letter," he writes to
Hume, "the first opportunity; but God help him, I can't for pity give
a copy; and 'tis so much mixed with his own poor little private
concerns, that it would not be right in me to do it."[381] This is
the generosity which makes Hume's impatience and that of his
mischievous advisers in Paris appear petty. Rousseau had behaved quite
as ill to Mr. Davenport as he had done to Hume, and had received at
least equal services from him.[382] The good man at once sent a
servant to Spalding in search of his unhappy guest, but Rousseau had
again disappeared. The parson of the parish had passed several hours
of each day in his company, and had found him cheerful and
good-humoured. He had had a blue coat made for himself, and had
written a long letter to the lord chancellor, praying him to appoint a
guard, at Rousseau's own expense, to escort him in safety out of the
kingdom where enemies were plotting against his life.[383] He was next
heard of at Dover (May 18), whence he wrote a letter to General
Conway, setting forth his delusion in full form.[384] He is the victim
of a plot; the conspirators will not allow him to leave the island,
lest he should divulge in other countries the outrages to which he has
been subjected here; he perceives the sinister manoeuvres that will
arrest him if he attempts to put his foot on board ship. But he warns
them that his tragical disappearance cannot take place without
creating inquiry. Still if General Conway will only let him go, he
gives his word of honour that he will not publish a line of the
memoirs he has written, nor ever divulge the wrongs which he has
suffered in England. "I see my last hour approaching," he concluded;
"I am determined, if necessary, to advance to meet it, and to perish
or be free; there is no longer any other alternative." On the same
evening on which he wrote this letter (about May 20-22), the forlorn
creature took boat and landed at Calais, where he seems at once to
have recovered his composure and a right mind.

FOOTNOTES:

[350] Jan. 1766--May 1767.

[351] Streckeisen, ii. 275, etc. _Corr._, iii.

[352] Burton, ii. 299.

[353] The materials for this chapter are taken from Rousseau's
_Correspondence_ (vols. iv. and v.), and from Hume's letters to
various persons, given in the second volume of Mr. Burton's _Life of
Hume_. Everybody who takes an interest in Rousseau is indebted to Mr.
Burton for the ample documents which he has provided. Yet