THERE are a thousand resolutions, Sir, both in church and state, as
well as in matters, Madam, of a more private concern;—which, though
they have carried all the appearance in the world of being taken, and
entered upon in a hasty, hare-brained, and unadvised manner, were,
notwithstanding this, (and could you or I have got into the cabinet, or
stood behind the curtain, we should have found it was so) weighed,
poized, and perpended——argued upon——canvassed through——entered into,
and examined on all sides with so much coolness, that the GODDESS OF
COOLNESS herself (I do not take upon me to prove her existence) could
neither have wished it, or done it better.
Of the number of these was my father’s resolution of putting me into
breeches; which, though determined at once,—in a kind of huff, and a
defiance of all mankind, had, nevertheless, been _pro’d_ and _conn’d_,
and judicially talked over betwixt him and my mother about a month
before, in two several _beds of justice_, which my father had held for
that purpose. I shall explain the nature of these beds of justice in my
next chapter; and in the chapter following that, you shall step with
me, Madam, behind the curtain, only to hear in what kind of manner my
father and my mother debated between themselves, this affair of the
breeches,—from which you may form an idea, how they debated all lesser
matters.