me,
which he never heard pronounced without agitation. Rather than undergo
the consequence of a conversation upon this subject, he chose to drop
the theme of love altogether, and industriously introduced some other
topic of discourse.

CHAPTER XCVII.

He writes against the Minister, by whose Instigation he is arrested, and
moves himself by habeas corpus into the Fleet.

My lady having prolonged her stay beyond the period of a common visit,
and repeated her protestations in the most frank and obliging manner,
took her leave of our adventurer, who promised to pay his respects to
her in a few days at her own house. Meanwhile, he resumed his task; and
having finished a most severe remonstrance against Sir Steady, not
only with regard to his private ingratitude, but also to his
maladministration of public affairs, he sent it to the author of a
weekly paper, who had been long a professed reformer in politics, and it
appeared in a very few days, with a note of the publisher, desiring the
favour of further correspondence with the author.

The animadversions contained in this small essay were so spirited and
judicious, and a great many new lights thrown upon the subject with such
perspicuity, as attracted the notice of the public in an extraordinary
manner, and helped to raise the character of the paper in which it was
inserted. The minister was not the last who examined the performance,
which, in spite of all his boasted temper, provoked him to such a
degree, that he set his emissaries at work, and by dint of corruption,
procured a sight of the manuscript in Peregrine's own handwriting, which
he immediately recognised; but, for further confirmation of his opinion,
he compared it with the two letters which he had received from our
adventurer. Had he known the young gentleman's talents for declamation
were so acute, perhaps he would never have given him cause to complain,
but employed him in the vindication of his own measures; nay, he might
still have treated him like some other authors whom he had brought over
from the opposition, had not the keenness of this first assault
incensed him to a desire of revenge. He, therefore, no sooner made
this discovery, than he conveyed his directions to his dependent, the
receiver-general, who was possessed of Pickle's notes. Next day, while
our author stood within a circle of his acquaintance, at a certain
coffee-house, holding forth with great eloquence upon the diseases of
t