September, 1819.

My dear Father,—­My mother’s letter, which has just arrived, has given me much concern.  The letter which has, I am sorry to learn, given you and her uneasiness was written rapidly and thoughtlessly enough, but can scarcely, I think, as far as I remember its tenour, justify some of the extraordinary inferences which it has occasioned.  I can only assure you most solemnly that I am not initiated into any democratical societies here, and that I know no people who make politics a common or frequent topic of conversation, except one man who is a determined Tory.  It is true that this Manchester business has roused some indignation here, as at other places, and drawn philippics against the powers that be from lips which I never heard opened before but to speak on university contests or university scandal.  For myself I have long made it a rule never to talk on politics except in the most general manner; and I believe that my most intimate associates have no idea of my opinions on the questions of party.  I can scarcely be censured, I think, for imparting them to you;—­which, however, I should scarcely have thought of doing, (so much is my mind occupied with other concerns,) had not your letter invited me to state my sentiments on the Manchester business.

I hope that this explanation will remove some of your uneasiness.  As to my opinions, I have no particular desire to vindicate them.  They are merely speculative, and therefore cannot partake of the nature of moral culpability.  They are early formed, and I am not solicitous that you should think them superior to those of most people at eighteen.  I will, however, say this in their defence.  Whatever the affectionate alarm of my dear mother may lead her to apprehend, I am not one of the “sons of anarchy and confusion” with whom she classes me.  My opinions, good or bad, were learnt, not from Hunt and Waithman, but from Cicero, from Tacitus, and from Milton.  They are the opinions which have produced men who have ornamented the world, and redeemed human nature from the degradation of ages of superstition and slavery.  I may be wrong as to the facts of what occurred at Manchester; but, if they be what I have seen them stated, I can never repent speaking of them with indignation.  When I cease to feel the injuries of others warmly, to detest wanton cruelty, and to feel my soul rise against oppression, I shall think myself unworthy to be your son.

I could say a great deal more.  Above all I might, I think, ask, with some reason, why a few democratical sentences in a letter, a private letter, of a collegian of eighteen, should be thought so alarming an indication of character, when Brougham and other people, who at an age which ought to have sobered them talk with much more violence, are not thought particularly ill of?  But I have so little room left that I abstain, and will only add thus much.  Were my opinions as decisive as they are fluctuating, and were the