For this purpose a paper called the Examiner was periodically published, written, as it happened, by any wit of the party, and sometimes as is said by Mrs. Manley. Some are owned by Swift; and one, in ridicule of Garth’s verses to Godolphin upon the loss of his place, was written by Prior, and answered by Addison, who appears to have known the author either by conjecture or intelligence.
The Tories, who were now in power, were in haste to end the war; and Prior, being recalled (1710) to his former employment of making treaties, was sent (July 1711) privately to Paris with propositions of peace. He was remembered at the French court; and returning in about a month, brought with him the Abbé Gaultier, and M. Mesnager, a minister from France, invested with full powers.
This transaction not being avowed, Mackay, the master of the Dover packet-boat, either zealously or officiously, seized Prior and his associates at Canterbury. It is easily supposed that they were soon released.
The negotiation was begun at Prior’s house, where the Queen’s ministers met Mesnager (September 20, 1711) and entered privately
