Copy of a letter : "Downing Street"[London], to George Canning, 1809 Aug. 31.

Thanking him for the frankness of his last letter; agreeing with him that a new Prime Minister should come from the House of Commons and that he "never disguised from myself or from any one that, if that minister in the House of Commons was to be looked for amongst the members of the present Government, it would be pretty generally agreed that it should be one of us two - I always thought it actually out of the question to suppose that you would acquiesce in the choice falling on me;" discussing the complications that would arise personally and professionally for each of them; adding "This much I can say at the moment, that it will be a very painful consideration, and one that I will yield to with the greatest reluctance, to think that any private feelings of mine should stand in the way of an arrangement which might otherwise preserve to the King his present Servants."