466 POLITICS. [1809. 



they took of the subject, have been well executed, 

 have not in general taken the most advantageous 

 ground. The impossibility, without a dereliction of 

 all public principle, of joining those with whom not 

 only we had not approached to any agreement, but 

 with whom our differences were much increased by 

 all that has happened since they became ministers, 

 and who have now to render an account to the country 

 for the series of crimes and follies which have dis- 

 graced and nearly ruined us, was, in my opinion, the 

 ground on which our declining all communication 

 was not only the most justifiable, but the plainest and 

 the most easily understood and felt by the country. 

 To all the other objections of our not being called 

 upon personally by the King, &c. &c., there are 

 answers more or less good, but to these there could be 

 none. I have ventured to say this, because in one 

 of your letters you gave a hint that in the interval of 

 leisure from your professional business you might 

 give some attention to these matters. 



" I do not see that Perceval has yet made any 

 progress in filling up the vacant offices. The ap- 

 pointment of Till lately, that office, 



which is one of the most important, and requires 

 great experience in the business to which it relates, 

 was not made subject to party changes. But now 

 we have a minister who is bold or unprincipled 

 enough not only to put the Government in a state in 

 which it can decide upon no one point, not even 

 upon the retention or evacuation of Walchcren whilst 



