Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/267

Rh provoke you to it, but upon a narrow inspection into my conduct, I can find nothing to reproach myself with, but too partial a concern for your interest. You no sooner set this composition afoot, but I was ready to comply, and prevented your very wishes; and the affair might have been ended before now, had it not been for the greater concerns of esquire South, and the other poor creatures embarked in the same common cause, whose safety touches me to the quick. You seemed a little jealous, that I had dealt unfairly with you in moneymatters, till it appeared by your own accounts, that there was something due to me upon the balance. Having nothing to answer to so plain a demonstration, you began to complain, as if I had been familiar with your reputation; when it is well known, not only I, but the meanest servants in my family, talk of you with the utmost respect. I have always, as far as in me lies, exhorted your servants and tenants to be dutiful: not that I any way meddle in your domestick affairs, which were very unbecoming for me to do. If some of your servants express their great concern for you, in a manner that is not so very polite, you ought to impute it to their extraordinary zeal, which deserves a reward rather than a reproof. You cannot reproach me for want of success at the Salutation, since I am not master of the passions and interests of other folks. I have beggared myself with this lawsuit, undertaken merely in complaisance to you; and if you would have had but a little patience, I had still greater things in reserve, that I intended to have done for you. I hope, what I have said will prevail with you to lay aside your unreasonable Rh