Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/135

N° 28. industrious people, after poring so constantly upon the Examiner, a paper writ with plain sense and in a tolerable style, have made so little improvement. I am sure it would have fallen out quite otherwise with me: for, by what I have seen of their performances (and I am credibly informed they are all of a piece) if I had perused them until now, I should have been fit for little, but to make an advocate in the same cause.

You, sir, perhaps will wonder, as most others do, what end these angry folks propose in writing perpetually against the Examiner: it is not to beget a better opinion of the late ministry, or with any hope to convince the world, that I am in the wrong in any one fact I relate; they know all that to be lost labour, and yet their design is important enough: they would fain provoke me, by all sorts of methods within the length of their capacity, to answer their papers; which would render mine wholly useless to the publick: for, if it once came to rejoinder and reply, we should be all upon a level; and then their work would be done.

There is one gentleman indeed, who has written three small pamphlets upon the management of the war, and the treaty of peace. These I had intended to have bestowed a paper in examining; and could easily have made it appear, that whatever he says of truth, relates not at all to the evils we complain of, or controls one syllable of what I have ever advanced. Nobody, that I know of, did ever dispute the duke of Marlborough's courage, conduct, or success; they have been always unquestionable, and will tinue