These are my sentiments, my dear lord, and, you know, very disinterested. For myself, I have nothing to wish but ease and tranquillity for the rest of my time. I have no enmities to avenge. I do hope the present administration will last, as I believe there are more honest men in it than in any set that could replace them, though I have not a grain of partiality more than I had for their associates. Mr. Fox I think by far the ablest and soundest head in England, and am persuaded that the more he is tried the greater man he will appear.
Perhaps it is impertinent to trouble your lordship with my creed, it is certainly of no consequence to any body; but I have nothing else that could entertain you, and at so serious a crisis can one think of trifles? In general I am not sorry that the nation is most disposed to trifle; the less it takes part, the more leisure will the ministers have to attend to the most urged points. When so many individuals assume to be legislators, it is lucky that very few obey their institutes.
I rejoice to hear of Lady Strafford's good health, and am her and your lordship's most faithful humble servant.
(511) In the course of a debate in the Irish House of Commons, on the 28th of October, upon Sir Henry Cavendish's motion for a retrenchment of the public expenditure violent altercation had taken place between the rival orators. While Mr. Grattan animadverted, with disgraceful bitterness, on the " broken beak and disastrous countenance" of his opponent, and charged him with betraying every man who trusted in him, Mr. Flood broadly insinuated that Mr. Grattan had betrayed his country for a sum of gold; and, for prompt payment, had sold himself to the minister.-E.
(512) They assembled at Dublin on the 10th of November, when a plan of reform was produced and considered by them; and on the following day Mr. Flood moved, in the House of Commons for leave to bring in a bill for the more equal representation of the people in Parliament. The motion was rejected by 157 votes to 77.-E.
Letter 270 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Berkeley Square, Dec. 11, 1783. (page 341)
Your lordship is so partial to me and my idle letters, that I am afraid of writing them; not lest they should sink below the standard you have pleased to affix to them in your own mind, but from fear of being intoxicated into attempting to keep them up to it, which would destroy their only merit, their being written naturally and without pretensions. Gratitude and good breeding compel me to make due answers; but I entreat your lordship to be assured, that, however vain I am of your favour, my only aim is to preserve the honour of your friendship; that it is all the praise I ask or wish; and that, with regard to letter-writing, I am firmly persuaded that it is a province in which women will always shine superiorly; for our sex is too jealous of the reputation of good sense, to condescend to hazard a thousand trifles and negligences, which give grace, ease, and familiarity to correspondence.(513) I will say no more on that subject, for I feel that I am on the brink of a dissertation; and though that fault would prove the truth of my proposition, I will not punish your lordship only to convince you that I am in the right. The winter is not dull or disagreeable; on the contrary, it is Pleasing, as the town is occupied on general subjects, and not, as is too common, on private scandal, private vices, and follies. The India-bill, air-balloons, Vestris, and the automaton, share all attention. Mrs. Siddons, as less a novelty, does not engross all conversation. If abuse still keeps above par, it confines itself to its prescriptive province, the ministerial line. In that walk it has tumbled a little into the kennel. The low buffoonery of Lord Thurlow, in laying the caricatura of the Coalition on the table of your lordship's House, has levelled it to Sadler's Wells; and Mr. Flood, the pillar of invective, does not promise to re-erect it; not, I conclude, from want of having imported a stock of ingredients, but his presumptuous debut on the very night of his entry was so wretched, and delivered in so barbarous a brogue that I question whether he will ever recover the blow Mr. Courtenay gave him.(514) A young man may correct and improve, and rise from a first fall; but an elderly formed speaker has not an equal chance. Mr. Hamilton,(515) Lord Abercorn's heir, but by no means so laconic, had more success. Though his first essay, ii was not at all dashed by bashfulness; and though he might have blushed for discovering so much personal rancour to Mr. Fox, he rather seemed to be impatient to discharge it.
Your lordship sees in the papers that the two Houses of Ireland have firmly resisted the innovations of the Volunteers. Indeed, it was time for the Protestant proprietors to make their stand; for though the Catholics behave decently, it would be into their hands that the prize would fall. The delegates, it is true, have sent over a most loyal address; but I wish their actions may not contradict their words! Mr. Flood's discomfiture here will, I suppose, carry him back to a field wherein his wicked spirit may have more effect. It is a very serious moment! I am in pain lest your county, my dear lord, (you know what I mean) should countenance such pernicious designs.
(513) Some excellent advice on the subject of female letter-writing, will be found in a letter written, in 1809, by Lord Collingwood to one of his daughters:—"No sportsman," says the gallant Admiral, "ever hits a partridge without aiming at it; and skill is acquired by repeated attempts. When you write a letter, give it your greatest care, that it may be as perfect in all its parts as you can make it. Let the subject be sense, expressed in the most plain, intelligible, and elegant manner that you are capable of If in a familiar epistle you should be playful and jocular, guard carefully that your wit be not sharp, so as to, give pain to any person; and before You write a sentence, examine it, even the words which it is composed, that there be nothing vulgar or inelegant in them. Remember, my dear, that your letter is the picture of Your brains; and those whose brains are a compound of folly, nonsense, and impertinence, are to blame to exhibit them to the contempt of the world, or the pity of their friends. To write a letter with negligence, without proper stops, with crooked lines and great, flourishing dashes, is inelegant; it argues either great ignorance of what is proper, or great indifference towards the person to whom it is addressed, and is consequently disrespectful." Memoirs, p. 430.-E.
(514) Mr. Flood took his seat for Winchester on the 8th of December, and on the same evening addressed the House in Opposition to Mr. Fox's East India bill. "He spoke," says Wraxall, "with great ability and good sense, but the slow, measured, and sententious style of enunciation which characterized his eloquence, appeared to English ears cold and stiff: unfortunately, too, for Flood, one of his own countrymen, Courtenay, instantly Opened on him such a battery of ridicule and wit, as seemed to overwhelm the new Member. He made no attempt at reply, and under these circumstances began the division. It formed a triumphant exhibition Of ministerial strength, the Coalition numbering 208; while only 102 persons, of whom I was one, followed Pitt into the lobby yet, within twelve days afterwards he found himself first minister, and so remained above seventeen years."-E.