repeat it again, that he always left
me so entirely to my own judgment, in everything I did, that he never
prescribed to me what I should write, or should not write, in my life;
neither did he ever concern himself to dictate to or restrain me in any
kind; nor did he see any one tract that I ever wrote before it was
printed; so that all the notion of my writing by his direction is as
much a slander upon him as it is possible anything of that kind can be;
and if I have written anything which is offensive, unjust, or untrue, I
must do that justice as to declare, he has no hand in it; the crime is
my own.

As the reproach of his directing me to write is a slander upon the
person I am speaking of, so that of my receiving pensions and payments
from him for writing, is a slander upon me; and I speak it with the
greatest sincerity, seriousness, and solemnity that it is possible for a
Christian man to speak, that except the appointment I mentioned before,
which her majesty was pleased to make me formerly, and which I received
during the time of my lord Godolphin's ministry, I have not received of
the late lord treasurer, or of any one else by his order, knowledge, or
direction, one farthing, or the value of a farthing, during his whole
administration; nor has all the interest I have been supposed to have in
his lordship been able to procure me the arrears due to me in the time
of the other ministry. So help me God.

I am under no necessity of making this declaration. The services I did,
and for which her majesty was pleased to make me a small allowance, are
known to the greatest men in the present administration; and some of
them were then of the opinion, and I hope are so still, that I was not
unworthy of her majesty's favour. The effect of those services, however
small, is enjoyed by those great persons and by the whole nation to this
day; and I had the honour once to be told, that they should never be
forgotten. It is a misfortune that no man can avoid, to forfeit for his
deference to the person and services of his queen, to whom he was
inexpressibly obliged; and if I am fallen under the displeasure of the
present government for anything I ever did in obedience to her majesty
in the past, I may say it is my disaster; but I can never say it is my
fault.

This brings me again to that other oppression which, as I said, I suffer
under, and which, I think, is of a kind that no man ever suffered under
so much as myself; and this