I had then already sat five years in the House of
Commons. I had assisted humbly in the emancipation of the Roman
Catholics, and have learned by the legislative troubles of just
half a century that those whom we then invited to sit with us in
Parliament have been in all things our worst enemies. But what
then? had we benefited only those who love us, would not the
sinners also,--or even the Tories,--have done as much as that?
'But such memories are of no avail now. I write to say that after
so much of active political life, I will at last retire. My
friends when they see me inspecting a pigsty or picking a peach
are apt to remind me that I can still stand on my legs, and with
more of compliment than of kindness will argue therefore that I
ought still to undertake active duties in Parliament. I can select
my own hours for pigs and peaches, and should I, through the
dotage of age, make mistakes as to the breeding of one or the
flavour of the other, the harm done will not go far. In politics I
have done my work. What you and others in the arena do will
interest me more than all other things in this world, I think and
hope, to my dying day.
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