ading the manuscript
to my friends. Of such friends some will praise from politeness, and
some will criticise from vanity. The author himself is the best judge of
his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on the subject; no
one is so sincerely interested in the event.

By the friendship of Mr. (now Lord) Eliot, who had married my first
cousin, I was returned at the general election for the borough of
Liskeard. I took my seat at the beginning of the memorable contest
between Great Britain and America, and supported, with many a sincere
and silent vote, the rights, though not, perhaps, the interest, of the
mother country. After a fleeting illusive hope, prudence condemned me to
acquiesce in the humble station of a mute. I was not armed by Nature and
education with the intrepid energy of mind and voice.

Vincentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis.

Timidity was fortified by pride, and even the success of my pen
discouraged the trial of my voice. But I assisted at the debates of a
free assembly; I listened to the attack and defence of eloquence and
reason; I had a near prospect of the characters, views, and passions of
the first men of the age. The cause of government was ably vindicated
by Lord North, a statesman of spotless integrity, a consummate master of
debate, who could wield, with equal dexterity, the arms of reason and of
ridicule. He was seated on the Treasury-bench between his Attorney and
Solicitor General, the two pillars of the law and state, magis pares
quam similes; and the minister might indulge in a short slumber, whilst
he was upholden on either hand by the majestic sense of Thurlow, and the
skilful eloquence of Wedderburne. From the adverse side of the house an
ardent and powerful opposition was supported, by the lively declamation
of Barre, the legal acuteness of Dunning, the profuse and philosophic
fancy of Burke, and the argumentative vehemence of Fox, who in the
conduct of a party approved himself equal to the conduct of an empire.
By such men every operation of peace and war, every principle of justice
or policy, every question of authority and freedom, was attacked and
defended; and the subject of the momentous contest was the union or
separation of Great Britain and America. The eight sessions that I
sat in parliament were a school of civil prudence, the first and most
essential virtue of an historian.

The volume of my History, which had been somewhat delayed by the novelty
an