my Lord Marlborough, and come into the Queen's measures, who resolved to abandon the Whigs, they would rather take him for their head than Harley, who had made the same offer to them.
But this transaction being before Doctor Sacheverell's tryal was over, and therefore built upon a supposition that the same Parliament must be kept for another sessions, when it would be dissolv'd by law; because, if then dissolv'd, another of the same principles would be chosen, as the kingdom then stood affected; and all the business of the House of Commons being then devolved upon me, my Lord Godolphin told Graham that it was absolutely necessary I should be brought [into] this new scheme in opposition to Harley, or otherwise he, my Lord Godolphin, could never carry on the publick business in the Parliament; and accordingly sent Graham to me, at eleven o'clock at night, with the proposal contain'd in the paper mark'd A, which is the very original, taken from his own mouth at the instant he made it to me.
And when I observed my Lord Marlborough was excluded, and therefore desir'd he might be acquainted with it, he answer'd me that he knew my Lord Godolphin so well that he could trust him, and so he did me at his desire, and upon the assurance his Lordp had given him that he might do so; but for my Lord Marlborough, he knew that neither the Church Party nor the Queen would have to do with him.
Tho' I was extreamly surpriz'd at my Lord Godolphin's message, and more at the messenger by whom it was sent, yet I suspended giving any great check to his proposal 'till I had acquainted my Lord Marlborough with it; which I did the next morning, before I went to my Ld Godolphin, to discourse him freely about it, and with a design to let him know my abhorrence of such measures.
But my Lord Marlborough, who was mortally struck with the account I gave him, dissuaded me from breaking off the correspondence by entirely discouraging the scheme at that time, that I might give him an account of their proceedings, in order that he might see how far my Lord Godolphin would engage in such perfidious counsells to him, his friend, and his country.
Accordingly, I went to Ld Godolphin, and only laid before him my surprize at Graham's coming to me with such a message at such a time, and desir'd to know if he was sent by his Lordp, and what was meant by it?
He freely own'd he sent him to me, and told me the reasons why he harken'd to any proposals from the Church Party of that nature were because there was no other way to break Masham's and Harley's schemes, and to save this Parliament from a dissolution, and, consequently, the moderate Whig interest from
