At every step of my progress in life, (for
in every step was I traversed and opposed,) and at every turnpike I met,
I was obliged to show my passport, and again and again to prove my sole
title to the honor of being useful to my country, by a proof that I was
not wholly unacquainted with its laws and the whole system of its
interests both abroad and at home. Otherwise, no rank, no toleration
even, for me. I had no arts but manly arts. On them I have stood, and,
please God, in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale,
to the last gasp will I stand.
Had his Grace condescended to inquire concerning the person whom he has
not thought it below him to reproach, he might have found, that, in the
whole course of my life, I have never, on any pretence of economy, or on
any other pretence, so much as in a single instance, stood between any
man and his reward of service or his encouragement in useful talent and
pursuit, from the highest of those services and pursuits to the lowest.
On the contrary, I have on an hundred occasions exerted myself with
singular zeal to forward every man's even tolerable pretensions. I have
more than once had good-natured reprehensions from my friends for
carrying the matter to something bordering on abuse. This line of
conduct, whatever its merits might be, was partly owing to natural
disposition, but I think full as much to reason and principle. I looked
on the consideration of public service or public ornament to be real and
very justice; and I ever held a scanty and penurious justice to partake
of the nature of a wrong.
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