Again, had it been a private club, or society of men, acting one among another,—had the cheats, the frauds, and the tricks they made use of, in which the English rogue was a fool to them, being practised upon themselves only, and, like gamesters at a public board, they had only played with those that came there to play with them; in this case, also, I should have held my tongue, and only put them in mind of an old song, every stanza of which chimed in with, “Tantararara, rogues all, rogues all.” But when we find this trade become a political vice, a public crime, and that, as it is now carried on, it appears dangerous to the public, that, whenever any wickedness is in hand, any mischief by the worst of the nation’s enemies upon the wheel, the stock-jobbers are naturally made assistant to it, that they become abettors of treason, assistant to rebellion and invasion, then it is certainly time to speak, for the very employment becomes a crime, and we are obliged to expose a sort of men who are more dangerous than a whole nation of enemies abroad, an evil more formidable than the pestilence, and, in their practice, more fatal to the public, than an invasion of Spaniards. It is said by some, that the principal leaders in the jobbing trade at that time, and to whom most part of the satire in this work ought to be pointed, are Whigs, members of Parliament, and friends to the government; and that, therefore, I had best have a care of what I say of them. My first answer is, So I will. I will have a care of them; and, in the next place, let them have a care of me; for if I should speak the whole truth of some of them, they might be Whigs; but I dare say they would be neither P—— men, or friends to the government very long; and it is very hard his Majesty should not be told what kind of friends to him such men are. Besides, I deny the fact. These men friends to the government! _Jesu Maria!_ The government may be friendly to them in a manner they do not deserve; but as to their being friends to the government, that is no more possible than the Cardinal Alberoni or the Chevalier de St. George are friends to the government; and, therefore, without reflecting upon persons, naming names, or the like,—there will be no need of names, the dress will describe them,—I lay down this new-fashioned proposition, or postulatum, take it which way you please, that I will make it out by the consequences of what I am going to say. 1. That stock-jobbing, as it is now practised, and as is generally understood by the word stock-jobbing, is neither less or more than high-treason in its very nature, and in its consequences.