Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/336

328 proper, that it would be acceptable to the queen; which her behaviour seemed to confirm.

But, when the consequences of this vote were calmly represented to her: "That the limitation specified therein had wholly tied up her hands, in case the recovery of Spain should be found impossible, as it was frequently allowed and owned by many principal leaders of the opposite party, and had hitherto been vainly endeavoured either by treaty or war: That the kingdom was not in a condition to bear any longer its burden and charge, especially with annual additions: That other expedients might possibly be found, for preventing France and Spain from being united under the same king, according to the intent and letter of the grand alliance: That the design of this vote was, to put her majesty under the necessity of dissolving the parliament, beginning all things anew, and placing the administration in the hands of those whom she had thought fit to lay aside; and this, by sacrificing her present servants, to the rage and vengeance of the former;" with many other obvious considerations, not very proper at this time to be repeated: Her majesty, who was earnestly bent upon giving peace to her people, consented to fall upon the sole expedient that her own coldness, or the treasurer's thrift, and want or contempt of artifice, had left her; which was, to create a number of peers, sufficient to turn the balance in the house of lords. I confess, that in my history of those times, where this matter, among others, is treated with a great deal more liberty, and consequently very unfit for present perusal, I have refined so far as to conjecture, that if this were the treasurer's