Your sons are malecontents, but yet are true, As far as non-resistance makes them so; But that's a word of neutral sense, you know, A passive term, which no relief will bring, But trims betwixt a rebel and a king.-- Rest well assured, the Pardelis replied, } My sons would all support the regal side, } Though heaven forbid the cause by battle should be tried.--} The matron answered with a loud Amen, And thus pursued her arguments again:-- If, as you say, and as I hope no less, } Your sons will practise what yourselves profess,} What angry power prevents our present peace? } The Lion, studious of our common good, Desires (and kings' desires are ill withstood) To join our nations in a lasting love; } The bars betwixt are easy to remove, } For sanguinary laws were never made above.[217a]} If you condemn that prince of tyranny, Whose mandate forced your Gallic friends to fly,[218] Make not a worse example of your own, } Or cease to rail at causeless rigour shown, } And let the guiltless person throw the stone.} His blunted sword your suffering brotherhood Have seldom felt; he stops it short of blood: But you have ground the persecuting knife, And set it to a razor-edge on life. Cursed be the wit, which cruelty refines, } Or to his father's rod the scorpion joins! } Your finger is more gross than the great monarch's loins.} But you, perhaps, remove that bloody note, And stick it on the first reformers' coat. Oh let their crime in long oblivion sleep; 'Twas theirs indeed to make, 'tis yours to keep! Unjust, or just, is all the question now; 'Tis plain, that, not repealing, you allow. To name the Test would put you in a rage; You charge not that on any former age, But smile to think how innocent you stand, Armed by a weapon put into your hand. Yet still remember, that you wield a sword, Forged by your foes against your sovereign lord; Designed to hew the imperial cedar down, Defraud succession, and dis-heir the crown.[219] To abhor the makers, and their laws approve, Is to hate traitors, and the treason love. What means it else, which now your children say, We made it not, nor will we take away? Suppose some great oppressor had, by slight} Of law, disseised your brother of his right, } Your common sire surrendering in a fright; } Would you to that unrighteous title stand, Left by the villain's will to heir the land? More just was Judas, who his Saviour sold; } The sacrilegious bribe he could not hold, } Nor hang in peace, before he rendered back the gold.} What more could you have done, than now you do, Had Oates and Bedlow and their plot been true?