A Seasonable Warning and Caution against the Insinuations of Papists and Jacobites in favour of the Pretender Being a Letter from an Englishman at the Court of Hanover

2. That in this distress, the whole nation applied themselves to the Prince of Orange, whose right to the succession made him justly appear as the proper person to assist and relieve this oppressed people; which prince came over at our invitation, was blessed with success, and all the favourers of popery and tyranny sunk at once; King James fled with his queen, and that person whom he called his son, and whom we now call justly the pretender.

3. Concerning the birth of this person, the nobility and gentry of England who invited over the prince, as may be seen by the memorial they presented to his highness, alleged, that there were violent presumptions that he was not born of the queen's body, which, however, they desired to leave to examination in a free parliament; which also the said prince expressed in his declaration, and that he was willing to leave the same to a free parliament.

4. That before a free parliament could be obtained, King James withdrew himself, and carried away his pretended son into the hands of the ancient enemies of this nation, and of our religion, the French, there to be educated in the principles of popery and enmity to this his native country.

By which action he not only declined to refer the legitimacy of his said son to the examination of the parliament, as the Prince of Orange had offered in his said declaration, but made such examination altogether useless and impracticable, he himself (King James) not owning it to be a legal parliament, and therefore not consenting to stand by such examination.

By the said abdication, and carrying away his said pretended son into the hands of the French to be educated in popery, &c., he gave the parliament of England and Scotland abundant reason for ever to exclude the said King James and his said pretended son from the government of these realms, or from the succession to the same, and made it absolutely necessary for them to do so, if they would secure the protestant religion to themselves and their posterity; and this without any regard to the doubt whether he was the lawful son of King James or no, since it is inconsistent with the constitution of this protestant nation to be governed by a popish prince.

So that there is now no more room to examine whether the said pretender be the lawful son of King James, or whether he is, or will turn to be a protestant, the examination of the legitimacy by parliament which was offered by the Prince of Orange in his declaration, having been declined by his father, and himself having been delivered up into the hands of the sworn enemies both of our religion, constitution, and nation.

If King James would have expected he should be received as his son, and succeed to his crowns, he should have suffered his birth to have been legally determined by the English and Scotch parliament at that time, and have left him in good protestant hands to have been educated in the protestant religion, and in the knowledge of the laws and constitutions of his country; in which case it was more than probable, had his birth appeared clear, and his hereditary right just, the parliament might have set the crown upon his head, and declared him king under the protection of their deliverer, the Prince of Orange: but to talk of it now, when his birth has never been examined or cleared up, and while he has been bred up to man's estate in popery, and that the worst sort, viz., French popery; and after the parliament of the respective kingdoms uniting in one, have by an unalterable, indissolvable union, settled and entailed the crown upon another head, viz., the present queen, and entailed it after her majesty in the most illustrious house of Hanover, the next of blood in a protestant line: to talk now of proving the birth of the pretender, and of his abjuring his errors and turning protestant, this is a fraud so absurd and ridiculous, that we hope the people of Great Britain can never be blinded with it.

Especially considering the party who talk of these things to us: and this ought to move the good people of Britain to receive the proposals of the pretender with indignation; for who are they, dear fellow-protestants! that persuade you to these things? Are they not the friends of France and Rome? Do not all the papists join with them? Do not all those who hated the revolution, and who long to restore arbitrary government, join with them?

Why, if he will abjure the Romish errors and turn protestant, why, I say, do the papists speak in his favour? Do any sect of religion love apostates! Those who forsake them and abjure them as heretical and erroneous! If they were not well assured that whatever appearing change he may make, he will still retain a secret affection to popery, they could not be rationally supposed to speak in his behalf.

But if that is not sufficient, what do they say to you as to his love of the liberty of his country? Has he been bred up in a tyrannical absolute court for nothing? Can he have any notion of government there but what is cruel, oppressive, absolute, and despotic? What principles of government will he come over with? and as he has sucked in tyranny with his milk, and knows no government but that of the most absolute monarch in the world, is this the man they would bring in to preserve the liberties and constitution of Britain?

When set upon the British throne, who are his allies and confederates? Will he be so ungrateful as not to be always at the devotion and command of the French king? a prince that took his father in a fugitive, an abdicated and ruined prince, when his fortunes were overthrown, and his crown taken from him; that made so many efforts to restore him, and hazarded his whole kingdom for it: if he forgets the kindness shown to his father, can he be so ungenerous, so unthankful, as to forget how the king of France nourished him from a child; how, after his father's death, he hazarded a second war to proclaim him king of Great Britain, and what expense he has been at to put him in possession of it? Should he forget all these obligations, he must be unfit to be called a Christian, much less a prince.