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day after the treaty, abundance of English came to Amiens, and said, that the peace was made by the Holy Ghost, because a white pigeon perched upon the King of England's tent during the interview, and would not move from it, notwithstanding all the noise made by the soldiers. But the truth of the matter, says Comines, was told him by one of King Edward's own servants, viz. that there had been a great rain, and after that the sun shined out very hot, and the pigeon lighted upon the King's tent, which was the highest, to dry itself. The same gentleman, who was a Gascoign, told Comines privately, that 'he perceived the French Court made nothing but a jest of the King of England.' Comines asked how many battles that Prince had won? The Gascoign answered, he had gained nine in person. Comines asked further, how many he had lost? The gentleman answered, none but this, meaning the treaty, by which he said, he lost more honour, than he had gained by all the nine battles. Comines told this to the King of France, who there upon said, the Gascoign was a cursed son of a whore, and that Comines must take care what he said to him.. He afterwards sent him to invite that gentleman to dinner, which he accepted; and the King offered him very great rewards, if he would take service under him, which the gentleman refused; but the King told him, he would take care of his brothers that were in Gascoign, made him a present of a thousand crowns, and Comines whispered him in the ear, that he should be well rewarded, if he would use his interest to entertain a good correspondence betwixt the two Kings.

Lewis XI. resolved to take great care after this to say nothing that might give the English ground to think that he laughed at them; yet, the very next day, when there were none but Comines and three or four more about him, he could not forbear laughing at the wine and other presents which he had sent to the English army; but turning about, he saw a Gascoign merchant in the room, who lived in England, and was come to beg leave to carry over some wine custom-free. The King was vexed, when he saw him, asked him who he was, and what estate he had; and, understanding that he had no great matter, he gave him a post in Bourdeaux, granted him his demand, and presented him with a thousand franks, on condition that he should send for his family from England, and go no more there himself.

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Comines gives another instance of the King's care to avoid giving any offence to the English. A gentleman of our nation, seeing part of the Duke of Burgundy's guards, who came with his ambassadors to treat with the King after he had been deserted by the English, said to Comines, 'Had we known that the Duke of Burgundy was so well provided with troops, we should not so readily have agreed to a peace. The Lord of Narbonne replied, Were ye such fools as not to know that? Ye only say so now, but six-hundred pipes of wine and a pension from our King has sent you all a packing again to England. The English gentleman broke out into a rage, and said, 'He perceived it now to be true what he had often been told, that the French made their games at the English; but, by St. George,' says he, what your King gave us is not a pension but a tribute.' Upon which Comines interposed, broke off the dis

course, turned it into a jest, and told the King of it, who sharply rebuked the Lord of Narbonne.

I return again to the tricking constable, who finding, that he had intirely disobliged the Duke of Burgundy, and the King of England, sent one of his chief servants to beg of the King,' not to believe all the ill that was said of him; and, to assure his Majesty of his fidelity, he offered to prevail with the Duke of Burgundy to fall upon the English in their retreat. The message was delivered to Comines, and he reported it to the King, who, in the presence of the Lord Howard and the Duke of Burgundy's gentleman that had formerly overheard the constable's treacherous proposals, delivered a letter to the constable's servant, and told him, That he was taken up about affairs of great concernment, and stood in need of such an head as his master's. The poor man thought it a very friendly answer; but, when he was gone, the King turned about to the gentleman above mentioned, and said merrily, I did not intend to have the constable's body, for his head is all I want. At the same time the King of England sent Lewis XI. two of the constable's private letters, with an account of all that he had said and done against him; so that those three princes conspired to take off this trickster's head, which certainly be very well deserved, though it was below the character of the King of England and the Duke of Burgundy to become evidence against him.

It is time now to wind up the story in as few words as I can. Comincs tells us, that the King of England did not engage cordially in this war, for, before he came from Dover, he began to treat with the French King; and that he brought his army over to France for the two following reasons: First, because his people were eager for a war against France, and the Duke of Burgundy pressed him to it. Secondly, That he might save most of the money which had been granted him by the parliament for that war; and, the better to impose upon his subjects, he brought with him twelve of the principal commons of England, who had been the most zealous for the war, and contributed chiefly to raise the money for maintaining it.' The King lodged them in good tents; but being corpulent men, and not accustomed to the fatigues of war, they hoped the King would soon have ended the matter by a battle. His Majesty, who never intended it, 'filled ther heads with doubts and fears as to the issue of a battle, and managed matters so well, that he brought them to approve the peace, and engaged them to help in suppressing the murmurs of his subjects upon his return; for there never was a greater and better appointed army sent from England to France.', But King Edward was not of a complexion to endure such fatigues as the conquest of that kingdom would have required; besides he was mighty earnest for a match betwixt the dauphin, afterwards Charles VIII, and his own daughter, which made him dissemble many things that afterwards turned to the French King's advantage.

All the English being returned home, except the hostages, the treaty betwixt the French King and the Duke of Burgundy was brought to bear by M. de Contay, that duke's gentleman formerly mentioned, and the King carried the English hostages to Vervins, where the treaty was finished. The King of England being informed of the negotiations, and

enraged that the Duke of Burgundy would not agree to this truce, sent Sir Thomas Montgomery, one of his favourites, to the King of Fance, to pray him that he would make no other treaty with the duke than he had done with him, and particularly that he would not yield up St. Quintins. He proffered at the same time, if the King had a mind to continue the war, that he would join him, next year, in person against the duke, provided the French King would pay half his army, and give him an equivalent for the customs of wool at Calais, which was about fifty-thousand crowns per annum. Lewis XI. thanked the King for his proffer, and told Sir Thomas, the treaty was already concluded; that it was only for nine years, but the duke would have a particular treaty for himself; and thus making the best excuses he could, he made Sir Thomas a rich present of plate, and sent the English hostages home with him. Thus Lewis XI. thought himself well rid of the English, and did not care to see them any more on that side the sea, lest they should have renewed their treaty with the Duke of Burgundy.

This prince was at last ruined by the intrigues of Lewis XÍ, who stirred up enemies against him on every side; and after his death he seized the Duchy of Burgundy, besides several places in Flanders. The King of England was the only prince capable to put a stop to Lewis XIth's career, and the heiress of Burgundy sent ambassadors to intreat his assistance, which the parliament came heartily into, and represented to King Edward the French King's perfidiousness, and his breach of the above-mentioned treaty, in not concluding the match betwixt the Dauphin and his daughter. But King Edward being a heavy unweildy man, and wholly addicted to his pleasures, he had no regard to their remonstrances; besides, the pension of fifty-thousand crowns, paid him every year, was a bait for his avarice. And when he was obliged to send ambassadors with sharp messages, to please his subjects, the French King always treated them well, took them off by rich presents, and gained time, by pretending that he would speedily send ambassadors with full instructions to give their master satisfaction: and at other times he proposed to share the Netherlands with him. But his chief trust was in the great number of pensioners he had in England, whom Comines names as follows: The lord chancellor, the master of the rolls, 'the Lord Hastings, who was great chamberlain, and in mighty favour with his master; Sir Thomas Montgomery, the Lord Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk; the master of the horse, Mr. Chalanger, and the marquis, son to the Queen of England, by a former marriage. To all these he gave great gifts besides their pensions, and particularly to the lord chamberlain, Hastings, a thousand marks of plate at once; and the acquittances of all those pensioners were to be seen in the French King's chamber of accounts, says Comines, except those of the Lord Hastings, who had formerly been a pensioner to the Duke of Burgundy, by Comines's interest; who, knowing his weak side, advised Lewis XI. to purchase him in the same manner, for he was at that time a great enemy to France, and mightily pressed King Edward to assist the heiress of Burgundy; but Lewis XI. bought him off, by doubling his pension. He sent it him by Mr. Cleret, master of his own houshold, and ordered him to take an acquittance for it, as he did from the lord chancellor,

thelord high-admiral, the master of the horse, and others, and as he had formerly done from the preceding lord chamberlain. But when he came to the Lord Hastings, and delivered him his message with the pension, that lord refused him an acquittance. The French gentleman insisted on it, and said, that his master might otherwise think he had cheated him, and not delivered the money. The Lord Hastings replied, That what he said was very just, but, since the money came by the King's free will, and not at his desire, he must put it into his sleeve without witness or acquittance; for it should never be said, that the great chamberlain of England was a pensioner of France, or that his acquittance should be found in the French King's chamber of accounts. Cleret was forced to comply, and, though Lewis XI. was angry at first when he told him the story, he ever after esteemed the Lord Hastings more than any of his other English pensioners, and ordered his money to be paid him, without demanding any more acquittances.

Thus, Sir, you have an account of this dishonourable treaty, how England was tricked by the French King's perfidiousness and cunning, how our allies were abused and ruined, how the exorbitant power of France was founded, though England was in a capacity to have prevented it; and how our country and parliaments were imposed upon, to the perpetual dishonour of the nation, by the French King and his pensioners.

THE NATURAL HISTORY

OF

COFFEE, THEE, CHOCOLATE, AND TOBACCO,

In four several Sections;

With a Tract of Elder and Juniper-Berries, shewing how useful they may be in our Coffee-Houses: And, also, the Way of making Mum, with some Remarks upon that Liquor. Collected from the Writings of the best Physicians, and Modern Travellers.

[From a Quarto, containing thirty-nine Pages, printed at London, for Christopher Wilkinson, at the Black Boy, over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street, 1682.]

COFFEE

The Natural History of Coffee.

SECT. I.

is said to be a sort of Arabian bean, called bon, or ban, in the Eastern Countries; the drink made of it is named coava, or chaube, over all the Turkish dominions. Prosper Alpi

*

AUS (who lived several years in Ægypt) assures us, that he saw the tree itself, which he compares to our spindle tree, or prickwood, only the leaves were a little thicker, and harder, besides continually green t. This tree is found in the desarts of Arabia, in some parts of Persia and India, the seed, or berry, of which is called by the inhabitants buncho, bon, and ban, which being dried, and boiled with water, is the most universal drink, in all the Turkish, and several Eastern Countries, where wine is publickly forbid; it has been the most antient drink of the Arabians, and some will have the jus nigrum Spartanorum, i. e. The black broth of the Spartans, to have been the same with our coffee. The Persians at this day do tipple as much coffee off, as the Turks themselves. Tavernier in his description of Ispahan (the metropolis of Persia) is very jocose and merry, when he comes to describe the famous coffee-house of that city; he says, that the wise Sha Abas, observing great numbers of Persians to resort to that house daily, and to quarrel very much about state-affairs, appointed a moullah to be there every day betimes to entertain the tobacco-whiffers, and coffee-quaffers, with a point of law, history, or poetry; after which, the moullah rises up, and makes proclamation, that every man must retire, and to his business; upon which they all observe the moullah, who is always liberally entertained bythe company. Olearius docs also speak § of the great diversions, made in the coffee-houses of Persia, by their poets, and historians, who are seated in a high chair, from whence they make speeches, and tell satyrical stories, playing in the mean time with a little stick, and the same gestures, as our jugglers, and legerdemain-men, do in England.

As for the qualities and nature of coffee, our own countryman, Dr. Willis, has published a very rational account ** whose great reputation and authority are of no small force; he says, that in several head-achs, dizziness, lethargies, and catarrhs, where there is a gross habit of body, and a cold heavy constitution, there coffee may be proper, and successful; and in these cases he sent his patients to the coffe-house, rather than to the apothecary's shop; but where the temperament is hot, andlean, and active, there coffee may not be very agreeable; because it may dispose the body to inquietudes, and leanness. The doctor makes one unlucky observation of this drink, which I am afraid will cow ourTM citizens from ever meddling with it hereafter, that it often makes men paralytick, and does so slacken their strings, as they become unfit for the sports and exercises of the bed, and their wives recreations; to confirm which, I will quote here two precedents, out of the most learned Olearius, who says, ++ that the Persians are of an opinion that coffee allays their natural heat, for which reason they drink it, that they may avoid the charge and inconveniences of many children; nay, the Persians are so far from dissembling the fear they have thereof, that some of

*Alpinus de Plant. Egyptiac. p. 26. + This tree is now very common in gentlemen's green-houses in the south of England; and Ebenezer Mussel, esq. ef Bethnal-green, near London, has two of the largest and healthiest, perchance, in the nation. Dr. Mundy de Potulentis, p. 351. Tavernier's Tavels, p. 1. ? Olearius's Ambassadors Travels of Persia, book 6. p. 224. * Dr. Willis Pharmaceut, Rat. p. 1. ++ Olearius's Ambassadors Travels through Persia, book 6.

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