ere power, the event will be what must be expected from ch imprudence. I ought to beg your pardon for running into this length. ou want no arguments to convince you on this subject; d you want no resources of matter to convince others. Í ght too to ask pardon for having_delayed my answer so ng; but I received your letter on Tuesday in town, and I as obliged to come to the country on business. From the untry I write at present; but this day I shall go to town ain. I shall see Lord Rockingham, who has spared ither time nor trouble in making a vigorous opposition to is inconsiderate measure. I hope to be able to send you e papers, which will give you information of the steps he s taken. He has pursued this business with the foresight, igence, and good sense with which he generally resists constitutional attempts of government. A life of disinestedness, generosity, and public spirit are his titles to have believed, that the effect which the tax may have upon his ivate property is not the sole nor the principal motive to = exertions. I know he is of opinion that the opposition Ireland ought to be carried on with that spirit, as if no I was expected from this country; and here, as if nothing uld be done in Ireland;—many things have been lost by tacting in this manner. I am told that you are not likely to be alone in the ge- Non ponebat enim rumores ante salutem; Adieu, my dear Sir. Give my best respects to Lady Beaconsfield, 30th October, 1773. To Sir Chas. Bingham. LETTER TO THE HONOURABLE CHARLES JAMES FOX, MY DEAR CHARLES, I am on many accounts exceedingly pleased your journey to Ireland. I do not think it was possible dispose better of the interval between this and the meet of parliament. I told you as much in the same gen terms by the post. My opinion of the infidelity of conveyance hindered me from being particular. I now down with malice prepense to kill you with a very long let and must take my chance for some safe method of convey the dose. Before I say anything to you of the place are in, or the business of it, on which, by the way, a g deal might be said, I will turn myself to the concluding of your letter from Chatsworth. You are sensible that I do not differ from you in m things: and most certainly I do not dissent from the m of your doctrine concerning the heresy of depending u contingencies. You must recollect how uniform my se ments have been on that subject. I have ever wishe settled plan of our own, founded in the very essence of American business, wholly unconnected with the events the war, and framed in such a manner as to keep up credit, and maintain our system at home, in spite of a thing which may happen abroad. I am now convinced, b long and somewhat vexatious experience, that such a pla absolutely impracticable. I think with you, that s faults in the constitution of those whom we must love trust are among the causes of this impracticability; t are faults too that one can hardly wish them perfectly cu of, as I am afraid they are intimately connected with hon disinterested intentions, plentiful fortunes, assured ra and quiet homes. A great deal of activity and enterp can scarcely ever be expected from such men, unless s horrible calamity is just over their heads; or unless t suffer some gross personal insults from power, the rese ment of which may be as unquiet and stimulating a princ their minds as ambition is in those of a different com. xion. To say the truth, I cannot greatly blame them. e live at a time when men are not repaid in fame for at they sacrifice in interest or repose. On the whole, when I consider of what discordant, and ticularly of what fleeting, materials the opposition has n all along composed, and at the same time review what d Rockingham has done with that and with his own ttered constitution for these last twelve years, I confess m rather surprised that he has done so much, and perered so long, than that he has felt now and then some I fits, and that he grows somewhat languid and despondat last. I know that he and those who are much prent with him, though they are not thought so much deed to popularity as others, do very much look to the ple; and more than I think is wise in them, who do so e to guide and direct the public opinion. Without this act, indeed; but they act as it were from compulsion, because it is impossible in their situation to avoid ng some part. All this it is impossible to change, and o purpose to complain of. s to that popular humour which is the medium we float f I can discern anything at all of its present state, it is worse than I have ever known or could ever imagine it. faults of the people are not popular vices; at least they not such as grow out of what we used to take to be the lish temper and character. The greatest number have a of a heavy, lumpish acquiescence in government, withmuch respect or esteem for those that compose it. I y cannot avoid making some very unpleasant prognostics this disposition of the people. I think many of the otoms must have struck you; I will mention one or two, are to me very remarkable. You must know, that at col we grow, as an election interest, and even as a party est, rather stronger than we were when I was chosen. have just now a majority in the corporation. In this of matters what, think you, have they done? They voted their freedom to Lord Sandwich, and Lord lk !—to the first, at the very moment when the Ameriprivateers were domineering in the Irish Sea, and taking Bristol traders in the Bristol Channel;-to the latter, when his remonstrances on the subject of captures v jest of Paris and of Europe. This fine step was t seems, in honour of the zeal of these two profound sta in the prosecution of John the Painter; so totally ne are they of everything essential, and so long and so affected with trash the most low and contemptible; if they thought the merit of Sir John Fielding was th shining point in the character of great ministers in th critical of all times, and of all others the most deeply esting to the commercial world! My best friends rorporation had no other doubts on the occasion whether it did not belong to me, by right of my rep ative capacity, to be the bearer of this auspicious ment. In addition to this, if it could receive any ac they now employ me to solicit, as a favour of no sma nitude, that after the example of Newcastle they n suffered to arm vessels for their own defence in the CI Their memorial, under the seal of Merchants Hall, i lying on the table before me. Not a soul has the sensibility, on finding themselves, now for the first obliged to act as if the community were dissolved, and enormous payments towards the common protection part was to defend itself, as if it were a separate state I don't mention Bristol, as if that were the part fu gone in this mortification. Far from it; I know that is rather a little more life in us than in any other plac Liverpool they are literally almost ruined by this Am war; but they love it as they suffer from it. In short whatever I see, and from whatever quarter I hear, convinced, that everything that is not absolute stag is evidently a party spirit, very adverse to our politic to the principles from whence they arise. There are fest marks of the resurrection of the Tory party. Th longer criticise, as all disengaged people in the world on the acts of government; but they are silent under evi), and hide and cover up every ministerial blunde misfortune, with the officious zeal of men who think have a party of their own to support in power. The 7 do universally think their power and consequence inv in the success of this American business. The clerg astonishingly warm in it; and what the Tories are bodied and united with their natural head, the Crown, animated by their clergy, no man knows better than yourAs to the Whigs, I think them far from extinct. They what they always were, (except by the able use of opporities,) by far the weakest party in this country. They e not yet learned the application of their principles to the sent state of things; and as to the dissenters, the main ctive part of the Whig strength, they are, to use a favourite ression of our American campaign style, "not all in force." y will do very little; and, as far as I can discern, are er intimidated, than provoked, at the denunciations of the t in the Archbishop of York's sermon. I thought that on rather imprudent when I first saw it; but it seems ave done its business. this temper of the people I do not wholly wonder that northern friends look a little towards events. In war, icularly, I am afraid it must be so. There is something eighty and decisive in the events of war, something that ompletely overpowers the imagination of the vulgar, that Counsels must, in a great degree, be subordinate to, and ndant on, them. I am sure it was so in the last war very ently. So that, on the whole, what with the temper of eople, the temper of our own friends, and the domineerecessities of war, we must quietly give up all ideas of settled, preconcerted plan. We shall be lucky enough, eeping ourselves attentive and alert, we can contrive to of the occasions as they arise; though I am sensible those, who are best provided with a general scheme, are t to take advantage of all contingencies. However, to with any people with the least degree of comfort, I e we must contrive a little to assimilate to their charWe must gravitate towards them, if we would keep e same system, or expect that they should approach ds us. They are indeed worthy of much concession and gement. I am quite convinced that they are the test public men that ever appeared in this country, and sure that they are the wisest by far of those who appear at present. None of those who are continually comng of them, but are themselves just as chargeable with -ir faults, and have a decent stock of their own into the n. They (our friends) are, I admit, as you very truly L. V 2 G |