The secret history of White-Hall, from the restoration of Charles II down to the abdication of the late K. James writ at the request of a noble lord, and conveyed to him in letters, by ̲̲̲late secretary-interpreter to the Marquess of Louvois, who by that means had the perusal of all the private minutes between England and France for many years : the whole consisting of secret memoirs, which have hitherto lain conceal'd, as not being discoverable by any other hand / publish'd from the original papers, by D. Jones, gent.

LETTER XXV. (Book 25)

Of Liberty of Conscience granted by King Charles II in the Year 1671/2, how and to what ends attained.

My Lord,

IT was not enough for this Court to en∣gage the King to consent to a second War with the Dutch, and shutting up the Exchequer purely to serve their Interest and Designs, but they must put him upon a∣nother piece of State-Druggery, which at the same time, I am well satisfied he was not of himself much averse to, and that was the Declaration of Indulgence to ten∣der Consciences, as they have been plea∣sed to cant it; they knew well enough what severe Laws were in force against all those that dissented from the Publick Church, and some of them fresh enough in memory not to be so soon forgotten, and they knew full as well, that both the Po∣pish and Presbyterianly affected Persons as well as the Prerogative and Republican Party who then began to revive, that were about the King, would greedily promote it, or at leastwise some of all the mentioned sorts, as a means whereby to attain to the ends aimed at by those differrent Factions.

these the Monsieurs took care to influence in their several ways so as to spur up the King not to delay the granting of it; but whatever the several Parties ends were in the obtaining of such a Grant, the intent of France was chiefly to divide us, and so make sure of the other event of their o∣ther Measures; for they concluded then, had the King gained that point without dispute, and the People suffered that dis∣pensing with the Laws to pass tamely and without any interrogating about it, for an inherent Prerogative of the English Crown; that he would be able to keep a firmer Al∣liance with them, and assist them in all their Designs without controul with his Arms, and that he should at long-run be easily perswaded to receive Twenty or Thirty Thousand Auxiliaries to secure his new acquired Authority, in that and o∣ther Usurpations they intended to put him upon both in Civil and Religious Matters, in lieu of the Brittish Forces he should furnish the French King with; or if he should happen to be so weak as to yield up that important piece of Royalty to the Par∣liament; that still by such a diminution of Power he would in time by their pres∣sing more and more upon him, as they had contrived in that case they should, be still necessitated in his extremity to have recourse to their help against the popular Waves, which when their state Eolus's had

blown enough to a sufficient high Sea, they designed to assist him to asswage, for fear else of giving place to the second Re∣surrection of that terrible Monster called a Commonwealth, which they dreaded more then any thing that could have happened in this Western World; the memory of what a terror that late Monster in our Isles had been to them, as well as to the rest of their Neighbour Nations, being yet too fresh to have been forgotten by them; thus did these State Empericks drench us, and brought our Nation under such Con∣vulsions, that without the help of kind Heaven, must end in a total Dissolution, Sed futura nes••imus. I am,

My Lord,

Your Constant and Faithful Servant.

Paris Decemb. 16. 1677. N. S.