The Ayrshire Legatees

As for our doings here anent the legacy, things are going forward in the

regular manner; but the expense is terrible, and I have been obliged to

take up money on account; but, as it was freely given by the agents, I am

in hopes all will end well; for, considering that we are but strangers to

them, they would not have assisted us in this matter had they not been

sure of the means of payment in their own hands.

The people of London are surprising kind to us; we need not, if we

thought proper ourselves, eat a dinner in our own lodgings; but it would

ill become me, at my time of life, and with the character for sobriety

that I have maintained, to show an example in my latter days of riotous

living; therefore, Mrs. Pringle, and her daughter, and me, have made a

point of going nowhere three times in the week; but as for Andrew

Pringle, my son, he has forgathered with some acquaintance, and I fancy

we will be obliged to let him take the length of his tether for a while.

But not altogether without a curb neither, for the agent's son, young Mr.

Argent, had almost persuaded him to become a member of Parliament, which

he said he could get him made, for more than a thousand pounds less than

the common price--the state of the new king's health having lowered the

commodity of seats. But this I would by no means hear of; he is not yet

come to years of discretion enough to sit in council; and, moreover, he

has not been tried; and no man, till he has out of doors shown something

of what he is, should be entitled to power and honour within. Mrs.

Pringle, however, thought he might do as well as young Dunure; but Andrew

Pringle, my son, has not the solidity of head that Mr. K---dy has, and is

over free and outspoken, and cannot take such pains to make his little go

a great way, like that well-behaved young gentleman. But you will be

grieved to hear that Mr. K---dy is in opposition to the government; and

truly I am at a loss to understand how a man of Whig principles can be an

adversary to the House of Hanover. But I never meddled much in politick

affairs, except at this time, when I prohibited Andrew Pringle, my son,

from offering to be a member of Parliament, notwithstanding the great

bargain that he would have had of the place.

And since we are on public concerns, I should tell you, that I was minded

to send you a newspaper at the second-hand, every day when we were done

with it. But when we came to inquire, we found that we could get the

newspaper for a shilling a week every morning but Sunday, to our

breakfast, which was so much cheaper than buying a whole paper, that Mrs.

Pringle thought it would be a great extravagance; and, indeed, when I

came to think of the loss of time a newspaper every day would occasion to

my people, I considered it would be very wrong of me to send you any at

all. For I do think that honest folks in a far-off country parish should

not make or meddle with the things that pertain to government,--the more

especially, as it is well known, that there is as much falsehood as truth

in newspapers, and they have not the means of testing their statements.

Not, however, that I am an advocate for passive obedience; God forbid.

On the contrary, if ever the time should come, in my day, of a

saint-slaying tyrant attempting to bind the burden of prelatic

abominations on our backs, such a blast of the gospel trumpet would be

heard in Garnock, as it does not become me to say, but I leave it to you

and others, who have experienced my capacity as a soldier of the word so

long, to think what it would then be. Meanwhile, I remain, my dear sir,

your friend and pastor, Z. PRINGLE.