192 political progres of Britain. Yune 6. 
call it? What service could a king of Sardinia re- 
turn us adequate to three hundred thousand pounds 
per annum ? As for the sums paid to the Hefsians, 
and the various sums of five hundred thousand pounds’ 
voted i confidence, it would be needlefs to afk’ 
the reader’s opinion. What could Rabelais or Cer- 
vantes have invented more extravagantly ridiculous, 
than the circumstance of paying an hundred thou- 
sand pounds a-year to a king of Poland, and to a 
king of Poland too who was more than half an idiot*,. 
to guarantee our domimions? This was just as. if a 
lion had solicited protection from a mouse. The 
bank of England might, with equal propriety, have 
requested one of their porters to add his. name to the 
firm of their company. The horrid infamy of such 
a breach of trust defies exaggeration. As for the 
faction in parliament, who committed such fathomlefs 
depredations on the property of their countrymen, 
they are to be detested as a herd of banditti, more 
formidable to Britain than all her enemies put toge- 
ther—as wretches fitter for the cells of Newgate than 
the benches of a senate house. 
Could I from the building?s top, 
Hear the rattling thunder drop, 
While the devil upon the roof, 
(If the devil be thunderproof) 
Should with poker fiery-r d, 
Crack the stones, and melt the lead; 
Drive them down on every fkull, 
While THE DEN OF THIEVES is full; 
Quite destroy that harpies nest, 
How might then our isle be blest +! 
*. The king of Prufsia has favoured, us with some curious anecdotes af 
this unhappy, figure. 
+ Swift, on the Irihh House of Commons. 
ye 
