30 A BIOGEAPHICAL MEMOIR 



" My most honoured Lord, 



I have been very ill of late, and by manifold 

 miseries so far oppressed, that I could not send this 

 week my wonted paper respects. Lord Annesley was 

 pleased some months ago to honour me with a visit, 

 having an intimation of my forsaken condition. He 

 was pleased to tell me, I sinned, if I did not make my 

 condition known. I confess this is a very hard duty to 

 be performed, which also I have deferred to this day. 

 But necessity being so urgent (& liter ce non eruhescunt) 

 I beseech your honour give me leave to intimate very 

 briefly my present most distressed and forsaken 

 condition. I suppose your honour is not ignorant of 

 the votes that have passed concerning gifts, pensions, 

 debts, allowed or contracted by the former powers, that 

 all of them are made void by this Parliament. Also 

 that no motion is to be made concerning money-matters 

 'till the debts of the army and navy be first satisfied. 

 Both these votes fall most heavily upon your Honour's 

 tormented servant : so that he hath nothing to expect of 

 all his arrears which (amounting to seven hundred 

 pounds), would have fully freed him from all his debts^ 

 and given him a present comfortable subsistence, nor 

 of his yearly pension settled upon him by the first 

 parliament consisting of Lords and Commons. I have 

 nothing therefore left to keep me alive, with two 

 relations more, a daughter and a nephew, who is 

 attending my sick condition. You see, most honoured 



