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of Europe, may not fear one common enemy; | consider how this War is managed; how our nor we, singly here, an enemy either secret or open, that may undermine or ruin us alone. The purpose of this Government, the conditions on which it rose, and the ends for which it was erected, are known to be; for the rescuing us from a Power in the Crown, advanced by evil Ministers and corrupt Judges, to be superior to all our Laws; to secure us from such an insatiableness of Prerogative as would swallow Liberty and Property, and take away the Privileges of the Subject; to free us even from such a disposition of a court as could not but tend to this effect, and from such a ministry as nothing else could be expected under, at any time and lastly, to remove that under which all laws and constitutions can make but a ridiculous safety for us; to remove, I say, a Standing Army. This being so; it is impossible to think how this government can stand, if these ends are not answered; except it fix itself here by absolute Conquest; which cannot be but with a foreign help and that reduces the thing to this; That we must be a province to that prince or state that is in the greatest power abroad; however we may please ourselves with calling this our own Government, or our king that then shall govern us. I say, though this government could free itself from the enemy it is now engaged with; yet, not answering its ends, as above-mentioned; but directly on the contrary, pursuing those others it was set up in opposition to, and so (as I may call it) subverting its own foundation, it cannot stand for, if the foreign force and power of a dreaded neighbour be no longer on foot, so as to fright men (as at present) into t! e support of this Government at any rate or prospect; nor that a foreign force, in the hands of these governors, overpower and conquer us; it is not to be thought, that the spirit and principle that brought in this government, through all the impediments of a then so heightened prerogative, and of PassiveObedience principles, that are so much levelled since that time; It is scarce to be imagined, I say, that the spirit of impatience against a government, setting up the enslaving attempts and ministers, should be so sunk, against that comes (when it has had, all this while, such means of growing) as that it could not make its way towards a new change, and act another Revolution; when the same need, with an additional resentment and shame for having been abused, together with a readier means, and the way so much facilitated by the foregoing precedent, invites them to it. Or, if by themselves the party for liberty and the discontented would not be able; yet whilst there was any of the excluded branch remaining, they would by that means make an effort which would perpetually shake, if not quickly overturn this government.-But that we may prove, how that but to get through their present enemies, and reduce the Power of France, is a work but vainly expected from, this government in the posture that affairs are in; let us

Administration stands in respect of it; and whether, at our rate, we can so much as continue a defensive war.-Let us compute what are the Expences of the nation in this War; what are the Losses and Charges we suffer by it; and what are the Reparations we make ourselves, by the prejudice drawn from thence to the enemy.—Our Losses are, the exhausting of the wealth, the stock of the nation, in the vast sums drawn out from thence, for the use of foreign countries, and the numerous troops paid in those countries: and at the same time that our sustenance goes out, it is hindered from coming in to us; we losing every day in Trade, the profit of that still cut from us; and that of it which remains amongst us, turning in a manner against us; it being the Importation of foreign commodities that now chiefly drives it; and our own part begun to be managed by foreigners: by which means, we abandon to others what we are every day losing in the navigating practice, and the breed of sailors and other arts men belonging, that should be raising amongst us here. And this must needs be so, since the French, to all effects, in prejudice of us, remain in reality the masters of the sea, notwithstanding that advantage which another Providence than that of men, gave us over them: a Providence which turned that into a victory on our side, which (according to the surest consequences of humane affairs, by the whole disposition of matters, and the grounds, and form of that enterprize on foot) should have proved the interception and ruin of a great part of our fleet, and the execution of a Descent which then surely would have made itself been felt. Now, if with such an assistance of Fortune, so far from being ever to be hoped again, we are not able to maintain the sea for English ships to stir without being taken; that French squadrons still, M. Dů Bart, and all the other numerous privateers with vessels some of 50 guns and upwards, lie in our Channel, from off Ireland, and round our coast, do what they please, take us whole fleets of merchantmen together, supply their king largely with what they take of ours, make fortunes for themselves considerable, and enrich the sea-port towns of their country, that flourish now, and grow prodigiously with our spoils: if this, by our management, be now so, and not prevented; if it be thus now, this very season, after what has happened for us, how will it be henceforward? How are we like to put a stop to this? And if we do not put a stop to what already is of this kind (though it should grow no more upon us) where must we be within a little time?-Here then we see our losses, and where our wasting is. And as to what Reparations it may be expected we should make ourselves; we are so far from aiming at the ruin of our enemy, or the offending of him in this way, that we are not so much as in any prospect of being in a condition of preventing that ruin which comes in upon our selves this way; though it be properly our

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chief and only ruin that comes thus.-If this | how this other is like to succeed with us; let way, then, we do no good; how, in what man- us consider in what places of France it is that ner is it, that, in bearing all this, and by what we may expect to make the impression at land. we pay so deeply for, we are to make even-The hopes of Savoy are over. The ill sucwith our enemy, and more than so? How is he cess which that attempt had at a time so adto be made come off at length the greatest vantageous, leaves, indeed, little to hope for sufferer, in order to oblige him to yield? any future time, after that this baffle has given Where, if not here, are we to make the im- the French so great security, cut off our expression upon him that must give him the worst pectation from an assistance of Protestants in the war?-There are none except those there, and given the occasion to the French to who dream of a Descent (which though but put themselves in another posture on that side, for the same reasons that made it last year un- strengthen their frontier, and secure those passuccessful, cannot be expected but to prove so sages; and to do at least so much for themthis next, and is likely to prove more fatal to selves there; although it were not likely that us, if so) there are none, I say, except those they should be found to carry in a war this that under such councils, such ministers in- summer into Piedmont, that shall oblige that trusted, and such an administration as ours, do prince to make his terms.-It is not on the flatter themselves that a descent shall be able Rhine surely, that we expect our enemy should to be made and be supported, so as to turn to be sufferer; when instead of being put to use the enemy's ruin and not our own; there are the strength he has provided for his defence none besides this sort of men, that go about there, he can every year raise contributions on confidently to give any hopes of matters to be that side sufficient to maintain the armies he done by making an impression any where on employs there; and take, with countries, France with our land armies. Which not-whole regiments at a time, so as the duke of withstanding, let us examine, since it is what we rely on. For being not in a way so much as to preserve ourselves at sea; much less are we in the design of ruining our enemy that way, destroying his trade, and cutting off his supply of riches by which he bears up in the war: although, indeed, those very riches come only into him by his Shipping, and the Exportations that way of his country's products; the Money that he gets for them in a land trade, with any country joining to him, being in comparison very inconsiderable, and much overbalanced by the Charge he is at, in those countries, for many necessities of his own (especially in war) and by the vast sums of money continually distributed there in Pensions; as by considering only Switzerland, will plainly appear. But we, I say, do not apply ourselves this way towards the reduction of France. To ruin him in his West-India trade, and cut him off his seamen; to shut up his commerce northwards, through our own seas; to spoil him (as might be) some of his chief harbours and sea-port towns; destroy the rest of his ships of force, and ruin his trading even in the Mediterranean: this is what we either think not of at all, or think is insignificant, or not so noble (nor so saving, or of dispatch, it may be) as the campaigning method at land; or as being less suitable to the genius of our Prince, so also less suitable to that of our nation: which, besides, will be raised to high esteem and power, and have its Liberties best guarded by the establishment of a noble Army of its own, thus trained up; by that time they, joined with the foreigners, dependents on our king, have made us victorious over the enemy, and brought on for us our so wished-for peace, which then their interest will endure.-The Sea therefore we leave as it is; and our work being not to be done, or not convenient to our present court it should be done that way, our dependence is upon another. Now, to know

Wirtemberg and his troops were taken lately, without so much as fighting, and about 3000 of the best German horse taken.-We do not expect, I suppose, that an army from Spain will enter France, or that that nation is in a condition to make an offensive war against France. So that the stress of all lies now in Flanders. And do we expect to see ever any better armies there, more numerous, more united, or more animated than they have been these last campaigns? The confederacy may soon be lesser; but what can make it greater? -Are we to find any other generals of that Confederacy than what we have? Or will these come to be abler, and out-grow the French ones at length by experience? If it be an absurdity to think thus; is it not a great one to think we shall have other success than what we have had? And what has that been? At Flerus we receive a rout, where we lose a good part of an army. Another year, if we are not beat in the campaign time, we are charged in the rear, and a mark given us at going off. Mons is taken one year, and Namur the next; (with what attendance is notorious.) So that if our strongest towns, we see, go off before our strongest armies, what are we to expect will be the fate of the other towns that are as yet remaining with us, and are the last that keep the barrier? They too, if not immediately, must in a campaign or two more, go the same way of course: though at the closing of our campaigns (which cannot keep us up but a defensive war) we endeavour to take a kind of revenge, by attacking the French with as much advantage and success as we did now lately at Steinkirk. But can we think, notwithstanding this, that by recruiting our wasted troops, and by raising other new ones, proportionable to what France raises, we shall prevent all this; and not only so, but after having retaken Namur and Mons, with what else we have lost, be able to pierce into France through treble

ranks of Garisons, by taking of them one by one, or all at once, or leaving them behind, and marching through them? Surely men of thought will stick at this.-But notwithstanding all this; the Engagers with the Court, carrying a majority in this Parliament with them, are giving the government this ineffectual assistance, and are drawing from us vast sums to supply Confederate Armies, and Armies of our own abroad as if this were really to do us good, would avail any thing, and were our proper method of securing ourselves; whilst our seapractice (whence should be drawn the French's ruin, but whence our own is now) lies in the shamefullest condition that can be. What signifies it, that we have a number of huge ships to sail about together a month or two in the Summer; if still the French keep all they have in the West-Indies, and the means that they have there (if not taken from them) of breeding sea-men, above all the world besides; if here, in our seas, they breed vast numbers, and set out numerous and mighty ships out of the spoil of us and our ships; if trading be not safe for us; our seas being to us shut up, and Sweeds, Danes, Portugees, and other nations to whom the sea is free, growing into trade, and carrying all Supplies (which thus we cannot hinder) into France?-It is plain, that if we cannot alter this, we certainly must sink. It is against this, that we should turn all our power, our riches; which would not then be doubly lost in being given amongst foreigners, from England, never to return thither; and being given besides, in vain. It is towards this we should turn all our care and counsels; and therefore, if the good Genius of England has not power enough, by patriots within it, to alter this Administration, all is in vain, and we must fall. That in this respect, we do now every thing so improperly, every thing so wastefully that we pretend to do; and that there is so little a part aimed at or intended, of what might farther be done by us than is attempted under the present management; there is indeed no wonder. When of all parts of our government, there is not any more loose, more inconsistent, more corrupt, than that part which regards our Sea-Affair. We have no Council, no Committee for Trade established, nothing of any office instituted, or officers properly qualified and empowered to inspect our Trade, to report the condition of it, and propose the Regulations necessary, to our parliament; insomuch, that that assembly is forced, upon occasions, to have recourse to the merchants themselves, to be instructed, and are often at a loss, and (as in the East-India business) in a likelihood of ruining trade, by having their only information in those nice matters from such as are surely interested one way or other. Our Offices of Admiralty and the like, are disposed of in gifts to men of intrigue: and (as the world has now sufficiently remarked) he that by his skill can work a Party, delay or bring on a business in the Parliament, and has the House-Craft, is recommending to the steering of a Fleet, and

the ordering of our Naval Force. All is of a piece; and throughout all the Places, any way relating to this great trust, down to the very inferior officers in single Ships, Bribery and Cabal does every thing. If this go on, as has been shewn, England sinks, whoever rises: we are exposed to the last misery, and a foundation at this rate is laying for such a state as was before represented. And now, at this present time, if the house of commons carry not what they have begun upon the Admiralty, to a real thorough reformation in all those affairs, however the others are suffered to lie; if our force at sea, and the natural strength that way, which we have yet left amongst us, be not by their ordering otherwise exerted; other guess encouragements set up for sea-men; the seasoldiering, the very vocation itself, by a better usage of those that follow it, made more advantageous than as it now stands, that it may draw in more than any other, and not be, as it is, the most justly declinable, and ready to be abandoned by those that are already in; if there be not another-guess rewarding of those that serve well; the proper methods set up to clear us of the French cruizers, and their privateers; fit ships, with right regulation, applied to that work; the dealing with them not left (so as it now is) as an ungrateful work only, but the reducing of them made (by rewards fitted to such service, as well for privateers and adventurers of our own, as for the ships of the public) an employment most advantageous, and which may be heartily undertaken by those that so expose themselves: in short, whatever ill performance, unskilfulness and corruption be suffered in any other part of our government; however matters may go in Westminster-Hall; however the Chancery be filled, or any offices in the nation that are to do right amongst particulars of that body; however any other part of the ministry stand, according to whatsoever Party: if our parliament do not now right our country in this concern; do not redress and assure this part of our administration, in hands they can intrust, and shall have power over to make faithful; and by their own management (for it will be by no other) save thus what we are losing not only to the French, but to all other foreigners that use the Sea; if they do not thus much, and suddenly set us in another course to regain what is past, and do our utmost here; however great these Armies and Confederacies sound, that fill so many heads at present; whatever pomp and grandeur in this government hinders them from dreaming any insecurity in it; I fear they will not long be possessors of the power that accompanies them now in their Seats at Westminster, nor be the masters long of those estates that give them now the places they have there. Their giving Millions so liberally, will but hasten the business: though many give their concurrence to this most unprovident way of giving, and to the methods proportionable, of raising what is thus given; not as unsensible of mismanagement, but out of mere fear of being over-run.

or that, for the court now undermost, by endeavouring to embroil our sea affairs, bring us loss of Trade and ruin of shipping, that by such misery the people may (as those think) be induced to abandon this government: and for the interest of the present court, by complying with any sort of methods it takes, however censured at other times; by advancing prerogative at a time which is the only ever to be hoped for to bring it down from its encroachments, and to confirm the Rights of the people, which are hardly supportable under the weight yet left in some fundamental points: by gaining Acts for multiplying of Treasons, instead of securing us from the power that the crown now has of making Treason too easily out of any thing: by the justifying of any Commit

But it is ordinary to see men in their fears run more directly upon their ruin; when terrified they strive most earnestly to avoid it. Yet if they would act rationally, according to what they fear, why is not the Fleet first secured? Why is not that Money first found out, secured on the best Funds, and well appropriated, that | the money really given to that may not least serve that purpose; that it may not run a common risk with the other money expected to be raised; nor the necessary Charge of our Navy run the same danger of being unsupplied, as any of those exorbitant and unnecessary Charges we are to be at besides? What if there be found stops and difficulties; if the money fails for these latter expences, must it fail too for our great and perhaps only necessary expence, that of our ships and seamen ?-ments as well as Trials; the setting on foot (to Whatever be, this must be looked to. And (to join all to what I have shown before) he that is an Englishman in any party, and forgets this, knows not that he is drawing on his own and country's ruin, in the prospect of establishing his country by means of that Party, or together with that Party's interest which he follows: for though a peace should be concluded at last, according to the scope of king James's party, by which that king should be made to be acknowledged; or though the adherents to king William that are supporting him his way, should see him prevailing with his land-forces, and France reduced to such a peace as should cause the acknowledgment of king William here; yet at the end of all this, if by that time the work that is now doing apace be brought to its effect, and we left in feriors at sea, cheated and beaten out of our Trade, and perished in our Naval Power, with nothing but a power at land to defend us all the advantage that the Party of Englishmen then prevailing will obtain, besides their triumph, or their revenge over their adversaries, will be to hold a government under the force of a foreigner, and which can be held no otherwise; and to give us ever after for a government, that which shall be enforced by the nation or prince left with the strongest force abroad, together with the honour of being thenceforward constantly the test of power and precedency to the contending states of Europe, by falling always to their lot who can force others hence and place themselves. Now, if there be an Englishman in these Parties that will thoroughly think, I appeal to him, if what we do altogether in Parliament, or what each party drives at singly, is like to bring any happiness to one whose country is England. If the removing one ministry for another; the getting men, or keeping men in place for only party-merits; the driving in the common manner, for the interest of this court

a vexatious end and no other) needless severe Oaths, so extensive and generally to be enforced, for the punishment only of mens consciences, or the taking away of all conscience, so as to lose the benefit of all oaths in any case; a thing so destructive to all government, and (to our great misery) begun already to be felt amongst us, and encreasing daily by the commonness that oaths are exposed to in serving every turn. In fine, by giving away all our wealth to the managers of the court in prodigious sums; such as, if possible, would suffice their greediness, and surmount their lavishment; whilst still the matters of our Ocean (that Ocean that should be ours) stand as they do: I appeal, as I have said, to any rational man of my country, that can lay aside passion whilst he thinks, whether this tends to any thing but ruin.-What after this may be expected should be said on what now should be done, I leave to inference; for I have said enough already, and need not repeat.-I have said what it is that should be previous to every regard an Englishman can have; what it is that only can make the success of an English Party a success of their own, or advantageous to them, their friends or their posterity: and when such a regard as this is in a contrarywise changed, or but neglected; what sort of service those whose interest is tied to England, is like to do themselves with their mighty heat and zeal in other matters that they are pursuing. And in all this, if I shall not have been able to turn men towards any public action, or better method of managing that may tend to our recovery; yet, at least, I may have given them so far to think on certain things, as may turn perhaps some from that heat and fury they act with (of themselves, or led by other people) in the service of some interests, which when they understand, they will not think of serving as they do.

No VI.

Some CONSIDERATIONS about the most proper Way of RAISING MONEY in the present Conjuncture. Printed about the Year 1692.

Written by JOHN HAMPDEN, Esq.*

THERE has happened nothing more memorable in this age, nor in which the Providence of God has been more signally remarkable, than the late Revolution of the Government in these kingdoms. The changes in Naples and Portugal were not more surprizing, than what our eyes have seen in our own native country: nor were the oppressions under which we laboured, and the ruin which threatened us, less dreadful than that which caused the revolt of those kingdoms from those who abused the trust of government to tyrannize over them. Our Laws were trampled under foot, and upon the matter abolished, to set up Will and Pleasure in their room, under the caut and pretence of Dispensing Power. Our Constitution was overthrown by the trick of new Charters; and by closeting and corrupting Members of Parliament, men were required, under pain of the highest displeasure, to consent and concur to the sacrificing their Religion, and the Liberty of their country. The worthiest, honestest and bravest men in England had been barbarously murdered; and to aggravate the injustice which was done them, all had been varnished over with a colour of Law, and the formality of Trials, not unlike the case of Naboth and Ahab. Those whom the Law had declared traitors, were, in defiance of the national authority, introduced into our councils, and the conduct of affairs put into their hands. - Our Universities were invaded by open force; those who were in the lawful possession of the government of Colleges turned out, and Papists sent thither in their room; and if that attempt had throughly prospered, the churches and pulpits would soon have followed.-It were vain to go about to enumerate particulars. In a word, the nation was undone. All was lost. The Judges were suborned or threatened to declare, that the king was master of all the laws; and the bishops were required to publish this new-created prerogative in all the Churches of England, by the mouths of the clergy; which when some of them refused to do, representing to the king, with the utmost submission and modesty, that neither conscience nor justice permitted them to do what he desired, they were prosecuted at law, as if they had been guilty of some great crime. Letters were written and intercepted, by which it appeared evidently, that the change of our Religion was determined, and that Popery was to be brought in with all speed, lest the opportunity should

State Tracts, published during the Reign of William III. vol. ii. p. 309. VOL. V. Appendix.

be lost. And for the better compassing this pious design, our civil and parliamentary right were to be taken away, in ordine ad spirituale. And when the nation, and those who were concerned for it, being terrified by the greatness of the danger, would have compounded so far, as to have taken away the penal laws against Papists, and so have set them upon a level with other English subjects, provided the Test might have been continued, and the government secured from falling into the hands of that faction, all such offers were despised and rejected with scorn: nor would any thing content the bigotry and arbitrary humour of those who were then in the saddle, less than the total enslaving of the nation, and the reestablishment of that idolatrous Religion, from which our ancestors had freed themselves with so much bravery and generosity, in the beginning of the last century.

This deplorable state of things awakened the minds of those of our gentry and nobility, who had any thing remaining in them of that English love of liberty and impatience of slavery, which has so often rescued this nation from the brink of ruin. They saw to what the necessity of self-defence obliged them, and resolved to shake off the yoke they could not bear. And in order to this, many of them (as we all know) applied themselves to some principal members of the States-General of the United Provinces, and to the prince of Orange (their Stat-holder and Captain-General) representing to them how nearly they were concerned in what then passed in England, which was but one branch of the design driven on by the French king, and his adherents, for enslaving all Europe, and rooting out what they called the Northern Heresy, both name and thing. They shewed them, that if they suffered the conspiracy of our common enemies to go on any further, they would infallibly be involved in our ruin, and that very speedily; and must necessarily fall under the French yoke, of which they had felt the weight in the years 1672, and 1673, and had lately heard more of it from those great numbers of persecuted French Pro testants who had taken refuge in their country. They intimated how glorious it would be for them to become the sanctuary of oppressed innocence. And lastly, they put them in mind of what bad heretofore been done for their Republic by the English nation, when they had newly cast off the Spanish tyranny, and were forced to implore the succour of their neighbours against a power which then carried on the same designs, and much by the same d

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