the Spaniards would believe this or acquiesce in it, if he should require them to yield up as much as he has bestowed. But if the French and others, who acknowledge the pope's authority in ecclesiastical matters, have no regard to this title of the Spaniards, it cannot be expected we should think of it any otherwise. And so we leave this point, as not deserving a fuller answer. Nor is the other title of any greater weight, as if the Spaniards in consequence of their having first discovered some few parts of America, and given names to some islands, rivers, and promontories, had for this reason lawfully acquired the government and dominion of that new world. But such an imaginary title, founded on such a silly pretence, without being in possession, cannot possibly create any true and lawful right. The best right of possession in America is that which is founded on one's having planted colonies there, and settled in such places as had either no inhabitants, or by the consent of the inhabitants, if there were any; or at least, in some of the wild and uncultivated places of their country, which they were not numerous enough to replenish and improve; since God has created this earth for the use of men, and ordered them to replenish it throughout. If this be true, as the Spaniards will be found to hold their possessions there very unjustly, having purchased all of them against the will of the inhabitants, and as it were plucked them out of their very bowels, having laid the foundations of their empire in that place, in the blood of the poor natives, and rendered several large islands and countries, that were in a tolerable case when they found them, so many barren deserts, and rooted out all the inhabitants there; so the English hold their possessions there by the best right imaginable, especially those islands where the Spaniards have fallen upon their colonies, and quite demolished them; which islands had no other inhabitants at all, or if they had, they were all slain by the Spaniards, who had likewise deserted these places, and left them without any to improve or cultivate them: so that by the law of nature and nations they belong to any who think fit to take possession of them, according to that common and well-known maxim in law, "Such things as belong to none, and such as are abandoned by their former possessors, become his property who first seizes them." Although, granting we had beat the Spaniards out of those places where we have planted our colonies, out of which they had at first expelled the inhabitants, we should have possessed them with better right, as the avengers of the murder of that people, and of the injuries sustained by them, than the Spaniards their oppressors and murderers. But since we have settled our colonies in such places as were neither possessed by the natives nor the Spaniards, they having left behind them neither houses nor cattle, nor anything that could by any means keep up the right of possession, the justness of our title to these places was so much the more evident, and the injuries done us by the Spaniards so much the more manifest, especially our right to those places that were seized while the two nations were at war with each other, such as the isles of Providence and Tortuga, which if the Spaniards could have shewn to be theirs, by any former title which they have not yet produced, yet since they have not done it in the last treaty of peace, by the second article of this treaty, they have for the future cut themselves off from all such pretence, and if they had any right, have now lost it. It is unnecessary to talk any further upon this argument. There is no intelligent person but will easily see how empty and weak those reasons are, that the Spaniard has for claiming to himself alone an empire of such a vast and prodigious extent. But we have said this much, in order to shew the weakness of those pretences, whereby the Spaniards endeavour to justify themselves for having treated us with so much cruelty and barbarity in the West Indies; for having enslaved, hanged, drowned, tortured, and put to death our countrymen, robbed them of their ships and goods, and demolished our colonies, even in the time of profound peace, and that without any injury received on their part: which cruel usage and havoc, made among our people, and such as were of the same orthodox faith with them, as oft as the English call to remembrance, they cannot miss to think that their former glory is quite gone, and their ships of war become entirely useless, if they suffer themselves to be any longer treated in such a disgraceful manner: and moreover, to be not only excluded from all free commerce in so great and opulent a part of the world, but likewise to be looked upon as pirates and robbers, and punished in the same manner as they, if they presume to sail those seas, or so much as look that way; or, in fine, have any intercourse or dealing even with their own colonies that are settled there. Concerning the bloody Spanish inquisition we shall say nothing, this being a controversy common to all protestants, nor shall we speak of the many seminaries of English priests and jesuits nestling under the protection of the Spaniards, which is a perpetual cause of stumbling, and very great danger to the commonwealth; since what we principally propose is, to shew the grounds and reasons of the controversies in the West Indies, and we are confident we have made it plain to all, who weigh things fairly and impartially, that necessity, honour, and justice, have prompted us to undertake this late expedition. First, we have been prompted to it by necessity; it being absolutely necessary to go to war with the Spaniards, since they will not allow us to be at peace with them: and then honour, and justice, seeing we cannot pretend to either of these, if we sit still and suffer such unsufferable injuries to be done our countrymen, as those we have shewn to have been done them in the West Indies. And truly they see but a very little way, who from their notion of the designs and intentions of the Spaniards, according to that friendly aspect, with which the present declension of their affairs has obliged them to look upon us in these parts of the world, (that face which they have put on being only a false one,) for it is certain they have the same mind, and the very same desires, which they had in the year 1588, when they endeavoured to subdue this whole island; nay, it is certain their hatred is more inflamed, and their jealousies and suspicions more increased by this change of the state of our affairs, and of the form of our republic. But if we omit this opportunity, which by reason of some things that have lately happened, may perhaps give us an occasion to fall upon some way, whereby through the assistance of God we may provide for our safety, against this old and implacable enemy of our religion and country; it may happen, he will recover such a degree of strength, as will render him as formidable and hard to be endured as before. One thing is certain, he always will and cannot but have the greatest indignation against us. Meanwhile, if we suffer such grievous injuries to be done our countrymen in the West Indies, without any satisfaction or revenge; if we suffer ourselves to be wholly excluded from that so considerable a part of the world; if we suffer our malicious and inveterate enemy (especially now, after he has made peace with the Dutch) to carry off without molestation, from the West Indies, those prodigious treasures whereby he may repair his present damages, and again bring his affairs to such a prosperous and happy condition, as to deliberate with himself a second time, what he was thinking upon in the year 1588; namely, whether it would be more advisable to begin with subduing England, in order to recover the United Provinces, or with them, in order to reduce England under his subjection; without doubt he will not find fewer, but more, causes why he should begin with England. And if God should at any time permit those intentions of his to have their desired effect, we have good ground to expect, that the residue of that cruel havoc he made among our brethren at the foot of the Alps, will be first exercised upon us, and after that upon all protestants; which, if we may give credit to the complaints that were made by those poor orthodox Christians, was first designed and contrived in the court of Spain, by those friars whom they call missionaries. All these things being considered, we hope the time will come, when all, but especially true Englishmen, will rather lay aside their private animosities among themselves, and renounce their own proper advantages, than through an excessive desire of that small profit to be made by trading to Spain, (which cannot be obtained but upon such conditions as are dishonourable and in some sort unlawful, and which may likewise be got some other way,) expose, as they now do, to the utmost danger, the souls of many young traders, by those terms upon which they now live and trade there, and suffer the lives and fortunes of many Christian brethren in America, and in fine, the honour of this whole nation, to be exposed, and, what of all is the most momentous and important, let slip out of their hands the most noble opportunities of promoting the glory of God, and enlarging the bounds of Christ's kingdom: which, we do not doubt, will appear to be the chief end of our late expedition into the West Indies against the Spaniards, to all who are free of those prejudices which hinder people from clearly discerning the truth. VOL. II. 2 A UPON A LATE SERMON TITLED, THE FEAR OF GOD AND THE KING; PREACHED AND SINCE PUBLISHED BY MATTHEW GRIFFITH, D.D., AND CHAPLAIN TO THE LATE KING. WHEREIN MANY NOTORIOUS WRESTINGS OF SCRIPTURE, AND [FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1660.] I AFFIRMED in the Preface of a late discourse, intitled, "The ready Way to establish a Free Commonwealth, and the Dangers of readmitting Kingship in this Nation," that the humour of returning to our old bondage was instilled of late by some deceivers; and to make good, that what I then affirmed was not without just ground, one of those deceivers I present here to the people: and if I prove him not such, refuse not to be so accounted in his stead. He begins in his epistle to the general, and moves cunningly for a licence to be admitted physician both to church and state; then sets out his practice in physical terms, “a wholesome electuary, to be taken every morning next our hearts;" tells of the opposition which he met with from the college of state physicians, then lays before you his drugs and ingredients: "Strong purgatives in the pulpit, contempered of the myrrh of mortification, the aloes of confession and contrition, the rhubarb of restitution and satisfaction;" a pretty fantastic dose of divinity from a pulpit mountebank, not unlike the fox, that, turning pedlar, opened his pack of ware before the kid; though he now would seem, 66 to personate the good Samaritan," undertaking to "describe the rise and progress of our national malady, and to prescribe the only remedy;" which how he performs, we shall quickly see. First, he would suborn St. Luke as his spokesman to the general, presuming, it seems, " to have had as perfect under * Monk. |