confession to the Government of all the circumstances of the
plot, so far as they have come to his knowledge, the parties
interested, their several shares in the undertaking, with
every detail of date and time, to sue for a pardon for
himself--a grace which, I need scarcely say, I will use all
my influence to obtain. The other mode is, by a
temporary exile; to withdraw himself from the notice of the
Government, until the danger having perfectly passed over,
political acrimony will have abated, and the necessity for
making severe examples of guilt be no longer urgent. This
latter course I opine to be preferable, on many grounds. It
demands no sacrifice of private feeling--no surrender of
honour. It merely provides for safety, reserving the future
untrammelled by any pledge. Neither need the absence be long;
a year or two at farthest; the probabilities are, that
with their present knowledge of the schemes of the
insurgents, the Government can either precipitate events, or
retard and protract them at will. Their policy, in this
respect, depending on the rank and importance of those who,
by either line of procedure, would be delivered into their
hands. Arguing from what they have already done, I should
pronounce it likely that their game will be to wait, to
weaken the hopes and break the spirit of the United party,
by frequent defections; to sow distrust and suspicion
amongst them, and thus, while avoiding the necessity of
bloodshed, to wear out rebellion by a long and lingering
fear. If, then, others, whose age and position involved a
greater prominence in these schemes, would require a longer
banishment to erase the memory of the acts, your young
relative, who has both youth and its rashness to plead for
him, need not reckon on so lengthened an absence from his
native land.

"Above all things, however, remember that not an hour is to
be lost. Any moment may disclose to the Crown some new
feature of the plot, and may call forth measures of
stringent severity, The proclamation offering a reward for
the apprehension of four persons, of whom your cousin is
one, is already printed, and in the office of the Secretary.
An hour would see it all over the walls of the capital, in a
day or two more, it would reach every remote corn