Besides Hamilton could be introduced as “comforting, aiding, and abetting the said John Mortimer, &c.” Blossom himself was averse to this counsel, and appeared disposed to confine his views to having Mortimer bound over to the peace.--The lawyer strongly urged the contrary, but in vain. Finding he could not succeed in bringing on cross actions, he determined to suit himself to the humour of his client, and advised the following expedient for keeping the peace and preserving the esquire’s honour: Blossom was to send a thundering defiance to Mortimer, offering to meet him at Northallerton, and threatening, if he would not fight, to cudgel him unmercifully. The attorney was to communicate these bloody minded intentions to a friend, this friend was to alarm the mayor, and both parties were to be bound over to keep the peace. A captain of Militia delivered this menacing message to Mortimer. Hamilton and he attended, met the redoubtable champion in the public room; and knowing there was help at hand, Blossom both looked and talked very big: Mortimer immediately proceeded to action; but the magistrate and his attendants rushing in prevented mischief. The parties were bound over, and thus the matter terminated. Meanwhile our hero was becoming every day more fondly enamoured of his charming Maria. The young lady also on her part the more she knew Hamilton the more she admired and esteemed his talents and dispositions. His successful interference preventing the catastrophe, which her susceptible imagination had apprehended, enhanced her regard. She had promised him her lasting gratitude; nor was she disposed to violate such an engagement. She now was not only pleased, but visibly delighted with his company and conversation.--Besides that range of genius, extent of knowledge, and happy power of communication, which must render him, Maria thought, respected and admired in public life, he seemed to her to have those just moral principles, virtues, and refined sentiments, which constitute, at once, the use and pleasure of domestic life. But thinking so favourably of him, and feeling so kindly to him, she cautiously forbore an acknowledgment of mutual affection. She observed, that in his ideas he was lofty and aspiring, and apprehending that whatever love might now dictate, ambition might hereafter prompt views and connexions more conducive to aggrandizement. She, therefore, not only refused his immediate offers, but would admit of no promises or engagements: that if at any future time interest or inclination might induce him to desire a change, there might be no restraint upon him from justice and honour. Hamilton communicated his passion to his friend John, but not thereby any intelligence which he had not discovered before. Mortimer told him, that there was no man whom he thought, in character and conduct, so worthy of his dear Maria, and that their respective ranks were equal; that to such a woman as