400.
To Mr. Eliot.
August 11th, 1780.
Dear Sir,
Before you leave town, I cannot refrain from applying to you on a very interesting subject, and I trust that you will excuse either my past silence or my present importunity. The former has not been the effect of presumption, nor does the latter proceed from any want of confidence in your friendship.
UNCERTAINTY OF HIS SEAT.
It seems to be universally understood that this parliament will be dissolved in a few months and perhaps in a few days—and you are not ignorant how much the whole colour of my future life depends on your resolution. Unless I obtain a seat in the next parliament, I cannot flatter myself with a hope of remaining at the board of trade; such is the unpleasant state of my private affairs, that I must resign with my office all prospect of living in England, and the discontinuance of your favours will therefore be a sentence of banishment from my native country. My firm assurance that your kindness will allow some weight to these personal considerations will teach me to acquiesce, whatever may be your designs, with sincere and grateful resignation. I could not even lament that I was not sooner apprized of your intention to withdraw this mark of your friendship at the time when it became the most valuable. The largest notice would not perhaps have enabled me to take any other measures for the attainment of the same object, and your silence, though it may have excited some anxious thoughts or nourished some delusive hopes, has not made any real difference in my situation.
It gives me pain at the same time to mention another topic. Various circumstances of public and private distress have hitherto prevented me from disposing of my Buckinghamshire Estate, from whence I may expect to derive a considerable supply, and I shall find myself under the necessity of soliciting your indulgence till I can discharge what I shall always esteem a very small part of my obligations.