WHen you did me the Honour to write me a Letter upon the occasion of some Votes passed in our House against the late Spea­ker, and others, I had then leave given me to retire into the Country for my Health: It was the Reason I could return you Thanks no sooner, for the Favour you put upon me to read your Thoughts upon the Affair handled by the Com­mons against such Members as had taken Mo­ney for expediting of Business. I do, Sir, na­turally run into all the Measures of good and unbiassed Men, for the Honour, Safety, and In­terest of my Country; which never more wan­ted good Example and Support than at this Day. I must likewise tell you, That I ever lo­ved Freedom and Ingenuity, and will not stick [Page 2]to give your Letter such a suitable Return as may be consistent with your own and its Character. I confess, when I read your two first Periods, I had some Difficulties to guess who might be the Author; but after I had proceeded mid-way in your historical and political Reflexions, it was no great trouble to find you out. So equal a Pace you tread in your admired way of writing, that it made me call to mind a frugal Gentle­man, once my Neighbour in the Country, who had the Art to fit a Servant of his own to so many Uses, that upon occasion you found the same Man a Gardener, Cook, Coach-man, and Barber, by turns. I must say, That in your learned Works now abroad in the World you use the same Repetitions in your Observators, Vin­dications, Inquiries, Answers to Declarations, Great Bastards Protectors to little ones, and in your Let­ters to your Friends: For had not the Letter you did me the Honour to write me exceeded the Bonds of your Ordinary Observators, I had taken it for granted you had began a fresh to your Politicks. I find you sustain sudden and ill disgested Thoughts, with so many Greek, La­tin, and French Transcripts, abundance whereof, according to your Custom, are but upon Hear­say, and stoln from some Gentlemens Conversa­tion, [Page 3]where you are said to intrude with a great deal of Impudence and ill Breeding.

You begin then, Sir, your first Flight with the amends the Parliament has made, in the re­search of the Blood-suckers of the Nation, for the Loss of an incomparable Queen; but that I may endeavor the better Answer, you will give me leave to inform you a little in our Constitu­tion, to which by Birth and Knowledge you may be a Stranger.

The House of Commons in England contains the Representatives of the People, originally cal­led to that Honour by the King's Rescript; they meet where it pleaseth his Majesty to appoint them, and are generally called either to give Mo­ney for the pressing Affairs of the Kingdom in War and Peace, or to give their Consent to the Establishment of wholesom Laws, or to humbly represent the Necessities of the People, and their Grievances, that thereby redress may be had or­derly, and according to Law. You know the House of Commons is no Judicatory, nor cannot do so much as can any ordinary Justice of Peace, Administer an Oath.

The House of Lords, Spiritual and Temporal, make up the other two Estates, and are a Court of Judicatory, when assembled together by the [Page 4]King's Order; they can determine finally in Le­gal Differences between Man and Man. And if Bribery should unhappily get footing in that House, the usual Punishment thereof ought na­turally to follow: But, at the same time, what is unhandsomly taken without the knowledge of a Peer by any of his Family, be it Wife, Son, Daughter, or Servant, it cannot be charged up­on himself as a Fault, if he have no accession to the Thing.

I should be heartily glad, and I think it would contribute both for the Honour and God of the Nation, That there might be an established and explained Law against all taking of Money in both Houses; to compass which, I think, it would be fit to go to the most necessary ways to reform a House of Commons. There be two radical Evils that ought to be remedied; the one is, The manner of Elections, where, besides all the usual Disorders and Debauche to excess, there Reigns a popular Partiality for the Richest or Profusest to run away with the Election up­on any occasion; and Vertue, which is gene­rally modest, to be neglected: But the greater is, Many Men of uneasy Circumstances do get into being Parliament-men, and keep there, as in a Sanctuary, to secure their Estates and Per­sons [Page 5]from just Debts: From which last Source (intolerable in a well-governed Nation) there is given a natural and necessary handle to take and retain what in Conscience ought to be paid; innumerable Families suffering by an abu­sed Constitution, so much famed, as being the Nations great Barricade against the Enemies of Liberty and Property, the darling of Mankind; and without which they must be uneasie and unhappy.

What our House has done in confining or ex­pelling two of its Members, to vindicate the Ho­nour of its illustrious Body, does not want Cen­sure and Obloquy from the most sensible part of the Nation, and Strangers, who know not to this day upon what Law the displeasure was founded. You seem satisfied to rally the Misfortune of two Gentlemen; and while you endavor to descend your Malice to Posterity, they have still a suffi­cient stock of Vertue to defend them.

It's true, you say, it will look but with an ill Grace beyond Sea, to hear of one of the English Parliaments sent to the Tower for Bribery; so great a Name for the most incorrupted Body of Men in all Christendom has the House of Commons of England ver born.

Believe me, Sir, as you do not seem Learned at home, so give me leave to conclude you Ig­norant of the abroad World; Strangers under­stand so little of our Constitution, that hardly any Foreigner has writ tolerable of the Forms or Power of our House; and to believe us an incorrupted Body, what greater Arguments can be taken against that than from your own Mouth? Who often have been heard to aver, That in former Reigns many Members of the House of Commons were Pensioners to King Charles the Second, and the French King; and that certain Sums of Money, so appointed, had been put at the Roots of Trees in St. James's Park, and other hidden Corners, where after­wards the Parliament-men went or sent to fetch them: But the Misfortune was, there was no search made into the Matter then.

Sir, I cannot enough admire why you are so hard upon Mr. G. It may be he has not paid you the Deference and Respect you expected of him; or has he incurred your Displeasure, as did unhappily once the Master of a Tavern, for neglecting to give you the first and lowest Bow; or, according to the manner of some other Gentlemen, who have taken upon the right Altitude of your Parts, has slighted your Com­pany [Page 7]and Person. There may be some Reason why you hate Sir J.T. he it was who gave you a soft Reprimand for an Indiscretion or Misde­meanor committed by you against the Com­mons of England, in your authentique Poli­ticks, called the new Observator; where you seem­ed quite of another Mind than you are at pre­sent. Here it is you cannot endure one Far­thing of Money designed for the Publick be put to any other Use; there you can dispense with a Million at a time, rather to be thrown in the Sea, than that the House should prosecute or find out who did purloin it.

In this ext Period you enter fairly upon your large and well-accommodating Field of Greek and Roman Histories and Examples: Here it is you bring in the unparalleled Antoninus, and his happy Reign, with a Prayer of your own, there may be no Ground for comparing the present England to the then depraved Rome. For my own part I go so far along with you, That I think we exceed Rome in all that's Corrupt, Dis­solute, and Confused; without even holding that small remainder of Vertue that stuck still to some of the Romans in the worst of Times.

The World is convinced how great a Master the King is of all heroick Vertue; and methinks [Page 8]you might have allowed him rather a Resem­blance to Julius Cesar than to Marcus Antoni­nus: For they both descended from noble An­cestors; they had both grea Enemies in their Youth, and first Age. Cesar had Sylla, and his Faction; King William had de Witt, and his: They both came into Britain with a foreign Force. Cesar came to remove Barbarity and to establish the Roman Law and Civility; his Ma­jesty came to vindicate and assert the Laws esta­blished; they both succeeded in their Underta­kings; they both entered the Island with a great Fleet; they both met with Misfortunes in their Fleets; they both returned to the Continent, having composed their Insulary Affairs; they both returned to make War against France. Cesar conquered and reduced it into the Form of a Pro­vince in the space of Ten years; his Majesty is now pretty well advanced in the Seventh years War: And, I hope, by it hath continued Ten years, or it may be shorter time, France shall be brought to be as easie to England, as Cesar made it to Rome. Both Generals were almost Forty years old when they began the career of their Fortunes; both Generals were born in a popular State, that had their Denomination from the Number Seven; Rome was built upon Seven Hills, and the united [Page 9]States are made up of Seven Provinces. Cesar was Consul, and Captain-General of the Roman Ar­mies; King William is Stadtholder and Captain-General of the States their Fleet, and Forces. Here, Sir, is much more Ground for a Parallel, than that of your cold-headed Philosopher Antoninus.

There are some Vices the illustrious Crimes of the antient Romans, such as Emulation, Ambition, and Thirst after Dominion.

Sir, As I cannot allow Emulation in Vertue a a Crime, so I find you ignorant of the Roman Antiquity, when you bing in Ambition and Thirst afer Dominion to have raised their first Empire. It was Valour, Parsimony, and great Honesty and Simplicity in their Manners and Actions, and an absolute Necessity of defending themselves, being Strangers, and Rome, from falling under the Power of her Neighbors. You give an Instance of Ignorance, when you call Rome a beggarly Village; that City, though it begun small, was never a Village. You ought to know the Occasion why Romulus killed his Brother Remus.

In the next Place you ascend for some Pages your Chariot of Triumph with the antient Ro­mans; as Cincinnatus, Attilus Regulus, and Pau­lus Aemilius: Here it is you have an infinite sub­lime [Page 10]and immortal Scope for your Pen; on these Pinacles it is you hang out your Ornaments, that serve you alike for all Holydays; out of these your Magazines do you take upon all Occasions Greek and Roman Weapons to ruin Yours, and the Enemies of the State, as you call them; for the which great and generous Undertaking you deserve at least a Statue for your self. Thus, Sir, after a long and tedious Journey through Cor­ruptions, and ancient Examples, you arrive in your noted and well-frequented Port, of Eng­land's All being at Stake, Liberty, Religion, Laws, and Property; and not only so, but the Fate of Christendom. And, in one Word, here your Elo­quence is employed in running through the whole popular Strain, in how far every one is engaged for the gneeral Weal of the Nation, that Corruption may be discouraged, and the publick Money employed according to the In­tention of the Givers; in all which England is beholden to you: Yet I must tell you, by the way, there was upon a time a very bad Man gave good Council in a popular State, and when it came to be debated whether it should be fol­lowed or not, it was allowed by all to be good Council; but that it would be ill receive by the People, because of the lame and narrow Re­putation [Page 11]of the Person who gave it, he being a very ill Man.

You seem to exert your Malice, and merce­nary Pen, at a time in that the whole Subject of your Pamphlet is only levelled at two or three Persons whose Vertue, Capacity, and Service to their Country, upon many Occasions, cannot be overthrown or defaced by your Calum­nies.

I thought the severe Checks you have so of­ten, and so justly met withal, might have pre­vailed with you to keep to your promise, to drop your Pen for good and all, being you were made sufficiently to understand your Incapacity and Inability to manage it: But there may be some Reasons have induced you to keep it still employ'd, as the renewing your prostrate and prostitute Flatteries to your Friends and Bene­factors; or perhaps after almost Three years silence, you will let the World know your late Improvement in ancient History, to which you were a Stranger.

But being we are about the matter of Cor­ruptions, there is, Sir, among many, one kind of Corruption lies particularly heavy upon your Vertue; and that is, the horrible Flatteries that are squander'd over all your Scriblings. I am [Page 12]confident that Antiquity never saw so many in­tolerable Persons set off with Praises due to Ver­tue, as have been since the last reflourishing of Letters in Europe; Vertue and Vice, Truth and Falshood, Justice and Injustice, are so ill distin­guished by mercenary Pens, That many good Men do almost wish the World had remained, as to some part, in Gothish Ignorance to this day.

It is a great Truth, That England has much, and it may be more than is necessary at Stake. The august House of Commons had framed, near the close of the last Sessions, such Resolutions as were truly fitted to the Interest and Honour of their Country; and I wish their next Meeting may perfect what was then happily begun, and then sufficient and well-grounded Matter will be given you to eternize that incorrupted and ho­nourable Body, by your well-fashion'd Pen, if you like the Subject better than that of Rai­ling.

You ask leave to do the Romans, Greeks; and Carthaginians Justice, assuring the World they embezled no publick Money, but kept it equal­ly Sacred with what they consecrated to the Ser­vice of their Gods. For the Carthaginians I can­not see any great Reason you have to undertake [Page 13]their Defence, being their History and Learning is lost, save what we have, in so far as they had to do with the Greeks and Romans in War or Treaty: But I am led to believe, That they were not a better sort of People than the States of Rome, or Greece; but that almost every Age among these two Nations had its Corruptions and Embezlements of publick and sacred Mo­ney, I am perswaded. To omit many among the Greeks, Do you remember what council Alciabiades gave to his Uncle Pericles, when he found him much taken up what way to render an Account to Athens for her publick Money? Did he not desire him rather to find out a way to make no accompt with them of that City at all? Do not you find that Pericles not only used the publick Money of Athens as he thought fit, but laid likewise hand upon the sacred Money reposited in that City by, for its better Security against barbarous hands? But his good Fortune, his Character, and the pliable Age he lived in, secured him. Do you remember why Aristides and Themistocles were banished. Scipio African the Elder was not free from the same Imputa­tion: But his Brother, the Asiatique Scipio, was highly Guilty. For the Romans robbing the Tem­ple of the Gods, there is nothing more infamous [Page 14]than Sylla's robbing the Confederate Temple at Delphi; Crassus robbed that of Hierapolis, and Pompey that of Jerusalem.

You say, and so do I, That upon Exigencies it's no Sacrilege to borrow from the Churches even their most sacred Ʋtensils; but you thank Heaven that we are under no such Hardship in this War. Fro my part I am glad that our Churches are reduced to the modest and primitive Form of Worship, and that our Altars have no super­fluous Ornaments to spare; but you ought to be perswaded of the Zeal of the Church for the publick Good, when having no store of treasu­red Money, nor Ornaments, she runs willingly into the Measures of giving chearfully every Year a Fifth part of her whole; which as it is but Duty, is still more in proportion than the Gallican Clergy grant, even his Year, to the French King, though they should continue so to the end of the War.

But that Mankind may be beholden to your illustrious Wit, and rare Genie, you are wil­ling to descend from your Greek and Roman Flights, and give us a Period or two purely your own.

You are plagued, you say, by your Neighbors in the Country with a thousand Questions about Mr. G. [Page 15]Sometimes they ask what great Things the Gen­tleman hath done for his Country, to deserve so pro­fitable a Place? They expect you should acquaint sthem with the Opposition he made to the violent Courses of the last Reigns; or of some Loss he su­stained by them. They enquire about his Behavior in the last Revolution, and what wonderful At­chievoments he has done to support the present Go­vernment. All which Questions, you being a Stran­ger to the Gentleman, desire me to answer, suppo­sing, as you say, I may know him.

Though, Sir, I may be as much a Stranger to him as your self, yet you having reduced a thousand Questions to two or three, I have ta­ken Pains in the Thing, and learned from im­partial Mouths, That Mr. G. is a Gentleman of very good Parts, and of a plentiful Estate, which you know sounds very well here in England: That he had Merit enough to bring him to so profitable a Place, if his good Fortune had been equal to have maintained him in it: That he made the same Oppositions to the violent Cour­ses in the last Reigns many other honest Gentle­men had done, who durst only regret what was not in their Power to help. As for his Beha­vior in the late Revolution, he fillowed the Mea­sures taken by all the sound and good part of [Page 16]the Nation; he took the Oaths chearfully to his Majesty, and was never accused for doing an unbecoming Thing to his Master.

And, Sir, had you known any worse Thing of him, I am bold to think you would not have given me the trouble of your Questions.

You are pleased to continue and bring in a witty Jest of your own; Where Mr, G. and Sir J. T. being the Subject matter of your Discourse, as seldom they fail to be; a Neighbor of your own, but no great Politician, you say, (if Honesty be the best Policy your Neighbor may be such a Politician as your self) to extenuate Mr. G. Fault was of Opi­nion, That the necessity of his Circumstances in ha­ving a numerous Family, or Daughters to Portion, might tempt him to take 200 Gnineas: And after a mighty Debate among your Country Statesmen, it was resolved by the Board, That nothing but the Circumstance mentioned by your Neighbor could ex­tenuate the Bribery. But you hap'ning to come in at the end of this wise Debate, found that skip­ping from one Thing to another the Company came at last to run down their Comrade, for imagining 200 Guineas a compotent Portion for a Daughter of Mr. G. But to bring off your Friend, though at the Expence of a piece of History, you were forced to tell them, That even in the height of the Ro­man [Page 17] Empire, such a Sum would have been esteem­ed a considerable Portion for the greatest and no­blest Senators of Rome to give with a Daughter: And that the Daughter of the Immortal Scipio Af­fricanus, ( a Man not much inferior to Mr. G.) was said to have had a great Portion given her by the Senate (for her Father had nothing to give her) though Master of the Spoils of Carthage, when it amounted but to 2000 Pieces of Brass-money, which comes far short of 200 Guineas of ours.

I have almost transcribed your Jest, being very well satisfied that it is purely your own: And I dare say you may freely enjoy it, without any one's disputing you the Honour to have been its Author. For after a dull and insipid Narration of you know not what, nor to what purpose, you are obliged to run back again to your Roman History to support you; such Me­thods and Pieces of ill told History may go down with your good-natured Friends in the Country, but they will not so in the City: For to say the Truth, you do not understand what you pretend to. Pray, Sir, who taught you that the Roman Empire was at the height in Scipio's Days? Did not he conclude a Piece, though up­on hard Terms, for the Charthaginians? Was not all France, Spain, Germany, Britain, Suisse, Illyricum, [Page 18]Dalmatia, Panonia, all higher Asia, and Egypt, then unsubdued? Which Provinces make almost Three parts of Four of all the Roman Empire. You do not seem to understand the Roman Mo­ney better than their History; for the 2000 Pieces of Brass given by the Senate to your im­mortal Scipio, the African's Daughter, they may arise to more than Four hundred Guineas; if you will consider that the Romans had Brass­money from the Value of our English Two-pence to a Noble: And it's like the Senate would not bestow it of the lowest Coin to the Daughter of so great a Father. Besides, Money was then of many times a higher Value than at present; and the Senate thought it a fit Portion for the Lady, whose Vertue according to her Sex did well deserve it, seeing it was nothing inferior to that of her Father. It would appear by you that there was a mortal and an immortal Scipio the African, for there was two of the Name; but that by a happiness peculiar to your self, you bestow the Actions of the one upon the other: For it was the mortal Scipio that over­turned Carthage, and who made himself Master of her Spoils; the immortal Scipio was only Master of the Spoils of Hannibal's Army, gain­ed at the Battle of Zama. But why the immor­tal [Page 19] Scipio? Have you not condemned that Epi­thet to be given to great Men in your other Libels? You ought upon occasion to allow your Friends the same Liberties you take, or give Rea­sons why they should not use them.

But you leave, you say, this ridiculous Digres­sion. Ridiculous enough in Conscience, and you had done much better not to have made it.

After which, the excellent and nice Observa­tion you make upon the proceedure of the House of Commons, in expelling their late Speaker, is worthy their publick Thanks; you have em­ployed your Pen no where more handsomly than by raising a just Admiration of the Candor, Pro­bity, Incorruption, Sedfastness, and Magnanimi­ty of the House in the Thing; you say, nothing can gain them a greater Reputation abroad. Though Sir, as I have already mentioned, Strangers are ignorant of our Constitutions, they are pretty well acquainted with our Manners and Charac­ter here in England: And the Nations abroad are generally versed in the Civil Law, and know what is to be said upon the Matter as well as we; for I presume there is no municipal Cu­stom that has defined the Fault charged upon the Speaker to be a Bribery: For future Ages it is hard to determine, but the Age we live in all [Page 20]the World over is nice in every Thing, (save Vertue) and it is good to be upon the strong Side in Calumnies, and to charge the weakest to our best Advantage.

Your next Flight is to the Rabinical and Jew­ish Learning; this is a new Thing, and just A­la-mode to your present Pamphlet. You say that none were admitted into that great Council who had the least stain upon his Reputation of Honour, nor was they allowed to ask a just Debt of a Man during his Sute before them.

Pray, Sir, was it allowed them by the Qua­lity of their Stations to refuse the Payment of just Debts to such as they owed them to? You give a Description of the Room they met in, and of their Rites; but neither the one nor the other resemble our House, and we are not for Innovations, but you will continue your imper­tient Digressions.

I am glad to find, by your next Period, that the House has hit so justly upon a middle way to please you in the manner of expelling their late Speaker: I shall make no further Question but with the two or three expelled Members all Corruption is put out of Doors, and am over­joyed to think that Antiquity cannot produce an Example among the Amphictions, Areopagites, [Page 21]nor in the most incorrupt Times of the Senates of Rome and Athens; where so great an Assem­by, not bounded by any positive Law, should purely from a Sense of Vertue be equally Ene­mies to all Corruption in taking of Money.

I cannot allow of the new Name you Ho­nour the House withal, in calling it an English Sanhedrim: For that neither the original Insti­tution of the one, nor the fundamental Consti­tution of the other, will bear it; nay, nor the Rabinical Description you have just now given. Besides, we English are fond of what's properly our own, and mortally hate Strangers; and it may be you may think, all Things considered, that we have just Reason to do so.

Your Indignation continues at a strange Rate against the Speaker; we know you owe him no Kindness, nor do you shew whole Affair, I find the Hardship, or rather just Mortification our House put upon you, was almost necessary at that time for your Reputation; your Observators sinking so much from day to day, That had not good Fortune sent you before us, purely for your want of Sense and Matter, in a Week or two more you must have dropt your Pen.

The Poet had Reason to exclaim against the sa­cred Hunger of God in the Times he lived in; but had he lived in ours, he had much more Rea­son to do so.

Know, Sir, that the Poet you mention did exclaim as much against the sacred Hunger of Gold in these as in those Days: For his Poem has no Relation to the Time he lived in; upon the contrary, it has regard to a matter of Fact before the Foundation of Rome. And is this the unfortunate Priam, seeing all his Affairs go to ruin, and most of his Sons killed in defence of their Country, did send one of those as yet alive to a neighbouring King and Confederate of Thrace, called Polymnester? Who seeing the Trojan Affairs decline did, according to the Practice of many bad Men, make his Advan­tage of a falling King and State; kill the poor Polidore, and possess himself of the great Trea­sure had been sent along with him. The Poets own Words do best express the Thing.

I go readily along with your Reflexion up­on the State of the Nation. That should unbias­sed Strangers come amongst us, and observe nar­rowly our Condition, and the Actings of many Per­sons in the Land, they should easily be led to be­lieve it upon point of Breaking.

There be but too many important Truths for that Supposition, and small Remedy provided against them.

In this Paragraph your Stock fails you, and forces you back for a fresh Supply to your own Country; whence you bring an Impostor, and put him in the same Period and Example with Solomon, withou your having any regard to Sense, or Coherence, in the matter you treat about.

Then you come to a civil, good natured, and mannerly Question; Whether these Men that take Money with both hands from their own Coun­try-men might not be tempted to the same from its Enemies? It is your own Opinion, You had ra­ther deal with a French than English Customer. (And who knows but you may do so?) There be, according to common Fame, as black Ar­ticles in the Legend of your Life, as is that; though bad enough: But you are in a Mistake to think it more allowable to sell Country [Page 24]and Liberty, and all what ought to be most dear to us, to our greatest Enemies, rather than to allow a present to be given at home betwixt Man and Man, in the necessary Commerce of Affairs, where no Law intervenes to define it to be a Fault. And I am astonished to hear you speak of the French King's having superfluous Cash; it is not long since you allowed that Na­tion hardly to have Bread, nor their King Mo­ney to entertain the War. It is an unhappy and unadvised Expression, after his Majesty has given us Assurance, by his Royal Word, that a Stop has been put to the Progress of their Arms, to make new Nerves of War spring up to them afresh. You continue to be uncharitable, and pursue your Revenge beyond the Boundary of Honour. You will not allow Gentlemen that have given repeated Instances of Fidelity, and and done upon occasion great and good Service to the Government, to retain Sentiments of Ver­tue and Justice to their Country, even in their Hearts and Wishes; and would have the World believe with you, That the want of Opportu­nity to better their Condition by Strangers, and by our and their Enemies, keeps them within the Limits of what they owe to and do for the Nation. Notwithstanding the last Clamour and [Page 25]Noise raised by their Enemies upon the Procee­dure of the House against them, it will not be easily in their Power to keep them under any Aspersion during their Lives, or to render their Memory ungrateful to their Country or Poste­rity: And it has no Relation to their Character, That he who can be bought for Money will go for the highest Price.

You are extreamly ill informed in a long Sto­ry of Intelligence you attribute to Monsieur Col­bert, which may give the World to know that you understand neither ancient nor modern Af­fairs aright: No Colbert had ever a hand in the Matter. But 'tis impossible your Stories should want Authors, you are so well qualified to find them out upon all Occasions.

You bring in a Regret, But alas! my Friend, when the love of Money gets the ascendant all other Passions and Interests must stoop to its sway.

That is a most certain Truth, and there be many ancient and modern Examples of that kind; and a defaming world has said, both in this and other a defaming World has said, both in this and other Places, That your self is not ex­empted from its powerful Charms. Many, and that with too much Reason, will allow your In­stance, from a betrayed Jugurtha, may be ap­plied [Page 26]to England. O! gentem venalem & quan­doque periturarp si emptorem haberet.

Sir, Had the House of Commons stood up­on Point of Honour so far as to have believed the Dignity of their Speaker, equal to that of a Roman Proconful, and used the Example you have brought from a Roman Province, as a Pre­cedent, and thereby acquitted the Speaker, and been of the Opinion, That so high a Dignity was not to be supposed capable to be corrupted for having re­ceived a Present; would you not then have em­ployed your Praise with as displayed an Elo­quence to have fitted that Turn, as you have done this of the Speaker's being expelled? I make it no question but you would have done so; you have your Pipe fitted to every Tune that will please the Multitude.

The Action of Manlius I cannot approve, though I love stedfast Justice; but that is not the alone vain-glorious Roman Instance. It had been enough for an unfortunate Father to have deli­vered his Son to Justice, and to have carried the Loss temperately upon his Execution. There are many Examples where an ill understood love to ones Country has made many Nations, and in particular the Tyrians, and Carthaginians their [Page 27]Descendants, immolate to their own Children, to attone their angry Deities they worshipped; and their Barbarity is so far preferable to the Romans, in that they did it in Honour tof a sup­posed Divinity, and the others for a vain Glory, and against Nature.

Your Transcripts from the Duke of Rohan, and Thucydides, I can bear: But what is your Reason to call Sparta a small State? Do you know that it was the first in all Greece, and obey­ed by all that famous Nation in the Persian War? Do you know its Boundaries, Revenue, or num­ber of Forces? Or do you call it little in re­gard of the Persian Empire? If the State of Sparta was little, Antiquity had nothing great.

At last you soar to your highest Pitch. In this Place it is you believe to do Justice to his Majesty's Reputation, and reflect as severely up­on the Vices of the English Nation. But let us examin with what Capacity you do the one, and the other. It is in vain, you say, for the King to have raised the Reputation of England in War to a greater Height than it has been since the beginning of this Century.

Though, for my own part, I think you have done the King neither Honour nor Justice, in confining him to the Century, (you ought in [Page 28]Reason to have carried him up to the great Henries and Edwards, nay, even to the Con­queror himself;) yet at the same time there is a Parcel of old Oliverians, and their Disciples, about Town, who, having met with your Let­ter, are stark mad. They say, That whatever Ignominy or Contempt you intend for the Race of your own Kings, you ought to remember what great Things had been done by Oliver at Sea and Land: As the Conquest of a great part of England, all Scotland and Ireland, Jamaica, and the important Town of Dunkirk. As for Sea Glory he had it, they say, Brim-full: For after he had beaten the Dutch he had no more any Rival upon the Water. They say, his Ac­tions were performed by English Force, and for not above one Million and a half per Annum at most.

It is in vain that his Majesty has acquired to us a Share in foreign Councils, which we either never had, or have utterly lost.

One of the two it must be: But I tell you we had formerly a Share in foreign Councils, during the greatest of our Wars with France; we had Interest, in so far as was fit for our Af­fairs, with the Emperors, Dukes of Burgundy, and Britaigne; and may be it is sometimes as [Page 29]safe and honourable for us to manage our Coun­cils by our selves, as to mingle them with those of designing Strangers; though at this Time it be most necessary during the present Situation of Affairs. You enlarge your Rhetorical in Vains, but I hope you will meet with a Disappointment, when, contrary to your Assertion, his Majesty shall find all the Satisfaction he proposes to him­self in heading a mighty Army upon the Con­tinent; when he shall have the Glory, and we the Advantage and Satisfaction, to see him bring low the only Monarch in Condition to hurt him and us; and by his own Example, and Chastisement of bad Men, put a Stop to Corruptions crept in among us.

In the following Period you seem to write Vainly, for you are not to be understood. What do you mean by our being Masters of a Sea to which we never pretended?

If to be Masters in the Mediterranean be to to have a large Share of the Land on both its Banks; to have good Harbours, Authority, or Command of the Flag; there is nothing less. We have not one Creek or Bay, from Hercules Pillars to St. Jean d'Acre, which is the whole streach. We have neither Solum, Caelum; nor Portus, in all that vast Gulf. And if you un­derstand [Page 30]by being Masters, that we have got the most powerful Fleet in the Mediterranean, there you are Right, but your Position is False: For Oliver Cromwel was in that Sense Master long ago, when he sent a Fleet against the African Corsairs; and to his Honour made them rede­liver not only all English but Christian Slaves; and then England, without the help of any Confederate, was so. But you bring us in ha­ving a Pretention there of late; have a care, Sir, what you say: His Catholique Majesty, and all States who conterminate that Share, will take it ill, if we should fix a Pretention to our Force; and perhaps deny us Ports, and send us back to the Ocean, where you say likewise we are Masters in vain. I take this your Position to be in some Sense true; though I could be satisfied you would likewise define what you un­derstand by the Ocean: Whether it be all Seas that are not Imbayed? Or whether it be only where we have a Right to the Flag? Before the War most Men allowed Holland it self, though inferior to England in marine Power, equal at least to France, and no body but together think they are Invincible, and the greatest Sea Force the World ever saw; and all happily under the command of so great a King. But by the way, [Page 31]If Force make us Masters in the Ocean, we are undoubtedly so; but if together with our Force we have a Pretention to a Superiority in our own Seas, and thereby a right to the Flag, then indeed it is in vain that we are Masters, while we are used like Fellow-Servants by the Danes and Suedes; both which Nations, in the space of eight Months, have braved our Flag not only in remoter Places, but in the View of our Royal Forts and Castles, even in the Downs: An Accident that has not happen'd within this Century, nor in the Seven last Reigns. But it is not to be thought that a King of so great Wisdom and Courage, as is King William, can easiy part with a Right of which this Nation is particularly fond, and whereof it has been im­memorially possessed.

I believe, Sir, the English Courage was ne­ver called in question in the time of profoun­dest Peace, and there are many Instances of it by Sea and Land even then. I allow us to be happy in being under the Conduct and Exam­ple of so great a King and Captain; and I hope as it is not in vain that we are restored to our Laws and Liberties, so I trust we shall never feel the Miseries of other Nations, though we [Page 32]are not exempted from some of our own, and those even great ones.

I shall not pursue your repeated Vanities any further; for if Vertue, Probity, and Love to our Country be wanting; and if the Founda­tion of our Happiness by Corruption and other inglorious Practices be sapped, we are in a fair way to be miserable. But I hope you will be kind to our falling Condition, and give us one Word of Comfort e're you end. His Majesty will certainly reap Triumphal Honour for his warlike Actions and Toil; and I am sorry that I must give way to your Prophetick Reproch in the Mouths of after Ages, That these Nations might have been happy but would not.

The World was once blest with an Epaminon­das.

Truly, Sir, I am assured it is not long since your self was blest with the Knowledge of that brave Greek; he might have passed with you for a King of Tartary since the Revolution. All the flourish of Epaminondas you bring in may serve as well for your next Pamphlet as for this: And why not his Cotemporary Pelopidas, who had some, nay a great Share, in that critical Glory of Thebes. And though you are pleased to say, [Page 33]That the glorious Actions of Epaminondas served only to render the Fall of Thebes more conspi­cuous, and less pitied; I am of Opinion that the Thebeans lost their Liberty with the greatest Honour: For their City did not out-live the Vertue of their Citizens, as did Sparta, Athens, Corinth, Argos, Massine; and even that Trium­phant Rome herself, fell a Prey to the base hands of barbarous Nations, after she had long out­lived the great Vertue and heroick Valour of so many Councellors and Captains; while small Thebes fell by a no less Person than the great Alexander; and in so Tragical a Manner, as every one may say, That there was more Re­venge than Honour in the Action, and more of Barbarian than Grecian. For the Thebeans having, after the Death of the common Enemy to Greece, and its Liberty, struck off the Mace­donian Yoke; the Athenians, upon the march of Alexander's Army, returned to their Slavery: But the magnanimous Thebeans stood it out; and though their Force was inferior to their Cou­rage, they did what was humanly possible for them in so great a Strait. In fine, their Force was beaten, the Citizens put to the Sword, or sold as Slaves: And while the Aged, and some Women, whom the Enemies Swords had spared, [Page 34]begged the unclement Conqueror, by the Me­mory of the good Education bestowed by their City upon his Father Philip, where he had been once Hostage in his Youth; and by the Me­mory of Hercules, to whom this City had given Life, and of whom the great Alexander himself descended, to spare at least their innocent Walls; the Intercession was in vain, slaughter raged every where, and Thebes was rased.

After you have gon over three Parts of the World to adorn your Pamphlet, and over all manner of History within your Knowledge, you cannot rest satisfied without a Voyage to the new World; where if you can find neither State, Kingdom, nor Philosopher, you will have it from a Vice-roy of Mexico: You might have saved Charges, and have staid at hom. It is an ordinary Saying, That the greatest Crimi­nals are safe at the Old Baily, and every where else in England, provided they have Money to buy themselves off.

Next, you bring in Cato and Solomon. The first was too good for the Age he lived in, and the other foresaw the Danger that attends a rigid Ver­tue in degenerated Times.

Your Sense is not easily understood; foresee relates to the Future, and your (that attends) [Page 35]to the Present. But I will not hit your Gram­matical Sores, I know you do not understand Grammar.

It were happy for a vertuous Man, according to your Opinion, to be lost in the Croud: If he comes to be known, he runs the Hazard of being un­done.

It may be thought, by your excellent Advice, that some preaching Philosopher is up in your Person; I am willing to unceil and disabuse the Multitude, and to tell them, That by all Cha­racters given, you hang out a fair Colour up­on as bad a Bulk as any. It is said, That some of your own Country being unwilling you should put the same Cheat upon us in this Place, as you have done at home, had framed the Hi­story of your obscure Birth and Life, with all its black Articles, attested by Men of Probity and Honour; and that some good-natured English Men had intreated, or bought off, the Edge of their Anger, upon your Application to them in the Thing: But that unhappily there is still an authentique preserved, to which they pretend to add a Second Part of your Trans­actions here in England. Where, besides In­gratitude, Disingenuity, and want of Integrity in all your Dealing, you are said to be Perjured [Page 36]back and fore; that is, Sir, both ways, in a late calumnious Suit stirred up by you against some honest Gentlemen. But seeing there is a pos­sibility you may amend your Errors, I will not open a Shrine to send your infected Manners over the World, being you are a Stranger to me; and what I write is only that Mankind may be aware of your Impostors, and Villanies.

But to come back with you to your new Friend Epicurus; that ancient Philosopher is but your late Acquaintance neither: And to say the truth, you cultivate your first Friendship very honourably with him; after your having ex­plained his Sentiment of Happiness, you are plea­sep to vindicate him from all Aspersions his Re­putation lies under from a calumnious and foul­mouth'd World. I must tell you though, there is one of the most eloquent and wise Men of all Greece you have taken upon your Top, who has writ a particular Treatise against your sensible Philosopher's Doctrine, and it were worth your while to peruse it. After all, I perceive your Friendship is not without some Self-interest; you have screwed from about him, though with very hard Labour, a very wandering and va­gabond Similitude, to make up another Sen­tence.

When Honour was the Reward of Vertue, it was more courted than now is Gold: and a Triumph or Statue at Rome, was infinitely more valued than all the Riches of the East.

Your Sublime, Infinite and Immortal, you are pleased to croud every where, are Words beyond common reach; and methinks enter with as much Decency and Order in your Ex­pressions as should do a Church-Steeple in every ordinary Dwelling-house. There have been Instances in all Ages, where there have been Men of Vertue; but I confess Rome has given more Examples than most other Cities. But it is a terrible Skip betwixt the most vertuous and high Time of Romes primitive Glory, and the Reign of Queen Elizabeth; betwixt your im­mortal Heroes, that affected a Triumph or Sta­tue above all the Gold in the East, and an ob­scure English 'Squire in 1588. If you was re­solved to burn Incense to any Friend or Bene­factor, in the City or Country, descended of that Tilbury Heroe, you had another Time and Place for it than this. Here it is you bring strange and little Gods to the Capitol without leave of the Senate: Was there never another English Man since the Creation, of bulk enough in Vertue to stand just next the Romans? What [Page 38]do you think of many English Kings? The brave Talbots, Father and Son, whom one of our ablest Pens do oppose to all Antiquity? And to whom the best of the French Historians now extant gives the Elogy in few Words; Talbot le plus brave de sa Nation & le plus zele pour sa Gloire. But as to our Gentleman, who only proposed to be Knighted; a Mark of Favour in those Days granted but to a few.

It would seem your Design, in this Period next, That to gratifie your Friend is to reflect upon the present easiness to confer and obtain Honours; and yet the Merit you pretend to is no Instance of that, being you have not as yet obtained any. But to deal curteously with you, seeing you are pleased to honour my Country­man's Loyalty and Fidelity, I will do the like for yours. They say, it is the Custom of your Land, when your King's Host (for so you call his Army) is in the Field, that upon the Occa­sion there be many Gentlemen who bring 800 or 1000 Men into the Service, and after with great Toil and Patience they have served out the Compaigne, return joyfully to their Wifes and Families, without looking for or expecting any Reward for their Fatigue and Danger, besides that Roman one, of having done their Duty to [Page 39]their King and Country. And upon the matter, I think your Country-men preferable to our own, only we are better used to Trade than you are, and love to have something for our Pains, was it never so little.

Your Passion and Regret of the Instability of human Greatness in the Person of the great Lord Chancellor Bacon, is good and tender in you; but there were other Grounds for his sad Fall besides a present of Plate Buttons taken by one of his Servants.

The Earl of Middlesex was no less unhappy, in being arraigned for Corruption and Bribery. These be Arguments of the Severity of Fortune, and Justice of the Nation at a Time; with the last of which I confess I am led along to believe, That besides the Honour that ought to rest in the Bosom of every Peer as a Judge of the Land, an accumulated Office of the highest Trust the Crown can give, is a Thing so tender, clean, and delicate of it self, that the smallest Tash ought to be expiated with that severe Chastisement Bribery does deserve.

Perhaps, you say, I will tell you, That those who gave our late Speaker the Gratuity mentioned in our Votes were to blame, and you think not.

After which, you bring in the most ungen­tlemanly and ill Similitude in the World. Give me leave, Sir, to say, I know not which rides the foremost Horse, your Malice or Ignorance? It is good to vindicate ones Friends, but that must be done by the way of Honour and Ju­stice; which last is only known by the Law in­terposed betwixt Man and Man, and is the Light the Nation walks by.

If a Man of that sordid Principle will not do you Justice without Money, you know not why you may not give it him.

Here is in this Sentence both a Mistake and Calumny. The Speaker of the House of Com­mons is no Judge, you can require nothing at his hand but dispatch, and that is pinned to so many various Accidents, That a Preference in point of Time is an extraordinary Favour in the uncertain sitting of a Parliament: And if a Mul­titude, or single Person, offer of their own ac­cord a Gratuity, a Speaker may take or leave it, if Law does not confine him.

Sordid Principle is no mannerly Expression. Than suffer by his Injustice.

Here is great Ignorance: Is not the Consti­tution of our House exactly known? Is the Spea­ker [Page 41]more than a Member of 513? Has he more than one Vote? Is not there a Door every where open to your Complaint, or Petition, or Dili­gence in your Affair, until it be finished?

Your general Reflexion against such as take Money is of a greater Extent than every one is aware of: You do not spare the Head of the Government, the King himself; notwithstand­ing his retriving you from Misery and Starving. For what Money is given by Act of Parliament towards the War, his Majesty cannot so much as apply honourably, or charitably, one Farthing otherwise, without your Anathema. And yet when a quite contrary Expression suited your own Interest, you were as much upon the King's Part in your Observator N. as now you are violent against him in this your Letter.

But let us look a little into your own Prac­tice, and find how well your Actions agree with your Precepts. You declare publickly against every Man's taking a Bribe, or Reward, for ser­ving honest Men in Acts of Justice: But how does that answer your having taken from several Gentlemen Presents, Bribes, and other Imple­ments? Nay, rather then fail, you have taken them to the small Value of 40 s. You know what in some measure chased you from Home, [Page 42]where you betrayed a young Lady contrary to the Oaths and other Obligations you lay under to her Father; which Action of it self is of force to lay you under a perpetual Stigma, and brand of Infamy. Neither can I let pass your immoral and ungentile Dealing with some Mer­chants, to whom you made Application, that they might lend you Threescore Guineas in your Necessity; and told them withal, That you had such Interest with their Majesties, and particu­larly the Queen, that you was sure to obtain any thing at Court: It fell out that the same Merchants had a Ship carried into St. Sebastian's by a Spanish Privateer, upon pretence of car­rying contreband Gounds; they proffered you the Money desired, if you should obtain a Letter to the English Envoy at Madrid to cause Re­lease the Ship; you undertook the Matter (as you usually do with all the Impudence in the World) but having neither the Interest nor good Sense to manage it, you gave them a Letter quite contrary to what their Affair required. And though it had been stipulated by you to return the Money in default of obtaining their Suit, you have hitherto fraudulently retained the same, it being not in their Power to obtain it of you by the ways of either Honour or Ju­stice, [Page 43]though they would gladly give a Part to save the Whole: And is not this, Sir, both to rob and defraud with a Witness?

If one, you say, be possessed of a Thousand Pounds of your Money, whom neither Law nor Honour can oblige to restore you it, you will rather give a Hun­dred Pounds than lose all. He is a Knave to keep your Money, but you may treat him as a Robber on the High-way; give a Part to save the Whole.

Here is a Supposition wherein is neither Sense, Reason, good Manners, nor Similitude. The Speaker was possessed of no part of the Or­phans Money, and no Restitution could be de­manded of him in any manner of way. If the Argument was betwixt you, and the Squanderers of that Money, you had Reason to take rather one Shilling in the Pound than lose all: Neither is their any civil Country where the Law will not restore you, if the Debtor be solvent, or deli­ver you his Person. If insolvent, he is a Knave to keep your Money: Who is the Knave? This Ex­pression is very suitable to your Mouth and Manners, but in no case to the Speaker. If you chance to meet a Robber on the High-way with a Hundred Pounds about you, 'tis Ten to One [Page 44]but you will think your self well come of and give the Whole to save your Bacon.

What you talk of Canon Law is impertinent: You do not understand the Canon Law.

The Orphans Bill was the Noblest and Justest ever came within these Walls; and the Managers saw it impossible to carry it on without a Gra­tuity.

I thought there had been no Rule without Exceptions: What do you think of all the Bills for Settling the present Government in Church and State? For the Money Bills, to carry on the War for the Liberties of Mankind over almost all the World? But if the Noblest and Justest, why did not the Nation interpose of course in the Orphans Favour without so much trouble? You seem of your own Head to put all the Power of the Commons in the Speaker's Person: If it be so, the Government is very unsafe, and liable to terrible Convulsions.

And if the Managers saw it impossible to carry it on without a Gratuity, then they had Reason to give it.

But it will follow, by the same Supposition, That there was an absolute Necessity upon the Speaker to take it, by the Rule that Necessity [Page 45]and Impossibility are inseparable in one and the same Contingent.

Read a little more, and you will find, That Themistocles having sent to those of the Isle of Andros for Tribute, caused tell them, that he had sent for that end the powerful Goddesses Love and Force: The Andrians, who understood bet­ter their Morals and Politiques than you seem to do, made answer, That they had Two as powerful to hinder them from paying, which were Necessity and Impossibility; by which you see how nigh these two lodge.

The Example you bring of a Stoick Philoso­pher to aggravate the Speaker's Fault you charge him withal, is no proper Similitude. A Speaker of the House of Commons has no Power in his Person, by the Quality of his Office, to re­fuse Justice in his Station; that is entirely lodged in the Privilege of the House, to reject or pass a Bill. The Managers of the Orphans Bill, though they saw it very possible to obtain their Suit (whatever you are pleased to say of its being impossible) were willing as a Mark of their own Esteem, and for the Pains took by Speaker in that Affair, in which the Honour of the City, as well as the Estates of the injured Orphans, lay at Stake, to think it their Duty to [Page 46]offer him a Gratuity; seeing there was no Law nor Practise upon any Record to impede them.

Dionysius, the Sicilian Tyrant, had usurped up­on his Fellows in the State; had obtained to be Master; did Arbitrarily what he pleased; was a Sovereign above Law, and Justice: If in that case a Philosopher did, against his Fundamental Principle of Philosophy, humble himself to a Tyrant to obtain his End, he did but what is usual at this Day in the obtaining of Suits over all Courts of the World, even where Justice is said to Reign. But the Misery is, the just Courts in our Days are more nice and inexorable than was the Sicilian Tyrant. The happy Philoso­pher was too wisefor the unclement Tyrant; but our happy Courts are too wise for Philoso­phers. Come in what Shape they will, or with what Suit they please, unless they will or can speak to the Fist, are sure to be rejected.

But what a hopeful Condition is the Nation in when it comes to this! Where Money without Me­rit will open the Doors, Fools and Knaves will be sure to enter sooner than honest Men.

You have no Reason to complain; you are an Example and Instance, where neither Merit nor Money made open the Door. For your [Page 47]entry into a Place that would have much better fitted an honest Man: And to embellish your Character of Gratitude, you have so well re­compensed your Benefactor for the Thing, that he has been constrained to forbid you any more coming to his House, being you detracted from and defamed that Learned Prelate where-ever you came, preferring your own Pen to his.

You are pleased very ignorantly to bring in and misapply a Story from the Chatlet of Paris in the Reign of Francis the First; of which I take no further Notice than to recommend you (as many have done already) to your Studies, and no more to expose your self, seeing you are not now in Want and Necessity.

Now you arrive at your last and Romantick Page; in this Period it is that you restore Eng­land to her Glory and Splendor. You give us the Comfort, after so many Examples of Cor­ruption and Vice, That the Body of the Nation is as yet incorrupted; That our Judges, Ministers of State, and almost all Men in Places of Trust, do what they can to bring Honour and Justice into re­quest by their Example.

And what more can we wish for? What more can be said of the best Ages Rome or Greece in their meridian Glory ever beheld? This is [Page 48]not to be worse than was Rome in the Days of Antoninus. Is not this to give the Lye to all the rest of your Pamphlet.

A Shrewsbery, a Pembroke, a Sommers, or a Holt, are not to be found in every Age.

You might have added, Nor in any Kingdom save England. You bestow your Incense very sparingly; one would think you had been Foot­man under Leonidas before Alexander's Conquest in the East: Learn to be more sumptuous when you entertain Men of the first Quality, and of so rare Merit. It is true, you distinguish them from the rest of the Nation; you grant them an honourable Apartment by themselves; you se­parate them from the Croud; you grant them a favourable stroke of your Pen; But what is that to their Character? Your bare Expression of every Age is a hackney Honour, it will serve every where, it will accommodate Vice as well as Vertue. If you will have so many Mecena's you ought to provide them a suitable Entertain­ment. Where is now your Infinite, Sublime, and Immortal? Cannot you bestow some part of the Honour upon English Men, of the first Quality and Merit, you have done upon Ro­man Citizens and Soldiers.

Shall the French King's Subjects, in spight of all the horid Invasions made by that Monarch upon their Liberties, and of the innumerable Hardships and Miseries his Ambition has brought upon them, continue yet to serve him and their Country with an inviolable Fidelity.

I admired all along to find so little concer­ning the French King, and his Qualities; he has been upon several Occasions your very helpful Friend, and furnished you Matter for many ad­mirable Sallies of Wit and Eloquence. And to say the truth, you have treated him very Cava­lierly; he has neither been beholding to his be­ing of the same Elood with our Kings, nor to the Rank he holds in the World: They have been weak and feeble Defences, and Lines, a­gainst your Attaques.

But I am afraid you have out-run your Incli­nations; and by your Pen in this your Period granted him to be full Master of the illustrious Crimes the noble Romans possessed, and by which instead of stooping, as you say, to so low a Quarry as Gold, they became Lords of the World. Truly, Sir, Emulation being set aside, (for the which there is no great Ground in the Age we live among Princes) you have often allowed that Monarch Ambition and Thirst after Domi­nion [Page 50]in a supreme Manner, and made these his Qualities the original Source of the many Streams of human Blood which have run for so many Years almost over all the Fields of Europe: But you seem to begin to attone a little for your il­lustrious Criminal, in allowing him the Vertue and Conduct to keep the Love and Good-will of an oppressed and ruined People still chained to his Service with an inviolable Fidelity. Is not this to exalt the French King with a Wit­ness!

You propose us the French Subjects as an Ex­ample of Imitation, notwithstanding all the cruel Oppressions put upon their Liberties by their King, and desire us therein to imitate our Ene­mies in what is Noble and Just; meaning, the French Submission and Love to an oppressing King.

To let pass your severe Reflexion upon all French Protestants, I hope his Majesty has no Reason, nor never shall have any, to doubt of the Affections of his good People; we hold our Lives, Liberties, and our All, of his Majesty. It was his great and gallant Undertaking, his Con­duct and indefatigable Pains, his rare and distin­guished Wisdom, have brought us to what we so happily enjoy under his most auspicious Reign.

But, Sir, your Morals and Politiques seems to have changed their Course and Channel: Do you remember what you have writ for these Six Years by gone? Do you know upon what Foot the Nation stands? It is not long since this your French Example you propose would have been looked on as an Intention in you to en­deavour the Subversion of the Government: And you are pleased to call it Just and Noble, in any oppressed People whose All is seized, who have nothing in Property, nay nor in Reversion, inviolably to love and adhere to such a Master as they have. Truly, had the two Gentlemen, who gave occasion to your scandalous Pam­phlet, used such Language in Print, established Law could have gone far enough in punishing the Crime; and then it had been time for you to have levelled what Spite, Ignorance, or Ma­lice could suggest against them: Though I dare say, for what is past, they Undervalue, Pity, and Contemn you.

I dare say, Passive Obedience was never prea­ched with more Art in the last Reign, than you do it in this your last Period: Besides, you ruin and undermine the Foundation of the present Establishment.

And while our King does what's possible to raise us to (at least) an equal Level with them in point of War, Let us not fall short of them in those Ver­tues that make a Peace when it comes to be Last­ing and Happy.

This is as an unhappy a Sentence as you could have stumbled upon, to make the Vertues ne­cessary for the Nation in time of Peace an in­violable Fidelity, whatever Fate the poor Sub­ject may meet withal; and this you desire we may transcribe from the French Copy. This was not your Advice upon England in the late Revo­lution. Was there no other well-governed Na­tion in Europe you could have proposed for our Imitation, besides those we fight against, to be­stow upon some Thousands of miserable Ones we daily hear of, or see among us, the dear Li­berty and Country they are expelled and torn from? What do you mean, by our King's doing what is possible to raise us to (at least) &c. We never expected Impossibilities from the King; we believe his Majesty a great Captain, and at the Head of a numerous Army; that he will do what's fit to be done in the War: Whereas you seem to make a previous and anteceding Ex­cuse, as if you foresaw Matters would fall short of our Expectation.

To an equal Level. The Expression is nei­ther Sense, nor English: Besides, it will not suit our Affairs, to go no farther. For what you understand by That, is to be in a Condition on­ly never to end the War, or to be always in fear it may break out with more Violence. We must be in a superior Sphere to our Enemies, and we have reason to believe it may fall out so. We have his Majesties Royal Word, be­sides repeated Assurances from beyond Seas, that the Progress of the French Arms is stopt; that an End is put to that furious Career; and we are perswaded of it by the Channel the War now runs in, by their having changed its Me­thod, the King being Aggressor: And his ha­ving broke the French Barrier where strongest, with all the Circumstances of Fame and Glory to himself, and of Shame and Dishonour to his Enemies.

But I am glad to hear the happy Word Peace begins to be heard, and appear within our Ho­rizon, after so long and cruel a War. I dare say, though it be in the Nature, and for the Interest of some Persons to love that War may be continued (and your own in particular) there are many more who wish it at an end; provi­ded that may be so accomplished as to liberat [Page 52]us from further Apprehensions of what is or may be destructive or fatal to the true Interest, Religion, Liberty, and Honour of England.

Having finished to answer your Libel, permit me so far to be Nationally affected as to say, Wherever the Three Estates, or any of them, pursues violently a New Emergent as a Politique Sore, without Law, Arbitrary Power lies in that Case as heavy upon the Subject, as if the King invaded their Right. There is a Remedy for the Evil: It is consentaneous and agreeable to the best defined human Wisdom, That Temper intervene, until positive Law distinguish what ought to be done, from what ought to be avoid­ed. And this I take to be a Maxim inseparable from every well-established Government.

I have done, and do assure you, That you take many more Liberties than Honour or good Sense can allow any Man. But am