JET. 36.] STATE OF THE OPPOSITION. 89 



give an evidence as accurate and more unsuspected 

 than persons engaged in the game. 



" There is, though in a greater degree, the same out- 

 cry that alarmed me so much last spring, about ' the 

 party being at an end it is better to say so at once ; 

 let every one go his own way/ &c. It should seem 

 that Canning's circular letter has been taken as the 

 model by some of our friends, and I am morally cer- 

 tain they would rejoice at your issuing one of the 

 same stamp ! They talk, among other things, of sup- 

 porting the ministers where their measures deserve 

 it, and where not, of a candid and individual sort of 

 opposition, with a great deal more trash of the same 

 odious description. Now I should only wish to know 

 what would have become of the Whig party (and of 

 the constitution of this country) if such language had 

 prevailed in 1793 and 1794, when many deserted, no 

 doubt, and more grumbled, and yet you held together 

 the party, although there was such a clamour against 

 you, both in Parliament and out of it, and such a 

 Government, in point both of talents and strength, 

 with a steady, popular King, a country blind and com- 

 fortable both as to trade and taxes in short, such a 

 sum of things as never before was at all equalled for 

 the ruin of the Opposition. If the grumblers of 

 those days who complained of Fox and you not going 

 far enough in blaming the Jacobins, not fairly support- 

 ing Pitt where he deserved it, with I know not how 

 much more such twaddle, spoken by men who don't 

 seem to reflect on the very nature of a party had 

 been listened to, the party was at an end, and half-a- 

 dozen great interests would have been finally detached 

 from it, and formed new connections and habits. 



