, with my permission, he read as
follows:--

Honoured Sir,--I have called off my imagination a few moments from the
pleasures that surround me, to fix it upon objects that are still
more pleasing, the dear little fire-side at home. My fancy draws that
harmless groupe as listening to every line of this with great composure.
I view those faces with delight which never felt the deforming hand of
ambition or distress! But whatever your happiness may be at home, I am
sure it will be some addition to it, to hear that I am perfectly pleased
with my situation, and every way happy here.

Our regiment is countermanded and is not to leave the kingdom; the
colonel, who professes himself my friend, takes me with him to all
companies where he is acquainted, and after my first visit I generally
find myself received with encreased respect upon repeating it. I danced
last night with Lady G-, and could I forget you know whom, I might be
perhaps successful. But it is my fate still to remember others, while I
am myself forgotten by most of my absent friends, and in this number,
I fear, Sir, that I must consider you; for I have long expected the
pleasure of a letter from home to no purpose. Olivia and Sophia too,
promised to write, but seem to have forgotten me. Tell them they are
two arrant little baggages, and that I am this moment in a most violent
passion with them: yet still, I know not how, tho' I want to bluster a
little, my heart is respondent only to softer emotions. Then tell them,
sir, that after all, I love them affectionately, and be assured of my
ever remaining

Your dutiful son.

'In all our miseries,' cried I, 'what thanks have we not to return, that
one at least of our family is exempted from what we suffer. Heaven be
his guard, and keep my boy thus happy to be the supporter of his widowed
mother, and the father of these two babes, which is all the patrimony I
can now bequeath him. May he keep their innocence from the temptations
of want, and be their conductor in the paths of honour.' I had scarce
said these words, when a noise, like that of a tumult, seemed to proceed
from the prison below; it died away soon after, and a clanking of
fetters was heard along the passage that led to my apartment. The keeper
of the prison entered, holding a man all bloody, wounded and fettered
with the heaviest irons. I looked with compassion on the wretch as he
approached me, but with horror when I found it was my own son.--'My
George