This digression, as a debt to the glorious memory of king William, I could not in justice omit; and as the reign of his present majesty is esteemed happy, and looked upon as a blessing from heaven by us, it will most necessarily lead us to bless the memory of king William, to whom we owe so much of it. How easily could his majesty have led us to other branches, whose relation to the crown might have had large pretences! What prince but would have submitted to have educated a successor of his race in the protestant religion for the sake of such a crown? But the king, who had our happiness in view, and saw as far into it as any human sight could penetrate; who knew we were not to be governed by inexperienced youths; that the protestant religion was not to be established by political converts; and that princes, under French influence, or instructed in French politics, were not proper instruments to preserve the liberties of Britain, fixed his eyes upon the family which now possesses the crown, as not only having an undoubted relation to it by blood, but as being first and principally zealous and powerful asserters of the protestant religion and interest against popery; and, secondly, stored with a visible succession of worthy and promising branches, who appeared equal to the weight of government, qualified to fill a throne and guide a nation, which, without reflection, are not famed to be the most easy to rule in the world.
Whether the consequence has been a credit to king William's judgment I need not say. I am not writing panegyrics here, but doing justice to the memory of the king my master, whom I have had the honour very often to hear express himself with great satisfaction in having brought the settlement of the succession to so good an issue; and, to repeat his majesty's own words, that he knew no prince in Europe so fit to be king of England as the elector of Hanover. I am persuaded, without any flattery, that if it should not every way answer the expectations his majesty had of it, the fault will be our own. God grant the king may have more comfort of his crown than we suffered king William to have!
The king being dead, and the queen proclaimed, the hot men of that side, as the hot men of all sides do, thinking the game in their own hands, and all other people under their feet, began to run out into those mad extremes, and precipitate themselves into such measures as, according to the fate of all intemperate councils, ended in their own confusion, and threw them at last out of the saddle.
The queen, who, though willing to favour the high-church party, did not thereby design the ruin of those whom she did not employ, was soon alarmed at their wild conduct, and turned them out, adhering to the moderate counsels of those who better understood, or more faithfully pursued, her majesty's and the country's interest. In this turn fell sir Edward Seymour's party, for so the high men were then called; and to this turn we owe the conversion of several other great men, who became whigs on that occasion, which it is known they were not before; which conversion afterwards begat that unkind distinction of old whig and modern whig, which some of the former were with very little justice pleased to run up afterwards to an extreme very pernicious to both.
But I am gone too far in this part. I return to my own story.
In the interval of these things, and during the heat of the first fury of highflying, I fell a sacrifice for writing against the rage and madness of that high party, and in the service of the dissenters. What justice I met with, and, above all, what mercy, is too well known to need repetition.
This introduction is made that it may bring me to what has been the foundation of all my further concern in public affairs, and will produce a sufficient reason for my adhering to those whose obligations upon me were too strong to be resisted, even when many things were done by them which I could not approve; and for this reason it is that I think it necessary to distinguish how far I did or did not adhere to, or join in or with, the persons or conduct of the late government; and those who are willing to judge with impartiality and charity, will see reason to use me the more tenderly in their thoughts, when they weigh the particulars.
I will make no reflections upon the treatment I met with from the people I suffered for, or how I was abandoned even in my sufferings, at the same time that they acknowledged the service I had been to their cause; but I must mention it to let you know that while I lay friendless and distressed in the prison of Newgate, my family ruined, and myself without hope of deliverance, a message was brought me from a person of honour, who, till that time, I had never had the least acquaintance with, or knowledge of, other than by fame, or by sight, as we know men of quality by seeing them on public occasions. I gave no present answer to the person who brought it, having not duly weighed the import of the message. The message was by word of mouth thus: – "Pray, ask that gentleman what I can do for him?" But in return to this kind and generous message, I immediately took my pen and ink, and wrote the story of the blind man in the gospel, who followed our Saviour, and to whom our blessed Lord put the question, "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" Who, as if he had made it strange that such a question should be asked, or as if he had said that I am blind, and yet ask me what thou shalt do for me? My answer is plain in my misery, "Lord, that I may receive my sight?"
I needed not to make the application. And from this time, although I lay four months in prison after this, and heard no more of it, yet from this time, as I learned afterwards, this noble person made it his business to have my case represented to her majesty, and methods taken for my deliverance.
I mention this part, because I am no more to forget the obligation upon me to the queen, than to my first benefactor.
When her majesty came to have the truth of the case laid before her, I soon felt the effects of her royal goodness and compassion. And first, her majesty declared, that she left all that matter to a certain person, and did not think he would have used me in such a manner. Probably these words may seem imaginary to some, and the speaking them to be of no value, and so they would have been had they not been followed with further and more convincing proofs of what they imported, which were these, that her majesty was pleased particularly to inquire into my circumstances and family, and by my lord treasurer Godolphin to send a considerable supply to my wife and family, and to send to me the prison money to pay my fine and the expenses of my discharge. Whether this be a just foundation let my enemies judge. Here is the foundation on which I built my first sense of duty to her majesty's person, and the indelible bond of gratitude to my first benefactor.
Gratitude and fidelity are inseparable from an honest man. But, to be thus obliged by a stranger, by a man of quality and honour, and after that by the sovereign under whose administration I was suffering, let any one put himself in my stead, and examine upon what principles I could ever act against either such a queen, or such a benefactor; and what must my own heart reproach me with, what blushes must have covered my face when I had looked in, and called myself ungrateful to him that saved me thus from distress, or her that fetched me out of the dungeon, and gave my family relief? Let any man who knows what principles are, what engagements of honour and gratitude are, make his case his own, and say what I could have done more or less than I have done.
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