“Your receipt for making a forty shilling freeholder contains many excellent ingredients, but I do not think it was honestly drawn up; that is, I believe it to be the production of some one who was not friendly to that system of franchise. I have little else to say, except that you will find it necessary I think to be very firm and rigorous. Remember that we are here to-day, and gone to-morrow; so upon this principle keep them moving at a steady pace. In three words, think of my difficulties, and get all you can out of them—still remembering, as we say in the ring, never to train them below their strength, for that would be the loss of our own battle.
“Yours, “Cumber.”
Solomon M'Slime, Esq., Attorney-at-law, to Lord Cumber,
“My esteemed Lord:
“I had the unmerited honor—for, indeed, to a man sensible of his many frailties as I am, I feel it is an unmerited honor—to receive any communication from one whom the Lord hath exalted to a place of such high rank in this world, as that which your lordship so worthily fills. It gives me great gratification, my Lord, to learn from your last letter that you have appointed my friend, Mr. Valentine M'Clutchy, as your agent. I am not in the habit of attributing such circumstances as this—being, as they generally are, matters of mere worldly prudence and convenience—to any over-ruling cause from above; but truly the appointment of such a man at this particular time, looks as if there were a principle of good at work for your lordship's interests. May you continue, as you do, to deserve it! Your change of agents is, indeed, one that, through the talent, energy, and integrity of Mr. M'Clutchy, is likely to redound much and largely to your own benefit. In his capacity of under agent, I have had frequent opportunities of transacting business with him; and when I contrast his quickness, clearness, honesty, and skill, with the evident want of——but no, my Lord; far be it from me, as a Christian man, to institute any rash comparison either in favor of my fellow-creature or against him, so long as sin and prejudice even for that which is good, and frailty, may render us, as they often do, liable to error. In Mr. M'Clutchy it is possible I may be mistaken; in Mr. Hickman it is possible I may be mistaken—I am not infallible—I am frail—a very sinner, but not removed wholly, I would trust, out of the range of grace. My Lord, I say again, that, as a conscientious man, and as far as mere human reason—which is at best but short-sighted—enables me to judge, I am truly cheered in spirit by this, I trust, providential change in the agency of your property. My Lord, in my various correspondence, I generally endeavor to make it a rule not to forget my Christian duties, or, so to speak, to cast a single grain of the good seed into the hearts of those to whom I am privileged to write. The calls of religion are, indeed, strong upon us, if we permitted ourselves to listen to them as we ought. Will your lordship then pardon me for reminding you, that, however humble the instrument, I have before now been the honored means of setting your godly examples of charity before the world, with the single-hearted purpose and hope that it might imitate your virtues. There is in the neighborhood a case at present of great distress, in the person of a widow and her three young children, who have been left destitute by the guilt and consequent deportation of her unhappy husband to Australia, for the crime of feloniously abstracting live mutton. I defended him professionally, or, I should say—although I do not boast of it—with an eye to the relief of his interesting wife, but without success; and what rendered his crime more unpardonable, he had the unparalleled wickedness to say, that he was instigated to it by the ill-advice and intemperate habits of this amiable woman. Will your lordship, then, allow me to put your honored name in the list of her Christian friends? Allow me, my Lord, to subscribe myself,
“Your lordship's frail, unworthy, “But faithful and honored servant, “Solomon M'Slime.”
“P.S.—With respect to your jocose and ironical postscript, may I again take the liberty of throwing in a word in season. If your lordship could so far assume a proper Christian seriousness of character, as to render the act of kindness and protection on your part such as might confer a competent independence upon a female of religious dispositions, I doubt not, should your lordship's charity continue unabated on your arrival here, that some such desirable opportunity might offer, as that of rescuing a comely but desolate maiden from distress.
“There is, indeed, a man here living on your lordship's property, who has a daughter endowed with a large portion of that vain gift called beauty. Her father and family are people of bad principle, without conscience or honesty, and, withal, utterly destitute of religion—not but that they carry themselves very plausibly to the world. Among such people, my Lord, it is not possible that this engaging damsel, who is now so youthful and innocent, could resist the evil influence of the principles that prevail in her family. Indeed, her abiding among them cannot be for her welfare in any sense.
“I have the honor, &c.”
Valentine M'Clutchy, Esq., to Solomon M'Slime.