Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/397

Rh What could be the design of all this grimace but to amuse the people, and to raise stocks for their friends in the secret to sell to advantage? I have too great a respect for the abilities of those who acted in this negotiation, to believe they hoped for any other issue from it, than what we found by the event. Give me leave to suppose the continuance of the war was the thing at heart among those in power, both abroad and at home; and then I can easily show the consistency of their proceedings, otherwise they are wholly unaccountable and absurd. Did those who insisted on such wild demands ever intend a peace? did they really think, that going on with the war was more eligible for their country than the least abatement of those conditions? was the smallest of them worth six millions a year, and a hundred thousand men's lives? was there no way to provide for the safety of Britain, or the security of its trade, but by the French king turning his arms to beat his grandson out of Spain? If these able statesmen were so truly concerned for our trade, which they made the pretence of the war's beginning, as well as continuance; why did they so neglect it in those very preliminaries, where the enemy made so many concessions, and where all that related to the advantage of Holland, or the other confederates, was expressly settled? But whatever concerned us, was to be left to a general treaty; no tariff agreed on with France or the Low-countries, only the Schelde was to remain shut, which must have ruined our Rh