good truth was it not a most miserable attempt to preserve consistency?" There was a time in which the government "hoped!" What! was it thus that "the "aspiring blood of Lancaster dropped! I "thought it would have mounted!" When the "government hoped !" You should have said, there were times, during the war, when I said, when I declared, when I vowed, when I most solemnly pledged myself, without reservation or qualification, that I, and not that indefinite thing called the government, never would make peace with France, till I could obtain "an adequate, full, and "rational security; till such a peace could "be made as would restore to Europe her "settled and balanced constitution of ge"neral polity, and to every negotiating power in particular, its due weight in the scale of general empire." Having said this, you should have proceeded to confess, that events had frustrated your purpose, that your declaration was rash, and that you hoped to be forgiven. Forgiveness, from me, would have been readily granted; but, I never would have put it in your power again to mislead, again to disappoint, again to disgrace either myself or my country. A part, however, and a very material part, of your promises, remain to receive even the sort of justification that I have here been noticing: I mean your promises relative to the pecuniary resources of the country, which promises were, as I have before stated, backed by a very elaborate publication, under the name of your secretary, Mr. Rose, and which publication was printed at the public expense and transmitted, in French as well as English I believe, to all foreign courts where we had resident ministers, or other diplomatic agents. These promises were, that, in June 1799, not two years before the negotiation for peace was humbly solicited of a Commissary of Prisoners, such were our pecuniary resources, that " war might be carried on for any length of "time, without the creation of new debt, "and that it would not be difficult to pro"vide taxes for eight years" Now, Sir, as to this promise, no change of circumstances in the war can possibly avail you aught. You were not the master of war-like events, though you had much to do in producing them; but, of the purse of the country you were the absolute master. All its means were at your command, and the extent of those means was a mere matter of calculation; a point to be settled by the counting of fingers. Yet this promise too broken; this full and specific and deliberate declaration was contrary to truth; and, Sir, Was ever, that it is beyond the powers of sophistry here to obtain for you any other choice than that which lies between wilful mistatement and inadequate knowledge. The truth is, bowyour partisans attempt no apology; they frankly give up the point; and, with a modesty and morality peculiar to themselves, upbraid me with perverseness for having confided in your declarations and promises; a species of reproach which is exceedingly mortifying, and against which, therefore, as I think you will do me the justice to acknowledge, I have, since the preliminaries of peace, taken every precau tion in my power to guard both myself and the public. But, still your partisans insist, that all this is no justification for my having joined Mr. Fox. Some of them allow, because they have not the face to deny it, that I was fully justified in opposing you; but, they say I should have done it" upon independent ground;" by which they mean, that I should have stood alone; and that, though I might have a right to attack you, I was also to continue to assail your opponents. This doctrine, which is precisely that which was so earnestly inculcated by Mr. Addington's partisan, in the "Cursory Remarks," is not less convenient to a minister than the doctrine of never-ceasing adherence; for if, by any means, no matter what, he can keep bis opponents in a state of constant, or even occasional, hostility to each other, great indeed must be his imbecility if he fails to give a good account of them one at a time, a practical demonstration of which was given in the shameful state of parties during the administration of the person last named, a state of parties the effects of which the nation will long have to lament. It is curious, too, that, while this doctrine of independent opposition," as it is at once drolly and artfully denominated, is held forth as an essential in the political character; while eternal enmity is to exist amongst all those, who have ever differed from each other, and who are now opposed to the minister, an exactly opposite doctrine. is held and acted upon with respect to all those who will support the minister. If you will but stand and vote on the side of the minister, you may be cordially reconciled to men with whom but yesterday you were in open and violent hostility; while, to persons, together with whom you are in opposition to the minister, you must not be reconciled though there has been time and circumstances more than sufficient to soften your asperity: nay, so preposterous is the whole of this set of principles, that, if there be a person from whom you have ever differed in the whole course of your life, you must not, in opposition to the ministry, agree with him upon any point as to which you never disagreed with him; whereas, in favour of the ministry, you are not only released from this restraint, you are, not only as to new questions, at liberty to agree with those from whom you formerly differed, but, as hath been lately most strongly exemplified, you are at full liberty to agree with them upon the very same questions as to which you have not barely disagreed with them, but as to which you have actually delivered your opinion against them, and have given to that opinion the sanction of a vote! To those who may relish this doctrine I leave it as a guide: me it does not suit: I am, and ever have been, of opinion, that a party is only to be opposed by a party; a ministry by an opposition, uniting, if possible, all those who are not on the side of the ministry; and that, in order to render such an union efficient, not only all private prejudice but every minor public consideration, ought to give way. Under the influence of this opinion, thoroughly convinced that you never ought to be prime minister again, and suspecting (what has since proved true), that the open operation of a scheme for your return to the helm was at no great distance, I began, so early as the month of June, 1802, to suggest the necessity of a new-modelling and combination of parties. The question of peace "or war is now at an end; and as the Old "Opposition do not stand committed on "those other great objects of public consi"deration which will hereafter present "themselves, there are five modes of con"duct which lie open to their choice; first, they may act iu a detached body, as they "do at present; secondly, as the allies of some other party; thirdly, as neutrals; "fourthly, they may set up a sort of armed neutrality; fifthly, they may divide, and, "in the quality of mercenaries, be opposed to each other, without any diminution of "that mutual regard and that love of "country, which the virtuous Swiss are said to entertain at the very moment when they are plunging the bayonet into each "others breast."* This was not directly pointing out what I wished the Old Opposition to do; it was not directly saying, join the New Opposition, or you too wil "become insignificant;" but, that such was the suggestion intended to be conveyed Political Register, Vol. I. p. ;6.. no one can doubt. From this time, however, to the renewal of the war, such was the disjointed state of parties, so completely were the great public men detached from each other, that there appeared no means whereby to endeavour to accomplish a change for the better. The war awakened the leading characters who are now opposed to you, not only to a sense of the dangers of the country, but, which was not of less importance, to a due sense of that situation, in which, by the influence of their mutual dread of appearing to be the first to concede, they exhibited the consummately ridiculous spectacle of great men, become, through pride, the battling puppets of a mere underling, and one, too, from whose name imbeci lity" was inseparable! This was too humiliating, too shockingly degrading, long to be endured. Their orposition soon began to assume a milder tone: this change was succeeded by marks of mutual recon ciliation, though, as yet, by no evident ap proaches towards an union of action: for, Sir, it falls to the lot only of the happy few, such as those of whom you lately spoke under the denomination of Noses, to change all at once; to open the mouth with a bite, and close it with a kiss; to lick the hand that yet sweats with the labour of lashing them. At the meeting of Parliament, however, in November last, it was evident, that, in spite of all the arts of the ministry, and of others, whom it is not now worth while to mention, a co-operation in Parliament between the Old and the New Oppositions was at no great distance, From the moment that I perceived even a glimmering of hope, that an union of the great men of the country might be accomplished, I lost no opportunity of endeavour, ing to enforce the necessity of it, and to put to silence those by whom it was op posed; and, finally, I had the pleasure to hear Mr. Fox and Mr. Windham once more publicly exchange the name of "friend." Still, will your partisans say, that I was to stand aloof? You were, at this time, propping occasionally and occasionally undermining the ministry which you had erected, and which had brought upon the country so many and such dreadful mischiefs. Your conduct was, with me, an object of hostility scarcely inferior to theirs; both tended greatly to increase the dangers of the country, Yet, I'll war rant, that your partisans will maintain, that your conduct, be it what it might, could be no inducement for me to turn to wards Mr. Fox, notwithstanding there was no other way left of coming at even a chance of effecting such a change of measures as I regarded absolutely necessary to the safety of the state. Besides, Sir, when, of two rivals, one sinks, the other naturally rises in the same degree. Mr. Fox had, in my estimation, and, I believe, in the estimation of the world (for America I will answer), taken an amazing vault above you at the epoch of the peace of Amiens; and, I think, it will hardly be contended, that, when your conduct between the peace and the renewal of the war came to be calmly ant conscientiously surveyed; when I saw you, first keep aloof from the parliament, without any alleged public reason for so doing and with the obvious intention to avoid ging support to, and thereby incurring any sponsibility for, measures which you yourself had advised and even dictated; when, as the embarrassments of Mr. Addington increased, I saw you, who had kept from the sittings of parlament under the pretext of ill health, hastening to the treasury, negotiating for place, and quite able and willing to take upon you, in conjunction with lord Melville, the whole business of the state; when, in consequence of the failure of that negotiation and of the exposure that ensued, I was enabled clearly to view and correctly to judge of your conduct at the time when you retired from office; when I discovered, that, after having prevailed upon your colleagues to retire, because his Majesty would not consent to the measure of catholic emancipation, you offered to remain in office yourself, for an indefinite term, without such consent being obtained, though you afterwards explicitly declared in parliament, that the want of such consent was the sole cause of your resignation; when, in putting all these circumstances together, and finding in the negotiations for place, no mention of, nor any allusion to, catholic emancipation, reason compelled me to conclude, that your real object in resigning was, to get rid of your intractable colleagues, to court the people by a peace, and to swim along in peace and plenty" with just such a ministry as that you have now formed; when, in passing over scores of minor political transgressions, and hastening to the close of this climax of cardinal sins, I saw you (to repeat almost my own words relative to your conduct upon Mr. Patten's motion, as viewed in connexion with your ne gotiations for peace with Mr. Addington), when I saw you ready and willing, provided your terms were acceded to, to enter the cabinet, to join and to co-operate with the men, of the whole of whose principal mea. sures, foreign and domestic, you have since " declared your disapprobation, but the leaders of whom you were willing to keep in place and in power provided you amply participated with them; and when I saw you, not being able to obtain the share that you coveted, seizing on the first opportunity for commencing against these men (men whom you had collectively and individually recommended to the parliament) an opposition of the kind best calculated to render them contemptible and odious in the eyes of the world, being evidently restrained from open and violent hostility only by the fear of giving offence in that quarter where you wished to supplant them; when I had seen all this between the conclusion of the peace and the breaking out of the war, I think, it will hardly be contended, that the interval could fail to produce a powerful bias towards the person who had so long been your rival, and without, a co-operation with whom there appeared little prospect of making a successful stand against the strides of your ambition and the destructive tendency of your projects. With the question upon the address to the king, in answer to his notification of the declaration of war, my opposition to Mr. Fox ceased. New questions arose, questions entirely new both to him and to me; questions whereon to side, with him clashed with no opinion I had ever delivered, no wish I had ever expressed, but was perfectly consistent with all those principles of party co-operation and with all those notions of public duty which I had constantly entertained and had frequently expressed, particularly where I had had oc casion to speak of the conduct of Mr. Burke, Mr. Windham and others, in joining you during the last war. As to the more personal assaults upon Mr. Fox; general censure, unqualified reproaches, harsh imputations, cutting sarcasms, these are the weapons with which writers fight, especially in times and upon occasions such as those here alluded to: besides, if, at a time like that of the conclusion of the peace, when not to be stung to the soul would have argued a total want either of sense as to the present or of sincerity as to the past; if, at a moment, when, smarting under the mor tification to which an unmerited confidence in your declarations and promises had exposed me; if, at such a moment, I treated with two much personal severity our triumphant opponent, your partisans, Sir, are certainly not the persons to complain, nor am I the person at present to be censured, Mr. Fox might, indeed, if such could possibly have been the case, subjected himself to the imputation of meanness in coming over to me; but, it would be an inconsistent sort. of reasoning to insist, that, having once been too personally violent against Mr. Fox, when writing upon a subject upon which we had long been directly opposed, I am thereby bound to stand aloof from, nay to abandon, a public cause already espoused, lest, in supporting that cause, I should also support Mr. Fox. To inculcate such a principle may be attempted, but it is too inconsistent and perverse not to be instantly rejected by every sensible, candid and disinterested man. Thus, Sir, I have, I hope, shewn, that, in "going over," as it is called, to Mr. Fox, I have departed from no principle that I ever either acted upon or professed; and that (to repeat my proposition), though, in this case, the path pointed out by reason and by honour, by loyalty and by patriotism, was strewed with thorns, I have, in no single instance, deviated from it. Had I chosen the tone of apology instead of that of justifica tion, I should not have been at a loss for superabundant precedent to keep me in countenance; precedent not sought for in the conduct of those leeches of the state, who hang on through all the vicissitudes of sickness and of health; who are transferred from minister to minister, like the lumber of a ready-furnished lodging, and who pass from occupant to occupant as an incumbrance attached to the possession; not of these, Sir, but of yourself I might have cited the example. As to the doctrine of never-ending adherence, I might have asked, how, consistently with that doctrine, you could have ceased to adhere to Mr. Addington and Lord St. Vincent, whom you had so strongly recommended to the parliament and the na. tion, of whose capacity for conducting the national affairs you had so strongly censured the Opposition for doubting, and the latter of whom you had described as a person whose name alone was a guarantee for security against all attempts of the enemy; I surely might have asked, how you could, upon the principle now set up in your own behalf, not only cease to adhere to those persons, not only become their assailants, but affix to their names, names which you bade us consider as synonimous with wisdom and safety, every epithet expressive of their incapacity and of your contempt? I might, with respect to joining with persons from whom one has heretofore widely dif fered, have inquired upon what principle it was that you joined with Mr. Dundas and Mr. Eden soon after the close of the American war with the Duke of Portland, the Lords Fitzwilliam and Spencer, and Mr. Windham, at the beginning of the last war; only four months ago with six of those persons who are at this moment in the cabinet with you, and whom you had included in the description of that mass of "incon"gruity and imbecility," from which you professed your wish to deliver the nation; and, finally, with Mr. Fox himself, without whose co-operation that laudable and patriotic wish could never have been accom plished. If any thing more than the lastmentioned circumstance had been neces sary to afford a fair inference that you your self deemed Mr. Fox worthy of the confidence of his Majesty and the Parliament, Į might have appealed, not, perhaps, to your public declarations, but certainly to decla rations that you solemnly made, and that were repeated by your confidential friends as well as by all the public writers in your interest, who circumstantially described the long efforts you made for the purpose of introducing Mr. Fox into the cabinet, and who, in their anxiety to defend you against the imputation of duplicity, forgot a much higher duty, and scrupled not to lay the blame upon the King, though they now have what I must call the profligacy to reproach me with an abandonment of principle, be cause I have joined "citizen Fox," because I have joined that very person, your earnest desire and strenuous efforts to introduce whom into the cabinet formed the only ground upon which they attempted to make an apology for your conduct. And, Sir, as to that eternal resentment which your adherents now represent as the indis pensably necessary consequence of personal ho tility, need I, in opposition to so diabolical a principle, have gone further than your offer, nay, I will call it not only your distinct offer, but your invitation and even your solicitation to Mr. Tierney to keep that place, of which, upon his refusal, Mr. Canning, with a condescension equal to your magnanimity, thought proper to accept? To these and many more instances I might have referred, if I had not chosen to stand upon the intrinsic merits of the case; if I had not disdained the thought of recrimination, and if (without any affectation I say it) I had not felt, that, in the eyes of those whose good opinion I most esteem, your example would afford no justification for me. Here, Sir, fully aware that I have already but too far transgressed the bounds of more than ordinary patience, I should put an end to this letter; but, there is one point, which, left untouched, would leave incomplete a subject, to which, I trust, I shall never have occasion to return: I mean, the circumstance of my now opposing you, whom, 'in my repeatedly-expressed wish to see an usion of the great men of all parties, I must, of course, have included amongst those whom I desired to see in power. Granted: that inclusion was a matter of course: to deny it would be either a subterfuge, or a vapid insult. But, Sir, without particular references, I may sately appeal to the memory of all those who have thought my writings worthy of perusal, that, since the peace of Amiens, nay, since the preliminaries of that ignominious and fatal compact, not only have I never spoken of your return to the prime ministry as an event to be wished, but that, whenever the subject has been agitated, I have positively declared my dissent from such wish. The truth is, Sir, that, having, as far as the compass of my mind will permit, carefully and impartially considered the nature and tendency of the whole of your system; having arrived at a thorough conviction, that that system points directly, and is proceeding with hasty strides, to the subversion of the Church, the ancient Aristocracy, the Throne, and, of course, the Liberties and Independence of England; and, not less firmly convinced, that your system is, and must remain, inseparable from your possession of the first place amongst the servants of the King, I thought it my duty to endeavour to prevent your return to that place. Thus thinking, my opposition has been decided, but it has, I trust, also been fair. I never have had recourse, and never shall have recourse, to any of those arts which have been but too often employed against myself. I have never wilfully and deliberately mistated any fact; I have never, except from want of talent, made use of a sophistical argument, or intentionally left a false inference to be drawn; and I never have, on any occasion, addressed myself to, or wished for success from, the vice, the ignorance, or the prejudice, of any description of people. The uniform intention, and I will add the uniform effect, of my writings have been, and are, to counteract the efforts of the enemies of monarchy in general and of the monarchy of England in particular, under whatever guise or denomination those enemies have appeared; to check the spirit and oppose the progress of levelling innovation, whether proceeding from clubs of jacobins, companies of traders, synagogues of saints, or boards of the government; to cherish an adherence to long-tried principles, an affection for an cient families and ancient establishments; to inculcate an unshaken attachment to the person and office of the king, an obedience to the laws, a respect for the magistracy, a profound veneration for the church, and a devotion of fortune and of life to the liberties and glory of the country. To the weariness which a letter of such length, and upon such a subject, is calculated to produce, I will not add by a ceremonious conclusion; being well aware too, that, if, for having said so much relating to myself, the apology with which I set out, and which was founded upon the great importance of the discussion on which I am about to enter, be not thought sufficient, no other apology can possibly be found. I am, Sir, your, &c. &c. Botley, Oct. 4, 1804. WM. COBBETT. INTERCEPTED LETTERS. [On board the English East India ship, called the Admiral Alpin, lately captured by the French, were found eighty-four letters from persons in this country to persons in India, the ship being bound to Madras. Amongst those letters which have been pub lished by the French, and, almost the whole of which appear to be very insignificant except to persons engaged or interested in the low intrigues of the India House, there are two worthy of notice; one from Lord Grenville to the Governor General, the Marquis Wellesley; and the other to the same person from his brother, Mr. Henry Wellesley. The flippancy of Mr. Wellesley may be excused when one considers that he was writing a private letter to a brother, and as to his political notions and views they are just such as every one would expect such a person to entertain. Lord Grenville's letter is worthy of great attention: here we hear his lordship speaking in private to his friend, and we hear all those manly sentiments that he has so frequently uttered in public. No. thing could possibly have happened more advantageous to the reputation of his lordship. It would be curious to hear what the viperous slanderers of the Addington faction could say to this letter. It must be observed that these letters have undergone a double translation. The manner must have suffered, and perhaps the matter.] Letter from Lord Grenville to the Marquis of Wellesley, dated, July 12, 1803. MY DEAR WELLESLEY,Two days ago I received your letter of the 16th Feb., and I now reply to it, though I am not entirely certain, when I shall have an oppor tunity of transmitting to you my answer. In |