nobility assiduously cultivated his acquaintance, and the King not unfrequently testified his regard for him, both by admitting him to private audience, and by large contributions towards those objects, in favour of which he appealed. The following anecdote will illustrate the esteem in which he was held by Carvalho the celebrated Prime Minister of Joseph I. On an occasion in which that Minister was engaged in a contest of some moment, after putting forward the various arguments which suggested themselves to his mind, in proof of the matter at issue, he wound up by saying: "and this is the opinion of the great Preston."
He was never known to abuse, in favour of any unworthy object, the influence which his familiarity with the great enabled him to exercise, and though permitted free access to the royal presence, he never presented a petition which was not directed to some religious or charitable end. In the year 1775, Preston was appointed preceptor to the young Prince of Brazil, an honour which he could be induced to accept only from the persuasion that he might thereby be the better enabled to promote the interests of his beloved College. This position of honour, however, he held only for a short time. Soon after his nomination he was struck with a fit of paralysis which, being repeated, carried him off on February 8, 1780. He was interred in the College Church, and the following epitaph is inscribed on his tomb.
Hic jacet quod mortale fuit
Joannis Preston sacerdotis
Viri simplicis ac timentis Deum
Is in omni litterarum genere versatus
Acri judicio varia in hoc Collegio
Munia obeundo
Non sibi sed aliis vixit:
Instituendo regio Principi electus
Munus honorificum
Diu exequi non potuit
