The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI | Page 5

REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.
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Letter from Lord Auckland to the Right Honorable Edmund Burke.
EDEN FARM, KENT, October 28th, 1795.
My dear Sir,--

Though in the stormy ocean of the last twenty-three years we have
seldom sailed on the same tack, there has been nothing hostile in our
signals or manoeuvres, and, on my part at least, there has been a cordial
disposition towards friendly and respectful sentiments. Under that
influence, I now send to you a small work which exhibits my fair and
full opinions on the arduous circumstances of the moment, "as far as
the cautions necessary to be observed will permit me to go beyond
general ideas."
Three or four of those friends with whom I am most connected in
public and private life are pleased to think that the statement in
question (which at first made part of a confidential paper) may do good,
and accordingly a very large impression will be published to-day. I
neither seek to avow the publication nor do I wish to disavow it. I have
no anxiety in that respect, but to contribute my mite to do service, at a
moment when service is much wanted.
I am, my dear Sir,
Most sincerely yours,
AUCKLAND.
RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE.
* * * * *
Letter from the Right Honorable Edmund Burke to Lord Auckland.
My dear Lord,--
I am perfectly sensible of the very flattering honor you have done me in
turning any part of your attention towards a dejected old man, buried in
the anticipated grave of a feeble old age, forgetting and forgotten in an
obscure and melancholy retreat.
In this retreat I have nothing relative to this world to do, but to study all
the tranquillity that in the state of my mind I am capable of. To that end

I find it but too necessary to call to my aid an oblivion of most of the
circumstances, pleasant and unpleasant, of my life,--to think as little
and indeed to know as little as I can of everything that is doing about
me,--and, above all, to divert my mind from all presagings and
prognostications of what I must (if I let my speculations loose) consider
as of absolute necessity to happen after my death, and possibly even
before it. Your address to the public, which you have been so good as
to send to me, obliges me to break in upon that plan, and to look a little
on what is behind, and very much on what is before me. It creates in
my mind a variety of thoughts, and all of them unpleasant.
It is true, my Lord, what you say, that, through our public life, we have
generally sailed on somewhat different tacks. We have so, undoubtedly;
and we should do so still, if I had continued longer to keep the sea. In
that difference, you rightly observe that I have always done justice to
your skill and ability as a navigator, and to your good intentions
towards the safety of the cargo and of the ship's company. I cannot say
now that we are on different tacks. There would be no propriety in the
metaphor. I can sail no longer. My vessel cannot be said to be even in
port. She is wholly condemned and broken up. To have an idea of that
vessel, you must call to mind what you have often seen on the Kentish
road. Those planks of tough and hardy oak, that used for years to brave
the buffets of the Bay of Biscay, are now turned, with their warped
grain and empty trunnion-holes, into very wretched pales for the
inclosure of a wretched farm-yard.
The style of your pamphlet, and the eloquence and power of
composition you display in it, are such as do great honor to your talents,
and in conveying any other sentiments would give me very great
pleasure. Perhaps I do not very perfectly comprehend your purpose,
and the drift of your arguments. If I do not, pray do not attribute my
mistake to want of candor, but to want of sagacity. I confess, your
address to the public, together with other accompanying circumstances,
has filled me with a degree of grief and dismay which I cannot find
words to express. If the plan of politics there recommended--pray
excuse my freedom--should be adopted by the king's councils, and by
the good people of this kingdom, (as, so recommended, undoubtedly it

will,) nothing can be the consequence but utter and irretrievable ruin to
the ministry, to the crown, to the succession,--to the importance, to the
independence, to the very existence, of this country. This is my feeble,
perhaps, but clear, positive, decided, long and maturely reflected and
frequently declared opinion, from which all the