“The Scurvy (the only reigning disease in this Kingdom) when it is grown so bad, as to become scandalous, so as many People think it to be the POX”. William Salmon, Collectanea Medica, the Country Physician (London, 1703), p. 4

My Lords and Gentlemen,

In my Treatise, I will explain by giving examples how the Body Politick is infected by Scoundrels no less than the girls in Moll King’s House are infected by the Pox. The days recently past have provided more than one such example.

Last week I met Mr Mordecai Benjamin at Bevis Marks. He was most agitated. You will recall that His Majestie had appointed a Commission to inquire into Mr Benjamin’s Complaint, to wit that the Congregation of Revd. Jeremiah Corvine had ill-used him for being a Jew.  Mr Benjamin vouched safe to me that on that very morning the Commission had found that he had indeed been ill-used. Furthermore, they had held that Revd. Corvine had been asleep (or pretended to be so) while this occurred. 

I replied to Mr Benjamin that he must be gratified by this vindication of his Petition and inquired why he did appear still agitated.

He replied, “The Revd. Corvine has said he does not know what all the fuss is about. His followers have broadcast that it is a calumny to suggest that the Revd. Corvine ever sleeps; that they have not ill-used me at all; and that even if they have ill-used me they have done so on account of my being asleep and dreaming of a return to the land of my forefathers (which, they say, is different from being a Jew). So, they say, I had it coming.”

I assured Mr Benjamin that the followers of Revd. Corvine were no more than braggarts. Having so soothed him, we parted and I went to Wills’s.

Upon my return home, Abigail informed me that an affray was taking place between the adherents of Wakefulness outside Mr. Benjamin’s House. On the one side, the followers of Parson Stormer proclaimed that despite his protestations, Revd. Corvine had been asleep since 1674 and that he should no longer be permitted to preach in the name of Wakefulness. On the other, Revd. Corvine’s followers were shouting that all was the fault of Mr Benjamin and that they were right to ill-use him all along.

I fear that poor Mr Benjamin will be kept awake by this mob for some months to come and I am much puzzled what mercury pills might be applied to the Res Publica to cure it of this disease.

But this is not the only malady affecting the realm. I recently reported the fiats of the Mayor of Carmarthen against the Foul Pestilence. Now His Majestie’s own Government wishes to impose similar laws to oppress free born Englishmen. We have recently been exhorted to keep within Bubbles of Companionability and to the Rule of the Half Dozen but now by Royal Decree we are to be forbidden for a full month to assemble even for purposes which are otherwise legal. This way of making of laws as severe as those of Draco is more suited to the reign of His Late Majesty Charles I than to our current benign Settlement.

My Lord, Lord Sumption, has dissected this manner of proceeding and has left its entrails exposed.  He has done so in a most excellent pamphlet published by my friend Mr Tonson. Since my learning in the law ¹Records reveal that the Somnambulist was a member of the Middle Temple but he never appears to have practised at the Bar. is not as great as his Lordship’s I cannot do justice to his ratio. Instead, I commend that you read his essay yourself. Suffice it to say that it is manifest that his Majestie’s Privie Counsel is now comprised of Tory Jackanapes and Mountebanks and that until a proper Whig administration is returned we are better off praying to our Maker for Deliv’rance from the Foul Pestilence than trusting in these Scoundrels.

I remain your humble and obedient servant,

The Somnambulist.