be drawn from him, or from any of his
associates, until you had actually passed the short money bill,--which
measure they flattered themselves, and assured others, you would never
come up to. Disappointed in their expectation at [of?] seeing the siege
raised, they surrendered at discretion.

Judge, my dear Sir, of our surprise at finding your censure directed
against those whose only crime was in accusing the ministers of not
having prevented your demands by our graces, of not having given you the
natural advantages of your country in the most ample, the most early,
and the most liberal manner, and for not having given away authority in
such a manner as to insure friendship. That you should make the
panegyric of the ministers is what I expected; because, in praising
their bounty, you paid a just compliment to your own force. But that you
should rail at us, either individually or collectively, is what I can
scarcely think a natural proceeding. I can easily conceive that
gentlemen might grow frightened at what they had done,--that they might
imagine they had undertaken a business above their direction,--that,
having obtained a state of independence for their country, they meant to
take the deserted helm into their own hands, and supply by their very
real abilities the total inefficacy of the nominal government. All these
might be real, and might be very justifiable motives for their
reconciling themselves cordially to the present court system. But I do
not so well discover the reasons that could induce them, at the first
feeble dawning of life in this country, to do all in their power to cast
a cloud over it, and to prevent the least hope of our effecting the
necessary reformations which are aimed at in our Constitution and in our
national economy.

But, it seems, I was silent at the passing the resolutions. Why, what
had I to say? If I had thought them too much, I should have been accused
of an endeavor to inflame England. If I should represent them as too
little, I should have been charged with a design of fomenting the
discontents of Ireland into actual rebellion. The Treasury bench
represented that the affair was a matter of state: they represented it
truly. I therefore only asked whether they knew these propositions to be
such as would satisfy Ireland; for if they were so, they would satisfy
me. This did not indicate that I thought them too ample. In this our
silence (however dishonorable to Parliament) there was o