XVII. That she hath, and doth relieve and countenance in her family and lodgings in Whitehall, several servants, whom she knows to be papists, and ill affected to the Protestant religion and government, giving them frequent and private access to his majesty, to the hazard and danger of his majesty's person, and in contempt of a late act of parliament, whereby all papists whatsoever (except Father Huddleston", seven women servants, and some foreign servants to her majesty) were prohibited to come within the limits of his majesty's palace or court; notwithstanding which act of parliament, she hath, and still doth not only relieve in her lodgings, as aforesaid, several servants of the popish persuasion, but she hath lately taken into her service a French papist, whom she formerly preferred to his majesty, as a confectioner, and who was entered of his majesty's service upon the aforesaid act; which said confectioner doth daily prepare sweet-meats and other banquetings, in triumph over the late fresh act of parliament, for his majesty at her lodgings, so that his majesty may be in an eminent danger from the aforesaid French papist, who has such opportunity to poison his sacred majesty, by mixing poison in the sweet-meats, whom God long preserve. XVIII. That, the day before his majesty fell sick at Windsor, she persuaded her majesty, being then in her lodgings, to eat a mess of broth, prepared by some of her papist servants; whereupon his majesty fell immediately sick, it being the opinion of some able physicians, that his majesty's diseases where much augmented, if not wholly created, by the aforesaid broth.

XIX. That, during his majesty's sickness, she introduced several unknown persons, by a back-door, to his majesty's bed-chamber, who, in all likelihood, were Romish priests, French physicians, agents or ministers of the French king's; all which persons could have no honest or lawful business with his majesty, at that time especially, being privately introduced, and his majesty's proper servants, belonging to his bed-chamber, being all sent out, except such as were popishly affected, her creatures consequently, and her footmen ordered to wait in the antichamber, as is judged, to prevent any body's hearing or seeing them, as if they had been of his majesty's bed-chamber.

XX. That she has, by her creatures and friends, given out, and, whispered abroad, that she was married to his majesty, and that her son, the Duke of Richmond, is his majesty's legitimate son, and consequently Prince of Wales, his health being frequently drunk by her, and her creatures, in her night debauches and merry-meetings, to the great dishonour and reflexion of his majesty, and the manifest peril and danger of these kingdoms, who may hereafter, by such false and scandalous stories, and wicked practices, be embroiled in distractions, if not in blood and civil wars, to the utter ruin of his majesty's subjects, and subversion of the Protestant religion; it being manifest, she, being a papist herself, will breed her son in the same religion, however she may pretend to the contrary†.

XXI. That, she having that high and dishonourable absolute dominion and power over the king's heart, she has opportunity to draw from

him the secrets of his government, opportunity by herself, or other engines of her's, to poison, or otherwise to destroy the king; opportunity, at least, to promote a French papist interest, so that it is not only impossible the Protestant religion should live, but it is not possible the king can have a due sense of the danger he was, or may be in, from the Romish conspiracy, which has, is, or may be against his royal person and government.

XXII. That she has had the highest honours and rewards conferred on her, and her's, to the high dishonour of God, the encouragement of wickedness and vice (which by such examples is overspread the nation, and for which God's anger is kindled and inflamed against us) suppressing and discouraging of virtue, whose rewards those high titles and honours ought to be, and this to the eternal reproach of his majesty's reign and government.

A DISCOURSE TOUCHING TANGIER.

In a Letter to a Person of Quality.

TO WHICH IS ADDED,

THE INTEREST OF TANGIER.

BY ANOTHER HAND.

London Printed in the year 1680. Quarto, containing forty-eight pages.

HONOURED SIR,

I at our with an abstract of my judgment and

REMEMBER at our parting I made you a promise to gratify your

curiosity, the best I could, with an abstract of my judgment and ob servations touching his majesty's city and port of Tangier; and had obeyed you long since, had not my head been rather oppressed than em. ployed, by the unexpected difficulties of my toilsome charge; which, to this day, render me so little master of my resolutions, that the few minutes I borrow, like broken slumbers, scarce afford me leave to reflect seriously on any other subject. Be pleased therefore to take this short account only, as an earnest of what you may farther expect, when with more freedom of thought I shall be enabled to send you a present of the same kind, better worth your acceptance.

Tangier, according to remotest accounts, I find to have been a colony of the Romans; which conquering people did from thence lead their armies, by which they subdued all that part of Africa. They called a great province by that name; and thought it so well worth their labour, that they planted, peopled, and built it to the magnitude of the greatest cities; as we find by the fragments of their structures, where-ever we have occasion to break ground in the fields; and by the noble aquæducts, some whereof to this day supply the town with water, said to be the best

in the world. But, by the declension of that monarchy, it shrunk by degrees to the dimension it now bears.

It was here the Moors formed, and from hence prosecuted, their great design of conquering Spain; the advantageous situation whereof is thought to have not only encouraged those infidels to the attempt, but lent them such aids as mainly conduced to their success.

At length, about the year 1474, while the princes of Barbary were at war amongst themselves, this, with other towns upon the coast, fell into the hands of the Portuguese, &c.

Upon his majesty's marriage with our present queen, Tangier was given in part of her dowry: a capitulation much opposed by the Spanish ministers, and gave that government so much apprehension, that, upon his majesty's sending so great a garison as he did upon our first possessing it, jealous what design there might be, withdrew a great part of their army from the frontiers of Portugal, and quartered them along the coast of Andalusia to have an eye upon our motions: by which state-contrivance, as is thought, of the Portuguese, they got the respite of one whole campaign from the incursions of the Spaniard. This I the rather mention to excite our own value for Tangier, which barely our possession of gives other princes so much caution.

This sufficing for the historical part of Tangier, to the time of his ma. jesty's possessing it; I will now proceed, with the brevity of letter to treat upon the four following heads, viz.

The service Tangier has already rendered the crown.

What service it may render it, if improved.

The mischief it may do us, if possessed by any other powerful prince, Some general observations touching trade.

Tangier is, as I have observed, so advantageously situated, that it surveys the greatest thorough-fare of commerce in the world; having in one view almost the whole sea comprehended between the four capes of Travalgar, Gibraltar, Spartel, and Ceuta; those on the European, these on the African shore; so that no ship or vessel can pass in or out of the Mediterranean, unobserved from thence.

It comes therefore to pass, by means of this narrow gap or inlet, that men of war, pirates and corsairs of all nations, covet to ply and cruise in and about that station, where they are sure to speak with all ships that pass.

Here it was, that a squadron of the Dutch on two several occasions, during that war, lay in wait for our Newfound-land fleet, who had no recourse for safety but to Tangier, where they were protected and se cured, till the danger was over: the greatest part whereof had otherwise demonstrably fallen into the enemy's hands.

It was on this station that Sir Thomas Allen, during the first Dutch war, encountered their Smyrna fleet; and here, in the last war with Algier, a whole squadron of Turks fell into our hands at once, and were all destroyed and both then, and since by Sir John Narbrough, there has been by a manifold degree more mischief done to that enemy on this station, than in all the ocean besides; and we have frequent examples of single ships being chaced into this port for shelter.

To this port, upon the breaking out of the last Dutch war, was sent

us advice of a squadron of their merchant-ships, that were bound from Malaga homeward, but ill guarded, with an exact account when they were to depart: which squadron we encountered; and, had the affair been more fortunately managed, they had all fallen into our hands; though, as it was, the greatest part were destroyed and taken.

To this place, on divers occasions, both by sea and land, we have received notice from Sallee, and other places on the coast, of proper seasons wherein to attack that enemy, and have often succeeded in our attempts upon those intimations: and, I think, I may with good assurance aver, that, by the advantage of this place, we have destroyed more of those pirates, than all nations besides put together, who have been industrious, to their power, to prejudice them; especially the French, Dutch, and Portuguese.

And yet, farther to shew you how this place has been already useful, let it be remembered, that during the plague in England, when it was penal in the highest degree in Spain, to hold the least commerce with us: notwithstanding the hazard they ran, the Spaniards themselves came over by stealth, and, by degrees, did here supply their wants, without paying custom either here or there; this place being the general magazine to all the coast along.

What quantities of French commodities were lodged here, during their war with Spain, and were by little and little in Spanish vessels fetched over, and put on board their galleons when they were ready to receive them, without ever landing them?

With what ease and expedition did Sir John Narbrough, the last year, careen and refit the ships under his command within the mole ; where we had neither hulk, nor any sort of provision for that service? When I often heard him say, with great satisfaction, that he would undertake to refit a squadron in half the time, and with half the charge, that it could be done any where else out of England: and I think I do not give him more than his due, if I presume to say, he is as qualified for credit in that particular, as any man whatever of his profession.

How many merchant-ships, in peril by distress of weather, have been relieved and preserved by the assistance they have received from hence? I could also insist on the damages done on the French, from this place, during our war with them.

Nor have the advantages been small, arising from considerable quantities of English merchandise, manufactures, &c. disposed of hence into Barbary; but, having an eye to my promise of writing you only a letter, I shall, in a word, as to this first head, only say, that Tangier may be justly reckoned to have gone far towards the recompensing to the government the charge, his majesty has been at, in its preservation and improvement: and if, while in its infancy, when there could be no just regulation of the charge, nor the place framed and cultivated fully up to the uses and ends of the government, we can demonstrably make such a calculation, what may be hoped from it, when, besides the large retrenchment, it has already admitted in its charge to the king, we shall be able to demonstrate so many farther extraordinary services, it is сараble of rendering the crown, as I doubt not to prove in the following section?

Which is to shew wherein, and to what degree, Tangier is applicable to the ends and uses of the government.

I think I may challenge mankind to point me out, in the whole globe of the earth, a spot of ground so improveable of the honour and interest of the English nation, as Tangier.

What is it has rendered England so formidable, so rich, and so renowned a kingdom, but the strength of our navies, and universality of our commerce? for our fleets might grow till they rot, and our mines remain in the bowels of their mother; our people rust into the barbarity of their ancestors, and our nation become a prey to every aspiring monarch, did not this mighty machine set all heads and hands at work, quicken our understandings, and polish our manners, and, from an object otherwise of pity, or contempt, render us the greatest pattern in the world of the power of industry, the fountain of all the blessings we enjoy; and, because there are many various wheels and motions therein, why should not Tangier be esteemed among the principal of those movements, which keep this vast engine going?

First, in respect of Spain, in a case of a war with that people: he, who knows any thing, is not ignorant, that the damages, we sustain by such a war, are more through the embargo of a free and open commerce with them, so useful and profitable to this nation, that it becomes a doubt, whether it be not of more account, than one half of the trade we have with all Europe besides; I say, the mischief, in such case, will be more by a suspension of our commerce, than any great damage can accrue to us by their hostilities. If so, then I undertake to say, that Tangier is able in a good degree, if not totally, to answer this great objection: for, by vertue of our vicinity with Spain, especially the five principal ports of Seville, Cadiz, St. Lucar, Port St. Mary's, and Malaga; and, by the convenience of a good harbour here (which, by the success of the mole, is now well-nigh effected) our nation there, in case of a war, may remove and settle their factories here; which, both for the safety of their persons, as well as estates, they need not be invited to do, having, to my certain knowledge, sundry times been upon the point of taking that resolution, like one man, by some jealousies they have had of misunderstandings likely to ensue betwixt us and that people; and, affairs being once so settled, the Spaniards themselves, as their occasions press them, will take care to be supplied from hence; as in the instance I have given, during the plague in England. By this means our estates run no hazard of seizure, or confiscation; we shall be able to put off our commodities at better rates, and the King of Spain wholly deprived of his customs. Tangier itself becomes a proportionable gainer by the bargain, and his majesty's subjects rest under the protection of their own country laws and government, and in the liberty of the exercise of their own religion.

Thus, as, on the one hand, Tangier renders a war with Spain less burdensome to us, by so preserving the commerce unbroken; so, by its advantageous situation, and improvement to a good port, it would prove so great a thorn in their sides, by the incessant hostilities we should commit upon them (for it is not two hours sail from Tangier to the coast of Spain) the hazard and obstruction of their West-India trade, the