mself
to pay for three years to come, a profit of forty shillings per annum
upon every share, and then deliver back the business to the general
care, above the reach of future disappointments.

'What reasons the gentlemen might have to refuse so inviting an offer is
best known to themselves; but they absolutely rejected that part of it,
which was to fix the sole power of management in the patentee. Upon
which, and many other provocations afterward, becoming more and more
dissatisfied, he thought fit to demand repayment of five hundred pounds,
which he had lent the company; as he had several other sums before; and
not receiving it, but, on the contrary, being denied so much as an
acknowledgment that it was due, withdrew himself intirely from the
board, and left them to their measures.

'Thus at the same time have I offered my defence, and my opinion: By the
first I am sure I shall be acquitted from all imputations; and confirmed
in the good thoughts of the concerned on either side, who will know for
the future what attention they should give to idle reflections, and the
falsehood of rumour; and from the last, I have hopes that a plan may be
drawn, which will settle at once all disputed pretensions, and restore
that fair prospect, which the open advantage of last year's success
(indifferent as it was) has demonstrated to be a view that was no way
chimerical.--

'They know how to judge of malicious insinuations to my prejudice, by
this _one most scandalous example_, which has been given by the
endeavours of some to persuade the out-sharers that I have made an
extravagant _profit_ from the _losses_ of the adventurers. Whereas on
the contrary, out of _Twenty-five Thousand Guineas_, which was the whole
I should have received by the sale of the shares, I have given up
_Twenty Thousand Pounds_ to the use of the company, and to the annuities
afterward; and three thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds more I paid
to the annuitants, at Lady-Day 1715, on the company's account; and have
never demanded it again, in consideration of their disappointments the
first year.

'So that it plainly appears, that out of twenty-five thousand guineas, I
have given away in two articles only, twenty-three thousand seven
hundred and fifty pounds for the public advantage. And I can easily
prove, that the little remainder has been short of making good the
charges I have been at for their service; by which means I am not one
farthing a gainer by