very well satisfied
that it is not in my power to ballance Accounts with my Maker, I am
resolved however to turn all my future Endeavours that way. You must not
therefore be surprized, my Friend, if you hear that I am betaking my
self to a more thoughtful kind of Life, and if I meet you no more in
this Place.

I could not but approve so good a Resolution, notwithstanding the Loss I
shall suffer by it. Sir ANDREW has since explained himself to me more at
large in the following Letter, which is just come to my hands.

_Good Mr._ SPECTATOR,

'Notwithstanding my Friends at the Club have always rallied me, when I
have talked of retiring from Business, and repeated to me one of my
own Sayings, _That a Merchant has never enough till he has got a
little more_; I can now inform you, that there is one in the World who
thinks he has enough, and is determined to pass the Remainder of his
Life in the Enjoyment of what he has. You know me so well, that I need
not tell you, I mean, by the Enjoyment of my Possessions, the making
of them useful to the Publick. As the greatest part of my Estate has
been hitherto of an unsteady and volatile nature, either tost upon
Seas or fluctuating in Funds; it is now fixed and settled in
Substantial Acres and Tenements. I have removed it from the
Uncertainty of Stocks, Winds and Waves, and disposed of it in a
considerable Purchase. This will give me great Opportunity of being
charitable in my way, that is, in setting my poor Neighbours to Work,
and giving them a comfortable Subsistence out of their own Industry.
My Gardens, my Fish-ponds, my Arable and Pasture Grounds shall be my
several Hospitals, or rather Work-houses, in which I propose to
maintain a great many indigent Persons, who are now starving in my
Neighbourhood. I have got a fine Spread of improveable Lands, and in
my own Thoughts am already plowing up some of them, fencing others;
planting Woods, and draining Marshes. In fine, as I have my share in
the Surface of this Island, I am resolved to make it as beautiful a
Spot as any in her Majesty's Dominions; at least there is not an Inch
of it which shall not be cultivated to the best Advantage, and do its
utmost for its Owner. As in my Mercantile Employment I so disposed of
my Affairs, that from whatever Corner of the Compass the Wind blew, it
was bringing home one or other of my Ships; I hope, as a Husbandman,
to contrive it so,