TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.
Weston, Nov. 10, 1793.
My dear Friend,—You are very kind to consider my literary engagements, and to make them a reason for not interrupting me more frequently with a letter; but though I am indeed as busy as an author or an editor can well be, and am not apt to be overjoyed at the arrival of letters from uninteresting quarters, I shall always, I hope, have leisure both to peruse and to answer those of my real friends, and to do both with pleasure.
I have to thank you much for your benevolent aid in the affair of my friend Hurdis. You have doubtless learned, ere now, that he has succeeded, and carried the prize by a majority of twenty. He is well qualified for the post he has gained. So much the better for the honour of the Oxonian laurel, and so much the more for the credit of those who have favoured him with their suffrages.
I am entirely of your mind respecting this conflagration by which all Europe suffers at present,[726] and is likely to suffer for a long time to come. The same mistake seems to have prevailed as in the American business. We then flattered ourselves that the colonies would prove an easy conquest, and, when all the neighbour nations armed themselves against France, we imagined, I believe, that she too would be presently vanquished. But we begin already to be undeceived, and God only knows to what a degree we may find we have erred at the conclusion. Such, however, is the state of things all around us, as reminds me continually of the Psalmist's expression—"He shall break them in pieces like a potter's vessel." And I rather wish than hope, in some of my melancholy moods, that England herself may escape a fracture.
I remain, truly yours,
W. C.