SERIES OF LETTERS, &c.

MY LORD,

Ат

LETTER I.

Ar a moment when the unprecedented prosperity of the British empire sufficiently attests the general correctness of your principles and the practical wisdom of your councils, I trust with entire confidence to your accustomed candor, for allowing a near observer and sincere friend of your administration to trespass on your attention with such occasional remarks on the political relations and financial resources of the kingdom, and on the past effect or probable future bearing of your measures, as may be dictated in an equal degree by the impartial spirit of unbiassed patriotism, as they will certainly proceed from the most cordial inte rest in the success of your Lordship's ministry. And if, in the communication of my ideas, I should sometimes venture to suggest a shade of difference in opinion, either on the bearing or on the effect of the future or of the past, I shall repose myself with the same complete reliance on your Lordship's liberal discrimination, for setting the greater value on the sincerity of the general concurrence, on account of the manly expression of an occasional dissent.

During the whole of the long protracted and awful struggle in which we have been engaged, not for conquest, but for security,

not for empire, but for existence, the writer of this letter has never presumed so far to distrust the unerring wisdom and ever wakeful justice of Providence, as to entertain even a momentary doubt with respect to the ultimate success of the contest which now promises, in all human probability, a speedy and a glorious termination.

To you, my Lord, and to the partners of your council, it must afford no trifling cause of honest pride in the conscious triumph of your principles, and the well-deserved success of your plans.

But whilst I join most fully in the tribute of a people's thanks to you and to your colleagues, for your firm and strenuous perseverance in the vital conflict, for your wise and energetic application of the kingdom's strength where it was most likely to be productive of national benefit; a conduct which has at last extorted the approbation even of your parliamentary adversaries; satisfied with having so carried yourselves as to deserve and obtain the general applause of your fellow subjects; you will not, I am sure, deny your assent to the justice of my tracing the first origin' of systematic and effectual resistance to the all-grasping ambition of our enemy, to the firm, the luminous, the comprehensive mind, of that illustrious statesman, in whose distinguished friendship and sagacious lead the early days of your political life were so honorably and usefully employed. And if, amongst the joyous, the rapturous sensations of the present hour, there is a momentary feeling of more gloomy cast, to damp the general joy and rapture, it is that he to whom we owe so much of the felicity which now awaits us, has not been spared to be a participator in the public enjoyment, to witness the completion of his dearest hopes, the wide-spread triumph of his upright principles.

But may we not, my Lord, presume to think, that amongst the bright rewards of his past virtues, it may, perhaps, be not the least, to recollect, if pure and unembodied spirits are suffered to retain the memory of their former lives, that short as was the duration of his mortal existence, it was yet long enough to enable him to lay the firm and stable foundations of permanent security for his beloved country; the leading object of his patriotic life; the last sad aspiration of his parting breath? That this is as strongly impressed on your mind, as it is on that of the person who addresses you, I have no hesitation in believing; and that the pen

of history may transmit his merits in their proper colors to our children's children, even to our latest generation, I will also venture to set down as our concurrent wish; because, independently of the liberal construction of your Lordship's mind, it must naturally be so much your own interest, that every statesman who has served his country faithfully should have his services retained for ever in the grateful recollection of his countrymen.

How well the structure has been reared on the firm basis he he had prepared for its erection; and with what active application succeeding architects have proceeded towards its completion; the annals of the period elapsed since his lamented loss, and the splendid temple raised to British fame, and consecrated by the high station which this country now holds amongst the powers of Europe, are sufficient evidences; and you, my Lord, and your present colleagues, will not fail to receive your appropriate share of praise on this account, in the estimation of a discerning public.

Neither will the discriminating justice of that public omit to acknowledge, with due gratitude, the debt it owes you, for having with such admirable fortitude and clear-sighted judgment, refused to yield to the weak solicitations of those desponding statesmen, (if statesmen they can be called,) who, despairing of the cause of freedom, and regarding the Continent of Europe as completely and irrevocably subdued, and your own resistance to the storm as wholly ineffectual, pressed you to withdraw your gallant troops from the scene of all their glory; and to recall, in the full career of victory and fame, that consummate chief, who at no period had been known to risk an action but on sure and well considered grounds; and who had never yet been seen to lose a battle in which he had ventured to engage himself. That unrivalled general, of whose admirable qualifications for command we may so accurately say, "Ego, enim, sic existimo, in summo imperatore quatuor has res inesse oportere, scientiam rei militaris, virtutem, auctoritatem, felicitatem."

I

2 And who, indeed, has ever surpassed him in military know

1 Cicero pro Lege Manilia.

2 "Quis, igitur, hoc homine scientior unquam aut fuit, aut esse debuit? · Qui non modo eorum hominum qui nunc sunt gloriam, sed etiam antiquitatis memoriam virtute superavit,”-Oratio eadem.

ledge, either amongst his cotemporaries, or of those who have gone before him, even from the remotest ages of antiquity! who exceeds him in valor? who has ever better known how to preserve an authority so firm, so dignified, and yet so conciliatory, and so little oppressive to his inferiors? and where is the general to be found who has ever proved an equal partaker in the smiles of fortune?' He who has actually gained more victories than most other men have taken the trouble to read of,-who has conquered or redeemed more countries than other generals have even thought of in the way of conquest-who, in every kind of warfare, and in almost every quarter of the globe, whether in India, Egypt, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, or France, has so wooed and wedded victory to his single arm, has so distinguished himself by his unwearied application to the numberless and arduous duties of his high station, that it should seem as if no possible event within the scale of military contingency could escape his vigilant foresight and comprehensive caution.

Yet was this the commander, and the gallant and enterprising soldiers whom he had so often led to conquest were the troops, whom, in the highest state of discipline, and flushed with victory, these shallow politicians would have persuaded you to withdraw from the Peninsula, and by giving up that country, to have deserted the general cause, and left the whole Continent without a rallying point, without a single corner in which any thing like an organised or effectual resistance to the common enemy could have been found to exist.

For who, my Lord, can be so blind to common causes and

"Plura bella gessit, quam ceteri legerunt; plures provincias confecit, quam alii concupiverunt."-Cic. ut ant.

" Quod denique genus belli esse potest in quo illum non exercuerit fortuna reipublicæ? Civile, Africanum, Transalpinum, Hispaniense, mixtum ex civitatibus atque ex bellicosissimis nationibus, servile, navale bellum, varia et diversa genera, et bellorum et hostium, non solum gesta ab hoc uno, sed etiam confecta, nullam rem esse declarant, in usu militari positam, quæ hujus viri scientiam fugere possit."-CIC. ut ant.

3 "Testis est Hispania, quæ sæpissime plurimos hostes ab hoc superatos prostratosque conspexit."-Cic. ut ant.