opinion of you having been so long fixed, and being every day increased by your repeated marks of friendship, that all I can say of it is, that it is at its full growth, and I could wish no more for
of his own. He was at the head of the small party called Trimmers, who affected a sort of neutrality between the Whig and Tory, and were of course hated and suspected by both. He originally made a figure in opposition to the Court, particularly upon the great debate concerning the Test, which he keenly opposed. He voted at first for the Bill of Exclusion, and used the jocular argument against hereditary government, that no man would chuse a man to drive a carriage because his father had been a good coachman. But when that great question came finally to be debated in the House of Lords, on the 15th of November, 16S0, Halifax had changed his opinion, and even conducted the opposition to the bill, and displayed an extent of capacity and eloquence equally astonishing to friends and foes, and which, perhaps, was never surpassed in that assembly . . . . The House of Commons was so incensed against Halifax, that they voted an address for his removal from the King's councils; the King, however, found his advantage in the fine and balancing policy of Halifax, and, for from consenting to his disgrace, promoted him to the rank of Marquis and office of Privy Seal, which was scarcely more displeasing to the Whigs than to the Duke of York. To the overbearing measures of this prince, Halifax was secretly a determined opponent. It was his uniform object to detach Monmouth so far from the violent councils and party of Shaftesbury, that the interest he still retained in the King's affections might be employed as a counterbalance to that of his brother. He prevailed on the King to see Monmouth after the discovery of the Rye House Plot, and, had the Duke proved
