Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/395

Rh approve this renewing an old fashion of whipping off heads by a prayer; it began from what some of us think an ill precedent. Then that unlimited clause, let it be whose it will, perplexes me not a little: I wish in compliance with an old form, he had excepted my lord mayor: otherwise, if it were to be determined by their vote, whose head it was that had done the greatest mischief; which way can we tell how far their predecessors principles may have influenced them? God preserve the queen and her ministers from such undistinguishing disposers of heads!

His remarks upon what the ordinary told Hoffman, are singular enough. The ordinary's words are, "That so many endeavours were used to corrupt Gregg's conscience, &c. that he felt as much uneasiness lest Gregg should betray his master, as if it had been his own case." The author of the letter says to this, "That, for aught the ordinary knew, he might confess what was exactly true of his master; and that therefore an indifferent person might as well be uneasy, for fear Gregg should discover something of his master, that would touch his life, and yet might have been true." But, if these were really the ordinary's thoughts at that time, they were honest and reasonable. He knew it was highly improbable that a person of Mr. Harley's character and station, should make use of such a confederate in treason: if he had suspected his loyalty, he could not have suspected his understanding. And knowing how much Mr. Harley was feared and hated by the men in power, Rh