_To my more than father, my only patron, protector and benefactor, the most worthy DORILAUS._ _Most dear and ever honoured Sir,_ "To hear you are living, and still remember me with kindness, affords too great a transport to suffer me to throw away any thought either on the motives of your long silence, or that happiness, which you tell me, I may expect has been the produce of it:--it is sufficient for me to know I am still blessed in the favor of the most excellent person that ever lived, and am not in the least anxious for an explanation of any farther good. To tell you with how much ardency I long to throw myself at your feet, to relate to you all the various accidents that have befallen me since first you condescended to put me in the paths of glory, and to pour out my soul before you with thanksgiving, would be as impossible as it is for me at present to enjoy that blessing!--The king's affairs, it is true, would suffer nothing by my absence; but, sir, what would the world say of me, if, after a whole year of inactivity and idleness, I flew, on the first appearance of danger, and forsook a prince, by whom I have been so highly favoured?--Instead of the character I have always been ambitious of attaining, should I not be branded with everlasting infamy!--Put not therefore, I beseech you, to so severe a test that love and duty, to which you cannot have a greater claim than I a readiness to pay?--Did you command my life, it is yours:--I owe it to you, and with it all that can render it agreeable; but, sir, my honour, my reputation, must survive when I am no more; it was the first, and will be the last bent of my desires. No perils can come in any degree of competition with those of being deprived of that, nor any indulgencies of fortune compensate for the loss of it:--pardon then this enforced disobedience, and believe it is the only thing in which I could be guilty of it.-- I very much lament my sister's absence, as I find by yours she went without your permission: time and reflection will doubtless bring her to a more just sense of what she, as well as myself, ought to have of your goodness to us, and make her return full of sincere contrition for having offended you. I should implore your favourable opinion of her actions in the mean time, were not all the interest I have in you too little to apologize for my own behaviour.--All, sir, I dare to implore is pardon for myself, and that you will be assured no son, no dependant whatever, would more rejoice in an opportunity of testifying his duty, affection, gratitude and submission, than him who is now constrained by ties, which I flatter myself you will not hereafter disapprove, to swerve in some measure from them, and whose soul and all the faculties of it are _Entirely devoted to you_. HORATIO."