Page:Honest debtor, or, The virtuous man struggling with, rising superior to, and overcoming misfortune (2).pdf/13

13 worthless minds have possessed the same desperate courage! And what can wash away the blood in which I am going to imbrue my hands! Will my infamy be the less inscribed upon my tomb, if indeed I am allowed a tomb ? and will my name, stigma- tized by the laws, be buried with me? But what am I saying? Wretch that I am. I am thinking of the shame but who is to expiate the guilt? I want to steal out of the world ; but when I shall cease to exist, who will make restitution to those I have injured ? Who will ask forgiveness for a young mad- man, the sqanderer of wealth that was not his own? Ah ! let me die, if I can no longer hope to regain that esteem which I had lost. But it is not possible, at my age, what labour and time to repair the errors of my youth, and to obtain pardon for my misfortune ? Then reflecting upon the resources that were left me, if I had the fortitude to contend with my ill fate, I fancied I saw at a distance my honour emerging from behind the cloud that had obscured it, I fancied I saw a plank placed at my feet to save me from shipwreck, and that I beheld a freindly port at hand ready to receive me, I retired into Holland ; but before I set off, I wrote to my creditors, informing them that having given up all I had left in the world, I was still going to devote my whole life to labour for their be- nefiit; and entreated them to have patience.