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The Prince told him plainly, He might set his Heart at rest, for he should not be one. He ask’d him, What Reason was assigned, what Objections were against him. The Prince, with much more Plainness than Prudence replies, They knew he was under Obligations to the President of the Treasure, and the great Commander of the Army; and he did not know but they might come to bring a Charge or Impeachment against them in the great Atalantic Council; and he would have no Body chosen but such as would give their Words they would come into such Measures. The Earl told him, If any thing could be offered to prove them Guilty, or any Crimes were made appear, he scorned to be so much obliged to any Man as not to dare to do Justice; and that he would readily join in an Impeachment, if there was Reason sufficient to Charge them; and to refuse him otherwise, implied, they wanted Crime and just Ground to form the Impeachment upon, and therefore must choose such a Set of Men as would Impeach innocent Men blindfold, to please a Party. The Prince told him, That the Resolution was to Impeach them, and he would have none chosen that would not agree to it. What, right or wrong, my Lord! says the Earl; to which the Prince, not suddenly replying, the Earl went on, Let what will come of it, and tho’ I should lose all, nay, tho’ I were to beg my Bread, I’ll never submit to such base Terms, and so defied him. The Prince told him, It should be the worse for him; and there they parted.

There was a short Dispute between the Prince and the Earl of Stairdale; but the Earl had so much more Honesty than the Party, and so much more Sense and Wit than the Prince, that indeed he cared not much to talk to him, but left him to Mareskine. He was too hard for them both, and having baffled them in Discourse, he was no more to be Bullied by them, than he was to be Wheedled; he told ’em plainly, They were betraying their Country, selling and sacrificing the Priviledges of the Nobility, making themselves Tools to a Party, and giving themselves up in a base Manner to the Pleasure of a few Men, who, when they had got their Will would contemn them, would love the Folly, but P….s upon the Fools; and as to their List, he scorn’d to come into it, or into any of their menacing Measures. This put a short end to their Attempts upon him; and indeed, had the other Lords been advised by this gallant Gentleman, they had broke all their Schemes; but they were not all united in their Resolutions, or equally determined in their Measures.

Thus they went on, Mareskine mannag’d the most mildly; yet he told the Nobility of his Acquaintance: That the List was determined, that the Q….n expected they should Vote them all: that they would have no Mixtures: that her Majesty would have nothing to do with the Whig Lords, but there was other Work to do now than usual: Discoursing with some of the Lords, who were G—-als in the Army, he told them plainly, They had resolved to Impeach the great Commander; and that it could not be expected, those who had Commands under him, and were Awed by him, should do Justice in that Case. They had often the Question put to them, What it was the great Commander, or the Keeper of the Treasure, had done, that they were to be Impeach’d for: But they could never be brought to offer the least tollerable Reason, except that the Prince Greeniccio let fall in his Passion sometimes, of which he had no manner of Government, That he had used him ill abroad.

Some, who had more nicely enquired into the Particulars of the ill Usage which was the Cause of this Resentment, have given the oddest contradicting Accounts of it that any History can Parallel: As first, That the great Commander had restrained the rashness of this young Hotspur General, who being but a Boy in Experience, compared to the Commander, was always for pushing into the Heart of Tartary with the Army; not considering, That to run up a Hundred Mile into the Country, and leave the Enemies Towns untaken, and their Armies in a Condition to Recruit, cut off their Convoys and Communication, and make their Subsistence impracticable, was the ready way to destroy them, as has been seen by a woful Example in Spain. But the General was wiser, and regarded more the Safety of the Army, and the Honour of his Mistress; and therefore, by the unanimous Approbation of all the allied Generals, (for it was not his own single Opinion) and according to the just Rules of War, went on gradually to take their fortified Towns, and ruin their Defences on the Frontiers, that at last, he might have a sure and easie Conquest of the rest: This was one Pretence. The second was just the Reverse of this: For at a great Battle with the Tartarians, the Commander having resolved to attack the Enemy in their advantageous Camp, and having drawn up in Battalia his whole Army, he gives the Post of Honour to the Prince, appointing him, with a select Body of the best Troops in the Army, to fall on upon the Right, and Charge the Enemy, while other Generals did the like, and with equal Hazard and more real Danger, on the Left. There was not a Gentleman in the Enemies Army but would have taken this as the greatest Testimony of his General’s Esteem, and would have thought any Man in the Army his mortal Enemy that should have gone about to have deprived him of it. Nor was there any Man in the Attalantick Army, who did not take it as an Evidence of the great Opinion the Commander had of the Prince’s Courage; and all the World talked of it as the greatest Honour could possibly be done the Prince.