Upon the whole, it appears by the authority of this great man, that the first steps towards a reconcilliation should always be made by those that did the injury, and not by those that received it. On the first part, there should be shown some effects of repentance—some returns of kindness and friendship, and then it will be the duty of the other to remember it no more. This is as far as any one can go in this matter by the rules of justice. If anything I have written now, or at any time, appears to bee too familiar from a subject to a sovereign, I hope your Majesty will think it less wrong, if you consider its coming from Mrs. Freeman to Mrs. Morley, which names you so long obliged me to use that it is not easy for me now quite to forget them; and I still hope I have a better character in the world than Mrs. Masham tells your Majesty of inveteracy and malice, as I mentioned before, for I do not comprehend that one can be properly said to have malice or inveteracy for a viper, because one endeavours to hinder it from doing mischief: for I think when I know there is such an one, and do not acquaint you with it, I should fail in my duty, and I can’t see how that can be called being malicious. But since you make so ill returns for all the information which I have given you, which I know to be right from the dear-bought experience of that ungrateful woman, I will never mention her more, after I have had what I desire at the beginning of this, that you will say upon your word and honour that you have read these papers in the manner desired, and that you are not changed, though I wish you may not repent it and alter your opinion of this wretch, as you did of Mr. Harley, when it is too late: and I do assure your Majesty that I have not the least design of recovering what you say is so impossible (your kindness) in the letter of the twenty-sixth of October. What I have endeavoured is only with a view of your own safety and honour, and the preservation of the whole. I have but one request more, and then I have done for ever, upon the conditions I have written, and that is, that you will not burn my narratives, but lay them somewhere that you may see them a second time; because I know, sometime or other, before you die, if you are not now, you will be sensible how much you have wronged both yourself and me; but after you have read these papers and performed what Dr. Taylor recommends, whatever you write I will obey. If I continue in your service, I will come to you noe oftener than just the business of my office requires, nor never speake to you one single word of anything else. And if I retire with the Duke of Marlborough, you may yet be surer that I will come no oftner than other subjects in that circumstance do. 1711.