him on their own terms, they are labouring to do it without any terms; that is, to speak properly, they are ready to receive him on his.  Be not deceived:  there is not a man on this side of the water who acts in any other manner.  The Church of England Jacobite and the Irish Papist seem in every respect to have the same cause.  Those on your side of the water who correspond with these are to be comprehended in the same class; and from hence it is that the clamour raised against me has been kept up with so much industry, and is redoubled on the least appearance of my return home, and of my being in a situation to justify myself.

You have seen already what reasons the Pretender, and the several sorts of people who compose his party here, had to get rid of me, and to cover me to the utmost of their power with infamy.  Their views were as short in this case as they are in all others.  They did not see at first that this conduct would not only give me a right, but put me under a necessity of keeping no farther measures with them, and of laying the whole mystery of their iniquity open.  As soon as they discovered this, they took the only course which was left them—­that of poisoning the minds of the Tories, and of creating such prejudices against me whilst I remained in a condition of not speaking for myself, as will they hope prevent the effect of whatever I may say when I am in a condition of pleading my own cause.  The bare apprehension that I shall show the world that I have been guilty of no crime renders me criminal among these men; and they hold themselves ready, being unable to reply either in point of fact or in point of reason, to drown my voice in the confusion of their clamour.

The only crimes I am guilty of, I own.  I own the crime of having been for the Pretender in a very different manner from those with whom I acted.  I served him as faithfully, I served him as well as they; but I served him on a different principle.  I own the crime of having renounced him, and of being resolved never to have to do with him as long as I live.  I own the crime of being determined sooner or later, as soon as I can, to clear myself of all the unjust aspersions which have been cast upon me; to undeceive by my experience as many as I can of those Tories who may have been drawn into error; and to contribute, if ever I return home, as far as I am able, to promote the national good of Britain without any other regard.  These crimes do not, I hope, by this time appear to you to be of a very black dye.  You may come, perhaps, to think them virtues, when you have read and considered what remains to be said; for before I conclude, it is necessary that I open one matter to you which I could not weave in sooner without breaking too much the thread of my narration.  In this place, unmingled with anything else, it will have, as it deserves to have, your whole attention.