claim to the vacancy which then happened. As there was no other vacancy until the Duke of Grafton and Lord Rockingham were joint ministers, I was then honoured with the order, and it is surely no small honour to me, that in such a succession of ministers, they were all pleased to think that I had deserved it; in my favour they were all united. Upon the reduction of the 79th regiment, which had served so gloriously in the East-Indies, his Majesty, unsolicited by me, gave me the 16th of foot as an equivalent. My motives for retiring afterwards are foreign to the purpose; let it suffice, that his Majesty was pleased to approve of them; they are such as no man can think indecent, who knows the shocks that repeated vicissitudes of heat and cold, of dangerous and sickly climates, will give to the best constitutions in a pretty long course of service. I resigned my regiment to colonel Gisborne, a very good officer, for his half-pay, and 1200l. Irish annuity; so that, according to Junius, I have been bribed to say nothing more of the Manilla ransom, and sacrifice those brave men, by the strange avarice of accepting three hundred and eighty pounds per ann. and giving up eight hundred! If this be bribery, it is not
