Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/113

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DR. SWIFT.
101

scandalous paper, and a reproach to the justice of the nation.

But that posthumous work came out in excellent season for him. The church was wonderfully prevented for him, which made her overlook the mortal wound he had given her through the side of the state. The state was possessed by his grandchild. The witnesses against his falsehoods and calumnies were no more in being. That England, which had him in the greatest detestation in 1667, and for many years after, subsisted no longer. The lists, both ecclesiastical and civil, were thronged either with the unwary admirers of his style, or with those that owed their fortunes to his motley establishments. His perpetual running down of the Irish, was no small help toward gaining him a general benevolence among the English and Scots, whose rank treasons he had taken so much pains to soften, or to spare. His books had frontlets of Scripture to recommend and sanctify all their venom. This is but the second part of the Spanish hypocrisy in America, while they murdered whole nations in cold blood, with their beads in their hands.

How could any better dealings be expected from a man who had resolved to make his fortune at any rate, nay at the expense of his trust, honour, and loyalty when abroad; as most of his companions in the former privy council had done before him, to keep their estates at home? He had none to lose that could be as beneficial to him as his attendance on his exiled master. However, in order to bid fair for one, it is notorious, that in the year 1657, when he found his master's affairs desperate, he made his peace and terms with Cromwell, by the mediation of Mr. secre-

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tary