for something against the Examiner, that would pretend to tax accounts; and turning over Virgil, he had the luck to find these words,
fugiant examina taxos:
So down they went, and out they would have come, if one of his unlucky prompters had not hindered it.
I here declare, once for all, that if these people will not be quiet, I shall take the bread out of their mouths, and answer the Examiner myself; which I protest I have never yet done, although I have been often charged with it; neither have those answers been written or published with my privity, as malicious people are pleased to give out; nor do I believe the common whiggish report, that the authors are hired by the ministry, to give my paper a value.
But the friends of this paper have given me more uneasiness with their impatience, than its enemies, by their answers. I heard myself censured last week, by some of the former, for promising to discover the corruptions of the late administration, but never performing any thing. The latter, on the other side, are thundering out their anathemas against me, for discovering so many. I am at a loss how to decide between these contraries, and shall therefore proceed after mv own way, as I have hitherto done; my design being of more importance, than that of writing only to gratify the spleen of one side, or provoke that of the other, although it may occasionally have both effects.
I shall therefore go on to relate some facts, that in my humble opinion were no hindrance to the change of the ministry.
