ervyn, to address his letters, he received one from that gentleman which
contained rather unpleasing intelligence. We have assumed already the
privilege of acting a secretis to this gentleman, and therefore shall
present the reader with an extract from this epistle.

'I beg your pardon, my dearest friend, for the pain I have given you in
forcing you to open wounds so festering as those your letter referred to.
I have always heard, though erroneously perhaps, that the attentions of
Mr. Brown were intended for Miss Mannering. But, however that were, it
could not be supposed that in your situation his boldness should escape
notice and chastisement. Wise men say that we resign to civil society our
natural rights of self-defence only on condition that the ordinances of
law should protect us. Where the price cannot be paid, the resignation
becomes void. For instance, no one supposes that I am not entitled to
defend my purse and person against a highwayman, as much as if I were a
wild Indian, who owns neither law nor magistracy. The question of
resistance or submission must be determined by my means and situation.
But if, armed and equal in force, I submit to injustice and violence from
any man, high or low, I presume it will hardly be attributed to religious
or moral feeling in me, or in any one but a Quaker. An aggression on my
honour seems to me much the same. The insult, however trifling in itself,
is one of much deeper consequence to all views in life than any wrong
which can be inflicted by a depredator on the highway, and to redress the
injured party is much less in the power of public jurisprudence, or
rather it is entirely beyond its reach. If any man chooses to rob Arthur
Mervyn of the contents of his purse, supposing the said Arthur has not
means of defence, or the skill and courage to use them, the assizes at
Lancaster or Carlisle will do him justice by tucking up the robber; yet
who will say I am bound to wait for this justice, and submit to being
plundered in the first instance, if I have myself the means and spirit to
protect my own property? But if an affront is offered to me, submission
under which is to tarnish my character for ever with men of honour, and
for which the twelve judges of England, with the chancellor to boot, can
afford me no redress, by what rule of law or reason am I to be deterred
from protecting what ought to be, and is, so infinitely dearer to every
man of honour than his whole fortune? Of t