After having done[271] what the world knows I have done, to try to retrieve the affairs of my family, and to save my nephew from ruin, I can have little hopes that any interposition of mine will tend to an end I wish so much. I cannot even flatter myself with having the least weight with my Lord Orford. In the present case I can still less indulge myself in any such hopes. You remember in the case of the St. Michael election, how hardly he used me on your account. I know how much he resented last year his thinking you concerned in the contest about the borough[272] where he set up Mr. Thomas Walpole; and, as he has not even now deigned to answer Mr. Boone’s letter,[273] I can little expect that he will behave with more politeness to me. Yet, I think it so much my duty to lay before him anything for his advantage, and what is by no means incompatible with his honour, that I will certainly acquaint him immediately with the offer you are so good as to make him.
You see I write to you with my usual frankness and sincerity; and you will, I am sure, be so good as to keep to yourself the freedom with which I mention very nice family affairs. You must excuse me if I add one word more on myself. My wish is, that Lord Orford should accept this offer; yet, I tell you truly, I shall state it to him plainly and simply, without giving any advice, not only for the reasons I have expressed above, but because I do not mean to be involved in this affair any otherwise than as a messenger. A man, who is so scrupulous as not to accept any obligation for himself, cannot be allowed to accept one for another without thinking himself bound in gratitude as much as if done to himself. The very little share I ever mean to take more in public affairs shall and must be dictated by disinterested motives. I have no one virtue to support me but that disinterestedness; and, if I act with you, no man living shall have it to say that it was not by choice and by principle.
I am, dear sir, Your sincere humble servant, HORACE WALPOLE.
There were truths enough to displease, and they did not escape Fox. The consequence to me was, that by his influence with Martin, Secretary of the Treasury, my payments were stopped for some months, nor made but on my writing to Lord Bute himself; which, as, notwithstanding this persecution, I would take no part with the administration, proved that the delay had not flowed from the minister himself, but from his associate, my good friend: nor did it stop there. In the meantime I had written thus to Lord Orford:--