the kingdom, particularly if I had put on a little demure sanctified
hypocrisy. I believe there is no other man in the world, besides myself,
but who would have been overwhelmed and driven from the field of
politics, by the incessant attacks--by the premeditated and infamous
slanders that have been poured out against me. And it is certainly a
fact--it is quite true, that nothing on earth could have enabled me to
keep my ground, but the purity of my intentions, and the conviction of
my heart, that the holy cause for which I have been contending, is just
and equitable; nor would any thing on earth induce me to persevere, but
the solemn conviction that it is the law of God and Nature, that man
should enjoy civil and religious freedom, and that no law of God or
Nature ever condemned a human being to be either a religious or a
political slave.

But now to return to my narrative. After this great change in my
domestic affairs, I made full as great a change in my course of life. I
immediately abolished all the accustomed carousals and feasts that I had
been in the habit of giving at Chisenbury-house. I continued the society
of a few select friends, but I cast off the busy, fluttering, flattering
throng--the fawning, cringing crew--that had been used to crowd my
table. I took a house in Bath, and spent the following winter in
comparative retirement, in which I was blessed with the society of two
or three rational and intelligent friends.

This being a period of peace, there was very little political news
afloat. The circumstance that most excited public attention at this
time, was the visit of Mr. Fox to Paris, where he was received by the
First Consul with every mark of regard and respect. Gracious God! that
Mr. Fox could but have lived to have known that this illustrious man
should first become Emperor of France, and now be imprisoned on a barren