Page:The letters of William Blake (1906).djvu/191

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE.
125

sincerely thank you for your kind offer of exhibiting my two pictures. The trouble you take on my account, I trust, will be recompensed to you by Him who seeth in secret. If you should find it convenient to do so, it will be gratefully remembered by me among the other numerous kindnesses I have received from you."

I go on with the remaining subjects which you gave me commission to execute for you; but I shall not be able to send any more before my return, though perhaps I may bring some with me finished. I am, at present, in a bustle to defend myself against a very unwarrantable warrant from a justice of peace in Chichester, which was taken out against me by a private in Captain Leathers troop of 1st or Royal Dragoons, for an assault and seditious words. The wretched man has terribly perjured himself, as has his comrade; for, as to sedition, not one word relating to the king or government was spoken by either him or me. His enmity arises from my having turned him out of my garden, into which he was invited as an assistant by a gardener at work therein, without my knowledge that he was so invited. I desired him, as politely as possible, to go out of the garden; he made me an impertinent answer. I insisted on his leaving the garden; he refused. I still persisted in desiring his departure. He then threatened to