I HAVE forgot in the present confufion when I writ laft. I have not yet feen Annandale, and know not if I fhall fee him. He complains mightily of my ingratitude to him. Queensberry is Commiffioner, and the Parliament meets on the 26th of May. How much is moft, I know not, but certainly a great dale is, and will be with you. However, had Duke Hamilton and oth[ers been] here, matters would not have gone [as they] doe. But the Court had no choice, and your nibbling, (as they call it here,) at small things, has given ill impreffions, as if there were at bottom an unmanageable spirit that loves contention for contention's [fake,] and which they say they can allow to have been foured by the late ill adminiftration; but which ought not in the beginning of a reign to give uneafye profpecs. So friends talk. However, there is ftill room to retrieve matters; for the difpofition at bottom is to correct and reform matters, and to take the contrepied of the past administration; but whether this contrepied will be another extremity or not, I cannot answer, but will depend on the Ministry—I mean [which] of the candidates shall prevail; but ftill [I fay] the difpofition is to correct, and therefore I wish people would have patience. Principiis obfta is no doubt best in essentials, but it's time enough to refuse A to part with a hoof when we shall know that the [yielding of] it will fignifye nothing. The first opportunity is loft, but a fecond and third, &c. will offer. The expectation here was, that the Countrey party would have run into addreffes for a new Parliament, which noe doubt would have been acceptable to fome here, in hopes thus to come at Epifcopacy; to others for much better purposes. I fhall be forry if Prefbiterye and the true interests of the countrey, ever become incompatible. I am at a distance and [may] be mistaken, but I have some reasons [fuggefted?] here to make me think, that Presbiterye and a new Parliament will agree, provided the Presbiterians begin, and, out or in Parliament, addreffe for a new Parliament. This will gain the nation to them, by fhewing that they prefer its certain and undoubted interefts to doubtfull dangers. SIR, II. FROM THE SAME. 26th May 1702. London. I THANK you for yours, but I have nothing to fay but what you will have heard before this. I have not been at Court, and all [kind of] buffineffe is dead here. It foot we conje&tured, which is not diffembled now; and then the whisper is more and more that you are all Jacobits, the meaning of which I know noe more now than I did when you were here, only I know more that it is fo. As to the usage I have had from the Duke and his brothers, I have heard enough of it; there must be fome strange calumnye, or malice, or trick, or inftrument at bottom. All is that . nor deffirous, but will officiously serve noe man that will believe romances of me, and not fo much as give me an opportunity to vindicate myself. But whoever is at the bottom of all this, he will be thing. Pray let me know if, when you receive this, you find fome [as] high and vigourous as they were here at London. I have reafon to fuppofe not. Farewell. Write as you did before on the cover, without a cover. |