Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

neighbours when I come home, if they shall ask me, as I must expect they will, why the king did not pass this Bill? Many of them are as ignorant as I was; and I could have stopped their mouths, by saying, that the Bill took away part of his prerogative: but now I am otherwise convinced, I cannot speak against my conscience, nor cozen my neighbours, tho' I should be very loth to drop a word that might lessen the country's esteem for his majesty. Let me beg your advice what to say to them.

Knt. My good neighbour, I want advice as much as you, how to satisfy those that sent me to parliament, about the king's refusal of the Bill; yet one thing vexes me worse, that, having been zealous for the Revolution, I know not how to restrain, nor yet well to bear the scoffs of some of our enemies at my folly. They call to mind that I (simple man as I was) confidently said, that the government should be reformed, and our laws and liberties fully secured. They now ask me, Whether I find by experience a king of our own making more ready to do the people right, than the old ones that claimed by lineal descent? Some of them laughed, and told me, that I gaped for a New Jerusalem to drop from heaven, wherein there would be nothing but righteousness; and that the government should be administered by none but men of virtue and known fidelity to their country. They have upbraided me with what I said, That God had sent us a prince that would deny his people nothing, but pressed and conjured them to provide most effectual ways and means for securing their religion, laws and liberties.

absolute master, should be fit to receive royal powers and authorities for the defence of the English laws aud liberties.

Knt. Neighbour, you are in the right; but this sort of gentlemen dare not, upon these occasions, argue plainly for king James; and I hope that neither the parliament nor the country are in much danger by them.-But there are another sort of men who enjoy the powers and profits of the late Revolution, and highly pretend to maintain it, that upon the occasion of this Bill, do so pervert the meaning and construction of our laws, and assert such dangerous notions, as really tend to introduce arbitrary power and slavery, if they do not unhappily throw the people upon king James.— These men make a specious shew of their love to the advancement of the honour and greatness of the crown, as if they were their majesties principal friends, though in truth they are daily undermining their majesties legal title to the crown, by the pernicious notions of the late reigns, which are contrary to the fundamental maxims of our government. They commend and applaud the king's refusal of the late Bill, and some of them have been so bold as to say (whether in love to king William or king James I will not determine) that what the king did therein, was the chief thing that he hath done like a king. He hath shewed, say they, that the being and sitting of parliaments, are only acts of grace from the crown; that the people have no other but a precarious right to them, to have them only at such times, and in such manner, and for so long as the crown pleases. These gentlemen pretend to great moderation, and privately whisper to such as they hope to Yeom. Sir, I suppose the gentlemen that lead, that the principles of our government talk to you in this manner, have a mind to dis- were too strictly and severely laid down in the grace the honest principles that led the people late Revolution. They say, that the Original justly to reject king James, and make you be- Contract between the king and the people, lieve that they were cozened in thinking that should not have been set forth as an equal the security of religion, laws and liberties, or contract on equal terms, whereby the kings the reformation of the government, were ever were as strictly bound on their part, as the intended in the Revolution. They would have people on theirs; as if each party had no right you believe there was nothing but ambition to claim a share in the legislative power in and avarice in the bottom of the design, and parliament, or any other administration of the that whatever was pretended, the crown and sovereign authority, save only by force of the its powers were the only things in the eyes of contract. No doubt, say they, his majesty is king William and his followers. They would now advised, that the original of the legislative persuade you and the people to think, that our and executive sovereign power ought to be religion and liberties might be secured by a wrapped in clouds, and not exposed to vulgar Treaty for bringing back king James, and that eyes. It is an indecency to have it commonly an end may be put to the war thereby, and the said of so great and almost divine persons as people acquitted from the heavy taxes and kings, that they receive all that majesty and burthens they now lie under. They would im-glory only from their people. It is below, say pose upon you to believe, if possible, that he who so basely cast the people of England at the feet of the Pope, by an English ambassador, and ran the utmost hazards to subvert the Protestant religion established, should desire to secure our religion, without pretending to be converted, and be fit to be trusted to defend our faith; and that he who is known to the whole world to have occasioned so vast an effusion of Christian blood, to enslave us to his Arbitrary Power, and make himself our

they, the high regal office, to have it said by all the people, that their majesties must, within appointed times, call parliaments, and let them redress the peoples Grievances as the laws direct. They praise the wisdom of his majesty's counsels to refuse the Bill, and to avoid any further obligations to the people, than were upon his predecessors. It is fit the kingdom should as much depend upon his grace and clemency for their parliaments, as upon any others that have sat in the throne; and if he

had condescended to this Bill, the insolence of the people, in their demands of their liberties, might have been insupportable.

[ocr errors]

Yeom. Sir, you have taken infinite pains to instruct me; yet I was such a blockhead, that till this last discourse of yours, I did not apprehend why the king refused the Bill; it was hard for me to believe that there is so great a party as now I suspect, that prosecute the same designs that were in the late reigns to enslave us. I thought that such as enjoyed great preferments, honours and profits by king William's election into the throne, would never have thought to revive the former designs of enslaving us, by setting up pretences of a power in English kings above parliaments, by Divine Right, antecedent to the Contract between king and people. Though I am convinced there are some men who have so far lost all sense of honour and conscience, that they may be still engaged in the former pernicious enslaving designs; yet before this your discourse, I did not think that any number of Englishmen were so corrupted or infatuated as to think, that our whole constitution, our government by laws, and all our estates, liberties and lives, are holden by the mere grace and favour of our kings. I must confess you have mentioned several of those gentlemen's seeming reasons against passing the Bill, that are spun too fine for our country beads. We should have thought that nothing of our Rights could have been too plainly set down, when we were to declare, as was done in the Revolution, what are and have been the rights of us and our ancestors, reserved in the very constitution from all ages. But I perceive that what cannot be denied to be the people's legal right about parliaments, is desired by that sort of men to be concealed. They would not have a new law pass about holding of Parliaments, lest this king should have more obligations upon him to hold parliaments than some of his predecessors: the true meaning whereof can be no more than to say, that the king and people ought not to be put in mind how many laws have been made and renewed in all ages for the same thing; since every body knows, that the new law hath no greater obligatory power than any of the former, which his majesty and all his predecessors have sworn to keep and observe.

Knt. You do well to observe that the secret enemies of our legal government, do always avoid the renewing and reinforcing of our ancient laws; they would have them forgotten, or negligently disused, and brought by degrees to be esteemed obsolete and unnecessary. Their evil practice hath been of old to slip over the calling of parliaments according to law, pretending there was no great need of troubling the people; and then the omission of one was made a precedent of doing the like again and again, not only in the same king's reign, but in those of their successors; and thereby the constant course of successive parliaments came to be so broken and disused, that the people scarce dared to demand them

|

as their right, but rather moved for them as acts of the king's grace, crying up those for the best kings that used them most. But, my good neighbour, you ought to take notice that the true English patriots always thought it necessary to reinforce expressly, and by name, the principal statutes that concerned the foundations of our government: and for that reason usually made, in the beginning of parliaments, confirmations of the most material laws enacted in the former, though not one word was added or diminished. They have caused Magna Charta itself to be confirmed near forty times, not that they thought the confirmations gave more force to those laws, but that the contracts, powers, obligations and duties of their princes, and the whole form of the legal government might be kept in perpetual remembrance: and to that purpose they also ordained, that the same great Charter should be publicly read in full county several times every year. If we would do like our ancestors, there is abundant cause to insist upon this Bill for successive parliaments, especially upon this Revolution, wherein we have engaged to God and man to re-establish our ancient Constitution, with all our rights and liberties.

Yeom. Sir, I am ashamed to detain you longer, yet your rational discourse on this subject does so disquiet my mind, that I can scarce forbear being further troublesome to you. You have made it apparent, that many of those who pretend to settle and secure the kingdom, are contriving how to keep it unsettled: they are seeking to bring us into that negligent, loose, uncertain, arbitrary course of governing that was in the late reigns, and had almost ruined the kingdom. For that purpose they endeavour to avoid the change of things or persons in the administration, and to leave every thing doubtful about the people's Rights, which those reigns seemed to call in question. They have avoided the raising and vacating all false judgments and opinions against the people's Rights, except the cases of very few persons, wherein the parliament hath taken care by special acts. They imitate the proceedings in the late reigns, as if they would make king William's government as grievous as king James's. I cannot but conclude that it is for this reason they shew their fears of making a clear and plain Settlement of the foundations of our government, in the course of successive parliaments to be holden unavoidably; all the designers to enslave us having always dreaded such a Settlement for several ages.

Knt. I wish our countrymen were generally as well informed as you are concerning the party that are secret enemies to our present government, who are striving either to keep the way open for king James's Return, or at least to set up his way of governing, or something so like it, that the one may not be known from the other.

Yeom. Sir, many of our countrymen know well enough this sort of false-hearted men; but they for their base compliances getting up

to be our masters under king Charles and king James, grievously oppressed us then, and have now again got such powers and preferments, as if they had brought about the late Revolution, and are so able to plague, vex and crush us as they did formerly, that the country dares not speak their minds of them or their proceedings. But pray, Sir, help me to shew my neighbours how this sort of men, in their designs of Arbitrary Power, always sought to prevent an absolute Settlement of the legal course of successive parliaments.

Knt. It would require greater abilities than I have to shew what you desire, by reflections upon our whole history of the contests with the kings for our liberties; but I will tell you the practice in our times, and those just before us. This sort of men under James I. made him afraid of the sitting of parliaments, as an eclipse of his power; and insinuated to him, that the calling, adjourning, proroguing and dissolving of parliaments, ought to be absolutely at his will. They also raised disputes, Whether parliaments were of right, masters of the methods of their own proceedings? or were bound first to consider and resolve upon what the king propounded for Money, or otherwise? By these means they made the sitting of parliaments uneasy to him, so that he was always glad to be rid of them before the necessary business of the kingdom was done.-But that sort of men appeared more boldly upon the accession of Charles I. to the crown. They attempted then to invade the great Fundamental of all Liberty and Property, the power of the people of England alone to impose Money upon themselves. They had the confidence to maintain a power in the kings to take Tonnage and Poundage, and other monies without act of parliament. They cannot deny that these were their traitorous practices and designs, so long as the great Petition of Right remains upon record. Neither ought it to be forgotten how parliaments were then browbeaten, and their authority questioned and slighted, and the method of their proceedings controlled, contrary to their fundamental rights and privileges, nor how they were tossed up and down by sudden adjournments, prorogations and dissolutions. The houses, studies, and pockets of divers of their members were searched, their persons against the express laws imprisoned, and the free debates in parliament made subject to the restraining power and censure of inferior courts and judges. The king's special command and pleasure were declared cause sufficient to detain some of them in prison till death, without trial, or being legally accused of any offence. Yet this sort of men thought all these practices could not secure them, till they brought that king to resolve to have no more parliaments, and to forbid the people, by proclamation, to make mention of parliaments.-We ought to call to mind, that for ten or twelve years after, all the counsels of those designers against our legal government, were employed to invent ways to make

| the constitution of parliaments useless, and the crown wholly independent upon the people in parliament for Supplies and Aids. Such were the inventions of Loan-money, Privy-Seal-money, Knighthood-money, Coat and Conduct-money, arbitrary Fines without Juries for encroachments upon the King's Wastes, Ship-money, Billet-money, oppressing Monopolies, and illegal Patents upon trades, almost without number. Such also was the commission passed the great seal, to impose, by pretence of royal authority, an Excise, though the illegality and oppression of it were so manifest, that a sufficient number of persons could not be suddenly found to put it in execution. All projects were embraced that had but an appearance of supplying the crown, that they might avoid the necessary settlement of successive parliaments. -The last most dangerous and desperate of their designs of that kind was, upon some pretence from Ireland or Scotland, to get an Army, and settle Martial Law, that might raise such Money as a council should think fit, and make Proclamations and Orders of State to be as binding to the subject as acts of parliament. Yet even that was embraced, as appears by the Journals of the Commons in parliament: Mons. Burlemach there openly confessing, that he had received 30,0007, which was sent over seas, to hire German horse to be the foundation of a Standing Army here.—I could tell you, neighbour, that during all these transactions, which lasted divers years, their counsels and endeavours were to divert the king from admitting the legal course of parliaments. The petitions and cries of the subjects to restore them, could not be heard; and agreements were made between the king and several persons of greatest abililies and influence, in order to the arriving at absolute power, that there should be no more parliaments during his life. Nevertheless about the year 1639, the king's want of money being extremely pressing, they resolved to make use of a Parliament for Supply, but without a thought of doing the kingdom right, in restoring the due succession of parliaments, and the exercise of their legal authorities: and therefore as soon as they were met, they procured the king to demand of them their giving up their legal fundamental privilege, of considering in the first place, and redressing the peoples grievances; and the king so positively insisted in denying them their Right and Privilege therein, that within 20 days they were dissolved, contrary to the known intention and ends of our constitution.-The failure of the peoples expectation at that time, and the long interruption of the legal course of parliaments, raised great discontents, and loud and general cries of the people for parliaments; the consequences whereof were such, as I dread and abhor to remember: yet it was universally agreed, That the want of the legal course of successive parliaments, and the designs of interrupting and preventing their meeting and sitting, were the great occasions of all the confusion, blood

and mischief that afterwards happened. And | no doubt but the parliament then took the only wise and necessary course to prevent all the impending mischiefs and dangers, both to the king and people, when they laboured, with the help of the best lawyers of England, to declare and secure the observance of the antient laws for annual successive Parliaments; and to provide for their certain meeting, and holding them, notwithstanding all possible designs and contrivances against them: which was done to the great satisfaction of the people, by that notable Act of the 16th of Charles I.

Yeom. Sir, let me be so bold as to ask you, whether that Act for ascertaining Parliaments did not occasion, or some way promote the tumults and wars that ensued?

Knt. You may easily be satisfied from what was written in those times, of the falshood of such suggestions, and that the king, lords and commons passed that Act with great unanimity; and that king often gloried in having passed that Act for the Security of his people: but I believe you confound the Act for Triennial Parliaments, with another act for making the parliament then in being, in a manner perpetual; for they were not to be dissolved or prorogued, but by their own consent, declared by act of parliament. That Act did in truth derogate from the king's prerogative in dissolving parliaments; and whatsoever mischiefs might, or did thereupon ensue, ought to be imputed to the alteration made thereby of our constitution, or monarchy, not to the just and strict observance of our laws and statutes, for which the Act of Triennial Parliaments made provision.

Yeom, Sir, I know there is a common mistake about those acts of parliament, and that occasion is taken by some from the confusions in government that soon after happened, to impose upon the people false notions about the authority of parliaments, and to frighten them from demanding and insisting upon their constant successive elections, as the laws appoint. It is notorious, that those who design arbitrary power are always busy in such matters, and in unworthy reflections upon parliaments. But pray, sir, let us pass by that dark time of the Civil Wars, and see what the same sort of men have done about Parliaments, after the Return of king Charles II.

Knt. They pursued the same designs of subverting our constitution as to Parliaments, but took measures quite different from those before used to effect it. They remembered the ill success of all Projects and Monopolies, and pretences of prerogative to supply the government with Money. They had found and felt by experience, that a free Parliament could not be awed, and that the people in the intervals of parliament would not be forced to pay taxes, that were not legally imposed upon them yet there was an absolute necessity for the crown to be supplied with Aids from the people, without which it could not subsist, great part of the crown lands being wasted and VoL. V.-Appendix.

squandered away in the two preceding reigns. It was therefore resolved to attempt that by fraud, which they could not compass by force; and in order thereunto they took the advantage of the present temper of the people, which carried thein, without considering what the consequences might be, to every thing that was agreeable to the court. They recommended such to be chosen members of the house of commons, whose fortunes had been most impaired in the late wars, and whose dependance upon the court might incline them to compliance with whatever should be demanded of them; and these good-natured loyal gentlemen repealed the Act of the 16th of Charles I. for Triennial Parliaments, whilst a few worthy patriots laboured in vain to defend it. It is true, they pretended in the act, by which this statute was repealed, to ascertain the frequent holding of parliaments; yet it left the king at liberty to continue the same parliament as long as he pleased, and that king accordingly continued that same parliament near 18 years: all which time they could not be said truly to represent the people of England, many of those who chose them being dead, and others were either grown up, or had purchased estates, whose opinions both of persons and things might be much changed from what the sense of the nation was when that parliament was first called. But having got a considerable party in the house of commons, they laboured to confirm and increase it. Places and pensions were liberally bestowed on all that could be brought over to them and it is no wonder they gave such prodigious sums of money out of the poor peoples purses, when a great part was again to be refunded into their own. This scandalous proceeding was manifest, and confirmed by the open confession of a gentleman (through whose bands much public money then passed) in the house of commons the next succeeding parliament, who there acknowledged his paying annually many and great Pensions to members of parliament.-Besides thus corrupting those already in the house, there was neither pains nor money spared to get their friends chosen where any vacancy happened; insomuch that the court spent 14,000l. at one election of a burgess for Northampton.

Yeom. Sir, you have fully satisfied me that the ministers in that reign were as bitter encmnies to the English constitution, about Parliaments, as those in the two former that went before it; but their measures are more dangerous and likely to succeed, and it was God's great mercy that these birelings did not enslave us, as it were, by our own consent, and by colour of the authority we had given them for our preservation.-But pray, sir, what was the meaning of the great bustle all over England about Charters? What made the court so mightily labour to persuade all corporations to surrender their old Charters, and take new ones from the king? Was not that done with a design to influence the elections of members to parliament?

g

Knt. Yes, most certainly, and this was a | tution, and enslave us. more pernicious and dangerous design than any put in practice in the former reigns. This struck at the very root of all the Liberties of England, that the people should never again have a free Parliament chosen according to the constitution; but such men imposed upon them, as would servilely comply with the court in all their measures to enslave us. They corrupted some in every corporation to persuade the rest to surrender their Charters: and where they could not prevail by intreaties, these wicked instruments in several towns, broke open the trunks wherein their Charters were kept, and stole them away to deliver them up. Where this could not be done, they brought Quo Warrantos against the Charters of almost every town in England, that has a right to send members to parliament; and by means of corrupt judges, declared them void, upon some pretence or other, that the present magistrates had acted beyond, or contrary to the powers granted in them, and thereby forfeited all their rights and privileges. New magistrates were placed thereupon in those towns, such as they could most confide in; and such clauses were inserted into their new Charters, as put the choice of their representatives in parliament absolutely for the future into the power of the

What present advantage could delude and tempt them? they themselves, and their own posterity must be involved in the same misery and ruin they endeavoured to bring upon others.-Sir, I have trespassed too long upon your patience, and shall not therefore trouble you further about their designs under the late king James (those being most excellently laid down and made manifest in his majesty's Declarations, when prince of Orange, published upon his coming into England) but upon the whole it is most plain, That neither we nor our posterity can be safe in our Religion, Laws and Liberties, till we obtain an absolute Settlement of the legal course of successive Parliaments.

court.

Yeom. Sir, I am infinitely obliged to you for your pains and kindness, in shewing these things to me; but I stand amazed to think, that there could be so many English-men found in every reign, to join in carrying on this continued design to subvert our consti

Knt. I will only tell you one thing more, neighbour, before we part, That those kings, who endeavoured to subvert the constitution as to Parliaments, were always embroiled with their people about Rights and Privileges; and that when once the people had discovered these designs in them, though they called many parliaments, yet the same jealousies continued, and they never after came to a good understanding, or had a mutual confidence in one another.-Our Histories declare the truth of this observation in many former princes reigns, so that I hope the king will avoid a rock that hath been fatal to all who have struck upon it; and I am confident that his majesty will do all that a good king and honest man can do, to restore to us our Constitution, having in his Declaration called God and man to witness, • That was the Design of his coming hither.'

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

No IX.

A Short State of our Condition, with Relation to the present Parliament; commonly called the "Hush-money Paper."

By C. LAWTON, Esq. Printed about November 1693.

parliament, of which he thinks so many of the members are fit to be employed by him, as

No greater Happiness to England, than the King and Parliaments' conjunction in National Designs.-Danger of bribing a Par-well as entrusted by them. A man might liament.-Enemies to the Revolution in Em- droll on, but he can have no English heart, ployment.-Corruption prevails every where. nor thinking head, who can sport himself with -Members of Parliament formerly paid by our calamities. There cannot sure be any the Country.- Managers of Parliaments circumstance which can make England more odious. impregnable, more glorious and happy, than when the king and parliament jointly agree in national designs. But neither can there be any juncture more fatal, than when a house of commons seem as much in a separate interest from that of their country, as parasites in these latter reigns have persuaded our kings to be. Such a house of commons will make slavery authentic, will bubble us out of all sense of liberty. What with talking of the church and the monarchy at one time, and the French

IT is too sad a subject to admit of raillery, otherwise a man might say that we may defy all the plots of the Jacobites, and the machinations of Republicans, since there is so good an understanding between the king and his people, since the people have chosen him a

State Tracts published during the Reign of William 3. vol. 2. p. 369.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »