it to be a proper Expreffion, to fay, Betray no innocent Perfon, tho' Judas betrayed his Mafter, who was a Perfon the most innocent. However, your Exception or Criticism on the Word Betray, betrays who fet you at Work, if you are not that very Person (as I have Reason to think you are) who told me in pofitive Terms, nobody made Gregg any Offers but Mr. H-- himself; tho' you affirm in your Letter, Mr. H manifeftly clear and untainted; but you can say and unsay as you please, with your own peculiar Air. was. As to my Uneafinefs (left Innocence should be betrayed) feeming to you ill-timed. Now Mr. H Now Mr. His fafe and great, if you had read the Secret Transactions (while in thofe Lord-guiding Hands of yours, as you were pleafed to acquaint their Lordships) you would have found, that I, having been in foreign Parts, from the Time of Gregg's Trial till very lately, could not have tim❜d it fooner, nor more feasonably, than at a Time when Mr. H-'s Conduct began to be applauded, even by his Enemies, or rather those honest Men who had fided with them in behalf of Liberty of Confcience, Liberty of the Subject, &c. for which the ruined Party feemed fo zea lous. I appeal to yourself, whether what I published was not seasonable (though you and your Party have Caufe to think it ill timed on your own Accounts) at a critical Juncture, when honeft Men began to fufpect your Party's Treacheries, and to be fenfible that Mr. H was really that Lover of his Country, whom the best of your Friends could only pretend to be, who had fuppreffed Gregg's Dying Speech, and impofed inveterate and malicious Ac counts thereof on the Publick, inftead of the Truth you have confeffed and published in your Letter. Now I appeal to you again, whether or no I could have timed any Truth better, or more seasonably, than at a Juncture when Truth and Humanity began once more to find a fair and fincere Reception among the higher Powers, and from their great Examples, among all the inferior Ranks of the People. But nothing can be more mortifying to you, and your greatest Minifters of State, as you term them, than to behold all thofe honest Men, whom by your Artifices you had deluded and mifinformed, leaving you, and flying from. your Snares of Difloyalty and Hypocrify, and entertaining a juft Affection and Veneration for the Man, whom you cannot but affirm to be innocent; though your Party, by fuppreffing Gregg's Dying Speech, did all they could to leave ill Impreffions in Peoples Minds against him. The Examiner may well call yours a ruined Party; fince you (like defperate People) take all Opportunities to rufh headlong to your final Ruin. You fell headlong in your Attempt to make the Refiftance of your Sovereign lawful, in her Reign, who deferved all Manner of Obedience and Gratitude at your Hands. You fell headlong in your Attempts against the Life of the loyal Favourite the delights to honour. And And you are now falling headlong from the Efteem of all good and honeft Men, down to the lowest Degree of Ignominy and Confufion. And all truly confcientious Diffenters begin to be fenfible, That in the prefent Lord High Treasurer they have a true Friend, in Relation to Liberty, Property, and Confcience, who does not like your Friends to make an Outcry in Behalf of the Liberty of the Subject, and at the fame Time engross almost all the Places of Profit into his own Family or Hands, to the Exclufion of the Rights of his Sovereign, as well as the very Rights of their Fellow Subjects; of which they pretend to be fuch Patrons. But the most infamous Piece of Ingratitude of which your Party are guilty, is their endeavouring to tax their Sovereign with Want of Senfe, for no other Cause but her Munificence, Patience and Indulgence towards them; of whom her late She-Favourite cannot but own her Delight was to be always the fame. Kindly her Domefticks ufing, Loving all beneath her Care; When accus'd, their Faults excusing ; Never to a Change inclining, Till fhe found the Cafe fo plain; (Mercy in ber Justice Shining) Other Methods were in vain. Your taxing fo good a Queen with want of Senfe, is the horrible Gulf, down which your Party are tumbling headlong, finally and irrecoverably for ever; the Eyes of all Europe fee you, every loyal and honest Heart condemns you, and your Ingratitude renders it impoffible to preserve the leaft Pity or Compaffion for you. In the upper Part of your 20th Page, you queftion, Whether your Sovereign will make any Observations at all; at the Bottom of the fame Page, you fay, Your Sovereign will not recal her old Servants, whofe Looks you affirm your Sovereign cannot bear: (What ftrange Looks must they have) because, as you fay, wrongfully fufpected, and for fear of her being taxed with Inconftancy; and then fum up the whole in the most treasonable and traiterous Manner you can express it. In your 21ft Page, beginning Line the third, only putting She inftead of He: For you must allow me to point out one Meaning of yours, who have pointed out fo many for other People, you affirm meaning the Queen. She will much less think of difcarding her new Choice upon finding her Miftakes, viz. That she wrongfully fufpected them. Which is not only calling her Senfe of Right and Wrong in queftion, but is a barefaced Infinuation, that she has no Difpofition in her, either to Juftice or Humanity. Fff 2 And And here I will appeal, in your own Words, to the French King and his Counsellors, to the Pretender, and all the reft of your Friends his Abettors, whether is greater, Your Folly or your Impudence? And I am fure the King of France would have hanged you up immediately, had you been his Subject, as you are his Votary, for faying half fo much against him, notwithstanding you have done what you call the fairest thing in the World, (i. e. your appealing to him and the Pretender) in giving them Precedence before your lawful Sovereign, and all the other Princes of Europe, in your grand Appeal. I fhall conclude the whole with this final Remark on you in your own Phrafes. That no Sovereign had ever fo bafe, fo audacious a Wretch of a Subject, nor did feven noble Lords ever receive a Letter from fuch a Hedge-writer, as yourself, and fo unskilful a Sycophant. POSTSCRIPT. July 22, 1711. IR Charles Piers told me, Mr. William Gregg defired him to give his Dying Speech into the Queen's own Hands; but it being a Matter of High Treafon, he thought it not proper to deliver it to her Majefty any otherwise than by the Hands of the then Principal Secretaries of State; but he has quite forgotten, as he fays, to which of them. Sir Charles readily owned, that Gregg's Dying Speech, printed by Mr. Lorrain, was according to his and Mr. Lorrain's Copy, which agreed with his, and that there was a third Copy, which Gregg told him he had delivered to another Hand, who published it feveral Days before Mr. Lorrain's came out. And Sir Charles Piers's Lady faid, Sir Charles read the Copy Gregg gave him of his Dying Speech to her, which fhe remembered fo well, that fhe could fafely give her Oath as to the Truth of what was published. This Confirmation of the Dying Speech of Mr. William Gregg, published by Mr. Lorrain, by two fuch eminent Perfons, will, I hope, fatisfy fome certain Perfons, who feemed to me very unwilling to be convinced, That Mr. William Gregg did in his Dying Speech fairly, freely, publickly and folemnly, clear and juftify the Right Honourable Mr. Robert Harley from any Manner of Concern with him in his Treason. Sir Charles Piers does not deny, but that he received Mr. Lorrain's Copy, and kept it in his Hands feveral Days, during which the other was published, and might, on Bufinefs, be from Home once or twice when Mr. Lorrain came for it, and does not know but Mr. Lorrain might have had it the next Day if he would; but the whole being a trifling trifling Concern, has quite forgot whether it was fo or no. All which Forgetfulness of Sir Charles proceeded, as I fuppofe, from his little thinking at that Time Mr. Harley would ever have been fo great as now: As indeed, who would ever have thought, much lefs have believed, that, as Matters were then carried, the most excellent Queen herself could ever have given fo particular a Proof of her Wisdom and Power, as in advancing the prefent Lord High Treasurer; or with fo much Glory to herself, have vindicated the Dread and Awefulness of her Sacred Majefty, by cafting down the audacious Phaetons, to the Surprize and Aftonishment of all Europe? Sir Charles Piers faid, tho' Mr. Lorrain had kept Minutes of Gregg's Affairs, and he had not, he would keep very fevere and exact Minutes, when he came to be Lord Mayor; and that Perfons had beft take care what they spoke of him; was angry with Mr. Lorrain for mentioning his Name without conferring with him firft; and then informed me, That his Word, as a Chriftian, would go as far as Mr. Lorrain's Verbum Sacerdotis, for all he was a Priest; and faid, he told Mr. Lorrain as much before the prefent Lord Mayor and the Judges this laft Seffions at the Old Bailey. Francis Hoffman. Some Remarks upon a Pamphlet, entitled, A Letter to the Seven Lords of the Committee, appointed to examine Gregg. By the Author of the Examiner, Printed in the Year 1711. HOSE who have given themselves the Trouble to write against me, Pamphlets, are do all agree in difcovering a violent Rage, and at the fame Time affecting. an Air of Contempt toward their Adverfary; which, in my humble Opinion, are not very confiftent; and therefore it is plain, that their Fury is real and hearty, their Contempt only perfonated. I have pretty well studied this Matter, and would caution Writers of their Standard, never to engage in that difficult Attempt of defpifing, which is a Work to be done in cold Blood, and only by a fuperior Genius to one at fome Distance beneath him. I can truly affirm, I have had a very fincere Contempt for many of those who have drawn their Pens against me; yet I rather chofe the cheap Way of discovering it by Silence and Negled, than be at the Pains of new Terms to exprefs it: I have known a Lady value herself upon a haughty disdainful Look, which very few understood, and Nobody alive regarded. Those Common-place Terms of infamous Scribbler, prostitute Libeller, and the like, thrown Abroad without Propriety or Provocation, do ill perfonate the true Spirit of Contempt; because they are fuch as the meanest Writer, Writer, whenever he pleases, may ufe, towards the beft. I remember indeed a Parish Fool, who, with a great deal of Deformity, carried the most difdainful Look I ever obferved in any Countenance; and it was the most prominent Part of his Folly; but he was thoroughly in earneft, which thefe Writers are not: For there is another Thing I would observe, that my Antagonists are most of them fo, in a literal Senfe; breathe real Vengeance, and extend their Threats to my Perfon, if they knew where to find it; wherein they are fo far from defpifing, that I am fenfible they do me too much Honour. The Author of the Letter to the Seven Lords, takes upon him the three Characters of a Defpifer, a Threatner, and a Railer; and fucceeds fo well in the two laft, that it has made him mifcarry in the first. It is no unwife Proceeding which the Writers of that Side have taken up, to scatter their Menaces in ever Paper they publifh; it may perhaps look abfurd, ridiculous and impudent, in People at Mercy to affume fuch a Style; but the Defign is right, to endeavour perfuading the World that it is they who are the injured Party, that they are the Sufferers, and have a Right to be angry. However, there is one Point wherein thefe Gentlemen feem to stretch this wife Expedient a little farther than it will allow. I, who for several Months undertook to examine into the late Management of Perfons and Things, was content fometimes to give only a few Hints of certain Matters, which I had Charity enough to with might be buried for ever in Oblivion, if the Confidence of thefe People had not forced them from me. One Inftance where. of, among many, is the Bufinefs of Gregg, the Subject of a Letter I am now confidering. If this Piece hath been written by Direction, as I fhould be apt to fufpect, yet I am confident they would not have us think fo; because it is a Sort of Challenge, to let the World into the whole Secret of Gregg's Affair. But I fuppofe they are confident it is what I am not Mafter of, wherein it is Odds but they may be mistaken; for I believe, the Memorials of that Tranfaction are better preferved than they feem to be aware of, as perhaps may one Day appear. This Writer is offended, because I have faid fo many fevere Things with Application to particular Perfons. The Medley has been often in the fame Story: If they condemn it as a Crime in general, I fhall not much object, at least I will allow it fhould be done with Truth and Caution; but by what Argument will they undertake to prove, that it is pardonable on one Side, and not on the other? Since the late Change of My, I have obferved many of that Party take up a new Style, and tell us, That this Way of perfonal Reflections ought not to be endured; they could not approve of it; it was against Charity and good Manners. When the Whigs were in Power, they took special care to keep their Adverfaries filent; then all kind of Falfhood and Scurrility was doing good Service to the Caufe, and detecting of evil Principles. Now, that the Face of Things is changed, and we have Liberty to retort upon them, they are for calling down Fire from Heaven upon us; tho', by a Sort of Indulgence which they were Strangers to, we allow them equal |