Do not you speak and write and publish what you please? and though attacking favourite and popular opinions, are you not in the confidential friendship of Lord Hertford, and intrusted with the most important national concerns? Am not I, a member of Parliament, as much at liberty to abuse ministers and administration, as if I had been born in Wapping, or to support them if I think proper? Had it not been for the clamour of _a Scott_, perhaps indeed I might have been in some more active, but not more honourable or lucrative situation. This clamour we all know is merely artificial and occasional. It will in time give way to some other, equally absurd and ill-founded, when you, if you will, may become a bishop, and I a minister. In the mean time, let us make the best of our present circumstances; I as treasurer of the chamber, you as the idol of whatever is fair and learned at Paris. About the beginning of December I will be at London, ready to assist your operations if you will follow my advice. Yours," &c. MS. R.S.E. [241:1] It will be seen that the letter had arrived safely. [243:1] Minto MS. The remainder of the letter is wanting. [245:1] Minto MSS. On 19th October, Mr. Elliot writes,-- "I am too well acquainted with your friendly disposition to be at all surprised at the trouble you have so successfully taken about my boys. You will, however, allow me to admire your punctuality in sending me three letters all differently addressed. The short one for this place is the only one come to hand. I am impatient, on every account but what regards the establishment of the boys, for the long one sent to London. I act with implicit faith upon your short mandate; and if I could have entertained any doubt, the name of Madame Mirepoix, you very well know, was more than sufficient to remove it." On 6th November, he is able to say,-- "I have at length received all your letters; the one intrusted to Lord March, the other wrote on the supposition of its being lost, and a third dated October 9th. They all came on the same day, and so late as the 24th of October. The two boys and their tutor, Mr. Liston, are now, I presume, settled at Paris. They had a letter for you. I had luckily directed them, if they found nobody at the Hotel de Brancas, to inquire for a Pension opposite to the Maréchale de Mirepoix." (MS. R.S.E.) [251:1] Private Correspondence, p. 112, _et seq._