“To the usual occupations of hanging Mad Dogs, swearing Bastards, convicting Poachers, and such like country performances, has been added the amusement of Hunting, which I have resumed to the great benefit of my health, and the complete fugitation hope, of all critical Deposits in consequence of high
* Referring to the Indian appointments held respectively by the Marquess Wellesley and his brother Sir Arthur, and to the first Peninsular expedition of the latter. |
| 1806-08.] | MR. WHITBREAD UNBOSOMS HIMSELF. | 91 |
“You mix more with the World in general than I am enabled to do from particular circumstances, and I believe you have the good of the Country at Heart. I further believe that you are interested in my Reputation. I acknowledge that in the course of the last Session of Parliament, I may have dwelt too much and too often upon topicks which are not generally interesting, because they are not generally understood, and I am quite aware that I may have spoken both too often and too much; but you confirm the feeling I before had that the Result of my Parliamentary Campaign was not injurious to my Fame, and I have heard from friends and foes the agreeable Truth which on that score you repeat to me. I shall go to the House of Commons to the coming Session with feelings very different from those which I carried there last January. You know that I was then piqued. I was not certainly ambitious of being placed nominally at the Head of a Party in the House of Commons, and really to be the Slave of a Party in the House of Lords; but I had been ambitious of being thought the fit Person in all essentials to fill the vacant Place. By the Person who had [illegible] held it with so much Dignity and Reputation,* that Ambition had been disappointed. I had closed my Conference by saying—‘We shall all find our Level;’ and however unconscious of it at the time, I daresay I was actuated by a desire to show that my level, at least in the present generation, was not very low. If what you say be true, my
* Right Hon. George Ponsonby [1755-1817]. |
| 92 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. IV. |
“I am fully aware of the apathy of the Publick and of their indifference towards the proceedings of the House of Commons, and of their Distrust of all Publick Men; and I cannot but agree with you that poor Fox did overset the Publick opinion with regard to Statesmen. The last administration completed the job. Still, whilst I have a seat in Parliament, and can obtain a hearing, I cannot help proceeding as if I thought the World would give me credit for the Purity of my Motives. The tone you propose to me to adopt in the ensuing session I will certainly attend to with assiduity, and altho’ I think in every point, both internal and external, our situation is nearly as forlorn and hopeless as any that ever was imagined by the most gloomy Politician, I will endeavour to act as if the case were not desperate—as if the corrupted and corruptors would be brought to a sense of Duty, and to see the Necessity of Retrenchment and Reform.
“I have written a shameful deal about myself, but as your letter was expressly on that subject, you must pardon me: and as it is for you alone that I write, am not afraid of sarcastical animadversion. . . .”
