the most sensible
concern, for it shows me that line broken, which I was still in
hopes was only strained; for this is the only interpretation
which I can put upon that offer, which (from the most honourable
motives) you have made to me; and the only wish which I can now
form, is that you may never reflect for whom, and for what, you
have sacrificed that political and intimate connexion, which
nature had pointed out, and which till this moment I had not
despaired of. One opportunity presented itself in which you
could have done me essential service: I never can regret the
eagerness with which I entreated from you that proof of
affection, because I still feel how much I would have
sacrificed, to have preserved our bond inviolate; that, with
many other prospects, is now gone, and I am to feel that I have
lost that confidence, that good-will and attachment which you
have given to a friendship, which, for obvious reasons, I must
ever regret. I do not speak this in resentment and reproach, my
feelings are far above them, but in sober and earnest grief of
mind. I must remind you that no personal friendship, no party or
political consideration, could have guided the steps which I
took in June last; to which, in terms the most decisive, you
marked your line of separation. The same public principles (for
with no one person in England have I correspondence) have
decided me in the present moment, and in neither path have we
met; and parting upon such a question as that of the present
system (upon which I feel everything as a public man, and as a
private man have the sensations which naturally result from
personal insult), I fear that we have (at least for some time)
little chance of seeing those affections vibrate in unison which
I feel so strongly strained. Once more let me entreat you (for I
am not ashamed to entreat) to reconsider this well. If your new
connexion replaces to you that affectionate interest which from
my childhood I have borne to you; if your line holds out to you
that honourable satisfaction, which I trust you would not have
lost by a cordial union of objects and dispositions with me, I
fear that I speak in vain; but if you give that play to your
reason, to your affection, and to every feeling which Providence
has given, as the cement of the tenderest and most intim