L'Envoi.

(TO THE TUNE OF, Captain Radcliffe's Ramble.)

TWO centuries have pass'd away

Since poor' King Monmouth' turn'd to clay,

And little more is left to say

About him.

His hapless fate moves not our tears,
But, since we trace from earliest years
His hopes, his follies, faults and fears,

Don't flout him!

Poor pageant-puppet, whom the crowd
Worship'd with clamour long and loud!
No wonder his weak head grew proud,

And tumbled;

Such time as with religious cries'
Mock-patriots forged conspiracies,
And, 'spite of their intrigues and lies,

Were humbled.

True students mark the records here

Of what men thought in earlier year;

Th' Handwriting on the Wall shines clear,

With warning;

And, to our mind there's nothing lost
If we, who count the former cost,
Beware like errors: men err most

By scorning.

They show us-if we be not blind-
Whirlwinds are reap'd where men sow'd wind:
Whether by plotting Whigs or kind

'Old Rowley!'

729

"Since Faction ebbs, and Rogues grow out of fashion,
Their penny scribes take care to inform the nation
How well men thrive in this or that Plantation.

How Pennsylvania's air agrees with Quakers,
And Carolina's with Associators:

Both e'en too good for madmen and for traitors.

Plain sense, without the talent of foretelling,

Might guess 'twould end in downright knocks and quelling;

For seldom comes there better of Rebelling."

-Dryden's Prologue to the King, in 1682.

[Wm. Bridgeman's Collection: Lansdowne MS. No. 1152, A. fol. 258.]

The Declaration

The Noblemen, Gentlemen, and others, now in Arms, for Defence and Vindication of the Protestant Religion, and the Laws, Rights, and Privileges of England, from the Invasion made upon them: and for Delivering the Kingdom from the Usurpation and Tyranny of JAMES, DUKE OF YORK.

S Government was originally instituted by God, and this or that forme of it chosen and submitted to by Men, for the peace, happiness, and security of the Governed, and not for the private interest and personal greatness of those that Rule: so that Government hath been alwayes esteemed the best where the supreme Magistrates have been vested with all the power and prerogatives that might Capacitate them, not only to preserve the people from violence and oppression, but to promote their prosperity, and yet where nothing was, to belong to them by the Rules of the Constitution, that might enable them to injure and oppress them.

And it hath been the Glory of England above most other Nations, that the Prince had all intrusted with him that was necessary either for advanceing the wellfare of the people, or for his own protection in the discharge of his Office, and with all stood so limited and restrained by the fundamentall Termes of the Constitution, that without a violation of his own Oath, as well as the Rules and

Appendix Note 1. "The Declaration of Monmouth."

We were unwilling to allow the course of our narrative to be interrupted by inserting earlier than in this Appendix form the accompanying "Declaration," written by Robert Ferguson in the name of James Duke of Monmouth. It has been already mentioned on our p. 647. We abate some misprints.-J. W. E.

732

'Declaration of James Duke of Monmouth,' 1685.

measures of the Government, he could do them no hurt, or exercise any act [p. 2 begins] of Authority, but through the administration of such hands as stood obnoxious to be punished in case they transgressed. So that according to the primitive Frame of the Government, the prerogatives of the Crown and privileges of the Subject were so far from justling one another, that the rights reserved unto the People tended to render the King honorable and great; and the prerogatives setled on the Prince were in order to the subjects' [own] protection and safety.

But all humane things being liable to pervertion, as well as decay, it hath been the fate of the English Government to be often changed, and wrested from what it was in the first setlement and Institution. And wee are particularly compelled to say, that all the boundaries of the Government have of late been broken, and nothing left unattempted for turning our limited Monarchy into an absolute Tyranny. For such hath been the transactions of affaires within this Nation for several years last past, that though the Protestant Religion and Liberties of the People were fenced and hedg'd about by as many Laws as the Wisdome of men could devise, for their preservation against Popery and Arbitrary Power; our Religion hath been all along undermined by Popish Councells, and our Privileges ravished from us by fraud and violence. And more especially, the whole course and series of the Life of the present Usurper hath been but one continued conspiracy against the Reformed Religion and rights of the Nation.

For whosoever considers his contriving the burning of London; his Instigating a confederaci with France, and a Warr with Holland, his fomenting the Popish Plot, and incouraging the Murther of Sr Edmund Bury Godfr[e]y, to stifle it; his forging Treason against Protestants; and suborning witnesses to sweare the Patrios [sic] of our Religion and liberties out of their Lives; his hireing execrable Villaines to assassinate the late Earle of Essex; and causing severall others to be clandestinly cut off in hopes to conceale it; his advising and procuring the Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments, in order to prevent enquiry into his Crimes, and that he might escape the justice of the Nation: such can imagine nothing so black and horrid in it selfe, or so ruinous and destructive to Religion and the Kingdome, which we may not expect from him, upon his having invaded the Throne, and usurped the Title of a King. The very Tyrannies which he hath exercised since he matched [sic, misprint for snatched] the Crown from his Brother's head, do leave none under a possibility of flattering themselves with hopes of safety either in their consciences, persons, or Estates.

For in defiance of all the Lauws and Statutes of the Realme, made for the security of the Reformed Protestant Religion, he not only began his Usurpation and pretended Reign with a bare faced