Daniel Defoe

“ Why hast thou struggled thus long, and with so much vigour, as well with French tyranny abroad, as popish factions at home, but to preserve entire the religion and liberties of Europe, and particularly of this nation, and to preserve our posterity from slavery and idolatry? Principles truly noble, worthy a nation's blood to protect, and worthy a nation's treasure to save. ”

“ It would not be worth notice to inquire who are, and who are not for the pretender; the invidious search into the conduct of great men, ministers of state and government, would be labour lost: no ministry will ever be for the pretender, if they once may but be convinced that the people are steady; that he gets no ground in the country; that the aversions of the common people to his person and his government are not to be overcome: but if you, the good people of England, slacken your hands; if you give up the cause; if you abate your zeal for your own liberties, and for the protestant religion ”

“ It is astonishing to all the world to hear that the common people of England should be turned from the most rivetted aversions, to a coldness and indifferency in matters of popery and the pretender: that they, who with so unanimous a resolution deposed the late King James, as well for his invasions of their liberty as of their religion; and who with such marks of contempt drove him and his pretended progeny out of the nation, should without any visible alteration of circumstances, be drawn in to favour the return of that race with all the certain additions of popish principles in religion ”

“ Consider, then, honest countrymen and protestants, what you are doing; look on your families; consider your innocent children, who you are going to give up to be bred in abominable superstition and idolatry; look on your dear country, which you are preparing to make the seat of war, blood, and confusion; look on your neighbours, who, while they are resisting this inundation, for you may be assured honest men will resist it to the last, you are to fight with, whose throats you must cut, and in whose blood you must dip your hands; and, lastly, consider yourselves ”

“ Every considering protestant cannot but observe with horror, what swarms of popish priests from abroad, and jacobite emissaries at home, are spread about among us, and busily employed to carry on these wicked designs; how in disguise they run up and down the countries, mingling themselves in all companies, and in coffee-houses, and private conversation, endeavouring to insinuate with all possible subtlety, favourable notions of the pretender into the minds of the people, thereby to pave the way, and to prepare you for receiving him; such as, that he is the lawful son of King James ”

“ To thee the oppressed protestants of France owed, for some ages ago, the comfort of being powerfully supported, while their own king, [4] wheedled by the lustre of a crown, became apostate, and laid the foundation of their ruin among themselves; in thee their posterity [5] find a refuge, and flourish in thy wealth and trade, when religion and liberty find no more place in their own country. ”

“ It seems absolutely necessary to remind them of the reason of the late revolution; how King James II., by his popish counsellors, priests, and jesuits, had laid the foundation of overwhelming all our liberties, in an arbitrary, tyrannical government, ruling us without a parliament to redress our grievances, and, by a standing army, to execute forcibly his absolute commands ”

“ They intimidate those great numbers of people who, not so much acting by principle as example, are unwilling to show themselves in any cause which they have reason to fear is declining, and therefore act with the less zeal for the true interest, by how much they see, or think they see, the great ones of the nation fall off from it. ”

“ The work is before you; your deliverance, your safety is in your own hands, and therefore these things are now written: none can give you up; none can betray you but yourselves; none can bring in popery upon you but yourselves ”

“ The late letter from Douay, written by some of that side, who very well understood the pretender's true interest, acknowledges this, and that if the people of England could not be wheedled and deluded into the design, it was never to be done by force.
And is this your case, Britons! Will you be ruined by a people whom you ought to despise? Have they not been twenty years trying your strength, till they find it impossible for them to master you? ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the last place, all that have any concern left for the good of their country, and for the preserving the protestant religion, will remember how much it is in the power of the people of Britain for ever to discourage all the attempts to be made in favour of these popish enemies, and to overthrow them in the execution ”

“ We that are Englishmen, and live from home among the protestants of other nations, cannot but be sensible of this alteration, and we bear the reproaches of those who speak freely of the unhappy change which appears in the temper of our countrymen at home. ”