majesty's answer to this speech might be as follows:
"Mr. Richard Steele, late gazetteer. &c.
"I do not conceive that any of your titles empower you to be my director, or to report to me the expectations of my people. I know their expectations better than you; they love me, and will trust me. My ministers were of my own free choice; I have found them wise and faiihful; and whoever calls them fools or knaves, designs indirectly an affront to myself. I am under no obligations to demolish Dunkirk, but to the most christian king; if you come here as an orator from that prince to demand it in his name, where are your powers? If not, let it suffice you to know, that I have my reasons for deferring it; and that the clamours of a faction, shall not be a rule, by which I or my servants are to proceed."
Mr. Steele tells you, "his adversaries are so unjust, they will not take the least notice of what led him into the necessity of writing his letter to the Guardian." And how is it possible, any mortal should know all his necessities? Who can guess, whether this necessity were imposed on him by his superiours, or by the itch of party, or by the mere want of other matter to furnish out a Guardian?
But Mr. Steele "has had a liberal education, and knows the world as well as the ministry does, and will therefore speak on, whether he offends them or no, and though their clothes be ever so new; when he thinks his queen and country is
