He was pleased with his appointment in connection with our Colonies, 'a considerable honour, the others in the Council being chiefly Noblemen, and Officers of State'.

In the following year the scope of this department was increased by adding the Council of Trade to its duties.

He at once went to thank the Treasurer and Lord Arlington, Secretary of State, whose favour he possessed though he 'cultivated neither of their friendships by any meane submissions'.

And he failed not, of course, to kiss the King's hand on being made one of that newly established Council.

But Royalist though he was, he could not be blind to the profligacy of the Court and of the King, to whose Majesty his works were so grandiloquently dedicated.
On one occasion after submitting progress of his History to the King, he says 'thence walk'd with him thro' St.James's Parke to the garden, where I both saw and heard a very familiar discourse between...