"Repeating my acknowledgements for the kind trust you repose in me,
and with thanks for the valuable present you have sent me, we all here
join in respects to worthy Mr. Wrightson, and in wishing you. Madam,
a continuance and increase of worldly felicity; and I particularly
beg leave to assure you, that I am, and ever will be, with the highest
respect and gratitude, though personally unknown, dearest Madam, _the
affectionate admirer of your piety, and your obliged humble servant_,
"P.B."
Your ladyship will see how I was circumscribed and limited; otherwise
I would have said (what I have mentioned more than once), how I admire
and honour her for her penitence, and for that noble resolution, which
enabled her to do what thousands could not have had the heart to do,
abandon her country, her relations, friends, baby, and all that was
dear to her, as well as the seducer, whom she too well loved, and
hazard the sea, the dangers of pirates, and possibly of other wicked
attempters of the mischievous sex, in a world she knew nothing
of, among strangers; and all to avoid repeating a sin she had been
unhappily drawn into; and for which she still abhors herself.
Must not such a lady as this, dear Madam, have as much merit as many
even of those, who, having not had her temptations, have not fallen?
This, at least, one may aver, that next to not committing an error, is
the resolution to retrieve it all that one may, to repent of it, and
studiously to avoid the repetition.
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