"Your own relations in the same degree of affinity are few in number. I hope I need not tell you that in my affections I know no difference between yours and mine. I include them all in the same recommendation, without any other distinction than what may arise from their wants and your ability to do them good.
"If Colonel B—— or his wife (either of them being left by the other) should be in a situation otherwise than comfortable, I wish my generous friend to render it so as far as may be in her power. We may have had more powerful friends than they, but never any more sincere. He has the most frank and loyal spirit in the world, and she is possessed of many amiable and almost heroic virtues.
"Mary——, poor girl!—you know her worth, her virtues, and her talents, and I am sure you will not fail to keep yourself informed of her circumstances. She has friends, or at least had them, more able than you will be to yield her assistance in case of need. But they may forsake her for reasons which to your enlightened and benevolent mind would rather be an additional inducement to contribute to her happiness. Excuse me, my dearest life, for my being so particular on a subject which, considering to whom it is addressed, may appear superfluous; but I do it rather to show that I agree with you in these sentiments than to pretend that they originate on my part. With this view I must pursue them a little further. One of the principal gratifications in which I intended, and still intend to indulge myself if I should live to enjoy with you the means of doing it, is to succor the unfortunate of every description as far as possible—to encourage merit where I find it, and try to create it where it does not exist. This has long been a favorite project with me; but, having always been destitute of the means of carrying it into effect to any considerable degree, I have not conversed with you upon it as much as I wish I had. Though I can say nothing that will be new to you on the pleasure of employing one's attention and resources in this way, yet some useful hints might be given on the means of multiplying good actions from small resources; for I would not confine my pleasure to the simple duties of charity in the beggar's sense of the word.
"First. Much may be done by advising with poor persons, contriving for them, and pointing out the objects on which they can employ their own industry.
"Secondly. Many persons and families in a crisis of difficulty might be extricated and set up in the world by little loans of money, for which they might give good security and refund within a year; and the same fund might then go to relieve a second and a third; and thus a dozen families might be set on the independent footing of their own industry in the course of a dozen years by the help of fifty dollars, and the owner lose nothing but the interest. Some judgment would be necessary in these operations, as well as care and attention in finding out the proper objects. How many of these are to be found in prisons, thrown in and confined for years, for small debts which their industry and their liberty would enable them to discharge in a short time! Imprisonment for debt still exists as a stain upon our country, as most others. France, indeed, has set us the example of abolishing it, but I am apprehensive she will relapse from this, as I see she is inclined to do from many other good things which she began in her magnanimous struggle for the renovation of society.
"Thirdly. With your benevolence, your character and connections, you may put in motion a much greater fund of charity than you will yourself possess. It is by searching out the objects of distress or misfortune, and recommending them to their wealthy neighbors in such a manner as to excite their attention. I have often remarked to you (I forget whether you agree with me in it or not) that there is more goodness at the bottom of the human heart than the world will generally allow. Men are as often hindered from doing a generous thing by an indolence either of thought or action as by a selfish principle. If they knew what the action was, when and where it was to be done and how to do it, their obstacles would be overcome. In this manner one may bring the resources of others into contribution, and with such a grace as to obtain the thanks both of the givers and receivers.
"Fourthly. The example of one beneficent person, like yourself, in a neighborhood or a town would go a great way. It would doubtless be imitated by others, extend far, and benefit thousands whom you might never hear of.
"I certainly hope to escape from this place and return to your beloved arms. No man has stronger inducements to wish to live than I have. I have no quarrel with the world: it has used me as well as could be expected. I have valuable friends in every country where I have put my foot, not excepting this abominable sink of wickedness, pestilence and folly—the city of Algiers. I have a pretty extensive and dear-bought knowledge of mankind; a most valuable collection of books; a pure and undivided taste for domestic tranquillity, the social intercourse of friends, study, and the exercise of charity. I have a moderate but sufficient income, perfect health, an unimpaired constitution, and, to give the relish to all enjoyments and smooth away the asperities that might arise from unforeseen calamities, I have the wife that my youth chose and my advancing age has cherished—the pattern of excellence, the example of every virtue—from whom all my joys have risen, in whom all my hopes are centred.
"I will use every precaution for my safety, as well for your sake as mine. But if you should see me no more, my dearest friend, you will not forget I loved you. As you have valued my love, and as you believe this letter is written with an intention to promote your happiness at a time when it will be for ever out of my power to contribute to it in any other way, I beg you will kindly receive the last advice I can give you, with which I am going to close our endearing intercourse.... Submitting with patience to a destiny that is unavoidable, let your tenderness for me soon cease to agitate that lovely bosom: banish it to the house of darkness and dust, with the object that can no longer be benefited by it, and transfer your affections to some worthy person who shall supply my place in the relation I have borne to you. It is for the living, not the dead, to be rendered happy by the sweetness of your temper, the purity of your heart, your exalted sentiments, your cultivated spirit, your undivided love. Happy man of your choice should he know and prize the treasure of such a wife! Oh, treat her tenderly, my dear sir: she is used to nothing but kindness, unbounded love and confidence. She is all that any reasonable man can desire. She is more than I have merited, or perhaps than you can merit. My resigning her to your charge, though but the result of uncontrollable necessity, is done with a degree of cheerfulness—a cheerfulness inspired by the hope that her happiness will be the object of your care and the long-continued fruit of your affection.
"Farewell, my wife; and though I am not used to subscribe my letters addressed to you, your familiarity with my writing having always rendered it unnecessary, yet it seems proper that the last characters which this hand shall trace for your perusal should compose the name of your most faithful, most affectionate and most grateful husband,