They pursue even such as
me into the obscurest retreats, and haul them before their revolutionary
tribunals. Neither sex, nor age, nor the sanctuary of the tomb, is
sacred to them. They have so determined a hatred to all privileged
orders, that they deny even to the departed the sad immunities of the
grave. They are not wholly without an object. Their turpitude purveys to
their malice; and they unplumb the dead for bullets to assassinate the
living. If all revolutionists were not proof against all caution, I
should recommend it to their consideration, that no persons were ever
known in history, either sacred or profane, to vex the sepulchre, and by
their sorceries to call up the prophetic dead, with any other event than
the prediction of their own disastrous fate.--"Leave me, oh, leave me to
repose!"
In one thing I can excuse the Duke of Bedford for his attack upon me and
my mortuary pension: He cannot readily comprehend the transaction he
condemns. What I have obtained was the fruit of no bargain, the
production of no intrigue, the result of no compromise, the effect of no
solicitation. The first suggestion of it never came from me, mediately
or immediately, to his Majesty or any of his ministers. It was long
known that the instant my engagements would permit it, and before the
heaviest of all calamities had forever condemned me to obscurity and
sorrow, I had resolved on a total retreat. I had executed that design.
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