Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/333

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May it please your lordship,

URSUANT to her majesty's proclamation of the fifteenth of this instant March, for discovering the author of a false, malicious, and factious libel, entitled, "The Publick Spirit of the Whigs;" wherein her majesty is graciously pleased to promise a reward of three hundred pounds, to be paid by your lordship, which said discovery I can make. But your lordship, or some persons under your lordship, have got such an ill name in paying such rewards. Instance two poor men, viz. John Greenwood and John Bouch, who took and brought to justice six persons, vulgarly Mohocks; which the said two poor men never received but twenty pounds, and the latter thirty; and they had no partners concerned with them, as appears by the attorney general's reports to your lordship; which if I should be so served, to cause any persons to be punished, and be no better rewarded, will be no encouragement for me to do it; for these two poor men being so plain a precedent for me to go by. Your lordship's most humble and most obedient servant.

L. M. . XI.