irma_,
he will at once become one of the manly hearts that guard the fair, and
settle down in contented conjugation. He it was, then, who offered to be
the bearer to yourself at C---- of any despatches, or parcels, I might
choose to send; but he affected to think me so thoroughly Americanised,
that he entered a caveat against my loading him with a consignment of
bowie knives or cotton-bales. A nicely packthreaded parcel was
accordingly put up, and duly adorned with your most Saxon name and
address, in the delusive expectation that none but your own hands would
presume

"----to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again."

I was doomed to be quickly undeceived; and as I doubt not Harry will be
giving you his own version of the affair, over a glass of wine, some
three weeks hence, at the Hall, you shall know beforehand how much to
allow, in this matter, for his habitual unveracity, or rather love of
romance.

I waited on him yesterday and presented the packet; but you should have
seen him start, when I happened to mention its contents. Not the captors
of Guido Fawkes bounced with more consternation, when that eminent
pyrotechnist proposed to touch off his gunpowder for their especial
gratification and amusement. "What!" exclaimed our mutual friend--"Have
you lived so long in America, as to have forgotten the laws of a
civilised and Christian land! Would you have me seized as a smuggler;
posted in every newspaper as an importer of contraband goods; brutally
insulted by the officers of her Majesty's Customs; and perhaps actually
brought before a justice, and locked up where the only prospect would
be a distant view of New South Wales!" It was in vain that I
remonstrated with his eloquent horrors, at the thought of renewing his
travels at government cost: he insisted that my proposal might actually
have ensured the catastrophe; and from this appeal to my feelings,
passed to a bold invective against literary piracy, and concluded by a
generous compromise in favour of the cotton-bales, if I would pardon the
warm expressions with which he found himself compelled to decline my
extraordinary commission. You should have seen him, Godfrey! If he ever
takes that seat in Parliament which he threatens to make the sequel of
matrimony, I predict wo to the whole race of Humes, Brights, and
Cobdens, should they ever start him on a subject capable of
transatlantic illustration.

I could not bu