I never felt in any affair of my own whatsoever. If you have not observed this, you have not, I think, observed with your usual sagacity. But if you have observed it, and attributed it to an interested design, which will cease when its end is in any degree answered, my mind bears me witness that you do not do me justice. I act almost always from my present impulse, and with little scheme or design; and perhaps, generally, with too little. If you think what I have proposed unreasonable, my request is that you will, which you may very easily do, get my Lord Halifax to postpone the pension, and afterwards to drop it. We shall go on as before, until some other more satisfactory matter occurs. For I should ill brook an accusation, either direct or implied, that I had through your friendship acquired a considerable establishment, and afterwards neglected to make any fair return in my power. The thought of this has given me great pain; and I would not be easy without coming to some explanation upon it. In the light I consider things, it can create no great difficulty; but it may possibly, to you, appear otherwise. Let this be how it will, I can never forget the obligations-the very many and great obligations-which I have already had to you; and which, in any situation, will always give you a right to call on me for anything within my compass. If I do not often acknowledge my sense of them, it is because I know you are not very fond of professions, nor am I very clever at making them. You will take in good part this liberty; which, sincerely, is not made for the purpose of exercising my pen impertinently. Two words from you would settle the point, one way or another.

I am, with the utmost truth, ever yours,

EDM. BURKE.

TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON.

DEAR SIR,

Your letter, which I received about four o'clock yesterday, seemed not to have been written with an intention of being answered. However, on considering the matter this morning, I thought it respectful to you, and, in a manner, necessary to myself, to say something to those heavy charges which you have made against me in our last con

versations; and which, with a polite acrimony in the expression, you have thought proper to repeat in your letter.

I should, indeed, be extremely unhappy, if I felt any consciousness at all of that unkindness, of which you have so lively a sense. In the six years during which I have had the honour of being connected with you, I do not know that I have given you one just occasion of complaint; and if all things have not succeeded every way to your wishes, I may appeal to your own equity and candour, whether the failure was owing to anything wrong in my advice, or inattention in my conduct; I can honestly affirm, and your heart will not contradict me, that in all cases I preferred your interest to my own. I made you, and not myself, the first object in every deliberation. I studied your advancement, your fortune, and your reputation in everything, with zeal and earnestness; and sometimes with an anxiety, which has made many of my hours miserable. Nobody could be more ready than I was to acknowledge the obligations I had to you; and if I thought, as in some instances I did, and do still think, I had cause of dissatisfaction, I never expressed it to others, or made yourself uneasy about them. I acted, in every respect, with a fidelity which, I trust, cannot be impeached. If there be any part of my conduct in life, upon which I can look with entire satisfaction, it is my behaviour with regard to you.

So far as to the past: with regard to the present, what is that unkindness and misbehaviour of which you complain? My heart is full of friendship to you; and is there a single point which the best and most intelligent men have fixed, as a proof of friendship and gratitude, in which I have been deficient, or in which I threaten a failure? What you blame is only this, that I will not consent to bind myself to you, for no less a term than my whole life, in a sort of domestic situation, for a consideration to be taken out of your private fortune; that is, to circumscribe my hopes, to give up even the possibility of liberty, and absolutely to annihilate myself for ever. I beseech you, is the demand, or the refusal, the act of unkindness? If ever such a test of friendship was proposed, in any instance, to any man living, I admit that my conduct has been unkind; and, if you please, ungrateful.

If I had accepted your kind offers, and afterwards refused to abide by the condition you annex to them, you then would have had a good right to tax me with unkindness. But what have I done, at the end of a very long, however I confess unprofitable, service, but to prefer my own liberty to the offers of advantage you are pleased to make me; and, at the same time, to tender you the continuance of those services (upon which partiality alone induces you to set any value) in the most disinterested manner, as far as I can do it, consistent with that freedom to which, for a long time, I have determined to sacrifice every consideration, and which I never gave you the slightest assurance that I had any intention to surrender; whatever my private resolves may have been in case an event had happened, which (so far as concerns myself) I rejoice never to have taken place? You are kind enough to say, that you looked upon my friendship as valuable; but hint that it has not been lasting. I really do not know when, and by what act, I broke it off. I should be wicked and mad to do it; unless you call that a lasting friendship, which all mankind would call a settled servitude, and which no ingenuity can distinguish from it. Once more, put yourself in my situation, and judge for me. If I have spoken too strongly, you will be so good to pardon a man on his defence, in one of the nicest questions to a mind that has any feeling. I meant to speak fully, not to offend. I am not used to defend my conduct; nor do I intend, for the future, to fall into so bad a habit. I have been warmed to it by the imputation you threw on me; as if I deserted you on account solely of your want of success. On this, however, I shall say nothing, because perhaps I should grow still warmer; and I would not drop one loose word which might mark the least disrespect, and hurt a friendship which has been, and I flatter myself will be, a satisfaction and an honour to me. I beseech you that you will judge of me with a little impartiality and temper. I hope I have said nothing in our last interview which could urge you to the passion you speak of. If anything fell which was strong in the expression, I believe it was from you, and not from me, and it is right that I should bear more than I then heard. I said nothing, but what I took the liberty of mentioning to you a year ago, in Dublin: I gave you no reason to think I had

made any change in my resolution. We, notwithstanding, have ever since, until within these few days, proceeded as usual. Permit me to do so again. No man living can have a higher veneration than I have for your abilities, or can set a higher value on your friendship, as a great private satisfaction, and a very honourable distinction. I am much obliged to you for the favour you intend me, in sending to me in three or four days (if you do not send sooner), when you have had time to consider this matter coolly. I will again call at your door, and hope to be admitted; I beg it, and entreat it. At the same time do justice to the single motive which I have for desiring this favour, and desiring it in this manner. I have not wrote all this tiresome matter in hopes of bringing on an altercation in writing, which you are so good to me as to decline personally; and which, in either way, I am most solicitous to shun. What I say is, on reviewing it, little more than I have laid before you in another manner. It certainly requires no answer. I ask pardon for my prolixity, which my anxiety to stand well in your opinion has caused.

I am, with great truth,

Your most affectionate and most obliged humble Servant,

EDM. BURKE.

TO THE MARQUIS OF ROCKINGHAM.

MY DEAR LORD, Gregories, September (12th), 1769. Our meeting was held yesterday; the ostensible particulars of which Lord Temple took care to transmit immediately to the newspaper. I shall not, therefore, trouble your lordship with them here. Very little pains were taken to form a striking appearance on the day; however, it proved beyond expectation. Aubrey' was the only person who seemed to have acted rightly; he came into the town on horseback at the head of sixty-five freeholders. However, when we got into the town-hall, it was quite full; there were not fewer, I imagine, than four hundred, many of them substantial people, who came forward to the work with a good countenance,

1 Subsequently Sir John Aubrey, M. P.

and an alacrity equal to that of the third regiment of guards.1 Everything had been done to traverse us; the terrors of the House of Commons were held over many, and the word was, "The king will despise your petitions, and then what will you do? Will you go into rebellion ?" &c. &c. The Tories in general stayed away. O'Brien, in his speech, let fly at the Earl of Bute, and was rather for giving a more Whiggish complexion to the meeting, than would be quite prudent in a county where the others were so strong, and in which some of them voted with us, though they did not choose to appear on this occasion. But on the whole he did very well. No Grenville, except George's eldest son,2 a very sensible boy, and as well disposed to a little faction as any of his family. We were told we should have had Harry Grenville, but Lord Temple found out that he was no freeholder in the county. His lordship, after dinner, made an apology for George's absence, declaring, that he highly approved the principles of the meeting, but thought he should be able to defend it with the greater weight if he were not present at it. This was awkward, and awkwardly delivered. At the dinner it was thought necessary that the gentlemen should not dine all together; accordingly, Lord Temple stayed at one house, and Lord Verney and some more of us went to the other. In order to preserve a harmony in our toasts, they sent them to us from the house we had left, where they had been devised. An attempt was made to insinuate a great deal of Grenvilleism into the meeting. However, something was done a little to balance it; and a toast that had been sent down in an improper mode, about Yorkshire, was dressed by Aubrey and O'Brien in somewhat a better manner. What think you of the three united brothers? The freeholders dined, as we did all, at a market-ordinary, for which we paid our shillings. Afterwards, wine was given at the expense of Lord V. and Lord T--. The first part was necessary, because the freeholders had been informed that there was to be no treating; and they were to be induced to come by the

1 Alluding to the employment of the military in St. George's Fields, in the preceding year.

George, afterwards third Earl Temple.

Lord Chatham, and his brothers by marriage, Lord Temple and Mr. George Grenville.