Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/272

264 twenty years past, given warning several thousand times, to many substantial people, and to such who are acquainted with lords and squires, and the like great folks, to any of whom I have not the honour to be known: I mentioned my daily fears, lest our watchful friends in England might take this business out of our hands; and how easy it would be to prevent that evil, by erecting a society of persons who had good estates, such, for instance, as that noble knot of bankers under the style of "Swift and Company." But now we are become tributary to England, not only for materials to light our own fires, but for engines to put them out; to which, if hearth-money be added (repealed in England as a grievance) we have the honour to pay three taxes for fire.

A fourth was the knavery of those merchants, or linen manufacturers, or both; when, upon occasion of the plague at Marseilles, we had a fair opportunity of getting into our hands the whole linen-trade with Spain; but the commodity was so bad, and held at so high a rate, that almost the whole cargo was returned, and the small remainder sold below the prime cost.

So many other particulars of the same nature crowd into my thoughts, that I am forced to stop; and