a number sufficient to make a majority against the bill, if they had not
apprehended the other side to be secure, and therefore thought it
imprudence, by declaring themselves, to disoblige the government to no
purpose.

Reflecting upon this and forty other passages, in the several Houses of
Commons since the Revolution, makes me apt to think there is nothing a
chief governor can be commanded to attempt here wherein he may not
succeed, with a very competent share of address, and with such
assistance as he will always find ready at his devotion. And therefore I
repeat what I said at first, that I am not at all surprised at what you
tell me. For, if there had been the least spark of public spirit left,
those who wished well to their country and its constitution in church
and state, should, upon the first news of the late Speaker's promotion,
(and you and I know it might have been done a great deal sooner) have
immediately gone together, and consulted about the fittest person to
succeed him. But, by all I can comprehend, you have been so far from
proceeding thus, that it hardly ever came into any of your heads. And
the reason you give is the worst in the world: That none offered
themselves, and you knew not whom to pitch upon. It seems, however, the
other party was more resolved, or at least not so modest: For you say
your vote is engaged against your opinion, and several gentlemen in my
neighbourhood tell me the same story of themselves; this, I confess, is
of an unusual strain, and a good many steps below any condescensions a
court will, I hope, ever require from you. I shall not trouble myself to
inquire who is the person for whom you and others are engaged, or
whether there be more candidates from that side, than one. You tell me
nothing of either, and I never thought it worth the question to anybody
else. But, in so weighty an affair, and against your judgment, I cannot
look upon you as irrevocably determined. Therefore I desire you will