Letter 86

86. To the Governor.

I know that it is the greatest and first concern of your honour to favour justice in every way, and the second, both to do good to your friends and to take up the cause of those who flee to the patronage of your magnanimity. All these, then, have run together to the same point in the present matter. For the affair on whose behalf we make our plea is just; and it is a favour to us, whom you have deigned to number among your own friends; and it is owed to those who call upon your firmness for help in what they have suffered.

Some of those entrusted with the management of public affairs at Berisi have plundered the grain — which was all that our most beloved brother Dorotheus had for the necessary sustenance of life — whether coming to the violence of their own accord, or with others prompting them. In any case, the deed is in no way free of blame to them; for in what is the man who is wicked of himself less guilty than the man who serves the wickedness of others? And to those who have suffered, the loss is the same. This man we ask that he may recover what was taken from him, and that they may not be permitted to lay the blame for their outrages upon others. And by however much it is worth to escape the necessity that comes of want of grain, by so much shall we value the favour from your nobility of soul, if indeed you deign to grant it.