SIR,

I take this last and solemn occasion to repeat to you my thanks for all
your kindness to me at a time when I most needed countenance and
protection.

A few considerations I beg leave, as now at your perusal of this, from
the dead, to press upon you, with all the warmth of a sincere friendship.

By the time you will see this, you will have had an instance, I humbly
trust, of the comfortable importance of a pacified conscience, in the
last hours of one, who, to the last hour, will wish your eternal welfare.

The great Duke of Luxemburgh, as I have heard, on his death-bed,
declared, that he would then much rather have had it to reflect upon,
that he had administered a cup of cold water to a worthy poor creature in
distress, than that he had won so many battles as he had triumphed for.
And, as one well observes, All the sentiments of worldly grandeur vanish
at that unavoidable moment which decides the destiny of men.

If then, Sir, at the tremendous hour it be thus with the conquerors of
armies, and the subduers of nations, let me in a very few words (many are
not needed,) ask, What, at that period, must be the reflection of those,
(if capable of reflection,) who have lived a life of sense and offence;
whose study and whose pride most ingloriously have been to seduce the
innocent, and to ruin the weak, the unguarded, and the friendless; made
still more friendless by their base seductions?--O Mr. Belford, weigh,
ponder, and reflect upon it, now that, in health, and in vigour of mind
and body, the reflections will most avail you--what an ungrateful, what
an unmanly, what a meaner than reptile pride is this!