When the Council met, it became part of HARLEY’S duty as Secretary to deliver to the Queen a memorial relating to the conduct of the war. The Duke of SOMERSET rose, as the Secretary was about to read it, and with the words ‘If Your Majesty suffers that fellow’ (pointing to HARLEY) ‘to treat affairs of the war without the General’s advice, I cannot serve you,’ abruptly left the Council. [Sidenote: Swift to Archbishop King, 12 Feb. 1708. Comp. Burnet, as above.] ‘The rest,’ according to BURNET, ‘looked so cold and sullen that the Cabinet Council was soon at an end.’ Whilst a result which—for the time—had thus become so plainly inevitable, remained still doubtful, HARLEY had imposed on himself the humiliating task of assuring the Duke of MARLBOROUGH of the honesty of his former professions of attachment. [Sidenote: HARLEY’S DISMISSAL FROM THE SECRETARYSHIP. Feb., 1708.] ‘I have never writ anything to you,’ said he, ‘but what I really thought and intended.’ And then he went on to say:—‘I have for near two years seen the storm coming upon me, and now I find I am to be sacrificed to sly insinuations and groundless jealousies.’ These words were written in September, 1707. On the 10th of February in the following year, MARLBOROUGH had, at length, the satisfaction of writing from St. James’ to a foreign correspondent:—‘Mr. Secretary HARLEY has this afternoon given up the seals of office to the Queen. Between ourselves he richly deserves what has befallen him.’[35] [Sidenote: Marlborough to Count Wratislaw, 10 Feb., 1708.] Among the two or three friends who went out with HARLEY was Henry ST. JOHN. For the next two years and a half, HARLEY’S principal occupation was to prepare the way for a return, in kind, of the defeat thus inflicted upon him. [Sidenote: THE INTRIGUE AGAINST THE GODOLPHIN MINISTRY. 1708–1710.] Some of the steps by which he achieved his end are among the most familiar portions of our political history. But from the necessities of the case it has been, and probably it must continue to be, one of those portions in which the basis of truth can scarcely, by any researches that are now possible, be separated from the large admixture of falsehood built thereon by party animosities. His own correspondence shows that strong hopes of success in the effort were entertained within eight months of his dismissal. It shows also that the channel employed, unsuccessfully, in 1708, was that which became an effectual one in 1710.