The most ardent and devoted of Swift's admirers could hardly find a
juster criticism of the work. It should satisfy any unprejudiced reader
of the printed History as we now have it, and to that extent emphasize
the authenticity.

An interesting sidelight on Swift's History is thrown by Chesterfield in
a letter he wrote to Dr. Chenevix, Bishop of Waterford, on May 23rd,
1758. We must believe that the noble lord wrote in good faith and
certainly in the full belief that the work he was criticising was the
work of Swift. Chesterfield's criticism points directly to Swift as the
author, since his justification for Bolingbroke's story is to be found
in the work as Lucas printed it in 1758. Speaking of the History,
Chesterfield calls it "a party pamphlet, founded on the lie of the day,
which, as lord Bolingbroke who had read it often assured me, was coined
and delivered out to him, to write Examiners, and other political papers
upon. That spirit remarkably runs through it. Macarteney, for instance,
murdered duke Hamilton;[4] nothing is falser, for though Macarteney was
very capable of the vilest actions, he was guiltless of that, as I
myself can testify, who was at his trial on the king's bench, when he
came over voluntarily to take it, in the late king's time. There did not
appear even the least ground for a suspicion of it; nor did Hamilton,
who appeared in court, pretend to tax him with it, which would have been
in truth accusing himself of the utmost baseness, in letting the
murderer of his friend go off from the field of battle, without either
resentment, pursuit, or even accusation, till three days afterwards.
This _lie_ was invented to inflame the Scotch nation against the Whigs;
as the other, that prince Eugene intended to murder lord Oxford, by
employing a set of people called Mohocks, which society, by the way,
never existed, was calculated to inflame the mob of London. Swift took
those hints _de la meilleure foi du monde_, and thought them materials