Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/178

166 ignorance may make, notwithstanding the sedulous endeavours to the contrary, of the great prelates in this and succeeding ages. My wife, my mother, my mother-in-law, my, &c. &c. &c. all join with me in good wishes to you; and, I hope, you will continue to believe, that I am, with the greatest respect, sir, your most humble and most obedient servant,

CARTERET.

SIR,

R. Stopford, going to England upon some particular affair, I gladly complied with his desire, that I should do myself the honour of writing to you, because, as useless as I am, and although I shall never have the happiness to see you, yet my ambition to have some small place in your memory, will live as long as myself.

I will do an unmannerly thing, which is, to bequeath you an epitaph for forty years hence, in two words, Ultimus Britannorum. You never forsook your party. You might often have been as great as the court can make any man so; but you preserved your spirit of liberty, when your former colleagues had utterly sacrificed theirs; and if it shall ever begin to breathe in these days, it must entirely be owing to yourself