Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/131

Rh was then his title) being stabbed with a penknife, the following day, at the Cockpit, in the midst of a dozen lords of the council, by the sieur de Guiscard, a French papist; the circumstances of which fact being not within the compass of this history, I shall only observe, that after two months confinement, and frequent danger of his life, he returned to his seat in parliament.

The overtures made by this minister, of paying so vast a debt under the pressures of a long war, and the difficulty of finding supplies for continuing it, was, during the time of his illness, ridiculed by his enemies as an impracticable and visionary project: and when, upon his return to the house, he had explained his proposal, the very proprietors of the debt were many of them prevailed on to oppose it; although the obtaining this trade, either through Old Spain, or directly to the Spanish West Indies, had been one principal end we aimed at by this war. However, the bill passed; and, as an immediate consequence, the navy bills rose to about twenty per cent nor ever fell within ten of their discount. Another good effect of this work appeared by the parliamentary lotteries, which have since been erected. The last of that kind, under the former ministry, was eleven weeks in filling; whereas the first, under the present, was filled in a very few hours, although it cost the government less; and the others which followed were full before the acts concerning them could pass. And to prevent incumbrances of this kind from growing for the future, he took care, by the utmost parsimony, or by suspending payments where they seemed less to press, that all stores for the navy should be bought with ready money; by which