rse of gold, ordered me to
bespeak a rich suit at the mercer's, and to apply privately to him for
money when I wanted it, and insinuate that my other friends supplied me,
which he would take care to confirm.

By this stratagem, which I did not then understand, he filled me with
tenderness and gratitude, compelled me to repose on him as my only
support, and produced a necessity of private conversation. He often
appointed interviews at the house of an acquaintance, and sometimes
called on me with a coach, and carried me abroad. My sense of his
favour, and the desire of retaining it, disposed me to unlimited
complaisance, and, though I saw his kindness grow every day more fond, I
did not suffer any suspicion to enter my thoughts. At last the wretch
took advantage of the familiarity which he enjoyed as my relation, and
the submission which he exacted as my benefactor, to complete the ruin
of an orphan, whom his own promises had made indigent, whom his
indulgence had melted, and his authority subdued.

I know not why it should afford subject of exultation to overpower on
any terms the resolution, or surprise the caution of a girl; but of all
the boasters that deck themselves in the spoils of innocence and beauty,
they surely have the least pretensions to triumph, who submit to owe
their success to some casual influence. They neither employ the graces
of fancy, nor the force of understanding, in their attempts; they cannot
please their vanity with the art of their approaches, the delicacy of
their adulations, the elegance of their address, or the efficacy of
their eloquence; nor applaud themselves as possessed of any qualities,
by which affection is attracted. They surmount no obstacles, they defeat
no rivals, but attack only those who cannot resist, and are often
content to possess the body, without any solicitude to gain the heart.

Many of those despicable wretches does my present acquaintance with
infamy and wickedness enable me to number among the heroes of
debauchery. Reptiles whom their own servants would have despised, had
they not been their servants, and with whom beggary would have disdained
intercourse, had she not been allured by hopes of relief. Many of the
beings which are now rioting in taverns, or shivering in the streets,
have been corrupted, not by arts of gallantry which stole gradually upon
the affections and laid prudence asleep, but by the fear of losing
benefits which were never intended, or of incur