in Your long, and glorious struggle in the cause of liberty, in the cause of Your country: and if all the good effects have not followed from it, which might have been expected, though it may not become me to say where the blame ought to be laid, yet it cannot misbecome me to say that it ought by no means to be laid, as it has been, upon Your Lordship. It is not my business to give any offense, and I intend none. I abhor defamation, and I scorn as much to flatter your Lordship or any man. But it may be said, I hope without offense, I am sure without flattery, that it is in Your Lordship's power to set all these transactions in a clear light, and You have sufficient materials by You for this purpose, and have often been folicited by Your friends to do it: but Your Lordship's anfwer A 4 ( answer always was, that You would leave it to Time and Truth to vindicate Your character. And the event has succeeded according to Your Lordship's wisdom and forefight; prejudice is dying away; truth is gaining ground daily; and the more the truth is understood, the more it redounds to Your Lordship's honor: and Your enemies themselves, and those who not knowing Your purposes will not allow You to have acted a wife, must yet be forced to acknowledge that you acted a most disinterested part. For it is very well known, that you were even courted to accept the place of the greatest power and confidence; or if You had foreseen any difficulty of maintaining Yourself in power, as that is a flippery and uncertain situation, You might have secured Yourself in the poffeffion : feffion of any of the most lucrative employments, and might have enjoyed it with a patent for life. But Your Lordship was content to leave others in place and power, who You thought were most able and best qualified for the administration of public affairs, and retired Yourself with only a dignity, which had been offered You several times before. Such instances of magnanimity and disinterestedness have not been common in any age, and are very uncommon in the present. Thus much the love of truth and virtue, which is inseparable from the love of Your Lordship, has obliged me to say: and if I am partial to Your Lordship's character, there are other reasons which have made me so, besides the friendship and kindness which You have shown to me me upon all occafions. Your love of religion and virtue, which You express in all Your discourses and actions; Your reverence for the holy Scriptures, and how unfashionable soever it may be, Your open profession of the truth of the Christian revelation; Your regard for our establish'd Church, and regular attendence upon the public worship; Your constant and inviolable affection to the constitution and liberties of Your country; Your acting always upon the true Whig principles, and asserting equally the prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of the people; Your steddy and fincere attachment, tho' not always to the ministers, yet always to the person of our most gracious King, and the true interests of his royal family, who next under God are the great bulwark and and defense of our religion and liberties; Your readiness at all times to maintain the liberty of the press, tho no man ever fuffered more by the abuse of it than Yourfelf; Your humane and compassionate temper; Your uncommon knowledge, and extensive genius for litterature or business; Your easy wit, and flowing conversation, often instructive, always agreeable and entertaining; Your focial and convivial spirit, that it is a happiness to live or converse with You; these, these are the good qualities, which have gained my affection, and must gain every one's who hath equal opportunities of observing them. If I knew any man, who possessed and exerted them all in a greater and more eminent degree than Your Lordship, I should love him and admire him more: but till then I |