"My best wishes are offered for your speedy return to your native country with health and independency, without which there can be no happiness in this life; and the sooner that event happens, the more pleasure it will afford, "Yours, &c." He writes in the same style to several of his friends, and from many of his letters it appears, that the occasional disappointment suffered by a mind so ardent as his, and so little accustomed to be thwarted, had turned his thoughts strongly to retirement. "The conduct of the Directors, in committing themselves in the manner they have done to Administration," he observes in a letter to Mr. Sykes[161], "is unworthy of them, and contrary to their duty as Directors. In my conduct, I have taken up the great line of future advantage, both to the nation and to the Company. I spoke long upon the subject in the House of Commons, and with some applause, but all to no purpose; the necessities of the state, and present gain, weighed down and overpowered all argument."--"In my opinion, the sooner you return to England the better. I know that your fortune is more than sufficient, and that it has been honourably acquired. Come, then, and partake with us in country retirement; and when you want to amuse yourself in town and serve your country, be as we are, a member of Parliament. What can I say more than that I am, &c." "To tell you the truth," says he, in a letter of the same date, to Sir Robert Barker, "after the next general election, I find myself very much disposed to withdraw myself from all public concerns whatever. My own happiness and that of my family is the only object I have in view, and that can only be obtained by retirement from the bustle and noise of a busy, debauched, and half-ruined nation."