He could not indeed take it, while he continued to be in charge of the public purse.

For it would have been indecent, and perhaps illegal, that he should audit his own accounts.
He therefore selected his brother Christopher, whom he had lately made a Commissioner of the Excise, to keep the place for him.

There was, as may easily be supposed, no want of powerful and noble competitors for such a prize.

Leeds had, more than twenty years before, obtained from Charles the Second a patent granting the reversion to Caermarthen.

Godolphin, it was said, pleaded a promise made by William.