It is true, my Lord, what you say, that, through our public life, we have generally sailed on somewhat different tacks.  We have so, undoubtedly; and we should do so still, if I had continued longer to keep the sea.  In that difference, you rightly observe that I have always done justice to your skill and ability as a navigator, and to your good intentions towards the safety of the cargo and of the ship’s company.  I cannot say now that we are on different tacks.  There would be no propriety in the metaphor.  I can sail no longer.  My vessel cannot be said to be even in port.  She is wholly condemned and broken up.  To have an idea of that vessel, you must call to mind what you have often seen on the Kentish road.  Those planks of tough and hardy oak, that used for years to brave the buffets of the Bay of Biscay, are now turned, with their warped grain and empty trunnion-holes, into very wretched pales for the inclosure of a wretched farm-yard.

The style of your pamphlet, and the eloquence and power of composition you display in it, are such as do great honor to your talents, and in conveying any other sentiments would give me very great pleasure.  Perhaps I do not very perfectly comprehend your purpose, and the drift of your arguments.  If I do not, pray do not attribute my mistake to want of candor, but to want of sagacity.  I confess, your address to the public, together with other accompanying circumstances, has filled me with a degree of grief and dismay which I cannot find words to express.  If the plan of politics there recommended—­pray excuse my freedom—­should be adopted by the king’s councils, and by the good people of this kingdom, (as, so recommended, undoubtedly it will,) nothing can be the consequence but utter and irretrievable ruin to the ministry, to the crown, to the succession,—­to the importance, to the independence, to the very existence, of this country.  This is my feeble, perhaps, but clear, positive, decided, long and maturely reflected and frequently declared opinion, from which all the events which have lately come to pass, so far from turning me, have tended to confirm beyond the power of alteration, even by your eloquence and authority.  I find, my dear Lord, that you think some persons, who are not satisfied with the securities of a Jacobin peace, to be persons of intemperate minds.  I may be, and I fear I am, with you in that description; but pray, my Lord, recollect that very few of the causes which make men intemperate can operate upon me.  Sanguine hopes, vehement desires, inordinate ambition, implacable animosity, party attachments, or party interests,—­all these with me have no existence.  For myself, or for a family, (alas!  I have none,) I have nothing to hope or to fear in this world.  I am attached, by principle, inclination, and gratitude, to the king, and to the present ministry.