o the
queen, or to any benefactor, can justify any man's acting against the
interest of his country, against his principles, his conscience, and his
former profession.

I think this will anticipate all that can be said upon that head, and it
will then remain to tell the fact, as I am not chargeable with it; which
I shall do as clearly as possible in a few words.

It is none of my work to enter into the conduct of the queen or of the
ministry in this case; the question is not what they have done, but what
I have done; and though I am very far from thinking of them as some
other people think, yet, for the sake of the present argument, I am to
give them all up, and suppose, though not granting, that all which is
suggested of them by the worst temper, the most censorious writer, the
most scandalous pamphlet or lampoon should be true; and I'll go through
some of the particulars, as I meet with them in public.

1st. That they made a scandalous peace, unjustly broke the alliance,
betrayed the confederates, and sold us all to the French.

God forbid it should be all truth, in the manner that we see it in
print; but that I say is none of my business. But what hand had I in all
this? I never wrote one word for the peace before it was made, or to
justify it after it was made; let them produce it if they can. Nay, in a
Review upon that subject while it was making, I printed it in plainer
words than other men durst speak it at that time, that I did not like
the peace, nor did I like any peace that was making since that of the
partition, and that the protestant interest was not taken care of either
in that or the treaty of Gertrudenburgh before it.

It is true that I did say, that since the peace was made, and we could
not help it, that it was our business and our duty to make the best of
it, to make the utmost advantage of it by commerce, navigation, and all
kind of improvement that we could, and this I say still; and I must
think it is more our duty to do so than the exclamations against the
thing itself, which it is not in our power to retrieve. This is all that
the worst enemy I have can charge me with. After the peace was made, and
the Dutch and the emperor stood out, I gave my opinion of what I
foresaw would necessarily be the consequence of that difference, viz.,
that it would inevitably involve these nations in a war with one or
other of them; any one who was master of common sense in the public
affairs might see that th