for, in truth, there is no reason whatsoever, less than the frowns of your master, that could justify a man of spirit for abandoning his post at a moment so critical and important. It is in vain to evade the question: if you will not speak out, the public have a right to judge from appearances. We are authorised to conclude, that you either differed from your colleagues, whose measures you still affect to defend, or that you thought the administration of the King's affairs no longer tenable. You are at liberty to choose between the hypocrite and the coward. Your best friends are in doubt which way they shall incline. Your country unites the characters, and gives you credit for them both. For my own part, I see nothing inconsistent in your conduct. You began with betraying the people,—you conclude with betraying the King.
In your treatment of particular persons, you have preserved the uniformity of your character. Even Mr. Bradshaw declares, that no man was ever so ill used as himself. As to the provision[1] you have made for his family,
- ↑ A pension of 1500l. per annum, insured upon the 4 1-half per cents. (he was too cunning to trust to Irish security) for the lives of himself and his sons. This gentleman, who, a very few years ago, was contractor for forage, and afterwards exalted to a petty post in the war office, thought it necessary (as soon as he was appointed Secretary to the Treasury) to take that great house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, in which the Earl of Northington had resided, while he was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. As to the pension, Lord North very solemnly assured the House of Commons, that no pension was ever so well deserved as Mr. Bradshaw's.—N. B. Lord Camden and Sir Jeffery Amherst are not near so well provided for: and Sir Edward Hawke, who saved the state, retires with two thousand pounds a year on the Irish establishment, from which he, in fact, receives less than Mr. Bradshaw's pension.
