Some charitable Presbyterians heard of my distress, and of the refusal of any aid from the fund collected for the relief of suffering French Protestant Refugees, and they kindly volunteered to make a collection for me in their congregation, which was a most seasonable help in my need.
You may suppose my feelings were still more soured towards Episcopalians by their treatment of me. I now realized, by bitter experience, that opposition and unkindness, for difference of opinion, have a much greater tendency to widen the breach than to bring opponents to one way of thinking.
At a time when I was greatly in want of money, I found by accident, among my papers which I had brought from France, half a sheet of stamped paper, entirely blank. It occurred to me instantly, that it might be the means of recovering for me something, from the sale of the property I had left in France. My cousin, Peter Robin, had acted the part of a faithful agent in his management of the cargo of wheat which Mr. Downe and I had consigned to him, and he was therefore the person whom I fixed upon to act for me now. I signed my name at the foot of the sheet, and sent it to him. I told him I wished him to make use of it, so as to obtain money for me for the sale or lease of my estate. I desired him to take care that he affixed, to the deed he executed, a date previous to that of my leaving France. The latter precaution was necessary to prevent the King seizing the property. I never had a word from him in reply; but I have reason to know that he, the said Peter Robin, went to live at my house after he received my letter, and from that day he considered it was his own. He took advantage of the confidence I placed in him when I put my name to the stamped paper and sent it to him. He has cheated me and my heirs
