Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/64

56 affairs. There were few examples of a commander being disgraced, after an uninterrupted course of success, for many years, against a formidable enemy, and this before a period was put to the war. Those who had least esteem for his valour and conduct, thought it not prudent to remove a general, whose troops were perpetually victorious while he was at their head; because this had infused into his soldiers, an opinion that they should always conquer, and into the enemy, that they should always be beaten; than which nothing is to be held of greater moment, either in the progress of a war, or upon the day of battle: and I have good grounds to affirm, that these reasons had sufficient weight with the queen and ministry, to have kept the duke of Marlborough in his post, if a way could have been found out, to have done it with any assurance of safety to the nation. It is the misfortune of princes, that the effects of their displeasure, make usually much more noise, than the causes. Thus, the sound of the duke's fall, was heard farther than many of the reasons which made it necessary; whereof, though some were visible enough, yet others lay more in the dark. Upon the duke's last return from Flanders, he had fixed his arrival to town (whether by accident or otherwise) upon the 17th of November, called queen Elizabeth's day; when great numbers of his creatures and admirers, had thought fit to revive an old ceremony among the rabble, of burning the pope in effigy; for the performance of which with more solemnity, they had made extraordinary preparations. From the several