Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/242

232 and whether they were poets or generals) often played at duck and drake with smooth stones on a river: Now I say, if these facts be true (and the book where I found them is in print) I cannot imagine why our most zealous patriots may not a little indulge his excellency in an infirmity, which is not morally evil; provided he gives no publick scandal; which is by all means to be avoided: I say, why he may not be indulged twice a week to converse with one or two particular persons; and let him and them con over their old exploded readings together, after mornings spent in hearing and prescribing ways and means from and to his most obedient politicians for the welfare of the kingdom; although the said particular person, or persons, may not have made so publick a declaration of their political faith in all its parts, as the business of the nation requires: still submitting my opinion to that happy majority, which I am confident is always in the right; by whom the liberty of the subject has been so frequently, so strenuously, and so successfully asserted; who, by their wise counsels, have made commerce to flourish, money to abound, inhabitants to increase, the value of lands and rents to rise; and the whole island put on a new face of plenty and prosperity.

But, in order to clear his excellency more fully from this accusation of showing his favours to highfliers, tories, and jacobites, it will be necessary to come to particulars.

The first person of a tory denomination, to whom his excellency gave any marks of his favour, was doctor Thomas Sheridan. It is to be observed, that this happened so early in his excellency's government, as it may be justly supposed he had not been informed