Whether this account be true or not, it is acknowledged that by the united efforts of the Duchess and the historian in her pay, a work was produced of singular power and interest. A reference to the passages from this curious narrative, quoted in this work, will prove the truth of the foregoing observation. The distinctness of the statements, the nervous simplicity of the language, and the fearlessness of the sentiments of the work, convey to the mind a conviction of the sincerity and conscious rectitude of the writer. No traces of mental decay are evident; but it is not difficult to perceive in the abrupt termination of some passages, the curtailing hand of some cautious critic, according to Horace Walpole, that of the historian. No sooner did the “Account” appear, than it was attacked by various anonymous writers. The Duchess had compiled her work in the form of a letter, and a similar framework was adopted in the construction of several of the answers to her Vindication. It is remarkable that she addressed her justification to Lord Cholmondeley, the third Earl of that name, the son-in-law of Sir Robert Walpole. The public eagerly perused the publication, yet it is said not to have made any considerable impression in favour of the Duchess at the time in which it appeared. The “Vindication of her Conduct,” as it is entitled, was not, however, the only work that the Duchess compiled in her own defence. Several of her manuscript narratives are now for the first time made serviceable in compiling this work. But there appears, from a passage in one of her letters to Mr. Scrope, to have been another book, which she showed only to a few confidential friends, and, among the number, to Mr. Scrope. “I am going,” she writes to him, “to make you a more unreasonable request than I ever have yet done, or I hope ever shall, which is, that you will give me one hour of your time to read the enclosed book, some time when you happen to have so much leisure, and send it me back when you have done with it; for though it is printed, I would not by accident have it made public. When I printed a letter to vindicate my own conduct, when I had the honour of serving Queen Anne, I thought it necessary to say something upon the subject of the enclosed book; but after it was done I thought it was better to show it to a few of my particular friends, because they were so near relations that would be exposed by it, for all the facts are as well proved as what I think is possible you may have read in the accounts given of my honest endeavours to serve her Majesty Queen Anne; and as to all that relates to accounts, from your own office, you must know the relation is true.” To this communication Mr. Scrope replies, after, in his answer, referring to other matters, “I herewith return to your grace the book you were pleased to send me, which I read with an aching heart.”[395]