MR. WALLER.
Why not, if prudence be a virtue? for what, but certain prudential regards (which in common language and common sense are quite another thing from vicious compliances) have hitherto, as you have seen, appeared in my conduct? But be they what they will, they had a very natural effect, and one which will always attend on so reasonable a way of proceeding. For, since you press me so much, I shall take leave to suggest an observation to you, more obvious as well as more candid than any you seem inclined to make on the circumstances of this long relation. It is, “that the pretended penitence for my past life, and the readiness I shewed to acquiesce in the false accounts which the parliament gave of my plot, saved my life, and procured my liberty; whilst the real and true discoveries I made to gain credit to both, hurt my reputation.” But such a reflexion might have shocked your system too much. For it shews that all the benefit, I drew to myself in this affair, arose from those prudential maxims you condemn; and that all the injury, I suffered, was owing to the sincerity I still mixed with them.