have loved you _better_: my heart has been more full
of your excellence and less agitated with objects of
ambition, which used to devour me too much.

"I recall these things to your mind to convince you of my
full belief that the acquisition of the competency which we
seem at last to have secured is owing more to your energy
than my own: I mean the energy of your virtues, which gave
me consolation, and even happiness, under circumstances
wherein, if I had been alone or with a partner no better
than myself, I should have sunk.

"These fruits of our joint exertions you expected to enjoy
_with me_, else I know you would not have wished for them.
But if by my death you are to be deprived of the greater
part of the comfort you expected, it would surely be unjust
and cruel to deprive you of the remainder, or any portion of
it, by giving any part of this property to others. It is
yours in the truest sense in which property can be
considered; and I should have no right, if I were disposed,
to take it from you.

"_Secondly._ Of _my_ relations, I have some thirty or forty,
nephews and nieces and their children, the greater part of
whom I have never seen, and from whom I have had no news for
seven or eight years. Among them there may be some
necessitous ones who would be proper objects of particular
legacies, yet it would be impossible for me at this moment
to know which they are. It was my intention, and still is if
I live, to go to America, to make discrimination among them
according to their wants, and to give them such relief as
might be in my power, without waiting to do it by legacy.
Now, my lovely wife, if this task and the means of
performing it should devolve upon you, I need not recommend
it: our _joint_ liberality would have been less extensive
and less grateful to the receivers than _yours_ will be
alone.

"_Your own_ relations in the same degree of affinity are few
in number. I hope I need not tell you that in my affections
I know no difference between yours and mine. I include them
all in the same recommendation, without any other
distinction than what may arise from their wants and your
ability to do them good.

"If Colonel B---- or his wife (either of them being left by
the other) should be in a situatio