in
Virginia yonder, and we continued for years to live in estrangement,
with occasionally a brief word or two (such as the announcement of the
birth of a child, or what not) passing between my wife and her. After
our first troubles in America about the Stamp Act, troubles fell on me
in London likewise. Though I have been on the Tory side in our quarrel
(as indeed upon the losing side in most controversies), having no doubt
that the Imperial Government had a full right to levy taxes in the
colonies, yet at the time of the dispute I must publish a pert letter to
a member of the House of Burgesses in Virginia, in which the question
of the habitual insolence of the mother country to the colonies was so
freely handled, and sentiments were uttered so disagreeable to persons
in power, that I was deprived of my place as hackney-coach licenser, to
the terror and horror of my uncle, who never could be brought to love
people in disgrace. He had grown to have an extreme affection for
my wife as well as my little boy; but towards myself, personally,
entertained a kind of pitying contempt which always infinitely amused
me. He had a natural scorn and dislike for poverty, and a corresponding
love for success and good fortune. Any opinion departing at all from the
regular track shocked and frightened him, and all truth-telling made him
turn pale. He must have had originally some warmth of heart and genuine
love of kindred: for, spite of the dreadful shocks I gave him, he
continued to see Theo and the child (and me too, giving me a
mournful recognition when we met); and though broken-hearted by my
free-spokenness, he did not refuse to speak to me as he had done at the
time of our first differences, but looked upon me as a melancholy lost
creature, who was past all worldly help or hope. Never mind, I must cast
about for some new scheme of life; and the repayment of Harry's debt to
me at this juncture enabled me to live at least for some months even, or
years to come. O strange fatuity of youth! I often say. How was it that
we dared to be so poor and so little cast down?

At this time his Majesty's royal uncle of Cumberland fell down
and perished in a fit; and, strange to say, his death occasioned a
remarkable change in my fortune. My poor Sir Miles Warrington never
missed any court ceremony to which he could introduce himself. He was
at all the drawing-rooms, christenings, balls, funerals of the court.
If ever a prince or princess was ail