Mr Davenport knows the whole transaction about your pension, because I thought it necessary that the person who had undertaken your settlement, should be fully acquainted with your circumstances; lest he should be tempted to perform towards you concealed acts of generosity, which, if they accidentally came to your knowledge, might give you some grounds of offence. I am, Sir, D. H. Mr Davenport's authority procured me, in three weeks, the following enormous letter; which however has this advantage, that it confirms all the material circumstances of the foregoing narrative. I have subjoined a few notes relative to some facts which Mr Rousseau hath not truly represented, and leave my readers to judge which of us deserves the greatest confidence. MR ROUSSEAU TO MR HUME. _Wooton_, _July_ 10, 1766. SIR, I am indisposed, and little in a situation to write; but you require an explanation, and it must be given you: it was your own fault you had it not long since; but you did not desire it, and I was therefore silent: at present you do, and I have sent it. It will be a long one, for which I am very sorry; but I have much to say, and would put an end to the subject at once. As I live retired from the world, I am ignorant of what passes in it. I have no party, no associates, no intrigues; I am told nothing, and I know only what I feel. But as care hath been taken to make me severely feel; that I well know. The first concern of those who engage in bad designs is to secure themselves from legal proofs of detection: it would not be very advisable to seek a remedy against them at law. The innate conviction of the heart admits of another kind of proof, which influences the sentiments of honest men. You well know the basis of mine. You ask me, with great confidence, to name your accuser. That accuser, Sir, is the only man in the world whose testimony I should admit against you; it is yourself. I shall give myself up, without fear or reserve, to the natural frankness of my disposition; being an enemy to every kind of artifice, I shall speak with the same freedom as if you were an indifferent person, on whom I placed all that confidence which I no longer have in you. I will give you a history of the emotions of my heart, and of what produced them; while speaking of Mr Hume in the third person, I shall make yourself the judge of what I ought to think of him. Notwithstanding the length of my letter, I shall pursue no other order than that of my ideas, beginning with the premises, and ending with the demonstration.