ur treaties and real interest
has nothing to do with our party causes. Instead of seeking for and
taking hold of any pretence to undo Sweden, we ought openly to assist
it. Could our Protestant succession have a better friend or a bolder
champion?

I shall conclude this by thus shortly recapitulating what I have said.
That since the Czar has not only replied to the King of Denmark
entreating the contrary, but also answered our Admiral Norris, that he
would persist in his resolution to delay the descent upon Schonen, and
is said by other newspapers to resolve not to make it then, if he can
have peace with Sweden; every Prince, and we more particularly, ought to
be jealous of his having some such design as I mention in view, and
consult how to prevent them, and to clip, in time, his too aspiring
wings, which cannot be effectually done, first, without the Maritime
Powers please to begin to keep him in some check and awe, and 'tis to be
hoped a certain potent nation, that has helped him forward, can, in some
measure, bring him back, and may then speak to this great enterpriser in
the language of a countryman in Spain, who coming to an image enshrined,
the first making whereof he could well remember, and not finding all the
respectful usage he expected,--"You need not," quoth he, "be so proud,
for we have known you from a plum-tree." The next only way is to
restore, by a peace, to the King of Sweden what he has lost; that checks
his (the Czar's) power immediately, and on that side nothing else can. I
wish it may not at last be found true, that those who have been
fighting against that King have, in the main, been fighting against
themselves. If the Swede ever has his dominions again, and lowers the
high spirit of the Czar, still he may say by his neighbours, as an old
Greek hero did, whom his countrymen constantly sent into exile whenever
he had done them a service, but were forced to call him back to their
aid, whenever they wanted success. "These people," quoth he, "are always
using me like the palm-tree. They will be breaking my branches
continually, and yet, if there comes a storm, they run to me, and can't
find a better place for shelter." But if he has them not, I shall only
exclaim a phrase out of Terence's "Andria":

"Hoccine credibile est aut memorabile
Tanta vecordia innata cuiquam ut siet,
Ut malis gaudeant?"

4. POSTSCRIPT.--I flatter myself that this little history is of that
curious nature