LETTER CCLIX. FROM JAMES MACDONALD, ESQ.* My dear Horner, Calne, 22d Feb. 1816. I really cannot resist writing you a line to congratulate you on your brilliant success on Tuesday night. Even the outline of your speech, as given in the Morning Chronicle, enables me to judge a little of the nature, and of the value of the speech itself. There is no man in the House of Commons, in whose career I feel a more lively interest than yours; and I may say to you, without being suspected of flattery, that the impression you have already produced in the present session universally, must be a cause of exultation, though certainly not of surprise, to your friends. This is one of the considerations which make me rejoice in returning to Parliament: my election takes place to-morrow. Yours faithfully, J. MACDONALD. LETTER CCLX. FROM JOHN WHISHAW, ESQ. My dear Horner, Lincoln's Inn, 24th Feb. 1816. I have been particularly desirous of seeing you lately, to congratulate you upon your speech of Tuesday, which has been the topic of conversation, wherever I have been for the last two or three days. You must already have felt that it establishes your character and station, not only in Parliament, but with the public; and that it is universally considered as a most important eloquently enforced in an admirable speech made by Horner.” — Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly, vol. iii. p. 220, 1st edition. * Son of Sir Archibald Macdonald, Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer. event for the political party to which we are attached. It is needless for me to say how much I have been delighted with all I have heard upon this interesting subject from various quarters, and which I have felt almost as a matter of personal congratulation. I remain, my dear Horner, Ever yours most truly, JOHN WHISHAW. LETTER CCLXI. TO J. A. MURRAY, ESQ. My dear Murray, Temple, 27th Feb. 1816. My circuit begins on the 5th of March; but my engagements in the House of Lords will not permit me to join it early, perhaps not before the 18th. I shall be back from it by Friday, the 5th of April, and from that time I shall remain in London. It is no common degree of gratification to hear from you, that you coincide with me in the opinions which I have been lately expressing in Parliament, if you include in that approbation my sentiments upon the Treaty of Peace. For I was afraid that there, perhaps, you might think me too unfavourable to the principles and views upon which the precautionary measures of the allies are founded. My disapprobation of what has been done, and my apprehensions concerning its future consequences, are no doubt derived out of opinions which I have long held fast, yet I cannot accuse myself of having failed, upon the present occasion, to review and reconsider them with some coolness and anxiety. There are changes in the whole frame of European politics, and in our domestic scheme of liberties, which are going on much faster than politics ever before seemed to me to move. It is a movement, perhaps, which has resulted from causes that were put in action long ago, though their force has been compressed for an interval by counteracting circumstances, which have been suddenly removed. In the most formidable periods of the French military power, my dread never was of its prévailing against us in this island by conquest, but of the inroads that our system of defence was making upon the constitutional forms of our parliamentary government, and upon the constitutional habits of the English commons. We are nearly declared to be a military power. If this design is not checked, of which I have slender hopes, or does not break down by favour of accidents, we shall have a transient glory, for some little while; the bravery of our men, the virtues which the long enjoyment of liberty will leave long after it is gone, and the financial exertions of which we are still capable, will insure us that distinction; but it is a glory in which our freedom will be lost, and which cannot maintain itself when the vigour, born of that freedom, is spent. Do not tell any body of these gloomy visions of mine; they will appear absurd and insincere; above all, do not tell them to Jeffrey, or I shall see myself niched in some sentence against moping Whigs who love Bonaparte. I have in my heart infinitely more apprehension, about the future fate of English liberty, than I ever permit myself to express in public; one chance of preserving it, is to keep up the tone of the public sentiment, particularly in Parliament, to the consciousness and confidence of still being free. I heard you were to dine at my father's last Saturday; I hope you had a pleasant day. Most affectionately yours, FRA. HORNER. LETTER CCLXII. TO HENRY HALLAM, ESQ. My dear Hallam, Sidmouth, 17th March, 1816. One of my sisters desires me to forward the enclosed letter to Mrs. Hallam. I fancy you will not agree with me, in being sorry to see, that nothing has been said by any body, upon the bills relating to the prisoner at St. Helena, expressive of a regret that it was cast upon this country to execute so odious a part of the arrangements to which the victory of Waterloo has led. You know all my sentiments about the man, how little I share any of that admiration which his extraordinary fortunes and character have imposed upon some persons, and how much I execrated all along his tyranny and military ambition, and enmity to all civil liberty. At the height of his power, I expressed myself more strongly against him than I should permit myself to do publicly now. In the treatment he has met with, I feel no inclination to deny, that the sparing of his life is an act of humanity, such as is not recorded of any of those former ages in which such characters and events are to be found: yet I cannot but feel, at the same time, that, when a few years more are gone by, and we can all look back upon these transactions from some distance, it will be our regret and mortification that the government of this day could see no safety for Europe against a single man, but in transporting him to a rock in the ocean, and that in leaving him his life, we have taken all that can make life any thing but a torment. I do not mean to make a stronger imputation, than that we have been wanting in magnanimity, where the opportunity was obvious and commanding. But this country has reached too high a sta tion, to be at liberty to miss such opportunities. Our virtues must rise with our fortune, or we shall be thought to have been unworthy of it: a large and secure generosity, is one of the conditions by which we are to hold our greatness. Instead of this, we have treated our captive with the timid severity of a little republic; and have lowered ourselves to the notions of our despot allies, who know nothing of safety but in force and bonds. Perhaps, some years hence, at the point of view which I anticipate, I shall soberly discover all this to be a romance. I can say, without any affectation, that I shall have nothing but pleasure in seeing the glory of the country quite clear of the stain which I think I see upon it at present. Do you hear any thing of Canning's coming into office? I wish he were back in the House of Commons; it would refresh one's mind, to hear something like eloquence again, and to see a man at work, who, with all his faults, owes his means of greatness to his power in that House. His faults, it must be owned, and especially his late errors, are miserable. Yours ever faithfully, FRA. HORNER. LETTER CCLXIII. FROM HENRY HALLAM, ESQ. My dear Horner, Stamp Office, 19th March, 1816. I suppose that you will expect me to begin by congratulating you on last night's division;* but, all things considered, I am much inclined to do so, not as a party triumph, for I scarcely think your keenest partisans can well put that construction on it; but for one or two reasons which rather overbalance, in my mind, * On the Property Tax, when Ministers were in a minority of thirty-seven. |