Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/385

Rh of affairs, with what amazing licentiousness has the writer of the Medley attacked every person of the present ministry, the speaker of the house of commons, and the whole senate! He has turned into ridicule the results of the council and the parliament, as well as the just and generous endeavours of the latter, to pay the debts, and restore the credit of the nation, almost ruined by the corruption and management of his own party.

And are these the people who complain of personal reflections; who so confidently invoke the men in power (whom they have so highly obliged) to punish or silence me for reflecting on their exploded heroes? Is there no difference between men chosen by the prince, reverenced by the people for their virtue, and others rejected by both for the highest demerits? Shall the Medley and his brothers fly out with impunity against those who preside at the helm? and am I to be torn in pieces, because I censure others, who, for endeavouring to split the vessel against a rock, are put under the hatches?

I now proceed to the pamphlet which I intend to consider. It is a letter written to seven great men, who were appointed to examine Gregg in Newgate. The writer tells their lordships, that the Examiner has charged them with endeavouring, by bribery and subornation of that criminal, to take away Mr. Harley's life. If there be any thing among the papers I have writ, which may be applied to these persons, it would have become this author to have cleared them fully from the accusation, and then he might at leisure have fallen upon me as a liar and misrepresenter; but of that he has not offered a syllable: