Yet, though I was to be thus abandoned by my fox-hunting friends, I was
by no means to feel myself the inhabitant of a solitary world. If the
sudden discovery of kindred could cheer me under my calamities, no man
might have passed a gayer life. For a long succession of years I had not
seen a single relative. Not that they altogether disdained even the
humble hospitalities of my cottage, or the humble help of my purse; on
the contrary, they liked both exceedingly, and would have exhibited
their affection in enjoying them as often as I pleased.

But I had early adopted a resolution, which I recommend to all men. I
made use of no disguise on the subject of our mutual tendencies. I knew
them to be selfish, beggarly in the midst of wealth, and artificial in
the fulness of protestation. I disdained to play the farce of civility
with them. I neither kissed nor quarrelled with them; but I quietly shut
my door, and at last allowed no foot of their generation inside it. They
hated me mortally in consequence, and I knew it. I despised them, and
I conclude they knew that too. But I was resolved that they should not
despise me; and I secured that point by not suffering them to feel that
they had made me their dupe. The nabob's will had not soothed their
tempers; and I was honoured with their most smiling animosity.

But now, as if they were hidden in the ground like weeds only waiting
for the shower, a new and boundless crop of relationship sprang up.
Within the first fortnight after my return, I was overwhelmed with
congratulations from east, west, north, and south; and every postscript
pointed with a request for my interest with boards and public offices of
all kinds; with India presidents, treasury secretaries, and colonial
patrons, for the provision of sons, nephews, and cousins, to the third
and fourth generation.