A brief Account of some of the late Encroachments and Depredations of the Dutch upon the English; and of a few of those many Advantages which by Fraud and Violence they have made of the British Nations since the Revolution, and of the Means enabling them thereunto.  
IT may justly astonish, as well as Surprise those who give themselves liberty to think, that a Nation pretending to so much Wit, and good Sense (and that very rightfully) as the English do, should suffer themselves both in the view, and to the amazement of the world, to be Tricked, Cheated, and Bubbled to the degree they are by the Dutch, who were never much esteemed for the Greatness and Transendency of their Understandings, tho' they have been so well known for Treachery and Fraud, as the peculiar qualities they excel in, and which they have never failed to excercise, and display themselves by, when and where they have had opportunity. For tho' now and then a few Individuals may have been found, and still are among them, who for Probity and Intellectuals, have been, and are secured against this Imputation and Charge, yet these are the characters, which they have commonly lain under as a State▪ and to which the generality of that People, have been as Meritoriously as Commonly entitled. And which though most Nations have in some measure Experienced, who have either had the misfortune to need, or the folly to Confide in them; yet none have so often and so sensibly felt the Effects both of their Ingratitude and Deceit, as we of Great Britain have done: Whereof it were eas●e to give Innumerable Instances, since the very first Moment, that by a friendly and vast, if not too lavish and improvident an expense of our Blood and Treasure, they became rescued from the Jaws of ruin, vindicated into Freedom, and established into a● Republic. But that I intent for reasons which any man may penetrate into, to confine the account I am now to give of their fraudulent and rapacious behaviour towards, and the Gains they have made of us by tricks and violence, only to that circle and period of time which hath elapsed since the Commencement and Consummation of the late Revolution. And besides all the other Influence, this is as well proper as designed to have upon us, if we have not both renounced common Reason, and our Native Country, It may serve not only to awaken us, to a perusal of those many former Relations of their Treacherous Supplanting, and their hostile Usurpations, but to give a fresh and raised credit to all those antecedent detections of their Villainies, which either thro' a strange Oscitancy we were willing to forget, or thro' the Inhumanity of them, too much disinclined to believe.  
I suppose it is needless now to tell any man that is not qualified for Bedlam, though he be one that hath renounced all Revealed Religion and moral Honesty, and ridiculeth every thing that is superstructed on, or which fasteneth obligation and duty upon us in the virtue of the acknowledgement of those Fundamentals: That it was not out of any love to these Kingdoms, or for any real concern for what we value and challenge a property in, either as Protestants or Englishmen, that the States of Holland lent their Men and Ships to the Prince of Orange, and encouraged his coming with an Army into England. Alas! both his Conduct and theirs since, do so interfere with those pretences, that it were as easy to reconcile Contradictions, as to resolve that Undertaking into those Motives. And though I cannot deny it to be very natural to all true Hollanders to be furnished with a great deal of assurance, and to claim it as a Prerogative entailed upon their Country not to blush, as those other Climes retain the modesty to do, when they obtrude the most notorious falshhoods upon the faith of Mankind; yet the present tottering and precarious state of the Church of England, and the little room it hath in their thoughts, unless it be how to subvert it, as well as the many Invasions made upon our Laws, Rights, and Civil Liberties, besides the Rapines committed upon our Trade, and the many guileful Arts that have been practised to enslave and impoverish us since the beginning of 1689. have not only refuted, but exposed these State pretences of rescuing us from Popery and Thraldom, which had been made use of to wheedle us into those Crimes, whereof we became guilty thro' their Delusions, and to prepare us to entertain, and tamely to undergo and suffer the Miseries which they had projected to bring upon us. And as the transporting our Coin; the having our Seas and Merchant Ships unprotected; and the many Shame plots upon our lives, as well as the various arts, methods and projects, of worming us out of our Estates, show what we are to expect from Dutch-Councils, in relation to our Persons, Property and Wealth; So the cold and disdainful Reception commonly reported to have been given lately to those of the Conformable Clergy at Al●hrope, when they went thither to pay their Compliments, and make their Addresses, and where they were not accounted worthy either of a word or a salute, no more than any of those common Decencies, which have been customarily vouchsafed to persons of their Order, Habit and Communion, while the Dissenters were at the same place, not only Welcomed with Hat in Hand, and entertained with the respect of standing up to them, during the whole time they were attending, but Caressed with the tenderest expressions declarative of his love unto, care of and confidence in them, and afterwards treated in an Apartment by themselves, with Wine and Tobacco, and other civilities of the house, with an allotment of some Noblemen to bear them Company, and to bubble them into Court-Measures, do more than abundantly testify under what contempt the Established and National Church is, through the Influence of Belgic Advice, and in complacency to the Hogen Mogen Constitution abroad. Which though it be but the beginning of a Just Recompense of Reward upon your Episcopal men for their Apostasy, from the Doctrine of their Church in Reference to civil Government, and legal Governors, yet it both sufficiently proclaims some People's Ingratitude, and intimates what those deluded, credulous, miss; and revolting Clergymen are to expect, in relation to all those Dignities and Emoluments they have been advanced unto, and hitherto kept in possession of, by standing Laws in preference unto, and contradistinction of all other Protestants. And should not that story be so Authentic, as it is universally vouched to be; yet his behaviour upon all occasions towards those of the Established Church, is so scornful as well as unkind, as abundantly testifies, not only his Distrust and Hatred of them upon the motives of Dutch Counsels; but a design to mortify their persons, and to alter and subvert the Establishment, which our Laws do at present give them: Nor are the late Caballings, Animosities and Prosecutions against a certain Person Ornamented with a George, and a blue Ribbon, owing to any other Motives, than that he both understands and asserteth the Interest of his Country, without Justifying of, or conniving at Dutch Encroachments; and that he has the Fortitude to avow himself the Advocate and Patron of the Established Ecclesiastical Constitution, and who will not be brought to sacrifice at once both our Legal Worship, and Discipline, and the Commerce, and Treasure of the Kingdom, to the Pleasure and Appetite of our Outlandish Neighbours; nor be gained to betray our Church and State, to the lust and humour of those Court Minions, who are gained by Bribes and Pensions to be Brokers and Factors for our Rivals and Underminers, though at present thro' a Solecism in Speech as well as in Politics, they be styled our assured and good Allies. Nor need we any other evidence of the Commencement and Continuance of the Quarrel against the tacitly formentioned Nobleman, than the Proposals that were made to him by a person of his own Order and Dignity, about stifling the Enmity against him, and that those who are his boldest Accusers, and most passionate Antagonists, should depart from and deposit their Accusations of him, and not only enter into a Truce, but into an united and firm Friendship with him, provided he would abandon the defence of the Church, and Join with them in promoting an Oath of Abjuration, both which are the Contrivances of the Dutch, and the Results of Councils given at the Hague, partly to obviate the revenge they know themselves Justly obnoxious unto from King James, should he at any time come to be reestablished; and partly to kindle a Civil War amongst ourselves, by which we may be both diverted and disabled from inflicting those Punishments upon them hereafter, which they so much deserve, or at least to turn and inflame the King's wrath (in case he return) against his own Subjects, in hopes thereby to prevent the effects of his Resentment against them. And that the quarrel which I have intimated to be raised against this Honourable Person, is the product of Foreign Counsels, appears not only from the Tools, and Instruments emba●ked in pursuing of it, who are all of them Favourites and Partisans of the Court, but is made evident beyond all control from hence; That when the said Noble Peer, told his Master for news at Burford the application that had been made to him, and by whom, and the tenor of it, he found that he was antecedently acquainted with, and possessed of the whole; which well he might as being in the quality of Executioner of Belgic Advice and Measures, both the Author and Fomenter of the 〈◊〉, and the Projector and Instigator of the Accommodation and the terms of it. However, we may easily dis●rn from hence, what the whole Nation, aswell as single Individuals may Expect from a Dutch King influenced by Dutch Councils; when the only Person in the Kingdom to whom He and They stand most indebted for Promoting the Revolution, aswell as for former and subsequent Favours of the greatest Dimensions and Importance, is thus singled out to be hunted and run down by Clamour and Obloquy; and this not for his Crimes against the Crown, or for his being the Principal Person in Abdicating of the King, Altering the Succession, and Subverting our Hereditary Monarchy; but because that after He had brought us to the Altar, he should now Demur as to the letting the Church and Nation fall Victims to Dutch Malice and Avarice.  
And if we had not been Infatuated by Bigotry, and made Insolently Wanton by too much Prosperity: And had our Intellectual Faculties Distorted by Disloyal Malice, we might have easily Foreseen and Prognosticated, what the Infidelity of the Dutch would be to the Kingdom, by their more than Heathenish Treachery to the Late King; in that notwithstanding the Alliance Solemnly Contracted and Ratified by Oath, in which they stood Sacredly Engaged to observe all terms of Amity and Friendship with him, yet whilst his Majesty relied upon the Assurance of that Compact and Stipulatior; they did under the Cloak and Veil of being His Confederates, Clandestinly contrive the Subversion of the Throne. And though they neither than could, nor have had the 〈◊〉 Impudence to this day (albeit not a People Accusable for unseasonable Modesty, when they can either recur to weak Pretences, or probable Fictions for Justifying their Conduct) to allege any matter of Just Complaint he had given them, and much less any cause of Hostile Quarrel. Yet by a Treachery customary to Them, but which neither Turks nor Pagans would have been guilty of; They both gave Eencouragement to the Prince of Orange, to Invade his Dominions: and Commissioned, and Authorized their Fleet and Troops to Support and Assist him in doing it. Nor did they only Perpetrate this Treachery towards his Majesty in Defiance of Vengeance from Heaven, and in Contempt of every thing that has been held Sacred amongst Men, as well as in Derision of all those Pacts, and Agreements upon which the intercourse and Peace of Nations, and the Tranquillity of Societies do depend; But at the same Juncture of time in which they were Plotting his Ruin, and had entered into Correspondency and Combination with his Disloyal Subjects, for driving Him from his kingdoms; they gave him all the assurance which any Prince could desire or expect from a Neighbouring State, that they Prized his Friendship; and did and would Persevere in Amity with him; and that the Ships and Forces which they had in a readiness to make a Descent into his Territories were Designed for, and to be Employed in Affairs wherein he had no Concern, and that he neither should nor could receive any Prejudice from them, and therefore was not to be alarmed at those Preparations: Which Barbarous as well as guileful Behaviour of theirs, tho' we have hitherto overlooked, and not received that Warning and Instruction from it that such a Procedure towards a Crowned Head, and one to whom by Stipulation they were bound to be Friends and Allies, and who then Actually was and still rightfully is the only Legal Monarch of these Kingdoms was Adapted, and should have have had Efficacy in it to give: Yet it is Now Hoped that the Lessons, which Experience that is the School-Mistress of Fools, hath refreshed our Memory with, of their Inveterate Malice to these Kingdoms, and of their Fraudulent Methods to render us Poor, Impotent and Contemptible, will at last awaken us, if not to seek and pursue revenge, at least to lay aside our Confidence in them, and to give over the Wasting our Men and Treasure, in Defence of a Perfidious People, who are endeavouring our Ruin, as the Recompense of all the Services we have had, the Simplicity, Inadvertency and Folly, to be rendering them, and in the doing whereof we have made ourselves Knaves to our Country, as well as Persevered in Obstinate Rebellion against the King. Nor is it to be doubted, but that after they have seen us, who are their chief and envied Rivals in Trade Impoverished and Weakened in the Management of this War, into which, in order to those Ends they have Wheedled and Invegled us, under the Pretence of Humbling Kerbing and Reducing France, they will be the first both to abandon the Confederacy, and to Unite their Forces with those of that Monarch, for the Consummating of our Ruin by Power which they have begun and so far Promoted by Fraud. And that I may not reflect too far backward, nor put my 〈◊〉 upon Examining their Practices Forty or Fifty Years since; their Behaviour about seventeen years ago towards the Emperor, and the King of Spain, but especially towards the King of Denmark, and the la●e ●●ector of Brandenburg, who had Embarked in their Assistance, and come to their Succour, when they were likely to be totally Subdued in that War which they had provoked the French King to enter into against them, Anno. 1672. May teach all that help and relieve them, under the firmest and most Sacred Confederacy, and the high●st assurances of their Steadfastness and Fidelity in their Alliances, what they are to expect from that faithless People, who do always consult and prefer their Interest before all the Obligations they can be brought under to God or Men. The truth whereof, tho' the Remonstrances of all those Princes do abundantly manifest, which they made unto the State's General; and Published to the World, upon the Separate Peace which the Dutch Concluded with the King of France, at the Treaty of Nimeguen, Anno. 1678. yet I shall in Confirmation of what I have suggested, Transcribe and Exhibit some part of a Pathetic Letter written upon that Occasion to the said States by the Elector of Brandenburg bearing date at Postdam, July, 11. 1679. Namely, That in the Deplorable Condition his Countries were then in, It is easy to Judge (saith the Elector) whether we have more reason to Complain of those who are Enemies, and had fallen thus upon him, or of those for whose sake all this happened to him, who instead of giving him the assistance required by Treaty, have neglected them and made a separate Peace, thereby abandoning as well his as their own Affairs, and laying upon him the whole burden of the War, in which he should have had no part had it not been for his desire to help his friends in their Misfortunes, as if it were a Consolation to their High and Mightinesses to see him (who had endeavoured with all his Might to save them from Destruction) as a Recompense totally Ruined. Adding that he had expected an answer to his former Letters, and to those Memorials given into them by his Ministers, in which he had advized them of the dangers that threatened him, and desired their Assistance, that so at least, he might have had the Comfort to see the Concern they had for his Misfortune, which he had the more reason to expect, for that it must be fresh in their Memories, how in their greatest necessity he hazarded All for them, and preferred their Friendship before all the advantageous conditions that were offered him. And therefore that he writes to their High and Mightynesses this Letter, That they may not think that he tamely Digested their Unjust Proceedings, or quitted the Obligation which his Alliance with them laid upon them; but, that as on his part he had always performed his Promises and Engagements, so he requires the like from them, or in default thereof, Satisfaction for the same, and reserveth to himself and his Posterity, all the Right thereunto belonging. And indeed such has been their Perfidiousness, as to the O●sevation of most of ●he Treaties wherein they have been Engaged; That should the several Princes of Europe be provoked at last to resent their Infidelity, according to the Demerit of it; They would, instead of choosing to be their Allies or Confederates, associate and unite to be their revengeful and implacable Enemies, Nor, till they be Condignly Punished, for the many repeated Violations of their most solemn Stipulations, will it prove Wise or Safe to Trust them upon the most Sacred Security that they can give to Kings and Nations, by concerted and sworn Contracts. For, until then, it will be but a necessary Prudence in all those, with whom they seek and endeavour to be in a Foederal Amity, To ask them as Livy tells us the Roman Senator did the Carthaginian Ambassadors at the end of the second Punic War, when they came to Supplicate for a Peace, Per quos Deos Foe dus icturi essent; cum eos per quos ante ictum esset fefellissent? By what Gods they would confirm and ratify their Stipulations; seeing they had despised the Omniscience Power and Justice of those Deities by the Invocation of and Appeal to whom they stood obliged to the Observation of former Contracts. But, when they are once so sufficiently Chastised for their Treacheries and Infidelites of this kind, That they can reply as Asdrubal at that time did, namely, Per eosdem qui tam Infesti sunt Faedera violantibus. That they will swear their Leagues, by the same God who hath taken Vengeance of them for their Perjury, and their Fraudulent Violations of former Agreements; Then and not before, are they to be Trusted and Relied upon, by reason and in the Virtue of any Compacts, Covenants and Alliances, how Solemnly soever Sworn and Ratified by them.  
Nor, will it be improper or unseasonable for me here, considering the present Juncture, and the Circumstances We of Great Britain are now Reduced unto, to put my Country Men in remembrance that among other of the Motives upon which the Dutch Contrived and Promoted the Revolution, how that their Obviating and Preventing the Reckoning and Account, which King James was about calling them unto, for their Wresting Bantam by Fraud and Violence from the English East-India Company, was not only One, but that which most Influenced that Avarous and Rapacious Republic thereunto. For, having during our Convulsions here, and the many Jealousies and Misunderstandings which had arisen between the late King Charles and his People (to the begetting and fomenting whereof they had contributed all they could) Guilfuly and Hostilely wormed us out of, and Drove us from thence, where of a large and Beneficial Trade, therefore to Anticipate their being forced to restore what they had unrighteously Usurped by Deceit and Power; and to avoid making Satisfaction for the Dishonour they had therein done unto the Crown; as well as to decline repairing the Injury they had done to the East India Company and to the whole Kingdom; They came with Warmth and Readiness into the Design of Invading these Kingdoms, and of Supplanting his majesty's Throne. I suppose it needless to repeat, how they had elu●ded all the Applications made unto them by King Charles his Ministers, in reference to that Affair; and how they delayed and evaded giving Satisfaction to the East India Company, during the time that remained of his Reign, after that Usurpation, though often required and demanded of them, both by his Majesty's Envoys, and by the Deputies and Agents of the Company. Nor will I so far Reflect upon the Memory of that Prince, as to assign the Reasons why they came to Treat him with so much Superciliousness and Neglect, in that and other Concerns as they did; Seeing, besides the too great Encouragement they had to it from something in his own Constitution and Temper, they were Embold'ned thereunto by the mutinous Humour, that was then Predominant in many of his Subjects; and by the great and unaccountable Divisions which were arisen between those who were Styled the Court and Country Factions. But, finding that his Royal Brother King James, who, on his Decease Rightfully Ascended the Throne was not a Prince that bore that careless respect to his own Honour, to the Reputation of his Kingdoms, and to the Prosperity of his Subjects; as to digest the aforementioned Affront, Injustice and Injury, with the Tameness that King Charles had done; and that he Carried not that Indifferency to his People's Welfare, and to the Traffic of the Nation; as for a private Gratuity, either to Connive at, or to Forgive a Wrong done to the Meanest of those under his Protection and Government; And much less an Offence of so heinous a Nature, Committed not only against the Chief Trading Society of the Kingdom; but to the Obstruction and Loss of a Commerce, by which all his People received considerable Profit and Advantage: They thereupon, by a Violation and Contempt of the Obligatoriness and Sacredness of Leagues, both Encouraged all the Seditious and Disloyal here; aswel to Rebel against, and Revolt from the King, as by Clamours and Riots to Disturb the Tranquillity of his Reign: And they took Hold of, and Encouraged the Prince of Orange's, Ambition, whom Pride had disposed and prepared to despise and transgress all the Laws of God, and to Trample upon all the Constitutions of Nations for the Gaining of a Crown; whose aspiring Haughtiness they resolved, in that Matter to Gratify, in order to the Supporting themselves in the quiet Enjoyment, of what they had Treacherously, Unjustly and Rapaciously Seized. And, accordingly they Lent unto, and Furnished him with a great part of their Army and Navy to Enable him, in Conjunction with the Traitors that were here at Home, to drive the King both from his Throne and Dominions. And, had not the People of England been at that Time strangely Infatuated by Bigotry, and made Uncapable by their Disloyalty, of all just and rational Thinking and Arguing; they might from the forementioned Depradation of the Dutch upon Us in the Business of Bantam, have very easily Foreseen and have naturally Concluded, how far they would Usurp upon Cheat and Rob us afterwards, when they should come to obtain one of their own Complexion and Mould, as well as of Belgic Birth, Education, Authority and Inheritance, to be chosen and Advanced to Reign over us. Nor is it unworthy of Remark, how far in this very matter his being a Dutchman, hath made him for these Seven Years last passed, live in a continual forgetfulness of the Justice he oweth to the Nation, upon the Foot and Foundation of being Styled our King. For whereas both the Belgic East-Endia Companies, and the State's General had before the Revolution made and sent Overtures of giving Satisfaction, and had offered a Vast Sum of Money, in Expiation of that Crime, and for reparation of the Injury they had done us in the Case so often mentioned, we have not dared since to Pretend unto, or Claim the least Compensation for that Wrong, and much less to be so Presumptuous, as to Require to be Re-established there again; Tho according to the Modern Methods of Merit, and the ways and means which recommended People most Distinctively to the New Monarch; This Kingdom hath deserved as much of his Highness for Perjuring themselves, in order to Serve and Oblige him, as the Dutch have done by the Violation of their Treaties. Nay! whereas they broke their Alliances, upon the Motives of In●erest, and have found their Advantage in their Perjurious Treacheries: We by rendering ourselves Forsworn, in departing from our Allegiance, have only gained the being wholly shut out from that which we had both so good a Right unto, and were in so near and assured Prospect of recovering. So that all which, by Co-operating unto, and Concurring in the Revolution falls to Our Share, is the acquiring the Pre-eminence of a Double Character, Namely that of Fools, as much as that of Knaves, whilst our Belgic Neighbours are content to acquiesce in the single one of being Villains, and that chosen and submitted unto for their Gain, and not for their Loss. But the English being esteemed naturally a generous sort of People, may possibly think it but Congruous to that Opinion which Men have commonly had of them, that when they have so wilfully done all they can by their late Practices to forfeit Heaven, to Part with, Resign and Contemn the World also, and not to be like the Avaricious, Covetous Dutch, who are indeed willing enough to Renounce and Disclaim their Portion in the former, but than it is with a Proviso of Bartering it away for the later, which they take to be a Cunning and Wise Exchange.  
And, all Men must Grant that more is to be said in their Favour and for the Extenuation of their Folly, who would not choose Damnation, but for the Obtaining of Wealth, than can be reasonably said of those, that not only give themselves over to Eternal Wrath, gratis; but, who choose to Pay Dear for, it and to be Rob of their Liberties and Estates, that they may Superarrogate for Hell; and be the better Entitled and have the more deserving Right to future Vengeance. Yet, I ought not to omit mentioning one thing which falls to our Lot even in this World; as the Reward of having Purchased the Name, Gild and Infamy of Rebels, at the Expense of our Wealth and Traffic, and of all we were happy for at Home, and Reputable for Abroad; namely, That the Cap and Coat, which were heretofore only the Enclosure and Peculiar of a few; aught now and henceforward, to be the common Badges, Habit and Dress of most of the Kingdom, and especially of our Westminster Senators.  
To what I have already said, I will add in the next Place, that our Electing the Prince of Orange King, hath not only Emboldened the Dutch both to Detain from us what they formerly Usurped, and to make fresh Encroachments upon us in all parts of the World, as well as in all things; but they plead●● it as a ground Authorising them so to do, and Improve it as a Mean to Facilitate Countenance and Promote the Depradations, which they do since Commit upon us. For not to look nearer home. Asia and Africa can witness how they Triumph over and Insult us, in those Remote parts of the Universe; Representing us a Poor, Feeble and Dastardly People, over whom they have Constituted their Servant a Monarch, and thereby reduced us unto the Condition of a Province, Tributary unto and Depending on the Hollanders. Now the Material part of this Harangue being too true, though not in all the formal Circumstances in which they relate it, they thereupon not only themselves Hector us, and Withdraw and Alienate the Natives of those Countries from Valuing us as they were formerly wont to do; but having Diminished our Esteem and Reputation among them; they do consequently, Baffle and Worm us out of our Trade in all those Parts. And, as the taking one from among them to be our King, who had no rightful Title to be so; and his having been their, and still being no more than an honourable a Servant and dignified Minister of that Republic; gives a Speciousness to what they say and alle●dg of this kind, among illiterate and credulous People: So, his having made a Descent into this Kingdom with a war like Fleet and military Land Power of their Preparation and Supply; and having since his Election to the Thrones of these Kingdoms, assumed the confidence to Publish by his Mercenary Scribblers, as well as to assert by several others of his Sychophant Pensioners, that his Title over us is founded and Established in Conquest; and That he hath a Right to rule over us, as so many subdued Vassals, gives a kind of moral Certainty to Language of that Nature; where the Methods, Arts and Tricks of his coming to the Imperial Crown of these Kingdoms are not known and understood. For though under the Influence and Conduct of Madness, Distraction and Folly, We have Invited and Advanced a Dutch Prince to be our King. Antecedently to our waiting the Time he might possibly in Right have come to have been so: Yet, it deserves our warmest and most angry Resentments, to hear that the Hollanders boast and glory in their having Imposed such a one upon us. Nor can we Vindicate ourselves from the Disgrace and Reproach, until We have both Renounced Him, and severely Chastised Them, for the Insolency of pretending to have done it. But alas! Should we Overlook this Allegation, which proceedeth merely from Boorish Pride: And their being bred in Mosses and Quagmires, there are many other Advantages accrueing unto them, by the Establishment of the Prince of Orange upon the English Throne, that both Heartened them unto, and Afforded them proper and natural Means of Encroaching upon, Impoverishing and Supplanting us: Which they neither do, nor will ever fail Effectually to Improve, according to those respective Tendencies that they lie in to our Damage and to their Profit. Whereof the first that I shall name is this. That Whereas the sole Power of Issuing out Edicts and Plackets, is entirely Lodged in the State's General, without their being either Obliged to Consult their Stadtholder, or his being Vested with any Power to Control them in what they Publish: The only Authority of Ordaining and Emitting Declarations and Proclamations, is placed in this Dutch Prince and Belgic Stadtholder, by virtue of the Right made Inherent in him, on the Foot of our having Elected him King. For, as all the Privilege appertaining to our Privy Council is only to Advise him; but not to Club with him in an Authoritative Power; so it Appears by too many modern Precedents, that few of those that are Members there, have the Integrity and Fortitude to Contradict him in what he has a Mind to Publish; and that his Pleasure is sufficient Reason with most of them to Concur, and with others not to be so rude and unmanderly as to Oppose him, but silently to Acquiesce. And should some be so Bold, as at any time to Express their Dissent; the most Part have that Dependence upon him, in respect of Pensions, Offices and other gainful Places, that he is always sure to have the Majority of the Board to join with him in what he would have done. So that whensoever the Dutch do emit what Edicts they please, in Subserviency to the Interest of their Provinces, Preclusive of any Consideration of these Kingdoms, and to their sensible Prejudice: Our Monarch by his Interest in, and Oath and Obligation unto them as their Stadtholder, must not only Approve as well as Connive at what is prejudicial to great Britain Ireland; and the Dominions thereunto belonging; but must Concur and Cooperate in the Execution of what their High and Mightinesses have thought fit to Ordain. To which, should I under this Head subjoin, how that while the States of the United Netherlands, do Retain fully and wholly in themselves, the Right of making Peace and War; The Jurisdiction of Constituting Ministers to foreign Princes and States; the Power of Repealing old, and the enacting new Laws etc. And this Exclusively of the Prince of Orange's having the least Authoritative Concernment in any of these Matters: At the same time, this Gentle man hath under the Notion and Quality of being our King, not only a Negative upon all Parliamentary Bills; but the sole Power of nominating and appointing Ambassadors and Envoys etc. and the whole Right and Jurisdiction of making War or Peace: On which respective Differences of his Power there and here; should I insist and enlarge, answerable to the Weight and Merit of those Particulars; it might be made appear what vast Advantages the Dutch have of and over us upon all these Accounts; and how they became thence furnished with means of Ruining, as well as of Weakening and Supplanting us in all wherein we are Interested, either at Home or Abroad. Not that I would have the forementioned Prerogatives, which by our Constitution and Laws, stand Vested in our Monarches, withdrawn and pillaged from the Crown. Seeing not only without them our Supreme Rulers would immediately cease to be Kings, and be reduced to no better Condition than that of Doges of Venice; but because it is necessary for the good and safety of the Subjects, as well as for the Strength and Glory of the Government, that they should remain inseparably Settled where they are. But all that I would insinuate is, that it is Inconsistent with the Prosperity of these Nations, to have one and the same Person allowed and continued to be our King, and yet to remain at the same time Stadtholder of the Belgic Provinces. Nor do I need to Enumerate, much less to Demonstrate the many Prejudices and Mischiefs, which must unavoidably attend our being thus postured and stated; in that they not only lie obvious to Persons of the meanest Understandings, who give themselves liberty to think; but, because we have already Felt and Experience●d many of them in divers and repeated Instances. And therefore, I shall only make this Reflection upon, and Deduction from what hath been Suggested; namely, that the Dutch and We being so differently Circumstanced, by reason of the discrepant Relations which the Prince of Orange stands in to us and to them, there an absolute and indispensible Necessity, that he Renounce being their Stadtholder, or cease to be our King. It being impossible for him, with Justice and Equality, to discharge the Duties of both, to Nations whose Interests are so Irreconcilable, as well as Different, a● ours and theirs are known to be. And seeing his first and natural, a● well as legitimate Ties are to them, and that their Humours are agreeable, and their Concernments interwoven: It will be the Wisdom as much as it is the Duty of these Nations to Return and Remit him back to them, to whom we have found him so partially linked in his Affections, and so entirely swallowed up, in Promoting their separate and particular Designs, as in Recompense of the Honour we have bestowed upon him; the Services which we have done, and the Treasure we have Wasted to Support his Ambition, and Gratify him in the Upholding and Carrying on an unjust and destructive War; to Sacrifice and Offer Us up as Victims to their Insolency and Covetousness. For it is Apodictically Evident; that thro' his having so much Power here, and so little there, we are only Properties and a Prey to the Hollanders; and that it lies within their Circle to Encroach upon us, as much as they please, and to undermine and Baffle us what they will in all our Concerns; So it is no less Apparent that by his Countenancing, Encouraging and protecting of them in their Treacheries, Rapines, and Depradations, we both are, and must be left without Relief, Shelter and Defence, while we remain so Stupid and Sottish as to continue him on the Throne.  
Nor are they merely accommodated with Means of impoverishing, depopulating and ruining us, by having thro' English Folly and Dutch Wheedle, obtained their Belgic Stadtholder to be elected and advanced to Sat upon our Throne; but they are farther Impower'd to accomplish all those Ends upon us, thro' having so many of their Countrymen Received into our Councils, Established over our Troops Employed by the Crown of England into foreign Courts, and Dignifyed with those Titles and Honours in Virtue whereof they sit in the Supreme Court of Parliament, and have a Vote both in the Enacting and Repealing our Laws, and in Adjudging Causes which arrive before that High Court of Judicature en dernier Resort. It would afford too much matter fo● satire, as well as for Piquancy, to find the chief Honours and Dignities of the Kingdom so ignominiously debased and prostituted, as to be lavishly bestowed upon Outlandish Men, who have neither Birth nor Merit to Entitle them thereunto; but who receive them as the Compensations of their Master's Gratitude for Qualities and Meanesses in them, and Services performed to him, which it would be offensive to persons either of Religion or of moral Virtue, to have them mentioned. And the conferring English Grandeurs upon so worthless People; and that upon so Vile Motives as these have been granted, will in a little time render those Titles and Dignities, which used heretofore to be the Rewards of distinguishing Worth and Virtue, and the Signatures of the innocent and just Favour of our Princes to those that deserved meritoriously of them and of their Country, to be more scorned and despised than the Order of the Star is now in France, where it is become a Disgrace to receive it, and is wholly grown obsolete and disused, since Lewis the XI. splitting the Collar, which was the Mark of, and gave Investiture in it about the Neck of the Captain of the Night-watch or of the Constable, who is therefore called Chevalier du Guet. Nor can any acquainted either with our own, or with foreign Histories, be ignorant how unacceptable and disgustful Outlandish Men have been to Natives and what fatal Mischiefs they have brought first upon the People, then upon the Prince, and at last upon themselves, where they have been raised to Superlative Dignities, and placed at the head of Affairs. Which, without travelling Abroad for Examples to Confirm, we may find sadly verified in the Lives of Henry III. and Edward II. And it would be prudent in Benting, if he would Consider the Fate and Destiny of Gaveston and Spencer whereof our Histories can inform him; as likewise of the Monopoly which they made of the Ears and Authority of our Princes; and of the Mischiefs which they occasioned to the People.  
And then for Dutch and Outlandish Officers, as the advancing them over the English Troops is a Disgrace to the Kingdom, and the Diminution of the Honour that belongeth to the Crown of England, and giveth general Dissatisfaction to the Subjects; so it is an Affront put upon the Parliament, and a Ridiculing as well as a Despising of the Address made to the Prince of Orange, Feb. 18, 1692. by the House of Lords, wherein they desire, That the Chief Commander of the English Forces under His Majesty, should be a subject Born in his majesty's Dominions, to which he gave answer, That he would Consider of it, but hath all along since done in this, as in every thing else, Namely, treated the Council of Peers, with Neglect and Scorn, and left the British Soldiers not only under the Command of Foreigners as their Supreme Officers, but to be Insolently Insulted over by them▪ But, to wave many Reflections, which the particulars now mentioned, are liable to have made upon them, I shall only observe in what Subserviency these things lie to our being Ruined by the Dutch, and what Improvement they have already made of them to that Purpose. For by having Batavians in our Councils, they are not only made acquainted with all the Secrets of the Board, relating either to State or Traffic, but they have those present there, who will Countermine as well as Betray them, if they be not Calculated and Adapted to a Dutch Interest and Design. And whence was it that our East India Company came to be so long neglected in all the Applications they made to the great Man at Kensington, but that the Hollanders were to be Encouraged and Assisted in the supplanting and and worming them them out of that opulent Trade, and have Time vouchsafed them for doing of it. Yea, the late Seizure of so many of their Ships, which were the richest that ever were Fraught from thence to England; by which both the Nation is so much impoverished as well as deprived and pillaged of those Commodities which it stood so greatly in need of, and that Society vastly sunk in their Stock as well as Reputation, if it were pursued to the Original and true Source of it, will be found to have proceeded from the Treachery of Dutch Ministers in our Councils, and from their hired and bribed Pensioners, who gave Information to Holland, whence it became Betrayed and Discovered to the French, at what Ports in Ireland the Company had Ordered their Ships to put in, till they might be furnished with a Convoy to protect them home. And that Passage in the late Speech to both Houses, Novemb. 23. That they would have a Regard to the East India Trade, lest it should be lost to the Nation; was only to Cover the Treachery, and to prevent its being enquired into. And it lies so much under every one's Prospect, that it needs only be pointed at and not insisted upon, how much the Dutch stand advantaged to Endamage us by their having the same Benting qualified to sit in the House of Lords, under the Character of an English Peer▪ In which Capacity, abstracting from the Influence he has over his Master, to Sway and Determine him to put a Negative upon such Bills as may be prepared there and in the House of Commons to Screen us from Belgic Encroachments and Rapines, he is Capable sometimes by his own single Vote, and often so by the many Proxies, which some ●hro Fear, others thro' Flattery and many in order to Court a place and Preferment, do lodge with him to get those Bills thrown out, which were either Introduced there by some generous Peer that loves his Country; or framed and sent up thither by the House of Commons for their Lordship's Concurrence, in order to protect our Trade, preserve our Constitution, and to prevent the Slavery, as well as the Poverty which the Dutch seek to have Overthrown, and wish and endeavour to have us reduced unto. Nor was there ever a good Bill form upon the Design of being a Fence about our Lives, Liberties and Estates, whether it began in the Upper House, or came conveyed thither from the Lower since the Revolution, which this Gentleman raised to the Honour of Peerage, by a Merit singular and peculiar to himself, hath not both given his own Vote, and if Occasion was applied, all the Right, Authority and Power vested in him by Proxies, for the casting it out and the rejecting of it. To which, under this Head I shall only briefly add: That it is no less than an avowed and visible Betraying both of the Honour and Interest of England to the Dutch, to employ a Batavian under a Character derived from the Crown of England, to any Foreign King or State about British Affairs and Concerns. And for any one styling himself King of England, to appoint a Dutch Man Amhassador or Envoy to any Court in Europe, can be upon no other Motive than of Sarificing the Concernments of England, in that Court and Country, to the Pleasure and Profit of the Hollanders; seeing we want not Men of Quality, Sense and Merit of our own, to be sent Abroad under those Characters. And yet this Belgic Prince, now set over us, and whom our wise Senators have accustomed themselves to call their and our most Gracious King, Values himself upon Treating us after this rate, as appears by his Interposing in the Vindicating, Justifying and Protecting of Mine Heer Schonenberg at Madrid, whom in his Letters to the King and Court of Spain, he calls his Ambassador. And according Resents the Driving him out of that City, as a Violation of the Rights and Laws of Nations; though it was for Crimes that any other Prince besides ours, would have Chastised and not have Defended him. Nor does the Privilege belonging to the Character he bears, give him Security by any Laws in reference to the Cause for which he was Insulted, from being as justly as he was ignominiously Dealt with. Nevertheless, this Belgic Prince hath espoused and pushed the Vindication and Defence of this Dutch Heer so far, as to have Forbid the Spanish Ambassador to present any Memorial, or to Appear at Court, till he hav● Satisfaction given him in Reference to that Batavian, whom he hath the Indiscretion and Confidence, in the View and Face of the World, to style an Ambassador from the Crown of England. And, were the Wheedle of Rescuing Nations from Popery and Slavery, as proper to Influence the Subjects of his Catholic Majesty; and to Pervert them from the Allegience to their Monarch, as they did the weak and credulous People of these Kingdoms; This Prince Errand, who not only Fancieth himself another Hercules, born and raised up to tame Monsters; but one Divinely Commissioned to give Laws to all Nations, and to Trample on Crowned Heads, and wrest Sceptres out of the Hands of Kings; he would Embark speedily with his Dutch Janissaries for Cadiz, to Drive his Catholic Majesty out of Spain, as he did the King of Great Britain from his Dominions▪ In the mean time, the Fraud to which this Schonenberg was accessary, and the Insolence he was guilty of towards the King of Spain, shows the Prince of Orange's Skill in the choice of his Ministers to be Employed Abroad under public Characters; and how well Qualified this Dutch Man was for being Constituted the Ambassador of the King of England: Seeing it is most certain, that as Dutch Stadtholder, he could not give that Title, nor the Powers belonging to it. But is not England in the mean time, in a safe and fine Condition, to have all the Affairs of the Kingdom, that are to be Transacted by a Person vested with that Character, in the only Nation and Court of Europe where we have now most to do, and are most embarked in Commerce and Traffic, and where our Concernments do chiefly lie▪ to be not only Trusted in the Hands, and put under the Care and Conduct of a Dutch Man; but of one whom the Hollanders themselves have given the same Style and appendent Powers unto, for the Management of what appertains to them both in the way of State and Trade? To whom we may be not only sure that he will be Truer than to Us, but that it was intended by the Prince of Orange, he should be so. And should any be so foolishly Favourable as to Entertain a better Construction of his Highness' Intentions; Yet it is Demonstrable that Nature and Interest will be prevalent in most Men, especially in a Hollander, above Duty and Obligation. Accordingly, Mr. Stanhop who is both an English Man and sent from hence to Reside there in the quality of William's Envoy, is not only sensible of the Affront done to himself, thro' a Dutch Man's being Authorised under a higher Cha, racter, to meddle at that Court in British Concerns; but of the Injury done to the Kingdom by reason of that Hollander's Sacrificing them to a Belgic Interest. So that by this Conduct of the Gentleman at Kensington, the Sheep are committed to the Wolves to keep; and the Guards allotted for our Defence, are Placed upon us in Order to Assassinate Us. Nay, at other Courts, and particularly at the Hague, where he pretends to Employ English Men, under the Character of Envoys and Ambassadors from this Kingdom: He Trusts none of them in the great Affairs and Concerns of State which are Transacted in that Court; but Useth them only in Compliments, Trifles and Baggatells; or at most, in receiving and delivering such Letters as are of no Importance. Witness, among others, my Lord Dursly, whom I do therefore name, because, he is both a Person, who for Honour, Prudence and good Sense, is qualified to discharge the Duties of a Public Minister in any Court whatsoever; and is one who preserves that Regard to his Country and to his own Dignity and Reputation, that he would neither be accessary to see the Nation Betrayed, nor Silently Connive at it, and whom therefore though the Prince of Orange kept a great while at the Hague, under a Public Character from hence, yet he was let into none of the Secrets, nor trusted in the Management of the Weighty Affairs of State; which were Agitated and Adjusted between our Belgic King, and those who have assumed to themselves the Haughty Style of High and Mighty Lords, and in whose hands is the Administration of the Government of the Seven Provinces, in all things relative to Peace, War, Traffic and Commerce. Nor, is it matter of Wonder or Surprise, that he Treats those English with Disdain as well as Reservedness, whom he pretends to Employ under Public Characters Abroad, seeing the Ministers who are supposed to be at the Head of Affairs at Home, and who are believed to be admitted into all the Secrets of the Government, are made acquainted with very little, Previous to its coming to be 〈◊〉, but then they whom he did not think worthy to be his Councillors, though they bear the Name, are called upon and set at work as his Tools, to see that performed which only himself and his Minion Benting, and may be one certain Person more, who is in credit with him for having formerly betrayed unto him both his Master and the Kingdom, had Debated and Resolved upon. Yet those whom he calls his Principal Secretaries of State, signify no more, nor make no better Figure in the most important and weighty Matters, than that of little and Servile Commis; which one of these so Resented heretofore, that he Surrendered his Post and withdrew from business, but being Tempted with the Profits, Salaries and Perquisites of the Place, and Allured by a Lofty Title, and a Blue Ribon, and likewise Flattered with the Hopes that were given him of being otherwise, and more Honourably dealt with for the future, he hath reassumed it again, but meets with the same Reasons, and has the same Cause given him of Abandoning it afresh, as he Pretended to have for his Deserting it before.  
But moreover, besides all these Advantages; the Dutch are possessed for the Undoing us, thro' the Interest they have in their Stadtholder, and our British King; or by reason of the Services which a Hollander can do them to our Prejudice by being Constituted Ambassador o● Envoy from the Crown of England to foreign Courts; or, by virtue of the Capacity that Benting is in to Betray us, and to be useful unto them and promote their separate Designs and Undertake, by the Room he filleth both in our Council and Senate House; as well as by the Post of special Access and Favour which he enjoyeth about his Master: This same Gentleman, Benting, who is the Minion and Darling of our Monarch for Familiarities and Privacies which I blush to mention, has Granted unto him as well as Assumed the whole Superintendency of the Kingdom of Scotland & Governs it entirely by his Creatures, who are the only Persons there Trusted with the Administration, and to whom he gives such Measures, in Reference both to the Legislative and to the Executive Part of the Government in that Kingdom, as may best Quadrate with the Benefit of Holland, and prove most Disserviceable to the Prosperity of England. Witness among many other Things, the New Erecting of a Scotch East India Company, and the Terms and Immunities upon which it is Established, whreof I shall discourse hereafter  
Having now briefly Detected and Declared the known perfidious and encroaching Temper of the Dutch Nation; what awak'ning Examples and Premonitions we had antecedently to the Revolution, to Fear and Expect their dealing Treacherously and Rapaciously with us, should we have the Folly and Madness as to Trust them, and of which Means and Advantages they became thereby possessed, for Encroaching upon and Undermining us in all our Concernments. I shall proceed in the next Place to Discover and lay Open, some of those many Methods, Ways and Instances wherein since that time, they have Committed Depradations upon us, and made us both the Tools of their Selfish and Ambitious Designs, and the Prey of their Malice, Craft and Avarice. And the Granting away such large Estates▪ and the Settleing such ample Inheritances upon some Individuals of the Dutch Nation, may be justly accounted a Robbery Perpetrated upon the Kingdom, and a Plundering of the Crown and People, to Enrich both those Persons upon whom those La●ds are bestowed, and the whole Belgic Republic, which is not only made Opulent, by this Accrueing Wealth of its particular Subjects, but whither the Profits and Emoluments of those Estates are Carried and Transported. For not to insist upon the vast Sums of Money which many of that People have Acquired Here, in the way of Salaries, Gifts and Bribes since the Prince of Orange made a Descent into this Kingdom, and which they have Conveyed and Transmitted thither, to the Enriching that Commonwealth as well as themselves; how many Noble Real Estates have been Conferred upon and Vested in them. And to omit the many other Alienations of Lands from the Crown; and the Ravishment of Ancient Freeholds and Inheritances from divers of of the Subjects of these Dominions that have been lavishly bestowed upon your Ginkles and your Rovignies, the later of whom besides the Grant of the Title and Honour of Lord Viscount Galloway, has the Estate of Sir Patrick Trant given unto him, which has been represented and is held worth Three Thousand Pounds Sterling. Annually; and the Former is not only Created Earl of Athlone, but has the Estate of the Earl of Limerick, as likewise that of the Lord Baron of Stone Conferred upon him, of which the Last, is reckoned to be, at least, worth Two Thousand Five Hundred Pounds per Ann. and the First, Three Thousand Pounds Yearly. But, I shall only take Notice, and think it Proof enough of what I have Suggested, of the Large Grants made to Benting of the Lands at Theobalds', and of the Lordships of Denbigh Land, Bromfield and Yale in the County of Denbigh: And which a●e not only Given unto Him from the Crown for a certain Term of Years, or merely during his Master's Life; but are Disposed aw●y and Alienated for Ever to Him and his Heirs. For the Dutch Gentleman knowing his own Invaluable, though Secret Merits; and how and in what Manner he had Debased and Prostituted himself to Deserve of his Highness, by Accommodating and Serving him in his unnatural Pleasures, thought that if Mrs. Villars, for Gratifying him in his Lusts in a more natural Way albeit not a lawful, hath Merited the Gift of the King's Lands in Ireland, which without another Revolution, or a Resumption of them by Act of Parliament, will come at last to be worth Twenty Thousand Pounds per Ann. to her and her Posterity: He might well Pretend unto, and Claim something more Considerable, as having Contracted a higher Gild, and Submitted to a worse Infamy for the Purchasing of it, than She is believed to have done. And therefore not being Contented with Lands of Theobalds', which were bestowed upon him soon after the Prince of Orange was Advanced into a Condition and Capacity of making Grants and Alienations of that Kind; and of which he has made large Improvements, and Raised vast Sums from thence by Sales and otherwise, to the wonderful Wrong and Damage of all those that had Leases of and Tenant Right in them, from and under the late Duke of Albemarle, to whose Father they were Judged a very Royal and Valuable Recompense, for the Noble Service He did, in Retrieving and Re-establishing the Government upon its Ancient Legal Bottom; the Restoring the late King Charles to his Rightful and Hereditary Sovereignty, and for Re-estating these Kingdoms in the peaceable Possession of their Laws and Liberties: I say. that not being Satisfied with this ample Donative and Gift, He hath lately Begged of King William the other Lands I have Mentioned, and hath had them Granted unto Him without the least Regard to the Right of the Crown, the Property of the Prince of Wales, the Laws of this Kingdom, or to the Interest which some Hundreds of Persons have more or less in them, Of which Acquisition on Benting's part and Alienation on William's, it will not be amiss to enlarge a little, that we may the better Discern, and come the more Sensibly under the Impression, both of the Despotical and Unlimimited Absoluteness which the Usurper and his Minions Challenge over us; and of the Slavish State and Tenure we are Reduced unto, of having our Estates wrested from us and given away, to what Degree, Measure and Proportion one Dutch Man shall have the Impudence to Demand, and the other the Insolency and Tyranny to Grant. For, if we look into the Extent and Largeness of this Grant; it is the Giving away no less than the Dominion and Property of Five Parts of Six of one Entire County; which as it is too great a Power and Inheritance for any Foreign Subject to Possess and Inherit: So it may hereafter prove Unsafe for the Government, to have so Numerous a People made Subject unto, and Dependant on Him: Seeing it is of that vast Dimension, and ample Jurisdiction, that near Fifty Mean Lordships Hold of those Manors, and above Fifteen Hundred Freeholders are Tenants there to the King, and thereby Obliged unto Him under a particular Allegiance, besides that which they owe him in the Quality, and on the Foot of their being his Subjects. And it is so particular a Revenue Anciently Vested in the Prince of Wales, that it cannot Legally, and according to the Customs, Constitution and Laws of England be Alienated from him. And therefore, upon the Creation of a Prince of Wales, there are upon the Right of Tenure under him, and of Tenancy unto him, Mises of Eight Hundred Pounds payable to the said Prince. Nor is it unworthy of Remark, that in the Preamble of the Statute of the 21. Jac. Cap. 29, it was brought into Doubt and questioned, whether Charles the First that was then Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall, whom the Statute Declares to have an Inheritance in both, though under special Limitation, could Let or Rend Leases for Three Lives or any longer than his Own: And it is there Declared that he could not unless such Leases were Confirmed in Parliament. And the Reason is, Because upon want of a Prince of Wales, that Inheritance becomes immediately Vested in the Crown. So that if the Prince of Wales himself, who has an Inheritance in that Revenue, cannot Grant Estates out of it for any longer than his own Life, without the Consent and Authority of Parliament; it demonstratively Follows, that the Prince of Orange, who by the very Title that he possesseth the Crown, hath at most, only an Estate in it for his own Life; cannot Grant away and Alienate it, without the Consent of both Houses of Parliament Declared in and by a formal and express Statute. To which I will presume to add, that in Case of a Failure of a Prince of Wales, it doth not settle in the Crown as a Propriety▪ but as an Usufructuary▪ till a Prince of Wales be Created, to whose Creation that Revenue is Annexed, by those words in our Law, To him and his Heirs who shall be Kings of England. Nor was there ever a Disposal or Alienation of that Estate from the Crown, save when Queen Elizabeth who was as much the Idol as she was called the Protectoress of her People, ventured to grant it unto and bestow it upon the Earl of Leicester; but that both occasioned such an Insurrection and Rebellion and was likely to raise and continue such a Civil War in the Kingdom, that Leicester was glad both to depart from all Pretence of Claim that was made unto him by that Grant, and quietly to Resign it; and the Queen, who wanted neither Spirit to Assert her legal Rights and Prerogatives, nor Interest in the Affections of her Subjects, for Support and Justification of them, was joyful to put an End to those Intestine Divisions and Troubles, b● Reassuming those Lands to the Crown, where they have ever since continued. Nor can a rightful and hereditary King of England even in the Case, and on the Supposal that there were no Prince of Wales, legally Alienate and Give away those Lands from the Crown; seeing they are no otherwise Vested in it, than in Trust to be Preserved forth coming to the Use, Profit and Honour of such a Prince when there comes to be One, and at what time he is Created and Declared. And therefore in and by the very Statute of Charles II. which gave Power as well as Liberty for the Sale and Disposal of the Fee Farm Rents, there is a particular and express Exception of the forementioned Welsh Rents, though there was then no Prince of Wales, nor any Prospect that there would be one of that King's Body: which plainly Imported, that the Parliament took the Welsh Revenue nor to be Alienable. Much less than can the Prince of Orange, that hath no hereditary Right to the Crown, but hath only Obtained it by the illegal and merely pretended Choice of the People, which is in other Terms, to have Usurped it; and who by the very Act of Settlement, has but an Estate for Life in the Possession of it, Grant away the Inheritance and absolute Fee of the Principality of Wales. For, it is no less an Absurdity in Law to say that a Tenant for Life can Grant a Fee, than to say, that a Tenant in Fee can Grant no more than for a Life. But it appears that that though the Power of a lawful King, and of a legitimate Prince of Wales, be Limited and Restrained within the Precincts of Law; yet that the Power of an Usurper is boundless and unconfined. However, it is no way incongruous, that he who has violently Snatched his Father in Law and Uncle's Crown from his Head, and Drove him from his Dominions, should also take upon himself to Grant away and Alienate the Inheritance of his Cousin, and to Disinherit him of it. But why doth he not as well make Benting Prince of Wales, as to give him the Revenue of that Principality? Seeing he may as lawfully, and by the same Measures of Justice do the First, as he has done the Last.  
And no doubt but that as he hath Inclination to it, we may also live to see it done, if he can but once Emerge out of the present War, and thereupon bring over from the Continent, a numerous and triumphant Outlandish Army to support and protect him in his Usurpation and Tyranny, and make us with Tameness and Decency wear our Chains. In the mean time, considering the Depopulaation and Poverty which thro' a long and costly War, the Nation is already reduced unto, we may make this Reflection upon, and this Inference from the Prodigality of our Belgic King to his Dutch Minion and to his Outlandish Janissaries, viz. that it can be done upon upon no other Design than to gratify the Commo-nwealth of Holland, and to raise them to an Ascendency of Wealth and Power over us. For had he the least Rega●d to the Welfare of England, he would blush to ask such immense Sums of the Parliament, when he is alienating and disposing away the standing Revenues of the Crown to his Whores and Burda●●●● For how can we imagine that any thing should be held needful to be Levied of the People, if it were not in Subserviency to an Outlandish Interest; when we see not only those Lands that are pretended to be forfeited, but those Ancient Inheritances that the Sovereign and Royal Family should Subsist upon, squandered away upon little Foreigners, which were bred and heretofore accustomed to live upon the Fragments of their Master's Table. Surely we may expect from the Justice and Wisdom of this Parliament; That before they Empty the Purses of those they Represent, they will inquire how the Revenues vested in the Crown are bestowed and applied. For whatsoever Usurpers may dare to do, in wasting the Treasure and Inheritance of the Throne by Buildng Palaces, and furnishing them splendidly at Loo, and for making Indorsements on the posteriour Parchments of those I have mentioned. Our Natural and Lawful Kings never used to demand Succours of their Subjects, till they had Exhausted themselves, and Disbursed their whole Revenue in the Service, and for the Protection of their People. Nor is there any thing more frequently met with, and better known in our Law, than that there have been Acts of Resumption of former Grants and Donations from the Crown, whensoever the Nation has been Engaged in an expensive War, and the People have Groaned under large Taxes. And as this is the first Original of the Kind, that ever we had Experience of in this Kingdom, and for which we are indebted to Holland; so I hope, that after our Deliverance from a Belgic Prince. we shall have no Copy of it; or that any King hereafter will make Alienations of Lands from the Crown, when he is under Necessities of demanding Aids of his People, for his Support and Assistance in Wars wherein he may come to be engaged, To which I will only add, that under all those lavish and squandring Wastes and Consumptions of our Prince upon Dutch, for Closet and Chamber Services; he hath not only been Narrow and Parsimonious enough, but Niggardly and highly Ungrateful to the English; because it could not benefit Holland. Whereof among others, Talmash that is Dead, and old Danby who is Alive▪ are known Instances; though they Served him both in Policy and War, and Contributed farther to his Exaltation to the Throne, and to the keeping him in it, than Thousands of his Countrymen were capable of doing; and especially beyond what the Chocolate and Carpet Gentleman I have been speaking of had either Courage or Brain to Attempt. In recompense whereof, instead of any Lands, and much less those of the Crown; the one was sent and abandoned to be Killed by the French, but Murdered by the English abroad; and the other is Forsaken, Given up and Sacrificed at ●●me, to the old Envy and bigoted Rage of his Enemies.  
But whereas what I have now Represented may seem to Issue only in the Enriching a few Hollanders, at our Loss and Expense; and not to amount to the Benefit and Advantage either of the Community of that People, or of those States, unless Secondarily and after several Removes; I shall therefore advance to the laying open and displaying, wherein to our Vast and infinite Damage we are Bubbled out of our Money and Treasure, and made a Prey to that Republic, thro' the large Sums daily Allotted and Paid them out of our Exchequer. Nor is the way wherein it is done such a Mystery as needs Accuracy of Parts, and great Penetration to Comprehend it, seeing it cannot escape Proving Demonstratively Obvious to every One, who will give himself leave to Consider how many of the Dutch Troops, and of those that Constitute their Particular Quota, are upon the English Establishment, and Paid with English Money: For as if it had not been enough to have been Guilty both of that Prodigal Folly, and that Treasonable Crime of giving them at one time Six Hundred Thousand Pounds, as a pretended Reimbursement of the Charge and Expense they Alleged they had been at in sending their Fleet and Army hither, upon the Motives as they had the Hypocrisy and Impudence to say, and We the Simplicity and Lunatism to believe, of Rescuing Us from Popery and Slavery, but as appears by the Event, for Introducing Atheism, Thraldom and Poverty; We did not only over and above that, Maintain and Pay their Whole Army here for a Considerable time, but have had ever since Six or Seven Holland Regiments upon English Establishment, and both Maintained with good English Money, and at the Proportion of our Pay, which is larger than they allow to those Troops which remain under their own Establishment. Sure it might have been thought sufficient, and would be so by any Prince, save this Dutch one, who inwardly hates Us, and by all the Methods of his Administration seeketh and Pursueth our Ruin, that besides the Raising and Maintaining the largest Body of British Troops, that has for many Ages been Employed upon the Continent, and over and above the Charges we are at in Assisting and Relieving the Duke of Savoy, and on those particular Forces, which are on English Pay in Piedmont, We should be at the Expense of Purchasing, Subsisting and Paying all the Danes, most of the Hess, many of the Lunenburgh, and divers of the Swiss, and some of the Brandenburg Forces that are now in the Confederate Army in Flanders; but that after all this Prodigal▪ Expense, which though it may possibly give us the Reputation of a Rich, yet will not even with our Allies themselves acquire us the Credit of a Wise Nation; We should be so Ridiculously silly as to Bear and Defray the whole charge of so many Regiments belonging directly to the Dutch, and who being entirely under the Authority and Command of the State's General, and of the Belgic Provinces, will in Reward of our Indiscreet and Wasteful Liberality to them, be ready to Invade Us and to Cut our Throats whensoever their Masters the High and Mighty Lords, and their Dutch Stadtholder shall require them to do it. And though it may seem a Paradox to Soft-headed Unthinking People, yet it is a Measured and Certain Truth▪ that as all the Confederates give not one Moiety of what is both necessary, and applied to the upholding and carrying on of this War; so scarcely a Moiety of that which is granted and raised as the Share and Quota of England is disbursed and laid out upon our Troops. But it is either bestowed in the Hireing Foreign Princes to continue in this united and conjunct Alliance; or in the paying Outlandish Forces, who being ready to Starve in their own Countries, will serve the Devil, or the Mogul for Money; or it is lavished away in reproachful Gratuities upon Minions under the Notion of being expended for private Service, as indeed it is, though for a Criminal and Villainous one; or it is disposed in the bribing Members of Parliament to betray the Trust reposed in them, by those that have Chosen them, and to Sell their Country; or it is consumed in the making and keeping up of Shame Plots, and upon Scoundrels and Varlet's to Swear peaceable Men falsely out of their Lives and Estates. And lest it should remain any longer a Mystery, why William is so fond of Foreign Soldiers as to receive them in those vast Numbers he doth into English Pay; when the Natives of these three Kingdoms, do not only equal those of all Nations in Valour and Bravery, and without being thought a Disparagement to those of other Countries, are acknowledged to excel those of most; and who have at all times been forward and ready to take Arms, when the Cause has been just and honourable, and where their Treatment has been humane, compassionate and good. I shall therefore resolve this Riddle, and detect both upon what Motives and Prospects he doth so; which accordingly in brief are these, namely, That having form Designs both of Enslaving us to Himself, and of making us Vassals and Tributaries to his beloved Dutch, whensoever he can Emerge out of the War: And being apprehensive that Native and British Subjects will be so far from being his Tools to Enthrall themselves and their Off spring, as well as their Countrymen and their Posterity; That they will both abandon and withstand Him in the Attempt, and be provoked to revenge the Affront and Injustice which shall be offered of this Kind, to these Kingdoms, and the People of them: And thereupon that he may be in a Condition to Execute hereafter without hazard what his Soul, thro' Pride and Malice, is now in Travail with; he both secretly Lists and Armeth the French Hugonots here, and draws what Outlandish Troops he can, into his immediate Pay and Service from Abroad. Nay, in subserviency to this Projection, he not only puts Foreigners into the supreme Command over all the English and Scotch Forces, though contrary to an Address of Parliament; but there is not one British Regiment in the whole Army in the Low Countries, into which he hath not by his despotic Power and absolute Authority introduced Aliens both as Commission Officers and Subalterns. Which being done in Contempt, as well as Neglect of an Address of the House of Peers, that I have formerly mentioned, their Lordships do now seem sensible of the Affront put upon themselves, as they are not only the Consiliarii nati of our Princes; but as they are the chiefest and noblest part of the Great Council of the Kingdom. And therefore like unto what the Peers of England used to be, and as becomes the Patriots of their Country, they have demanded a List of all the Officers that Command our British Troops, and of what Country they individually are. Which if King William cause to be Presented to them with that Truth and Sincerity, which ought to be the inseparable Qualities of a Prince, both their Lordships and all the World will have Reason to be Astonished at the Wrong and Dishonour done to these Nations, in the setting so many Foreigners over our Forces to Command them. Whereof we have already seen and felt the fatal Effects, in the late Count Solme's Abandoning so many of our Men to be Butchered at the Battle of Steinkerk; when instead of supporting them as he ought, and as they expected, he lay at distance Covered and never Advanced towards their Relief. And where our Men behaving themselves with that wonderful Bravour that is natural to them, it is Commonly believed, even by our Enemies as well as by others, that a Defeat might have been given the French, if those British Troops, which were so shamefully Deserted and treacherously Sacrificed, had been reinforced and succoured as they should have been. But as to the List which the House of Peers have demanded; it is too probable that King William will with the same Regardlesness both to Truth and to his Honour, endeavour to Shame them off with a false and imperfect Account of those Officers, as he hath ventured to do the House of Commons, in the State of the War he hath caused lay before them of the Quota's of the several Confederates for the Year 1696. if their Lordships will have the Tameness to sit down with, and acquiesce in it, without farther Examination and Enquiry. But to proceed; It may not be amiss to observe, how that in order that none of those whom he hath already Mustered, in order to this future Design; or of whose Service he thinks himself sure, when the time arrives of Accomplishing it, may in the Interim languish and decay in their Zeal towards the Enterprise, he loseth no opportunity of placing Marks of his Favour and Kindness upon them; though it be sometimes to the Forfeiture of his Discretion, and prove the giving too early an Alarm to England, of the lurking and malicious Intentions which he entertains for us. So that when he Addressed his Parliament on Nou. 23. last, he could not omit Recommending his Mustered and Regimented Hugonots to their Care and Supply; though he did not think those many Thousands of Starving Widows and Orphans, whose Husbands and Fathers perished in his Service, worth the being mentioned to them for Relief. And much less had he the Justice and Goodness to desire their Aids and Supplies, in behalf of those many once Wealthy and Trading Families, that are since the Revolution reduced to extreme Poverty, by his pursuing his concerted Measures with Holland, for the ruining of our Trade; and thro' the Treachery as well as Neglect of the Commissioners of the Admiralty, who Act by his Order and Instructions; and rather choose to Sacrifice the Kingdom, than in any thing to Control his pleasure. Of whom, if the Parliament requireth not an exact and severe Account of all our Losses by Sea, and make both their Lives and Estates responsible for their Sloth and Infidelity in protecting our Commerce and Traffic, we shall have reason to think both the Houses, as well as the Gentlemen of that Commission; engaged equally to hasten and see the Ruin of the Kingdom. Nor can any other Reason be given, save that which I have assigned, why King William should Address his Parliament, with that Concernedness he did, for a Benevolence to be granted to the Hugonots, at a time when the other Supplies he demanded will arise to more in case they be Granted, than all the Circulating, and very probably, more than all the Real Money in the Kingdom will amount unto. Moreover, the Condition of the French Refugees, is not only infinitely better here, than ever it was in their own Country, but exceedeth as well as equalleth the State of our own People of Rank and Quality with them. For instead of Canvas and Sabotts, which used to be the Habit and Dress of many of them in France, they are now both Shod and Clad as decently and richly as the best of the English are; upon, as well as among whom they do Subsist. And in the place of feeding commonly upon Herbs, and only now and then upon Flesh, and that the Refuse of Markets, which was their Custom; nothing will now content them but the choicest Provisions that Butchers and Poulterers can Furnish them with, and that in large Proportions also: Which also shows that while our Purses are almost emptied, theirs are become well filled since their Arrival hither, that they can be able to bear the Charges of living so splendidly, as they are now known to do.  
But it shows the Mean and Contemptible Opinion this Dutch Prince has of the Understanding and Wisdom of an English Parliament, otherwise he would not in the forementioned Particular have Treat-them as so many Fops, that are to be Bubbled and Cullyed out of their Own, and the Nations Money: And indeed he hath had Just cause given him to account the Generality of the People of England, to be no less Fools than in Subserviency to his Ambition they have discovered themselves to be Knaves. And it is but Just, that upon his finding them to be People of so little Conscience towards King James, he should in Reference to his own Concernments, Esteem and Treat them as People both of as little Wit and Honesty. And this I dare Avouch, as having had it from those that are Conversant with his Privadoes, and with such as are upon his Secrets, Namely, that he looks upon most of the English as no better than Rogues and Traitors; and as he knows no difference in this Point betwixt Whig and Tory, so he Resolveth to Treat them all equally and alike, if he can but once put an end to this Present War. And what we may then Expect from him answerable to those fine Characters he is pleased to give Us, may be easily guessed by the Murder of Glenco, and so many other Innocents' as were there Massacred by his Express Order and Command, after having had all Assurances given them by those in Commission under him of their Protection. Nor can we after that Treacherous and Bloody Precedent question the Entertainment we are to meet with from this Dutch Prince's Cruelty and Malice, as soon as he hath his Hugonots here, and his Outlandish Janissaries from Abroad in a readiness, and all Mustered together upon the Spot to Execute his Commands. And as his Outlandish Troops Abroad have such Officers Commanding them, who will as readily put in Execution all his Barbarous and Inhuman Orders, as well as those Degenenerate Natives, Hill, Hamilton and Glenlion, etc. Did that which was sent down to Require and Authorize the Massacre in Scotland, Anno 1691. So We have little reason to believe otherwise, than that the French and pretended Huguenot Schombergh, whom in derision of the Nation and in Contempt of the House of Peers, he hath Advanced to be General over all the Forces in England, will be forward enough both to employ such of them as he can Debauch to Perpetrate a Cruelty, and to Instigate and to make use of his Refugee Countrymen, to Concur and Assist in Enslaving Us, and to Cut our Throats, if we will not Tamely Submit whensoever the time comes, that such a Work is Seasonable to be put in Execution. And the late Insolence, as well as Illegality Committed by the Hugonots, who live within the Precincts of Westminster, in the not only daring to pretend to have a Vote in the Election of Members and Burgesses for that place to serve in Parliament, and in having the Impudence to come Four or Five several Persons out of one House upon that Errand, where they live crowded together, or rather as Soldiers disposed in Baracks and quartered upon the Kingdom, than as Tenants or Inmates; but their Hectoring, Insulting and crudely Attacking those English, who were disposed to give their Votes for others than they had received their Cue from Whitehall and Kensington, may teach us what they are capable of attempting for the Subversion of our Laws and Liberties, and what we may justly look for at their hands, when they have an opportunity, and the Word is given them. For it is an Affront to our Laws, and a Banter put upon our Understandings, to say that Aliens who remain under the Character and Quality of such, and who neither can Purchase nor Inherit Lands should have the Right and Privilege to Vote in the Choice of Members of Parliament. And we shall deserve that all Mischiefs should Overtake ●us, which he Designs to bring upon us, if the De-Witting in Holland, the Gaffnying in Ireland, the Glencoing in Scotland, do not Warn us to provide for our Safety, which we can never have Assurance of, if this Man continue in the Authority and Power he has; and much less can we ●ope for it, if he Arrive at more.  
But, to advance a Step farther in an Enquiry after and into the Spoils and Depradations, as well as the Gains and Advantages, which the Dutch have made, and continue to make of these Nations since the Revolution, and that their Belgic Stadtholder became Seated in the Throne of England: Besides the Obtaining so many of their own Troops, to be brought upon an English Establishment, and to be paid with our Money, as hath been already declared; have also made a vast and unconceivable Profit by the Money that hath been Allowed and Transmitted for the Payment of our own Troops. For, as in order thereunto, much of the ready Cash of the Nation hath been Exported from hence; so most of that Money hath come to Circulate in Holland and a great part of it to Centre there▪ And surely it must be a great Damage to us, and an answerable Gain to them, to have Two Hundred Thousand Pound●; or at least Fifteen Hundred Thousand Pounds, Carried yearly in Specie from hence, and all to come either first or last into the hands of the Dutch, and Annually to increase their Treasure in that proportion▪ To which let this be subjoined; That besides the Money remitted to Pay our Army; there has been a great deal of Silver carried over Year after Year in the King's Yatchts, as well as in other Vessels; Partly to be distributed among several Princes of Europe, to keep them in the Confederacy, and to gain Men from them for the Upholding the War; and partly to be squandered away among the Ministers in those Courts to Counsel and Advise their Masters, suitably to the Instructions which King William should give them and partly for the Bribing of the Burgher-masters and Pensioners of the most considerable Cities of the Seven Provincs, to be Zealous in Moulding and Influencing their respective Towns to to persevere in the Interest of their Stadtholder, and to support him in all the Designs, in which his Ambition should engage him, as being contrived and adapted to their Advantage. But that which is more to be adverted under this head is, that all or much the greatest part of this Silver thus Transported, whether in order to the paying our Army, or for other Ends and Designs, has been the●e melted down and Coined into Skillings, that are not worth half the Intrinsic Value of what they are either Current for there, or paid to our Soldiers for their Salaries and to Subsist upon, or made passable in the procuration of the whole Equivalent in Bills, of what they go at in Holland to be Conveyed and made Solvable elsewhere. By which means alone, the Dutch have since the Revolution▪ made an Advantage to themselves of many Millions. And therefore when the Society styled the Bank of England, which was Establisted by the late Parliament, and to whom upon their Undertaking for the Remission of Money for the payment of our Army, or to any other, in order thereunto; there was Liberty granted by a particular Statute for Conveying over so much as is there limited, either in Bullion or in Specie Coined. I say, when the forenamed Company would have Erected a Mint on the other Side, in order to have Melted down and Recoyned, what they had Transported in such embased Money, as was there current and passable, the Dutch not only refused the suffering it to be done in their own Provinces; but by the Interest they have among, and Authority they bear over their bordering Neighbours in Flanders, did obstruct our obtaining of that Freedom and Privilege, and thereby did wholly frustrate and defeat that Project and Design; so that by this single, fraudulent and avaricious Trick and Artifice, they do to this day make Cent. per Cent. of all the Money that is remitted to Holland, either for the payment of our Army, or for other uses and ends. Nor is it unworthy of Remark; that whereas whilst they were drawing our Bullion and Coin from us, and in order to get most of the Treasure and Silver of England into their possession, and have it lodged in their Country, they willingly paid and allowed Three and Forty of their Skillings as the Equivalent of one Pound Sterling of ours, and gave our Soldiers so much readily in Exchange for it; that now having gained and engrossed the greatest part of our Money, and finding that what we continue to remit in Specie at present, is not out of Choice but upon Necessity, they have sunk the value of our Money to Eight and Twenty of their base Skillings, which is the most they have given of late, and will give no more at present for One Round Sterling of ours. Which being less by near a third part than what they gave in exchange for it before, is an incredible Damage to us, and a vast Gain to them at our Loss and Expense. And which villainous Depradation of theirs upon us, cannot without our utter Impoverishment and Ruin be much longer suffered or connived at. To which may be added, that since the Diminishing and Clipping of our Silver Coin which we are indebted to the Revolution for, and which had never befallen us in the degree it hath, but thro' the ill Administration of our Dutch Prince, who is glad of and encourageth all the Methods, that may render us poor and make us despicable: The Hollanders will either receive none of our clipped Money, though it is in a manner all that is left current in the Kingdom; or if they do receive any of it, it is only in proportion to the intrinsic Value, and not according to the Rate that it doth pass for here, and hath done for a great while; So that if any of that Money be sent over, either in payment to our Soldiers, or come to be carried abroad upon other occasions, the Dutch will take it but for a Moiety of what it commonly and universally goes for here. And yet in this very Interim, while they either wholly refuse the taking our clipped Money, or depress the Value of it to half what it now passeth for in England; our poor Soldiers beyond Sea, are forced to take their base Skillings, and other of their debased Money, at what Rates they are pleased to make them current, though not worth half of it with respect to their intrinsic Value. And all these things are some of the Felicities which we enjoy du●ing this Reign of Restoration to our Liberties, and of Exaltation to greater Wealth, Prosperity and Happiness, than our Belgic Prince will, by his Outlandish Logic, allow us to have known heretofore. Yea, besides the fore meant ioned Spoils and Rapines which they have Committed upon us in the Methods that I have Detected, to the enriching themselves, and the imyoverishing us in our Silver Coyn. I might also upon very good Authorities, Charge them with the fraudulent Importation both of light and false Money, bearing the Stamp and Impression of our own, but Minted in Holland, and then Vended among us at the Rates which our best and weightiest Silver Pieces of such and such Denominations have used to go. Nor will any Man who knows the Morals of the Dutch, and the Practices of the same kind, whereof they have been Guilty in most parts of the World to which they have had Access; or who hath observed in what other ways of Cozenage and Deceit they have bubbled and injured us in the matter of our Silver, judge it unlikely that they should first Mint abroad and then palm upon us both false and light Money; seeing the much counterfeit Metal, and the great quantities of true Money, only with a●atements of Weight which have been Coined and Stamped by Villains among ourselves, do afford the Dutch so plausible a Cover and obvious a Ma●k and Disguise for Cheating us in this way and manner that I have suggeffed▪ and whereof the Nation hath been and still is so full of Clamour against them. But which being so agreeable to the Inclinations and Designs which our Belgic Prince entertains towards this Kingdom, and being so much to the Advantage of his beloved Countrymen, he hath neither taken care to have it enquired into as it ought to be, nor hath he used proper and effectual means to obviate it.  
And then as for our Gold, whereof we are next to speak, whatsoever of it hath been at any time sent over thither, either for the Subsistence and Payment of our Troops, or for any of the other forementioned Ends, they have for some Years wholly refused it, except upon the Terms of Half a Crown, less in the Guinea than it readily went for in England; So that by the Remission of it again hither, and the Transmitting it back to them, which hath been done at least Four times in the Year, they have clearly Gained of us Fifty per Cent Annually by that sole Species of our English Coin; but more especially since the rise of Guineas here to Thirty Shillings a Guinea, (that hath been occasioned by the scarcity of Silver, which the Transporting it hither and their Melting it down hath proved the cause of) it is incredible what a Prodigious Profit they have made to themselves, and what proportionable Damage and loss they have brought upon us, in bringing over not only all the Guineas can be found in their own Provinces, but all they could Procure and Purchase in other Places on the Continent, and which they have put Off and Vended here at that Excessive Rate which they do now go at, and have done so some time; Whereas they went both from us heretofore to Holland, and ●●re lately bought up by the Dutch from other Foreigners, at a Price and Value not exceeding Nineteen or Twenty Shillings of our Mony. To which I may Subjoin that the Value of all other Gold being risen in England, in Proportion to the growth of the Value of Guineas, they have thereupon brought over as much Foreign Gold as they saw any likelihood of Buying up our Grain, Manufactures and the other Productions of our Country with, and have thereby both made Vast Depradations upon us, and suitable Gains to themselves thro' their vending that Gold here at high and exorbitant Rates, which they before Possessed or had lately Procured at the moderate and intrinsic Value of it. Whence upon a little Consideration and less Arithmetic, we may easily Calculate how great by this means alone, their Gain and our Loss have been in that by all the Guineas, and Proportionally by other Gold 〈◊〉 they have brought over and put off to us, they have m●de of every Two Pounds above Three. Nor is this all the Damage that thereby ariseth to Us; but there are Worse and more Fatal Mischiefs that must unavoidably overtake us very Speedily, in that all our Productions and Manufactures which from Year to Year, have been Transported into the Seven Provinces, either to serve them or the Neighbouring parts of the Continent about them, have been Bought up in Extraordinary portions and Measures, thro' their vent of their Guineas at so high a value, and for as much as they can neither Consume themselves, nor Dispose to others with whom they drive a Commerce, what of our Productions and Manufactures they have bought in the Way, and and on the Terms I have mentioned; it will be therefore impossible for them, and is beyond their intention to transport from us, for these several Years to come, what this Kingdom fabricketh and yieldeth. So that by a necessary Consequence thereupon, there must very soon ensue an extraordinary Decay in Trade, to the starving both most of our Manufacturers, and all others who gain their Subsistence, and have heretofore lived plentifully, by carrying out and vending abroad the Productions and Superfluities of our Country. For as the Dutch, who for several Years to come will need none of them; so by reason of the large Stores of all kinds of English Commodities and Goods, with which they have furnished themselves, will be able to forestall and undersell us in all the Markets of Europe. Moreover, to all the forementioned ways of their making their excessive Advantages by, and criminal Depradations upon us, thro' and by reason of the Money that hath been exported hence in Specie for the payment of our Troops, they do also gain an incredible and vast Profit to themselves, and cause proportionable Loss and Damage to us, by those immense Sums which have not been remitted in Specie, but returned beyond Sea by Bills, for the use and ends which have been specified, which they effect and accomplish by screwing up and raising the Exchange in profit to themselves, and sinking it in loss to us Twenty and Thirty per Cent, For no less at present is the difference of Exchange, not only on all the Goods and Commodities which we either buy of or sell unto them; but upon all the Money which upon whatsoever Funds we draw and transfer thither by Bills. And the extraordinary g●in accrueing by this means to the Dutch, was one of the principal Reasons why they would not suffer those of the Bank of England to erect a Mint on their side, for the Coining our Silver into such mixed and embased Money as goes current in Holland and Flanders. And it was likewise the grand Motive why they refused to lend the Two Hundred Thousand Pounds to the said Bank, which they would have borrowed of them the last Summer towards the paying our Army; and for which they offered Five per Cent. Interest, and not only to give their own Obligations for the Security of the said Principal and Interest, and which 〈◊〉 should be Assignable from one person to another, as those of the States of Holland are; but that King William himself should, thro' a Mortgage of his Revenue and hereditary Lands to the States, become Surety for the payment of the said sum and the Interest of it. Which though it would have been not only very profitable▪ but highly reputable to the Dutch, and disgraceful to King William and the Kingdom of England, yet upon the score and Motive of their making a much larger Profit, than that would have amounted unto on the Remission of Money from hence thither by Bills of Exchange, they Laughed at the Overture, and scornfully rejected the Proposal. Nor can any Man be so void of Sense, as not to discern, had all but so much M●ral Honesty and love to their Country left as to acknowledge it, that this exorbitant growth of Exchange between England and Holland must speedily perfect and Consummate our Ruin, considering the Poverty to which we are already reduced, and the scarcity of Money, under which we labour. All which we are indebted for to our Belgic King, and to his Treacherous as well as Improvident Conduct towards England, in his Management of the War, which to gratify his Ambition we were easily brought to embark in.  
But before I shall dispatch the Topick I am upon, I cannot omit the representing one Method more, by which they bec●me greatly Enriched, and we as much Impoverished, thro' the Money either Conveyed from us, or from any of the Confederates to the Army in Flanders, and that is, by Furnishing most, if not all the Stores and Provisions, upon which the Army doth Live and Subsist. And the Manner as well as the Reason is obvious, to any one that can think two Thoughts Coherently, Namely, that all of one kind or another which they need, is Conveyed to them by the Dutch, and carried out of the Seven Provinces into the Spanish Netherlands, where all things are put off and disposed to the respective Troops, and to Ours especially at their own Rates; So that they carry back into their own Country all or most of the Money: which is laid out in favour of, and upon our own Troops, as well as that which is Expended upon the several Materials which are Necessary to the Support and Maintenance of the War. which Circulating backward and forward every Week, as well as every Month, and Centring at last in Holland, they are rendered Rich by the War, which makes us so Poor, and has reduced us to the Indigent and Deplorable Estate that we are now in. Yea, the burning and bombing Cities and Towns by the French, and their Seizing and Destroying the Forage, and the Magazines, upon which the Confederate Army should Subsist, turneth all to the profit and account of the Dutch, and is improved by them to their Gain and Advantage. Because both the Materials for the rebuilding ruined Cities, and the Stores required to supply and fill wasted and destroyed Magazines, do in a manner come all from Holland, and from other of the Belgic Provinces, whither they carry back the value in Current Money, to the enriching of their Bank, the increasing of their Stock, and the enlarging of their Trade. And as they make a large gain by the Spoils, Losses and Deva●tations, which their Confederates suffer and undergo, so they make no less Profit by their Victories and Successes, even to the preclusion of their Allies, and especially the English from all advantage and benefit by them. For as Namur is the only Conquest since the Commencement of this War in Flanders, that has been obtained over the French, so it is but a recovery of what the Confederates had lost during the present War, and not a new Acquisition. And as it has cost infinitely more in Men and Treasure, than it and all the dependencies upon it are worth; so these three Kingdoms who contributed most to the taking of it, and had more of the Blood of their Men spilt and more of their Treasure and Ammunition expended and wasted in the Winning of that City, than any one of all the Confederates, have Reaped nothing by it but the enlarging the Barrier of the Dutch, and the putting a strong and well fortified City into their power and possession, to make them more Insolent unto and Encroaching upon their Allies. And when I Consider the Customs of the Spartans' who had an Order that when any of their Generals compassed his Designs by Policy and Treaty, he should Sacrifice an Ox; but when by Force and Bloodshed, only a Cock. I think that our many late Bonfires and Illuminations, and especially our prodigal and foolish Expenses in St. James' Square, were ridiculous as well as wasteful Consumptions. For as the distinct Values of those Oblations of the Lacedæmonians, do show us (according to the Judgement of Plutarch) how much they preferred the Successes of calm and sober Councils, before those of Force and Strength, so there was more cause for Lamentations for the many and brave Men that had been lost before the Town and Castle of Namur, e'er they fell into our hands, (and which in all probability, will with less Cost be speedily Snatched from us again) than of vain, childish and expensive Triumphs for the gaining them. But to omit this, that which I am to represent and display is, that the City Castle which were gained at the Price and Cost of so much English Blood and Treasure, are now Consigned over to the Dutch, and stand Mortgaged to them for the Repayment of what they have laid out and disbursed in this War; which seeing there is no likelihood that ●ver the Spaniards will be in a condition to Reimburse them; that Town is consequently become a part as well as an enlargement of their Territories and is the Addition of an Eighth Province to the former Seven. Yea out of Kindness to the Dutch, and Disaffection to us; our Belgic Prince is so frugal of their Treasure, and so prodigal of that of this Kingdom, that much of the Charges necessary for Repairing the Fortifications of Namur is born by us, and our Money remitted and transported to Defray them. Which is such a bubbling of this Kingdom; that those most engaged in King William's Interest, cannot avoid Resenting it with Indignation. And as this new Acquisition which our Dutch King hath gained them, at the price of our blood and bones, as well as of our Money, gives them a stronger Barrier than they had, and a new and large Jurisdiction, so it not only opens a Traffic to them with France, in time of War as well as of Peace; but delivers the Hollanders from a Necessity of depending upon Brussels, or upon any Spanish Towns, for the Management of their Trade: Seeing by being possessed of Namur, they can supply both Flanders and France, and carry home what they want from thence, without being under the necessity of allowing the Intervention of others in the management of their Trade, or of suffering others either to intercept them in it, or to make profit by it thro' Exchange: So that while the English and others Fight, they do only Win; and the Lives of our Men are no farther valuable with our Belgic King, than as they serve to purchase Power and Opulency to the Dutch. For though we be made use of as the Jackall to hunt the Prey; yet we are not permitted to have the least Share in it. And therefore whosoever have cause to be weary of the War, and to groan under the Consumptions and Desolations that attend it, they have not; and thence it is that in kindness to them, but in hatred to us, our Belgic King labours all he can, both by persuasions and by Authority to foment and keep it up, and resolves to do so until he hath rendered them so opulent and powerful, and us so necessitous, despicable and weak, that we must be contented (because we will not remain in a Condition to hinder it) to be Slaves to him, and Tributaries to the Hollanders.  
And the tyrannous Projects and Designs which K. W. hath contrived and harboureth in relation to these Kingdoms, as well as our own Madness and Folly in concurring and co-operating to promote them, are equally manifest, and both of them apparently evident by this; namely, That even upon the Supposition that it was needful and just to begin, continue, and uphold this War: Yet much of that Money which hath been sent abroad from hence, to subsist and pay our Troops, might, through a very small Care, and friendly Conduct of the Prince of Orange in our behalf, and through the least measure of Discretion, Wisdom, Justice, Equity and Compassion of those Assemblies styled our Parliaments to the Kingdom, have been preserved in the Nation, and have remained to circulate among ourselves for the support and increase of our Manufacture, and for the protection and enlargement of our Trade and Navigation. And the Ways, Means, and Methods in and by which it might have been done, are both so various and plain, That had there not been a Conjunction of Malice in King William, and of Treachery in our Senators towards England, it would not have escaped the being undertaken, pursued and effected long ago. For why might not we with as much Ease, and with more Justice, have carried all the Provisions from hence for the subsisting the Confederate Army, or at least our own Troops, and those of other Nations under our pay, as that the Dutch should have the Privilege of furnishing it, and to be encouraged as well as suffered to go away with the Gain? Nor can any other Reason be assigned of the Conduct we have been under in this matter, but that William intends to bring us first to Beggary, and then into Thraldom; and that too many among ourselves are through Folly and Knavery willing both to assist and justify him in the effecting of it. Had we not Ships enough (as I am sure we had before we lost so many Thousands of them, as we have done since the Revolution, and the Commencement of this War which was the unhappy Offspring of it) to have carried over to Flanders our Grain, Butter and Cheese, Iron, Bread, and all things else that are necessary unto, or consumable by an Army, but that the buying of all those here, and the transporting them thither, should in a manner be given up and entirely consigned into the hands of the Dutch? Whence we are justly become the Derision and Contempt of the World, that being stored and furnished (without purchasing of other Nations) with all the Productions either of Art or Nature that an Army can need or use, and the Dutch having scarce any thing of their own Growth, and little of their own Manufactures, to answer the Occasions and Exigences of so vast a military Body; yet that they should engross to themselves the supplying them with all they want, and we not only tamely connive at it, but like People who have lost their Senses, and forfeited their Understandings, as well as abandoned the Care of their Country do approve it. With what facility might it have been stipulated and provided for at our first entrance into the Confederacy, or retrieved and recovered to us since, upon renewing of Alliances with those whom we are become engaged to assist in this War, that all those Supplies necessary for Troops which England could afford should be applied to that end; and that as they should be transported by none but ourselves, so they should be expended and laid out not only upon our own Troops, towards the saving the Remission of Money, but taken off from us, and accepted by our Allies in lieu of those vast Sums we have disbursed upon them. Nor will ever England vindicate itself from the Dishonour and Ignominy brought upon it, in that during all this time wherein we have been wasting our Men and Treasure to defend the Dutch Barrier, and protect the Provinces of others, and to make Conquests for them, we should never have contracted for a Port, where we might unload what we pleased towards the premised Uses and Ends, without being liable to the Payment of Customs, or any other Duties of that kind which use to be exacted. Which the present House of Commons seems to be sensible of (though it is now too late) and have therefore declared in their Vote of Decemb. 10. That it is the Opinion of that House, that all Commodities and Provisions that shall be transported from England, for the use of the Forces in his Majesties pay abroad, be exempted from any Duty and Excise throughout the Spanish and United Netherlands. But though this Vote doth sufficiently intimate their Sense of King William's Infidelity, as to the trust reposed in him under the Quality and Style of King of England, and of his Treachery to this Nation, in not having contracted and stipulated with those Allies for the forementioned Privilege and Immunity: Yet the Treaties between him and these Confederates being already concerted and ratified, without the mention or specification of any such Freedom and Advantage to be allowed us; all the Effect and Operation which this Vote of the House of Commons can have, is to proclaim them to be pragmatical, weak and insolent, in assuming a Power and Authority over the Rights of foreign Princes and States; and that contrary unto, as well as without regard to Articles, adjusted between King William and those States in the fresh Alliances which have been lately renewed, made, and ratified. Nor can any thing now, after the aforesaid Vote, preserve the House of Commons from the Derision, Scorn and Contempt of Mankind, but their declaring those Alliances to have been contracted and confirmed to the prejudice of England, and therefore not to be supported by any Taxes to be levied upon the Subjects of this Kingdom: And that the said House will grant no Money towards the Confederacy, till such other Agreements are made and entered into between this Crown, and those neighbouring States, which may correspond with, and come up to the Opinion of the said House, as they have declared it in the foresaid Vote; and by the Printing whereof they have published it to the World, as the unanimous Opinion and Judgement of the Representative Body of the whole Commons of England. And may not this Treachery in the present Administration, so openly reflected upon by the foresaid Vote, cause us remember both the Memory of Queen Elizabeth and of Oliver Cromwell, with Commendations and Praises of their Conduct, while in the mean time we must convey down to our Offspring the Name of the Prince of Orange loaded with all the Obloquys, Imprecations and Curses, that a People impoverished and ruined, by his contrived and chosen ill Conduct towards these Kingdoms, can entail upon it. For as that great Heroine, Queen Elizabeth did, upon her assisting the Dutch with a very few Troops in comparison of what we now do, covenant with and obtain of them the Brill, Flushing and Ramekins, to be put into her hands as Cautionary Towns, not only that she might thereby oblige them to a more firm dependency upon her, and tie them to the better observation of their Alliances, and secure unto herself the Reimbursement of some part of the Treasure which she expended in protecting them; but that she might always be in a Condition, and have it in her own Power, to reinforce, relieve, succour and supply, those Troops that she sent them for their aid and defence, according as their should be occasion, and as she should judge to be at any time needful for the Honour of the Crown of England, and for the Safety, Commerce and Reputation of her Subjects. So Oliver Cromwell, upon the Assistance of Six thousand Men which he gave the present King of France, An. 1657. did not only by a ratified Treaty take care and provide that what Ports and maritime Towns should be won from the Spaniards, by the joint and confederate Forces of France and England, should be resigned unto him, and given up to the Possession of the English; but in pursuance of that Stipulation he had Dunkirk, upon its being taken from the King of Spain, put into his hands. Yea, the late King Charles, who in the Alliances he made, was not thought by many to be so regardful of the Interest of his Kingdoms as he might have been, did in the Treaty he entered into with France against the Dutch, An. 1671. Provide and Stipulate by an express Article, That what Marine Towns on Ports should be taken from the common Enemy, should be resigned up and delivered over to him in Compensation and Recompense for the Share and Charge he was to bear in that War. Whereas this Dutch Prince, whom we have been so unkind to ourselves, as well as disloyal to the King, as to set over us, hath not in all the many Alliances which he hath entered into with foreign Monarches and States, notwithstanding the numerous Troops and vast Treasure supplied by us to their Aid and Defence, made the least Provision for any one Advantage to accrue to these Kingdoms, should the War wherein we are united and embarked prove successful. And much less has he by Agreement and Contract obtained for us either any Cautionary Town, which may prevent our being abandoned and lurched by the Dutch and other Foreigners; and left alone to encounter the Power, and suffer the Revenge of France: Or gained so much as a free Port, wherein we might send, and where we may lay up and lodge such Stores of all kinds, as would at least serve to supply our own Forces, if not those of the Confederates, without being kept under a necessity of remitting Month after Month such vast Sums of Money as we have done, and still continue doing, to the Robbing and Emptying of the Kingdom of all its Treasure. Yea, as if he did not treat us scornfully enough, and sufficiently betray us to the Dutch and others, by the Neglect he hath shown both of the Honour and Profit of these Kingdoms, in all the Treaties he hath made, and all the Alliances he hath Contracted since with the Connivance of all, and the Assistance of many, he Usurped the Throne of England, he hath not esteemed either Parliaments or Privy Councils worthy to be Consulted with beforehand, about the Terms, Conditions and Articles fit to be demanded and insisted upon, with reference to our Credit and Interest in the Compacts and Agreements he had made with those that he styles his Allies; but whom thro' this Deficiency we have found to be our Underminers and Supplanters. Nay, he disdains to acquaint the two Houses of Parliament with those Treaties, when they humbly Address him concerning the doing it: And instead of laying those Alliances before them in the plain and ratified Draughts, he either sham's them off with general, imperfect and blind Accounts; and that done with the unsincerity and regardlesness of Truth, natural to a Dutch man, of which the whole course of his transactions with, and towards this People, since he became unrighteously possessed of his Father in Law and Uncle's Crown, is one uninterrupted and continued Evidence; or else he ridicules and bubbles them with false and counterfeit Copies; in which as some things are disguised so others are not expressed, though he hath concerted them formally with his Confederates, and especially with the Dutch. And I dare affirm, That of all the Branches of the State of War in reference to the Year 1696. which he hath caused to be delivered into them, there is none of them true, genuine and just. So that from thence the Two Houses, and in them all the People of England, may have a Specimen of his Honour and Integrity without travelling farther for Evidences of them. But if he do treat thus not only those he calls the Body of his Subjects with Treachery in relation to their Interest, as well as with Carelessness and Neglect of them in all their Concerns and Safety, but the Houses of Parliament (who ought to be his grand Council) with superciliousness and contempt, and all this while he is yet unfledged, what will he do when his Wings are grown? For if he do thus strut, as to monopolise all Things to his own sole cognizance, and to manage them to the visible Prejudice of these Kingdoms, and to the apparent Benefit of the Dutch, while he only stands and is upheld by leading Strings, and walks in a Go-cart, and cannot manage the War he is engaged in, but as he is aided by Parliamentary Grants: What Tyranny may not the People fear, and what Insolency and Scorn should not our Senates expect to meet with, if he live to arrive at virile Strength, and through putting an end to the War, can come to stand and go alone? For it is only the indispensable need he stands in of the continual Aid of the People of England, and the fear he is under of being baffled and routed by the French, which make him now and then appear in the dress and posture of Modesty, and to put on a dissembled Humility, Meekness and Compassion, while in reality in respect to Ambition, Despoticalness and Tyranny, he carries Ten Sultan's, Twenty Moguls, and Forty Czars in his Belly. And could he but once prescribe terms to the Monarch of France, he would soon trample upon all the Laws of these Kingdoms, and tread upon our Necks: And instead of the Shapes and Figure of sometimes an Almansor, and sometimes a Gusman, that he now puts on and seeks to appear in, he would then manifest himself a Caligula, a Nero, or according to the Title lately bestowed upon him a Galienus Redivivus, having already furnished himself with more than one Verianus. But having said enough upon the Head of which I have been discoursing, it is now time to advance to another.  
In the next Place than I shall proceed to a more particular review and representation of their Invasions, Rapines and Depradations committed upon our Trade, than those I have hitherto unfolded and laid open. Nor will it require any great Enlargement, seeing all Men do experience and feel it, though some may not understand the several and particular Ways and Methods in which it hath been done. Nor shall I here repeat what I have already both insinuated and detected concerning the Decay that is brought upon our Trade, and the final Destruction that threatens it, as well through the Clipping and Embasement as through the Transportation of our Coin to other Ends and Uses then those of Commerce, and in much greater Quantities than Traffic could have ever required its being carried abroad for. Though all the Misery and Mischief that do by these means befall and overtake us, are all chargeable upon, and to be laid at the Door of our Dutch King: Seeing that of transporting it has been the natural and unavoidable effect of his ascent to the Throne, and of the War that thereupon he engaged us in, and especially of those ways which he has designedly chosen and pursued in support of it. And then as to the Clipping and Embasing our Money, none can be reasonably accused either of causing or conniving at it but the Prince of Orange, who has occasioned and encouraged it by his weak and improvident Administration. For both these Practices, which do eventually and in the Effects of them prove so ruinous to the Kingdom, having obtained in no other Reigns in any proportion and degree to what they have done in his, as it is commonly styled, they must consequently be resolved into some Neglect, Weakness or Treachery in his Administration, whereof no other Reigns were guilty or accusable. Nor will it excuse him to have it alleged, That more have been executed for those Crimes, since his usurping of the Throne, than were in an Age before: Seeing though some of the little and indigent Creatures, whom necessity tempted to it, and which necessity he brought upon them, have been condemned and executed; yet your Goldsmiths and Refiners, who both bought the Clipping, and who at mighty Gain furnished them with broad Money for continuing the Crime, have not only escaped Prosecutions, which by Law they deserved; but divers of them have been the special Favourites and Confidents of the Government. And to mention but one of many, I will be bold to say the hanging of Evans the Goldsmith, who infinitely more deserves it, for melting down and carrying abroad our Coin to satisfy his Covetousness, and make Profit by what was our milled Money, than any of the Clippers and false Minters have done, would have given greater check unto, and have been a more effectual Remedy, even of the Crimes of these later, than all the Convictions and Executions for Offences of that kind since the Revolution, which we have seen but have found no benefit by. But instead of that, he hath been honoured and preferred by our Dutch Bestower of Titles, and Disposer of Places, to be both a Knight and a Commissioner of the Excise; though a Fellow void of all Merit, and destitute of good Sense, and whom only Knavery, Impudence, and the Emptying the Kingdom of our Silver, by carrying it to Holland to enrich the Dutch, have entitled to his Master's Favour. And I crave Liberty to say en passant, though it may seem alien to the subject, That I have often wondered why our Kings and Parliaments should fall upon so ineffectual a Remedy of those Crimes, as the making them Capital will continue to prove in a Nation, where Men are sunk into so much Irreligion and Atheism; and which the many Villains attending and wrapped up in the Revolution have increased and strengthened as to dread Death less than Poverty, and to choose Damnation as well as Hanging and Quartering rather than want Supplies for the Feeding and for the Maintenance of their Lasciviousness and Luxury. Seeing when our Money was both Pure and Sterling, and of full Weight, as it was generally at the Revolution, the bare imposing and exacting of a Mulct of Five or Ten Pounds upon every one that should have been found offering either Clipped or False Money to another, would have deterred all Men from venturing upon it, and obviated both the forementioned Crimes, and likewise the woeful Effects of them. And possibly it would be no ill Policy to do in this Case as the Lacedæmonians did in that of Theft, which when they thought not fit to prevent and hinder by punishing the Thiefs, they effectually suppressed it, by rendering those liable to a considerable Penalty that should have any Thing stolen from them. So may be the inflicting of a Mulct upon every one that should take either light or base Money, would soon cause that there would be no Offerers of it, by reason there would be none found so unkind and unjust to themselves as to receive it. But to return from this Digression; I do say that the Dutch, besides all the Injuries they have done us, and the Spoils they have committed upon us, with respect to our Trade in the forementioned Methods which I have been displaying, they have also in divers other Ways, and in several Instances, either craftily supplanted, or directly invaded, and forceably assaulted us in our Commerce and Traffic since the late Revolution; which I shall presume now to lay open, as far as the brevity of this Discourse will allow, and shall discover how and wherein they have done so. And I shall begin with the Advantage they have had of protecting their own Trade, and of exposing and leaving ours open to be ruined, by reason of that small and unequal Quota and Proportion of Ships of War, that in respect of our much greater Number of Ships of that kind they supply and furnish to the forming and constituting the Confederate and United Fleet of both Nations; which is the more remarkable in that their Number of Land Forces is not much increased towards the support of the present War, above what it use to be in time of Peace. Yea, it is hardly so great now as then, if we consider that all the Contributions raised in the Province of Namur, and on the French Conquests, go for the Ease of their Establishment; and that the vast Sums spent in Flanders by the whole Confederate Army become● theirs, and Centres in Holland. However it bears no proportion with ours, according to the State of the War for the Year 1696. which as the Earl of Renelagh by King William's Order gave it into the House of Commons, Decemb. 3. amounts to 87440 Men; whereas if it were not to defend the Provinces of these, styled our Allies, a very few Forces would be sufficient for our Occasions at home, if it should not be found needless to have any at all: Whereas they in the times of the profoundest Peace are seldom without Fifty thousand Men, to which their supernumerary Addition now is but inconsiderable, if what I have said be well considered; and provided that we also observe, that divers of those Troops reckoned into their Quota are upon English Establishment, and paid with our Mony. Indeed if we had charged ourselves with furnishing the whole marine Power, both for us and them, and stood thereby excused for affording any Land Forces to be employed in Flanders, or elsewhere, upon any part of the Continent, I should not have blamed the Conduct of requiring a few Men of War from them, yea should not have much complained if they had been acquitted from the yielding any: Seeing such a Stipulation and Agreement between us and them could not have been much to the Prejudice either of the Kingdom or of Trade, farther than as it involved us in an unnecessary and unjust War, merely to gratify the Ambition of our Dutch King, and to hinder the Return of our Legal and Rightful Sovereign. Because otherwise, as it would have been agreeable to our Interest, both as we are an Island and a Trading Nation; so it would not only have proved a means of keeping all our Money at home, and of the having had it to circulate among ourselves, but we should thereby had Treasure enough to have rigged out a Royal Navy superior to the marine Power of France, and to have equipped and maintained more than a sufficient Number of Men of War as Cruisers and Convoys to have protected our Trade. But to be first at the vast Expense we have been in raising and maintaining so great an Army on the Continent, merely for the Benefit of others and not our own, and then to equip and set out double the Quota that the Dutch have towards the constituting the Confederate Fleet of both Nations, was plainly to disable ourselves from having that Number of Cruisers and Convoys as is necessary to be kept at Sea during the present War, against so potent an Enemy as the King of France and his Subjects are upon that Element. Nor was this concerted between our Belgic Prince, and his beloved Dutch, upon any other Motives, or to other Ends, but that we might be put out of Capacity of safeguarding our Coasts, and protecting our trading Vessels; whilst the Dutch, through furnishing a small Quota to the the General Fleet, are left in a Condition to employ the rest of their marine and naval Strength in securing and protecting their Traffic. And the Event hath fully answered the Design, in that while we, by furnishing so many Ships of War to the Royal Navy, did leave ourselves destitute of such a Number of Ships of War, as might in the Quality of Cruisers and Convoys in all Seas as well as in the Channel have covered and defended our trafficking Vessels; and as we have in consequence thereof lost above 4000 trading Ships to the empoverishing of the Kingdom, as well as of many Families that were before the Revolution opulent and rich, while the Dutch in the mean time, through their furnishing so small a Proportion of Men of War to the General Fleet, and being thereby provided of the larger number of Men of War, as well to defend their Merchant Ships as to guard their Coasts, have not sustained the Third, nay nor the Fourth part of the Loss of Vessels and Cargoes that we have done, Not but that our Channels might have been better guarded, and our trading Ships more protected than they have been by those Convoys and Cruisers that were appointed and ordained by Parliament, had not our Commissioners of the Admiralty been treacherous and slothful, as well as blockish and ignorant in the Service, Duty and Province which they undertook. So that if the Parliament (as I have formerly hinted) do not make those Persons accountable for the Losses at Sea, which Merchants and in and through them the Kingdom hath sustained, all thinking Men will have reason to believe, That those they have chosen to be their Representatives do take pleasure in the●r Empoverishment, Misery and Ruin; and will be provoked to judge them in a Conspiracy with those Gentlemen to promote all those Desolations and Mischiefs: Seeing the Parliaments over looking the Crimes of those Commissioners, or their conniving at their Conduct, will more than intimate that they are so. And indeed, by the whole Management of public Affairs for near these Seven Years, both in Parliament and out of it, those called to sit in the Senate, as well as those employed in civil Offices, have been doing to the Nation, as the Daughters of Peleus did by the Advice of Medea to their aged Father, whom they hacked in pieces, in hopes that by her Magic they should have restored him both to Life and Youth again. For through the Influence of Dutch Councils, and the Administration of a Belgic King, and by this wheedle, and under pretence of rescuing us from Popery and Slavery, of banishing Tyranny, securing Liberty, and of making us an opulent and glorious Nation, they have empoverished us beyond Remedy and Retrieve; and have brought us so near to the brink of Vassalage and Thraldom, that it will require more Virtue and Courage to prevent it, than we have much ground of hoping to find the generality of this debauched, rebellious and disloyal Generation endowed with. And if some of those that have been principally Accessary to our Misery and Ruin be not speedily made Examples of Parliamentary Justice, who knows but upon the late Precedent of making a King accountable for the Offences of his Ministers, whether the Body of the People from Wapping to Westminster may not assault Kensington and Whitehall, as well as the Admiralty Office, if not instead of it? For as Pleb● non Judicium, so furiosis nulla voluntas; as the Populace and Mob is commonly void both of Judgement and Equity, so they do not act when provoked under the Guidance of Reason, but under the Agitations of intemperate Rage. Nor will your Dutch Ingineers brought lately over (if we may believe the Paper called the Post man from December the 10th to December the 12th St. vet. who tells, That by Letters from Brussels of December the 14th St. N. there were divers Ingineers ordered from Maestricht to London) to deter an injured and thereupon an enraged People from attempting more than I will say, and 〈◊〉 call it the doing themselves Right, and the Nation Justice. And having mentioned those outlandish Ingineers, I crave leave to recommend it to the Parliament to inquire into their Business, and what they come hither to be employed about; seeing there are no French Garrisons in England to be besieged and bombed. But if it be in order to King William's erecting a Citadel for enslaving London and Westminster, it is to be hoped that the terror of Bombs and Carcases will not frighten Englishmen quietly to surrender their Liberties and Properties, and tamely to put on and wear Chains. To all which might be further added the very small Quota which they furnish the Confederate Fleet are not only many times subsisted upon our Provisions and Stores instead of their own, and supplied with our naval Preparations, but in the Place of attending constantly upon the Flag, as they ought, many of those Ships of War are detached from the Fleet, and employed as Convoys to their trading Vessels: Which as it may at some time or other prove of fatal consequence to the Royal Fleet of England, and the whole Kingdom, so in the mean time they make their Profit by it, through the enlarging and securing their Traffic, while ours is narrowed and crippled for want of Cruisers and Convoys, and while such Merchant Ships as will venture upon Voyages are left exposed to be seized by French Privateers. But this being so warmly and judiciously represented by the ingenious Author of a Letter to a Gentleman elected a Knight of the Shire to serve in the present Parliament, I shall not farther enlarge upon it; especially, seeing Admiral Russel, who is now a Member of the House of Commons, is able to give an ample and particular Account of it, and who for resenting it as became him, when lately Admiral in the Mediterranean, has been coldly received by his Master since his return. But to advance a step further on the Point and Head whereon I am discoursing; Can there be a greater Invasion upon our Trade, or any thing committed more to the Diminution and Ruin of it, than the Dutch assuming the Boldness, and King William countenancing them in it, to despise and violate both our Act of Navigation of the 12 Car. 2. and divers other Statutes made during his Reign; all which were providently and wisely enacted for the Encouragement of the Increase of Shipping and Navigation, and for the Promotion and Enlargement of our home Manufactures? For as few can be ignorant, especially of Gentlemen and Merchants, both of the Occasion and Design of these several Laws; so the whole Nation hath abundantly experienced all along since the making of them, what Profit and Advantage have thereby accrued, first to Trade, and then to the Kingdom. ●ut now, by the Insolency of the Dutch, and the Treachery of King William to this Nation, all those Laws have been slighted and violated by them, and the Care of having them observed and put in execution to us been neglected by him; which both on his part, and theirs, is in direct subserviency to make them powerful in Shipping and opulent in Wealth, and to render us Poor, Feeble and Weak. And as there is not one Branch of all these Laws, the transgression of which has not been practised by them, and connived at by their Country man on the English Throne; so they are, through his Encouragement and Protection, grown at last to that Impudence, and arose to that Defiance of English Laws and common Justice, That Coffee house Tables have been furnished with printed and public Advertisements of such and such Dutch Productions and Manufactures that were to be vended at Places there named in and about the City of London, notwithstanding of their being expressly prohibited by those Laws to be either imported into or sold in this Kingdom. But whereas neither of the Two Houses of Parliament, upon the present Inspection they are making into the decay of Trade, and their calling Merchants before them to instruct them therein, can want information from those they examine of the truth of what I have suggested, and in what Particulars and Branches all those Laws are violated by the Dutch▪ and suffered to grow obsolete, and to remain unexecuted by the Prince of Orange. I shall supersede the saying more on this Head, because I cannot enlarge upon it as I ought, and as it deserves, without writing a Volume instead of a few Sheets of Paper. And therefore the next Attempt I charge them with is still more heinous, and done infinitely more to our disgrace, being not only an Invasion upon our Trade, but upon the Liberty of our Persons. For by an unpresidented and unparalelled In●olency, the like whereof no Nation did ever pretend to exercise towards, and over the Subjects of this Kingdom, they demand and exact a Tenth Man out of every Ship of ours that goes into their Ports, for and towards the manning of their Fleet; and to justify themselves in the doing hereof, they pretend to be authorised by King William's Order. This they have practised for these Two Years past, only they are grown more rampant, tyrannous and oppressive this last than they were the former. For whereas in the Year 1694. they were contented with One Man out of Ten, or 15 Guilders in lieu thereof, and for his Ransom, they have in the Year 1695. required and taken a Man out of every Ship of ours that went into their Ports, though the Sailors were never so few, or else they have exacted 25 Guilders for the excusing and redeeming him from their Service. So that if it be but a Hoy, which is sailed with a Master, one Man, and two Boys, yet they demand One; and upon its being replied that the Vessel cannot be sailed if One be taken out, they pretend it a Condescension and Favour to compound at 25 Guilders for his being excused, which is Fifty Shillings of English Mony. Nor do any Ships escape without doing the one or the other, and for which they allege their having King William's Authority. And these Things they are so far from concealing, or seeking to extenuate the Injustice and Criminalness of, by the necessity of their Condition, That they glory in it both in their Trackschuytes, and in all Places of Society and Concourse, as the Badge of their Exaltation and Triumph over us, and of our Subjection to them. The Method in which this Force and Hostility over us is practised is this, namely, before any Ship can be cleared at their Custom-house the Master must go to the Lords of the Admiralty, and bring from thence a Certificate to the Custom-house of having given a Man out of the Vessels Crew to their Service, or of having compounded at the Value I have mentioned for his Redemption. Surely it will not be unseasonable now to ask, whether we be in terms of Hostility with the Dutch, or of Alliance? Seeing we are not treated by them in this as Friends, but as Enemies: Nay, it will be needful t●at we consult both our Understandings and Memories, whether England be not Tributary to Holland, and when and how it came to be so? For as much as they deal not with us as with a free and independent Nation, but as with a Province which they have subdued and brought into Vassalage. And if we be not Slaves, but remain yet a free People, this Hostility in them aught to be hostily repelled by us: And in the Place of accounting them any longer our Confederates, we ought to esteem and take them for our Enemies, and every where to assault them accordingly. And for our Belgic King to authorize the Dutch to do what I have mentioned, is to assume a Power over the Liberties and Persons of the People of England, which no Rightful King did ever pretend unto. For our Persons and Liberties being under the Custody of the Laws, no King can claim a larger Jurisdiction over them than what the Laws give him; unless he will renounce to govern by Law, and take upon him to rule Despotically. And the Prince of Orange may with as good Right transplant all the People of England to the Deserts of Arabia, or send them to work in the Mines of Peru and Mexico, as to authorize the Dutch to seize upon one Man that is either a native Subject here, or under the Protection of English Laws, to navigate either their Ships of War, or their Vessels of Commerce and Traffic. Nor has he any more Right to deprive me of my Liberty, save when, where, and in what Cases the Laws have declared me to have forfeited it, than I have to break into the Prince of Orange's Closet at Kensington, and to snatch from thence the Testimonials of his Reconciliation to the Church of Rome. But by these little sportful Preludiums of the young Cub, we may guests what we are to expect from the Animal when grown up to the full strength and vigour of a Tiger, or a Lion.  
But the next Depradation and Invasion committed upon our Trade is more villainous, and aught to be more provoking, as well as surprising, than any of the former; seeing it was neither compassed nor executed by mere Cunning and Fraud, nor upon Pretences of avowed Authority derived and received from King William, but which they perpetrated by open Force and direct Violence. Whereof though there may possibly be found divers Instances, yet I shall only assign one, but which shall be of that heinous Nature, that we need require no more, and aught henceforth to think how to do ourselves Right, and take our Revenge upon them. The Hostility and Violence which I mean is that committed by the Dutch upon the African Company of England, in driving them by armed Force out of two Factories in Africa; the one whereof brought the Company Forty Marks of Gold per Mensem, and the other not much less, besides other Commodities. For the said Company having, among other Factories which they had erected and quietly held in Africa, established one at a Place called Commenda, and which they stood possessed of, and had furnished with all Things necessary for the defence and protection of their Servants, and for the management of their Trade, both in the Sale of what they transported thither from hence, and for the obtaining and securing whatsoever the adjacent Coast, and the neighbouring Ports on that Continent afforded fit to be brought hither; the Dutch having a Factory adjoining thereunto did, about Two years ago, instigate and stir up the Natives against the English Factory, by telling them that the English were a conquered Nation, and not able any longer to help and assist, or to trade with them, in that they had subdued the Kingdom of England, and made their Stadtholder, who was but their Servant, King and Monarch of it. By which fraudulent Means, and Language as reproachful of us, as it was false in itself, the Natives who are all a kind of unthinking Mob, and easily misled, as well through the Habitude and Dulness of their Understandings, as through the little Acquaintance and Knowledge which they have of the European Parts of the World, made an Insurrection against the English, and in Multitudes assaulted and attacked their Factory. But the Africans being no better than an undisciplined Rout, and not well furnished with the Materials and Utensils of War, and especially being unprovided with great Artillery, were easily repelled and beaten off by those of the English Factory; which the Dutch observing, and being sensible that time would both assuage the mutinous Passions of the Natives, and discover the Fraud by which they had hurried them into that hasty and intemperate Rage against the Factory, there having been no● just Cause administered by the English, whereby the Natives might be provoked to fall upon them; thereupon the Dutch did not only make fresh Applications unto, and renew their Instigations of the Africans to persevere in and pursue the Design of expelling the English out of the forementioned Factory; but these treacherous Hollanders did hostily turn and fire the Guns of their own Fort against the English Factory that stood near unto it, and by armed Violence drove them from thence, and forced them to leave and abandon it. And as these are some of the blessed Fruits and Effects of the Revolution, so having by our departure from our Loyalty, lost together with our Virtue, our Honour, and our Concerns for the safety and welfare of our Country, these Encroachments, Rapines, and Robberies of the Dutch, are not only overlookt by most, tamely digested by all, but have a Merit and Sanctity ascribed to them by some of our Sycophant and Mercenary Clergy, under the Notion of the Tributes of our Gratitude paid to the Hollanders as our Deliverers from Popery and Slavery. And it is but Reason, That owing our Lives, Liberties and Estates to the Friendship and Bounty of their Assistance, when the Gospel and every Thing that is valuable in itself and dear to us was at Stake, they should at pleasure claim and exercise a Jurisdiction over them, and we be contented with a precarious Right in all that we are and have. For through the Bigotry of most, and the Treachery of a great many, it is now arrived at this, That even for a House of Peers to take upon them the representing the Decays and Sufferings of the Nation in point of Trade, is by your Salisbury Burnet thought worthy of being branded with the alarming and ignominious Name of Remonstrating against the Government. But I will venture to say, That if speedy Remedies be not fallen upon and used by the Senate of the Kingdom, for the relieving us from our Distresses and Miseries of that kind, that the forenamed mitred Gentleman will soon find the Heats of the Nation to rise beyond the Remedy of his Vinegar-bottle; how effectual soever he may have found that Liquor to have been to check and allay warm and ●ustful Insurrections in himself. Yea, in vain do both Houses of Parliament labour to help and relieve us in this matter, while we have a King so linked and united to the Dutch, by manifold ties of Interest and Affection, and who thinks himself no otherwise obliged by the Title and Authority we have given him over this Nation, than to sacrifice us to their Safety and Prosperity, and to raise them to Greatness, Power and Wealth, upon our Poverty, Thraldom and Ruin: So that the only mean of Deliverance and Rescue is to dissolve the Bonds between him and us, and to return and leave him where we found him in the separate and amorous Embraces of his darling and beloved Hollanders.  
All I have further to add in reference to the damage done to the Trade of this Nation by the Dutch, and of the Design which King William out of kindness to them has been promoting for the Ruin and Subversion of our Traffic, shall be briefly to take notice of, and to reflect a little upon his erection of a Scotch African and East India Company, with such Immunities and Privileges as will prove destructive of the Trade of England to those Parts. Which Scotch Company, as it is established by a late Act of Parliament of that Kingdom, to which King William gave the enacting Fiat and Royal Sanction; so he did it without giving his English Privy Council, or any other of this Nation, the least antecedent Notice of it, and much more without ask or taking their Advice about it, though a matter both of great Importance in itself, and of vast Consequence to the Trade of this Kingdom. Nor can it be imagined that the said Act for erecting of a Scotch Company was surreptitiously obtained, or precipitately passed, without his Knowledge and Information of the Tenor of it: Seeing the Instructions were form and digested here, and signed by him; which upon being sent down thither, gave occasion and encouragement there to make and enact such a Statute at this Juncture. And it is highly worthy of remark, That this Scotch Law, containing so many unusual Privileges, and beneficial Concessions, as were never granted heretofore by any King of Great Britain, should be made at a Season when the Trade of England is so loaded and depressed by late grievous Impositions and Taxes laid upon It, by several Laws since the Revolution, in order to the carrying on of the present War, and for the defraying the Charges of it. Nor is it conceivable, how after so many Discouragements given to the English East India Company, not only in refusing them an Establishment by Law, but in Delaying for several Years to grant them a Confirmation of their Charter; and thereby putting them both to vast Expenses, through their being so long in soliciting of it, and the leaving them all that while naked and exposed to be undermined and supplanted by Interlopers, that this unwonted and exuberant Grace should be exercised to the Kingdom of Scotland, were it not done upon the Influence of Dutch Councils, and in pursuance of Measures from Holland for the ruining the Trade of England. And whosoever considers the little respect, and the less affection which King William hath for the Scots Nation, and with what disdain and contempt he speaks o● that whole Kingdom, and treats those of the first Quality of it, will easily believe, That he did not authorize the Establishment of the forementioned Company out of kindness unto, or concern for the Prosperity of that Nation; but that it was done upon the Motives, and in pursuance of foreign Councils. Not that I do envy the Scots any Favour that is showed them, upon whatsoever Inducements it be done; or that I blame the Parliament of Scotland for what they have done in this particular, towards the raising of the Genius, and encouraging the Industry of their People, to the pursuit of Trade; but what I would say is, That as King William's Kindness to the Scots in this matter is to the apparent and visible Damage of the English, so it is morally certain, that both the first overture of such an Establishment sprung from Belgic Councils, and that the Prince of Orange's Instructions, which led that Parliament to such a Bill, and the Royal Assent given thereunto by his Commissioner, upon which it is become a Law and Statute, is all in order to increase the Trade, and raise the Grandeur of the Dutch, and to depress and lessen the Trade of England, and thereby to weaken and impoverish the Kingdom. For as the Author of a Paper called, Some Considerations upon the late Act of the Parliament of Scotland for constituting an Indian Company, has with Candour and Ingenuity told us, Pag. 4. That the Original of that Design of settling a Company of Commerce for Strangers as well as for Scotchmen was not from Scotland, nor from hence, but altogether from foreign Parts; which, as he there tells us, he had from good hands. So we have reason upon his Testimony to receive what he says, being so avowed a Patron of the Wisdom, Justice and Equity of the said Act. However it will not be amiss to unfold a little more distinctly, what he hath only obscurely and briefly insinuated. In the doing whereof I must crave pardon for revealing a Secret committed to me in a private Conversation, and the rather because I have always valued myself upon an inviolable Fidelity toward all that have trusted me, and upon a tenacious Retentiveness and steady Secrecy in reference to such Things as have been privately, and under the Notion of friendship conveyed to me. But where my Discretion has only been confided in, but neither my Honour nor my Conscience have been engaged, I do judge that I not only may, but that in Duty I ought to disclose what hath been, and is contrived and machinated, in order to divide and separate these two Kingdoms, and thereby to weaken if not ruin both of them: namely, That the Duchy being afraid that either through the Prince of Orange's Death, or through King James' Restauration, these Nations may be awakened to consider how they have been first deluded and misled, and then wronged and injured by the Hollanders; and thereupon may be provoked to demand Reparation, and grow enraged to pursue Revenge, they have therefore studied and concerted how to separate the Kingdoms of England and Scotland the one from the other: And have proceeded so far therein, as in either of the foregoing Cases to have allowance for it from Willam's Dutch Minions and Confidents, which is equivalent to the having it from himself. And accordingly they have treated with some of the Scotch Nation about it, whom they have not only gratified with Money to make them pliable, but have given them assurance, That there shall be Three or Four hundred thousand Pound ready, to bribe and gain the chief and most leading Men of that Kingdom to comply with this Design, at what time it may be needful for the Dutch to have it put in execution. In pursuance whereof they have started the Project of a Scotch East India Company, which that Nation had all the reason in the World to take hold of, and they will be thought not only kind but just to themselves in gaining this Grant and Concession from the Crown, for their coming into the Interest of this Man at a Season when their adhering to their Rightful King, as was their Duty to have done, would have made this Man's Title very uncertain and precarious, and would have rendered his Abode in, and Reign over these Kingdoms of a very short Duration and Continuance. Nor will it escape the recommending the Wisdom of the Scots Nation to Posterity, That whilst the English, who have lavished away and wasted near 40 Millions sterl. upon their Dutch King, have not obtained one Beneficial National Act or Law in recompense of all that they have so foolishly and prodigally bestowed for the support of his Government; the Scots, by taking the Benefit of his foreign Inclinations and Affections, have gained something that may be useful to them and their Offspring. It were high Presumption in me to undertake to declare how far the Scots Act is directly calculated and adapted to the Prejudice of England, seeing that were to invade the Province, and to break into the Rights of both Houses of the Parliament of England, who being extremely sensible of, and having maturely weighed it, have not only the Integrity and Fortitude to represent it by a solemn Address to King William, but who in their profound Wisdom are considering both how to obviate the Evils which that Law threateneth to the Traffic of the Kingdom, and how to settle the Trade of the Nation upon such a Foot and Bottom as may give Encouragements to it, and make it revive and flourish. I do know that all which the two Houses are to expect from their Belgic King in answer to their Address is, That he was surprised into the passing of the Scotch Act, which I hope all Men will believe he as truly was, as he pretends to have been into the Massacre of Glenco, for the perpetration whereof he gave several positive and reiterated Orders: For Fides Belgica, and Fides Punica, are equivalent; and the Word of a Carthaginian Senator or General, and that of a Dutch Prince, are of the same alloy and stamp. But as the Scots are a wiser Nation, having obtained the passing of such a Law, than upon any Consideration whatsoever to be prevailed upon to repeal or to part with it, either to gratify King William, or to humour and accommodate this Kingdom; so no Man in the present Circumstances in which England is, will judge it the Interest of this Nation to quarrel with Scotland, or too much to rally and vex the Scots upon this Account. Not but that there are many ways and means within the Circle and under the Power of the Parliament of England, by which they may not only vent their Anger against those English that have subscribed to the Scots East India Stock, but make Scotland itself first uneasy and then enraged. But as this were to spend their Resentment and Anger where they ought not, seeing all their Indignation ought in Justice and Equity to fall no where but upon Kensington and Holland; so it were to make themselves Tools in promoting the Design of separating these two Kingdoms, which the Dutch contrived this Act for the Establishment of the forementioned Company as a Foundation of, and a Path unto. For should they at Westminster, as they easily may, make all those English that have put in their Shares into the Scots Stock pay quadruple Taxes to the War, which they are upon Ways and Means to support; this would but make many wealthy and industrious Merchants to forsake England, and retreat to Scotland, where they will be heartily welcomed, and effectually protected against all the Operation of such a stingy Law. Or should the Parliament of England enjoin these English that have subscribed to the Scots Stock to abandon and renounce their Membership in that Company, this would not only entitle the Scots to so much Money as was the Quota of thei● first Payment, which having already received, they are not so silly as to refund; but it would also occasion those that have ventured so much in that Bottom rather to carry their whole Capital after it, than to be both shut out from the Benefit of such a Proportion of their own Estates, and likewise to forfeit so much of their very Principal. Nor would the Parliament of England act with less imprudence, and in greater inconsistency with their own Interest, should they suffer themselves to be provoked to turn the Payment of all the Scots Regiments in Flanders off from the English Establishment, and cast it upon the Scots as the equivalent of the Customs which they are excused from by the forementioned Statute; but which they would be obliged to pay to the Government, were they to trade to Africa and the East Indies upon the like bottom and terms which the English do. But as this were to enfeeble the Confederate Army, by robbing it of Seventeen thousand as good Men as any it is constituted of, or else to necessitate England to hire and pay so many Foreigners in their room, which they cannot in that Method of acting avoid doing towards the completing of the Eighty seven thousand four hundred and forty Men, which the House of Commons by their Vote of December the 14th have declared necessary for the Year 1696. So such a Procedure of this Kingdom towards Scotland would enforce the Scots both to call home their Troops, and to employ them where England will not find any Advantage in giving them Provocation as well as Occasion to do it. So that in a Word, all the Anger that boileth in English Breasts upon the Account of this Scots Act ought to vent itself upon the Dutch who gave the Advice, and upon our Belgic King who gave it the legislative Stamp, and ratified it into an Act, by what he calls his Royal Authority. And to show that all his little Excuses, and particularly what he gave in answer to the Address of the Two Houses when presented to him Octob. 17. viz. That he had been ill served in Scotland, is all Cheat, pure Grimace, in that he has not in Evidence of his being imposed upon and misled, turned out or laid aside one of those Ministers of State whom he would have this credulous Nation believe to have deluded him to it. Which were it true, as it no wise is, it ought not to vindicate him from being accountable for the wrong he hath therein done to the Kingdom of England; seeing he who drove away King James by a Precedent of his own making, merely for the Offences of that King's Ministers, and which Ministers he has not only taken into his Friendship and Confidence, but made some of them the chief Superintendants of all his Affairs, must not think to Shame the World off with Pretences that the Ministers are only guilty, whilst he is to be looked upon as one as innocent as the Child unborn. Yea I will presume to add, That whereas K. James was not by any Laws of the Kingdom responsable for the Transgressions of his Councillors and Officers, but his Person and Royal Dignity were in all Cases to remain Sacred and Safe, K. W. is justly and legally Arraignable for all the Crimes of his Ministers, as well as for his own; and that both by his authorising that unjust and barbarous Fact of abdicating his Uncle and Father in Law, and also by virtue of the Stipulation, Contract and Term upon which he accepted the Crown. But if nothing else will serve and content the Parliament of England, save the making Reprisals, and taking Revenge upon the Scots, for their establishing an East India Company with so many ample Privileges and Immunities, the way of doing it is open and easy, without their committing any thing that the Scots can call unjust, or which they themselves may either repent or be ashamed of: namely, To grant unto their own trading Company, especially to those of Africa and the East Indies, such an Establishment by Law, with ease from Custom and Impositions, at least with such an Abatement and Moderation of them as caeteris paribus may be an Equivalent to all the Privileges and Immunities in the Scots Act, and thereby discourage and cripple, if not stifle and smother their Undertaking. And it is a surprise to all thinking disinterested Men, that Trade being the Source and Fountain of the Wealth, Strength and Populace of a Nation; and that this Kingdom being more adapted for it by its Situation, Harbours, and the Genius of its People, than any other Country whatsoever, that yet it should be so far from being encouraged in the way, manner and degrees it ought, that the Trade of England is more Clogged, Loaded, and has greater Burdens laid upon it, than that of any other Nation. But if this Method of counteracting the Scots should not be thought convenient, when the Kingdom is to be charged with so many and large Grants of Money to the Government for the upholding and carrying on the present War, there is still another way of obviating all the Evils we are apprehensive of from the Scots Act, and from the old East India Company; yea and not only of defeating the Design of the Dutch, who were the first and underhand Advisers to it, but of improving it into an Occasion of strengthening ourselves to chastise the Hollanders, and to exact Reparations from them for all the Injuries of one kind and ●●other which they have done us: And that is the bringing these two Kingdoms into an Union of Councils, Laws and Privileges of all Sorts, as they are already united under one Monarch, encompassed by the same Seas, Inhabitants upon one Island, and not differing in Language farther than in tone and dialect. Which as it would be to the mutual Safety and Prosperity of both Nations, so it is not to be questioned but that the Scots, in consideration and acknowledgement of the Benefit that would accrue to them by an Incorporation with England, would cheerfully surrender their late Act, and be as forward as we can wish to repeal it. Nor would it be sound so difficult as some do imagine it, to effect, compass and perfect such an Union upon Terms that both Kingdoms may think equal, could we on each side renounce national Piques, and give up little private Interests, in order to the obtaining a general common Good.  
I am told that some are so ignorant, and others so impudent, as say, That King William in virtue of that Sovereign Power which that Kingdom hath granted him, may, by his own personal and immediate Authority, without the concurrence of a Parliament, or the Prescription of a Law, impose upon Trade what Duty, Customs or Taxes he pleaseth; and this they allege to stand vested in him as a part of his Prerogative, by the Gift and Concession of an Act of Parliament made in one of those Sessions when Launderdale was King Charles the Second High Commissioner. To which I reply three Things: 1. That such a Supposition were to put all Traders of the Kingdom of Scotland into the state and condition of Slaves, by making their whole Property acquirable by the way of Traffic to be under the protection of no Law, but to be s●isable and disposable at the arbitrary Will and despotical Pleasure of the King; which I think that Nation which justly boasts itself a free Kingdom, as much as any other whatsoever, will not easily acquiesce in, and submit unto from any King: But especially not from one of their own making, who being as the Clay in their hands, of which they have made a Vessel of Honour, they may either break it or mould it again when the Humour takes them into a Vessel of Dishonour. 2. Whatsoever Prerogative this Man, under the Notion of being their King, may have as to the laying Impositions upon Goods and Merchandise, where no Law doth preclude and bar him from doing it, and where the Concession, Liberty and Right for them to trade to such and such Places, and in such and such Commodities, proceed and are derived mee●ly from his personal Grant and Charter, which gives them all their Title so to do; yet it is most absurd to imagine that he can have any such Prerogative or Power where a public Law hath given them both a Right and Authority to trade, and an Immunity from all Impositions whatsoever in reference to such Places, and the Productions and Superfluities thereof; and it is also Tyranny in him to challenge it. For by this means no Laws can be a Fence about men's Estates and Properties, nor give them the Security which they both promise, and were made and enacted for the ensuring to them. And for King William to claim and exercise such a Jurisdiction and Authority were to usurp a dispensing Power that is both infinitely worse in itself, and more fatal in its consequences, than that for which we so much blamed, and have hostily treated King James: Seeing all the dispensing Power King James challenged was only in reference to penal Laws, and those also relative merely to Religious Matters; as to both which the King has a greater extent and latitude of Jurisdiction inherent in him by reason of his Sovereign Power, than he hath in reference to other Laws. But should King William take upon him to dispense with the Act we are speaking of, it were to usurp a dispensing Power both in reference to beneficial Laws, and those made for the protection of our Civil Rights, Properties and Estates, which all Men who have common Sense know to be more out of the verge and reach of Kings to supersede and control, than those are which refer to Ecclesiastical Officers, and which are likewise of a penal Nature. 3. Should it be admitted that by that Act of Lauderdale's Parliament an absolute, unlimited and despotical Authority became vested in King Charles, and stood conveyed to King James, in relation to this laying Taxes and Impositions on Trade; yet no Power of this kind accrues by this Act to King William, in that it was complained of as one of the Grievances which were presented to him antecedently to his having Crown conferred upon him, and whereof Redress only was demanded: But it was stipulated, and made a part of the Original Contract, betwixt the Kingdom of Scotland and Him, That no such Power as Lauderdale's Act imported should ever be claimed, or exercised over them. And for King William now to pretend to it, were not only to violate his Coronation Oath, and proclaim himself perjured to all the World; but it were to discharge that Nation from all Obligation of Fealty to him, and to give them a legal Right as well as Cause to proceed to the deposing and abdicating him.  
Before I shut up this Discourse, which the variety and importance of the matter has already made longer than I at first designed it, though I hope it will not be found tedious, I shall for the sake of many Thousands; as well as my own, humbly applying myself to the Senate of the Kingdom, to the Members of the Privy Council, and to the Gentlemen of both the Gowns, for their resolving me Two or Three Questions; which it is of great Concernment with respect to our Constitution, our Laws, our Religion, and our Consciences to have Satisfactorily answered. The first is, That they would tell us what the meaning of a King de facto is, and how such a One differs from a King de jure? For I find that many both of the Lawyers, Gentry, as well as of the Clergy, who do wholly disbelieve, and in their Minds disclaim the Prince of Orange's Right to the Sovereignty, do yet allow themselves to swear Allegiance to him, and do pay him the Duty of Subjects, merely because he is got into Possession of the Throne and Royal Title, and de facto hath assumed the exercise of the Kingly Power. Nor am I ignorant that the pedant Writers of Politics do speak of a King de facto, as well as of a King de jure; but so far as I am capable of understanding Reason or good Sense, no Man can be called a King de facto, who is not either antecedently or concomitantly a King also de jure: Seeing he that is styled a King, but who is not rightfully so, is by all the Laws of God and Man a Robber and an Usurper; but a King he is not, nor can he be. A Thief may as well be called a legal Proprietor of what he hath stolen from his Neighbour, and he that Pads upon the Road may have as just a Claim to the Purse he hath forcibly taken from a Traveller, though the Law makes both the one and the other obnoxious to be hanged, and that very justly too, as he can have either Right or Pretence to the Regal Title and Power, who attains not to them by the Methods, Rules and Measures, and in the Virtue, Force and Efficacy of the Constitution. And as the Names of Intruder, Usurper and Robber, and not those of Prince, Sovereign and King, are which such a one ought only to be called by; so instead of Allegiance due unto him, or of our being under the Obligation either of divine or human Laws to render unto that Person the Duties of Subjects, we are bound bo●h in Law and Conscience to raise Hue and Cry after him, and to pursue him, and make him accountable for the Crimes which have entitled him to the Names of Robber of his Neighbour's Crown, and Intruder into and Usurper of another Man's Throne. Things are stubborn and inflexible, and will not change their Natures, because of the complimental soft Words that are fastened upon them. Theft, Robbery and Usurpation, will not cease to be the same evil and abominable Crimes which God hath denounced Curses against, and which Men in all Ages have annexed Punishments unto, notwithstanding the smooth Whitehall and Kensington Language with which we varnish them over. And whereas the Word and Name King hath been hitherto taken for a fair, honest, and honourable Word and Name, and held no ways reproachful for a virtuous Man to have it ascribed unto him, and to be denominated by it; I will venture to say that it is one of the worst and most scandalous Words in the World, and the most disgraceful and injurious Title that a Person is capable of having given him; if it be allowed to express an Usurper by, and used of one that has no Right to a Crown, but merely the Possession of it. But whereas there are some who through want of Sense, and others who through Ignorance of the Law, may take the Prince of Orange to be a King de jure, and may thereby hope both to save their Consciences and their Credits, and think to justify themselves from Treason and Disloyalty in their swearing Allegiance to him, and yielding him the Fealty due from Subjects; I desire therefore in the second Place to ask our Senators of Wisdom, and our Gentlemen of the Gowns, how this Right to be King accrues to the Prince of Orange, and from what Sources of Law and Justice the Royal Style and Authority come to be derived unto and vested in him, and by what Tenure he bears the Royal Name, and exerciseth the Sovereign Power? For as there are but Three ways in any Nation of arriving lawfully at the Supreme Authority, and of coming legitimately and honestly to be a King, namely, either by the Right of hereditary Succession, or by the Right of just and lawful Conquest, or by the Right of Election, where through the known Laws, and the fundamental Provisions of the Constitution, there is upon every Vacancy of the Throne a Privilege vested in the People, or in their Representatives, or in some select Number of the most honourable and qualified Persons, to choose one to fill it. And as none can have the Impudence to say, either that the Prince of Orange is King of England by the Right of hereditary Succession, seeing there are divers Persons who have an hereditary Right of inheriting the Crown antecedently to him. Or that he attained to be King by a lawful Conquest in a just War; seeing that is not only disclaimed by himself, and reprobated by the Parliament, but because the offering to establish his Title upon that Foundation, and to justify it by that Plea, were to put us into the State of Slaves instead of Subjects, and to make us enjoy all we are and have by his Pleasure and Will, and not to have any Property in them by our ancient Laws. So in the third Place none who have the least Acquaintance with the Nature of our Constitution, the Frame of our Government, or the many Laws of the Land relative to the Right and Manner of Succession in the Sovereignty, will dare to pretend that upon a Demise of the Crown the People, or any certain Number of Persons whatsoever, stand legally vested with a Power of choosing who shall succeed: And the reason is obvious, because our Monarch is and has been always an hereditary Monarch, and not an elective. Wherefore though there have been sometimes Interruptions in the Rightful Succession, and Translations of the Crown from one Family to another, yet save in the Cases of direct Usurpation, such as Oliver Cromwel's, it was never attempted on the Foot and Principle of the People's having a Power resident in them by Law to elect their King; but it was always on the Motive and Foundation of doubtful and controverted Titles. Which Claim, though in some it was very weak, yet it was always insisted upon; and what their Title wanted in legal Goodness, they endeavoured to make out by military Power. I might add, That there was no Demise here, neither by Death nor by Resignation, and much less were there any vested with a Regal Power of abdicating, deposing, and driving away King James. So that upon the whole, the Prince of Orange can upon ●o Foundation whatsoever, nor in any Sense received, among Men of coming Lawfully to a Crown, be King of England de jure, and by consequence he must be contented to be held for no other than an Usurper, and as such aught all Men to account him, who according to the Laws of Revelation, and of the Kingdom, would either approve themselves to God, or have peace in their own Minds. But than thirdly, admitting the Prince of Orange to be King of England, (whether de Jure or de Facto I further inquire not▪) I desire to ask the Two Houses of Parliament, as well as our Lawyers and Divines, of what Signification and Importance in their Judgements and Opinions the Word King is, that the People may the better know the Nature, Extent and Bounds of their Allegiance, that being on their part Reciprocal and Corrolate to Kingship on the Sovereigns? And this Question is the more necessary to be resolved, in that the Notion and Idea of King is much different in the present Estimate of the Generality of Men, as well within the Houses of Parliament as without them, from what it is represented and found to be in our Laws, and from what it has been always heretofore taken and acknowledged to be. That therefore which with reference to myself, as well as to many Thousands besides, I would earnestly beg to know, is, Whether by King they mean a Sovereign Prince, whose Person (by virtue of the Authority lodged in him, and by reason that the Peace and Welfare of the whole Society depends upon his Safety) is Sacred and Inviolable; who cannot legally be resisted, opposed or withstood, and much less be judged, deposed and abdicated by any Power on Earth, on any Pretence whatsoever, and one without whose Call and Authority all Meetings, Assemblies and Consultations about Matters of Government and State are Treason and Rebellion? Or whether by King they do intend only a Person that is merely in the Quality of a Trustee, entrusted by and accountable to the People as his Principals, and who being only vested with a delegated Power, may therefore be resisted, arraigned, judged, abdicated, and drove away, if he offend those over whom he is advanced to rule, and act dissonantly from and contrary to the Laws, of all which his Subjects are to be Judges? For if King be taken in the first Sense, to signify one that is unaccusable, irresistible and unabdicable; than we of this Nation neither have, nor lawfully can have, any other King than King James while he liveth, and hath not renounced and disclaimed his Right: And by consequence the Prince of Orange is no other than an Usurper. And we out of our own Mouths, and by our own Sentence, no better than Rebels in abdicating the former, and in submitting unto and owning the later. And indeed the Principles upon which the Salisbury Dictator of Measures of Obedience, Dr. Burnet (who out of disloyal Malice to us endeavoured to subvert our ancient Government, and to battle all our Laws, by his modern and treasonable Politics) striveth to justify the Abdication in a Book he hath lately published, called, Reflections on a Pamphlet entitled Some Discourses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson, occasioned by the Funeral Sermon of the former upon the later, plainly show both how self condemned the Author is, and what Rebellion he and the Nation are, according to the Laws of God and Men, become guilty by that Transaction. For whereas he owns, That illegal Acts, and Acts of Tyranny, and the remote Consequences of them, do not justify the resisting of Princes; and that they can be then only lawfully withstood, when their going about to subvert totally the Constitution shall be plainly apparent, P. 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37. there is no more needful to be said for the loading of him, and for the branding the Nation with the just Imputation of the highest and most detestable Treason committed in the Abdication of the King, and in the Choice and Exaltation of the Prince of Orange to his Throne. Seeing whatsoever illegal Acts (which were not many, nor of any menacing Importance to the Kingdom) the King might be misled and hurried into by treacherous Councillors; yet it is so far from being plainly apparent that he designed to subvert the Constitution, that the contrary is demonstratively evident; and that no Prince ever bore greater regard to the Laws, Liberties and Prosperity of England than he did. And as his Majesty's sending an Ambassador to Rome, his appointing Popish Bishops, and his claiming a dispensing Power in reference to penal Laws about Religion, are all the Instances which that traitorous Doctor gives of the King's being embarked in such an Attempt; so they are such weak and impertinent Proofs of such a Design, that it is to banter Mankind, to raise a Suspicion of it upon them, and much more to style them plain and apparent Evidences of it. Nor needs there any more to show that the Constitution was in no danger of being totally subverted by those Means and Overt Acts of Government, than that neither the noble Person that went to Rome, nor those that were constituted Popish Bishops, nor any of them that gave Advice for the dispensing Power, have been so much as arraigned, and much less capitally punished, as they would and deserved to have been, if those Things had been of a direct and immediate Tendency to destroy totally the Constitution. Nor would any Man have betrayed at once the Weakness and the Impudence as to have assigned those Acts of Administration, and no other, as convictive Proofs of an apparent Design in King James to subvert totally the Constitution; but this noisy, treacherous and disloyal Doctor, who like to him that fired Diana's Temple to protect himself from Oblivion, has been studying to raise himself a Monument upon the Banishment of his Sovereign, the Ruin of our Ancient Government, and the Involving of these Kingdoms in a bloody and destructive War. But then on the other had, if King be taken in the second Sense, for one that may be resisted, arraigned, deposed and drove away from his Throne and Kingdom; then as the Prince of Orange hath but a flippery Seat of it, and a thorny Crown, so no Man can be lawfully required to take an Oath of Allegiance to him, and much less justly punished by double Taxes, or otherwise for refusing it: Seeing if that be the Signification and Importance of King, it may be every Man's Duty to assist in deposing and dethroning him. And upon what I have said of his Miscarriages in Government, and the Designs he is carrying on to the Ruin as well as Impoverishment of the Kingdom, there is nothing remains to be added or advised, But to your Tents O Israel, for this Man ought no longer to be suffered to pretend to reign over us. For as he hath in many Instances apparently attempted the total Subversion of the Constitution, (which even by our Salisbury Doctor's Principles of Politics, justifieth the deposing him) and particularly both in the commanding a whole Tribe of Men that were under the Protection of the Laws to be massacred, without any previous Trial or Conviction; and in his taking the Earl of Bredalbin by mere arbitrary Power, not only out of the hands of Justice, when he stood impeached by Parliament (which whether he was justly or unjustly makes no Change in the Nature of what the Prince of Orange hath therein done) but in putting him into the Administration of the Government as a Privy Councillor: So he hath likewise in effect destroyed the very Kingdom, and hath brought us into those Circumstances of Confusion, Misery and Want, out of which it is impossible to recover and deliver us, while he is permitted to sit at the Helm. And which, if we be so sortish, and so much Enemies to ourselves and to our Posterity as to connive at any longer, it will be out of the reach and power both of our Rightful King, and of a well constituted Parliament ever to redeem us; or either to retrieve the Nation from final Ruin, or to save us from being Conquered by any potent Neighbour that may have a mind to invade us.  
Nor will I enlarge this Discourse any further, save to tell those who out of rebellious Enmity to a Rightful King, and Idolatry of an Usurper, may complain of the Acrfmony of some Expressions which will be found to occur in the foregoing Leaves, That all the Language I have used is either consecrated by the Tongues or Pens of your Williamite Divines, in their Pulpit Invectives against King James, and the King of France; or else it is all authorised by the Licenced Pamphlets, published in way of Elegy upon the present Government, and satire upon the last. And whosoever will waste so much time as to peruse a Paper styled, A Dialogue between the King of France and the late King James, occasioned by the Death of the Queen, will justify me in the Reprisals and Retaliations I have made. Only whereas little is to be met with in these Sermons and Pamphlets but ridiculous Fiction, and impudent Slander, as well as dull Malice; there will nothing be found in these Sheets but weighed and measured Truth, though sometimes a little piquantly expressed.  
Decemb. 20. 1695.   

ERRATA.  
Page 2, line 30. before other read of, ibid. l. 38. for sta●e r. state. p. 4. l. ult. for stuff r. strife, p. 5. l. 25. deal same, p. 6. l. 36. for Redress r. Readers, p. 9 l. 1. r. where we had for a great while been in the quiet and peaceable Possession, p. 11. l. 37. r. plead, p. 12. l. 15. deal a before Servant, p. 13. l. 8. r. Placat's, ibid. l. 20. r. Rude, ibid. l. ult. for their r. these, p. 14. l. 8. r. become, ibid. l. 20. for th' r. to, p. 15. l. 7. before it r. as, ibid. l. 13. for were r. we, p. 16. l. 3, 4. r. putting, ibid. l. 6. r. Guet, p. 20. l. 21. r. executed, ibid. l. 27. for yet r. yea, p. 22. l. 35. after with r. the, p. 23. l. 8. r. Donative, p. 25. l. 38. r. Bordachoes, p. 32. l. 33. before Mischiefs r. the, p. 33. l. 6. before have r. they, ibid. l. 12. two Millions, p. 34. l. 7. after transported put, p. 35. l. 33. for mark r. mask, p. 36. l. 12. r. thither, ibid. l. 19 for so r. for, ibid. l. 20. for more r. were, ibid. l. 33. r. they thus, p. 37. l. ult. deal they, p. 38. l. 8. after unto put, ibid. l. 21. r. become, p. 43. l. 14. r. whereof, p. 47. l. 28. r. Villainies, p. 48. l. 28. r. become, ibid. l. 29. r. Centre, p. 50. l. 25. r. Officers, ibid. l. 30. r. the, p. 51. l. 3. r. Plebi, ibid. l. 11. deal to, ibid. l. 22. before the r. that, p. 55. l. 32. r. no.