Smith. ’Tis all I think needful to say upon the occasion, and enough, in my opinion, to establish his reputation to to all succeeding ages.
Sir Walter. Let us carefully examine the several particulars; and when we have so done, we shall be able to determine on what side the truth lies—Imprimis, you tell me he deliver’d England from tyranny and popish superstition: but was there no other way of accomplishing his deliverance, but by sending a certain relation to grass, and wounding the monarchy in so tender a part, which had suffer’d so terribly in the late unnatural rebellion of 41? If what one of the ancient fathers says, be true, that the whole world is not worth the saving, at the expence of a single lye, surely Great Britain, which makes so small a part of the universe, hardly deserv’d to be deliver’d from an imaginary ruin with so much perjury, infidelity, and ingratitude. Besides, he solemnly protested in his declaration, that he had no intention to make himself king, yet he excercis’d the regal power the very moment he landed: so that unless there had been a crown in the case, I am afraid he would hardly have cross’d the water to rescue the church of England.
Smith. This is indeed what his enemies and some envious people have objected to him.
Sir Walter. Nothing of that can be laid to my charge, who was never known to your hero either Beneficio or Injuria; but as I still preserve an invincible affection for my native country, my zeal for the welfare of that, makes me assume this freedom. To be plain with you then, I can hardly believe he had any extraordinary concern for the prosperity of England, upon whom he threw the greatest burden of the war; whose troops he suffer’d to fight without their pay, in Flanders, at the same time when a parcel of unworthy foreigners had store of gold and silver in their pockets. Neither can any man perswade me he had the least affection for the royal family, from which he was descended, who suffer’d such numberless invectives and libels to be publish’d against his royal grandfather, both his uncles, and, in short, the whole family of the Stuarts, yet never call’d any of the authors or printers to an account for’t during the whole course of his reign.
Smith. Aye, but a hero, you know, has other business to mind, than the bagatelles of the press.
Sir Walter. And yet this hero could condescend to mind these bagatelles, as you call them, with a witness, whenever they were levell’d against himself or his favourites. But to proceed,—can any one in his senses believe, that this deliverer ever set the monarchy and true constitution of England to heart, under whose reign all the democratical treatises, both of this and the last age, were not only publish’d with impunity, but the abettors of such villainous doctrine, thought the only persons that were in the true interest of the nation, and deserving to be preferr’d? Was England so utterly destitute of able generals, that a regicide, proscrib’d by act of parliament, must be sent for over to head our forces in Ireland?
Smith. You’ll never leave off harping upon this string.
Sir Walter. And lastly, have we not very violent reasons to suspect, that he never had any true hearty concern for the protestant interest, whatever he pretended to the contrary, who so notoriously sacrific’d it at the treaty of Ryswick; who, to enable him to carry on the late revolution against his uncle and father-in-law, enter’d into a league; one of the first articles of which, was, to oblige the king of France to do justice to the usurpations of the Roman see? And lastly, who, if he had no aversion, had certainly no affection for the church of England, the support, as well as ornament of the whole reformation, which evidently appear’d by his bestowing its best preferments upon illos quos pingere nola, a sett of moderate lukewarm gentlemen, that were willing (good men) to throw up the constitution, whenever their enemies should ask them the question. What shall I say of others, that were advanc’d for no other merit, but because they had been justly punish’d in former reigns for their seditious practices, or descended from Oliverian parents; or lastly, because they held antimonarchical and antihierarchical doctrine, both in pulpit and press, which they honestly call’d free-thinking?
Smith. Nay, this is mere calumny; for can any thing but the blackest envy presume: to attack him upon the score of religion?
Sir Walter. For once I’ll spare his religion, yet ’tis certain his ministers had not the least tincture of it. To the eternal honour of his reign, be it observ’d, all the Socinian treatises that stole into the world in the late accursed times of licentiousness and disorder, were fairly reprinted, and these, together with the modern improvements of Deism, fold in the face of the sun, without the least check or discountenance from any at the helm: ’twas come to that pitch at last, that a man might better call the divinity of our Saviour into question, than the legality of that revolution; and safer insult the ashes of king James the 1st, Charles the martyr, and the whole royal line, than attack such a lew’d, perjur’d, infamous scoundrel as Oates. ’Tis a general maxim, that the court always steers its course ad Exemplum Cæsaris; and that a shrewd guess may be made of a prince’s morals, by those of his ministers. If this observation holds good, a man would find himself strangely tempted to say some rash things of your monarch, which good manners and decency oblige me to pass over in silence.