Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/109

Rh form the youth to the ancient principles of honour and integrity. At length the veil was drawn off, and the eyes of the whole nation opened upon the iniquity of Clarendon, during the most loyal and wise session of parliament that perhaps ever was seen in England. But it was too late. Foundations could not be removed then, without threatening the whole building once again. The only redress that could be found for such a heap of crying injustices, that are, and ever must be, in force, was the head of Clarendon, that contrived and established them an admirable statemender, who had found no other expedient for the support of the monarchy, but that of putting loyalty to death!

He fled his country and his master, after he had done them all the mischief he could, because he durst not stand his trial. He vanished, and left a horrible stench behind him to this day. The few friends he had, upon his impeachment, could find no defence for him against the vile treachery of having kept correspondence with his master's enemies during his exile, and made a visit, incognito, to Cromwell, upon his return from his embassy in Spain. He had no pretence to secure him from the vengeance due to his former crimes, but that ample act of oblivion he had penned himself upon the restoration, and had made so vastly comprehensive, in order to find room in it for his own iniquity. But that mare magnum could not save him from the prodigious charge of having sold, not settled the whole kingdom of Ireland afterward. His flight alone could rescue him from the wrath of the whole English nation against him, for his having doomed so many thousands of innocent, or rather of. XIX.