with me!--My true paffion, in this respect, is of little consequence to any but myself; and, therefore, I say nothing upon the subject. The incumbencies, whether they are of defign or accident, which lye upon me, I fhall, at all events, discharge; and I fhall do so with the same case, under every species of hypercriticism, that marks, as I apprehend, the whole tenor of my humble career.-There are three topics which make me think it a personal and public duty to write this letter. I fhall take them in their separate and succeffive order.

1ft. Three thot and Weftminfter votes for 3,000 pots of porter.

I understand myself to have been quoted by Mr. Paull, from the Huftings, at Covent Garden, as having given an opinion to the above effect, How Mr. Paull, whom I have never yet beheld, has been led into this error, it is quite impossible for me to know. That Hon. Gent. will, however, I doubt not, be eager to acknowledge the miftake he has fallen into, when I thus declare, that I never uttered any such sentiment. Without pretending that Weftminster is universally free from that borough contagion which I detest the more, the more I hear of it, I have never entertained, even for a moment, the flighteft doubt, that of all the conflituent bodies in the realm, the general mass of the Weftminster electors was, by far, the pureft.

2d. My inaction in the present contest for Weftminster.'

To the various enquiries upon this subject my an swer is this-that though no mortal admires, more

than

than I admire, the splendid genius and complicated talents of Mr. Sheridan; though Mr. Sheridan is one of the oldeft, if not the very oldeft, of my political and personal connections; though I am sure it would be, since Mr. Sheridan thought fit to embark in it, directly subverfive of all the declared principles of the Westminster Electors, for the laft 26 years, not to choose him; (for the objection to him, of holding an office, is neither English, nor even French, nor Grecian, nor Roman-it is of no clime or country, but totally original-it may be the beft of doctrines, but it is wholly new)-yet, notwithstanding all the reasons, in favour of Mr. Sheridan, to which I advert, still, for me to engage (I never engage by halves in any thing) even for Mr. Sheridan, as I have been wont, in a Westminster conteft, would to me, and in my interpretation of such a thing, be an irreverence to the grave, and making a sort of meretricious transfer of an undivided devoted affection, of which the principal comfort is the consciousness of itself. I blame no other persons, but, on the contrary, applaud them for their activity; but I muft crave the liberty of judging, for myself, upon a subject in which there are delicacies unknown, and ever to remain unknown, to the public. It was my fixed intention never again to engage in any alection conteft; and from that intention nothing fhould have persuaded me to depart but the cause of an absent friend, affailed by an unworthy, and, as in the result it will prove, a fruitless combination. If I could, confiftently, abftain from excrcifing my suffrage, upon this occafion, it would be my wifh

not to be present, even for a moment, at a scene which can only renew afflicting remembrances in my mind; and (governed by that sound maxim which presumes innocence till guilt is proved) as, in my actual, total ignorance of the merits of the impeachment, I infer the innocence of the marquis of Wellesley-as I think it would be honourable to the noble Marquis, and justice to Mr. Paull, that the latter fhould have full scope and power to prosecute his accusation. Upon these grounds, most assuredly, I fhould divide my vote with Mr. Paull, but for the reason which, rendering such a course totally impoffible, the reader will find in the third and moft material section of this article, namely as referable to

.

Sir FRANCIS BURDETT.

The aptitude to wrong, the bias to bad, which so ftrongly prevail in our frail natures; my persuafion that the extreme of fashion in opinion, like the extreme of fashion in dress, is generally faulty; the principled repugnance of my mind to every thing like clamour-all these would only have the effect of predispofing me in favour of Sir F. Burdett. About the leaft addicted of mankind, as I believe I am, to swear by the words of any body, not even the admirable, the unanswered, and unanswerable letter of Mr. Whitbread; no, nor even that which has caused it, Sir F. Burdett's famous advertisement-not even that advertisement, nor all these causes put together, could produce the result upon my convictions which I fhall presently relate to the reader. In this world there exifts not a man, in my opinion

opinion, in whom an assemblage of more amiable qualities is comprised than in Sir F. Burdett. He is a perfect Gentleman, in the trueft definition of that term. With the mildness of an infant he unites the immoveableness of a ftoic. Pride, in its bad sense, is utterly unknown to him; and, of all living beings, I conceive him to be the most perfectly free from every vestige of the arrogant and the supercilious. The public conduct of public men he discuffes with freedom; but his lips are never polluted by a personal calumny. Such appears to me to be Sir F. Burdett; whom, with a little more warmth of temperament, I should as soon covet as a connection, and cultivate as a friend, as any individual in existence. -Yet with even this opinion (can a higher be entertained?) of Sir F. Burdett, it is totally impoffible for me to support Sir Francis, or any man, who swears by Sir Francis, " as a master."-What I am about to state to the reader is very remarkable, and is, at least, as a curiosity, worthy his attention.-In Sept. 1802, I wrote a letter to Mr. Fox, then at Paris, in which was the following sentence: "I think I have fathomed the mind of Sir F. Burdett ; and have made a most marvellous discovery. It is not a subject for the bustle of Paris; it will serve for a talk in the solitude of St. Anne's." Upon the very same day, in a letter from me to the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn, was a passage to the following effect:-"I have just stated, in a letter to Mr. Fox, that I have made a moft extraordinary discovery of what I conceive to be in the political contemplation of Sir F. Burdett.-I shall impart it only to Mr. Fox; 8 B 2

he

he may to your Grace; if he likes."-About three weeks before the recent diffolution of Parliament, touching upon Sir F. Burdett, incidentally, among other topics, in a conversation with a Noble Commoner in high office, I mentioned the circumftances of my letters to Mr. Fox and to the Duke of Bedford, as above referred to. The Noble Person to whom I allude, asked me, 'what the discovery was ?' Though I had wished the question had not been put to me, yet, às my confidence in that Noble Minister is unbounded, I unreservedly communicated to him what the reader shall presently hear. A syllable of my thoughts, upon this point, I never have dropped in any conversation even with Mr. Cobbett, for whose rare powers, and still more rare incorruptibleness, I make, (not the less that I often differ from him) an open proclamation of my unqualified respect. (To see so many persons, so high in my esteem, in discord, as I see at the present moment, is most painful to me. My sympathy is not the less, that I am, myself, at war, where I had rather be at peace; and the rule on which I rely for steering me in safety through all these storms is-in matters of opinion to state what I think -in matters of fact, to flate the truth).-To do any thing in the dark that might seem infidious-to utter any thing in privacy, which would look like disaffecting a powerful connection from a man for whom my personal esteem is infinite-this is so foreign from my character, that my tongue would refuse its function in saying any thing other than in the face of day' upon so peculiar a subject.

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