quence) goes on upon
a supposition affectedly serious, that their Majesties, and the whole
Royal Family, have been lately bitterly and publicly inveighed against
in the most enormous and treasonable manner. Now, being a man, as you
well know, altogether out of business, I do sometimes lose an hour in
reading a few of those controversial papers upon politics, which have
succeeded for some years past to the polemical tracts between Whig and
Tory: and in this kind of reading (if it may deserve to be so called)
although I have been often but little edified, or entertained, yet hath
it given me occasion to make some observations. First, I have observed,
that however men may sincerely agree in all the branches of the Low
Church principle, in a tenderness for dissenters of every kind, in a
perfect abhorrence of Popery and the Pretender, and in the most firm
adherence to the Protestant succession in the royal house of Hanover;
yet plenty of matter may arise to kindle their animosities against each
other from the various infirmities, follies, and vices inherent in
mankind.

Secondly, I observed, that although the vulgar reproach which charges
the quarrels between ministers, and their opposers, to be only a
contention for power between those who are in, and those who would be in
if they could; yet as long as this proceeds no further than a scuffle of
ambition among a few persons, it is only a matter of course, whereby the
public is little affected. But when corruptions are plain, open, and
undisguised, both in their causes and effects, to the hazard of a
nation's ruin, and so declared by all the principal persons and the bulk
of the people, those only excepted who are gainers by those corruptions:
and when such ministers are forced to fly for shelter to the throne,
with a complaint of disaffection to majesty against all who durst
dislike their administration: such a general disposition in the minds of
men, cannot, I think, by any rules of reason, be called the "clamour of
a few disaffected incendiaries," gasping[217] after power. It is the
true voice of the people; which must and will at last be heard, or
produce consequences that I dare not mention.

I have observed thirdly, that among all the offensive printed papers
which have come to my hand, whether good or bad, the writers have taken
particular pains to celebrate the virtues of our excellent King and
Queen, even where these were, strictly speaking, no part of the subject: