Chapter 32
letter thirty two of clarissa harlowe or the history of a young lady vol i letter thirty two mr james harlowe to john belford esq harlowe place friday night september fifteenth sir i hope from the character my worthy cousin morden gives you that you will excuse the application i make to you to oblige your whole family in an affair that much concerns their peace and cannot equally concern anybody else you will immediately judge sir that this is the executorship of which my sister has given you the trouble by her last will We shall all think ourselves extremely obliged to you, if you please to relinquish this trust to our own family, the reasons which follow pleading for our own expectation of this favour from you. First, because she never would have had the thought of troubling you, sir, if she had believed any of her near relations would have taken it upon themselves.
Secondly, I understand that she recommends to you in the will to trust to the honour of any of our family, for the performance of such of the articles as are of a domestic nature. We are, any of us and all of us, if you requested, willing to stake our honours upon this occasion, and all you can desire, as a man of honour is, that the trust be executed.
We are the more concerned, sir, to wish you to decline this office, because of your short and accidental knowledge of the dear testatrix, and long and intimate acquaintance with the man to whom she owed her ruin, and we the greatest loss and disappointment, her manifold excellencies considered, that ever befell a family.
You will allow due weight, I dare say to this plea, if you make our case your own, and so much the radia, when I assure you, that your interfering in this matter so much against our inclinations, excuse, sir, my plain dealing, will very probably occasion an opposition in some points, where otherwise there might be none. What therefore I propose is, not that my father should assume this trust, he is too much afflicted to undertake
it, nor yet myself, I might be thought too much concerned in interest, but that it might be allowed to devolve upon my two uncles, whose known honour and whose affection to the dear deceased nobody ever doubted, and they will treat with you, sir, through my cousin Morden, as to the points they will undertake to perform. The trouble you have already had will well entitle you to the legacies she bequeaths you, together with the reimbursement of all the charges you have been at,
and allowance of the legacies you have discharged, although you should not have qualified yourself to act as an executor, as I presume you have not yet done, nor will now do. Your compliance, sir, will oblige your family, who have already distressed enough upon them, in the circumstance that occasions this application to you and more particularly sir your most humble servant james harlow jr i send this by one of my servants who will attend your dispatch letter thirty two
