ABSTRACT
It is impossible to have read the papers, which have been published against the writings of the Craftsman, and not have observed that one principal point hath been labored with constant application, and sometimes with a little art. The point I mean hath been this; to make all the disputes about national affairs, and our most important interests, to pass for nothing more than cavils, which have been raised by the pique and resentment of one man, and by the iniquity and dangerous designs of another. Nothing, which could be said or done to inculcate this belief, hath been neglected. The same charges have been repeated almost every week, and the public hath been modestly desired to pay no regard to undeniable facts, to unanswered and unanswerable arguments, because these facts and these arguments were supposed, by the ministerial writers, to come from men, to whom these hirelings ascribed, against all probability, the worst motives, and whose characters they endeavored to blacken without proof. Surely this proceeding rendered it necessary, at least not improper, at the end of those remarks, which were to conclude the collection of the Craftsman, to say something concerning the persons, who had been so particularly attacked on account of the part which they, who railed at them, were pleased to suppose that these gentlemen had in the writings contained in that collection. This, I say, was necessary; at least proper; not in order to raise a spirit, as it is impertinently suggested 457in the libel which lies before me; but to refute calumny, and to remove at least some of those prejudices, which had been raised, or renewed, on the occasion of these writings, and which were employed to weaken the effect of them; an effect, which may be said with truth to have been aimed at the noble pair of brothers; since it keeps up a national spirit of inquiry and watchfulness, which it is the interest of these persons, as it hath been their endeavor, to stifle; and which it is the interest of every other man in Britain to preserve in himself, and to nourish in others; an effect, which cannot be said, without the greatest untruth, to have been aimed against the present settlement; since the highest insolence which can be offered to his majesty, is to attempt to blend his interest and his cause with those of his unworthy servants, as the tools of these unworthy servants are every day employed to do, and probably at his majesty’s expense.
