the peace had rendered them practicable. He was to attempt nothing,
his partisans were to lie still, Oxford undertook for all.

After many delays, fatal to the general interest of Europe, this
peace was signed: and the only considerable thing which he brought
about afterwards was the marriage I have mentioned above; and by it
an accession of riches and honour to a family whose estate was very
mean, and whose illustration before this time I never met with
anywhere, but in the vain discourses which he used to hold over
claret. If he kept his word with any of the parties above-
mentioned, it must be supposed that he did so with the Whigs; for as
to us, we saw nothing after the peace but increase of mortification
and nearer approaches to ruin. Not a step was made towards
completing the settlement of Europe, which the treaties of Utrecht
and Radstadt left imperfect; towards fortifying and establishing the
Tory party; towards securing those who had been the principal actors
in this administration against future events. We had proceeded in a
confidence that these things should immediately follow the
conclusion of the peace: he had never, I dare swear, entertained a
thought concerning them. As soon as the last hand was given to the
fortune of his family, he abandoned his mistress, his friends, and
his party, who had borne him so many years on their shoulders: and
I was present when this want of faith was reproached him in the
plainest and strongest terms by one of the honestest men in Britain,
and before some of the most considerable Tories. Even his impudence
failed him on this occasion: he did not so much as attempt an
excuse.

He could not keep his word which he had given the Pretender and his
adherents, because he had formed no party to support him in such a