§ 1. THE Case of Mr. Ashton was indeed so hard, and his Speech so handsom, that I don't won­der to see a Secretary's Com­mand for Printing an evasive, trifling, and malicious Paper, that endeavours to load his Person, and blast his Writings; but the Subject will bear no more, and the Govern­ment stands in need of a Defence. However I can't but wonder the late Answerer should expect to perswade the World it was not his; because he who professes himself an illiterate Man, and unskill'd in the Laws, uses the Terms of Impending, Prevaricating, Pre­mises and Consequence, (two of which are not Terms of Art, none of the Law; and those other two, that are Logical, made familiar to all those that have ever had any sort of Breeding or Conversation) for all that is said of this Nature, both at the Beginning and End of the Answer, will appear very im­pertinent to any one that reads his Tryal, even as it is thought fit to be published; wherein some Things have been omitted, as well as others amended, to make it fit for perusal: For in that he defends himself so sensibly, that it provoked the L. Ch. Just. Pol— to rage, and sufficiently proved himself capable to write such a Paper; whose natural Parts were so very strong, and so well improved. And if he was so well satisfied that those that Comply with, as well as those that Support the present Establishment are Guilty of Perjury, and par­take with Rebels, it very well became the Charity of a dying Man to warn those he left behind him to Repent; and if the Words of dying Men have generally more Weight, and make deeper Impressions, he did but his duty to recommend to those who sur­viv'd him, Amendment and Restitution.

§ 2. As for those Matters of Law, which he thought hard in his Tryal. I believe he neither complained of, nor desired any thing, but what the Lord Chief Justice Pol­lexfen, Sir Francis Child, Mr. Herbert, and almost every Man upon his Jury, as well as Tremain, and all the other Council, would have Censured, or thought fit to be Granted in any other Reign: But by this we see they have learnt to practise those Methods of Tryal which themselves formerly complain­ed of, as Arbitrary and Illegal; and have borrowed Law from the Tories, while to make them Amends they have taught them their Gospel. I must confess I know nothing could have seemed to warrant the late Ex­traordinary Proceedings so well as a Refor­mation of our former ill Measures, and proved, that that, and not private Advan­tage, [Page 2]was the true Motive of the Underta­king. It cannot be denied but we are poorer of late than formerly, and if the evil In [...] ­ments in the late Reigns are fit to be our Ministers under this, and what was Male-Administration then commences just and necessary Politicks now, we shall too cer­tainly and too soon be miserable; if they don't change Things, you are little the bet­ter for changing the Men: The hardship and inequality of Tryals, and Innovations upon the Rights of Subjects in that particu­lar, made a very specious Head of the Prince of Orange 's Declaration; and it is one of the Articles of our new Original Contract, that the Subjects shall be free from such Bur­thens: But yet our Judges are in the beaten Road of Arbitrary Power, and can do no­thing contrary to those blessed Precedents; and though it was great, and the self-denial of a dying Christian in Mr. Ashton, not to name the L. Ch. Just. P. and Mr. H. for fear of transgressing that Law of Christ of for­giving Enemies, yet it is to be hoped that some Parliament will mark them down to Posterity for Examples sake; I am sure I wish them no Punishment, but what may be necessary to keep a Judg (who ought to be the Prisoner's Council) from being an Advocate against him; and a Jury-man from Party and Faction, where Life and Death. are concerned.

§ 3. What Mr. H. did is thought so much the more strange, because 'tis confidently reported that upon hearing the Papers so Charged, upon my Lord Preston at his Tryal, he said that Night publickly at the Grecian Coffee-house in Devereux-Court near the Middle Temple, that if he was not Excepted against upon Monday, he could not bring in either of the other; Guilty, in Relation to the Pa­pers; yet he it was that would have helped them to Evidence, and improv'd one Insi­nuation against Mr. Ashton, which the An­swerer I suppose had from the same Mint, viz. That one of the Papers was written in Mr. Ashton's Hand; though, as the An­swerer observes, it had been very material to have made Proof of that upon his Tryal, which they might easily have done, had it been true; no Man's Hand being better known, and they having in their Hands Volumes of his Writing, when he was in Places at Court: Though it had been after all for the Honour of our Deliverers to have exploded Similitude of Hands from being Evi­dence in Cases of High Treason. And unless the Answerer proves the Delivery of it to a third Person, he will be thought as much the virulent and unjust Murtherers of his Reputation, as the others were of his Body, for want of due Proof that he knew the Contents. I think a Man is innocent of what he dies for, in the Sight of the Law, if the Evidence does not amount to Legal Proofs of the Indictment, and that ought in Common Justice as well as Charity to be thought the meaning of his Asserted Inno­cency; for he does not pretend he had not endeavoured to Restore the Uncle, and the Father, of Him and Her that possess the Throne.

§ 4 I don't see in Mr. Ashton's Paper so much Art as Honesty, according to his Principles; but I find in the Answerer all the advantage taken that his own six Weeks Labour, and a Club, could furnish; from hence a Compliment Mr. Ashton makes the Court Fol. 112 and 115. is with him a Proof that Mr. Ashton had a Copy of the Indict­ment; Pannel of the Jury, sufficient notice, &c. (which I believe, and always did, to be necessary to make a Tryal just and equi­table, according to the Laws of England) [Page 3]at least the stress this Answerer lays upon that Compliment, proves that he esteems all the management of that Tryal to have been very fair, and that so Pol—'s Brats in the Charge is a Language well becom­ing a Judge, and that Herbert's ensnaring Questions are no less becoming an impar­tial Jury-man; I omit to mention any o­ther hardships both in Mr. Ashton's and in my Lord Preston's Tryal, but particularly the King's Council's excepting against so many Jury-men without shewing Cause, which is so notorious a Prejudice to a Pri­soner, that unless they can shew very Au­thentick Presidents of the like Practice in Criminal Cases, they must give me, and others, leave to think it one of the boldest Encroachments upon the People's Liberties that our Age has produc'd; and all good Men ought to reflect upon the great Viola­tions of their Liberties in this case by such unheard of Methods, as the late Tryals give us an Account of. The Council for the Crown in the Tryal of Croan excepting against Jury-men without shewing Cause, and not being publickly animadverted upon for so doing, it gave them confidence to do the same thing in my Lord Preston's Try­al; and had they had need, they would doubtless have ventured to set by Men, after they had been Sworn to pass upon the Life of the Prisoner; as in Croan's Tryal they set by Mr. Harrison Goldsmith, Mr. Park­er Tobacconist, Mr. Johnson Herald Painter, &c. all Men of Wealth, and Reputation; a procedure so palpably unjust, that my Lord Nott—m could not believe it, when it was told him.

§ 5. Nor must I neglect to reiterate that unusual way of Charging the Jury in these Tryals; the Bench often tells them that they believe in their Conscience, that the Prisoners are Guilty of such and such a thing, and that they must bring in their Vir­dict, Guilty; now the Jury is to have no be­lief but what arises plainly and positively from the Evidence brought before them, their Consciences are to be directed by plain Proof that appears so to them, not to be guided by other Men's Reasons; and if their belief be determined any other ways, than from the Evidence before them, all Tryals will be rendred very Precarious; and I am very sorry to see our Reformers out bid in this point all the Extravagancies of which they so much complain'd of. If these things are necessary to support what is done, I will recommend farther to them the Scotch Boots and all the inventions of Tyranny in all Country's; but let us not pretend Jea­lousie for our Laws, and our Liberties, and encourage the most dangerous outrages against them. And God grant succeeding Times may never learn by their Example. God grant that a Judge may never dare to leave a matter of Law, as similitude of hands was to a Jury; nor them to find matter of Fact but according to the Evidence produ­ced; and may he grant likewise that it may be scandalous to the last Degree in a Jury-man to turn Prosecutor, and busle for Evidence; had some of the Judges and Jury-men in the late Reigns been made Examples, we should have found these more tender in this; but perhaps some Men were cautious in that, knowing they should have occasion to use the Presidents in this. But I return to what more particularly concerns Mr. Ashton the Man (as P. in his Charge calls him) who ought to be honou­red by every Party, if they have a fence of bravery in themselves; it is a shame that those that extolled the Gallantry of Sydney should lessen his Character, by saying [Page 4]how easy it is for an English Man to dye; for few have, or can dye like Mr. Ashton. Let us acknowledge Virtue in our Enemies, and have a greatness above Sect, above Mode and above Party; 'tis English Men come to this, they are not worthy of that liberty about which they make such ado.

§ 6. Thus much for Mr. Ashton; I will now pass to the consideration to Passive Obedience, the Justice of this Cause, and the Legitimacy of the Prince of Wales.

The prevaricating Sons of the Church of England, have so plainly contradicted, by their Practices all that they have for­merly Written; they have been all such Sherlocks, that a Man had need be well sa­tisfied of his Religion to keep him from Hobbism. Let those that Read this Pamphlet, Read the Authors Quoted in the History of Passive Obedience, let them peruse Tillotson's Letter to my Lord Russel when he was prepa­ring to dye. Let them consider impartially what all of them would have had the World believe they meant at that time, and then if they can, let them forbear abhorring such Practical Atheists, as are our Swearing ad­mired Divines. I blame them sufficiently for Ascribing such Luscious Authority to Prin­ces, they have tempted them to Exercise an uncontroleable Rule, and now they as vilely flatter the Mobb. I am not bound to defend all Mr. Ashton's Principles, which they had taught him; but I am confident they would have been Orthodox with the Body of the Church of England, had the Declaration of Indulgence never been put out by King James; and whatever the An­swerer saith pag. 9 and 10. though too many prevaricate by Submission, and Obe­dience, yet there are but few of the Sons of that Church who submit to the Pr. of Or. as, or believe him, the Rightful Lawful King, and so consequently the Object of Passive Obedience; those that were of that Church in both Houses would have appeared as much against that Alteration of the Oath, as they did against Abjuration: Nay the very Secretary that is of that Communion, though he has gone greater lengths, than those who are strictly and sincerely of that Principle can approve of, would not I be­lieve, be able to stretch his Conscience to swear this an Elective Monarchy, or the Quarrel Just, or which is the same thing the Pr. of Or. Lawful Rightful King.

§ 7. If the Prince of Orange 's Declaration had been pursued (which was once by Mr. Ashton designed to have been Re-prin­ted as a proof, how well it hath been made good) if the false steps of the late Reigns had been rectified; if the Objected Impo­sture, League, and Murther, had been proved; the ill Ministers called to account, and the Prerogative fully debated and set­tled in Parliament, ( a Reformation that would have lookt worth our Hazards, our Fortunes, our Reproach, and our Lives) I say if this had been the effect of the Revo­lution, it might have tempted a prudent Man to sit quiet: But where are the Quo-Warranto-Projectors, the surrenderers of Char­ters, or the Regulators punished? many of them are well, and well prefer'd. Is the Parliament House less crouded with Officers▪ Danby is President of the Council, and knows how to manage that matter. Are the Elections and returns better secured? The Quakers in the late Elections were no Freeholders in Barkshire, Hartfordshire, &c. and Jack How was a better Churchman than Powle who was Speaker to the Convention upon the Corporation bottom at Windsor. Are [...] Lives Liberties and the Estates of Englishmen better guarded? Unless you [Page 5]think mercenary Foreiners fitter for that purpose than such who having Relations amongst us would be, and were tite to the National Interest. I know nothing we are the better, or wiser in, but in the Methos of Taxing the Subjects, and Guil­ding the Pill with popular Names, Enac­ting Martial Laws, Suspence of the Ha­beas Corpus, &c. while those very Persons who had taught us, That the King could not be called to account by his Subjects, and both swore themselves, and obliged others to swear, that it was not Lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against him, engaged both them­selves, and others, to help the Pr. of Or. to dethrone his Uncle, and his Princesses Father, the Lord's Anointed, and their own Lawful and Rightful Sovereign. The Prince's Declaration, and the Memorial of the States, denied that this was his Design, but St. Asaph has found it in the Revela­tions.

§ 8. Now give me leave to examine the Justice of this Engagement; the An­swerer plainly points out, that it was to stop the Increase of the French Monarchy: But this will not go down till the French League is proved, the contrary of which was most true; insomuch that though d' Avaux had got the Secret of this Inva­sion, and the King of France pressed King James to take Care, yet he was jealous it was art in the French King to dip him in his Quarrel, and could not believe the P. of O. would undertake what he thought so horrid and unnatural: So that Van Cyters his false Protestations had more Cre­dit than the true Informations of Barillion; and some will think it was not impossible for that Parliament which K. James was Calling, to have perswaded him to have taken a just Care to ballance Europe: I am far from commending the way they were to be Chosen in, perhaps I am as nice as any Man living of the Privileges of English-men, but I believe the Men that were recommended to the Corporations were many of them Chosen into the Con­vention, and some of them perhaps were but too hot Members there; nor do I believe they could have been mealy-mouth'd under King James: So that the Emissaries of the P. of O. might have per­swaded them to talk loudly of the Growth of France, and of the Growth of Popery, without all that Expence of Blood and Treasure we have been at, and God knows when it will be at an End; though if he came to save the People of England, he should have made us the better for his Preferment, and our Redemption; but considering the Natural Obligations he had to King James, he should not have made him only the worse.

§ 9. And here I cannot forbear men­tioning one thing that is mightily dis­cours'd, viz. that he did not only dethrone him as a King but despoiled him as a Merchant; and that when Sir Robert Howard denied by the Pr. of Or. Com­mand to let him have his own Money out of his own Exchequer, after he re­turned from Rochester, and he was forced to borrow of a faithful Servant a Sum of Money to carry him off, and out of his great Justice made over to that Ser­vant some Money which he had in the East-India-Company (as a Trader) to re­inburse him, (the Company willingly [Page 6]joyning in the disposal) yet even here he is using all his Power to wrest this Money out of the Gentleman's hands and suffers all the Tradesmen to whom the dispossessed King was indebted to de­vour that Gentleman for what belongs to the Royal Treasury to satisfy; he ought to give greater encouragement to grati­tude, for Jeffrys himself could not pre­vail to destroy one of the Duke of Mon­mouth's menial Servants after his defeat; and this present King should be ashamed to be hardest upon such as Mr. Ashton and this Gentleman were, and to suffer all his Courts (and to help them too) to worry them every Term. This makes Mankind wonder.

§ 10. But to return to the Invading Politicks; The Dutch Ambassador ought not to have been ordered to deny those Preparations were against King James; and it was fit to have tryed whether things might not have been amicable set right by Treaty, before they entered into Conspiracies, and Clandestine Confederacies; with the Pope, the Emperor, and Spa­nish King (with the Assistance of the Inquisition) to Establish the true Prote­stant Religion. Nor should Dickvelt have come hither to corrupt and to List the King's Subjects against him. Those that can find Presidents and Ar­guments for these things, can Reverse Nature and all her Laws, can put off the sence of a God and a World to come, whilst they basely lend their Pens, to the blackest Villanies; they may de­claim for Lucifer, and commend the Aspiring minds of the fallen Angels, who have obtained a Government and Su­perintendency over Perjur'd and Wretched Souls, over the Base, the Treacherous, and the Ungrateful, and reign in the Hearts of none else; and that Church. Divine that can make the Message by the Three Noble Lords, a very good natur'd Compliment may go a great way, to­wards proving the Regicides Noble, and Consciencious Patriots; I think in my Conscience by his wording that Para­graph (which I had almost slipped over) he could have been willing, the Life of his Soveraign should have been taken away, to put an end to the War and the Charge; he might have had Arguments from the Army Remonstrants 1648. And with Dr. Bur—t's help and from his Text have proved it the Lord's doing; a Man would think he had been in Holland, that he allows all things to be done for Interest, and the most unnatural barba­rity to be good breeding if it does the business; he lets loose all the Ambition imaginable in Princes against all the Sacred Ties of Natural and Civil Rela­tion, against their Uncles, their Neighbours, their Allies, their Friends, and their Fa­thers-in-Law; and sets down the wildest Maxims that were ever Advanced in Poli­ticks and thinks to cast upon the Doctrines of the Church of England, every Act of State wherein Princes have consulted their own secular Advantages, and got a wil­ling Clergy, or perhaps but one of that Robe to Countenance what yet was not so apparently opposite to the sence of all good Men, as our Pretences are.

For my part this Answerer shall no more send me to the French Cabinet than to the Netherlands to be instructed in ho­nesty. [Page 7]And I know no body that would have blamed the Pr. of Or. for obstruc­ting the French Designs, if he had not ta­ken an unjust way to do it. I wish he could have resettled the Edicts of Nantes, and the Assembly of the States there, the Liberties of the Oppressed, and Liberty of Conscience; but I am sorry he has chosen rather to be what After-ages will call a Pirate, and a Robber, than to be the ac­knowledged Benefactor and Protector of Mankind. He has had great Opportu­nities, but he has shown he knows not how to use them. He has not a Soul large enough for the Post in which this fickle Nation has put him. A Paultry Self-Interest governs his Councils, and as ill Men govern him, and make him mistake his way to Glory; there were too appa­rent Prints of this Self-Interest, in that part of his Declaration quoted by this Answerer in relation to the Prince of Wales; and since that is a new insisted on by this Licensed Author (though the Convention and present Parliament wisely let it alone, because many of the Members knew there would be produced unanswerable and un­doubted Proofs) I will promise them they shall hear of it with a Witness in a parti­cular Discourse, since it would draw this Paper to too great a length. I will con­clude, after I have solemnly returned my Thanks to the Government, for at last publishing Mr. Ashton's Speech, though not without the best Answer they could make to it, which yet scarce ever was bought, but to make the Speech in a Closet no Crime.