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This was the foundation I ever acted upon with relation to the peace. It is true, that when it was made, and could not be otherwise, I thought our business was to make the best of it, and rather to inquire what improvements were to be made of it, than to be continually exclaiming at those who made it; and where the objection lies against this part, I cannot yet see.

While I spoke of things in this manner, I bore infinite reproaches from clamouring pens, of being in the French interest, being hired and bribed to defend a bad peace, and the like; and most of this was upon a supposition of my writing, or being the author of, abundance of pamphlets which came out every day, and which I had no hand in. And indeed, as I shall observe again by and by, this was one of the greatest pieces of injustice that could be done me, and which I labour still under without any redress; that whenever any piece comes out which is not liked, I am immediately charged with being the author; and very often the first knowledge I have had of a book being published, has been from seeing myself abused for being the author of it, in some other pamphlet published in answer to it.

Finding myself treated in this manner, I declined writing at all, and for a great part of a year never set pen to paper, except in the public paper called the Review. After this I was long absent in the north of England; and, observing the insolence of the jacobite party, and how they insinuated fine things into the heads of the common people, of the right and claim of the pretender, and of the great things he would do for us if he were to come in; of his being to turn a protestant, of his being resolved to maintain our liberties, support our friends, give liberty to dissenters, and the like; and finding that the people began to be deluded, and that the jacobites gained ground among them by these insinuations, I thought it the best service I could do the protestant interest, and the best way to open people’s eyes of the protestant succession, if I took some course effectually to alarm the people with what they really ought to expect, if the pretender should come to be king. And this made me set pen to paper again.

And this brings me to the affirmative part, or to what really I have done; and in this, I am sorry to say, I have one of the foulest, most unjust, and unchristian clamours to complain of, that any man has suffered, I believe, since the days of the tyranny of king James II. The fact is thus:–

In order to detect the influence of jacobite emissaries, as above, the first thing I wrote was a small tract, called A Seasonable Caution; a book sincerely written to open the eyes of the poor, ignorant country people, and to warn them against the subtle insinuations of the emissaries of the pretender; and that it might be effectual to that purpose, I prevailed with several of my friends to give them away among the poor people, all over England, especially in the north; and several thousands were actually given away, the price being reduced so low, that the bare expense of paper and press was only preserved, that every one might be convinced that nothing of gain was designed, but a sincere endeavour to do a public good, and assist to keep the people entirely in the interest of the protestant succession.

Next to this, and with the same sincere design, I wrote two pamphlets, one entituled, What if the Pretender should come? the other, Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover.

Nothing can be more plain than that the titles of these books were amusements, in order to put the books into the hands of those people whom the jacobites had deluded, and to bring them to be read by them.