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274 felt and acknowledged such true respect for that personage, and so sincere a desire of maintaining the just weight and consequence of his great place, that you would never have been silently absent upon any proper signification of a wish for your presence and advice.—I owned, that I should be sorry if steps of that magnitude had been taken without any notice to your Lordship, because I was fully persuaded, that your faithful and disinterested attachment deserved a more distinguished attention. I added, that I did not say this from any view to a consequent call to high office; as upon that subject I could not at all form a guess about your Lordship's opinion or wishes, otherwise than from my own observation of the manner, in which you seemed to enjoy the comforts of quiet and domestic life; from which I thought you would not be anxious to remove yourself, but upon the conviction of being able to do effectual service to the King and to the public. He then took occasion to turn a little back to times past, and while he declared his belief of your real sentiments for the service of His Majesty, to lament an appearance, which you had betrayed, of distrust and suspicion. He could not account for it. He was sure that you had no reason for it. As to himself he had felt a great degree of comfort in all the correspondence he had had with your Lordship; till you had at last suddenly changed your tone with him, and carried your suspicions to such lengths, as plainly showed you had no confidence, not only in him, but in him that sent him; that he was certain of your injustice in the one case, and most perfectly persuaded of it in the other; that however, believing this to have been perhaps an accidental burst of temper from circumstances which in your then situation must have arisen at times to disturb and disquiet you as they would have done any man, he had called afterwards at your door, but had not seen you since. He said, that he was still more hurt at perceiving, that you had given uneasiness to some other persons upon an idea of your suspecting their sincerity, which