The Lord marquess of Dorchesters' LETTER to the Lord ROOS: With the Lord Roos' Answer thereunto.  
Whereunto is Added the Reasons, why the Lord marquess of Dorchester published his Letter of the 25. of Febr. 1659. Dated the 13. of the same month.  
With his Answer to the Lord ROOS his Letter.  
London, Printed, 1660.   

A true and perfect Copy of a Letter Written by the Lord marquess of Dorchester, to the Lord Roos.  
Printed the 25. of Feb. 1659. but sent to him on the 13. of the same month.  
SUre you were in one of your Drunken Fits, the Pot flew high when you writ your Sottish and Clownish Paper to me, that relishes of nothing but a tippled Fool, and a Bragging Coward; and the latter in so poor and mean a manner, that I am ashamed it should come from one that bears the Name, though not the Nature of a Gentleman: Your own fearful guilty Soul knows that my late Letter, as well as a former to yourself, (together with all Passages between us) were almost as soon communicated to your Father and Mother, as to yourself, and not long after to some of your nearest Relations; Nay, many of the Servants of both your Families were privy thereunto, and knew as much as yourself, and so did divers others in several places: All this I can prove by persons well reputed; and for the Letters, I dare swear, they were not kept very secret, for I have heard of divers passages in them, which I am sure came to nobody by Revelation, and yet you have the frontless impudence to lay this aspersion upon me: I have fought before now, and I hope never came off with the loss of honour; and must I now be afraid of such a Shadow, such a half-man as you are? and 'tis well if you be so much: You remember I challenged you twice in one Week, and you poorly and basely refused both, pretending you would give me full satisfaction; you came indeed (but full sore against your will, and contrary to the Huffs you gave out in the country in your Drink) and promised as much as I could expect, but afterwards performed nothing: And now be your own Judge, whether it is possible for any one to believe, that I that knew you had poorly refused twice, should avoid the meeting you now: If you needs must lie, follow my advice, and hereafter lie Colourably, for these are such gross ones, that they are palpable, like the Egyptian Darkness. I must needs say, it much troubles, and afflicts me, to be compelled by your barbarous and unmanly provocations, to use such speeches, contrary to my nature and disposition; but you began, and I do no more than retaliate, and the law of Retaliation is just and equal: But I believe, you'll bear all quietly, was it more; for you abound in Passive fortitude, though you have in you not one jot of the Active. If this any whit galls, you know the way to London (no other place for the present being possible to be chosen without most apparent and evident suspicion) There will be the most privacy, and who plays the poltroon, will be most easily discovered But what do I talk of London to you, you will as soon-come on your Head as on Horseback or in Coach, to meet me with a Sword in your hand: But, was it a Bottle, none would be more forward; and with such a weapon you may venture upon a Dutchman: But if there be a spark of Fire in so dull a Flint, I will strike it. From the beginning to the end of your Letter you falsely lie, and if you dare appear, I will cram it down your Throat with my sword; if there need any more, I say and resay, You are a base Coward. If you must have another Push, I will divulge it to the World in Print what a Coward You are, and make public all the passages between us; Your foolish bragging Letter shall not be omitted, which will speak you more than I have done, and this shall follow after it; then 'twill to all appear what a Captain Puff you are, fit for nothing but a Cudgel. For shame leave the Petticoat off, and put on breeches; use my Argument against myself; if I was so mean to discover this; you may infallibly conclude I will do so again; but you'll use none of this way of Argumentation, you too well know my innocence therein; if I may see a Miracle, that is, you with a Sword in your hand, I will before our Seconds and yourself, beseech God that what I wished in my Letter to your Second, may fall upon me, [viz.] That if in the least, directly or indirectly, I be guilty of this discovery, or any Circumstance that can but tend thereunto: Nay, I will go farther, If I did not my utmost to avoid all suspicion, may I fall by your Sword, to my eternal shame and ruin. This, upon my Honour, I will declare upon our Meeting, in manner as I have said, which I am sure you dare not respectively do for yourself; Your guilty trembling Conscience will hold you off when you are so near danger.  
Dorchester. Monday Febr. 13. 1659.  
The Messenger was sent Post with this Letter to the Lord Roos, on the day of the date thereof, but was forced to follow him from place to place, it being given out be was gone three or four several ways; at length he found him at the Lord Mountague's in Northamptonshire; and there after many Examinations, with much difficulty, he delivered this Letter to the Lord Roos his own hands, on Thursday morning the 16. of this instant Febr.  
A true and perfect Copy of the Lord Roos his Answer to the marquess of Dorchester's Letter written the 25- of February 1659.  
Sir,  
SUre you were among your Gallipots and clyster-pipes, when you gave your choler so violent a Purge, to the fouling of so much innocent paper, and your own reputation (if you had any, which the wise very much doubt) you had better been drunk and set in the Stocks for it, when you sent the Post with a whole packet of cartels to me; in which you have discovered so much vapouring nonsense and railing, that it is wholesomer for your credit, to have it thought the effect of drink, than your own natural talon in perfect mind and memory: for if you understand any thing in your own Trade, you could not but know that the hectic of your own brain is more desperate than the Tertian fits of mine, which are easily cured with a little sleep; but yours is past the remedy of a mortar and braying. But I wonder with what confidence you can accuse me with the discovery of private passages between us, when you are so open yourself, that every man sees through you; or how could I disclose perfectly any thing in your Epistles to my Father and Mother, the which was not before very well known unto your Tutors or School masters, whose instructions you used in compiling those voluminous works. Let any man judge, whether I am so likely to divulge secrets as you, who cannot forbear printing and publishing: Your Labours are now cried in the streets of London, with Ballads on the Rump and Hewsons' Lamentations; and the Lord of Dorchester's name makes a greaer noise in a close Alley than kitchen-stuff or work for a Tinker: & all this by your own industry, who are not ashamed at the same instant to pretend to secrecy, with no less absurdity than you commit, when accusing me for using foul Language, you do outdo Billingsgate yourself. But now you begin to vapour, and to tell us you have fought before; so I have heard you have, with your Wife, and Poet, but if you come off with no more honour, than when you were beaten by my Lord Grandison, you had better have kept that to yourself, if it were possible for you to conceal any thing: but I cannot but laugh at the untoward course you take to render yourself formidable, by bragging of your Fights, when you are terrible only in your medicines: if you had told us how many you killed that way, and how many you have cut in pieces, besides Calves and Dogs, a right valiant man that hath any wit, would tremble to come near you: and if by your threatening to ram your Sword down my Throat, you do not mean your Pills, which are a more dangerous weapon, the worst is past, and I am safe enough: as for your Feats of arms, there is no half quarter of a man that is so wretched, but would venture to give you battle, but you are most unsufferable in your unconscionable engrossing of all Trades: Is it not enough that you are already as many things as any of your own receipts, that you are a Doctor of the Civil Law, and a Barister at the Common, a Bencher of Gray's inn, a professor of physic and a Fellow of the college; a Mathematician, a Chaldean, a Schoolman and a piece of a Grammarian, (as your last work can show were it construed) a Philosopher, Poet, Translator, Antisocordist, solicitor, Broker & Usurer; besides, a Marquess, Earl, Viscount and Baron; but you must, like Dr. Suttle, profess quarrelling too, and publishing yourself an Hector; of which calling there are so many already, that they can hardly live one by another. Sir, truly there is no conscience in it, considering you have not only, a more sure and safe way of killing men already then they have, but a plentiful Estate besides: So many Trades, and yet have so little conscience to eat the bread out of their mouths; they have great reason to lay it to heart, and I hope some of them will demand reparation of you, and make you give them compounding dinners too, as well as you have done to the rest of your Fraternities; and now be your own Judge, whether any one man can be bound in honour to Fight with such an Hydra as you are; a Monster of many heads, like the multitude, or the Devil that called himself Legion; such an encounter would be no duel but War, which I never heard that any one man ever made alone; and I must levy Forces ere I can meet you, for if every one of your capacities had but a Second, you would amount to a Brigade, as your Letter does to a Declaration; in which I cannot omit, that in one respect you have dealt very ingeniously, and that is in publishing to the world, that all your Heroical resolutions are built upon your own opinion of my want of courage: this argues you well studied in the dimensions of quarrelling; among which, one of the chiefest shows how to take measure of another man's valour, by comparing it with your own, to make your approaches accordingly: but as the least mistake betrays you to an infallible beating, so you had fared, and perhaps had had the Honour, which you seem to desire, of falling by my Sword, if I had not thought you a thing fitter for any man's contempt then anger.  
Roos.  
The Reasons why the Lord Marquess of Dorchester printed his Letter the 25. of Febr. 1659. Dated the 13. of the same month.  
Together with my Answer to a printed Paper, called, a true and perfect Copy of the Lord Roos his Answer to the Marquess of Dorchester's Letter, Written the 25. of Febr. 1659.  
ON the 13. of Febr. last, about five in the afternoon, I received the Lord Roos his Paper, mentioned in my printed Letter, and immediately thereupon I writ that Answer, and sent it away Post the next day: And though, both before and after, I was frequently informed, what report he gave out in the country, yet I held them only worth my scorn, and at that time had not the least intention of making any thing public; my letter being writ ad hominem, and not for the press. But when I saw for three days together (before I thought of printing it) those scandalous papers, that were scattered up and down, posted, and cried by the common crier all London over: And this done (besides the injuries most uncivilly offered unto my Daughter, when she had not put him one penny in debt) to confirm by so notorious an act his idle boasting, that I was afraid to meet him; I was compelled so to vindicate myself, being deprived of all other means; for than I well knew he durst not Fight. The Posted Papers I need not recite, because they are so common; For the Jewels and Plate therein mentioned, the first were all her own, except one Necklace of Pearl, and some trivial Diamonds: The Place was no more than she used in her bedchamber, and under the value of threescore pound: Before she secured these, she was often threatened they should be all taken from her, & not so much left her as a Ring or Spoon: And since, I entreated Persons of honour to acquaint his Mother (which they did accordingly) that I would make good both what her Son, and myself gave her, and at their own Rates; But all would not serve, Spleen and Folly prevailed against Honour and Reason. And now upon the whole matter, whether, and how far I am justifiable in publishing that letter, I willingly submit to the judgement of any indifferent person. And thus I come to the Lord Roos his Answer to the Lord Marquess of Dorchester's Letter, &c.  
This Whelp hath for this month been licked over and over, and is yet without form, a rude and indigested lump; if you had used the like quickness in your Reply, as I did in my Answer to your Letter, and therein required an account of me with my Sword in my hand, and in stead of Eleven days I allowed you, you had given me but Two, nor so much neither, but in respect of the distance of our dwellings; if in that short time you had not heard from me, with full satisfaction to your demand, you might then upon some grounds have divulged this and more; but now after a month's space, when you durst not do like a Man, to answer like a child, clear from the purpose, and most apparent scope of my letter, which was to provoke you to Fight, and not to Rail; This I say would have stigmatised you with an indelible mark, if you were capable of more Infamy, than is now upon you; For you are still a Coward, and dare not Fight. This Expression I must use often, as Cato did his Puto Carthaginem esse delendam: you know the saying, clothe an Ape in Tissue, and it but adds deformity to the Beast; and the more a Coward seeks to conceal, the more he discovers his Fears: Of the truth of this you are a shame. full Example. What a noise and blustering do you make, to appear Some body, as if with Homer's Ulysses you had got the Winds into your empty bottles? but all in vain; for 'tis with you like a Jade in the Myre, your labouring to get out, but plunges you the deeper in; For you are still a Coward, and dare not fight. You say, I was amongst my galley-pots and Clyster-pipes, when I gave my Choler so violent a Purge: If so, I was prescribing a Clyster for you to take before our Meeting, else I should sooner have had you in my Nose, than in my Sight. You go on; I had better have been drunk, and set in the Stocks for it, when I sent the Post with a whole packet of Chartels to you. I mention this piece of Eloquence for no other end, than to show what Wit there lies in the Froth of Ale. You proceed, That if I understand any thing in my own Trade, I could not but know, that the hectic of my own Brain is more desperate than the Tertian Fits of yours, which are easily cured with a little sleep. Is it possible for any man to be so stupid, as to publish himself in print a common Drunkard? This is the plain English of your Tertian Fits, which if you had called Quotidian, you would easily have been believed; though indeed they have out-lasted any quartan. You talk of Tutors and schoolmasters; I have been long since out of their hands; but it is high time you were under their correction; and had I known you, as well before I sent to you in a way of Honour, as I do now, I would for once have played the Schoolmaster myself, and have brought, in stead of a Sword, a good Rod, the only fit Weapon to encounter such an Adversary; For you are still a Coward, and dare not fight. You add, That now I begin to vapour, and tell you I have fought before; and that you have heard I have, with my Wife, and Poet; but if I came off with no more honour than when I was beaten by my Lord Grandison, I had better have kept that to myself. What you mean by my Poet, I cannot imagine; but you may conceive 'tis not impossible for me to beat a Woman, since I declared such a proneness to Cudgel you. The business between my Lord Grandison and myself, is so fully known to the world, and his Second (an eye-witness of what passed) yet alive, that there is no need for me to speak a word therein; only this, as a Hector (a name amongst others you are pleased to bestow upon me) I tell you, He that will Fight, though he have never so much the worse, loses no reputation: And I protest, I had rather meet with a man of Honour and Courage, though he did beat me (as you word it) then now to Fight and Beat you: But there's no great danger of that, For you are still a Coward, and dare not fight. Next, you scribble about my cutting up Calves, and Dogs, and if by threatening to cram my Sword down you Throat, I do not mean my Pills, you are safe. Indeed, Experiments in Anatomy have much conduced to the bettering man's knowledge; and I make no doubt, had I the dissecting of you instead of a Calf, I should find the place, where cowardice is seated. This would be an acceptable Discovery to our college of physicians. As concerning my Pills, those you would most fear to take, must be prepared with Steel, for I know between steel and you, there is a great Antipathy. And whereas you say, There is no half quarter of a man but would venture to give me battle; Alas poor wretch! you do not understand what Dirt you throw in your own face; for your not daring to meet me, proves ex ore tuo, that you are less than half a quarter of a man; and surely here is both good Grammar and logic to boot. And now you tell me, I am most unsufferable in my unconscionable engrossing of all Trades; That I am a Doctor of Civil Law, a Parrister of the Common, a Bencher of Greys-Inn, a Professor of physic, a Fellow of the college, a Mathematician, Caldean, a School-man, and a piece of a grammarian (as my last work shows, were it construed) a Philosopher, Poet, Translator, Antisocordist, solicitor, Broker and usurer; a marquess, Earl, Viscount, Baron, and a Hector: And there is no dealing with me without a Brigade, if I have a second for every capacity. What ridiculous stuff is here? Risum teneatis Amici? yet I think a less number would scarce secure your fears, and even then, you durst not appear in the Head of them; For still you are a Coward, and dare not fight. You say, for eating the bread out of the Hector's mouths, you hope some of them will make me give them Compounding dinners, as well as I did to the rest of my Fraternities. I think you scape fairly, if for abusing them, you can be admitted to Compound for Dinners and Supper too. You pithily write, That I measure another man's valour by comparing it with my own. I understand in what sense you would be taken, and laugh at it: But yet 'tis true, I ever did and shall think, of all Gentlemen as I do of myself, till I find them such as you are: And now for the future, I shall measure all Cowards by your Scal. I will omit (for brevity) the rest of your Billingsgate nonsense (indeed your whole Letter is ejusdem farinae) and give you this friendly admonition, that you be more careful and circumspect hereafter, and not charge a fault upon another, when at the same instant you commit a greater in the same kind; I mean, your accusing me of railing, when you yourself transcend therein. I have but a word or two more, and I have done with you: You say, that I might have had the honour I desired to have fallen by your sword. I see the Proverb does not hold true in you, that Bad memories have good Wits: I did not desire absolutely 
[Printed the 20th. of March 1659. the day after the Printing the Lord Roos his Answer, &c. above mentioned the Date whereof by him purposely omitted.]  to fall by your sword, but under the condition mentioned in my printed letter: And as for the honour you vainly put upon falling by it; I think there is not any, but will believe me without swearing; if I could have thought upon a more ignominious thing, I had named it. And now sir, If your back be not sufficiently loaden, go on, and I will lay more and more weight upon you, till you fall under the burden; and still you are a Coward and dare not fight.  
Dorchester.