Note 18 — DAVID HUME. (continued 2)

The story of Mr Rousseau's letters is as follows. He had often been complaining to me, and with reason, that he was ruined by postage at Neufchâtel, which commonly cost him about 25 or 26 louis d'ors a year, and all for letters which were of no significance, being wrote, some of them by people who took that opportunity of abusing him, and most of them by persons unknown to him. He was therefore resolved, he said, in England to receive no letters which came by the post; and the same resolution he reiterates in his letter to me dated the 22d of March. When he went to Chiswick, near London, the postman brought his letters to me. I carried him out a cargo of them. He exclaimed, desired me to return the letters, and recover the price of postage. I told him, that, in that case, the clerks of the Post Office were entire masters of his letters. He said he was indifferent: they might do with them what they pleased. I added, that he would by that means be cut off from all correspondence with all his friends. He replied, that he would give a particular direction to such as he desired to correspond with. But till his instructions for that purpose could arrive, what could I do more friendly than to save, at my own expense, his letters from the curiosity and indiscretion of the clerks of the Post Office? I am indeed ashamed to find myself obliged to discover such petty circumstances.——Mr HUME.