Letter XX

Summary

My dear Lady,

I read with Pleasure your Commands, in your last kind and obliging Letter, and you may be sure of a ready Obedience in every one of them that is in my Power.

That which I can most easily do, I will first do; and that is, to transcribe the Answer I sent to Miss Darnford, and that to Mrs. Jewkes, the former of which (and a long one it is) is as follows:

‘Dear Miss,

‘I begin now to be afraid I shall not have the Pleasure and Benefit I promised myself, of passing a Fortnight or three Weeks at the Hall, in your sweet Conversation, and that of your worthy Family, as well as those others in your agreeable Neighbourhood, whom I must always remember with equal Honour and Delight.

‘The Occasion will be principally, that we expect very soon a Visit from Lord and Lady Davers, who propose to tarry here a Fortnight at least; and after that, the advanc’d Season will carry us to London, where Mr. B. has taken a House for his Winter Residence, and in order to attend Parliament: A Service, he says, which he has been more deficient in hitherto, than he can either answer to his Constituents, or to his own Conscience; for tho’, he says, he is but One, yet if any good Motion should be lost by one, every absent Member, who is independent, has it to reproach himself with the Consequences that may follow, on the Loss of that Good which might otherwise redound to the Commonwealth. And besides, he says, such Excuses as he could make, every one might plead, and then publick Affairs might as well be left to the Administration, and no Parliament be chosen.

‘He observed further on this Subject, that every absent Member, in such Cases, indirectly abets the Minister, be he who he will, in all his Designs, be they what they will, and has even less Excuse to his Country, than the Man, who, for a transitory Benefit to his private Family, takes a Pension or Reward for his Vote;