Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/110

98 this matter, and removed many odious misrepresentations, &c.

I beg, whatever letters are sent to bishops or others in this matter, by your grace or the primate, may be enclosed to me, that I may stifle or deliver them, as the course of the affair shall require. As for a letter from your grace to the queen, you say it needs advice; and I am sure it is not from me, who shall not presume to offer; but perhaps from what I have writ you may form some judgment or other.

As for publick affairs, I confess I began this letter on a half sheet, merely to limit myself on a subject with which I did not know whether your grace would be entertained. I am not yet convinced that any access to men in power gives a man more truth or light than the politicks of a coffeehouse. I have known some great ministers, who would seem to discover the very inside of their hearts, when I was sure they did not value whether I had proclaimed all they had said at Charing-cross. But I never knew one great minister, who made any scruple to mould the alphabet into whatever words he pleased; or to be more difficult about any facts, than his porter is about that of his lord's being at home; so that whoever has so little to do, as to desire some knowledge in secrets of state, must compare what he hears from several great men, as from one great man at several times, which is equally different. People were surprised, when the court stopped its hands as to farther removals: the comptroller, a lord of the admiralty, and some others, told me, they expected every day to be dismissed; but they were all deceived, and the higher tories