sided here? If I must be crushed, sir, for God's sake let some reason be alleged for it; or else an ingenuous confession made, that stat pro ratione voluntas. If you can fix Mr. Watkins to any final determination on this subject, you will do me a singular service, and I shall take my measures accordingly. Though I know your power, I cannot help distrusting it on this occasion. Before I conclude, give me leave to put you in mind of beating my thanks into my lord Bolingbroke's ears, for his late generosity, to the end that his lordship may be wearied out of the evil habit he has got, of heaping more obligations and goodness on those he is pleased to favour, than their shoulders are able to bear. For my own part, I have so often thanked his lordship, that I have new no more ways left to turn my thoughts; and beg, if you have any right good compliments neat and fine by you, that you will advance the necessary, and place them, with the other helps you have given me, to my account; which I question not but I shall be able to acknowledge at one and the same time, ad Græcas calendas.
In the mean time, I shall do my best to give you just such hints as you desire by the next post. Though I cannot but think there are some letters in the office, which would serve your turn a good deal better than any thing I can tell you about the people at the Hague. Your access there abundantly prevents my attempting to write you any news from hence. And I assure you, sir, you can write me none from England (however uneasy my circumstances are) which will be so agreeable, as that of your long-expected advancement. It grieves me to the soul, that a person, who has been so instru-
