My very dear Friend Eliza
You must think long ere this reaches Princess Anne that your old friend Campbell must have taken his departure to the shades below, forgotten the esteemed friends of his youth, got married, or met with some other dire mishap as nothing but some event of the greatest importance can palliate a silence of so long duration. What then will your surprise and indignation amount to when I candidly tell you that I have hardly any thing to offer in the way of apology, that I have been giving the usual round of an alternate turn life O Country, life, of business, of dissipation, of health and of sickness, but I do not attempt to plead any of them in justification and therefore pleading guilty I throw myself upon your mercy, not upon your justice but before you pass sentence