of strongly excited feelings. Having touched upon
the main question, and vindicated his conduct in putting the country on
its guard against the dangerous doctrines which prevailed in France,
and which had found many advocates in England, he complained of being
treated with harshness and malignity--of being personally attacked from
a quarter where he least expected it, and that after a close intimacy of
twenty-two years. His whole conduct, words, and writings, he said, had
not only been misrepresented and arraigned in the severest terms, but
confidential conversations had been brought forward in order to prove
his political inconsistency. He had been accused of writing and speaking
on the subject of the French revolution without due information, but
nevertheless he was ready to meet Fox, hand to hand, and foot to foot,
in a fair and temperate discussion relative to that event. It was his
imperative duty, he exclaimed, to speak upon French affairs, and to
point out the danger of extolling, upon all occasions, that preposterous
edifice, the French constitution; an edifice which the right honourable
gentleman had termed the most stupendous and glorious which had been
erected on the foundation of human integrity in any time or country. Our
own government, he continued, was in danger, for there were political
clubs in every quarter, meeting and voting resolutions of an alarming
tendency. Dangerous doctrines were also promulgated from the pulpit, and
infamous libels on the British constitution were everywhere circulated.
There might not, indeed, be any immediate clanger, since we had a
king in full power, ministers responsible for their conduct, a country
blessed with an opposition of great strength, and a common people that
seemed to be united with the gentlemen; but, nevertheless, there was
cause for circumspection, as in France there were 300,000 men up in
arms, who would be glad to intermeddle, and as a season of scarcity
might arrive, when the low intriguers and contemptible clubbists, which
abounded on every hand, might rise in revolt against the government.
Burke again adverted to the unkindness with which he had been treated by
his old associate, and remarked, that though he had frequently differed
with him there had still been no interruption of personal friendship.
But, he added, although at his time of life it might not be discreet to
provoke enemies or to lose friends, yet if his steady adherence to the
British cons