‘January 4, 1793.
‘Dear Sir,—In spite of a bad cold, which makes me very heavy and ill qualified to write to un homme d’esprit, I must say a word or two in answer to your letter, and also assure you that the one you enclosed for Lord Bristol was forwarded by the same post to his agent in town.
‘Do I recollect reading your "Travels"? Yes, certainly, and the great pleasure and instruction I received from them; but the approbation, I assure you, came from a better quarter, or I should not have presumed on its being worth your acceptance. However that may be, I am much pleased with the effect, and fairly confess that I did wish to set your pen a-going, because you had experience and facts to write upon, and that I knew your warm colouring would suit the picture—in short, I saw you were a convert. I wished you to make others, and if I have been the least instrumental by awakening the spark in you, I shall feel that I am not wholly useless to the community where providence has placed me. I think everybody with talents is called upon, particularly at this time, to use them for the good of their once happy country, and I know of no one better qualified than yourself to employ your eloquence usefully.
‘The pamphlet you mention, of an earnest address to farmers, was brought to me amongst others, and I immediately said it was yours—but pray rescue it from its mangled state and print it again as it was written. I flatter myself that you intend to send me the “Example of France: A Warning to Britain,” for which, I assure you, I am very impatient.
‘I write from Lord Abercorn’s, and wish I could hear anything, but upon every subject there is at this moment an awful pause. It is hoped that the Alien Bill may be passed to-morrow, it is so much wanted, and that the wretched state of the French armies and their dissentions at home may make it unnecessary for us to declare war. Three Prussian officers of rank have been arrested for treasonable correspondence with Dumouriez, which, they say, is to explain the Duke of Brunswick’s retreat; and now it is supposed that Custine’s army cannot escape him.
‘I saw two gentlemen who were in Paris a fortnight ago, and who told me that the treasury would hold out very little longer, that bread was scarce, commerce destroyed, and the people either in fury or despair, the whole town affording a melancholy scene of poverty, distrust and disorder—houses shut up, public buildings destroyed, churches turned into warehouses, &c. &c.
‘For want of better materials I send you a print which I think is not a bad one, considering the double part Mr. Fox has acted. I thank you for enquiring after my daughters. Lady Erne is not yet returned from Hampshire, Lady Elizabeth is with the Duchess of Devonshire at Florence, and Lady Louisa is here, and desires her compliments.
‘I am, sincerely yours,
‘E. Bristol.’
From the same