[234b] Sir William Seymour, second son of Sir Edward Seymour, Bart., of Berry Pomeroy, retired from the army in 1717, and died in 1728 (Dalton’s Army Lists). He was wounded at Landen and Vigo, and saw much service between his appointment as a Captain of Fusiliers in 1686 and his promotion to the rank of Lieutenant-General in 1707.
[234c] No. 45.
[235a] “And now I conceive the main design I had in writing these papers is fully executed. A great majority of the nation is at length thoroughly convinced that the Queen proceeded with the highest wisdom, in changing her Ministry and Parliament” (Examiner, No. 45).
[235b] Edward Harley (see p. [124]).
[235d] Tom Ashe was an elder brother of the Bishop of Clogher. He had an estate of more than £1000 a year in County Meath, and Nichols describes him as of droll appearance, thick and short in person: “a facetious, pleasant companion, but the most eternal unwearied punster that ever lived.”
[235e] “Even Joseph Beaumont, the son, was at this time an old man, whose grey locks were venerable; yet his father lived until about 1719” (Deane Swift).
[236] Sir William Wyndham, Bart. (1687–1740), was M.P. for Somerset. He was a close partisan of Bolingbroke’s, and in 1713 introduced the Schism Bill, which drove Oxford from office. Wyndham became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was afterwards a leading opponent of Walpole. His wife, Lady Catherine Seymour (died 1713), was the second daughter of Charles, Duke of Somerset (see p. [270]).
[237a] Swift was afterwards President of this Club, which is better known as “the Society.”
[237b] Perhaps Daniel Reading, M.P. for Newcastle, Co. Dublin.