[1702/6/63]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
Thereafter her majesties' high commissioner made the following speech:
My lords and gentlemen,
The cheerfulness and unanimity of your proceedings in this session of parliament, in recognizeing her majesties' royal authority, secureing the Protestant religion and presbiterian government and expedeing the other acts that have been past for her majesties' service and the good and safety of the kingdom, will, I am persuaded, be very acceptable to her majestie and satisfieing to all her good subjects, and I do assure you is very obligeing to me.
But I must regret that, when I was expecting we should have parted in the same happy manner, a proposal which I had some ground to think was laid aside was offered the other day to my surprize, as well as that of her majesties' other ministers, which occasioned some debate and difference in the house. My early engageing and firm adherence to the present establishment is so well known that none can doubt my readiness to enter into all measures for her majesties' service and secureing our happy settlement according to the Claim of Right, and I am confident that you are all of that mind.
Since then we are all perfectly the same as to our dutiful and faithfull adherence to her majestie and that the Claim of Right is our unalterable security, I judge it fit, for her majesties' service and your own interest, to prevent further contest and debate amongst persons I know to be so intirely well affected to her majestie, and for whom I have all imaginable honour, to dismiss this session of parliament.
We have had no particular acts or ratifications that do require an act salvo, and I do render you hearty thanks in her majesties' name for the loyalty you have testified by your publict acts, and which I shall be carefull to report to her majesty. And shall onely recommend to you to let the countrey know the gracious assureances her majestie has been pleased to give us, and to dispose them to their duty and to comply with her majesties' royal intentions for their own wellfare and happiness. And thus I do, in her majesties' name and by her authority, adjourn this parliament till Tuesday the eighteenth day of August next, which my lord chancellor is to declare in the usual form.