When, however, the ministry found themselves in a minority, and that a spirit of general opposition was rising in the country, a member of the House, who had been long practised in parliamentary intrigues, had the audacity to tell Lord Castlereagh from his place, that "if he did not employ the usual means of persuasion on the members of the House, he would fail in his attempt, and that the sooner he set about it the better." 'This advice was followed; and it is well known what benches were filled with the proselytes that had been made by the convincing arguments which had obtained a majority.
'He went in the spring of 1799 to England, and visited his old friends, Mr.Keir, Mr.Watt, Dr.Darwin, and Mr.William Strutt of Derby.

In passing through different parts of the country he saw, and delighted in showing us, everything curious and interesting in art and nature.

Travelling, he used to say, was from time to time necessary, to change the course of ideas, and to prevent the growth of local prejudices.
'He went to London, and paid his respects to his friend Sir Joseph Banks, attended the meetings of the Royal Society, and met various old acquaintances whom he had formerly known abroad.' Maria writes:--'In his own account of his earlier life he has never failed to mark the time and manner of the commencement of valuable friendships with the same care and vividness of recollection With which some men mark the date of their obtaining promotion, places, or titles.

I follow the example he has set me.
'My father's and Mrs.Edgeworth's families were both numerous, and among such numbers, even granting the dispositions to be excellent and the understandings cultivated, the chances were against their suiting; but, happily, all the individuals of the two families, though of various talents, ages, and characters, did, from their first acquaintance, coalesce.

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