zeal for his country is, powerful as his abilities are, and earnest and assiduous as his endeavours have been to rescue the British Empire from the difficulties that oppress her, I am persuaded he will retire, firm in the dignity of his own mind, conscious of his having contributed to the public advantage, and if not attended with the fulsome plaudits of a mob, possessed of that substantial and permanent satisfaction which arises from the habitual approbation of an upright mind. I know him well: and dismiss him from the confidence of his sovereign, and the business of the State when you please, to this transcendant consolation he has a tide, which no accident can invalidate or affect. It is the glorious reward of doing well, of acting an honest and honourable part. By the difficulties he encountered on his accepting the reins of government, by the reduced situation in which he found the state of the nation, and by the perpetual turbulence of those who thought his elevation effected at their own expense, he has certainly earned it dearly: and with such a solid understanding, and so much goodness of heart as stamp his character, he is in no danger of losing it. Nothing can be a stronger proof that his enemies are eager to traduce, than the frivolous grounds on which they accuse him. An action which reflects a lustre on his attention to the claims of merit, has yet been improved into a fault in his conduct.[1] A right honourable gentleman who has exhausted his strength in the service of the State, and to whose years and infirmities his absence from the Parliament can only be attributed, owes to the friendship and interference of the noble Earl a pension, which however adequate to all his necessities and convenience in the evening of life, is no extraordinary compensation for the public spirit which has uniformly marked his parliamentary conduct. Surely the abilities and virtues of this veteran soldier and respectable senator deserved some acknowledgment from that community in which they had been so often and so manfully exerted. Surely his age entitled him to a little repose in the lap of that
- ↑ Alluding to the pension granted to Colonel Barré.
