HISTORY

OF

HIS OWN TIME:

WITH THE

SUPPRESSED PASSAGES OF THE FIRST VOLUME,

AND NOTES

BY THE

EARLS OF DARTMOUTH AND HARDWICKE,

AND

SPEAKER ONSLOW

HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.

To which are added

THE CURSORY REMARKS OF SWIFT,

AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

VOL. III.

OXFORD,

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS.

MDCCCXXIII.

gun, but

all over.

I AM now to prosecute this work, and to give the 1685. relation of an inglorious and unprosperous reign, A reign that was begun with great advantages but these happily be. were so poorly managed, and so ill improved; that inglorious bad designs were ill laid, and worse conducted; and all came, in conclusion, under one of the strangest catastrophes that is in any history. A great king, with strong armies and mighty fleets, a vast treasure and powerful allies, fell all at once: and his whole strength, like a spider's web, was so irrecoverably broken with a touch, that he was never able to retrieve, what for want both of judgment and heart he threw up in a day. Such an unex-618 pected revolution deserves to be well opened: I will do it as fully as I can. But, having been beyond sea almost all this reign, many small particulars,