His bitterest enemies were unable to deny that some of the expedients which he had proposed had proved highly beneficial to the nation.

But it was said that these expedients were not devised by himself.

He was represented, in a hundred pamphlets, as the daw in borrowed plumes.

He had taken, it was affirmed, the hint of every one of his great plans from the writings or the conversation of some ingenious speculator.

This reproach was, in truth, no reproach.