I got here last Thursday, after five days’ travelling, weary the first, almost dead the second, tolerable the third, and well enough the rest; and am now glad of the fatigue, which has served for exercise; and I am at present well enough.  The Whigs were ravished to see me, and would lay hold on me as a twig while they are drowning, and the great men making me their clumsy apologies, etc.  But my Lord Treasurer received me with a great deal of coldness, which has enraged me so, I am almost vowing revenge.  I have not yet gone half my circle; but I find all my acquaintance just as I left them.  Everything is turning upside down; every Whig in great office will, to a man, be infallibly put out; and we shall have such a winter as hath not been seen in England.

The Tatler expects every day to be turned out of his employment; and the Duke of Ormond, they say, will be Lieutenant of Ireland.  I hope you are now peaceably in Presto’s lodgings; but I resolve to turn you out by Christmas; in which time I shall either have done my business, or find it not to be done.  Pray be at Trim by the time this letter comes to you; and ride little Johnson, who must needs be now in good case.  I have begun this letter unusually, on the post-night, and have already written to the Archbishop; and cannot lengthen this.  Henceforth I will write something every day to MD, and make it a sort of journal; and when it is full, I will send it, whether MD writes or no; and so that will be pretty:  and I shall always be in conversation with MD, and MD with Presto; and so farewell.

LONDON, NOV. 11, 1710.

I dined to-day in the City, and then went to christen Will Frankland’s child; Lady Falconbridge was one of the godmothers; this is a daughter of Oliver Cromwell, and extremely like him by the picture I have seen.  My business in the City was to thank Stratford for a kindness he has done me.  I found Bank stock fallen thirty-four to the hundred, and was mighty desirous to buy it.  I had three hundred pounds in Ireland, and I desired Stratford to buy me three hundred pounds in Bank stock and that he keep the papers, and that I would be bound to pay him for them; and, if it should rise or fall, I should take my chance and pay him interest in the meantime.  I was told money was so hard to get here, and no one would do this for me.  However, Stratford, one of the most generous men alive, has done this for me:  so that three hundred pounds cost me three hundred pounds and thirty shillings.  This was done a week ago, and I can have five pounds for my bargain already.  I writ to your Mother to desire Lady Giffard would do the same with what she owes me, but she tells your mother she has no money.  I would to God, all you had in the world was there.  Whenever you lend money, take this rule, to have two people bound, who have both visible fortunes; for they will hardly die together; and, when one dies, you fall upon the other,