It has been mentioned, that Captain Clifford's father made a part of his family. This old man, who was heir to an estate which had descended to him through a long line of ancestors, had received a very liberal education, was possessed of a good understanding, and a most benevolent heart. In truth, his liberality was carried to excess, and he practised that profuse hospitality which was the fashion of the last century. Every guest was received at his house with the welcome of ancient times, and both his purse and his table were open to all those whose necessities seemed to claim his assistance.

His estate was a little incumbered, when he came to the possession of it. He had engaged early in a military life, and served long abroad, while his affairs were left too much to the management of his wife, a woman of unbounded vanity, who vied in expence with families possessed of much larger estates. She died suddenly, in the absence of her husband; who, at his return from Germany, found that her debts were numerous, and that he had lost a very considerable sum, for which, in the confidence of unsuspicious friendship, he became answerable for one, whose principles he considered as no less honourable than his own. He was undeceived too late. The world will blame his imprudence, and think he deserved to suffer from it: but, while foresight and policy are so common, let us forgive those few minds of trusting simplicity, who are taught in vain the lesson of suspicion, on whom impressions are easily made, and who think better of human nature than it deserves. Such persons are for the most part sufficiently punished for their venial error, as was the case with Mr. Clifford, who was forced to extricate himself from the difficulties in which he was involved by the sale of his paternal inheritance.