When Charles has expressed to me, as he did more than once, an anxiety about your conduct, and an uneasiness lest it should be in opposition to his own, I contented myself with saying, that it was impossible for me to know what you would do, but I was in no pain about it; that if he could, as I had heard him say that he could in very strong terms, answer for your ready judgment on all occasions, so I would answer for your honour, which two things made me sure that you would always act as became you, and that, therefore, I was in no pain upon that head; that whatever might happen disagreeable to you, or to me, we were both prepared for it.  And when I have expressed a curiosity concerning the disposal of offices in general, I have been sometimes taken up shortly, impertinently, and dirtily by that jackanapes, Lord D., and he has said, “Your friend will not stay in Ireland.”

I have then only answered, “My Lord, my wishes are that he may not, and it is most probable that he will not desire it; but you are quite mistaken if you suppose that in these arrangements I have any anxiety or curiosity about him.”  All that is an object of my love and esteem is quite independent of other people’s resolutions; and as for what regards myself, I am not indifferent, I own, and I shall wish to know how I may be treated by those to whose power I am delivered up, but I have never asked one question concerning it.  I shall provoke no man’s anger unnecessarily; it is my only solicitude to let people see that if they oblige me by good treatment, they oblige one whom they do not despise, and who has acted ’in all circumstances like a gentleman.

I have, I find, from what I have been told by the Party, the credit of having behaved better and calmer on this occasion than many of my fellow convicts.  What I have felt I have felt like a man, and that I have not attempted to deprecate by pretending that I thought myself to blame.  But, my dear Lord, this has been merely exterior, for at home and alone I have been greatly depressed, both on your account and on that of others.  I have felt for the honour and credit, and sufferings, of a person to whom I can only be attached by principle.  For the sentiment of personal affection does not arise for objects of such inequality.  I do not know how to account for it, but I have had, and still have, such a share of that, as would make one think that with the air of France and with the language of the country I had imbibed all the prejudices of their education.  My thoughts about your distress, and of those dear children, which seem to belong as much to me as to you and Lady C., have really affected me at times in a manner which would have exposed me anywhere out of my own room, and to anybody else but to Dr. Ekins, who knows how naturally, and justly, I feel for you,