and yet, according to the whig scheme, as delivered to us by Mr. Steele and his coadjutors, is altogether insufficient; and the succession will be defeated, the pretender brought in, and popery established among us, without the farther assistance of this writer and his faction. And what securities have our adversaries substituted in the place of these? A club of politicians, where Jenny Man presides; a Crisis written by Mr. Steele; a confederacy of knavish stockjobbers to ruin credit; a report of the queen's death; an effigies of the pretender run twice through the body by a valiant peer; a speech by the author of the Crisis; and, to sum up all, an unlimited freedom of reviling her majesty, and those she employs. I have now finished the most disgustful task that ever I undertook. I could with more ease have written three dull pamphlets, than remarked upon the falsehoods and absurdities of one. But I was quite confounded last Wednesday, when the printer came with another pamphlet in his hand, written by the same author, and entitled, "The Englishman, being the Close of the Paper so called," &c. He desired I would read it over, and consider it in a paper by itself; which last I absolutely refused. Upon perusal, I found it chiefly an invective against Toby, the ministry, the Examiner, the clergy, the queen, and the Post-boy; yet, at the same time, with great justice exclaiming against those, who presumed to offer the least word against the heads of that faction, whom her majesty discarded. The author likewise proposes an equal division of favour and employments, between the whigs and tories; for, if the former "can have no part or por tion in David*, they desire no longer to be his sub- * What portion have we in David? +"Tugghe was deputed by the magistrates of Dunkirk to in"tercede with the queen, that she would recall part of her sen"tence concerning Dunkirk, by causing her thunderbolts to fall "only on the martial works, and to spare the moles and dykes, "which in their naked condition could be no more than objects " of pity." H in as plain terms, as her majesty was pleased to declare she had with that house, on her part." As to the first of these demands, I will venture to undertake it shall be granted; but then Mr. Steele, and his brother malecontents, must promise to believe the thing is done, after those employed have made their report; or else bring vouchers to disprove it. Upon the second; I cannot tell whether her majesty will engage in a war against the duke of Lorrain, to force him to remove the pretender; but I believe, if the parliament should think it necessary to address upon such an occasion, the queen would move that prince to send him away. His last demand, offered under the title of a wish, is of so insolent and seditious a strain, that I care not to touch it. Here he directly charges her majesty with delivering a falsehood to her parliament from the throne; and declares he will not believe her, until the elector of Hanover himself shall vouch for the truth of what she has so solemnly affirmed. I agree with this writer, that it is an idle thing in his antagonists to trouble themselves upon the articles of his birth, education, or fortune; for whoever writes at this rate of his sovereign, to whom he owes so many personal obligations, I should never inquire whether he be a gentleman born, but whether he be a human creature. THE CONDUCT OF THE ALLIES, AND OF THE LATE MINISTRY, IN BEGINNING AND CARRYING ON THE PRESENT WAR. Written in the Year 1712. Partem tibi Gallia nostri Eripuit Partem duris Hispania bellis : Pars jacet Hesperia, totoque exercitus orbe Odimus accipitrem quia semper vivit in armis. |