1. Regard to the public good displaying itself in a fair and difinterested examination of every circumftance of the cafe, will determine a confcientious Minifter with respect to the duration of his continuance in office. Exempt from perfonal views, unbiaffed by folicitude for the aggrandizement of his family and friends, he will never feek to retain his post by ungenerous acts and difgraceful compliances; nor refort to finifter means of rendering his affiftance neceffary to his Sovereign, or to his colleagues. Nor, on the other hand, will he relinquish his ftation, from a dread of the odium or responsibility attached to measures in which he has acquiefced. He will not abandon a declining Miniftry with a view to returning into office, after a fhort interval, with the prevailing party. Neither will he feek, by refigning, or by threatening to refign, to embarrass the proceedings of the Cabinet, through personal animofity towards some of its principal members. He will not feel himfelf at liberty to co-operate with an Adminiftration whose fundamental fyftem of policy he difapproves, whofe most important measures he is unable to fupport. He will not remain an inefficient fpectator of the progress of plans

in

in the formation of which he is not allowed an influence proportioned to his responsibility. He will not force his fervices on the public by the strength of his coadjutors and connections, if he perceives that, however generally his Fellow-minifters may be approved, he is himself unsupported by the confidence of the People. While his judgement and his confcience give their concurrence to the leading principles and proceedings of the other executive Minifters of the Crown, he will by no means think that differences of opinion on inferior points indifpenfably require him to fecede. Nor will he deem himself neceffarily obliged to retire by a parliamentary defeat, not even if it relates to a measure ftrictly minifterial, while on the whole he feels himself strong in national approbation. In many cafes a feceffion on either of these grounds would be altogether unwarrantable. It might effect the dif folution of a Ministry, liable indeed to human error in particular inftances, yet eminent above their competitors in uprightness and wisdom; difcredited, it may be, by an occafional unpopular plan, but regarded by the country at large as the fheet anchor of its hopes. It might open the doors of office to ignorant, faithlefs,

and

and rapacious partifans; who, before they could be expelled, might overthrow the wifeft inftitutions of their predeceffors; might lay the foundations of their own future power by Acts of Parliament. fpecially directed to that end, and by lavishing public money grants and reverfions; or might even endeavour to fecure the permanence of their present authority by involving the Nation in foreign and domeftic broils.

A wife and confcientious man will not endanger his character by continuing to bear a part in an Administration, which labours under a general ftigma of corruption or imbecility; unless he be able to rescue himself from the charge, and to preferve that confidence and efteem of the community, which are alike effential to the fuccefs of his prefent and future exertions in its fervice. Yet he will not on the other hand be fuch a niggard of his fame, as to be unwilling to fubmit to the risk of fome temporary odium; of fome fpecious imputations, even, it may be, on the moral rectitude, as well as on the wisdom of his conduct; if by that risk he can purchase the fuccefs of fome momentous undertaking, and convert personal uneafiness

uneafiness into a fource of happiness to his country.

He will not deem the care of his health and private concerns an excufe for any degree of remiffness in attending to the duties of his ftation, unless fuch remiffness was allowed by competent authority previoufly to his acceptance of the office, or as fpeedily afterwards as it took place; and adequate provisions were adopted to prevent any injury refulting on the whole from it to the public fervice. But if those provifions failed to answer the end propofed, he will feel it his duty to devise an effectual remedy, or immediately to refign his poft. It is poffible in particular emergences that the public fervice may inevitably sustain some degree of detriment by his continuance in office, and yet a less than it would receive from his refigning at the moment. In that cafe, if clearly recognized by the proper judges, he may confcientiously retain his fituation while the emergency fubfifts.

When he is once perfuaded, on balancing the arguments on both fides, that duty fummons him to retire, he will obey the call with

alacrity

alacrity and cheerfulness; and will not cling to his office with that stubborn pertinacity, which argues a man unworthy to hold what he fhews himself fo reluctant to quit.

2. When divefted of his employment, whether he withdraws from the bufy world into the shade of privacy, or continues to serve his country as a Member of Parliament; he will arm his breast against the ftings of unfuccefsful ambition; and purify it from every emotion of bitterness and refentment against those who occafioned or who have profited by his fall. If he continues to act his part on the political ftage, he will be on his guard against the bias of a fecret hankering after emolument and power, usually predominant in those who have once been in poffeffion of high official fituations, and the most predominant in those who have occupied them for the longest time. He will not frame his parliamentary conduct with an infidious view to regain the eminence from which he has been caft down; he will not feek popularity by difingenuous artifices; he will not hoist a standard to collect the difcontented, nor prefent himself as a leader to the factious. He will fupport, from his heart,

every