At our arrival in London, we were mightily caressed and entertained: all ranks of people eagerly pressing to give me marks of their benevolence and esteem. Mr Hume presented me politely to every body; and it was natural for me to ascribe to him, as I did, the best part of my good reception. My heart was full of him, I spoke in his praise to every one, I wrote to the same purpose to all my friends; my attachment to him gathering every day new strength, while his appeared the most affectionate to me, of which he frequently gave me instances that touched me extremely. That of causing my portrait to be painted, however, was not of the number. This seemed to me to carry with it too much the affectation of popularity, and had an air of ostentation which by no means pleased me. All this, however, might have been easily excusable, had Mr Hume been a man apt to throw away his money, or had a gallery of pictures with the portraits of his friends. After all, I freely confess, that, on this head, I may be in the wrong.[5] But what appears to me an act of friendship and generosity the most undoubted and estimable, in a word, the most worthy of Mr Hume, was the care he took to solicit for me, of his own accord, a pension from the King, to which most assuredly I had no right to aspire. As I was a witness to the zeal he exerted in that affair, I was greatly affected with it. Nothing could flatter me more than a piece of service of that nature; not merely for the sake of interest; for, too much attached, perhaps, to what I actually possess, I am not capable of desiring what I have not, and, as I am able to subsist on my labour, and the assistance of my friends, I covet nothing more. But the honour of receiving testimonies of the goodness, I will not say of so great a monarch, but of so good a father, so good a husband, so good a master, so good a friend, and, above all, so worthy a man, was sensibly affecting: and when I considered farther, that the minister who had obtained for me this favour, was a living instance of that probity which of all others is the most important to mankind, and at the same time hardly ever met with in the only character wherein it can be useful, I could not check the emotions of my pride, at having for my benefactors three men, who of all the world I could most desire to have my friends. Thus, so far from refusing the pension offered me, I only made one condition necessary for my acceptance; this was the consent of a person, whom I could not, without neglecting my duty, fail to consult.