As you have already made your exit from the moral world, and by
numberless acts both of passionate and deliberate injustice engraved
an "here lieth" on your deceased honor, it must be mere affectation in
you to pretend concern at the humors or opinions of mankind respecting
you. What remains of you may expire at any time. The sooner the
better. For he who survives his reputation, lives out of despite of
himself, like a man listening to his own reproach.
Thus entombed and ornamented, I leave you to the inspection of the
curious, and return to the history of your yet surviving actions.
The character of Sir William has undergone some extraordinary
revolutions. since his arrival in America. It is now fixed and
known; and we have nothing to hope from your candor or to fear from
your capacity. Indolence and inability have too large a share in
your composition, ever to suffer you to be anything more than the hero
of little villainies and unfinished adventures. That, which to some
persons appeared moderation in you at first, was not produced by any
real virtue of your own, but by a contrast of passions, dividing and
holding you in perpetual irresolution. One vice will frequently
expel another, without the least merit in the man; as powers in
contrary directions reduce each other to rest.
It became you to have supported a dignified solemnity of
character; to have shown a superior liberality of soul; to have won
respect by an obstinate perseverance in maintaining order, and to have
exhibited on all occasions such an unchangeable graciousness of
conduct, that while we beheld in you the resolution of an enemy, we
might admire in you the sincerity of a man.
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