Chapter 5: 1782. the Fall of Lord North (3)

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.

You are not driven from your post, because they will have recalled a man manifestly more willing to leave it, than they to profit of the resignation. They would have kept you perhaps for their own sakes, although they would do nothing for yours, and they would have made you a tool, but cannot, as they know, make you a friend but by behaving well towards [you] and towards their country.

Your private circumstances, if known to be embarrassed, are known at the same time not to embarrass you. Your chop and your pewter plate will reproach others sooner than they can reflect disgrace upon yourself. The audax paupertas, however, is not necessary, but great economy is. I myself will give you an example of it, and contribute every atom in my power to ease your mind from what will most sensibly and naturally affect it. What interest in Parliament is left me shall be yours, and if my little bark, sailing in attendance upon yours, is able to assist you, I shall be happier in that circumstance than from any which I could otherwise have derived from it.

But we may perhaps all act in concord for the present. I am told, I do not [know] how true, that no hostilities are intended towards me; nous verrons. I can never be used by any set of Ministers so ill, or with such indignity, as by those who are removed. . . .(227) said last night that the executions were now near(ly) over. I will open my mind to you. I think both his and Richard's language in all this transaction has been to the last degree indecent, and I am sure, unless these two are better advised, they will do their chief more disservice than any ill-conduct of his own. When people of low birth have by great good luck and a fortunate concurrence of events been able to obtain, from lively parts only, without any acquisitions which can be useful to the public, such situations as are due only to persons of rank, weight, and character, it is surely an easy task not to be insolent. It is all I require of them; I envy no man his good fortune, ever so undeserved, while he shows no disposition to offend others. But with all this I have not been provoked enough to express my resentment, or mean enough to deprecate that of others.

(227) An erasure.

I was last night at supper with Charles, but not one syllable passed between us. He knows that I see him in a situation where I cannot wish to see any one who has aspired to it and obtained it by the means which he has used. No one admires more or thinks more justly of his abilities than I do; no one could have loved him more, if he had deserved it; what his behaviour has been to the public, to his friends, and to his family is notorious. Facts are too stubborn, and to those I appeal, and not to the testimonies of ignorant and profligate people. However, if hereafter you can reconcile yourself to him and to his behaviour towards you, I will forgive him, and although I desire to lay myself under no obligation to him, I will remember only that he is the child of those whom I loved, without interest or any return.

George wonders to see me write so much to you; he is so well that I will carry him to school on Monday, without consulting any person. . . . He has read more Latin to me than I have to him, for my breath as been affected by the cold, or I should have read more with him; but he has hammered out his Latin with the dictionary and what assistance I can give him, and construes it wonderfully well. He will be at school till the 25th of next month, and then I propose exercise abroad, and the Modern History of Europe at home, and French; for to speak the truth he is defective in the pronunciation of that, for want of practice. The Theodore's coming here obliges me to have my nieces dine here, to see her. I'm afraid people will come to see Mie Mie dance par billets.