come, when I shall certainly tell
him; this, however, is at your own choice, if you had rather
wait till I come.

Adieu. Pray thank Sheridan for his letter. I will write the
first moment my messenger is gone. Well, what a time to be out
of England! _et Montauciel n'y etait pas!_ I don't think I can
quite forgive you. No news here. They say they have taken
eighteen transports from us, but they are not yet come into
Brest.

Yours most affectionately,
T. Grenville.

MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE TO LORD TEMPLE.

Paris, July 9th, 1782.

My Dearest Brother,

Your letter was given to me last night, and since I have been
able to read I never felt so much agitated. I hastily send back
the messenger, but he carries with him a letter to Lord
Shelburne, in which I formally request my immediate recal.

My dear brother, you do not know my situation, or you would see
in the first instant, as you will so soon as I can speak to you,
that if I continued at Paris, I should be the meanest and most
contemptible wretch that was ever born into the world; I should
falsify my word, I should betray my honour, I should repay the
confidence that was reposed in me with the most cowardly
treachery, I should disgrace every feeling that is honourable
and respectable between man and man. I have no choice; my
immediate return is as much a duty and obligation upon me as can
in human society be laid upon one who would not renounce the
character of a gentleman. Judge, then, of the distressful
situation I must have been in at the time of decyphering your
last lines, and judge how sacred and indispensable those
circumstances must be, that do not give me even room to hesitate
in a difficulty of so much delicacy. I love you, my dearest
brother, with the truest and sincerest affection; my pride and
ambition are ten-fold more gratified in your situation of life
than in any that could be mine; nor, so help me God! do I think
there is an interest, an advantage, present or future, that I
would not gladly sacrifice for you, if it could add one step to
your greatness; but you love me too well not to shrink at the
thought of my disgracing myself, and a fouler disgrace there
could not be, than I should inevitably incur by staying at Paris
as Minister.

One part of my difficulty you see already; i