Congratulatory addresses were from time to time sent up to the Throne on the success of the English arms on the Continent. In some of them reference is specially made to Godolphin's share in the national triumph; and when the victory of Ramillies on the 23rd May, 1706, was celebrated, Godolphin was selected to accompany the Queen to the thanksgiving service at St. Paul's on the 27th of the following month. That great battle, which caused the French to evacuate Flanders, and secured the best part of the Spanish Netherlands to Austria, compelled France to offer terms of peace, which Godolphin wisely rejected; for three or four successful sieges were necessary in order to secure Flanders. But this, too, like almost every other action of his life, was afterwards brought forward by his enemies as a charge against him. And here is perhaps a convenient place to refer to another of his acts as a War Minister. It will be remembered that at the beginning of the eighteenth century all the seaboard of America north of the St. Lawrence was in French possession. But in 1710 Godolphin granted six ships and a few hundred soldiers, with a sort of general commission, to one Nicholson, who, in May of that year, compelled the garrison at Port Royal (afterwards known as Annapolis) to surrender; thus acquiring for England the whole peninsula of Nova Scotia, and giving to the then capital of the province a name which will always associate the place with the memories of Queen Anne and her illustrious chief Minister of State. It cannot be supposed from his silence under attack--and he almost invariably held his tongue--that he did not writhe under his oppressors. 'Oh!' he wrote to Marlborough, 'a slave in the galleys is in paradise compared with me!' Another object, and one worthy of the great statesman's ambition, was at length happily accomplished about this time--the union of England and Scotland;[165] a matter in which he manifested unusual zeal and activity. The Commissioners, wisely selected by Godolphin--holding their meetings at his official residence, which stood on the site of Henry VIII.'s cock-pit at Whitehall--at length happily brought it about 'to her Majesty's great satisfaction.' It was on the occasion of giving her assent to this Bill that Anne uttered the noble words, which may have been penned for her by Godolphin himself, 'I desire and expect from my subjects of both nations that henceforth they act with all possible respect and kindness to one another, that so it may appear to all the world that they are heartily disposed to become one people.' It is pleasant to be able now to quote a friendly critic, and I gladly avail myself of this opportunity of inserting the following lines by Dr. Garth, apparently in reply to an attack made upon Godolphin, entitled 'Arlus and Odolphus,' in which the real names of those alluded to are easily seen through their thin disguise: