To the Chevalier Dubois, at Malta.

My abrupt departure from Malta, without taking leave of you, my dear Sir, might justly give you disgust; but you know me too well, to suspect that friendship which, contracted in our earliest years, has ever since been increasing by that unreserved confidence which has always subsisted between us.

This early intimacy, this unrestrained freedom, must plead an excuse for my having so often lately interrupted the natural gaiety of your mind, to entertain you with my complaints. You know the affair which drove me to Malta; the same cause has hurried me back to France: Do not reproach me for not seeing you, my mind was then too much oppressed to bear the disagreeable ceremony of taking leave of my friends.

I left Paris with a full design never more to see this Peruvian Beauty; I hoped time, absence, and your company, would banish from my breast a fruitless passion: but oh! my dear Dubois; Zilia herself has begged, has entreated my return: alas! how cruel a task does she require of me? While she calls me her friend, and urges me to see her in the kindest manner, she forbids my ever thinking of her by another name; she imposes a cruel silence on my lips, and insists that love shall never be the subject of our conversation.

I know you smile at what you will call my little knowledge of the fair-sex; but indeed, my friend, you must not judge of Zilia by our countrywomen; such an invitation from a Frenchwoman would be an assurance of success, but Zilia, to all the sweetness, softness, and delicacy which can adorn her own sex, adds a steady constancy, which is rarely to be found in either; and a candour of soul, which makes her incapable of the least disguise.

Accuse her not of cruelty, for she is all gentleness; and, in spite of myself, I must admire those sentiments which destroy my hopes.