You knew, that upon your Tacking the Crolians to the Tribute Bill, the Grandees must reject both, they having declar'd against reading any Bills Tackt together, as being against their Priviledges. Now if you had any Design, it must be to have the Bill of Tribute lost, and that must be to disappoint all the publick Affairs, expose the Queen, break all Measures, discourage the Confederates, and putting all things backward, bring the Gallunarian Forces upon them, and put all Solunaria into Confusion. Now Sir, says he, we cannot have such course Thoughts of you, as to believe you could design such dark, mischievous things as these, and therefore we chose to believe you all Fools, and not fit to be put into a Consolidator again; than Knaves and Traytors to your Country, and consequently fit for a worse Place.
The plainness of the Footman was such, and so unanswerable, that his Master was fain to check him, and so the Discourse broke off, and we shall leave it there, and proceed to the Story.
The Men of the Feather as I have noted, who are represented here by the Consolidator, fell all together by the Ears, and all the Moon was in a combustion. The Case was as follows.
They had three times lost their quallifying Law, and particularly they observ'd the Grandees were the Men that threw it out, and notwithstanding the Plot of the Tackers, as they call'd them, who were as I noted, observ'd to be in Conjunction with the Crolians, yet the Law always past the Feathers, but still the Grandees quasht it.
To show their Resentment at the Grandees, they had often made attempts to mortify them, sometimes Arraigning them in general, sometimes Impeaching private Members of their House, but still all wou'd not do, the Grandees had the better of them, and going on with Regularity and Temper, the Consolidators or Feather-Men always had the worst, the Grandees had the applause of all the Moon, had the last Blow on every Occasion, and the other sunk in their Reputation exceedingly.
It is necessary to understand here, that the Men of the Feather serve in several Capacities, and under several Denominations, and act by themselves, singly consider'd, they are call'd the Consolidator, and the Feathers we mention'd abstracted from their Persons, make the glorious Engine we speak of, and in which, when any suddain Motion takes them, they can all shut themselves up, and away for the Moon.
But when these are joyn'd with the Grandees, and the Queen, so United, they make a great Cortez, or general Collection of all the Governing Authority of the Nation.
When this last Fraction happen'd, the Men of the Feather were under an exceeding Ferment, they had in some Passion taken into their Custody, some good Honest Lunar Country-Men, for an Offence, which indeed few but themselves ever immagin'd was a Crime, for the poor Men did nothing but pursue their own Right by the Law.
'Tis thought the Men of the Feather soon saw they were in the Wrong, but acted like some Men in our World, that when they make a mistake, being too Proud to own themselves in the wrong, run themselves into worse Errors to mend it.
So these Lunar Gentlemen disdaining to have it said they could be mistaken, committed two Errors to conceal one, 'till at last they came to be laught at by all the Moon.