“I sent to you to-day for this reason—the books you purchased are again seized, and, as matters stand, had much better be sold at once by public auction*. I wish to see you to return your bill for them, which, thank God, is neither due nor paid. That part, as far as you are concerned, being settled (which it can be, and shall be, when I see you to-morrow), I have no further delicacy about the matter. This is about the tenth execution in as many months; so I am pretty well hardened; but it is fit I should pay the forfeit of my forefathers’ extravagance and my own; and whatever my faults may be, I suppose they will be pretty well expiated in time—or eternity.
“P.S. I need hardly say that I knew nothing till this day of the new seizure. I had released them from former ones, and thought, when you took them, that they were yours.
“You shall have your bill again to-morrow.”
