And this is the best argument I can offer in defence of great men, who have been of late so very unhappy in the choice of their paper-champions; although I cannot much commend their good husbandry, in those exorbitant payments of twenty and sixty guineas at a time for a scurvy pamphlet; since the sort of work they require is what will all come within the talents of any one who hath enjoyed the happiness of a very bad education, hath kept the vilest company, is endowed with a servile spirit, is master of an empty purse, and a heart full of malice.
But, to speak the truth in soberness; it should seem a little hard, since the old Whiggish principle hath been recalled of standing up for the liberty of the press, to a degree that no man, for several years past, durst venture out a thought which did not square to a point with the maxims and practices that then prevailed: I say, it is a little hard that the vilest mercenaries should be countenanced, preferred, rewarded, for discharging their brutalities against men of honour, only upon a bare conjecture.
If it should happen that these profligates have attacked an innocent person, I ask what satisfaction can their hirers give in return? Not all the wealth raked together by the most corrupt rapacious ministers, in the longest course of unlimited power, would be sufficient to atone for the hundredth part of such an injury.
In the common way of thinking, it is a situation sufficient in all conscience to satisfy a reasonable ambition, for a private person to command the forces, the laws, the revenues of a great kingdom, to reward and advance his followers and flatterers as he pleases, and to keep his enemies (real or imaginary) in the dust. In such an exaltation, why should he be at the trouble to make use of fools to sound his praises, (because I always thought the lion was hard set, when he chose the ass for his trumpeter) or knaves to revenge his quarrels, at the expense of innocent men's reputations?
With all those advantages, I cannot see why persons, in the height of power, should be under the least concern on account of their reputation, for which they have no manner of use; or to ruin that of others, which may perhaps be the only possession their enemies have left them. Supposing times of corruption, which I am very far from doing, if a writer displays them in their proper colours, does he do anything worse than sending customers to the shop? "Here only, at the sign of the Brazen Head, are to be sold places and pensions: beware of counterfeits, and take care of mistaking the door."