arguments, so that as politics run, I do not know a person of more exceptionable principles than yourself; and if ever I shall be discovered, I think you will be bound in honour to pay my fine and support me in prison; or else I may chance to inform against you by way of reprisal.[15] [Footnote 12: See note _ante_, p. 161. [T.S.]] [Footnote 13: William Molyneux (1656-1698), the correspondent of John Flamsteed and Locke. His "Dioptrica Nova" contains a warm appreciation of Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding." He died in October, 1698, but in the early part of this year, he published his famous inquiry into the effect of English legislation on Irish manufactures. The work was entitled, "The Case of Ireland's being bound by Acts of Parliament in England stated," and its publication made a great stir both in England and in Ireland. Molyneux attempted to show that the Irish Parliament was independent of the English Parliament. His book was reported by a Committee of the House of Commons, on June 22nd, 1698, to be "of dangerous consequence to the Crown and Parliament of England," but the matter went no further than embodying this resolution of the committee in an address to the King. [T.S.]] [Footnote 14: Algernon Sidney (1622-1682), the author of the well known "Discourses concerning Government," and the famous republican of the Cromwellian and Restoration years, was the second surviving son of the second Earl of Leicester His career as soldier, statesman, agitator, ambassador and author, forms an interesting and even fascinating chapter of the story of this interesting period of English history. He was tried for treason before Jeffreys, and in spite of a most excellent defence, sentenced to death. His execution took place on December 7th, 1682. [T. S.]] [Footnote 15: A writer, signing himself M.M., replying to this letter of Swift's in a broadside entitled, "Seasonable Advice to M.B. Drapier, Occasioned by his Letter to the R--t. Hon. the Lord Visct. Molesworth," actually takes this paragraph to mean that Swift intended seriously to turn informer: "Now sir, some people are of opinion that you carried this too far, inasmuch as you become a precedent to informers: others think that you intimate to his lordship, the miserable circumstance you are in by the menaces of the prentice to whom you dictate; they conceive your declaring to inform, if not fee'd, to the contrary, signifies your said prentice on the last occasion to swear, if you don't forthwith deliver him his indentures, and half of your stock to set up trade with, he will inform against you, bring you to justice, be dismissed by law, and get the promised £300 to begin trade with; how near these conceptions be to truth I can't tell; but I know people think that word _inform_ unseasonable. . . ." [T.S.]]