FROM CHARLES FORD, ESQ. London, July 22, 1714. PRAY send me the other copy, and let us have the benefit of it, since you have been at the trouble of writing. Unless * be served against his will, it is not likely to be done at all; but I think you used to take a pleasure in good offices of that kind, and I hope you would not let the cause suffer; though I must own, in this particular, the person who has the management of it does not desérve any favour. Nothing being left for me at St Dunstan's, I sent to Barber for an answer to my last. He says, it is not yet restored to him; as soon as it is, I shall have it. This delay begins to make me think all ministers are alike: and as soon as the captain is a colonel, he will act as his predecessors have done. The queen goes to Windsor next Tuesday, and we expect all matters will be settled before that time. We have had a report, that my lord privy-seal is to go out alone; but the learned only laugh at it. The captain's † friends think themselves secure; and the colonel's are so much of the same opinion, that they only drink his health while he is yet alive. However it is thought he will fall easy, with a pension of four thousand pounds a-year, and a dukedom. Most of the staunch tories are pleased with the alteration and the whimsicals pretend the cause of : * The blank should probably be filled up with "Lord-trea Oxford...-H. surer."...N. + Bolingbroke...-H. their disgust was, because the whigs were too much favoured. In short, we propose very happy days to ourselves as long as this reign lasts; and if the uncertain timorous nature of * does not disappoint us, we have a very fair prospect. The dragon and his antagonist † meet every day at the cabinet. They often eat, and drink, and walk together, as if there was no sort of disagreement; and when they part, I hear they give one another such names, as nobody but ministers of state could bear, without cutting throats. The Duke of Marlborough is expected here every day. Dr Garth says, he comes only to drink the Bristol waters for a diabetes. The whigs are making great preparations to receive him. But yesterday I was offered considerable odds, that not one of those who go out to meet him, will visit him in half a year. I durst not lay, though I can hardly think it. My Lord Marr is married to Lady Frances Pierrepoint; and my Lord Dorchester, her father, is to be married next week to Lady Bell Bentinck. Let me know if you go to Pope's, that I may endeavour to meet you there. I am, &c. FROM THE SAME. London, July 24. 1714. WE expected the grand affair would have been done yesterday, and now every body agrees it will "The Queen," doubtless. + Bolingbroke....H, be to-night.* The Bishop of London, Lord Bathurst, Mr Bridges, Sir William Windham, and Campion, are named for commissioners of the treasury; but I have not sufficient authority for you to depend upon it. They talk of the Duke of Ormond for our lord-lieutenant. I cannot get the pamphlet back. What shall I do? I wish you would send me the other copy. My Lord Anglesey goes next Monday to Ireland. I hear he is only angry with the chancellor, and not at all with the captain. FROM ERASMUS LEWIS, ESQ. Whitehall, July 24, 1714. I SAW Lord Harley this morning. He tells me, that he left you horridly in the dumps. I wish you were here; for after giving a quarter of an hour's vent to our grief for the departure of our Don Quixote, † we should recover ourselves, and receive consolation from each other. The triumph of the enemy makes me mad. I feel a strange ten *The dismission of Lord Oxford.-H. + Lord Oxford, who was just at this time dismissed from his employment as first minister, and immediately succeeded by Lord Bolingbroke. On Thursday the 27th of the same month he surrendered his staff as lord-treasurer; and on the 30th Lord Shrewsbury was appointed to succeed him in that office...-H. derness within myself, and scarce bear the thoughts of dating letters from this place, when my old friend is out, whose fortune I have shared for so many years. But fiat voluntas tua? The damned thing is, we are to do all dirty work. We are to turn out Monckton, * and I hear we are to pass the new commission of the treasury. † For God's sake write to Lady Masham, in favour of poor Thomas, ‡ to preserve him from ruin. I will second it. I intended to have writ you a long letter: but the moment I had turned this page, I had intelligence that the dragon has broke out in a fiery passion with my lord chancellor, § sworn a thousand oaths he would be revenged, &c. This impotent, womanish behaviour, vexes me more than his being out. This last stroke * Robert Monckton, one of the commissioners for trade and plantations, who had given information against Arthur Moore, one of his brother commissioners, for accepting a bribe from the Spanish court, to get the treaty of commerce continued.-H. It was generally supposed that he gave this information against Moore, who was a creature of Bolingbroke, at the instance of the lord-treasurer, who hoped to involve his rival in Moore's disgrace. The design of Bolingbroke was to put the treasury into commission. Sir William Wyndham was fixed upon as one of the commissioners, but it was very difficult to settle who were to be the other four, for many declined accepting an office so precarious. See p. 192. Mr Thomas had been secretary under the old commission of the treasury and he wrote to the dean by the same post, for a recommendation to Lady Masham, either to be continued in the same office under the new commissioners, or to be considered in some other manner, by way of compensation. He urges a precedent for this, in the case of his predecessor; who, being re. moved from his post of secretary, got the office of comptroller of the lotteries, worth L. 500 a-year, for 32 years. See pp. 150, 158.-H. § Lord Harcourt.-H. shows, quantula sint hominum corpuscula. I am determined for the Bath on the second or the ninth of August at farthest. FROM DR ARBUTHNOT.. DEAR BROTHER, July 24, 1714. I SUPPOSE you have read the account of St Kilda. There is an officer there, who is a sort of tribunus plebis, whose office it is to represent the grievances of the people to the Laird of M'Leod, who is supposed to be their oppressor. He is bound to contradict the laird, till he gives him three strokes with a cane over the head, and then he is at liberty to submit.* This I have done, and so has your friend *The officer in question was a sort of deputy-lieutenant under the steward of the Laird of Macleod, from whom, and not from the hand of the laird himself, he was subject to receive castigation. This officer, as such, is obliged to adjust the respective proportions of lands, grass, and rocks, and what else could be claimed by virtue of the last tack or lease, which is never longer than for three years, condescended to by the steward; nay, he is obliged always to dispute with the steward for what is due to any of them, and never to give over until he has obtained his demand, or put the steward into such a passion that he gives the officer at least three strokes with his cudgel upon the crown of his head; which is the utmost that is required of him by ancient customs. I said to the officer who gave me this ac count, what if the steward should give him but one blow? He answered, that the inhabitants would not be satisfied if he did not so far plead as to irritate the steward as to give both a second and a third. I had the farther curiosity to inquire of the stew. ard himself, if he was wont to treat the officer in this manner? who answered, that it was an ancient custom, which, in his short |