Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/74

60 and atone for desolation among our subjects? If we continue thus prodigal of our blood and treasure, in a few years we shall have as little of the one as the other left; and our women, if they intend to multiply, must be reduced, like the Amazons, to go out of the land, or take them husbands at home of those wretched strangers whom our piety and charity relieved. Of the natives there will be scarce a remnant preserved; and thus the British name may be endangered once more to be lost in the German.

Were it not for fear of offending the worthy doctor, I should be tempted to compare his sermon with one that some time since made so much noise in the world ; but I am withheld by the consideration of its being so universally condemned, nay prosecuted, on one side. Perhaps the chaplain general will not like the parallel: there may be found the same heat, the same innuendoes, upon different subjects, though the occasion be not so pressing. What necessity was there of preaching up war to an army, who daily enrich themselves by the continuation of it? Does he not think, loyalty and obedience would have been a properer subject? To have exhorted them to a perseverance in their duty to the queen, to prepare and soften their minds, that they may receive with resignation, if not applause, whatever her majesty shall think fit to transact. The doctor, without suspicion of flattery, might very well have extolled their great actions, and congratulated with them