We bless God Who put it into our minds to send to each other; for had Mr. Allerton gone on in that risky and expensive way one year more we should not have been able to meet his expenditure; nay, both he and we must have lain in the ditch and sunk under the burden.... Had there been an orderly course taken and your business better managed, by the blessing of God yours would have been the ablest colony we know of, undertaken by Englishmen.... Thus far of these letters of Mr. Sherley’s. * * * * * A few observations about former letters, and then I will give the simple truth of the things in controversy between them—at least as far as good evidence can show. 1. It seems clear that Ashley’s business and the buying of the ship and the resultant plans were first contrived by Mr. Allerton. 2. Though Mr. Allerton may not have intended to wrong the plantation, his own private ends led him astray; for it became known that in the first two or three years of his employment as agent, he had made £400, and put it into a brewery of Mr. Collier’s in London. Again, Mr. Sherley and he had private dealings; and yet I believe, as he mentioned above, that Mr. Sherley did not countenance any private trading which he thought would injure the colony. 3. Considering all they had done for the settlement, in former risks and recent disbursements, when Mr. Allerton’s proposals turned out unsuccessful they thought it fair that the colony should bear them, and so took advantage of such power as Mr. Allerton formerly had as their agent, to let these losses devolve upon them. 4. As for Mr. Allerton, with pity and compassion I may say with the apostle Timothy (I Tim. vi, 9, 10): “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare ... and pierce themselves through with many sorrows ... for the love of money is the root of all evil.” God give him to see the evil of his ways, that he may find mercy in repentance for the wrongs he has done.