is lordship is dead, and I
have now no testimony of it but what is to be found in the Observator,
where I am plentifully abused for being an enemy to my country, by
acting in the interest of my lord Godolphin and the duke of Marlborough.
What weathercock can turn with such tempers as these!

I am now on the seventh breach with them, and my crime now is, that I
will not believe and say the same things of the queen and the late
treasurer which I could not believe before of my lord Godolphin and the
duke of Marlborough, and which in truth I cannot believe, and therefore
could not say it of either of them; and which, if I had believed, yet I
ought not to have been the man that should have said it for the reasons
aforesaid.

In such turns of tempers and times, a man must be tenfold a vicar of
Bray, or it is impossible but he must one time or other be out with
everybody. This is my present condition, and for this I am reviled with
having abandoned my principles, turned jacobite, and what not. God judge
between me and these men. Would they come to any particulars with me,
what real guilt I may have I would freely acknowledge; and if they would
produce any evidence of the bribes, the pensions, and the rewards I
have taken, I would declare honestly whether they were true or no. If
they would give a list of the books which they charge me with, and the
reasons why they lay them at my door, I would acknowledge my mistake,
own what I have done, and let them know what I have not done. But these
men neither show mercy, nor leave place for repentance; in which they
act not only unlike their master, but contrary to his express commands.

It is true, good men have been used thus in former times; and all the
comfort I have is, that these men have not the last judgment in their
hands: if they had, dreadful would be the case of those who oppose them.
But that day will show many men and things also in a different state
from what they may now appear in. Some that now appear clear and fair
will then be seen to be black and foul, and some that are now thought
black and foul will then be approved and accepted; and thither I
cheerfully appeal, concluding this part in the words of the prophet, _I
heard the defaming of many; fear on every side; report, say they, and we
will report it; all my familiars watched for my halting, saying,
peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and
we shall take our revenge on him_. Jer. xx.