‘The leaders of the opposition have offered me any money I require, on condition that I deliver to them my papers and letters, under seal, promising to return them to me in exactly the same state when the money is brought to me.[171] I unbosom myself to you, and you must feel how repugnant to me must be such an expedient. And yet, if I am forsaken, what would you have me do? As to the papers of the Counsellor and of his deputy, I guard them more jealously than ever; I have them all, also Rosière’s. The cypher alone I burnt in his presence, and the whole are so well concealed in my study, that by means of a mine I have myself contrived, and several trains that lead to it from different parts of my room, I can in an instant blow my little study, the would-be rescuers, the papers and my own self, fifty feet into the air. But, if I am entirely forsaken, and if, between this and April 22, Easter Sunday, I do not receive a promise, signed by the King or by the Count de Broglio, to the effect that reparation will be made to me for all the ills I have endured at the hands of M. de Guerchy, then, sir, I declare to you formally and authentically, I shall lose all hope, and in forcing me to embrace the cause of the King of England, of his ministry and of the Houses of the Lords and Commons, _you must make up your mind to a war at no distant period, of which I shall surely be but the innocent cause, and this war will be inevitable_. The King of England will be driven into it by the nature of circumstances, by the voice of the nation, and by the opposition which is gaining, rather than losing, in strength. Here, sir, is my confession, and here are all the evils that will have been prepared by M. de Guerchy and his gang. Behold your great project, so glorious for the King and so advantageous to France, turning against you. Your reply, sir, fully authentic, and signed by the Counsellor, or at least by his deputy, will inform me if, by next Easter at the latest, I am to remain an honest Frenchman, or become, in spite of myself, an honest Englishman.’[172]