Instead of conversing with me, Talbot walked about the room in a peevish and gloomy humour. A thought just then rushed into my mind. While Talbot had his back towards me, and was at a distance, I dropped the counterfeit, at the spot where Jane had just before dropped her paper, and with little ceremony took my leave. Jane had excused her absence to me, and promised to return within five minutes. It was not possible, I thought, that Talbot's eye, as he walked backward and forward during that interval, could miss the paper, which would not fail to appear as if dropped by his wife.

My timidity and conscious guilt hindered me from attempting to discover, by any direct means, the effects of my artifice. I was mortified extremely in finding no remarkable difference in their deportment to each other. Sometimes I feared I had betrayed myself; but no alteration ever afterwards appeared in their behaviour to me.

I know how little I deserve to be forgiven. Nothing can palliate the baseness of this action. I acknowledge it with the deepest remorse, and nothing, especially since the death of Mr. Talbot, has lessened my grief, but the hope that some unknown cause prevented the full effect of this forgery on his peace, and that the secret, carefully locked up in his own breast, expired with him. All my enmities and restless jealousy found their repose in the same grave.

You have come to the knowledge of this letter, and I now find that the fraud was attended with even more success than I wished it to have.

Let me now, though late, put an end to the illusion, and again assure you, madam, that the concluding paragraphs were written by me, and that those parts of it which truly belong to your daughter are perfectly innocent.

If it were possible for you to forgive my misconduct, and to suffer this confession to go no further than the evil has gone, you will confer as great a comfort as can now be conferred on the unhappy

M. JESSUP.



Letter XLIX

To James Montford

Philadelphia, December 9.

I WILL imagine, my friend, that you have read the letter [Footnote: The preceding one.] which I have hastily transcribed. I will not stop to tell you my reflections upon it, but shall hasten with this letter to Mrs. Fielder. I might send it; but I have grown desperate.

A final effort must be made for my own happiness and that of Jane. From their own lips will I know my destiny. I have conversed too long at a distance with this austere lady. I will mark with my own eyes the effect of this discovery. Perhaps the moment may prove a yielding one. Finding me innocent in one respect, in which her persuasion of my guilt was most strong, may she not remit or soften her sentence on inferior faults? And what may be the influence of Jane's deportment, when she touches my hand in a last adieu?

I have complied with Miss Jessup's wish in one particular. I have sent her the letter which I got from Hannah, unopened; unread; accompanied with a few words, to this effect:—

"If you ever injured Mr. Talbot, your motives for doing so entitle you to nothing but compassion, while your present conduct lays claim, not only to forgiveness, but to gratitude. The letter you intrust to me shall be applied to no purpose but that which you proposed by writing it. Enclosed is the paper you request, the seal unbroken and its contents unread. In this, as in all cases, I have no stronger wish than to act as

"YOUR TRUE FRIEND."

And now, my friend, lay I down the pen for a few hours,—hours the most important, perhaps, in my eventful life. Surely this interview with Mrs. Fielder will decide my destiny. After it, I shall have nothing to hope.

I prepare for it with awe and trembling. The more nearly it approaches, the more my heart falters. I summon up in vain a tranquil and steadfast spirit; but perhaps a walk in the clear air will be more conducive to this end than a day's ruminations in my chamber.

I will take a walk.

* * * * *

And am I then—but I will not anticipate. Let me lead you to the present state of things without confusion.

With what different emotions did I use to approach this house! "It still contains," thought I, as my wavering steps brought me in sight of it, "all that I love; but I enter not unceremoniously now. I find her not on the accustomed sofa, eager to welcome my coming with smiling affability and arms outstretched. No longer is it home to me, nor she assiduous to please, familiarly tender and anxiously fond, already assuming the conjugal privilege of studying my domestic ease."

I knocked, somewhat timorously, at the door,—a ceremony which I had long been in the habit of omitting: but times are changed. I was afraid the melancholy which was fast overshadowing me would still more unfit me for what was coming; but, instead of dispelling it, this very apprehension deepened my gloom.

Molly came to the door. She silently led me into a parlour. The poor girl was in tears. My questions as to the cause of her distress drew from her a very indistinct and sobbing confession that Mrs. Fielder had been made uneasy by Molly's going out so early in the morning; had taken her daughter to task; and, by employing entreaties and remonstrances in turn, had drawn from her the contents of her letter to me and of my answer.

A strange, affecting scene had followed: indignation and grief on the mother's part; obstinacy, irresolution, sorrowful, reluctant penitence and acquiescence on the side of the daughter; a determination, tacitly concurred in by Jane, of leaving the city immediately. Orders were already issued for that purpose.

"Is Mrs. Fielder at home?"

"Yes."

"Tell her a gentleman would see her."

"She will ask, perhaps—Shall I tell her who?"

"No—Yes. Tell her I wish to see her."

The poor girl looked very mournfully:—"She has seen your answer which talks of your intention to visit her. She vows she will not see you if you come."

"Go, then, to Jane, and tell her I would see her for five minutes. Tell her openly; before her mother."

This message, as I expected, brought down Mrs. Fielder alone. I never saw this lady before. There was a struggle in her countenance between anger and patience; an awful and severe solemnity; a slight and tacit notice of me as she entered. We both took chairs without speaking. After a moment's pause,—

"Mr. Colden, I presume."

"Yes, madam."

"You wish to see my daughter?"

"I was anxious, madam, to see you. My business here chiefly lies with you,—not her."

"With me, sir? And pray, what have you to propose to me?'7

"I have nothing to solicit, madam, but your patient attention." (I saw the rising vehemence could scarcely be restrained.) "I dare not hope for your favourable ear: all I ask is an audience from you of a few minutes."

"This preface, sir," (her motions less and less controllable,) "is needless. I have very few minutes to spare at present. This roof is hateful to me while you are under it. Say what you will, sir, and briefly as possible."

"No, madam; thus received, I have not fortitude enough to say what I came to say. I merely entreat you to peruse this letter."

"'Tis well, sir," (taking it, with some reluctance, and, after eyeing the direction, putting it aside.) "And this is all your business?"

"Let me entreat you, madam, to read it in my presence. Its contents nearly concern your happiness, and will not leave mine unaffected."

She did not seem, at first, disposed to compliance, but at length opened and read. What noble features has this lady! I watched them, as she read, with great solicitude, but discovered in them nothing that could cherish my hope. All was stern and inflexible. No wonder at the ascendency this spirit possesses over the tender and flexible Jane!

She read with visible eagerness. The varying emotion played with augmented rapidity over her face. Its expression became less severe, and some degree of softness, I thought, mixed itself with those glances which reflection sometimes diverted from the letter. These tokens somewhat revived my languishing courage.

After having gone through it, she returned; read again and pondered over particular passages. At length, after some pause, she spoke; but her indignant eye scarcely condescended to point the address to me:—

"As a mother and a woman I cannot but rejoice at this discovery. To find my daughter less guilty than appearances led me to believe, cannot but console me under the conviction of her numerous errors. Would to Heaven she would stop here in her career of folly and imprudence!

"I cannot but regard you, sir, as the author of much misery. Still, it is in your power to act as this deluded woman, Miss Jessup, has acted. You may desist from any future persecution. Your letter to me gave me no reason to expect the honour of this visit, and contained something like a promise to shun any further intercourse with Mrs. Talbot."

"I hope, madam, the contents of this letter will justify me in bringing it to you?"

"Perhaps it has; but that commission is performed. That, I hope, is all you proposed by coming hither; and you will pardon me if I plead an engagement for not detaining you longer in this house."

I had no apology for prolonging my stay, yet I was irresolute. She seemed impatient at my lingering; again urged her engagements. I rose; took my hat; moved a few steps towards the door; hesitated.

At length I stammered out, "Since it is the last—the last interview— if I were allowed-but one moment."

"No, no, no! what but needless torment to herself and to you can follow? What do you expect from an interview?"

"I would see, for a moment, the face of one whom, whatever be my faults, and whatever be hers, I love."

"Yes; you would profit, no doubt, by your power over this infatuated girl. I know what a rash proposal she has made you, and you seek her presence to insure her adherence to it."

Her vehemence tended more to bereave me of courage than of temper, but I could not forbear (mildly, however) reminding her that if I had sought to take advantage of her daughter's offer, the easiest and most obvious method was different from that which I had taken.

"True," said she, her eyes flashing fire; "a secret marriage would have given you the destitute and portionless girl; but your views are far more solid and substantial. You know your power over her, and aim at extorting from compassion for my child what—But why do I exchange a word with you? Mrs. Talbot knows not that you are here. She has just given me the strongest proof of compunction for every past folly, and especially the last. She has bound herself to go along with me. If your professions of regard for her be sincere, you will not increase her difficulties. I command you, I implore you, to leave the house."

I should not have resisted these entreaties on my own account. Yet to desert her—to be thought by her to have coldly and inhumanly rejected her offers!

"In your presence, madam—I ask not privacy—let her own lips confirm the sentence; be renunciation her own act. For the sake of her peace of mind——"

"God give me patience!" said the exasperated lady. "How securely do you build on her infatuation! But you shall not see her. If she consents to see you, I never will forgive her. If she once more relapses, she is undone. She shall write her mind to you: let that serve. I will permit her—I will urge her—to write to you: let that serve."

I went to this house with a confused perception that this visit would terminate my suspense. "One more interview with Jane," thought I, "and no more fluctuations or uncertainty." Yet I was now as far as ever from certainty. Expostulation was vain. She would not hear me. All my courage, even my words were overwhelmed by her vehemence.

After much hesitation, and several efforts to gain even a hearing of my pleas, I yielded to the tide. With a drooping heart, I consented to withdraw with my dearest hope unaccomplished.

My steps involuntarily brought me back to my lodgings. Here am I again at my pen. Never were my spirits lower, my prospects more obscure, my hopes nearer to extinction.

I am afraid to allow you too near a view of my heart at this moment of despondency. My present feelings are new even to myself. They terrify me. I must not trust myself longer alone. I must shake off, or try to shake off, this excruciating, this direful melancholy. Heavy, heavy is my soul; comfortless and friendless my condition. Nothing is sweet but the prospect of oblivion.

But, again I say, these thoughts must not lead me. Dreadful and downward is the course to which they point. I must relinquish the pen. I must sally forth into the fields. Naked and bleak is the face of nature at this inclement season; but what of that? Dark and desolate will ever be my world—but I will not write another word.

* * * * *

So, my friend, I have returned from my walk with a mind more a stranger to tranquillity than when I sallied forth. On my table lay the letter, which, ere I seal this, I will enclose to you. Read it here.



Letter L

To Mr. Colden

December 11.

Hereafter I shall be astonished at nothing but that credulity which could give even momentary credit to your assertions.

Most fortunately, my belief lasted only till you left the house. Then my scruples, which slept for a moment, revived, and I determined to clear up my doubts by immediately calling on Miss Jessup.

If any thing can exceed your depravity, sir, it is your folly. But I will not debase myself: my indignation at being made the subject, and, for some minutes, the dupe, of so gross and so profligate an artifice, carries me beyond all bounds. What, sir!—But I will restrain myself.

I would not leave the city without apprizing you of this detection of your schemes. If Miss Jessup were wise, she would seek a just revenge for so atrocious a slander.

I need not tell you that I have seen her; laid the letter before her which you delivered to me; nor do I need to tell you what her anger and amazement were on finding her name thus abused.

I pity you, sir; I grieve for you: you have talents of a certain kind, but your habits, wretchedly and flagitiously perverse, have made you act on most occasions like an idiot. Their iniquity was not sufficient to deter you from impostures which—but I scorn to chide you.

My daughter is a monument of the success of your schemes. But their success shall never be complete. While I live, she shall never join her interests with yours. That is a vow which, I thank God, I am able to accomplish; and shall.

H. FIELDER.



Letter LI

To James Montford

December 13.

Is not this strange, my friend? Miss Jessup, it seems, has denied her own letter. Surely there was no mistake,—no mystery. Let me look again at the words in the cover.

Let me awake! Let me disabuse my senses! Yes. It is plain. Miss Jessup repented her of her confession. Something in that unopened letter— believing the contents of that known, there were inducements to sincerity which the recovery of that letter, and the finding it unopened, perhaps annihilated. Pride resumed its power. Before so partial a judge as Mrs. Fielder, and concerning a wretch so worthy of discredit as I, how easy, how obvious to deny, and to impute to me the imposture charged on herself!

Well, and what is now to be done? I will once more return to Miss Jessup. I will force myself into her presence, and then——But I have not a moment to lose.

* * * * *

And this was the night, this was the hour, that was to see my Jane's hand wedded to mine! That event Providence, or fate, or fortune, stepped in to forbid. And must it then pass away like any vulgar hour?

It deserves to be signalized, to be made memorable. What forbids but sordid, despicable cowardice? Not virtue; not the love of universal happiness; not piety; not sense of duty to my God or my fellow-creatures. These sentiments, alas! burn feebly or not at all within my bosom.

It is not hope that restrains my hand. For what is my hope? Independence, dignity, a life of activity and usefulness, are not within my reach. And why not? What obstacles arise in the way?

Have I not youth, health, knowledge, talents? Twenty professional roads are open before me, and solicit me to enter them; but no. I shall never enter any of them. Be all earthly powers combined to force me into the right path,—the path of duty, honour, and interest: they strive in vain.

And whence this incurable folly?—this rooted incapacity of acting as every motive, generous and selfish, combine to recommend? Constitution; habit; insanity; the dominion of some evil spirit, who insinuates his baneful power between the will and the act.

And this more congenial good; this feminine excellence; this secondary and more valuable self; this woman who has appropriated to herself every desire, every emotion of my soul: what hope remains with regard to her? Shall I live for her sake?

No. Her happiness requires me to be blotted out of existence. Let me unfold myself to myself; let me ask my soul, Canst thou wish to be rejected, renounced, and forgotten by Jane? Does it please thee that her happiness should be placed upon a basis absolutely independent of thy lot? Canst thou, with a true and fervent zeal, resign her to her mother?

I can. I do.

* * * * *

I wish I had words, my friend: yet why do I wish for them? Why sit I here, endeavouring to give form, substance, and duration to images to which it is guilty and opprobrious to allow momentary place in my mind? Why do I thus lay up, for the few that love me, causes of affliction?

Yet perhaps I accuse myself too soon. The persuasion that I have one friend is sweet. I fancy myself talking to one who is interested in my happiness; but this shall satisfy me. If fate impel me to any rash and irretrievable act, I will take care that no legacy of sorrow shall be left to my survivors. My fate shall be buried in oblivion. No busy curiosity, no affectionate zeal, shall trace the way that I have gone. No mourning footsteps shall haunt my grave,

I am, indeed, my friend—never, never before, spiritless and even hopeless as I have sometimes been, have my thoughts been thus gloomy. Never felt I so enamoured of that which seems to be the cure-all.

Often have I wished to slide obscurely and quietly into the grave; but this wish, while it saddened my bosom, never raised my hand against my life. It made me willingly expose my safety to the blasts of pestilence; it made me court disease; but it never set my imagination in search after more certain and speedy means.

Yet I am wonderfully calm. I can still reason on the folly of despair. I know that a few days, perhaps a few hours, will bring me some degree of comfort and courage; will make life, with all its disappointments and vexations, endurable at least.

Would to Heaven I were not quite alone! Left thus to my greatest enemy, myself, I feel that I am capable of deeds which I fear to name.

A few minutes ago I was anxious to find Miss Jessup; to gain another interview with Mrs. Fielder. Both the one and the other have left the city. Jane's dwelling is deserted. Shortly after I left it, they set out upon their journey, and Miss Jessup—no doubt, to avoid another interview with me—has precipitately withdrawn into the country.

I shall not pursue their steps. Let things take their course. No doubt, a lasting and effectual remorse will, some time or other, reach the heart of Miss Jessup, and this fatal error will be rectified. I need not live, I need not exert myself, to hasten the discovery. I can do nothing.



Letter LII

To Mrs. Fielder

Philadelphia, December 16.

It is not improbable that, as soon as you recognise the hand that wrote this letter, you will throw it unread into the fire; yet it comes not to soothe resentment, or to supplicate for mercy. It seeks not a favourable audience. It wishes not—because the wish would be chimerical—to have its assertions believed. It expects not even to be read. All I hope is, that, though neglected, despised, and discredited for the present, it may not be precipitately destroyed or utterly forgotten. The time will come when it will be read with a different spirit.

You inform me that Miss Jessup has denied her letter, and imputes to me the wickedness of forging her name to a false confession. You are justly astonished at the iniquity and folly of what you deem my artifice. This astonishment, when you look back upon my past misconduct, is turned from me to yourself; from my folly to your own credulity, that was, for a moment, made the dupe of my contrivances.

I can say nothing that will or that ought—that is my peculiar misery,—that ought, considering the measure of my real guilt, to screen me from this charge. There is but one event that can shake your opinion. An event that is barely possible; that may not happen, if it happen at all, till the lapse of years; and from which, even if I were alive, I could not hope to derive advantage. Miss Jessup's conscience may awaken time enough to enable her to undeceive you, and to repent of her second as well as her first fraud.

If that event ever takes place, perhaps this letter may still exist to bear testimony to my rectitude. Thrown aside and long forgotten, or never read, chance may put it in your way once more. Time, that soother of resentment as well as lessener of love, and the perseverance of your daughter in the way you prescribe, may soften your asperities even towards me. A generous heart like yours will feel an emotion of joy that I have not been quite as guilty as you had reason to believe.

Give me leave, madam, to anticipate that moment. The number of my consolations are few. Your enmity I rank among my chief misfortunes, and the more so because I deserve much, though not all your enmity. The persuasion that the time will come when you will acquit me of this charge, is, even now, a comforter. This is more desirable to me, since it will relieve your daughter from one among the many evils in which she has been involved by the vices and infirmities of

H. COLDEN.



Letter LIII

To James Montford

Philadelphia, December 17.

I sought relief a second time to my drooping heart, by a walk in the fields. Returning, I met Harriet Thomson in the street. The meeting was somewhat unexpected. Since we parted at Baltimore, I imagined she had returned to her old habitation in Jersey. I knew she was pretty much a stranger in this city. Night had already come on, and she was alone. She greeted me with visible satisfaction; and, though I was very little fit for society, especially of those who loved me not, I thought common civility required me to attend her home.

I never saw this woman till I met her lately at her brother's bedside. Her opinions of me were all derived from unfavourable sources, and I knew, from good authority, that she regarded me as a dangerous and hateful character. I had even, accidentally, heard her opinion of the affair between Jane and me. Jane was severely censured for credulity and indiscretion, but some excuse was allowed to her on the score of the greater guilt that was placed to my account.

Her behaviour, when we first met, was somewhat conformable to these impressions. A good deal of coldness and reserve in her deportment, which I was sometimes sorry for, as she seems an estimable creature; meek, affectionate, tender, passionately loving her brother; convinced, from the hour of her first arrival, that his disease was a hopeless one, yet exerting a surprising command over her feelings, and performing every office of a nurse with skill and firmness.

Insensibly the distance between us grew less. A participation in the same calamity, and the counsel and aid which her situation demanded, forced her to lay aside some of her reserve. Still, however, it seemed but a submission to necessity; and all advances were made with an ill grace.

She was often present when her brother turned the discourse upon religious subjects. I have long since abjured the vanity of disputation. There is no road to truth but by meditation,-severe, intense, candid, and dispassionate. What others say on doubtful subjects, I shall henceforth lay up as materials for meditation.

I listened to my dying friend's arguments and admonitions, I think I may venture to say, with a suitable spirit. The arrogant or disputatious passions could not possibly find place in a scene like this. Even if I thought him in the wrong, what but brutal depravity could lead me to endeavour to shake his belief at a time when sickness had made his judgment infirm, and when his opinion supplied his sinking heart with confidence and joy?

But, in truth, I was far from thinking him in the wrong. At any time I should have allowed infinite, plausibility and subtlety to his reasonings, and at this time I confessed them to be weighty. Whether they were most weighty in the scale could be only known by a more ample and deliberate view and comparison than it was possible, with the spectacle of a dying friend before me, and with so many solicitudes and suspenses about me respecting Jane, to bestow on them. Meanwhile, I treasured them up, and determined, as I told him, that his generous efforts for my good should not be thrown away.

At first, his sister was very uneasy when her brother entered on the theme nearest to his friendly heart. She seemed apprehensive of dispute and contradiction. This apprehension was quickly removed, and she thenceforth encouraged the discourse. She listened with delight and eagerness, and her eye, frequently, when my friend's eloquence was most affecting, appealed to me. It sometimes conveyed a meaning far more powerful than her brother's lips, and expressed at once the strongest conviction of the truth of his words, and the most fervent desire that they might convince me. Her natural modesty, joined, no doubt, to her disesteem of my character, prevented her from mixing in discourse.

She greeted me at this meeting with a frankness which I did not expect. A disposition to converse, and attentiveness to the few words that I had occasion to say, were very evident. I was just then in the most dejected and forlorn state imaginable. My heart panted for some friendly bosom, into which I might pour my cares. I had reason to esteem the purity, sweetness, and amiable qualities of this good girl. Her aversion to me naturally flowed from these qualities, while an abatement of that aversion was flattering to me, as the triumph of feeling over judgment.

I should have left her at the door of her lodgings, but she besought me to go in so earnestly, that my facility, rather than my inclination, complied. She saw that I was absent and disturbed. I never read compassion and (shall I say?) good-will in any eye more distinctly than in hers.

The conversation for a time was vague and trite. Insensibly, the scenes lately witnessed were recalled, not without many a half-stifled sigh and ill-disguised tear on her part. Some arrangements as to the letters and papers of her brother were suggested. I expressed a wish to have my letters restored to me; I alluded to those letters, written in the sanguine insolence of youth and with the dogmatic rage upon me, that have done me so much mischief with Mrs. Fielder. I had not thought of them before; but now it occurred to me that they might as well be destroyed.

This insensibly led the conversation into more interesting topics. I could not suppress my regret that I had ever written some things in those letters, and informed her that my view in taking them back was to doom them to that oblivion from which it would have been happy for me if they never had been called.

After many tacit intimations, much reluctance and timidity to inquire and communicate, I was greatly surprised to discover that these letters had been seen by her; that Mrs. Fielder's character was not unknown to her; that she was no stranger to her brother's disclosures to that lady.

Without directly expressing her thoughts, it was easy to perceive that her mind was full of ideas produced by these letters, by her brother's discourse, and by curiosity as to my present opinions. Her modesty laid restraint on her lips. She was fearful, I supposed, of being thought forward and impertinent.

I endeavoured to dissipate these apprehensions. All about this girl was, on this occasion, remarkably attractive. I loved her brother, and his features still survive in her. The only relation she has left is a distant one, on whose regard and protection she has therefore but slender claims. Her mind is rich in all the graces of ingenuousness and modesty. The curiosity she felt respecting me made me grateful as for a token of regard. I was therefore not backward to unfold the true state of my mind.

Now and then she made seasonable and judicious comments on what I said. Was there any subject of inquiry more momentous than the truth of religion? If my doubts and heresies had involved me in difficulties, was not the remedy obvious and easy? Why not enter on regular discussions, and, having candidly and deliberately formed my creed, adhere to it frankly, firmly, and consistently? A state of doubt and indecision was, in every view, hurtful, criminal, and ignominious. Conviction, if it were in favour of religion, would insure me every kind of happiness. It would forward even those schemes of temporal advantage on which I might be intent. It would reconcile those whose aversion arose from difference of opinion; and in cases where it failed to benefit my worldly views, it would console me for my disappointment.

If my inquiries should establish an irreligious conviction, still, any form of certainty was better than doubt. The love of truth and the consciousness of that certainty would raise me above hatred and slander. I should then have some kind of principle by which to regulate my conduct; I should then know on what foundation to build. To fluctuate, to waver, to postpone inquiry, was more criminal than any kind of opinion candidly investigated and firmly adopted, and would more effectually debar me from happiness. At my age, with my talents and inducements, it was sordid, it was ignoble, it was culpable, to allow indifference or indolence to slacken my zeal.

These sentiments were conveyed in various broken hints and modest interrogatories. While they mortified, they charmed me; they enlightened me while they perplexed. I came away with my soul roused by a new impulse. I have emerged from a dreary torpor, not indeed to tranquillity or happiness, but to something less fatal, less dreadful.

Would you think that a ray of hope has broken in upon me? Am I not still, in some degree, the maker of my fortune? Why mournfully ruminate on the past, instead of looking to the future? How wretched, how criminal, how infamous, are my doubts!

Alas! and is this the first time that I have been visited by such thoughts? How often has this transient hope, this momentary zeal, started into being, hovered in my fancy, and vanished! Thus will it ever be.

Need I mention—but I will not look back. To what end? Shall I grieve or rejoice at that power of now and then escaping from the past? Could it operate to my amendment, memory should be ever busy; but I fear that it would only drive me to desperation or madness.

H. C.



Letter LIV

Philadelphia, December 19.

I have just returned from a visit to my new friend. I begin to think that if I had time to cultivate her good opinion I should gain as much of it as I deserve. Her good-will, her sympathy at least, might be awakened in my favour.

We have had a long conversation. Her distance and reserve are much less than they were. She blames yet pities me. I have been very communicative, and have offered her the perusal of all the letters that I have lately received from Mrs. Talbot as vouchers for my sincerity.

She listened favourably to my account of the unhappy misapprehensions into which Mrs. Fielder had fallen. She was disposed to be more severe on Miss Jessup's imposture than even my irritated passions had been.

She would not admit that Mrs. Fielder's antipathy to my alliance with her daughter was without just grounds. She thought that everlasting separation was best for us both. A total change of my opinions on moral subjects might perhaps, in time, subdue the mother's aversion to me; but this change must necessarily be slow and gradual. I was indeed already, from my own account, far from being principled against religion; but this was only a basis whereon to build the hope of future amendment. No present merit could be founded on my doubts.

I spared not myself in my account of former follies. The recital made her very solemn. I had—I had, indeed, been very faulty; my present embarrassments were the natural and just consequences of my misconduct. I had not merited a different destiny. I was unworthy of the love of such a woman as Jane. I was not qualified to make her happy. I ought to submit to banishment, not only as to a punishment justly incurred, but in gratitude to one whose genuine happiness, taking into view her mother's character and the sacrifices to which her choice of me would subject her, would be most effectually consulted by my exile.

This was an irksome lesson. She had the candour not to expect my cordial concurrence in such sentiments, yet endeavoured in her artless manner to enforce them. She did not content herself with placing the matter in this light. She still continued to commend the design of a distant voyage, even should I intend one day to return. The scheme was likely to produce health and pleasure to me. It offered objects which a rational curiosity must hold dear. The interval might not pass away unpropitiously to me. Time might effect desirable changes in Mrs. Fielder's sentiments and views. A thousand accidents might occur to level those obstacles which were now insuperable. Pity and complacency might succeed to abhorrence and scorn. Gratitude and admiration for the patience, meekness, and self-sacrifices of the daughter might gradually bring about the voluntary surrender of her enmities; besides, that event must one day come which will place her above the influence of all mortal cares and passions.

These conversations have not been without their influence. Yes, my friend, my mind is less gloomy and tumultuous than it was. I look forward to this voyage with stronger hopes.

Methinks I would hear once more from Jane. Could she be persuaded cheerfully to acquiesce in her mother's will; reserve herself for fortunate contingencies; confide in my fidelity; and find her content in the improvement of her time and fortune, in befriending the destitute, relieving, by her superfluities, the needy, and consoling the afflicted by her sympathy, advice, and succour, would she not derive happiness from these sources, though disappointed in the wish nearest her heart?

Might I not have expected a letter ere this? But she knows not where I am,—probably imagines me at my father's house. Shall I not venture to write? a last and long farewell? Yet have I not said already all that the occasion will justify? But, if I would write, I know not how to address her. It seems she has not gone to New York. Her mother has a friend in Jersey, whither she prevailed on Jane to accompany her. I suppose it would be no arduous undertaking to trace her footsteps and gain an interview, and perhaps I shall find the temptation irresistible.

Stephen has just now told me, by letter, that he sails in ten days. There will be time enough to comply with your friendly invitation. My sister and you may expect to see me by Saturday night. In the arms of my true friends, I will endeavour to forget the vexations that at present prey upon the peace of

Your

H. C.



Letter LV

To Henry Colden

My mother allows me, and even requires me, to write to you. My reluctance to do so is only overcome by the fear of her displeasure; yet do not mistake me, my friend. Infer not from this reluctance that the resolution of being henceforward all that my mother wishes can be altered by any effort of yours.

Alas! how vainly do I boast my inflexibility! My safety lies only in filling my ears with my mother's remonstrances and shutting them against your persuasive accents. I have therefore resigned myself wholly to my mother's government. I have consented to be inaccessible to your visits or letters.

I have few claims on your gratitude or generosity; yet may I not rely on the humanity of your temper? To what frequent and severe tests has my caprice already subjected your affection! and has it not remained unshaken and undiminished? Let me hope that you will not withhold this last proof of your affection for me.

It would greatly console me to know that you are once more on filial and friendly terms with your father. Let me persuade you to return to him; to beseech his favour. I hope the way to reconcilement has already been paved by the letter jointly addressed to him by my mother and myself; that nothing is wanting but a submissive and suitable deportment on your part, to restore you to the station you possessed before you had any knowledge of me. Let me exact from you this proof of your regard for me. It is the highest proof which it will henceforth be in your power to offer, or that can ever be received by

JANE TALBOT.



Letter LVI

To Mrs. Montford

Madam:—

Philadelphia, October 7.

It is with extreme reluctance that I venture to address you in this manner. I cannot find words to account for or apologize. But, if you be indeed the sister of Henry Golden, you cannot be ignorant of me, and of former transactions between us, and especially the circumstance that now compels me to write: you can be no stranger to his present situation.

Can you forgive this boldness in an absolute stranger to your person but not to your virtues? I have heard much of you, from one in whom I once had a little interest; who honoured me with his affection.

I know that you lately possessed a large share of that affection. I doubt not that you still retain it, and are able to tell me what has become of him.

I have a long time struggled with myself and my fears in silence. I know how unbecoming this address must appear to you, and yet, persuaded that my character and my relation to your brother are well known to you, I have been able to curb my anxieties no longer.

Do then, my dearest madam, gratify my curiosity, and tell me, without delay, what has become of your brother.

J. TALBOT.



Letter LVII

To Jane Talbot

My dear Madam:—

New York, October 9.

You judge truly when you imagine that your character and history are not unknown to me; and such is my opinion of you, that there is probably no person in the world more solicitous for your happiness, and more desirous to answer any inquiries in a manner agreeable to you.

Mr. Colden has made no secret to us of the relation in which he stood to you. We are well acquainted with the cause of your late separation. Will you excuse me for expressing the deep regret which that event gave me? That regret is the deeper, since the measures which he immediately adopted have put it out of his power to profit by any change in your views.

My husband's brother being on the point of embarking in a voyage to the western coast of America and to China, Mr. Golden prevailed upon his friends to permit him to embark also, as a joint adventurer in the voyage. They have been gone already upwards of a year. We have not heard of them since their touching at Tobago and Brazil.

The voyage will be very tedious; but, as it will open scenes of great novelty to the mind of our friend, and as it may not be unprofitable to him, we were the more easily disposed to acquiesce.

Permit me, madam, to proffer you my warmest esteem and my kindest services. Your letter I regard as a flattering proof of your good opinion, which I shall be most happy to deserve and to improve, by answering every inquiry you may be pleased to make respecting one for whom I have entertained the affection becoming a sister.

I am, &c.

M. MONTFORD.

P.S.—Mr. Montford desires to join me in my offers of service, and in my good wishes.



Letter LVIII

To Mrs. Montford

Philadelphia, October 12.

Dear Madam:—

How shall I thank you for the kind and delicate manner in which you have complied with my request? You will not be surprised, nor, I hope, offended, that I am emboldened to address you once more.

I see that I need not practise towards you a reserve at all times foreign to my nature, and now more painful than at any other time, as my soul is torn with emotions which I am at liberty to disclose to no other human creature. Will you be my friend? Will you permit me to claim your sympathy and consolation? As I told you before, I am thoroughly acquainted with your merits, and one of the felicities which I promised myself from a nearer alliance with Mr. Colden was that of numbering myself among your friends.

You have deprived me of some hope by the information you give; but you have at least put an end to a suspense more painful than the most dreadful certainty could be.

You say that you know all our concerns. In pity to my weakness, will you give me some particulars of my friend? I am extremely anxious to know many things in your power to communicate.

Perhaps you know the contents of my last letter to him, and of his answer. I know you condemn me. You think me inconsiderate and cruel in writing such a letter; and my heart does not deny the charge. Yet my motives were not utterly ungenerous. I could not bear to reduce the man I loved to poverty. I could not bear that he should incur the violence and curses of his father. I fondly thought myself the only obstacle to reconcilement, and was willing, whatever it cost me, to remove that obstacle.

What will become of me, if my fears should now be realized?—if the means which I used with no other view than to reconcile him to his family should have driven him away from them and from his country forever? I thank my God that I was capable of abandoning him on no selfish or personal account. The maledictions of my own mother; the scorn of the world; the loss of friends, reputation, and fortune, weighed nothing with me. Great as these evils were, I could have cheerfully sustained them for his sake. What I did was in oblivion of self; was from a duteous regard to his genuine and lasting happiness. Alas! I have, perhaps, mistaken the means, and cruel will, I fear, be the penalty of my error.

Tell me, my dear friend, was not Colden reconciled to his father before he went? When does he mean to return? What said he, what thought he, of my conduct? Did he call me ungrateful and capricious? Did he vow never to see or think of me more?

I have regarded the promise that I made to the elder Colden, and to my mother, as sacred. The decease of the latter has, in my own opinion, absolved me from any obligation except that of promoting my own happiness and that of him whom I love. I shall not now reduce him to indigence, and, that consequence being precluded, I cannot doubt of his father's acquiescence.

Ah, dear madam, I should not have been so long patient, had I not, as it now appears, been lulled into a fatal mistake. I could not taste repose till I was, as I thought, certainly informed that he continued to reside in his father's house. This proof of reconciliation, and the silence which, though so near him, he maintained towards me, both before and subsequently to my mother's death, contributed to persuade me that his condition was not unhappy, and especially that either his resentment or his prudence had made him dismiss me from his thoughts.

I have lately, to my utter astonishment, discovered that Colden, immediately after his last letter to me, went upon some distant voyage, whence, though a twelvemonth has since passed, he has not yet returned. Hence the boldness of this address to you, whom I know only by rumour.

You will, I doubt not, easily imagine to yourself my feelings, and will be good enough to answer my inquiries, if you have any compassion for your

J. T.



Letter LIX

To Jane Talbot

New York, October 15.

I HASTEN, my dear madam, to reply to your letter. The part you have assigned me I will most cheerfully perform to the utmost of my power, but very much regret that I have not more agreeable tidings to communicate.

Having said that all the transactions between you and my brother are known to me, I need not apologize for alluding to events, which I could not excuse myself for doing without being encouraged by the frankness and solicitude which your own pen has expressed.

Immediately after the determination of his fate in regard to you, he came to this city. He favoured us with the perusal of your letters. We entirely agreed with him in applauding the motives which influenced your conduct. We had no right to accuse you of precipitation or inconsistency. That heart must indeed be selfish and cold which could not comprehend the horror which must have seized you on hearing of his father's treatment. You acted, in the first tumults of your feelings, as every woman would have acted. That you did not immediately perceive the little prospect there was that a breach of this nature would be repaired, or that Colden would make use of your undesired and unsought-for renunciation as a means of reconcilement with his father, was no subject of surprise or blame. These reflections could not occur to you but in consequence of some intimations from others.

Henry Colden was no indolent or mercenary creature, No one more cordially detested the life of dependence than he. He always thought that his father had discharged all the duties of that relation in nourishing his childhood and giving him a good education. Whatever has been since bestowed, he considered as voluntary and unrequited bounty; has received it with irksomeness and compunction; and, whatever you may think of the horrors of indigence, it was impossible to have placed him in a more painful situation than under his father's roof.

We could not but deeply regret the particular circumstances under which he left his father's house; but the mere leaving it, and the necessity which thence arose of finding employment and subsistence for himself, was not at all to be regretted.

The consequences of your mother's letter to the father produced no resentment in the son. He had refused what he had a right to refuse, and what had been pressed upon the giver rather than sought by him. The mere separation was agreeable to Colden, and the rage that accompanied it was excited by the young man's steadiness in his fidelity to you.

You were not aware that this cause of anger could not be removed by any thing done by you. Golden was not sensible of any fault. There was nothing, therefore, for which he could crave pardon. Blows and revilings had been patiently endured, but he was actuated by no tame or servile spirit. He never would expose himself to new insults. Though always ready to accept apology and grant an oblivion of the past, he never would avow compunction which he did not feel, or confess that he had deserved the treatment which he had received.

All this it was easy to suggest to your reflections, and I endeavoured to persuade him to write a second letter; but he would not. "No," said he, "she has made her election. If no advantage is taken of her tenderness and pity, she will be happy in her new scheme. Shall I subject her to new trials, new mortifications? Can I flatter myself with being able to reward her by my love for the loss of every other comfort? No. Whatever she feels for me, I am not her supreme passion. Her mother is preferred to me. That her present resolution puts out of all doubt. All upbraiding and repining from me would be absurd. What can I say in favour of my attachment to her, which she may not, with equal reason, urge in favour of her attachment to her mother? The happiness of one or other must be forfeited. Shall I not rather offer than demand the sacrifice? And what are my boasts of magnanimity if I do not strive to lessen the difficulties of her choice, and persuade her that, in gratifying her mother, she inflicts no exquisite or lasting misery on me?

"I am not so blind but that I can foresee the effects on my tranquillity of time and variety of object. If I go this voyage, I may hope to acquire resignation much, sooner than by staying at home. To leave these shores is, in every view, best for me. I can do nothing, while here, for my own profit, and every eye I meet humbles and distresses me. At present, I do not wish ever to return; but I suppose the absence and adventures of a couple of years may change my feelings in that respect. My condition, too, by some chance, may be bettered. I may come back, and offer myself to her, without offering poverty and contempt at the same time. Time, or some good fortune, may remove the mother's prejudices. All this is possible; but, if it never takes place, if my condition never improves, I will never return home."

When we urged to him the propriety of apprizing you of his views, not only for your sake, but for his own,—"What need is there? Has she not prohibited all intercourse between us? Have I not written the last letter she will consent to receive? On my own account, I have nothing to hope. I have stated my return as a mere possibility. I do not believe I shall ever return. If I did expect it, I know Jane too well to have any fears of her fidelity. While I am living, or as long as my death is uncertain, her heart will be mine, and she will reserve herself for me."

I know you will excuse me, madam, for being thus particular. I thought it best to state the views of our friend in his own words. From these your judgment will enable you to form the truest conclusions.

The event that has since happened has probably removed the only obstacle to your mutual happiness; nor am I without the hope of seeing him one day return to be made happy by your favour. As several passages were expected to be made between China and Nootka, that desirable event cannot be expected to be very near.

M. M.



Letter LX

To Mrs. Montford

Philadelphia, October 20.

AH, dear madam! how much has your letter afflicted, how much has it consoled me!

You have then some hope of his return; but, you say, 'twill be a long time first. He has gone where I cannot follow him; to the end of the world; where even a letter cannot find him; into unwholesome climates; through dangerous elements; among savages——

Alas! I have no hope. Among so many perils, it cannot be expected that he should escape. And did he not say that he meant not to return?

Yet one thing consoles me. He left not his curses or reproaches on my head. Kindly, generously, and justly didst thou judge of my fidelity, Henry. While thou livest, and as long as I live, will I cherish thy image.

I am coming to pass the winter in your city. I adopt this scheme merely because it will give me your company. I feel as if you were the only friend I have in the world. Do not think me forward or capricious. I will not deny that you owe your place in my affections chiefly to your relation to the wanderer; but no matter whence my attachment proceeds. I feel that it is strong; merely selfish, perhaps; the child of a distracted fancy; the prop on which a sinking heart relies in its uttermost extremity.

Reflection stings me to the quick, but it does not deny me some consolation. The memory of my mother calls forth tears, but they are not tears of bitterness. To her, at least, I have not been deficient in dutiful observance. I have sacrificed my friend and myself, but it was to her peace. The melancholy of her dying scene will ever be cheered in my remembrance by her gratitude and blessing. Her last words were these:—

"Thou hast done much for me, my child. I begin to fear that I have exacted too much. Your sweetness, your patience, have wrung my heart with compunction.

"I have wronged thee, Jane. I have wronged the absent; I greatly fear, I have. Forgive me. If you ever meet, entreat him to forgive me, and recompense yourself and him for all your mutual sufferings.

"I hope all, though sorrowful, has been for the best. I hope that angelic sweetness which I have witnessed will continue when I am gone. That belief only can make my grave peaceful.

"I leave you affluence and honour at least, I leave you the means of repairing my injury. That is my comfort; but forgive me, Jane. Say, my child, you forgive me for what has passed."

She stretched her hand to me, which I bathed with my tears.—But this subject afflicts me too much.

Give my affectionate compliments to Mr. Montford, and tell me that you wish to see your

JANE.



Letter LXI

To Mrs. Talbot

New York, October 22.

You tell me, my dear Jane, that you are coming to reside in this city; but you have not gratified my impatience by saying how soon. Tell me when you propose to come. Is there not something in which I can be of service to you?—some preparations to be made?

Tell me the day when you expect to arrive among us, that I may wait on you as soon as possible.

I shall embrace my sister with a delight which I cannot express. I will not part with the delightful hope of one day calling you truly such.

Accept the fraternal regards of Mr. Montford.

M.M.



Letter LXII

To Mrs. Montford

Banks of Delaware, September 5.

Be not anxious for me, Mary. I hope to experience very speedy relief from the wholesome airs that perpetually fan this spot. Your apprehensions from the influence of these scenes on my fancy are groundless. They breathe nothing over my soul but delicious melancholy. I have done expecting and repining, you know. Four years have passed since I was here,—since I met your brother under these shades.

I have already visited every spot which has been consecrated by our interviews. I have found the very rail which, as I well remember, we disposed into a bench, at the skirt of a wood bordering a stubble-field. The same pathway through the thicket where I have often walked with him, I now traverse morning and night.

Be not uneasy, I repeat, on my account. My present situation is happier than the rest of the world can afford. I tell you I have done repining. I have done sending forth my views into an earthly futurity. Anxiety, I hope, is now at an end with me.

What do you think I design to do? I assure you it is no new scheme. Ever since my mother's death, I have thought of it at times. It has been my chief consolation. I never mentioned it to you, because I knew you would not approve it. It is this.

To purchase this farm and take up my abode upon it for the rest of my life. I need not become farmer, you know. I can let the ground to some industrious person, upon easy terms. I can add all the furniture and appendages to this mansion, which my convenience requires. Luckily, Sandford has for some time entertained thoughts of parting with it, and I believe he could not find a more favourable purchaser.

You will tell me that the fields are sterile, the barn small, the stable crazy, the woods scanty. These would be powerful objections to a mere tiller of the earth, but they are none to me.

'Tis true, it is washed by a tide-water. The bank is low, and the surrounding country sandy and flat, and you may think I ought rather to prefer the beautiful variety of hill and dale, luxuriant groves and fertile pastures, which abound in other parts of the country. But you know, my friend, the mere arrangement of inanimate objects—wood, grass, and rock—is nothing. It owes its power of bewitching us to the memory, the fancy, and the heart. No spot of earth can possibly teem with as many affecting images as this; for here it was——

But my eyes already overflow. In the midst of these scenes, remembrance is too vivid to allow me thus to descant on them. At a distance I could talk of them without that painful emotion, and now it would be useless repetition. Have I not, more than once, related to you every dialogue, described every interview?

God bless you, dear Mary, and continue to you all your present happiness.

Don't forget to write to me. Perhaps some tidings may reach you—Down, thou flattering hope! thou throbbing heart, peace! He is gone. These eyes will never see him more. Had an angel whispered the fatal news in my wakeful ear, I should not more firmly believe it.

And yet—But I must not heap up disappointments for myself. Would to Heaven there was no room for the least doubt,—that, one way or the other, his destiny was ascertained!

How agreeable is your intelligence that Mr. Cartwright has embarked, after taking cheerful leave of you! It grieves me, my friend, that you do not entirely approve of my conduct towards that man. I never formally attempted to justify myself. 'Twas a subject on which I could not give utterance to my thoughts. How irksome is blame from those we love! there is instantly suspicion that blame is merited. A new process of self-defence is to be gone over, and ten to one but that, after all our efforts, there are some dregs at the bottom of the cup.

I was half willing to found my excuse on the hope of the wanderer's return; but I am too honest to urge a false plea. Besides, I know that certainty, in that respect, would make no difference; and would it not be fostering in him a hope that my mind might be changed in consequence of being truly informed respecting your brother's fate?

I persuade myself that a man of Cartwright's integrity and generosity cannot be made lastingly unhappy by me. I know but of one human being more excellent. Though his sensibility be keen, I trust to his fortitude.

It is true, Mary, what you have heard. Cartwright was my school-fellow. When we grew to an age that made it proper to frequent separate schools, he did not forget me. The schools adjoined each other, and he used to resist all the enticements of prison-base and cricket for the sake of waiting at the door of our school till it broke up, and then accompanying me home.

These little gallant offices made him quite singular among his compeers, and drew on him and on me a good deal of ridicule. But he did not mind it. I thought him, and everybody else thought him, a most amiable and engaging youth, though only twelve or thirteen years old.

'Tis impossible to say what might have happened had he not gone with his mother to Europe; or rather, it is likely, I think, that our fates, had he stayed among us, would in time have been united. But he went away when I was scarcely fourteen. At parting, I remember, we shed a great many tears and exchanged a great many kisses, and promises not to forget. And that promise never was broken by me. He was always dear to my remembrance.

Time has only improved all the graces of the boy. I will not conceal from you, Mary, that nothing but a preoccupied heart has been an obstacle to his wishes. If that impediment had not existed, my reverence for his worth, my gratitude for his tenderness, would have made me comply. I will even go further; I will say to you, though my regard to his happiness will never suffer me to say it to him, that if three years more pass away, and I am fully assured that your brother's absence will be perpetual, and Cartwright's happiness is still in my hands,—that then—I possibly may—But I am sure that, before that time, his hand and his heart will be otherwise disposed of. Most sincerely shall I rejoice at the last event.

All are well here. My friend is as good-natured and affectionate as ever, and sings as delightfully and plays as adroitly. She humours me with all my favourite airs, twice a day. We have no strangers; no impertinents to intermeddle in our conversations and mar our enjoyments.

You know what turn my studies have taken, and what books I have brought with me. 'Tis remarkable what unlooked-for harvests arise from small and insignificant germs. My affections have been the stimulants to my curiosity. What was it induced me to procure maps and charts and explore the course of the voyager over seas and round capes? There was a time when these objects were wholly frivolous and unmeaning in my eyes; but now they gain my whole attention.

When I found that my happiness was embarked with your brother in a tedious and perilous voyage, was it possible to forbear collecting all the information attainable respecting his route, and the incidents likely to attend it? I got maps and charts, and books of voyages, and found a melancholy enjoyment in connecting the incidents and objects which they presented with the destiny of my friend. The pursuit of this chief and most interesting object has brought within view and prompted me to examine a thousand others, on which, without this original inducement, I should never have bestowed a thought.

The map of the world exists in my fancy in a most vivid and accurate manner. Repeated meditation on displays of shoal, sand-bank, and water, has created a sort of attachment to geography for its own sake. I have often reflected on the innumerable links in the chain of my ideas between my first eager examination of the route by sea between New York and Tobago, and yesterday's employment, when I was closely engaged in measuring the marches of Frederick across the mountains of Bohemia.

How freakish and perverse are the rovings of human curiosity! The surprise which Miss Betterton betrayed, when, in answer to her inquiries as to what study and what book I prized the most, you told her that I thought of little else than of the art of moving from shore to shore across the water, and that I pored over Cook's Voyages so much that I had gotten the best part of them by rote, was very natural. She must have been puzzled to conjecture what charms one of my sex could find in the study of maps and voyages. Once I should have been just as much puzzled myself. Adieu.

J. T.



Letter LXIII

To Mrs. Talbot

New York, October 1.

Be not angry with me, dear Jane. Yet I am sure, when you know, my offence, you will feel a great deal of indignation. You cannot be more angry with me than I am with myself. I do not know how to disclose the very rash thing I have done. If you knew my compunction, you would pity me.

Cartwright embarked on the day I mentioned, but remained for some days wind-bound at the Hook. Yesterday he unexpectedly made his appearance in our apartment, at the very moment when I was perusing your last letter. I was really delighted to see him, and the images connected with him, which your letter had just suggested, threw me off my guard. Finding by whom the letter was written, he solicited with the utmost eagerness the sight of it.

Can you forgive me? My heart overflowed with pity for the excellent man. I knew the transport one part of your letter would afford him. I thought that no injury, but rather happiness, would redound to yourself.

I now see that I was guilty of a most culpable breach of confidence in showing him your delicate confession; but I was bewitched, I think.

I can write of nothing else just now. Much as I dread your displeasure, I could not rest till I had acknowledged my fault and craved your pardon. Forgive, I beseech you, your

M. MONTFORD.



Letter LXIV

To Mrs. Talbot

New York, December 12.

I cannot leave this shore without thanking the mistress of my destiny for all her goodness. Yet I should not have ventured thus to address you, had I not seen a letter—Dearest creature, blame not your friend for betraying you. Think it not a rash or injurious confession that you have made.

And is it possible that you have not totally forgotten the sweet scenes of our childhood,—that absence has not degraded me in your opinion,—and that my devotion, if it continue as fervent as now, may look, in a few years, for its reward?

Could you prevail on yourself to hide these generous emotions from me? To suffer me to leave my country in the dreary belief that all former incidents were held in contempt, and that, so far from being high in your esteem, my presence was troublesome, my existence was irksome, to you?

But your motive was beneficent and generous. You were content to be thought unfeeling and ungrateful for the sake of my happiness. I rejoice inexpressibly in that event which has removed the veil from your true sentiments. Nothing but pure felicity to me can flow from it. Nothing but gratitude and honour can redound from it to yourself.

I go; but not with anguish and despondency for my companions. I am buoyed up by the light wings of hope. The prospect of gaining your love is not the only source of my present happiness. If it were, I should be a criminal and selfish being. No. My chief delight is, that happiness is yet in store for you; that, should Heaven have denied you your first hope, there still lives one whose claim to make you happy will not be rejected.

G. CARTWRIGHT.



Letter LXV

To G. Cartwright

Banks of Delaware, October 5.

My brother:—

It would avail me nothing to deny the confessions to which you allude. Neither will I conceal from you that I am much grieved at the discovery. Far am I from deeming your good opinion of little value; but in this case I was more anxious to deserve it than possess it.

Little, indeed, did you know me, when you imagined me insensible to your merit and forgetful of the happy days of our childhood,—the recollection of which has a thousand times made my tears flow. I thank Heaven that the evils which I have suffered have had no tendency to deaden my affections, to narrow my heart.

The joy which I felt for your departure was far from being unmixed. The persuasion that my friend and brother was going where he was likely to find that tranquillity of which his stay here would bereave him, but imperfectly soothed the pangs of a long and perhaps an eternal separation.

Farewell; my fervent and disinterested blessings go with you. Return speedily to your country, but bring with you a heart devoted to another, and only glowing with a brotherly affection for

J. T.



Letter LXVI

To Jane Talbot

New York, November 15.

The fear that what I have to communicate may be imparted more abruptly and with false or exaggerated circumstances induces me to write to you.

Yesterday week, a ship arrived in this port from Batavia, in which my husband's brother, Stephen Montford, came passenger.

You will be terrified at these words; but calm your apprehensions. Harry does not accompany him, it is true, nor are we acquainted with his present situation.

The story of their unfortunate voyage cannot be minutely related now. Suffice it to say that a wicked and turbulent wretch, whom they shipped in the West Indies as mate, the former dying on the voyage thither, gave rise, by his intrigues among the crew, to a mutiny.

After a prosperous navigation and some stay at Nootka, they prepared to cross the ocean to Asia. They pursued the usual route of former traders, and, after touching at the Sandwich Islands, they made the land of Japan.

At this period, the mutiny, which had long been hatching, broke out. The whole crew, including the mate, joined the conspiracy. Montford and my brother were the objects of this conspiracy.

The original design was to murder them both and throw their bodies into the sea; but this cruel proposal was thwarted both, by compassion and by policy, and it was resolved to set my brother ashore on the first inhospitable land they should meet, and retain Montford to assist them in the navigation of the vessel, designing to destroy him when his services should no longer be necessary.

This scheme was executed as soon, as they came in sight of an outlying isle or dry sand-bank on the eastern coast of Japan. Here they seized the two unsuspecting youths, at daybreak, while asleep in their berths, and, immediately putting out their boat, landed my brother on the shore, without clothing or provisions of any kind. Montford petitioned to share the fate of his friend, but they would not listen to it.

Six days afterwards, they lighted on a Spanish ship bound to Manilla, which was in want of water. A party of the Spaniards came on board in search of some supply of that necessary article.

On their coming, Montford was driven below and disabled from giving, by his cries, any alarm. The sentinel who guarded him had received orders to keep him in that situation till the visitants had departed. Prom some impulse of humanity, or mistake of orders, the sentinel freed him from restraint a few minutes earlier than had been intended, and he got on deck before the departing strangers had gone to any considerable distance from the ship. He immediately leaped into the sea and made for the boat, to which, being a very vigorous swimmer, he arrived in safety.

The mutineers, finding their victim had escaped, endeavoured to make the best of their way, but were soon overtaken by the Spanish vessel, to whose officers Montford made haste to explain the true state of affairs. They were carried to Manilla, where Montford sold his vessel and cargo on very advantageous terms. From thence, after many delays, he got to Batavia, and from thence returned home.

I have thus given you, my friend, an imperfect account of their misfortunes. I need not add that no tidings has been received, or can reasonably be hoped ever to be received, of my brother.

I could not write on such a subject sooner. For some days I had thoughts of being wholly silent on this news. Indeed, my emotions would not immediately permit me to use the pen; but I have concluded, and it is my husband's earnest advice, to tell you the whole truth.

Be not too much distressed, my sister, my friend. Fain would I give you that consolation which I myself want. I entreat you, let me hear from you soon, and tell me that you are not very much afflicted. Yet I could not believe you if you did. Write to me speedily, however.



Letter LXVII

To Mrs. Talbot

New York, November 23.

You do not write to me, my dear Jane. Why are you silent? Surely you cannot be indifferent to my happiness. You must know how painful, at a moment like this, your silence must prove.

I have waited from day to day in expectation of a letter; but more than a week has passed, and none has come. Let me hear from you immediately, I entreat you.

I am afraid you are ill; or perhaps you are displeased with me. Unconsciously I may have given you offence.

But, indeed, I can easily suspect the cause of your silence. I trembled with terror when I sent you tidings of our calamity. I know the impetuosity of your feelings, and the effects of your present solitude. Would to Heaven you were anywhere but where you are! Would to Heaven you were once more with us!

Let me beseech you to return to us immediately. Mr. M. is anxious to go for you. He wanted to set out immediately on his brother's arrival, and to be the bearer of my letter, but I prevailed on him to forbear until I heard from you.

Do not, if you have any regard for me, delay answering me a moment longer.

M. M.



Letter LXVIII

To Mrs. Montford

Banks of Delaware, November 26.

I beseech you, dear Mrs. Montford, take some measures for drawing our dear Jane from this place. There is no remedy but absence from this spot, cheerful company and amusing engagements, for the sullen grief which has seized her. Ever since the arrival of your letter, giving us the fatal tidings of your brother's misfortune, she has been—in a strange way—I am almost afraid to tell you. I know how much you love her; but, indeed, indeed, unless somebody with more spirit and skill than I possess will undertake to console and divert her, I am fearful we shall lose her forever.

I can do nothing for her relief. You know what a poor creature I am. Instead of summoning up courage to assist another in distress, the sight of it confuses and frightens me. Never, I believe, was there such another helpless, good-for-nothing creature in existence. Poor Jane's affecting ways only make me miserable; and, instead of my being of any use to her, her presence deprives me of all power to attend to my family and friends. I endeavour to avoid her, though, indeed, that requires but little pains to effect, since she will not be seen but when she cannot choose; for whenever she looks at me steadily there is such expression in her features, something so woeful, so wild, that I am struck with terror. It never fails to make me cry heartily.

Come hither yourself, or send somebody immediately. If you do not, I dread the consequence.



Letter LXIX

To Mr. Montford

New Haven, February 10.

My dear friend:—

This letter is written in extreme pain; yet no pain that I ever felt, no external pain possible for me to feel, is equal to the torment I derive from suspense. Good Heaven! what an untoward accident! to be forcibly immured in a tavern-chamber; when the distance is so small between me and that certainty after which my soul pants!

I ought not thus to alarm my beloved friends, but I know not what I write: my head is in confusion, my heart in tumults; a delirium, more the effect of a mind stretched upon the rack of impatience than of limbs shattered and broken, whirls me out of myself.

Not a moment of undisturbed repose have I enjoyed for the last two months. If awake, omens and conjectures, menacing fears, and half-formed hopes, have haunted and harassed me. If asleep, dreams of agonizing forms and ever-varying hues have thronged my fancy and driven away peace.

In less than an hour after landing at Boston, I placed myself in the swiftest stage, and have travelled night and day, till within a mile of this town, when the carriage was overturned and my left arm terribly shattered. I was drawn with difficulty hither; and my only hope of being once more well is founded on my continuance, for I know not how long, in one spot and one posture.

By this time, the well-known hand has told you who it is that writes this:—the exile; the fugitive; whom four long years of absence and silence have not, I hope, erased from your remembrance, banished from your love, or even totally excluded from the hope of being seen again.

Yet that hope, surely, must have been long ago dismissed. Acquainted as you are with some part of my destiny; of my being left on the desert shore of Japan; on the borders of a new world,—a world civilized indeed, and peopled by men, but existing in almost total separation from the other families of mankind; with language, manners, and policy almost incompatible with the existence of a stranger among them; all entrance or egress from which being commonly supposed to be prohibited by iron laws and inflexible despotism; that I, a stranger, naked, forlorn, cast upon a sandy beach frequented but at rare intervals and by savage fishermen, should find my way into the heart of this wonderful empire, and finally explore my way back to my native shore, are surely most strange and incredible achievements. Yet all this, my friend, has been endured and performed by your Colden.

Finding it impossible to move immediately from this place, and this day's post having gone out before my arrival, I employed a man to carry you these assurances of my existence and return, and to bring me back intelligence of your welfare; and some news concerning—may I perish if I can, at this moment, write her name! Every moment, every mile that has brought me nearer to her, or rather nearer to certainty of her life or death, her happiness or misery, has increased my trepidation,—added new tremors to my heart.

I have some time to spare. In spite of my impatience, my messenger cannot start within a few hours. I am little fitted, in my present state of pain and suspense, to write intelligibly. Yet what else can I do but write? and will you not, in your turn, be impatient to know by what means I have once more set my foot in my native land?

I will fill up the interval, till my messenger is ready, by writing. I will give you some hints of my adventures. All particulars must be deferred till I see you. Heaven grant that I may once more see you and my sister! Four months ago you were well, but that interval is large enough to breathe ten thousand disasters. Expect not a distinct or regular story. That, I repeat, must be deferred till we meet. Many a long day would be consumed in the telling; and that which was hazard or hardship in the encounter and the sufferance will be pleasant to remembrance and delightful in narration.

This person's name was Holtz. He was the agent of the Dutch East India Company in Japan. He was then at court in a sort of diplomatic character. He was likewise a physician and man of science. He had even been in America, and found no difficulty in conversing with me in my native language.

You will easily imagine the surprise and pleasure which such a meeting afforded me. It likewise opened a door to my return to Europe, as a large trade is regularly maintained between Java and Japan.

Many obstacles, however, in the views which Tekehatsin had formed, of profit and amusement, from my remaining in his service, and in the personal interests and wishes of my friend Holtz, opposed this design; nor was I able to accomplish it, but on condition of returning.

I confess to you, my friend, my heart was not extremely averse to this condition.

I left America with very faint hopes, and no expectation, of ever returning. The longer I resided among this race of men, the melancholy and forlornness of my feelings declined. Prospects of satisfaction from the novelty and grandeur of the scene into which I had entered began to open upon me; sentiments of affection and gratitude for Holtz, and even for the Japanese lord, took root in my heart. Still, however, happiness was bound to scenes and to persons very distant from, my new country, and a restlessness forever haunted me, which nothing could appease but some direct intelligence from you and from Jane Talbot. By returning to Europe, I could likewise be of essential service to Holtz, whose family were Saxons, and whose commercial interests required the presence of a trusty agent for a few months at Hamburg.

Let me carry you, in few words, through the difficulties of my embarkation, and the incidents of a short stay at Batavia, and a long voyage over half the world to Hamburg.

Shortly after my return to Hamburg, from an excursion into Saxony to see Holtz's friends, I met with Mr. Cartwright, an American. After much fluctuation, I had previously resolved to content myself with writing to you, of whom I received such verbal information from several of our countrymen as removed my anxiety on your account. A very plausible tale, told me by some one that pretended to know, of Mrs. Talbot's marriage with a Mr. Cartwright, extinguished every new-born wish to revisit my native land, and I expected to set sail on my return to India, before it could be possible to hear from you.

I was on the eve of my departure, when the name of Cartwright, an American, then at Hamburg, reached my ears. The similarity of his name to that of the happy man who had supplanted the poor wanderer in the affections of Jane, and a suspicion that they might possibly be akin, and, consequently, that this might afford me some information as to the character or merits of that Cartwright, made me throw myself in his way.

You may easily imagine, what I shall defer relating, the steps which led us to a knowledge of each other, and by which I discovered that this Cartwright was the one mentioned to me, and that, instead of being already the husband of my Jane, his hopes of her favour depended on the certain proof of my death.

Cartwright's behaviour was in the highest degree disinterested. He might easily have left me in my original error, and a very few days would have sent me on a voyage which would have been equivalent to my death. On the contrary, his voluntary information, and a letter which he showed me, written in Jane's hand, created a new soul in my breast. Every foreign object vanished, and every ancient sentiment, connected with our unfortunate loves, was instantly revived. Ineffable tenderness, and an impatience next to rage to see her, reigned in my heart.

Yet, my friend, with all my confidence of a favourable reception from Jane,—her conduct now exempt from the irresistible control of her mother, and her tenderness for me as fervent as ever,—yet, since so excellent a man as Cartwright existed, since his claims were, in truth, antecedent to mine, since my death or everlasting absence would finally insure success to these claims, since his character was blemished by none of those momentous errors with which mine was loaded, since that harmony of opinion on religious subjects, without which marriage can never be a source of happiness to hearts touched by a true and immortal passion, was perfect in his case,—never should mere passion have seduced me to her feet. If my reflections and experience had not changed my character,—if all her views as to the final destiny and present obligations of human beings had not become mine,—I should have deliberately ratified the act of my eternal banishment.

Yes, my friend; this weather-beaten form and sunburnt face are not more unlike what you once knew, than my habits and opinions now and formerly. The incidents of a long voyage, the vicissitudes through which I have passed, have given strength to my frame, while the opportunities and occasions for wisdom which these have afforded me have made my mind whole. I have awakened from my dreams of doubt and misery, not to the cold and vague belief, but to the living and delightful consciousness, of every tie that can bind man to his Divine Parent and Judge.

Again I must refer you to our future interviews. A broken and obscure tale it would be which I could now relate. I am hurried, by my fears and suspenses—Yet it would give you pleasure to know every thing as soon as possible—some time likewise must elapse—You and my sister have always been wise. The lessons of true piety it is the business of your lives to exemplify and to teach. Henceforth, if that principle, which has been my stay and my comfort in all the slippery paths and unlooked-for perils from which I have just been delivered, desert not my future steps, I hope to be no mean example and no feeble teacher of the same lessons. Indefatigable zeal and strenuous efforts are indeed incumbent on me in proportion to the extent of my past misconduct and the depth of my former degeneracy.

By what process of reflection I became thus, you shall speedily know: yet can you be at a loss to imagine it? You, who have passed through somewhat similar changes; who always made allowances for the temerity of youth, the fascinations of novelty; who always predicted that a few more years, the events of my peculiar destiny, the leisure of my long voyage, and that goodness of intention to which you were ever kind enough to admit my claims, would ultimately provide the remedy for all errors and evils, and make me worthy of the undivided love of all good men,—you, who have had this experience, and who have always regarded me in this light, will not wonder that reflection has, at length, raised me to the tranquil and steadfast height of simple and true piety.

Such, my friend, were my inducements to return; but first it was necessary to explain, by letter, to Holtz—But my messenger is at the door, eager to begone. Take this, my friend. Bring yourself, or send back by the same messenger, without a moment's delay, tidings of her, and of your safety. As to me, be not much concerned on my account. I am solemnly assured by my surgeon that nothing but time and a tranquil mind are necessary to restore me to health. The last boon no hand but yours can confer on your

H. COLDEN.



Letter LXX

To Henry Golden

New York, February 12.

And are you then alive? Are you then returned? Still do you remember, still love, the ungrateful and capricious Jane? Have you indeed come back to soothe her almost broken heart,—to rescue her from the grave,—to cheer her with the prospect of peaceful and bright days yet to come?

Oh, my full heart! Sorrow has not hitherto been able quite to burst this frail tenement. I almost fear that joy,—so strange to me is joy, and so far, so very far, beyond my notions of possibility was your return,—I almost fear that joy will do what sorrow was unable to do.

Can it be that Golden—that selfsame, dear, pensive face, those eyes, benignly and sweetly mild, and that heart-dissolving voice, have escaped so many storms, so many dangers? Was it love for me that led you from the extremity of the world? and have you, indeed, brought back with you a heart full of "ineffable tenderness" for me?

Unspeakably unworthy am I of your love. Time and grief, dear Hal, have bereft me of the glossy hues, the laughing graces, which your doting judgment once ascribed to me. But what will not the joy of your return effect? I already feel lightsome and buoyant as a bird. My head is giddy; but, alas, you are not well,—yet, you assure us, not dangerously sick. Nothing, did you not say, but time and repose necessary to heal you? Will not my presence, my nursing, hasten thy restoration? Tuesday evening—they say it can't possibly be sooner—I am with you. No supporters shall you have but my arms; no pillow but my breast. Every holy rite shall instantly be called in to make us one. And when once united, nothing but death shall ever part us again. What did I say? Death itself—at least thy death—shall never dissever that bond.

THE END