A FINAL ANSWER

TO THE

REMARKS ON THE CRAFTSMAN'S VINDICATION;

And to all the Libels, which have come, or may come from the same quarter against the person last mentioned in the Craftsman of the twenty-second of May, 1731.

It is impossible to have read the papers, which have been published against the writings of the Craftsman, and not have observed that one principal point hath been labored with constant application, and sometimes with a little art. The point I mean hath been this; to make all the disputes about national affairs, and our most important interests, to pass for nothing more than cavils, which have been raised by the pique and resentment of one man, and by the iniquity and dangerous designs of another. Nothing,which could be said or done to inculcate this belief, hath been neglected. The same charges have been repeated almost every week, and the public hath been modestly desired to pay no regard to undeniable facts, to unanswered and unanswerable arguments, because these facts and these arguments were supposed, by the ministerial writers, to come from men, to whom these hirelings ascribed, against all probability, the worst motives, and whose characters they endeavored to blacken without proof. Surely this proceeding rendered it necessary, at least not improper, at the end of those remarks, which were to conclude the collection of the Craftsman, to say something concerning the persons, who had been so particularly attacked on account of the part which they, who railed at them, were pleased to suppose that these gentlemen had in the writings contained in that collection. This, I say, was necessary; at least proper; not in order to raise a spirit, as it is impertinently sug

gested in the libel which lies before me; but to refute calumny, and to remove at least some of those prejudices, which had been raised, or renewed, on the occasion of these writings, and which were employed to weaken the effect of them; an effect, which may be said with truth to have been aimed at the noble pair of brothers; since it keeps up a national spirit of inquiry and watchfulness, which it is the interest of these persons, as it hath been their endeavor, to stifle; and which it is the interest of every other man in Britain to preserve in himself, and to nourish in others; an effect, which cannot be said, without the greatest untruth, to have been aimed against the present settlement; since the highest insolence which can be offered to his majesty, is to attempt to blend his interest and his cause with those of his unworthy servants, as the tools of these unworthy servants are every day employed to do, and probably at his majesty's expense.

Something was said therefore by the Craftsman, in his journal of the twenty-second of May, to the purpose I have mentioned. If he went out of his way, (for he ought most certainly to confine himself to things, and meddle with persons as little as possible) he went out of it on great provocation. He carried truth and reason along with him; and he used a moderation and a decency, to which his adversaries are strangers.

To set this matter in a full light, let us consider what he said; let us consider how he hath been answered; and by fairly comparing both, let us put the whole merits of this cause upon one short but decisive issue. It will be time afterwards to make a few observations on the clamor raised; on the reasons and designs of it; in a word, to detect the mean artifice and silly expedients to which the two honorable patrons of the remarker are reduced. In doing this, I shall neither affect to declaim, nor to inveigh, though I have before me an inexhaustible fund of matter for both, and the law of retaliation to bear me out. As I am persuaded, the men I have to do with, can raise no passion in the person concerned, so have I no need of endeavoring to raise the passions of others.-But to proceed.

The Craftsman took notice of those accusations which are brought against the gentleman he mentions in the second place. -I meddle not with the defence of the other, which hath been undertaken by an abler pen. Some of these he answered in general only; and yet he answered them as particularly as he ought to have done for reasons of honor, which are touched upon by him, and which shall be a little more opened by me.

But there were other points, not at all affected by these reasons, on which no explanation was necessary to be given by the accused, and on which the Craftsman had a right to demand proofs from the accusers. They were points of a more deter

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mined nature; such as admitted of no different constructions; such as could not be altered by circumstances. They were of a more public nature; such as the men, who brought the accusations must have it in their power to prove, if they were true; and such therefore as must be false, if the men, who brought the accusations, were not able and ready to prove them.

On these the Craftsman insisted. He affirmed propositions directly contrary to the accusations brought. He appealed to unquestionable authority for the truth of what he affirmed; and to one in particular, which should have been treated with more respect by the remarker, since it will outweigh, at home and abroad, a thousand such authorities as those of his patrons. He challenged all mankind to produce one single proof in contradiction of any one of the general affirmations.

Was there any thing unfair, or indecent in this proceeding?Was there any thing in it, which could provoke the choler of those who are friends to truth and justice? If they, who brought these accusations, had been such, an opportunity was presented to them of convicting the guilty man at the very tribunal before which his cause had been pleaded. By producing proof on these heads, they had it in their power to condemn him upon all the rest; and if this part of the charge was made good, the opinion of mankind would have been fairly enough decided as to the other.

Issue being joined therefore in this manner, the accused person must be found guilty of all the crimes laid to his charge; or his accusers must be found guilty of slander, of calumny, and of the worst sort of assassination."

Thus the Craftsman left the matter. Let us see what hath been said in answer to him.

I pass over the many scurrilous productions of those weekly ministerial scolds, who are hired to call names, and are capable of little more. The elaborate libel, entitled "Remarks on the Craftsman's Vindication," seems to be the utmost effort of their and their patron's collected strength; and though I have waited several days to see if they had any more scandal to throw out, yet I never doubted an instant from what quarter this remarkable piece came into the world.

The whole pamphlet is one continued invective, and deserves no more to be called Remarks on the Craftsman, or an answer to him, than the railing and raving and throwing of filth by a madman deserve to be called an answer to those who unwarily pass too near his cell. All that malice could ever invent, or the credulity of parties, inflamed by opposition, receive, is assembled. Truth is disguised by misrepresentation, and even many things which the noble pair know to be false, are affirmed as true.

But you will ask, perhaps, whether the challenge is not accepted, and whether proofs are not brought to contradict the plain and positive affirmations made by the Craftsman? I answer, the challenge is accepted, and the remarker assures us that he hath brought proof in numerous instances against these affirmations; which is the more generous, because the Craftsman exacted but one single proof in contradiction of any of them.

The first of these affirmations was, that the gentleman concerned never entered into engagements, or any commerce with the Pretender, till he had been attainted and cut off from the body of his majesty's subjects.-Let us examine the facts, which we find scattered up and down in the remarks, which may be applied to prove, in opposition to this affirmation, what hath been so often asserted, that this gentleman was a zealous jacobite and an agent of the Pretender, even in the reign of the late queen.

The first fact of this kind is this. He left the kingdom. His high treason, among other crimes, was confessed by his shameful flight.

Had the libeller proved this high treason, I might agree that the gentleman's leaving his country was a consequence; but I can never admit that it is a proof of his guilt. Could no other reason for leaving his country be given, except his guilt, his leaving his country would be a strong presumption against him. But many other reasons will soon occur to those who remember the passages of that time; and reasons there are of a more private nature still, which would be very far, to say no more, from reflecting dishonor on a step, which is called, by these foulmouthed advocates of power, shameful aud ignominious. One thing it may be proper to assure them of, that they may pretend to mistake the Craftsman, and to misapply his words no more. It is this. The gentleman never declined a contest with the two honorable patrons of this libel. One of them was, in those days, below his notice; and he never found, upon trial, that he had reason to apprehend being foiled by the other. But we must not yet dismiss this article.

If the proof we are examining proved any thing, it would prove too much. If to decline, in certain circumstances, a trial; if to go into voluntary exile, either before a trial, or even after condemnation, were absolute proofs of guilt, the conduct of many greater and better men than the person now accused would deserve our censure, and that of calumniators, as vile as these libellers, would merit our approbation. Metellus and Rutilius must be condemned. Apuleius and Apicius must be justified.

This sort of proof therefore not appearing sufficient to make good the charge, that this gentleman was engaged with the Pre

tender before his attainder, great pains are taken, and much rhetoric is employed to show, what we shall not presume to contradict, that he ought not to have engaged in that cause after his attainder. Neither did the Craftsman insist on this circumstance as a defence of the person accused. He fixed this date of the engagements mentioned, in contradiction to those who had falsely affirmed that these engagements were much more ancient. But he neither urged it as a defence, nor pleaded it as an excuse; and yet I am persuaded that this very circumstance had some weight with his late majesty, when that excellent prince, the mildness of whose temper, and the clemency of whose nature, would have rendered him amiable in the most private station, and made him almost adorable in that great elevation, to which the providence of God had raised him; when that excellent prince, I say, was pleased, on his own motion, and without any application from the person here spoken of, to extend his present, and promise his future favor to him.

Though the Craftsman did neither say nor intend what has been objected by the remarker to him, yet he might perhaps mean something more than hath been observed; and if he did mean it, he meant to inculcate upon this occasion, a very useful, general truth. Let us grant that the man, who engages against his country, even when he has been oppressed in it, or driven out of it by violence, is not to be defended; that these are occasions, wherein we ought to kiss the rod, which scourges us, and reverence that authority, which we think has been unjustly exercised against us. But then let it be granted likewise, that human passions are so strong, and human reason so weak, that men, who suffer persecution or who imagine they suffer it, are seldom able to keep within these bounds of heroical moderation. They will be apt to seize the opportunities which may be offered, of resisting, or of attempting to repair the injuries done them. They will flatter themselves, that they do not vow their revenge against the people, the innocent and collective body of their countrymen, nor go about to subvert the constitution of the government. They will persuade others, nay they will persuade themselves, that they do not seek revenge, but redress; nor aim to destroy the law, which punishes, but to prevent the abuse of it, which persecutes. Thus will men, who actually suffer, be apt to reason; and if the case be common to numbers, they will be apt to proceed from reasoning on such principles, to act upon them. Wise governments therefore have been careful to distinguish between punishment and persecution; have never suffered the former, however just, necessary, or severe, to carry the least appearance of the latter. Ludlow was justly punished. My Lord Clarendon, whom the remarker hath so strangely yoked