a Time that it
was necessary for me to send an Inquisitor General into my Conscience,
to examine and settle all the Abuses that ever were committed in that
little Court of Equity; but I assure you, your long Letter did not lay
so much my Faults as my Misfortunes before me, which believe me, dear
----, have fallen as heavy and as thick upon me as the Shower of Hail
upon us two in E---- Forest, and has left me much at a Loss which way to
turn myself. The Pilot of the Ship I embarked in, who industriously ran
upon every Rock, has at last split the Vessel, and so much of a sudden,
that the whole Crew, I mean his Domesticks, are all left to swim for
their Lives, without one friendly Plank to assist them to Shore. In
short, he left me sick, in Debt, and without a Penny; but as I begin to
recover, and have a little time to Think, I can't help considering
myself, as one whisk'd up behind a Witch upon a Broomstick, and hurried
over Mountains and Dales through confus'd Woods and thorny Thickets, and
when the Charm is ended, and the poor Wretch dropp'd in a Desart, he can
give no other Account of his enchanted Travels, but that he is much
fatigued in Body and Mind, his Cloaths torn, and worse in all other
Circumstances, without being of the least Service to himself or any
body else. But I will follow your Advice with an active Resolution, to
retrieve my bad Fortune, and almost a Year miserably misspent.

'But notwithstanding what I have suffered, and what my Brother Mad-man
has done to undo himself, and every body who was so unlucky to have the
least Concern with him, I could not but be movingly touch'd at so
extraordinary a Vicissitude of Fortune, to see a great Man fallen from
that shining Light, in which I beheld him in the House of Lords, to such
a Degree of Obscurity, that I have observ'd the meanest Commoner here
decline, and the Few he would sometimes fasten on, to be tired of his
Company; for you know he is but a bad Orator in his Cups, and of late he
has been but seldom sober.

'A week before he left Paris, he was so reduced, that he had not one
single Crown at Command, and was forc'd to thrust in with any
Acquaintance for a Lodging; Walsh and I have had him by Turns, all to
avoid a Crowd of Duns, which he had of all Sizes, from Fourteen hundred
Livres to Four, who hunted him so close, that he was forced to retire to
some of the neighbouring Villages for Safety. I, sick as I was, hurried
about Paris to raise Money, and t