'Look ye, Gentlemen, we own with you that Nature, Reason, Law, Justice, and Custom of Nations is on your side, and that all Power Derives from, Centers in, and on all Recesses or Demises of Power returns to its Great Original the Party Governed: Nay we own our Great Eye from whom all the habitable Parts of this Globe are inlightned, has always directed us to practice what Nature thus dictates, always approv'd and generally succeeded the attempt of Dethroning Tyrants. But our Case differs, we have always pretended to this absolute undisputed Obedience, which we did indeed to gain the Power of your Party; and if we should turn round at once to your Opinion, tho' never so right, we should so fly in the Face of our own Doctrin, Sermons, innumerable Pamphlets and Pretensions, as would give all our Enemies too great a Power over us in Argument, and we should never be able to look Mankind in the Face: But we have laid our Measures so that by prompting the King to run upon us in all sorts of bare-fac'd Extreams and Violences, we shall bring him to exasperate the whole Nation; then we may underhand foment the breach on this side, raise the Mob upon him, and by acting on both sides seem to suffer a Force in falling in with the People, and preserve our Reputation.
'Thus we shall bring the thing to pass, betray our Prince, take Arms against his Power, call in Foreign Force to do the Work, and even then keep our Hands seemingly out of the Broil, by being pretended Sticklers for our former Prince; so save our Reputation, and bring all to pass with Ease and Calmness; while the eager Party of the Abrogratzians will do their own Work by expecting we will do it for them.
The Crolians astonish'd both at the Policy, the Depth, the Knavery and the Hypocrisy of the Design, left them to carry it on, owning it was a Masterpiece of Craft, and so stood still to observe the Issue, which every way answer'd the exactness of its Contrivance.
When I saw into the bottom of all this Deceit, I began to take up new Resolutions of returning back into our Old World again, and going home to England, where tho' I had conceiv'd great Indignation at the Treatment our Passive Obedience Men gave their Prince here, and was in hopes in these my remote Travels to have found out some Nations of Honour and Principles. I was fill'd with Amazement to see our Moderate Knaves so much out-done, and I was inform'd that all these things were meer Amusements, Vizors, and Shams, to bring an Innocent Prince into the Snare.
Would any Mortal imagin who has read this short Part of the Story, that all this was a Solunarian Church Plot, a meer Conspiracy between these Gentlemen and the Crolian Dissenters, only to wheedle in the unhappy Prince to his own Destruction, and bring the popular Advantage of the Mob, to a greater Ascendant on the Crown.
Of all the Richlieus, Mazarines, Gondamours, Oliver Cromwels, and the whole Train of Polititians that our World has produc'd, the greatest of their Arts are Follies to the unfathomable depth of these Lunarian Policies; and for Wheedle, Lying, Swearing, Preaching, Printing, &c. what is said in our World by Priests and Polititans, we thank God may be believ'd; but if ever I believe a Solunarian Priest Preaching Non-Resistance of Monarchs, or a Solunarian Polititian turning Abrogratzian, I ought to be mark'd down for a Fool; nor will ever any Prince in that Country take their Word again, if ever they have their Senses about 'em, but as this is a most extraordinary Scene, so I cannot omit a more particular and sufficient Relation of some Parts of it, than I us'd to give.
The Solunarian Clergy had carry'd on their Non-Resistance Doctrin to such Extremities, and had given this new Prince such unusual demonstrations of it, that he fell absolutely into the Snare, and entirely believ'd them; he had try'd them with such Impositions as they would never have born from any Prince in the World, nor from him neither, had they not had a deep Design, and consequently stood in need of the deepest Disguise imaginable; they had yielded to a Standing Army, and applauded it as a thing they had desir'd; they had submitted to levying Taxes upon them by New Methods, and illegal Practices; they had yielded to the abrogation or suspension at least of their Laws, when the King's absolute Will requir'd it; not that they were blind, and did not see what their Prince was doing, but that the black Design was so deeply laid, they found it was the only way to ruin him, to push him upon the highest Extreams, and then they should have their turn serv'd.---- Thus if he desir'd one illegal Thing of them, they would immediately grant two; one would have thought they had read our Bible, and the Command, when a Man takes away the Cloak, to give him the Coat also.
Nor was this enough, but they seem'd willing to admit of the publick Exercise of the Abrogratzian Religion in all Parts; and when the Prince set it up in his own Chappel, they suffered it to be set up in their Cities, and Towns, and the Abrogratzian Clergy began to be seen up and down in their very Habits; a thing which had never been permitted before in that Country, and which the Common People began to be very uneasy at. But still the Solunarian Clergy, and all such of the Gentry, especially as were in the Plot, by their Sermons, printed Books, and publick Discourses, carry'd on this high topping Notion of absolute Submission, so that the People were kept under, and began to submit to all the impositions of the Prince.
These things were so acted to the Life, that not only the Prince, but none of his Abrogratzian Counsellors could see the Snare, the Hook was so finely covered by the Church-Artificers, and the Bait so delicious, that they all swallow'd it with eagerness and delight.
But the Conspirators willing to make a sure game of it, and not thinking the King, or all his Counsellors would drive on so fast as they would have them, tho' they had already made a fair progress for the Time, resolv'd to play home, and accordingly they persuade their Prince, that they will not only submit to his Arbitrary Will, in Matters of State, and Government, but in Matters of Religion; and in order to carry this Jest on, one of the heads of their Politicks, and a Person of great Estem for his Abilities in Matters of State, being without question one of the ablest Heads of all the Solunarian Nobility, pretended to be converted, and turn'd Abrogratzian. This immediately took as they desir'd, for the Prince caress'd him, and entertain'd him with all possible endearments, proferr'd him to several Posts of Honour and Advantage, always kept him near him, consulted him in all Emergencies, took him with him to the Abrogian Sacrifices, and he made no Scruple publickly to appear there, and by these degrees and a super-achitophalian Hypocrisie, so insinuated himself into the credulous Prince's favour, that he became his only Confident, and absolute Master of all his Designs.