December 15, 1711. "Here are the first steps toward the ruin of an excellent ministry, for I look upon them as certainly ruined. Some are of opinion the whole ministry will give up their places next week; others imagine, when the session is over. I do resolve, if they give up, or are turned out soon, to retire for some months, and I have pitched upon the place already; I would be out of the way, upon the first of the ferment; for they lay all things upon me, even some I have never read."
Lord Oxford now perceived the ill effects of his too great security; but, as he was a man of great firmness of mind, instead of being daunted at the dangerous situation of affairs, he applied himself vigorously to retrieve what had been lost. Swift speaks of him as a man fruitful in expedients, and says, "He never wanted a reserve upon any emergency, which would appear desperate to others:" and never did any occasion call more for the exertion of such talents. The first necessary step was to get the queen back out of the hands into which she had fallen, and then to fix her steadily in the pursuit of his measures. He had the address very soon to regain the queen's favour and confidence; and the first use he made of it was to restore the majority he had lost in the house of lords, by engaging her to create twelve new peers at once. This, it must be allowed, was a desperate step, but the desperate state of their affairs required it. Swift, in speaking of this point, says, "Yet, after all, it is a strange, unhappy necessity, of making so many peers together; but the queen has drawn it upon herself, by her trimming and moderation." This could not fail, however, of raising great clamours and jealousies in the people.
