nt, that their
relations, both political and personal, were rudely severed. Burke, in
the House of Commons, openly announced this result. He was most
earnestly inveighing against France, when he said, "It may be indiscreet
in me at my time of life to provoke enemies, and give occasion to
friends to desert me." Fox whispered, "There is no loss of friends."
Burke for a moment paused, and then exclaimed, "Yes, there is a loss of
friends; I know the price of my conduct. I have done my duty at the
expense of my friend. Our friendship is at an end." As he finished,
Burke walked across the floor of the House, and squeezed himself between
Pitt and Dundas on the Treasury Bench. Fox rose to reply, while tears
streamed down his face. In the course of his remarks he intimated that
Burke had heaped upon him the most ignominious terms. Burke at once said
that he did not recollect having used any; when Fox replied, "My right
honorable friend does not recollect the epithets. They are out of his
mind. Then they are completely and forever out of mine. I cannot cherish
a recollection so painful; and from this moment they are obliterated and
forgotten."

But the difference was too intense. A few days later it broke forth
again. "I complain," said Burke, "of being obliged to stand upon my
defence by the right honorable gentleman, who, when a young man, was
brought to me and evinced the most promising talents, which I used my
best endeavors to cultivate; and this man, who has arrived at the
maturity of being the most brilliant and powerful debater that ever
existed, has described me as having deserted and abandoned every one of
my principles!" Fox replied, but alluded to Burke no longer as "friend",
but as "the right honorable gentleman", and said, in a taunting style,
that "all he had to do was to repent, and his friends would be ready to
receive him back and love him as they had previously done". Burke was
indignant. He said,--"I have gone through my youth without encountering
any party disgrace, and though in my age I have been so unfortunate as
to meet it, I do not solicit the right honorable gentleman's friendship,
nor that of any other man, either on one side of the House or the
other." [A] This most important and historic friendship was at an end.

[Footnote A:_Parliamentary History_ Vol. XXIX. p. 426.]

The larger part of the Whigs at that time sided with Fox. But Burke
turned away from Parliament and politicians in one of the most