Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/145

N° 29. all power at court. So that the first umbrage given to the whigs, and the pretences for clamouring against France and the pretender, were derived from them. And I believe nothing appeared then more unlikely, than that such different opinions should ever incorporate; that party having, upon former occasions, treated those very persons with enmity enough. But some lords then about court, and in the queen's good graces, not able to endure those growing impositions upon the prince and people, presumed to interpose; and were consequently soon removed and disgraced. However, when a most exorbitant grant was proposed, antecedent to any visible merit, it miscarried in parliament, for want of being seconded by those who had most credit in the house; and who, having always opposed the like excesses in a former reign, thought it their duty to do so still, to show to the world that the dislike was not against persons, but things. But this was to cross the oligarchy in the tenderest point; a point which outweighed all considerations of duty and gratitude to their prince, or regard to the constitution: and therefore, after having in several private meetings concerted measures with their old enemies, and granted as well as received conditions; they began to change their style and their countenance, and to put it as a maxim in the mouths of their emissaries, that England must be saved by whigs. This unnatural league was afterward cultivated by another incident, I mean the act of security, and the consequences of it, which every body knows; when (to use the words of my correspondent ) the sovereign authority was parcelled