Belf. jun. So, then you think there may be one good woman, however?

Ironsides. Just as I think there may be one honest Dutchman, one sober German, or one righteous methodist Lookye, Bob, so I do but keep single, I have no objection to other people's marrying; but, on those occasions, I would manage myself as I would my ship; not by running her into every odd creek and cranny, in the smuggling fashion, as if I had no good credentials to produce; but play fairly, and in sight, d'ye see; and, whenever a safe harbour opens, stand boldly in, boy, and lay her up snug, in a good birth, once for all.

Belf. jun. Come then, uncle, let us about it; and you may greatly favour my enterprise, since you can keep the father and mother in play, while I

Ironsides. Avast, young man, avast! the father, if you please, without the mother; Sir Benjamin's a passable good companion for a landman; but for my lady-I'll have nothing to say to my lady; she's his wife, thank the stars, and not mine.

Belf. jun. Be it as you will; I shall be glad of your company on any terms.

Ironsides. Say no more then. About ship; if you are bound for that port, I'm your mate: Master, look to the wreck; I'm for a fresh cruise.

[Exeunt.

ACT THE SECOND,

SCENE I.

The Outside of SIR BENJAMIN Dove's House,

Enter BELFIELD SENIOR, and LUCY WATERS. Lucy. What, don't I know you? haven't you been to me of all mankind the basest?

Belf. Not yet, Lucy.

Lucy. Sure, Mr. Belfield, you won't pretend to deny it to my face!

Belf. To thy face, child, I will not pretend that I can deny any thing; you are much too handsome to be contradicted.

Lucy. Pish!

Belf. So, so!

Lucy. Haven't you, faithless as you are, promised me marriage, over and over again?

Belf. Repeatedly.

Lucy. And you have now engaged yourself to the daughter of Sir Benjamin Dove, have you not? Belf. Assuredly.

Lucy. Let me demand of you, then, Mr. Belfield, since you have no honourable designs towards me yourself, why you prevented those of an humbler lover, young Philip, the son of your late tenant, poor Goodwin ?

Belf. For the very reasons you state in your ques tion; because I had no honourable designs, and he had: you disappointed my hopes, and I was resolved to defeat his.

Lucy. And this you thought reason sufficient to expel his father from your farm; to persecute him, and his innocent family, till you had accomplished their ruin, and driven them to the very brink of the ocean for their habitation and subsistence ?

Belf. Your questions, Miss Lucy, begin to be impertinent.

Lucy. Oh, do they touch you, sir? But I'll waste no more time with you; my business is with your Sophia here, in the very spot which you hope to make the scene of your guilty triumphs, will I expose you to her; set forth your inhuman conduct to your unhappy brother; and detect the mean artifices you have been driven to, in order to displace him in her affections.

Belf. You will?

Lucy. I will, be assured; so let them pass.

Belf. Stay, Lucy, understand yourself a little better: didn't you pretend to Sophia, that my brother paid his addresses to you; that he had pledged himself to marry you; nay, that he had

Lucy. Hold, Mr. Belfield, nor further explain a transaction, which, though it reflects shame enough upon me, that was your instrument, ought to cover you, who was principal in the crime, with treble confusion and remorse.

Belf. True, child, it was rather a disreputable transaction; and 'tis therefore fit no part of it should rest with me: I shall disavow it altogether.

Lucy. Incredible confidence!

Belf. We shall see who will meet most belief in the world-you or I; chuse, therefore, your part: if you keep my secret, you make me your friend; if you betray it, you have me for your enemy; and a fatal one you shall find me. Now enter, if you think fit; there lies your way to Sophia. [She goes into the House.] So! how am I to parry this blow?-what plea shall I use with Sophia-'twas the ardour of

my love—any thing will find pardon with a woman, that conveys flattery to her charms.-After all, if the worst should happen, and I should be defeated in this match, so shall I be saved from doing that, which, when done, 'tis probable I may repent of; and I have some intimations from within, which tell me that it will be so: I perceive that, in this life, he, who is checked by the rubs of compunction, can never arrive at the summit of prosperity.

Enter PATERson.

Paterson. What, melancholy, Mr. Belfield? So near your happiness, and so full of thought? Belf. Happiness! what's that?

Paterson. I'll tell you, sir; the possession of a lovely girl, with fifty thousand pounds in her lap, and twice fifty thousand virtues in her mind: this I call happiness, as much as mortal man can merit; and this, as I take it, you are destined to enjoy.

Belf. That is not so certain, Mr. Paterson; would you believe it, that perverse hussy, Lucy Waters, who left me but this minute, threatens to transverse all my hopes, and is gone this instant to Sophia with that resolution?

Paterson. Impossible! how is Miss Waters pra vided or provoked to do this?

Belf. Why, 'tis a foolish story, and scarce worth relating to you; but you know, when your letters called me home from Portugal, I found my younger brother in close attendance on Miss Dove; and, indeed, such good use had the fellow made of his time in my absence, that I found it impossible to counterwork his operations by fair and open approaches; so, to make short of the story, I took this girl, Lucy Waters, into partnership; and, by a happy device, ruined him with Sophia.

Paterson. This, Mr. Belfield, I neither know, nor wish to know.

Belf. Let it pass, then: defeated in these views, my brother, as you know, betook himself to the desperate course of privateering, with that old tar-barrel, my uncle: what may have been his fate, I know not; but I have found it convenient to propagate a report of his death.

Paterson. I am sorry for it, Mr. Belfield; I wish nothing was convenient, that can be thought disho

nourable.

Belf. Nature, Mr. Paterson, never put into a human composition more candour and credulity than she did into mine; but acquaintance with life has shown me how impracticable these principles are: to live with mankind, we must live like mankind; was it a world of honesty, I should blush to be a man of

art.

Paterson. And do you dream of ever reaching your journey's end by such crooked paths as these are?

Belf. And yet, my most sage moralist, wonderful as it may seem to thee, true it is, notwithstanding, that, after having threaded all these by-ways and crooked alleys, which thy right-lined apprehension knows nothing of; after having driven my rival from the field, and being almost in possession of the spoil, still I feel a repugnance in me that almost tempts me to renounce my good fortune, and abandon a victory I have struggled so hard to obtain.

Paterson. I guessed as much; 'tis your Violetta, 'tis your fair Portuguese, that counterworks your good fortune; and I must own to you, it was principally to save you from that improvident attachment, that I wrote so pressingly for your return; but though I have got your body in safe holding, your heart is still at Lisbon; and if you marry Miss Dove, 'tis because Violetta's fortune was demolished by the earth