1823. Feb 21

For the giving you honest advice I on my part am in as /my situation is at the same time as/ favorable as it is possible to imagine so favorable that a more favorable one can not be so much as imagined

With no one of you all have I ever either by word of mouth or by letter, directly or through the medium of any common friend or acquaintance had any sort of intercourse to me not one of you is or [..? ...? ...?] ever has been an object /a source/ either of fear or hope.

Whatsoever the source of this advice be thought or supposed to be, I claim not, on the score of the whole or any part of it any the least particle of praise. No self©denial /self©sacrifice/ in any shape has the giving of it required at my hands. [...? ...? ...? ...?] it may the object of it and effect of it if it has any may be to call for self©sacrifice for sacrifice of personal interest to public to an amount which lies not within the field of any calculation I can make nothing can be more easy than to make a call upon others for such sacrifice: for Kings nothing more difficult than to obey it.

After such observations as it has been in my way to make © on human nature taken in the aggregate © and on human nature placed in political situations in particular, my expectation of producing by this part of my advice any effect whatsoever © any expectation, of seeing a single needless or useless office struck off, or so much as a single atom of superfluous power from any office useful or useless struck off © can not be very sanguine. But to me it belongs to offer the advice to others if it be good advice to follow it.