Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/482

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SIR,

AST night I received yours of the 5th instant; and since you tell me I am your only correspondent, I think I ought to be the more punctual in my returns, and the more full in what relates to our friends here. You will see by the publick prints, that Monday next come se'nnight is appointed for the trial of my lord Oxford, and that no less than six and twenty doughty members are appointed to manage it. The lords have likewise settled the whole forms of the proceedings. My lord has asked, that two lawyers more might be added to his counsel: yet is all this but a farce; for there is not a creature living who thinks he will ever be tried; for they publickly own, that they neither have, nor ever had, any evidence; and laugh at impeachments, and attainders, and party gambols; and say, that all people deserve to be so punished, who presume to dispossess the whigs of their indefeasible right to the administration. But since he is not to be tried, the next question is, in what manner he is to be brought off, so as to save the honour of his prosecutors? I think it will be by an act of grace. Others say, it will be by the commons asking more time, and the lords of their party agreeing to refuse it. But as we are wholly ignorant of their intentions, it is possible neither of these guesses may be right, and that they may keep him yet another year in prison; which my lord Marlborough seems passionately to desire. We