Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/269

Rh has revealed to you, and incline you to judge of me, not from the report of my enemies, but from what I appear in the little tracts which have waited on you.

I shall not presume, sir, to detain you with the narrative of the original and progress of the parliamentary accusations and votes against me; although, would you do me the honour to inquire, I could easily convince you, from my own particular case, that men have two characters, one which is either good or bad, according to the prevailing number of their friends or enemies; and one which never varies for either: one which has little or no regard to the virtue or vice of the subject, and one which regards that alone, is inherent (if I may say so) in the subject, and describes it what it really is, without regard either to friends or enemies.

All I shall beg of you is, to suspend your judgment upon it; since all parties allow that, although I had several summons from the committee for Monday, and many evidences on the road in obedience to their summons, yet I was tied down by the committee the preceding Saturday, and deprived of the benetit of all my evidences, notwithstanding any thing I could urge to the contrary. This, I hope, I may say without injury to Mr. Bingham: for sure he may be entirely innocent, and yet a magistrate under the immediate direction of the lord chief justice who takes examinations against him, examinations, that do not even contain matter to form an indictment upon, may be innocent also.

It shall suffice therefore to say, I went from Ireland loaded with the severest censures of the house of commons: injured, as I thought, and oppressed to