[W.S.J.]] On the other side, all well-wishers to the Queen, the Church, or the peace, were equally dejected; and the treasurer stood the foremost mark both of his enemies' fury, and the censure of his friends: among the latter, some imputed this fatal miscarriage to his procrastinating nature; others, to his unmeasurable public thrift: both parties agreed, that a first minister, with very moderate skill in affairs, might easily have governed the event: and some began to doubt, whether the great fame of his abilities, acquired in other stations, were what he justly deserved: all this he knew well enough, and heard it with great phlegm; neither did it make any alteration in his countenance or humour.

He told Monsieur Buys, the Dutch envoy, two days before the Parliament sat, that he was sorry for what was like to pass, because the States would be the first sufferers, which he desired the envoy to remember: and to his nearest friends, who appeared in pain about the public or themselves, he only said that all would be well, and desired them not to be frighted.[63] [Footnote 63: See Swift's account of an interview with the lord treasurer in his "Journal to Stella," December 8th (_ibid.,_ p.

296).
[W.S.J.]] It was, I conceive, upon these motives, that the treasurer advised Her Majesty to create twelve new lords,[64] and thereby disable the sting of faction for the rest of her lifetime: this promotion was so ordered, that a third part were of those on whom, or their posterity, the peerage would naturally devolve; and the rest were such, whose merit, birth, and fortune, could admit of no exception.
[Footnote 64: See note, vol.ii., p.

308, and note, vol.v., p.

446.
[W.S.J.]] The adverse party, being thus driven down by open force, had nothing left but to complain, which they loudly did; that it was a pernicious[65] example set for ill princes to follow, who, by the same rule, might make at any time an hundred as well as twelve, and by these means become masters of the House of Lords whenever they pleased, which would be dangerous to our liberties.