As to the Allies, I saw no difference of opinion among all those who came to the head of affairs at this time.  Such of the Tories as were in the system above mentioned, such of them as deserted soon after from us, and such of the Whigs as had upon this occasion deserted to us, seemed equally convinced of the unreasonableness, and even of the impossibility, of continuing the war on the same disproportionate footing.  Their universal sense was, that we had taken, except the part of the States General, the whole burden of the war upon us, and even a proportion of this; while the entire advantage was to accrue to others:  that this had appeared very grossly in 1709, and 1710, when preliminaries were insisted upon, which contained all that the Allies, giving the greatest loose to their wishes, could desire, and little or nothing on the behalf of Great Britain:  that the war, which had been begun for the security of the Allies, was continued for their grandeur:  that the ends proposed, when we engaged in it, might have been answered long before, and therefore that the first favourable occasion ought to be seized of making peace; which we thought to be the interest of our country, and which appeared to all mankind, as well as to us, to be that of our party.

These were in general the views of the Tories:  and for the part I acted in the prosecution of them, as well as of all the measures accessory to them, I may appeal to mankind.  To those who had the opportunity of looking behind the curtain I may likewise appeal, for the difficulties which lay in my way, and for the particular discouragements which I met with.  A principal load of parliamentary and foreign affairs in their ordinary course lay upon me:  the whole negotiation of the peace, and of the troublesome invidious steps preliminary to it, as far as they could be transacted at home, were thrown upon me.  I continued in the House of Commons during that important session which preceded the peace; and which, by the spirit shown through the whole course of it, and by the resolutions taken in it, rendered the conclusion of the treaties practicable.  After this I was dragged into the House of Lords in such a manner as to make my promotion a punishment, not a reward; and was there left to defend the treaties almost alone.

It would not have been hard to have forced the Earl of Oxford to use me better.  His good intentions began to be very much doubted of; the truth is, no opinion of his sincerity had ever taken root in the party, and, which was worse perhaps for a man in his station, the opinion of his capacity began to fall apace.  He was so hard pushed in the House of Lords in the beginning of 1712 that he had been forced, in the middle of the session, to persuade the Queen to make a promotion of twelve peers at once, which was an unprecedented and invidious measure, to be excused by nothing but the necessity, and hardly by that.  In the House of Commons his credit was