You will see, my dear patron, by the letter Mr Davenport will have transmitted you, how agreeably I find myself situated in this place. I might perhaps be more at my ease if I were less noticed; but the solicitude of so polite an host as mine is too obliging to give offence; and as there is nothing in life without its inconvenience, that of being too good is one of those which is the most tolerable. I find a much greater inconvenience in not being able to make the servants understand me, and particularly in my not understanding them. Luckily Mrs le Vasseur serves me as interpreter, and her fingers speak better than my tongue. There is one advantage, however, attending my ignorance, which is a kind of compensation; it serves to tire and keep at a distance impertinent visitors. The minister of the parish came to see me yesterday, who, finding that I spoke to him only in French, would not speak to me in English, so that our interview was almost a silent one. I have taken a great fancy to this expedient, and shall make use of it with all my neighbours, if I have any. Nay, should I even learn to speak English, I would converse with them only in French, especially if I were so happy as to find they did not understand a word of that language; an artifice this, much of the same kind with that which the Negroes pretend is practised by the monkeys, who, they say, are capable of speech, but cannot be prevailed upon to talk, lest they should be set to work.