All these
objections, however, were removed by the zeal and rhetoric of
Peregrine, who represented that it would be impossible to befriend
him on any other terms; that his silence hitherto would be imputed
to his want of information touching the circumstances and condition of
his friend; and that his remembering and insisting upon discharging
the obligation, after such an interval of time, when the whole
affair was in oblivion, would be the greatest compliment he could
pay to his own honour and integrity.
Thus persuaded, he took an opportunity of Gauntlet's being alone
with him to broach the affair, telling the young man that his father
had advanced a sum of money for him, when they sailed together, on
account of the mess, as well as to stop the mouth of a clamorous
creditor at Portsmouth; and that the said sum, with interest,
amounted to about four hundred pounds, which he would now, with
great thankfulness, repay.
Godfrey was amazed at this declaration, and, after a considerable
pause, replied, that he had never heard his parents mention any
such debt; that no memorandum or voucher of it was found among his
father's papers; and that, in all probability, it must have been
discharged long ago, although the commodore, in such a long course
of time and hurry of occupation, might have forgotten the repayment:
he therefore desired to be excused from accepting what in his own
conscience he believed was not his due; and complemented the old
gentleman upon his being so scrupulously just and honourable.
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