I have looked back upon our conduct and our public conversations in order to discover what it is that can have given you offence.  I have done so, because I am ready to admit that to offend you without any cause would be as contrary to true policy as I am sure it must be to the inclinations of almost every one of us.  About two years ago Lord Nugent moved six propositions in favor of Ireland in the House of Commons.  At the time of the motions, and during the debate, Lord North was either wholly out of the House, or engaged in other matters of business or pleasantry, in the remotest recesses of the West Saxon corner.  He took no part whatsoever in the affair; but it was supposed his neutrality was more inclined towards the side of favor.  The mover being a person in office was, however, the only indication that was given of such a leaning.  We who supported the propositions, finding them better relished than at first we looked for, pursued our advantage, and began to open a way for more essential benefits to Ireland.  On the other hand, those who had hitherto opposed them in vain redoubled their efforts, and became exceedingly clamorous.  Then it was that Lord North found it necessary to come out of his fastness, and to interpose between the contending parties.  In this character of mediator, he declared, that, if anything beyond the first six resolutions should be attempted, he would oppose the whole, but that, if we rested there, the original motions should have his support.  On this a sort of convention took place between him and the managers of the Irish business, in which the six resolutions were to be considered as an uti possidetis, and to be held sacred.

By this time other parties began to appear.  A good many of the trading towns, and manufactures of various kinds, took the alarm.  Petitions crowded in upon one another, and the bar was occupied by a formidable body of council.  Lord N. was staggered by this new battery.  He is not of a constitution to encounter such an opposition as had then risen, when there were no other objects in view than those that were then before the House.  In order not to lose him, we were obliged to abandon, bit by bit, the most considerable part of the original agreement.

In several parts, however, he continued fair and firm.  For my own part, I acted, as I trust I commonly do, with decision.  I saw very well that the things we had got were of no great consideration; but they were, even in their defects, somewhat leading.  I was in hopes that we might obtain gradually and by parts what we might attempt at once and in the whole without success,—­that one concession would lead to another,—­and that the people of England discovering by a progressive experience that none of the concessions actually made were followed by the consequences they had dreaded, their fears from what they were yet to yield would considerably diminish.  But that to which I attached myself the most particularly was, to fix the principle