Friday following, she fell into an apoplexy, and died on Sunday the
1st of August.

You do me, I daresay, the justice to believe that whilst this state
of things lasted I saw very well, how little mention soever I might
make of it at the time, that no man in the Ministry, or in the
party, was so much exposed as myself. I could expect no quarter
from the Whigs, for I had deserved none. There were persons amongst
them for whom I had great esteem and friendship; yet neither with
these, nor with any others, had I preserved a secret correspondence,
which might be of use to me in the day of distress: and besides the
general character of my party, I knew that particular prejudices
were entertained against me at Hanover. The Whigs wanted nothing
but an opportunity of attacking the peace, and it could hardly be
imagined that they would stop there. In which case I knew that they
could have hold on no man so much as myself: the instructions, the
orders, the memorials had been drawn by me; the correspondence
relating to it in France, and everywhere else, had been carried on
by me; in a word, my hand appeared to almost every paper which had
been writ in the whole course of the negotiation. To all these
considerations I added that of the weight of personal resentment,
which I had created against myself at home and abroad: in part
unavoidably, by the share I was obliged to take in these affairs;
and in part, if you will, unnecessarily, by the warmth of my temper,
and by some unguarded expressions, for which I have no excuse to
make but that which Tacitus makes for his father-in-law, Julius
Agricola: "honestius putabam offendere, quam odisse."

Having this prospect of being distinguished from the rest of my
party, in the common calamity, by severer treatment, I might have