ies of his French friends, altered
his plans and resolved to return home. Maria writes:--'He was
prudent and decided--had he been otherwise, we might all have been
among the number of our countrymen who were, contrary to the law of
nations, and to justice and reason, made prisoners in France at the
breaking out of the war. We were fortunate in getting safe to free
and happy England a short time before war was declared, and before
the detention of the English took place.

'My eldest brother had the misfortune to be among those who were
detained. His exile was rendered as tolerable as circumstances would
permit by the indefatigable kindness of our friends the D' s. But it
was an exile of eleven years--from 1803 to 1814--six years of that
time spent at Verdun!'

CHAPTER 11

Instead of returning at once to Ireland, the Edgeworths went to
Edinburgh to visit Henry Edgeworth, whose declining health caused
his father much anxiety. Maria writes:--'He mended rapidly while we
were at Edinburgh; and this improvement in his health added to the
pleasure his father felt in seeing the interest his son had excited
among the friends he had made for himself in Edinburgh--men of the
first abilities and highest characters, both in literature and
science--whom we knew by their works, as did all the world; with
some of whom my father had had the honour of corresponding, but to
whom he was personally unknown. Imagine the pleasure he felt at
being introduced to them by his son, and in hearing Gregory, Alison,
Playfair, Dugald Stewart, speak of Henry as if he actually belonged
to themselves, and with the most affectionate regard. . . .

'On our journey homewards, in passing through Scotland, we met with
much hospitality and kindness, and much that was interesting in the
country and in its inhabitants But the circumstance that remains the
most fixed in my recollection, and that which afterwards influenced
my father's life the most, happened to be the books we read during
our last day's journey. These were the lives of Robertson the
historian, and of Reid, which had been just given to us by Mr.
Stewart. In the life of Reid there are some passages which struck my
father particularly. I recollect at the moment when I was reading to
him, his stretching eagerly across from his side of the carriage to
mine, and marking the book with his pencil with strong and
reiterated marks of approbation. The passages relate to the means
which Dr. Reid emp