\4< Reflections* 



dividual reference ; but when it is done with a 

 view to disclosure on improper occasions, to 

 serve uncharitable purposes, it is highly criminal 

 and destructive of all confidence the basis of 

 social intercourse. What can be so base as to 

 partake of hospitalities, only to betray the weak- 

 nesses discoverable in the founder of the feast ? 

 -'''" 



Publications of private correspondence and 

 conversations have become by far too frequent, 

 and have had the effect of making the more es- 

 timable characters in foreign states extremely 

 cautious how they repose confidence in their 

 literary or personal communications with the 

 English, being too justly apprehensive of meet- 

 ing garbled extracts, or great amplifications, 

 conveying very opposite ideas to their real 

 sentiments. 



I honestly protest that I consider this retail 

 trade, most commonly of detraction, so mean 

 a vocation, that should I daily have opportuni- 

 ties of giving consequence to communications, 

 or weight to my opinions, by means of authori- 

 ties derived from others, I must, on principle, 

 decline availing myself of such assistance, as 

 every thing I may advance must rest on my 

 own individual credit ; beyond which I do not 

 feel that I can claim any pretensions. 



