Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/273

Rh guard a prince under a high court of justice, than seated on the throne. The peculiar hand of Providence has hitherto preserved her majesty, encompassed, whether sleeping or travelling, by her enemies: but since religion teaches us, that Providence ought not to be tempted, it is ill venturing to trust that precious life any longer to those, who, by their publick behaviour and discourse, discover their impatience to see it at an end; that they may have liberty to be the instruments of glutting at once the revenge of their patrons and their own. It should be well remembered, what a satisfaction these gentlemen (after the example of their betters) were so sanguine to express upon the queen's last illness at Windsor, and what threatenings they used of refusing to obey their general, in case that illness had proved fatal. Nor do I think it a want of charity to suspect, that in such an evil day, an enraged faction would be highly pleased with the power of the sword, and with great connivance leave it so long unsheathed, until they were got rid of their most formidable adversaries. In the mean time it must be a very melancholy prospect, that whenever it shall please God to visit us with this calamity, those who are paid to be defenders of the civil power, will stand ready for any acts of violence, that a junto composed of the greatest enemies to the constitution, shall think fit to enjoin them.

The other point of great importance is, the security of the protestant succession in the house of Hanover: not from any partiality to that illustrious house, farther than as it has had the honour to mingle with the blood royal of England, and is the nearest branch