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THE EXAMINER.
N° 16.
instance only in one article: a lady[1] of my acquaintance appropriated twenty-six pounds a year out of her allowance, for certain uses, which her woman received, and was to pay to the lady or her order, as it was called for[2]. But after eight years it appeared, upon the strictest calculation, that the woman had paid but four pounds a year, and sunk two and twenty for her own pocket. It is but supposing, instead of twenty-six pounds, twenty-six thousand; and by that you may judge, what the pretensions of modern merit are, where it happens to be its own paymaster.
- ↑ Supposed queen Anne.
- ↑ The matter was this: At the queen's accession to the government, she used to lament to me, that, the crown being impoverished by former grants, she wanted the power her predecessors had enjoyed to reward faithful servants; and she desired me to take out of the privy purse 2000l. a year, in order to purchase for my advantage. As her majesty was so good to provide for my children, and as the offices I enjoyed by her favour brought me in more than I wanted I constantly declined it till the time she was pleased to dismiss me from her service. Then indeed I sent the queen one of her own letters, in which she had pressed me to take the 2000l. a year; and I wrote at the same time to ask her majesty whether she would allow me to charge in the privy purse accounts, which I was to send her, that yearly sum from the time of the offer, amounting to 18,000l. Her majesty was pleased to answer, I might charge it. This therefore I did. Account of the Conduct of the dowager Duchess of Marlborough, p. 294, 295.
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