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LETTERS

FROM

LORD ROCHESTER.

"My Lord,

"THE

:

THE good offices, your Lordship has told me you endeavoured to do me with the Queen, of your own accord and generosity, incline me to be desirous to be obliged to your Lordship, for the favour of presenting the inclosed petition to her Majesty. Your Lordship will see, by the reading it, the occasion and the subject of it and I am sure I need not suggest any thing to your own kind thoughts, to add at the delivery of it, save only this, which I thought not proper to touch in the petition, that I have certainly as good a title in law to it, as any man has to any thing he possesses as likewise that the pension is appropriated, to be paid out of a part of the revenue, which, never was designed by any act of parliament, for any public use of the government: which I think has something of weight and reason, to distinguish it from those pensions, that

are placed on the more public branches of the

revenue.

"I know not, whether the Queen can do me any good in this affair, but I will believe her Majesty cannot but wish she could; how. ever, I think I should have been very wanting to my children, if I had not laid this case most humbly before her Majesty; lest, at one time or other, she herself might say, I had been too negligent in not making applications to her; which having now done, I leave the rest, with all possible submission to her own judgment, and to the reflexions, that some good-natured moments may incline her to make towards my family. I should say a great deal to your Lordship, for my own confidence, in addressing all this to your Lordship, some passages of my life having been such, as may very properly give it that name: but, I think whatever you would be content to hear on that subject, will be better expressed by the per son, who does me the honour to deliver this te your Lordship, from

My Lord,

Your Lordshifi's most Obedient Servants

July 13, 1689.

ROCHESTER.

"My Lord,

"UPON

your

PON what account soever it is, that Lordship is pleased to let me hear from you, I take it to be something of good fortune, whatsoever ill cause there may be in it too. Therefore I humbly thank your Lordship for the honour of yours of the 18th from Salisbury; which was sent me to this pretty place, where I love to be as much as you do at your palace, and tho I cannot do so much good to others, as your Lordship does there to all that are near you, yet I do more to myself, than I can do any where else. Quid sentire putas, quid credis, amice, precari? Sit mihi quod nunc est, etiam minus. ut mihi vivam, quod superest ævi. Forgive this transgressional rapture, and receive my thanks, which I pay your Lordship again for your kind letter for indeed I do take it very kindly, that you were so much concerned as to give me a kind hint of that unseasonable discourse, you came to be acquainted with, when you were last in London : I will make the best use of it I can to prevent the like for the future, if I have any credit. And, in the mean time I must make use of this opportunity, to calm and soften your resentments, towards this friend of mine, as you call him in the beginning of your letter. I will allow you, as a servant to the King and Queen, and a subject to their crown, to have as great a detestation of the contrivance, as you can wish; and upon my word, I can accom

pany you in it. But when I consider you as once you were, a concerned friend of this Lord, to have a respect for his family, and particularly for my father, who lost not only all the honours and preferments of this world, but even the comforts of it too, for the integrity and uprightness of his heart: you must forgive me, if I conjure you, by all that's sacred in this generation, in which we live together, by the character that you bear, and by the religion you profess, that you do not (as much as in you lies) suffer this next heir of my good father's name and honour, to go down with sorrow to the grave. I would not flatter myself, that your Lordship should be moved with any fondness of mine, to endeavour to bring to pass, what is not fit for a wise and good man to propose; that would be to make a very ill use of your friendship to me, and I would rather be corrected myself in my own desires, than expose your Lordship on such an account. But I hope that they, who are the supreme directors of this matter under God, may in their great wisdom and goodness judge, that it may prove as much to their honour and safety too, to pass over this particular, as if they should pursue the strictest measures of justice in it, Tho' I am a brother, if I did not, upon the greatest reflexion I can make, think I should be of the same opinion if I were none, I would not press this matter upon you. For I cannot but think, that the Queen would do, and would be glad

to avow it too, a very great thing for the memory of that Gentleman, so long in his grave. It is upon his account, I am begging of your Lordship, to do all that's possible, to preserve every part and branch and member of his family, from the least transient stain of infamy and reproach. And if God was prevailed with by Abraham, to have saved a whole city for the sake of ten righteous men, I hope there may be as charitable an inclination, to spare the debris of our broken family, for the sake of him, who was the raiser of it.

I ask your Lordship's pardon, for being thus importunate for I have great need of your help, and I hope I shall have it from you. Losses of many and good friends I have borne, and submitted with patience to the pleasure of Almighty God: but a calamity of this nature that I now deprecate, has in it something so frightful, and on some accounts so unnatural; that I beg you for God's sake, from an angry man yourself, grow an advocate for me and for the family on this account. I am ever, My Lord,

Your Lordship's most Faithful Humble.

Servant,

New Park, March 21, 1690.

FINIS.

ROCHESTER.

JL

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