Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/80

68 a cruel illness, that seized me at fits, and hindered me from meddling in any business; neither indeed could I at all suspect there was any need to stir any more in this, until, often asking Mr. Addison whether he had any orders about it, I was a little in pain, and desired Mr. Addison to inquire at the treasury, whether such a grant had then passed? and finding an unwillingness, I inquired myself; where Mr. Taylor assured me there were never any orders for such a grant. This was a month ago, and then I began to despair of the whole thing. Lord Pembroke was hard to be seen, neither did I think it worth talking the matter with him. What perplexed me most was, why he should tell me, and write to Ireland, that the business was done; for if the account he sent to Ireland were not as positive as what he gave me, I ought to be told so from thence. I had no opportunity of clearing this matter until the day I received your last letter; when his explanation was, that he had been promised he should carry over the grant when he returned to Ireland, and that his memorial was now in the treasury. Yet, when I had formerly begged leave to follow this matter with lord treasurer, only in the form of common soliciting, he was uneasy, and told me lord treasurer had nothing at all to do with it: but that it was a matter purely between the queen and himself, as I have told you in former letters; which, however, I knew then to be otherwise, from lord treasurer himself. So that all I had left me to do was only the cold amusement of now and then refreshing lord Pembroke's memory, or giving the ministry, as I could find opportunity, good sitions