of her Sex, must be allow’d the most competent Judge of Inequalities, out of an Excess of Condescension and Goodness, came running to the Relief of oppressed poor Tony; and, in courtly Language, rated her own oppressive Dogs for their great Incivility to Strangers.  The Dogs, in the Middle of their insulting Wrath, obey’d the Lady with a vast deal of profound Submission; which I could not much wonder at, when I understood, that it was a Queen Dowager of Spain, who had chid them.

Our Ship being now repaired, and made fit to go out again to Sea, we left the Harbour of Saint Jean de Luz, and with a much better Passage, as the last Tempest was still dancing in my Imagination, in ten Days’ Sail we reach’d Dover.  Here I landed on the last Day of March, 1713 having not, till then, seen or touch’d English Shoar from the Beginning of May, 1705.

I took Coach directly for London, where, when I arriv’d, I thought my self transported into a Country more foreign, than any I had either fought or pilgrimag’d in.  Not foreign, do I mean, in respect to others, so much as to it self.  I left it, seemingly, under a perfect Unanimity:  The fatal Distinctions of Whig and Tory were then esteemed meerly nominal; and of no more ill Consequence or Danger, than a Bee robb’d of its Sting.  The national Concern went on with Vigour, and the prodigious Success of the Queen’s Arms, left every Soul without the least Pretence to a Murmur.  But now on my Return, I found them on their old Establishment, perfect Contraries, and as unlikely to be brought to meet as direct Angles.  Some arraigning, some extolling of a Peace; in which Time has shown both were wrong, and consequently neither could be right in their Notions of it, however an over prejudic’d Way of thinking might draw them into one or the other.  But Whig and Tory are, in my Mind, the compleatest Paradox in Nature, and yet like other Paradoxes, old as I am, I live in Hope to see, before I die, those seeming Contraries perfectly reconcil’d, and reduc’d into one happy Certainty, the Publick Good.

* * * * *

Whilst I stay’d at Madrid, I made several Visits to my old Acquaintance General Mahoni.  I remember that he told me, when the Earl of Peterborow and he held a Conference at Morvidro, his Lordship used many Arguments to induce him to leave the Spanish Service. Mahoni made several Excuses, especially that none of his Religion was suffer’d to serve in the English Army.  My Lord reply’d, That he would undertake to get him excepted by an Act of Parliament.  I have often heard him speak with great Respect of his Lordship, and was strangely surprized, that after so many glorious Successes he should be sent away.