land-tax and occasional bills having
received the royal assent, the House of Commons adjourned to the
fourteenth of January following: but the adjournment of the Lords was
only to the second, the prevailing party there being in haste to pursue
the consequences of the Earl of Nottingham's clause, which they hoped
would end in the ruin of the treasurer, and overthrow the ministry; and
therefore took the advantage of this interval, that they might not be
disturbed by the Commons.

When this address against any peace without Spain, &c. was carried in
the House of Lords, it is not easy to describe the effects it had upon
most men's passions. The partisans of the old ministry triumphed loudly,
and without any reserve, as if the game were their own. The Earl of
Wharton was observed in the House to smile, and put his hands to his
neck when any of the ministry was speaking, by which he would have it
understood that some heads were in danger. Parker, the chief justice,
began already with great zeal and officiousness to prosecute authors and
printers of weekly and other papers, writ in defence of the
administration: in short, joy and vengeance sat visible in every
countenance of that party.[62]

[Footnote 62: See "Journal to Stella," December 13th (vol. ii., p. 299
of present edition). [W.S.J.]]

On the other side, all well-wishers to the Queen, the Church, or the
peace, were equally dejected; and the treasurer stood the foremost mark
both of his enemies' fury, and the censure of his friends: among the
latter, some imputed this fatal miscarriage to his procrastinating
nature; others, to his unmeasurable public thrift: both parties agreed,
that a first minister, with very moderate skill in affairs, might easily
have governed the event: and some began to doubt, whether the great fame
of his abilities, acquired in other stations, were what he justly
deserved: all this he knew well enough, and heard it with great phlegm;
neither did it make any alteration in his countenance or humour. He told
Monsieur Buys, the Dutch envoy, two days before the Parliament sat, that
he was sorry for what was like to pass, because the States would be the
first sufferers, which he desired the envoy to remember: and to his
nearest friends, who appeared in pain about the public or themselves, he
only said that all would be well, and desired them not to be
frighted.[63]

[Footnote 63: See Swift's account of an interview with the lord
treasurer in his "J