At last Montagu formally approached Lord Dorchester, who had no objection whatever to him as a suitor for the hand of Lady Mary.  They could not come to terms in the matter of settlements.  Dorchester demanded that the estates should be put into entail.  Also he desired that his future son-in-law should provide a town residence for Lady Mary.  This did not seem unreasonable, but Montagu did not see his way to agree to them.  He was willing enough to make all proper provision for his wife, but he declined absolutely to settle his landed property upon a son who, as he put it, for aught he knew, might prove unworthy to inherit it, who might be a spendthrift, an idiot, or a villain—­as a matter of fact, the only son of the marriage turned out most things he should not.  Anyhow, Montagu held strong views on the subject, and these he expounded to Richard Steele, who presented them in No. 223 of the Tatler (September 12, 1710).

“That this method of making settlements was first invented by a griping lawyer, who made use of the covetous tempers of the parents of each side, to force two young people into these vile measures of diffidence for no other end, but to increase the skins of parchment, by which they were put into each other’s possession out of each other’s power.  The law of our country has given an ample and generous provision for the wife, even the third of her husband’s estate, and left to her good-humour and his gratitude the expectation of farther provision, but the fantastical method of going farther, with relation to the heirs, has a foundation in nothing but pride, and folly:  for as all men with their children as like themselves, and as much better as they can possibly, it seems monstrous that we should give out of ourselves the opportunities of rewarding and discouraging them according to their defects.  The wife institution has no more sense in it, than if a man should begin a deed with ’Whereas no man living knows how long he shall continue to be a reasonable creature, or an honest man, and whereas I.B. am going to enter into the state of matrimony with Mrs. D., therefore I shall from henceforth make it indifferent to me whether from this time forward I shall be a fool or knave.  And therefore, in full and perfect health of body, and a sound mind, not knowing which of my children will prove better or worse, I give to my first-born, be he perverse, ungrateful, impious, or cruel, the lump and bulk of my estate, and leave one year’s purchase only to each of my younger children, whether they shall be brave or beautiful, modest or honourable, from the time of the date hereof, wherein I resign my senses, and hereby promise to employ my judgment no farther in the distribution of my worldly goods from the date hereof, hereby farther confessing and covenanting, that I am henceforth married, and dead in law....’

“How strangely men are sometimes partial to themselves, appears by the rapine of him, that has a daughter’s beauty under his direction.  He will make no scruple of using it to force from her lover as much of his estate, as is worth ten thousand pounds, and at the same time, as a justice on the bench, will spare no pains to get a man hanged that has taken but a horse from him.