Page images
PDF
EPUB

in Your long, and glorious ftruggle in the caufe of liberty, in the caufe 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 fay 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 offenfe, and I intend none. I abhor defamation, and I scorn as much to flatter your Lordship or any man. But it may be faid, I hope without offense, I am sure without flattery, that it is in Your Lordship's power to fet all these tranfactions in a clear light, and You have fufficient materials by You for this purpose, and have often been folicited by Your friends to do it: but Your Lordship's

[blocks in formation]

answer always was, that You would leave it to Time and Truth to vindicate Your character. And the event has fucceeded 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, muft yet be forced to acknowledge that you acted a moft difinterested 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 fituation, You might have fecured Yourself in the pof

:

[ocr errors]

feffion

feffion of any of the moft 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 beft: qualified for the administration of public affairs, and retired Yourself with only a dignity, which had been offered. You feveral times before. Such inftances of magnanimity and difinterestedness have not been common in any age, and are very uncommon in the present.

Thus much the love of truth and virtue, which is infeparable 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 fo, befides 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 difcourfes and actions; Your reverence for the holy Scriptures, and how unfashionable foever it may be, Your open profeffion of the truth of the Chriftian revelation; Your regard for our establish'd Church, and regular attendence upon the public worship; Your conftant and inviolable affection to the conftitution and liberties of Your country; Your acting always upon the true Whig principles, and afferting equally the prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of the people; Your fteddy and fincere attachment, tho not always to the ministers, yet always to the person of our most gracious King, and the true interefts of his royal family, who next under God are the great bulwark

and

and defenfe of our religion and liberties; Your readiness at all times to maintain the liberty of the prefs, tho' no man ever suffered more by the abuse of it than Yourfelf; Your humane and compassionate temper; Your uncommon knowledge, and extenfive genius for litterature or business ; Your easy wit, and flowing conversation, often inftructive, always agreeable and entertaining; Your focial and convivial fpirit, 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 obferving them. If I knew any man, who poffeffed 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

[ocr errors]

I

« PreviousContinue »