The National Register.
London, England, 1809-04-09 00:00:00

Si E.,4•::

Notwithstandinz public affairs are so far from being in a bet+
ter situation at present, that they are growing every day more
and more desperate, et I Could not satisfy myself with being
Aileut any longer ; and rather chase to send you an empty letter,
than not to send you any.—Jietmoth's Letters of Cicero.'

'1'() THE SIY MEN" OP LEADEN-ILILL.

GE VTI',II.VEN 1)IRIECT(111S.

Consistency is so admirable in all public persons, at all times
and noun ail occasions, that you must not wonder if I now
offer to you, astonishing as is your consistency, the tribute of my
humbl•ap plans?. Some minds, with a taste different from mine,
would aialiciously delight in depreciating your eminence of cha-
racter. Instead of consistency, they would brand your present
diziplay of public virtue, signalised as it is by reciprocal sympa-
thies, witb the epithet of confederation ; and thus deprive ylu
of the elevated consideration to which you are so conspicuously
and di.tintly entitled. It is my WlOl honestly to appreciate
your motives, and to render exemplary justice to your merits.
It is not for me, like plain John Brown, in his Essay on Satire, to
Point back to minds ingenuous, actions fair,
Till the sons blush at what their fathers were !
What indeed have 1, and such as I, to do with those fabled
ages

Ere yet 'twas quite a folly to be just ;
Ere yet 'twas beggary the great to trust :
Vice flutter'd in the plumes of freedom drest,
Or public spirit was--the publicjest ?
Past, if ever they were, are such fabled ages; and past, sap-
posing toey existed, the romantic individuals who then peopled
the nations of the earth ! New things, therefore, in this new
world. We live when affairs take a novel course; and, as my
friend Cicero wrote to his friend Varro, " what can I do better
you know, than prudently swim with the current of the times ?"
You appear determined, Gentlemen Directors ! nobly actin
upon the vulgar adage, to hang together. Even the salvation
of your entire body corporate, which seems at stake, cannot
imince you to part with one single member. What magnanimity
does your conduct thus exhibit—what constancy I. There still
is, and there always ought to be, if practicable in any way,
come honour, as they hold even of thieves, among all descrip-
tions of men. There is nothing like sticking to the last plank;
as drowning persons will, it is said, catch at twigs. It is re-
ally unpleasaut to relinquish official situations of any kind.
Jack Ketch himseli would take alarm at* the idea of being
ousted.

lias quite enough of defference been shown by you, Gentlemen
Directors !. to the implied opinion of the Select Committee of
the Imperial Commons; where they propose, very justly, " to
curtail 1/ic pal.ronage of those who," to say the least of it, are
proved to have been " not sufficiently watchful in the disposal
of it" daring their adminiit ration of your eyf tensise concerns?
"The uopleasant duty of increased vigilance is not," it seems, as
the same Rept-rt says, now "likely to

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