Letter XXXVI

To Henry Colden

Philadelphia, November 23.

You impose on me a painful task. Persuaded that reflection was useless, I have endeavoured to forget this fatal letter and all its consequences. I see you will not allow me to forget it; but I must own it is weakness to endeavour to shun the scrutiny.

Some one, my friend, must be in fault; and what fault can be more atrocious than this? To defraud, by forgery, your neighbour of a few dollars, is a crime which nothing but a public and ignominious death will expiate; yet how trivial is that offence, compared with a fraud like this, which robs a helpless woman of her reputation, --introduces mortal enmity between her and those whose affection is necessary to render life tolerable!

Whenever I think of this charge, an exquisite pain seizes my heart. There must be the blackest perfidy somewhere. I cannot bear to think that any human creature is capable of such a deed, --a deed which the purest malice must have dictated, since there is none, surely, in the world, whom I have ever intentionally injured.

I cannot deal in conjectures. The subject, I find by my feelings since I began this letter, is too agonizing, --too bewildering. It carries back my thoughts to a time of misery, to which distance, instead of soothing it into apathy, only adds a new sting.