Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/436

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
428
SOME REMARKS ON

company thought it had been one of his servants. When the duke's hand was out, they were talking how much he had won. "Yes, said he, I held in very long; yet methinks I have won but very little." They told him his servant had got the rest in his hat; and then he found he was cheated.

It has been my good fortune to see the most important facts that I have advanced, justified by the publick voice; which, let this author do what he can, will incline the world to believe that I may be right in the rest. And I solemnly declare, that I have not wilfully committed the least mistake. I stopped the second edition, and made all possible inquiries among those who I thought could best inform me, in order to correct any errour I could hear of; I did the same to the third and fourth editions, and then left the printer to his liberty. This I take for a more effectual answer to all cavils, than a hundred pages of controversy.

But what disgusts me from having any thing to do with the race of answerjobbers, is, that they have no sort of conscience in their dealings: to give one instance in this gentleman's third part, which I have been lately looking into. When I talk of the most petty princes, he says that I mean crowned heads; when I say the soldiers of those petty princes are ready to rob or starve at home, he says I call kings and crowned heads robbers and highwaymen. This is what the whigs call answering a book.

I cannot omit one particular concerning this author, who is so positive in asserting his own facts, and contradicting mine; he affirms, that the business of Toulon was discovered by the clerk of a certain great man, who was then secretary of state. It

is