For some time attached to the British Embassy in Muscovy, our author, as he states, was later on
“dismissed the service, because the Czar desired it,” having made sure that “I had given
our Court such light into his affairs as is contained in this paper; for which I beg leave to appeal to the King, and to vouch the Viscount Townshend, who heard His Majesty give that vindication.” And yet, notwithstanding all this, “I have been for these five years past kept soliciting for a very long arrear still due, and whereof 1 contracted the greatest part in executing a commission from Her late Majesty.”