it; but whilst the magic wand was in the same hands, this knowledge served only to increase our uneasiness; and, whether we would or no, we were forced with our eyes open to walk on towards the precipice.  Every moment we became less able, if the Queen lived, to support her Government; if she died, to secure ourselves.  One side was united in a common view, and acted upon a uniform plan:  the other had really none at all.  We knew that we were out of favour at the Court of Hanover, that we were represented there as Jacobites, and that the Elector, his present Majesty, had been rendered publicly a party to that opposition, in spite of which we made the peace:  and yet we neither had taken, nor could take in our present circumstances, any measures to be better or worse there.  Thus we languished till the 27th of July, 1714, when the Queen dismissed the Treasurer.  On the Friday following, she fell into an apoplexy, and died on Sunday the 1st of August.

You do me, I daresay, the justice to believe that whilst this state of things lasted I saw very well, how little mention soever I might make of it at the time, that no man in the Ministry, or in the party, was so much exposed as myself.  I could expect no quarter from the Whigs, for I had deserved none.  There were persons amongst them for whom I had great esteem and friendship; yet neither with these, nor with any others, had I preserved a secret correspondence, which might be of use to me in the day of distress:  and besides the general character of my party, I knew that particular prejudices were entertained against me at Hanover.  The Whigs wanted nothing but an opportunity of attacking the peace, and it could hardly be imagined that they would stop there.  In which case I knew that they could have hold on no man so much as myself:  the instructions, the orders, the memorials had been drawn by me; the correspondence relating to it in France, and everywhere else, had been carried on by me; in a word, my hand appeared to almost every paper which had been writ in the whole course of the negotiation.  To all these considerations I added that of the weight of personal resentment, which I had created against myself at home and abroad:  in part unavoidably, by the share I was obliged to take in these affairs; and in part, if you will, unnecessarily, by the warmth of my temper, and by some unguarded expressions, for which I have no excuse to make but that which Tacitus makes for his father-in-law, Julius Agricola:  “honestius putabam offendere, quam odisse.”

Having this prospect of being distinguished from the rest of my party, in the common calamity, by severer treatment, I might have justified myself, by reason and by great authorities too, if I had made early provision, at least to be safe when I should be no longer useful.  How I could have secured this point I do not think fit to explain:  but certain it is that I made no one step towards it.  I resolved not to abandon my party by turning Whig, or,