In political life, during his career after that event, he was
consistent and firm; faithful to his party, but more faithful still
to his country. He was a generous friend, an attached, perhaps too
fond a husband. During the whole of his active career, he retained a
constant sense of the superintendence and direction of the Supreme
Being, and was ever the first to ascribe the successes which he had
gained, to Divine protection; a disposition which appeared with
peculiar grace amidst the din of arms, and the flourish of trumpets
for his own mighty achievements. Even the one occasion on which,
like David, he fell from his high principles, will be regarded by
the equitable observer with charitable, if not forgiving eyes. He
will recollect, that perfection never yet belonged to a child of
Adam; he will measure the dreadful nature of the struggle which
awaits an upright and generous mind when loyalty and gratitude impel
one way, and religion and patriotism another. Without attempting to
justify an officer who employs the power bestowed by one government
to elevate another on its ruins, he will yet reflect, that in such
a crisis, even the firmest heads and the best hearts may be led
astray. If he is wise, he will ascribe the fault--for fault it
was--not so much to the individual, as the time in which he lived;
and feel a deeper thankfulness that his own lot has been cast in a
happier age, when the great moving passions of the human heart act
in the same direction, and a public man need not fear that he is
wanting in his duty to his sovereign, because he is performing that
to his country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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