For God's sake, Britons, what are you doing? And whither are you going? To what dreadful precipices are ye hurrying yourselves? What! are you selling yourselves for slaves to the French, who you have conquered; to popery, which you have reformed from; and to the pretender, whom you have forsworn? Is this acting like Britons; like protestants, like lovers of liberty? Nay, is it acting like men of reasonable souls, and men who have the light of common sense to act by?
That we may move you, then, to consider a little the grossness and absurdity of what you are doing, dear countrymen, be prevailed upon to debate a little with yourselves the state of your own case, which I shall briefly and plainly lay before you, thus:—
The government having thought fit, for reasons of state which I have no room to speak of in this place, to separate from the confederates, as well in the field as in treating with the French, and unhappily, I doubt, to make a separate peace; among the several improvements made of this by the enemies of Britain, this is one, viz., to encourage and increase the friends and interest of the pretender, and this they do upon several foundations. 1. Upon a supposition, or suggestion rather, that the ministry, because they have not thought fit to carry on the war, are therefore coming so entirely into the interest of France, that they must of necessity comply with the French king's demand of restoring the pretender. 2. Upon a like ill-grounded suggestion that the people of England and Scotland are more inclined to receive the pretender than they were formerly; in both which suppositions they grossly impose upon you, and yet by both they subtly carry on their crafty designs to delude the more ignorant part of the people of this nation, and to prepare them, as they think, for the coming of the pretender: as appears thus:—
1. By persuading the common people that the ministry are for the pretender, they, as far as in them lies, make a breach, a misunderstanding, and lay a foundation of jealousy and distrust between the people and the government, enraging all those who are zealous for the Hanover succession, against the ministers of state, and so increasing the dangerous divisions that are among us, the closing and healing whereof is so much the duty and interest of all faithful subjects, that they may the more unanimously and sincerely join together against the pretender and all his adherents.
2. They intimidate those great numbers of people who, not so much acting by principle as example, are unwilling to show themselves in any cause which they have reason to fear is declining, and therefore act with the less zeal for the true interest, by how much they see, or think they see, the great ones of the nation fall off from it.
3. By suggesting that the common people of Great Britain are more inclined to the pretender than they were formerly, they think they bring them really to be so, and encourage all the endeavours of those who labour indefatigably all over the nation to have it so.
To undeceive the good people of Britain, therefore, in these things, dear countrymen, I beseech you to consider,
1. That whatever we may dislike of the proceedings of the ministry, and of the government, of which this is not the place to speak, there is no greater cheat can be put upon you than this is; for, whatever the jacobite party may promise themselves from the ministry, the ministry do not yet own their measures to tend that way; they do not act avowedly for the pretender; they do all things yet upon the supposition of the protestant succession, and carry it as in the interest of the house of Hanover; and to say they are for the pretender, is to charge them with the greatest treachery and hypocrisy, and is such an insolence in the jacobites, as the ministry ought to show their resentment at them for, and we hope they will do so; besides, there is a manifest difference between the fears of honest men, as that the measures of the ministry may encourage the friends of the pretenders and on the other hand, the insolent way of the jacobites claiming the ministry to be acting in their behalf; while therefore the ministry appear to act under the scheme of the Hanover succession, whether they are sincere or no, it is a good answer to a jacobite, whatever it is to another, to say, it is an unjustifiable assurance, and an affront to the government, to boast of the ministry being in the interest of the pretender.
It is also well worthy the consideration of the good people of Britain, that at the same time these men would have you believe that the ministers of state are bringing in the pretender, they would also have the ministers of state made believe, that the generality of the people are inclined to receive the pretender; by which double-faced fraud they endeavour to restrain you, the people of Britain, from appearing against the pretender, for fear of offending the government; and to restrain the said government in the same case, for fear of the people.
As they go on in these things with too much success, it is a very sad consideration to all true British protestants to find that a party of men among us, who yet call themselves protestants, fall in with them in many things, fomenting the divisions and breaches that are among us, weakening the constitution, and pursuing such principles as tend to destroy our liberties; by whose arts, and by the subtle management of which party, the revolution wears every day more and more out of date; the principles of liberty decay; the memory of King William sinks in our esteem; the heroic actions of that prince, which were once the just admiration of all the honest people of Great Britain, begin to be lost upon us, and forgotten among us, and to become as a mark of infamy to the nation!