Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/135

Rh do not know a person of more exceptionable principles than yourself: and if ever I shall be discovered, I think you will be bound in honour to pay my fine, and support me in prison; or else I may chance to inform against you by way of reprisal.

In the mean time I beg your lordship to receive my confession; that if there be any such thing as a dependency of Ireland upon England, otherwise than as I have explained it, either by the law of God, of nature, of reason, of nations, or of the land (which I shall die rather than grant) then was the proclamation against me the most merciful that ever was put out; and instead of accusing me as malicious, wicked, and seditious, it might have been directly as guilty of high treason.

All I desire is, that the cause of my country against Mr. Wood may not suffer by any inadvertency of mine. Whether Ireland depends upon England, or only upon God, the king, and the law; I hope no man will assert, that it depends upon Mr. Wood. I should be heartily sorry that this commendable spirit against me should accidentally (and what I hope, was never intended) strike a damp upon that spirit in all ranks and corporations of men against the desperate and ruinous design of Mr. Wood. Let my countrymen blot out those parts in my last letter, which they dislike; and let no rust remain on my sword, to cure the wounds I have given to our most mortal enemy. When sir Charles Sedley was taking the oaths, where several things were to be renounced, he said, he loved renouncing; asked if any more were to be renounced; for he was ready to renounce as much as they pleased. Although I am not so thorough a renouncer, yet let me have but good city security