The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

To the Printers of the New-Hampshire Gazette!

Please to insert the following.

Extract of an original Letter from Dean Swift to Mr. Pope:

Dear POPE,

AM wonderfully pleased with the Publication of your Ethical Epistles, on Account of that hearty aversion to Ministers and Courts, which breathes through several of the Passages. Perhaps I am the more taken with your Sentiments on this head, because they are sufficient Authority for some Opinions advanced by myself: and you know we are always certain of allowing other People's Notions to be of Weight and Importance, when they bear any Conformity to our own. I don't know how it is, but I never lik'd a Minister in all my Days. Our Friends Oxford and Bolingbroke I had a sincere value for in their private Stations, but in their public Capacity, I looked upon them both, (and you know I have said it to their Faces) as little better than a couple of Rascals.----

This regard to their abstracted Merit as Individuals, has frequently led me to support Tenets diametrically opposite to my Principles; and I have often engaged as a Champion for the Conduct of the Ministers, because I had a cordial Affection for the Integrity of the Men. There is such an honest openness in Harley, and so apparent an Ingenuousness in St. John, that I am attached to their Interest in spite of my Teeth, and left, while I Labour to rescue them from the Name of Scoundrels in their Offices, to sink under the weight of the d---n-'d Appellation myself. In fact, Pope, I believe it impossible for any Minister to be an honest Man. There are Fifty Thousand trap-doors, from the very nature of his Office, in which it is next to impossible but his Integrity must tumble.

One Right Honorable Rascal or other, has eternally some Strumpet to provide for, or some Cuckold to recommend, in preference to the Claims of real Worth, and the Pretensions of the truely deserving, not to mention any Thing of a Minister's own Friends, his Implements and Dependents, who all naturally expect to be provided for in course. Thus situated, a Man at the Head of Affairs is obliged very frequently to overlook the Solicitations of Services and Merit, as I have this Moment observed and exposes himself to the Resentment of many disappointed Levee-danglers, from an utter Impossibility to provide for all. Hence a number of Enemies are certain of attacking him at every Quarter, and, as the Battery in some Places be justly enough levelled, the report must be heard without End. But as Wealth and Power are always sure of finding Advocates, we never see a Minister without a Number of literary Mercenaries employed in his Defence to refute the Arguments of Malice, or evade the Accusations of Truth: To knock on the Head with the Hammer of plump Contradiction, or to puzzle by a fallacious representation of Facts. These worthy Gentlemen, did they really consider the true Interest of the Minister, would never endeavour at any Thing like a fair Dispute. A round Lie ought to be given to every Assertion, prejudicial to his Reputation, and this would produce such a Number of Replies, that the Public would soon give up the Discussion of the Point. The General Plea which is used by Ministerial Advocates; and a Plea which I myself have used with Success, is, that an Attack upon the Minister is an Affront upon the Crown: and that there is no Accusation laid at the Door of a Secretary, that is not an indirect Reflection on the King. This is a pleasant Way of Reasoning to be sure; for by the express Declaration of our Laws, an English Prince is a piece of royal Infallibility, incapable of doing wrong; as this Position is universally admitted, it must consequently follow, that let us patter as we please, not a bit of Dirt can stick upon the Monarch, or even if it could, would the Monarch be an honester sensible Man, to be offended, if it was apparently evident he was in the wrong? Duty and Reverence is all Stuff, Pope, the Prince who is offended at Censure, ought never to furnish a Cause for it! and the King who would exact Obedience, ought to deserve the Affection of his People; this is the Voice of Reason, and the Prince who is listning to it, may possibly be feared: but I'll stake my Salvation, that he can never be loved.

The Position, that a King can do no Wrong; must tax the English Nation with great Injustice, or with great Inconsistency. If a King can do no wrong, why was that pitiful Poltroon James the Second banish'd? And if a King can do wrong, why the Plague are we constantly affirming that he cannot? Either way we stand self-condemned: in the first Place, we must be very wicked Men, if the Position holds, and very foolish Men in the second, if it does not, but Inconsistency is our prevailing Characteristic: and if we are not set down as a Nation of Scoundrels, we must think ourselves pretty easy under the Appellation of Fools.

I am, dear Pope, &c.

J. SWIFT.