Thinking thus, (and
not, as I conceive, on light grounds,) I dare not flatter the reigning
sovereign, nor any minister he has or can have, nor his successor
apparent, nor any of those who may be called to serve him, with what
appears to me a false state of their situation. We cannot have them and
that peace together.
I do not forget that there had been a considerable difference between
several of our friends (with my insignificant self) and the great man at
the head of ministry, in an early stage of these discussions. But I am
sure there was a period in which we agreed better in the danger of a
Jacobin existence in France. At one time he and all Europe seemed to
feel it. But why am not I converted with so many great powers and so
many great ministers? It is because I am old and slow. I am in this
year, 1796, only where all the powers of Europe were in 1793. I cannot
move with this precession of the equinoxes, which is preparing for us
the return of some very old, I am afraid no golden era, or the
commencement of some new era that must be denominated from some new
metal. In this crisis I must hold my tongue or I must speak with
freedom. Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever: but, as
in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth. It is
a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure, that he
may speak it the longer. But as the same rules do not hold in all cases,
what would be right for you, who may presume on a series of years before
you, would have no sense for me, who cannot, without absurdity,
calculate on six months of life.
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