medy is to suppose
that you have heard some inarticulate sounds, without any meaning at
all; and besides, that will take off the horror you might be apt to
conceive at the oaths wherewith he perpetually tags both ends of every
proposition; although, at the same time, I think he cannot with any
justice be taxed with perjury when he invokes God and Christ, because
he has often fairly given public notice to the world that he believes
in neither.

Some people may think that such an accomplishment as this can be of no
great use to the owner, or his party, after it has been often
practised and is become notorious; but they are widely mistaken. Few
lies carry the inventor's mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth
may spread a thousand without being known for the author: besides, as
the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his
believers; and it often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an
hour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it.
Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men
come to be undeceived it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale
has had its effect: like a man who has thought of a good repartee when
the discourse is changed or the company parted; or like a physician
who has found out an infallible medicine after the patient is dead.

Considering that natural disposition in many men to lie, and in
multitudes to believe, I have been perplexed what to do with that
maxim so frequent in everybody's mouth, that truth will at last
prevail. Here has this island of ours, for the greatest part of twenty
years, lain under the influence of such counsels and persons, whose
principle and interest it was to corrupt our manners, blind our
understanding, drain our wealth, and in time destroy our constitution
both in church and state, and we at last were brought to the very
brink of ruin; yet, by the means of perpetual misrepresentations, have
never been able to distinguish between our enemies and friends. We
have seen a great part of the nation's money got into the hands of
those who, by their birth, education, and merit, could pretend no
higher than to wear our liveries; while others, who, by their credit,
quality, and fortune, were only able to give reputation and success to
the Revolution, were not only laid aside as dangerous and useless, but
loaded with the scandal of Jacobites, men of arbitrary principles, and
pensioners to France; while truth,