'What reasons the gentlemen might have to refuse so inviting an offer is best known to themselves; but they absolutely rejected that part of it, which was to fix the sole power of management in the patentee. Upon which, and many other provocations afterward, becoming more and more dissatisfied, he thought fit to demand repayment of five hundred pounds, which he had lent the company; as he had several other sums before; and not receiving it, but, on the contrary, being denied so much as an acknowledgment that it was due, withdrew himself intirely from the board, and left them to their measures.
'Thus at the same time have I offered my defence, and my opinion: By the first I am sure I shall be acquitted from all imputations; and confirmed in the good thoughts of the concerned on either side, who will know for the future what attention they should give to idle reflections, and the falsehood of rumour; and from the last, I have hopes that a plan may be drawn, which will settle at once all disputed pretensions, and restore that fair prospect, which the open advantage of last year's success (indifferent as it was) has demonstrated to be a view that was no way chimerical.--
'They know how to judge of malicious insinuations to my prejudice, by this _one most scandalous example_, which has been given by the endeavours of some to persuade the out-sharers that I have made an extravagant _profit_ from the _losses_ of the adventurers. Whereas on the contrary, out of _Twenty-five Thousand Guineas_, which was the whole I should have received by the sale of the shares, I have given up _Twenty Thousand Pounds_ to the use of the company, and to the annuities afterward; and three thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds more I paid to the annuitants, at Lady-Day 1715, on the company's account; and have never demanded it again, in consideration of their disappointments the first year.
'So that it plainly appears, that out of twenty-five thousand guineas, I have given away in two articles only, twenty-three thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds for the public advantage. And I can easily prove, that the little remainder has been short of making good the charges I have been at for their service; by which means I am not one farthing a gainer by the company, notwithstanding the clamour and malice of some unthinking adventurers: And for the truth of all this, I appeal to their own _Office-Books_, and defy the most angry among them to deny any article of it. See then what a grateful and generous encouragement may be expected by men, who would dedicate their labours to the profit of others.