“I have dilly-dallied so long here that if I don’t set out directly I shall not get in time to write you a word, my precious, so I will first fire a little shot at you before I leave this place. William brought us last night just such intelligence as I was prepared to expect from Petty that the Marquis [Wellesley] had been with Earl Grey and had offered him and his friends four seats in the Cabinet; that he himself had condescended to become First Lord of the Treasury, that there must be some limitations of concession to Ireland, with a great variety of other restraints upon the four poor Foxite and Grenville Ministers, the whole of which induced the Earl to give the Marquis the most unqualified rejection of these proposed indignities. Ha! ha! ha! or Oh dear me! which of these exclamations is best suited to the occasion. Is one to laugh at our poor foolish party having so obviously and so fatally for themselves played the game of these villains Wellesley and Canning, or is one to cry at the never-failing success of rascality in this country? Oh how glad I am that I had no hand in making this madman Wellesley preside over the destinies of this country, to sacrifice the thousands of brave lives that he will assuredly do in Spain and Portugal, and to torture by poverty and privations the thousands that will feel the effects of his extravagance in England.”
