“As to private interest,” remarks the Duchess, “the Whigs could have done nothing for my advantage more than the Tories. I needed not the assistance of either to ingratiate me with the Queen; she had, both before and since her accession, given the most unquestionable proofs that she considered me, not only as a most faithful servant, but as her dear friend.[409] “It is plain, therefore,” continues the Duchess, “that I could have no motive of private interest to bias me in favour of the Whigs; everybody must see that had I consulted that oracle about the choice of a party, it would certainly have directed me to go with them to the stream of my mistress’s inclination and prejudice. This would have been the surest way to secure my favour with her.”[410] She appears, nevertheless, from one of the Queen’s letters, never to have abated in her zeal for the Whig principles, on account of the Queen’s often avowed predilections for the Tories. “Your poor, unfortunate, faithful Morley,” writes Anne, who, after the death of the Duke of Gloucester, added the last epithet to those terms of affection which she generally used, “would not have you differ in opinion with her in the least thing. And upon my word, my dear Mrs. Freeman,” she adds, “you are mightily mistaken in your notion of a Tory. For the character you give of them does not belong to them, but to the church. But I will say no more on this subject, but only beg, for my poor sake, that you would not show more countenance to those you seem to have so much inclination for than for the church party.”[411] Such was the style in which the Queen of England addressed her subject, about a year after her accession. But it is probable that even at this time Anne began to fear, rather than to love this female keeper of her royal conscience.