t a spirit which, amid
the sharp press of manifold cares and distractions, had ever vibrated
with lofty sympathies, was not now more constant to its faith in the
beneficent powers and processes of the Unseen Time.

CHAPTER IX

BURKE AND HIS PARTY--PROGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION--IRELAND--LAST YEARS

For some months after the publication of the _Reflections_, Burke kept
up the relations of an armed peace with his old political friends.
The impeachment went on, and in December (1790) there was a private
meeting on the business connected with it, between Pitt, Burke, Fox,
and Dundas, at the house of the Speaker. It was described by one who
knew, as most snug and amiable, and there seems to have been a general
impression in the world at this moment that Fox might by some means be
induced to join Pitt. What troubled the slumbers of good Whigs like
Gilbert Elliot, was the prospect of Fox committing himself too
strongly on French affairs. Burke himself was in the deepest dejection
at the prospect; for Fox did not cease to express the most unqualified
disapproval of the _Reflections_; he thought that, even in point of
composition, it was the worst thing that Burke had ever published. It
was already feared that his friendship for Sheridan was drawing him
farther away from Burke, with whom Sheridan had quarrelled, into a
course of politics that would both damage his own reputation and break
up the strong union of which the Duke of Portland was the nominal
head.

New floods in France had not yet carried back the ship of state into
raging waters. Pitt was thinking so little of danger from that country
that he had plunged into a policy of intervention in the affairs of
Eastern Europe. When writers charge Burke with breaking violently in
upon Pitt's system of peace abroad and reform at home, they overlook
the fact that before Burke had begun to preach his crusade against
the Jacobins, Pitt had already prepared a war with Russia. The nation
refused to follow. They agreed with Fox that it was no concern of
theirs whether or not Russia took from Turkey the country between the
Boug and Dniester; they felt that British interests would be more
damaged by the expenses of a war than by the acquisition by Russia of
Ockzakow. Pitt was obliged to throw up the scheme, and to extricate
himself as well as he could from rash engagements with Prussia. It was
on account of his services to the cause of peace on this occasion that
Catherine or