The old servant could get no attention paid to his intercessions; and
he came to England, to endeavour to procure by his personal address
what he could not obtain by missive, What he did and how he sped, is
shown in the subjoined honest, hearty, graphic letter to Mr. Secretary
Conway. It is the outpouring of an indignant, but not a disrespectful,
discarded servant, “broken in body and mind, and totally ruined in
estate.” The picture is admirably drawn, and we find in it our old
friends Tom Derry and Archie Armstrong, in such conditions of comfort
and well-being, as to show that old fools had more substantial respect
at the hands of Charles, than old servants, defrauded of their income.
“May it please your Lordship, according to your direction, I have
essayed to you a petition, but find neither matter nor reason for it.
I have been worse treated than a natural fool, witness Tom Duri,[G]
who, for aught I know, is better used, according to his estate and
quality, than any servant the late Queen left behind her; at least a
great deal better than I. I have been worse used than a counterfeit,
witness Archie Armstrong, who shows me that the King has given so
special direction for payment of his entertainment, that he is better
than he was in the late King’s time; when I, having a pension for
which I served, toiled, and travelled the space of thirty-seven years,
cannot receive one penny, till I have spent three in seeking of it. I
have been worse used than a Turk, witness a Turkish ambassador, whom I
have seen get audience of the late King; who had his despatch in three
weeks, when I, in three winters’ attendance, cannot obtain means or
leave to return to my native country, but am constrained to forget and
expose my wife and only daughter to rapt and desolation; that bloody
inquisition army of Wallenstein being within three or four days’
march of a country-house where I left them. All this I have endured
patiently, or at least with a forced and seeming senselessness. But
now, my honourable Lord, I am worse used than a dog; for having moved
a poor humble petition to the King, verbally, at Hampton Court, that
if his Majesty will give me no money, he would let me have a pass or
a warrant, that I might go out to put my wife and daughter in a surer
place, he went away silently, without one word speaking; and I am sure
he will speak to his dogs. Since, then, my Lord, I have fallen beneath
the degree of a dog, I can petition no more, for fear I fall a-howling
when I would complain. Wherefore, I have enclosed within this letter
the copy of two petitions given to his Majesty heretofore. I beseech
your Lordship to peruse them again, and consider what I can offer more
or demand less than I have done in the said two petitions; and, only by
procuring me his Majesty’s pass, save me from this last of evils, that
it be not saddled on my back as a hedshef of my other wrongs endured,
that I have slipped away, like a knotless thread, without his Majesty’s
knowledge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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