ΕΙΚΩΝ ΒΡΟΤΟΛΟΙΓΟΥ: OR, THE PICTURE OF Titus oats, D. D. Drawn to the LIFE.  
In a LETTER to Himself.  
Claudius accusat moechos Catalina Cethegum.  Juven. 
LONDON: Printed, and are to be Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, M DCXCVII.   

THE PICTURE OF Titus oats, D. D. Drawn to the LIFE.  
Doctor,  
FOR so you dignify yourself, and I shall not stand with you for a Title) you have lately obliged the World with Three laboured Pieces, being your First, Second and Third Eicon Basilikes; or, True Pictures of the late King James, drawn to the Life. Truly, Doctor, to do you Right, I believe the whole draft( by a peculiar bold Stroke all the way throughout it, viz. of Railing and Beroguing at every Shadow and Dash of your Quill) to be truly your own. That singular Master-Touch of yours is so conspicuous, all through the Rough Painting, that without the Subscription of your Name, every common Eye may find whose Pencil-work 'tis; for he that reads but three Pages, may plainly see the Delineavit Titus.  
I confess sweet, or rather sour Doctor, you have a strange Faculty at hard Words, and paw Names; and truly, Doctor, you treat Princes with the same broadmouth'd homely Dialect, as you do all Mankind. But no matter; what you want in Civility and Good Manners, perhaps you have in other Qualities and Accomplishments: And we allow you the Ambition you have always had to be a Courtier; tho' perhaps not altogether so fit for a Master of the Ceremonies.  
But all Rallery apart, bar the Rudeness of the style,( and yet that's a little pardonable, as being a special Talent of your own) I hearty thank you for the Subject. I aclowledge, from the hearty Spirit of honest Truth, you have exposed, and very justly, the false Hands at the Great Helm, through the two last Reigns of not over-fragrant Memory.  
But, Sir, in all the true stroke you have made in the Picture, you have notoriously flattered the Painter. For in drawing of King James and his Brother, both at full Length, you have here and there dashed in some few Lineaments of your own, viz. your Virtues, Innocence, Services to the Nation; together with a lamentable Outcry of Wrongs, Oppression, suffering for Faith and a good Conscience, and what not; when there are Thousands in the World, that believe not one of all these Qualifications, Graces, Merits, Pretensions or Titles, belong to you.  
This is a sort of Plain-dealing, which is sometimes valued at the Price of Jewels, and you must pardon my Freedom on this Occasion. I must confess, Doctor, these Three Pieces, in Attack against Popery and Arbitrary Power, contain a great deal of unquestioned Truth, and have highly contributed to your Reputation; and I must say this of you,  
— Omnia si sic  
Dixisses—  
Had every Oracle you delivered, been founded upon as solid a Foundation of Veracity, no Person in the World should have been louder in your Praises, than myself; nay, this present Paper, instead of a Reprimand or satire, should then have been an Eulogy and panegyric.  
Nor is there any Thing here urged, in the following Discourse I intend to have with you, with the least Design whatever, of invalidating, lessening, or scandalising those Collections and Memoirs( you have there so laboriously compiled) of the Mis-management of the last two Reigns, Heaven knows but all too true. However, you must give me leave to tell you, That the World would be highly inclinable to set a yet greater Value upon your Works themselves, would you endeavour something more largely to set the Hand that holds the Pen, a little more to Rights with them; by washing your blemished Credit a little whiter in the Opinion of Mankind, at least the thinking part of Mankind; whose muchwanted Reconciliation would be highly to your Service.  
'Tis true, for my own part, my natural Abhorrence and Detestation of Rome, and all its Works, is such, that I would gladly give a laurel to every Champion against them; insomuch, that in all due Respect to your Great Undertaking, I would have that Babylon-Monster so combated on all sides, that I am pleased to see that Leviathan a Pontifex Maximus, attacked, rather than fail, Dr. even by a Carnifex Maximus. I love and honour such darling Truths, exposed in their true Light, even from any Tongue: And as a Parallel to your own Case; we red, of Old, of Heathen Oracles, that very often delivered Truths, though at the same time the very Father of Lies, the Devil himself, spoken in them. But truly, Doctor, if an Angel of Light, instead of a Minister of Darkness, had delivered those Truths, the Divining Spirit that uttered them, had rendered them a great deal more grateful music. The Harmony of Truth would have been much more charming from a seraphic Trumpet, than an Infernal Organ.  
And now, Doctor, as you have looked back into the Miscarriages of Princes, pray turn one Glance upon some little Peccadilios of your own. You may recollect, as we all do, with a sorrowful Remembrance, that you once ushered into the World a most dismal Conspiracy against the Life of King Charles II. by the Hands of Grove and Pickering, for Shooting the King in St. James's Park; with a long Narrative of a whole Army of Popish Pilgrims and Black Bills from St. jago in Spain, to be landed at Milford-Haven; Commissions from Paulus d' Oliva for Generals and Major-Generals, for an Army of all Papists, all ready listed against the Fall of the King; and no less than 60 thousand of them, being twice as many as there are Men, Women and Children, of Romanists, in the whole Kingdom; and all for subduing and subjecting the Protestants to the Popish Yoke: Particularly, that an infinite number of the inferior Commissions, stamped and sealed by Father Whitebread, you delivered with your own Hands, &c. cum multis aliis, several other Discoveries, all of the same rueful Countenance.  
Now all this Discovery you are pleased to style, The Testimony of Truth and a good Conscience; and yet there are Thousands and ten Thousands in little Old England, that do not believe one Syllable of all this Testimony, and that from so reasonable a Ground for their Infidelity, that they look for the Cloven Foot whenever they hear it but name; especially under the Title of Truth and a good Conscience.  
Look ye, Doctor, I would not willingly invade your Province, viz. of Railing; but would moderately offer you some Questions relating to your quondam Evidence; which, among a hundred more upon the same fertile and copious Subject, have been often asked you, but never yet answered.  
In the first Place your Plot sets forth, That the restless Spirits of the Papists, having a design to restore their long Abdicated Religion into England, the Life of King Charles II. lay in their way; and for his Removal, a Club or Consult of Jesuits, and other Popish Emissaries, to the number of Fifty, several of them coming over from Remote and Foreign Countries, on this great Occasion, all met together; where the whole Result of their Meeting( which was in April, 1678.) subscribed by all their Hands, were, That Groves and Pickering should go on with their design of killing the King, viz. with their screwed Gun and Silver Bullet.  
Now, Doctor, it looks very oddly, That those two King-killers, who by your own Oath had been Seven Years before endeavouring to do the Execution;( but one time by having the Flint loose, another time the Gun charged with all Bullets and no Powder, and several other Blunders and Miscarriages, had never executed their Design;) should be chosen the only Engines, or Engineers, to go on with so important a Service to the Popish Cause, as the Death of a King, so impatiently waited, without one single Proposal, at so grand and chargeable a Consult from all Quarters of the World, of any other more trusty and more active Hand, for so desperate and important a Service. For the engaging Sir George Wakeman, and the Irish Ruffians, was not till many Months after.  
One very irreconcilable Blunder in this poor Pickering's Miscarriage: In your Narrative, Paragraph 19. you swear you saw Letters from England, to the Fathers of the English Seminary at St. Omer, in the latter End of January 1677 / 8. Containing an Account of one Pickering, that waits upon the Jesuits at Sommerset-House, to shoot the King in St. James's Park, when he was at some distance from his Nobles and Attendants; but the Flint of his Pistol being somewhat loose, he did defer the Action till another Opportunity; and if he had done it, and had suffered, he should have had 3000 Masses for the Health of his Soul. And yet, at the trial of Pickering, you positively swore this Miscarriage of his Flint being loose, when he had a fair opportunity, but durst not give Fire, was expressly one Day, in the March following; for which Negligence he underwent Pennance, and had 20 stroke of Discipline.  
Now, Doctor, can any thing in Nature be more strange, than that Whitebread should sand the St. Omers Fathers, in January, a perfect Relation of a Crime not committed till the March following? And consequently, has not the unbelieving part of the World, a very just Ground to startle and tremble at such a Testimony of a good Conscience? as you call it, Part 3. page. 4. And would not all pitying Eyes be ready to melt into Tears, to see a King-killer Drawn, hanged and quartered, upon such a doughty Evidence, that with any reasonable Man would not pass Muster for the Proof of a Petty Larceney, the stealing of an alchemy Spoon, or a Brass Thimble?  
And now, if possible to look so low,( for the Bottom on't lies in Hell) as to the whole depth of your Discovery. Here was a Papist-Plot to kill King Charles II. What was this King Charles, according to your own Picture-drawing, to be such an Eye-sore to the Papists, and so worthy of Death? Why truly, A Person as deep, in the Popish Plot, as the Duke his Brother,[ Part 3d. p. 37.] where you tell how Coleman danced a Christmas Gambel at Tyburn, for his great Pains in the mighty Work,[ viz. subduing the pestilent Northern heresy] your Brother, yourself,[ the King and the Duke] and he had upon his Hands, Ditto, Part 3d. page. 59. The King[ viz. King Charles] he was engaged for Popery and the French Interest, and Arbitrary Power, as well as yourself,[ speaking to King James.] Again, page. 64. You and your Party had so much Countenance from your Brother, who was engaged with you in the whole Popish Conspiracy, saving that of his own Life.  
Now this, belike, was the Man the Papists were to Kill; but, good Heavens, for what? when he was as deep in their own Mire as his Brother, and as great a Popish Plotter as he; and consequently, I cannot find the want they had of his Death; and unless they were such a Pack of Cut-throats, that they loved Murder for the mere lechery of Murder-sake, I cannot guess why the ungrateful Popish Villains should so inhumanly lift a Hand against so staunch a Patron and Protector. But let that pass.  
Well, however this King was to be destroyed. The whole Root, Body and Branch of which Conspiracy, you give us, at length, in a Narrative, consisting of 81 Paragraphs or Depositions, being the full History of the whole Mystery of Iniquity. Mystery indeed!  
Now it pleased Heaven, or some other over-ruling Power( which is all one) to inspire Titus oats Clerk, a great Machinator in this Conspiracy, to turn a Protestant Convert, and discover this Plot. Accordingly, as you tell us in your Narrative, you made that Discovery to his Majesty on the 13th of August, 1678. by the Means and Introduction of that worthy and honest Gentleman Mr. Christopher Kirby. Now before you made this Discovery, you tell us, in that very Narrative, page. 18. That you had seen Packets to the Fathers at St. Omers, bearing Date Jan. 1. New style, 1677 / 8. in which the Fathers were assured, that his Majesty of Great Britain was brought to that pass, that if any malcontents among them should not prove true to their Design, his Majesty would never give Ear to their Information. Now foreseeng all this deaf Ear of the Kings, how came it about that you produced no Living Records; brought none of those Whitebread-Commissions, nor no other occular Proof to open his Eyes and Ears? Did you believe that the sight of your mosaic Face, and a bare Oath, would convince or awaken such obstinate Deafness and Infidelity, with no other Credentials; especially when your Discovery looked with that unaccountable Face, viz. That the Papists should have a Hand armed against that Life, that was so highly engaged in their own whole Conspiracy?  
But, Doctor, no disparagement to your politic head-piece, we'll allow you, for once, the only Excuse for that notorious Stupidity, viz. That you were that egregious Blockhead and Blunder, as to neglect that opportunity of preserving any of those substantial Treason-Testimonials, that daily came through your Hands; the producing of which might have found Faith with this unbelieving King, and indeed the whole World besides, and made him sensible that the bloody Papists had Ruffians at work to knock his own Brains out, and Armies to knock out ours; and consequently have proved to his Face, that the Title of Saviour of the Nation,( Reverend Salamanca Doctor) stood as staunch in your Scutcheon, as Defender of the Faith in his.  
Well, but allowing that Neglect only a false Step of your politics, here's another most profound Piece of your Discovery. Of these 81 Paragraphs of your Narrative, here's 24 of them the Series or Business of the Plot still carrying on after that August the 13th to September the 7th following, in all 20 Pages of Paper. In which last part of your Narrative( and all this after your Discovery to the King) you give us the greatest Transactions and Consults of the whole Conspiracy; particularly, that very 13th of August, At Six at Night, you, the Deponent, was not designedly, but by Accident, at a Sermon, preached by John Keins, to Twelve Men, poor in Habit, yet Men of Quality, as the Deponent supposes, by their white Hands; in which Sermon was delivered, That Protestants and other heretic Princes were ipso facto deposed, because such; and that it was as lawful to destroy them as an Oliver cronwell, or any other Usurper, Nar. Parag. 58. Again, August the 18th, your Doctorship was at a Consult, where Mr. Vincent Joseph, David Keymash, Mr. Dominick, Mr. Colins, Mr. Fedding, Mr. Mansell, and Mr. Laumsdale, all Dominicans, met and consulted with John Keyns, Father Hartcourt, Father Fenwick, Father Wright, Father blundel, Jesuits; about killing the King, and carrying on the Design; at which Consult the Deponent was to and fro, and afterwards employed by them to carry the Proposals of the Consult to the Carmelites, viz. Dr. Hanson, Dr. Kimball, and Mr. Ferers, Nar. Par. 61. On Wednesday the 21st of August was another Consult held by the Jesuits and Benedictines, about the Irish Affairs; and a third Consult at Mrs. Saunder's House, of which the Doctor had notice, before the Meeting, by John Grove. Nay, the Irish Ruffians were all hired and sent down to Windsor, not till after the 13th of August, and the Doctor by at the telling out and sending the 80 l. after them, expressly the 22d d of August. Besides, Conyers and Anderson were not engaged in the King's Murder till now; for Conyers, on the very same 22d of August, shew'd the Deponent his Dagger of a Foot long in the Blade, satyric and span new, bought of the old Cutler in Russel-street. And the same 22d the Deponent met Mr. Blundel, with a Bag of Fire-balls under his Arm. And the 30th following is showed by the said Blundel, at Fenwick's Chamber,( being invited thither to see it) a Paper signed by Whitebread, in the Name of the whole Society, containing a Scheme of the manner of Firing Westminster, Tooley-street, St. Thomas Apostle, and the King's Ships at Wapping; Par. 63. and 67. Besides, Doctor, at every turn, you are at your old Sport of Reading of Letters, Packets, Memorials; particularly on the 2d of September a Packet directed to John Grove from the Fathers at edinburgh, to tell the Fathers here, That they had 8000 catholics ready to rise, when the Business grew hot, to join with the disaffected Scots.  
In all these many Consults, and Matters transacted since the 13th of August, we find this wonderful ill Fortune, that the Jesuits, &c. should Meet, Cabal, Consult, &c. with as much Vigour or more than ever, without the least Hint or Breath of a Discovery made of their Plot to his Majesty, from the 13th of August to the 4th of September. Monstrum Horrendum! Dear Sir, was the King so great a Champion of the Papists, and such a sworn Friend of his Brothers, how little soever he believed your Testimony, as not to say one Word of all this Matter to his Brother, and thereby alarm the whole Party? Could a public Introduction of a Plot-Discoverer to a King, be made without the knowledge of the Jesuits, who are the Spies of Christendom?  
But grant all this possible; however, Doctor, from your return to the Jesuits, after your Protestant-Conversion and Discovery to the King, undoubtedly from that Day you herded with the Papists again, only as a false Brother and Spy upon them, in order to the producing some stronger Credentials of your Veracity, than a bare Oath to confirm your hitherto suspected Truth, so little credited by the King. And if any such Plots were still carried on, why did you not stop in your Hands so treasonable a Paper as the New Proposals, subscribed by so many Dominican and Jesuits Hands, and trusted in your own Custody to carry to the Carmelites? Can any thing in the World have that Face of Impudence? Nay, has the Doctor himself the Front to tell us, That had he truly received any such Treasonable Proposals, in his new State of Penitence and Conversion from Popery and Plotting, to Confession and Honesty, that he would have made his second Plot-Discovery to Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, without one Rag or Scrap of Ocular Demonstration, when such Opportunities were offered him, such invincible Convictions, as even Records of Treason were thrown into his Hands, to set his whole Testimony at so fair a Light, and clear every Shadow of his hitherto misdoubted Integrity? Dear Sir, thou wert not such a Dunce nor idiot, to let slip such an occasion: No, honest Picture-Drawer, I have a better Opinion of thy Wit: If any such Treasonable Subscriptions had ever been signed, and thyself employed for the Messenger, thou that tookst such care to thrust the Five impudent Windsor-Letters, that notorious Mass of Forgery into the World, as a Crutch to thy Plot, wouldst have let drop those Shadows, for this more substantial Record; and not have made use of Imposture and Delusion to bolster thy lame Testimony, had there been any such Thing as Truth and Honesty to set it upright.  
Well, but Matters were not carried so silently, but that[ Narr. Parag. 75.] you tell us, The Deponent saw a Letter from the Provincial, specifying, That the Provincial had been informed of some Discovery made, at which he was somewhat surprised; Parag. 76. The same Day, at Night, the Deponent went to visit the Provincial at his Lodging, and was ordered to come again the Morning following, Par. 77. The next Morning, being the 4th th of September, according to the ' foresaid Orders, he went to the Provincial; who, upon sight of him, asked him with what Face he durst look on him, since he had played them such a treacherous Trick? And struck him three Blows with his Stick, and a Box on the Ear, and charged him with being with the King, &c. which Intelligence he had from Father Beddingfield, &c.  
Now, Doctor, here's a wonderful piece of Chivalry, for a bold Knight-Errant: The Discovery having at last, with much ado, in three-Weeks time, reached the Ears of your Brother-Plotters, you were Master of that prodigious Courage as to visit the Provincial; nay, and to come again, upon Order, the next Morning. Now was not little Titus a Hero of the first Rank, that durst trust his sweet Person in the Hands of those very Men, whose Heads, Lives, nay, their whole Cause he had betrayed? Did he not expect the same Conyer's Dagger, or Pickering's Gun to be turned against his own Heart, that before was designed for the Kings? What Mercy could he hope from those defeated Cut-throats and Ruffians, whom he had now exposed to inevitable Gibbets and Halters? But did the tender-hearted Provincial( nay, and prepared too for the Doctor's Reception) provide nothing but a Cane to rebuk the Shoulders of a Renegado, Apostate and traitor, to their whole Party? Could this Provincial, the very Head of a Conspiracy, against no less than the Life of Majesty, nay and of that very Prince, who had all his whole Reign been their Friend, Patron and Champion, now spare the Life of a poor Varlet and Miscreant, so false and treacherous to them, and upon whose Death the preservation of their own Lives so highly depended, by stoping his Mouth and hushing him silent with a Poinard? Good Heaven! How Satyr-like, hot and could, do these Jesuits blow, to be all Fury in one Breath, and all Mercy in another; all Dove, or all Serpent. Well, Doctor, bless Heaven thou escap'd'st so miraculously.  
Besides, Doctor, to make this Romantick Caning of thine a little more stupendious. How comes it that the Grand Hinge of thy Veracity, Sir Edmundbury Godfrey's Murder, should look so ruefully in the whole Face of thy Plot? When we must suppose, that the Papists so highly resented thy Discovery of their Treasons, and made their Plot such a Noli me tangere, as to murder a poor Innocent Gentleman, for only barely taking thy Depositions against them; and at the same time let the Discoverer himself, a Person ten thousand times more dangerous, pass and repass, safe and untouched,( a small Bastinado only excepted.) Can we reasonably believe, they were those virulent Bloodsuckers, as to murder a poor Justice of the Peace for only discharging his Duty? And all, God wot, to so little purpose! When instead of stiffing thy Depositions( the grand pretention for that Murder) the Discoverer himself was suffered to Live, Range and Reign, to make the same Discovery( if occasion) 40 times over again.  
But truly to show that the whole Set of Discoverers, in those Days, were all Birds of one Feather: The Prance and Bedlow, an Evidence much of thy own Stamp, Neither Barrel better Herring, &c. made a most lamentable Account of that unfortunate Gentlemans Exit; for if we'll take their own Words, nay, and their Oaths into the Bargain; they made as doleful havoc upon him, as the Two Testifying Elders upon Susannah's Chastity, between the mastic three and the Holm three; for they murdered him no less than twice over; neither at the same Hour in the Day, nor the same Chamber nor Court in Sommerset-House; nor by the same Assassinates or manner of his Murder, nor the same Hands or Conveyance to Primrose-Hill.  
But their Blunders, dear Doctor, lye not at thy Door: Thou hast enough of thy own. And therefore dear little Oedipus answer all thy own Riddles: Tell us how all this heteregeneous Medley can be reconciled to common Sense. We hearty believe the Popish Emissaries and Tools, as black as the heaviest Dash of thy own gull and Pen can make 'em: However, 'tis possible to bely the Devil; and he that swears falsely even against a Judas, is himself a Judas.  
But above all these hideous Incongruities, Absurdities, Amusements and Contradictions, that have composed your whole Testimony; in which you have over and over again been buffoon'd in almost whole Volumes, upon that copious Theme; to all which, with all the Meekness and Patience imaginable, when you have been smitten on one Cheek you have turned the other; and born it all with so profound a Silence, that, like a poor Lamb, you never so much as bleated against your satirical Persecutors; now, I say, besides all these Absurdities, here happens one yet more fatal Shock against your whole unhappy Foundation, viz. the greatest Prop that supported it is now taken away. For as all the Criminals in your Plot, I mean the Murdering Ones, as Groves, Pickering, Whitebread, &c. with all the strongest Abjurations to their last Breath, and the very Face of Eternity, denied all Knowledge of the Fact for which they died, asserting their Innocence with Vows, Oaths and Sacraments, and all the most tremendous Asseverations, even upon all their dying Hopes of Salvation; it was all along received as an authentic Roman Dispensation, that their Ghostly Guides could absolve even a dying lye, and for the good of their Cause, commission and empower their Zealots and proselytes to front Heaven itself at their very last Gasp, with Falsities, Imposture and Delusion, &c. This doctrine well managed, noble Doctor, when time was, stood you in high Service, till this late unlucky Plot against King William utterly dashed all. For after the Discovery of Capt. Porter, Capt. Pendergrass, &c. here all the dying Champions of the Assassination, instead of the old Silence in your own Evidence-Reign; on the contrary, were so far from Tongue-ty'd in their Popish Cause and Service, that they all, more or less, made a dying Confession, justified the Truth of the Charge against them for which they suffered; nay, some of them even with a dying shane, of being concerned in so vile and despicable a Design.  
Now pray, worthy Sir, to balance fairly between these two different Phenomena, in one and the same Case, as the Learned call it. A screwed Gun against King Charles his Breast in St. James's Park, or a Musquetoon against King Williams at Turnham-Green, were two Undertakings of much the same Stamp; and had there been the same Foundation of Veracity in one as the other, hang me, if I can tell why your Screw'd-Gunners should be so close, and their Musquetooners so open.  
If the Romans ever had any such Dispensation for a dying lye, I suppose it is still in force; for I do not hear of any new Reformation in their Church, and that their Consciences are any ways more straitlaced now than formerly: And therefore if there be no such dying Absolutions among them,( as this last Universal Ingenuity by them, plainly speaks the contrary) I am afraid that honest Captain Porter is in the Right, and the not altogether so honest Colonel oats, is a little in the Wrong.  
This I am sure, That if the Good of their Popish Cause required it, and that were the Motive for a dying Falsity; the Criminals, in this last Plot, had thrice a greater occasion for a dying Denial, than any of your own executed Conspirators.  
In your own Popish Plot had the screwed Gun been staunch, and the Criminals had confessed any such Conspiracy; such a Confession would not have proved half so pernicious to the then Duke of York, as this last Confession has done to King James, and his whole Cause. For Instance: First you, and the rest of your Brother-Swearers, never charged the Duke with any part of the Assassination of King Charles; your Groves and Pickering acted not by any Authority, Privity or Consent of the Duke. And so, at best, though perhaps a Plot for his sake, was none, of his Assent or Commission. Secondly, The Duke of York was under no Abdication, was then safe under the Wing of a Protecting Royal Brother, an unshaken and invincible Champion in his Behalf. And lastly, The Duke of York, at that time, though under a Suspicion of Popery by his absenting from our Church, yet had then never broken Faith with the Kingdom, violated Laws, nor subverted Governments, nor had any one of those Blots in his Royal Scutcheon, that have since rendered him the Universal Odium of the Nation; he was at that time under the Mask of Honour, Justice and Innocence, and consequently might in all probable Reason have surmounted all Dangers; and fenced against all the feeble Blows, from any such dying Confessions. But in this last Case; here was King James himself at the Bottom of this barbarous Conspiracy. A Messenger sent over to France to him, and his Brother Lewis; and the Attacking the Prince of Orange in his Winter-Camp, his own Commission. Here was King James actually ready to back the Bloody Blow, prepared for a Descent upon the Stroke of it. And, in short, all these dying Confessions were of no less Consequence then to shake the whole Fidelity of almost all the few Friends he had left in England, to render his future Restoration utterly impossible, the whole Jacobite Cause desperate, and the Nation sufficiently alarmed against him; by opening them that lamentable Prospect of his Return, viz. That he, that before had so notoriously broken through all Oaths and Laws, and had now given them an Instance of his wretched, poor-spirited Condescension to Cut-throats and Ruffians for his Tools, what miserable havoc would he make, if remounted by Conquest, under the Liberty of sacrificing what Lives he pleased, and under the Shackle of no Laws at all.  
And to sum all; if these dying Criminals, who tho' never so guilty, yet lying under neither Wracks nor Tortures to force their Confession, so that they had it in their Power at least to die Mute; nevertheless, though Papists lay under that Obligation, belike, of discharging a dying Conscience, and speaking Truth, tho' to the utter Confusion and Ruin of their whole Party, and indeed their whole Hopes.  
Now worthy Doctor, or rather Doctor worthy,( take which Title you best deserve) how far this last Plot corroborates your Testimony of a good Conscience( as you phrase it) let Reason judge. Nay, I'll appeal to yourself, whether the Mute-Criminals in your Plot, or the Speaking-Ones in this, have not equally discharged their dying Consciences, and consequently not over-well vindicated your living Testimony.  
Now, Doctor, pray let me give you a few Remarks upon the dismal Effects of your Testimony of a good Conscience. You loudly complain against Old Hodge, for the crying Mischiefs of his scurrilous Observations; That he was villainously aiming at Popery, and destroying the Church of England, notwithstanding his specious Pretences to defend it. Part 3d. page. 60.  
Now, Doctor, you cannot think worse of Old Hodge, than we do; we own him a mercenary Tool for the Popish Cause; that his Hireling-Pen was drawn Right or Wrong, for his Popish Master's Service and Interest. But pray who set up that scribbler but Titus oats, and the rest of his Brethren, Affidavit-Men? Who found the gull for his Ink, and Scandal for his Libels, and indeed the whole Subject for his Papers, but yourself?  
How many notorious Flaws and Incoherencies, did he daily find( the Subject of almost half his Volume of scribble) in yours and your Brethrens Testimony? Who supplied him Matter to bellow so high upon the Old Tune of Forty One, viz. False Fears and Jealousies, but yourself? When those very notorious Flaws, and your own whole slender Foundation of Testimony, as you call it, furnished him with a very reasonable Handle to lay hold of? And therefore with a great deal of Truth and Honesty( in that part at last) to tell the World, That your tall black Don Johns, your circumcised Eliots, your Bloody Pilgrims and Black Bills, your invisible Commissions, your screwed Guns and Silver Bullets, so awkwardly handled, and the rest of your Popish Artillery, were not altogether so frightful, as you had presented them; and consequently, our Fears and Jealousies, from that Quarter, were not wholly so substantial. Faith, Doctor, his Pen was but the Cats Paw, and yours the Monkeys.  
'Tis true, there was a Popish Plot a Foot, and a desperate one, as Coleman's Papers( or rather the Fragments of them, for there was not half of them found) sufficiently demonstrated. But as Coleman was a Plotter you light upon by chance,( for as I remember you were so little acquainted with him, that you knew not his Face by Candle-light) and his politic Master so very dexterously handed him out of the World, by a shameful Promise of Mercy; and very fairly stopped his Mouth with a Halter, to prevent Blabbing: By this Masterpiece of an Over-reach, here was the Grand Plot hushed, the sensible and truly Hellish Plot-stifled; and nothing left alive but the barking Underplots, to grin and snarl.  
And pray what followed all this Din of Snarling? Why only this: The Amusements, Weaknesses and Shallowness of those very Underplots, confounded the true One. Such a Parcel of wretched Discoverers, and no less wretched Discoveries, put even Truth itself out of Countenance.  
Some Truth there was, but dashed and mixed with Lies;  
To please the Fools, and puzzle all the Wise.  
By this means, first, the Duke of York gained his Point: For there was so much of Ridicule, in this last part, as rather favoured his Cause. For though the then Patriots of the Nation had a just Ground for the Duke of York's Exclusion, from the true Popish Plot, sufficient to justify their whole Proceedings; nevertheless, there were so many worthy Gentlemen, in both Houses, so staggered with the Invalidity of these Under-Testimonies, as perhaps not a little contributed to the Establishing his Succession to the Throne.  
It had likewise this farther unhappy Effect upon the King himself; that undoubtedly had he had any Inclinations to do Justice to the Cries of his People, in his Brothers Exclusion; here was such a frightful Mormo of Plot-work then a foot, as was enough to stagger and confounded any such Inclinations.  
So that upon the whole Issue, kind Doctor, yourself and your Brother Bedlow, and the rest of your Brothers of the same Quill, instead of the Saviours of the Nation, were really the Saviours of the Duke of Yark: Instead of the Champions of the Protestant Religion, were indeed the Guardians of Popery. And I so far concur with the World, that pitied and lamented the Severity of your Tyburn-Castigation, that nothing was either more barbarous, or more ungrateful in King James, than that single Injustice to Dr. oats; for he stood indebted to you more hundreds of Pounds, than you had Scores of Lashes.  
Now, Sir, that I may do you no Wrong in laying a little more Weight upon the Two Perjuries, proved against you, and which yourself make so slight of in your Third Part, page. 4th. by calling them pretended Perjuries; as suggesting they were only forged against you, to serve a Popish Turn. Pray let me ask you if you do not Arraign the whole Justice of this present Government, in calling those Perjuries only pretended Ones? For, as I remember, sometimes since, you made your Endeavours and Application to get your Taint of Perjury repealed, and to be set Rectus in Curia, which was utterly refused you: They would not so much as listen to any such Thing.  
Now, upon this Denial, what follows in Course, but that you were Convicted of Two Perjuries in the Last Reign; and that Conviction justified in This. For had there been Justice, Reason or Equity, in any such Repeal, undoubtedly it had never been denied you. No, Mr. oats, a nobler Channel and Current of Honour and Justice runs thro' the whole present Admistration, than to be deaf to the Cries of Injured Innocence: Witness the public Justice, done in the Repeal of the Taint against that ever-lamented truly English Worthy, the Lord Russel; as also Captain Walcot, &c.  
If therefore Titus oats Clerk, stands Convicted of Two Perjuries, he stands justly so Convicted. Nor was your Evidence against Mr. Eliot, though not in a Court of Record, much inferior to Perjury: Besides one particular Record of Perjury against you, set forth, at length, by your Friend Hodge, long Years before your setting up for a National Evidence, in a private Cause, under your Father Daniel's own Country-Roof.  
Now Sir, give me leave to say, without the Incurring that Premuni●…, viz. of Arraigning the Justice of the Nation, That ●… s in the Breast of any Man, by the Charter of his English Liberty, to suspect the Evidence of a Person convict of Perjury, and consequently to doubt the Truth of your screwed Gun Plot, or any other part of your Discovery; especially, when it has not Reason and Sense, as well as Forehead and Oaths, to go along with it.  
'Tis true, there seems to be one current Argument,( I wish, in Charity to you, it were true Sterling, and would bear Touch for you) that speaks( or at least you'll make it speak) in your Behalf; which is, That if what your Swore, in your former Evidence, were not grounded upon Honesty and fair Truth; how came it to be received as such?  
Really, Dr. oats, there must go a great deal of more Sinewy Reason to convince the Judicious, than that slender Argument. In the first place, Doctor, we are all but Men, the Wisest in the World are no more; and, as such, are subject to Error. Besides, all Popular Out-cries have naturally a strange Dint of Force at their first surprise and Alarm; and even the greatest Collective Bodies of Men may sometimes be imposed upon, by an Original Novelty, whilst Imposture and Fraud may be obtruded upon them; when, upon cooler and longer Debate and Consideration, the Mormo may be detected, and the Collusion discovered. Besides, Time and Inquiry set Matters upon a much righter Bottom: That which looks fair to Day, by Convictions of Falsity, Forgery and Perjury, may look foul to Morrow. New Matters may so occur, that what's a Judicial Sentence one Day, in the highest Court in the World, may be Repealed to Morrow; and yet neither the Judge nor Jury blamable. Besides, the strongest Opinion of the wisest Man, or greatest number of such, is no Bar to any Man's second Scrutiny; nor shall one Man's judgement or Faith, conclude mine. And to show you that even the wisest in the World may err; Do we not red, That even Solomon himself set up Idolatry? Is it to be supposed that a Man of his unequal'd Wisdom, the particular Gift of God himself, when he indulged the High Places, and other Idolatrous Worship, was not guilty of a very great Oversight?  
But to come a little nearer your own Case; it is not even the Universality of an Erroneous Opinion, that excuses the Error. We red, That the whole Body of the Jews, notwithstanding they had not only been delivered, by Miracle, in their wondrous Passage through the read Sea; nay, were at once both lead, Fed, and Clothed, along their whole Pilgrimage through the Wilderness, by a continued Chain of Miracles, viz. lead by the Pillar of Fire by Night, and Cloud by Day: Fed by a constant Shower of Heavenly Manna; and clothed by those Raiments, which, in Forty Years travail( of the three not the least Miracle) never wore out: And yet these very People, all in a full Cry together, upon no more than Forty Days Absence of their Leader Moses; and even after all this, I may say, Immediate Communication even with God himself, wanted a Golden Calf to go before them. Nay, their other Leader Aaron was forced to comply with the Torrent, and both subscribed and assisted to the product of this Calf. And yet neither the Universality of the Popular Votes for the Calf; nay, even the Royal Subscription t● it( for so I may not improperly call the Assent of the Leading Aaron, as the then Supreme Magistrate among them) could give either Truth, Sense, or Justice, to the product of the Calf; nor did even the Assent of Aaron as a mere Compulsive One, declare his own true Belief in the Calf. He complied with Necessity, and was overruled by Power.  
Now, Doctor, for a concluding Admonition: As you have thus generously, for the Nation's Service, managed and mustered about 40 Sheets, in Three Volumes, containing so Ample and Critical an Inquiry into the Mis-managements of Two whole Reigns; now, to crown all, look homeward, and do yourself a little Service( not all for the public) by retrospecting into your own short( though too long) Evidence-Reign: In which, pray be so kind to yourself, your Friends, and the whole World, as to bestow a few Hours, and Three or Four Sheets, upon your own Defence and Justification; Unravel, Answer and Confute, all these grinning Contradictions against You; For great is Truth, ( if you have any on your Side) and will prevail. I assure you, Sir, 'twill be a Work highly worth your Labour: And though your near Twenty Years Silence, argues you guilty of a great Neglect of your own Personal Reputation, 'tis not yet too late to mend that Fault. Besides, this Vindication of yourself, has a Reference to the public Satisfaction; and you'll oblige the Nation, nay, and the Protestant Religion itself, by washing off all Blemishes, &c. For that unspotted Church loves neither Impostors nor Hypocrites.  
Therefore, dear Sir, let us beseech you to be your own Compurgator, either one way or the other, viz. by disburdening the long Load of Reproach that has lain upon you, in clearing your Innocence: Or otherwise to be so Ingenuous and Candid, as to own your Faults. 'Tis not the first time that false Oaths have been taken, and Innocent Blood been  shed: And as Perjury is but a Breach of One Commandment, as Murder of Another; the Breach of the whole Ten has been forgiven: And therefore, Doctor, despair not of Mercy; but be kind to yourself, in taking the first fair Opportunity of that public Confession and acknowledgement, as may lay hold of an Infinite Goodness, and set you Right in a higher Court of Record, than the Kings Bench, viz. in the Book of Life.  
 
POSTSCRIPT.  
ONCE more I desire my Reader to be assured, That both the Author and Publisher hereof, are true and unshaken Friends to the present Government; and as real Abhorrers and Detesters both of the Romish Superstition and Interest, as the deepest gull of even Titus his Pen can writ himself. And whereas in the preceding Discourse we have taken occasion to mention the Death of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey; we desire the World to believe, That we no ways endeavour to insinuate, that that unhappy Gentleman killed himself, being very well satisfied that he was basely murdered; tho' at the same time, we cannot come up to that uncharitable Faith, that the Persons that died for it were the real Murderers; when not only the Inconsistence of the Evidence against them, but likewise the dying Denials of the Criminals, even under Oaths and Sacraments, so strongly confirm our Disbelief.  
Fiat Lux.  
May Heaven, in its due time, give a clearer Light into that Tragical Mystery.  
After this candid Confession of the well-meaning of the Author of this Paper, we desire the Reader to believe, That we are sincere Lovers of TRUTH, and as her Champions only, we have set Pen to Paper.  
FINIS.