free expansion of all the passions, which God, in His infinite wisdom,
and inexhaustible goodness, gave to man as so many powerful levers?--to
sanctify all the gifts of Heaven: love, maternity, strength,
intelligence, beauty, genius?--to make men truly religious, and deeply
grateful to their Creator, by making them understand the splendors of
Nature, and bestowing on them their rightful share in the treasures which
have been poured upon us?

"'Oh! if it be Heaven's will that, in a century and a half, the
descendants of my family, faithful to the last wishes of a heart that
loved humanity, meet in this sacred union!--if it be Heaven's will that
amongst them be found charitable and passionate souls, full of
commiseration for those who suffer, and lofty minds, ardent for liberty!
warm and eloquent natures! resolute characters! women, who unite beauty
and wit with goodness--oh! then, how fruitful, how powerful will be the
harmonious union of all these ideas, and influences, and forces--of all
these attractions grouped round that princely fortune, which,
concentrated by association, and wisely managed, would render practicable
the most admirable Utopias!

"'What a wondrous centre of fertile and generous thoughts! What precious
and life-giving rays would stream incessantly from this focus of charity,
emancipation, and love! What great things might be attempted what
magnificent examples given to the world! What a divine mission! What an
irresistible tendency towards good might be impressed on the whole human
race by a family thus situated, and in possession of such means!

"'And, then, such a beneficent association would be able to combat the
fatal conspiracy of which I am the victim, and which, in a century and a
half, may have lost none of its formidable power.

"'So, to this work of darkness, restraint, and despotism, which weighs
heavily on the Christian world, my family would oppose their work of
light, expansion, and liberty!

"'The genii of good and evil would stand face to face. The struggle would
commence, and God would protect the right.

"'And that these immense pecuniary resources, which will give so much
power to my family, may not be exhausted by the course of years, my
heirs, following my last will, are to place out, upon the same
conditions, double the sum that I have invested--so that, a century and a
half later, a new source of power and action will be at the disposal of
their descendants. What a perp