A. To make the Government Odious, and Contemptible; to magnifie their own Party; and fright the People out of their Allegeance, by Counterfeit Letters, Reports, and false Musters, as if the sober and considerable part of the Nation were all on their side.
Q. We are in Common Charity to allow, for Errors, and Mis-reports, and not presently to make an Act of Malice, and Design, out of every Mistake. Can you shew me any of these Counterfeits, and Impostures that you speak of? These Cheats upon the People, and Affronts upon the Government?
A. Yes, yes; Abundantly. And Il'e give you Instances immediately upon every poynt you'l ask me: Only This note, by the way; That let them be mistakes, or Contrivances, or what you will, they all run Unanimously against the Government, without so much as one Syllable in favour of it: Which makes the matter desperately suspitious.
Q. Let me see then, in the First place, where any Affront is put upon the Government.
A. Some Persons (Says Smiths Prot. Int. N. 7.) in Norwich, &c. who have a greater stock of Confidence, and Malice, then Wisdom, and Honesty, are so far transported with Zeal to serve the Devil, or his Emissaryes the Papists, that they are now Prosecuting several Dissenting Protestants upon Stat. 35. Eliz. &c. (And so the Protestant-Mercury, N. 15.) Some People at Norwich, are playing the Devil for Godsake: several honest, peaceable, Protestant Dissenters, having been troubled for not coming to Church, or having been Present at Religious Meetings &c. Now what greater Affront can there be to Government, then This language, First, from an Anabaptist that is a Professed Enemy to all Government; and Secondly, from a Private Person, Bare-fac'd, to arraign a Solemn Law: A Law of this Antiquity; a Law of Queen Elizabeth's, (a Princesse so much Celebrated by our Dissenters themselves for her Piety, Good Government, and Moderation;) a Law which, upon Experience, has been found so Necessary, that the bare Relaxing of it, cost the Life of a Prince, the Bloud of two or three hundred thousand of his Subjects, and a Twenty-years-Rebellion? To say nothing of the dangerous Consequence of making it Unsafe for Magistrates to discharge their Dutyes, for fear of Outrages, and Libells.
Q. Well! but what have you to say now to the Kings Authority, his Administration, and his Privy Council.
A. Smith (in his Vox Populi, P. 13.) saith, that the King is oblig'd to pass or Confirm those Laws his People shall Chuse, at which rate, if they shall tender him a Bill for the Deposing of himself, he is bound to agree to't. Secondly, in the same Page, he Denies the Kings Power of Proroguing, or Dissolving Parliaments; which is an Essential of Government it self, under what Form soever, and he's no longer a King, without it. And then for his Administration, P. 1. the Anabaptist charges upon his Majesty [those many surprizing and astonishing Prorogations, and Dissolutions (as he has worded his Meaning) to be procur'd by the Papists.] And then, P. 15. he wounds both the King, and his Council, at a Blow; in falling upon those that make the King break his Coronation-Oath; arraigning his Council in the First place, and the King himself in the Second; and that for no less then the breach of Oath, and Faith.——Wee'l talk out the Rest at our next Meeting.
London, Printed for H. Brome, at the Gun in S. Pauls Church-yard.
Numb. 13.