You know some good fellows among the
magistracy and council, but particularly you have much to say with a
reverend gentleman to whom you have the honour of being very nearly
related, and whom this country and age have had the honour to produce.
I need not name the historian of Charles V. I tell him through the
medium of his nephew's influence, that Mr. Clarke is a gentleman who
will not disgrace even his patronage. I know the merits of the cause
thoroughly, and say it, that my friend is falling a sacrifice to
prejudiced ignorance.
God help the children of dependence! Hated and persecuted by their
enemies, and too often, alas! almost unexceptionably, received by
their friends with disrespect and reproach, under the thin disguise of
cold civility and humiliating advice. O! to be a sturdy savage,
stalking in the pride of his independence, amid the solitary wilds of
his deserts; rather than in civilized life, helplessly to tremble for
a subsistence, precarious as the caprice of a fellow-creature! Every
man has his virtues, and no man is without his failings; and curse on
that privileged plain-dealing of friendship, which, in the hour of my
calamity, cannot reach forth the helping hand without at the same time
pointing out those failings, and apportioning them their share in
procuring my present distress.
Pages:
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265