at liberty to communicate your
letter to him, I have not been enabled to enter so fully with him
into the discussion of its contents. However, I can inform you that
his favourable intentions towards Lord Hobart remain precisely the
same.

Mr. Sullivan will immediately communicate in person with Mr. Dundas
on all the points of this business, and you will learn the result
from him.

Nothing but the continual hurry and interruptions to which I am at
present exposed could justify my having delayed so long the
acknowledgment of your kind letter. Pray, my dear Lord, accept my
cordial thanks for the many marks of friendship which it contains.
I do not expect to sail before September, and you may be assured
that I will make it my business to see you before my departure.

Ever, my dear Lord,
Yours most sincerely and affectionately,
MORNINGTON.

The remaining letters of the year refer at intervals to the events in
progress on the continent; events which occupy so large and prominent a
space in history, as to render any detailed allusion to them
unnecessary.

LORD GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Cleveland Row, April 28th, 1797
MY DEAREST BROTHER,

I have this day seen Dutheil, and to-morrow I am to see the other;
but there has been a blunder about it, or I should long since have
seen him. I hardly know how to credit all I hear on that subject,
and yet I must say I hear it from all quarters, agreeing in the
essentials, though varying a little as to sub-divisions, according
to the dispositions of the informants.

I hardly know how to tell myself, under these circumstances, what I
wish about Hammond's mission, because the panic here is so
disgraceful, that the country will not allow us to do them justice.
If I thought others _would_ do them that justice, my resolution
would soon be taken; but I have not nerves to plunge my country
into the horrors of a Jacobin Government to save myself the
unpleasant task of being compelled to do worse for them than I am
sure I could if they would but be quiet and suffer themselves to be
saved. It is a curious speculation in history to see how often the
good people of England have played this game over and over again,
and how incorrigible they are in it. To desire war without
reflection, to be unreaso