principles nor exertions will die with me. I am the rather confirmed in
this my resolution, and in this my wish of transmitting it, because
every ray of hope concerning a possible control or mitigation of the
enormous mischiefs which the principles of these gentlemen, and which
their connections, full as dangerous as their principles, might receive
from the influence of the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam, on
becoming their colleagues in office, is now entirely banished from the
mind of every one living. It is apparent, even to the world at large,
that, so far from having a power to direct or to guide Mr. Fox, Mr.
Sheridan, Mr. Grey, and the rest, in any important matter, they have
not, through this session, been able to prevail on them to forbear, or
to delay, or mitigate, or soften, any one act, or any one expression,
upon subjects on which they essentially differed.

50. Even if this hope of a possible control did exist, yet the declared
opinions, and the uniform line of conduct conformable to those opinions,
pursued by Mr. Fox, must become a matter of serious alarm, if he should
obtain a power either at court or in Parliament or in the nation at
large, and for this plain reason: he must be the most active and
efficient member in any administration of which he shall form a part.
That a man, or set of men, are guided by such not dubious, but delivered
and avowed principles and maxims of policy, as to need a watch and check
on them in the exercise of the highest power, ought, in my opinion, to
make every man, who is not of the same principles and guided by the
same maxims, a little cautious how he makes himself one of the
traverses of a ladder to help such a man, or such a set of men, to climb
up to the highest authority. A minister of this country is to be
controlled by the House of Commons. He is to be trusted, not
_controlled_, by his colleagues in office: if he were to be controlled,
government, which ought to be the source of order, would itself become a