FRANCE No Friend to ENGLAND. OR, The Resentments of the FRENCH upon the Success of the ENGLISH.  
As it is Expressed in a most Humble and Important REMONSTRANCE to the King of France, upon the Surrendering of the Maritime Ports of Flanders into the hands of the ENGLISH.  
Wherein, Much of the Private Transactions between CARDINAL MAZARIN and the late PROTECTOR OLIVER, are discovered.  
Translated out of FRENCH.  
LONDON, Printed in the Year, 1659.   

A Most Humble and Important REMONSTRANCE To The KING OF FRANCE. Upon the surrendering of the Maritime Ports of Flanders, into the hands of the English.  
SIR.  
WE bring unto Your Majesty the resentments of all France, or rather those of all the Catholic parts of Europe, which crieth for Justice upon the most Christian of Kings, for one of the Insupportablest, and most outrageous injuries, that haply the Church ever yet received since its nativity upon earth. Is it possible that under the Reign of Lewis the 14. the Altars should be overthrown upon the frontiers of France, which his glorious Predecessors, hath semented with their own proper blood in Palestine. Is it possible that the victorious Arms should not be employed but for to abolish and exterminate the Sacraments, which sanctifieth them? Is it possible that that Sacrifice should be crowned, wherein the blood of Henry the Great is Immolated to the fury of a Parricide, by the inhuman banishment of the King of England, driven out of the Kingdom by his orders; nay, that the shameful Sacrifice should be crowned by the profanation of the blood of Jesus Christ itself.  
Pardon, great Sir, the importunity of the subject, which constrains us to open our mouths. Those pathetic motions of a most bitter sorrow, are only encouraged by the Interest of your sacred Person, by the glory of your Crown, and by the zeal which we own to Religion. That so delicate tenderness, we have always had towards all that, which carries the sacred name of your Maj. can hardly justify to posterity, the respectful silence we have kept hitherto (contrary to all the Maxims, which in all times were received in France) upon the oppression of your people, upon so much injustice done to the public and the private, upon the infraction of all the ancient Laws of the Realm; and indeed Sir, our moderation would have changed into prevarication and impiety, if our tongues had not followed the motions of our heart, at the aspect of so many eminent places, I mean those abominable Idols, which hath almost obfuscated the light of our Churches, since they raise them upon the ruins of temples, which threatneth us with the cruelest rebellion, that ever crushed a Crown, and the most desperate Heresy, that ever yet attempted the dishonouring of the Church, and Christianisme.  
We doubt not, Sir, but if the providence of God, let this work fall into your hands, they will employ all the false colours (to render it black and odious to your Royal Judgement) wherewith, interested flattery serves itself in the Courts of great Princes, for to disguise the most important verities. They often condemn under the odious titles of Libels and Pamphlets the most necessary Remonstrances, especially at such times, as they consecrate under the specious pretexts of your Prince's service, such actions as are most disadvantageous to his State and Person; and those who formerly took the liberty to represent to their Kings of the first race, the extreme prejudice which their Sovereign Authority received by the misgovernment of the Stewards of their Palaces, were most severely punished as Rebels, nay, at such times, as those, who were upon the point of disthroning them, were recompensed as most faithful and obedient subjects. Sir, be pleased to judge of this piece, according to the nature of the matter it's made of. If it be true, that it is a collection only of detraction, and calumnies (as shall be represented to your Maj.) then suppress it with all the rigour, that Sovereign Authority oweth to the chastisement of presumptuous licentiousness. But if on the contrary, it does only purely and simply discourse of the mystery of iniquity, which they keep occult from the eyes of your Maj. and if it be not only true in all its parts, but also very important to the good of your service, and that of all your Realm, received as an inspiration from heaven, which having a regard of the purity of your intentions, setteth before you the precepts of your duty, by the groan of your people, rather than by advertisement, which God often sendeth to such Monarches, as contemneth his Law: We doubt not, Sir, but that your Maj. studies it with all the care possibly you can, and that in the frequent entertainments of piety, which are so usual to your Maj you do not strongly attach yourself to the Doctrine of the world, which teaches us, That one is not more obliged to know what his Duty is, than he is to do, so much as he knoweth of the same: This obligation is indispensible and common to all the world; and certainly Princes ought to make greater reflection upon it than others, being more exposed to the danger of being seduced by the fallacious Sophistry of Casuists, and the artificious intrigues of their Ministers then the common sort of men are.  
All Christendom, which admireth the greatness of your Virtues, hath not doubted but that in respect of what passed betwixt the Council of France and Cromwell of late years, the good inclinations of your Majesty were often forced by the pretended necessity of your State, and your fair twins of light often troubled at the Traitorous artifice of your Ministers.  
Sir, one cannot believe that your Majesty hath been ever informed of the miserable Estate of the Qu. of England your Aunt, who is least even in mendicity, only to please the cruel Assassinate of her Royal Spouse. One could not imagine, Sir, that the blood of the great Henry, which gives you your being, could so unnaturally abandon his daughter and her little Infants even at the indigency of bread, which never fails the most miserable: who can ever persuade himself that your royal Soul could ever have consented to the alienation, or rather proscription of the King of England, your Cousin German and your Ally? Is it any thing else, Sr, then the Phlebotomy of your own proper blood which a fortunate Politician draws, as if it were from your veins, to sacrifice it to the Panic terror of an Usurper? How, Sir, what imagination can figure such a thing as that the Monarch of France, Prince of the most warlike and most generous Nation in the Universe, could consent to such baseness, as to make the noblest Crown of the world stoop to the most Capricious Idol that ever yet carried favour with fortune.  
This false Protector of England takes a resolution to Consecrate his detestable Tyranny, by the pre-eminence he would have given his fantastical Government before the August Crown of the Lilies, and France fails not to obey his orders punctually. Her Pavilion which hath formerly triumphed over all the Nations of the world, which made the Saracens tremble, which brought terror into all the Seas, which notwithstanding the rude captivity of Francis the First, had never abated their courage before all the forces of Spain, yet this so glorious a Pavilion humbleth itself at the least signal of a Pirate, which commandeth the Bark of a Tyrant, the murderer of your Uncle.  
This Tyrant is not contented with all those marks of honour, which from the first foundation of our Monarchy was not granted to any other but him only; he pretends to more solid ones, he usurps and encroaches upon new France; and, as if he had not believed the advantages which he has upon your Crown to be established enough by a conquest, which the weakness of your Minister renders so easy to him, he strives to hold the honour of your Predecessors; he detracts from their Glory, he abates their Trophies, by renouncing that so Illustrious a right of so glorious a mark of their ancient Victories, of this Inviolable custom which forced the English to leave their Cannons as an eternal Monument of their defeat in the mouth of the River of Bourdeaux.  
It is, Sir, as if your Minister were of intelligence with him, to avenge the shame of the Bedfords and Talbots, he forceth you even by the advice of your Council to quit those famous prerogatives, which frameth always necessary reputation to great States, in those Treaties where you gain Nothing, where you lose Much, where you hazard All; where all things are sealed up with the August name of a Brother, which you give to a Soldier who hath no other Throne but the Scaffold, upon which he Massacred the Kindred of Henry the Great.  
This conduct, Sir, cannot without difficulty find credit in after ages; ours does your Majesty great injustice by its presence; neither is there that man who doth not resent with a great deal of regret, your Majesty being served by such blind and unfaithful Ministers, and that you should be led by the false optics of a feeble and ignorant Politician.  
There is no body condemns your Majesty; and all the world knoweth, that those temerities and abominations proceed from a mere stranger, contrary in all points to the holy intentions of your Maj. being surprised by the same artificers that hath often deceived the most circumspect Princes that ever were; being surprised, I say, by the same means, that made Solomon the wisest of Kings confess, that flattery and backbiting were the inevitable destruction of Princes; but adds immediately after, that God illuminates their hearts at the very instant of their strongest temptations.  
Behold, Sir, this is the moment, at which we ought more than ever, implore heaven for that illumination of your heart, since the iniquity of your minister is come to its height, and since the surrendering of the Sea Ports of Flanders to the English, can furnish with sufficient matter the most dangerous and pernicious temptations, that are capable to make trial of the piety of a most Christian King. We doubt not, Sir, but your Maj. hath shed tears of blood, when these precious pledges were given Heresy under your name; neither do we doubt but that to force your inclinations to an action of that nature, they were fain to employ all the Authority of the body politic, and of a more subtle cunningness, void of all sorts of religion. You have assuredly shaked and trembled both for the fear and anger, at the first proposition of so fatal a blow given to the Holy Catholic faith; and when you have represented to yourself her Altar demolished, her Temples profaned, her mysteries violated, without doubt the blood of S. Lewis bestirred itself within your entrails at the sight of such spectacles, as would certainly have strucken horror into the heart of the most obstinate Miscreant. But they overcame all the difficulties, Sir, by those reasons by which they commonly give the reasons of the State, and because they might have some pretext, not to discover the frailties and ruinous foundation with which they propped them, they allege such Maxims unto your Maj. as have no kind of reason with that which passeth to day in the world; and I am sure they have not failed to employ all the colours that can cover and disguise an action of this nature. But God, Sir, obligeth your Majesty to mingle them together, and weigh them in the scales of Reason, which can justly balance this question; and I shall endeavour to expound it to your Maj. with all the candour that the subject I treat of requireth of me; and I hope to make it clearly known to you that the Council of your Minister upon this point, is and was both insupportable and insustentable by all divine and humane reasons. The most licentious and abandoned Theology, nay, that is most inservient to the maxims of Machiavelli, can neither maintain nor justify the surrendering of the Ports of Flanders into the hands of the English, but by the appearance only of a necessity of State, whereby they endeavour to shuffle up this shameful action, which is like to suppress utterly our holy Faith, even in one of the most Catholic Countries in the world, and the most profound and artificialest Politician that is, cannot defend a Resolution that doth so powerfully establish on this side the Sea the most redoubtable and most ancient enemy of our Crown, unless it be by the false colours he might borrow from the imaginary health of your State. There is not that Casuist so prostitute in the world, no nor that Courtesan upon the earth so far lost, that can justify this action by any other reasons, then by such as are drawn (at least according to their discourse) from the preservation of your Kingdom: and of this point, Sir, which can receive no difficulty, we conclude, That to judge wholesomely of the question now in hand, we are only to consider. Whether it is necessary or no? which we must sound to the bottom, and let your Maj. know. That the compliance they have had upon this occasion with the English, was not only inutile to the good of your service, but also most disadvantageous to your Crown, and that in all the circumstances that can condemn an imprudent and blind Resolution.  
We doubt not, Sir, but they represent unto your Maj. the great advantage you receive by those succours England sends to your Army, and that to induce your Maj. to follow those suggestions they would have inspired into your heart upon this subject; they do also represent the English with their swords in their hands, standing also upon the pretended patrimony of their fathers. They have also made your Maj. apprehend the great danger of the Protectors combining with the Spaniard, and they have certainly so insinuated into your mind as to render this new alliance very plausibly unto you: And all that couldmake the rapture thereof seem offensive to your State. But we are fident, Sir, that they have omitted more than half the considerations they should have made upon this subject, and that they have acted after the manner of them who deceiveth the sight by taking away one half of the day from the objects they would have shown; and that your Minister keeps from your knowledge the most solid, and the most important part of your interest.  
We cannot deny, but that your Maj. had a great deal of Reason to wish the falling out betwixt Spain and England, but we maintain you had none at all to buy the Rupture at the price of a public Scandal, which eclipseth the glory of your Reign by such unparallelled baseness, which obscureth the splendour of your Renown, by such ties as makes you lose your ancient Allies, by such unnecessary condescensions which makes the Protector of England Protector of the Hugonots in France, by the unbridled licentiousness which made them build more than forty Temples since the death of the late King your Father of Sacred Memory; and by the giving up of those places which gives the entry in the nearest places to your Capital City, to the ancientest and mortalest enemy of your State.  
Sir, If all the forces of the Empire and Spain were triumphing in the midst of your Provinces, if our fields were covered with the multitude of their Legions; if all Europe had conspired against the Lilies, we should never have looked for any succour from England, and if we had, certainly we should have shed tears of blood to be reduced to so great a strait, as to seek for consolation in the infidelity of Rebels, who would never have granted us any, but to our destruction. And we do firmly believe, Sir, that we shall never be brought to such Extremities, as might make our interests depend from the good will of such people as have principles so directly opposite to ours. The Divine Providence, which so diffusively spreads its benediction upon the Piety and Valour of your Majesty, hath ordained far more auspiciously the events of your happy destiny, still Victorious over the indiscreet follies of your Minister, shall more and more mark your days with continual Victories.  
But, Sir, Is this to answer those blessings of heaven? Is this to be sensible of the glory of your Reign? Is this to know the advantages of your Victories, to end them with the loss of your Conquests, with the surrendering of Mardike, and those other preambles to the Siege of Dunkirk, which they forced out of your hands even with terrible menances? You exhaust your Treasures, you ransom your Subjects, you expose all your Nobility, all your Army is endangered every day; they fight against the element, they combat with the Rigour of the season, and all those struggle more then humane, hath no other motive, but the surrendering of the Key of Flanders unto a Nation which in two hundred years could not comfort themselves of the loss of that of France, in being deprived of Callais.  
Sir, whosoever would had seen that which is done to day upon the Frontier of France drawn in a Table, he would certainly have considered it as a Capricious fancy of a Painter, who would have taken pleasure to play with his own imaginations; or rather of a description of a Masquerade, where those who enter the Lists do only make their Swords glister for the divertisement of the beholders. If one would have shown on the one part those vast fields of Dunkirk covered with Battalions; and on the other part that little Territory of Mardike covered only with fourteen or fifteen hundred men, which looketh upon the motions of the others with their hands hanging lose by their sides; should not one have greater reason to believe that the later were Senators of old Rome, who would for their own pleasure and recreation, cause an Army of Gladiators, and slaves to fight before them; than to imagine that this great multitude were composed of free borne-men, who with all their hearts sacrificeth their lives and fortunes for the conservation and glory of this handful of people? We see the remnant of 4000 men flying up and down the banks or dunes of Flanders only for the service of 2 or 3000. Goviats or Crackropes, which England sent in this small number. We see them daily continue those sad engines, and projects of this bloody spectacle wherewith they make account to feed the greedy eyes of Cromwell towards the beginning of the next Campain; we see that this false Prophet beholdeth from the top of the Tower of London all those combats, where all the blood that is spilt whether Spanish or French, is drawn as if it were in a sacrifice, which we ourselves do offer to his illusions. And which is more deplorable in these transactions, it seems we are not contented to subject this age wherein we live, to the will of this tyrant, but that we do also affect to enslave our posterity to the English servitude by surrendering those places so famous and so considerable in the world.  
Those places are so considerable, Sir, that France could not endure they should remain in the power of Spain, whose Naval forces are well known to be nothing dreadful to your Maj. and your Minister is pleased to deliver them unto England which is already Mistress of all the Seas; and who doth only consider them as the first step or degree upon which they will hereafter mount up the bastions of Calais; if the weakness of your Minister doth not prevent them by opening the gates by virtue of a treaty. But, Sir. We humbly supplicate unto you, that you would be pleased not to receive this which we now offer unto your Maj. as any spiteful exaggeration carried on by the wings of malice: It being evident, that there is not so long a way between Dunkirk and Calais, as there is between London and Dunkirk. The Protector who makes the Pavilion of France humble itself before him, (which neither the Henry's nor the Edwards could ever have done) cannot behold with a good eye those places in the hands of the French, which the aforesaid Kings of England had enjoyed in your Kingdom, wherein he keepeth by his Intelligence a party which those Kings had not.  
And without doubt, Sir, he exasperates daily that Ulcer which knaweth incessantly our own entrails within us; and the interest he assumes in the sylliest creature, that belongeth to those of the reformed Religion, proveth pregnantly, that Mardike and Dunki●k are not the bounds he puts to his designs: God grant. Sir, that when this Daemon of ambition is once established in the main Continent by your Maj. own forces, which gives him more advantages against yourself than he could have hoped for, in thirty years of open War against your Crown, That after he hath made parties of his own within your Kingdom, through the connivance or at least the ignorance of your Minister, who doth even Idolatrize him; God grant, I say, Sir, that he doth not convert all his forces against France itself, which is without contradiction the object, which is most natural and obvious to his desires. God grant, Sir, that those places which we buy for him to day at the price of our blood, of our goods of our Honour, and of our consciences, be not in a short time the Magazines and Arsenals, that shall furnish out the ammunition destined to batter down ours. God grant that those places be not the refuges of those Vessels, which may hereafter block up our Havens. God grant that the influence Dunkirk has, does not make itself sensible, even unto our residences.  
Sir. The most infallible Maxim for to judge wholesomely of the actions of men, is to examine their interests, which commonly are the Rules they prescribe to their actions, and the delicatest Politician doth not absolutely reject the conjectures which might be drawn from their passions, being often mingled together and running almost insensibly into those powers, which gives motion to the most important affairs.  
Those that are persuaded, that, as he had not fallen out with the Catholic King, but through rage and choler, which made him arrest all his Ships, and commit such insupportable Robberies upon the coast of Spain, are also of this opinion, which hath also great deal of likelihood, as well in respect of Cromwell, as other Politics; it being very credible, that the Furies wherewith he is agitated, doth often occupy that place in his spirit, which was destiny'd to the pure lights of reason.  
Sir, After what manner soever we manage our Judgement upon this matter, it is impossible for to divide it between the Protectors interests and his passions; and at whatsoever time we consider both the one and the other, we find them in a perfect harmony, to conspire against our greatness: neither can we think the seeming union that is betwixt your Crown and England for the present, to be any thing else, but a Captious Truce, which the Interest of the Protector hath violently extorted from his inclinations, hoping to be better able to follow them, after that the inveiglement of your Minister shall have done forging, the most dangerous arms that can be employed against your Crown and Kingdom.  
It is in this Kingdom, Sir, where besides other States which have but indirect alliances with the House of England, that he seethe at every instant the Manes or Ghost of Henry the great threaten the Parricide of his Son in Law; it is in this Kingdom that he beholdeth Reigning so gloriously that blood which is confounded and mixed by many strait alliances with that which he had so barbarously spilt upon the Scaffold of Whitehall. It is in this Kingdom that he seethe already formed in the noble minds of the French, those lightnings and tempests with which they shall hereafter chastise his criminal head, after that the providence of God shall through the loss of your Minister, purify their generous inclinations, so naturally devoted to Monarchy; the furies which always agitateth Parricides, impoisoneth daily the ulcerated and cankerous soul of this Tyrant, by the fear of the indignation which he cannot escape but in appearance only, by the diffidence he hath in your promises, which he seethe to be forced from your inclinations by the hatred of your blood which he hath so outrageously injured; he knoweth too well that a Minister, which is capable to put into his hands that, which he durst not pretend unto with all the force of his arms, is a Minister, which nature doth not produce in all times, and in all ages. He cannot expect to find in an alteration which might happen (God knows when) in your Council, those faculties he hath met with in a blind and stupid Minister, whose ignorance he improveth so well that he would willingly prevent those ordinary resolutions in France, which perhaps in time would oppose the most rigorous and most subtle spirits; he would make use of that imbecility to conquer our Country, which serves him now to deceive it; and all these considerations joined together will undoubtedly represent themselves to his mind, and reduce him peradventure to his own natural Genius, which induced him to make war upon us by the space of four years, with insuppor-table Piracies, without ever deigning to denounce any against us, as if he were minded to add that disdain, (to which we daily expose ourselves) to the other damages which we sustain in the ruin of our commerce, that Genius which though obliged by so solemn a Treaty, yet hinders him not upon all occasions, fromtreating us rather like slaves than allies; that Genius which is so fortified by a particular interest, always inseparable from such avaritions souls as his, nay, by those rapines and outrageous Extortions which he can commit every hour in the sight of our Ports, which are so near his and without comparison, more commodious, more considerable and more profitable to him then all the advantages he can derive from the far research of the Fleet of Spain, which one may say to be as uncertain as their course is in the vast extension of the Ocean. Those projects which came to nothing in the Indies, but to his own confusion, doth certainly, turn his restless and ambitious imaginations to other parts nearer home, and which are more exposed to his Tyranny. He feeds his soul with those Soaring Ideas of the ancient Britain's, which seems not to him so impossible as their examples; and without doubt, when he considers that the first of his Conquests costs him but so little pains he soothes up his ambitious thoughts, which Ferries him over our Seas, and represents unto him one time Guienne revolted under his Standarts. and another time he fancyeth Normandy reduced under his Laws.  
But we hope, Sir, that God Almighty will limit those vast designs by some extraordinary effect of his mercy upon poor England, now Tyrannised and oppressed; and that by a mighty stroke of his Justice, he will no longer suffer this Tyrant to usurp the Lawful Inheritance of that August Prince who is Cousin German to your Maj. and who does so perfectly answer, by his merits, the Proximity of blood that is betwixt your Majesties.  
In that case, Sir, what advantage shall France find in the necessity they have reduced the King of England to, in Allying himself so straight with the King of Spain? In that case, Sir, may not we with great deal of reason complain of the little forecast of your Minister, who by a very peculiar address against your Interest, should join the most redoubtable puissance of the Sea, with the considerablest forces of the Land that is in the world? In that case, Sir, should not we with great deal of judgement apprehend from a Lawful King justly incensed that power which makes us now tremble, being in the hands of an usurper whom we so often oblige, and so observantly respect? In that case, Sir, the same policy which yields up Dunkirk to the Changeling power of a Tyrant, raised only by the uncertain motions of a blind and capricious fortune, shall not refuse Callais to the sovereign authority of a Lawful Monarch, when his auspicious destiny shall consolidate both his Throne and Glory. Should we not judge, Sir, that as the hand of God is not yet seen over the crimes of Cromwell, so do they weaken the weight of these considerations, and according, the ordinary maxim of your principal Minister, who is not accused of too much providence, they give no other answer to this kind of reasoning, but that we most conform ourselves to the Times, and take new parties according to new Conjunctures. But we must humbly beg of your Maj. to make a more serious reflection upon this State, that this straight and inviolable Alliance hath put all Europe in; and we doubt not but without expecting any revolution in England, or alteration in Cromwel's party, you will easily find out the extreme prejudice which this desperate peace hath done to your Interests.  
Can your Majesty persuade itself, that the States of the United Provinces hath not conceived an Extraordinary Jealousy at this near neighbourhood of the English? Or can your Majesty believe that this Republic, the wisest that is in the Universe, doth not extremely repine at the surrendering of those Seaports of Flanders unto the only Nation of the world, which contend with them for the Empire of the Seas? Hath not your Maj. reason to apprehend, that those faithful places which acknowledged with so much fidelity, valour and wisdom the obligations they have owed unto your Crown, are not now touched to the very quick, by the participation which you make of the most considerable places of the low Countries, to such people as have scarce yet sheathed the Swords, which but a little before they so injuriously drew against the Hollanders? Can your Maj. doubt but those prudent and Sage Politics are well informed, that the Imbargo of their Vessels, the interruption of their Commerce so advantageous both to France and their State, the false complaints of their Ambassador and Vice Admiral were only practices concerted betwixt your Minister and Cromwell, for to reduce those brave defenders of their Liberties, to be slaves to the fantastical-Capricio of England? Can your Maj. doubt but those interests, so visible and sensible to the States of Holland, are not powerfully animated by the recognizance which they own by so many solemn Treaties to the House of Orange; and that this recognizance does also wait upon the famous Ghosts of the Williams, of the frederick's, and of the Maurices, who all conjure your Maj. by those inviolable ties they have had with your Crown, not to concur to the destruction of that Royal House, which honoured theirs with a Princess of as great Virtue as Birth?  
☞ Can your Maj be ignorant of the difference there is betwixt England a Republic, and England a Monarchy; that one may consider Great Britain under a King, as a very considerable Country in Europe; but that it might be looked upon under a Senate, which assumed such a form, as makes itself Formidable to all the Earth? And that this Consideration makes, That no Prince in Christendom will join with your Interest, so long as you contribute to the Establishment of a Republic, which from the very first instant of its birth, embraceth both the one and the other Hemisphere, and, as it were, in a bravery defieth the Universe.  
We have reason to suspect, that Admiral Opdam had not with so much violence molested the Coasts of Portugal, had not Holland been disturbed in her own Frontier Neighbourhood by the English. We have subject to fear that the attempts under hand which Cromwell made upon the Zound, were the true and real motives that made the States and Denmark join with Spain; we fear that your Maj. loseth all your most faithful and affectionate Allies, who confederate themselves openly by reason of your Minister's compliance and submission to their sworn Enemies and Heretics, who are preferred before the most Ancient, the most Sacred, and the most Inviolable Alliances of you Crown. The Holy See is manifestly injured by those actions, which make Heresy triumph in the midst of her Churches; we put ourselves in the sittest condition to receive the just marks of her Indignation upon a matter of so criminal a Nature, as is able to pour thunder upon our heads; we provoke her every day more and more, by such circumstances as are indeed very worthy the Patriarch of frantics.  
We lose all our reputation among the Catholic Party, we purchase none amongst that of the Potestant, whose greatest body abhors the Protectors ridiculous Illusions; and all the fruit of our prostitution is but to confound ourselves with the Independents, that is to say, The sworn enemies of all Crowns and Religions.  
Cast your eyes, great Prince, upon your true and solid Interest, and discern with that fair light heaven hath given your Majesty, that which is your real service from the imaginary Interest, or rather, the ill understood Policy of your favourite, who by a Monstrous Prodigy, which posterity shall hardly believe of your Maj. hath of that Princely pre-eminence (hitherto always inviolable) Established upon the Frontiers of your Kingdom a Modern Attila, the Parricide of Royalty; who is so blind as to permit a formidable party to form itself in the middle of your State? Who in the midst of your Triumphs abandons that which wisdom would not permit to forego, after the loss of four Battles, and can give no colour to this pernicious conduct, but the inconvenience of a War, whose bad success could never be more dangerous than the remedy he hath applied; I mean, that cursed remedy, or rather that fatal poison with which he hath broke the Munster peace so glorious, and so advantageous to your Maj. hath spread so prodigally upon that ardent fuel which consumes all Europe, to the end he might eternize the conflagration thereof.  
Here it is, Sir, that we find ourselves put on by the pure and holy motions of truth, which opens our mouths, animates our tongues, and stirs up our hearts to discover to your Maj. the grand mystery of iniquity; that mystery which is drawn from the bottom of hell: this is the mystery whereof the cruel Daemon of War hath made Cromwell depofitary, and another man too Sir, which the respect we own to our Maj. will hardly let us name; we would if we could possibly turn it off from the heads of some of those that have the Honour to come near the most Christian of Kings; but alas! Sir, despair hath overcome the tenderness of our desires, one may still suffer with patience that hath some hopes left him, and there is no affliction so great but might be qualified, if one had some hopes, (though never so long to come) to see an end of them.  
But, Sir, there can be no such hopes in our misfortune, Europe is now condemned to all eternity to endure War and misery; the Seaports of Flanders have consumed the fatal negotiation of Munster; and if it be just that the same hand that broke the peace should perpetuate the War; how can Spain ever consent to a treaty without Restitution of those places which were wont to supply Brussels, or how can Cromwell condescend to a Restitution, which might advance the general peace, the greatest block in the way of his fortune: Who could ever have believed that after 27. years of open War, France could be so unhappy as to put the general peace into his hands, who of all men hath the truest interest to break it; we say the truest, Sir, to distinguish his from that of others, who certainly have but an imaginary one in the rapture of it, (but on whom to the great disturbance of the Christian world) imagination hath as much influence in this point as real truth.  
It is in this place that we find ourselves obliged to name more particularly than we have hither to done my Ld Cardi. Mazarine, being constrained by our subject to discover to your Maj the true motions that had engaged him to an action, which one might very well call the sepulture or quick burying of the general peace: Mr. the Cardinal Mazarin, who had not timely enough given him the nourishment, that is necessary for a politician imagined in his infancy; that the chief quality of an able man was never to do any good, and to that this natural inelination of his own he adds some Lecture of Machiavelli where he learned this doctrine, that tumult and confusion are two things always  to such authorities as do not subsist of themselves; besides all this he got some kind of habitude of Cardinal Richlieu, who was naturally of an unquiet spirit, and in all these different Schools, he acquired certain general Maxims of Policy, and having neither well expounded them, nor understood them according to their genivine sense, he dresses himself so disorderly in an apparel that was never made for him, and in this confusion frameth an extravagant Idea, which persuades him that to be a great Minister he must mar all, never make peace, but turn the world upside down; his Essays would have outgone the Master piece of another, since 'twas no less than the rapture of the great and glorious peace of Munster, which certainly would have been more advantageous to your Maj. then 30. years of War crowned with continual Victories; but as Card. Mazarin carried himself in this transaction, in a manner that was very little disguised, and was very fair from all dissimulation, he soon after perceived the indignation, and displeasure of the people, who exclaimed against him with a great deal of rage and fury, for the fault he committed in procuring a Treaty, whose good success was not indeed in his power to obstruct, had he not by a public Declaration manifested his aversion to the same, and this taught him since, that as an able Merchant will not forget any measure necessary for the weighing of his ware; so does not he omit any thing to further his designs of War, and suppress those that might make for peace. Your Minister runs with so much precipitation to disturb the public tranquillity, that his promptitude being joined with his natural incapacity, doth not permit him to consider what the event might be: He remembers the late Card. Richlieu had opposed the Arms of Gustavus Adolphus, by which puissant diversion the House of Austria being loaded with the spoils of the Protestant and puft up with Till ye's Victories, threatened the designs of the late King your Father. Cardinal Mazarine who never applies general examples to particular conjunctures, derives his succour from the North, at such times as Germany scarce yet breathing under the burden of her miseries and sufferings; and forceth this dread●u● and warlike Nation to put on their Harness, which is to be feared they'll not put off again so soon as could be wished for your services good.  
What shall become of this grand State trick, Sir? the Reunion of the King of Hungary, Poland, Denmark, the Elector of Saxony, and Brandenburg, and the States of Holland, together with the perpetual continuation of the Emperor in the House of Austria, which one King of Swedeland pvissantly armed upon their frontiers, would have balanced for a long time, and the uniform consent of the Germans (as it was to be supposed) at the combustion they would have made in their Country; Charity teacheth us not to ascribe all this to the ill intentions of Cardinal Mazarine, but leave something to be imputed to the little light he hath to discern the times.  
But we cannot, unless we grant that if he had not foreseen the unhappy events of his own erterprises, he comforts himself when he considers it hath given some advantage to the House of Austria, which doth nothing please him, yet hath it in respect of the general peace produced main obstructions which are infimtely pleasing to him; we have the same thoughts of his conduct in Italy where we plainly see he hath animated Monsr de Modena, which discontents by such unconscionable practices, as do now exhaust the purest blood and silver in France.  
What shall become of those famous projects, the possession of those places where they raise as many sieges, as they lay before others; the aversion of all neighbouring Princes estranged from us by the jealousy they have of so unequal a treaty made with the Duke of Modena, and exasperated by Monsr. de Mantua now siding with your enemies: The loss of Gazal which brings so much advantage to Spain, as they durst never pretend unto, if your Minister had not withal possible care, endeavoured to p●t the affairs of your Maj. (by a continual confusion) in such a condition as is odious to all Italy; the acquisition of Montfenr●t to the House of Austria which formerly raised all Christendom against it, is notwithstanding now received as a mostipleasing news to all Princes.  
We believe that Monsr. the Cardinal had not altogether foreseen the fair effects of his own policy; but we are persuaded the extreme sorrow he conceived at the ill success of one of his designs, to wit, Monsr. de Modona's triumph, is much mitigated by the satisfaction he finds in those obstacles which his confusions, (though not answering the expectation of his project) hath occasioned to the General peace. And that which lets us see we are not deceived in this point, is, that as soon as he perceived those ill successes which frustrated his hope, diminish in some sort, the strength of those obstacle; which his malice employed against there-union of the two Crowns; he embraces with unspeakable eagerness his fatal means of their disunion, forlever he precipitates with such impetuosity to the surrendering the Maritime Ports of Flanders, that is to say, an action so manifestly prejudicial to your Maj. service, that one can never suspect his ignorance to have any share in this Treachery, but that we must impute it entirely to his malice, which would have given this mortal wound to the common prace of Christendom.  
One cannot, Sir, impute this shameful resolution to any other cause but to his inveterate malice, which made us fight under the Banners of the Protector of England, and which hath now forced us to end that field which had cost us such immense sums of money, only to make a chain that might enslave us to this Tyrant.  
It is now, Sir, more than 27 years, that I do not know what slight, and almost frivolous interest, had made all the earth shake and tremble by such an impetuous motion, as (if we had believed your Minister) all the men of the world could not resist; and yet in the very first year of your unhappy Alliance with England, they deliver to Cromwell (more likely as a Homage, then by virtue of a Treaty) a Country far more considerable than all the places that had been the occasion of the breach between the two Crowns. Thus we buy an Everlasting War at a price at which one might have been ashamed to purchase the most necessary peace.  
France had formerly (even by the acknowledgement of your minister) preferred the continuation of the miseries of all Europe, before it would have left the fortifications of Nancy in the hands of the Duke of Lorraine; nay, we have proffered to run the hazard of all immaginable revolutions (which are too contingent to great erterprises) rather than leave one good place to a Petty Prince, even worn out by the process of his own misfortunes. And we do now a days abandon such Ports as are, without contradiction, more important to a Commonwealth, which is far more redoubtable than the Duke of Lorraine; yet, with this difference, that in the restitution of Nancy we might have found peace with Spain; and in the surrendering of Dunkirk we have found War with all Europe.  
What disorder, Sir, or what confusion hath not your Minister brought to all the Nations of the world, by this fatal action? the hopes of Consolation, which always accompanies and qualifies the greatest misfortunes, is now taken away from us. His cruelty in revenging the detestation the French have of his government, and conduct of your Person, is not satisfied with a misfortune, which, together with other Nations, is common to them; but he endeavours to stifle in us, as much as he can, the liberty of desiring, which despair itself could never utterly extinguish in us. He disturbs the most sacred and inviolable of our holy Vows, and by a monstrous Prodigue, which Nature yet could never parallel, we find ourselves (even at this instant) in an incapacity of discharging the most essential of all our obligations.  
In how sad a condition, Sir, doth a French Catholic find himself in the Churches? and at the foot of the Altars must he implore the blessings of God upon the Armies of Spain, declared enemies of your Majesty; or must he seek the favours of heaven upon those of France, which a horrid and terrible blindness employs for the Establishing of Heresy. Which shall we behold more willingly, the Cross of Burgundy displayed on the top of our Bastions, or that of England (which doth so criminally degenerate from itself) triumphing upon Catholic Rampires? Which shall we fooner desire, Sir, the loss of our own Colours consecrated to Almighty God in the Churches of Brussels, or the Standarts of Castille, dedicated to Divils' in the Temples of London? What shall we wish for the ruin of your Armies animated by our own proper blood, before the Towns of Flanders, or the conquest of those places which is, without comparison, more prejudicial than their conservation? We feel in ourselves, Sir, we feel in our hearts a Combat of Religion against the State, and of the State against itself: Shall we run next Summer to the Siege of Dunkirk, then to that of Ostend, so to Newport, and all this to follow our Natural inclinations to obey our Prince? Or shall we stay at home, and implore the protection of God upon those places, which serve as much, at least, in the hands of the Spaniard, that they give the weakness of your Minister some means to satisfy Cromwell's ambition for a year; by some other way then the giving up of Call is and Bullin? shall we in the Winter prepare branches of Laurel to Crown the sacred head of our Prince the next spring or shall we draw into a solittude, to bewail a misfortune that makes them whither as soon as they are gathered?  
In how doleful Estate, Sir, and in how deplorable condition doth poor France find itself? at this very instant it seems she doth delight to spoil herself of all those glorious advantages, she had obtained over England in Ages past? it doth not suffice her now to efface the lustre of her ancient Victories by this servile and dependant War, which she make● under those Standarts, which she hath formerly with so much glory rend to pieces, but she must yet for the satisfaction of Cromwell, renounce the reputation she had acquired in the negotiations, and Treaties, they reckon, Sir, 600. years between the Crown of France, and that of England, since the unfortunate marriageof Alcenor of Guienne and those who make up this number, mark very judiciously that the English who were never-yet weary of contesting the glory of Arms with our Nation, were forced to yerld to them at least in points of Wisdom and Policy.  
But alas! Sir, this advantageous opinion which we could never cherish with two much care in the hearts of all people, is now Ravished and buried in this last fatal Treaty of London, now we make England amends for all the sorrow we caused her in former times, in defending ourselves so wisely from all her subtleties, & surprises; the sole negotiation of Cardinal Mazarin shall sufficiently revenge her to posterity of all those advantages we have gained upon her in more than 600 Treaties, and Cromwell's fierceness, Victorious over the imbecility of your Minister shall hereafter quite extinguish the glory of our ancient politicians: Open your eyes then Great King upon this fatal blindness, upon this horrible illusion, which rather obscures than stops those glorious exploits, which all Christendom exnects from your Royal Virtues.  
Open your eyes, great Prince, upon the loss of your Allies, which they drive ever with violence out of your interests, by the despair they are daily driven to by the apprehensions they have that your Minister will never put an end to the miseries of Europe. Open your eyes, great Prince, upon this mortal wound they have given to the general peace, which is the only object of the groans and tears of your people, which is assuredly the final end of your desires, and shall be the work of your Piety and Wisdom, if God be Exorable to the Prayers and wishes of all your most Faithful Subjects.  
FINIS.