Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/172

160 to continue the war, and will engage to convince me, that Spain is yet to be had, if we take proper measures. Your grace knows he is a person of great talents, but dashed with something restless and capricious in his nature. He told me he came over without being recalled, and without one servant, having scattered them in several parts of Germany. I doubt he will not have credit enough with the ministry to make them follow his plans; and he is such a sort of person as may give good advice, which wise men may reasonably refuse to follow. It seems to me that the ministry lie under a grievous dilemma, from the difficulty of continuing the war, and the danger of an ill peace; which I doubt whether all their credit with the queen and country would support them under: but my lord treasurer is a stranger to fear, and has all that courage which innocence and good sense can give a man, and the most free from avarice of any one living; both which are absolutely necessary for his station in this juncture. He was saying a thing to me some days ago, which I believe is the great maxim he proceeds by, that wisdom in publick affairs was not, what is commonly believed, the forming of schemes with remote views; but the making use of such incidents as happen. It was thought my lord Marr would have succeeded as secretary upon the duke of Queensberry's death; but the court seems now disposed to have no third secretary, which was a useless charge. The queen has been extremely ill, so as for four and twenty hours people were in great pain; but she has been since much better, and voided abundance of gravel, &c. Our expedition under Mr. Hill is said to be toward the South seas; but nothing is known: I told a great man,