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LETTER

то

JOHN CALCRAFT, Esq.

FROM

GEORGE ANNE BELLAMY.

SIR,

London, October 1, 1767.

IN compliance with your repeated folicitations,

I fit down to write to you, as I am indebted to you for fo many hundreds of letters, I must premife, that it will require your utmost patience to read fo long an answer as I fhall have occafion to inake it; but as I flatter myself many others will peruse it befides yourself, 1 shall prefume to interrupt your parliamentary ftudies; and intreat your attention, as much time and application will be needful for you to digeft fo long an Epistle.

I own, I do not think that a series of facts, relative to fuch infignificant beings as you and my

felf,

self, can furnish any entertainment to the world; yet as I have had the happiness of being from my youth a favoured child of the public, I fhall beg leave to request that they would decide between us, I should still have borne my injuries in filence, were it not that whilst you were perpetually teizing me with letters, containing the warmeft profeffions of unremitting affection, you, and your female Therfites, were propagating the groffeft falfhoods against me to my prejudice. But she has paid the debt of nature. So ends my enmity and her ingratitude; which, as I have been informed, was fully repaid by your's; therefore peace be to her manes.

There was a time, when I fhould have apprehended that you would have been greatly mortified at a public statement of fuch an account, and I fhould have been afraid of putting you to the blush by it; but as you have convinced the world by your recent behaviour, that you are above all mauvaise honte, and have overleaped the bounds of modefty, my fears are all fubfided, and " I will a round unvarnifhed tale deliver." If I advance a falfhood, reproach me freely with it. I will force even you to allow that I ftill am juft.

I am forry to remind you, that when Lord George Sutton first introduced you to me, you

was

was called honest John Calcraft; an epithet, in my mind, infinitely fuperior to Squire John the parliament man. But as you always had a great deal of the amor patriæ at heart, you may perhaps feelyourself more happy in your prefent exalted fituation. I beg your pardon for making ufe of thofe two Latin words, I forgot you did not understand that language; though, like Bonniface, you may, perhaps, love and honour the found. But not to puzzle or give you more trouble than is abfolutely neceffary, I will inform you, that I mean the love of your country; and a more worthy or learned member than yourself, it must be allowed, is not honoured with a feat in St. Stephen's chapel. If your modefty prompts you to difpute this affertion, ever willing to pleafe you, I will give up the point.

But to return.-You will pleafe likewife to recollect, that the firft vifit you paid me after the unhappy difpute between Metham and myfelf, I candidly told you my fituation. At the fame time I added, that I was fo alarmed at his paffionate difpofition, as to be determined never to marry him, were he willing to carry his promife into execution, though I preferred him to all mankind; nor would I enter into any other connection whatfoever. Confiding

Confiding in your general character, and induced by your profeffions of friendship, I made no fcruple thus to inform you of the fituation of my heart; for at that period, I did not entertain the moft diftant idea of your harbouring a thought of love. Indeed, I could not suppose you was capable of fo much prefumption, as to think of rivalling a man, in every fhade fo infinitely your fuperior.

I then likewise informed you, that I had received ten bank bills of one hundred pounds each, in a blank cover. This gift, I faid, I attributed to Lord Downe, whofe friendship for Metham prevented him from declaring himself my admirer. Notwithstanding the dial spoke not, it pointed. And as he was evidently the cause of Metham's rudeness to me, it was more than probable, that his Lordship thought of extricating me by it, from any little difficulties I might have been embarrassed in.

Upon my placing this confidence in honeft Jack, you advised me to make use of the money; telling me, you was fure that the perfon, whoever it was, who had fhewn himself so generous, would never expect a return. You then regretted, that it was not in your power to have been equally liberal.. For had you not been circumfcribed by fortune, you should have efteemed yourself happy in fo fa

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