There is also this difference, that the King, speaking of those Lords, those Ambassadours, and the Hollanders, he called them Coquins in anger, but when he spoke of me, he said it pleasantly (according to Monsieur T.) and that I was a cunning Coquin, more cunning than the Duke of York, my Lord Treasurer, the Secretary of State Williamson, and even the King himself.
Either I am much deceived, or all the Ministers of the Confederates that were then at London, would have been all Coquins at this rate, and Monsieur Temple himself, and would have deceived those who abused and deceived them. For besides, there is more credit methinks on such like Occasions, to be a cunning Rogue, and to pass for a more able Man than the most able Ministers of State, than to be the laughing-stock, and the Fool of a Monk and a sort of Agent; Sir William Temple, and some others, were truly so on this occasion.
But I would acquaint Sir W. Temple of what he has not perhaps heard of, as he has done the like to me, I do not invent it to revenge my self, and if I would make use of falshoods, I might make recourse to more heinous Affronts; the truth of my Remarks upon his Memoirs, shall be my full satisfaction. What I shall relate may be found in my Letters upon that account to the Prince my Master, and his Ministers: I took no particular care to divulge it immediately to Mounsieur Barillon, to whom I was so much devoted; were he alive he might witness that as well as the Aversion the King of England always bore to Sir W. Temple; and the little Esteem he had of him at bottom. Upon my return from Nimeguen to London, I went immediately to Court, as soon as I came there I meet Prince Rupert, who askt me with a sterne Countenance if the Peace was Concluded, I answered him in the Affirmative, upon which he cryed out and said, O Dissimulation. After having had the Honour to give his Majesty an account of what was past, I told him of the ill humour I perceived Sir W. T. to be in, and what I knew of his neglect of his Majesties Orders; The King seemed very angry with Sir W's. Proceedings, and said, he was a very impertinent R – to find fault with my Commands.
But if the late K. of England, did not approve of my Conduct in the affairs of Nimeguen, which in effect he declared at first in Publick not to be pleased with, in which he play'd his part to admiration: If against his will, I had truly inform'd the several Deputies at the Hague, how that the two Kings of England and France were intirely agreed upon Conditions of Peace; if this accident changed the Destiny of Christendom, and what endeavours soever the English Court had made, there were no ways to repair the Breach. If I was a Fool, a peice of an Agent, or a Knave, How comes it that the King suffer'd me to stay in England near a year? nay, as long as my Master thought fit. Why was the King so civil to me? Why did he recompence me for my Voyage from Nimeguen? Upon what account did the King bestow several other Favours upon me? How comes it, that I haveing made a great Entertainment and Fireworks, to shew my joy for the Re-establishment of the Duke my Master to his Teritories, that the whole Court should do me that Honour as to be present thereat?
It was not my quality of Envoy Extraordinary of the Duke de Gottorp, that hindred the King to express some kind of resentment against me, and thereupon to bid me avoid the Kingdom. I do well remember the King was just upon the point of making Mounsieur Van Beuningen Ambassador to the States General, to withdraw and get him out of the Land, because he had got the word Connivance, to be foisted into a Memorial he presented to the King, for the recalling of the English Forces, which bore Armes in France.
Don Barnard de Salinas was the Spanish Envoy; the King made much of him, yea and loved him for the particular care he had in Flanders of the education of the E. of Plym. one of the Ks. Sons, He did nothing but report up and down, that the King gave the Authors of the Address, presented to his Majesty, by the House of Commons no better name than Rogues. The King had his liberty to reject this Address, as indeed he did, and no ways apprehended the Consequences of it at that time; yet for all that, he banished Don Bern. de Salinas, not in the least considering his Character, nor the Kindness wherewith he had always honoured this Minister; Yea and he Banished him too, without any respect to the King of Spain.
But, for me who had abused and deceived the D. of York, My Lord Treasurer, ay, and the K. himself, who had overthrown all those fair and vast Projects, which the Confederates had contrived at London and Nimeguen; and Sir W. T. at the Hague, which had disclosed the Kings dispatches, a master piece of Secrecy, who was the cause of quite changing the Fate of Christendom: for me, I say, against whom the P. of Orange had written, and caused to be written so many thundering Letters, against whom all the Ministers of the Confederates called for Vengeance; against whom Sir W. T. levelled more of his endeavours to destroy me than the Court did to repair this Breach, and patch up the business, it lets me alone, it does not make the least complaint to the Duke my Master; the K. does me a great many favours, and laughs in his Sleeve at the Surprise, at the Sorrow, and Complaints of the Confederates, and Sir W. T.
After all that, can any body reasonably believe that the K. of England might have lookt upon me as a Rogue: And when he told Sir W. T. after a droleing manner that I was a Rogue and had out witted them all, may it not be probable, that he had a mind to jeer him, and to make him sensible that he was taken but for Fool? It was very like so to be.
I have not gone about, My Lord, to say in this place what I might say, to wipe of all those scandalous impressions that Sir W. T. hath such a desire to fasten upon me; I suppose I have given your Lordship sufficiently to understand, that what he hath been pleased to say upon this Theme of me, proceeds from inveterate Spite and Malice.
But, what way is there to get clear of one of the most Haughty, and most Revengeful of men, who in his Memoires falls foul upon the reputation even of the greatest Minister, who casts aspersions on the Duke of Lauderdale, that most Zealous, and most Faithful Minister, that ever the King was Master of; on My Lord Arlington whom Sir W. is bound to respect as his Master, who was his Benefactor, that raised him from his sordid obscurity, and as it were from the Dunghill, to bring him into play, This ingreatful person forsooke him, that he might catch at the shadow and appearance of mending his Fortune; he would not have stuck to ruin My Lord Arlington by base indirect means: This is no hard matter to make out, even by Sir W. T. his own Memoirs, but yet I am acquainted with some particulars upon this Subject that make my hair stand an end, nay, and I have not only learnt them from My Lord Arlingtons own mouth, but also from a noted Minister of those times.
What a piece of impudence to call in question and tax the Principal Ministers, and the soberest Magistrates of Holland, viz. Monsieur de Beverning, Monsieur Valknier and others, generally esteemed by every body. To arraign them, I say, some for Avarice, others for Partiality, I had almost said for betraying their Trust. But above all, to give such disadvantagious representations of the E. of Rochester, and of Sir Leoline Jenkyns; that, it would have been all one if he had said, that Sir Leoline, was a man of the other World, a plain downright Ideot, void of insight and Experience: And that Law. Hyde, now E. of Rochester, was a Lord altogether unacquainted with, and no ways fit for the imployment the King gave him at Nimeguen; nevertheless, Sir Leoline was made Secretary of State, and no notice at all taken of Sir W.
As for Laurence Hyde, Sir W. speaks first of him, as if he were a Youth, that should have been sent to the University, I plainly perceive, saith he, that the chief design of that Commission was to introduce Mr. Hyde into this sort of employment, and to let him understand the manner how the men behave themselves in the same, then he adds, He excused himself out of modesty, to have any thing to do with any Conference, and Compiling Dispatches. Was it out of the respect he owed to Sir W. T. or for want of Capacity, that My Lord shewed so much modesty, that he would neither make Dispatches, nor meddle with Conferences, what, he who had been ingaged already, as he was afterwards in very important Affairs; who had been Embassadour in the principal Courts of Europe, who was chosen as Chief of the Embasie at Nimeguen, one who in all respects is so far above Sir W.T. for all these great qualities; yet My Lord, affords Sir W. just as much difference, as a petty Scholar does a famous Pedant. And to reward him, Sir W. T. would make him pass in the world, for an Embassadour that was but at best his Scholar.