CHAP. V I I.

Belcour and Stockwell.

Stock. MR. Belcour, I am rejoiced to see

you; you are welcome to England.

Bel. I thank you heartily, good Mr. Stockwell; you and I have long conversed at a distance; now we are met, and the pleasure this meeting gives me, amply compensates for the perils I have run thro' in accomplishing it.

Stock. What perils, Mr. Belcour? I could not have thought you would have met a bad passage at this time o’year.

Bel. Nor did we: courier-like, we came posting to your shores, upon the pinions of the swiftest gales that ever blevy; it is upon English ground all my difficulties have arisen; it is the passage from the river-side I complain of.

Stock. Ay, indeed! what obstructions can you have met between this and the river-side?

Bel. Innumerable! your town's as full of defiles as the Island of Corsica; and, I believe, they are as obstinately defended; so much hur ry, bustle, and confusion, on your quays; so many sugar-casks, porter-buts, and common council-men in your streets; that unless a ma}} marched with artillery in his front, it is more than the labour of a Hercules can effect to make any tolerable way through your town.

Stock. I am sorry you have been so incommoded.

Bel. Why, faith, it was all my own fault; accustomed to a land of slaves, and out of patience with the whole tribe of custom-hous extortionners, boat-men, tide-waiters and w

199 ter-bailiffs, that beset me on all sides, worse than a swarm of musquetoes, I proceeded a little too roughly to brush them away with my rattan; the sturdy rogues took this in dudgeon, and beginning to rebel, the mob chose different sides, and a furious scuffle ensued ; in the course of which, my person and apparel suffered so much, that I was obliged to step into the first tavern to refit, before I could make my approaches in any decent trim.

Stock. Well, Mr. Belcour, it is a rough sample you have had of my countrymen's spirit; but, I trust you will not think the worse of them for it.

Bel. Not at all, not at all; I like them the better: was I only a visitor, I might perhaps wish them a little more tractable; but as a fellow subject, and a sharer in their freedom, I applaud their spirit, though I feel the effects of it in every bone of my skin. -- Well, Mr. Stockwell, for the first time in my life, here am I in England; at the fountain head of pleasure, in the land of beauty, of arts, andˇelegancies.. My happy stars have given me a good estate, and the conspiring winds have blown me hither to spend it.

Stock. To use it, not to waste it, I should hope; to treat it, Mr. Belcour, not as a vassal, over whom you have a wanton despotic power, but as a subject, which you are bound to govern with a temperate and restrained authority. Bel. True, Sir, most truly said; mine's a commission, not a right: I am the offspring of distress, and every child of sorrow is my brother; while I have hands to hold, therefore, I will hold them open to mankind; but, Sir, my passions are my masters; they take me where

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they will; and oftentimes they leave to reason and virtue nothing but my wishes and my sighs. Stock. Come, come, the man who can ac

cuse corrects himself.

Bel. Ah! that is an office I am weary of; I wish a friend would take it up: I would to heaven you had leisure for the employ! but did you drive a trade to the four corners of the world, you would not find the task so toilsome as to keep me free from faults.

Stock. Well, I am not discouraged; this candour tells me, I should not have the fault of self-conceit to combat; that, at least, is not among the number.

Bel. No; if I knew of any man on earth who thought more humbly of me than I do of myself, I would take up his opiniou and forego my own.

Stock. And was I to chuse a pupil, it should be one of your complexion; so, if you will come along with me, we will agree upon your admission, and enter upon a course of lectures directly.

Bel. With all my heart.

СНАР.

WEST INDIAN.

VIII.

Lord Eustache and Frampton.

Id. Eust. WELL, my dear Frampton, have

you secured the letters?

Fram. Yes, my Lord.: for their rightful

owners.

Ld. Eust. As to the matter of property, Frampton, we will not dispute much about that. Necessity, you know, may sometimes render a trespass excusable.

Fram. I am not casuist sufficient to answer you upon that subject; but this I know, that you have already trespassed against the laws of hospitality and honour, in your conduct towards' Sir William Evans and his daughter.--And as your friend and counsellor both, I would advise you to think seriously of repairing the injuries you have committed, and not increase your offence by a farther violation.

Ld. Eust. It is actually a pity you were not bred to the bar, Ned; but I have only a moment to stay, and am all impatience to know if there be a letter from Langwood, and what he says.

Fram. I shall never be able to afford you the least information upon that subject, my Lord.

Ld. Eust. Surely, I do not understand you. -You said, you had secured the letters--Have you not read them?

Fram. You have a right, and none but you, to ask me such a question. My weak compliance with your first proposal relative to these letters, warrants your thinking so meanly of me. But know, my Lord, that though my personal affection for you, joined to my unhappy cir eumstances, may have betrayed me to actions unworthy of myself, I never can forget, that there is a barrier fixed before the extreme of Baseness, which honour will not let me pass.

Ld. Eust. You will give me leave to tell you, Mr. Frampton, that where I lead, I think you need not halt.

Fram. You will pardon me, my Lord; the consciousness of another man's errors, can never be a justification for our own; and poor indeed must that wretch be, who can be satisfied withe

the negative merit of not being the worst man he knows.

Ld. Eust. If this discourse were uttered in a sonventicle, it might have its effect; by setting the congregation to sleep.

Fram. It is rather meant to rouse than lull your Lordship.

Ld. Eust. No matter what it is meant for; give me the letters, Mr. Frampton.

Fram. Yet excuse me. I could as soon think of arming a madman's hand against my own life, as suffer you to be guilty of a crime, that will for ever wound your honour.

Ld. Eust. I shall not come to you to heal the wound your medicines are too rough and coarse for me.

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Fram. The soft poison of flattery might, perhaps, please you better.

Ld. Eust. Your conscience may, probably, have as much need of palliatives as mine, Mr. Frampton, as I am pretty well convinced, that your course of life has not been more regular than my own.

Fram. With true contrition, my Lord, I confess part of your sarcasm to be just. Pleasure was the object of my pursuit, and pleasure I obtained, at the expence both of health and fortune; but yet, my Lord, I broke not in upon the peace of others; the laws of hospitality I never violated; nor did I ever seek to injure, or seduce, the wife or daugter of my friend. Ld East. I care not what you did--give me

the letters.

Fram. I have no right to keep, and therefore shall surrender them, though with the utmost reluctance; but, by our former friendship, I entreat you not to open them.