“Fourthly--and, indeed, I should have begun with it, according to the true rule--_a Jove principium_--I do humbly offer, in honour of this House, to cause £1000 a year, for ten years, from Michaelmas come twelve-month, to be allotted towards the building of Paul’s, according as his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London, and now Bishop of Winchester, together with the Dean and Chapter of Paul’s shall set forth, and may continue:--a memorable gift from the House of Lords. And thus, I humbly conceive, to have offered an acknowledgment of thankfulness both to his Majesty, and to your Lordships, Spiritual and Temporal, and for the Honourable House of Commons, for passing the Act of my Water-commanding Engine; and to improve this my humble thankfulness, shall be my daily exercise and study, no ways meaning that what here I suffer shall set a period thereunto, so as your Lordships will be pleased to set your helping hands to remove some misconstructions and personal inconveniences, which, if not diverted from my mind, and from a too generally received opinion, though upon false grounds, and not appearing otherwise than false; I beseech your Lordships to be so tender of a member of yours, as to contribute to the vindicating of me therein, whereof no ways doubting but that your Lordships will remove such an absolute remora to all my intended services; and, therefore, I will presume to lay my case openly and cheerfully before you, not doubting but that at your Lordships’ intercessions, his most gracious Majesty (having given way that I should speak thus before your Lordships) will vouchsafe a concurrence, and suffer himself to be disabused, and such false and malicious opinions to be eradicated out of his princely mind, as have been endeavoured, by either envy, malice, or ignorance, to be rooted therein, and so certainly have obstructed the natural influence of grace and favour, which could not otherwise but have been the effects of so great a Sun as shines within a throne of so much goodness and majesty. Now, whether my merits have been considerable, I beg leave here to set down not as a trumpet to proclaim them, but narrative-wise, modestly, yet truly, for your Lordships’ better information, accusing myself in some things with the same candour and freedom as to vindicate myself, in others, desiring to stand or fall by your Lordships’ just judgment, and his Majesty’s gracious proceeding thereon; no further relying even upon his Majesty’s most gracious act of general pardon, than in compliance with others, his Majesty’s subjects, have taken it out, yet with so great a reluctance, through the clearness of my heart, not to have deserved for it, that the Lord upon the Woolsack was forced to chide me to it, through his tenderness of my good, and, as I humbly conceive, a further apprehension than I could have of a necessity thereof; for which his tender care I acknowledge thankfulness, yet, at