which time he has conducted himself, to my intimate knowledge, with the strictest public and private propriety, so as to give not the least cause of jealousy; but is now exiled from hence in consequence of the earnest and repeated desire of courts, who, being under the influence of the French ecclesiastics, can never pardon in a bishop a desire to promote the general freedom of public worship which M. Talleyrand has uniformly professed. In the present situation of Europe, he has nowhere to look for an asylum, except to that country, which is happy enough to preserve its peace and its happiness under your auspices, to which we may be all of us in our turn obliged to look up, if some bounds are not speedily put to the opposite storms of anarchy and despotism, which threaten Europe with desolation.[1] M. Talleyrand is accompanied with another constitutionalist, M. Beaumet, a person of distinguished probity, courage and love of instruction. I have the honour to be, with the highest respect and veneration, Sir, &c.
"Lansdowne."
When the feelings of men who like Dumont and Bentham wished well to the Revolution, were such as have been described, it is not to be wondered that the passions of those, who from the beginning had hated it, were raised to the most extraordinary pitch of excitement, ferocity, and triumph. In the country the Government carried all before it. In Parliament opposition became fruitless. By the end of 1794, a junction of parties had taken place, which made Pitt absolute master of the situation in both Houses. The ancient party of Newcastle and Rockingham, of Burke and Portland, after many hesitations threw in their lot with Pitt, under the auspices of Lord Loughborough, who on the retirement of Thurlow owing to incompatibility of temper in June 1792, had accepted the Great Seal. Portland became Home Secretary in the place of Dundas appointed
- ↑ The letters which Talleyrand wrote to Lord Lansdowne from America in 1795 are printed in M. G. Pallain's work: La Mission de Talleyrand, 421-455. Two of these are given in the Appendix II. C.
