rohibition on foreign flour, while
Bahamarra and his army were within a hundred miles of us. How those
vessels came up the harbor, and how we unloaded them, knowing that at
best our revolution could only last five days! But as I said, I must be
careful, or I shall be telling other people's secrets.

The result of that expedition was that those thirteen vessels all made
good outward voyages, and all but one or two eventually made profitable
home voyages. When I returned home, the old gentleman received me with
open arms. I had rescued, as he said, a large share of that fortune
which he valued so highly. To say the truth, I felt and feel that he had
planned his voyages so blindly, that, without some wiser head than his,
they would never have resulted in anything. They were his last, as they
were almost his first, South American ventures. He returned to his old
course of more methodical trading for the few remaining years of his
life. They were, thank Heaven, the only taste of mercantile business
which I ever had. Living as I did, in the very sunshine of Mr. Went
worth's favor, I went through the amusing farce of paying my addresses
to Julia in approved form, and in due time received the old gentleman's
cordial assent to our union, and his blessing upon it. In six months
after my return, we were married; the old man as happy as a king. He
would have preferred a little that the ceremony should have been
performed by Mr. B----, his friend and pastor, but readily assented to
my wishes to call upon a dear and early friend of my own.

Harry Barry came from Topsham and performed the ceremony, "assisted by
Rev. Mr. B."

G.H.

ARGUS COTTAGE, April 1, 1842.

THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE.

A THUMB-NAIL SKETCH.

[This essay was published in Sartain's Magazine, in 1852, as "A
Thumb-nail Sketch," having received one of ten premiums which Mr.
Sartain offered to encourage young writers. It had been written a few
years earlier, some time before the studies of St. Paul's life by
Conybeare and Howson, now so well known, were made public. The
chronology of my essay does not precisely agree with that of these
distinguished scholars. But I make no attempt now either to recast the
essay or to discuss the delicate and complicated questions which belong
to the chronology of Paul's life or to that of Nero; for there is no
question with regard to the leading facts. At the end of twenty years I
may again express the wish that s