Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/132

118 seem perhaps too sudden and severe; but I do not see how it can be contested. Give me leave to ask your lordship, whether you are not resolved to oppose the present ministry to the utmost? and whether it was not chiefly with this design, that, upon the opening of the present session, you gave your vote against any peace till Spain and the West Indies were recovered from the Bourbon family ? I am confident your lordship then believed, what several of your house and party have acknowledged, that the recovery of Spain was grown impracticable by several incidents, as well as by our utter inability to continue the war upon the former foot. But you reasoned right, that such a vote, in such a juncture, was the present way of ruining the present ministry. For, as her majesty would certainly lay much weight upon a vote of either house, so it was judged that her ministers would hardly venture to act directly against it; the natural consequence of which must be a dissolution of the parliament, and a return of all your friends into a full possession of power. This advantage the lords have over the commons, by being a fixed body of men, where a majority is not to be obtained, but by time and mortality, or new creations, or other methods which I will suppose the present age too virtuous to admit. Several noble lords, who joined with you in that vote, were but little inclined to disoblige the court, because it suited ill with their circumstances: but the poor gentlemen were told it was the