NUMB. 14.[1]

FROM THURSDAY OCTOBER 26 TO THURSDAY NOVEMBER 2, 1710.

--_Longa est injuria, longae
Ambages, sed summa sequar fastigia rerum_.[2]

It is a practice I have generally followed, to converse in equal freedom
with the deserving men of both parties; and it was never without some
contempt, that I have observed persons wholly out of employment, affect
to do otherwise: I doubted whether any man could owe so much to the side
he was of, though he were retained by it; but without some great point of
interest, either in possession or prospect, I thought it was the mark of
a low and narrow spirit.

It is hard, that, for some weeks past, I have been forced in my own
defence, to follow a proceeding that I have so much condemned in others.
But several of my acquaintance among the declining party, are grown so
insufferably peevish and splenetic, profess such violent apprehensions
for the public, and represent the state of things in such formidable
ideas, that I find myself disposed to share in their afflictions, though
I know them to be groundless and imaginary, or, which is worse, purely
affected. To offer them comfort one by one, would be not only an
endless, but a disobliging task. Some of them, I am convinced would be
less melancholy, if there were more occasion. I shall therefore, instead
of hearkening to further complaints, employ some part of this paper for
the future, in letting such men see, that their natural or acquired fears
are ill-grounded, and their artificial ones as ill-intended. That all
our present inconveniencies,[3] are the consequence of the very counsels
they so much admire, which would still have increased, if those had
continued: and that neither our constitution in Church or State, could
probably have been long preserved, without such methods as have been
lately taken.

The late revolutions at court, have given room to some specious
objections, which I have heard repeated by well-meaning men, just as they
had taken them up on the credit of others, who have worse designs. They
wonder the Queen would choose to change her ministry at this juncture,[4]
and thereby give uneasiness to a general who has been so long successful
abroad; and might think himself injured, if the entire ministry were not
of his own nomination. That there were few complaints of any consequence
against the late men in power, and none at all in Parliament; which on
the contrary, passed votes in favour of the chief mi