Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/313

the signs of it in a kingdom or state are, first, good laws; and secondly, those laws well executed: we are pretty well provided with the former, but extremely defective in the latter. — Secondly, what are our tempers and our hearts at home? If by ours he means those of himself and his abettors, they are most damnably wicked; impatient for the death of the queen; ready to gratify their ambition and revenge, by all desperate methods; wholly alienate from truth, law, religion, mercy, conscience, or honour. — Thirdly, in what hands is power lodged abroad? To answer the question naturally, Lewis XIV is king of France, Philip V (by the counsels and acknowledgments of the whigs) is king of Spain, and so on. If by power he means money; the duke of Marlborough is thought to have more ready money than all the kings of Christendom together; but, by the peculiar disposition of Providence, it is locked up in a trunk, to which his ambition has no key: and that is our security. — Fourthly, are our unnatural divisions our strength? I think not; but they are the sign of it, for being unnatural they cannot last; and this shows, that union, the foundation of all strength, is more agreeable to our nature. — Fifthly, is it nothing to us, which of the princes of Europe has the longest sword? Not much, if we can tie up his hands, or put a strong shield into those of his neighbours; or if our sword be as sharp as his is long; or if it be necessary for him to turn his own sword into a ploughshare; or if such a sword happens to be in the hands of an infant, or struggled for by two competitors. — Sixthly, the powerful hand that deals out crowns and kingdoms all around us, may it not in time reach a king