the time you will see this, you will have had an instance, I humbly
trust, of the comfortable importance of a pacified conscience, in the
last hours of one, who, to the last hour, will wish your eternal welfare.

The great Duke of Luxemburgh, as I have heard, on his death-bed,
declared, that he would then much rather have had it to reflect upon,
that he had administered a cup of cold water to a worthy poor creature in
distress, than that he had won so many battles as he had triumphed for.
And, as one well observes, All the sentiments of worldly grandeur vanish
at that unavoidable moment which decides the destiny of men.

If then, Sir, at the tremendous hour it be thus with the conquerors of
armies, and the subduers of nations, let me in a very few words (many are
not needed,) ask, What, at that period, must be the reflection of those,
(if capable of reflection,) who have lived a life of sense and offence;
whose study and whose pride most ingloriously have been to seduce the
innocent, and to ruin the weak, the unguarded, and the friendless; made
still more friendless by their base seductions?--O Mr. Belford, weigh,
ponder, and reflect upon it, now that, in health, and in vigour of mind
and body, the reflections will most avail you--what an ungrateful, what
an unmanly, what a meaner than reptile pride is this!

In the next place, Sir, let me beg of you, for my sake, who AM, or, as
now you will best read it, have been, driven to the necessity of applying
to you to be the executor of my will, that you will bear, according to
that generosity which I think to be in you, with all my friends, and
particularly with my brother, (who is really a worthy young man, but
perhaps a little too headstrong in his first resentments and conceptions
of things,) if any thing, by reason of this trust, should fall out
disagreeably; and that you will study to make peace, and to reconcile all
parties; and more especially, that you, who seem to have a great
influence upon your still-more headstrong friend, will interpose, if
occasion be, to prevent farther mischief--for surely, Sir, that violent
spirit may sit down satisfied with the evils he has already wrought; and,
particularly, with the wrongs, the heinous and ignoble wrongs, he has in
me done to my family, wounded in the tenderest part of its honour.

For your compliance with this request I have already your repeated
promise. I claim the observance of it, therefore, as a debt from you:
and