Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/55

N° 18. describe: we are pushed for an answer; and are forced at last freely to confess, that the corruptions and abuses in every branch of the administration, were so numerous and intolerable, that all things must have ended in ruin, without some speedy reformation. This I have already asserted in a former paper; and the replies I have read, or heard, have been in plain terms to affirm the direct contrary; and not only to defend and celebrate the late persons and proceedings, but to threaten me with law and vengeance, for casting reflections on so many great and honourable men, whose birth, virtue, and abilities, whose morals and religion, whose love of their country, and its constitution in church and state, were so universally allowed; and all this set off with odious comparisons, reflecting on the present choice: is not this, in plain and direct terms to tell all the world, that the queen has, in a most dangerous crisis, turned out a whole set of the best ministers that ever served a prince, without any manner of reason but her royal pleasure, and brought in others, of a character directly contrary? And how so vile an opinion as this, can consist with the least pretence to loyalty or good manners, let the world determine.

I confess myself so little a refiner in politicks, as not to be able to discover what other motive, beside obedience to the queen, a sense of public danger, and a true love of their country, joined with invincible courage, could spirit up those great men, who have now, under her majesty's authority, undertaken the direction of affairs. What can they expect, but the utmost efforts of malice, from a set of enraged domestic adversaries, perpetually watching over their conduct,