“The circumstances that I am now going to mention I do not state in my own justification. When I first addressed your daughter I expected that in another week my own fate would be decided. I knew that in case of success many others might look on me differently from what they did at that moment, but I speak with sincerity when I say that I never was anxious for situation or distinction myself, and I did not wish to be united to one who was. I spoke to your daughter neither expecting, nor, in fact, under those circumstances, wishing, that there should be a return of attachment, but wishing to judge of her dispositions—to know how far they might not be unfavourable or disengaged, and to know what foundation I might afterwards have to count on. I received no encouragement whatever. She told me she had no attachment for any person, nor did she seem likely to have any that could make her wish to quit you. “I staid away till the time had elapsed when I found that the event to which I have alluded was to be postponed indefinitely. I returned by a kind of infatuation, thinking that to myself only was I giving pleasure or pain. I perceived no progress of attachment on her part, nor anything in her conduct to distinguish me from a common acquaintance. “Afterwards I had reason to suppose that discoveries were made, and that I should be obliged to quit the Kingdom immediately; and I came to make a renunciation of any approach to friendship that might have been formed. On that very day she herself spoke to me to discontinue my visits. I told her that it was my intention, and I mentioned the reason. I then for the first time found, when I was unfortunate, by the manner in which she was affected, that there was a return of affection, and that it was too late to retreat. My own apprehensions, also I found afterwards were without cause, and I remained. “There has been much culpability on my part in all this; but there has also been a great deal of that misfortune which seems uniformly to have accompanied me.