I congratulate you on the discharge of your duty and your conscience, by the pains you have taken for the relief of the prisoners. You proceeded wisely, yet courageously, and deserved better success. Your labours, however, will be remembered elsewhere, when you shall be forgotten here; and, if the poor folks at Chelmsford should never receive the benefit of them, you will yourself receive it in heaven. It is pity that men of fortune should be determined to acts of beneficence, sometimes by popular whim or prejudice, and sometimes by motives still more unworthy. The liberal subscription, raised in behalf of the widows of seamen lost in the Royal George was an instance of the former. At least a plain, short and sensible letter in the newspaper, convinced me at the time that it was an unnecessary and injudicious collection: and the difficulty you found in effectuating your benevolent intentions on this occasion, constrains me to think that, had it been an affair of more notoriety than merely to furnish a few poor fellows with a little fuel to preserve their extremities from the frost, you would have succeeded better. Men really pious delight in doing good by stealth. But nothing less than an ostentatious display of bounty will satisfy mankind in general. I feel myself disposed to furnish you with an opportunity to shine in secret. We do what we can. But that can is little. You have rich friends, are eloquent on all occasions, and know how to be pathetic on a proper one. The winter will be severely felt at Olney by many, whose sobriety, industry, and honesty, recommend them to charitable notice: and we think we could tell such persons as Mr. ——, or Mr. ——, half a dozen tales of distress, that would find their way into hearts as feeling as theirs. You will do as you see good; and we in the meantime shall remain convinced that you will do your best. Lady Austen will, no doubt, do something, for she has great sensibility and compassion.
Yours, my dear Unwin,
W. C.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.[156]
Olney, Nov. 5, 1782.
Charissime Taurorum—
Quot sunt, vel fuerunt, vel posthac aliis erunt in annis,
We shall rejoice to see you, and I just write to tell you so. Whatever else I want, I have, at least, this quality in common with publicans and sinners, that I love those that love me, and for that reason, you in particular. Your warm and affectionate manner demands it of me. And, though I consider your love as growing out of a mistaken expectation that you shall see me a spiritual man hereafter, I do not love you much the less for it. I only regret that I did not know you intimately in those happier days, when the frame of my heart and mind was such as might have made a connexion with me not altogether unworthy of you.
I add only Mrs. Unwin's remembrances, and that I am glad you believe me to be, what I truly am,
Your faithful and affectionate
W. C.
TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[156]
Olney, Nov. 11, 1782.