he Queen's administration,
(for I neither have it by me, nor can suddenly have recourse to it;) but
if it were otherwise, I know not how it can refer to any dangers but what
were past, or at that time present; or how it could affect the future,
unless the senators were all _inspired_, or at least that majority which
voted it. Neither do I see any crime further than ill manners, to differ
in opinion from a majority of either or both Houses; and that ill
manners, I must confess I have been often guilty of for some years past,
though I hope I never shall again.

Another topic of great use to these weekly inflamers, is the young
Pretender[11] in France, to whom their whole party is in a high measure
indebted for all their greatness; and whenever it lies in their power,
they may perhaps return their acknowledgments, as out of their zeal for
frequent revolutions, they were ready to do to his supposed father:
which is a piece of secret history, that I hope will one day see the
light; and I am sure it shall, if ever I am master of it, without
regarding whose ears may tingle.[12] But at present, the word _Pretender_
is a term of art in their possession: A secretary of state cannot desire
leave to resign, but the Pretender is at bottom: the Queen cannot
dissolve a Parliament, but it is a plot to dethrone herself, and bring in
the Pretender. Half a score stock-jobbers are playing the knave in
Exchange-Alley, and there goes the Pretender with a sponge. One would be
apt to think they bawl out the Pretender so often, to take off the
terror; or tell so many lies about him, to slacken our caution, that when
he is really coming, _by their connivance_, we may not believe them; as
the boy served the shepherds about the coming of the wolf. Or perhaps
they scare us with the Pretender, because they think he may be like some
diseases, that come with a fright. Do they not believe that the Queen's
present ministry love her Majesty, at least as well as _some others_
loved the Church? And why is it not as great mark of disaffection now to
say the Queen is in danger, as it was some months ago to affirm the same
of the Church? Suppose it be a false opinion, that the Queen's right is
hereditary and indefeasible; yet how is it possible that those who hold
and believe that doctrine, can be in the Pretender's interest? His title
is weakened by every argument that strengthens hers. It is as plain as
the words of an Act of Parliament can make it, that her