better in my life; but how you will be without, I leave to yourselves to judge, and therefore hint this only by the bye:  I do not insist upon it.  There’s another thing I must press more earnestly, and that is this:—­It seems a good part of my revenue will expire in two or three years, except you will be pleased to continue it.  I have to say for ’t, pray, why did you give me so much as you have done, unless you resolve to give on as fast as I call for it?  The nation hates you already for giving so much, and I’ll hate you too, if you do not give me more.  So that if you stick not to me, you must not have a friend in England.  On the other hand, if you will give me the revenue I desire, I shall be able to do those things for your religion and liberty, that I have had long in my thoughts, but cannot effect them without a little more money to carry me through.  Therefore look to ’t and take notice that if you do not make me rich enough to undo you, it shall lie at your doors.  For my part I wash my hands on ’t.  But that I may gain your good opinion, the best way is to acquaint you what I have done to deserve it, out of my royal care for your religion and your property.  For the first, my proclamation is a true picture of my mind, He that cannot, as in a glass, see my zeal for the Church of England, does not deserve any farther satisfaction, for I declare him wilful, abominable, and not good.  Some may, perhaps, be startled, and cry, how comes this sudden change?  To which I answer, I am a changling, and that’s sufficient, I think.  But to convince men farther, that I mean what I say, there are these arguments:—­

“First, I tell you so, and you know I never break my word.

“Secondly, My Lord Treasurer says so, and he never told a lye in
his life.

“Thirdly, My Lord Lauderdale will undertake it for me; and I
should be loath, by any act of mine, he should forfeit the
credit he has with you.

“If you desire more instances of my zeal, I have them for you.  For example, I have converted my natural sons from Popery; and I may say, without vanity, it was my own work, so much the more peculiarly mine than the begetting them.  ’Twould do one’s heart good to hear how prettily George can read already in the Psalter.  They are all fine children, God bless ’em, and so like me in their understandings.  But, as I was saying, I have, to please you, given a pension to your favourite my Lord Lauderdale; not so much that I thought he wanted it, as that you would take it kindly.  I have made Carwell dutchess of Portsmouth, and marryed her sister to the Earl of Pembroke.  I have, at my brother’s request, sent my Lord Inchequin into Barbary, to settle the Protestant Religion among the Moors, and an English Interest at Tangier.  I have made Crew Bishop of Durham, and, at the first word of my Lady Portsmouth, Prideaux Bishop of Chichester.  I know not, for my part, what factious men would have; but this