ry painful responsibility, to make such
an attempt as he could at supplying the void; especially because the
insufficiency of our resources for the continuance of the war was
understood to have been the principal objection urged against the two
former Letters on the Proposals for Peace. In performing with
reverential diffidence this duty of friendship, care has been taken not
to attribute to Mr. Burke any sentiment which is not most explicitly
known, from repeated conversations, and from much correspondence, to
have been decidedly entertained by that illustrious man. One passage of
nearly three pages, containing a censure of our defensive system, is
borrowed from a private letter, which he began to dictate with an
intention of comprising in it the short result of his opinions, but
which he afterwards abandoned, when, a little time before his death, his
health appeared in some degree to amend, and he hoped that Providence
might have spared him at least to complete the larger public letter,
which he then proposed to resume.

In the preface to the former edition of this Letter a fourth was
mentioned as being in possession of Mr. Burke's friends. It was in fact
announced by the author himself, in the conclusion of the second, which
it was then designed to follow. He intended, he said, to proceed next on
the question of the facilities possessed by the French Republic, _from
the internal state of other nations, and particularly of this_, for
obtaining her ends,--and as his notions were controverted, to take
notice of what, in that way, had been recommended to him. The vehicle
which he had chosen for this part of his plan was an answer to a
pamphlet which was supposed to come from high authority, and was
circulated by ministers with great industry, at the time of its
appearance, in October, 1795, immediately previous to that session of
Parliament when his Majesty for the first time declared that the
appearance of any disposition in the enemy to negotiate for general
peace should not fail to be met with an earnest desire to give it the
fullest and speediest effect. In truth, the answer, which is full of
spirit and vivacity, was written the latter end of the same year, but
was laid aside when the question assumed a more serious aspect, from the
commencement of an actual negotiation, which gave rise to the series of
printed letters. Afterwards, he began to rewrite it, with a view of
accommodating it to his new purpose. The greate