opinion of this monstrous step in
politics; I would ask him what we must do, in case we find it impossible
to recover Spain? Those among the Whigs who believe a God, will confess,
that the events of war lie in His hands; and the rest of them, who
acknowledge no such power, will allow, that Fortune hath too great a
share in the good or ill success of military actions, to let a wise man
reason upon them, as if they were entirely in his power. If Providence
shall think fit to refuse success to our arms, with how ill a grace, with
what shame and confusion, shall we be obliged to recant that precipitate
address, unless the world will be so charitable to consider, that
parliaments among us, differ as much as princes, and that by the fatal
conjunction of many unhappy circumstances, it is very possible for our
island to be represented sometimes by those who have the least
pretensions to it. So little truth or justice there is in what some
pretend to advance, that the actions of former senates, ought always to
be treated with respect by the latter; that those assemblies are all
equally venerable, and no one to be preferred before another: by which
argument, the Parliament that began the rebellion against King Charles
the First, voted his trial, and appointed his murderers, ought to be
remembered with respect.

But to return from this digression; it is very plain, that considering
the defectiveness of our laws, the variety of cases, the weakness of the
prerogative, the power or the cunning of ill-designing men, it is
possible, that many great abuses may be visibly committed, which cannot
be legally punished: especially if we add to this, that some enquiries
might probably involve those, whom upon other accounts, it is not
thought convenient to disturb. Therefore, it is very false reasoning,
especially in the management of public affairs, to argue that men are
innocent, because the law hath not pronounced them guilty.

I am apt to think, it was to supply such defects as these, that satire
was first introduced into the world; whereby those whom neither religion,
nor natural virtue, nor fear of punishment, were able to keep within the
bounds of their duty, might be withheld by the shame of having their
crimes exposed to open view in the strongest colours, and themselves
rendered odious to mankind. Perhaps all this may be little regarded by
such hardened and abandoned natures as I have to deal with; but, next to
taming or binding a