Captain Tom's remembrance to his old friends the mobb of London, Westminster, Southwark, and Wapping

Captain TOM's Remembrance to his Old Friends the MOBB of London, Westminster, Southwark, and Wapping.

Gentlemen,

FOR so I love still to call you, on the Score of old Acquaintance and Friendship. I take this occasion to wish you Joy on the happy Deliverance of our good Queen from the bloody Design of the Popish Assassin Count Guiscard, and on your own Escape, at the same time, from being dragoon'd into Popery and Slavery, and becoming Hewers of Wood, and Drawers of Water to the French King, and his Journy-Man the Pretender. For cou'd his Unchristian Majesty have once got the Collar on your Necks, and saddled you with the St. Germain's Yonker; pray think, what a whipping Bill of Charges he'd have brought in, for nursing, boarding and tutoring that Babe of Grace? He has no Conscience, you know, in his Demands; and a Child so dutifully bred up as that is, wou'd not have had the Boldness to higgle with his Foster-Father, and make him abate. No, he would have paid him to the full; and you must have found where-withal to quit the Reckoning. And so your selves and your Sons must have been chain'd to the Oar, and turn'd Swabbers under French Boatswains, or been transported into Foreign Countries, to have had your Brains knock'd out in the French King's Quarrel, to make him Monarch of all Europe. And your Wives and Daughters must some of 'em have been common Strumpets to an Outlandish Jacobite Army, and others the handsomest of 'em have been mew'd up in Nunnerys for the Use of Priests and Fryars.

Instead of substantial Beef and Pudding, your Stomachs wou'd have been taken down with brown husky Bread, and Herbs, and Rot-gutSoop. And for Sunday Apparel, you must have been content with coarse tatter'd Jackets, Canvass Shirts, and Wooden Shoes. Thus, my Boys, you had for ever lost all the Pleasures of Easter, Whitsontide, and Christmas: No more Holy-day Clothes, no more Cakes and Ale, no more Beans and Bacon in the Summer: no more Plum-Porridge, Mince-Pyes, and roasted Sir-Loins in the Winter.

Instead of being eas'd of Taxes, the Nation must have been drain'd to satisfy the French King for the Expences of the War. And this wou'd have been skrew'd up to One Hundred and Fifty Millions, at least, besides the Charge of keeping a Standing Army at home, and Troops abroad, to help him to ruin the Allies. All this Mony, you may be sure, cou'd never be rais'd without selling the Land, and the Stock, and Shipping of Great Britain. And then what wou'd you have done for Imployment to get your Living?

The Popish Gimcracks and Idolatry must have been set up in your Churches, your Benefices have been given to Romish Priests, and the Chief of our Protestant Lords, Gentlemen, and Clergy must have been murder'd in their Houses, butcher'd in the Streets, or pil'd up in Smithfield Bonfires, and you must have carry'd Faggots to the Flames, or have been fry'd your selves. For 'tis impossible the French and their St. Germain's Nursling, and Popery and Slavery shou'd be establish'd in this Island, without making a Wilderness of our Country, a Sacrifice of our Persons, and a Seizure of our Estates.

Don't think, Gentlemen, I carry things too far here: Consider how the French King has laid waste his own Country, in order to establish Arbitrary Power and Romish Bigotry in it. Call to mind how many Massacres the Papists have made in France since the Reformation; how many hundred thousands of his own Protestant Subjects that King has destroy'd by Sword, Jails, Galleys and Banishment: And can you imagine that He and the Pretender wou'd use British Protestants better? Consider how many Protestant Countrys he has ruin'd in Germany, and forc'd the Inhabitants to beg their Bread in other Lands: and do you believe he wou'd be more favourable to Great-Britain, which has been the chief Hindrance of his becoming Ʋniversal Monarch? Call to mind how the late King James cut off your Noble Patriots, under the Notion of Plotters: how he sent your Bishops to the Tower, fill'd your Armys, Universitys, and Councils with Papists, and set up a High Commission Court, to turn out the best of your Clergy. Remember how he design'd to govern you with a Standing Army, and impose a Sham-Successor on you, to make Popery and Slavery perpetual. How did you bless the Day when our late Glorious Deliverer the Prince of Orange arriv'd, to rescue you from all these Miserys? Did not your Hearts o'erflow with Joy? And did not you shout him to Town with loud Acclamations, as the Saviour, under GOD, of our Church and State? Did not you then take Heart of Grace, and under my Conduct rout the Monks and Priests, frighten the Standing Army of the Popish King, and force him and his Irish Teagues to scamper? Did we not on all Occasions stand by the Revolution, Heart and Hand, in which we and our Brethren all over the Kingdom, had so great a Share? And yet, to see the Impudence of a late Gallimaufry of mercenary Tatterdemalions, they wou'd fain top it on the World, that, forsooth, this same free-born Mob of Great-Britain had forsworn their Principles, turn'd Tail, and become arrant Enemys to the Revolution, and to the Memory of the Glorious Prince who was the Instrument of it, and had run in with a Herd of Jacobites and Papists, to raise Tumults and Rebellions.

But to prevent your being gull'd with any Flam-Storys they may buz in your Ears, pray consider, Gentlemen, if Guiscard and his Fellow Bravo's had carry'd their Point, to murder the Queen and your best Patriots, and to fire the City, what Havock the Pretender and the D. of Berwick wou'd have made among you, with their French, Irish, and Popish Cut-throats, while we had no Army to oppose them, nor any Protestant Prince to make Head against them?

Gentlemen, I hope these things have open'd your Eyes, and brought you to your Senses, and that you are convinc'd of the Errors some of your Number have been drawn into; and of the Knavery of those who misled them, and began to act the Tragedy last Winter that was to have been concluded in this. Attend therefore to the Advice of your old Captain, who exhorts you to continue faithful in the Duty you owe to your Queen and Country, to the Protestant Succession, to your Religion and Liberty, and to your Selves and Families, as becomes true Britains; and to be ever ready to defend all these against Papists and Jacobites, who are still brewing their Plots, and endeavouring to disgrace and ruin the Authentick Mob of Great Britain, by false, spurious Anti-Mobs of their own Cast. But I am confident you understand your selves better than to be thus deceiv'd; and that you will take Care not to forfeit your former Honour, and the Favour of your old trusty Leader,

TOM.

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Title statement

Captain Tom's remembrance to his old friends the mobb of London, Westminster, Southwark, and Wapping

Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.

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University of Oxford Text Archive
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ID [ota]

http://ota.ox.ac.uk/id/3339

ID [isbn10]

1106003381

ID [isbn13]

9781106003386

ID [TCP]

K001461.000

ID [BIBNO]

CW3310437203

ID [ECLL]

0159701800

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Distributed by the University of Oxford under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Source

— Captain Tom's remembrance to his old friends the mobb of London, Westminster, Southwark, and Wapping, Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.. [2]p. ; 1/2⁰. [London,. 1711]. [Signed at end: Tom, i.e. Daniel Defoe.] [A satire on Louis XIV and the Catholics.] [A sequel to Defoe's 'A letter from Captain Tom to the mobb'.] [Occasioned by the attempted assassination of Robert Harley by the Marquis de Guiscard on 8 March 1711.] [Reproduction of original from the Harvard University Houghton Library.] [Moore, 201] [English Short Title Catalog, ESTCN2220.] [Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).]

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