Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/250

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SIR,

HAVE been waiting for an opportunity to write to you with safety, because I had a mind to do it with freedom; and particularly to explain to you, what I meant, when I told you some time ago, that I was almost tired with struggling to no purpose against universal corruption. I am now at the Bath, where there are at present many Irish families, and though I have inquired of them all, if any gentleman or servant was returning thither, yet I can hear of none, so that I am forced, if I write at all, to trust my letter by the common post. Nothing is more certain than that this letter will be opened there, the rascals of the office have most infamous directions to do it upon all occasions; but they would every man of them, be turned out, if a letter of mine to you, should escape their intuition. I am thinking what the ministers may get by their peeping; why if I speak my mind very plainly, they may discover two things; one is, that I have a very great regard for you; the other, that I have a very great contempt for them; and in every thing I say or do, still set them at defiance. These things, if they did not know before, they are welcome to find out now; and I am determined in some other points likewise, to speak my mind very plainly to you. You must know then, that when I said I grew weary of contending with corruption, I never meant absolutely to withdraw myself from  Rh