Our enemy Cardonnel was turned out of the House of Commons (along with Mr. Walpole) for malversation of public money.  Cadogan lost his place of Lieutenant of the Tower.  Marlborough’s daughters resigned their posts of ladies of the bedchamber; and so complete was the Duke’s disgrace, that his son-in-law, Lord Bridgewater, was absolutely obliged to give up his lodgings at St. James’s, and had his half-pension, as Master of the Horse, taken away.  But I think the lowest depth of Marlborough’s fall was when he humbly sent to ask General Webb when he might wait upon him; he who had commanded the stout old General, who had injured him and sneered at him, who had kept him dangling in his ante-chamber, who could not even after his great service condescend to write him a letter in his own hand.  The nation was as eager for peace as ever it had been hot for war.  The Prince of Savoy came amongst us, had his audience of the Queen, and got his famous Sword of Honor, and strove with all his force to form a Whig party together, to bring over the young Prince of Hanover to do anything which might prolong the war, and consummate the ruin of the old sovereign whom he hated so implacably.  But the nation was tired of the struggle:  so completely wearied of it that not even our defeat at Denain could rouse us into any anger, though such an action so lost two years before would have set all England in a fury.  ’Twas easy to see that the great Marlborough was not with the army.  Eugene was obliged to fall back in a rage, and forego the dazzling revenge of his life.  ’Twas in vain the Duke’s side asked, “Would we suffer our arms to be insulted?  Would we not send back the only champion who could repair our honor?” The nation had had its bellyful of fighting; nor could taunts or outcries goad up our Britons any more.

For a statesman that was always prating of liberty, and had the grandest philosophic maxims in his mouth, it must be owned that Mr. St. John sometimes rather acted like a Turkish than a Greek philosopher, and especially fell foul of one unfortunate set of men, the men of letters, with a tyranny a little extraordinary in a man who professed to respect their calling so much.  The literary controversy at this time was very bitter, the Government side was the winning one, the popular one, and I think might have been the merciful one.  ’Twas natural that the opposition should be peevish and cry out:  some men did so from their hearts, admiring the Duke of Marlborough’s prodigious talents, and deploring the disgrace of the greatest general the world ever knew:  ’twas the stomach that caused other patriots to grumble, and such men cried out because they were poor, and paid to do so.  Against these my Lord Bolingbroke never showed the slightest mercy, whipping a dozen into prison or into the pillory without the least commiseration.

From having been a man of arms Mr. Esmond had now come to be a man of letters, but on a safer side than that in which the above-cited poor fellows ventured their liberties and ears.  There was no danger on ours, which was the winning side; besides, Mr. Esmond pleased himself by thinking that he writ like a gentleman if he did not always succeed as a wit.