Fawning and cajoling will have but little effect on those who have had the honour of your acquaintance these ten years past, for Caligula who used to hide his head if he heard the thunder, would piss upon the statues of the gods when he thought the danger over—­A better expedient is this,——­

Tell men the Drapier is a Tory and a Jacobite.—­That he writ “The Conduct of the Allies.”—­That he writ not his letters with a design to keep out Wood’s halfpence, but to bring in the Pretender; persuade them if you can, the dispute is no longer about the power of judges over juries, nor how much the liberty of the subject is endangered by dissolving them at pleasure, but that it is now become mere Whig and Tory, a dispute between His Majesty’s friends and the Jacobites, and ’twere better to see a thousand grand juries discharged than the Tories carry a question though in the right.—­Haec vulnera pro libertate publica excepi, hunc oculum pro vobis impendi. Try this cant, pin a cloth over your eyes, look very dismal, and cry, “I was turned out of employment, when the Drapier was rewarded with a Deanery,” I say, my lord, if you can once bring matters thus to bear, I have not the least doubt you may escape without censure.

To your lordship’s zeal and industry without doubt is owing, that the Papists and the Tories have not delivered this kingdom over to the Pretender, so Caesar conquered Pompey that Legum auctor et eversor, and ’twas but just the liberty and laws of Rome should afterwards depend upon his will and pleasure.——­The Drapier in his letter to Lord Molesworth has made a fair offer, “Secure his country from Wood’s coinage,” then condemn all he has writ and said as false and scandalous, when your lordship does as much I must confess it will be somewhat difficult to discover the impostor.

Thus to keep my word with your lordship, I have much against my inclinations writ this, which shall be my last upon the ungrateful subject.—­If I have leisure, and find a safe opportunity of giving it to the printer, my next shall explain what has long duped the true Whigs of this kingdom.  I mean honesty in the “worst of times."

Though your lordship object to my last, that what I writ was taken out of Lord Coke, Lord Somers, Sir Will.  Jones, or the writings of some other great men, yet I will venture to end this with the sentiments of Philip de Comines upon some thorough-going courtiers.

“If a sixpenny tax is to be raised, they cry by all means it ought to be double.  If the prince is offended with any man, they are directly for hanging him.  In other instances, they maintain the same character.  Above all things they advise their king to make himself terrible, as they themselves are proud, fierce, and overbearing, in hopes to be dreaded by that means, as if authority and place were their inheritance.”

I am,
My Lord,
Your Lordship’s most
obedient and most
humble servant. 
N.N.
Jan. 4, 1724-5.