67 The authorities cited above are all historians, orators, and philosophers whose testimony is unquestioned. It is dangerous to rely upon writers who deal in ridicule and satire. What will posterity, for instance, infer from this passage of Dr. Swift? “I told him that in the kingdom of Tribnia (Britain), by the natives called Langdon (London), where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the conduct, and pay of ministers of state and their deputies. The plots in that kingdom are usually the workmanship of those persons,” etc. (Gulliver’s Travels.) Such a representation might suit the government of Athens, but not that of England, which is a prodigy even in modern times for humanity, justice, and liberty. Yet the Doctor’s satire, though carried to extremes, as is usual with him, even beyond other satirical writers, did not altogether want an object. The Bishop of Rochester, who was his friend, and of the same party, had been banished a little before by a bill of attainder with great justice, but without such a proof as was legal, or according to the strict forms of common law.