ers, the
most deeply interesting to the commercial world! My best friends in the
corporation had no other doubts on the occasion than whether it did not
belong to me, by right of my representative capacity, to be the bearer
of this auspicious compliment. In addition to this, if it could receive
any addition, they now employ me to solicit, as a favor of no small
magnitude, that, after the example of Newcastle, they may be suffered to
arm vessels for their own defence in the Channel. Their memorial, under
the seal of Merchants' Hall, is now lying on the table before me. Not a
soul has the least sensibility, on finding themselves, now for the first
time, obliged to act as if the community were dissolved, and, after
enormous payments towards the common protection, each part was to defend
itself, as if it were a separate state.

I don't mention Bristol as if that were the part furthest gone in this
mortification. Far from it: I know that there is, rather, a little more
life in us than in any other place. In Liverpool they are literally
almost ruined by this American war; but they love it as they suffer from
it. In short, from whatever I see, and from whatever quarter I hear, I
am convinced that everything that is not absolute stagnation is
evidently a party-spirit very adverse to our politics, and to the
principles from whence they arise. There are manifest marks of the
resurrection of the Tory party. They no longer criticize, as all
disengaged people in the world will, on the acts of government; but they
are silent under every evil, and hide and cover up every ministerial
blander and misfortune, with the officious zeal of men who think they
have a party of their own to support in power. The Tories do
universally think their power and consequence involved in the success of
this American business. The clergy are astonishingly warm in it; and
what the Tories are, when embodied and united with their natural head,
the crown, and animated by their clergy, no man knows better than
yourself. As to the Whigs, I think them far from extinct. They are, what
they always were, (except by the able use of opportunities,) by far the
weakest party in this country. They have not yet learned the application
of their principles to the present state of things; and as to the
Dissenters, the main effective part of the Whig strength, they are, to
use a favorite expression of our American campaign style, "not all in
force." They will do very little,