He wrote a pamphlet, after he came to England, against the famous
Peerage Bill, which was very well received by the public, but highly
offended the earl of Sunderland. It was exceedingly cried up by the
opposition, and produced some overtures of friendship at the time, from
Mr. Robert Walpole, to our author. Mr. Addison's death, in the year
1719, put an end, however, to all his hopes of succeeding at court,
where he continued, nevertheless, to make several attempts, but was
constantly kept down by the weight of the duke of Bolton. In the
September of that year he went into France, through all the strong
places in Flanders and Brabant, and all the considerable towns in
Holland, and then went to Hanover, from whence he returned with his
Majesty's retinue the November following.

But the fatal year of the South-Sea, 1720, ruined our author entirely,
for he lost above 20,000 l. in it; however he was very active on that
occasion, and made many speeches at the general courts of the South-Sea
Company in Merchant-Taylors Hall, and one in particular, which was
afterwards printed both in French and English, and run to a third
edition. And in 1721 he published a pamphlet with success, called, A
Letter to a Friend in the Country, occasioned by a Report that there is
a Design still forming by the late Directors of the South-Sea Company,
their Agents and Associates, to issue the Receipts of the 3d and 4th
Subscriptions at 1000 l. per Cent. and to extort about 10 Millions more
from the miserable People of Great Britain; with some Observations on
the present State of Affairs both at Home and Abroad. In the same year
he published A Letter to Mr. Law upon his Arrival in Great Britain,
which run through seven editions very soon. Not long afterwards the duke
of Portland, whose fortune had been likewise destroyed by the South-Sea,
was appointed governor of Jamaica, upon which he immediately told Mr.
Budgell he should go with him as his secretary, and should always live