In this temper of the people, I do not wholly wonder that our Northern friends look a little towards events. In war, particularly, I am afraid it must be so. There is something so weighty and decisive in the events of war, something that so completely overpowers the imagination of the vulgar, that all counsels must in a great degree be subordinate to and attendant on them. I am sure it was so in the last war, very eminently. So that, on the whole, what with the temper of the people, the temper of our own friends, and the domineering necessities of war, we must quietly give up all ideas of any settled, preconcerted plan. We shall be lucky enough, if, keeping ourselves attentive and alert, we can contrive to profit of the occasions as they arise: though I am sensible that those who are best provided with a general scheme are fittest to take advantage of all contingencies. However, to act with any people with the least degree of comfort, I believe we must contrive a little to assimilate to their character. We must gravitate towards them, if we would keep in the same system, or expect that they should approach towards us. They are, indeed, worthy of much concession and management. I am quite convinced that they are the honestest public men that ever appeared in this country, and I am sure that they are the wisest, by far, of those who appear in it at present. None of those who are continually complaining of them, but are themselves just as chargeable with all their faults, and have a decent stock of their own into the bargain. They (our friends) are, I admit, as you very truly represent them, but indifferently qualified for storming a citadel. After all, God knows whether this citadel is to be stormed by them, or by anybody else, by the means they use, or by any means. I know that as they are, abstractedly speaking, to blame, so there are those who cry out against them for it, not with a friendly complaint, as we do, but with the bitterness of enemies. But I know, too, that those who blame them for want of enterprise have shown no activity at all against the common enemy: all their skill and all their spirit have been shown only in weakening, dividing, and indeed destroying their allies. What they are and what we are is now pretty evidently experienced; and it is certain, that, partly by our common faults, but much more by the difficulties of our situation, and some circumstances of unavoidable misfortune, we are in little better than a sort of _cul-de-sac_. For my part, I do all I can to give ease to my mind in this strange position. I remember, some years ago, when I was pressing some points with great eagerness and anxiety, and complaining with great vexation to the Duke of Richmond of the little progress I make, he told me kindly, and I believe very truly, that, though he was far from thinking so himself, other people could not be persuaded I had not some latent private interest in pushing these