Early on Wednesday morning last, ye 4th of June, we were roused by a loud rapping at the bedroom door opening into the drawing-room. My mother cried out that she had brought great news, that Sir Godfrey Webster was dead; that he expired the evening before in a fit. He had been indisposed for some days, which made the event more natural. I could not hear of his death without emotion, and was for some time considerably agitated. But, my God! how was I overcome when Drew showed me a hasty note written to him by Hodges to apprise me of the manner of his death. He shot himself, he added, in consequence of heavy losses at play. With him dies all resentment, and, great as my injuries have been, willingly would I renounce all that may accrue to me from this dreadful event to restore him again to existence, with the certainty of his paying the _natural_ debt of nature. Unhappy man! What must have been the agony of his mind, to rouse him to commit a deed of such horror. Peace to his soul, and may he find that mercy I would bestow. His confidential servant gave the following details: that he had appeared frequently disordered in his mind in the course of the winter, and that latterly his spirits were gone, and a physician attended him for a slow fever. But the malady was deeper; it was on his mind. Twice within the last weeks he had attempted to destroy himself by laudanum, but each time his man interposed, once by wrenching the phial out of his hand, and the other by compelling him to swallow an emetic. On Saturday he despatched his relation, a Mr. Whistler, to fetch from Sussex titledeeds of some estates, merely a device to get him out of the way. On Tuesday he went out at nine o’clock, and purchased at Egg’s a brace of pistols, and after various devices and stratagems to get his servants out of the way, he but too fatally succeeded, and at half past four shot himself in his front drawing-room in Tenterden Street. Have mercy on him, Oh heaven!