Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/241

Rh said, Damn you, is not the road as free for us as for you? and calling to his servant who rode behind him, said, Tom (or some such name) is the pistol loaden with ball? To which the servant answered, yes, my lord, and gave him the pistol. Your petitioner often said to the gentleman, pray, sir, do not shoot, for my horse is apt to start, by which my life may be endangered. The chaise went forward, and your petitioner took the opportunity to stay behind. Your petitioner is informed, that the person who spoke the words above-mentioned, is of your lordships house, under the style and title of lord Blaney; whom your petitioner remembers to have introduced to Mr. secretary Addison, in the earl of Wharton's government, and to have done him other good offices at that time, because he was represented as a young man of some hopes, and a broken fortune. That the said lord Blaney, as your petitioner is informed, is now in Dublin, and sometimes attends your lordships house. And your petitioner's health still requiring that he should ride, and being confined in winter to go on the same strand, he is forced to inquire from every one he meets, whether the said lord be on the same strand; and to order his servants to carry arms to defend him against the like, or a worse insult, from the said lord, for the consequences of which your petitioner cannot answer.

"Your petitioner is informed by his learned council, that there is no law now in being, which can justify the said lord, under colour of his peerage, to assault any of his majesty's subjects on the king's highway, and put them in fear of their lives, without provocation, which he humbly conceives, that by