ted the Club, That Mr. President was altogether
wrong in every Supposition he had made, except that one, where the Great
Watch-Coat was said by him to represent Europe, or at least a great Part
of it:--So far he acknowledged he was pretty right; but that he had not
gone far enough backwards into our History to come at the Truth. He then
acquainted them, that the dividing the Great Watch-Coat did, and could,
allude to nothing else in the World but the Partition-Treaty; which, by
the Bye, he told them, was the most unhappy and scandalous Transaction
in all King William's Life: It was that false Step, and that only, says
he, rising from his Chair, and striking his Hand upon the Table with
great Violence; it was that false Step, says he, knitting his Brows and
throwing his Pipe down upon the Ground, that has laid the Foundation of
all the Disturbances and Sorrows we feel and lament at this very Hour;
and as for Trim's giving up the Breeches, look ye, it is almost Word for
Word copied from the French King and Dauphin's Renunciation of Spain and
the West-Indies, which all the World knew (as was the very Case of the
Breeches) were renounced by them on purpose to be reclaim'd when Time
should serve.

This Explanation had too much Ingenuity in it to be altogether slighted;
and, in Truth, the worst Fault it had, seem'd to be the prodigious Heat
of it; which (as an Apothecary, who sat next the Fire, observ'd, in a
very low Whisper to his next Neighbour) was so much incorporated into
every Particle of it, that it was impossible, under such Fermentation,
it should work its defined Effect.

This, however, no way intimidated a little valiant Gentleman, though he
sat the very next Man, from giving an Opinion as diametrically opposite
as East is from West.

This Gentleman, who was by much the best Geographer in the whole Club,
and, moreover, second Cousin to an Engineer, was positive the Breeches
meant Gibraltar; for, if you remember, Gentlemen, says he, tho' possibly
you don't, the Ichnography and Plan of that Town and Fortress, it
exactly resembles a Pair of Trunk-Hose, the two Promontories forming the
two Slops, &c. &c.--Now we all know, continued he, that King George the
First made a Promise of that important Pass to the King of Spain:--So
that the whole Drift of the Romance, according to my Sense of Things, is
merely to vindicate the King and the Parliament in that Transaction,
which made so much Noise in the World.

A Wholesal