Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/313

Rh the signs of it in a kingdom or state are, first, good laws; and secondly, those laws well executed: we are pretty well provided with the former, but extremely defective in the latter. Secondly, what are our tempers and our hearts at home? If by ours he means those of himself and his abettors, they are most damnably wicked; impatient for the death of the queen; ready to gratify their ambition and revenge, by all desperate methods; wholly alienate from truth, law, religion, mercy, conscience, or honour. Thirdly, in what hands is power lodged abroad? To answer the question naturally, Lewis XIV is king of France, Philip V (by the counsels and acknowledgments of the whigs) is king of Spain, and so on. If by power he means money; the duke of Marlborough is thought to have more ready money than all the kings of Christendom together; but, by the peculiar disposition of Providence, it is locked up in a trunk, to which his ambition has no key: and that is our security. Fourthly, are our unnatural divisions our strength? I think not; but they are the sign of it, for being unnatural they cannot last; and this shows, that union, the foundation of all strength, is more agreeable to our nature. Fifthly, is it nothing to us, which of the princes of Europe has the longest sword? Not much, if we can tie up his hands, or put a strong shield into those of his neighbours; or if our sword be as sharp as his is long; or if it be necessary for him to turn his own sword into a ploughshare; or if such a sword happens to be in the hands of an infant, or struggled for by two competitors. Sixthly, the powerful hand that deals out crowns and kingdoms all around us, may it not in time reach a king. III.