put him in quiet
possession of his estate, and with the same generous spirit you have
begun it complete the good work. If you persist in the bad measures you
are now in, what must become of the three poor orphans! My heart bleeds
for the poor girls.

JOHN BULL.--You are all very eloquent persons, but give me leave to tell
you you express a great deal more concern for the three girls than for
me. I think my interest ought to be considered in the first place. As
for you, Hocus, I can't but say you have managed my lawsuit with great
address and much to my honour, and, though I say it, you have been well
paid for it. Why must the burden be taken off Frog's back and laid upon
my shoulders? He can drive about his own parks and fields in his gilt
chariot, when I have been forced to mortgage my estate; his note will
go farther than my bond. Is it not matter of fact, that from the richest
tradesman in all the country, I am reduced to beg and borrow from
scriveners and usurers that suck the heart, blood, and guts out of me,
and what is all this for! Did you like Frog's countenance better than
mine? Was not I your old friend and relation? Have I not presented you
nobly? Have I not clad your whole family? Have you not had a hundred
yards at a time of the finest cloth in my shop? Why must the rest of the
tradesmen be not only indemnified from charges, but forbid to go on
with their own business, and what is more their concern than mine? As to
holding out this term I appeal to your own conscience, has not that been
your constant discourse these six years, "One term more and old Lewis
goes to pot?" If thou art so fond of my cause be generous for once, and
lend me a brace of thousands. Ah, Hocus! Hocus! I know thee: not a sous
to save me from jail, I trow. Look ye, gentlemen, I have lived with
credit in the world, and it grieves my heart never to stir out of my
doors but to be pulled by the sleeve by some rascally dun or other.
"Sir, remember my bill. There's a small concern of a thousand pounds; I
hope you think on't, sir." And to have these usurers transact my debts
at coffee-houses and ale-houses, as if I were going to break up shop.
Lord! that ever the rich, the generous John Bull, clothier, the envy
of all his neighbours, should be brought to compound his debts for five
shillings in the pound, and to have his name in an advertisement for
a statute of bankrupt. The thought of it makes me mad. I have read
somewhere in the Apocrypha