ignorance, which, by the temptation of these rewards, had been
sometimes drawn into guilt; and sometimes, which cannot be
thought on without the highest horror, had destroyed them without
it. Thirdly, that my plan had not put the government to more
than three hundred pound expense, and had produced none of the
ill consequences above mentioned; but, lastly, had actually
suppressed the evil for a time, and had plainly pointed out the
means of suppressing it for ever. This I would myself have
undertaken, had my health permitted, at the annual expense of the
above-mentioned sum.

After having stood the terrible six weeks which succeeded last
Christmas, and put a lucky end, if they had known their own
interests, to such numbers of aged and infirm valetudinarians,
who might have gasped through two or three mild winters more, I
returned to town in February, in a condition less despaired of by
myself than by any of my friends. I now became the patient of
Dr. Ward, who wished I had taken his advice earlier. By his
advice I was tapped, and fourteen quarts of water drawn from my
belly. The sudden relaxation which this caused, added to my
enervate, emaciated habit of body, so weakened me that within two
days I was thought to be falling into the agonies of death. I
was at the worst on that memorable day when the public lost Mr.
Pelham. From that day I began slowly, as it were, to draw my
feet out of the grave; till in two months' time I had again
acquired some little degree of strength, but was again full of
water. During this whole time I took Mr. Ward's medicines, which
had seldom any perceptible operation. Those in particular of the
diaphoretic kind, the working of which is thought to require a
great strength of constitution to support, had so little effect