Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/247

N° 43. under king Charles the second; and indeed to have gone very different from what was expected from each, even at the time of the Revolution. But as to that concerning the pretender, the whigs have so far renounced it, that they are grown the great advocates for his legitimacy: which gives me the opportunity of vindicating a noble duke, who was accused of a blunder in the house, when, upon a certain lord's mentioning the pretended prince, his grace told the lords, he must be plain with them, and call that person, not the pretended prince, but the pretended impostor: which was so far from a blunder in that polite lord, as his ill-willers give out, that it was only a refined way of delivering the avowed sentiments of his whole party.

But to return: this was the state of principles, when the queen came to the crown; some time after which, it pleased certain great persons, who had been all their lives in the altitude of tory profession, to enter into a treaty with the whigs, from whom they could get better terms than from their old friends; who began to be resty, and would not allow monopolies of power and favour, nor consent to carry on the war entirely at the expense of this nation, that they might have pensions from abroad; while another people, more immediately concerned in the war, traded with the enemy as in times of peace; whereas the other party, whose case appeared then as desperate, was ready to yield to any conditions that would bring them into play. And I cannot help affirming, that this nation was made a sacrifice to the immeasurable appetite of power and wealth in a very few, that shall be nameless, who, in every step they made, acted directly against what they