Chapter CXXXIV: Letter CXXXII: To Mrs. H

Charles Street, May 20, 1780.

DEAR MADAM,

YOUR goodness is never tired with action!--How many, very many times have I to thank you, for your friendly interesting yourself in our behalf!--You will say thanks are irksome to a generous mind--so I have done--but must first ask pardon for a sin of omission.--I never sent you word that your good son, as friendly as polite, paid me the note directly, and would not suffer it to run its sight:--they that know Sir Jacob will not wonder; for he is a Christian, which means, in my idea, a gentleman not of the modern sort.--Trade is at so low an ebb, the greatest are glad to see ready money:--in truth, we are a ruined people--let hirelings affect to write and talk as big as they please! and, what is worse, religion and morality are vanished with our prosperity--every good principle seems to be leaving us:--as our means lessen, luxury and every sort of expensive pleasure increases.--The blessed Sabbath-day is used by the trader for country excursions--tavern dinners--rural walks--and then whipping and galloping through dust and over turnpikes drunk home.--The poorer sort do any thing--but go to church;--they take their dust in the field, and conclude the sacred evening with riots, drunkenness, and empty pockets:--the beau in upper life hires his whisky and beast for twelve shillings; his girl dressed _en militaire_ for half a guinea, and spends his whole week’s earnings to look and be thought _quite the thing_.--And for upper tiptop high life--cards and music are called in, to dissipate the chagrin of a tiresome, tedious Sunday’s evening.--The example spreads downwards from them to their domestics;--the laced valet and the livery beau either debauch the maids, or keep their girls:--thus profusion and cursed dissipation fill the prisons, and feed the gallows.--The clergy--hush! I will not meddle with them--God forbid I should!--they are pretty much the same in all places;--but this I will affirm, where-ever a preacher is in earnest in his duty, and can _preach_, he will not want for crouded congregations.--As to our politics--now don’t laugh at me--for every one has a right to be a politician; so have I; and though only a poor, thick-lipped son of Afric! may be as notable a Negro state-botcher as * * * * *, and so on for five hundred:--I do not mean B--e, S--le, B--é, nor D--n--g. Mind that----no, nor N--th, G--m--e, J--k--n, nor W--dd--ne, names that will shine in history when the marble monuments of their earthly flatterers shall be mouldering into dust.--I have wrote absolute nonsense--I mean the monuments of N--th, G--m--e, &c. and not of their flatterers--but it is right I should give you an apology for this foolish letter.--Know then, my dear Madam, I have been seriously and literally fast asleep for these two months;--true, upon the word of a poor sufferer, a kind of lethargy.--I can sleep standing, walking, and feel so intolerably heavy, and oppressed with it, that sometimes I am ready to tumble when walking in the street.--I am exceeding sorry to hear Mr. H---- is so poorly--and hope, through God’s mercy, the waters will have the wished effect. For my own part, I feel myself ten years older this year than the last.--Time tries us all--but, blessed be God! in the end we shall be an over-match for Time, and leave him, scythe and all, in the lurch--when we shall all enjoy a blessed Eternity.--In this view, and under the same hope, we are as great, yea, as respectable and consequential--as Statesmen! Bishops! Chancellors! Popes! Heroes! Kings! Actors of every denomination--who must all drop the mask--when the fated minute arrives--and, alas! some of the very high be obliged to give place to Mr. and Mrs. H----. May you and yours enjoy every felicity here! every blessing hereafter! wish thy much obliged friends!

The +SANCHOS+.