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rejoined Watelet, when, delighted at this exemplary probity, "I embraced him, and affured him, that I never had met with a more excellent man than himself. This mark of my esteem affected him deeply, and he told me, with tears in his eyes, that he should never forget the confolation that accompanied my farewell."

• When I arrived at Paris, I made his payments. His creditors were defirous of knowing where he was, what he was doing, and what were his refources. Without explaining myself in that refpect, I impreffed them with the fame good opinion of his integrity as I entertained myself, and difmiffed them all well fatisfied.

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Being one day at dinner with monfieur Nervin, my notary, one of his guests, on hearing me fpeak of my journey into Holland, afked me, with fome degree of ill humour and contempt, whether I had never happened to meet with one Oliver Salvary in that country. As it was eafy to recognize in his looks a fentiment of malevolence, I flood on my guard, and answered," that my tour into Holland having been a mere party of pleasure, I had not had leifure to acquire information refpecting the French that I might have seen there; but that, through my connections, it would be very poffible to get fome account of the perfon he had named." -"No," faid he, "it is not worth while. He has given me too much vexation already. He has poffibly died of want or fhame, as it was but fit he should. He would have done much better still, if he had died before he married my daughter, and brought himself to ruin. After that," continued he, 66 depend upon the fine promifes which a young man makes you. In eighteen months, fifty thoufand crowns in debt; and, to complete the whole, exile and difgrace!" "Ah! fir," said he to the notary, "when you marry your daughter, be upon your guard. An infolvent and disgraced fon-in-law is but a forry piece of furniture.”

'Monfieur Nervin afked him how it had happened, that fo prudent a man as he had not forefeen and prevented thefe misfortunes ?'-" I did foresee them," replied d'Amene, "and prevented them as far as I could; for the very day after my daughter's death, I took my measures, and, thank heaven, I have had the confolation of recovering her portion and perfonal property; but that is all I was able to fave from the wreck, and I left nothing but the fhattered remains for the reft of the creditors."

'It was with great difficulty that [ could contain myfelf; but perceiving, after he was gone, the impreffion he had made upon the minds of the notary and his daughter, I could not refrain from vindicating the honourable abfent man; but without mentioning his retreat. "You have been hearing," faid I, " this unmerciful father-in-law speak of his fon with the moft cruel contempt. Well, every thing he has faid about him is true; and it is not less true, that this unfortunate man is innocence and probity itself." This exordium feemed very strange to them, it rivetted their attention, and the father and daughter remaining filent, I related what you have heard.

• Nervin is one of thofe uncommon characters, that are difficult to be comprehended. Never was there a cooler head or a warmer heart. It was a volcano beneath a heap of fnow. His daughter, on the contrary, was a girl of a tender and placid difpofition, equally partaking of the ardour of her father's foul, and of the fedateness of reafon. She is handfome. You have feen her; but she is so little vain of her beauty, that she hears it spoken of without blufhing, or embarraffment, as fhe would the beauty of another. "We may be proud," faid fhe, "of what we have acquired ourfelves; and modelty is neceffary to conceal fuch pride, or to keep it within due bounds. But where is the merit, or the glory, in having one's eyes or mouth made in fuch and fuch a manE e ner?

ner? And why should we think ourfelves obliged to blush at the praise of what the caprice of nature has conferred upon us, without any merit of our own? This fingle trait may give you an idea of the difpofit on of Juftina; which though more strongly characterized and determined than that of Adrienne, exhibited the fame candour and the fame charms.

This estimable girl paid as much attention to my words as her father, and at each trait that marked the integrity of Salvary, his ftrong fenfibility, his firmness under misfortune, I perceived them look at each other, and thrill with that fweet delight which virtue ever excites in the breafts of all her votaries. But the father became imperceptibly more thoughtful, and the daughter more affected.

When I came to these words in which Oliver had addressed me:"Ah! fir, how fweet and confolatory is the idea that the efleem of my fellow citizens will be restored to grace my old age, and crown my grey hairs."-I faw Nervin lift up his head, his eyes all fuffufed with tears: "No, virtuous man," he exclaimed, in the effufion of his generofity, "you fhall not wait the tedious decline of life, in order to be free and honoured as you deserve. Sir," added he to me," you are in the right, there is not a nobler man in the world. As to the common and ftrait-forward duties of life, any one may fulfil them; but to preferve this refolution and probity, while hanging over the precipices of misfortune and thame, without once lofing fight of them for a moment! this is rare indeed! this is what I call poffelling a well-tempered mind. He will commit no more follies. I will be answerable for it. He will be kind, but he will be prudent; he knows too well what weakness and imprudence have coft him, and with d'Amene's good leave, that is the man I fhould like for a fon in-law. And you, daughter, what think you of it ?”

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1, fir!" anfwered Juftina. "I confefs that fuch would be the hulband

I fhould choose." "You fhall have him," faid her father: "Write to him, fir, and defire him to come to Paris; tell him that a good match awaits him here, and tell him nothing more."

'I wrote; he answered, that fituated as he was, he was condemned to celibacy and folitude; that he would involve neither a wife nor children in his misfortune; nor would he fet foot in his own country, until there should be no one there before whom he should be ashamed to appear. This answer proved a farther incitement to the im patience of the notary. "Afk him,” faid he, " to give in a specific account of his debts; and inform him, that a person who interefts himself in his welfare will undertake the care of adjufting every thing."

Salvary confented to intruft me with the state of his debts, but as to the accommodation of them, he replied, he would hear of no fuch thing; that any reduction of his creditors claims would be unjuft; that it was his intention to discharge them fully, and to the laft livre; and all that he required at their hands was time. "Time, time," fays the notary, “I have none to spare him. My daughter will grow old before he pays his debts. Leave this lift of them with me. I know how to act for an honourable man. Every body fhall be fatisfied." Two days after he came to me. "All is fettled," faid he, "Look, here are his bills, with receipts to them. Send them to him, and give him the choice of being no longer in debt to any one by marrying my daughter, or of having me for his fole creditor, if he refuses to accept me for a father-in-law; for this does not bind him to any thing."

I leave you to imagine the furprise and gratitude of Salvary at feeing all the traces of his ruin done away, as it were, by the ftroke of a pen; and with what eagerness he came to return thanks to his benefactor. He was, neverthelefs, detained in Holland longer than he wished, and the impetuous

Nervin began to complain, that this man was tardy and very hard to be worked upon. At laft, he arrived at my house, not yet daring to perfuade himself but that his happiness was only a dream. I introduced him foon to his generous benefactor, with a mind impreffed with two fentiments equally grateful, deeply fenfible of the father's goodness, and every day ftill more captivated with the charms of the daughter; for finding in her all he had fo much loved and fo much regretted in Adrienne, his mind was, as it were, ravished with gratitude and love. He was no longer able, he faid, to decide which was the more inestimable gift of heaven; a friend like Nervin, or a wife like Juftina.

'One regret, however, that he could not conceal, ftill hung about his mind. "Pardon me," faid he one day, when Nervin reproached him for having rather put his patience to the teft: "6 pardon me, fir, I was impatient to throw myself at your feet, but befide the accounts I had to make up, I have had, in leaving Holland, more then one conflict to undergo. The worthy Odelman, my refuge, my first benefactor, had depended upon me for the ease and comfort of his old age. He is a widower; has no children; and, without declaring it, he had already adopted me in his heart. When we were obliged to part; when, in revealing to him my past misfortunes, I told him by what a prodigy of goodness I had been reftored to honour, he bitterly complained of my referve, and asked me if I thought I had a better friend in the world than Odelman, He preffed me to confent to his acquitting the obligation I owed you. He requested it with tears, and I quickly began to feel myself no longer able to refift his entreaties. But when he read the letter in which Mr. Watelet had made

the eulogium of the amiable Juftina, and in which he had given a still more enchanting portrait of her mind than. of her perfon-Ah!" faid that good man to me, "I have no daughter to offer you; and if this picture be à faithful one, it will be a difficult matter to find her equal. I will detain you no longer. Go, be happythink of me, and do not ceafe to love me."

Nervin, as he liftened to this narrative, was wrapt in thoughtful attention. "No," faid he, fuddenly breaking filence, "I will not defire you to be ungrateful, nor will I suffer a Dutchman to boast that he is more generous than I. You have no profeffion here, and you are not formed to lead an indolent life. It would be a very great fatisfaction for me, as you must imagine, to have my children about me: but let bleffing be referved for my old age; and as my business here affords me fufficient oc cupation to keep away ennui, write to the worthy Odelman, and tell him, that I give you up to him, together with my daughter, for half a score years; after which you will return, F hope, with a little colony of children; and you and I, in the mean while, shall have been labouring for their welfare."

The Dutchman, overjoyed, returned for answer, that his houfe, his arms, his heart, were all open to receive the new-married pair. He expects them; they are going to set off, and Oliver will henceforth be in partnerfhip with him. This is the inftance. I have promised you,' "added Watelet, of a fpecies of courage that many unfortunate people are in want of, that of never forfeiting their own efteem, and that of never defpairing fo long as confcicus of their own integrity,

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PROCEEDINGS of the Second SESSION of the Seventeenth Parliament of Great Britain. Continued from Page 146.

NO regular debate took place, after the firft day of the feffions, till Thursday, February 9; when major Maitland made fix motions, for the production of certain papers, relative to the war in India. He contended, that this war was corrupt in its origin, and unjust, impolitic, and ruinous in its progrefs; that we had put the termination of the war out of our own power into that of our allies, the Nizam and the Mahrattas, whofe only object was plunder, and who were faithlefs to a proverb; and that, were the war even to terminate fuccessfully, and the formidable Tippoo Sultan to be extirpated, the event would prove ruinous to our interefts in India. Much, he continued, had been advanced, of the comparative characters of earl Cornwallis and Tippco Sultan: the former had ever been reprefented as a gallant officer, and the latter as a cruel tyrant; but if their characters were to be fai ly decided upon, as they appeared from the conduct of each in commencing the prefent war, he feared, that the British governor, had, in this inftance, acted with all the violence of the Indian tyrant, and that Tippoo had acted with all the moderation of a British governor.

Mr. Francis, who feconded the motions, contended, that the public had a right to full accounts, and not to garbled intelligence from Madras, and partial extracts from the letters of earl Cornwallis, ftating victories only, and holding out probabilities of fuccefs, at a time, when the public knew, from private information, that defeat and calamity had attended every step of the British armies; and when the retreat of general Abercromby was known to have been calamitous and difgraceful: for this officer had not only loft his baggage, but had left his hofpital, with the fick, to the mercy of a man, ftigmatized as a ferocious tyrant. In former times, little armies did much; but, in the prefent war, it is found, that large British armies do little. The British intereft in India hung upon the thread of opinion, but that thread was now broken, and our reputation loft, by the defeat of a British army, aided by a confederacy, which army alone, in former times, would have annihilated twenty Tip

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duct of the two last speakers, who, he faid, had held, in the abfence of a general, and at a time when he could not defend himself, language improper to be held by one gentleman to another; and had thrown out infinuations, which they would be unable to juftify, when the papers moved for fhould be produced; and he would confent to all of them being produced, one only excepted, which related to the propofals of peace received from Tippco Sultan. He entered into a statement of the retreat of general Abercromby, whom he praifed as a gallant and meritorious officer. He infifted, that the public were in poffeffion of the whole information received by government; and the gentlemen on the oppofite fide of the houfe not only poffeffed every item of knowledge poffeffed by minifters, of the affairs of India, but, according to their own account, were in poffeffion of much more than those who were in official fituations. In a word, fo far from wishing to withhold any information, he himself had, unfolicited, been the first to establish an annual ftatement to that house of the finances of India; and he would again affert his opinion, declared in the laft feffion, that the period was at hand, when India would be more likely to aid the refources of this country, than to require affiftance from them.

Major Maitland, denied having thrown out any imputation upon the military character of the noble Lord-but he filled two capacities; he was governor general as well as commander in chief; every gentleman, therefore, had a right to feparate thofe characters, and to make whatever obfervation he thought proper upon the noble lord's civil capacity.

Mr. Fox difclaimed the leaft intention to throw a flur on the character of any abfent officer. None but administration, he faid, could be cenfured on this account; for they first provoked a difcuffion, in a way as difhonourable to the noble lord, as infulting to the house. After the calamities experienced by our armies, and the variety of hopes and difappointments experienced by the public, his majesty was induced to speak of the fucceffes of our arms in India, under the able conduct of lord Cornwallis, to which the houfe were called upon for an addrefs. In what a dilemma was the houfe,then placed?

Where

Where was the boasted freedom of debate, if fuch language was to be countenanced as that held forth by the right hon. gentleman? The house were called on to vote the noble lord's conduct to be able, but were not to go into the difcuffion of that conduct, because the noble lord was abfent. Was he, feeing no proof of ability, to fit filent, or to go up to his fovereign, to whom he owed truth, with an addrefs containing expreffions of approbation, which he did not feel in his heart to be merited. If he difcuffed the noble lord's ability, he was ftigmatized as an uncandid man; and if he fat filent, his approbation was implied in offering a falfehood to the throne. In that difagreeable dilemma was the house placed by minifters, and whatever might be difagreeable in the difcuffion was imputable to them. He condemned the doctrine, that papers relative to a negociation ought not to be produced pending a negociation, which, he faid, was a trained defence of the prerogative of the executive power to declare war and make peace. It was fhameful and ridiculous, to be boasting of our conftitution, and our rights, when we were thus daily admitting the poffibility of abuses, and the fquandering of the public money in wars and armed negociations, which, if enquired into, might be found not only entered upon unneceffarily, but fuch as might be reprobated by the reprefentatives of the people. He hoped he should not be mifreprefented, as fpeaking against the conftitution of the country; he spoke only against its abufes; he admired, and would, as long as he had breath, defend the conftitution; that conftitution gave to the house the privilege of voting fupplies; it was alfo, according to the conftitution, the bounden duty of the house to examine into the proceedings of minifters, and to interpofe its advice and influence upon all important points. The innovation of giving over inquiry, was an innovation of the most dangerous kind.

Mr. Dundas replied, that the right hon. gentleman's profeffion of attachment to the conftitution in the lump, was of but little avail, when he took it away in detail. He contended, that it was a principle of the conftitution to maintain fecrecy in a negociation, without which it was impoffible to be carried on with fafety to the ftate. He concluded, by quoting earl Cornwallis' letter, to fhew the reason that no communication of the offers of peace had been tranfmitted, which was, that Tippoo had been detected in intrigues, and

in the endeavour to treat feparately, with the allies; that fuch endeavours had been fuccefsfully refifted, and that lord Cornwallis had not as yet opened any negociation, in confequence of the proper mode not having been adopted by Tippoo.

Sir James Murray declared, that the character of general Abercromby had been fhamefully traduced. He had ferved under him in America, where he was esteemed for honour, integrity, and military ability. His misfortunes ought not to have been aggravated by ungenerous infinuations. That he had been under the neceffity of making a retreat, was notorious; and it was well known, that in retreats, loffes were fuftained; but it was eafy for thofe loffes to be grofsly exaggerated by the ignorant, or the malignant.

After Mr. Francis had fpoke, in reply to this laft obfervation, major Maitland's motions, for the production of fundry papers, were put and carried; that excepted relative to any propofals of peace from Tippoo Sultan.

On Tuesday, Feb. 14, the lords proceeded, for the first day this feffions, to the trial of Mr. Haftings; when Mr. Law, his leading counfel, in an admirable fpeech, entered upon his defence. But their lordships were obliged to adjourn on this, as well as on fome fubfequent days, before he could bring it to a conclufion.

On Friday, Feb. 17, in a committee on the fupply, Mr. Pitt rofe, and, after a fhort exordium, faid the first points to which he would call the attention of the committee, were to the permanent income of the country; to the estimates of its future expenditure; to the confideration of the probable income and expenditure for the prefent year; and then to the examination how far the diftribution of the surplus of the confolidated fund might appear to be permanent and folid.

The produce of the permanent taxes, from January 5, 1791, to January 5, 1792, omitting, of courfe, the amount of the duties laid on for the the Spanish armament, Amounted to

To which was to be added, as the real produce of the land and malt duties

£. 14,132,000

And for the old duty on stamps

2,558,000 40,000

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