FROM THURSDAY JUNE 7, TO THURSDAY JUNE 14, 1711.[2]
Melius non tangere clamo.[3]
When a general has conquered an army, and reduced a country to obedience, he often finds it necessary to send out small bodies, in order to take in petty castles and forts, and beat little straggling parties, which are otherwise, apt to make head and infest the neighbourhood: This case exactly resembles mine; I count the main body of the Whigs entirely subdued; at least, till they appear with new reinforcements, I shall reckon them as such; and therefore do now find myself at leisure to Examine inferior abuses. The business I have left, is, to fall on those wretches that will be still keeping the war on foot, when they have no country to defend, no forces to bring into the field, nor any thing remaining, but their bare good-will towards faction and mischief: I mean, the present set of writers, whom I have suffered, without molestation, so long to infest the town. Were there not a concurrence from prejudice, party, weak understanding, and misrepresentation, I should think them too inconsiderable in themselves to deserve correction: But as my endeavour hath been to expose the gross impositions of the fallen party, I will give a taste, in the following petition, of the sincerity of these their factors, to shew how little those writers for the Whigs were guided by conscience or honour, their business being only to gratify a prevailing interest.
"To the Right Honourable the present M[inist]ry, the humble Petition of the Party Writers to the late M[inist]ry.