the fanatics made Cromwell the most
absolute tyrant in Christendom:[8] The Rump abolished the House of Lords;
the army abolished the Rump; and by this army of _saints_, he governed.
The Dissenters took liberty of conscience and employments from the late
King James, as an acknowledgment of his dispensing power; which makes a
King of England as absolute as the Turk. The Whigs, under the late king,
perpetually declared for keeping up a standing army, in times of peace;
which has in all ages been the first and great step to the ruin of
liberty. They were, besides, discovering every day their inclinations to
destroy the rights of the Church; and declared their opinion, in all
companies, against the bishops sitting in the House of Peers: which
was exactly copying after their predecessors of 'Forty-one. I need not
say their real intentions were to make the king absolute, but whatever be
the designs of innovating men, they usually end in a tyranny: as we may
see by an hundred examples in Greece, and in the later commonwealths of
Italy, mentioned by Machiavel.

In the third place, the Whigs accuse us of a design to bring in the
Pretender; and to give it a greater air of probability, they suppose the
Qu[een] to be a party in this design; which however, is no very
extraordinary supposition in those who have advanced such singular
paradoxes concerning Gregg and Guiscard. Upon this article, their charge
is general, without ever offering to produce an instance. But I verily
think, and believe it will appear no paradox, that if ever he be brought
in, the Whigs are his men. For, first, it is an undoubted truth, that a
year or two after the Revolution, several leaders of that party had their
pardons sent them by the late King James,[9] and had entered upon
measures to restore him, on account of some disobligations they received
from King William. Besides, I would ask, whether those who are under the
greatest ties of gratitude to King James, are not at this day become the
most zealous Whigs? And of what party those are now, who kept a long
correspondence with St. Germains?

It is likewise very observable of late, that the Whigs upon all
occasions, profess their belief of the Pretender's being no impostor, but
a real prince, born of the late Queen's body:[10] which whether it be
true or false, is very unseasonably advanced, considering the weight such
an opinion must have with the vulgar, if they once thoroughly believe it.
Neither is it