ing her as he had done you; and common prudence might
have directed you rather to have entered into some measures with her for
joining against him, until he might at least be brought to some
reasonable terms: But your invincible hatred to that lady hath carried
your resentments so high, as to be the cause of your ruin; yet, if you
please to consider, this aversion of yours began a good while before she
became your rival, and was taken up by you and your family in a sort of
compliment to your lover, who formerly had a great abhorrence for her.
It is true, since that time you have suffered very much by her
encroachments upon your estate,[77] but she never pretended to govern or
direct you: And now you have drawn a new enemy upon yourself; for I
think you may count upon all the ill offices she can possibly do you by
her credit with her husband; whereas, if, instead of openly declaring
against her without any provocation, you had but sat still awhile, and
said nothing, that gentleman would have lessened his severity to you out
of perfect fear. This weakness of yours, you call generosity; but I
doubt there was more in the matter. In short, Madam, I have good
reasons to think you were betrayed to it by the pernicious counsels of
some about you: For to my certain knowledge, several of your tenants and
servants, to whom you have been very kind, are as arrant rascals as any
in the Country. I cannot but observe what a mighty difference there is
in one particular between your Ladyship and your rival. Having yielded
up your person, you thought nothing else worth defending, and therefore
you will not now insist upon those very conditions for which you yielded
at first. But your Ladyship cannot be ignorant, that some years since
your rival did the same thing, and upon no conditions at all; nay, this
gentleman kept her as a miss, and yet made her pay for her diet and
lodging.[78] But, it being at a time when he had no steward, and his
family out of order, she stole away, and hath now got the trick very
well known among the women of the town, to grant a man the favour over
night and the next day have the impudence to deny it to his face. But,
it is too late to reproach you with any former oversights, which cannot
now be rectified. I know the matters of fact as you relate them are true
and fairly represented. My advice therefore is this. Get your tenants
together as soon as you conveniently can, and make them agree to the
following resolu