against me, nefariously undertaken to plead the caufe of defpotifm, I who was neither deemed unequal to fo renowned an adverfary, nor to fo great a fubject, was particularly felected by the deliverers of our country, and by the general fuffrage of the public, openly to vindicate the rights of the English nation, and confequently of liberty itself. Lastly, because in a matter of fo much moment, and which excited fuch ardent expectations, I did not difappoint the hopes nor the opinions of my fellowcitizens; while men of learning and eminence abroad, honoured me with unmingled approbation; while I obtained fuch a victory over my opponent, that notwithftanding his unparalleled affurance, he was obliged to quit the field with his courage broken and his reputation loft; and for the three years which he lived afterwards, much as he menaced and furioufly as he raved, he gave me no farther trouble, except that he procured the paltry aid of fome defpicable hirelings, and fuborned fome of his filly and extravagant admirers to fupport him under the weight of the unexpected and recent difgrace, which he had experienced. This will immediately appear. Such are the fignal favours which I afcribe to the divine beneficence, and which I thought it right devoutly to commemorate, not only that I might difcharge a debt of gratitude, but particularly because they feem aufpicious to the fuccefs of my prefent undertaking. For who is there, who does not identify the honour of his country with his own? And what can conduce more to the beauty or glory of ones country, than the recovery, not only of its civil but its religious liberty? And what nation or ftate ever obtained both, by more fuccefsful or more valorous exertion? For fortitude is feen refplendent, not only in the field of battle and amid the clafh of arms, but difplays its energy under every difficulty and against every affailant. Thofe Greeks and Romans, who are the objects of our admiration, employed hardly any other virtue in the extirpation of tyrants, than that love of liberty which made them prompt in feizing the fword and gave them strength to use it. With facility they accomplished the undertaking, amid the general fhout of praise and joy; nor did they engage in the attempt so much,

as

as an enterprize of perilous and doubtful iffue, as in a contest the most glorious, in which virtue could be fignalized; which infallibly led to prefent recompence; which bound their brows with wreaths of laurel, and configned their memories to immortal fame. For as yet, tyrants were not beheld with a fuperftitious reverence; as yet they were not regarded with tenderness and complacency, as the vicegerents or deputies of Christ, as they have fuddenly profeffed to be; as yet the vulgar, ftupified by the fubtle cafuiftry of the priest, had not degenerated into a ftate of barbarifm, more grofs than that which difgraces the most fenfelefs natives of Hindostan. For these make mifchievous demons, whofe malice they cannot refift, the objects of their religious adoration; while those elevate impotent tyrants, in order to fhield them from deftruction, into the rank of Gods; and to their own coft, confecrate the pests of the human race. But against this dark array of long received opinions, fuperftitions, obloquy, and fears, which fome dread even more than the enemy himself the English, had to contend; and all this, under the light of better information, and favoured by an impulfe from above, they overcame with such fingular enthufiafm and bravery, that, great as were the numbers engaged in the conteft, the grandeur of conception, and loftiness of spirit which were univerfally difplayed, merited for each individual more than a mediocrity of fame; and Britain, which was formerly ftyled the hot-bed of tyranny, will hereafter deserve to be celebrated for endlefs ages, as a foil moft genial to the growth of liberty. During the mighty ftruggle, no anarchy, no licentiousness was feen; no illufions of glory, no extravagant emulation of the antients inflamed them with a thirst for ideal liberty; but the rectitude of their lives, and the fobriety of their habits, taught them the only true and safe road to real liberty; and they took up arms only to defend the sanctity of the laws, and the rights of confcience. Relying on the divine affiftance, they. ufed every honourable exertion to break the yoke of flavery; of the praise of which though I claim no fhare to myself, yet I can easily repel any charge which may be. adduced against me, either of want of courage, or want of

of zeal. For though I did not participate in the toils or dangers of the war, yet I was at the fame time engaged in a fervice not lefs hazardous to myself, and more beneficial to my fellow-citizens; nor, in the adverse turns of our affairs, did I ever betray any fymptoms of pufillanimity and dejection; or fhew myself more afraid than became me, of malice or of death: For fince from my youth, I was devoted to the pursuits of literature, and my mind had always been ftronger than my body, I did not court the labours of a camp, in which any common person would have been of more service than myself, but reforted to that employment in which my exertions were likely to be of most avail. Thus, with the better part of my frame, I contributed as much as poffible to the good of my country, and to the fuccefs of the glorious cause in which we were engaged; and I thought, that if God willed the fuccefs of fuch glorious atchievments, it was equally agreeable to his will, that there fhould be others by whom thofe atchievements fhould be recorded with dignity and elegance; and that the truth, which had been defended by arms, fhould alfo be defended by reason; which is the beft and only legitimate means of defending it. Hence, while I applaud thofe, who were victorious in the field, I will not complain of the province which was affigned me; but rather congratulate myfelf upon it, and thank the author of all good for having placed me in a station, which may be an object of envy to others, rather than of regret to myself. I am far from wishing to make any vain or arrogant comparisons, or to speak oftentatiously of myself, but, in a cause fo great and glorious, and particularly on an occafion when I am called by the general fuffrage to defend the very defenders of that caufe; I can hardly refrain from affuming a more lofty and fwelling tone, than the fimplicity of an exordium may seem to justify; and much as I may be furpaffed in the powers of eloquence, and copiousness of diction, by the illuftrious orators of antiquity; yet the fubject of which I treat, was never furpaffed in any age, in dignity or in interest. It has excited fuch general, and fuch ardent expectation, that I imagine myself not in the forum or on the roftra, furrounded only by the people of Athens

or

or of Rome; but about to addrefs in this as I did in my former defence, the whole collective body of people, cities, ftates, and councils of the wife and eminent, through the wide expanfe of anxious and listening Europe. I seem to furvey as from a towering height, the far extended tracts of fea and land, and innumerable crowds of spectators, betraying in their looks the livelieft interest, and fenfations the most congenial with my own. Here I behold the stout and manly prowess of the Germans, difdaining fervitude; there the generous and lively impetuofity of the French; on this fide, the calm and ftately valour of the Spaniard; on that, the compofed and wary magnanimity of the Italian. Of all the lovers of liberty and virtue, the magnanimous and the wife, in whatever quarter they may be found, fome fecretly favour, others openly approve; fome greet me with congratulations and applaufe; others, who had long been proof against conviction, at last yield themfelves captive to the force of truth. Surrounded by congregated mul titudes, I now imagine, that, from the columns of Hercules, to the Indian ocean, I behold the nations of the earth, recovering that liberty which they fo long had loft; and that the people of this ifland, are tranfporting to other countries, a plant of more beneficial qualities, and more noble growth, than that which Triptolemus is reported to have carried from region to region; that they are diffeminating the bleflings of civilization and freedom among cities, kingdoms, and nations. Nor fhall I approach unknown, nor perhaps unloved, if it be told that I am the fame perfon, who engaged in fingle combat that fierce advocate of defpotifm; till then reputed invincible in the opinion of many, and in his own conceit; who infolently challenged us and our armies to the combat; but whom, while I repelled his virulence, I filenced with his own weapons; and over whom, if I may truft to the opinions of impartial judges, I gained a complete and glorious victory. That, this. is the plain unvarnished fact appears from this; that, after the most noble queen of Sweden, than whom there neither is, nor ever was a perfonage more attached to literature and to learned men, had invited Salmafius or Salmafia, (for to which fex he

belonged

.

belonged is a matter of uncertainty,) to her court, where he was received with great diftinction, my defence fuddenly furprized him in the midst of his fecurity. It was generally read, and by the queen among the reft, who, attentive to the dignity of her station, let the ftranger experience no diminution of her former kindness and munificence. But, with refpect to the reft, if I may affert what has been often told, and was matter of public notority, fuch a change was inftantly effected in the public fentiment, that he, who but yesterday flourished in the highest degree of favour, feemed to day to wither in neglect; and foon after receiving permiflion to depart, he left it doubtful among many, whether he were more honoured when he came, or more difgraced when he went away; and even in other places it is clear, that it occafioned no fmall lofs to his reputation; and all this I have mentioned, nct from any futile motives of vanity or oftentation, but that I might clearly fhow, as I proposed in the beginning, what momentous reafons I had for com mencing this work with an effufion of gratitude to the father of the univerfe. Such a preface was most honourable and appropriate, in which I might prove, by an enumeration of particulars, that I had not been without my fhare of human mifery; but that I had, at the fame time, experienced fingular marks of the divine regard; that in topics of the highest concern, the most connected with the exigencies of my country, and the most beneficial to civil and religious liberty; the fupreme wifdom and beneficence had invigorated and enlarged my faculties, to defend the dearest interefts, not merely of one people, but of the whole human race, against the enemies of human liberty; as it were in a full concourfe of all the nations on the earth: And I again invoke the fame Almighty Being, that I may still be able with the fame integrity, the fame diligence, and the fame fuccefs, to defend thofe actions which have been fo gloriously atchieved; while I vindicate the authors as well as myfelf, whofe name has been affociated with theirs, not fo much for the fake of honour as difgrace, from unmerited ignominy and reproach; but if there are any, who think that it would have been better to have paffed over these in filent contempt, I fhould agrce