To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
The Opinion of the French Court con∣cerning the five Persons that made up the Cabal in England in the Year, 1671/2.
My Lord,
THE Ministers of this Court are not only the most inquisitive Persons in the World into the Affairs of other Courts, but
even into the Persons that manage them, whose Natures, Dispositions, Religion, Natu∣ral and Acquired Abilities, as well as Respe∣ctive Infirmities, they endeavour to sift out to the quick, that so they may use them or shun them as they find occasion; and for this reason it is that they make some Re∣marks upon them in their Minutes as well as upon the Affairs transacted by them; And therefore since the Five Persons who made up the Cabal in England a few years ago, and who your Lordship may remem∣ber were the Dukes of Buckingham and Lau∣derdale, the Earls of Shaftsbury and Arling∣ton, and the Lord Treasurer Clifford, were very distinguishable for the Stations they were in, the Offices they held and the Parts each of them acted in the Government, I find this Character given of them: For the Duke of Buckingham as he was the Kings Favourite, so he really deserved to be so, as being very capable to be a Mi∣nister of State, if his application to business had been answerable to his Talents, if his mind, which was furnished with excellent Endowments had not been distracted with Libertinism which was in him to an ex∣tream degree, and by a love to his Plea∣sures, which made one of those Persons in the World that was fittest for great and solid things, vain and frivolous. Of the Duke of Lauderdale there is little or nothing said, but that he is a great and quaint Poli∣tian,
and no question but he has merited that Character at their hand: Of my Lord Clifford they are as profuse in their Praises, as I doubt they have been too of their Money, saying; he was a Person who wanted nothing but a Theatre, where Vertue and Reason had been much more in use than it was in his Country in the Age wherein he lived, for to be superi∣our to and overtop the rest: My Lord of Arlinton they make to be a Person of a meaner Capacity and more limitted Geni∣us than any of the Five, but say his Expe∣riences supply the Defect, and has acqui∣red him especially a very great knowledge of Forreign Affairs; last of all, they bring in Anthony Ashley Cooper the Renowned Earl of Shaftsbury of whom they say; he was by far the fitter Person of any of them to manage a great Enterprize, and so was as the Soul to all the rest, being endued with a vast Capacity, clear Judgment, bold Nature, and subtil Wit, equal∣ly firm and constant in all he under∣took; a constant Friend but an implaca∣ble Enemy, with many other Expressions, such as his not being terrified neither with the greatness nor the multitude of the Crimes he judges necessary for his own preservation, or the destruction of others, much to his Lordships dishonour, which is a clear Argument he was not for their In∣terest, and for which he is much behold∣ing
to them. Your Lordship will pardon the freedom I take with You, and accept of the sincere endeavours to serve you of,
My Lord,
Your Honours most Humble and most Obedient Servant.
Paris Jan. 12. 1678. N. S.