of new gods into the empire. Upon this foundation was built the whole conduct of our affairs; and, since a great majority of the kingdom was at that time reckoned to favour the Vortes faction, who, in the regular course of elections, must certainly be chosen members of the senate then to be convoked; it was necessary, by the force of money, to influence elections in such a manner, that your Majesty's father might have a sufficient number to weigh down the scale on his side, and thereby carry on those measures which could only secure him and his family in the possession of the empire. To support this original plan I came into the service: But the members of the senate, knowing themselves every day more necessary, upon the choosing of a new senate, I found the charges to increase; and that, after they were chosen, they insisted upon an increase of their pensions; because they well knew that the work could not be carried on without them: And I was more general in my donatives, because I thought it was more for the honour of the crown, that every vote should pass without a division; and that, when a debate was proposed, it should immediately be quashed, by putting the question.

"Sir, The date of the present senate is expired, and your Imperial Majesty is now to convoke a new one; which, I confess, will be somewhat more expensive than the last, because the Yortes, from your favourable reception, have begun to reassume a spirit whereof the country had some intelligence; and we know the majority of the people, without proper management, would be still in that fatal interest. However, I dare undertake, with the charge only of four hundred thousand sprangs,1 to return as great a majority of senators of the true stamp, as your Majesty can desire. As to the sums of money paid in foreign courts, I hope, in some years, to ease the nation of them, when we and our neighbours come to a good understanding. However, I will be bold to say, they are cheaper than a war, where your Majesty is to be a principal.

"The pensions, indeed, to senators and other persons, must needs increase, from the restiveness of some, and scrupulous nature of others; and the new members, who

1 About a million sterling. [D. S.]

are unpractised, must have better encouragement. However, I dare undertake to bring the eventual charge within eight hundred thousand sprangs. But, to make this easy, there shall be new funds raised, of which I have several schemes ready, without taxing bread or flesh, which shall be referred to more pressing occasions.

"Your Majesty knows it is the laudable custom of all Eastern princes, to leave the whole management of affairs, both civil and military, to their viziers. The appointments for your family, and private purse, shall exceed those of your predecessors: You shall be at no trouble, further than to appear sometimes in council, and leave the rest to me: You shall hear no clamour or complaints: Your senate shall, upon occasions, declare you the best of princes, the father of your country, the arbiter of Asia, the defender of the oppressed, and the delight of mankind.

Sir, Hear not those who would most falsely, impiously, and maliciously insinuate, that your government can be carried on without that wholesome, necessary expedient, of sharing the public revenue with your faithful deserving senators. This, I know, my enemies are pleased to call bribery and corruption. Be it so: But I insist, that without this bribery and corruption, the wheels of government will not turn, or at least will be apt to take fire, like other wheels, unless they be greased at proper times. If an angel from heaven should descend, to govern this empire upon any other scheme than what our enemies call corruption, he must return from whence he came, and leave the work undone.

"Sir, It is well known we are a trading nation, and consequently cannot thrive in a bargain where nothing is to be gained. The poor electors, who run from their shops, or the plough, for the service of their country, are they not to be considered for their labour and their loyalty? The candidates, who, with the hazard of their persons, the loss of their characters, and the ruin of their fortunes, are preferred to the senate, in a country where they are strangers, before the very lords of the soil; are they not to be rewarded for their zeal to your Majesty's service, and qualified to live in your metropolis as becomes the lustre of their stations?

"Sir, If I have given great numbers of the most profitable employments among my own relations and nearest allies, it was not out of any partiality, but because I know them best, and can best depend upon them. I have been at the pains to mould and cultivate their opinions. Abler heads might probably have been found, but they would not be equally under my direction. A huntsman, who hath the absolute command of his dogs, will hunt more effectually than with a better pack, to whose manner and cry he is a stranger.

"Sir, Upon the whole, I will appeal to all those who best knew your royal father, whether that blessed monarch had ever one anxious thought for the public, or disappointment, or uneasiness, or want of money for all his occasions, during the time of my administration? And, how happy the people confessed themselves to be under such a king, I leave to their own numerous addresses; which all politicians will allow to be the most infallible proof how any nation stands affected to their sovereign."

Lelop-Aw, having ended his speech and struck his forehead thrice against the table, as the custom is in Japan, sat down with great complacency of mind, and much applause of his adherents, as might be observed by their countenances and their whispers. But the Emperor's behaviour was remarkable; for, during the whole harangue, he appeared equally attentive and uneasy. After a short pause, His Majesty commanded that some other counsellor should deliver his thoughts, either to confirm or object against what had been spoken by Lelop-Aw.

THE ANSWER OF THE RIGHT HON.

WILLIAM PULTENEY, ESQ., TO THE

RIGHT HON. SIR ROBERT

WALPOLE.'

Oct. 15, 1730.

A

SIR,

PAMPHLET was lately sent me, entitled, "A Letter from the Right Honourable Sir R. W. to the Right Honourable W. P. Esq; occasioned by the late Invectives on the King, her Majesty, and all the Royal Family." By these initial letters of our names, the world is to understand that you and I must be meant. Although the letter seems to require an answer, yet because it appears to be written rather in the style and manner used by some of your pensioners, than your own, I shall allow you the liberty to think the same of this answer, and leave the public to determine which of the two actors can better personate their principals. That frigid and fustian way of haranguing wherewith your representer begins, continues, and ends his declamation, I shall leave to the critics in eloquence and propriety to descant on; because it adds nothing to the weight of your accusations, nor will my defence be one grain the better by exposing its puerilities.

This piece is included here on the authority of Mr. Deane Swift, and was accepted by Sir Walter Scott on the same authority. The writing is excellent and bears every mark of Swift's hand. In the note to the "Letter to the Writer of the Occasional Paper" was included the heads of a paper which Swift suggested, found by Sir H. Craik. The present "Answer" may serve as further evidence of Sir H. Craik's suggestion that Swift may have assisted Pulteney and Bolingbroke on more than one occasion.

The present text is that of the 1768 quarto edition. [T. S.]

I shall therefore only remark upon this particular, that the frauds and corruptions in most other arts and sciences, as law, physic (I shall proceed no further) are usually much more plausibly defended than in that of politics; whether it be, that by a kind of fatality the vindication of a corrupt minister is always left to the management of the meanest and most prostitute writers; or whether it be, that the effects of a wicked or unskilful administration, are more public, visible, pernicious and universal. Whereas the mistakes in other sciences are often matters that affect only speculation; or at worst, the bad consequences fall upon few and private persons. A nation is quickly sensible of the miseries it feels, and little comforted by knowing what account it turns to by the wealth, the power, the honours conferred on those who sit at the helm, or the salaries paid to their penmen; while the body of the people is sunk into poverty and despair. A Frenchman in his wooden shoes may, from the vanity of his nation, and the constitution of that government, conceive some imaginary pleasure in boasting the grandeur of his monarch, in the midst of his own slavery; but a freeborn Englishman, with all his loyalty, can find little satisfaction at a minister overgrown in wealth and power from the lowest degree of want and contempt; when that power or wealth are drawn from the bowels and blood of the nation, for which every fellow-subject is a sufferer, except the great man himself, his family, and his pensioners. I mean such a minister (if there hath ever been such a one) whose whole management hath been a continued link of ignorance, blunders, and mistakes in every article besides that of enriching and aggrandizing himself.

For these reasons the faults of men, who are most trusted in public business, are, of all others, the most difficult to be defended. A man may be persuaded into a wrong opinion, wherein he hath small concern: but no oratory can have the power over a sober man against the conviction of his own senses: and therefore, as I take it, the money thrown away on such advocates might be more prudently spared, and kept in such a minister's own pocket, than lavished in hiring a corporation of pamphleteers to defend his conduct, and prove a kingdom to be flourishing in trade and wealth, which every particular subject (except those few already excepted)