The Gazette

MISCELLANY
A Man of No Party.--From the
Examiner--by Dean Swift.

WHOEVER gives himself this character, you may depend upon it is of a party; but it is such a party as he is ashamed to own. For even when he says he is of no party,' you may observe from the whole drift of his discourse, that he is prejudiced in favor of one party, and that to always the worst. And the true reason of his not declaring it, is that he thinks the party not yet strong enough to protect him. The justice of the cause or the goodness of the intentions, seems to be out of this gentleman's scheme. The only distinction he goes by, is to be politically of no party, that he may be occasionally of either. Others there are, who are really of a party and do not know it; they carry on designs which are kept secret from them, and these indeed are such insignificant tools of a party, that they may properly enough be said to be of no party: they are machines purely passive, and, without any will of their own, obey the impulse of the wheel that moves them. But you shall never hear a man of true principles say, he is a man of no party; he declares he is of a party, if resolutely to stand by and defend the constitution, must be called being of a party. But the other party, it seems, must be divided into two sorts, those who are of a party, and those who are of no party at all. With the gentlemen who apply this latter expression to themselves, I would beg leave to reason thus: either they are of a party, or they are not; if they are, they prevaricate grossly (not to use a more unmanly expression) while they give out to the contrary. If they are not, they ought to be ashamed of such infamous neutrality, and of deserting that cause which they are bound in honor and conscience to defend.