"If I had not a real good opinion of your principles and intentions upon all subjects, and a very bad opinion of your nerves and philosophy upon some, I should take very ill indeed, the letter I received from you this evening.
"That the management of the theatre is a situation capable of becoming troublesome is information which I do not want, and a discovery which I thought you had made long since.
"I should be sorry to write to you gravely on your offer, because I must consider it as a nervous flight, which it would be as unfriendly in me to notice seriously as it would be in you seriously to have made it.
"What I am most serious in is a determination that, while the theatre is indebted, and others, for it and for me, are so involved and pressed as they are, I will exert myself, and give every attention and judgment in my power to the establishment of its interests. In you I hoped, and do hope, to find an assistant, on principles of liberal and friendly confidence,—I mean confidence that should be above touchiness and reserve, and that should trust to me to estimate the value of that assistance.
"If there is any thing amiss in your mind, not arising from the troublesomeness of your situation, it is childish and unmanly not to disclose it to me. The frankness with which I have always dealt towards you entitles me to expect that you should have done so.
"But I have no reason to believe this to be the case; and, attributing your letter to a disorder which I know ought not to be indulged, I prescribe that you shall keep your appointment at the Piazza Coffee-house, to-morrow at five, and, taking four bottles of claret instead of three, to which in sound health you might stint yourself, forget that you ever wrote the letter, as I shall that I ever received it.
"R. B. SHERIDAN."
CHAPTER IX.
STATE OF PARTIES.—OFFER OF A PLACE TO MR. T. SHERIDAN.—RECEIVERSHIP OF THE DUCHY OF CORNWALL BESTOWED UPON MR. SHERIDAN.—RETURN OF MR. PITT TO POWER.—CATHOLIC QUESTION.—ADMINISTRATION OF LORD GRENVILLE AND MR. FOX.—DEATH OF MR. FOX.—REPRESENTATION OF WESTMINSTER.—DISMISSION OF THE MINISTRY.—THEATRICAL NEGOTIATION.—SPANISH QUESTION.—LETTER TO THE PRINCE.
During the short interval of peace into which the country was now lulled,—like a ship becalmed for a moment in the valley between two vast waves,—such a change took place in the relative positions and bearings of the parties that had been so long arrayed against each other, and such new boundaries and divisions of opinion were formed, as considerably altered the map of the political world. While Mr. Pitt lent his sanction to the new Administration, they, who had made common cause with him in resigning, violently opposed it; and, while the Ministers were thus thwarted by those who had hitherto always agreed with them, they were supported by those Whigs with whom they had before most vehemently differed. Among this latter class of their friends was, as I have already remarked, Mr. Sheridan,—who, convinced that the only chance of excluding Mr. Pitt from power lay in strengthening the hands of those who were in possession, not only gave them the aid of his own name and eloquence, but endeavored to impress the same views upon Mr. Fox, and exerted his influence also to procure the sanction of Carlton-House in their favor.