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been, if he returned to Sicily. The measure of the Irish fencibles was a bold attempt, but unhappily too palatable. I fear that will no more succeed than the scheme of ships from the English counties. It is a great misfortune to this administration, that the Irish people of late have felt themselves, and the greatest evil of all is, that they seem to know the Earl of Shelburne completely.
Seneca speaks of somebody who wrote a treatise upon the benefits a man may receive from his enemies. The writer alluded to by the philosopher, should have been a politician. It is the criterion of a minister to make use of his foes as well as his friends; and the noble Earl, whose cause I am endeavouring to vindicate, yields to no mortal in the full practice of this best of maxims. From his foes (the Northites) he got a principle, and from his friends (whom I shall call Foxites), he got a theatre to put this principle into action. The Foxites overturned the Northites, and the Earl of Shelburne became a minister in consequence. He had a sort of Ottoman virtue, and could bear no brother near the throne. He would be a Turk—nay, he would be a Christian to get power. He made it impossible for the Foxites to remain in the cabinet, and sent them to erect a fortress
