“You have conferred on me a substantial benefit sufficient to relieve me from anxiety concerning the means of subsistence, whenever my strength may fail, and equal to wishes that have always been kept within due bounds. Individually, therefore, I am not less grateful to you than as one of those who retain the old feelings and principles of Englishmen, I must ever be on public grounds.
“Were it not from the rumours (which yet I hope are untrue) that your health has suffered, I should regard the present aspects, not, indeed, with complacency, but without uneasiness or alarm. While we have you to look to I cannot doubt that the nation will be saved from revolution, and that, under Providence, you will be the means of saving it. For if you now retire from power it cannot be long before you will be borne in again upon the spring-tide of public opinion. Nothing in the course of public affairs has ever appeared to me more certain than this.
“I have the honour to remain, Sir Robert, with the sincerest respect.
