reasons wanted no explanation: for, the general and the ministry having refused to accept very advantageous offers of a peace, after the battle of Ramillies, were forced to take in a set of men with a previous bargain to skreen them from the consequences of that miscarriage. And accordingly, upon the first succeeding opportunity that fell, which was that of the prince of Denmark's[1] death, the chief leaders of the party were brought into several great employments.
Thus, when the queen was no longer able to bear the tyranny and insolence of those ungrateful servants, who, as they waxed the fatter, did but kick the more; our two great allies abroad, and our stockjobbers at home, took immediate alarm; applied the nearest way to the throne, by memorials and messages jointly directing her majesty not to change her secretary or treasurer; who, for the true reasons that these officious intermeddlers demanded their continuance, ought never to have been admitted into the least degree of trust: since what they did was nothing less than betraying the interest of their native country, to those princes, who, in their turns, were to do what they could to support them in power at home.
Thus it plainly appears that there was a conspiracy on all sides to go on with those measures, which must perpetuate the war; and a conspiracy founded upon the interest and ambition of each party; which begat so firm a union, that, instead of wondering why it lasted so long, I am astonished to think how it came
- ↑ Prince George of Denmark, husband to queen Anne.
