I need not tell you, that I have been your father's friend--that I have been, and still am your friend, and as such, from my age and anxiety for your lordship's welfare and reputation, I must take the liberty of one who has both sincerely at heart, to write to you in terms which a mere agent could not with propriety use.

As this letter, therefore, is written for your own eye only, you will be good enough to remember that in everything severe and home-spoken in it, the friend, and not the agent speaks--at the same time, I must admit, that it is from the knowledge gained as an agent that I remonstrate as a friend.
"It is now beyond a doubt, my Lord, that your position is one surrounded with difficulties scarcely to be surmounted, unless by measures which I, as an honest man, cannot permit myself to adopt.

So long as the course of life, which it has pleased your lordship's better taste and judgment to pursue, did not bring within the compass of my duties as your agent, the exhibition of principles at variance with humanity and justice, so long did I fulfil those duties with all the ability and zeal for your just interests which I could exert.

But now I perceive, that you have driven me to that line beyond which I cannot put my foot, without dishonor to myself.

I have been the agent of your property, my Lord, but I shall never become the instrument of your vices; and believe me, this is a distinction which in our unhappy country, is too seldom observed.
Many an agent, my Lord, has built himself a fortune out of the very necessities of his employer, and left to his children the honorable reflection that their independence originated from profligacy on the one hand and dishonesty on the other.