to which my best friend had subjected himself, have, for their principal excuse, that the gentleman was entirely independent, had no questions to ask, and had a fortune sufficient to make himself, as well as the person he chose, happy, though she brought him nothing at all; and that he had, moreover, such a character for good sense, and knowledge of the world, that nobody could impute to him any other inducement, but that of a noble resolution to reward a virtue he had so frequently, and, I will say, so wickedly, tried, and could not subdue.

My dear Miss, let me, as a subject very pleasing to me, touch upon your kind mention of the worthy Mr. Peters’s sentiments to that part of his conduct to me, which (oppressed by the terrors and apprehensions to which I was subjected) once I censured; and the readier, as I had so great an honour for his cloth, that I thought, to be a clergyman, and all that was compassionate, good, and virtuous, was the same thing.

But when I came to know Mr. Peters, I had a high opinion of his worthiness, and as no one can be perfect in this life, thus I thought to myself:  How hard was then my lot, to be the cause of stumbling to so worthy a heart.  To be sure, a gentleman, one who knows, and practises so well, his duty, in every other instance, and preaches it so efficaciously to others, must have been one day sensible, that it would not have mis-become his function and character to have afforded that protection to oppressed innocence, which was requested of him:  and how would it have grieved his considerate mind, had my ruin been completed, that he did not!

But as he had once a namesake, as one may say, that failed in a much greater instance, let not my want of charity exceed his fault; but let me look upon it as an infirmity, to which the most perfect are liable; I was a stranger to him; a servant girl carried off by her master, a young gentleman of violent and lawless passions, who, in this very instance, shewed how much in earnest he was set upon effecting all his vile purposes; and whose heart, although God might touch, it was not probable any lesser influence could.  Then he was not sure, that, though he might assist my escape, I might not afterwards fall again into the hands of so determined a violator:  and that difficulty would not, with such an one, enhance his resolution to overcome all obstacles.

Moreover, he might think, that the person, who was moving him to this worthy measure, possibly sought to gratify a view of his own, and that while endeavouring to save, to outward appearance, a virtue in danger, he was, in reality, only helping another to a wife, at the hazard of exposing himself to the vindictiveness of a violent temper, and a rich neighbour, who had power as well as will to resent; for such was his apprehension, entirely groundless as it was, though not improbable, as it might seem to him.

For all these considerations, I must pity, rather than too rigorously censure, the worthy gentleman, and I will always respect him.  And thank him a thousand times, my dear, in my name, for his goodness in condescending to acknowledge, by your hand, his infirmity, as such; for this gives an excellent proof of the natural worthiness of his heart; and that it is beneath him to seek to extenuate a fault, when he thinks he has committed one.