"He [Vincent] desired you should intermeddle as little as possible in these affairs; adding, that he intended, by keeping my Lord's person and his English affairs in his own hands, to free my Lady from all slavery to you. "Ever since, no entreaties, no threatenings have been spared to make me keep silence to you; to which my constant answer was, that I thought not that consistent with my duty. I told him freely, that I would lay all the foregoing reasons before you, when you came to London, and hoped you would prevail with him to alter his opinion. If not, we should all write, if you thought proper, to my Lady Marchioness, in order to have her determination. The endeavouring, then, to make me keep silence to you, was also to keep my Lady in the dark about such material points, since I could not have access to let her know the situation of our affairs, by any other means. "He offered to let me leave your friend in the beginning of winter, if I pleased, provided I would make no opposition to his plan,--that is, would not inform you; for I was not capable of making any other opposition. He added, he would allow me my salary for the whole year, and that he would himself supply my place, leave his house in London, and live with your friend. Can all this pains be taken, merely for the difference betwixt one house and another? "An evening or two before his departure from Weldehall, he offered me the continuance of the same friendship, which had always subsisted betwixt us, if I would promise not to open my lips to you about this matter. "The morning of his departure, he burst out all of a sudden, when the subject was not talked of, into threatenings, and told me, that, if I ever entered upon this subject with you, I should repent it. He went out of the house presently, and these were almost his last words." The circumstance of these "threatenings" is amply confirmed by a letter of Vincent himself, addressed to the Marchioness; an admirable specimen of the outpouring of a vulgar and insolent mind:--