Dear Sir,--I am very unhappy to find that my conduct in the business of Ireland, on a former occasion, had made many to be cold and indifferent who would otherwise have been warm in my favor. I really thought that events would have produced a quite contrary effect, and would have proved to all the inhabitants of Bristol that it was no desire of opposing myself to their wishes, but a certain knowledge of the necessity of their affairs, and a tender regard to their honor and interest, which induced me to take the part which I then took. They placed me in a situation which might enable me to discern what was fit to be done, on a consideration of the relative circumstances of this country and all its neighbors. This was what you could not so well do yourselves; but you had a right to expect that I should avail myself of the advantage which I derived from your favor. Under the impression-of this duty and this trust, I had endeavored to render, by preventive graces and concessions, every act of power at the same time an act of lenity,--the result of English bounty, and not of English timidity and distress. I really flattered myself that the events which have proved beyond dispute the prudence of such a maxim would have obtained pardon for me, if not approbation. But if I have not been so fortunate, I do most sincerely regret my great loss,--this comfort, however, that, if I have disobliged my constituents, it was not in pursuit of any sinister interest or any party passion of my own, but in endeavoring to save them from disgrace, along with the whole community to which they and I belong. I shall be concerned for this, and very much so; but I should be more concerned, if, in gratifying a present humor of theirs, I had rendered myself unworthy of their former or their future choice. I confess that I could not bear to face my constituents at the next general election, if I had been a rival to Lord North in the glory of having refused some small, insignificant concessions, in favor of Ireland, to the arguments and supplications of English members of Parliament,--and in the very next session, on the demand of forty thousand Irish bayonets, of having made a speech of two hours long to prove that my former conduct was founded upon no one right principle, either of policy, justice, or commerce. I never heard a more elaborate, more able, more convincing, and more shameful speech. The debater obtained credit, but the statesman was disgraced forever. Amends were made for having refused small, but timely concessions, by an unlimited and untimely surrender, not only of every one of the objects of former restraints, but virtually of the whole legislative power itself which had made them. For it is not necessary to inform you, that the unfortunate Parliament of this kingdom did not dare to qualify the very liberty she gave of trading with her _own_ plantations, by applying, of her _own_ authority, any one of the commercial regulations to the new