that the new ministers had nothing left them in this matter but to whisper about the town some scandalous storys of it, and to employ such of their agents as the Examiner in propagating them. I don’t pretend to give you any particular account of these, or any other abusive storys that were industriously raised of me, but leave you to judge of them by the matters of fact which I have now given you a relation of, and which I have told in so full a manner as I think will give you a clear notion of my whole behaviour in all the concerns I had with the Queen, and particularly with respect to everything in which she seemed to show any uneasiness towards me. _Extract from a Letter written by the Duchess of Marlborough, vindicating herself from the charge of selling places; and touching also upon other matters._—Taken from the Coxe Manuscripts, vol. xliv. p. 2. And upon the whole, I solemnly swear, as I hope for happiness here or hereafter, that besides the case of the pages to the Princess, which I have told you of, I never did receive the value of one shilling in money, jewells, or any such thing, either directly or indirectly, for the disposing of any employment, or doing any favour during my whole life, nor from any person whatsoever, upon any such account; and that if there is any man or woman upon earth that can give the least proof to the contrary, I am contented for the future to be looked upon both by friends and enemies, as one of the vilest of women, worse than Abigal herself, when I consider her as instrumental in doing the greatest mischief that a nation can suffer; the reducing it from the most flourishing to at least a dangerous condition; and as acting the most ungratefully and injuriously to a person to whom she owes her very bread. I may be thought, perhaps, in this to put my own vindication upon too ticklish a bottom, when it is considered how far the malice of men will go, in these times especially, in maintaining the greatest falsity against others, when they can serve their own purposes by it. But as everybody ought to look upon all general reflections, where no proof is offered at, to be only mere aspersions; so I depend upon it that I shall be able to convict any man, to his own shame, that shall dare to produce any particular instance against me, of my having taken anything for the disposal of any employment. I am sensible my enemies have not wanted inclination to have done this long ago, if there had been any room for it; and it is no small vindication of me, that their own impudence, as great as it is in this respect, has not carried them so far as to offer at any proof against me of this nature.