“Dear Madam,—I rejoice
most sincerely that you have such a companion, protector, and friend as I
believe him to be, whose name the papers inform me you now bear. I have been
much to blame. In the more than two years that I have been in America I have
written only thrice to you. You were not happy. I had no right to trouble you
with my dark reveries. I was displeased with my past and my present conduct and
undecided as to my future; how could I speak comfort to so wounded a mind as
yours? Now I may be allowed to croak. You know it was my fashion in Paris.
Through my wife’s prudent conduct she has been permitted to remain in
possession of my property, and I have thus become a pensioner of the Irish
Government. That I have spent only what was necessary for my subsistence does
not satisfy me. Every letter which I receive from Mrs H. R., though couched in the most affectionate terms, yet
shows me that what I called acting from principle was in her idea wild ambition
or foolish vanity. A mode has been pointed out to me by which I might possibly
rejoin my family, but it is a renunciation of principle. I cannot accede to the
proposition. I should be for ever unhappy, and, I think, should disgrace my
children even as long as it was remembered that I was their ancestor. As my
growling, however, signified little, I set about procuring an independence, and
with this view have commenced calico printer, &c., on the banks of the
Brandywine. I have connected myself with a good sans
culottes dyer from Manchester, who had two great faults
which forced him to quit that place—he could read and he
| THE LAST RESTING-PLACE. | 287 |
“Nov. 17.—This has been lying by me, and the last papers announce a melancholy event—and have you so shortly enjoyed the calm repose I hoped you were in possession of. I hope the report is false; if true, let this convey my condolence to Mr G.
