mour, as you describe your great visitee[1] to have been; nor does the good news from Spain[2] clear them. I believe, however, they are glad at it, though another would have served their occasions as well.
I do not apprehend any other secret in all this affair, but to get whigs out of all places of profit and trust, and to get others in them. As for peace it must be on no other terms than the preliminaries; and you'll find a tory parliament will give money as freely, and be as eager to prosecute the war, as the whigs were, or they are not the wise men I take them to be. If they do so, and take care to have the money well disposed of when given, they will break the king of France's heart, and the whigs together, and please the nation. There's an ugly accident, that happens here in relation to our twentieth parts and first-fruits: at Midsummer, 1709, there was ready money in the treasury, and good solvent debts to the queen to the value of 70,000l. Now I am told, by the last week's abstract, there is only 223l. in the treasury, and the army unpaid, at least uncleared for a year; and all others, except pensioners, in the same condition.
- ↑ 'Probably the earl of Godolphin, who was, perhaps, much visited by his friends and party, after the resignation of his staff of lord treasurer.' This conjecture of Dr. Birch was very ingenious. The archbishop's allusion, however, related only to the private visit of Dr. Swift to his lordship, which he mentions in his letter September 9. N.
- ↑ 'Probably of the battle near Saragoza, in which king Charles of Spain gained a complete victory over his competitor, king Philip, on the 10th of August, 1710.'
