Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/396

388 and observing that resort to Gregg at unseasonable hours, and that strange promises were often made him by men of note; all this put together, might naturally incline the ordinary to think, the design could be nothing else, but that Mr. Harley should be accused in spite of his innocence.

This charge of subornation is, it seems, so extraordinary a crime, that the author challenges all the books in the new lord's library (because he hears it is the largest) to furnish us with an instance like it. What if this charge should be true? Then I, in my turn, would challenge all the books in another lord's library, which is ten times larger (though perhaps not so often disturbed) to furnish us with an instance like this. If it be so monstrous a thing to accuse others of subornation, what epithet is left to bestow upon those who were really guilty of the crime itself? I think it beyond controversy, that subornation was practised in the business of Gregg. This manifestly appears from those few facts I have mentioned: let the whigs agree among them where to fix it. Nay, it is plain, by the great endeavours made to stifle his last speech, that they would have suborned the poor man even after he was dead: and is this a matter now to be called in question, much less to be denied?

He compares the examination of Guiscard with that of Gregg; talks of several great persons who examined the former in prison, and promised him the queen's pardon, if he would make a full discovery. Then the author puts the case, "How wicked it would be to charge these honourable counsellors with suborning Guiscard by promises of life, &c. to accuse the innocent, and betray his friend!" Does