FEBRUARY 20
Do a little at a time that you may do more.
Letter, 19th February, 1791
My not waiting upon you at the Town Hall was not owing to any want of respect. I reverence you for your office’s sake, and much more for your zeal in the execution of it. I would to God every magistrate in the land would copy after such an example! Muss less was it owing to any disaffection to His Majesty King George. But I knew not how far it might be either necessary or proper for me to appear on such an occasion. I have no fortune at Newcastle: I have only the bread I eat, and the use of a little room for a few weeks in the year.
All I can do for His Majesty, whom I honour and love (I think not less than I did my own father) is this: I cry unto God day by day, in public and in private, to put all his enemies to confusion; and I exhort all that hear me to do the same, and in their several stations to exert themselves as loyal subjects, who, so long as they fear God, cannot but honour the King.
to the Mayor of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, 1745
