Letter CXIII

Summary

In Answer to the preceding.

Dear Sir,

I now experience fully the Truth of the honest English Phrase, That a Friend in Need, is a Friend in Deed. You have filled me with such unspeakable Comfort to find that I am not abandoned by all my old Acquaintance, that, in a great measure, your seasonable Kindness will enable me to pursue the Advice you give me.

It is too late to look back now on the Steps that have brought me to this abject Condition. No doubt, were I to live my Life over again, I could do much better for myself than I have done, and should hardly run into some of the Failings that have help’d to bring such heavy Misfortunes upon me. But my Comfort is, I ever had an honest Intention, and never was a Sot or a Spendthrift. But yet, who knows, if I had avoided some Mistakes, that I might not have fallen into as bad another way? So I must acquiesce in the Dispensation, and pray to God, in his own good Time, to deliver me from it.

What is most grievous to me in this Matter, is my poor Wife and Children, who have deserved a happier Fate; had it been in my Power to have done better for them, than now I am ever likely to do.

As to your kind Offer, my dear Friend, I will beg to see you as often as may not be detrimental to your own Affairs. I care not how seldom I see my dear Wife: Neither her Heart nor mine can bear the Grief that oppresses us when we think of our happier Days and Prospects, and see them all concluded within these Bars, and Bolts, and Lattices; so that we sink one another still lower every doleful Visit the dear good Woman makes me. But your Visits, my Friend, will be of singular Use and Comfort to me, (as your Presence and kind Advice will be to her, as often as you can) to save us both the Mortification of seeing one another so often as my Affairs will otherwise require her to come to this dismal Place; for I cannot open my Mind to any body but you and her.