utmost opposed him (king James) and his party after his
abdication; and had served king William to his satisfaction, and the
friends of the revolution after his death, at all hazards and upon all
occasions; that had suffered and been ruined under the administration of
high-fliers and jacobites, of whom some at this day counterfeit whigs.
It could not be! The nature of the thing could by no means allow it; it
must be monstrous; and that the wonder may cease, I shall take leave to
quote some of the expressions out of these books, of which the worst
enemy I have in the world is left to judge whether they are in favour of
the pretender or no; but of this in its place. For these books I was
prosecuted, taken into custody, and obliged to give 800_l._ bail.

I do not in the least object here against, or design to reflect upon,
the proceedings of the judges which were subsequent to this. I
acknowledged then, and now acknowledge again, that upon the information
given, there was a sufficient ground for all they did; and my unhappy
entering upon my own vindication in print, while the case was before
their lordships in a judicial way, was an error which I did not
understand, and which I did not foresee; and therefore, although I had
great reason to reflect upon the informers, yet I was wrong in making
that defence in the manner and time I then made it; and which when I
found, I made no scruple afterwards to petition the judges, and
acknowledge they had just ground to resent it. Upon which petition and
acknowledgment their lordships were pleased, with particular marks of
goodness, to release me, and not to take the advantage of an error of
ignorance, as if it had been considered and premeditated.

But against the informers I think I have great reason to complain; and
against the injustice of those writers who, in many pamphlets, charged
me with writing for the pretender, and the government with pardoning an
author who wrote for the pretender. And, indeed, the justice of these
men can be in nothing more clearly stated than in this case of mine;
where the charge, in their printed papers and public discourse, was
brought; not that they themselves believed me guilty of the crime, but
because it was necessary to blacken the man, that a general reproach
might serve for an answer to whatever he should say that was not for
their turn. So that it was the person, not the crime, they fell upon;
and they may justly be said to persecute for the