only given to
the noble person himself who has passed judgment upon all hopes from
negotiation, and justified our late abortive attempt only as an
experiment made to satisfy the country; and yet that pamphlet led the
way in endeavoring to dissatisfy that very country with the continuance
of the war, and to raise in the people the most sanguine expectations
from some such course of negotiation as has been fatally pursued. This
leads me to suppose (and I am glad to have reason for supposing) that
there was no foundation for attributing the performance in question to
that author; but without mentioning his name in the title-page, it
passed for his, and does still pass uncontradicted. It was entitled,
"Some Remarks on the Apparent Circumstances of the War in the Fourth
Week of October, 1795."

This sanguine little king's-fisher, (not prescient of the storm, as by
his instinct he ought to be,) appearing at that uncertain season before
the rigs of old Michaelmas were yet well composed, and when the
inclement storms of winter were approaching, began to flicker over the
seas, and was busy in building its halcyon nest, as if the angry ocean
had been soothed by the genial breath of May. Very unfortunately, this
auspice was instantly followed by a speech from the throne in the very
spirit and principles of that pamphlet.

I say nothing of the newspapers, which are undoubtedly in the interest,
and which are supposed by some to be directly or indirectly under the
influence of ministers, and which, with less authority than the pamphlet
I speak of, had indeed for some time before held a similar language, in
direct contradiction to their more early tone: insomuch that I can speak
it with a certain assurance, that very many, who wished to
administration as well as you and I do, thought, that, in giving their
opinion in favor of this peace, they followed the opinion of
ministry;--they were conscious that they did not lead it. My inference,
therefore, is this: that the negotiation, whatever its merits may be, in
the general principle and policy of undertaking it, is, what every
political measure in general ought to be, the sole work of
administration; and that, if it was an experiment to satisfy anybody, it
was to satisfy those whom the ministers were in the daily habit of
condemning, and by whom they were daily condemned,--I mean the _leaders_
of the _opposition_ in _Parliament_. I am certain that the ministers
were then, and are now,