Every remonstrance of private men has the seed of treason in it;
and discourses, which are couched in ambiguous terms, are
therefore the more dangerous, because they do all the mischief
of open sedition, yet are safe from the punishment of the laws.
These, my lord, are considerations, which I should not pass so
lightly over, had I room to manage them as they deserve; for no
man can be so inconsiderable in a nation, as not to have a share
in the welfare of it; and if he be a true Englishman, he must at
the same time be fired with indignation, and revenge himself as
he can on the disturbers of his country. And to whom could I
more fitly apply myself than to your lordship, who have not only
an inborn, but an hereditary loyalty? The memorable constancy
and sufferings of your father, almost to the ruin of his estate,
for the royal cause, were an earnest of that which such a parent
and such an institution would produce in the person of a son.
But so unhappy an occasion of manifesting your own zeal, in
suffering for his present majesty, the providence of God, and
the prudence of your administration, will, I hope, prevent; that,
as your father's fortune waited on the unhappiness of his
sovereign, so your own may participate of the better fate which
attends his son.
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