that, after the example of Newcastle, they may be suffered to arm vessels for their own defence in the Channel.  Their memorial, under the seal of Merchants’ Hall, is now lying on the table before me.  Not a soul has the least sensibility, on finding themselves, now for the first time, obliged to act as if the community were dissolved, and, after enormous payments towards the common protection, each part was to defend itself, as if it were a separate state.

I don’t mention Bristol as if that were the part furthest gone in this mortification.  Far from it:  I know that there is, rather, a little more life in us than in any other place.  In Liverpool they are literally almost ruined by this American war; but they love it as they suffer from it.  In short, from whatever I see, and from whatever quarter I hear, I am convinced that everything that is not absolute stagnation is evidently a party-spirit very adverse to our politics, and to the principles from whence they arise.  There are manifest marks of the resurrection of the Tory party.  They no longer criticize, as all disengaged people in the world will, on the acts of government; but they are silent under every evil, and hide and cover up every ministerial blander and misfortune, with the officious zeal of men who think they have a party of their own to support in power.  The Tories do universally think their power and consequence involved in the success of this American business.  The clergy are astonishingly warm in it; and what the Tories are, when embodied and united with their natural head, the crown, and animated by their clergy, no man knows better than yourself.  As to the Whigs, I think them far from extinct.  They are, what they always were, (except by the able use of opportunities,) by far the weakest party in this country.  They have not yet learned the application of their principles to the present state of things; and as to the Dissenters, the main effective part of the Whig strength, they are, to use a favorite expression of our American campaign style, “not all in force.”  They will do very little, and, as far as I can discern, are rather intimidated than provoked at the denunciations of the court in the Archbishop of York’s sermon.  I thought that sermon rather imprudent, when I first saw it; but it seems to have done its business.

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