Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

effect of any thing, but that which it declares in every page, a concern for the sanctity of oaths, and the free and fair distribution of justice. If it is a fault to be grieved at the perversion of the one, or the violence done to the other, I am guilty. And if I have been mistaken in either the evil I complain of, or the remedy I have proposed for it, I stand corrected; but it is only by the censure of those, who have both understanding in such matters, and some zeal for conscience and common honesty. Those who have not, may be good critics in the laws of private cabals, and dark associations; but I hope they will never seem to be proper judges of their country's laws. They seldom look as far as their own real interest, never farther. They cannot extend their views to the public good, nor make a nation the object of their affection and concern. They cannot therefore judge of the public interest.

THE

CHEVALIER'S HOPES.

O navis, referent in mare te novi
Fluctus, O quid agis? Fortiter occupa

Portum.

HOR.

An affair of great importance is no sooner undertaken by any one, than all persons and parties, according as they are more or less concerned in the event, become in proportion solicitous to inquire what hopes he may have of success; some, because they affect his cause, others, because they hate it and fear him; and not a few who are little influenced by the justice of any cause, would however be glad to know the strength of his, that they might the better judge on which side to seek for their own safety or advancement.

There are, no doubt, many persons, who know much better than the writer of this pamphlet, what reasons that young man, who is now making war in North Britain on one of the most powerful monarchs in Europe, may have to expect success; but there is a far greater number equally concerned, yet totally ignorant of those reasons, who by means of that ignorance may be tampered with on this occasion by designing persons, and in the end undone. For their information, and with an honest view to their real welfare, the hopes of this bold adventurer, are as fairly and fully set forth in the following paper, as can be expected from one who is not of his privy council.

In the first place, as his majesty king George is engaged in a war with France and Spain, and his forces on the continent give no inconsiderable obstruction to the ambitious views of the house of Bourbon, while his arms at sea are daily cutting off from it the sinews of war, and ruining its trade. To rid itself of these obstructions, no method so promising presents itself, as to set us together by the ears, and find us work at home, and for this purpose no instru

ment is judged so proper as that pretender to the crown of these kingdoms, whom France and Spain have so long despised and renounced in recognising his present majesty's, and his father's title to the aforesaid crown, not to mention that of queen Anne, king William, and queen Mary. The king of France thus reasons with himself. If I can, by means of the chevalier de St. George, raise a civil war in Great Britain, although that war should end in his ruin, yet in the mean time it will oblige my enemy to withdraw his forces from Flanders, and leave me the remainder of that country an easy conquest in the spring; it will also force him to recall his fleets to defend his own coasts, and once again open the seas to my merchants, that is, to my factors; and if for this purpose I employ the chevalier's son, perhaps as he is descended from a Polish family by the mother's side, the attempt in his favour may be made use of with the diet of Poland, to hinder that nation from espousing the Austrian interest next campaign. But in case the chevalier should by my assistance succeed, and mount the throne of Great Britain, I shall then have what terms from him I please, his Protestant subjects will render his possession so insecure, that without my support he will never be able to maintain it, he must therefore not only reimburse me all my expenses, and pay me for all my services in the most ample manner, but he must give me all the advantages in trade I shall ask; my wines must pass into all the British isles free from duty, their wool must be suffered to fall into the hands of my manufacturers at my own price, and in an unlimited abundance. They must not pretend to rival my subjects in the fishing trade, or that of the East Indies, or the Levant. Cape Breton must return to me gratis and of course. As the seeds of endless feuds and wars will by these means be sown in the kindly soil of Great Britain and Ireland, I can with little trouble keep them up and foment them, until those countries being ruined by their own animosities and my practices, shall like a horse broken and tamed by my rider the chevalier, take me on their backs, and instead of defeating all our schemes as they for many ages have done, shall trample down the liberties of Europe beneath me. It is true I have long treated the chevalier with neglect, but the prospect of a

crown, which he can never hope for but by my assistance, will make him a ready tool to my designs.

The queen of Spain, who wants a kingdom for another son, and finds that the English fleet renders her designs on Italy very precarious, is ready to lend any assistance in her power to an attempt that must embroil these kingdoms, that must either recall our fleet from the Mediterranean, or hinder its being properly supplied and reinforced, that must also make it infinitely more easy to bring home the treasures of the West Indies, without which France and she are undone, and unable to buy the assistance and neutrality of needy princes, of corrupt ministers, of states devoted to no other god but money, and to make war on their neighbours with due force and perseverance. Besides the che-. valier is a good Catholic, our king and we are detestable heretics, and therefore all the assistance she can spare is at the service of the former.

The pretender knows all this full well, and as he is weary of being only a titular king, he is willing to become a viceroy of the house of Bourbon, rather than be any longer burdensome to his holiness, and support a mock majesty at Rome upon contributions; in some hopes however of at length being able to shake off by some means or other the yoke of France, than which nothing can be more airy nor vain, because the disturbances of Great Britain, should they continue for any time, will give France an opportunity, and she will not fail to lay hold of it, to put it out of the power of all her neighbours to give the least check to her designs.

His first hope therefore is founded on the assistance of France and Spain, which may prove as fallacious as those of the late emperor, to whom the friendship of the house of Bourbon was worse than open enmity, and in the sequel became fatal.

His next is in the pope; that holy father of the church is deeply concerned to see three kingdoms rent from the only church in which there is any chance for salvation, and exerting their strength not only in defence of their own heresies, but also in opposition to all his ghostly endeavours for the recovery of other nations, as much bewildered in errors, and alienated from God and him as themselves. He

sees (and we presume it is with some small regret) the vast tracts of land in these kingdoms, formerly enjoyed by monks, and nuns, and Romish bishops, together with the ample revenues, which before the Reformation flowed from hence into the exchequer of Rome, and were employed in most pious uses, now applied to the support of heresy, or at least enjoyed by heretics. To recover this wealth to himself, as well as the souls of those that now wickedly riot in it, to the church, may possibly be an object of his holiness's wishes. The pretender hath spent time enough at Rome to inform himself, whether the pope hath any hankerings after money or not, and whether he would be willing to make him his farmer here, in hopes by that means to put things on that old happy footing.

As to the assistance the pope may lend him in order to his ascending the throne of these nations, although at first sight it may seem but small, yet the pretender cannot but think it more powerful than even that of France and Spain; for in the first place as he is a sound Catholic, he cannot but know that the pope, being God's vicegerent, hath the only right to dispose of all earthly kingdoms, which he hath often insisted on, and being infallible could not be mistaken; besides he knows that the pope is himself, and in a more peculiar manner, king of England, ever since king John of pious memory resigned the crown to him; on these two accounts neither the pretender, nor any body else, could lawfully take any steps towards such an acquisition, without the pope's permission and deputation; and as the pretender can derive no right to the crown of these kingdoms but from the pope, so neither is it possible for him to succeed in his design, but by the exercise of the pope's spiritual weapons and power in their full plenitude: his holiness hath weapons for all purposes: but what are most wanted on such occasions as this, are dispensations and prayers.

As to dispensations, they are most absolutely necessary, for as the pretender cannot hope to succeed, without repeated and solemn declarations, without even oaths and vows to preserve and protect the Protestant religion, together with the constitution and laws of these kingdoms, and whereas if he were always to act in conformity to these vows, he would as little promote the interests of the pope,

« FöregåendeFortsätt »