l his resentment and
anger: he sacrificed Hawkins the elder and Hawkins the younger, because
he could upon no terms endure the public loss of honour: how can I
expect that a man thus passionate and unrelenting will not sooner or
later make me his victim?"

But, notwithstanding this terrible application of the story, an
application to which perhaps in some form or other, mankind are indebted
for nine tenths of their abhorrence against vice, I could not help
occasionally recurring to reflections of an opposite nature. "Mr.
Falkland is a murderer!" resumed I. "He might yet be a most excellent
man, if he did but think so." It is the thinking ourselves vicious then,
that principally contributes to make us vicious.

Amidst the shock I received from finding, what I had never suffered
myself constantly to believe, that my suspicions were true, I still
discovered new cause of admiration for my master. His menaces indeed
were terrible. But, when I recollected the offence I had given, so
contrary to every received principle of civilised society, so insolent
and rude, so intolerable to a man of Mr. Falkland's elevation, and in
Mr. Falkland's peculiarity of circumstances, I was astonished at his
forbearance. There were indeed sufficiently obvious reasons why he might
not choose to proceed to extremities with me. But how different from the
fearful expectations I had conceived were the calmness of his
behaviour, and the regulated mildness of his language! In this respect,
I for a short time imagined that I was emancipated from the mischiefs
which had appalled me; and that, in having to do with a man of Mr.
Falkland's liberality, I had nothing rigorous to apprehend.

"It is a miserable prospect," said I, "that he holds up to me. He
imagines that I am restrained by no principles, and deaf to the claims
of personal excellence. But he shall find himself mistaken. I will never
become an informer. I will never injure my patron; and therefore he will
not be my enemy. With all his misfortunes and all his errors, I feel
that my soul yearns for his welfare. If he have been criminal, that is
owing to circumstances; the same qualities under other circumstances
would have been, or rather were, sublimely beneficent."

My reasonings were, no doubt, infinitely more favourable to Mr.
Falkland, than those which human beings are accustomed to make in the
case of such as they style great criminals. This will not be wondered
at, when it is considered