ABSTRACT
Yrs of ye 25/14th of this month was deliver’d to me this morning by yr servant, my Dear Sister, and it surpriz'd me a good deal, for tho’ I know that the post office abuses in a most scandalous manner the liberty of passing private Letters, yet I imagin’d that when the Minister’s, or even the Clerk’s curiosity was satisfy’d, they took the trouble of sending the letters forward. 1 yours have come to hand, & they have been all punctually answer’d. you do me great justice in beleiving that I could not be negligent of you, or of ye family to which you now belong. as I have a true Esteem for them, and a true affection for you, so you shall find me all my life a steady, sincere friend, & to ye best of my power an useful one. the story you mention I had not heard, & it is a very impertinent one, propagated perhaps by Harrison, 2 and carryed about by the understrappers of a set a Men who live by lyes. they have store of all kinds, levell’d att all sorts of persons, directed to several purposes great & small, & calculated for every day, & sometimes for every hour of the same day. I think you much in ye right to contradict this report, & I think my Lord St John should oblige Lovel 3 to disavow it, and even Harison him self, if it can be fix’d upon Harison. in all which I will readily take any part wch He shall approve or permit. but I own att ye same time that I think the matter should be treated with a due contempt, and that you should expect that an idle story without proof ought to drop when you give the lye to it.
