My dearest Harry, you must see why I don’t care to say more on this head.  My wishing it could be right for you to break off with her (for, without it is right, I would not have you on any account take such a step) makes it impossible for me to advise it; and therefore, I am sure you will forgive my declining, an act of friendship which your having put in my power gives me the greatest satisfaction.  But it does put something else in my power, which I am sure nothing can make me decline, and for which I have long wanted an opportunity.  Nothing could prevent my being unhappy at the smallness of your fortune, but its throwing it into my way to offer you to share mine.  As mine is so precarious, by depending on so bad a constitution, I can only offer you the immediate use of it.  I do that most sincerely.  My places still (though my Lord Walpole has cut off three hundred pounds a-year to save himself the trouble of signing his name ten times for once) bring me in near two thousand pounds a-year.  I have no debts, no connexions; indeed, no -way to dispose of it particularly.  By living with my father, I have little real use for a quarter of it.  I have always flung it away all in the most idle manner; but, my dear Harry, idle -,is I am, and thoughtless, I have sense enough to have real pleasure in denying myself baubles, and in saving a very good income to make a man happy, for whom I have a just esteem and most sincere friendship.  I know the difficulties any gentleman and man of spirit must struggle with, even in having such an offer made him, much more in accepting it.  I hope you will allow there are some in making it.  But hear me:  if there is such a thing as friendship in the world, these are the opportunities of exerting it, and it can’t be exerted without it is accepted.  I must talk of myself to prove to you that it will be right for ’you to accept it.  I am sensible of having more follies and weaknesses, and fewer real good qualities than most men.  I sometimes reflect on this, though I own too seldom.  I always want to begin acting like a man, and a sensible one, which I think I might b, if I would.  Can I begin better, than by taking care of my fortune for one I love?  You have seen (I have seen you have) that I am fickle, and foolishly fond of twenty new people; but I don’t really love them-I have always loved you constantly:  I am willing to convince you and the world, what I have always told you, that I loved you better than any body.  If I ever felt much for any thing, which I know may be questioned, it was certainly my mother.  I look on you as my nearest relation by her, and I think I can never do enough to show my gratitude and affection to her.  For these reasons, don’t deny me what I have set my heart on-the making your fortune easy to you.

[The rest of this letter is wanting.]

(953) This was an early attachment of Mr. Conway’s.  By his having complied with the wishes and advice of his friends on this subject, and got the better of his passion, he probably felt that he, in some measure, owed to Mr. Walpole the subsequent happiness of his life, in his marriage with another person. (the lady alluded to was Lady Caroline Fitzroy, afterwards Countess of Harrington, whose sister, Lady Isabella, had, three years before, married Mr. Conway’s elder brother, afterwards Earl and Marquis of Hertford.]