turning, and that they are the natural weight and power of these kingdoms, by having the heads, hands, and wealth of their side, to the odds and advantage of at least two hundred protestants to one catholic, the king may think of nothing short of a protestant administration, nor of nothing more for the catholics than a legal liberty of conscience; for much e mutt is against all other notions, to which all private passions and artificial frames in government must yield or break. He may reign a catholic in devotion, but he must reign a protestant in government. Cromwell could not, yet on a broader bottom, with a victorious army, subsist or keep what he had got.

Thirdly. He must give us a model of this at St. G. by preferring the protestants that are with him above the catholics; one being loyal upon less ties of interest, and to tell the nation here what they are to hope for when he comes.

Fourthly. He must give encouragement to lords and gentlemen here to come to him, at least seven or nine, for a standing council, which will make us here think that he is in some degree ours again, and that we have a relation to him, and some interest and share in him by the men of quality of our own religion that are with him. This will incomparably facilitate the matter here, nor will they, when they come, come empty and in their own names, which is still better, and will be more satisfactory there.

Fifthly. To induce this, English protestants should be encouraged, by an edict of liberty from the king of France, to have chapels at their own costs, in which to worship God after their respective ways, by which that

king will make us reflect upon his conduct towards his Huguenots rather to flow from the hazard he thought himself in by their anti-monarchical and resisting principles than a desire of persecution.

Lastly. All other requisite measures depending upon the acceptance which this finds, an answer hereunto is impatiently desired by those that have discoursed the king's business to this maturity. So ended with an unanimous consent, both tories and whigs, upon this occasion, that are in a way of closing in his interest.

II. The Heads of the Declaration.

That the king will return with a design of making an entire conquest of his people is so ridiculous, as well as difficult, that it needs not be spoken to.

That the king's declaration be worded in general terms that he will govern by the laws; that they shall be the rule of his actions; that he will endeavour to settle liberty of conscience by law; that whatsoever things were formerly done by him which occasioned jealousies in the minds of his people, shall be left to the determination of a parliament, to be formally and regu larly called as soon as is possible.

That he has given sufficient evidence of his unwillingness to bring an army of strangers into his kingdom, by refusing the succours of France offered him, and which were even ready to be embarked upon the first notice of the Prince of Orange's intended invasion.

That he brings with him such an army only as is necessary for his own defence, and for the security of his loyal subjects who shall resort to him; that he will dismiss them as soon as he shall have rid the nation of those

foreigners who have invaded it, and trampled upon the laws and liberties of his people.

The king's large exercising his dispensing power gave the great alarm to his people, and contributed most of all toward a general defection. Yet when that power came to be debated in the last convention, there appeared so many difficulties in the limiting of it, every body, even the present judges, believing it necessary that a dispensing power should be in the king, that it was let fall, and that point remains as it was. And without mentioning that or any other particular, the king can be in no danger by leaving all things which have been the occasions of jealousies to the determination of a parliament where, besides the king's professed friends and servants, there will not want others who will be glad of opportunity to ingratiate themselves.

DECLARATIONS

OF

KING JAMES II.

A. D. 1692-3.

THE contrast between the two declarations of king James, published in the years 1692 and 1693, the one previous and the other subsequent to the decisive victory of La Hogue, is very obvious and striking. That of 1692, composed under the influence of the earl of Melfort, and in the high and sanguine hope of success, is harsh and imperious; that of 1693, framed according to the sage advice of the earl of Middleton, and in the hour of humiliation and disappointment, is full of condescension and generosity. The promises and professions contained in the first were vague and illusory, in the second clear and explicit; the latter was indeed, in all respects, the best declaration ever promulgated by the abdicated monarch; but it most certainly spoke not the sentiments of his heart; for it was belied by the whole tenor of his actions and conduct. Fortunately for the kingdom it did not appear till the prospect of a counterrevolution became hopeless and desperate. It will serve as a gratification of political curiosity, and it may also answer the higher purpose of affording serious and useful matter of reflection, to make some considerable extracts from both.

1st Declaration of King James.

Though an affair of this importance spoke for itself, and though he did not think himself obliged to say any thing more than that he came to assert his just right, and to deliver his people from the oppressions they lay under, yet when he considered how miserably many of his subjects had been cheated into the late revolution by the arts of ill men, and particularly by the Prince of Orange's declaration, he had thought fit to do what lay in his power to open the eyes of his subjects. That when he, the prince, had thrown off the mask—when his majesty was universally deserted and betrayed by his army, his ministers, his favourites, and his very children, and at last rudely forced by a guard of foreigners from his own palace, it was high time for him to provide for his own security, which he could no otherwise do than by taking refuge in France. That how this escape of his came to be treated as an abdication, and what a strange superstructure had been raised upon it by a Company of men illegally met, who, without power to alter the property of the meanest subject, had taken upon them to destroy the whole constitution, and to make an hereditary monarchy become elective, &c. were transactions too well known to need repetition. That when the nation considered the temper and complexion, the methods and maxims of the present usurper, they would find all the reason in the world to believe that the beginning of his tyranny, like the five first years of Nero, was like to prove the mildest part of it.-That if it should please Gon, as one of his severest judge