Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/282

256 the very flattering answers made to these openings pointed is indeed such as, without affectation, I blush to read.

Would to God, my dear Lord, that all my vanity, awakened as it may well be by such reputed testimonies, were able to tell me I could really effect any material public good!

The evils are, I fear, incurable. Faction shakes and corruption saps the country to its foundations, nor are the means, such as these wretched conditions could admit, so much as opened in the extent and with an authenticity sufficient to engage a close and confidential deliberation among common friends bent on the same great object. To speak plain, until the King is pleased to signify his pleasure to me that I should again submit my thoughts upon the formation of such a system, both as to the measures and as to the instruments which are to constitute that system, and that in so ample and full an extent as shall leave nothing to the eyes of men equivocal on the outside of it, nor any dark creeping factions scattering doubts and sowing discords within.

I should not omit, though I am already too tedious, that I have said on proper occasions that I would continue to attribute to such of the Ministers as lately entered on the scene of affairs, good intentions and right principles, until by their actions they obliged me to think otherwise, declaring at the same time that I can never have confidence in a system where the Duke of Newcastle has influence. That must cease as well as many other things before I shall think the ground clear enough to entertain the smallest hope for the public.

Melancholy indeed are the accounts your Lordship mentions from America. Allow me still, my dear Lord, to suggest that allowance must be made for first alarms, as well as that I fear the very air of this mother-country breathes too much partial resentments against those unhappy men provoked to madness.

Lady Chatham and I are infinitely honoured by