Ill 



It was not alone to me that Mr. Russell had expressed the wish 

 that his letter of 1 1th February, 1815, might be communicated 

 with the other documents to the House. He had, as appears by 

 the statement of Mr. Bailey, repeatedly manifested the same wish 

 to him. He had even gone so far as to inform him, that he had a 

 copy of it at Mendon, and to inquire of him whether a copy of it 

 from himself would be received at the Department, for communi 

 cation to the House. He did not, indeed, make the same inquiry of 

 me, nor was I then informed that he had made it to Mr. Bailey. If 

 I had been, I should have immediately answered that it would be 

 received and communicated. I knew not what were the contents 

 of the letter : but I knew that, whatever they might be, I could 

 have no objection to their being communicated, at the desire of Mr. 

 Russell himself; and far from suspecting him capable of believing 

 himself permitted to make any alterations in the copy, to suit pre 

 sent purposes, I should have thought the bare suspicion an outrage 

 upon his honour. 



But 1 had no desire of my own that the letter should be commu 

 nicated. I regretted even that Mr. Russell had chosen that the 

 part of his letter of 25th December, 1814, which announced his 

 disagreement with the majority of the mission, should be commu 

 nicated. I regretted that he had ever thought proper to inform 

 the Secretary of State what had been his vote upon that occasion ; 

 and I was perfectly assured, that there never had existed a moment 

 when there could have been any necessity for him to vindicate his 

 motives for that vote. I was assured that neither the government 

 nor the nation would ever have inquired of him how he had voted, 

 if he had not been so over-earnest in his solicitude to tell them. 

 And I was equally convinced, that after he had told them, it would 

 not ultimately redound to his credit. I had no feelings of enu.ity 

 towards Mr. Russell. Our private intercourse had been, for more 

 than ten years, that of friendship, which, in no instance whatever, 

 had been, in word, deed, or thought, violated by me. As an asso 

 ciate in a trust of great importance, the general result of which had 

 been satisfactory to the country, he had always had claims, sacred 

 to me, to my peculiar regard With the high and honourable du 

 ties of that great trust, I had mingled no little expedients of self- 

 aggrandizement by the debasement of any of my colleagues. I 

 had sown no seed of future accusation against a brother commis 

 sioner, in the shell of a pretended vindication of myself. I had laid 

 up no root of rancorous excitement, to be planted, after the lapse 

 of years, in the soil of sectional prejudice, or party prepossession. 

 I lamented to discover that Mr. Russell had not so dealt with his 

 colleagues of the majority ; and I was mortified to see the earnest 

 ness with which he appeared determined to blazon forth this dis 

 agreement of opinion, and the part that he had taken in it, to the 

 world. I felt that it neither became me to object to the commu 

 nication of either of his letters to the House, if desired by him, 

 nor officiously to offer him facilities for the communication, which 



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