Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/146

138 parcelled out among the faction, and made the purchase of indemnity for an offending minister. Thus the union of the two kingdoms, improved that between the ministry and the junto; which was afterward cemented by their mutual danger in that storm they so narrowly escaped about three years ago, but however was not quite perfected till prince George's death; and then they went lovingly on together, both satisfied with their several shares, and at full liberty to gratify their predominant inclinations; the first, their avarice and ambition; the other, their models of innovation in church and state.

Therefore, whoever thinks fit to revive that baffled question, why was the late ministry changed, may receive the following answer; that it was become necessary by the insolence and avarice of some about the queen, who, in order to perpetuate their tyranny, had made a monstrous alliance with those who profess principles destructive to our religion and government. If this will not suffice, let him make an abstract of all the abuses I have mentioned in my former papers, and view them together; after which, if he still remain unsatisfied, let him suspend his opinion a few weeks longer. Although, after all, I think the question as trifling as that of the papists, when they ask us, where was our religion before Luther? And indeed the ministry was changed for the same reasons that religion was reformed; because a thousand corruptions had crept into the discipline and doctrine of the state, by the pride, the avarice, the fraud, and the ambition of those, who administered to us in secular affairs. I heard