Only a few hours ago that worthy kinsman of the benefactor of our nation made it known to me that in his last will he had bequeathed to me, by secret trust, the whole of those estates which long ago I had forfeited by effluxion of time, inasmuch as I had been unable to fulfil the terms of my voluntary bond.

It grieves me to think that I have had to keep you so long in ignorance of the good thought and wishes and acts of this great man.
"But it was by his wise counsel, fortified by my own judgment, that I was silent; for, indeed, I feared, as he did, lest in our troublous times some doubting spirit without our boundaries, or even within it, might mistrust the honesty of my purposes for public good, because I was no longer one whose whole fortune was invested within our confines.

This prince-merchant, the great English Roger Melton--let his name be for ever graven on the hearts of our people!--kept silent during his own life, and enjoined on others to come after him to keep secret from the men of the Blue Mountains that secret loan made to me on their behalf, lest in their eyes I, who had striven to be their friend and helper, should suffer wrong repute.

But, happily, he has left me free to clear myself in your eyes.

Moreover, by arranging to have--under certain contingencies, which have come to pass--the estates which were originally my own retransferred to me, I have no longer the honour of having given what I could to the national cause.