terms, that I found no longer the same consent of minds and agreement of sentiments: and I have certainly declared to you that I cou'd not be satisfy'd with you, and I could no longer find in you _any degree of deference towards me_. I was never so drunk with presumption as to expect _absolute_ deference and _blind submission to my will_. A degree of deference to me and to my situation, I frankly own, I did not think too much for me to expect from you, with all the high opinion I really have of your parts. What I expected was too much (as perhaps might be). In our former days friendship had led me into the error. That error is at an end, and you may rest assured, that I can never be so unreasonable as to expect from you, now, anything like deference to me or my opinions. I come next to the small pecuniary assistance which you accepted from me, and which was exactly as you state it, two hundred pounds a year. I declare, upon my honour, I never gave the least foundation for those exaggerations which you say have been spread concerning it. I also declare as solemnly, before God and man, that no consideration cou'd ever have extorted from my lips the least mention of the trifling assistance you accepted from me, but the cruel reports, industriously propagated, and circulating from various quarters round to me, of the state you was left to live in. As to the repayment of this wretched money, allow me, dear Sister, to entreat you to think no more of it. The bare thought of it may surely suffice for your own dignity and for my humiliation, without taxing your present income, merely to mortify me: the demonstration of a blow is, in honour, a blow, and let me conjure you to rest it here. When I want and you abound, I promise you to afford you a better and abler triumph over me, by asking the assistance of your purse. I will now trouble you no farther than to repeat my sincere wishes for your welfare and to rejoice that you have so ample matter for the best of happiness, _springing from a heart and mind_ (to use your own words) entirely devoted to gratitude and duty. (B) _June 20, 1751. Pay Office._