pass; as likewise the quantity shall be settled that the garrisons may want.

Thirdly. As to the 9th article, relating to the governors and commanders of those towns, forts, and places where the States General shall have their garrisons, the said prince and count are of opinion that the said governors and commanders ought to take an oath as well to the king of Spain as to the States General; but they may take a particular oath to the latter that they will not admit foreign troops without their consent, and that they will depend exclusively upon the said States in whatever regards the military power. But, at the same time, they ought exclusively to promise the king of Spain that they will not intermeddle in the affairs of law, civil power, revenues, or any other matters, ecclesiastical or civil, unless at the desire of the king's officers to assist them in the execution; in which case the said commanders should be obliged not to refuse them.

Fourthly. As to the 10th article, there is nothing to be added, unless that the States General may repair and increase the fortifications of the towns, places, and forts, where they shall have their garrisons; but this at their own expense. Otherwise, under that pretext, they might seize all the revenues of the country.

Fifthly. As to the 11th article, they think the States ought not to have the revenues of the chattellanies and dependencies of these towns and places which are to be their barrier against France, this being a sort of sovereignty, and very prejudicial to the ecclesiastical and civil economy of the country. But the said prince and count are of opinion that the States General ought to have, for the maintenance of their garrisons and fortifications, a sum of money, of a million and a half or two millions of florins, which they ought to receive from the king's officers, who shall be ordered to pay that sum before any other payment.

Sixthly. And the convention which shall be made on this affair between his catholic majesty and the States General shall be for a limited time.

These are the utmost conditions to which the said prince and count think it possible for his catholic majesty to be brought; and they declare, at the same time, that their imperial and catholic majesties will sooner abandon the Low Countries than to take them upon other conditions, which would be equally expensive, shameful, and unacceptable to them.

On the other side, the said prince and count are persuaded that the advantages at this time yielded to the States General, may hereafter be very prejudicial to themselves; forasmuch as they may put the people of the Spanish Netherlands to some dangerous extremity, considering the antipathy between the two nations; and that extending of frontiers is entirely contrary to the maxims of their government. As to the upper quarter of Guelder, the said prince and count are of opinion that the States General may be allowed the power of putting in garrisons into Venlo, Ruremond, and Steffenswaert, with orders to furnish the said States with the revenues of the country, which amount to one hundred thousand florins.

As to Bonne belonging to the electorate of Cologn, Liege and Huy to the bishopric of Liege, it is to be understood that, these being imperial towns, it does not depend upon the emperor to consent that foreign garrisons should be placed in them upon any pretence whatsoever. But, whereas the States General demand them only for their security, it is proposed to place in those towns a garrison of imperial troops, of whom the States may be in no suspicion, as they might be of a garrison of an elector who

might possibly have views opposite to their interests. But this is proposed only in case that it shall not be thought more proper to rase one or other of the said

towns.

The Representation of the English Merchants at
Bruges, relating to the Barrier Treaty.

DAVID WHITE, and other Merchants, her Majesty's Subjects, residing at Bruges and other Towns in Flanders, crave leave humbly to represent: THAT whereas the cities of Lisle, Tournay, Menin, Douay, and other new conquests in Flanders and Artois, taken from the French this war by the united forces of her majesty and her allies, are now become entirely under the government of the States General, and that we, her majesty's subjects, may be made liable to such duties and impositions on trade as the said States General shall think fit to impose on us : intention and design that the trade of her dominions we humbly hope and conceive that it is her majesty's and subjects, which is carried on with these new conquests, may be on an equal foot with that of the subjects and dominions of the States General, and not be liable to any new duty when transported from the Spanish Netherlands to the said new conquests, as, to our great surprise, is exacted from us on the following goods, viz. butter, tallow, salmon, hides, beef, and all other products of her majesty's dominions which we import at Ostend and there pay the duty of entry to the king of Spain, and consesequently ought not to be liable to any new duty when they carry the same goods and all others from their dominions by a free pass or transire to the said new conquests: and we are under apprehension that if the said new conquests be settled or given entirely into the possession of the States General for their barrier (as we are made to believe, by a treaty lately made by her majesty's ambassador, the lord viscount Townshend, at the Hague), that the States General may also soon declare all goods and merchandises, which are contraband in their provinces, to be also contraband or prohibited in these new conquests or new barrier, by which her majesty's subjects will be deprived of the sale and consumption of the following products of her majesty's dominions, which are and have long been declared contraband in the United Provinces, such as English and Scotch salt, malt spirits, or corn brandy, and all other sorts of distilled English spirits, whale and rape oil, &c.

It is therefore humbly conceived that her majesty, out of her great care and gracious concern for the benefit of her subjects and dominions, may be pleased to direct, by a treaty of commerce or some other way, that their trade may be put on an equal foot in all the Spanish Netherlands and the new conquests of barrier with the subjects of Holland, by paying no other duty than that of importation to the king of Spain; and by a provision that no product of her majesty's dominions shall ever be declared contraband in these new conquests, except such goods as were esteemed contraband before the death of Charles II. king of Spain. And it is also humbly prayed that the product and manufacture of the new conquests may be also exported without paying any new duty beside that of exportation at Ostend, which was always paid to the king of Spain; it being impossible for any nation in Europe to assort an entire cargo for the Spanish West Indies without a considerable quantity of several of the manufactures of Lisle; such as caradoros, cajant, picoses, boratten, and many other goods.

The chief things to be demanded of France are to be exempted from tonnage, to have a liberty of im

porting herrings and all other fish to France on the same terms as the Dutch do, and as was agreed by them at the treaty of commerce immediately after the treaty of peace at Ryswick. The enlarging her majesty's plantations in America, &c., is naturally recommended.

AN APPENDIX TO THE
CONDUCT OF THE ALLIES,

AND ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON THE BARRIER
TREATY.

Nihil est aliud in fædere, nisi ut pia et æterna pax sit. CICERO, pro C. Balbo.

Jan. 16, 1712-13.

I BEGIN to think that, though perhaps there may be

several very exact maps of Great Britain to be had at the shops in Amsterdam or the Hague; and some shining genii in that country can, it may be, look out the most remarkable places in our island, especially those upon the sea-coast or near it, as Portsmouth, Chatham, Torbay, and the like; yet it is highly necessary that "Chamberlaine's Present State," or some other good book of that sort, were carefully translated into Dutch, in usum illustrissimorum ordinum, or with any other sounding and pompous title, only signifying that it was done for the use of our good allies, and to set them right in the nature of our government, constitution, and laws, with which they do not appear to be so well acquainted as might be expected. I am sensible that, as things now stand, if a manifesto or memorial should be sent them, humbly representing to their high mightinesses that Great Britain is an independent monarchy, governed by its own laws; that the queen is supreme over all orders of the realm; that no other prince, prelate, state, or potentate, has or ought to have any authority and jurisdiction over us; that where the queen, lords, and commons solemnly consent, it is a law; and where the collective body of the people agree, it is the sense of the nation; that the making war and peace is the prerogative of the crown; and that all alliances are to be observed only so far as they answer the ends for which they were made: in such a case it is not unlikely but the Amsterdam Gazette, or some other paper in the Seven Provinces, would immediately answer all this by publicly protesting that it came from the Jacobites and Frenchified highfliers, and therefore ought not to be admitted as genuine : for of late that celebrated writer and two or three of his seconds have undertaken to tell us poor Britons who are our best subjects, and how we ought to behave ourselves toward our allies. So that in this unhappy juncture I do not see when we shall come to a right understanding. On the other hand, suppose we agreed to give them the precedence and left the first proposal for overtures of accommodation to their management; this perhaps might quickly bring us to be better acquainted. Let them therefore lay aside all clumsy pretences to address; tell us no more of former battles, sieges, and glories; nor make love to us in prose, and extol our beauty, our fortune, and their own passion for us, to the stars; but let them come roundly to the business, and in plain terms give us to understand that they will not recognise any other government in Great Britain but Whiggarchy only; that they treated with us as such,

I gave the Examiner a hint about this prorogation; and to praise the queen for her tenderness to the Dutch, in giving them still more time to submit. It suited the occasion at present.-Journal to Stelia, Jan. 15, 1712-13.

and are not obliged to acknowledge a usurped power called a monarchy, to which they are utter strangers; that they have a just demand upon us ever since the Revolution, which is a precedent for their interposing whenever popery and arbitrary power are coming in upon us, which at present they are informed by their friends is our case; and besides, they are advised by able counsel that we are only tenants for life, and they, being mentioned in the entail, are obliged to have a watchful eye over us, and to see that neither waste nor dilapidation be done upon the premises. If all this be not the case, and a true state of the controversy, as I heartily hope it is not, I leave any rational creature, pick him where you will between the Danube and Ganges, to judge of the following remonstrance.

A war is undertaken by several potentates in con

junction, upon certain causes and conditions plainly expressed in a writing called "The Grand Alliance." This war is carried on with success; the enemy offers to treat, and proposes to satisfy all the just demands of the several parties engaged against them. Great Britain makes her claim, so does Portugal, and both of Gertruydenberg, and are assured they shall have are fully satisfied. The Dutch produce their barrier it except two or three places at most. Savoy and Prussia have more than ever they asked. Only the emperor will have all Spain, contrary to the reasons upon which his brother's renunciation was founded, and in direct violation of a fundamental so that he would maxim, "the balance of power, involve us in a second war and a new "grand alliance" under pretence of observing the old one. This, in short, is the case; and yet after all the bloodshed, expense, and labour to compass these great ends, though her Britannic majesty finds by experience that every potentate in the grand alliance except herself has actually broke it every year; though she stands possessed of an undoubted right to make peace and war; though she has procured for her allies all that she was obliged to by treaty; though her two houses of parliament humbly entreat her to finish the great work; though her people with one voice admire and congratulate the wise steps she has taken, and cry aloud to her to defer their happiness no longer; though some of the allies and one or two of the provinces have declared for peace, and her majesty's domestic enemies dread it as the utter pends, and expectation is our lot. The menacing downfal of their faction; yet still the blessing depensionary has scruples; he desires time to look out for something to demand; there are a dozen or two of petty princes who want silk stockings, and lace round their hats; we must stay till the second part of Denain comes upon the stage, and squire South promises to go directly to Madrid the next time we show him the way thither.

Her majesty is all goodness and tenderness to her people and her allies. A brighter example of piety could not adorn the life of her royal grandfather, whose solemn anniversary we must shortly celebrate. She has now prorogued the best parliament that ever assembled in her reign, and respited her own glory and the wishes, prayers, and wants of her people, only to give some of her allies an opportunity to think of the returns they owe her, and try if there be such things as gratitude, justice, or humanity in Europe. This conduct of her majesty is without parallel. Never was so great a condescension made to the unreasonable clamours of an insolent faction, now dwindled into the most contemptible circumIt is certainly high time they should begin to meditate other measures, unless they vainly imagine the government must part with both its attri

stances.

butes of mercy and justice till they are pleased to be dutifu! and obedient. What ill-grounded hopes and expectations they have underhand administered to any of the allies is not worth my while to inquire, since, whatever they are, they must come attended with the blackest treason and ingratitude. The Dutch have the least reason in the world to rely on such a broken reed; and after having solemnly promised to conform themselves to her majesty's wisdom and depend on her conduct, which is the language of their latest professions, such clandestine management would fully deserve all those appellations with which the writings of the Whigs are so richly embellished.

After all, when her majesty and her subjects have waited one period more, and affixed a new date to their wishes and their patience; since peace is the only end of every alliance, and since all that we fought for is yielded up by the enemy, in justice to her prerogative, to her parliament and her people, the desirable blessing will no doubt be reached out to us; our happiness will not be put off till they who have ill-will at us can find time and power to prevent it. All that a stubborn ally can then expect is time to come in and accept those terms which himself once thought reasonable. The present age will soon taste the sweets of such conduct, and posterity as highly applaud it. Only they who now rail and calumniate will do so still, and who are disposed to give everything the same treatment which makes for our safety and welfare, and spoils their game of disorder and confusion.

It is true the present stagnation of affairs is accounted for another way, and the party give out that France begins to draw back and would explain several articles upon us; but the authors of this forgery know very well I do not miscal it, and are conscious to the criminal reasons why it is with so much industry bandied about. France rather enlarges her offers than abates or recedes from them, so happy are we in finding our most inveterate and ungenerous enemies within our own bowels! The Whigs, according to custom, may chuckle and solace themselves with the visionary hopes of coming mischief; and imagine they are grown formidable because they are to be humoured in their extravagancies and to be paid for their perverseness. Let them go on to glory in their projected schemes of government, and the blessed effects they have produced in the world. It was not enough for them to make obedience the duty of the sovereign, but this obedience must at length be made passive; and that nonresistance may not wholly vanish from among the virtues, since the subject is weary of it, they would fairly make it over to their monarch. The compact

between prince and people is supposed to be mutual; but grand alliances are, it seems, of another nature: a failure in one party does not disengage the rest; they are tied up and entangled so long as any one confederate adheres to the negative, and we are not allowed to make use of the Polish argument and plead non loquitur. But these artifices are too thin to hold; they are the cobwebs which the faction have spun out of the last dregs of their poison, made to be swept away with the unnecessary animals who contrived them. Their tyranny is at an end, and their ruin very near; I can only advise them to become their fall, like Cæsar, and "die with decency."

THE HISTORY

OF THE FOUR LAST YEARS OF QUEEN ANNE.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE "History of the Four Last Years of the Queen" has been unaccountably decried, though a work of undoubted merit. It has even been supposed to be spurious, though every paragraph it contains is a sufficient voucher for its authenticity. It is repeatedly mentioned by our author in various parts of his writings. He has cal'ed it "his GRAND business; and thought it "THE BEST WORK HE HAD EVER WRITTEN.' As far as it extends, it is indeed a masterly performance; and will be deemed a valuable acquisition to future historians. Deriving his intelligence, at that remarkable era, from the fountain-head, Swift could not be mistaken in the facts which he relates. He had ready access to every requisite source of information, and his manly fortitude must have placed him far above the necessity of wilful misrepresentation. Professedly an advocate for the Tories, to the Whigs he was an avowed, a formidable opponent. In his Journal to Stella (the more valuable for discovering his unreserved sentiments) he frequently laments the necessity of displacing the duke of Marlborough; and declares, though he loved not the man, he had prevented many hard things being said against him. And the favours he obtained from the ministry for the men of wit among the adverse party are too notorious to be enlarged on.

His earnestness to communicate this history to the public is evident in many of his letters. In 1736, it was actually intended for the press; and in April, 1738, the dean expressed his dissatisfaction at the publication being so long delayed. Whatever motives might have then existed for such delay, whether tenderness to living characters, or more prudential reasons, a period of forty years must totally have removed them. The rage of party is subsided; and we may be allowed to contemplate the reign of Anne as impartially as that of Elizabeth.

At length this history was committed to the press in the year 1758, under the censure, it may be said, of its own editor; in justice to whom, however we may differ in opinion concerning Dr. Swift's candour, the editor's advertisement is preserved entire. In the same year also it met with some severe strictures from another writer. These we shall give too in his own words; and then fairly submit "The History of the Four Last Years of the Queen" to the judgment of the public:

"These characters, and the history from whence they have been extracted, may serve as a striking example of the melancholy effects of prejudice and party zeal; a zeal which, whilst it corrupts the heart, vitiates the understanding itself, and could mislead a writer of so penetrating a genius as Dr. Swift to imagine that posterity would accept satire in the place of history, and would read with satisfaction a performance in which the courage and military skill of the duke of Marlborough are called in question. The real character of these great men was not what the low idolatry of the one faction or the maliguity of the other would represent it. They were men who, with great virtues and great talents, mixed with some human infirmities, did their country much service and honour. Their talents were a public benefit, their failings such as only affected their private character. The display of this mixture had been a very proper task for an impartial historian; and had proved equally agreeable and instructive to the reader in such hands. But these characters before us have all the signs of being writ ten, as Tacitus calls it, recentibus odiis. In all other respects the piece seems to be a work not unworthy of its author. A clear and strong, though not an elevated style; an entire freedom from every sort of affected ornament; a peculiar happiness of putting those he would satirize in the most odious and contemptible light, without seeming directly to intend it: these are the characteristics of all Swift's works; and they appear as strongly in this as in any of them. It there be anything different in this performance from the manner of his works published in his lifetime, it is, that the style is in this thrown something more backwards, and has a more antique cast. This probably he did designedly, as he might think it gave a greater dignity to the work. He had a strong prejudice in favour of the language as it was in queen Elizabeth's reign; and he rated the

style of the authors of that time a little above its real value. Their style was indeed sufficiently bold and nervous, but deficient in grace and elegance."

March 25, 1775.

ADVERTISEMENT

Prefixed to the Edition of 1758.

THUS the long-wished for "History of the Four Last Years of the Queen's Reign' " is at length brought to light, in spite of all attempts to suppress it!

As this publication is not made under the sanction of the name or names which the author and the world had a right to expect, it is fit some account of the work's appearing in this manner should be here given.

Long before the dean's apparent decline some of his intimate friends with concern foresaw the impending fate of his fortune and his works. To this it is owing that these sheets, which the world now despaired of ever seeing, are rescued from obscurity, perhaps from destruction.

For this the public is indebted to a gentleman, now in Ireland, of the greatest probity and worth, with whom the dean long lived in perfect intimacy. To this gentleman's hands the dean entrusted a copy of his History, desiring him to peruse and give his judgment of it, with the last corrections and amendments the author had given it, in his own hand.

His friend read, admired, and approved. And from a dread of so valuable and so interesting a work's being by any accident lost or effaced, as was probable by its not being intended to be published in the author's lifetime, he resolved to keep this copy till the author should press him for it; but with a determined purpose it should never see the light while there were any hopes of the author's own copy being published or even preserved.

This resolution he inviolably kept till he and the world had full assurance that the dean's executors, or those into whose hands the original copy fell, were so far from intending to publish it that it was actually suppressed, perhaps destroyed.

Then he thought himself not only at liberty, but judged it his duty to his departed friend and to the public, to let this copy, which he had now kept many years most secretly, see the light.

Thus it has at length fallen into the hands of a person who publishes it for the satisfaction of the public, abstracted from all private regards; which are never to be permitted to come into competition with the common good.

Every judicious eye will see that the author of these sheets wrote with strong passions, but with stronger prepossessions and prejudices in favour of a party. These, it may be imagined, the editor in some measure may have adopted, and published this work as a kind of support of that party or some surviving remnant thereof.

It is but just to undeceive the reader and inform him from what kind of hand he has received this work. A man may regard a good piece of painting, while he despises the subject: if the subject be ever so despicable the masterly strokes of the painter may demand our admiration, while he in other respects is entitled to no portion of our regard.

In poetry we carry our admiration still further; and like the poet while we actually contemn the

man.

Historians share the like fate; hence some, who have no regard to propriety or truth, are yet admired for diction, style, manner, and the like.

The editor considers this work in another light: he long knew the author, and was no stranger to his politics, connexions, tendencies, passions, and the whole economy of his life. He has long been hardily

singular in condemning this great man's conduct amid the admiring multitude; nor ever could have thought of making an interest in a man whose principles and manners he could by no rule of reason or honour approve, however he might have admired his wit and parts.

Such was judged the disposition of the man whose history of the most interesting period of time in the annals of Britain is now herein offered to the reader. He may well ask from what motives? The answer is easily, simply given.

The causes assigned for delaying the publication of this history were principally these: That the manuscript fell into the hands of men who, whatever they might have been by the generality deemed, were by the dean believed to be of his party; though they did not, after his death, judge it prudent to avow his principles more than to deny them in his lifetime. These men, having got their beavers, tobacco-boxes, and other trifling remembrances of former friendship, by the dean's will, did not choose publicly to avow principles that had marred their friend's promotion and might probably put a stop to theirs; therefore, they gave the inquisitive world to understand that there was something too strong against many great men, as well as the succeeding system of public affairs in general, in the dean's History of the Four Last Years of the Queen's Reign, to admit of a publication in our times; and with this poor insinuation excused themselves, and satisfied the weakly well-affected in suppressing the manifestation of displeasing truths, of however great importance to society.

This manuscript has now fallen into the hands of a man who never could associate with, or even approve, any of the parties or factions that have differently distracted, it might be said disgraced, these kingdoms; because he has as yet known none whose motives or rules of action were truth and the public good alone; of one who judges that perjured magistrates of all denominations, and their most exalted minions, may be exposed, deprived, or cut off by the fundamental laws of his country; and who, upon these principles, from his heart approves and glories in the virtues of his predecessors, who revived the true spirit of the British polity in laying aside a priest-ridden, a hen-pecked, tyrannical tool, who had overturned the political constitution of his country, and in reinstituting the dissolved body politic by a revolution, supported by the laws of nature and the realm, as the only means of preserving the natural and legal, the civil and religious liberties of the members of the commonwealth.

Truth, in this man's estimation, can hurt no good cause. And falsehood and fraud, in religion and politics, are ever to be detected, to be exploded.

Insinuations that this history contained something injurious to the present establishment, and therefore necessary to be suppressed, serve better the purposes of mistaken or insidious malecontents than the real publication can. And if anything were by this or any other history to be shown essentially erroneous in our politics, who that calls himself a Briton can be deemed such an impious slave as to conceal the destructive evil? The editor of this work disdains and abhors the servile thought, and wishes to live no longer than he dares to think, speak, write, and in all things to act worthy of a Briton.

From this regard to truth and to his country, the editor of this History was glad of an opportunity of rescuing such a writing from those who meant to suppress it: the common cause, in his estimation, required and demanded it should be done, and the

sooner it is published, he judged, the better; for if the conduct of the queen and her ministers does not deserve the obloquy that has been long industriously cast upon it, what is more just than to vindicate it? what more reasonable than that this should be done while living witnesses may yet be called to prove or disprove the several allegations and assertions; since in a few years more such witnesses may be as much wanting as to prevent a canonization, which is therefore prudently procrastinated for above an age? Let us then coolly hear what is to be said on this side the question, and judge like Britons.

The editor would not be thought to justify the author of this History in all points, or even to attempt to acquit him of unbecoming prejudices and partiality without being deeply versed in history or politics, he can see his author in many instances blinded with passions that disgrace the historian, and blending with phrases worthy of a Cæsar or a Cicero, expressions not to be justified by truth, reason, or common sense; yet think him a most powerful orator and a great historian.

No unprejudiced person will blame the dean for doing all that is consistent with truth and decency to vindicate the government of the queen, and to exculpate the conduct of her ministers and her last general; all good men would rejoice at such a vindication. But if he meant no more than this, his work would ill deserve the title of history. That he generally tells truth, and founds his most material assertions upon facts, will I think be found very evident. But there is room to suspect that while he tells no more than the truth he does not tell the whole truth. However, he makes it very clear that the queen's allies, especially our worthy friends the Dutch, were much to blame for the now generally condemned conduct of the queen with regard to the prosecution of the war and the bringing about the peace.

The author's drawings of characters are confessedly partial; for he tells us openly he means not to give characters entire, but such parts of each man's particular passions, acquirements, and habits, as he was most likely to transfer into his political schemes. What writing, what sentence, what character, can stand this torture? What extreme perversion may not, let me say does not, this produce? Yet thus does he choose to treat all men that were not favourers of the latest measures of the queen, when the best that has been said for her shows no more than that she was blindfolded and held in leadingstrings by her ministers.

He does not spare a man confessed by all the world to have discharged the duties of his function like a soldier, like a hero; but charges prince Eugene with raising and keeping up a most horrible mob with intent to assassinate Harley. For all which odious charges he offers not one individual point of proof.

He is not content with laying open again the many faults already publicly proved upon the late duke of Marlborough; but insinuates a new crime by seeming to attempt to acquit him of aspiring at the throne. But this is done in a manner peculiar to this author.

On the other hand he extols the ministers and minions of the queen in the highest terms; and while he robs their antagonists of every good quality, generally gives those wisdom and every virtue that can adorn human nature.

He is not ashamed to attempt to justify what all thinking good men must condemn, the queen's making twelve peers at once to serve a particular

1urn.

All these may be ascribed to the strength of his passions, and to the prejudices early imbibed in favour of his indulgent royal mistress and her favourites and servants. The judicious will look through the elegant clothing, and dispassionately consider these as mere human errors to which no well-informed mind can assent. The editor thinks himself bound to protest against them.

He makes a few lapses on the other side, without being as clear as an impartial historian would choose to appear. He more than hints at the queen's displeasure at its being moved in parliament that the prince elector should be invited to reside in England, to whose crown he was by law declared presumptive heir; but is always open upon the queen's insisting on the pretender's being sent out of France. It is easy to see how incompatible these things appear: nothing could tend more to secure the Hanover succession and to enlarge its benefits to Britain than the bringing over the successor, who should in every country be well instructed in the language, customs, manners, religion, and laws of his future subjects, before he comes to hold the reins of government. And our author does not take the proper care to inform us how far the French thought fit to comply with banishing the pretender their dominions; since many still live in doubt that if he was sent out of France he was sent into England.

But there is one expression of our author too perverse, too grossly abused, to admit of any apology, of any palliation. It is not to be supposed that he was ignorant of any word in the English language; and least of all can be supposed ignorant of the meaning of a word which, had it been ever so doubtful before, had a certain meaning impressed upon it by the authority of parliament of which no sensible subject can be ignorant.

Notwithstanding this, where our author speaks of the late king James he calls him the abdicated king, and gives the same epithet even to his family. Though this weak, ill-advised, and ill-fated prince in every sense of the word with Romans and English, and to all intents and purposes, abdicated, yet can he in no sense be called abdicated; unless the people's asserting their rights and defending themselves against a king who broke his compact with his subjects and overturned their government can be called abdication in them; which no man in his senses can be hardy enough to support upon any principle of reason or the laws of England. Let the reader judge which this is most likely to be, error or design.

These exceptions the editor thought himself bound to make to some parts of this work, to keep clear of the disagreeable imputations of being of a party of whatsoever denomination, in opposition to truth and the rights and liberties of the subject.

These laid aside, the work will be found to have many beauties, many excellencies. Some have of late affected to depreciate this history, from an insinuation made only since the author's death, to wit, that he was never admitted into the secrets of the administration, but made to believe he was a confident, only to engage him in the list of the ministerial writers of that reign.

The falsehood of this will readily appear upon perusal of this work. This shows he knew the most secret springs of every movement in the whole complicated machine; that he states facts too well known to be contested, in elegant simplicity, and reasons upon them with the talents of the greatest historian; and thus makes a history composed rather of negotiations than actions most entertain