I told you at our last meeting that the winter was the fittest time for
business, and in truth I thought it so till my Lord Treasurer assured me
that ye Spring is ye fittest time for salads and subsidies. I hope
therefore this April will not prove so unnatural as not to afford plenty
of both; some of you may perhaps think it dangerous to make me too rich,
but do not fear it, I promise you faithfully (whatever you give) I will
take care to want; and yet in that you may rely on me, I will never
break it although in other things my word may be thought a slender
authority. My Lords and Gentlemen, I can bear my own straights with
patience, but My Lord Treasurer doth protest that the revenue as it now
stands is too little for us both; one of us must pinch for it, if you do
not help us out. I must speak freely to you, I am under incumbrances....
I have a pretty good estate, I must confess, but, Odd's fish, I have a
charge on't. Here is my Lord Treasurer can tell you that all the moneys
designed for the Summer's Guards must of necessity be applied for the
next year's cradles and swaddling clothes; what then shall we do for
ships? I only hint that to you, that's your business, not mine. I know
by experience I can live without them. I lived twenty years abroad
without ships and was never in better health in my life, but how well
you can live without them you had best try. I leave it to yourselves to
judge, and therefore only mention it; I do not intend to insist upon
that.
There is another thing which I must press more earnestly, which is this;
it seems a good part of my revenue will fail in two or three years
except you will please to continue it: now I have this to say for it,
why did you give me so much except you resolved to give on as fast as I
call for it? The nation hates you already for giving so much, I will
hate you now if you do not give me more. So that your interest obliges
you to stick to me or you will not have a friend left in England. On the
other hand, if you continue the revenue as desired, I shall be able to
perform those great things for your religion and liberty which I have
long had in my thoughts but cannot effect it without this establishment:
wherefore look to it, if you do not make me rich enough to undo you, it
shall be at your doors; for my part I can with a clear conscience say I
have done my best and shall leave the rest to my successors. But if I
may gain your good opinion, the best way is to acquaint you what I have
done to deserve it out of my royal care for your religion and property.
For the first my late proclamation is the true picture of my mind. He
that cannot (as in a glass) see my zeal for the Church of England doth
not deserve any other satisfaction, for I declare him wilful, abominable
and not good. You may perhaps cry, how comes this sudden change? To that
I reply in a word, I am a changeling; that I think a full answer, but to
convince men yet further that I mean as I say, there are these
arguments--1st I tell you so and you know I never break my word. 2nd My
Lord Treasurer says so and he never told lies in his life. 3rd My Lord
Lauderdale will undertake for me, and I should be loth by any act of
mine to forfeit the credit he has with you. If you desire more instances
of my zeal, I have them for you; for example, I have converted all my
natural sons from popery, (and I may say without vanity) it was more my
work and much more peculiar to me than the getting of them. It would do
your hearts good to hear how prettily little George can read already the
Psalter; they are all fine children, God bless 'em, and so like me in
their understandings. But (as I was saying) I have, to please you, given
a pension to your favourite my Lord Lauderdale; not so much that I
thought he wanted it, as I knew you would take it kindly. I have made
Carwell a Duchess and married her sister to my Lord Pembroke. I have
made Crewe Bishop of Durham. I have at my brother's request sent my Lord
Inchiquin to settle the protestant religion at Tangier; and at the first
word of my Lady Portsmouth I preferred Prideaux to be Bishop of
Chichester. I do not know what factions men would have; but this I am
sure of, that none of my predecessors did ever anything like this to
gain the goodwill of their subjects. So much for religion.
I must now acquaint you that by my Lord Treasurer's advice I have made a
considerable retrenchment on my expenses in candles and charcoal, and do
not intend to stick there, but, with your help, to look into the like
embezelments of my dripping pans and kitching stuff, of which (by ye
way) on my conscience neither my Lord Treasurer nor my Lord Lauderdale
are guilty; but if you should find them dabbling in that business I tell
you plainly I leave them to you, for I would not have the world think I
am a man to be cheated.
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