I do not forget that there had been a considerable difference between several of our friends (with my insignificant self) and the great man at the head of ministry, in an early stage of these discussions. But I am sure there was a period in which we agreed better in the danger of a Jacobin existence in France. At one time he and all Europe seemed to feel it. But why am not I converted with so many great powers and so many great ministers? It is because I am old and slow. I am in this year, 1796, only where all the powers of Europe were in 1793. I cannot move with this precession of the equinoxes, which is preparing for us the return of some very old, I am afraid no golden era, or the commencement of some new era that must be denominated from some new metal. In this crisis I must hold my tongue or I must speak with freedom. Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever: but, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure, that he may speak it the longer. But as the same rules do not hold in all cases, what would be right for you, who may presume on a series of years before you, would have no sense for me, who cannot, without absurdity, calculate on six months of life. What I say I _must_ say at once. Whatever I write is in its nature testamentary. It may have the weakness, but it has the sincerity, of a dying declaration. For the few days I have to linger here I am removed completely from the busy scene of the world; but I hold myself to be still responsible for everything that I have done whilst I continued on the place of action. If the rawest tyro in politics has been influenced by the authority of my gray hairs, and led by anything in my speeches or my writings to enter into this war, he has a right to call upon me to know why I have changed my opinions, or why, when those I voted with have adopted better notions, I persevere in exploded error. When I seem not to acquiesce in the acts of those I respect in every degree short of superstition, I am obliged to give my reasons fully. I cannot set my authority against their authority. But to exert reason is not to revolt against authority. Reason and authority do not move in the same parallel. That reason is an _amicus curiæ_ who speaks _de plano_, not _pro tribunali_. It is a friend who makes an useful suggestion to the court, without questioning its jurisdiction. Whilst he acknowledges its competence, he promotes its efficiency. I shall pursue the plan I have chalked out in my letters that follow this. FOOTNOTES: [22] "Mussabat tacito medicina timore." [23] Mr. Bird, sent to state the real situation of the Duc de Choiseul. [24] Boissy d'Anglas. [25] "This Court has seen, with regret, how far the tone and spirit of that answer, the nature and extent of the demands which it contains, and the manner of announcing them, are remote from any disposition for peace.