roke First
Secretary of State? This unfortunate person, I say, neglected,
forgot, unnamed to anything that may speak the Queen satisfied with
his services, or his friends concerned as to his fortune.

"Mr. de Torcy put me quite out of countenance, the other day, by a
pity that wounded me deeper than ever did the cruelty of the late
Lord Godolphin. He said he would write to Robin and Harry about me.
God forbid, my lord, that I should need any foreign intercession, or
owe the least to any Frenchman living, besides the decency of
behaviour and the returns of common civility: some say I am to go to
Baden, others that I am to be added to the Commissioners for
settling the commerce. In all cases I am ready, but in the meantime,
_dic aliquid de tribus capellis_. Neither of these two are, I
presume, honours or rewards, neither of them (let me say to my dear
Lord Bolingbroke, and let him not be angry with me), are what Drift
may aspire to, and what Mr. Whitworth, who was his fellow clerk, has
or may possess. I am far from desiring to lessen the great merit of
the gentleman I named, for I heartily esteem and love him; but in
this trade of ours, my lord, in which you are the general, as in
that of the soldiery, there is a certain right acquired by time and
long service. You would do anything for your Queen's service, but
you would not be contented to descend, and be degraded to a charge,
no way proportioned to that of Secretary of State, any more than Mr.
Ross, though he would charge a party with a halbard in his hand,
would be content all his life after to be Serjeant. Was my Lord
Dartmouth, from Secretary, returned again to be Commissioner of
Trade, or from Secretary of War, would Frank Gwyn think himself
kindly used to be returned again to be Commissioner? In short, my
lord, you have put me above myself, and if I am to return to myself,
I shall return to something very discontented and uneasy. I am sure,
my lord, you will make the best use you can of this hint for my
good. If I am to have anything, it will certainly be for her
Majesty's service, and the credit of my friends in the Ministry,
that it be done before I am recalled from home, lest the world may
think either that I have merited to be disgraced, or that ye dare
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