Series 1 > Loyall dissuasive

VINDICATION OF SIR .ENEAS MACPHERSON 191
thing I was sure of, never to forgive myself; so, rejected the
proposall at a time I was put to hard shifts to get a dinner
for my family. But God was alsufficient and never failed to
provyde for me in my extremity, and at y41 time, more to my
hearty content then ever, for within a week after, I had 50 lb.
by order of my Royall Mistress the Queen’s Majestie from a
Gentleman I never saw before or since, qrof I was more proud
then if I had had als many thousands from the present
Government. But lastlie,
Can anything be imagined more absurd or ridiculous then
that of so many hundreds of the King’s friends I have still con¬
versed with since the revolution, Mr. Paine alone should suffer
by my mean. If I had been capable of such a nefarious villany,
I could easily have made my fortune at the expense of his
ruin; but I was so far from intertaining any such thought
that I am free to say and imprecate, that if ever I answered
any question put to me by the present powers to Mr. Paine’s
loss or disadvantage, may the God who created me for ever
damm me, and whosoever of my acquaintance (strangers I
excuse) says or believes the contrary be yr quality what will, in
the Government or out of it, they are very ill men; fitter to
be citizens of Hell than members of any society on earth. And
I leave to you to judge if on this point I had not truth and
sincerity on my side, if it were not a bad way to make or
confirm my Court, to give those in the Government such a rude
treatment, and to say or swear a falshood in a matter con¬
sistent to their knowledge.
But least some snarling adversary may suggest that I am in
this safe, under the protection of your privacy: to take off all
cavvills of that kind, I am content the preceeding paragraph be
printed in my name, if you please, and I oblidge myself on
honour to own it. So much I think, may suffice touching Mr.
Paine’s case, the first branch and article of my libell.
I come now to the second (viz.) that I employed my interest
with the Clanns to perswade ’em to submission to the present
Government; a figment never believed by any but such as
wish’d my ruin, and vented by my accusers, against yr own
knowledge, only to load me and gain the greater credite to yr
1 yt = that.