“Mr. Carstairs [the printer, and a sorely troubled one] and others, bringing numerous verbal messages, and communications of various kinds from you to me, to my great annoyance and interruption, I think it right to state to you explicitly that, receiving the treatment I have received and am daily experiencing from you, I feel no inclination either to submit to your caprices, or to relax one iota from the privilege I possess as editor of the ‘Sun,’ in order to insert things merely agreeable to your personal connections. Provoked as I am, I have chalked out for myself a course, the basis of which is to have no intercourse with you which I can possibly avoid. This want of concert you have forced by bitter persecution and continued ill-usage; and if you feel its effects, you know where the blame lies. You one day tell me that such a man abhors me, and glory in having caused him so to do, and the next ask me to insert some puff of this very person in the ‘Sun.’ Yourself abuse and calumniate me grossly, and yet you come to me to give place to matters in which you alone are interested. What opinion have you of human nature, to suppose that insult and enmity are to beget a return of courtesy and friendship? Once for all, I will not be so sported with,
hear) when there was no occasion. So, when he had finished his speech, he went across the flure to ascertain who had affronted him in this fashion, and Alderman ——— was pointed out as the party. “Upon which,” said Dick, “as it was only an alderman, it was impossible for a gentleman to resent it; and so I just gave the poor devil a look, and tauld him he had better never cry ‘hare, hare,’ again when I was addressing the cheair.” |
| 104 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
“The gradual fall of the paper, in spite of my
incessant labour at a task too heavy for one person, the advantage taken to
throw a burthen upon me individually, wherever I have endeavoured to promote
the general benefit, the insidious and despicable misrepresentations to which
my best exertions are liable, have left me but one line of conduct, viz., to
steer as clear as I can of you, to continue to do my duty diligently and
faithfully, and to witness with regret that ruin of the ‘Sun’ which existing circumstances
render inevitable. You were originally abundantly forewarned of the consequence
of your laborious exertions to injure a person whose situation rendered it so
necessary to your interests that you should have pursued an opposite course,
but malice and folly combined mastered the good advice; you now feel a part of
the result. Be warned once more; it may be yet time to redeem a little, and
save from utter wreck. Could you reverse the injunction in Chancery, it will
destroy the ‘Sun’ in a fortnight. Should
any one of your causes come on, remember I have told you candidly, your
short-hand writer may give a dangerous publicity to some falsehoods put into
the mouth of counsel, and thus gratify your pique, but statements will be
brought to light which will give a death-blow to the ‘Sun.’ Should you publish one line injurious to me, it shall
be met by a notice under which the ‘Sun’
must sink. In brief, I will not permit you to ruin or attempt to ruin me
without your reward; and therefore, if you regard the concern in which you have
embarked a large property for a man in your
| REFLECTIONS: INGRATITUDE. | 105 |
