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tending to the same unhappy purposes of drawing Odiums and Envy upon myself.
5ly, My Experience arising from the management of the Survey, brought me to be one of the Commissioners for setting out Lands to the Army. That employment to be one of the Clerks of the Council (the one third part of the business of that Office, during my Employment in it, consisting of Orders, References, &c. concerning Lands, the Niceties whereof were not obvious to every man, how able otherwise soever he might be. All these Employments together, gave me the opportunity, to let the Lord Deputy see, I was (in a time of great scarcity) able to serve him as Secretary. The which plurality of Offices multiplyed Envy almost from every Body, especially such as wanted Employments, such as being conscious of their own weakness feared to be supplanted, and from such who thought themselves fitter and worthier of what was cast upon me; the which Envy (especially I having arrived at those promotions from small and unlikely beginnings) made all men watch my trippings (which proba-