Prince Eugene’s visit to his friends in England continued longer than was expected; he was every day entertained magnificently by persons of quality of both parties; he went frequently to the treasurer, and sometimes affected to do it in private; he visited the other ministers and great officers of the court, but on all occasions publicly owned the character and appellation of a Whig; and in secret, held continual meetings with the Duke of Marlborough, and the other discontented lords, where M. Bothmar usually assisted.  It is the great ambition of this prince to be perpetually engaged in war, without considering the cause or consequence; and to see himself at the head of an army, where only he can make any considerable figure.  He is not without a natural tincture of that cruelty, sometimes charged upon the Italians; and being nursed in arms, hath so far extinguished pity and remorse, that he will at any time sacrifice a thousand men’s lives, to a caprice of glory or revenge.  He had conceived an incurable hatred for the treasurer, as the person who principally opposed this insatiable passion for war; said he had hopes of others, but that the treasurer was un mechant diable, not to be moved; therefore, since it was impossible for him or his friends to compass their designs, while that minister continued at the head of affairs, he proposed an expedient, often practised by those of his country, that the treasurer (to use his own expression) should be taken off, a la negligence; that this might easily be done, and pass for an effect of chance, if it were preceded by encouraging some proper people to commit small riots in the night:  and in several parts of the town, a crew of obscure ruffians were accordingly employed about that time, who probably exceeded their commission; and mixing themselves with those disorderly people that often infest the streets at midnight, acted inhuman outrages on many persons, whom they cut and mangled in the face and arms, and other parts of the body, without any provocation; but an effectual stop was soon put to these enormities, which probably prevented the execution of the main design.[75]

[Footnote 75:  Erasmus Lewis, Lord Oxford, and the others who read the MS., advised the elimination of this insinuation against Prince Eugene.  They thought there was truth in it, but “a matter of so high a nature,” as Lewis expressed it to Swift, “ought not to be asserted without exhibiting the proofs.”  The paragraph following the one in the text, containing the imputation, seems as if it had been written after Swift had received Lewis’s strictures. [T.S.]]

I am very sensible, that such an imputation ought not to be charged upon any person whatsoever, upon slight grounds or doubtful surmises; and that those who think I am able to produce no better, will judge this passage to be fitter for a libel than a history; but as the account was given by more than one person who was at the meeting, so it was confirmed past all contradiction by several intercepted letters and papers:  and it is most certain, that the rage of the defeated party, upon their frequent disappointments, was so far inflamed, as to make them capable of some counsels yet more violent and desperate than this, which, however, by the vigilance of those near the person of Her Majesty, were happily prevented.