A LETTER to HILTON, The Grand Informer: In Answer to his Several late Printed Libels.  
Renowned Captain!  
I Have Perused with no small Satisfaction, The Lamentation of a bad Market, Or, the History of your Sufferings, Entitled, the CONVENTICLE-COURANT, setting forth the daily Troubles, Dangers and Abuses that LOYAL GENTLEMEN meet with, etc. Alas! Dear Heart! what a Cursed Whiggish Age is this! wherein People have an Antipathy to Toads, and express their Aversion against Vermin and Beasts of Prey. What pity it is, that they will not Court their Plagues, and with the Stupid Indians Worship the Friend that Torments them? Bless us! That two such useful LOYAL Implements, as Natt. Thompson and thyself, should ever be Liable to Factious rotten Eggs and Presbyterian Turnep-Tops.  
But, Courage! Monsieur, though 'tis a Base Illnatured World abroad, thou art extremely Kind and Civil at Home, and Dub'st thyself at every turn, A GENTLEMAN; Good Sir! Oblige us in what County lies your Estate, that our Friends the Addressors and Abhorrers may put you up for a Parliament-man next Election? In what part of the World are we to Inquire for your Manors and your Fee-Simples? Your Mansionhouse we understand was lately a Garret in whitefriars, and if Madam Cellier hath since taken you into Protection and Accommodated you with a Lodging in Arundel-Buildings, she may no doubt likewise have settled upon you a large Reversion in Newgate;— 'tis I Perceive all the Mode, now a days, for the very Scum of Mankind, to take upon them as Persons of Quality, and the most Beggarly Cowards to Boast what Feats they'll do with their LIVES and FORTUNES.  
The words Loyal and Gentleman, are grown common Prostitutes, ask any tattered Bulley, or Lousy Shark o'th' Town, what he is? He presently Replies— Damn me Sir! a Gentleman; and to show one's self a Mad Drunken Swearing Swaggering Coxcomb, is by some counted to be Loyal. Yet as it can't be Imagined that any thing of Generous Birth, or Education, would ever descend to the Infamous Trade of a Common INFORMER (especially in your way, which is but to be Journeyman to the Devil, for he's Master of the Company, and his very Title,— Accuser of the Brethren) so what mighty Loyalty there is or can be in Prophaneing the Lordsday, disturbing▪ Gods Worship, Worrying our Honest Peaceable Neighbours because they have a little more Care of their Souls than our-selves, and Impoverishing and dividing his Majesty's Loyal Protestant Subjects, (agreed in all necessary Points of Religion) for some Trifling Ceremonies, is scarce to be apprehended.  
Grant there be Laws unrepeal'd against peaceable Dissenters, yet since the same were so many years happily laid to sleep by His Majesty's Prudence, and the moderation of his Subordinate Ministers (of which the Nation have found no Cause to Repent) on what Provocation, or for what new Misdemeanours are they now Awakened? How come they this year to oblige your Conscience Sir, to be an Informer! Or any Magistrates to Thunder and Lighten with their Warrants, more than they did two, three, four, five, or six years past? (or by the way, how comes the Act against Conventicles more to oblige people's Consciences to Execute it, than the Act for Prohibiting French Wine, Which sworn Officers not only neglect to Execute, but actually do violate it every day, and yet are blameless, and counted never the less Loyal Subjects?) If Guelphs transgress, must Gibelines be punished? Because the Papists have Plotted Horird Treasons, and Providence discovered them, must poor Innocent Protestant Dissenters be therefore stripped and lashed? Is it the best Course to preserve our Religion and Government, to weaken the true Interests of both? Is worrying one another the only way to prevent the united Designs of Rome? Are our High-Church-men so Cocksure of Victory over Rome's swarming Priests and Jesuits, as to scorn all Assistance, nay to fall foul and destroy those that offer it, (though never so hearty, and never so well Armed for the Encounter) unless, forsooth, they will wear the same Feathers in their Caps as they do? If these Tantivee-Troops all alone, are indeed such an over-match for the Papists, how then comes it to pass, That they have suffered so many prime Sheep to stray out of their own Folds, and remain Trophies to Italian Wolves, as well as plagues to their Native Country? Whereas we have scarce heard of above one Dissenter that turned Papist these twenty years, and he too drawn rather by want and discontent, than any Conviction of Judgement.  
'Tis true, had the late SHAM-PLOTS succeeded to the least degree of Probability, there might have been some Colour for these Prosecutions; but since Heaven has unravelled those Snares, and made the Innocence and Loyalty of the Dissenters appear no less Illustrious, than the Malice and Treasons of their Popish Enemies are Notorious, still to seek occasions to Buffet them, seems like to gratify none, but those Enemies to our King and Religion who Contrived and were so disappointed in the former Hellish Projects of false Accusation and Perjuries.  
But, if neither the unreasonableness, nor the unseasonableness, yet Experience how vain such Severities are to reach the Ends pretended, might be enough to divert the playing over again the same troublesome Game to no purpose. What Advantage did there accrue to this Honourable City, in STARLING's Mayoralty by all the Bustle he occasioned? Note; but on the contrary, great Charge, Confusion, decay of Trade, neglect of the Public Worship, etc. What gained that Gentleman to himself, but Damage, Trouble, and Infamy? Remember, O Doughty Captain! I will not say the ends of Judas and other Ancients of your Profession, but the Fate of your more Modern Predecessors Sir— and Marshal; did not One of them poor, miserable, hated, and desperate as Cain, breathe out his loathsome Soul in a Jail; and the other live scorned and neglected, without ever getting Twopences by all his Devilish Industry? Was there one Dissenter the less? nay were they not Increased? Had the Church of England thereby any Proselytes worth owning? No, no, 'tis an Eternal Truth, That force may make many Hypocrites (and is any Church either the better or the stronger for such?) but never one Real Convert. You may as well think to cure a man of the Colic by Brushing his , or fill a quart Pot with Syllogisms, as to Convince people by Distress and Mittimus, or Rectify Errors of the Understanding by Club-Law.  
Who can but observe, how jocund the Papists are at these Prosecutions, and that none are such furious Zealots for driving all into Church as those that very seldom come there themselves? none so fierce against Nonconformity, as those who are Nonconformists to the Laws of God, and all the obligations of Sobriety, Modesty and Honesty. Amongst these Spiritual Whipsters, you, most Redoubted Captain, Led the Van; and to show yourself accomplished (Tam Marte quam Mercurio, as the Schoolboy has it) with a Mastersome Pen as well as a dead-doing Sword, will needs divert the Town with the weekly Iliads of your Exploits in this Holy War. Where first you begin with a kind of Preachment.— 
* Convent. Courant, Numb. 1.  Had not the Actual Accomplishment of the many DREADFUL PREDICTIONS AND DIREFUL PROPHECIES (that is, to say— Dreadful and Dreadful Prophecies & Prophecies,) &c.— In the name of Wonder How long has the Devil turned Monk? Is Jack Hilton also amongst the Prophets? What more Life-Guard-men set up for Cure of Souls? Is not this a Specimen of your Talon, how fit you may be shortly for a Fat Benefice? If Whiggism were on the Rising Ground, who knows but we might find our Divine Captain, a Lancepessade to a Conventicle?— To be serious, did not Truth assure us, That the Devil himself hath more than once abused and perverted Sacred Leaves, we had been astonished at so many Texts from such an unhallowed Mouth. But tell us by all thy hopes of Knighthood, what Romish Priest framed that Canting Preface for thee? Or what security can you give, after all this Fury against Dissenters, That you yourself are not a Dissenting Papist? What Parish-Church do you frequent? When and where did you use to receive the Sacrament before the space of four or five years past? How shall we know, that your Title of Protestant is not as falsely assumed as that of Captain? Which undoubtedly commenced at a Bawdy-House, for you never were capable of higher Preferment than a Common Trooper, where (till you were Cashiered for some of your good qualities) your Passive Valour under the Discipline of every man's Cane, was as famous, as now your Active Courage against the fanatics.  
However, be you Papist or Atheist, we know whose Drudgery you are doing; would not your Foolish Out-Cries of a Rent, a Schism, this Earthquake, this gaping Pit; etc. have served much better in Queen Mally's days, had your Worship but lived then to be one of bloody Bonner's Catchpoles? Or may not any Protestant Church be Esteemed as Seditious and Unlawful under a Popish Successor, as a Presbyterian Conventicle? would not you gladly, if you were in France, use your Sublime Commission and that Resolution of the Council of Heaven, you talk of, To Punish the poor Hugonotes, if they would not Conform to the Church as there by Law Established? Our most Gracious King, as he hath oft expressed his Inclinations to Indulge tender Consciences, so by his special Favours to those Persecuted French Protestants, declares that he esteems them of the same Religion with himself, (which also his Royal Grandfather expressly affirmed in Print) and that he disapproves of undoing men for their Religion, and yet those French Protestants are Calvinists and Presbyterians, names against which you vent your Spleen and Fury; and They and these People at home whom you are so Buisy to ruin for their Religion, are of the very same Tenets. So that it seems a Riddle beyond Oedipus, if we should blame Persecutions abroad, and pity and Harbour the Sufferers, and yet at the same time, practise in effect the same Severities on our own Countrymen.  
Can any thing be more ridiculously Impudent than to tell us, You Design the Procurement of Peace amongst Christians, especially Protestant's, and talk of your Zeal to serve the King, Church and People's Peace? A pretty way of Procuring Peace indeed, to fall foul with Violence on harmless People in the Worship of the God of Peace; To drag them from their Prayers with Tumults and Files of Musqueteers, and a whole Regiment of Oaths and Curses; To Jail their Persons and Spoil their Goods, and force Families to fly from their Habitations, and Compel one Neighbour against his Conscience to Prosecute another, and when he would gladly be Serving God at Church, fright him with five pound Forfeiture, if he do not Omit his own Devotions, to disturb those of others, altogether as Loyal, and much more Orthodox and Godly than their Malicious Prosecutors; If this be Promoting Peace, Commend me to the Spanish Inquisition for a Peacemaker.  
The remainder of your first Libel, and those that have been Published since, your Lies, Scandals, Profanations of Scripture, etc. shall be Considered at another Opportunity, For I shall not fail (God willing) to wait on you again next Post, and undeniably prove that the Honest Constables have no Cause to be afraid of your Malicious Menaces, In the Interim because I have in my Baptism Solemnly Renounced the Devil and all his Works, Excuse me if I do not Subscribe myself,  
Aug. 19 1682. Your Servant, Philoeusebias Misonebulonides.   

London, Printed for R. Lee. 1682.