tremely defective in the latter. Secondly, What are our tempers and our hearts at home? If by ours he means those of himself and his abettors, they are moft damnably wicked; impatient for the death of the QUEEN; ready to gratify their ambition and revenge by all defperate methods; wholly alienate from truth, law, religion, mercy, confcience, or honour.-Thirdly, In what hands is power lodged abroad? To answer the queftion naturally, Louis XIV. is king of France, Philip V. (by the counfels and acknowledgements of the whigs) is king of Spain, and fo on. If by power he means money; the duke of Marlborough is thought to have more ready money than all the kings of Christendom together; but, by the peculiar difpofition of Providence, it is locked up in a trunk, to which his ambition hath no key; and that is our fecurity.--Fourthly, are our unnatural divisions our strength? I think not; but they are the fign of it; for, being unnatural, they cannot laft; and this fhews, that union, the foundation of all ftrength, is more agreeable to our nature.---Fifthly, Is it nothing to us, which of the princes of Europe has the longest fword? Not much, if we can tie up his hands, or put a ftrong field into thofe of his neighbours; or, if our fword be as sharp as his is long; or, if it be neces-. fary for him to turn his own fword into a plowshare; or, if fuch a fword happeneth to be in the hands of an infant, or ftruggled for by two competitors.--Sixthly, The powerful hand that deals out crowns and kingdoms all around us, may it not, in time, reach a

king out to us too? If the powerful hand he means be that of France, it may reach out as many kings as it pleaseth; but we will not accept them. Whence does this man get his intelligence? I fhould think, even his brother Ridpath might furnish him with better. What crowns or kingdoms hath France dealt about? Spain was given by the will of the former king, in confequence of that infamous treaty of partition, the adviser of which will, I hope, never be forgot in England. Sicily was difpofed of by her majesty of Great Britain; fo, in effect, was Sardinia. France indeed once reached out a king to Poland, but the people would not receive him. This queftion of Mr. Steele's was therefore only put in terrorem without any regard to truth.---Seventhly, Are there no pretentions to our crown that can never be revived? There may, for ought I know, be about a dozen; and thofe in time may poffibly beget a hundred; but we must do as well as we can. Captain Beffus, when he had fifty challenges to anfwer, protefted he could not fight above three duels a day. If the pretender should fail (says the writer), the French king has, in his quiver, a fucceffion of them; the duchefs of Savoy, or her fons, or the dauphin her grandfon. Let me suppose the chevalier de St. George to be dead; the duchefs of Savoy will then be a pretender, and confequently muft leave her husband, because his royal highnefs (for Mr. Steele has not yet acknowledged him for a king) is in alliance with her British majefty; her fons, when they grow pritenders, muft undergo the fame fate. But I am

at a lofs how to difpofe of the dauphin, if he hap❤ pen to be king of France before the pretendership to Britain falls to his fhare; for, I doubt, he will never be perfuaded to remove out of his own kingdom, only because it is too near England.

But the duke of Savoy did, fome years ago, put in his claim to the crown of England, in right of his wife; and he is a prince of great capacity, in ftritt alliance with France, and may therefore very well add to our fears of a popish fucceffor. Is it the fault of the prefent, or of any ministry, that this prince put in his claim; must we give him opium to destroy his capacity? or can we prevent his alliance with any prince, who is in peace with her majefty? Must we fend to ftab or poifon all the popish princes, who have any pretended title to our crown by the prox imity of blood? What, in the name of God, can these people drive at? what is it they demand? Suppofe the present dauphin were now a man, and king of France, and next popish heir to the crown of England; is he not excluded by the laws of the land? But what regard will he have to our laws? I anfwer; hath not the QUEEN as good a title to the crown of France? and how is the excluded, but by their law against the fucceffion of females, which we are not bound to acknowledge? And is it not in our power to exclude female fucceffors, as well as in theirs? If fuch a pretence fhall prove the cause of a war, what human power can prevent it? But our caufe muft neceffarily be good and righteous; for either the kings of England have been un

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justly kept out of the poffeffion of France, or the dauphin, although nearest of kin, can have no legal title to England. And he must be an ill prince indeed, who will not have the hearts and hands of ninety-nine in an hundred among his fubjects against fuch a popish pretender.

I have been the longer in anfwering the feventh queftion, because it led me to confider all he had afterwards to fay upon the subject of the pretender. ----Eighthly, and laftly, he asks himself, Whether popery and ambition are became tame and quiet neighbours? In this I can give him no fatisfaction, because I never was in that street where they live; nor do I converse with any of their friends; only I find they are perfons of a very evil reputation. But I am told for certain, that ambition hath removed her lodging, and lives the very next door to faction, where they keep fuch a racket, that the whole parifh is difturbed, and every night in an uproar.

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Thus much in answer to thofe eight uneafy queftions put by the author to himself, in order to fatisfy every Briton, and give him an occafion of taking an impartial view of the affairs of Europe in general, as well as of Great Britain in particular.

After enumerating the great actions of the confederate armies under the command of prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough, Mr. Steele obferves, in the bitterness of his foul, that the British general, however unaccountable it may be to pofterity, was not permitted to enjoy the fruits of his glorious labour. Ten years fruits, it feems, were not fufficient;

fufficient; and yet they were the fruitfulleft campaigns that ever any general cropt. However, I cannot but hope, that pofterity will not be left in the dark, but fome care taken both of her majefty's glory, and the reputation of those she employs. An impartial historian may tell the world (and the next age will easily believe what it continues to feel) that the avarice and ambition of a few factious infolent fubjects had almost destroyed their country by continuing a ruinous war in conjunction with allies, for whofe fakes principally we fought, who refufed to bear their juft proportion of the charge, and were connived at in their refufal, for private ends that thefe factious people treated the beft and kindeft of fovereigns with infolence, cruelty, and ingratitude (of which he will be able to produce feveral inftances); that they encouraged perfons and principles alien from our religion and government, in order to ftrengthen their faction: he will tell the reafons, why the general and firft minifter were feduced to be heads of this faction, contrary to the opinions they had always profeffed. Such an hiftorian will fhew many reafons, which made it neceffary to remove the general and his friends, who, knowing the bent of the nation was against them, expected to lofe their power when the war was at an end. Particularly, the historian will discover the whole intrigue of the duke of Marlborough's endeavouring to procure a commiffion to be general for life *; wherein justice will be

[] See Examiner, number xix, and the fubfequent papers,

done