Mr Pulteney


Swift says, in a letter to Mr. Pulteney: I will do an unmannerly thing,

which is to bequeath you an epitaph for forty years hence, in two words,

ultimus Britannorum. You never forsook your party. You might often

have been as great as the court can make any man so; but you preserved

your spirit of liberty when your former colleagues had utterly

sacrificed theirs; and if it shall ever begin to breathe in these days,

it m
st entirely be owing to yourself and one or two friends; but it is

altogether impossible for any nation to preserve its liberty long under

a tenth part of the present luxury, infidelity, and a million of

corruptions. We see the Gothic system of limited monarchy is

extinguished in all the nations of Europe. It is utterly extirpated in

this wretched kingdom, and yours must be next. Such has ever been human

nature, that a single man, without any superior advantages either of

body or mind, but usually the direct contrary, is able to attach twenty

millions, and drag them voluntarily at his chariot wheels. But no more

of this: I am as sick of the world as I am of age and disease. I live in

a nation of slaves, who sell themselves for nothing.



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