ant, if any, was to receive an annuity for life of 300
pounds. After almost insurmountable difficulties, great expense, and
consumption of time and labour, the long anticipated time arrived when
the trial was to decide the question of such grave moment to the parties
concerned: Lord Erskine came down to Norwich specially retained for the
claimant (the origin, I believe of his after intimacy with Henry), the
case came on for trial,--was fought on both sides with all the ability
and ingenuity such a cause demanded (I forget the name of the opposing
counsel), the claimant's title was confirmed, and the estate gained. The
claimant lived but a little more than a year or two after to receive his
annuity, to him absolute wealth; and he died, I have heard, expressing to
the last, his gratitude to (as he styled my father) his protector.

Unfortunately, coming into the possession of the estate, my father must
turn farmer, and like him, I have before compared him to, and I have
often thought since reading the works of Cobbett, that there was a
similarity in their thoughts on many subjects; he soon began to farm at a
fearful loss (for to be a gainful farmer, so farmers hold, or rather they
did then, a man should properly be trained to it from his youth), he was
forced to trust to others to do what he should himself have done, and
being still occupied in his professional pursuits at Norwich, his visits
to the hall and the estate were but occasional, and the eye of the master
was but too often absent; his family, however, resided there, consisting
of his wife and his four children, Charles, Henry, Harriet, and Alfred,
and there his affections were centred, so that it cannot be wondered at,
that with a divided duty, and the course pursued, ere many years, but I
am forestalling, the estate soon became involved, and eventually he was
compelled to part with it at a loss, or rather with no gain, for at the
time of its sale, which happened at a period during the long war, land
fell all of a sudden greatly in value, and the seller was glad to
experience the truth of the old saying--

"When house and land and all are spent,
Then learning is most excellent."

This sale, however, did not occur till some years after the death of his
first wife, and when he had married his second, a Miss Rose White, my
mother, and by whom he had several children, seven only living to
maturity, all of whom, I being the eldest, having survived him. His