is father dying, and leaving a
couple of houses in this town, Mr. Gobble had come down with his lady to
take possession, and liked the place so well, as to make a more
considerable purchase in the neighbourhood; that a certain peer being
indebted to him in the large way of his business, and either unable or
unwilling to pay the money, had compounded the debt, by inserting his
name in the commission; since which period his own insolence, and his
wife's ostentation, had exceeded all bounds; that, in the execution of
his authority, he had committed a thousand acts of cruelty and injustice
against the poorer sort of people, who were unable to call him to a
proper account; that his wife domineered with a more ridiculous, though
less pernicious usurpation, among the females of the place; that, in a
word, she was the subject of continual mirth, and he the object of
universal detestation.

Our adventurer, though extremely well disposed to believe what was said
to the prejudice of Gobble, would not give entire credit to this
description, without first inquiring into the particulars of his conduct.
He therefore asked the speaker, what was the cause of his particular
complaint. "For my own part, sir," said he, "I lived in repute, and kept
a shop in this here town, well furnished with a great variety of
articles. All the people in the place were my customers; but what I and
many others chiefly depended upon, was the extraordinary sale at two
annual customary fairs, to which all the country people in the
neighbourhood resorted to lay out their money. I had employed all my
stock, and even engaged my credit, to procure a large assortment of goods
for the Lammas market; but, having given my vote in the election of a
vestry-clerk, contrary to the interest of Justice Gobble, he resolved to
work my ruin. He suppressed the annual fairs, by which a great many
people, especially publicans, earned the best part of their subsistence.
The country people resorted to another town. I was overstocked with a
load of perishable commodities, and found myself deprived of the best
part of my home customers, by the ill-nature and revenge of the justice,
who employed all his influence among the common people, making use of
threats and promises, to make them desert my shop, and give their custom
to another person, whom he settled in the same business under my nose.
Being thus disabled from making punctual payments, my commodities
spoiling, and my wife