His first thought was to make Harriet an allowance. He promised her £200 a year, which in addition to the £200 which her father allowed her, should be sufficient for all her wants. Next he undertook to pay off Godwin’s debts, and set apart for that purpose the whole of his first year’s annuity. The “venerated friend” found the offer of one thousand pounds far below his expectations. To hear him talk, nothing was easier than to borrow, on an inheritance now soon to fall in, the many thousands of pounds of which the Skinner Street book-shop stood so much in need. Shelley, exasperated but courteous, informed Godwin, with an indignation which he restrained, of his surprise that Mary’s father should think it proper to write to the seducer of his daughter to ask him for money, and at the same time to refuse to enter into any relations with that daughter herself, who was foolish enough to suffer from it. Godwin replied that it was precisely because he was borrowing money from the seducer that he could not receive Mary: his dignity would not allow it! He could not risk having it said that he had bartered his daughter’s honour for the payment of his debts. His scruples were so exaggerated that he returned a cheque drawn by Shelley in his favour, with the remark that the names of Shelley and of Godwin must not figure on the same cheque. Shelley could make it payable to Joseph Hume or James Martin, and then he, Godwin, might consent to cash it. On which the following letters were exchanged: _Shelley to Godwin._ “I confess that I do not understand how the pecuniary engagements subsisting between us in any degree impose restrictions on your conduct towards me. They did not, at least to your knowledge or with your consent, exist at the period of my return from France, and yet your conduct towards me and your daughter was then precisely such as it is at present. . . . “In my judgment neither I nor your daughter nor her offspring ought to receive the treatment which we encounter on every side. It has perpetually appeared to me to have been your especial duty to see that, so far as mankind value your good opinion, we were dealt justly by, and that a young family, innocent and benevolent and united, should not be confounded with prostitutes and seducers. My astonishment, and I will confess when I have been treated with most harshness and cruelty by you, my indignation has been extreme, that, knowing as you do my nature, any considerations should have prevailed on you to have been thus harsh and cruel. Do not talk of forgiveness again to me, for my blood boils in my veins, and my gall rises against all that bears the human form, when I think of what I, their benefactor and ardent lover, have endured of enmity and contempt from you and from all mankind.” _Godwin to Shelley._