presume to censure I may have leave to lament.  For a wise man, he seemed to me at that time to be governed too much by general maxims.  I speak with the freedom of history, and I hope without offence.  One or two of these maxims, flowing from an opinion not the most indulgent to our unhappy species, and surely a little too general, led him into measures that were greatly mischievous to himself, and for that reason, among others, perhaps fatal to his country,—­measures, the effects of which, I am afraid, are forever incurable.  He made an administration so checkered and speckled, he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed, a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified mosaic, such a tessellated pavement without cement,—­here a bit of black stone and there a bit of white, patriots and courtiers, king’s friends and republicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open enemies,—­that it was, indeed, a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand on.  The colleagues whom he had assorted at the same boards stared at each other, and were obliged to ask,—­“Sir, your name?”—­“Sir, you have the advantage of me.”—­“Mr. Such-a-one.”—­“I beg a thousand pardons.”—­I venture to say, it did so happen that persons had a single office divided between them, who had never spoke to each other in their lives, until they found themselves, they knew not how, pigging together, heads and points, in the same truckle-bed.[11]

Sir, in consequence of this arrangement, having put so much the larger part of his enemies and opposers into power, the confusion was such that his own principles could not possibly have any effect or influence in the conduct of affairs.  If over he fell into a fit of the gout, or if any other cause withdrew him from public cares, principles directly the contrary were sure to predominate.  When he had executed his plan, he had not an inch of ground to stand upon.  When he had accomplished his scheme of administration, he was no longer a minister.

When his face was hid but for a moment, his whole system was on a wide sea without chart or compass.  The gentlemen, his particular friends, who, with the names of various departments of ministry, were admitted to seem as if they acted a part under him, with a modesty that becomes all men, and with a confidence in him which was justified even in its extravagance by his superior abilities, had never in any instance presumed upon any opinion of their own.  Deprived of his guiding influence, they were whirled about, the sport of every gust, and easily driven into any port; and as those who joined with them in manning the vessel were the most directly opposite to his opinions, measures, and character, and far the most artful and most powerful of the set, they easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends, and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy.