acting, is but an Interlude Revived. That the Actors under what disguise or Dress soever they appear, are but tools in the hands of the Jacobites, and while they Satyrize the Monarchy and public Management, are but compounding with the Court at St. Germans, and drawing, and Advancing the designs of the Frustrated Faction.  
'Twas a smart reply of a Great Man, when acquainted with the Danger that might arise from the great number of Men, crowded into both Houses, that were in the Interest of King James, he said, There was equal danger from his false Friends, and from them that were for no King at all. And tho' this single observation has Weight enough in it, to preponderate any objection that can be made against it, I hope it will not be taken Ill, to prove by matter of Fact, that the Supposition of there being such a Conjunction, was not groundless, and consequently that the Reflection was a Wise and prudent Reprehension, of confining the Whole danger to a Single faction, when there were apparent Instances, that Others were in the same Unnatural Confederacy.  
Those Gentlemen that served his Majesty in the counsels and Cabals of his Enemies know, and are able to prove, that the Jacobites had certain standing Rules, and Methods, to govern themselves by in all their attempts against his Majesty's Government, which were early communicated to his Ministers, and daily observation has shew'd, as they have been baffled in any One, the Next has been taken up with equal heat and Vigour as the former; and now Three of their four Projects encountering continued Disappointments; the last, which gives us so much trouble, and if not prevented will give us More, is now upon the Stage, and great are the expectations of our Enemies from it.  
The Projects prescribed to the Jacobites, for the Restoration of their old Masters, were couched under these four heads.  
First, To join with the Republicans, and all the Malcontented under every Denomination. This failing, then  
Secondly, To Strengthen their Party, by calling in a foreign Power; and if that was unsuccessful. Then  
Thirdly, To do the Work at Once, by Assassinating his Majesties Royal Person, and in him the whole Kingdom.  
Fourthly, If all the former methods were rendered ineffectual, then they should all come into the Government, take the Oaths, and set up for new Converts. And this I call The mystery of Iniquity, that is now in working.  
The Two first of these projects for the Destruction of the Government, were a while kept with great secrecy, and practised with no less caution and fears of Discovery; but as Trees when they have shot their Roots deep in the Earth, and have spread their Branches wide in the Air, every one may confidently affirm, they were of no very late Planting; So by a Wonderful Turn of Providence, the Confederacy between the Seditious of all Names, and Factions with the Jacobites, was fully discovered. Lawton, Ferguson, and Grosby, proper tools for such a Work, were apprehended; and the Lord Preston's Plot, wherein the Original Papers, and Letters of the Conspirators declare there was a Combination to subvert the Government, to Depose, if not Murder, the King and Queen, say, That this villainy was Methodically agreed, and concluded, at a Select and formal Conference 
* Vid. Mr. Ashtons trial.  between Divers Lords and Gentlemen both Whiggs and Tories.  
The next contrivance of the Jacobites, was the professed Murder of the King, and the Invasion of the Kingdom; but Heaven detected the Conspiracy, and the Barbarity of the Action, has so branded the whole Party, with the Scorn, Infamy and Hatred of all English-Men, that they being now ashamed to show their Faces as Jacobites, take Sanctuary in their last Project, which I  told you was, To submit to the Government, to take the Oaths of Fidelity, and set up for Converts, that under show of Friendship and Sincerity, they might gain an opportuniy to Herd with other seditious Persons, and do more Mischief by their seeming compliance, than they were able to effect by their professed and open Enmity.  
And here I beg not to be misconstrued, as if I grudged at any Man's Conversion to his Duty, or thought it an Injury to the State to have the Love and Service of the whole Community: For 'tis what I hearty wish, and for some Years have employed my Pen for; but when I see Men the same in Principle and practise, since they became Williamites, as they were when distinguished from good Subjects, by the Name of Jacobites; you will pardon me for suspecting the sincerity of their Conversion, till they give o'er the Trade of perverting their Brethren, and exhibit more signal Evidences of their Virtue and Loyalty, then yet they have done since they came among us.  
The Sacred Oracles tell us, that by their Works we may know Men, and then what can we think, when we see the whole Gang of Enemies Haunt the Court, for no other end but to Redicule and abuse it! Set up for Patriots, by sowing the Seeds of Sedition! Get themselves to be Elected Members, that they may have the privilege of affronting their Sovereign, saying, that within Doors, that a modest Man durst not Think without! Contend for a Popular Omnipotency, and liberty to destroy all our Franchises; and Lessen the Kings Power to give more than is due to their Own! What( I say) can we think of these Proceedings, but that their coming among us, is like Water into a Ship, not to Succour, but to Sink us; for such things have been acted in days of Yore, and what has been done may be done again, if an Almighty Providence does not prevent it.  
That this is the Design to be dreaded, appears as well by the greatness of their Numbers, as the nature of their Actions; for since the Year when this Commerce began, we have had a greater Addition to our malcontents, than from the beginning of the Revolution to that unhappy Junction. And the Trade of supplying every vacancy in the Company, with Persons of the same Character, Increasing rather than abateing, I wish surcharging the Factory, does not Bankrupt the Nation. That the confluence of our new Seditious Interpositers, does not infect us with our Old Plagues, and that these Upstart Pseudo Patriots, being added to the Number of the Old Jacobites, Republicans and Murmerers we had before, it had not been better for us, rather to have had their Room than their Company. For I fear if a Man might look into some Houses, he would see many such Persons there, as would tempt him to ask the Question in the Gospel, Friends, How? and for what end came you hither, not having on the Wedding Garment of Sincerity and Loyalty.  
Men that are Conversant in the Polices of Nations tell us, that tho' 'tis fit and commendable, that there be a Reconciliation betwixt the King and his Quondam Enemies; yet they ought not in respect of the Government or Themselves, to be admitted into places of Trust, or the Management of great Affairs; because in despite of Fate, while Men are Men, there will such Jealousies arise, as will clog the Freedom and Confidence, that ought to be between them. On the behalf of the Government 'twill be objected, that too much Credulity encourages an Abuse, and trusting a reconciled Enemy, Invites an Injury; for History is very pregnant with Examples of Men that have had indemnity for one Fault, and have been taken in Another with their Pardons in their Pockets, before the Ink was scarce dry upon the Parchment; and therefore we ought not to confided, where the Experiment is so Dangerous.  
On the other part it will be said, That in common Prudence our Seditious Interpositors, ought not to desire to be trusted, or intermeddle with the public, because Men can never Love, where they have given too great cause to Fear, and will alwas Distrust, where they know they have injured, beyond a possibility of Reparation. For tho' the King out of a principle of virtue and Honour may Forgive, yet their Guilt will not suffer them to believe he can, and that will hurry them upon Oblite rating their former Crimes, by repeating new Offences; both which, being seriously considered, 'tis an Argumant, that those that Thrust themselves into Business, whom a previous disposition will not suffer to be just or Hearty in it, they may make themselves Odious to their Superious, by their Haughtiness, and a Restless course of Factious Competitions, but never will or can, do their King and Country Service.  
But let these things be as they will in the Theory,, and like general Rules be liable to particular Exceptions, yet 'tis Notorious, that since those that might not have what King they would, have joined with those that would have None; and since the Name of Jacobites has walked under less Offensive Names, or has been obscured, by Mixing in clubs and other Meetings, with the Old Enemies of the Kingdom; there has been greater encroachments upon his Majesties Prerogatives, than ever was before. More Defamatory Speeches and Prints against his Government, more Fears and Jealousies created, more unjust Suspicions Raised; and less dutiful acknowledgements of the Kings care and goodness to his People made at such assemblies, than the King has deserved, or becomes English Men in Eminent Stations to be Guilty of.  
How have these Seditious Members we are talking of, Embarras'd all our Affairs, and put a Stop to every Good motion, by endeavouring to raise a Misunderstanding betwixt the King, and his People, and render him Suspected at home; that as the Champion of Christendom, has Meritted, and Received, the Applauses, Honour, and Esteem of all the World abroad?  
O abominable Ingratitude, senseless Deportment, and Unpardonable Retribution, to think that the King would be at such a vast expense, and Hazard his Life, to pull down the Tyranny of King James, to set up a despotic Power of his own? What Reason is there to boult out such Ugly Suggestions, and hint such Spiteful Reflection, against the Kings Person and Government? Has His Majesty given us any Reason to Suspect the commuance of his Goodness; or that he will be less kind in preserving our Rights and Privileges, than he was in Procuring them, when they were almost lost, and settling them so by Law, That it might be Impossible for any to Injure us for the future; No, But the Men that in a literal sense, would turn the World upside down, are come amongst us: Influence Counsels; Preside in Debates; and carry every thing before them: Not by the Force of their Reasons, but by the Strength of their Numbers; not by the Goodness of what they Advance, but by the Clamours of their Faction: Who while they are setting up themselves, and carry all things into Ataxy and Confusion, Assume a Supremacy, and infallibility, in all their Determinations; and yet would cover all by saying they are His Majesty's most Dutiful and Loyal Subjects: But how they will reconcile their Words with their Actions, and Printed Pamphlets, is worth our Examining, since all their Notions and Contrivances, look with Malevolent Aspects upon Monarchy itself, and from that Original Taint, and a Design to promote themselves, raise Undutiful Suggestions against the King in being; who, without doubt, if he had deserved less Love, they would have paid him more Fear and Reverence.  
The Doctrine of kerbing, and Restraining, the Power of Princes, when the Administration is in good hands; tho' 'twas only Calculated for the ruin of Mankind; and pleases none but those, who design by such Flagitious Arts, to gain a Power of doing that to others, which they pretend to be afraid of, from such as ne're intend it; yet it was always gloss'd with Specious Pretences; and this method is exactly followed by our Seditious Interpositors of the last Edition, who always advance what may seem pleasing and Popular, enough to Wheedle Men out of their Allegiance; and that is,  
Opposing the Sovereignty of the Prince, with an Imaginary Power in the People to controwl and Govern all things at their own Discretion.  
Which can be intended for nothing but Mischief; for as in the Common practise of Mankind, where any Society of Men usurp more than is their own, their Neighbours will take greater care to confine them within their just Limits; so when Subjects are Reaching after Royal Power, by open Affronts, and Unreasonable Demands, they instruct the King to lay the faster hold, and more assiduously maintain the Rights of the Crown; for if causeless Jealousies makes people start from their Obedience, Self-Preservation will also make him Distrust, secure himself against Unreasonable Suspicions, and even compel him to Exert his Prerogative, when in Scandalous Pamphlets and Clubs, it begins to be disputed, in whom it is Invested, and these mutual Suspicions will create endless Contentions.  
In a Monarchial Government God's Vicegerency ought not to be delegated, to any other Head than what is Anointed, not unaccountably scattered among the Multitude: For as dividing a Power which is only safe by being entire, derogates from the King's Superiority, so it is destructive to the Peoples Liberty, as it Intoxicates them, and makes them stagger from one form of Government to another, till their Divisions, as a punishment of their Fickleness, at last sinks them under an Absolute Monarchy. And therefore this pretence of Exalting a Popular Power, can have no other end, but to creat Jealousies between the Prince and his Subjects: For as they cannot digest the false Fears they are decoyed into, without Undutiful Resentments, so the Prince cannot brook Competitors in Power and Prerogative. Thus the Seditious play the Members against the Mind, in order to the destruction of the whole Body.  
All Reservations, of an Absolute Power in the People, distinct and divided from the Sovereign, does but nourish a continual Ferment, support divers Interests, fill the Minds of the People with Sedition, Curiosity and Pride, and furnish Envy and Ambition with plausible disguises for their Malice, and the Exaltation of the Factious that promote them; as was evident among the Romans, where the Unlimited Power of the People was but an Artifice, to conciliate deluded Subjects to the Tyranny of the Senate.  
Blessed be God we have a Prince, that neither does, nor intends to infringe our privileges, or deprive us of our Rights; and therefore entertains no remote Suspicions of his Subjects, from whom he resolves to deserve none; and has given us all the Legal Securities a Parliament could ask for our future Peace and Happiness. Why then should any sort of Men deal so Ill with him, that has dealt so Friendly by us? Why should any Men, though but in Clubs and Coffee-houses, set up a Power in opposition to his Majesty's, that has ne're employed his Power, but to protect and defend us. And yet God Wot, we have such Ill Members among us, that are offended at his Goodness, Surfeit on his Favours, and are so Heart-sick of England's Prosperity, that they use all ways to disturb it! And though the King being a Prince of such Incomparable Clemency, that he easily forgets and forgives the boldest Injuries: And to mollify their stubborn Tempers, by many Indulgent Concessions, has endeavoured to quiet their disordered Minds, even to the heights of their own Wishes; yet nothing can prevail, but the more his Majesty humours them, the more Exorbitant they grow, and being Case-harden'd against all Obligations of Goodness and Ingenuity, are still in their several Cabals crossing his good intentions, misrepresenting his Actions, and upon every Idle Pique, discover their want of Breeding, in making the former Expressions of their Gratitude, the ground of their present Ill treatment of him and in their Savage Rants, take shelter in that mismanner'd Sarcasm, What! Did not we make him King? As if the Thanks for their Deliverance from Tyranny and Oppression, and giving what they could not keep, endowed them with a privilege of saying what comes uppermost, and doing whatsoever they have a mind to, to promote Sedition, in hopes at last the Faction may grow too hard for the Government.  
Now there is so little in this Pretence, to support what they would build upon it; that were it not to disabuse the People, whose Names they use against their Wills, and to redeem their Understandings from being Captivated, to such disingenious Interpretations of an Imaginary Power residing in them, I should never have given the Malice of Seditious Men, the pleasure of taking notice of what they urge so impertinently and saucily; but for the end abovesaid, I will engage this Monster of Ingratitude, and show, though King William is the King of our Choice, which methinks should endear him to us, yet he Governs by a Right, superior to that of a Popular Election, unless you will Exclude God Almighty from his Prerogative, in disposing Crowns and Kingdoms.  
'Tis true, King William like all other Princes in the first Ages of the World, came to the Crown( without mentioning his Right of Blood) upon the single account of his 〈…〉 but for any Set of Men, to draw from thence a pretence to use him Scurvily, and Treat him as coarsely as if they were his Equals or Superiors, is Absurd and ridiculous.  
No Community whose Consent Establishes a Monarch over them, can have power Superior or Equal to that which they have constituted:( provided he does not as the late King and others did, convert his sovereignty into an Arbitrary Power of Destruction, which in our Case, is not so much as pretended, by the worst of his Majesty's Enemies) For they have transferred the Power they had, by Investing the King with the Sovereignty by a Legal Establishment and Recognition; and after that, 'tis Unreasonable and Contradictory to Assert they have it in themselves, unless they will make all Solemn Oaths, and Deliberate Acts, of no Validity. If he be a King he has the Highest Power, and all his Subjects, in Whatsoever Sphere they move are below him, whether Single or Collected. Tho' Englands Constitution be a mixed Monarchy, 'tis a Monarchy: And though the Estates in their proper and Distinct Orbs, are Sharers in the Government, yet this makes no equality of Power with the King, for then the Government could not be a Monarchy, more than an Aristocracy or Democracy: And therefore Wisely has the Constitution tempered this Affair, to prevent Contention and Parity; in Investing the Monarch with a Sovereignty so discasetly qualified, as he may not destroy the Mixture, nor the People with such a Power as might render the Monarchy Titular and Precarious; but that their just measures of Distance and Duty, might preserve the Body politic in Health, Peace and Vigour. Hence it is that the King is called our liege, that is our Lawful Sovereign, and we his liege, that is, his Lawful Subjects, and as such, can have no claim above it.  
But that which puts an end to this Saucy Taunt and its absurd Consequence of Opposing the Power of the People to the King's Supremacy, because their Consent was necessary to his Royal Installation, is what St. Paul urges as the principal Motive to Obedience, viz. That the Apex Potestatis the power of Governing, regularly employed is of Divine Institution, the Ordinance of God, not only as permitted by his Providence, but as appointed by his Will: That the Eternal is the Sovereign Proprietor of Kingdoms, and though he make use of Men to settle them, according to the Method his Providence directs, yet the Act is Gods, and the King's Authority is from him, by a Superior Character, than what the Populace can pretend to. So though the Estates of the Nation did confer the Sovereignty on King William, they were but the Instruments and Agents, for the Power and Right of transferring Kingdoms from one King to another, as from Saul to David, or from James the Second to King William the Third, comes from God, who is Judge in these Superior Causes, and puts down one King and sets up another, and has such an Interest in disposing Power, that none must pretend to but himself. And though Men may choose the Person, his Power is derived from God, more peculiarly than from the Giddy Multitude, for by him Kings Reign, and Princes decree Justice.  
And this is more particularly King William's Case, than we shall commonly meet withal in History. For though King William delivering the Nation from Popery and Slavery, the People were Just, and gave him what he earned; yet 'twas the Power and Goodness of God Almighty in enabling him to do the Work which deserved a Crown, that pointed him out to the Reward, and as it were adorned his Head with a Glory, and marked him out with such an Illustrious Character of Merit to the People, that they could not Miss him in their Choice; but must take him as the King already Chosen by God, by such Providential Occurrences, that in Common Gratitude to his Majesty, or their own future Safety, they could not overlook him; and now ought to Respect and Honour him as sinceerly, as if an immediate Voice from Heaven had placed him in the Vacant Throne, and said, This is my Vicegerent. His Power therefore seems to be the Express Designation of God Almighty, and ought not to be sullied by any Artribute below that Original, but owned and revered as a Participation of the Divine Sovereignty, as was intended by God, when he first for the good of Mankind put them under Government; which being the Doctrine of the Bible, destroys all Inferior Competitions, and stops the Mouth of Clamorons and Saucy Upbraiders; unless they will set up for Atheists as well as Anarchists, and by Forestalling us from fearing God, and Honouring the King, by abusing Words, significant in their meaning, would neither leave us a God to Fear, nor a King to Honour.  
Another Source of our Discontents and Ill Treatments of his Majesty, ariserh from a Scandalous Custom of Censuring the Actions of our Prince, keeping up Calumnies against the Court, and misrepresenting the Government, as if it were in Confederacy to destroy the Liberties and privileges of the Subject; which English Men are always so Tenacious of, that they too greedily imbibe such false Reports, without Examming from what sort of Men they come, or their Design in Publishing them; which if they would give themselves leisure to Scrutinize, they would soon discover 'twas but the Artifice of Designing Seditious meddlers, to kindle Jealousies, and inflame the Unthinking crowd into Ill Words, Impatience, and Distemper, and set them a lingering after more Liberty than they know how to use, to make way for 〈…〉  
public Good and the Liberty of the Subject, are two Excellent Words, when they are Honestly Used, and Peaceably Intended; but are Tender Points, and Cautiously to be Insisted on, lest Seditious Men make use of it to taint their Allegiance. And that this is the Design now on Foot; will appear by taking a view of the Liberty that is contending for, by the Mixture of Various Interests against the Government; and it will soon appear, not to be a Freedom from Arbitrary Impositions, Illegal Exactions, and other Ill Effects of a despotic Power; for these things are not pretended, no, but 'tis a Seditious Belluine Liberty of saying, and doing what they please, that is struggling for. Not the Liberty that our Fore-Fathers fought for, that was bounded by the Laws of Order and public Good, but a Liberty of Contention, a Liberty of Publishing Malicious Suggestions, and False Representations of things, that may be serviceable to the Faction! A Liberty to Affront the King, to encroach upon his Prerogative, to Lessen his Power, and Subject the Rights of his Sovereignty, to the Caprichio's of every Angry Intruder into public Societies, and a Liberty of Improving and Practising upon Fears and Possibilities, till they have brought us in Vassalage to themselves; whose Hot and Fiery Spirits, acting upon False Suggestions, can have no other Design but to Amuse and confounded us; and therefore the best way to shield ourselves from the Danger and Delusion, is to Judge of the Designs by the Men that promote them; for all the Arts employed by our known Enemies, though never so Artificially disguised, under the specious Terms of Good Offices to public, that are but the Sly Impositions of Cunning Knaves upon Credulous Fools, to advance their own Party: And for that Reason, when we see Ill Men take up a Fit of Kindness for their Country, and appear better natured than consists with their Principles and avowed Interests, 'tis time to suspect a Fraud, and weigh their Words with their Practices, before we trust them further than consists with our Safety; for the Men and their Designs can never be partend.  
Liberty is the greatest Glory of the People; yet if it be not bounded by the Laws of Reason and Discretion, 'tis the greatest Make-bate in the World, and tends directly to the ruin of every Community, by the known Rule, That the best things corrupted, become the worst. Liberty perverted into Contention for Superiority, in the very Design of the New Mixture, is but Trapannig and Deluding Men into Real Slavery; catching them with Words, and decoying them into Nets and Snares; and instead of putting Men upon considering every thing in its Proper place, and one thing with Relation to another, according to the Reason, Weight and Importance of the Action, before we proceed to Censure, it Indulges Intemperate heats and Hearsays, and by the very Methods, whereby Men think to Assert their Liberties, they are taught by Seditious Men to Destroy them, for there is no such thing in the World as Absolute Freedom.  
Another cause, why Men are not pleased with the Government they live under, but by a continual endeavour to Subvert the Sovereign power, disturb it with Sedition, is a desire of Immunity from punishment, in such persons whose Crimes have rendered them obnoxious to Laws; for it being impossible, as long as Men are Subject to Passions, but such Faults will be Committed, as the Sovereign Power thinks fit to punish; the Persons who have Committed those Fautls, will indubitably seek to avoid the Punishment, by raising a Party able to resist the sovereign Power. And as Criminals seek to avoid punishment for Crimes already Committed, so those who know they are laying designs to promote themselves, and their Party, which are contrary to Law, and therefore cannot arrive at their Ends, but by invading other Mens Proprieties; they will disturb the Government, that they may find Security in those Crimes, which for the future they Resolve to Commit; and this they always attempt, by gaining Credit enough with the People, to Impose a Cheat upon them, by making use of the Names of Religion or Liberty, or some other like Specious Pretence to guile them; and to this End there is a Faction now among us, that to promote Fears and Jealousies, lately bag'd their Pamphlets about the Streets, Abusing the King under the Name of the Court; and upbrading and reviling the last Parliament, as if they had been the worst of Mankind; but this we thought was only a Liberty, taken in His Majesty's Absence, and the Interval between the Old and New-Parliaments, from whom we were in great Expectations, and hoped that the Kings Return, and their Session, would put an end to these Extravagances, and Unite all People in the true Interest of the Kingdom, and promoting the Advantages of a happy Peace, to which their Representatives were invited, by His Majesty's Most Gracious Speech, following.  

My Lords and Gentlemen,  
I Have no doubt, but you are met together, with Hearts fully disposed, to do what is Necessary for the Safety, Honour, and Happiness of the Kingdom; and that is all I have to ask of You.  
In order to this, Two things seem Principally to Require Your Consideration.  
The One is, What Strength ought to be Maintained at Sea, and What Force kept up at Land for this Year; All I shall observe to, upon this Head, is, That the Flourishing of Trade, The Supporting of Credit, and the Quiet of Peoples Minds at Home, will depend upon the Opinion they have of their Security; and to preserve to England, the Weight and Influence, it has at present, on the Councils and Affairs abroad, it will be Requisite, Europe should see, You will not be wanting to yourselves.  
The Second thing I shall mention to You, as of great Consequence, is, The making some further Progress towards Discharging the Debts, which the Nation has contracted, by reason of the long and Expensive War. In this the public Interest, as well as Justice is concerned; and I think an English Parliament can never make such a Mistake, as not to hold Sacred all Parliamentary Engagements.  
Gentlemen of the House of Commons,  
I DO Earnestly Recommend these things to You, That You may provide such Supplies, as You shall Judge Necessary for these several Occasions.  
My Lords and Gentlemen,  
I Think it would be happy, if some effectual Expedient could be found for Employing the Poor, which might tend to the great Increase of our Manufactures, as well as remove a heavy Burden from the People.  
I hope also you will Employ your Thoughts about some good Bills, for the Advancement of Trade, and for the further Discouraging of 'vice and profaneness.  
The things I have mentioned to you, being of common concern, I cannot but hope for Unanimity and Dispatch.   
But, notwithstanding this Royal and Seasonable Advice, so Pathetically Adapted toward the Quieting Peoples Minds at Home, the Sore soon broken our again, at their Seditious Clubs, which they frequent both in and out of Parliament, to raise unnatual Heats and Jealousies, and from thence were Artificially Transmitted to Superior Classes, to serve the Base and Ungenerous Ends of Ungrateful People, and putting the Nation into Flames of Discontent and Divisions. These Meetings, as they Influence other Actions, are the Sinks that pollute our Fountains, the Clouds that scatter Storms among us, and here the Men may be found, as well as in other Meetings, from whose primary Debates and Resolutions, we expect all the succeeding Ills that attend us, from the Bold stroke at Monarchy that are made in other Places; and as the small Cells in Rome, are said to Contrive and Determine Affairs, before they are brought into the Conclave, and that they who would know what will be done by the Cardinals, must consult some of the Minor friars; so there is such a Correspondence and Mutual Agreement between these Seditious Clubs and their Brethren, in other Privilege Places in the Kingdom, that he that knows what's Concluded on in one Place, may know what will be done in the other. For these Clubs being composed of a Mixture of Men, who having sower'd all the generosity of Nature, make it their Business to Calumniate the Best, and Misinform the Worst of Men; and have to that end, Insinuated themselves so far into the Societies of those, that would be thought Angeli Agentis in Rebus Humanis, the great Intelligences in human Affairs, that they have twisted their Interests together, and they have infused a Perverse Spirit into some Men, that what one Contrives the other Acts, and what's said of one Meeting may be understood as the Designs of many Others.  
King William having done all that Honest Men could Wish, or Mortal Man perform, for the Glory and Safety of England, a Set of Envious Men rose from their several Shades, that had been long in the design of Eclipsing his Glory; and like the Council that was held by the Jews against our Blessed Saviour, say, What do we do? This Man does many Miracles, and if we let him alone, all Men will believe on him; so this late Intermixture of Men, and Interests against His Majesty and Government, seeing every day fresh Instances of his Goodness, and Arguments of his Growing Glory; in order to their main Design, united their Counsels, saying, What do we do, if we let him alone, all his Subjects will Admire and Love him: For notwithstanding all our former Black Arts to Disguise his Virtues, Blast his Honour, and Lessen his Authority, we find the People see through our Thin Pretences, the King Survives our Scandals, and lives to make us the Common Scorn, and himself the Peoples Darling.  
Let us therefore( say they) take his Prerogative a Peg lower, Smite him with our Tongues, Wound him with our Pens, and Publish it through the Land, that he is not sit to be trusted with the Sword: let us raise Fears and Jealousies, call his Souldiers a Pack of Cut-Throats and Murderers by Profession, and act as furiously, as if the Calamities we pretend to fear were felt already, and from the experience of the Good he has done us, raise a Possibility of his doing as much against us; and by these Ways and Means, we shall turn his Friends out of the House, pack off his domestics, deprive him of the Peoples Love and Duty, and accomplish our own Wishes, in Restoring our Old Master, or which is as well, Invest ourselves with the supreme Authority.  
These were the Pious Resolves at a Club, held I think at the Old Devil, and from thence Transmitted further, and ordered to be Printed and published in several Pamphlets; which if I prove, it will be sufficient to convince the World, such Designs against his Majesty and Government are on Foot; and that there are a Set of People amongst us, that Promote and Indulge them, as Copies fit to imitate.  
And that I may not trouble my Reader in Raking Old dunghills, and searching into Pamphlets that are scarce or not to be found; I shall take my Rise no Higher, than the Commencement of the Peace, and begin with a Pamphlet, entitled, A Discourse concerning Militia's, wherein the Author has Insinuated, that his Majesty is not to be trusted with the Power of the Sword, 
page., 14, 15.  and gives his Reasons for it in these Words.  
King William by Blood, Relation and other ties, and Common Interests, has the House of Austria, most of the Princes of Germany, and most of the Potentates of the North for his Friends and Allies; and can, whatever Interest he joins with.  
And is not this a great Happiness, to have such a Prince King of England, that has so many Powerful Friends, to Assist him against the Common Enemy. Can our Aliances be too great, can our Helps be too many? who could think 'twas in the Power of Envy, to make an Ill construction of so great a Blessing, or that any could suck poison, from hese additional Flowers to the Crown of England; and yet we see the Clubbers from these Noble Advantages, have conjured up this Jealousy 
* Book and page. predict.  What security can be given, he( meaning the King) will not make use of this Power, to suppress the Liberties of the People?  
Ungrateful people! has not the Security been given already, in Delivering the Nation when ready to Sink into Ruin, and in consenting to such Laws, as a Parliament proposed for your safety; and if after that they desired more, 'twas for want of asking, if you have it not. Is not the good he has done a sufficient security of His Majesty's Integrity, and a Firm ground for all his Subjects Acquiescence in his Conduct? Have you any Reason to Distrust Him? Can you think that He that ventured his Life to serve you, can have a thought to injure you? Away with these Idle Fancies, and causeless Jealousies, lest you Tempt Men to think, you want a greater Security for your Liberties, than you are fit to be trusted with; and like the Frozen Snake, when you're warmed by an over fond Induldence, you sting your Benefator, which among our Modern Nurmurrers and Seditious Interpositors would go near to find indemnity, under the undeterminable name of the Liberty and Privileges of that sort of People, who in Quest of a Popular Omnipotency, pull down all that Opposes it, and chuckle every Faction, whose Passion Prejudice and other circumstances contribute most to the carrying on that Design.  
Now Representing the King as a Monarch unfit to be Trusted, being the Topping Project, and the foundation of all that was to be reared upon it, in order to facilitate their future purposes: It was agreed at a Succeeding Club, which as I take it was held at the young Devil, that the forecited Author having a Grain or two of modesty too much, for such a Towering Design, that an Abler Pen at bespattering Kings with invented Calumnies, and Suspicions, should draw up their Reasons, and Report their Resolutions on this Subject, while the Clubbers were Idle and Ill natured enough to hear the same; and they having lain a while upon the Table in the Club Room aforesaid, where Sedition is as commonly vented, as at the Treason Table in Newgate, or Tom's Coffee-house, out comes their Printed Resolves in Plainer words and more agreeable to the sense of the Party, under the Title of A Confutation of the balancing Letter; in which 
† Preface and page. the 9th.  are these words delivered.  
A standing Army is making the Government Absolute and Arbitrary, and the Nation Slaves. It commands all our Laws, Liberties, and Estates. To put this Power into the Kings Hand, is to lay the whole Nation at his Discretion, and therefore tho we have Honourable Thoughts of the King; yet we don't believe he deserves this Trust, nor can manage it Faithfully. That he has neither Merit nor Capacity, to entitle him to so entire a Confidence; no, not if he had all the Perfections on Earth, as he has a great many; nay, if he were an Angel he was not fit for this Trust,  
Are these the products of your Honourable thoughts of the King? are these the methods you employ to speak your gratitude for his Majesties Redeeming you from the slavery threatened, and possessing you of the Liberty you are making such very Ill Use of; that can like the man in the Fable blow hot and could, and with the same Mouth disgorge Blessing and cursing, Commend and disparaged, Applaud and Distrust in the same Breath? are these suggestions the Honourable ways and means you take like your Tricking Predecessors of 48, to make him a Glorious King? blushy O Heaven, and let Earth stand Amazed and Tremble! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in Askelon, lest the whole Nation be condemned, and included in the Guilt of a Few Seditious and Ungrateful Members, that having received the benefit of their Deliverance from his goodness durst not trust him with an Army to Defend their Liberties, but would take the Sword from this Prince, and force it upon the People, from whom, if they Govern themselves by the leading Maxims, and humour now in Vogue and striving to be uppermost; there is more Danger of a Rebellion, than of the princes assuming a despotic Power!  
Sure these Gentlemen's Constitutions are over Run with the Scurvy or Atra Bilis, for none see Fantoms and Dread Imaginary Dangers like Hypocondraick Enthusiasts; or else they would never have raised such Mean False and Dishonourable Reflections upon a Prince, whose Merits have given him a Name, Superior to all the Titles upon Earth; and earned him the entire Trust, and Unalienable Duty of all his Subjects.  
What? has not King William deserved this Trust? O Impious Calumny, Horrible Slander, Groundless suspicion, that is daily confuted by Experience, and could be vended by none but whose Avowed Designs, are for doing further Mischief! What's become of the Old English Sense of Favours, and Gratitude to Kings that Delivered them from Tyranny? Is it all dwindled into Popular Caprichio's, and shrunk up into Janisarian Privilegies? Has exempting us from the Fears of Jailes, Inquisions and Smithfield Fires, caused these clandestine Reproaches. Has the Restoring our Religion, that ought to be Dearer than our Lives, deserved no better acknowledgement? Has the purchase of our Peace, and Liberty to enjoy it with satisfaction, merited no more dutiful returns than to affront his Majesty with their causeless Fears, retort his Kindness with hated Jealousies, and sully his Candour with vile Suspicion?  
Yes, Replies the Authors of them 
† page. 8.  we have Trusted the King with all we had. All the Rights of an English King, as the Imperial Crown, with all Dominions, Jurisdistions, Prerogatives, and worthies there unto belonging: And yet in the conclusion says, He ought not to be Trusted with the Sword( which he calls a standing Army, tho the other Author calls it as I do) for fear of enslaving the Nation: and in saying that, he might as well have left out all the Rest; for the power of the Sword, which is a very extensive Word, is as much the King's Right, and as firmly Invested in him by Law, as any other of the Appendices as the Crown; and since there are so many Lawyers, that are the Leading men in these Clubs, it looks ill they should forget it.  
And as to giving the Crown let the Poet answer for me. 
As for the Crown you have bestowed,  
With all its Limitations:  
The meanest Prince in Christendom,  
Would never Stir a Mile from Home,  
To Govern Three such Nations.  
For if the Sword from'th King's with held,  
Which Laws have made his Own:  
Who knows but when the Megrim works,  
Such wavering Christians may like Turks,  
Employ't against the Crown?   
Self Preservation is a Principle in Nature never to be dropped, and by the same rule that men suspect, they give cause to be suspected: which is only applicable to those that have raised the Mormo's; for all the liege and Loyal Subjects of England, that are True, and steadfast to the King upon Rules of Honour, and Conscience, had rather die if occasion should require it, than hear his Majesty Traduced or Suspected. They say His Majesty has deserved more than England has to give: has merited the entire Confidence and Obedience of his People: and that after all the Experience we have had, to grow suspicious of his Good Intentions, is to Revile his virtues, grow weary of our own happiness, expose ourselves to Danger, and Affront the Common sense of mankind.  
But Seditious men seldom do their work by halves, and therefore as if it were not sufficient to Unking his Majesty, they endeavour to Unman him also, by saying He has no capacity for such a Trust: to which I'll make no answer; for such efforts do not Blast but Brighten, and they that have the confidence to Assert that, will Boggle at nothing, therefore like men that deny first Principles, they are to be confuted with Scorn and Taciturnity: All the World admire the strength of his judgement, Ability of his Mind, and Dexterity of his Parts, which I dare not undertake to deliniate; for to do it by the common topics of comparirison, would be a Diminution of his Greatness, and to form a just Idea of his Royal Personal Capacities, or venture upon his Character, requires a Soul as great as his Own, and it would be a profanation in any vulgar Hand to attempt it: Silence and Admiration, best commend things above the Sphere of our Capacities.  
Next, to scar People out of their Duties, as 'tis the common practise of all Seditious Conventicles, to ransack Stories for Memorable Accidents, and Prodigies, and having calculated them for this Meridian, a muse people with a superstitious belief that the same Events must follow: So our Author( to the credit of his Learning) tells us from Mr. Knox a lamentable story, to fright both Sexes out of their Allegiance. Viz. 
† page. 13.  That in the Kingdom of Ceilon there was a King. Strange! and that King had a Standing Army too. Prodigious! and his Subjects were wont to call him by a name that signified next to God. Horrible and Dangerous! and the people were such slaves, that they durst not speak to him in the first Person( Singular Number Preter perfect tense and Indicative Mood) and say, I did so or so, but Baulagaut the Limb of a Dog did so. Betrayers of their Liberties! and if the King ask'd'em how many children they had, they swer'd the limb of a Dog has so many an-Puppy-dogs, and so many Bitch Puppies. Officers and Men that had Places at Court I warrant them! And from this poor crawling Fancy, ridiculous in its application, and unpardonable for its Wit, he takes occaon to fall into a fit of Devotion, and gives God thanks that we were not born Puppy-dogs: and I wonder when his hand was in and his eyes up, he did not prescribe the Remedy to his Majesties Subjects, to bring the King to Reason, and redress all these Mis-managements and Grevances, viz. Rebellion; for that he says cured the King of Ceilon, from 
* Preface.  attempting to make himself the Rickety Head of a Languishing Body.  
This story big with an ill design, as silly as it looks, was strangely admired by the Party, and tho calculated for nothing but Fools and Fire-sides, furnished them with new matter against the Court, and the whole Faction was so full of that Whim, that it larded all their Discourses: and you could hear of nothing but of Slavery, and Baulaugautizing, Arbitrary Power and Puppy-dogs. The Lobby, the Painted-Chamber, and Court of Request Rung with the dull Fancy; and those that were not in the Mixture, in the language of our Modern 〈◇〉 and New Converts, were all Sons of Bitches. Fine language, but this is their way of Arraigning the Faith of Kings and frighting timorous Souls from their Duty.  
The Great Point of Slandering the King with Jealousies and Suspicions being thus far advanced, they re-assume the former debate, about the Power of the Sword, and at a Club held I think at the Rose, or the the Long-dog at Westminster, I am not certain which, the question being put, it was Resolved Nemine Contradicente, and published in a Pamphlet called a Discourse concerning Militia's 
† page. 6.  That nothing is so essential to the Liberties of the people, as placing the Power of the Sword in the Hands of the subject.  
And now you see what this Inter mixture of Interests would be at, and what their Pretences of Liberty amounts to, viz. to tie up the Kings hands, and to Arm their Own with the power of the Sword, and then Good Night Land-Lord. Either we must have one Popish King, or Four Hundred Arbitrary Sovereignes; and of these two evils which is most Eligible, is as great a difficulty to Determine, and therefore I'll return. I wonder when these Gentlemens Pens were in, or their Mouths open in the Club, they did not claim the Crown also; for that would have stopped many a Wide Gap in their Fortunes: and 'tis as essentially necessary that they should be both in one 〈…〉 a sufficient Power to defend itself: For as times go, and Subjects which have found Protection from their Prince, and have no just grounds to suspect any prejudice from him in their Laws, Liberties, or Estates; yet enter into Diffidence of him, and being lead by Passion, False Consequences, Envy, or Ambition, endeavour to Subvert his Government; 'tis essentially necessary for his safety that the Sovereign Prince should be armed with something more than his own Innocency and Integrity, to repress Seditious, Aspiring, and Unreasonable Subjects: But to return from this Digression, let me ask these Gentlemen a short Question or two First,  
Since things are not ripe enough yet, for the Inter-mixture to tell their Names, appear in their own Dress, and say, if they could wrest the Sword out of the hands of King William they would restore it to the late King James: which tho first in the Intention of giving these disturbances, must be last in Execution. I would fain know since their are so many Factions among us, and all tho fit for nothing else imagine they are capacitated to Govern, to what sort of people in England, they would commit the Power they are contending for, and whether they have considered the Impracticableness and Danger of this baffled Project. Will they commit it to the Papists, to the Church of England-men, the Presbyterians, the Independents, the Anabaptists, the Fift Monarchists, the Socinians, the Muggletonians, or the Quakers; and whether their disappointment would not be equal to their folly. For if they should give it to the Papists, they'd Restore it to King James, and that would displease, as well as expose the Williamites. If they should commit it into the Hands of the staunch Church of England-men, they would be sure to give it again to King William, and that would enrage the Jacobites and Republicans. If they should give it to the Presbyterians, they'd keep it Themselves and set up a Common-wealth, seize the Kings and the Church Lands, and disoblige the Monarchists and Episcopal Party. If they give it to the independents, instead of beating the Sword into plowshares, they'd hammer it into bloody Axes. In short the Anabaptists would demean themselves here, as they did to the Princes of Germany. The Chiliasts would keep it in their own hands till Christ came; and the Socinians would Dethrone him from being a King as well as from being a God: the Muggeltonians would bless none but themselves with Offices, and Curse all the world besides with Incapcity and Poverty, and the Quakers have been so accustomed to heave the Glass and Nogging to their Heads, that they'd let the Sword drop out of their hands, and suffer all( like themselves) to run into confusion. And this Game having been once played already, till each Vigorous Pretender had supplanted the other, and at last were found to settle on the 〈…〉 Monarchy: Till they can Agree where to place it more beneficially to the conservation of our True Liberty. 'Tis best to let it remain quietly in the hand where it is.  
The Gentleman that published Considerations upon the choice of a Speaker, has  told us 
† page. 1.  't'was the Observation of the Lord Burleigh,( and he was counted a very Wise man) That England can never be thoroughly ruined but by a Parliament, and I believe the Antimonarchical Clubbers, who make such desperate stoops at the Regal Power, and would leave his Majesty nothing but an empty Name think so too. For the F's the H's and Others that set up for the vanity of Speaking Long and Impertinently, having talked themselves out of Breath, and the whole Audience out Patience, about where the Power should be placed, the Club came to this Resolution, which is Published in a Virulent Pamphlet, called, Considerations upon the State of the Navy Considered. 
† page. 16.  That if the Grievances continue, the Commons may at last be forced to take the management of the Navy, and dependent Offices into their own Hands; by appointing Commissioners of their own, and this seems Rational enough, that those that are at the charge, should superintend the management of the Affair.  
All proceedings have their course and train, and by the Wake men steer, you may easily guess to what Port they are Bound. The Designs of these men by their Working, is to shake our Fundamental Establishment, and under the appearance of Liberty, to shrivel his present Majesty into an Emperor of the Moon, and therefore trace those measures in which others of the same kidney were successful, in hopes of the same Event, and will run from one degree of Wickedness to another, till they have obtained what they aimed at. Their last demand related to the Land Force only, and now to show they'll never be satisfied with any thing, till they have possessed themselves of All. The Management of the Navy, and dependent Offices, must be seized into the Parliaments Hands, which being agreed on by all sides to be the Strength of the Kingdom, you may guess how unreasonable they are, and what usage his Majesty must expect. See by what Tricks they introduce their Scheme of Subverting the Government: for as if they believed the Lord Burleigh's Notion, what they Lurch from the King, they would bestow upon the Parliament for that end, and no question but with the same design at bottom of it, as their Fore-fathers had in advancing the Rump: make them their Tools to ruin the King, and then turn them out of Doors, and erect a Frippery of their own. They are very kind Souls, and would give the Parliament what they Won't accept as they are Wise and Can't accept, while they continue the Character of being his Majesty's most Loyal and Dutiful Subjects, the Commons Assembled in Parliament.  
This seeming kindness to the Parliament, is but a Trick of the old Trade, to Lessen the King's Authority; for investing the Parliament with the supreme Authority of England, is as great an Error, as the design to make them so is mischievous, for they must Meet, and Sit, and Act, as Subjects, and under that denomination, 'tis nonsense to call them the supreme Authority. They that would make the Parliament greater than they are, do but ridicule their Just Authority; and new minting phrases, to take away their Subordination, is only intended to raise Heats and Animosities in the Kingdom. I know 'tis one piece of Seditious Mens Policy, to represent those that truly love and faithfully serve his Majesty as if they were Enemies to Parliaments; but herein they act like Pliny's malicious Animals, that had their poison in their Tongues, and their gull in their Ears, and will neither speak nor hear but what sets men at variance. There is no body of men so Universally and Absolutely good, that it can be any harm to wish some of them were better. Nor is it any disparagement to mens understandings, to say they are not always Infallible, nor no ill wish that no men would act as if they were so. Our English Parliaments are the happiest Constitution in the World, and notwithstanding all their Faults and Excises which have given great Dissatisfastions to the considering and sober people of England, and have been sometimes very troublesone to the supreme Authority by a peculiar Fondness of their own Notions; yet they are to be had in great Veneration, and will be so by all that understand themselves: Whereas those Seditious men, that would cloath them with a Politicial Omnipotency, and rob the King to enrich the Parliament, are the greatest Enemies to the Constitution.  
The reason why the Parliament should take upon them the Executive part of the Government, as their factious Authors would have them, is because they that are at the charge ought to superintend the Affair, which is a Notion so injurious to our Constitution that it overthrows the Structure, and levels all before it. For tho' there are some ill instructed men, that have boldly disputed for a coordinate Power in the Parliament; yet till the publication of these resolves no Bayard has been so blind, nor Wretch so impudent( pardon the Expression) as to give them the whole Executive part also. Every Parliamentary Address, and all our Laws speak the contrary. For when according to their duty, they have proposed what is requisite to be done, they pray his Majesty to take care that it may be Executed, now the Power these men assume, in delegating the King's Prerogative to the Parliament, is no less injurious to their Honour, than Prejudicial to the King; for the Inference they suborn to colour the Presumption, is no less than if they had said in plain words, since you have the power of the King's Purse strings: Puzzle his Affairs: across all his politics: tyre him with troublesone Tacks: confounded his Ministers with across purposes: Deny him what you think he desires: Advance whatever you think will displease him: Take advantages of the necessities of the Crown and Creditors wanting their Money: Keep the Exchequer Poor, and as the word is, let him know Who and Who's together: and in fine, compel him to buy supplies at the price of his sovereignty, and Establish yourselves perpetual Dictators, the Power's your own and now's the time to Exert it.  
What Barbarous Humours, and Unnatural Presumptions govern these Seditious Clubbers, who would tempt the Parliament to embarrass the King's Affairs, and take the whole Administration of the Government into their hands, which is the King's Right by all the Laws of England, and because they have a joint Privilege of granting supplies, would invest them with the Supreme Authority of the Nation, to control and govern all things at their discretion, which is an Error as great as the design to promote or Engross it is Mischievous; for the Parliaments have no such Unlimited Power, and only act in concurrence with the King. For as the King cannot raise Taxes without consent of Parliament, so the Parliament cannot do it without the King. Laws do not take their Obliging Force from the Quality of those that device them; but from the Regal Power that enlivens them from Dead Letters into speaking Laws. 'Tis the Royal Le Roy Le Veult, the King will have it so, which is the Imperative sentence that gives every Law a Being, and is Pronounced in Passing every Act of Parliament. So that these bold Donatives and Demands, Illegal Suppositions, and Vexatious Disputes, are so far from asserting the Peoples Right, as is pretended, that they utterly destroy them by unwarrantable Encroachments and Additions, and in the whole are but the froth of Seditious Intermedlers, the Transports of wild desires, and the Gratification of some unreasonable Men, that never did, nor never will do good to England, till they govern themselves by better Principles, and prove their Conversions real, by more Loyal Practices.  
Hitherto I have only shew'd you what the Mixture of various Interests have been Plotting, towards the Accomplishing their Main design of Subverting the Government, and reducing the Nation into a State of War and Confusion, which some will think are Crimes too Black to be heard of among Christians; but so degenerate is the Age, and so Abominably Wicked are this sort of of People, that that which precedes is nothing to the Tragical Scene that that is opened in the aforecited Pamphlet 
† P. 13, 14.  viz.  
The Government is built upon this Foundation, that Kings are accountable to their Subjects, and that upon Forefalture, of their own Free Will and Power, they may proceed to a new Election, and place one more Righteous upon the Throne.  
A Bold and Impudent Assertion, and as far from Truth in the Design of our Laws, as light is from darkness, and the Club that vomited up this Position, and the Men that do Comment upon it by their Practices, act like People spotted with the Plague, being Incurable themselves they have yet the pleasure left of Infecting others, which I shall endeavour to Antidote by showing that Extraordinary Proceedings are not to be produced as Presidents, but upon the same occasions, for the Laws of England have taken such care of the King, and his Authority, that they have made his Person Sacred, and his Rights Invoilable; but that I suppose which misleads people into that pernicious Error, is Misconstruing the Proceedings against the late King, which is as full a confutation of that Principle, as can be imagined, if rightly apprehended. For that the Honourable Convention might not seem to make Dangerous Presidents to Posterity, give the people a Scandalous Authority, or render the Monarchy of England Precarious, and not worth Acceptance; they Cautiously and Honestly avoided such Pretences, and settled the Nation 
* Vid. Vote of the Convention, of Jan. 28. 1688.  upon the Express Renounciation of James the Second, his voluntary withdrawing himself out of the Kingdom, and the Necessity of providing for the Nation when the Throne was Vacant, and therefore would never depart from the words Abdication and Vacancy of the Throne. So that what the Convintion did upon that Extraordinary Occasion, was when the late King went hence, but shutting the door after him, which the Mixture of Various Interests are now endeavouring to open, with Pick locks of their own inventing, and I question not, but if they had Power to their Will, they would make use of Betty's also. For, whereas some modester Men build this Popular Notion only, upon a King's open violation of the Original Contract, converting his Sovereignity into a power of Destruction and restrain that also to Cases Apparent, Evident, and Certain, these wretched Men, having none of these things to pretend against King William, threaten the Nation with the Dissolution of their Monarchy, for no other cause than the Mismanagements of the ministry and for that reason only say, 
* page. 14.  'tis time to think of another form of Government, which sums up their Designs in a few words, and calls for a Parliamentary Prevention, lest men under the apprehension of the Danger threatened, should be tempted to think that the Evils they neglect they tolerate, which God forbid!  
Having thus discovered the Designs of the Mixture, let us look into the Causes they Assign to justify their Practices. And here I encounter such palpable Contradictitions, that would give me more trouble to find out a Method, than Matter to refute them, if I were not obliged to them for prescribing one, Fears, Jealousies, and Suspicions, are the unhappy Parents of their Lewd proceedings against his Majesty and Government, and yet almost in the same breath, confess they are secured from all apprehensions of Danger during his Reign. So that by their own acknowledgement, their Fears are foolish, their Jealousies caufless, their Suspicion Undeserved, and makes it my task to prove them so, which I shall do very briefly.  
'Tis a true, but unhappy Character of a particular Reigning Faction against Monarchy, that they are so given to Leasing, that though they had truth on their side, yet 'twould never please them, till they had dressed it up, and set off, with all the colours of Folly, falsehood, and Calumny, and in much larger measure must we expect these additions, when all these joined with prejudice promotes them. What can we think more Ridiculous, than spreading insinuations that the King is not in the Interest of his People, which is such a plain Contradiction, they might as well have said he was divided from himself. For their own Consciences, if they have any, and they would give them leave to speak, must say that in all the Circumstances of his Majesty's History, he has so Abated his own Grandeur, so bountifully scattered his Favours amongst us, and so little considered himself, that no King ever did so much, no mortal Man could do more, to convince the World, that as he had no other Intentions in his coming hither, than to preserve our Religion, Laws, and Liberties; so it has been his endeavour ever since, by a Just Administration, and even balancing all Interests at home, and exposing his dear Life Abroad, to advance the Welfare and Glory of the Nation, as you might have heard from his Royal Mouth, in his most graicous Answer to the Commons, addressed March 25. 1699.  
I came hither to restore the Ancient Constitution of this Government; I have had all possible regard to it since my coming, and I am resolved through the course of my my Reign to endeavour to preserve it entire in all the parts of it, I have a full confidence in the Affections of my people, and I am well assured they have the same in me, and I will never give them Just Cause to alter their Opinions. It shall be my study, to the utmost of my Power, to perform the part of a Just and Good King: and as I will ever be strictly and nicely careful of observing my Promises to my Subjects, so I will not doubt of their Tender Regards to me.  
Let all his Majesties Actions be tried with the strictest Scrutiny, and if they be taken as they ought, in coherence with his Great Design of preserving the Honour and safety of the Nation: his whole Life will appear Just and Equitable; but if men will lay their false invented Fears, at the Doors of his Royal Palace, that were begot and nourished in their own Houses, and catch here and there a snap, without examining the Reason, Use and End of every Action, which also by the way may not be fit for them to know neither: for every head is not fit to prie into the Closet of Princes. Reasons and Maxims of State, are above their reach, and looking upward will but turn their Brains, and make their Heads Giddy, which are too much afflicted with the Megrim already. I say, if they proceed so clandestinly, they may run into an Eternal circulation of Jealousies, Slander the Best Government in the world, and make Quidlibet ex Quolibet, find Treason in the Laws, and pick Blaphemy out of the Holy Bible.  
Let the King's Enemies if they can, give us one single instance, wherein he has not been Just to the Constitution? What Law has he broken? what Rights of the People has he Invaded? what new Pretences of Prerogative has he Invented? or wherein has his Majesty stretched those that are the known, and allowed Rights of his Crown, to the prejudice of his Subjects? or what has he omitted that might conduce to their Happiness? Did the King ever stop his Ears to any Reasonable Petition? did he ever deny Justice to the meanest Subject? or refuse showing mercy where it was needful? No, In his Majesty they have nothing to revil but his virtues, and were it fit to mingle his Glory with the Jealousies of the Mixture, they could never be so perfectly summed up, as in their Opposites.  
How unreasonably do men argue, that would make Jealousies Conjectures, Hear says, Fancies, and Reports, a ground to raise suspicions upon, against a King, whose Life and Actions confounded all such pretences: and yet such Brutes are found among us, that notwithstanding all his Majesties Bountiful concessions, raise evil surmises, and make Seditious Comments and Ungreatful Returns to his Goodness, forget their Obligations, by growing weary of their Duty, and would persuade the world that the King is not in the Interest of his People, because they are in none but their Own.  
And now having answered the first Cause they assign as the Reason of their Fears, I proceed to the next: which is as Unreasonable and Ridiculous, as the former is false and scandalous, and both confute themselves.  
Those Pseudo Patriots that by Improving and Practising upon Fears and possibilities, would cover the Affronts and Indignities they put upon his Majesty, confesses there is no danger to be expected during his Reign, and give these substantial Reasons for it 
† Argument against a Standing Army p. 9.  Because he is our Moses, and has delivered England from a Captivity, equal to that of the Children of Israel. A Prince whose Life is so necessary to the Preservation of Europe, that both Protestant and Popish Princes, forgetting their ancient Maxims, and innate Animosities, made it their Common Interest to choose him their Patron and Protector: a Prince in whom we know no Vices: but what have been esteemed virtues in others, viz. His undeserved clemency to his Enemies, and his too much exposing that Life, upon which depends not only our Safety, but the Libertties of all Europe, and the Protestant Religion through the World: and yet to spoil their kindness, usher in an Inference, that tells the Reader they give no credit to their own eulogies, for after they said, If this most Excellent Prince was as Immortal as his Glorious Actions, we ought in Common Prudence, to abandon all thoughts of self Preservation, and wholly rely on his Care and Conduct. They are pleased to add what was the mighty Argument of their Party in another Place; that since no virtue, nor Pitch of Glory, can exempt him from paying the common Debt to Nature, we ought not to entrust any Power with Him which we don't think proper to be continued to his Successor! A poor shift God wot to support Ingratitude, and might have been better solved by agreeing to be Civil to him during his Life, than by making his Mortality an Argument for the exercise of ill manners, promoting Fears and Jealousies, and aspiring after his Sovereignity; for by these Policies the Intermixture Work, that say in effect not this King, but Another King, or a Form of Government that would have no King in Israel, that the Seditious might do what was Right in their own Eyes, act like men of Authority and not as the Scribes; for then they will want no Collateral Security for their Privileges, when their Reasons are in their Own Hands, and the Supreme Power placed in that sort of ill natured People, whose understandings grow downward, and affront a Good King in Being, because 'tis possible a Bad one may come hereafter, which is an absurdity never equalled, but by those Members of the same Club, that affirmed among other Debates and Resolutions 
* Arg. cont. Stand. Army p. 28.  that the most likely way of restoring King James, is maintaining an Army to keep him out: Or a Gentleman that said, the late noise of an Invasion from France, was a trick of the French King's to keep up a Standing Army in England.  
To slander his Majesty in his Honour, and the good esteem of his People, not for any thing he has done, or that they fear he will do, but for what possibly another King may do hereafter, is either a senseless or a very malicious way of arguing and makes all their panegyrics on the King, look as if they were formed from the deepest Malice, and Prejudice, and were only the Arts of the Mixture, under Profession of the greatest Veneration, to diminish the Person they pretend to magnify, and to use their own words, is cutting a Mans Throat with a Feather: for tho a preventional Prudence in stifling ill consequences in their Causes, and obviating mischiefs in the Bud is very commendable; yet to make a danger Real where it is but Imaginary, to act as if it were in being, that is as far distant as the next Generation, to suspect a King in the Throne, for the fault of a King that may be yet unborn, and from a bear Possibility of Power being ill employed, to Act as if it were so, is but struggling with Fantoms and Chimara's, and inflaming the People with senseless and Seditious May Be's. A King of England a Hundred Years hence, may be a Tyrant; must we therefore be Rude and Ungrateful to the King in being, whom we confess he neither Has, and believe he never Will do us injury? It may happen in the next Generation, a King by the exercise of a despotic Power, may deprive the Subjects of their Liberty, must we therefore Ravish the Rights of the Crown from our present Monarch, that by his Valour has regained, and by his Goodness preserves them? We may be wronged by an Enemy, must we therefore suspect our Best Friends? and because the world must be destroyed by Fire, must we run with Torches in our hands, and burn our Houses now, in dread of the General Conflagration? Surely none are so mad to grant it! and therefore to strike People with Dreadful expectations, of what may happen we know not when, and set up Possibilities, and Contingencies to unravel and perplex present Affairs, smells Rankly of a Desig, and that our new Seditious Interpositors would enslave us, first to their Principles, and then to their Persons, as their Predecessors have once done already.  
Our Miseries are Endless if we stand in fear of Possibilities, for as their is nothing we Fear so certain of coming, as 'tis certain that many things we fear will never come, we should hope the best, and not by Treachery, Cowardice and Distrust of Providence, Contrive and Enlarge our own Unhappiness; for this is to Die for fear of Death, and engulf ourselves into certain Misery, upon invented or ill grounded apprehensions.  
This Design of Amusing the People, with Evils that might happen from a Standing Army, being on Foot, how did the Mixture of Interests, by pretending to red his Majesties Thoughts in that affair, draw such unnatural Consequences, and Retort such Disingenious Reflections upon his suppositious future Conduct, as was Unsufferable in hearing, and Undutiful in Reporting; and yet how coolly, Sedately, and Wisely, did His Majesty manage himself in that whole affair, and silenced all that slandered his Intentions, as if he would Govern by a Standing Army: for tho possibly his Majesty might be of Opinion ( as well as thousands of his Subjects of Celebrated Intelects and considerable Fortunes) that as public matters were then circumstantiated, a greater Land Force was necessary than what was talked of; yet so great was his desire and endeavour to alloy the Heats, that some men were raising upon that Subject, that he suffered the Quiet of his People to prevail upon his judgement, and as soon as the Bill for Disbanding the Army was Ready for the Royal Assent, he immediately passed it, and to that great Example of Self-Denial, made the following pathetic to the Parliaments Speech. Feb. 1.98. 

My Lords and Gentlemen,  
I came to Pass the Bill for Disbanding the Army as soon as I understood it was ready for Me.  
Though in our present Circumstances, there appears great hazard in breaking such a Number of the Troops; And though I might think myself Unkindly used, that those Guards, who came over with me to your Assistance, and have constantly attended me in all the Actions wherein I have been engaged, should be removed from me; yet it is my fixed opinion, that nothing can be so fatal to us, as that any Distrust or jealousy should arise between me and my People, which I must own would have been very unexpected after what I have Vdertaken, Ventured, and Acted for the Restoring and Securing of their Liberties.  
I have thus plainly  told you the only Reason which has induced me to pass this Bill; and now I think myself obliged, in discharge of the Trust reposed in me, and for my own justification, that no ill consequences may lye at my Door, to tell you as plainly My judgement, that the Nation is left too much exposed.  
It is therefore incumbent upon you, to take this matter into your serious Consideration, and effectually to provide such a Strength as is necessary for the safety of the Kingdom, and the Preservation of the Peace which God hath given us.    
The House of Commons in an Address were pleased to tell the King, that the passing the Act for Disbanding the Army, gave great satisfaction to his Majesties Subjects, and that his compliance with the Puntual Execution thereof, would prevent all occasion of Distrust or jealousy between his Majesty and his People: And one would have thought it could not have missed that great End. Yet there were a Remnant at several Clubs, that reaching after Sovereign Power, like the Bay of Biscay, are always Tumultuous, let the Wind blow where it will that were more enraged and disturbed at his passing the Bill, than they were before on Pretences He would not: and at several cabals( to use their own words) said the King had across bit them, foiled them at their own Weapons, had broken their Measures, and Removed a Pretence, which they hoped would have been a lasting Subject of Complaint, and keeping up the pretended Fears of Arbitrary Government: Insomuch that a Gentleman of no small Figure in public Affairs, upon reading his Majesties Speech above recited, in great Passion Swore G. D. me, 'tis Impossible to circumvent this Gentleman,( meaning the King) He Countermines all Intrigues, and will Govern us in despite of our Teethes. At oath Clubs some Members of the Faction raved against the Bill, because it had left Seven Thousand Cut-Throats, yet in England, whereas there ought not one read or Blew Coat to have remained on this side of the Water. In hopes I suppose they being disgusted, under Resentments of the slight, they would immediately transport themselves, comply with the Court at St. Germans, and assist them in the Restoration of Popery and Slavery: Or otherwise by leaving the Nation Defenceless, we might have no benefit by a Peace, that cost the Kingdom so great an expense of Blood and Treasure: For what ever these men Pretend of the Zeal of Englishmen, in the Defence of their Country, and the no need of Swords in times of Peace; they do but Arraign their own politics: for that Peace which puts people out of a condition of Defence in case of a War, must expect a War; and such a State as leaves a People at the Mercy of an Enemy, is worse than a War itself, unless we could persuade our Neighbours, to be as Supine and Negligent as they would have us be; for otherwise our Sloth and fancied Security is but an Invitation for them to Over-run us, or Cut our throats while our Hands are tied behind us: The Pretence of Relying solely upon our Fleet, Renders our safety as uncertain as the Wind and Weather, for if in time of War, when we had the assistance of a Neighbouring Fleet in Conjunction with our own, besides a Powerful Confederacy by Land, yet found we had enough to do, before we could bring our Enemies to any tolerable terms of Peace, it would be the greatest Folly in the world, to depend upon a Single Uncertain help, when we might be subdued before we could put ourselves into a Posture of Resistance at home, or expect it from abroad. As weak is the pretence of relying upon our Militia, which for Ever will be nothing but a Ray and Undisciplin'd Multitude, and to Trust to it, is to combat Wolves with Sheep, to let go a Real Security, and Rely upon an Imaginary one. The Project of making the Militia serviceable on all occasions, is still in the clouds; and the Insuperable difficulties they meet with in producing the Miracle, and the delays they give us in forming the Stratagim, tempt us to think, they are at last fallen into the other Notion, viz. That Regular and disciplined Troops are far Superior to the Best and Strongest Militia in the world: that Experience and Discipline makes an Army serviceable, and where the security of a Nation requires a Marshal Strength, 'tis Ridiculously impolitic, to Disband the Learned only to teach the Ignorant, and put the Government to the toil, and expense, of making Officers and Soldiers, when we have them made to our hands.  
There is nothing but Contradiction and an inflexible humour governs this sort of People; for after they had lost their vain Fears of Arbitrary Government, in the Character they themselves give the King, they Shelter under the Danger that might rise from the Army itself; and yet after all the Rude and Ungentile Language they give both Officers, and Soldiers, yet at last the Power of Truth has forced them into this Ingenious confession 
† Argument against a Standing Army p. 30. & 31.  that what they have said against Standing Armies, they would be understood of such as are Instruments of Tyranny, and their Countries Ruin, and not of our Present Army, which was raised by consent of Parliament, in the Just and Necessary War; and next under God and our great and glorious Deliverer, have, by their Bravery and Conduct, preserved our Liberties and the Protestant Religion through Europe.  
There are a sort of Talkers that ought to have good Memories, and these Seditious babblers, tho they have an Excellent faculty in the Former, they are extremely Defective in the Latter, for 'twas this very Army, that next to God and our great Deliverer, have by their Bravery, and Conduct, preserved our Liberties, and the Protestant Religion through Europe, that in other Places 
* Argument against a Standing Army. p. 29.  they call common Cut throats and Murderers by Profession, and under those Hard Names, move that there may not be 
† Answer to the balancing. Letter.  One Soldier left in England. 'Tis a great shane and Pity that the Army han't the privilege of bringing Actions of Slander against the Mixture, for as every injured Person and Fraternity ought to have Reparations Proportionable to their Sufferings by Slanderous Tongues; so I am very Confident the Free-Holders of England would give them Swinging Damages, where the Agressors confess the Action. Well,  
Since then by their own Confession, There is no cause of Fear from the King, nor Danger from the Army, 'tis worth our further enquiry what has raised all this Dust to choke us with Jealousies and suspicions, and after all the Reputation we have gained in War would sink us into a dangerous remissness in time of Peace and upon Remote and Invented fears of danger that will probably never happen, Expose ourselves to those which we must certainly look for, as soon as we have put ourselves out of a Capacity of Resisting by Disbanding the whole Army, and the Reason I meet with in an Ingenious Author, viz. Because a sort of men set up for wonderful Patriots, grow Jealous of the Prerogative, and commence Zealots for public Liberty, who in the late Reigns, tho' we had not only the Justest Causes of jealousy, but all the Certainties of Evidence, that Arbitrary Power was Erecting; yet some of them were silent, and others that went into them with as hearty a Zeal for Arbitrariness, as they seem now to put on for Liberty, and in the late War laboured hard to lay us open to Invasion and Conquest, what they could not compass during the War, are endeavouring to accomplish now, by all the Arts Imaginable, and leave no ston unturned that may make a step to our Confusion, and their own Advancement; but this affair being determined by the King and Parliament, I shall add no more but my hearty Wishes, that there may never be an unhappy occasion, by the malice of our Foreign Enemies, or the Treachery of the Mixture, to convince us by a Dear bought experience Who were in the Right. However,  
Tho' this Matter is at length accommodated, as you have heard already, to show their Envy, Covetousness and Ambition is never to be satisfied, till themselves be in Office, or all Overturned: they re-assume their never-failing topics, Arbitrary Officers and Mismanagements, and through the sides of his Ministers, wound his Majesty in his Honour, and under the general name, and cry against the Court, reflect upon his Sacred Person, for though they don't explain it in words at length; but hid themselves under Dubious and Abiguous Terms, their meaning is as Intelligible as that its day when the Sun's upon the Meridian. None but the King has Power of modeling the Court, or exchanging the ministry, and they might as well say the King was the head Conspirator to Introduce the pretended Slavery, as to say he appoints the Instruments to accomplish it: and how they will reconcile this, either with the Character they are pleased to give them, or the profound Respect and Duty they pretend to owe him, is past my Understanding.  
I am no Advocate for ill Ministers, and they that know Who are such, would do well to tell them so, or apply themselves where the Discovery will be Welcome, and Mismanagements redressed, and if they don't take the Legal Method of convicting such Offenders, their pretences will by all that understand themselves be censured, like Sir H. D. C. Petition, to be Frivolous, Vaxatious, and Scandalous. I know they will answer 'tis none of their business: and I must reply, they do ill to Concern themselves with that which is not; for 'tis less every Man's Duty to Rail, than sack to Remedy what they know is Amiss: and if they know it not, they are much more to blame, to make Worthy Mens Reputations, the Subjects of idle and envious Banter, unless they covet the name of Buisie-bodies, or what is worse, Common Slanderers.  
There is a Blind side, and Weak part in the Populace, that easily yields to any Assault, which all that low Sedition endeavour to secure to themselves, and that is, they naturally love to hear Great Men spoken ill of, and are never better pleased than when their Ears are drumm'd with Rancorous Discourses and Malicious Insinuations against their Superiors: which the Mixture knowing, they frequent public places, and without considering their own Quality, and the Port they ought to keep, Associate with all Companies, to Exagerate the Faults and Misfortunes of the Government, which they always do to the height, and make every Mole hill a Mountain, every Gnat a Camel, every slip or stumble a Dangerous Symptom of approaching Ruin, and hint them with such a superfetationed. Fears and Jealousies, as if the whole frame of Nature were dissolving, and the world on the Brink of Rain by the mismanagement of those they are pleased to call Ignorant and ill designing Ministers, and then sigh out Damnation against them, with such hideous Accents, as engages their Auditors to believe and publish them, and by these little Artifices of the Mixture, false Report's are spread, and the King and Court Traduced when there is no Cause or Reason to give them Credit. Hence Ill Constructions are put upon Usefull and Innocent Actions. Ill Turns are given to Well intended designs, and every Trip in the Administration, is magnified by unjust aggravations, without making an Allowance for the Difficulties, under which the ministry for many years have laboured: in maintaing a War by Sea and Land, when our Money was debased, our Credit Sunk, and almost at an Impossibility to retrieve it: besides the Care and Thought, in uniting men of different Parties, different Principles, and Different Interests, to contribute towards the common Preservation: which no Man knows the trouble of, but those that under-went the Burden of it, which if Impartially weighed, and considered with due regard to the Circumstances of the time and necessities of Affairs, it would not only cool the heat of their Enemies, but merit the Applauses and Thanks of those very Men, who are so forward to condemn them without considering how much the Governis Isseaknect, and the Honour and Reputation of it Broken, by these ignorant and ungrateful Underminers.  
No Government on Earth is so completely perfect, but something will be amiss in the Administration, and some unhappy occasions of complaints will arise; but the ways by which the Seditious Intermixture manage themselves, plainly discover their Designs are not to Rectify Disorders, but to countenance their own Clamours against the King and Court, because they are not infalble: whereas a modest and sincere Intention for the public Good, would first consider how far promoting such suggestions would carry them, since if they look back but a few Pages into our History, they will find that the same complaints have already kindled a War, and many a Doleful Tragedy amongst us. 'Tis impossible to know what they mean, by what they say, for they take the measure of good and evil, not from the Nature and Tendency of Actions, but from the Characters of Persons, and they are Elected or Reprobated, as the Persons are esteemed for, or against the Party, to which their Natural propensities, or sordid Interests incline them, and being tinged with Malice and Malcontentedness, they think nothing more their duty than to feed and cherish unnatural Heats and Divisions, till they can blow up the sparks of their frenzy into public Combustions. 'Tis their natural humour to dislike, and as fast as they are able subvert every established Government, and 'tis no wonder, for what can Restrain Mad men from railing at their Keepers, and Governours, and the Laws, which Fetters them up from those Outrages, that they are so eager to act upon their Country.  
There is scarce a Crime to be mentioned in reference to the Public, but they confidently charge it upon the Ministry; but keep the Proof of them in the Clouds, as if the World were obliged to believe malicious Reports, upon the Credit or a spiteful hearsay, which have neither Being nor Beginning, Colour nor Pretence to justify them. There is all the reason in the world that Ill Ministers should be punished, and he would be one of the worst of Men, that would either palliate their Fault, or protect their Persons when they are Convicted of what they stand accused; but yet there is no Reason that any man should be scandalised, and suffer upon the Naked account of a Running Clamour, that has no other Father, but the malicious Inventions of those that are struggling for their Places. It is no wonder to hear the greatest Worth Defamed, the wisest Conduct Suspected, the Profoundest Wisdom slighted, and Men of the most exemplary virtue evil spoken of. The envious eyes of some Men, will for ever be disturbed for so great a Lustre. The Israelites envied Moses, the Jews scandalized the Blessed Jesus, the Romans suffered Bellisarius to beg about their Streets, that had been thrice their Deliverer, and no sooner were the Athenian Captains by their Excellent Conduct, Valour, and Success, raised in the Esteem for their very Enemies, but they were presently envied, Impovrished, and Proscribed by their own Countrymen. The Renowned Caesar's fall was owing as well to the Envy as Malice of Republican Brutus, and Cassius. 'Tis a great piece of Folly to think the worse of any Man for being envied and evil spoken of; for 'tis certain the Wisest and Best Man in the Nation, though others may, shall never escape Censure; therefore heavy Accusations and Crimes of the highest Nature, ought to be well proved, before they are believed, or spread abroad to the Prejudice of great Men in their Lives, Honours, and Estates, for if it be enough to be Accused where shall we find a Man that is Innocent.  
We have heard many unpardonable Crimes objected against the Courut, but how rarely do we hear of any proof made against them; and therefore since the Seditious Interpositors, after all their tedious Searches and Examinations, have not been able to descry the Dangers they pretend to fear; 'tis a sufficient Principle of Presumption, that their Jealousies are ill grounded, that they find fault merely for the sake of finding fault, and like Boys having blown a Soap-Bubble from a Walnut shell, resolve to keep it up as long as they have breath to follow it. Nay, since they exhibit foul and dismal Charges against the Ministry, without referring to any Act of the Ministers to make it good, they prove nothing but that they are Oppressed with Envy, and ill-nature; for they are not so Unskillfull at improving the Minutest peccadilloes, that had they been furnished with any shadow of Truth, they would not have smoother'd them, and therefore since they have produced none, the Reader may justly conclude they have none to produce. And all undesigning men, not withstanding all the scar Crows that are set up to fright us, may with great satisfaction and quiet, depend upon his Majesty's Promise made to the House of Commons 
* Martis 4. die Aprilis. 1699.  in answer to their Address, viz. That He will take the best care he can, that all sorts of mismanagements, and Irregularities shall be Prevented or redressed. So that upon the whole matter our Enemies crying out against the Government in general Terms, without being able to produce any thing worth the hearing, to justify their Noise and Clamours; they prove nothing but their want of Breeding and better Arguments, and their Calumnies when driven home will recoil upon their own Heads; for they that charge others with Crimes they cannot prove, Indict and Convict themselves of Falsity. and as this Offence may be the Parent of many Disturbances, so among our other Real Grievances, it calls for a timely Redress, for itis infinitely below Authority, to indulge, or neglect a humour that proceeds from nothing but Invincible Pride and Peevishness. However.  
Certainly Causes there are, for all these complaints are not made for nothing. There can be no smoke but there must be some Fire; and therefore to be just to my Reader, and satisfy my Country, I must not smother them; but in Conscience and Honesty am obliged to bring some of them upon the Stage, and show the Reasons why there are so many complaints against the Court, and the first I encounter is,  
That many of the Seditious Mixture are under great Disappointments. They want Places of Profit that they may Repair their tattered Fortunes at the expense of the Public, and Places of Trust, that they may have it in their Power to turn the Scales, if ever the Beam should begin to Totter. And show their Exquisite Parts in Doing Nothing, and Undoing All Things. And the Government being supplied at present with Able and experienced Statesmen, and that 'tis too long to go Barefoot, till they can be Recruited with Dead mens shoes, they would pull them off, and force a way to their Preferment, through the Reputations of the present Ministers, and for that End only, endeavour to make the present Ministers uneasy to themselves, and hateful to others, that they may turn them out, and thrust themselves into their Places; and this Chicanery they manage with so much Art and Industry, at their several Clubs and Eatting-Houses, as if all were going to ruin, unless they be speedily Empl●y'd, and such Methods observed to Regulate Disorders, as they only can propose. though when their Notions come to be examined, 'tis a Thousand to one, but they are utterly Impracticable, Dangerous in the Use, and Destructive in the End; But the Vulgar not perceiving what's in the covered Dish, they run into the same Cry against the Court, and eagerly spend their mouths in the Chase, which their Leaders have started, without knowing what the Game is, how it must be dressed, or who must feed upon the carcase when they have helped to catch it.  
Noise and nonsense is enough to set all the Idle Tools of the Seditious Mixture a Madding, and therefore having swallowed the Infectious Vehicle, it soon has its Operation, and now they all Applaud the Contrivances and Stratagems of these State empirics, as the only Physitians that can cure all the Distempers in the public Administration: the only Patriots that can heal our Breaches, and restore to every Factious and Impoverished Zealot, what he has a mind to. And in order to it Railing at the Ministry, is called Liberty and Property, and Freedom of Speech, and Despising Authority, is called not fearing the face of Men in their Country's Cause: when their Country is no more concerned in their Invectives and Quarrels against the Court, than they would be for their Country, if 'twere in their Power to serve it. Let these Underminers of the Ministry make what pretences they please, self-interest is at the bottom of all their Rares-Shews for Reforming what's Amiss, and the Truth of the matter is, these Gentlemen having their Wants to led, and the Devil to Drive, they can find no such Expedient to supply the former, and please the latter, as by changing the Ministry, and thrusting in themselves to accomplish what they aim at; and therefore prosecute the design accordingly with uncommon Vigour. See them set round a Table with all their politics about them, affecting as Zealous a look as if every Man were a Machivel, and as expert in Redressing Grievances, and Preventing Abuses, as Solon, or Lycurgus, and now whatever opens their mouths against the Government, nothing but the hopes of a Place, can shut them, and that does it effectually. As a late Poet Sings. 
Attempts to purify the Court,  
Is damning men of Places:  
Till decently they sand them home,  
And get themselves put in their Rome,  
And then they'll change their Faces.  
' Tis not because some In are Bad,  
That forms Fears, and Pretences;  
But wants of Equipage and Post,  
And supplies at the public Cost,  
To keep Coach and Six, and Wenches.   
The most serious Discourses amongst them, and of Weightiest Matters, at last Centre in their wants of Preferment, and begin they where they will, a Place is the end of it. And though they may smother their Desires and Ambitious aims a while, and appear only public Spirited Patriots; yet their Visor at length drops off, and their designs are discovered, They want an Office, a lively instance whereof I heard but the other day in a Coffee-house, where a Diminutive Animal of a late, and from a mean Rise, tho' now arrived to a great Estate, being hearty railing against the Administration and sighing out his Fears for his dear Country and poor England. A Gentleman smartly Reprimands the Fop, tells him his Family was once regarded as men in the true Interest of the Nation. And tho' his Father's Chair sliding from under him, the sall had swelled his Spleen, turned his Brain, and affencted his Uncle's by sympathy: He was sorry to see the Son also discover more weakness and Ill nature in the Family, in Cursing and Reviling the public Management and promoting discontents in the Nation. To whom the Upstart replied, I will, and ought to do it, for the Court has used me Barbarousty, and the Place I was a Candidate for they have given to another. In short he Over valued himself, by aspiring to the degree of a States man, and was angry that a fitter man had the Preserence; and now his disappointment must be called a National grievance and Mis-management. And if you search to the bottom of all our Clamours still the want of a Place is the cause of them.  
Some of the Murmurers it's true, are modester or rather subtilter than others; yet all issue at last inthe same thing, and tho' the poison does not break out at the mouth, yet they have their Methods too, and Slander the Administration with their Ears and their Looks, and whilst others Clacks are running accent and confirm their Calumnies, by Tipping the Wink, Shrugging the Shoulders, and shaking the Head so dismally as suggests more Crimes against the Court than the World ever knew, or arithmetic can number. And if the Stream runs against a Minister they think their Enemy, a familiar Nod, or gracious Smile from his Lordship in Mummery confirms all the Slanders which are broached at this Cabal, and shall pass them as Confidently, as if they were Mathunatical Demonstrations, when peradventure there is not one true Syllable in all the Clatter.  
Others of this Seditious Mixture, make their Wants and Necessities the cause of promoting Discontents and Jealousies, and Raffle for Preferment and Places, for the same Reasons that wise men think should utterly debar them; for Hungry men ought not to be invited to scanty Commons, their Debauched Extravagant and vain expenses, having consumed their own Estates, there's no reason to Trust them with the public Purse, or Offices that may give them an opportunity of Oppressing the Subject to supply their Necessities, and lengthen their own Teathers by defrauding other men of their Right of Common. I am not unsensible that it is thought a great piece of Policy in a Prince, to make frequent changes in his Court, and when some have filled their Pockets, to give them leisure to spend it; and oblige others of his Subjects with the like Advantages. I will not dispute whither this may prove advantageous to the Crown; but am of Opinion 'tis detremental to the Subject, for the same Reason that 
† epitome of J●sephus. p. 488.  Tiberius gave to his Friend upon asking him that question: I seldom, says he change my Governours of Provinces because every new hungry Comer, racks the People by new Exactions, till they have filled their Coffers, and then are at quiet. And to this purpose  told them, that a poor Lazar having his sores covered with Flies, which he endeavoured not to drive away from feeding on his Flesh, the Spectators believing it proceeded from his inability to do it, they went near to do that Office for him; but he prayed them to-let the Flies alone, for having now glutted themselves with my Blood saith he, they don't suck so Greedily, but that I enjoy a little ease; but if you drive them away, fresh flies will light upon my Sores and suck me to Death. Which applied to Beggarly Pretenders for Employments, puts a Bar to their Importunate Solicitations especially when they take such Indirect courses to obtain what they seek for. Mens Necessities may be great, but good mens Loyalty will surmount their Wants and not put them upon robbing the King of his Poeples Duty and Affections, to fill their own Bellies; but rather to suffer any thing for his Majesty than cause him in the least to suffer by or for them. They have a great deal to answer for, who by the State-Craft of pressing for Redress of grievances, would amend their own Circumstances, by raising Hurricano's in the State, and stirring up such Commotions as sometimes shatter the Constitution, and as our own Memoirs can too sadly inform us, often entirely Deface and Overturn it. When these dangerous Incendiaries first set out to Awe the Government, what pains do they take to show themselves disaffected, and hope to get Places by Arguments of their Disloyalty, and run against the Court in hopes they will ask their Price, and take them off, by bestowing Preferments upon them. For those Methods being succcessful in former Reigns, they revive them in this, 
King Charles the Second knew their Game,  
And Places gave and Pensions;  
And had King William's Money flown,  
His Majesty would soon have known  
Their Consciences Dimenssons,  
But he has Wisely given them up,  
To work their own Desires;  
And laying Arguments aside,  
As things which have in vain been tried,  
To Fastings, Want, and Prayers.   
'Tis a Lewd and Unwarrantable step in politics, for Seditious Intermedlers to expect to be Gratified by Profitable Employments, for being intolerably Vexatious to the Government; and by all the sharking Ways and Means imaginable, to place themselves at the Helm; for this Cunning is not always crowned with Success; but oftentimes the wild pursuers draw down Ruinous Consequences on their own Heads, by attempting to Rise by such Natorious Acts as call their Fidelities into Question, for if men can be Loyal no longer than they and bribed to their Duties by Preferments, the King leans on Broken Reedes, and cannot be Secure till he has as many Good Places in his Gift, as he has Bad and Hungary Subjects in his Kingdom, and if men would but consider that they have to do with a Prince, that is not to be hectored out of his Favours; they would give over throwing Obsticles in the way of their own Rising, seeing their is no great Feats to be done in this Reign by such a Fantastical Conduct: whereas the Exercise of Humility, Loyalty and Modesty would melt his heroic Soul, into such Gracious Considerations, as would put him upon considering how he might be still more Beneficial to his People.  
The Reigning Sins, Pride, Ambition, and Atheism, are other Greivancies that call aloud for Redress, and the neglect of Suppressing them; are to be reckoned among our Real Mis-managements, and as the Cause of the Molestations they afflict the State. Envy and Obloquy, spares no body, the most unblemished virtue is not sheilded from their Darts. 'Tis Defined by Cicero, to be Grief conceived in the Mind, at the Good which another man enjoies; and that good Especially, by which the Envious Man receives no injury; but they are Sick because other Men are Well, and the better it is with Another the worse it is with him. When Men have consumed their own Estates by Idle, and Extavagant expenses, they envy those that are grown Rich by their Industry; and this makes them Curious in inquiring, and Prying into other Mens affairs that they may find something to Lessen them. A Temper so far from being Christian, that there's nothing of Humility but much of the Devil in it. Hence it is that the rattling of a Courtiers Coach frights them out of their Sences, the sight of a fine coat, makes 'em ready to tear their own Clothes tho Gayer, and puts them into such a heat, that nothing but the Promise of a good Place can cool their Envy, or Divert them from Declaiming against the Court, telling Stories of Mis-management, Detracting from their Merits, and making large Additions to their faillings; and if the Court oblige them with some fine thing to play withal, their pretended conscientious Clamours will submit to their Interests, and then the Court is the Honestest place in Christendom.  
Pride and Vanity, are other Ingredients that contribute toward the composition of a Male Content; for they swell the Factions with such good opinions of Themselves, and their Capacities for public Employments, that there is a necessity for others to be turned Out, that they may have an Opportunity, to show their Rare Qualifications: and then the most compendious ways to obtain their wishes, are to calumniate the Court, and cut down the oaks that the Shrubs and underwood may flourish; when all is but a grand mistake, for neither have the Possessors deserved a Writ of Ease, nor is the Intruder qualified either with Brain or Body for it; but his Pride and Vanity screwed up hisow Price, and represented him of greater Value than he was. But some lucky hand being so kind, to Plum the depth of his Understanding, procured his Dismission, and now in Revenge, King, Church, Court, City, Country, must go to Wrack, and suffer all the Reproaches that the Wit and Malice of the Party can Invent.  
Haughty and Ambitious Antimonarchists, are the other Causes of all the Fears and Suspicions that are raised in England; for such Elevating their minds above their Ranks, and the end of their Institution, and wearing Venerable Titles; to humour Anbitious Freakes some Popular Maggot, or Invented Danger to withdraw Subjects from their Allegiance is started and therefore if we would not be chous'd out of our Legal Settlemen; before we imbibe their Delusions, we had need make sharp inquiries, whether the Specious pretences of their Reformers, don't design to justle out that Universal Repose, which we have enjoyed under his Majesties Government, and therefore are all equally obliged to Promote it. Innovations, which self Intrested Men would Introduce into the Administration of the Kingdom, have sometimes unhing dour Regular Constitution; but we rarely hear that they have ever Corroborated the Old, or have enlarged the Power of the Kingdom or the advantages of the People. History swells with Examples which Confirm this Truth. How Unanimously have our Laws sentenced all Commotions, tho Gilded with the sairest. Colours that Art could Invent 'Tis attested by the Experience of of all Ages, that the horrible Evils which Factious Innovators, by raising Fears and Jealousies have brought in amongst us, have been a greater burden tous than any other affliction that could have happened. This is and ever will be the necessary concequence of such endeavours; for if every Sorry Pretender of Grievances, should take a Licence to Disobey his Superiors, whensoever he has a mind to deliver himself of a Complaint: then Farewell Society, for no form of Government can Subsist on these Extravagant terms, since every one hurried by his Passions, would never want Plausible Reasons to ground his Plea of Resisting Authority upon, and by this means our Miseries would be endless.  
Our Laws enjoin us to Obey the Kingas Supreme Head and governor, and forbid us entiring into any engagements, that by the widest Constructions may seem to clash with our Duty. Now such as by an Implicit Surrender, devote themselves to any Person or Embodied Society, which are Superior to them; if that Society have given any signs of Disloyalty, or of Advancing themselves, the People are in great Danger of being stripped of their fidelity to their liege Lord, when their Leaders who ought to animate the Allegiance of the Lower Orders of Men; become themselves the first deserters. 'Tis enough we give Men of Quality the Respect that is Due to them, without being so much their Vassals as to sell that Liberty of ours, of which the King is the only Master of. Not that I blame a Deference paid to great Men, but I would not have their Authoritative Influence, Hand over Head betray us to comply with their Criminal Passions; 'tis worth the while therefore first to observe as I said before, whether these Reformers of Abuses themselves are Loyal and Steady in the Interest of their Sovereign, and whither there is not a Snake hidden in the Grass: and that under pretence of rectifying Disorders and Mis-managements, they have not a Crafty Design to Hook us into a Combination that Undermines the Throne of our Prince, for if we get any Light, that they Drive at so Black an Attempt, we must disdainfully Retreat from such Perfidious Designs, and Generously sacrifice every Glittering Advantage which they have cajoled us with, to our Duty. And whatsoever Interest starts up, to cleave Inviolably to the King; for as his Side is the Justest, so the Advantages of Sticking to it, well be the most Honourable and Satisfactory.  
'Tis only the effect of a Giddy presumption, that Spirits on tumultuous Subjects, to Quarrel with the Administration of the State, imagining that public Affairs would Roll more Smoothly, if themselves were in the Ministry, or things were managed by their fanciful Schemes, whereas 'tis their Duty to submit to the Laws, to banish Murmuring, and stifle Opposition, when a Conformity to their Regulations are required. But if Abuses does insinuate into the Government, no doubt but we ought to wish they were Reformed, but let no Men undertake it, without a Lawful Commission, and certain Evidence of the Facts: For all extrajudicial attempts, and Sinister Ends, tend rather to the Shaking of the Monarchy than Amending its Defects. And after all that State menders pretend to in changing the Ministry, the King is the proper Judge of every Alteration; and tho He should not Agree to such Demands, as carry a fair Plaufibility of Right for their being Granted, still ought to Acquiesce with Confidence, that his Non-concurrence is for the Real good of his Subjects; and tho the Reasons are behind the Curtain to us, they are Evident and Demonstrative to Himself and Council. How happy are we then, that have a King that Caresses his Subjects as his Children, and with an Indifatigable Application Propagates the Welfare of all under his Charge? How How Dutiful and Diligent therefore should all his Subjects be in their several Stations, who Bask under that Sun-shine, to smother the Gusts and Ill Designs of the Mixture Early, before they become Gloomy Clouds, big with impending ruin to darkin the Lustre of Royal Grace.  
Here I had the thoughts of Easing my Reader from the Fatigue I have given him; but I find myself under a necessity of trailing him a little further, before I can dismiss him with entire satisfaction. For having shewed him that there is a design carrying on at several Cabals, either utterly to deprive his Majesty, or at least to lessen his Authority, I must show him now, that since it could not be done at once as in the Assassination Plot, they are now doing it by Degrees, and as the Wolves would first rob the Sheep of the assistance of their faithful Allies, that they might become an easy prey to their Devourers; so that that the Mixture might Impose upon the King at pleasure, 'twas resolved at another Club, and Published by one of their Secritaries in a Pamphlet 
† page. 7.  called, An Answer to the balancing Letter, That  
To preserve the Honour of the Government: none, or few, who have gainful Offices, should be Members of the House of Commons,  
Sure the Gentlemen of this Club are Men of great Interest and Correspondence, and what they transack in their Club Room, strangely Influences other Places; for there is scarce a page. in the whole L●bel that has not been the Subject of Debates and Resolutions in more Eminent Ascociations, and then no wonder to see things go at this Rate, and themselves so mightily concerned for the Honour of the Nation, which was never further in their thoughts, than to make what earnings they could, from their pretences of having served the Government: for some are well known amongst them, that now rail at all above and below them, that are not of their Faction, that have had their Hands deeper in the King's Pockets, and have received larger shares of his Bounty, than any men of their Quality in England; and yet are so Ungrateful, that they never afford his Majesty one good word: but upon all Occasions detract from his Virtues, Eclipse his Glory, and by all the Power they have lessen his Authority; and in this their Favourite Project aim at nothing less than if it were possible to leave him Friendless also, for under that name they would exclude his Officers; which are but the late Kings politics reversed, and tend no other purpose but to express their Ingratitude.  
Every Protestant Getleman in England, under such requisite Qualifications as the Law has established, have a right to be Elected Members of Parliament, and nothing can look with a more Arbitrary Countenance upon the Gentry of England, than a design of this Nature; for it takes away their Birth rights, and sinks their Honour in the Esteem of the Nation, as it distinguishes them as men Unfit to serve their Country, because they have the Honour of serving their King. Is this for the Honour of the government, to persuade the World, that they that serve the King are not to be trusted in the management of public Affairs. What a manifest Contradiction is this to common sense, that those which other whiles they call the King's Friends, must have a mark set upon them as his greatest Enemies: for if they truly love and faithfully serve the King, as I am inclined to think they do, because the Mixture hate them, they will offer no nothing, but what they apprehended will be of service both to King and Couutry, whose Iuterests can never be divided, but Live and Die together. To think to serve the King by Injuring the Country, is to Discrown their Master and to think to oblige the Nation, by Lesfening the Kings Authority, and impairing his Revenue, is to Behead the people, their Interests as I said before are so Interwoven together that one cannot suffer, but the other sensibly feels it; and therefore the Mixture ought to give the Officers some other name, or let them keep their Places. Besides, is it for the Honour of the Government to Disfranchize the Electors, and ridicule them as ignorant Animals, who don't know who are fit to be their Representatives in Parliament. Is not this Arraigning the Commons to think an Office can corrupt them, and bias them from their Duty to their Country? What Disingenious reflections are these upon Gentlemen, and what Heart Burnings will it beget among us? How do they know which way these Officers will Vote, since some Officers Vote as constantly against what they call the Court Party, as if they held their Places by no other tenor; Ought not every Member to Vote as his judgement directs him, without being Censured at every Drunken Club for so doing. And why should the Yea's be thought less Judicious and conscientious than the No's, or the No's than the Yea's, God forbid; for these are but Bones of dissension thrown among us to set all at squabbling: and that the Seditious may find their own account in fastening Crimes on Men of Honour and Worth, they neither know why, nor wherefore: whose shilliings may prove of Dangerous Consequence to the State, and to those who are Over reached by them.  
The Design they manage, in endeavouring to Exclude all that have Offices under the King out of the House of Commons is plain enough; they are afraid the Kings and Countries Affairs should thrive too well, and therefore would have the House of Commons to be like themselves, all of a Piece, and wholly against the King and Court. I cannot but wonder how they dare make such Reflections upon the House of Commons, as to Insinnuate there are any Parties and Factions among them, by pretending to distinguish who are For and Against the Interest of the King. What a Liberty of Censuring all the rest do they furnish Conversation with? When they propose the Turning out some particular Member, under the supposition that they are in the Royal Interest, which is Unkind to the Parliament, and Ungrateful to the King: and I am only sorry that I am not wholly at Liberty to pursue, and improve the Results of my own thoughts upon that Subject: Tho' they have partly spared me the labour in contriving their Schemes so Ill, that they are neither Adapted to persuade the Wise, nor to deceive the simplo, their Intrigves, and the Slanders by which they manage them, being so Open and barefaced, that had an Enemy Designed to expose their Wickedness, he could not have fathered upon them more unlucky Instances, than what is covered under this Old Trick of Secluding Members, which we hope the Lord's Wisdom and Goodness will prevent, lest the same Club when their designs are Ripe, should think their Lordships also dangerous and useless, and propose it as a Grievance to be redressed. For what has been done may be done again, and the same cause will produce the same effects to the end of the Chapter.  
Which is as evident as Demonstration can make it, by the next step the Mixture took at a Cabal held, as I take it, at the Old Devil of St. Duustan's, where to Express their Ingratitude to the Height, and show what sort of Cards were Trumps, when their Spies and Emissaries, and the Agents and Factors which they keep in all corners of the Town, to Fetch and Carry, to traffic for News, and support the Trade of Promoting Fears and Jealousies, had brought in their straggling Reports, they came to these unkind Resolutions, and ordered them to be engrossed, and 
† Pamphlet predict. P. 22. and 13.  Printed and Published by their former Secretary, viz.  
That letting in Aliens, diminishes the strength of the Nation, and therefore the Dutch must be amoved out of the Kingdom, and a Fatal day set for their departure.  
Without doubt the Mixture will say these Proceedings are for the Honour of the Government too? To Invite Strangers to our Assistance, and when they have done our Work, and contributed to the Nations Deliverance from Tyranny, and Oppression; then to Treat them with Unkindness and Ingratitude; which as our case stands in expectation of what may happen, is as Opposite to the Honour and Interest of England, as Light is from Darkness. 
Tho' I've no lily in my belly,  
This home-spun truth I'll boldly tell ye,  
( And may I be no Prophet)  
If thus we serve our truest Friends,  
Some nameless Sparks may have their Ends:  
And mischief may come of it.  
Nay those staunch Senators I doubt  
Who with a Vote French Armies rout and quarrel who shall win most,  
should Monsieur Land, would surely fly,  
And turning tail, Heroic cry,  
The Devil take the hind'most.   
Certainly the Gentlemen of this Cabal are very loose in their Sentiments, that find those Aliens, now so great an Eye-sore, that not long since they Caressed with the highest Expressions of Respect, and made such acknowledgements of Obligations to them, that they were never able to recompense. Pray Gentlemen what have they done to Merit your displeasure? wherein have they mis-behaved themselves towards you, that all of a sudden they must be shipped off, as a Dangerous People? How long have you been persuaded that they have Dimished the strength of England, were you of this Opinion when they Landed in Torbay, and with their Swords in their hands, asserted your Liberties? Could you have done the Nations work without them? If you could why did you so earnestly request their Assistance, and if you could not, why would you have them used so unkindly. For shane give over Affronting the Honour of English men, with such ungrateful Characters and making the Nation Contemptible in the Eyes of all the World, for the sake of a few malcontented Clubbers, and the next time you employ your Secretaries Pens, let it be to better purpose, and enjoin them for the Honour of your Club Room to Apologize for the slurs they have put upon the Nation already.  
But the Decree of the Cnbal you see is peremptory. Our Dutch friends must march off, and the Reason they give for it is a doughty one, viz 
† Lib. & p. predict.  For every Foreigner living in England, say they, we have an Englishman the less. That's strange! since if we had not had their Assistance, our Quota during the War, must have been greater, and consequently more Englishmen must have fallen a Sacrifice to Popery and Slavery, then has done, and therefore we have more Englishmen left alive for having had their Assistance, than in all probability we could have had, if we had wanted them; but this Core against the Dutch lies deeper than every man's ware of; for these very men that proposed packicking off the Dutch, not long since were as zealous for promoting a Bill of naturalisation for all the French: though the latter Nation are our known Enemies, and the Dutch our faithful Allies, and embarked in the same Cause against them. But it seems the Mixture knew what Monarch protected the Abdicated King, whose Restoration is a great point among them, tho kept behind the Curtain; and where the Court of St. Germans stood; and therefore were compounding with the two Courts, by showing Kindness to that Nation, and sending away the Duch, who by Inter est as Well as Alliance, were obliged to assist us when occasion serve'd against them both. I could urge a great deal more upon this Head, but I know they are upon the Fret already, for being touc'd in the galled place, and being unwilling to Sour 'em more, or meddle with a Wasps-Nest, I won't attempt to put a Statue of Brass out of Countenance, or hope to Convince or Silence Men of their Complexions.  
The Great Reason why the Dutch must Troop off, is still to come, and tho they were always accounted as his Majesties Domestik Servants, and have for many years attended his Royal Person in his Progresses, yet not a Hoof must be left behind: and to enforce this proposal they draw their unanswerable Argument from a Hen-Roost Metaphor, and say 
* Pag. 23.  Strangers are the nest-Eggs of a Foreign Invasion. See how these Witty Gentlemen tumble in their Pretty Tropes; Rickety Heads, and Arbitrary Power, Obedient Subjects and Puppy-Dogs, Invasions and Nest-Eggs. Tipical, Topical, Tropical, my bed is Green. What pleasant sport might a Man make with the Grave Speeches that have been made upon these Heads, but I have no time to loose in Winnowing chaff, or catching Butterflies: and therefore shall proceed to show how these Gentlemen forget themselves, and Say and Unsay to uphold the great Hypothesis of being perfect Enemies to his Majesty. When a Probability of trouble from France, was ●… ' d as a reason to keep up such a Number of Troops, as might secure the Nation fro such attempts. Than the Mixture scoffed such obviating Dangers as ridiculous Imaginations. Then we hear of nothing but the great Courage, Zeal, Fidelity, and Unanimosity of the English Nation in case of a French Invasion; but when the talk was hot about the Dutch staying or going, all those Glotious Epithets are shrunk into Meanest of Spirit, and they show the Nation in such a Cowiardly Posture, as if they stood all Shivering behend the Door, for fear of— thousand Dutchmen: or that every one of those Nest-Eggs should hatch such a Brood of Shake-Bags as would Beat all the fighting Cocks in England. Thus are we represented as Stout as lions, or as Fearful as Hares, as will best agree with the Designs of the Mixture: If the King would have have a Land Force, proportionable to those of our Enemies. Then there were no need of any other Guards than his Halberteers; for in case of any Invasion every Individual Man in England would be a Soldier; but if it be thought Reasonable, Civil and Obliging, that the Dutch Guards should Remain in England. Then upstarts Fears and Jealousies, and remonstrate such dismal accidents may follow such an act of Gratitude, as may subject us to a Conquest and make us all Slwoes to Holland. Did ever Men make such Wretched Pretences? 'Tis a sad Symptom that ill designs are Brewing, when such Positive People are driven to such Sceptical and Doubtful Innuendo's and are forced to take Sanctuary in Naked May Be's, and Thwart and Affront His Majesty upon every trifling Suggestion, arising from Principles of Disloyalty; so that nothing must be done for him, out of Respect to his Person, or the mighty deliverance he Acheived, till all demands of the Cabals, how unreasonable soever, shall first be fully satisfied. But why should we wonder, 'tis natural for this mixture to be displeased with the grandeur and Prosperity of the Court. The height of the Kings felicity, frets their Pround and Envious Minds; and they are never so apt to spy Dangers, and complain of the badness of the Times, as when the Government is like to be most flourishing. They are incurable malcontents, and in Dread of an Arbritrary Power, which they say, They have no Reason to suspect; yet are making Encroachments upon the Royal Authority, and lying at Catch for all advantages, and Husbanding all Opportunities, to Abate the Sovereign Prerogative; and to keep the Monarchy low, by Removing his Friends, Empoverishing his Revenue, and being imperious and inexorable in their Impositions; as may be easily red in their Resolve to expel the Dutch, 
* Pamphl. predict page.. 23.  viz. That a Fatal day be set for their Departure.  
And Why a Fatal Day! they could not mean it to the Dutch Guards, for they were but going home, from whence they came to our Succour; and therefore must mean it in respect of us, that 'twould be fatal when we want Friends, to be refused their Assistance. They were pleased to call the Dutch, a dead weight upon the Nation, and I wish all others that are so, had bore them Company; and then as we have fewer Enemies, by being well Rid of the latter, and so the Balance would be equal. The Libel has yet some Fragments of History, to give it a greater Currency among the Seditious Intermedlers; but being Nothing to their purpose, I shall not reckon it so much to mine, as to Answer them; for since my whole design was only to expose these lewd scribblers, I hope I have done it to your Content; and this Affair being now Amicably determined by the King and his Parliaments; nothing more ought to be added, but what I shall ever contend for, viz. a Dutiful Obedience to our Superiors.  
I have now shew'd you the Reigning Evils of our present Times; give me leave to acquaint you, by what Ways and Means they are raised, and continued to breed Disturbances, and then I shall Dismiss my Reader.  
The Spring and Progress of all our Causeless Fears and Jealousies, and the unhappy Consequences that have attended Them, are owing to the more than ordinary Industry, of Seditious Men's Trafficking for News; and Employing a sort of Idle peddling People, to Range up and down in quest of fresh Intelligence, who importune all they meet, to contribute to the Stock of slandering the Government; and if they chance to meet any of their Associates, upon the Frontiers of their Respective Walks, they frankly impart what they have gained to each other, as Beggars do their Fragments: And seditious Clubs are the common places of rendezvous, where they all Unload, and every particular Member partakes of the Joint Collectons of the whole Society, where a sullen Grandee of the Mixture, will give a Guinea for a Tale, that humors his Designs, that will not part with half a Crown to pay a just Debt; and by this means all Reports fly abroad with such winged speed, as may Flush the Party to blazon them in all Quarters of the Town, and Country. And if they get a Story by the end, That looks a little a Squint upon the Court, and yet is not in itself full enough of Remark and Wonder: The Club Vamps it with New Circumstances of their own, Alter, Improve, and Refine it, till they have made it Foul enough to blacken the Ministry. To this end they Vouch it with Grave Nod, and Solemn Face; they will talk Shrewdly and Descant upon it, with a Thousand Pretty Conjectures: They will Whispher in your Ear, some subtle and Notable observation of Circumstances; and with wise and politic Forehead, will suspect Impossible Plots upon the Peoples Liberties, Foresee unthought of Designs in the Court to that purpose, and Foretell strange and Prodigious Events, that must necessary follow: Till by these and the like Arts, they make every false Report able to walk alone, without the help of Leading-strings, and maintain itself upon its own Credit and Reputation, till the public Voice Confirms it. And then  
You cannot for shane be so Uncivil, to Demur upon the Credibility of the Brute, when it has received such an Authoritative Sanction. And yet if you would trace these Streams to their Fountain, you might as well seek the Head of Nilus, which tho' it falls with a mighty Torrent, and over-flows Egypt with its swelling Streams; you must at last Derive its Original, as some of the ancients have done, from the Mountains in the Moon. So if a Man would search for the Authors of these Malicious, but Fabulous Relations, he shall be sure to have them fathered upon some very Credible Persons without Names, who had them from John a-Nokes, who had it from John-a-Stiles, who had it from No body. And if you will observe and Examine all Reports, that bear the Stamp of the Intermixture, as Chrysippus did the Oracular Lies of Apollo, you will find as he did, not One in Five Hundred, that are not apparently forged, and Counterfeit; and therefore I shall take my Leave of them in the Word of a late Poet. 
For shane give o'er these senseless Lies,  
The very mob sees the disguise  
Of your dull Shamms and Fears.  
In vain You employ them as a blind,  
While we perceive you have a mind  
To set us by the Ears.  
Britain which does to Caesar own  
Her Liberty, is wiser grown,  
Then these stale Arts give o'er:  
We know your wry distorted Faces,  
Are nought but Tricks to get you Places,  
And wont be bubbled more.  
While Caesar does the Throne sustain  
You rail at Monarchy in vain,  
And idly think to Rump it.  
Tho' faction Common-good pretends  
To serve their Undermining Ends,  
We'll Cart their common Strumpet.   
A careful Shunning of impostors, and Make-bates, and leaving them in the Clouds, they have raised, is therefore the duty of every good Subject; lest assisting the Seditious in their Vexatious contrivances against the Government, you dash upon the Rocks of Offence, and ruin your present Pretensions and future hopes. To avoid those dangers, Study to be Quiet, continue your Allegiance to the King, be Obedient to your Equals, and Civil to all Men. The practise of these virtues will procure you Friends, and imprint a belief in Authority that you Deserve their Favour, 'twould be the best Security of our privileges, of public Good, and steady Government. For there is in every virtuous and heroic Soul, such a sense of his Subjects Love and Duty, that 'twould be an Affront to the Ingenuity of Human Nature, to suppose that a Prince can be severe upon a Willing and Obedient People.  
FINIS