up as the national church. And if you hope this parliament may quickly die of old age, and that another more favourable to the distressed may sit in their rooms, you will find yourselves mistaken; and that it is not your party shall be the men, but rather such, who, though they served your turn, never loved you when they were uppermost. Let me farther advise you not to forfeit your discretion so far, as to expect as sudden a publick change of religion now by a parliament, as was in Queen Mary's days. Then the reformation had only been begun by King Edward his six years reign, and carelesly managed by the greatest persons under him, whose chiefest aims appear to be quite another thing. So that thereby, whilst they neglected to bring over the country gentlemen to protestantism, they confirmed them in popery. Thence was it, that the Romanists might much better promise themselves to be restored under that queen, than at these years when people still remember her; and for several generations have been reconciled to the reformation by writings in those controversies, and held in by' penal laws- and estranged from Rome by 88.* and the 5th of November. Now you cannot look for any good from a parliament, you may rightly dread their displeasure; especially if you should stretch your liberty of conscience to the perverting of other men's: For do what you can, and declaim never so much against a parliamentary religion; the commons will have a committee for religion, or else liberty and privilege are utterly lost. So that you ought by a private exercise of your worship, and a peaceable demeanor, to provide for the coming of a parliament, as by repentance men do for death, because it cannot be avoided, but may be made less hurtful.-By this time, I suppose, you may have laid aside all hopes of being advanced by a parliament, and cast your thoughts towards a standing army. Certainly you will find this conceit as airy as any of the rest, for (besides that he, whose authority should raise it, intends you no more than a bare and limited toleration) there are very many and obvious hinderances of that project: The kingdom, being an island, takes away the pretences hereof, which are alledged by our powerful neighbours, and allowed by reason of their situation. So that, on the surmises of such a thing, the mutinous temper of this climate would appear as jealous of their liberties, as in some countries men are of their wives. And withal, where could you raise men for the service? Your own gentlemen of estates would not endure foreigners; and they must necessarily want home-born soldiers, there being not a sufficient number of your religion, and of none to give the law of arms to all your adversaries. And where will you get the main weapon, money? Though your religion should open their The time of the Spanish invasion, with their invincible Armado, as they were pleased to term it; though God brought it to nothing; the particulars whereof are printed in this col lection. See Vol. II. p. 47, 148. + The day when the Papists had contrived to destroy the three estates of the nation assembled in parliament, by blowing them up with gunpowder, and since called, The Gunpowder Plot, or Treason.' stock and treasure as for a holy war, yet, in a little time, either their stock or their zeal would be spent, and then an army in its own country cannot so easily get bread by the sword, as labour. ing men can do by the spade. For proof of this, you may call to mind how that both rump and army were well nigh famished into a dissolution, when the country declared they would pay no more taxes. In such necessities, soldiers, like beasts of prey, will fall one upon another and devour their keepers too; and, if you believe them to be wholly mercenary, they are never so likely to be hired to a design contrary to their former commission, as when their masters cannot pay, nor their enemies can be plundered, yet will freely part with money upon their own terms. You see, sir, how I have followed your propagators through all, both probable and wild methods, which they can invent; all which appearing un. profitable and unlikely, they will not surely, like vain projectors, waste what they have, for that which they can never obtain. Your Servant--, THE DUTCH REMONSTRANCE, CONCERNING The Proceedings and Practices of John de Witt, Pensionary; and Ruwaert Van Putten, his Brother; with others of that Faction. Drawn up by a Person of Eminency there, and printed at the Hague. And Translated out of Dutch, August the 30th, 1672. London, Printed by S. and B. G. and are to be sold by R. C. over-against the Globe in Little-Britain. Quarto, containing Thirty-five Pages. THIS remonstrance contains such facts of treachery in the guardians of a state, that of all others boasts the most of its freedom and liberty; and was attended with such fatal consequences, even a popular and tumultuous seizing and exe cution of those traitors, who had received French money to deceive and cor rupt the deputies of the people; and to disable their Nation from making any resistance to their powerful enemy, the French king: That, methinks, the very remembrance thereof should not only deter every minister of that state from thenceforward from practices of the like nature, but call upon the whole states of the United Provinces to exert their liberty, by bringing such miscreants to condign punishment; and to be ever in readiness to repel their natural enemy the French, and to embrace every opportunity of approving their good fidelity, by duly executing those treaties, which the wisdom of their forefathers have ob tained for the said purpose. And the seasonableness of reprinting this remon strance cannot be questioned, if we consider the following passages in a late memorial presented on the 17th of August, N. S. instant, by Mr. Trevor, his Britannick majesty's minister plenipotentiary to their High mightinesses the Sates-general, at a time that the said republick is attacked in its barrier by the said enemy of France, who has, with little or no resistance, taken several of their strong-holds; has threatened and attempted to invade that power, which not only made them a free people, but has at all times protected them in their greatest distresses; in which thai great statesman not only remonstrates the hazard of the present circumstances, to which the States are reduced, hut, with a pen nổways inferior to the eloquence of Cicero himself, displays the real advantage and necessity for their preservation, to act vigorously, conformable to their trea ties, with their faithful allies against their common enemy: For, says lie, High and Mighty Lords, IT T is with great regret, that, in pursuance of the pressing commands of the king my master, I find myself obliged to put your High mightinesses in mind, that the term prescribed so positively and clearly, by the treaty of 1678, for employing your good offices with the power, who was the aggressor in the present war against his majesty, expired some time since, without their having in any manner procured the re-establishment of the publick tranquillity, and without his majesty's having had the full benefit of the said treaty. His majesty is very far from intending to importune your High mightinesses with complaints or reproaches. But what he owes to himself and to the publick security, does not permit him to keep silence any longer upon the inexecution of a treaty, the most im portant, and the most essential of all those which unite his crown with your state. The king might naturally have promised himself a more expeditious determination, as well from the known good faith of your High mightinesses, which was doubly engaged by the war declared at the same time against the queen of Hungary, as from the events with which his majesty's requisition has been followed. If good faith did not permit your High mightinesses to see your allies attacked, without breaking with the aggressor, your own dignity allowed you till less to see yourselves attacked in so sensible a part as your barrier, without resenting it, like sovereigns jealous of their honour, and attentive to the preservation of their rights. Where is the state which, in such circumstances, would not with eagerness and of itself have sollicited an alliance so powerful, as that to which the king my master and the Queen of Hungary do not cease inviting your High mightinesses? The king hath set forth, with so much strength, in his letter of the 13th of last April, which was delivered to your High mightinesses upon the 29th of the same month, the justice of his demand; your High mightinesses have yourselves, as well by your provisional answer, as by the succours which you have furnished to his majesty, acknowledged in so direct a manner the force of your engagements, that nothing remains for me to do, but to press the intire accomplishment of them. Give me leave, High and mighty lords, to appeal to your ową conviction, whether the good of the common cause, whether the particular interest of the republick, have been sufficiently promoted by this indecision, by this cautious conduct, which an excess of prudence has dictated to your High mightinesses from the beginning of the troubles with which it has pleased providence to visit Eu. rope, to this day, to encourage your High mightinesses to persist in the same method of proceeding. To what a degree has not this indecision frustrated the effects of your most wise resolutions? To what a degree has it not rendered useless your best-placed expences, and increased the necessity of them? What jealousies, what umbrage has it not given, and does it not still give to the allies of a good cause? What discouragement to the powers who might increase the number of them? With what presumption does it not inspire our aggressor and his adherents? What facility has it not given them of extending their views, and bringing their pernicious designs to perfection? Your High mightinesses know How very unsuccessful your pains and efforts have been towards finishing the salutary work of peace, the name of which is so often prostituted. You know to what a degree the ways of moderation have been exhausted, and how far they have been despised. It is time that the long forbearance of your High mightinesses should be justified, by manifesting your true principles in the eyes of your subjects, of your allies, and of all Europe. Your High mightinesses see your most intimate and most powerful friends, and your own barrier, attacked at once by the same power; that very power which drove the Queen of Hungary from Vienna, and which made an attempt upon the throne of the king my master, has now the command at Menin, at Ypres, at Furnes, after having driven out the troops of your High mightinesses with fire and sword. Will you still hesitate whether to consider and treat this power as our common enemy? Will your fligh mightinesses see capital revolutions happen daily in the most flourishing kingdoms, and in the states the least expo sed, without being alarmed at them, and without providing reme dies proportionable to the evil? Let us not trust solely to the justice of our cause; the age in which we live pays respect to nothing but force. Ambition and greediness have already drawn together but too many powers. Let virtue, let honour, let the principles of selfpreservation at last reunite the rest. And if our engagements, if our interests are not sufficient to that end, let the common danger induce us to take this salutary resolution; let that move us to look for our security, where only it is to be found, in our union and in our vigour. ** The readiness, with which your High mightinesses have already executed the treaty above-mentioned in all its provisional points, is a sure pledge to his majesty for the execution of the whole. More than one cordial friend, unjustly attacked, requires it of a faithful ally. The tottering system of Europe, with which the independance of your High mightinesses is so closely connected, demands it. A protestant and free nation *, the surest bulwark of your state against the attacks of powers that acknowledge no other tie towards their neighbours, than the submission to their wills, or their own inability to extort it, promises it to herself from a protestant republick, jealous of that liberty which she has purchased so dearly, and who has often been the protectress of that of the republick. Let not our actions falsify these glorious titles; but may our united efforts once more set bounds to ambition, raise a new barrier in defence of the publick liberties, and bring back peace, justice, and good order into Europe. Done at the Hague, this 17th of August, 1744. Signed, ROBERT TREVOR. EV VERY one, not without reason, stands amazed, not being able to apprehend how it is possible, that, in less than forty days, the king of France should subdue above forty cities and eminent fortresses, formerly belonging to this state. A disgrace to our nation, and a blot so great, that it is never to be washed off from the not sufficiently famous Batavians. Yet, if the reader pleases seriously to consider the following relation, I doubt not but he will in some measure be satisfied. My opinion then is, that the king of France did not make so great a progress purely by force of arms, but by the concurrence and assistance of some governors of this country; (Oh that they had never been so!) who, being bought thereto, instead of fathers, became traitors of our native country, which to demonstrate clearly we are to consider, That the King of France did no way surprise us, but gave us sufficient warning before-hand; as well with words to our ambassadors, as in deeds with his great preparations made by him, beyond any example, through his whole dominions; as also by his majesty's erecting several unheard of magazines, as well in his own realm, as without, nay, on our frontiers at Nuys. The preparations whereof were so great, that an experienced officer, who hath borne great commands in the German wars, as also under the King of Sweden, Denmark, and other princes, coming to compliment the Lord of Amerongen, who at that time was on the behalf of this state at Cologne, taking an opportunity to view the forementioned magazine, declared to me at his return, that he had never seen nor heard of the like; believing it to be sufficient to contain provision and ammunition enough for two, nay three hundred thousand men. That he could not see this state was concerned thereat, asking, |