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THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
MR. Steele, in his "Letter of the Bailiff Stockbridge," has given us leave "to treat him as we think fit, as he is our brother scribbler; but not to attack him as an honest man," p. 40. That is to say, he allows us to be his criticks, but not his answerers; and he is altogether in the right, for there is in his letter much to be criticised, and little to be answered. The situation and importance of Dunkirk are pretty well known. Mons. Tugghe's memorial, published and handed about by the whigs, is allowed to be a very trifling paper: and as to the immediate demolishment of that town, Mr. Steele pretends to offer no other argument but the expectations of the people, which is a figurative speech, naming the tenth part for the whole; as Bradshaw told king Charles I, that the people of England expected justice against him. I have therefore entered very little into the subject he pretends to treat; but have considered his pamphlet partly as a critick, and partly as a commentator; which, I think, is "to treat him only as my brother scribbler," according to the permission he has graciously allowed me.
To the worshipful MR. JOHN SNOW, bailiff of Stockbridge.
Sir,
I HAVE just been reading a twelvepenny pamphlet about Dunkirk, addressed to your worship from one
