dreadful, mad as he was for Popery and lawless power; since he was persuaded, that they supported each other. The only sound judgment which he seems ever to have made.

NUMBER 80.

The Views of the Pretender not to be Disguised. His Defence an
Insult.

THE young pretender is not the less an invader for his coming accompanied with so few persons. If all that are now about him had come from abroad with him, he would not have been more an usurper, or they greater enemies. The natives are always the greatest enemies to their country, when they are enemies. The Turks are not fiercer enemies to Christians, than the Popish Irish and the Popish Highlanders are to English Protestants. If they have, besides, long smarted as fugitives, traitors, and banished out-laws, do they not return with heightened rage, with vengeance still more direful and bloody? Or, though they have never been abroad, nor felt the punishment and ignominy of traitors; yet, if they have nourished continual rancour against the government, been continually bent upon its overthrow, and long sought its ruin, are they not habitual and ardent foes to all that love and support it? Can any croud of intruders from abroad be conceived more fierce and implacable? Could a herd of invading Tartars have proved more eager thieves, more merciless butchers and plunderers, than the wild clans following the young pretender? There is one good resulting from all this shocking evil; namely, that it is so shocking, and that by it he gives us a sample of his government, and of his notions of government. This is so glaring, that they who are not alarmed by it, deserve the sharpest whips, and the heaviest chains, without redemption or end.

Does he talk of a free Parliament ? Mockery and insult! Never was a more free Parliament than ours, or so much property in any Parliament. There are several single members in either house, able to buy every follower he has with all their chiefs. I could name to him the lady of one member, who has more wealth upon her toilet than would clothe his army, much better than they now are, after all their boundless plunder.

What English county, or even what small borough, would own him, or his writ, or chuse a man fit for his purpose? He can have no pros- pect of any Parliament, but a Parliament of Highland robbers, or Irish rapperees, at best such as they shall choose and admit. What Parliament can he possibly have, but a Parliament like his army, composed of indigents, outlaws, and savages? What other Parliament would serve his turn? He cannot but see the dread and antipathy of the nation, flaming fiercely from every corner of it against him: yet he has the modesty and consistency to talk of a new Parliament. The whole na

tion are his enemies, except some unnatural desperadoes in it; nor can he ever hope for any Parliament but a Parliament of desperadoes, such as the nation will never choose. Does be mean to have a free Parliament chosen by force? This was the scheme of his pretended grandfather; who, like a true tyrant, robbed the electors of their charters, and filled them with creatures of his own: but even his own creatures, abhorring his religion and his tyranny, abandoned the bigot and the tyrant. Is better to be hoped from this proscribed invader?

Parliaments, he knows, sound charmingly to English ears; and therefore tries with that sound to charm Englishmen : But, whilst they have the thing itself, they will not be mocked with the grimace, and mere sound.

He comes from Rome, to protect the English church; from France, to defend English liberty; a Papist, to protect Protestants. Can there be greater or more insulting drollery? We enjoy more liberty than any, than all, the nations of the earth ever enjoyed, now or heretofore. We enjoy religion in higher perfection than ever, because every man enjoys his own religion. The church is more secure than ever, because her sons do not disgrace her by seeking to persecute dissenters, nor endanger her by the false factious cry of her danger. His majesty protects property, and defends the laws; his subjects love and trust him. Never were there known such ardent, such active proofs of popular confidence in a prince.

Here is a system of national felicity, a system unparallel'd throughout the world! A change from this system implies a fall to final misery and destruction. The bait of a new Parliament is an old snair, the cant of a pretender. His religion and principles (Popish and arbitrary) are our dread and abomination: he is a stranger in his person; his counsellors and exiles are starving and desperate outlaws; his measures are barbarous; his soldiers are savages. If he regarded Parliaments, he would have staid till the Parliament had sent for him. He has intruded against the voice of Parliament, and of the nation, the loud and repeated voice of both. He tramples upon law, he plunders property, he imprisons and executes men, he commits universal spoil, yet talks of right; he profanes the name of authority, and jests with that of Parliament. Did his pretended grandfather love Parliaments? Would he be advised by Parliaments? Or did he keep his oaths to Parliaments?

His very claim, the claim of descent, is a defiance of Parliament, and law, and oaths. If the Parliament can exclude one king, and choose another, then is his claim by blood a bawble; nay, 'tis treason against the constitution. But, if that claim prevail, then there is an end of Parliaments, and a man may destroy a nation, because he is called, or calls himself king of it, or because his ancestors, nay, because his pretended ancestors, were kings of it. If no disqualification can disable him, then a person unfit for the lowest office in life is fit for the highest; one that is dumb may utter laws; a deaf man may listen to counsel, and hear petitions; a frantic enthusiast may dictate in religion; and an ideot, or, which is worse, a wilful and perjured tyrant, may govern the state.

Such is his latent claim; it must be such; and he dares neither give it up, nor explicitly assert it. The Parliament, many, all Par

liaments have settled the succession, as it is now settled; forced to do so by the perfidy, the bigotry, the frenzy, and tyranny of his pretended grandfather. Yet he mocks those that will be mocked, with an appeal to Parliament. He does not, he dares not describe what sort of Parliament he means, how chosen, and how principled; neither need he describe it; we can guess his meaning: he must either have no Parliament, or one worse than none. In the members, a desperate fortune, and an implacable spirit, will be the first qualification; blind bigotry, the next, and an abandoned submission to his will, the last and greatest, recommended by the other two.

So that, whether he should have such a Parliament, or no Parliament, there will be an end of genuine Parliaments. And then-what follows? Ask him, and he will not tell you but I will, and all men may guess; even whatever he pleases, final bondage, and the inqui sition; monks and fraud triumphant, conscience oppressed, the Bible banished, Popery and flames in fashion, and Protestants burned, or their bodies secured at the expense of their faith, and their souls. Here is a catalogue of woes, dreadful ones, yet not all. Behold them, Britons, abhor them, and prevent them.

A Popish government, and a Protestant Parliament, are a contradiction they are fire and water to each other. A Popish Parliament, in a Protestant country, is equally impossible. Will he declare himself a Protestant? He dares not. Nor shall we believe him, if he do. The most furious Papists are his keenest emissaries, the most active to poison and prevent Protestants: the grossest Papists, almost savages, are armed for him, and for our destruction.

Are these tokens of his being a Protestant, or inclined to be? His pretended grandfather long feigned himself a Protestant: his pretended grand uncle carried on the fraud to his death. Both of them continually nurtured Popery, and betrayed the Protestants; one of them openly attempted their destruction.

We have already a Protestant king, one of our own seeking and approving, never suspected of Popery, or of any fraud, or of any equivocation; his progeny all Protestants by principle and education: shall we risk a desperate change, because the young pretender talks civilly, and makes promises? Are not all his actions lawless, most of them barbarous? And is success likely to mend such a wild lawless adventurer? He labours to be master by violence. What he gains by violence, he must keep by violence; and can never be safe, till all men be undone, till will determine law, and the sword decide property.

Such is thy threatened fate, O England! rouse and extripate the parricides that threaten it. The spirit of the nation hath loudly displayed itself, and gloriously from sea to sea, with noble ardor and disdain, against a wanton intruder, against savage traitors, and a rebellion unprovoked. What remains but to nourish and pursue that glorious spirit? The alternative is short, to save all, or to lose all, to destroy, or be destroyed.

In my next, I shall illustrate and confirm all that I have here advan ced, by an example out of the history of England.

X

NUMBER 81.

The Norman Invasion, how sanguinary and fatal to England. The Invader how faithless and barbarous to Englishmen.

In the following extracts from the reign, or rather the usurpation and tyranny of William the Norman, we have a specimen of what may as reasonably be dreaded from the pretender (either old or young) who like the other invader, claims an airy fictitious right, and would assert it by force, against law and religion; and, to enjoy it, would make three kingdonis perjured slaves or victims.

William the Norman, improperly called Conqueror, invaded England at the head of forces, mixed and collected from many countries, most of them needy adventurers, allured by promises of plunder and settlements in this kingdom, which when subdued, was to be turned into spoil, and parted amongst the spoilers, with proper preference and allotment to the principal spoiler. It was an attempt as desperate as wicked; and they might all have probably perished in it, though they were victorious at first, had not the clergy deserted the common cause, and broken their engagement to the nobility and the Londoners, purely to make early court to the usurper, and to gain proper advantages to themselves, whatever became of the rest. The case, I bless God, is different now, and we have a different clergy, who being convinced, that they have a common interest with the laity in the cause of liberty, join cordially with them, and have borne an illustrious testimony against unnatural rebels and barbarous usurpation.

Yet, with all the advantage of this fatal defection, he could never have succeeded, had be not submitted to conditions. He found himself encompassed with so many distresses, and still threatened with so many more, that, to prevent famine, and to divert the continual demands of his followers, he agreed to terms, the more readily, as he intended to keep none. He swore to the English, upon receiving the crown from them, to preserve all their laws and liberties. He added many magnificent promises, which, with his fair behaviour, disposed them frankly to trust him.

His deceit lasted not long, but gave way to his innate appetite for power, and to his devouring avarice. He had another constant stimulation to rob and oppress, from the restless discontents and importunities of his comrades in the usurpation, calling upon him for donatives and gratifications, boldly pleading their many wants and many services, together with his promises and treaty with them. To answer all their demands, and all his own, he had no other resource but to rob the English, and, by perjuring himself to them, be able to keep his faith with his brother robbers; besides, he took tyranny to be his best policy, to disable the oppressed from avenging their oppression.

This is the eternal oversight and false craft of tyrants; as if a people wealthy and well protected, (blessings that naturally disposed them to be content) were more to be feared by their protector, than a people

plundered and desperate. The dread of lawles power may reduce the bodies of men, perhaps their lips, to acquiesce; but their spirits will remain the more ulcerated and implacable.

It is plain, that William the Norman came into England a determined enemy to the English. He was in his own nature a tyrant, as almost all that aim at conquest are, and engaged by compact to exercise endless tyranny. Yet he swore and promised, and made fair professions; talked of his pretended title, and kindred to the throne, and referred all his pretensions to the decision of the English, who to be sure must act from conviction with Norman swords at their throats.

He was obliged to impoverish the whole nation to gratify those, who upon that condition only, joined with him in invading the nation. His course of reigning was therefore naturally a course of plunder, and of cruelty to such as dared to complain of being plundered. Complaint was a proof of disaffection, and the complainers were hanged as traitors. The first tax that he raised was oppressive and arbitrary, and levied with all the excesses of rigour; the whole contrary to his oath. The motives for it were equally odious, as it was for money to pay his confederate spoilers; a dolefut reason to the poor natives. Yet all this was not the worst: He had such contempt for his honour and his oath, as well as for his subjects, that not a farthing of this terrible tax was paid to the Normans, though for them only he avowed to have raised it. He kept the whole to himself, as a fund against the miserable people from whom he had squeezed it; miserable indeed, thus mocked and drained, yet liable to be again equally drained, upon the same pre

tence.

Hitherto he had robbed them but in part: He next proceeds to strip them to the skin, upon a charge against them, founded upon downright impudence, namely, their adherence to their late lawful king, Harold the Second, when they had no other to adhere to. Had that brave

prince been alive, the English throne would not have been defiled by the rough William, who had no peace whilst the English had any land. No argument will do against a naked sword. He seized a great num ber of estates, with as little ceremony as mercy.

When by this, and every furious oppression, he had made the miserable nation stark-mad, his next step was to punish them for being so. He, therefore, besides infinite vengeance, corporal and capital, at once seized into his own hands all baronies, and all fiefs of the crown, whatsoever. Thus he reduced all the nobility and landholders in England to nakedness and want of bread. Their misery, which seemed complete, had yet a heavy aggravation, and they had another shocking scene to behold Their estates were granted to the favourites and champions of the usurper, desperate adventurers, and the needy hunters of fortune.

These upstarts and spoilers were incredibly exalted. Some of them rioted in the revenues of whole counties; many of them counted their manors by hundreds. Others were made lords of cities, others proprietors of great towns; the rest commanded strong forts and castles, now purposely built to ensure the everlasting bondage of the wretched English. All these lofty upstarts had it now in their option, to starve, or to feed, the genuine lords and owners; I mean, such of them as the cruel mercy of the invader had left to live bereft of dignity and bread.