Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/321

Rh against him, might as well have continued in the purses and veins of her majesty's subjects.

But the particular assertions of this author, are easier detected than his general ones; I shall therefore proceed upon examining the former. For instance: I desire him to ask the Dutch, who can best inform him, why they delivered up Traerbach to the Imperialists? for, as to the queen, her majesty was never once consulted in it; whatever his preceptors, the politicians of Button's coffee-house, may have informed him to the contrary.

Mr. Steele affirms, that the French have begun the demolition of Dunkirk contemptuously and arbitrarily their own way. The governor of the town, and those gentlemen intrusted with the inspection of this work, do assure me, that the fact is altogether otherwise; that the method prescribed by those whom her majesty employs, has been exactly followed, and that the works are already demolished. I will venture to tell him farther, that the demolition was so long deferred, in order to remove those difficulties, which the barrier treaty has put us under; and the event has shown, that it was prudent to proceed no faster, until those difficulties were got over. The mole and harbour could not be destroyed, until the ships were got out; which, by reason of some profound secrets of state, did not happen until the other day. Who gave him those just suspicions, that the mole and harbour will never be destroyed? What is it he would now insinuate? that the ministry is bribed to leave the most tant