nions
of the English nation." He recalled the nation to a consideration of the
Constitution; he attributed to the people (because, of course, they had
elected the new ministry into power) an appreciation of what was best for
the protection of their ancient privileges and rights. The past twenty
years had been a period of mismanagement, in which the Constitution had
been ignored; "but the body of the people is wiser; and by the choice
they have made, shew they do understand our Constitution, and would bring
it back to the old form." "The nation has groaned under the intolerable
burden of those who sucked her blood for gain. We have carried on wars,
that we might fill the pockets of stock-jobbers. We have revised our
Constitution, and by a great and united national effort, have secured our
Protestant succession, only that we may become the tools of a faction,
who arrogate to themselves the whole merit of what was a national act. We
are governed by upstarts, who are unsettling the landmarks of our social
system, and are displacing the influence of our landed gentry by that of
a class of men who find their profit in our woes." The rule of the
tradesman must be replaced by the rule of those whose lives are bound up
with the land of their country. The art of government was not "the
importation of nutmegs, and the curing of herrings;" but the political
embodiment of the will of "a Parliament freely chosen, without
threatening or corruption," and "composed of landed men" whose interests
being in the soil would be at one with the interests of those who lived
on the soil. Whigs and Tories may dispute as they will among themselves
as to the best side from which to defend the country; but the men of the
true party are the men of the National party--they "whose principles in
Church and State, are what I have above related; whose actions are
derived from thence, and who have no attachment to any set of ministers,
further than as these are friends to the Constitution in all its parts;
but will do their utmost to save their Prince and Country, whoever be at
the Helm".[1]

In this spirit and in such wise did Swift temper his time and champion
the cause of those men who had chosen him. This was a kind of "examining"
to which neither the Whigs nor the Tories had been accustomed. It shed
quite a new light on matters, which the country at large was not slow to
appreciate. Throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom "The
Examiner" was w