I have in the last place been touched, as I must be, with the great difference of my own circumstances, such as they were and might have been, and such as they would be if all this impending mischief had its full effect.  The loss of three thousand pounds a year, coming after debts created by imprudence, and which might otherwise have been soon liquidated, is a blow which I confess that I was not prepared for, and if I could not feel it for myself, I must have felt it for you.  Born for your use, as Zanga says, I live but to oblige you, and as soon as I become unprofitable to you, I shall feel then the most sensibly, how imprudently I have acted, and how unjustly I have been dealt with.  I have, as I have told you before, not had yet the courage to look upon that ledger, where I saw once so fair an account, and where I must now make myself so many rasures.  Stabant tercentum nitidi in praepibus altis.  I must now see myself reduced in comparison to a narrow or at least a circumscribed plan, and without a possibility of assisting one object of my affection without hurting another.

However, gloomy as the prospect has been, it may clear up, and I could, if it was right, encourage hopes and anticipate a perspective that is not unpleasing to me.

I shall see Lord G(ower)to-day, who will tell me more particularly how things have been settled since yesterday, when I was with him.  It is an idea of my own that he has contrived an arrangement for you, which, while it relieves your distress, saves, I hope, your honour.  I have myself as much dreaded as you could do, your being thought of as an object of mercy, and I trust that so near a relation will dread that for you, as well as myself, and that if he secures you from injustice that he will secure your credit at the same time.  I have my eyes opened now upon the intrigues of a Court more than they were in all the former part of my life, and of all people I believe that I shall be the last for the future who will be the dupe of Ministers.

The new Government, for it is more that than merely a new Administration, has given me quite a new system for my own conduct.  If they have by violence &c. got into places from whence I would have excluded them, if now they should behave rightly in them, and the country becomes better and safer for their conduct, it would be folly not to assist them.  But I am, above all things, desirous that both your assistance and my own, such as it is, should be more wished for by them than their assistance wished for by us.

I think that you stand clear of all which can humiliate you at present.  No one’s conduct in every circumstance, so far as regards your administration in Ireland, can be more universally commended.  You do not desert, but retire, when those who are at the helm, if they have confidence in your understanding and honour, mistrust your inclinations towards themselves, and you leave to their friends and dependants a business from which no honour can be derived.