That she gave to all, as necessary to all: this to a few only,
as sufficing with a few. I know indeed, that you pretend authority to
the sovereign control of our conduct, in all its parts: and a respect
for your grave saws and maxims, a desire to do what is right, has
sometimes induced me to conform to your counsels. A few facts, however,
which I can readily recall to your memory, will suffice to prove to you,
that nature has not organized you for our moral direction. When the poor
wearied soldier, whom we overtook at Chickahominy, with his pack on
his back, begged us to let him get up behind our chariot, you began to
calculate that the road was full of soldiers, and that if all should be
taken up, our horses would fail in their journey. We drove on therefore.
But soon becoming sensible you had made me do wrong, that though we
cannot relieve all the distressed, we should relieve as many as we can,
I turned about to take up the soldier; but he had entered a by-path,
and was no more to be found: and from that moment to this, I could never
find him out to ask his forgiveness.
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