property, intereſt, and privileges, however ſmall, in that ſociety; and that, for my own particular, I am reſolved to aſſert my Right, and defend the little I have left, to the utmoſt of my power; unleſs I find it neceſſary to ſacrifice even that alſo to the ſervice of my Country.
With this reſolution I undertook the following work, and, having received ſome marks of diſgrace and ill-uſage in the univerſity, evdeavoured, by a very juſt Recrimination, to vindicate myſelſ, and expoſe thoſe who had deprived me of my Right. I ſhall not, in this place, trouble the reader with the circumſtances of my caſe, and the treatment I met with at Oxford, having been, perhaps, too prolix upon that head, in one of the following[1] papers, to which I refer.
As for the 'Imprudence of this undertaking, which has frequently been objected, I confeſs it to be ſuch, and that I have al along proceeded, in the bold ſearch of Truth, without a ſingle view to my own intereſt, without any promiſe or expectation of the ſmalleſt reward, even that of being preſented to a Doctor' degree by the univerſity, in return for all my induſtry, and the pains which I have taken in its behalf.
- ↑ Vide Terræ-Filius No. xiv.
