Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/408

of the pretender, and to enable the French king to assist him; and is not he, in that monarch's opinion as well as his own, their lawful prince? I except against the emperor and the states; because it can be proved upon them, that the plaintiffs and they have an understanding together. I except against any prince who makes unreasonable demands, and threatens to recall his troops if they be not complied with; because they have been forced of late to change their language, and may perhaps be shortly obliged to observe their articles more strictly. I should be sorry, for the appealers sakes, to have their case referred to the kings of Sweden and Denmark, who infallibly would decree them to be all hanged up for their insolence to their sovereign. But, above all, the king of Spain would certainly be against them, when he considers with how scandalous a neglect his interests have been managed; and that the full possession of his kingdom was made a sacrifice to those, whose private or party interest swayed them to the continuance of the war. The author had reason to omit the grand seignior and czar in the list of his judges: The decrees of those princes are too sudden and sanguinary; and their lessons to instruct subjects in behaviour to their princes, by strangling them with a bowstring, or flinging them to be devoured alive by hogs, were enough to deter them from submitting to their jurisdiction.

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