I now, that I may not be said to speak without a precedent, I humbly refer to those moneyed gentlemen to a case recent in memory, and even in their own, which, though indeed they may think fit to have forgotten for a time, they will all call to mind when they hear of it again; and this was the case of two goldsmiths (knights also, and one of them member of Parliament, too) in Fleet Street, who pushed at the Bank of England at the time that the Pretender’s invasion from France was in its preparation. One of them, it was said, had gathered a quantity of Bank-bills, to the value of near £100,000, and the other a great sum, though not so many, and, it was said, resolved to demand them all at once. Let the gentlemen I point at look back to the printed papers that year; let them inquire what construction was put upon it; let them inquire how the government resented it; how my Lord Treasurer Godolphin looked upon it as a mine formed to blow up the queen’s affairs, and how, in a word, all the friends of the government took it to be such a step in favor of the Pretender, as was impossible to consist with duty to the queen. Let them inquire farther, with what difficulty Sir R—— Ho—— wiped off the imputation of being a favorer of the rebellion, and how often, in vain, he protested he did it with no such view, and how hard the Whigs were to believe him. Sir F—— C——d, indeed, carried it with a higher hand, and afterwards pretended to refuse the bills of the Bank; but still declared he did it as a goldsmith, and as a piece of justice to himself in some points in which the Bank had, as he alleged, used him ill. But, in general, it was looked upon as an open affront to the government, and an abetting and countenancing the invasion of the Pretender from abroad, and the rebellion intended at home. Nor was the government, much less were the authors of private papers and prints, wanting in letting them know it; nay, if I am not misinformed, they were threatened with being treated as enemies to the government; and if things had gone on to extremities, they had doubtless been marked out as persons the government were to take care of. Now I only speak in plainer words; it was said then, that such men as endeavoured to run down the public credit were enemies to the government. I know no distinction in the case, that should require so much tenderness. Every subject of King George, who is at the same time an enemy to King George, is a traitor; and every overt act of that enmity, it being his duty to his utmost to favor, aid, and support the government, is an overt act of treason, let it be gilded over with what fine words the persons please, ’tis the same thing, if it is not literal treason, and within reach of the statute, yet the crime is in itself of the same nature.