Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/23



AVING written the following history at Windsor, in the happy reign of her majesty queen Anne, of ever glorious, blessed, and immortal memory; I resolved to publish it, for the satisfaction of my fellow-subjects, in the year 1713; but, being under a necessity of going to Ireland, to take possession of the deanry of St. Patrick's, Dublin, I left the original with the ministers; and having staid in that kingdom not above a fortnight, I found, at my return, that my lord treasurer Oxford, and the secretary my lord Bolingbroke, who were then unhappily upon very ill terms with each other, could not agree upon publishing it, without some alterations which I would not submit to. Whereupon I kept it by me until her majesty's death, which happened about a year after.

I have ever since preserved the original very safely; too well knowing what a turn the world would take, upon the German family's succeeding to the crown; which indeed was their undoubted right, having been established solemnly by the act of an undisputed parliament, brought into the house of commons by Mr. Harley, who was then speaker.

But, as I have said in another discourse, it was very