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This is illustrated by the Practice of that happy Country we live in, where this Story may perhaps be read, and where very lately, a Law has been made, to unquallifie all such to represent their Country in the Legislation and Power of raising Taxes, who are not possessed of such or such a Porportion in the Lands of their Country, as may suppose them Persons made naturally anxious for the Welfare of the whole, in regard to the Preservation of their Property. Unhappy Atalantis! Had such a Law pass’d for the Qualification of those Noblemen, who should be elected to the great Royal Council of thy Country; and should the Nobility so to be chosen have been limited to but one hundred Perialo’s (a Gold Coin in that Country amounting by Estimation to about 2000 l. a Year Sterling) of yearly Estate in Lands, how few of the Sixteen now chosen could have shewn themselves in that august Meeting.

On the contrary, several of those now sent up, were not able to put themselves into a Posture to undertake the Journey, till they had sold the Magazines of Corn which they had laid up for the Year’s Subsistance of their Families, or mortgaged their small Estates to borrow Money for the Expence.

Nor is it doubted in the least, but when those poor Noblemen come to find some of their Tartarian Expectations frustrated, with which it is manifest they were very Big when they went up; they will sorely regret the Misfortune of their Election; since they must be thereby so reduced, as almost to want Subsistance for their Families; and as for the Debts contracted, it is impossible some of them should ever Pay them.

It has been a too unhappy Truth in other Places as well as in Atalantis Major, That in such popular Elections, whether of Noblemen or others, Men are deluded with the Notion, that to be chosen by their Country to these great Councils of the Nation, must so recommend them, or make them so necessary to the State, to the Government, or the Ministers of State, that they cannot fail to make their Fortunes and raise Estates by their very Appearance: But this is so constantly found to fail, and so many have been almost ruin’d by the Expences they have been at to make a Figure as they call it, and to appear at Court like themselves on such Occasions, that it seems wonderful that Persons of Quality, who know their own Circumstances, and whose Fortunes, through the Disasters of their Families, may not be equal to their Dignity, should on so vain a Presumption push themselves upon the necessity of compleating their own Ruin, beggering their Families, and leaving their Posterity an Estate in Titles and Coronets, Things without the Support of competent Estates the most despicable in the World.

It might be very useful to our Readers, and perhaps something instructing might be gathered from it, with respect to the Affairs of Europe at this Time, to give some Account here of the Success of these strange Proceedings; what Figure these People made, when they came to Court, how they behav’d themselves when they came into the great Council, how they were made Tools there to the Politicians of those Times, even to act against their Interest, their Country, their own Designs.

In doing this, it would appear, How some of the Sixteen, more particularly known to be in the Tartarian Interest, and who had all along declared themselves for the Person and Title of the pretending Prince, who, as is noted before, put in a Claim to the Succession of the Throne: How these, I say, went up to the great Council, wheedled by the Subtilties of Greeniccio, and his Agents, to believe seriously that they went up directly to declare his Title; that they should be the Men that should have the Honour to declare his Right in the great Council of the Nobility; and that he should for the future own his Restoration, his Glory, and his Crown, to their Loyalty and steddy acting for him. This, they did not doubt, should tend not to their Honour only, but to the raising their decay’d Fortunes, for they were miserably Poor; since he could do no less than confer the greatest Trusts upon Persons who had with so much Fidelity acted for his Glory and Interest.