Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/268

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LETTERS TO AND FROM

the same time, I know nothing is so rash as predicting upon the events of publick councils; and I see many accidents very possible to happen which may soon defeat all my wise conjectures.

I am, my lord,

your grace's most dutiful

and most humble obedient servant.




FROM MR. PRIOR[1].


PARIS, APRIL 8, 1713.


PRAY take this word writ after our packet is closed, and the messenger staying for it, as an equivalent for your dispatches at midnight when the writer was half asleep. Hang me if I know how to go on, though I am in a country where every body does not only write letters, but print them. Our great affair goes on very successfully. We transmit the Spanish treaty, concluded at Madrid, for your approbation in England, and transmission to Utrecht; after which, I think, pax sit will become authentick Latin: after which, I suppose, our society will flourish, and I shall have nothing to do but to partake of that universal protection, which it will receive. In the mean time, pray give my great respects to our brethren[2]; and tell them, that, while

  1. He was plenipotentiary to France.
  2. The sixteen. See note to a letter from lord Harley to Swift, dated July 17, 1714.

in