Reflect, Sir, that I can have no other motive, in what I write, than your good, and the safety of other innocent creatures, who may be drawn in by your wicked arts and perjuries.  You have not, in my wishes for future welfare, the wishes of a suppliant wife, endeavouring for her own sake, as well as for your’s, to induce you to reform those ways.  They are wholly as disinterested as undeserved.  But I should mistrust my own penitence, were I capable of wishing to recompense evil for evil—­if, black as your offences have been against me, I could not forgive, as I wish to be forgiven.

I repeat, therefore, that I do forgive you.  And may the Almighty forgive you too!  Nor have I, at the writing of this, any other essential regrets than what are occasioned by the grief I have given to parents, who, till I knew you, were the most indulgent of parents; by the scandal given to the other branches of my family; by the disreputation brought upon my sex; and by the offence given to virtue in my fall.

As to myself, you have only robbed me of what once were my favourite expectations in the transient life I shall have quitted when you receive this.  You have only been the cause that I have been cut off in the bloom of youth, and of curtailing a life that might have been agreeable to myself, or otherwise, as had reason to be thankful for being taken away from the evil of supporting my part of a yoke with a man so unhappy; I will only say, that, in all probability, every hour I had lived with him might have brought with it some new trouble.  And I am (indeed through sharp afflictions and distresses) indebted to you, secondarily, as I humbly presume to hope, for so many years of glory, as might have proved years of danger, temptation, and anguish, had they been added to my mortal life.

So, Sir, though no thanks to your intention, you have done me real service; and, in return, I wish you happy.  But such has been your life hitherto, that you can have no time to lose in setting about your repentance.  Repentance to such as have lived only carelessly, and in the omission of their regular duties, and who never aimed to draw any poor creatures into evil, is not so easy a task, nor so much in our own power, as some imagine.  How difficult a grace then to be obtained, where the guilt is premeditated, wilful, and complicated!

To say I once respected you with a preference, is what I ought to blush to own, since, at the very time, I was far from thinking you even a mortal man; though I little thought that you, or indeed any man breathing, could be—­what you have proved yourself to be.  But, indeed, Sir, I have long been greatly above you; for from my heart I have despised you, and all your ways, ever since I saw what manner of man you were.

Nor is it to be wondered that I should be able so to do, when that preference was not grounded on ignoble motives.  For I was weak enough, and presumptuous enough, to hope to be a mean, in the hand of Providence, to reclaim a man whom I thought worthy of the attempt.