The ungrateful kinswoman had been early acquainted with adversity, which was the remote cause of her ultimate greatness. She was the daughter of an eminent Turkey merchant, who became a bankrupt, with the encumbrance of a numerous and unprovided family. Abigail was at one time so reduced, as to enter into the service of Lady Rivers, wife of Sir John Rivers, Bart., of Chafford; and was rescued from her lowly situation by the charitable offices of the Duchess of Marlborough, to whom she had the good fortune to be related. The Duchess has left a succinct account of the degree of kindred in which her rival stood to her, and of the manner in which she became acquainted with her destitute condition. It would be impossible to alter the Duchess’s narrative into any better language than her own. The unvarnished and uncontradicted statement which she put forth, years after the clamour against her had subsided, is prefaced with the following observations.[90] “The story of this lady, as well as of _that gentleman_ who was her great adviser and director, is worth the knowledge of posterity, as it will lead them into a sense of the instability of court favour, and of the incurable baseness which some minds are capable of contracting. “Mrs. Masham,” she continues, “was the daughter of one Hill, a merchant in the city, by a sister of my father. Our grandfather, Sir John Jenyns, had two-and-twenty children, by which means the estate of the family, which was reputed to be about four thousand pounds a year, came to be divided into small parcels. Mrs. Hill had only five hundred pounds to her fortune.[91] Her husband lived very well for many years, as I have been told, until, turning projector, he brought ruin upon himself and family. But as this was long before I was born, I never knew there were such people in the world till after the Princess Anne was married, and when she lived at the Cockpit; at which time an acquaintance of mine came to me and said, _she believed I did not know that I had relations who were in want_, and she gave me an account of them. When she had finished her story, I answered, _that indeed I had never heard before of any such relations_, and immediately gave her out of my purse ten guineas for their present relief, saying, I would do what I could for them. Afterwards I sent Mrs. Hill more money, and saw her. She told me that her husband was the same relation to Mr. Harley as she was to me, but that he had never done anything for her. I think Mrs. Masham’s father and mother did not live long after this. They left four children, two sons and two daughters. The elder daughter (afterwards Mrs. Masham) was a grown woman. I took her to St. Albans, where she lived with me and my children, and I treated her with as great kindness as if she had been my sister.”