tion as she
seems to be, it was not so discreet to mix with the panegyric on the
minister so large a portion of acrimony to the independent part of this
nation. You never received any sort of injury from them, and you are
grown to that degree of importance that the discourses in your
Parliament will have a much greater effect on our immediate fortune than
our conversation can have upon yours. In the end they will seriously,
affect both.

I have looked back upon our conduct and our public conversations in
order to discover what it is that can have given you offence. I have
done so, because I am ready to admit that to offend you without any
cause would be as contrary to true policy as I am sure it must be to the
inclinations of almost every one of us. About two years ago Lord Nugent
moved six propositions in favor of Ireland in the House of Commons. At
the time of the motions, and during the debate, Lord North was either
wholly out of the House, or engaged in other matters of business or
pleasantry, in the remotest recesses of the West Saxon corner. He took
no part whatsoever in the affair; but it was supposed his neutrality was
more inclined towards the side of favor. The mover being a person in
office was, however, the only indication that was given of such a
leaning. We who supported the propositions, finding them better relished
than at first we looked for, pursued our advantage, and began to open a
way for more essential benefits to Ireland. On the other hand, those
who had hitherto opposed them in vain redoubled their efforts, and
became exceedingly clamorous. Then it was that Lord North found it
necessary to come out of his fastness, and to interpose between the
contending parties. In this character of mediator, he declared, that, if
anything beyond the first six resolutions should be attempted, he would
oppose the whole, but that, if we rested there, the original motions
should have his support. On this a sort of convention took place between
him and the managers of the Irish business, in which the six resolutions
were to be considered as an _uti possidetis_, and to be held sacred.

By this time other parties began to appear. A good many of the trading
towns, and manufactures of various kinds, took the alarm. Petitions
crowded in upon one another, and the bar was occupied by a formidable
body of council. Lord N. was staggered by this new battery. He is not of
a constitution to encounter such an opposition as had