Autograph letter signed with initial : Paris, to Charles Ford, 1717 April 17.

Responding to his letter of March 16th and assuring him of his friendship; discussing his retirement saying "The retirement I propose to myself is not only what I chuse but what I languish after. I am too much out of the least relation to business, to be affected by the late Treaty. I beleive the calumnys spread against me will in the conclusion turn to the prejudice of the authors of them, & rather do me honour than mischeif; but for this I am no more oblig'd to those persons, whoever they are, than a man unjustly accus'd, & acquitted with reputation, is to his prosecutor;" telling him that Lord Mar had been with him and may still be in Paris; adding "for tho' I have not yet been able to remove my person out of the busy part of the world, yet I assure you my mind is so entirely abstracted from it, that I avoid, instead of enquiring after, all sort of news...the ingratitude you mention & many other vices which deform the present age, were rife in Rome & Greece. they had our crimes but not our meannesses. their virtues & their faults were more exalted. I would not deserve the gallows, but if I did, it should be among Highwaymen, not among PickPockets. The paper I was writing when we parted is unfinish'd; several things concurr'd to make me lay my pen aside, & I have not yet taken it up again. When I finish it, & sooner [torn away] that shall be, there is nobody to whom [torn away] sooner communicate it than yourself;" asking to hear from him with news of what he is doing.