I could no longer serve them, the ministers have considered my situation.  When I could no longer hurt them, the revolutionists have trampled on my infirmity.  My gratitude, I trust, is equal to the manner in which the benefit was conferred.  It came to me, indeed, at a time of life, and in a state of mind and body, in which no circumstance of fortune could afford me any real pleasure.  But this was no fault in the royal donor, or in his ministers, who were pleased, in acknowledging the merits of an invalid servant of the public, to assuage the sorrows of a desolate old man.

It would ill become me to boast of anything.  It would as ill become me, thus called upon, to depreciate the value of a long life spent with unexampled toil in the service of my country.  Since the total body of my services, on account of the industry which was shown in them, and the fairness of my intentions, have obtained the acceptance of my sovereign, it would be absurd in me to range myself on the side of the Duke of Bedford and the Corresponding Society, or, as far as in me lies, to permit a dispute on the rate at which the authority appointed by our Constitution to estimate such things has been pleased to set them.

Loose libels ought to be passed by in silence and contempt.  By me they have been so always.  I knew, that, as long as I remained in public, I should live down the calumnies of malice and the judgments of ignorance.  If I happened to be now and then in the wrong, (as who is not?) like all other men, I must bear the consequence of my faults and my mistakes.  The libels of the present day are just of the same stuff as the libels of the past.  But they derive an importance from the rank of the persons they come from, and the gravity of the place where they were uttered.  In some way or other I ought to take some notice of them.  To assert myself thus traduced is not vanity or arrogance.  It is a demand of justice; it is a demonstration of gratitude.  If I am unworthy, the ministers are worse than prodigal.  On that hypothesis, I perfectly agree with the Duke of Bedford.

For whatever I have been (I am now no more) I put myself on my country.  I ought to be allowed a reasonable freedom, because I stand upon my deliverance; and no culprit ought to plead in irons.  Even in the utmost latitude of defensive liberty, I wish to preserve all possible decorum.  Whatever it may be in the eyes of these noble persons themselves, to me their situation calls for the most profound respect.  If I should happen to trespass a little, which I trust I shall not, let it always be supposed that a confusion of characters may produce mistakes,—­that, in the masquerades of the grand carnival of our age, whimsical adventures happen, odd things are said and pass off.  If I should fail a single point in the high respect I owe to those illustrious persons, I cannot be supposed to mean the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale of the House of Peers, but the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale of Palace Yard,—­the Dukes and Earls of Brentford.  There they are on the pavement; there they seem to come nearer to my humble level, and, virtually at least, to have waived their high privilege.