with America, particularly the
magnificent passage beginning, 'Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the
truest wisdom, and a great empire and little minds go ill together.' You
have echoed back the words in which, in his letter to the Sheriffs of
Bristol on the hateful American War, he protests that it was not
instantly he could be brought to rejoice when he heard of the slaughter
and captivity of long lists of those whose names had been familiar in his
ears from his infancy, and you would all join with me in subscribing to a
fund which should have for its object the printing and hanging up over
every editor's desk in town and country a subsequent passage from the
same letter:

'A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood. He
would feel some apprehension at being called to a tremendous account
for engaging in so deep a play without any knowledge of the game. It
is no excuse for presumptuous ignorance that it is directed by
insolent passion. The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending
to save itself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable
in the eyes of God and man. But I cannot conceive any existence under
heaven (which in the depths of its wisdom tolerates all sorts of
things) that is more truly odious and disgusting than an impotent,
helpless creature, without civil wisdom or military skill, bloated
with pride and arrogance, calling for battles which he is not to
fight, and contending for a violent dominion which he can never
exercise. . . .

'If you and I find our talents not of the great and ruling kind, our
conduct at least is conformable to our faculties. No man's life pays
the forfeit of our rashness. No desolate widow weeps tears of blood
over our ignorance. Scrupulous and sober in a well-grounded distrust
of ourselves, we would keep in the port of peace and security; and
perhaps in recommending to others something of the same diffidence, we
should show ourselves more charitable to their welfare than injurious
to their abilities.'

You have laughed over Burke's account of how all Lord Talbot's schemes
for the reform of the king's household were dashed to pieces, because the
turnspit of the king's kitchen was a Member of Parliament. You have
often pondered over that miraculous passage in his speech on the Nabob of
Arcot's debts, describing the devastation of the Carnatic by Hyder Ali--a
passage which