which I earnestly wished to know. Before I came to an abfolute determination, therefore, with regard to him, I was defirous of making a laft effort, and to write him with a view to try to recover him, if he had permitted himself to be feduced by my enemies, or to prevail on him to explain himfelf one way or other, Accordingly I wrote him a letter, which he ought to have found very natural *, if he were guilty; but very extraordinary, if he were innocent. For what could be more extraor dinary than a letter full of gratitude for his fervices, and, at the fame time, of distruft of his fentiments; and in which, placing, as it were, his actions on one fide, and his fentiments on the other, instead of fpeaking of the proofs of friendship he had given me, I befought him to love me, for the good he had done met. I did not take the precaution to preferve a copy of this letter; but as he has done fo, let him produce it: and whoever reads it, and fees in it a man labouring under a fecret trouble, which he is defirous of expreffing, but is afraid to do fo, will, I am perfuaded, be curious to know what ecclairciffement it produced, efpecially after the preceding fcene. None: abfolutely none. Mr. Hume contented himself, in his answer, with It appears from what he wrote to me afterwards, that he was very well fatisfied with this letter, and that he took it very well. ROUSSEAU. My answer to this is contained in M. Rouffeau's letter of the 22d of March, wherein he expreffes himself with the ut moft cordiality, without any referve, and without the leaft appearance of fufpicion. HUME. telling me the obliging offices Mr. Davenport propofed to do for me. As for the reft, he faid not a word on the principal fubject of my letter, nor on the fituation of my heart, of the diftrefs of which he could not be ignorant. I was more ftruck with this filence, than I had been with his phlegm during our laft converfation. I was wrong: this filence was very natural after the other, and was no more than I ought to have expected. For when one has ventured to declare to a man's face, I am tempted to believe you a traitor, and he has not the curiofity to ask you for what, it may be depended on he will never have any fuch curiofity as long as he lives and it is easy to judge of this man from these flight indications. more. After the receipt of his letter, which was long delayed, I determined at length to write to him no Soon after, every thing ferved to confirm me in the refolution to break off all farther correfpondence with him. Curious to the laft degree concerning the minuteft circumflance of my affairs, he was not content to learn them of me in our converfations; but, as I learned, never let flip an opportunity of being alone with my governance *, to interrogate her even importunately concerning my occupations, my refources, my friends, my acquaintances, their names, fituations, places of * I had only one fuch tête-a-tête with his governaute, which was on her arrival in London. I mu ft own it never entered into my head to talk to her upon any other fubject than the concerns of M. Rouffeau. HUME. abode; abode; nay, with the moft jefuitical addrefs, he would ask the fame questions of us feparately. One ought undoubtedly to intereft one's felf in the affairs of a friend; but one ought to be fatisfied with what he thinks proper to tell of them, especially when people are so frank and confiding as I am. Indeed all this petty inquifitiveness is very little becoming a philofopher. About the fame time I received two other letters which had been opened. The one from Mr. Bofwell, the feal of which was in fo bad a condition, that Mr. Davenport, when he received it, made the fame remark to Mr. Hume's fervant. The other was from M. d'Ivernois, in Mr. Hume's packet: it had been fealed up again by means of a hot iron, which, being aukwardly applied, had burnt the paper round the impreffion. On this I wrote to Mr. Davenport, and defired him to take charge of all letters which might be fent to me, and to truft none of them in any body's hands, under any pretext whatever. I know not whether Mr. Davenport, who certainly was far from thinking that precaution regarded Mr. Hume, fhewed him my letter; but I know that Mr. Hume had every reason to think he had loft my confidence, and that he proceeded nevertheless in his ufual manner, without troubling himself about the recovery of it. "But what was to become of me, when I faw, in the public papers, the pretended letter of the King of Pruffia, which I had never before feen; that that fictitious letter, printed in French and Englifh, given for genuine, even with the fignature of the King, and in which I recognized the pen of M. d'Alembert as certainly as if I had seen him write it. "In a moment, a ray of light discovered to me the fecret caufe of that touching and fudden change in the English public refpećting me; and. I faw that the plot, which was put in execution at London, had been laid in Paris. "M. d'Alembert, another intimate friend of Mr. Ilume, had been long my fecret enemy, and lay in watch for opportunities to injure me without expofing himself. He was the only perfon among the men of letters, of my old acquaintance, who did not come to fee me*, or fend their civilities during my last journey through Paris; I knew his fecret difpofition, but I gave myself very little trouble about it, contenting myfelf with occafionally apprifing my friends of it. I remember, that being asked about him one day by Mr. Hume, who afterwards afked my governante the fame question; I told him that M. d'Alembert was a cunning, artful man. He contradicted me with a warmth that surprised me; who did not then know * M. Rouffeau declares himself to have been fatigued with the vifits he received: ought he, therefore, to complain that M. d'Alembert, whom he did not like, did not importune him with his? HUME. that that they flood fo well with each other, and that it was his own caufe he defended. "The perufal of the letter above mentioned alarmed me a good deal, when, perceiving that I had been brought over to England in confequence of a project which began to be put in execution, but of the end of which I was ignorant, I felt the danger without knowing where it was, or on whom to rely. I then recollected four terrifying words. which Mr. Hume had made ufe of, and of which I shall speak hereafter. What could be thought of a paper in which my misfortunes were imputed to me as a crime, which tended, in the midst of my diftress, to deprive me of the compaffion of the world, and, to render its effect ftill more cruel, pretended to have been written by a prince who had afforded me protection? What could I divine would be the confequence of fuch a beginning? The people in England read the public papers, and are, in nowife prepoffeffed in favour of foreigners. Even a coat, cut in a different fashion from their own, is fufficient to excite their ill-humour. What then had not a poor ftranger to expect in his rural walks, the only pleafures of his life, when the good people were perfuaded he was fond of being pelted with ftones? Doubtlefs they would be ready enough to contribute to his favourite amusement. But my concern, my profound and cruel concern, the bittereft indeed I ever felt, did not arife from the danger to which I was expofed. I had brayed too |