l his friends, telling them the whole
story from beginning to end. I must be allowed a quotation from one of
these letters, for this really is not so frivolous a matter as I am
afraid I have made it appear--a quotation of which this much may be said,
that nothing more delightfully Burkean is to be found anywhere:--

'MY DEAR MASON,--

'I am hardly able to tell you how much satisfaction I had in your
letter. Your approbation of my conduct makes me believe much the
better of you and myself; and I assure you that that approbation came
to me very seasonably. Such proofs of a warm, sincere, and
disinterested friendship were not wholly unnecessary to my support at
a time when I experienced such bitter effects of the perfidy and
ingratitude of much longer and much closer connections. The way in
which you take up my affairs binds me to you in a manner I cannot
express; for, to tell you the truth, I never can (knowing as I do the
principles upon which I always endeavour to act) submit to any sort of
compromise of my character; and I shall never, therefore, look upon
those who, after hearing the whole story, do not think me _perfectly_
in the right, and do not consider Hamilton an infamous scoundrel, to
be in the smallest degree my friends, or even to be persons for whom I
am bound to have the slightest esteem, as fair and just estimators of
the characters and conduct of men. Situated as I am, and feeling as I
do, I should be just as well pleased that they totally condemned me as
that they should say there were faults on both sides, or that it was a
disputable case, as I hear is (I cannot forbear saying) the affected
language of some persons. . . . You cannot avoid remarking, my dear
Mason, and I hope not without some indignation, the unparalleled
singularity of my situation. Was ever a man before me expected to
enter into formal, direct, and undisguised slavery? Did ever man
before him confess an attempt to decoy a man into such an alleged
contract, not to say anything of the impudence of regularly pleading
it? If such an attempt be wicked and unlawful (and I am sure no one
ever doubted it), I have only to confess his charge, and to admit
myself his dupe, to make him pass, on his own showing, for the most
consummate villain that ever lived. The only difference between us
is, not whether he is not a rogue--for he not only admits