There appears to me to be no device at present but between an absolute surrender of the liberties of the People and a vigorous exertion... My view of things is I own very gloomy, and I am convinced that in a few years this Government will become completely absolute, or that confusion will arise of a nature almost as much to be deprecated as despotism itself... This is a great Crisis.

Letter to Lord Holland (15 November 1795), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 140.