Page:A Letter from a Person of Quality, to His Friend in the Country (1675).pdf/41

 merit of the Offending partie, in being the Instruments of the King's Happy Return, besides the putting so vast a number of the King's Subjects in utter despair of having their crimes ever forgotten; and it must be a great Mistake in Counsels, or worse, that there should be so much pains taken by the Court to debase, and bring low the House of Peers, if a Military Government be not intended by some. For the Power of Peerage, and a standing Army are like two Buckets, the proportion that one goes down, the other exactly goes up; and I refer you to the consideration of all the Histories of ours, or any of our neighbor Northern Monarchies, whether standing forces Mi­litary, and Arbitrary government, came not plainly in by the same steps, that the Nobility were lessened; and whether when ever they were in Power, and Greatness, they permitted the least shadow of any of them: Our own Countrey is a clear instance of it; For though the White Rose and the Red chang'd fortunes often to the ruine, slaugh­ter and beheading of the great Men of the other side; yet nothing could enforce them to secure themselves by a standing force: But I cannot believe that the King Himself will ever design any such thing; for He is not of a temper Robust, and Laborious enough, to deale with such a sort of Men, or reap the advantages, if there be any, of such a Government, and I think, He can hardly have forgot the treatment his Father received from the Officers of his Army, both at Oxford, and Newark; 'Twas an hard, but almost an even choice to be the Parliaments Prisoner, or their Slave; but I am sure the greatest prosperity of his Armes could have brought him to no hap­pier condition, then our King his Son hath before him whenever he please. However, This may be said for the honor of this Session, that there is no Prince in Christendom hath at a greater expence of Money, maintained for two Months space, a Nobler, or more use­ful dispute of the Politiques, Mistery, and secrets of Government, both in Church and State, then this hath been; Of which noble de­sign no part is owing to any of the Countrey Lords, for they seve­ral of them begg'd, at the first entrance into the Debate, that they might not be engaged in such disputes, as would unavoidably pro­duce divers things to be said, which they were willing to let alone. But I must bear them witness, and so will you, having read this, that they did their parts in it, when it came to it, and spoke plain like old English Lords.

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