Chapter LX: Letter LIX: To Mr. W----E

Charles Street, March 12, 1778.

WILL you forgive me--if I take the liberty to trouble you with getting my enclosed plan inserted in the General Advertiser, or Morning Intelligencer, as speedily as they conveniently can, if after you have perused it, you think it admissable?--if not, destroy it; for I have not yet vanity sufficient to think whatever I privately approve must of course be approveable.--I send you the copy of what real affection made me draw up for the late unfortunate Dr. Dodd[5] (which, as it never was inserted, I must believe the learned editor thought it too insignificant for the laudable service it was meant to help).--My respects attend your whole family.--I am, dear Sir,

Yours, &c. &c.

I. SANCHO.

I prefer Mr. Parker’s paper for many reasons;--let me have your opinion of my plan--for, in serious truth, I think it ought to be put in execution.

[5] Mr. Sancho also wrote to Dr. Dodd when in prison.

For THE GENERAL ADVERTISER.

Palace Yard, March 12, 1778.

SIR,

THE Romans were wont to decree public honors on the man who was so fortunate as to save the life of a citizen; a noble act of policy, founded on true humanity, to stimulate the endeavours of every individual towards acts of benevolence and brotherly regard to each other. Actuated by zeal to my prince, and love to my country--I mean to deserve well of both, by publishing, through the channel of your paper, a plan for greatly diminishing the national debt; or, in case a war with the House Bourbon should be inevitable, for raising three or four years supplies, without oppresing the merchant, mechanic, or labouring husbandman; in short, without abridging one needful indulgence, or laying any fellow-subject under the least self-denying restraint.

Mr. Editor, we all know that in noble families plate is merely ideal wealth--and in very many houses of your first connexions and over-grown fortunes, there are vast quantities of it old and useless, kept merely for the antiquity of its fashion, and the ostentatious proof of the grandeur of ancestry. Our neighbours the French (if I mistake not) in the last war had the spirit (when the treasures of their Grand Monarque were nearly exhausted) to send their plate generously to the mint, in aid of national honour and security. Their churchmen have often shewn the laity the glorious example of aiding the state. We, to our immortal honour, have never yielded them the palm in courage, wisdom, or gallantry. Let every gentleman, whose landed property exceeds 500_l._ _per annum_, give up, without reserve, his useful family plate, all except knives, forks, and spoons, which may be deemed useful and necessary. I trust, such is the exalted spirit of the British nobility and gentry, that they will resign with chearfulness what they can so well do without. Should this meet (as I hope it will) with the chearful assent of the public, let the quantities, so nobly given, be printed against the names of the patriotic donors, as a lasting testimony of their zeal for the public good, and a glorious proof of the internal riches of this queen of isles!

+Africanus.+

To the Editor of the MORNING POST.

SIR,

I AM one of the many who have been often edified by the graceful eloquence and truly Christian doctrine of the unfortunate Dr. Dodd.--As a Divine, he had, and still has, my love and reverence; his faults I regret; but, alas! I feel myself too guilty to cast a stone: justice has her claims;--but Mercy, the anchor of my hope, inclines me to wish he might meet with Royal clemency--his punishments have already been pretty severe!--the loss of Royal favor--the cowardly attacks of malicious buffoonry--and the over-strained zeal for rigid justice in the prosecution.--Oh! would to God the reverend bishops, clergy, &c. would join in petitioning the Throne for his life!--it would save the holy order from indignity, and even the land itself from the reproach of making too unequal distinctions in punishments. He might, by the rectitude of his future life, and due exertion of his matchless powers, be of infinite service--as chaplain to the poor convicts on the river, which would be a punishment, and, at the same time, serve for a proof or test of his contrition--and the sincerity of a zeal he has often manifested (in the pulpit) for the service of true Religion--and he may rise the higher by his late fall--and do more real service to the thoughtless and abandoned culprits, than a preacher, whose character might perhaps be deemed spotless. If this hint should stimulate a pen, or heart, like the good B----p of Chester’s, to exert itself in the behalf of a man who has formerly been alive to every act of heaven-born charity--the writer of this will have joy, even in his last moments, in the reflection that he paid a mite of the vast debt he owes Dr. Dodd as a preacher.

I---- S----.