discover, from their conduct, to be
determined to comply with every government; and such as have, therefore,
nothing to fear from a change of masters.

The men, for whose sake I am now speaking, sir, laugh equally with
myself at the apprehensions of those whom they contribute to terrify;
they know too well the impotence of the pretender to dread an invasion
from him, and affect only to continue their outcries, that they may not
be deprived of a topick, on which, by long practice, they have attained
an uncommon facility of haranguing, which they know how to diversify
with various combinations of circumstances, and how to accommodate to
any emergent occasion, without the pain of torturing their inventions.

It may be useful, sir, to inform these men, that their disguise ought at
last to be thrown off, because it deceives no longer, and that the
nation cannot be cheated but at the expense of more cunning than they
are willing, or perhaps able, to display. A mask must necessarily be
thrown aside, when, instead of concealing, it discovers him by whom it
is used.

Those who are attempting, sir, to deceive others, and whose character is
exalted, in their own opinion, in proportion to the success of their
endeavours, have surely a sense of shame, though they have none of
virtue, and cannot, without pain, find their artifices detected, and
themselves made the objects of ridicule, by those stratagems which they
employ for the deception of others.

I hope, therefore, sir, that, for their own sakes, these declaimers on
the exploded story of the pretender, will change their bugbear, that if
it be necessary to frighten those whom they want art or eloquence to
persuade, they will find out some other object of terrour, which, after
a little practice in private meetings, they may first produce in the
court, and then turn loose in the senate.

The world, methinks, allows them a sufficient choice of tyrants more
formidable than the pretender. Suppose they should revive the history of
the Mohocks. The Mohocks are a dreadful race, not to be mentioned
without horrour, by a true lover of his country, and a steady adherent
to the house of Hanover; they might then very easily increase our army,
or enhance our taxes; for who would not be urged by his wife and
daughter to agree to any measures that might secure them from the
Mohocks?

But as an army is, at present, likely to be kept up for our defence,
against an enemy less formidable, it