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Defoe, Daniel, 1661-1731

"Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718)"

being what is set upon it. There is
no extraordinary difference between disposing of another Man's Right,
and disposing of his Person. There was a Time when _France_ gloried in
the Ostentatious Title of being the Assylum of distress'd Monarchs, and
I remember I was once dispos'd to have almost deify'd their Monarch upon
that Score; but when I took the Frame of his Politics, and examin'd
every Wheel and Spring by which they moved, I rescued my self from the
Prejudices I had been nurs'd up in; and though I always pursu'd the same
End, yet I was a constant Enemy to their Method, which I was convinc'd
were all directed another Way, and that a Restoration upon a _French_
Footing was a Chimerical Project, and that if it had taken Effect by
their Arms, _England_ must have had another Doomsday-Book, and have
suffer'd once more under an Arbitary Discipline, more dreadful than that
of _William the Conqueror_, from whom _England_ has been struggling to
retrieve her self ever since. I had formerly made a Resolution with my
self not to hearken to a Love-Intrigue, but upon a Prospect of putting
an end to such Amusements.


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