s taking it, which I,
having read the history of the cruelty and perfidious dealings of the
Turks in their wars, and how they had rooted out the name of the
Christian religion in above threescore and ten kingdoms, could by no
means agree with. And though then but a young man, and a younger
author, I opposed it, and wrote against it, which was taken very
unkindly indeed.

The next time I differed with my friends was when king James was
wheedling the dissenters to take off the penal laws and test, which I
could by no means come into. And, as in the first, I used to say, I had
rather the popish house of Austria should ruin the protestants in
Hungaria, than the infidel house of Ottoman should ruin both protestants
and papists by overrunning Germany; so, in the other, I told the
dissenters I had rather the church of England should pull our clothes
off by fines and forfeitures, than the papists should fall both upon the
church and the dissenters, and pull our skins off by fire and fagot.

The next difference I had with good men was about the scandalous
practice of occasional conformity, in which I had the misfortune to make
many honest men angry, rather because I had the better of the argument,
than because they disliked what I said.

And now I have lived to see the dissenters themselves very quiet, if not
very well pleased with an act of parliament to prevent it. Their friends
indeed laid it on; they would be friends indeed if they would talk of
taking it off again.

Again, I had a breach with honest men for their maltreating king
William; of which I say nothing, because I think they are now opening
their eyes, and making what amends they can to his memory.

The fifth difference I had with them was about the treaty of Partition,
in which many honest men are mistaken, and in which I told them plainly
then that they would at last end the war upon worse terms; and so it is
my opinion they would have done, though, the treaty of Gertrudenburgh
had taken place.

The sixth time I differed with them was when the old whigs fell upon the
modern whigs, and when the duke of Marlborough and my lord Godolphin
were used by the Observator in a manner worse, I must confess, for the
time it lasted, than ever they were used since; nay, though it were by
Abel and the Examiner; but the success failed. In this dispute my lord
Godolphin did me the honour to tell me, I had served him and his grace
also both faithfully and successfully. But h