See now the difference of styles.  Had I been to have told my thoughts on this occasion; instead of saying how Mr. H[arle]y was “treated by some persons,” and “preserved from some unparalleled attempts”; I should with intolerable bluntness and ill manners, have told a formal story, of a com[mitt]ee[6] sent to a condemned criminal in Newgate, to bribe him with a pardon, on condition he would swear high treason against his master, who discovered his correspondence, and secured his person, when a certain grave politician had given him warning to make his escape:  and by this means I should have drawn a whole swarm of hedge-writers to exhaust their catalogue of scurrilities against me as a liar, and a slanderer.  But with submission to the author of that forementioned paper, I think he has carried that expression to the utmost it will bear:  for after all this noise, I know of but two “attempts” against Mr. H[arle]y, that can really be called “unparalleled,” which are those aforesaid of Gregg and Guiscard; and as to the rest, I will engage to parallel them from the story of Catiline, and others I could produce.

However, I cannot but observe, with infinite pleasure, that a great part of what I have charged upon the late prevailing faction, and for affirming which, I have been adorned with so many decent epithets, hath been sufficiently confirmed at several times, by the resolutions of one or the other House of Parliament.[7] I may therefore now say, I hope, with good authority, that there have been “some unparalleled attempts” against Mr. Harley.  That the late ministry were justly to blame in some management, which occasioned the unfortunate battle of Almanza,[8] and the disappointment at Toulon.[9] That the public has been grievously wronged by most notorious frauds, during the Whig administration.  That those who advised the bringing in the Palatines,[10] were enemies to the kingdom.  That the late managers of the revenue have not duly passed their accounts,[11] for a great part of thirty-five millions, and ought not to be trusted in such employments any more.  Perhaps in a little time, I may venture to affirm some other paradoxes of this kind, and produce the same vouchers.  And perhaps also, if it had not been so busy a period, instead of one “Examiner,” the late ministry might have had above four hundred, each of whose little fingers would be heavier than my loins.  It makes me think of Neptune’s threat to the winds: 

  Quos ego—­sed motos praestat componere fluctus.[12]

Thus when these sons of Aeolus, had almost sunk the ship with the tempests they raised, it was necessary to smooth the ocean, and secure the vessel, instead of pursuing the offenders.