valeret, et per id perplures sibi amicos acquireret, illum omnes,
etiam qui modo aliqua notitia erant conjuncti, quoties aliquid a rege
postulandum agendumve apud regem esset, adire, ambire, orare, ut eos
apud regem adjuvaret." He was overwhelmed by business of this kind,
"obrutus negotiationibus curationibusque." His house and the approaches
to it were every day blocked up by crowds of persons who came to request
his good offices; "domus ac vestibula quotidie referta clientium et
suppliccantium." From the Fountainhall papers it appears that his
influence was felt even in the highlands of Scotland. We learn from
himself that, at this time, he was always toiling for others, that he
was a daily suitor at Whitehall, and that, if he had chosen to sell his
influence, he could, in little more than three, years, have put twenty
thousand pounds into his pocket, and obtained a hundred thousand more
for the improvement of the colony of which he was proprietor.---- Such
was the position of these two men. Which of them, then, was the more
likely to be employed in the matter to which Sunderland's letter
related? Was it George or William, an agent of the lowest or of the
highest class? The persons interested were ladies of rank and fashion,
resident at the palace. where George would hardly have been admitted
into an outer room, but where William was every day in the presence
chamber and was frequently called into the closet. The greatest nobles
in the kingdom were zealous and active in the cause of their fair
friends, nobles with whom William lived in habits of familiar
intercourse, but who would hardly have thought George fit company for
their grooms. The sum in question was seven thousand pounds, a sum not
large when compared with the masses of wealth with which William had
constantly to deal, but more than a hundred times as large as the only
ransom which is known to have passed through the hands of George.
These considerations would suffice to raise a strong presumption that
Sunderland's letter was addressed to William, and not to George: but
there is a still stronger argument behind.---- It is most important to
observe that the person to whom this letter was addressed was not the
first person whom the Maids of Honour had requested to act for them.
They applied to him because another person to whom they had previously
applied, had, after some correspondence, declined the office. From
their first application we learn with certainty