The Scot Arraigned, AND At the Bar of Justice, Reason, and Religion, Convinced, Convicted, and Condemned of a most horrid and odious Conspiracy and Rebellion against the Native Liberty and Birthright of the Church and Free State of ENGLAND.  
By R. F.   depiction of a ship in full sail by a harbour wall 
LONDON, Printed by JAMES MOXON, 1651.   

The Scot Arraigned, AND At the Bar of Justice, Reason, and Religion, Convinced, Convicted, and Condemned of a most horrid and odious Conspiracy and Rebellion against the Native Liberties and Birthright of the Church and Free State of England.  
La is but the best Reason, and Justice the life and actuating soul of that dead and precious letter; in whose observance and free Administration, the welfare, felicity, and peace of all Kingdoms, States, and Republics are involved and wrapped up: for were man left only to the disposition of his own depraved Will, he were of all Creatures most miserable. That therefore the influx of this evil may be prevented, the immediate hand of God, and the diligent care of humane Policy, through the general parts of the whole world have enjoined and prescribed wholesome Laws, as well for the subduing of this natural propension of flesh and blood, as also for the preservation of the public weal and prosperity.  
This is the sole bliss of a people, and this the real Liberty of the Subject, when a man may enjoy his own Properties and Right without wrong or molestation, under the protection of a just and Legal Government.  
Since therefore it has pleased Almighty God (amongst many of his exceeding mercies to this poor Nation) to make us a Civil people; and to enlarge that bounty, to give us religious, just, and honest Laws; nay more, to redeem us from the slavery of Tyranny into a free State, and to crown all these with the inestimable blessing of the plenteous dispensation of his holy Word and Gospel: how zealously, courageously, and in duty should we endeavour to discover and prevent all Treasons and Conspiracies which may undermine and deprive us of these invaluable Jewels? for they are the very foundation and sinews of our peace, enjoyments, and common society: Amongst many other fears which we may justly be sensible of, as tending to the eversion and demolishing of these public Rights and participations, we shall here discover an apparent enemy, a malignant envious pack of indigent contemptuous wretches, not only inveighing and backbiting against the glorious arrival of our happiness, but by an open hostility, unjustly, violently, and inhumanely endeavouring and ploting the invasion of our birthrights, and the ruin of the Church; and therefore without any further preamble I shall here make audience, and at a Conscientious and legal hearing indite, and make proof against that wretched Criminal, the Kingdom of Scotland: A faction situate in the rubbish of Christendom, now actually in arms against the State and Liberties of the free borne people of England; and therefore I desire God in mercy to show his Justice upon them, whose bloody purposes and determination speak them no less than the troublers of Israel, and the disquieters of the peace of Zion. Not to run them up through all the forepast perjurious and damnable practices of their beggarly mutinous progenitors (for that were to begin an endless series of villainy and treachery) I shall only prosecute them in the productions of this present age: and there I question not but to find matter enough to propagate their Just odium to all posterity.  
Warr is a thing to be undertaken seriously advisedly, and upon sound grounds: in regard it traffics in the precious life of man, whose blood must be required by a strict and righteous God; and concerns no less than the high moment and interest of a whole Commonwealth.  
All other trivial and sinister ends and undertake, be they never so well burnished with plausible pretences, be they never so well backed with Magnanimity and earthly power, yet are they dishonest, dishonourable, and disconsonant to the Law of God and Nature. Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do you unto them. If the Lord has said thou shalt not Covet; Much more has he enjoined thee from force of Arms to wrong thy neighbour, yet these Unchristian machiavels: whose misery is their matter, laying a side the injunctions of Religion, the secret Convictions of reason, and the open persuasions of Common Civility, out of a greedy mizing desire after the enjoyment of our goods and for tunes, have hurried themselves into a posture of war, to enforce an interest of superintendency over us a free people, and all forsooth through the Colour of their young Novice, and the old Slobberd greasy account of the quondam quiddity, which must dwindle away, and return to its dust. O Magister Artis, Ingeniique largitor venture! How wittily base these juggling Jockeys would feign render themselves! A gang of snaky headed Pedlars, which to keep their hands in action, and from a servile ignoble Covetousness to satisfy the Cries of their empty souls out of the means and properties of other men, would needs twist themselves into a seeming Concernment in the managing and governing of us, by whom (notwithstanding their French League) they do in Charity breath. But Mr jockey, by your nimbleness his leave, what have you to do out of your own bounds to enforce and constrain a superior people than yourself to the slavery of your yoke and Kirk model? because the sins of our Nation unhappily once provoked God to punish us (as he threatened the Israelites) by a foolish people, and to give us over a while to the miserable succession of Scotch Tyranny, now that he has redeemed us by his mighty Arm and mercy into the blessed estate of our present Condition, upon that shallow account will you, Res angusta domi, instigate your mercenary spirits to renew our oppressions, and reinstall your beggary with the pretended Crown and Sceptre of England? hold Coachman; Pharaoh may look big, and ask in pride, who is the Lord that I should serve him? yet notwithstanding when the fullness of time for the deliverance of jacob is come, had the Chariots of Egypt been as numerous as the mountains of Scotland, and all in flamed with the maddest zeal of your fiery presbyters, yet you know what did and would have become of them, and in theirs, the sequel of your own destiny. 'tis true you have declared highly against our Liberty and Government, and like bold Beauchamps, have seconded your words with your swords; and therefore in so Palpable a case as this, I shall need no other proof than your own professions, to affirm you Conspirators and traitors against the State and Commonwealth of England,  
For whosoever shall attempt by sinister means or open violence to overthrow the foundations of our Liberty, and by conpulsion vi & armis to subject us a free born people to the bondage of an arbitrary will, I dare and must proclaim them Traitors, and dangerously malignant enemies to the peace and Public weal of this Nation.  
For it is not enough for you to say that we have entered into Covenant, and so intent to swear you out of your rights and Privileges. Or because you have drawn the Youngman in, and invested him with a Royalty de Juydot, an eyrie title of your King, that therefore, having so wise a head, you may attempt any villainy, or prosecute your unjust ends upon us; no, that cannot justify your eccentrick actions, or strengthen the presumption of your damnable designs.  
For you must know, that Will is no legal Title though bound with a voluntary oath. And that (if ever he had any) your specious Pretender has lost his claim in the forfeiture of his father.  
To create therefore an interest of yourselves where there was none before, and under the false notion of that counterfeit Grant to presume to necessitate us to a Compliance and embracing of your compulsive Arbitration, is neither Legal nor justifiable, hence then after a mature weighing and reflection upon the generality of your enterprise, give me leave to adjudge you guilty of the highest and most capital Treason that may be conceived against the State and free people of England. For they that will endeavour to bring in Innovation of Religion forged by the giddy mould of a Presbyterian brain, and so null the privilege of the Church: they that will attempt in a free State to enjoin an obedience and submission upon a distinct nation to the forced model of a tyrannical Government, what crime can exceed it in nature and degree? Search the Scripture and you shall find that God never Authorises one man to be the thrall of another. Not yet enjoins one Nation to be a precedent for the Civil Government of another: but all mankind was left freely to the election of their own proper moderation. Why then should your pride and desires hoist you up to that strange height of arrogance, to dare things beyond warrant or example? Was it the kindness which you have received from us at several times in these late years in free Contributions towards your wants and supportation, that has invited this injury? or was i that we permitted you to fish in our troubled waters without opposition or molestation, that deserves this return? Or was it that tender care we ever had to perform the Condition of our Contracts and promises to you, has so incensed you? O the retaliation of Scottish Gratitude! 'tis true, you are our brethren, and we have a sweet fraternity of it, but that follows not that you must thence be our masters: Ne gyud faith, though indeed the ambition of your minds may look as high as the Sovereignty and Subiugation of England, yet I must tell you we infinitely disdain to degenerate so far from the valour of our ancestors, or to offend so heinously against our own interests, as to enslave our freer spirits to the tottered Sceptre of Scotland, for we are a people of ourselves, without dependence upon any other Kingdom, free Commoners by birth, without the least acknowledgement of subjection due to any tyrannical oppressor.  
And you a people in yourselves, unconcerned in our Privileges and inheritance. If therefore upon your own score you have broken over the fences and boundaries of our birthrights, and attempt to possess yourselves of that freedom which belongs not unto you, you must pardon us if we endeavour to prevent your passage, and our own misery: and in the mean time look upon you as Murderers and Traitors, And therefore by the just Judgement of equity, reason, and religion, you must be sentenced accordingly. Your book cannot save you, neither will our Law or convenience afford you the benefit of your clergy. 'Tis too late to dissemble, and too soon for us to believe you, for he that Credits a Scot, may as well trust a Devil, for no bonds can hold him further than his immediate profit, and let the compact be never so firmly conjured, he will break through, aut viam inveniet, aut faciet, turn over the records o● time but from the conquest, and you shall fin● amongst all the bicker of England wit● France, for our just rights there, notwithstanding he were tied up by all the powerful Charms of Amity and Friendship; the English were no sooner almost at Calais, but the Scots would be at Berwick, ready to invade and plunder the Northern Countries, if therefore the God of Justice, to recompense his perfidious dealing, has brought his Judgement home unto him, 'tis but just for him to suffer in the same way as he has often compelled others, for what grounds had he more than his poor relation to the wandering Gentleman? And that owned too in hopes of a further end, to gloze over the occasion of this quarrel? They have him, and have enthroned him, let them keep him to themselves. Otherwise I presume they may both sink in the wetting; for heaven seldom permits erroneous and desperate Courses to to have good success or peaceble ends.  
Thus briefly (my beloved Countrymen and fellow Commoners of England) you see the scope and drift of the Scotch war, viz: your slavery, and their sovereignty; you have known the perfidious dealing of these dissembling Sycophants, and our forefathers, and many of us have had a lamentable experience of their Cruelties and Tyranny; if therefore you can so much forsake your own happiness and freedom, to turn bondmen again to these merciless Egyptians, it is pity we ever knew or saw a Canaan. Conside, first that they are a mercenary nation, like Salamanders living in the fire of other men's Contentions, no occasion so small but that can raise them an advantage, no invitation so little but deserves their embraces.  
Secondly that they are our inferiors, and we a free people, and to be subdued by such a contemptible rabble were an eternal blemish to the wont splendour of our names,  
And lastly that they have neither: Law-reason, nor Equity to justify their do, but but merely fictitious Skreenes of their own making without any reality or colour of truth to pretend a Just feud.  
Where 〈…〉 more to animate our sluggish spirits to the opposition of these caterpillars than we have? Here is first God to protect us. Secondly an honest cause to back us. And thirdly a wise counsel to, advice us. And lastly gallant soldiers to command us; we only, we only, are wanting to our selvee. Me thinks if these preswasions cannot, yet our fears might move 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 consider if ever they conquer, if they grant us our lives, the condition of our being will be worse than death.  
For no man shall be master of his own, but our estates and persons must stand liable to their wretched dispose, and when a beggar is set on horseback he will ride to the Devil: then farewell Liberty, Property, and all that may be called dear to us.  
Let us therefore prevent our dangers betimes, and rush into our harness like the sons of those men which never veiled to a scotch banner: And curse ye Meros', Curse ye bitterly those that come not forth to help the People of the Lord against the Mighty.  
FINIS.