Letter 2028: Go ahead — judge my decisions in hindsight, as you like, and blame me for the prefecture's complaint that it was...

Find fault, if you will, with the plans for affairs after the outcome, and impute it to me as a fault that the prefecture has complained of being held in contempt. A man abandoned by aid is easily accused; and therefore in my case I would rather accept the confession of error, lest I should reproach either my friends with negligence or my opponents with harshness. Let it have been the doing of fortune, not of my conscience, that I seemed to be defeated, I who had not yet even begun to litigate. But you write besides that one should refrain from cases of a like kind. You see how much is permitted to the event. You have forgotten my character. I, for my part, will join to my customary modesty a cowardly fear as well, and I will give thanks for your letter, which, now that confidence in the law and in my friends has been laid aside, exhorts me to silence concerning all wrongs.