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carried on as if I were dead. I was confidered as a man wholly out of the question. Whilst I watched, and fafted, and fweated in the House of Commons-by the most easy and ordinary arts of election, by dinners and visits, by “How do you do's," and, My worthy friends," I was to be quietly moved out of my feat-and promises were made, and engagements entered into, without any exception or referve, as if my laborious zeal in my duty had been a regular abdication of my trust.

To open my whole heart to you on this fubject, I do confefs, however, that there were other times befides the two years in which I did visit you, when I was not wholly without leifure for repeating that mark of my respect. But I could not bring my mind to see you. You remember, that in the beginning of this American war (that æra of calamity, difgrace and downfall, an æra which no feeling mind will ever mention without a tear for England) you were greatly divided; and a very strong body, if not the strongest, opposed itself to the madness which every art and every power were employed to render popular, in order that the errors of the rulers might be loft in the general blindness of the nation. This oppofition continued until after our great, but most unfortunate victory at Long Island. Then all the mounds and banks of our conftancy were borne down at once; and the phrenfy of the American war broke in upon us like a deluge. This victory, which feemed to put an immediate end to all difficulties, perfected us in that spirit

3

of

of domination, which our unparalleled prosperity had but too long nurtured. We had been fo very powerful, and fo very profperous, that even the humbleft of us were degraded into the vices and follies of kings. We loft all measure between means and ends; and our headlong defires became our politics and our morals. All men who wished for peace, or retained any fentiments of moderation, were overborne or filenced; and this city was led by every artifice (and probably with the more management, because I was one of your members) to distinguish itself by its zeal for that fatal caufe. In this temper of yours and of my mind, I should fooner have fled to the extremities of the earth, than have shewn myself here. I, who faw in every American victory (for you have had a long series of these misfortunes) the germ and feed of the naval powers of France and Spain, which all our heat and warmth against America was only hatching into life,-I fhould not have been a welcome vifitant with the brow and the language of fuch feelings. When afterwards, the other face of your calamity was turned upon you, and fhewed itself in defeat and distress, I fhunned you full as much. I felt forely this variety in our wretchedness; and I did not wish to have the leaft appearance of infulting you with that fhew of fuperiority, which, though it may not be affumed, is generally fufpected in a time of calamity, from thofe whofe previous warnings have been defpifed. I

could

could not bear to fhew you a reprefentative whofe face did not reflect that of his conftituents; a face that could not joy in your joys, and forrow in your forrows. But time at length has made us all of one opinion; and we have all opened our eyes on the true nature of the American war, to the true nature of all its fucceffes and all its failures.

In that public ftorm too I had my private feelings, I had seen blown down and proftrate on the ground feveral of those houses to whom I was chiefly indebted for the honour this city has done me. I confefs, that whilft the wounds of those I loved were yet green, I could not bear to fhew myself in pride and triumph in that place into which their partiality had brought me, and to appear at feafts and rejoicings, in the midft of the grief and calamity of my warm friends, my zealous fupporters, my generous benefactors. This is a true, unvarnished, undisguised state of the affair. You will judge of it.

This is the only one of the charges in which I am perfonally concerned. As to the other matters objected against me, which in their turn I fhall mention to you, remember once more I do not mean to extenuate or excufe. Why fhould I, when the things charged are among those upon which I found all my reputation? What would be left to me, if I myself was the man, who foftened, and blended, and diluted, and weakened, all the distinguishing colours of my life, so as

5

to

to leave nothing distinct and determinate in my whole conduct?

It has been faid, and it is the fecond charge, that in the questions of the Irish trade, I did not confult the intereft of my conftituents, or, to fpeak out ftrongly, that I rather acted as a native of Ireland, than as an English member of parliament.

I certainly have very warm good wishes for the place of my birth. But the sphere of my duties is my true country. It was, as a man attached to your interefts, and zealous for the confervation of your power and dignity, that I acted on that occafion, and on all occafions. You were involved in the American war. A new world of policy was opened, to which it was neceffary we should conform whether we would or not; and my only thought was how to conform to our fituation in such a manner as to unite to this kingdom, in profperity and in affection, whatever remained of the empire. I was true to my old, ftanding, invariable principle, that all things, which came from Great Britain, should iffue as a gift of her bounty and beneficence, rather than as claims recovered against a struggling litigant; or at least, that if your beneficence obtained no credit in your conceffions, yet that they should appear the falutary provisions of your wisdom and forefight; not as things wrung from you with your blood, by the cruel gripe of a rigid neceffity. The firft conceffions, by being (much against my will) mangled and ftripped of

the

the parts which were neceffary to make out their juft correfpondence and connection in trade, were of no ufe. The next year a feeble attempt was made to bring the thing into better fhape. This attempt (countenanced by the minifter) on the very firft appearance of fome popular uneafinefs, was, after a confiderable progress through the house, thrown out by him.

What was the confequence? The whole kingdom of Ireland was inftantly in a flame. Threatened by foreigners, and, as they thought, infulted by England, they refolved at once to resist the power of France, and to caft off yours. As for us, we were able neither to protect nor to restrain them. Forty thousand men were raised and dif ciplined without commiffion from the crown. Two illegal armies were feen with banners difplayed at the fame time, and in the fame country. No executive magiftrate, no judicature, in Ireland, would acknowledge the legality of the army which bore the king's commiffion; and no law, or appearance of law, authorised the army commiflioned by itself. In this unexampled ftate of things, which the leaft error, the least trefpafs on the right or left, would have hurried down the precipice into an abyss of blood and confufion, the people of Ireland demand a freedom of trade with arms in their hands. They interdict all commerce between the two nations. They deny all new supply in the House of Commons, although in time of war. They ftint the truft of the old revenue, given for two years to all the king's predeceffors,