One of the letters of Colonel Morden, which I enclose, you will observe, Madam, is only a copy.413 The true reason for which, as I will ingenuously acknowledge, is, some free, but respectful animadversions which the Colonel has made upon your declining to carry into execution your part of your dear friend’s last requests. I have therefore, in respect to that worthy gentleman, (having a caution from him on that head), omitted those parts.
Will you allow me, Madam, however, to tell you, that I myself could not have believed that my inimitable testatrix’s own Miss Howe would have been the most backward in performing such a part of her dear friend’s last will, as is entirely in her own power to perform—especially, when that performance would make one of the most deserving men in England happy
; and whom, I presume, she proposes to honour with her hand.
Excuse me, Madam, I have a most sincere veneration for you; and would not disoblige you for the world.
I will not presume to make remarks on the letters I send you; nor upon the informations I have to give you of the dreadful end of two unhappy wretches who were the greatest criminals in the affair of your adorable friend. These are the infamous Sinclair, and a person whom you have read of, no doubt, in the letters of the charming innocent, by the name of Captain Tomlinson.
The wretched woman died in the extremest tortures and despondency: the man from wounds got in defending himself in carrying on a contraband trade; both accusing themselves, in their last hours, for the parts they had acted against the most excellent of women, as of the crime that gave them the deepest remorse.
Give me leave to say, Madam, that if your compassion be not excited for the poor man who suffers so greatly from his own anguish of mind, as you will observe by his letter he does; and for the unhappy family, whose remorse, you will see by Colonel Morden’s, is so deep; your terror must. And yet I should not wonder, if the just sense of the irreparable loss you have sustained hardens a heart against pity, which, on a less extraordinary occasion, would want its principal grace, if it were not compassionate.
I am, Madam, with the greatest respect and gratitude,
Letter 522
Miss Howe, to John Belford, Esq.
Saturday,
Sir,
I little thought I ever could have owed so much obligation to any man as you have laid me under. And yet what you have sent me has almost broken my heart, and ruined my eyes.
I am surprised, though agreeably, that you have so soon, and so well, got over that part of the trust you have engaged in, which relates to the family.
It may be presumed, from the exits you mention of two of the infernal man’s accomplices, that the thunderbolt will not stop short of the principal. Indeed I have some pleasure to think it seems rolling along towards the devoted head that has plotted all the mischief. But let me, however, say, that although I think Mr. Morden not altogether in the wrong in his reasons for resentment, as he is the dear creature’s kinsman and trustee, yet I think you very much in the right in endeavouring to dissuade him from it, as you are her executor, and act in pursuance of her earnest request.
But what a letter is that of the infernal man’s! I cannot observe upon it. Neither can I, for very different reasons, upon my dear creature’s posthumous letters; particularly on that to him. O Mr. Belford! what numberless perfections died, when my Clarissa drew her last breath!
If decency be observed in his letters, for I have not yet had patience to read above two or three of them, (besides this horrid one, which I return to you enclosed), I may some time hence be curious to look, by their means, into the hearts of wretches, which, though they must be the abhorrence of virtuous minds, will, when they are laid open, (as I presume they are in them), afford a proper warning to those who read them, and teach them to detest men of such profligate characters.
If your reformation be sincere, you will not be offended that I do not except you on this occasion.—And thus have I helped you to a criterion to try yourself by.
By this letter of the wicked man it is apparent that there are still wickeder women. But see what a guilty commerce with the devils of your sex will bring those to whose morals ye have ruined!—For these women were once innocent: it was man that made them otherwise. The first bad man, perhaps, threw them upon worse men; those upon still worse; till they commenced devils incarnate—
the height of wickedness or of shame is not arrived at all at once, as I have somewhere heard observed.But this man, this monster rather, for him to curse these women, and to curse the dear creature’s family (implacable as the latter were), in order to lighten a burden he voluntarily took up, and groans under, is meanness added to wickedness: and in vain will he one day find his low plea of sharing with her friends, and with those common wretches, a guilt which will be adjudged him as all his own; though they too may meet their punishment; as it is evidently begun; in the first, in their ineffectual reproaches of one another; in the second—as you have told me.
This letter of the abandoned wretch I have not shown to anybody; not even to Mr. Hickman: for, Sir, I must tell you,
