King of Denmark; the Dutch also aiming at him];—indeed poor; but a man in his person as gallant, and truly I think I may say as good, as any these last ages have brought forth; a man that hath adventured his all against the Popish Interest in Poland, and made his acquisition still good 'there' for the Protestant Religion. He is now reduced into a corner: and what addeth to the grief of all,-more grievous than all that hath been spoken of before (I wish it may not be too truly said i)— is, That men of our Religion forget this, and seek his ruin. [Dutch and Danes: but do not some of us too forget? “I wish it may not be too truly said!"]

I beseech you consider a little; consider the consequences of all that! For what doth it all signify? Is it only a noise? Or hath it not withal an articulate sound in it? Men that are not true to the Religion we profess,-profess,' I am persuaded, with greater truth, uprightness and sincerity than it is 'professed' by any collected body, so nearly gathered together as these Nations are, in all the world,-God will find them out! [The low-minded Dutch; pettifogging for " Sound Dues" for "Possession of the Sound," and mere shopkeeper lucre!] I beseech you consider how things do coöperate. Consider,' If this may seem but a design against your Wellbeing? It is a design against your very Being; this artifice, and this complex design, against the Protestant Interest,-wherein so many Protestants are not so right as were to be wished! If they can shut us out of the Baltic Sea, and make themselves masters of that, where is your Trade? Where are your materials to preserve your Shipping? Where will you be able to challenge any right by sea, or justify yourselves against a foreign invasion in your own soil? Think upon it; this is in design! I believe,

if you will go and ask the poor mariner in his red cap and coat [“ Coat,"

I hope, is not "red:"—but we are in haste.], as he passeth from ship to ship, you will hardly find in any ship but they will tell you this is designed against you. So obvious is it, by this and other things, that you are the object. And in my conscience, I know not for what else ‘you are so' but because of the purity of the profession amongst you; who have not yet made it your trade to prefer your profit before your godliness [Whatever certain Dutch and Danes may do!], but reckon godliness the greater gain!

But should it happen that, as contrivances stand, you should not be able to vindicate yourselves against all whomsoever, I name no one state upon this head [Do not name the Dutch, with their pettifoggings for the Sound; no!], but I think all acknowledge States are engaged in the combination,-judge you where you were! You have accounted yourselves happy in being environed with a great Ditch from all the

world beside. Truly you will not be able to keep your Ditch, nor your Shipping, unless you turn your Ships and Shipping into Troops of Horse and Companies of Foot; and fight to defend yourselves on terra firma!

66

And these things stated, liberavi animam meam; and if there be 'no danger" in 'all' this, I am satisfied. I have told you; you will judge if no danger! If you shall think, We may discourse of all things at pleasure-[Debate for days and weeks, Whether it shall be "House of Lords" or "Other House;" put the question, Whether this question shall be put; and say Ay, say No; and thrash the air with idle jargon!],—and that it is a time of sleep and ease and rest, without any due sense of these things,-I have this comfort to God-ward: I have told you of it. [Yes, your Highness !—O intemperate vain Sir Arthur, peppery Thomas Scott, and ye other constitutional Patriots, is there no SENSE of truth in you, then; no discernment of what really is what? Instead of belief and insight, have you nothing but whirlpools of old paper clippings, and a grey waste of Parliamentary constitutional logic? Such HEADS, too common in the world, will run a chance in these times o get themselves-stuck up on Temple Bar!]

You have neigh

Really were it not that France (give me leave to say it) is a balance against that Party at this time-!-Should there be a Peace made (which hath been, and is still labored and aimed at, 66 a General Peace"), then will England be the "general" object of all the fury and wrath of all the Enemies of God and our Religion in the world! I have nobody to accuse ;—but do look on the other side of the water! bors there; some that you are in amity with; some that have professed malice enough against you. I think you are fully satisfied in that. I had rather you would trust your enemy than some friends,—that is, rather believe your enemy, and trust him that he means your ruin, than have confidence in some who may perhaps be in some alliance with you! [We have watched the Dutch, and their dealings in the Baltic lately!]—I perhaps could enforce all this with some particulars, nay, I certainly' could. For I know your enemies be the same who have been accounted your enemies ever since Queen Elizabeth came to the crown. avowed designed enemy all along;' wanting nothing of counsel, wisdom and prudence, to root you out from the face of the Earth: and when public attempts [Spanish Armadas and such like] would not do, how have they, by the Jesuits and other their Emissaries, laid foundations to perplex and trouble our Government by taking away the lives of them whom they judged to be of any use for preserving our peace! [Guy Faux and Jesuit Garnet were a pair of pretty men; to go no further. Ravaillac in the Rue de la Ferronerie, and Stadtholder William's Je

An

suit; and the Night of St. Bartholomew: here and elsewhere they have not wanted “counsel," of a sort!] And at this time I ask you, Whether you do not think they are designing as busily as ever any people were, to prosecute the same counsels and things to the uttermost?

The business then was: The Dutch needed Queen Elizabeth of fa mous memory for their protection. They had it, 'had protection from her.' I hope they will never ill requite it! For if they should forget either the kindness that was then shown them (which was their rea. safety), or the desires this Nation hath had to be at peace with them, truly I believe whoever exercises any ingratitude in this sort will hardly prosper in it [He cannot, your Highness: unless GOD and His TRUTH be a mere Hearsay of the market, he never can!]. But this may awaken you, howsoever. I hope you will be awakened, upon all these considerations! It is certain, they [These Dutch] have professed a principle which, thanks be to God, we never knew. They will sell arms to their enemies, and lend their ships to their enemies. They will do so. And truly that principle is not a matter in dispute at this time, we are not here to argue with them about it:' only let everything weigh with your spirits as it ought;-let it do so. And we must tell you, we do know that this, of their having such a principle,' is true. I dare assure you of it; and I think if but your Exchange here 'in London were resorted to, it would let you know, as clearly as you can desire to know, That they have hired-sloops, I think they call them, or some other name, they have hired sloops, 'let sloops on hire,' to transport upon you Four-thousand Foot and One-thousand Horse, upon the pretended interest of that young man that was the late King's Son [What a designation for "Charles by the grace of God!" The "was" may possibly have been "is" when spoken; but we cannot afford to change it]. And this is, I think, a thing far from being reckonable as a suggestion to any ill end or purpose:—a thing to no other end than that it may awaken you to a consideration of your danger, and to uniting for a just and natural defence.

6

Indeed I never did, I hope I never shall use any artifice with you to pray you to help us with money for defending ourselves: but if money be needful, I will tell you, "Pray help us with money, that the Interest of the Nation may be defended abroad and at home." I will use no arguments; and thereby will disappoint the artifice of bad men abroad who say, It is for money. Whosoever shall think to put things out of frame upon such a suggestion-[His fate may be guessed; but the Sentence is off]-For you will find I will be very plain with you before I have done; and that with all love and affection and faithfulness to you and these Na tions.

If this be the condition of your affairs abroad, I pray a little consider what is the estate of your affairs at home. And if both these considerations, of home affairs and foreign,' have but this effect, to get a consideration among you, a due and just consideration,-let God move your hearts for the answering* of anything that shall be due unto the Nation, as He shall please! And I hope I shall not be solicitous [The "artifice” and "money" of the former paragraph still sounding sowewhat in his Highness's ears]; I shall look up to Him who hath been my God and my Guide hitherto.

I say, I beseech you look to your own affairs at home, how they stand! I am persuaded you are all, I apprehend you are all, honest and worthy good men; and that there is not a man of you but would desire to be found a good patriot. I know you would! We are apt to boast sometimes that we are Englishmen : and truly it is no shame for us that we are Englishmen ;-but it is a motive to us to do like Englishmen, and seek the real good of this Nation, and the interest of it. [Truly!]-But, I beseech you, what is our case at home?--I profess I do not well know where to begin on this head, or where to end,-I do not. But I must needs say, Let a man begin where he will, he shall hardly be out of that drift I am speaking to you 'upon.' We are as full of calamities, and of divisions amongst us in respect of the spirits of men, 'as we could well be,'-though, through a wonderful, admirable, and never to be sufficiently admired providence of God, 'still' in peace! And the fighting we have had, and the success we have had—yea, we that are here, we are an astonishment to the world! And take us in that temper we are in, or rather in that distemper, it is the greatest miracle that ever befell the sons of men, that we are got again to peace'

['Beautiful great Soul,' exclaims a modern Commentator here, 'Beautiful great Soul; to whom the Temporal is all irradiated with the Eternal, and God is everywhere divinely visible in the affairs of men, and man himself has as it were become divine! O ye eternal Heavens, have those days and those souls passed away without return ?-Patience: intrinsically they can never pass away intrinsically they remain with us; and will yet, in nobler unexpected form, reappear among us,-if it please Heaven! There have been Divine Souls in England; England too, poor moiling toiling heavyladen thickeyed England, has been illuminated, though it were but once, by the Heavenly Ones ;and once, in a sense, is always !']

* performing on such demand.

-that we are got again to peace. And whoever shall seek to break it, God Almighty root that man out of this Nation! And He will do it, let the pretences be what they may! [Privilege of Parliament, or whatever else, my peppery friends!]

'Peace-breakers, do they consider what it is they are driving towards? They should do it!' He that considereth not the “ woman with child," the sucking children of this Nation that know not the right hand from the left, of whom, for aught I know, it may be said this City is as full as Nineveh was said to be ;-he that considereth not these, and the fruit that is like to come of the bodies of those now living added to these; he that considereth not these, must have the heart of a Cain; who was marked, and made to be an enemy to all men, and all men enemies to him! For the wrath and justice of God will prosecute such a man to his grave, if not to Hell! [Where is Sam Cooper, or some prince of limners,' to take us that look of his Highness? I would give my ten best Historical Paintings for it, gilt frames and twaddle-criticisms into the bargain!]-I say, look on this Nation; look on it! Consider what are the varieties of Interests in this Nation,-if they be worthy the name of Interests. If God did not hinder, it would all but make up one confusion We should find there would be but one Cain in England, if God did not restrain! We should have another more bloody Civil War than ever we had in England. For, I beseech you, what is the general spirit of this Nation? Is it not that each sect of people,—if I may call them sects, whether sects upon a Religious account or upon a Civil account[Sentence gone; meaning left clear enough]—Is not this Nation miserable in that respect? What is that which possesseth every sect? What is it? That every sect may be uppermost! That every sort of men may get the power into their hands, and "they would use it well;"that every sect may get the power into their hands! [A reflection to make one wonder.-Let them thank God they have got a man able to bit and bridle them a little; the unfortunate, peppery, loud-babbling individuals,―with so much good in them too, while 'bitted !']

It were a happy thing if the Nation would be content with rule. 'Content with rule,' if it were but in Civil things, and with those that would rule worst ;-because misrule is better than no rule; and an ill Government, a bad Government, is better than none !-Neither is this all but we have an appetite to variety; to be not only making wounds,' but widening those already made.' As if you should see one making wounds in a man's side, and eager only to be groping and grovelling with his fingers in those wounds! This is what 'such' men would be at; this is the spirit of those who would trample on men's liberties in