continue in
it at least for some time.

What will be the end of this, God knows; but I am sure you will
agree with me, that we cannot suffer a system to go on which is
not only dishonourable to us, but evidently ruinous to the
affairs of the country. In this instance, the mischief done by
intercepting, as it were, the very useful information we
expected through you from Franklin, is I fear in a great degree
irremediable; but it is our business, and indeed our duty, to
prevent such things for the future.

Everything in Ireland goes on very well; and I really think
there is good reason to entertain hopes from Prussia and Russia,
if your negotiation either goes on or goes off as it ought to
do.

I can hardly read Monsieur de Guemene's letter, but wish to have
two hundred bottles of the champagne, if there is really reason
to think it good. By the way, I beg you will remember me to
Monsieur de Guemene, and put him in mind of our former
acquaintance in the Rue St. Pierre. If the wine in question is
as good as that he used to rob from Monsieur de Soubise, I shall
be very well satisfied. I will give Brooks directions to
acquaint you with the proper manner of sending it. I am quite
ashamed of dwelling so long upon this, after the very serious
business of this letter; but you know I cannot help being a
friend to the _poor abuses_; and besides, in a political light,
good wine is no mean ingredient in keeping one's friends in good
humour and steady to the cause.

I am,

My dear Grenville,

Yours most affectionately,

C. J. Fox.

MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE TO MR. FOX.

(Private.)

Paris, June 16th, 1782.

Dear Charles,

I received your letter of the 10th by Ogg on the night of the
14th, and would have sent him back as immediately as you seemed
to wish; but having no other messenger to carry M. de
Vergennes's answer, I was obliged to keep him till he could be
the bearer of that likewise.

I can easily conceive the embarrassment occasioned to you by my
letter, and have so much confidence in the honour of the persons
to whom you communicated it, that I am not under the smallest
uneasiness on that account; the explanation, however, that you
wish to come to, certainly has its difficulties; and amongst
them some so sacred, that unless they can