794 LIFE GF COBDEN. [omar

1361. rely on your patting a stop to it. Whether such an ides
Ar. 87. ever occurred to a member of the Government I should
doubt. But kind and officious friends have suggested it. I
repeat, from whatever quarter it may be spoken of, I rely
on your representing my feelings and determination by preventing
 its being publicly advocated, or, if so, by declining
it in my name. It is bad enough to have neglected one’
affairs till I am obliged to see something of this sort done
privately for my family. But the two processes would be
intolerable,
“ Besides, if there were no other motive, I do not wish t¢
allow the Government to be my paymaster, for a totally dif
ferent reason. The conduct of the head of the Government
during my negotiations was so outrageously inconsistent, 80
insulting to myself in the position in which I was placed, 80
calculated to impede the work I had in hand, and to render
it almost impossible for the French Government to falfil it8
intentions, that, as I told Lord Cowley, if my heart had not
been in my work, I should have thrown up my powers and
gone home. I allude, of course, to Lord Palmerston’s
speech on the fortification scheme, and to his still worse
one, if possible, just before the close of Parliament. If I
bad done justice to myself, I should have put on public
record in a formal despatch my opinion of this conducts
which threw ridicule and mockery on my whole proceedings:
But I was restrained solely by a regard for the cause if
which I was engaged. I was afraid that the real motive was
to prevent my completing the work, end was cautious therefore
 not to give any good ground for quarrelling with m®
and recalling me,
“To form a fair judgment of this reckless levity and utter
want of dignity or decency on the part of the Prime Minister
just turn to the volumes of the Life of the first Lord Aunckland,
 who was sent by Pitt to negotiate the Commercial