in my power.

To the Speaker of the House of Commons of Ireland.

TWO LETTERS

TO

THOMAS BURGH, ESQ.,

AND

JOHN MERLOTT, ESQ.,

IN VINDICATION OF HIS PARLIAMENTARY CONDUCT RELATIVE TO THE AFFAIRS OF
IRELAND.

1780.

LETTER

TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ.[14]

My Dear Sir,--I do not know in what manner I am to thank you properly
for the very friendly solicitude you have been so good as to express for
my reputation. The concern you have done me the honor to take in my
affairs will be an ample indemnity from all that I may suffer from the
rapid judgments of those who choose to form their opinions of men, not
from the life, but from their portraits in a newspaper. I confess to you
that my frame of mind is so constructed, I have in me so little of the
constitution of a great man, that I am more gratified with a very
moderate share of approbation from those few who know me than I should
be with the most clamorous applause from those multitudes who love to
admire at a due distance.

I am not, however, Stoic enough to be able to affirm with truth, or
hypocrite enough affectedly to pretend, that I am wholly unmoved at the
difficulty which you and others of my friends in Ireland have found in
vindicating my conduct towards my native country. It undoubtedly hurts
me in some degree: but the wound is not very deep. If I had sought
popularity in Ireland, when, in the cause of that country, I was ready
to sacrifice, and did sacrifice, a much nearer, a much more immediate,
and a much more advantageous popularity here, I should find myself
perfectly unhappy, because I should be totally disappointed in my
expectations,--because I should discover, when it was too late, what
common sense might have told me very early, that I risked the capital of
my fame in the most disadvantageous lottery in the world. But I acted
then, as I act now, and as I hope I shall act always, from a strong
impulse of right, and from motives in which popularity, either here or
there, has but a very little part.

With the support of that consciousness I can bear a good deal of the
coquetry of public opinion, which has her caprices, and must have her
way. _Miseri, quibus intentata nitet_! I, too, have had my holiday of
popularity in Ireland. I have even heard of an intention to erect a
statue.[15] I believe my intimate acquaintance know how little that idea
was encouraged by me; and I was sincerely glad that it never took
effect. Such hono