Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/436

428 company thought it had been one of his servants. When the duke's hand was out, they were talking how much he had won. "Yes, said he, I held in very long; yet methinks I have won but very little." They told him his servant had got the rest in his hat; and then he found he was cheated.

It has been my good fortune to see the most important facts that I have advanced, justified by the publick voice; which, let this author do what he can, will incline the world to believe that I may be right in the rest. And I solemnly declare, that I have not wilfully committed the least mistake. I stopped the second edition, and made all possible inquiries among those who I thought could best inform me, in order to correct any errour I could hear of; I did the same to the third and fourth editions, and then left the printer to his liberty. This I take for a more effectual answer to all cavils, than a hundred pages of controversy.

But what disgusts me from having any thing to do with the race of answerjobbers, is, that they have no sort of conscience in their dealings: to give one instance in this gentleman's third part, which I have been lately looking into. When I talk of the most petty princes, he says that I mean crowned heads; when I say the soldiers of those petty princes are ready to rob or starve at home, he says I call kings and crowned heads robbers and highwaymen. This is what the whigs call answering a book.

I cannot omit one particular concerning this author, who is so positive in asserting his own facts, and contradicting mine; he affirms, that the business of Toulon was discovered by the clerk of a certain great man, who was then secretary of state. It is