Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 15.djvu/91

Rh and Vienna, by his negotiations: he is violent against a peace, and finds true what I writ to him, that the ministry seems for it. He reasons well; yet I am for a peace. I took leave of lady Kerry, who goes to morrow for Ireland; she picks up lord Shelburne and Mrs. Pratt at lord Shelburne's house. I was this evening with lord treasurer; Tom Harley was there; and whispered me that he began to doubt about Sterne's business; I told him he would find he was in the wrong. I sat two or three hours at lord treasurer's; he rallied me sufficiently upon my refusing to take him into our club; told a judge who was with us, that my name was Thomas Swift. I had a mind to prevent sir H. Bellasis going to Spain, who is a most covetous cur, and I fell a railing against avarice, and turned it so that he smoked me, and named Bellasis. I went on, and said it was a shame to send him, to which he agreed, but desired I would name some who understood business and do not love money, for he could not find them. I said, there was something in a treasurer different from other men; that we ought not to make a man a bishop who does not love divinity, or a general who does not love war; and I wondered why the queen would make a man lord treasurer who does not love money. He was mightily pleased with what I said. He was talking of the first-fruits of England; and I took occasion to tell him, that I would not for a thousand pounds, any body but he had got them to Ireland, who got them for England too. He bid me consider what a thousand pounds was; I said, I would have him to know, I valued a thousand pounds as little as he valued a Rh