George Selwyn : $b His letters and his lifeSelwyn, George Augustus
History
George Selwyn : $b His letters and his life
Selwyn, George Augustus
Selwyn, George Augustus, 1719-1791; Selwyn, George Augustus, 1719-1791 -- Correspondence
You are not driven from your post, because they will have recalled a
man manifestly more willing to leave it, than they to profit of the
resignation. They would have kept you perhaps for their own sakes,
although they would do nothing for yours, and they would have made
you a tool, but cannot, as they know, make you a friend but by
behaving well towards [you] and towards their country.
Your private circumstances, if known to be embarrassed, are known at
the same time not to embarrass you. Your chop and your pewter plate
will reproach others sooner than they can reflect disgrace upon
yourself. The audax paupertas, however, is not necessary, but great
economy is. I myself will give you an example of it, and contribute
every atom in my power to ease your mind from what will most
sensibly and naturally affect it. What interest in Parliament is
left me shall be yours, and if my little bark, sailing in attendance
upon yours, is able to assist you, I shall be happier in that
circumstance than from any which I could otherwise have derived from
it.
But we may perhaps all act in concord for the present. I am told, I
do not [know] how true, that no hostilities are intended towards me;
nous verrons. I can never be used by any set of Ministers so ill, or
with such indignity, as by those who are removed. . . .(227) said
last night that the executions were now near(ly) over. I will open
my mind to you. I think both his and Richard's language in all this
transaction has been to the last degree indecent, and I am sure,
unless these two are better advised, they will do their chief more
disservice than any ill-conduct of his own. When people of low birth
have by great good luck and a fortunate concurrence of events been
able to obtain, from lively parts only, without any acquisitions
which can be useful to the public, such situations as are due only
to persons of rank, weight, and character, it is surely an easy task
not to be insolent. It is all I require of them; I envy no man his
good fortune, ever so undeserved, while he shows no disposition to
offend others. But with all this I have not been provoked enough to
express my resentment, or mean enough to deprecate that of others.
(227) An erasure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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