I thought any Englishman had the liberty to speak his opinion in such things, for this had nothing to do with the public. The press was open to me as well as to others; and how or when I lost my English liberty of speaking my mind, I know not; neither how my speaking my opinion without fee or reward, could authorise them to call me villain, rascal, traitor, and such opprobrious names.
It was ever my opinion, and is so still, that were our wool kept from France, and our manufactures spread in France upon reasonable duties, all the improvements which the French have made in the woollen manufactures would decay, and in the end be little worth; and consequently, the hurt they could do us by them would be of little moment.
It was my opinion, and is so still, that the ninth article of the treaty of commerce was calculated for the advantage of our trade, let who will make it. That is nothing to me. My reasons are because it tied up the French to open the door to our manufactures at a certain duty of importation there, and left the parliament of Britain at liberty to shut theirs out by as high duties as they pleased here, there being no limitation upon us as to duties on French goods; but that other nations should pay the same.
While the French were thus bound, and the British free, I always thought we must be in a condition to trade to advantage, or it must be our ownfault. This was my opinion, and is so still; and I would venture to maintain it against any man upon a public stage, before a jury of fifty merchants, and venture my life upon the cause, if I were assured of fair play in the dispute. But that it was my opinion that we might carry on a trade with France to our great advantage, and that we ought for that reason to trade with them, appears in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes of the Review, above nine years before the Mercator was thought of. It was not thought criminal to say so then; how it come to be villanous to say so now, God knows; I can give no account of it. I am still of the same opinion, and shall never be brought to say otherwise, unless I see the state of trade so altered as to alter my opinion; and if ever I do I shall be able to give good reasons for it.
The answer to these things, whether mine or no, was all pointed at me, and the arguments were generally in the terms villain, rascal, miscreant, liar, bankrupt, fellow, hireling, turncoat, &c. What the arguments were bettered by these methods, I leave others to judge of. Also, most of those things in the Mercator, for which I had such usage, were such as I was not the author of.
I do grant, had all the books which had been called by my name been written by me, I must of necessity have exasperated every side; and perhaps have deserved it; but I have the greatest injustice imaginable in this treatment, as I have in the perverting the design of what I have really written.
To sum up, therefore, my complaint in a few words:—
I was, from my first entering into the knowledge of public matters, and have ever been to this day, a sincere lover of the constitution of my country; zealous for liberty and the protestant interest; buta constant follower of moderate principles, a vigorous opposer of hot measures in all parties. I never once changed my opinion, my principles, or my party: and let what will be said of changing sides, this I maintain, that I never once deviated from the revolution principles, nor from the doctrine of liberty and property on which it was founded.
I own I could never be convinced of the great danger of the pretender in the time of the late ministry, nor can I be now convinced of the great danger of the church under this ministry. I believe the cry of the one was politically made use of then to serve other designs, and I plainly see the like use made of the other now. I spoke my mind freely then, and I have done the like now, in a small tract to that purpose not yet made public; and which if I live to publish I will publicly own, as I purpose to do everything I write, that my friends may know when I am abused, and they imposed on.
It has been the disaster of all parties in this nation to be very hot in their turn; and as often as they have been so I have differed with them, and ever must and shall do so. I will repeat some of the occasions on the whigs' side, because from that quarter the accusation of my turning about comes.
The first time I had the misfortune to differ with my friends was about the year 1683, when the Turks were besieging Vienna, and the whigs in England, generally speaking, were for the Turks taking it, which I, having read the history of the cruelty and perfidious dealings of the Turks in their wars, and how they had rooted out the name of the Christian religion in above threescore and ten kingdoms, could by no means agree with. Andthough then but a young man, and a younger author, I opposed it, and wrote against it, which was taken very unkindly indeed.
The next time I differed with my friends was when king James was wheedling the dissenters to take off the penal laws and test, which I could by no means come into. And, as in the first, I used to say, I had rather the popish house of Austria should ruin the protestants in Hungaria, than the infidel house of Ottoman should ruin both protestants and papists by overrunning Germany; so, in the other, I told the dissenters I had rather the church of England should pull our clothes off by fines and forfeitures, than the papists should fall both upon the church and the dissenters, and pull our skins off by fire and fagot.
The next difference I had with good men was about the scandalous practice of occasional conformity, in which I had the misfortune to make many honest men angry, rather because I had the better of the argument, than because they disliked what I said.
And now I have lived to see the dissenters themselves very quiet, if not very well pleased with an act of parliament to prevent it. Their friends indeed laid it on; they would be friends indeed if they would talk of taking it off again.
Again, I had a breach with honest men for their maltreating king William; of which I say nothing, because I think they are now opening their eyes, and making what amends they can to his memory.
The fifth difference I had with them was about the treaty of Partition, in which many honest men are mistaken, and in which I told them plainly then that they would at last end the war upon worse terms; and so it is my opinion they would havedone, though, the treaty of Gertrudenburgh had taken place.
The sixth time I differed with them was when the old whigs fell upon the modern whigs, and when the duke of Marlborough and my lord Godolphin were used by the Observator in a manner worse, I must confess, for the time it lasted, than ever they were used since; nay, though it were by Abel and the Examiner; but the success failed. In this dispute my lord Godolphin did me the honour to tell me, I had served him and his grace also both faithfully and successfully. But his lordship is dead, and I have now no testimony of it but what is to be found in the Observator, where I am plentifully abused for being an enemy to my country, by acting in the interest of my lord Godolphin and the duke of Marlborough. What weathercock can turn with such tempers as these!
I am now on the seventh breach with them, and my crime now is, that I will not believe and say the same things of the queen and the late treasurer which I could not believe before of my lord Godolphin and the duke of Marlborough, and which in truth I cannot believe, and therefore could not say it of either of them; and which, if I had believed, yet I ought not to have been the man that should have said it for the reasons aforesaid.
In such turns of tempers and times, a man must be tenfold a vicar of Bray, or it is impossible but he must one time or other be out with everybody. This is my present condition, and for this I am reviled with having abandoned my principles, turned jacobite, and what not. God judge between me and these men. Would they come to any particulars with me, what real guilt I may have I would freely acknowledge; and if they would produceany evidence of the bribes, the pensions, and the rewards I have taken, I would declare honestly whether they were true or no. If they would give a list of the books which they charge me with, and the reasons why they lay them at my door, I would acknowledge my mistake, own what I have done, and let them know what I have not done. But these men neither show mercy, nor leave place for repentance; in which they act not only unlike their master, but contrary to his express commands.
It is true, good men have been used thus in former times; and all the comfort I have is, that these men have not the last judgment in their hands: if they had, dreadful would be the case of those who oppose them. But that day will show many men and things also in a different state from what they may now appear in. Some that now appear clear and fair will then be seen to be black and foul, and some that are now thought black and foul will then be approved and accepted; and thither I cheerfully appeal, concluding this part in the words of the prophet,I heard the defaming of many; fear on every side; report, say they, and we will report it; all my familiars watched for my halting, saying, peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him. Jer. xx. 10.
Mr. Poole's Annotations has the following remarks on these lines; which, I think, are so much to that part of my case which is to follow, that I do not omit them. The words are these:—
"The prophet," says he, "here rendereth a reason why he thought of giving over his work as a prophet; his ears were continually filled with the obloquies and reproaches of such as reproached him; and besides, he was afraid on all hands, therewere so many traps laid for him, so many devices devised against him. They did not only take advantage against him, but sought advantages, and invited others to raise stories of him; not only strangers, but those that he might have expected the greatest kindness from; those that pretended most courteously; 'They watch,' says he, 'for opportunities to do me justice, and lay in wait for my halting, desiring nothing more than that I might be enticed to speak, or do something which they might find matter of a colourable accusation, that so they might satisfy their malice upon me.' This hath always been the genius of wicked men. Job and David both made complaints much like this." These are Mr. Poole's words.
And this leads me to several particulars, in which my case may, without any arrogance, be likened to that of the sacred prophet, excepting the vast disparity of the persons.
No sooner was the queen dead, and the king, as right required, proclaimed, but the rage of men increased upon me to that degree, that the threats and insults I received were such as I am not able to express. If I offered to say a word in favour of the present settlement, it was called fawning, and turning round again; on the other hand, though I have meddled neither one way nor the other, nor written one book since the queen's death, yet a great many things are called by my name, and I bear every day the reproaches which all the answerers of those books cast, as well upon the subjects as the authors. I have not seen or spoken to my lord of Oxford but once since the king's landing, nor received the least message, order, or writing from his lordship, or any other way corresponded with him, yet he bears the reproach of my writing in his defence, and I therage of men for doing it. I cannot say it is no affliction to me to be thus used, though my being entirely clear of the facts is a true support to me.
I am unconcerned at the rage and clamour of party men; but I cannot be unconcerned to hear men, who I think are good men and good Christians, prepossessed and mistaken about me. However, I cannot doubt but some time or other it will please God to open such men's eyes. A constant, steady adhering to personal virtue and to public peace, which, I thank God, I can appeal to him has always been my practice, will at last restore me to the opinion of sober and impartial men, and that is all I desire. What it will do with those who are resolutely partial and unjust, I cannot say, neither is that much my concern. But I cannot forbear giving one example of the hard treatment I receive, which has happened even while I am writing this tract. I have six children; I have educated them as well as my circumstances will permit, and so as I hope shall recommend them to better usage than their father meets with in this world.
I am not indebted one shilling in the world for any part of their education, or for anything else belonging to their bringing up; yet the author of the Flying Post published lately that I never paid for the education of any of my children. If any man in Britain has a shilling to demand of me for any part of their education, or anything belonging to them, let them come for it.
But these men care not what injurious things they write, nor what they say, whether truth or not, if it may but raise a reproach on me, though it were to be my ruin. I may well appeal to the honour and justice of my worst enemies in such cases as this:
Conscia mens recti fama mendacia ridet.
CONCLUSION BY THE PUBLISHER.
Whilethis was at the press, and the copy thus far finished, the author was seized with a violent fit of an apoplexy, whereby he was disabled finishing what he designed in his further defence; and continuing now for above six weeks in a weak and languishing condition, neither able to go on nor likely to recover, at least in any short time, his friends thought it not fit to delay the publication of this any longer. If he recovers he may be able to finish what he began; if not, it is the opinion of most that know him that the treatment which he here complains of, and some others that he would have spoken of, have been the apparent cause of his disaster.
Transcriber's NotesThe transcriber made these changes to the text to correct obvious errors:1. p. 10, Jacobities --> Jacobites2. p. 12, lordtreasurer --> lord treasurer3. p. 20, an as unchristian --> as an unchristian4. p. 37, withont --> without
Transcriber's Notes
The transcriber made these changes to the text to correct obvious errors:
1. p. 10, Jacobities --> Jacobites2. p. 12, lordtreasurer --> lord treasurer3. p. 20, an as unchristian --> as an unchristian4. p. 37, withont --> without