attribute everything which may be a
little harsh in this letter. We are, thank God, all well, and all most
truly and sincerely yours. I seldom write so long a letter. Take this
as a sort of proof how much I am, dear Barry, Your faithful friend.

To LORD AUCKLAND

_An old stag at bay_

Beaconsfield, 30 _Oct_. 1795.

My dear Lord,

I am perfectly sensible of the very flattering honour you have done
me in turning any part of your attention towards a dejected old man,
buried in the anticipated grave of a feeble old age, forgetting and
forgotten in an obscure and melancholy retreat.

In this retreat I have nothing relative to this world to do but to
study all the tranquillity that in the state of my mind I am capable
of. To that end I find it but too necessary to call to my aid an
oblivion of most of the circumstances pleasant and unpleasant of my
life; to think as little, and indeed to know as little as I can of
everything that is doing about me; and, above all, to divert my mind
from all presagings and prognostications of what I must (if I let my
speculations loose) consider as of absolute necessity to happen after
my death, and possibly even before it. Your address to the public
which you have been so good as to send to me, obliges me to break in
upon that plan, and to look a little on what is behind, and very much
on what is before me. It creates in my mind a variety of thoughts, and
all of them unpleasant.

It is true, my Lord, what you say, that through our public life,
we have generally sailed on somewhat different tacks. We have so
undoubtedly, and we should do so still, if I had continued longer
to keep the sea. In that difference you rightly observe that I have
always done justice to your skill and ability as a navigator, and to
your good intentions towards the safety of the cargo and of the ship's
company. I cannot say now that we are on different tacks. There would
be no propriety in the metaphor. I can sail no longer. My vessel
cannot be said to be even in port. She is wholly condemned and broken
up. To have an idea of that vessel you must call to mind what you have
often seen on the Kentish road. Those planks of tough and hardy oak
that used for years to brave the buffets of the Bay of Biscay, are
now turned with their warped grain and empty trunnion holes into very
wretched pales for the enclosure of a wretched farmyard.

The style of your pamphlet, and the eloquence and power of composition