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Tis a practice I have generally followed, to converse in equal freedom with the deferving men of both parties; and it was never without fome contempt, that I have obferved perfons wholly out of employment affect to do otherwife. I doubted, whether any man could owe fo much to the fide he was of, although he were retained by it; but without fome great point of intereft, either in poffeffion or profpect, I thought it was the mark of a low and narrow spirit.

It is hard, that for fome weeks paft I have been forced, in my own defence, to follow a proceeding, that I have fo much condemned in others. But feveral of my acquaintance among the declining party are grown fo infufferably peevifh and splenetic, profefs fuch violent apprehenfions VOL. VIII. B

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for the publick, and represent the state of things in fuch formidable ideas, that I find myself disposed to share in their afflictions; although I know them to be groundless and imaginary, or, which is worse, purely affected. To offer them comfort one by one, would be not only an endless, but a disobliging task. Some of them, I am convinced, would be lefs melancholy if there were more occafion. I fhall therefore, inftead of hearkening to farther complaints, employ fome part of this paper for the future in letting fuch men fee, that their natural or acquired fears are ill-grounded, and their artificial ones as ill-intended; that all our present inconveniences are the confequence of the very counfels they fo much admire, which would still have encreafed if those had continued; and that neither our constitution in church or state could probably have been long preserved without fuch methods, as have been already taken.

THE late revolutions at court have given room to fome fpecious objections, which I have heard repeated by well-meaning men,

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