But I will put the truth of my assertion, past all doubt:  I mean, that this liquor is by one important innovation, grown of ill example, and dangerous consequence to the public.  It is well known, that, by the true original institution of making punch, left us by Captain Ratcliffe, the sharpness is only occasioned by the juice of lemons, and so continued till after the happy Revolution.  Oranges, alas! are a mere innovation, and in a manner but of yesterday.  It was the politics of Jacobites to introduce them gradually:  And, to what intent?  The thing speaks itself.  It was cunningly to shew their virulence against his sacred Majesty King William, of ever glorious and immortal memory.  But of late, (to shew how fast disloyalty increaseth) they came from one or two, and then to three oranges; nay, at present we often find punch made all with oranges, and not one single lemon.  For the Jacobites, before the death of that immortal Prince, had, by a superstition, formed a private prayer, that, as they squeezed the orange, so might that Protestant King be squeezed to death[177]:  According to that known sorcery described by Virgil,

  Limus ut hic durescit, et haec ut cera liquescit, &c.
                                             [Ecl. viii. 80.]

And, thus the Romans, when they sacrificed an ox, used this kind of prayer.  “As I knock down this ox, so may thou, O Jupiter, knock down our enemies.”  In like manner, after King William’s death, whenever a Jacobite squeezed an orange, he had a mental curse upon the “glorious memory,” and a hearty wish for power to squeeze all his Majesty’s friends to death, as he squeezed that orange, which bore one of his titles, as he was Prince of Orange.  This I do affirm for truth; many of that faction having confessed it to me, under an oath of secrecy; which, however, I thought it my duty not to keep, when I saw my dear country in danger.  But, what better can be expected from an impious set of men, who never scruple to drink confusion to all true Protestants, under the name of Whigs? a most unchristian and inhuman practice, which, to our great honour and comfort, was never charged upon us, even by our most malicious detractors.

The sign of two angels, hovering in the air, and with their right hands supporting a crown, is met with in several parts of this city; and hath often given me great offence:  For, whether by the unskilfulness, or dangerous principles of the painters, (although I have good reasons to suspect the latter) those angels are usually drawn with such horrid countenances, that they give great offence to every loyal eye, and equal cause of triumph to the Jacobites being a most infamous reflection upon our most able and excellent ministry.

I now return to that great enormity of our city cries; most of which we have borrowed from London.  I shall consider them only in a political view, as they nearly affect the peace and safety of both kingdoms; and having been originally contrived by wicked Machiavels, to bring in Popery, slavery, and arbitrary power, by defeating the Protestant Succession, and introducing the Pretender, ought, in justice, to be here laid open to the world.