Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/59

Rh suffer monsieur Bothmar, his envoy here, to print and publish a memorial in English, directly disapproving all her majesty's proceedings; which memorial, as appears by the style and manner of it, was all drawn up, or at least digested, by some party pen on this side of the water.

Cautious writers, in order to avoid offence or danger, and to preserve the respect ever due to foreign princes, do usually charge the wrong steps in a court, altogether upon the persons employed. But I should have taken a securer method, and have been wholly silent in this point, if I had not then conceived some hope, that his electoral highness, might possibly have been a stranger to the memorial of his resident: for, first, the manner of delivering it to the secretary of state, was out of all form, and almost as extraordinary as the thing itself. Monsieur Bothmar, having obtained an hour of Mr. secretary St. John, talked much to him upon the subject of which that memorial consists; and upon going away, desired he might leave a paper with the secretary, which, he said, contained the substance of what he had been discoursing. This paper Mr. St. John laid aside, among others of little consequence; and a few days after, saw a memorial in print, which he found, upon comparing, to be the same with what Bothmar had left.

During this short recess of parliament, and upon the 5th day of January, prince Eugene of Savoy landed in England. Before he left his ship, he asked a person who came to meet him, "Whether the new lords were made, and what was their number?" He was attended through the streets with a mighty rabble of people, to St. James's; where Mr. Rh