1822 April

Rid Yourselves

4

Lett. 15 Relinquishment honorable

This was your first harvest: the other was not long behind. From you it was that all

these countries received the faculty of choosing their own laws: from you it was they

received that branch of law - the Constitutional - which contains in its bosom all

the others. Mistake me not my friends. It is not of the work itself that I am

speaking here: of that I have spoken elsewhere. It is not of the work, but of its

effects on the reputation of H

These glories which you have thus reaped already from all these nations - not to

speak of those other nations that have burned and still burn to follow them - these

glories have not cost you any thing. How much more valuable to you would be this,

which with such ardent longing I desire to see you reap from your Ultramaria! not

only as I have so plainly shewn you - not only would it cost you nothing, but it

would save you, as I have also shewn you, from an unfathomable abyss of expence.

Tarnish not, then, my friends - tarnish not all this glory by suffering your rulers

to exemplify in their conduct any longer that disgraceful compound which it has been

so painfully necessary for me to keep holding up to your view - the compound

comprised of frantic concupisence and prostrate impotence.

Think, whether, if they still continue to provoke and harass those whom they can not

master. - think whether they will not make the breach - day by day wider and wider -

the breach between you and these your kinsmen whom nature, if unthwarted by blind

ambition would have numbered among the most constant of your friends. Think, whether

at this rate, in every line of conduct rate instead of placing themselves as near to

you it will not every day be more and more determinately their object to keep

themselves at as great a distance from you as possible.

H the workmen and their fellow countrymen that I am speaking

here.