Indeed we are a good deal in commotion ourselves. For me, I
am a placeman, you know; a very humble one indeed, Heaven knows, but
still so much as to gag me. What my private sentiments are, you will
find out without an interpreter.
* * * * *
I have taken up the subject, and the other day, for a pretty actress's
benefit night, I wrote an address, which I will give on the other
page, called "The rights of woman:"
"While Europe's eye is fixed on mighty things."
I shall have the honour of receiving your criticisms in person at
Dunlop.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXLIII.
TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ.,
FINTRAY.
[Graham stood by the bard in the hour of peril recorded in this
letter: and the Board of Excise had the generosity to permit him to
eat its "bitter bread" for the remainder of his life.]
_December, 1792._
SIR,
I have been surprised, confounded, and distracted by Mr. Mitchell, the
collector, telling me that he has received an order from your Board to
inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person
disaffected to government.
Sir, you are a husband--and a father.--You know what you would feel,
to see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and your helpless, prattling
little ones, turned adrift into the world, degraded and disgraced from
a situation in which they had been respectable and respected, and left
almost without the necessary support of a miserable existence.
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