LETTER TO ME, CKOKER, 237 



of my own incapacity properly to fill the station 

 into which I have been thrust. My sole ambition 

 was to rally the broken and dispirited forces of a 

 betrayed and insulted party, and to avenge the 

 country gentlemen and landed aristocracy of Eng- 

 land upon the Minister who, presuming upon their 

 weakness, falsely flattered himself that they could 

 be trampled upon with impunity. 



" I did deceive myself, I own, with false hopes 

 that the old English spirit would have been 

 roused, and that it was only necessary to keep the 

 dismantled ship floating and fighting under jury- 

 masts till she went through the repairs of a new 

 election, and then that scores of better men than 

 myself would have come to her rescue. 



" I own I am bitterly disappointed and broken- 

 hearted that England has proved so degenerate 

 that, in face of an emergency, she has produced, as 

 far as I can see, no new leader to take my place. 



" When their rents are not paid, and their mort- 

 gages are called in, the country gentlemen will 

 exert themselves, and so will the farmers when 

 wheat falls under 45s. per quarter, but not before. 



" Nothing but pinching adversity will bring such 

 men to a proper sense of their duty. 



" As regards the gentlemen, the entire fund sub- 

 scribed for the general election did not, I believe, 

 exceed 8000, and of this King Hudson subscribed 

 6000. 



" Till the landed interest and the colonial and 



