at amphibious race of
courtiers between servants and ministers; such as the steward,
chamberlain, treasurer of the household and the like, being all of the
privy council, and some of the cabinet, who according to their talents,
their principles, and their degree of favour, may be great instruments
of good or evil, both to the subject and the prince; so that the
parallel is by no means adequate between a prince's court and a private
family. And yet if an insolent footman be troublesome in the
neighbourhood; if he breaks the people's windows, insults their
servants, breaks into other folk's houses to pilfer what he can find,
although he belong to a duke, and be a favourite in his station, yet
those who are injured may, without just offence, complain to his lord,
and for want of redress get a warrant to send him to the stocks, to
Bridewell, or to Newgate, according to the nature and degree of his
delinquencies. Thus the servants of the prince, whether menial or
otherwise, if they be of his council, are subject to the enquiries and
prosecutions of the great council of the nation, even as far as to
capital punishment; and so must ever be in our constitution, till a
minister can procure a majority even of that council to shelter him;
which I am sure you will allow to be a desperate crisis under any party
of the most plausible denomination.

The only instance you produce, or rather insinuate, to prove the late
invectives against the King, Queen, and Royal Family, is drawn from that
deduction of the English history, published in several papers by the
_Craftsman_; wherein are shewn the bad consequences to the public, as
well as to the prince, from the practices of evil ministers in most
reigns, and at several periods, when the throne was filled by wise
monarchs as well as by weak. This deduction, therefore, cannot
reasonably give the least offence to a British king, when he shall
observe that the greatest and ablest of his predecessors, by their own
candour, by a particular juncture of affairs, or by the general
infirmity of human nature, have sometimes put too much trust in
confident, insinuating, and avaricious ministers.

Wisdom, attended by virtue and a generous nature, is not unapt to be
imposed on. Thus Milton describes Uriel, "the sharpest-sighted spirit in
heaven," and "regent of the sun," deceived by the dissimulation and
flattery of the devil, for which the poet gives a philosophical reason,
but needless here to quot