Through Blackman-street I went, where whores Stood gazing, there is many doors,

There two or three bawds against me roars most loudly;

And bade me get hence a-pace,

Or else they'd claw me by the face;
They swore they scorn'd me and all grace,
most proudly.

I walk'd into St. George's Field,
Where rooking rascals I beheld,

That all the

year their hopes did build

on cheating;

They were close playing at nine pins,
I came and told them of their sins:
Then one among the rest begins
intreating,

That I would not torment them so:
I told them that I would not go:
Why then, quoth he, I'll let thee know,

we care not:

And yet we'll banish thee perforce:
Then he began to swear and curse,
And said, prate on till thou art hoarse,
and spare not.

I left them in their wickedness,
And went along in great distress,
Bewailing of my bad success,
and speed.

A wind-mill standing there hard by,
Towards the same then passed I,
But when the miller did me spy,
he cryed,

Away with Conscience I'll none such,
That smell with honesty so much,
I shall not quickly fill my hutch
by due toll;

I must, for every bushel of meal,
A peck if not three gallons steal,
Therefore with thee I will not deal,
thou true soul.

Then leaving cities, skirts and all,
Where my welcome it was but small,
I went to try what would befal

i' th' country; There thought I to be entertain'd: But I was likewise there disdain'd; A long time bootless I complain'd to th' gentry.

And yet no service could I have,
Yet, if I would have play'd the knave,
I might have had maintenance brave
among them ;

Because that I was Conscience poor,
Alas! they thrust me out of door,
For Conscience, many of them swore,
Did wrong them.

Then went I to the yeomanry,
And farmers all of the country,
Desiring them most heartily
to take me;

I told them I would sell their corn
Unto the poor; but then did turn
Me out of doors, and with great scorn
forsake me;

One said, he had no use of me,
To sell his corn, for I, quoth he,
Must not be only rul'd by thee,
in selling ;

If I shall Conscience entertain,
He'd make me live in grossing gain,
Here is for thee, I tell thee plain,
no dwelling.

Thus, from the rich men of the world,
Poor Conscience up and down is hurl'd,
Like angry curs at me they snarl'd,
and check'd me.

Alas! what shall I do, thought I,

Poor Robin, must I starve and die?
I, that I must, if nobody

respect me.

At last I to myself bethought,

Where I must go; and heaven brought Me to a place, where poor folks wrought most sorely,

And there they entertain'd me well
With whom I ever mean to dwell,

With them to stay, it thus befel
though poorly.

Thus people, that do labour hard,

Have Robin Conscience in regard;

For which they shall have their reward in heaven;

For all their sorrows here on earth,
They shall be filled with true mirth,
Crowns shall to them, atsecond birth,
be given.

And all those caitiffs, that deny'd
To entertain him for their guide,
When they by Conscience shall be try'd
and judged.

Then will they wish that they had us'd
Poor Conscience whom they have refus'd,
Whose company they have abus'd,
and grudged.

Thus Robin Conscience that hath had,
Amongst most men, but welcome bad,
He now hath found, to make him glad,
abiding.

'Mong honest folks that hath no lands,
But got their living with their hands,
These are the friends that to him stands,
and's guiding.

These still keep Conscience from grim death,
And ne'er gainsay whate'er he saith:
These lead their lives so here beneath,
That dying,

They may ascend from poverty,

To glory and great dignity,

Where they shall live, and never die: while frying

In hell the wicked lie, who would

Not use true Conscience as they should:
This is but for a moral told

73

AN ADDRESS

AGREED UPON AT

THE COMMITTEE FOR THE FRENCH WAR,

And read in the House of Commons, April the 19th, 1689.

"E your Majesty's most loyal subjects, the Commons of England in Parliament assembled, have taken into our most serious consideration the condition and state of this nation, in respect of France, and foreign alliances; in order to which, we have examined the mischiefs brought upon Christendom, in late years, by the French King, who, without any respect to justice, has, by fraud and force, endeavoured to subject it to an arbitrary and universal monarchy.

In prosecution of this design, so pernicious to the repose and safety of Europe, he has neglected none of those means, how indirect soever, which his ambition or avarice could suggest to him. The faith of treaties, among all princes, especially Christian princes, ever held most inviolable, has never been able to restrain him, nor the solemnest oaths to bind him, when any occasion presented itself for extending the limits of his kingdom, or oppressing those, whom his interest inclined him to qualify by the name of his enemies. Witness his haughty and groundless declaration of war against the States General of the United Provinces, in the year 1672, in which he assigned no other reason for disturbing that profound peace, which, thro' God's mercy, all Europe enjoyed at that time; but his own glory, and his resolution to punish the Dutch, for some imaginary slights and disrespects, which he would have had the world believe, they had put upon him: whereas, the true occasion of that war was nothing else but a formed design, laid down and agreed upon by that king and his accomplices, for the subversion of the liberties of Europe, and for abolishing the Commonwealth of Holland, as being too dangerous an example of liberty to the subjects of neighbouring monarchs. The zeal for Catholick religion, which was pretended by him in this and the following wars, did afterwards sufficiently appear to the world, to be no other than a cloak for his unmeasurable ambition; for, at the same time when the persecution grew hottest against the protestants of France, letters were intercepted, and published, from him to Count Teckely, to give him the greatest encouragement, and promise him the utmost assistance in the war, which, in conjunction with the Turk, he then managed against the first and greatest of all Roman Catholick princes.

Witness, also, the many open infractions of the treaties, both of Aix la Chapelle and Nimenguen, (whereof your Majestyf is the strongest

The King of Hungary, &c.

+ As King of England. See the Emperor's Letter to King James the Second, page 23.

gauarranty) upon the most frivolous pretences imaginable, of which the most usual was that of dependencies; an invention set on foot on purpose to serve for a pretext of rupture with all his neighbours, unless they chose rather to satisfy his endless demands, by abandoning one place after another, to his insatiable appetite of empire, and for maintaining whereof, the two chambers of Metz and Brissach were erected to find out and forge titles, and to invent equivocal constructions for eluding the plain meaning of treaties concluded and sworn with the greatest solemnity, and than which nothing can be more sacred among mankind.

From hence it was, also, that Strasburg was so infamously surprised by the French King, in a time of full peace; and though great conditions were agreed and promised to the inhabitants of that city, yet no sooner was he in possession of it, but all stipulations were forgotten, and that ancient free city doth now groan under the same yoke with the rest of that king's subjects.

The building the fort of Hunninghen, contrary to so many solemn assurances given to the Swiss, and the affair of Luxemburgh, are too well known, to need a particular deduction. In a word, the whole series of the French King's actions, for many years last past, has been so ordered, as if it were his intention, not only to render his own people extremely miserable, by intolerable imposition of taxes, to be employed in maintaining an incredible number of dragoons, and other soldiers, to be the instruments of his cruelty upon such of them as refuse in all things to comply with his unjust commands, but likewise to hold all the neighbouring powers in perpetual alarm and expence, for the maintaining armies and fleets, that they may be in a posture to defend themselves against the invador of their common safety and liberties.

Examples of this sort might be innumerable; but his invasion of Flanders and Holland, since the last truce of 1684, and the outrages committed upon the empire, by attacking the fort of Philipsburg, without any declaration of war, at the same time that his imperial Majesty was employing all his forces against the common enemy of the Christian faith, and his wasting the Palatinate with fire and sword, and murdering an infinite number of innocent persons, for no other reasons, as himself hath publickly declared, but because he thought the Elector Palatine faithful to the interest of the empire, and an obstacle to the compassing his ambitious designs, are sufficient instances of this.

To these we cannot, but with a particular resentment, add the inju ries done to your Majesty, in the most unjust and violent seizing of your Principality of Orange, and the utmost insolencies committed on the persons of your Majesty's subjects there: and how, to facilitate his conquests upon his neighbour princes, he engaged the Turks in a war against Christendom at the same time.

And, as if violating of treaties, and ravaging the countries of his neighbours states, were not sufficient means of advancing his exorbitant power and greatness, he has constantly had recourse to the vilest and meanest arts, for the ruin of those whom he had taken upon him to subdue to his will and power, insinuating himself, by his emissaries, un