THE Descent from France, I confess finds more credit with me than I was willing at first to give it; and from the just Apprehension I have of the Consequences of it, I now Rise to speak; and with that freedom which belongs to the part I have in this Assembly, and the Importance of the present Occasion. I have observed the warmth of some of the Members of this Council, their disbelief or contempt of the Design, and their great assurance of the insuccesfulness of it, But by the force of their Arguments, they seem to show more of Inclination than Reason to recommend their Opinions; and by their Age, that they have never felt the miseries of a Civil War: They can perhaps endure them in another Country, and read of them in Gazettes without shrinking, but seeing, and feeling them, are other things: Those that have been in the midst of the Fire, Rapes and Slaughter, of a Country torn in pieces by Civil War, as I have been, will, I hope with me, think it too costly, and desperate a Remedy for any Disease in Government; But to be sure it should be the last, and to be then only used when nothing else will do. For it is then, that we can truly call nothing our own; and that instead of one, we have ten thousand Tyrants: For every body is Arbitrary in such Cases; and the dear Property, for which we make War, is by nothing else so dangerously exposed. No forms of Law then to fly to, Nor Justice to protect us; But Power supersedes Right, and the strongest is the lawful Possessor. In this dismal state, we are as unsafe in our Lives, as in our Fortunes. When we rise, we are not sure to escape till Night: Nor when we lie down, that we, our Wives, and little Ones, shall ever live to see another Day. And if our Lives, to be sure our Estates, must be precarious. And the manner of this Misery has something so frightful in it, that the loss is yet less than the Terror. And when I consider the Preparation that is in the minds of Men amongst us, of both Interests, by their repeated Provocations, and old and fresh Prejudices; I cannot but dread the Consequences of the Civil War our opposition will engage us in.  
If this Descent was designed for Destruction, and not for Restoration; If it were to Invade a Crown, instead of returning to one Invaded, and coming home to ones own, we might have the pretence of a Fr. Invasion to resist it; and the powerful motives of Liberty and Property, to hinder the Depredation of Foreigners. But this is not our Case, we talk of opposing one that comes as Our King, and Our Legal King, a King according to the Constitution of our Realm. In whom, as I have heard great Lawyers say, we cannot Legally disinterest ourselves; Who was compelled from us, for his own Safety, and returns now for ours, before we are quite ruined. That he retired for his own, what has followed declares, and that he comes for ours, the nature of his coming informs us; It is not as a Conqueror, or an Avenger, Because he seeks us as a Friend, and a Father; Not with Fire and Sword, but the Olive-branch of Peace; Remitting instead of Revenging Wrongs; and assuring us, of all the Security that ourselves in Parliament can reasonably devise, for our Religion and Property. This is not the strain of Conquest, or the stile of Vengeance. Now the question is which of the two we will choose, Peace or War, Plenty or Poverty, Safety or Ruin? But, I think, it ought to be none, at this time of day, with us; For since God only knows who shall Survive such a Tragedy, it is our great care to prevent it. For we cannot suppose if we refuse his R●yl▪ Offer, and make head against his Return, but he will contest our Denials, and appeal to Heaven (the constant Avenger of his Injured Ancestors) and pursue his Claim to extremity: Nor is it to be thought that they who have lent him this Strength, will not pour in more to Support him. The French K. does not use to venture inconsiderately; he has satisfied himself (not doubt) of the charge, and probability of the Enterprise, 〈…〉 to 〈…〉 allowances for all Accidents: For no Prince puts less to hazard, and by what he has done, and does still to our astonishment, notwithstanding the Enemies he has upon his hands, We have just cause to apprehend the Consequences of this Descent, if we obstinately oppose the Return of our King: We may believe he does not only know his own strength, but our weakness to resist it; that our Army is small, and discontented; very few Fortifications; none within Land, and that we are broken with Factions within ourselves. He must also be satisfied with the assurances K. James has received from hence, though the extreme Caution he shows in every thing will not suffer him to rely upon that: And I am not absolutely satisfied, that even some of those we may think to oblige by our opposition, are not of the number of them that have Promised: I say, I will not answer for them. However I cannot think but the King will find a considerable Interest here, among every sort. First, All those that have never quitted him, and find themselves oppressed, by the payment of double Taxes, for not Swearing to this Government: This sort will adhere and dispute it to the last; for if he miscarry, they know they must either comply against their Consciences, or be ruined in their Fortunes, which another Year will certainly become a Tax to the Government, for the Penalty will rise with their Constancy, and the Exigency of the Times. Secondly, There is another sort of People that were carried out of their depth, by the strength of the Tide, that moved things at the P. of O. coming hither; and though these Men would have others excuse them from the necessity of the Times, they show daily in their Discourses they cannot forgive themselves: Their old profession of Loyalty flies in their Faces, and they would be glad of the opportunity of recovering that slip, at almost any rate; and their number is as great as their desire to set themselves right in the good Opinion of their Friends. Thirdly, There is a Party that liked the Change ver● well, but are miserably disappointed under it; and as none are more discontented with it, so none are sharper upon it. They talk loudly of breach of Faith, That the public Money is embezzled, Double Accounts kept, Strangers preferred before Englishmen, The one paid, the other not; That the great Instruments and Leaders of the Change are laid aside, or neglected; All popular Bills stifled, or rejected; and that Oppression, and Corruption in Officers, both by Sea and Land, connived at; And these Gentlemen will doubtless close upon reasonable Terms, or be safe by a Neutrality. Fourthly, All Tradesmen and Farmers find that deadness in Business, together with heavy and growing Taxes, that they begin to feel, what they have hitherto refused to hear, that they are like to be ruined by the War, and what the Gentleman does will sway most with them. Lastly, The Mob who are almost starving  for want of Peace, always loved Changes and Novelty, expecting still that there is something to be got by them. So that upon the whole Matter, there seems no sort of Men but those who are actually in Office, likely to venture for the present Government in an extremity; and when they cannot find their Names in the King's Declaration among the excepted, I dare say, they'll not be to be found by the Government when it wants their Support. Not to say that some of them would perhaps be willingly thought by King James' Party to intent his Service, by being in it; They can the better conduct it to his ends, and recommend themselves, by making the Change easier, when the time comes.  
Shall we then of this City add to our former Reckon? Or by our wise management blot them out? It is not a time of day for us to be Tools; London that has most to lose, has most to take care of, and for that reason should run the least hazard; for it is certain if We resist, whoever has the best of it, Poor England will have the worst; and of all England, to be sure London: I think that is enough to men in business, that have something to lose, and desire to get by honester ways than Sacking and Plundering.  
But though these considerations seem moving enough, upon a prudent account, yet there is something I must leave with you, that sticks much with me in point of Judgement and Conscience, and which I beseech you to hear with patience, and interpret with Candour. First, I do profess to you, I am not satisfied with the power of changing Governments, that we have lately exercised; It is plain, our Laws have never allowed it; and in the end have ever punished it: Observe the conclusion of those four or five Interruptions of the right Line, that have been since the Conquest, which is now more than Six hundred years, and you will find things have ever returned to their own Channel, with unhappy marks upon the Families that have been the Authors of them. Of which Sir Walter Raleigh in his excellent Preface to his History of the World is very particular and instructing; And we are sure, that the Law was so understood, and given by all the learned Judges and Council of the Kingdom, Anno 1660. at the Trial of the King's Judges: A Gentleman of my Intimacy obliged me lately with the reading of it; and truly I could not but lament the unhappiness of us Englishmen, that Loyalty and Rebellion should have such uncertain significations with us; and that in less than half an Age, what was then called Loyalty, is now accounted Treason, and that which is Loyalty now, was then adjudged Rebellion: For it was the sense of that great presence, great both in Quality and Law, when the P. Council, Judges, Lawyers, and many of both Houses of Parliament were there, but particularly of Sir Orlando Bridgman, and Sir Heneage Finch, one Keeper, the other Chancellor since, that the Kings of England are Sovereign Princes, and not accountable to the People, either Collectively or Representatively; and they urged that old maxim, The King cannot err, because the King acts by other Persons. And indeed no man would be a King to answer for every fault, in the Administration, which he either cannot always understand, or must be omnipresent to hinder: But here the Case was quite contrary, and this ancient Doctrine of Law turned upside down; For no body was punished but the King. And it is whispered by some that should know, that the most offensive acts of his Government, were the advices of those, that are in the favour of this, as if they had been concerted, and laid elsewhere, for his ruin. I think we should be more constant to ourselves, and have one fixed Rule of Duty, and that our Obedience to it, should be our safety: And if that pernicious Principle, or Practice at least of doing evil that good may come of it, was out of the World; we might be quiet if not prosperous, that were a great part of happiness; I cannot think, but they who to mend the matter, step out of God's way, as well as that of the Law, in the end miss the mark, and lose by the Attempt; they seem to disengage Providence, from taking care of their Prosperity or Protection, that seek it by indirect means.  
Another thing is this, that as the supposition of the Kings Imposing a false Child upon the Kingdoms, to the prejudice of the undoubted Heirs, was the best excuse, as well as the pretence for the Dutch Invasion; so besides what the King did before, to prove the Legitimacy of the Prince of Wales; He has put his Queen's Childableness, or capacity of having Children, out of all question, by sending above 30 Letters to Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen of the Protestant Religion amongst us, viz. Some of his old Privy Council, and others in this Government to be Witnesses of the Birth of the Child she now goes with; A Condescension in a King and Queen, that would overcome any obstinacy but ours; and I hope we are not so senslesly and maliciously tenacious, as to reject the conviction and satisfaction the King offers us; especially, when we made the pretence of wanting it before, an Argument to reject him. For than we proclaim our dissatisfaction but a pretence, and therein our own Immorality to the World. And truly Gentlemen, when I remember that other Folks have forgotten to examine in Parliament that point of the Pr. of Ws; it is beyond all scruple with me, the doing it was never meant, and it is a question to be free with you, if they made any of the truth of his Birth, that have got so much by pretending the Imposture. Else they would not have sent Monsieur Zulesteine to Compliment the K. and Qu. upon it as they did; and to my own knowledge this Government has been challenged upon this point; that if People might have leave, the truth of the Birth of the Pr. should be made out in Parliament, beyond all manner of exception, but no Answer was ever yet obtained. And if the Kings of Engl. were deposable, as they are not, (for if the Crown takes away the defects in a lawful Successor, as saith our Law, it receives, and admits, of none in the Regnant person) yet the next Heir always Inherits: But here the next Heir is excluded, and excluded as an Imposture, and yet the Imposture is not at all m●de appear: The K. and Qu. own him, and 17. or 18. People of Quality that are Protestants; and some of them in this Government are Witnesses of his Birth; and more off●r to prove it: This sticks with me, I have Children of my own, and all of them had not so many Witnesses of the truth of their Birth, and yet I should take it very ill, if any should question it; and before I end this particular, I must say, that for a King, so far to humour this base Jealousy, and to stoop to our prejudice, as well as our ignorance, to let our Eyes convince us, and justify him, shows to me Gentlemen, I don't know what it does to you, that he d●sires not to cut his way to his Cr●wn through Blood, nor to appease his displeasure, with the Lives and Estates of his misled, or misleading Subjects; but to be reconciled to his offending People; or else he would certainly not se●k to inform them, but to destroy them. My last poi●● i●, that he does not appear to me, to be that Arbitrary Man, any more, than the Insincere Man, we have had him represented to us. For if he intended an absolute Rule, He would come as a Conqueror, and not as a Legal King; with no Declaration, but his Sword, and that should be the Tenor of his Crown, and the Condition of our Obedience. This is our fear or pretence; if this were his aim, or hope, he would never come, while we were able to resist; He would stay till the War had not left us the power, as well as the heart to do it. But his coming now, tells us plainly he had rather be a King than a Tributary, and the King of a Free and a Rich People, then of Beggars and Slaves; For he knows as well as we, the many Millions we have paid, the Lives that are lost, the Ships that are taken, and the decay also of Trade; And that all this Treasure, Blood, and Loss, have only humbled England; and that France is not a jot the weaker for it; but that the War at home (to get and keep his Crown) has only devoured it, and that now we are beginning the War with France; (That he knows is Wise, Rich, and Strong) after three years' Consumption, within ourselves, upon private ends. A fearful and costly Ambition! What we were told was never intended, but what we see, and feel, has been the effect of the change. God help us, and help us to understand ourselves, that we may help ourselves, while we can, in the evening of our time, or we are a lost People. I have done Gentlemen, when I have told you, I am for meeting the King in the Ways of Peace and Duty, and beseech you, by the love you bear, to your Wives, your Children, your Selv●●, and your Country, that you embrace my Motion, for Honest Men, and English Men, can have no Pleasure, or Interest, in seeing the Royal Family, torn in pieces, and these Kingdoms destroyed in the Fray.   
FINIS.