The English, besides their liberty of residing within the town of Bantam, have free access through the whole country of Java Major, which is a vast and spacious isle; for from east to west, it stretches one hundred and fifty leagues, or of miles, four hundred and fifty, and from north to south, ninety leagues, which is two hundred and seventy miles, English.

The Dutch joined with the rebels, in this unnatural incursion, to invade our city with the more ease, we being so unprovided of am. munition, and all other conveniences to make any considerable resistance; in which they had found much more difficulty, and, it is probable, we might have held out as yet, had we received that recruit of arms and ammunition, as was every day expected by the ambassador from England, who is not yet come.

And this, sir, leads me to the tragical part of my letter, which must needs create pity in you, when you consider in what conster. nation this sudden change hath left us in, not able to call our lives or fortunes our own; nor can we yet tell, whether we are freemen, or slaves.

During the absence of our ambassador in England, a match was proposed by the King of Bantam, between his eldest son, Zerombia Zebbe, and the daughter of the King of Mitram.

This was a match well proposed, and had been fortunate for the English, had it taken its wished success, the King of Mitram being, as it were, Emperor of Java Major.

The young prince, going upon this expedition, fell in love by the way, with the King of Tuban's daughter, which, next to Bantam, is the chiefest town in Java.

The prince having forgot all other obligations, it was not long before the marriage was unhappily solemnised, though it was much inferior to what had been formerly proposed. The King of Tuban's territories being but small, and he himself a tributary to the King of Bantam besides, the King of Tuban having four wives, six sons, and two daughters, besides natural children, and concubines innumerable, the princess, which was the former match proposed, being sole heiress to the emperor.

This so incensed the King of Bantam, that he excludes his son out of the kingdom, making his younger son, by a second wife, his heir.

The prince, no less incensed, on the other hand, marched with a small army of the Tubanites towards Batavia, desiring aid of the Dutch, who were forward enough to assist him, as well for the old grudge, that continued between them and the Bantamites, as to en. large their dominions, upon any opportunity that presents.

There being a Dutch fleet at Batavia, they took shipping, and lay before Bantam on the twenty-third of November, playing with their great cannon upon the town; during which time the king made several proffers of accommodation, but nothing would be ac. cepted.

At last, all our ammunition being spent, and our walls battered down, on the second of December they entered the town, seizing

upon the bazor, and all places of factory and store, killing and plundering all before them.

The king, with the chief officers of the city, keeps his army in the field; where, by daily recruits, which flock to him from all parts, he hopes yet, in some time, to recover his former losses.

The Hollanders have possessed themselves of the port, and the rebels of the city. We are every day threatened to be turned out, and a Dutch factory and consul establised in our place. All the hopes, we have, are of the return of the ambassador, and the suc cess of the king's army; of which we hope to give you a better account by the next.

A BRIEF ACCOUNT

OF

MANY MEMORABLE PASSAGES

OF THE

LIFE AND DEATH OF THE EARL OF SHAFTSBURY,

Sometime Lord High Chancellor of England,

Who departed this Life the twenty-first of December, 1683; Giving an impartial relation of his loyalty to his Majesty in the late times, and the great endeavours, he used, to bring in the King into England, unto his just rights, in peace and safety; with his Majesty's grateful acknowledgments of these his kindnesses to him, in preferring him to several eminent places of honour and trust; together with his great patience under the loss of the same. Also, his twice imprisonment in the Tower, and his witty answer to one of the popish lords upon his imprisonment; his release. ment; and several plots and sham-plots of the papists, used to take away his life, for his vigilancy and care for the protestant religion, and their disappointments. Of his arrival in Holland, and his kind entertainment there. Together with his sickness, and worthy speeches a little before his death. Concluded with a prayer worthy of the perusal of all persons. Printed for J. CONYERS, in Duck-Lane. Quarto, containing eight pages.

It is not my presumption, in this sheet, to write the life of this

T

great statesman, but to give the reader a brief account of some re. markable passages in the same, for the satisfaction of the meaner sort, that cannot purchase large volumes

Authony, Earl of Shaftsbury, Baron Ashley of Wimbourn, and Lord Cooper of Paulet, was descended from the honourable and

ancient family of the Coopers of Wimbourn St. Giles's, in the county of Dorset.

We shall, in the first place (laying aside all his other virtues) treat of the loyalty of this noble peer, in the words of the late author; saith he, Could we have taken a view of the inside of this noble peer, we might have seen his heart full of loyalty to his prince, love to his country, and zeal for the protestant religion; the settlement of which can only secure us from the attempts of his majesty's, and his people's enemies. With what admirable policy did he influence and manage the councils in the late times, in what he was concerned in, during the interregnum, towards his majesty's interest, and with what admirable subtlety did he turn the stream of their counsels; and with unwearied diligence did he tug at the helm of state, till he had brought in his great master, the king, into his kingdoms again, in prosperity and safety, to the joy of all good subjects?

His house was a sanctuary for distressed loyalists, and his correspondency with the king. Friends, though closely managed, as the necessity of those times required, are not unknown to those that were the principal managers of his majesty's affairs at that time. This made the late usurper, Oliver Cromwell, so jealous of him, whose arbitrary government he withstood to the utmost of his power. And we find that Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper was accused before the Rump Parliament, in the year 1659, for keeping intelli-' gence with the king, and having provided forces in Dorsetshire, to join with Sir George Booth, in attempting to bring in our noble king, that now is, to his rightful throne; and also his concurrence with General Monk, in that important juncture, if we remember that his regiment was one of the first that declared for a free parliament, and General Monk, in March 1659, so zealous was he in putting alb his strength to turn the great wheel of state.

1

And at the time of his majesty's restoration, as a most signal testimony of his majesty's good opinion of his former actions, he was advanced to be one of the first rank in his majesty's most honourable privy-council, and was placed above his royal brother, the Duke of Gloucester, even General Monk himself, whom the king used to call his political father: and, three dayes after his majesty's coronation, he was created Baron Ashley of Wimbourn St. Giles's, and also Lord Cooper of Paulet, and, at last, another mark of royal favour, in the year 1672, he was made Earl of Shaftsbury. For his wise administration in his majesty's affairs, he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, some time after that, made Lord High-chancellor of England, about the beginning of the year 1672, which place he executed with the greatest judgment and equity imaginable.

Thus having briefly traced this great minister of state, in these mighty employments under his great and good master, the king, I. shall take some notice of his relinquishment of that high employment, and what happened to him since.

About November 1673, his majesty was pleased to send for the Lord Chancellor to Whitehall, where the resigned the Great Seal of England to his majesty, and was dismissed from being treasurer of.

the Exchequer. In the afternoon of the same day, the Earl of Shaftsbury was visited by Prince Rupert, with other great lords, at Exeter House, where they gave his lordship thanks for his faithful and honourable discharge of that great employment. Thus this great minister of state, to the universal satisfaction of all good men, being raised to that high degree of interest in his master's favour, without a murmur, laid all his honour at his majesty's feet, and was observed not to abate of the chearfulness of his temper, upon the loss of all these temporal and honourable employments. I shall conclude this part of his life, with a character that a late author gave of him:

His choice sagacity

Straight solv'd the knot that subtle lawyers ty'd,

And, through all fogs, discern'd the oppressed side; 'Banish'd delays, and so this noble peer

"Became a star of honour in our sphere;

A needful Atlas of our state.'

On the sixteenth of February, 1676, this earl was sent prisoner to the tower, by the order of the House of Lords; there were, at the same time, committed several other lords, for maintaining, That the then parliament was dissolved, and ought not to sit any longer; where he continued prisoner about a year's time, and, after submit. ting himself to his majesty and the parliament, he was discharged, by acknowledging his fault. A little after his releasement, this parlia ment was prorogued, and after dissolved. Now was the wicked plot of the Jesuits and Papists discovered by the great fidelity of Dr. Oates, which convinced both king, lords, and commons, and all the nation in general, of a damnable, treasonable, popish design, to murder our king, with the rest of the nobility and gentry, and to reduce the Protestant church to Romish idolatry, and the state to a Catholick slavery.

On the seventh of March, 1678, another parliament met at Westminster. This parliament did, like noble patriots, endeavour to give a check to the bloody popish designs a foot, and passed many excel. lent votes for that purpose; many members acquitted themselves, in their speeches, like men of high sense of the miseries the nation was like to be involved in. This house carried up their impeachments to the House of Lords, against the Lord Powis, Stafford, Arundel, Lord Peters, Lord Bellasis, for high-treason, and other high crimes: but I shall forbear mentioning any farther, only instance how this noble peer was struck at in that hellish design. I shall refer the reader to what hath been already published in print, only note two or three things of some persons, that made attempts on the life of this noble peer; first, by Dangerfield, who had a great sum offered him, to have murdered the Earl of Shaftsbury, on whom the rage of the bloody Romish party was now so great, that they left no base and unwarrantable action unattempted, to rob him of his life; some were hired to stab or pistol him; others to swear treason against hims or any other way the devil put in their heads. Another design against

this noble peer, was to have been acted by a woman, called Madam Cellier, a popish midwife; who attempted that cursed design, under the pretence of a visit to the earl, and under pretence of her paying her thanks for favours received through his means; but she had a consecrated dagger under the skirt of her gown, ready to have expressed her gratitude, by opening the veins of this protestant peer's heart.

Is then loyal innocency, and protestant integrity, armour of proof against poisons, pistols, and poniards? No; the Catholick gallantry stops not here, but pursues this noble peer with forgery of his hand, and other little sham-plots. What base and villainous acts the bloody papists used, to destroy the Earl of Shaftsbury, by many endeavours to have stabbed him, as hath been deposed by many persons, to whom the parliament, as well as the nation, have given belief? I shall instance one more of their mischievous prac. tices in this kind. There was a gentleman, who was a commander of a regiment of horse in the late king's army, and lost all for his sake, and his present majesty's, writ to this noble peer about a remedy against the gout, which he used to be afflicted with very much. This letter was intercepted, and (the person then living in the French king's dominions) after adding to it an account, That the writer was able to furnish the earl with forty-thousand soldiers from France, to oppose the Duke of York's interest; it was then conveyed to some of the French king's ministers, who, they suppose, would send a copy hither; but, by a strange providence, the original was re turned into the gentleman's own hands.

Nor were they yet wanting in throwing dirt, and slandering this noble peer in his reputation, which faculty they are famous at; for now a pacquet of base libels and treasonable reflections were, by the penny-post, sent to a printer, and copies of the same dispersed about the parts of Westminster. All of venomous and malicious slanders and imputations, tending to the taking away the life of the Earl of Shaftsbury, and divers other peers of honourable account; but the printer, detesting such a design, published an invitation to any person that would discover the author or publisher of that infamous libel. And now we are got into such a bog of plots, shamplots, perjurers, subornations, as the histories of no age can parallel. In October, during the sessions of the last parliament, it is remarkable, that Francisco de Faria, interpreter to the Portuguese ambas. sador, amongst other matters relating to the plot, gave information to the bar of the House, that he was tempted to kill the Earl of Shaftsbury, by throwing a hand-grenado into his coach, as he passed the road into the country. But, to sum up all, several methods, that were invented to be executed against the life of this peer, were innumerable, by these jesuited crew, who set all their inventions and engines on work, to make away the Earl of Shaftsbury. He was the beam in their eye, and the clog that hindered the motion of their cursed designs. What have they not attempted to make him distasteful to the king, through the foulness of their treasons on him? As was made appear before the king and council in October 1681, that Fitzgerard told Mr. Haines, that he the said Fitzgerard possessed