Ame I see, indeed, many, many difficulties in the way; but we have known as great, or greater, give way to a regular series of judicious and active exertions. This is no time for taking public business in their course and order, and only as a part in the scheme of life, which comes and goes at its proper periods, and is mixed in with occupations and amusements. It calls for the whole of the best of us; and everything else, however just or even laudable at another time, ought to give way to this great, urgent, instant concern. Indeed, my dear lord, you are called upon in a very peculiar manner. rica is yours. You have saved it once, and you may very possibly save it again. The people of that country are worth preserving; and preserving, if possible, to England. I believe your lordship remembers that last year or the year before, I am not sure which, you fixed your quarters for a while in London, and sent circular letters to your friends who were concerned in the business on which you came to town. It was on occasion of the Irish absentee-tax. Your friends met, and the attempt was defeated. It may be worth your lordship's consideration, whether you ought not, as soon as possible, to draw your principal friends together. It may be then examined, whether a larger meeting might not be expedient, to see whether some plan could not be thought of for doing something in the counties and towns. The October meeting at Newmarket will be too late in the year, and then the business of the meeting would take up too much time from the other. It might be objected to doing anything in this immature condition of the public temper, that the interests of your lordship's friends might suffer in making an attempt, which might be vigorously and rather generally opposed and counterworked. On ordinary occasions this might be a matter of very serious consideration. The risk ought to be proportioned to the object; but this is no ordinary occasion. In the first place, I lay it down that the present state of opposition is so bad, that the worst judged and most untimely exertions would only vary the mode of its utter dissolution. Such a state of things justifies every hazard. But, supposing our condition better, what is an interest cultivated for, but its aptness for public purposes? And for what public purpose do gentlemen wait, that will be more worthy of the use of all the interests they have? I should certainly consider the affair as desperate, if your success in such an effort depended on anything like an unanimous concurrence in the nation. But in times of trouble, this is impossible. In such times, it is not necessary. A minority cannot make or carry on a war; but a minority, well composed and acting steadily, may clog a war in such a manner, as to make it not very easy to proceed. When you once begin to show yourselves, many will be animated to join you, who are now faint and uncertain. Your adversaries will raise the spirit of your friends; and the very contest will excite that concern and curiosity in the nation, the want of which is now the worst part of the public distemper. Lord John has given your lordship an account of the scheme we talked over, for reviving the importance of the city of London, by separating the sound from the rotten contract-hunting part of the mercantile interest, uniting it with the corporation, and joining both to your lordship. There are now some facilities attending such a design. Lord Chatham is, in a manner, out of the question; and the court have lost, in him, a sure instrument of division in every public contest. Baker was chiefly relied on for our main part in this work. He was willing to do his part; but, lo! he is called away to another part; and if he is not yet married to Miss Conyers, he will in a very few days. This puts us back. Nothing I believe can be done in it till the Duke of Portland comes to town; and then we shall have a centre to turn upon. Hand, of Leeds, and some other friends, might feel the pulse of the people of Leeds and the adjacent country. Jack Lee would not let his assistance be wanting on such an occasion, and in such a cause; but if Sir George Savile could be persuaded to come forward * * * * I must instantly set off for Bristol. The enclosed will let your lordship see the necessity of it. The horrid expense of these expeditions would keep me at home; but that city is going headlong to the dust, through the manœuvres of the court and of the Tory party; but principally through the absurd and paltry behaviour of my foolish colleague. I shall be there on the 28th for the assizes; as appearing to go on a particular occasion, may give me an excuse for not continuing long in that quarter. He I have seen J. D. and Penn. The former, I believe, has suffered himself to be made a tool; your lordship will soon see him. The latter is steady for America. His account of the determined spirit and resolution of the people there agrees with that which we have generally received. brings a very decent and manly petition from the congress. It mentions no specific conditions, but, in general, it is for peace. Lord Chatham is the idol, as usual. I find by Penn that, in America, they have scarce any idea of the state of men and parties here, nor who are their friends or foes. To this he attributes much of their nonsense about the declaratory act. Just as I finished this sentence, the paper gives an account (to which I cannot help giving some credit) that a great battle is fought near Boston, to the disadvantage of the unhappy Americans. Though this would add much to the difficulties of our present conduct, it makes no change in the necessity of doing something effectual before the meeting of parliament. Your lordship will have the goodness to present, &c. &c. EDM. BURRE. TO JOHN BOURKE, ESQ.1 MY DEAR JOHN, Beconsfield, Thursday, July 11, 1776. I do assure you that I do not want any of that uncritical friendliness and partiality which you ascribe to me, to induce me very much to like and admire what I have read in the Gazetteer this morning. The subject is very well handled; the language remarkably neat and pure; and I am sure the principles are honest and constitutional. I do not perhaps go all the length of thinking Mr. Wilkes' promise quite a nullity. It is, I admit, never wise, perhaps not often justifiable, to make such engagements; and cases may cer 1 A London merchant, descended from the same Norman stock as Mr. Edmund Burke. The subject was probably the desertion of Wilkes by many of his former friends, on his contesting, for the second time, the office of chamberlain of the city of London with Mr. Hopkins, who was elected by a large majority. tainly be put where the merit will lie in breaking them. But, if they are made, they ought to be kept; and the maker ought to have looked into the propriety of making, and the possibility of keeping them, when he made such declarations. Such professors ought to be held tight to their promises, if it answered no other end than to make them cautious in deceiving the people. When, in the issue, it may prove that some part of the deceit falls upon themselves, it is proper to give them no sort of dispensation, and to allow them no kind of evasion. Our friend is perhaps too young to remember the origin of all this professing, promising, and testing; but he would laugh if he knew that the wolf is now howling in the snare which he had originally laid for honest men. This traitor raised an outcry among that mob who have now surrendered him over to his and their enemies, against all the honest part of the opposition, because they would not join him and his associates, in disclaiming the fair objects of ambition or accommodation, whenever private honour or public principles admitted of them. We were put out of the question as patriots, stripped of all support from the multitude, and the alternative wildly and wickedly put between those who disclaimed all employments, and the mere creatures of the court. They would hear of nobody else. So that nothing has happened, but what they have chosen and prepared. Whenever they fail, the court must profit. I remember that the Shelburne faction acted just in the same manner; until, having overloaded the stomachs of their adherents, they were vomited up with loathing and disgust. It was but a few months after Lord Shelburne had told me gratis, (for nothing led to it,) that the people (always meaning the common people of London) were never in the wrong, that he and all his friends were driven with scorn out of that city. However, I admit, with our worthy friend, that the baseness and corruptness of Mr. Oliver and the livery is not much the less for the villany of him whom they have abandoned the first moment he could hope to derive, from their protection, ease and comfort for his age. Let me wish my young friend, at his entrance into life, to draw a useful lesson from the unprincipled behaviour of a corrupt and licentious people:that is, never to sacrifice his principles to the hope of obtain ing their affections; to regard and wish them well, as a part of his fellow-creatures, whom his best instincts and his highest duties lead him to love and serve, but to put as little trust in them as in princes. For what inward resource has he, when turned out of courts or hissed out of town-halls, who ' has made their opinions the only standard of what is right, and their favour the sole means of his happiness? I have heard as yet nothing about our future engagement. Possibly the servant I have sent to Lord Rockingham may arrive before the post goes out. He is arrived, and I have no answer. Lord Rockingham was not in town. I am, with the best regards of all here, Dear Bourke, Ever affectionately yours, EDM. BURKE. Our love to the occasionalist, but not server of occasions. 1 TO THE EARL OF HILLSBOROUGH, AND LORD VISCOUNT STORMONT, TWO OF HIS MAJESTY'S PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE. MY LORDS, Charles Street, St. James's Square, I think it the right and the duty of every subject of this kingdom to communicate to his Majesty's ministers intelligence of every matter, by which the king's interest and honour, and that of the nation, are likely to be affected. The chairman and deputy-chairman of the East India Company have come to a resolution of seizing upon, and delivering over to the discretion of their servants at Madras, the revenues of the king of Tanjore,-an ally of the Company, and, therefore, of the crown and nation of Great Britain,in direct violation of a solemn treaty, by which the Company The Earl of Hillsborough, born about 1718, died Oct. 1793. At the accession of George the Third he was continued a Privy Councillor in both kingdoms; in 1763 was made first Commissioner of Trade and Plantations; in 1766 Joint Postmaster-General; in 1768 Secretary of State to the Colonies; and from 1779 to 1782 again Secretary of State. He appears to have been the private and confidential friend and adviser of the king; and Adolphus says that "when no longer Secretary of State to the Colonies, he continued to give his advice and assistance to the ministry, to whom his experience was of effectual service." VOL. VIII. 2 H 1 |