be shown to Walpole. If Walpole afterward represented any thing in a different light, whose testimony is to be credited? That of a man of long tried integrity, and undoubted veracity, giving an account of a transaction, wherein he sustained a part exactly suitable to his whole character and conduct in life: or that of a wily statesman, who stuck at nothing to answer his ends, charging Swift with a fact, utterly incompatible with his well known wisdom and grandeur of mind, and which must have shown him in the light of a perfect changeling. But it does not appear that Walpole himself ever made any such charge. Nor was it necessary; his end might be better, and more securely answered without it. Hints and innuendoes were sufficient materials for his tools to work upon, and fabricate what stories they pleased, which were industriously propagated with the strongest asseverations of their truth, by all their partisans, and this was one favourite method then in use, of undermining those characters, which they could not openly assault[1]. I have been the
- ↑ Of this there was a strong instance given in regard to William Shippen; the honestest man, and truest patriot that then sate in the house. When Walpole found, after repeated trials, that his virtue was proof against all the offers he could make, it was given out by his emissaries, that he privately received a pension from him; and that he was permitted to act the part of a patriot, in order to keep his influence with his party, on certain occasions, that he might be of more effectual service in matters of greater concern. And this report was so industriously spread, and with such confidence, that many gave credit to it during his life. Nor were they undeceived till it was found that, after his death, this worthy man, who had lived with the utmost frugality, left no more behind him than his paternal estate, which was barely sufficient to entitle him to a seat in parliament, and fifty pounds in cash, peculiarly appropriated to the charges of his funeral.
