Table of contents

1712.1207.Fa







My Lord¹

I return your Grace my most humble
thanks for the favour of your
Invitation, I am so vnhappy
as not to be able to accept it,
being obliged to stay at the
Customs till it will be too
late to wait on you: I am
ever with great zeal and
respect

your Graces most ob^t
and devoted Ser^t
and Brother

MPrior

Wensday Morñ

2.

Endorsed:
M.^r Prior
to his Grace
w.^thout date
IL: 1:

Notes
1.
The "Brother" here addressed as "your Grace" must be one of the three dukes (Beaufort, Ormonde, Shrewsbury) who were members of the Brothers Club. Since Beaufort is known to have hosted some of the Thursday meetings (Walter Sichel, Bolingbroke and His Times [1901-02; New York: Haskell House Publishers Ltd., 1968] 1: 281, 298), we consider him the one most likely to be the author of the invitation to which Prior is here responding. The date of Prior's letter cannot be earlier than 1712 because of his reference to his obligations for service on the Commission of Customs to which he was appointed 25 Jan./5 Feb. 1712. He was in England from that time until 6/17 Aug. 1712 and again from 25 Oct./5 Nov. until 1/12 Dec. 1712 (Bolingbroke 3: 205-06), when he returned to France for a stay that lasted until 1715, by which time he had been dismissed from the Commission of Customs. The only date given in the manuscript is "Wensday Morñ." The last Wednesday before 1/12 Dec. 1712 was 26 Nov./7 Dec. The phrase we quote as the endorsement may be a later archival docketing of the letter rather than a contemporary endorsement. The Osborn Collection catalogues the letter under Prior but identifies the addressee as "?The Duke of Buckingham."

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