s
an action. Finding that the calumny gained ground, and had made
deep impression on his subjects, he was now obliged to submit to the
mortifying task of ascertaining the reality of the birth. Though no
particular attention had been beforehand given to insure proof, the
evidence both of the queen's pregnancy and delivery was rendered
indisputable and so much the more, as no argument or proof of any
importance, nothing but popular rumor and surmise, could be thrown into
the opposite scale.

Meanwhile the prince of Orange's declaration was dispersed over the
kingdom, and met with universal approbation. All the grievances of the
nation were there enumerated: the dispensing and suspending power; the
court of ecclesiastical commission; the filling of all offices with
Catholics, and the raising of a Jesuit to be privy counsellor; the
open encouragement given to Popery, by building every where churches,
colleges, and seminaries for that sect; the displacing of judges, if
they refused to give sentence according to orders received from
court; the annulling of the charters of all the corporations, and the
subjecting of elections to arbitrary will and pleasure; the treating of
petitions, even the most modest, and from persons of the highest rank,
as criminal and seditious; the committing of the whole authority of
Ireland, civil and military, into the hands of Papists; the assuming
of an absolute power over the religion and laws of Scotland, and openly
exacting in that kingdom an obedience without reserve; and the violent
presumptions against the legitimacy of the prince of Wales. In order to
redress all these grievances, the prince said, that he intended to come
over to England with an armed force, which might protect him from the
king's evil counsellors; and that his sole aim was to have a legal and
free parliament assembled, who might provide for the safety and liberty
of the nation, as well as examine the proofs of the prince of Wales's
legitimacy. No one, he added, could entertain such hard thoughts of him
as to imagine, that he had formed any other design than to procure the
full and lasting settlement of religion, liberty, and property. The
force which he meant to bring with him, was totally disproportioned
to any views of conquest; and it were absurd to suspect, that so many
persons of high rank, both in church and state, would have given him
so many solemn invitations for such a pernicious purpose. Though the
English mini