But he kept a
large household, and was able to live in comfort at Gray's Inn or at
Gorhambury. A man who speaks in his will of his "four coach geldings
and his best caroache," besides many legacies, and who proposes to found
two lectures at the universities, may have troubles about debts and be
cramped in his expenditure, but it is only relatively to his station
that he can be said to be poor. And to subordinate officers of the
Treasury who kept him out of his rights, he could still write a sharp
letter, full of his old force and edge. A few months before his death he
thus wrote to the Lord Treasurer Ley, who probably had made some
difficulty about a claim for money:
"MY LORD,--I humbly entreat your Lordship, and (if I may use the
word) advise your Lordship to make me a better answer. Your
Lordship is interested in honour, in the opinion of all that hear
how I am dealt with. If your Lordship malice me for Long's cause,
surely it was one of the justest businesses that ever was in
Chancery.
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