Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/311

Rh These I take to be only treasonable insinuations; but the advertisement before mentioned, is actually high treason; for which the author ought to be prosecuted, if that would avail any thing under a jurisdiction, where cursing the queen is not above the penalty of twenty marks.

Nothing is more notorious than that the whigs of late years, both in their writings and discourses, have affected upon all occasions to allow the legitimacy of the pretender. This makes me a little wonder to see our author labouring to prove the contrary, by producing all the popular chat of those times, and other solid arguments from Fuller's narrative: but it must be supposed, that this gentleman acts by the commands of his superiours, who have thought fit at this juncture to issue out new orders, for reasons best known to themselves. I wish they had been more clear in their directions to him upon that weighty point, whether the settlement of the succession in the house of Hanover be alterable or not. I have observed where, in his former pages, he gives it in the negative; but in the turning of a leaf, he has wholly changed his mind. He tells us, he wonders there can be found any Briton weak enough to contend against a power in their own nation, which is practised in a much greater degree in other states: and how hard it is, that Britain should be debarred the privilege of establishing its own security, by relinquishing only those branches of the royal line, which threaten it with destruction; while other nations never scruple, upon less occasions, to go much greater lengths; of which he produces instances in France, Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia; and then adds, can Great Britain help to advance men to