Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/441

Rh ashamed to be obliged any longer to a person (meaning the lord treasurer) whom he had used so ill: for, it seems, a man ought not to use his benefactors ill, above two years and a half. Thirdly, The sieur Steele appeals for protection to you, Mr. Bailiff, from others of your denomination, who would have carried him somewhere else, if you had not relieved him, by your habeas corpus to St. Stephen's chapel. Fourthly, Mr. English Tory found, by calculating the life of a ministry, that it has lasted above three years, and is near expiring; he resolved, therefore, to "strip off the very garments spotted with the flesh," and be wholly regenerate against the return of his old masters.

In order to serve all these ends, your borough has honoured him (as he expresses it) with choosing him to represent you in parliament; and it must be owned, he has equally honoured you. Never was borough more happy in suitable representatives, than you are in Mr. Steele and his colleague ; nor were ever representatives more happy in a suitable borough.

When Mr. Steele talked of "laying before her majesty's ministry, that the nation has a strict eye upon their behaviour with relation to Dunkirk," p. 39; did not you, Mr. Bailiff, and your brethren of the borough, presently imagine he had drawn up a sort of countermemorial to that of monsieur Tugghe, and presented it in form to my lord treasurer, or a secretary of state? I am confident you did; but this comes by not understanding the town. You are to know then, that Mr. Steele publishes every day a penny paper to be read in coffeehouses, . V.