The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 10 eBook

I shall not be very uneasy under the obloquy that may, perhaps, be cast upon me by the violent leaders and followers of the present prevailing party.  And yet I cannot find the least inconsistence with conscience or honour, upon the death of so excellent a princess as her late Majesty, for a wise and good man to submit, with a true and loyal heart, to her lawful Protestant successor; whose hereditary title was confirmed by the Queen and both Houses of Parliament, with the greatest unanimity, after it had been made an article in the treaty, that every prince in our alliance should be a guarantee of that succession.  Nay, I will venture to go one step farther; that, if the negotiators of that peace had been chosen out of the most professed zealots for the interests of the Hanover family, they could not have bound up the French king, or the Hollanders, more strictly than the Queen’s plenipotentiaries did, in confirming the present succession; which was in them so much a greater mark of virtue and loyalty, because they perfectly well knew, that they should never receive the least mark of favour, when the succession had taken place.

  THE HISTORY OF THE FOUR LAST
  YEARS OF THE QUEEN.

BOOK I.

I propose give the public an account of the most important affairs at home, during the last session of Parliament, as well as of our negotiations of peace abroad, not only during that period, but some time before and since.  I shall relate the chief matters transacted by both Houses in that session, and discover the designs carried on by the heads of a discontented party,[1] not only against the ministry, but, in some manner, against the crown itself.  I likewise shall state the debts of the nation, show by what mismanagement, and to serve what purposes, they were at first contracted, by what negligence or corruption they have so prodigiously grown, and what methods have since been taken to provide not only for their payment, but to prevent the like mischief for the time to come.  Although, in an age like ours, I can expect very few impartial readers, yet I shall strictly follow truth, or what reasonably appeared to me to be such, after the most impartial inquiries I could make, and the best opportunities of being informed, by those who were the principal actors or advisers.[2]

[Footnote 1:  P. Fitzgerald says “faction.” [W.S.J.]]

[Footnote 2:  Swift’s informants were, of course, Harley and Bolingbroke, though the latter stated that Swift was given only such information as served the ministry’s purpose in the work they had given him for “The Examiner” and the party pamphlets written in their defence.  It is, however, quite interesting in this connection, to see how closely Swift’s narrative follows the published political correspondence of Bolingbroke. [T.S.]]

Neither shall I mingle panegyric or satire with an history intended to inform posterity, as well as to instruct those of the present age, who may be ignorant or misled; since facts, truly related, are the best applauses, or most lasting reproaches.