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procure a majority against you. They will refume their power, with a fpirit like that of Marius or Sylla, or the laft triumvirate; and thofe minifters who have been most cenfured for too much hefitation, will fall the first sacrifices to their vengeance: but these are the fmalleft mifchiefs to be apprehended from fuch returning exiles. What fecurity can a prince hope for his perfon, or his crown, or even for the monarchy itself? He must expect to fee his best friends brought to the scaffold, for afferting his rights; to fee his prerogative trampled on, and his treasure applied to feed the avarice of thofe, who make themfelves his keepers; to hear himself treated with infolence and contempt; to have his family purged at pleasure by their humour and malice; and to retain even the name and fhadow of a king, no longer than his ephori fhall think fit.

Thefe are the inevitable confequences of fuch a change of affairs, as that envenomed party is now projecting; which will beft be prevented by your firmly adhering to the prefent miniftry, until this domeftic enemy is out of all poffibility of making head any more.

THE

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PUBLIC SPIRIT

OF THE

W HIG
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Set forth in their generous Encouragement of the Author of the CRISIS.

WITH

Some Obfervations on the Seafonablenefs, Candour, Erudition, and Style of that Treatife.

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Upon the first publication of this pamphlet, all the Scotch Lords then in London went in a body, and complained to Queen ANNE of the affront put on them and their nation by the Author of this Trea tife. Whereupon a proclamation was published by her Majesty, offering a reward of three hundred pounds to difcover bim.

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Cannot, without fome envy, and a just resentment against the opposite conduct of others, reflect upon that genorofity and tenderness, wherewith the heads, and principal members of ftruggling faction, treat thofe who will undertake to hold a pen in their defence. And the behaviour of these patrons is yet the more laudable, because the benefits they confer are almost gratis. If any of their labourers can fcratch out a pamphlet, they defire no more; there is no queftion offered about the wit, the ftyle, the argument. Let a pamphlet come out upon demand, in a proper juncture, you shall be well and certainly paid; you shall be paid before-hand; every one of the party who is able to read, and can fpare a fhilling, fhall be a fubfcriber; feveral thousands of each production, shall be fent among their friends through the kingdom; the work fhall be reported admirable, fublime, unanfwerable; fhall ferve to raife the finking clamours, and confirm the fcan

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dal, of introducing popery and the pretender, upon the QUEEN and her minifters.

Among the prefent writers on that fide, I can recollect but three of any great diftinction; which are, the Flying-poft, Mr. Dunton, and the author of the Crifis *. The first of thefe, feems to have been much funk in reputation, fince the fudden retreat of the only true, geniune, original author, Mr. Ridpath, who is celebrated by the Dutch Gazetteer, as one of the best pens in England. Mr. Dunton has been longer, and more converfant in books, than any of the three, as well as more voluminous in his productions: however, having employed his studies in fo great a variety of other fubjects, he has, I think, but lately turned his genius to politicks. His famous tract, intituled Neck or nothing, must be allowed to be the fhrewdeft piece, and written with the moft fpirit, of any which has appeared from that fide, fince the change of the ministry: it is indeed a moft cutting fatire upon the lord treafurer, and lord Bolingbroke; and I wonder none of our friends ever undertook to answer it. I confefs, I was at first of the fame opinion with feveral good judges, who from the ftyle and manner, fuppofe it to have iffued from the fharp pen of the earl of Nottingham; and I am ftill apt to think it might receive his lordship's laft hand. The third, and principal of this triumvirate, is the author of the

Mr. Steele was expelled the House of Commons for this pamphlet, at the very fame time that the Houfe of Lords was moved against the Dean for the Reply.

Crifis;

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