146 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. confined by a fit of the gout at his house at Car- shalton, in Surrey : notwithstanding, his enemies accused him of refusing to give his professional advice in the case of his sovereign ; and a Member of Parliament went even so far as to move, on the 5th of August, four days after the death of the queen, that RadclifFe should be summoned to at- tend in his place, in order to be censured for not waiting upon her majesty in her last extremities. Upon this occasion he wrote the following letter to a friend. " Carshalton, Aug. 7, 1714.
- ' Dear Sir — I could not have thought so old an
acquaintance, and so good a friend, as Sir John always professed himself, would have made such a motion against me. God knows, my will to do her majesty any service has ever got the start of my ability, and I have nothing that gives me greater anxiety and trouble than the death of that great and glorious princess. I must do that justice to the physicians that attended her in her illness, from a sight of the method that was taken for her pre- servation, transmitted me by Dr. Mead, as to de- clare nothing was omitted for her preservation ; but the people about her (the plagues of Egypt fall on them !) j)ut it out of the power of physick to be of any benefit to her. I know the nature of attending crowned heads in their last moments, too well, to be fond of waiting upon them without be- ing sent for by a proper authority. — You have heard of pardons being sign'd for physicians, be- fore a sovereign's demise. — However, as ill as I was, I wou'd have went to the queen in a horse-litter,
