that very ill, to imagine I knew so little of the world, as to talk at a venture to a great minister; that I had gone between him and lord treasurer often, and told each of them what I had said to the other; and that I had informed him so before. He said all, you may imagine, to excuse himself, and approve my conduct. I told him I knew all along, that this proceeding of mine was the surest way to send me back to my willows in Ireland, but that I regarded it not, provided I could do the kingdom service in keeping them well together. I minded him how often I had told lord treasurer, lord keeper, and him together, that all things depended on their union, and that my comfort was, to see them love one another, and I told them all singly, that I had not said this by chance," &c. In September 1712, he says, "I am again endeavouring, as I was last year, to keep people from breaking to pieces upon a hundred misunderstandings. One cannot withhold them from drawing different ways, while the enemy is watching to destroy both." And in the October following, he says, I have helped to patch up these people together once more. God knows how long it may last." In many other places, he mentions the disagreeable necessity he was under of continuing his endeavours in this way, and laments that he could get no one to second him. In his Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's last Ministry, &c. he says, "Neither perhaps would a reconcilement have been an affair of much difficulty, if their friends on both sides had not too much observed the common prudential forms of not caring to intermeddle; which, together with the addition of a shrug, was the con-
