d will do wrong; I cannot help it. I am sure my staying would
have been a means of deceiving the public and betraying my
party; and these are things not to be done for the sake of any
supposed temporary good. I feel that my situation in the
country, my power, my popularity, my consequence, nay, my
character, are all risked; but I have done right, and therefore
in the end it must turn out to have been wise. If this fail me,
the pillared firmament is rottenness, and earth's base built on
stubble.

Adieu. Your brother disapproves too.
Yours most affectionately,
C. J. Fox.

St. James's, July 5th, 1782.

MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE TO MR. FOX.

(Private.)

Paris, July 9th, 1782.

Dear Charles,

You apologize for writing me only a few lines; I shall write you
still fewer, and make no apology; for after what has passed, I
count every minute that the messenger is getting ready to
return, as so much time lost, however it is employed. You are
sorry you have drawn me into a scrape; I know of none, at least
none that an honest man could keep out of, or need be either
sorry or ashamed to have got into; neither do I see what you
have to regret in any part of this business, farther than the
late hour in which it was done. You know my system upon that
subject, and how firmly it was my opinion that you should not
have lost one moment, to fight the battle with advantage, which,
with or without, everybody saw must be to be fought; but, as
long as it is fought honourably, it is sure to be successful in
the end, for one day or other, right will always come right.

I suppose I need not tell you that I have answered Lord
Shelburne's letter by the official information he desires,
adding to it "my fixed purpose firmly to decline any farther
prosecution of this business, and requesting him, as speedily as
may be, to lay before His Majesty, in all duty and humility, my
earnest and unalterable prayer that he will be graciously
pleased to recal me from the commission I am honoured with at
Paris."

I write too to beg my brother to press my immediate return. I
see by his letter he knows nothing of what has passed. If you
would show him my letter to you, at my request, under the
strictest confidence, he will be apprized of the true state much
sooner than if he waits till I