These expeditious proceedings, says he, will convince Mr. James Harlowe that I am resolved to see the will completely executed; and yet, by my manner of doing it, that I desire not to give unnecessary mortification to the family, since every thing that relates to them shall pass through your hands.

LETTER XXXII

Mr. James Harlowe, to John Belford, Esq. 
Harlowe-place, Friday night, Sept. 15.

SIR,

I hope, from the character my worthy cousin Morden gives you, that you will excuse the application I make to you, to oblige a whole family in an affair that much concerns their peace, and cannot equally concern any body else.  You will immediately judge, Sir, that this is the executorship of which my sister has given you the trouble by her last will.

We shall all think ourselves extremely obliged to you, if you please to relinquish this trust to our own family; the reasons which follow pleading for our own expectation of this favour from you: 

First, because she never would have had the thought of troubling you, Sir, if she had believed any of her near relations would have taken it upon themselves.

Secondly, I understand that she recommends to you in the will to trust to the honour of any of our family, for the performance of such of the articles as are of a domestic nature.  We are, any of us, and all of us, if you request it, willing to stake our honours upon this occasion; and all you can desire, as a man of honour, is, that the trust be executed.

We are the more concerned, Sir, to wish you to decline this office, because of your short and accidental knowledge of the dear testatrix, and long and intimate acquaintance with the man to whom she owed her ruin, and we the greatest loss and disappointment (her manifold excellencies considered) that ever befell a family.

You will allow due weight, I dare say, to this plea, if you make our case your own; and so much the readier, when I assure you, that your interfering in this matter, so much against our inclinations, (excuse, Sir, my plain dealing,) will very probably occasion an opposition in some points, where otherwise there might be none.

What, therefore, I propose is, not that my father should assume this trust; he is too much afflicted to undertake it—­nor yet myself—­I might be thought too much concerned in interest; but that it might be allowed to devolve upon my two uncles; whose known honour, and whose affection to the dear deceased, nobody every doubted; and they will treat with you, Sir, through my cousin Morden, as to the points they will undertake to perform.

The trouble you have already had will well entitle you to the legacy she bequeaths you, together with the re-imbursement of all the charges you have been at, and allowance of the legacies you have discharged, although you should not have qualified yourself to act as an executor, as I presume you have not yet done, nor will now do.