Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/127

Rh they are taught better by the example of the Welch. O England! thou art juſtly reputed the bondwoman of other countries, and beneath them all: what thy natives earn hardly, aliens ſnatch away and carry off!”

is impoſſible for an honeſt man ever to hate his country; but if it will ſuffer itſelf to be oppreſſed, it juſtly becomes, at once, both the pity and ſcorn of every underſtanding man, and of them chiefly that love it beſt. But as we cannot hate our country, ſo for the ſame reaſon we cannot but hate ſuch a generation of men, as for their own little ends are willing to enſlave it to all poſterity; wherein, they are worſe than Eſau, for he only ſold his own birth-right for a meſs of pottage, but not that of other folks too.

the year 1258, a parliament was called to London the day after Hoke Tueſday, for great and weighty affairs, for the King had engaged and entangled himſelf in great and amazing debts to the pope about the king of Apulia, and he was likewiſe ſick of his Welch war. But when the King was very urgent for an aid of money, the parliament reſolutely and unanimouſly anſwered him, “That they neither would nor could bear